Rise Against the Faultless (7 page)

The next day, Oren was missing
from training. Not that
I
missed him, but several others were gone, too.
They told us that there was a mission they were on and would be back sometime
in the next few weeks. They said we needn’t know any more of it. Shane seemed
distracted with something, which only helped play into my plan of avoiding him.
He still put in effort to come a little too close to me sometimes, or make
offhand comments that I just ignored. Ignoring him didn’t make him stop. I did
have to give him points for persistence, but he made no more late night visits
to my dorm the next couple of weeks.

I was happy to learn that we
would soon be training with weapons. I was strong, but there were others there
who clearly outmatched me in that department, but a weapon could be an
equalizer and I knew that the weapons here made the weapons we used in school
look like child’s toys. It was becoming painfully clear that when we arrived
here, we were like babies, we didn’t know anything about combat, even with our
training. I had read the training manual twice over now and Shane had given me
a Command in Ops book to read at night. He said that our missions would start
soon and a lot would be expected of me.  I hadn’t been paired up with Dione
again, and Oren being gone was a nice break from the constant surprise attacks
and sucker punches.

Jubal and Lo were spending more
time together, alone, which left more time for Adrian and I to spend together.
One night he came by to say he had a surprise for me. He said he’d been working
on a program and got special permission for testing that night. After dinner,
Lo and Jubal headed for the lounge and Adrian and I rode the shuttle to a
large, square building that housed his lab. We walked down halls and through
rooms until I was lost. Occasionally we would see another person, but mostly
the building was dark, except for the glow from electronics.  We walked into a
large room that had a smaller contained room inside of it. Adrian walked over
to a machine on the other side of the contained area and started entering
commands. Watching him work was like watching a maestro direct an orchestra, he
was in his element. He just gets it. “Ok,” he said, “it’s ready. I need you to
step through this door and wait five seconds. It’s going to be completely dark
for a few seconds, but don’t worry, it will be alright.”

I furrowed my brow at him, but
I stepped in anyway. He was right, I couldn’t see my hand in front of my face,
but then it was blindingly bright for a few seconds. I closed my eyes and
covered them with my hands. When I opened them again, I was standing in my
living room. Dad and Dale were sitting on the couch, playfully talking. Mom was
up walking around as usual, she can never sit still. The house was exactly like
it was in real life. The pale yellow walls, the dark wood floors, the furniture
was in the same position. “Dale!”  I tried to get his attention, but he didn’t
hear me. Oh I wish I could talk to him. The weight of how much I had been
missing my family fell heavily on my chest as I watched them busying themselves
with the day.  Mom came in to tell Dad and Dale that supper was ready, which I
guess was something she did out of ceremony or nostalgia for times past since
readying supper involved opening the container and maybe heating it. I reached
out to touch her arm, but my hand went through her.

I followed them all in the
kitchen and stood next to the table so I could listen to their dinner
conversation. It was such a comforting thing to hear them talking about their
day. Dale was in the middle of a story about how he won a game at school, when
he started to stutter. After a few a moments of this, all was black around me
again. No! I didn’t want it to be over yet. The door behind me opened and light
flooded the small space. “Adrian, thank you. I hadn’t realized how much I
missed them until just now.”

“Well, I had a good idea of it.
Sorry I had to shut it down. Still working out a few bugs.” His smile betrayed
him, he was extremely proud of his accomplishment.

“I had no idea you could do
something like this. How could you, I mean, it seems impossible.”

He shrugged his shoulders and a
blush came across his face, “Well I have access to much better machinery and
knowledge here. I’m going to keep working on it. Plus, I get access to the
databases that house information about our citizens. I got special permissions
from my Master Chief after doing well and helping him out after training.” I
had no idea they had this kind of information. The freckles on my little
brother’s cheeks were exactly right. Every single detail of my house, down to
the scratch I left on the floor when I was ten and drug the table across the
floor to build a fort.  How could they know all this? Either way I was grateful
to have seen them. “Look, I know how hard it is for you to be away from them, I
was given access to one family, so I chose yours.”

“Thank you.” I pulled him close
to me and kissed him softly. There may not be electricity there, but I
definitely felt something for Adrian, a sweet warmth. No one had ever done
something like this for me before. “How about we go meet up with Lo and Jubal
at the lounge, get a drink?”

“I would say yes to pretty much
anything you suggested right now, Rai.” I laughed at him and we headed out.
There was upbeat dance music at the lounge and after my second drink Lo and
Cyril had me talked into getting up and moving, I wouldn't call what I did
dancing. Cyril had natural rhythm, though.

“Haven’t seen much of you
lately, Cyril.” I smiled at her, “What you been up to?”

“I may have found someone who
is fond of using up my free time.” She glanced in the direction of her friend,
Justin, that worked there and gave him a wink. He was obviously much more shy
than she was, but it seemed to work for them. “After everyone leaves here,
we’re all going out to the court yard by the pool. Some of the guys lost a bet
and have to jump in. You guys should come.” My second drink had me feeling
ambitious. I could take one night off of my studies to watch some guys torture
themselves over a lost bet. When we got there the crowd was even bigger than it
was at the lounge. Some people seemed more inebriated than the two drink limit
would allow. I noticed after a while how they got away with it. They were
sneaking off into the woods to relieve themselves to avoid the sensors in their
dormitories. Smart, but risky.

I wandered off over towards the
pool by myself to get a better look. I hadn’t really been out here. It was
fourteen feet deep at the deepest end. I couldn’t believe someone was going to
jump in there. It was freezing and I could see the steam coming off of it. Some
one's hand slid onto my hip. “Care to take a dip with me?” Shane. I hadn’t seen
him outside of training for a few weeks now. I had done well to avoid him
before this time.

“I think I’ll pass, but the
water might match your blood temperature. Have at it” I smiled wryly at him. He
glanced at the pool and I recognized fear in his eyes. Could he be afraid of
water? “Can you swim?”

He looked at me, obviously
embarrassed that he had given himself away. He might have had more than two
drinks as well. “I can swim like a fish. I just don’t care to go under the
water.” He slurred the word fish a little. Yep, definitely more than two
drinks.

“Water is nothing to be afraid
of, Shane. I would think there are plenty of other things you could find to
fear, like bunny rabbits, or rainbows.”

“I nearly drowned one summer
when I was seven. My mother was ‘teaching’ me how to swim. She had a very
literal sink or swim philosophy. My father had to resuscitate me. Haven’t cared
for it much since then, but I did learn to swim quite well.” He stopped and looked
at me as if he’d forgotten I was standing there. “I haven’t ever told anyone
that.”

“I won’t say anything, I
wouldn’t have picked on you had I known.”

“Well I would still brave the
waters if you decided to skinny dip with me,” his usual cocky demeanor returned
after that brief glimpse into his real self vanished as quickly as it had
appeared.

“Thanks for the offer, but I
need to get back to my boyfriend.” I turned to walk away from him, but he
grabbed my hand and pulled me back.

“Wait, Raily, I want us to be
friends, okay. I know you’ve been avoiding me, but I won’t pull another stunt
like before. It just happened, but I will be better behaved. Promise.” He
smiled such a sweet, innocent smile that I couldn’t leave him like that.

“Okay. Friends. I can do that.”

I turned to leave again and
heard him call out behind me, “You won’t regret it.” Somehow I doubt that.

I found Lo, Jubal, and Adrian
laughing at the guys who had stripped down to their underwear to take the
plunge. It seemed like as soon as they hit the water then immediately almost
levitated back out. They were given high fives and drinks from other’s bottles.
One left his shorts in the pool for a naked victory lap around the courtyard.
That brought roars of cheers and laughter. I knew for certain that when he
sobered up in the morning, that might be a regret of his. Or maybe not, since
after putting his clothes back on, one girl was particularly interested in him,
and she showed her gratitude by shoving her tongue down his throat.

Nothing got out of hand,
though, and at the end of the night Adrian walked me back to my dorm. We stood
laughing at the night’s turn of events and giggling from the residual alcohol
left in our system. “Thanks again, Adrian, for my family. It’s gonna help me
get through the next two months.”

“I was just happy to see you
happy. I think you’re more stressed than you realize. You need to take more
nights like this, rather than holed up in your dorm, studying. Was that Shane
talking to you in the courtyard?”

“Yeah, how’d you know?”

“I just figured. What did he
want? Seemed like an intense conversation.” He looked just a little worried.

I got a little bit panicked
myself as the guilt that I had been evading came rushing back, “he was just
talking about training.” I figured the fewer words I said, the better I would
be at not betraying myself.

“Oh ok, I’ve just never met
him.” He paused for a minute, obviously contemplating something, “So, do you
think I could come in for a little while?”

It took me a second to realize
what he was asking me, and despite the very active night lives of our peers, I
wasn’t ready. “Uh, you know, I’m just really tired, but can we do something
tomorrow night?”

He looked a little
disappointed, but still smiled and kissed my cheek goodnight. That night I
dreamed of my family, except when I talked to them they smiled and talked back.
It was the first good dream I had had since that day in the woods.

The next week of training we
were introduced to a bevy of lethal weapons, the likes of which none of us had
ever dreamed. The mock weapons at school looked more like sticks and rubber
playthings than real weapons. We were to be instructed on how to use the
weapons and practice with them for two weeks before we actually sparred with
them, and even then it was heavily supervised and rehearsed. There were four
stations set up by Service initiates outside in the courtyard every morning. I
would see them scurrying as quickly as possible before and after training to
get everything in order. I had started to notice that they did not look us in
the eyes, or if they did, there was obvious disdain there. Cyril never treated
me like that, though. We were actually becoming friends and I trusted her
opinion, despite Ann Brutus’ best efforts to drive a wedge between us. I know
she does it just to make my time here more awkward.

We were to spend equal time at
all four stations. The first station was for weapons designed to use in hand to
hand combat. There were a number of knives, bows, and nun chucks. However, it
was the unconventional weapons that caught my eye. I had excelled at the knife
in the school, but I spent more time on the weapons I wasn’t familiar with.
There was a pair of ordinary looking gloves, that when employed would deliver an
unbearable stinging sensation to whatever poor soul was on the receiving end of
the blow. It was a bit tricky activating them with a small button on the inside
of the index finger, but after about thirty minutes of trying it out on a
dummy, I was able to get it on every nine of ten hits.

The next station was for
distance weapons. I was intrigued by several of them, but I needed to whittle
down which ones I would be using for the simulations in a couple of weeks. The
first one I looked at was a long distance flamethrower that they referred to as
the sparky. It was impressively small, for something that could do so much
damage. It would throw a softball sized ball of fire that expanded to over four
feet in width for at least two hundred yards. I was okay at using it, but it
was a little too awkward for me to feel comfortable using in the heat of
battle.

Then I found the weapon that
was made for me. The scorpion. It fit perfectly in my hands. It was lightweight
and deadly. The ammunition was a small barbed sphere that shot out like a
bullet, but with the smallest flick of the wrist, the stinger was retrieved
back into the gun. I held it close to my face as I aimed it with my hand on top
of the weapon. You could load and shoot six stingers at a time. The stingers
were always accurate and returned back to the hull of the weapon. The whip like
motion of sending out the stingers was like second nature to me. I was all too
pleased to see that my classmates were having trouble mastering it, so it
wouldn’t be something everyone was running around with.

We were all given skin tight
bullet proof suits that covered us from neck to toe for our simulations. The
material was black and felt like what I would think snakeskin would. It was
very light. I took out one of my knives and scraped it across my leg, first
lightly. I didn't feel anything but the pressure of it. I did it again, harder
this time, and it didn't shred an inch of the fabric. I just have to trust that
it would deflect a fake bullet or stinger just as well. There were "kill
zones" marked on our suits. This is what our instructor said would help us
to locate and remember a kill zone on a human. If we were struck in any of
these spots during our simulations with a weapon, we'd be "dead."

The third zone was for explosives
and chemicals. This zone couldn’t have interested me less, but I spent my due
time there. The workings of the explosives that were allowed to use were not
complicated, but were highly effective. There wasn’t much skill required,
except that we make sure not to blow ourselves or our comrades up.

The fourth zone was for
transportation. This is exactly where I wanted to be. There were two personal
transportation vehicles that we had to learn to master, although they wouldn’t
be used in the simulations. There were what they called the bikes. It was an
open vehicle with one seat that you straddled. You could probably fit two small
people on it if need be. Unlike any other form of transportation available to
the public, you could actually control where these vehicles went. Learning to
ride the bikes was awkward for me at first. I was not a natural at it. I spent
extra time with it.

They had the same sleek look
and were made of a similar shiny metal as the bullet like shuttles did.  You
had to lean to the left and to the right to make it turn. There was only one
pedal on the right beside the foot rest, you leaned it forward to make it
accelerate and back to make it slow down or even reverse. They were completely
silent in operation. It hovered a few feet in the air, just like our other
vehicles, but what was so glorious about it was that I had the free will to be
able to make it go wherever I wanted it to. Feeling the wind on my face and run
through my hair was exhilarating.