Rise Against the Faultless (5 page)

In the center of the first floor
was a gorgeous waterfall that stretched five stories high.  There was lush
vegetation planted around it and a pool at the bottom that caught the water
overflow. The people here must be used to it, because none of them stopped to
gawk at it like the initiates did. They all seemed to be in a hurried,
all-business mood. A few of them smiled as we walked by, but most just ignored
us. We climbed into the elevator and were only allowed up to level ten,
although this building had to be forty stories high. Level ten’s views weren’t
too shabby though. It was exhilarating to stand next to the floor to ceiling
window and see how high I was. I had never been so far off the ground and I
loved it. Lo, on the other hand, wouldn’t come within five feet of the window.
She no doubt discovered her fear of heights.

 After staring out of the
window for a few minutes I felt eyes on me and realized that they were
Adrian’s. “I hope we get a lot of free time like this here... together I mean.”
I wondered if Lo heard that. I still hadn’t told her that we’re “together”, but
we could catch up later. Until this moment, I hadn’t thought of the perks of
being in this place.

At the end of the day, we all
decided to meet up again for dinner tomorrow night at 7:00 after all of us were
done with our first day of training. We walked with Lo to her room and then
Adrian offered to walk me back to mine. When we arrived, he first checked the
hall, and then gave me my second kiss. It was less timid this time, but still
sweet. “I think I might actually enjoy this place. Good night, Rai.”

My PID had already been loaded
with my schedule and woke me up in plenty of time to get ready and go grab my
breakfast. After using the toilet, I realized how the alcoholic intake was
strictly regulated. I saw on a small readout on the wall that I had a blood
alcohol level of 0.0, that I wasn’t pregnant, and that I was doing quite well
on my vitamin levels. Nice to know. I didn’t spot Adrian but Lo was in the
dining hall, so I sat with her and regaled her on my new unexpected dating
life. “So what do you think? Is it weird?”

“No way, he’s loved you
forever. I’m surprised it’s taken him this long.”

“Wait, you knew about this! Why
didn’t you tell me?” I nudged her with me arm playfully.

“He swore me to secrecy.
Besides, I thought it was obvious, him pitifully pining away for you. He’s a
great guy, Rai. It’s a good thing.” She let out a small chuckle, “Now back to
that kiss.”

“Sorry, Lo, I’ve got to get
going!” The way the day started was certainly not how it ended. I began today
with thoughts of an easy first day, no big surprises, maybe a few introductions
and tours, but I couldn’t have been more wrong. I was not prepared in any sense
for what I had coming.

I showed up to my meeting room
fifteen minutes early. A couple of desks and chairs had been moved in, but
everything else remained the same as it had been last night. I waited alone in
the room pondering day’s events. Twelve minutes after I had arrived a girl
burst through the door out of breath. “I made it on time, whew that was
close.”  She had a deep, throaty tone to her voice and I imagined that she must
sound beautiful singing. She plopped down next to me and gave me a big toothy
grin. “I’m Cyril, I think I’m your... maid or something.” She laughed at the
last word. She didn’t say it in a snotty way, but a way that made me think that
she was really confused as to her role. I immediately liked her, she was
unassuming and friendly.

Cyril had curly hair the color
of bright red apples and pale skin. Her eyes were rimmed with black make up
that made them appear similar to a cat’s eyes.  Her long straight nose would
have looked big on someone else, but with her features it just made her look
even more striking. Everything about Cyril was pronounced, her eyes were bright
green, she was obviously of Irish descent.

“I’m Rai, you shouldn’t worry,
you had a whole three minutes left.” She laughed a long, loud laugh at that.
Yep, I definitely liked Cyril.

“I ran the entire last ten
minutes here. I got lost. I know I should have found this place last night, but
I was pulled into the snack bar trap last night. I couldn’t help it, I had to
taste that bread.” Something about Cyril was very familiar to me, but I
couldn’t put my finger on it. Our introduction was interrupted by Ann Brutus’
entry. The way she walked into the room made us feel like we should be standing
at attention. She didn’t speak for at least a minute while organizing her
things at her desk. I suspect this was a power play to put us on edge.

She addressed Cyril first, “Ms.
Aldman, you will be aiding in Ms. Stone’s training. When she needs materials,
you will be the one to fetch them. If she needs water, you will get it for her.
If she needs help studying, you will be her study partner.  Your success will
be reflected by the ease of her training. If you are diligent in carrying out
your duties, you could possibly be an assistant to Ms. Stone one day. This is
the highest rank that a person chosen for the Service sector can receive. You
should strive at your utmost to become Ms. Stone’s assistant, and I would
imagine that that would mean staying on her good side.” She did not smile at
Cyril.  I believe that she said that last part to make things a little awkward
for Cyril and I, I’ll need to find a way to break that barrier between us if
we’ll be spending as much time together as Ann just suggested. “Speaking of
your duties, Cyril, please go get two waters for Raily and I.” Cyril left
immediately without asking questions. I wondered if she knew where to retrieve
the water from.

“Ms. Stone, I’ve been so
looking forward to working with you.” I didn’t believe her for one second,
besides her eyes betrayed her. “To better understand what sector you will be
best suited to leading, you will be training with and leading in simulations of
your top three sectors. Since you scores in Service, Technology, and Education
were less than impressive, you will be training with the Combat, Medicine, and
Science inductees, respectively. These first three months of your training will
be spent in Combat. You should know that as someone with the chosen honor of
being in Command, you will need to work harder than the other inductees. You do
not have an easy road ahead of you, but you should keep in mind that I am here
for you in case you need anything. All you have to do is ask.” That smile that
I have grown to resent made another appearance. If I was reading her right, I’m
sure she would help me- help me step right off of a bridge.

She touched her PID and spoke
into it, “We’re ready for you.” She looked back at me, “The role of Command
also requires that someone, other than your Master Chief, be there to help you
along the way as a mentor. You will be spending most of your training hours
with your mentor, and should listen to any advice or instruction that he
gives.” I heard the door behind me open and close. “Ah, and here he is now.”

When I turned I had one
thought: not him, why
him
? He smiled a wide, toothy grin at me and
cocked his head to one side, a look that meant, “I told you so, I told you that
you would care what I thought.” I tried to hide the shock that was most
certainly spread across my face.

“Shane Brutus, I would like you
to meet Raily Stone.” He hadn’t taken his eyes off of me. I managed a smile for
Ann’s sake. Apparently, he hadn’t mentioned to his mother that we had already
met. I could only hope that that wouldn’t come up over their family dinner
discussions. I could just hear him now, “Yeah, Mom, she’s gonna do real well
with that anxiety problem.” Oh, I’m sure they’d both have a good laugh at my
expense.

“It is a pleasure to meet you,
Ms. Stone. May I call you Raily?” He held his hand out to take mine and I had
to fight the urge to knock it away.

“Of course, and the pleasure is
all mine.” I won’t let him see how this has thrown me for a loop. I’ll just let
him think I had it figured out all along. So this was my brother’s good friend,
the one that Ari turned his back on after he wasn’t chosen for Command and
Shane was. Well, I could see why Ari would want to turn his back on him, his
arrogance showed through with every move he made. I could hear the confidence
dripping off of his every word.

“Your Command Training sessions
will be one hour after your Combat sessions, and you will meet Shane here. We
will waste no time in getting you started with Combat. You, Shane, and,” this
was the moment that Cyril walked back in the door, she must have gotten lost
looking for the water. I’m sure that Ann sent her on a wild goose chase to
rattle her up just a little, obvious power play. Ann gave her a scolding look,
“And Ms. Aldman will head straight to your first Combat training, right now.”
Cyril snuck up to where Ann’s desk was and left the water on her desk. And
didn’t so much as acknowledge Cyril, she dismissed us with a wave of the hand.

Cyril and I followed Shane out
of the door and into the hall. She leaned into me and whispered, “Who’s that
beautiful man? I sure won’t mind if we’ll be spending more time with him.”

I replied, a little bit too loudly,
“Trust me, he’s not worth it.” He turned around and gave me a smile that told
me that words normally do not hurt him.

“Hello, Cyril, I’m Shane. I’m
Raily’s mentor. I’ll be guiding her in every facet of life for the next year,
and I can feel her excitement over it. It is very nice to meet you. ” He took
her hand and kissed it, while cutting his eyes at me. Cyril smiled sheepishly,
and I rolled my eyes at him. He obviously has an issue with boundaries, but
Cyril didn’t seem to mind, even though I knew he was being nice to her to
aggravate me.

When he turned around, she
whispered back to me, “He doesn’t seem so bad.”

We took the shuttle to the side
of the campus that my dorm was on. We arrived at a door that I could remember
as the one that Lo was to report to this morning. Shane smiled at me and said,
“After you.” I stepped through the door and saw rows and rows of inductees
standing at attention, looking towards the front of the room with their backs
turned towards me. The blinding pain that hit the left side of my face wasn’t
what surprised me the most, it was the fact that the blow was delivered by my
oldest friend. When the black receded from my vision, I could see Lo standing
over me. I could tell that she was holding back tears. I recognized Oren Hines,
Lo’s Master Chief, from the Advancement Ceremony. He walked around me slowly,
then bent down to whisper in my ear, “Ann Brutus said to give you the message
that a leader should always be ready for anything.” Strangely enough, not one
other inductee turned around to see what the loud thwack was that they had
heard. I felt someone lifting me back to my feet and was surprised to learn
that it was Shane and he was glaring at Oren.

“Thank you, Lo, that is all for
now. Back to your post.” Oren barked the order without glancing in Lo’s
direction. “Go with her, Leadership girl.” I followed Lo about half way up the
rows of inductees where we both lined up, eyes forward. She squeezed my hand as
an apology. I couldn’t imagine how bad she felt right now. I squeezed it back
to let her know I didn’t hold the soon to be black eye against her. Today we
would be sparring against a randomly selected partner, and we would be overseen
by group leaders. “The training that you had in school was child’s play. The
real fun begins today.” Oren dismissed us to a large gym where I was paired up
with a girl from another school. She was fast, but she didn’t come close to my
skill level. The group leader scolded me when I took it easy on her.

The sparring session was
actually helpful. I learned a few new moves from the group leader and so did my
partner. She was decidedly worse for wear, but had a little bit better
technique by the end of our session. She had the advantage of my left eye being
almost completely swollen shut.  When we took a break for lunch, Lo found me
immediately and started apologizing incessantly.  “Rai, I would never have done
that, but Oren said that if I didn’t that he would and he wouldn’t be gentle
about it.”

“Lo, don’t worry, I know that.
What did you hit me with anyway?”

“The combat training manual. He
made me.”

“Well if we don’t learn
anything from it, we can always use it as a weapon. Remind me to never make you
mad if that’s your ‘gentle’.”

We both laughed at that. “I had
to make it believable or he might have done it again. Then you’d have two black
eyes!”

“Rai, what happened to you!” I
hadn’t noticed Adrian had found his way to the table. He ran over to me, held
my face in his hands, and gently kissed my cheek. If I wasn’t red before, I
sure was now. “Are you ok?”

“Lo tried to take me out, but
I’m tougher than I look.” He looked at us both quizzically, he obviously didn’t
believe that. Adrian sat on my left side, as if he thought he might protect it
from any other dangers that could be lurking around, waiting to jump out and
attack me. “My new Master Chief sent me a message via my best friend: always be
wary. I’ve got it now. Wary of her anyway.” I muttered the last part under my
breath.

            After lunch, my random partner wasn’t quite so
favorable. It was a large boy with a forehead the size of a brick.  Apparently,
he had no problem with not letting up on me. He heeded whatever warning that
was issued him this morning about giving it his all, and I wound up with a
bruise the size of a kiwi on my left thigh and a cut that wouldn’t quit
bleeding on my right cheek. At the end of the day, the last thing I wanted to
do was go back to that training room and let Ann see the gift she gave me on
the left side of my face. I hadn’t looked in the mirror, but I could feel the
heat and tenderness enough to know it wasn’t pretty.  I made my way to the
training room anyway.

            When I walked in, I was relieved to see that Ann
wasn’t there, but the relief was short lived when I realized that Shane was in
the room, standing on the far wall. “Wow, you look terrible. Were you trying to
even out your face, there?”

            I scowled at him. “Do you make a habit of
lurking in rooms all alone?  You could have given me a heads up this morning,
by the way.”

            His eyebrows knitted together in a frown, “I
didn’t know that was going to happen.”

            I watched him as he said it, and it didn’t seem
like he was lying, but I didn’t know him all that well yet. I shrugged. “No
matter, I guess. What infinite leadership wisdom will you be imparting on me
today, or will your Mom be here to teach me more lessons?”

            He ignored my attitude. He plopped a book down
in front of me. Combat Training Manual: 16th Edition. “You’ll need to be ahead
of the game. You’re going to need to know your subject matter, and if you’re
going to be a leader, you’ll want to know it better than everyone else. If you
have any spare time, I suggest that you spend it studying this, for now anyway.
Besides,” he walked over to me and lightly touched the left side of my face, “it
looks like you could use a few pointers in defense. Start here.” I started to
argue with him that I had no idea that I would need defense walking through a
door, but I figured that would mean admitting that his mother was right.

            “Is this what she did to you when you were
chosen?” I regretted the question as soon as it left my mouth. I’m not even
sure why I asked it, but I knew I crossed a line. He walked away from me and
back to the desk in the front of the room.

            “I got mine in different ways. That’s all for
today.”

            “That’s it? That’s your advice, read the
manual?” Wow, I was getting a bargain of a mentor here.

            “That’s it for now. I trust I don’t have to sit
here and watch you read it.” I shook my head and turned for the door. I was
looking forward to meeting Adrian and Lo for dinner and then checking out the
bread in the lounge. I figured from Shane’s reaction I should probably run by
my dorm before dinner and get a shower and clean up before too many more people
saw me. He was right, I did look terrible. I decided to go to Lo’s dorm and see
if she had a concealer I could borrow. It didn’t do too much for the bruise
that had already turned an awful shade of eggplant purple.

            Adrian was sitting at the table waiting on us.
After fussing over my beaten face for a few minutes, he then excitedly
recounted his day of programming and new exciting technologies.  He kept on and
on about some sort of voice recognition that utilized water sources. I couldn’t
follow. During the lunch a boy I had never seen came and sat next to Lo. He had
short brown curly hair and sea foam green eyes. He sat next to Lo and started
jabbing on and on as if they had known each other for years. “I’m sorry,” he
finally noticed that there were other people at the table besides her, “I’m
Jubal, I’m in Lo’s division. I’m pretty much in love with her.”

            I laughed at his candor, “You wouldn’t be the first.”
I told him with a smile. He did seem besotted by her.

            “Oh I’m sure I’m not, but my persistence will
eventually wear her down.” Lo playfully laughed and shook her head no at him.
“Lo, and Lo’s friends, would you like to come with me to the lounge?”

            The line was not nearly as long tonight as it
was last night. The first bite of the warm bread with the dip was so delicious
I wondered if it was some sort of trick. I felt guilty for eating it. I looked
around to make sure no one was going to arrest me for eating so freely. By the
looks of them, my friends felt the same way, but we all enjoyed it so much we
didn’t stop. We went back for a second and then third helping and were
surprised when no one cut us off. I spotted Shane across the lounge, sitting at
one of the tall tables with a man I didn’t recognize. I put my arm around
Adrian and squeezed him. “I think I’m gonna turn in for the night, guys.
Homework.”

            I started on the training manual back in my
dorm. This was a great way to fall asleep at night. I had trouble concentrating
from the pounding in my head and exhaustion I felt from the day’s physical
exertion. My eyes were starting to feel heavy, when someone knocked on my door.
I was surprised to see Shane there. “Are you lost?”

            “Can I come in?” I scowled at him. “Please.” I
stepped aside while trying not to roll my eyes. I kept the door open. “I was
going to try to talk to you in the lounge, but you and your boyfriend skipped
out of there so fast I didn’t really get a chance.” He pointed to the open
training manual, “I’m glad to see you hold my opinion in such high regard,
now.” He smirked at that.

“Don’t just take that for
granted, I’m doing what I’m told by my mentor. Did you come here to gloat?”

“I wanted to punch him in the face
this morning... Oren. If it makes you feel any better I really didn’t know he
had planned on making Lo do that.” Either this guy was one of the best liars I
had met, or he was really telling me the truth.

“Well,” he had taken me off
guard. I wasn’t sure what to say, “thank you for telling me that, I guess.”

“You’re welcome.  The face is
looking back to its usual gorgeousness now that you’re all cleaned up.” I
pushed him out of the door. “Goodnight, Raily. Sweet dreams.” The nice just
couldn’t last I guess. I laid my head on my pillow and tried to get through one
more chapter of the manual. I hated to admit it to myself, but Shane was right
that there were some good defense tips in there. I had just fallen asleep when
another knock at the door jarred me back to consciousness.

“I said goodnight, Shane.” But
when I opened the door, it wasn’t Shane looking at me, it was Oren. He kneed me
so fast that I barely had time to move to the side. He caught me in my stomach
and I dropped to my knees. 

“Haven’t learned that lesson
yet have you, sweetie? I’m not gonna make this easy for you, either.” I tried
kicking him in the ankle, which he dodged easily. He walked down the hall
laughing. No, this day has certainly not gone how I thought it would. I felt...
defeated.

That night I dreamed I was one
of the worker ants. Nothing but one of the many, working and giving everything
I had. I felt an undeniable urge to move with the masses, it was just so easy.
I could see the glorious castle that we were building for some faceless royal,
one bit at a time. I worked to the point of exhaustion, but I couldn’t stop,
and, in my dream, I didn’t want to.