Allies (3 page)

“Why not?” Wyatt said, upset on her behalf. “You deserve it.”

“Because I don’t have rich, connected parents. My dad’s dead, and my mom hates me—but whatever, I hate her, too. She couldn’t control her boyfriends.” They were sitting alone in Wyatt’s bunk, and to Wyatt’s shock, tears sparked bright in Heather’s eyes. “Don’t ever tell anyone this, Wyatt, but there’s this politician from my hometown. Al Heinz. He’s in the senate now, but whatever. My mom worked in his office and he was a skeeze. He liked pretty and young, emphasis on ‘young.’ ‘Pretty’ was negotiable. He certainly didn’t mind when I had big glasses and ugly sweatshirts.”

Wyatt caught her breath.

“Needless to say”—Heather’s voice shook—“I had proof and he knew he’d have to buy me off. That’s why I’m here.” Her eyes glinted in the light. “I didn’t accomplish anything beyond that. I have nothing. I was poor; I had no connections. What could I have done? That’s what the N/A in my personnel profile means. Accomplishments: none available.” She gave a bitter, tearful laugh. “I don’t know why I bothered coming here to make a better life. How can I? The companies won’t even consider sponsoring me because I have no accomplishments. There’s no one advocating for me.”

Wyatt was horrified. It was so unfair. “Couldn’t you . . . do something now?”

Heather tossed her hair. “Come on, when do we have time? The only hope I have . . .” Then she stopped and laughed. “No, not hope. Stupid, wild fantasy that will never happen.”

“What?”

Heather gave a tortured sigh. “If by some freak accident, somehow my profile just got wiped out of the system or maybe doctored somehow . . .” Then she shook her head, and smiled sadly at Wyatt. “Forget it. It’s stupid. I’m just going to go to bed.”

Wyatt stared after her friend as Heather sadly slunk out of her bunk. She felt almost sick for Heather. It wasn’t fair that someone so great should get penalized for nothing.

And then the idea struck.

It took her a solid two weeks, accessing the system, studying the codes. She couldn’t download neural processor–specific computer languages and just learn them automatically, because of federal regulations prohibiting self-programming computers, but she could learn the languages encoding the Pentagonal Spire’s systems.

It was with a transcendent sense of joy that fifteen days after their conversation, Wyatt whispered to Heather in Programming that she needed to show her something. That night, when Heather appeared in her bunk, Wyatt worked her magic, and then twisted around a computer screen, showing Heather’s personnel profile.

“Here. This is for you.”

Heather’s eyes widened. “Oh my God, can I modify this file?”

“You can change it however you want.”

Heather flashed her a magnetic smile. “Wyatt, this is so sweet of you!”

“Or if you want to do it later, you can just think of things to write. I can suggest some stuff . . .” Wyatt’s voice trailed off, because Heather was already typing.

She already knew what she wanted to add to her personnel file. It was like she’d known in advance she’d get the chance to modify it.

T
HE PROFILE CHANGES
didn’t stop with Heather, though.

Heather had an endless array of friends who wanted something more, a bit of an adjustment—but they were always Middles, never Uppers like Heather. Later Wyatt realized Heather didn’t want direct competition; she just wanted a bunch of trainees who were promoted to Upper Company because of her, due to her, who owed her a debt for it.

“I’m worried I’ll get caught,” Wyatt finally told Heather one day.

They were sitting together in Programming again. Wyatt had been glad at first, because Heather had been sitting there less and less, and she’d stopped swinging by Wyatt’s bunk altogether. The hours that had been full grew empty, and she began to feel that terrible chasm creeping between her and everyone else again.

She was desperate not to lose the only friend she had, but Heather didn’t seem to understand that Wyatt was at risk every time she altered a profile.

“One last person,” Heather pleaded. “My friend Nigel. He’s right on the cusp of making Upper Company, but he needs a few more perks in his profile. He’s been threatening to do it himself, but I know he’ll get caught because he’s not as good as you, and if he gets caught . . . well, let’s just say he won’t go alone. Please, Wyatt? Please? For me? You know promotions are soon, and I’m up for CamCo. I really don’t want to stress about Nigel.”

“This is the last one,” Wyatt mumbled.

“Of course.”

H
EATHER DIDN’T COME
to see Wyatt hack the personnel database that night. Neither did Nigel. She gave her a list of things Nigel wanted programmed in. Apparently, Nigel wanted to come across like some sort of brilliant linguist.

She’d just finished erasing her tracks in the system and was about to sign out when text flashed across her vision:

I know what you’re doing.

Wyatt gasped, her heart tripping in her chest.

Who are you?

She hastily logged herself out as the last part of the message came:

I’ll find you
.

She pulled the neural wire out of the access port on the back her neck, her heart pounding, breath coming in frantic gasps. The text faded before her vision, but the chill stayed in her heart.

“W
ELL?
” L
IEUTENANT
B
LACKBURN’S
gaze combed the room, and even where she was sitting in the back of hundreds of people, Wyatt was sure guilt and terror radiated like a beacon from her face.

But she dared not speak, and when she so much as twitched a muscle, Heather’s grip pinched her arm, talonlike.

“I’ll find out who you are sooner or later,” Blackburn warned them, pacing the stage. “Better for you if it’s sooner. Someone hacked the personnel files. I am sure of it.”

Wyatt’s mind raced frantically. He couldn’t compare before and afters of the profile, because she’d deleted the cache of the old. He couldn’t figure out where she’d logged in from, because she’d anonymized herself, disguised her port.

She was pretty sure.

At the end of class, she mechanically moved to turn in her program, but Heather said, “Don’t you see? You can’t do that.”

“Do what? Turn in my work?”

“Turn in
that
work,” Heather said.

“I have to,” Wyatt protested. They’d been working on these programs since she’d come to the Spire. It was her first chance to really show what she could do.

Heather shook her head. “He knows someone had the skill to hack through his security; that means he’ll look at the best programmers—and if you turn this in, he’ll know you’re a suspect.”

“Then I’m going to confess. I have to.”

“No, you don’t.”

“He’ll find out it’s me.”

“No.” Heather’s teeth were gritted. “He won’t.”

She jabbed a button on Wyatt’s forearm keyboard and reversed all the changes Wyatt had made to her program in the last three days, then sent it in. Wyatt cried out in protest, but Heather rounded on her, her voice very low.

“If you confess, he will want to know who you did it for. That will lead to me. I’m your friend, aren’t I? You don’t want to get me in trouble.”

Wyatt stared at her. “You only sit with me now when you want something.” She stung with the realization. “You don’t want to be my friend; you just want me to do stuff for you.”

Heather rolled her eyes, her lips curling. “Oh my God, that’s so pathetic. Are you this out of touch with the way people work?”

Wyatt flinched.

“Welcome to reality. People make friends because those friends enhance their lives in some way. I enhance yours by talking to you, which no one else here bothers to do, and you enhance me by doing me favors now and then. This is how people work. If someone tells you they’re doing something out of anything other than pure self-interest, they’re lying to you.”

“That’s not true.”

“It is. I’m only stating the obvious here, which seems to elude you for some reason. I’m sorry to disillusion you.”

Wyatt felt a surge of outrage. “Maybe I don’t even want to talk to you, then. We don’t need to be friends.”

Heather cocked her head. “Fine, then here’s the alternative: you can be my enemy. You see, I have a lot more influence here than you do, and I’m really the only lifeline you have. If I wanted to, I could find a way to make your life completely miserable—if you’re stupid enough to breathe a word to Lieutenant Blackburn.”

Wyatt looked at Heather, and suddenly she saw how ugly she truly was. For the first time since she’d started noticing faces, she understood that smiles could be empty and eyes could be calculating; that a polished, glittering mask of friendship could hide the absence of anything underneath.

“How about this: let’s not be enemies.” Heather smiled with that poisonous, fake sweetness, and reached up to tuck a tendril of Wyatt’s hair behind her ear. “You know, you’d look so much prettier if you had a haircut that framed your face. This weekend, I’ll take you to my stylist—”

Wyatt jerked her head back. “Don’t touch me.”

Heather’s fake sweetness vaporized. “Have it your way, then. Just remember, if you think about doing something stupid: I warned you of the consequences. Don’t be stupid, Enslow.” She gave her a mocking smile and strolled off. Wyatt knew they wouldn’t sit together ever again.

I can’t stand this anymore,
she thought.

Worse than that terrible, stabbing pain of rejection was the emptiness where once acceptance had been, and as Wyatt wandered numbly upstairs that night, she wondered that she’d ever been foolish enough to think she wanted this.

T
HERE WERE A
few things around the Pentagonal Spire that everyone did once, and Wyatt suspected she may have missed out on something critical, not doing any of them. That’s what brought her up to the planetarium on the fifteenth floor for the Open Evening, when the roof would retract to reveal the stars.

She marched in and seated herself there as the roof cranked open and icy air rushed in, then just stared up at the distant, glittering stars, wondering what people saw in this. The view was terrible here. They were in Arlington, Virginia, and the light pollution drowned out most of the sky. She could barely even see anything.

Why were things so obvious to other people and utterly perplexing to her?

Because you don’t belong here,
she answered herself.

She realized it now. With a burst of stark clarity, she understood that her
original instincts had been right all along. She should never have come here. She threw a look around, and answered that question of why people liked Open Evenings.

The other people in the planetarium were couples.

Open Evenings were all about some sort of dating ritual.

Tonight had nothing to do with the stars for anyone. They were a mere pretense.

Wyatt rose, shoved her way clumsily past the people crowding the seats, ignoring their irate looks as she interrupted the make-out sessions. Just as she maneuvered blindly into the aisle, she collided with the large boy carrying a case. A solid shoulder sent her tumbling back, but powerful arms whipped out and caught her—though he lost his grip on his case. It clattered violently down the stairs. For a moment as she regained her balance, Wyatt found herself staring right into a pair of smoky-lashed eyes, a startling shade of blue. She’d seen this boy around, and called up his profile from memory:

“Are you all right?” His voice was low and soft, smooth like a river. She became aware of his broad shoulders, his towering height, the chiseled panes of his face, and just the lightest dusting of freckles over his nose.

“I’m fine,” she breathed, and looked back down at the stairs, where his case had tumbled and popped open. She’d heard something crunch. She imagined herself falling down the stairs between the aisle, and realized he’d caught her—at the expense of his case. She wrenched back. “I wasn’t looking where I was going. This was my fault.”

“It is fine.”

“I’m so sorry. I’m so, so sorry.”

His full, expressive mouth quirked, gaze searching her face. “There is no need to be.”

“But your thing broke.” She didn’t know what his thing was, but when Yuri moved past her, she followed to survey the damage for herself, full of dread, wondering how else she could screw things up tonight.

She crouched there and watched from the stairs as he gently lifted the lid. He had massive hands, as large as the rest of his tall, muscular body, but they handled the case with surprising delicacy. He pulled out a metallic cylinder inside, and she realized it was a telescope.

“I believe it was cushioned from the impact,” Yuri told her. His rich-brown bangs fluttered down over an eye as he leaned in to inspect the telescope carefully. “No harm has been done.”

“You came here to actually look at the stars?” Wyatt said wonderingly.

“Yes,” Yuri acknowledged with a ghost of a smile. She found it hard to meet his gaze suddenly, because he was intimidatingly good-looking. “I lived in Antarctica for several years as a child. The view here does not quite compare, but it makes me feel like I’m at home. . . . I suppose this seems strange to you.”

His earnest admission made something inside her crack, just a bit. She didn’t feel like an idiot now, coming here alone. Uncertainty still clutched her, because she hadn’t spoken to many boys other than Vikram and the ones who teased her. She certainly hadn’t figured out any ground rules for how she was supposed to act around them.

“You probably can’t see anything through that, anyway,” she told him. “The light pollution is awful.”