Walking Ghost Phase (37 page)

Near her, seven soldiers scurried toward opposite intersections with no sense of unity in maneuvers or grouping. Three-four split, then two-five split, even a seven-zero split.

“Stay close,” Emily said. “Don't run off alone.”

A soldier sprinted up to her, almost butting his visor against hers.
“What the hell are you doing?” A tiny A1 floated above his head.

It
's only a number.
Emily straightened her posture and grabbed a wad of his shirt. “I'm assuming command. If you want to live, you'll agree.”
What if he doesn't?

He knocked aside her hand.
“The hell you are.”

“
Listen to her,” a familiar voice said. Damon waved the other wandering squad members back to the group. Emily stared at him, the soldier who, just a few days ago, seemed hell-bent on order, control and honoring a strict chain-of-command.

“
Yeah,” said A3, a girl. “She knows what she's doing.”

As A1 studied Emily from head to toe, the rest of the squad gathered behind her. She thought about taking off her helmet, letting him see the rage in her eyes. But Matt would have never assumed command by force or fear. He wanted trust.
“I can do this,” Emily said. “Let me get us to bed early.”

A1 seemed to focus on his dwindling ranks.
“I hope you have something good in mind.”

“
Where's our defense point?” Emily asked.

He pointed at the back intersection, which forked left and right into two passageways, each barely wide enough for a single soldier.
“Doesn't seem like a lot of space for us to put up a decent defense.”

“
We may not have to.” She looked at the top boxes. “Damon, give me a lift.”

He knelt near her legs, and she planted her left foot in his hands and pushed. The fluid upward movement sent her head above the highest box, where she leaned forward and grabbed the opposite edge. After pulling herself across the top, she rose to her feet. The
high ground position revealed a maze the size of a football field. In the distance, shaking boxes and faint voices pinpointed the defender locations.

Emily glanced at the ceiling, between two support poles. A broken window
gave her a view of the beautiful night sky, and the lone star twinkled once as if it offered a reassurance of her strategy.

She slid around and hung her head off the ledge.
“Damon, load up your satchel with grenades.”

Her squad mates dropped their explosives into Damon
's pack until it stretched at the seams. Emily reached down and grabbed his hand. As he climbed, his fingers scraped her arms and dug across her shoulders and spine. Damon stood and shifted the satchel to his side.

Emily pointed at A1.
“Take everyone to the back, and clear out any boxes in your way. You have to get to the rear wall.”

“
We'll be abandoning our defense point,” A1 said.

“
Just do it, and whatever happens don't stop clearing boxes.”

“
Affirmative,” A1 said, and led the squad to the back of the maze.

“
What's the plan?” Damon asked.

While filling her knapsack with grenades, she nodded in the direction of the two support poles.
“I'll take the left, you get the right. Set your grenades to ten seconds and drop the bag on the base.”

“
You think the explosion will bring down the ceiling? Won't that kill our squad, too?”

“
If the defenders die before us, does it matter?” She leapt across the first gap in the box maze. “Let's go.”

She moved toward the center, and the defender
's voices rose again, now with full clarity. They discussed strategy. The consensus seemed to agree on a plan to send twenty-five into the maze for an assault. The remaining fifteen would stay back in case they needed a defense.
Like the oil plants
.

A few gentle leaps later, she and Damon crossed the last intersection, and she raised three fingers. After pulling three grenades from the bag, she twisted each timer to ten seconds.

“
Don't do it.
” The voice was hushed like a whisper but still pounded inside her ears. “
Don't you see what's happening
?”

She spun and looked at Damon.
“What's the problem?”

He shrugged.
“I didn't say anything.”

“
Did you hear that?” a defender asked.

“
Take defensive positions,” another said. “Don't move forward.” Neither sounded like the voice Emily had heard.

She poked her fingers through the pins, placed the three grenades inside the bag and squeezed her free hand around the opening. She gave Damon single nod, and he did the same. Then she shoved down. The pins popped from the grenades and twirled around her fingers as the bag plummeted into the abyss. She jumped off the opposite edge, her last sight being Damon
's helmet disappearing below the box tops. “Go,” she shouted.

The moment she rounded the second corner, a thunderous explosion reverberated through the complex. Shards of glass cascaded from the ceiling, wailing when they hit the ground. At the halfway point of her retreat, the roar behind her intensified. A sweltering heat penetrated her fatigues, and sweat dripped in her eyes.

Emily and Damon met at the intersection of their squad's defense point. Dented boxes, with guns spilling out of them, and pieces of torn cardboard littered the floor. Emily waded through the mess until she reached the rear wall, a thirty-foot-wide area of cleared space. There, her squad stood motionless, mesmerized by something in the distance. When she turned to look, she also entered the trance.

Flames
stretched skyward like dancing fingers, heating the metal beams to a crisp orange glow. The back half of the building warped inward with a shriek of twisting steel. At the far end, the ceiling dipped below the fire.

Then it collapsed.

The world faded.

Congratulations!

You have completed the objective.

Total time:

Ten minutes, six seconds.

Ending ACES training.

Emily's eyes didn't need to adjust; her moment in the darkness seemed as if she had only blinked. Around the vat stood three white-coats and the pervert, each with the same blank face. The pervert tapped his finger against the glass cover of his wristwatch while one of the white-coats stared at the digital clock above the locker room doors.

Emily yanked the breathing tube out of her mouth, peeled off the two sensors and tossed all three in the gel. As she climbed out of the vat and walked past the four attendants, they began to mumble possible explanations:
something in the system must have failed, the defender insertion points were wrong, someone felt sorry for her.

Emily now took labored steps toward the locker room.
Sorry for me?
Who?
Stallings?
No, he didn't want her to go.
The other soldiers?
They had put her on the first elevator. But how could they have influenced the outcome? They weren't defenders.
Who else then?

Damon…
Yes, it had to be Damon. Why did he back her request for command? He never would have done it for Matt. Or anyone else for that matter.
Why now?
Did he feel sorry for me?

She soon joined her squad at the elevator. Like the white-coats, their eyes radiated with awe and disbelief, but they didn
't discuss the victory. The bell chime shook them from their thoughts, and they boarded the elevator. When Emily attempted to enter, her shirt tightened around her stomach. A swift tug jerked her back to the chamber.

Damon stood behind her. His cheeks flushed crimson and eyes glistened with tears.
“Can we ride alone?” The words came out strained, almost a whisper.

Emily glanced at the shuttering doors. She could break the safety beam. Stop her squad from leaving. Just a quick ride to the top, and she might avoid the inevitable—another I
'm sorry. She didn't want to hear it. Didn't want to listen to anyone finally concede the great things about Matt but only after he was gone. “Damon, I haven't slept—”

“
Please?” Now he stared her in the eyes.

The delay made the choice for her; the elevator doors shut. She gave him a reluctant nod.

Damon said nothing until they stepped inside the next available elevator. By then, drops of sweat trickled down his forehead, which shined gray under the fluorescent lights. Something obviously pained him. Unlike her moment with Rizzo, she couldn't leave in the middle of this confessional. “Heath.” He cleared his throat. “Emily, I'm sorry. I know he and I didn't get along. Part of that is my fault. All of it actually. I acted stupidly toward him because I was so damn stubborn. He figured it out.” Damon glanced at the ceiling. “This place.”

“
I know,” she said, her voice low.

“
But you don't.” Damon threw out his hands. “Did you ever wonder why he tried so hard? Why you always ended up in his squad?”

“
You know about that?”

“
Of course I know. Everyone knows. We also know why he wanted to win. You were his only reason for trying.” Damon shook his head. “What's your excuse?”

Em
ily was silent as the thoughts burned at her mind. How could anyone here, especially Damon, ever understand Matt more than her? And why the stupid question? A question with an obvious answer. The answer to how Greaver motivated every soldier.

“
Pain?” Damon asked, as if he read her mind. “I think you're beyond the physical suffering. No, you're doing this because you don't want to lose. You think winning makes you right. Do you believe this is what he would have wanted? If so, maybe you should forget about him.”

Emily clenched her fists.
“Shut the hell up.”

“
Emily, give up. Lose. You can't stop it.”

“
The colonels in the courtyard…”

The elevator doors opened, and he stepped in the hall.
“You're almost out of choices here. Stop being so stubborn. Do the right thing before it's too late.” He walked away.

“
How is giving up the right thing?”

Without answering, Damon turned down the first corridor.

Emily ran after him, but when she entered his hallway, he was gone. She paused for a moment and looked in the other direction—nothing. “Damon?” She checked the nearest room. Empty too. By eight o'clock, she had worked her way through the hall, opening every door. Still no Damon. “What the hell?” A distant, scratchy sound of a baton rubbing fatigues finally persuaded her to abandon the search.

Emily didn
't remember trying to sleep that night. She didn't fight it, either. Once she returned to her room, it seemed inevitable; two sleepless nights made her boots feel like lead weights, and her eyes burned under the slightest glow of light. The next nine hours disappeared from her mind.