Cold Hard Truths 1: Vices (10 page)

Bruno was yelling at me through my headset inside my mask. I didn’t know what he was saying, or I couldn’t understand it. To me, he was barely even there.

The sky grew darker; I could feel it more than see it. Everything hollowed out, became some evil thing. I blinked the sweat out of my eyes and ground my teeth. Something was wrong, but I didn’t know what. Wait, that wasn’t right. I knew what was wrong, but I just couldn’t remember.

T8 was closer to Carver now. Too close. Closer than anyone but me should be to him.

Five.

I could feel it, that thick mood in the air. That sickening feeling.

Four.

I pressed my cheek flatter against the rest on my gun.

Three.

My lungs couldn’t possibly get enough air in them. I tried, but they wouldn’t expand the way I wanted them to.

Two.

Bruno was yelling, but I couldn’t hear him.

One.

My eyes locked on target. My body positioned itself even though every cell inside me was screaming to let go of the gun.

Zero.

I pulled the trigger.

The sky grew lighter; I could feel that too. Bruno stopped yelling and my lungs finally let me breathe deep. Everything was silent, even my breathing. I blinked a few times, resisting the urge to shield my eyes from the sunlight.

I’d clipped Carver in the throat. His gorgeous neck was bleeding, pouring the life out of him right in front of my eyes. It was blossoming like a flower, turning his skin into a mosaic. He slid to his knees and then down onto his side. He wasn’t even trying to hold his neck, to stop the bleeding. His vacant eyes stayed wide even as he fell on the ground in a puddle of blood and a pool of his soft hair. The swirling red liquid was moving, forming something impossible right before my eyes. The blood spelled out the word
Life
, with the
e
stretching long and swirling toward Carver’s throat.

Somewhere there was screaming. Someone familiar, but I didn’t know who.

* * * *

I woke up in a dark place…

* * * *

The recap simulator was ENAD’s most effective way to deal with a mental block that soldiers had. ENAD didn’t want to put the soldiers’ bodies under duress because soldiers were state property, so instead ENAD had soldiers run the recap simulations, forcing them to relive or experience whatever mental hang-up a soldier was having. It was horrifying and cruel and usually extremely effective. After going through his worst nightmares day in and day out, the soldier eventually broke or completely confused reality with the simulation.

The inventor of the recap simulator had stated that reliving the experience, or experiencing it for the first time, was effective because when that soldier was placed in that situation in real life, his or her mind would trigger an automatic response and react the same way it had been forced to in the simulation.

The recaps were a collection of video footage from missions altered and then pieced together. Things that didn’t seem right or didn’t look quite the same were results of having video footage from numerous people, usually everyone who was on the mission, and their lines of sight.

It was one of the hardest exercises that the ENAD soldiers had to undertake. Sometimes the permanent mental damage was too much on the soldiers and they experienced PTSD, but that was still a risk that ENAD was willing to take for complete and total obedience.

By the fourteenth day, I was barely able to keep anything down. I’d had to remind myself time and time again that I hadn’t shot Carver; he was alive and I didn’t have that blood on my hands. A lot of other blood, sure, but not Carver’s.

The seclusion room was different. There were three mirrored walls, at least four hidden cameras, and everything was white, like I’d seen from old pictures of rooms mental patients used to be kept in, except my walls weren’t cushioned. They’d at least gifted me a chin-up bar and weights because they needed me to keep in shape. I’d work myself half-dead after each one of those recap simulations. They lasted for hours, and I’d go through the same scenario at least four times per session. It was hell. Each one was a little different, but most had the same outcome. I’d relived that exact same scenario at least eighty times, and there were only five instances where Carver didn’t die in front of my eyes. Every night before bed I’d have to remind myself that I made the best decision, the sanest decision, for me at least, because I could stay sane through the recap simulations. I couldn’t stay sane after taking that chance in real life.

They had a doctor come talk to me once after the first week. I was doing push-ups, and the sweatpants I was wearing were practically drenched in sweat. I heard the door open but didn’t stop my workout, didn’t let my eyes leave the same place on the wall I’d been staring at.

“Jones, I’d like if I could have your attention for a minute,” she said. I heard the chair in the corner of the room shuffle.

I stopped, stood up, and grabbed the towel that was next to me on the floor. I stood in front of her and wiped the sweat off my face and bare chest. Her eyes lingered longer than I liked.

She was an outside doctor, likely one sent directly from the state, not part of ENAD. They probably wanted to know if I was compromised,
crazy
, and naturally the state only employed the most attractive people. She was a very beautiful woman with long white hair and the face and body of a porn star. I could tell it wasn’t natural, because no one looked that way naturally. She had a condescending curl to her lip as she leered at me like I was some kind of dog.

Despite her attractive appearance, red flags rose in the back of my mind. She was dangerous somehow. The way she carried herself, her presence. She wasn’t threatening in the way I was, or Seno, but something deeper and darker. I couldn’t tell if my instincts were correct, or I’d been locked up and alone too long, forming absurd speculations on my own.

She crossed her legs in front of her and the tight skirt she wore rode up.

“My name is Dr. Keeri, but you can call me Lexa. I’d like it if we could talk like friends, Jones.”

“That hardly seems fair,” I said. “You already know so much about me.”

“Well, what would you like to know?”

“You’re not an ENAD doctor. Why were you sent here to talk to me?”

“You know I can’t disclose that kind of information.”

“You asked what I wanted to know,” I said with a shrug. I knew she wouldn’t tell me, but it never hurt to ask.

“How are the simulations?” she asked.

“They’re fantastic, Doc,” I said, grinning at her.

She laughed. “I suppose that response was warranted. How are you handling the simulations?”

“Good. I have to remind myself a hundred times a day that I didn’t actually blow a hole through my superior’s neck, but other than that, good.” I kept smiling at her. It was the only way I knew how to deal with situations like this, making a joke out of them.

“I wouldn’t exactly say you’ve been dealing with them well, Jones. Your files state that you wake up suddenly with your heart racing multiple times during the night.”

“Doesn’t everybody?” I shifted my weight from one foot to the other.

“I’d like to discuss your infatuation with your superior, Carver.”

My smile disappeared.

“I’ve watched the footage of your recap simulations, Jones, all the footage from the real-life scenario involving the death of T8. You know we monitor everything during those missions. Your heart rate spikes every time you lay eyes on your superior.”

I stayed silent. She was trying to bait me, lure me into some kind of trap.

“We think this is some kind of trauma you’ve been carrying around with you for years. Misplaced affections. Your need, desire, love for authority has transformed into an emotional attachment to people or things that don’t deserve them—in this case, your superior.”

I clenched my fists, and I think she noticed.

“It shouldn’t be a problem, soldier; we just want you to acknowledge it for what it is. Misplaced affection.”

“Misplaced affection.” I snorted.

Dr. Keeri reached into a bag she had on her side and pulled out a tablet. She turned on the screen and wrote something on it with her finger before holding it up for me to see.

Not everything is black-and-white.

Carver is a gray area.

I had no idea what she meant by that. I thought that she might’ve been trying to tell me that Carver was a complex individual, and I was not.

She actually smiled at me, her perfectly straight white teeth gleaming. “Remind yourself of that a hundred times a day as well and everything will be fine, all right, Jones?”

“All right, Doc,” I replied. The way she’d said it almost sounded like a threat. I had no idea what I’d done to warrant her visit. It wasn’t at all like any of the usual visits that soldiers had from ENAD doctors, even when in isolation and using the recap sim.

I didn’t like her tone when she threatened me, as if Carver was something of hers to ward me off of. The thought made my blood heat.

She stood up and readjusted her outfit. She cast one last glance over my body, leaving me feeling cold and a little dirty. She was a predator of some kind, and for a change, I felt like the prey. I didn’t know what had just happened or if her visit had answered any of the state’s questions on whether or not I was crazy, but I thought if anyone could’ve pulled at the strings in my chest, it was her.

After she left I sat on my bed, wondering what she knew about Carver that I didn’t, wondering what it was that made Carver so gray.

* * * *

Someone was knocking on my bedroom door.

After my first day back to work, full of training, shooting practice, and endurance tests, I was exhausted. I flopped on my bed the second I got back into my tiny room and fell asleep on my stomach. But then someone woke me from my slumber with a loud pounding on the door.

I rolled onto my feet and hazily wiped the sleep from my eyes while I trudged over to the door.

“Hey man!” Bruno exclaimed, wrapping his arms around me.

“Hey yourself,” I said, laughing and motioning for him to come in. There wasn’t a lot of room, so I had a seat on my bed, and he took his own on the chair at my workstation.

“I’ve been worried about you for two entire weeks, Jones, but I have to admit, I’m pretty excited you get to stay. A lot worse could’ve happened.”

“Yeah, I know. I’m thankful,” I replied. And I was thankful. Being a soldier was better than a lot of my other options.

“Listen, I feel bad about snapping at you and telling you to hold your position. I know it was the right thing to do, and we both know it was protocol, but I know how hard that must’ve been. I wanted to say sorry.”

“Nah, think nothing of it,” I said easily, trying to be comforting. “I fucked up. I know that. It just kind of happened. I snapped. It was almost like I was watching it happen through someone else’s eyes; my reflexes just kicked in automatically when I saw T8 was about to come down on Carver with that machete.”

He suddenly seemed nervous, his gaze darting away from me. “You, uh, kind of always freeze up when it comes to Carver, hey?”

I smiled sadly but didn’t reply.

“I won’t say anything,” he said quickly, and I trusted that he wouldn’t. “I’d never go behind your back, Jones. You’re the closest thing I have to a brother. I just wanted to say that it’s dangerous ground you’re walking on, you know? If you two have something going on.”

“We don’t.”

“Good. It’s dangerous. Plus I have no idea how you could sleep with someone like him,” he said, beginning to laugh. “I mean, he’s practically insane, right? Every time I look at him in the eyes, I’m a little bit terrified, and I’m practically the size of a truck.”

I knew what he meant about Carver. It was difficult not to notice the unusual way Carver was, but that was half of the allure. He was mysterious and dangerous.

“But there’s something else I wanted to talk to you about,” he said, sitting up a little straighter. “Something weird, but you can’t tell anyone, okay? I mean no one.” His eyes drifted up toward the hidden camera in my room. All of the ENAD soldiers knew we had hidden cameras in our rooms, and we each knew where they were hidden. The feed generally wasn’t monitored live, it was usually just used for reviewing purposes, so if you covered the camera, they wouldn’t know immediately. It was easier to do in the dark because they barely noticed the difference, but I’d done it before with the lights on as well. I’d told the technician that I was jerking off and felt shy. He laughed and let it slip.

I stood up and covered the hidden camera, plugging the microphone with a piece of gum I chewed for a few seconds. I felt like I was a teenager sneaking boys into my room.

“All right,” I said. “What was it you wanted to tell me?”

“Okay, listen.” Bruno stood up and started to pace. “So this Roscora Deleviv politician, right? The one we’re keeping an extra close eye on? Some of the things I’ve researched don’t really match up.”

“Researched?” I asked hesitantly.

“Don’t tell anyone. I accessed ENAD’s closed files. I was curious, and you know me: if something gets under my skin, I can’t let it slide. Anyway, I needed someone to talk to about this stuff, and you’re the only person I can trust.”

“I won’t be much help,” I said, taking a seat on my bed and watching him pace. “I don’t understand much of the political bullshit.”

“That’s fine,” Bruno replied. “I just need to talk it over with someone who will listen, someone I can trust, so that maybe I can rationalize it in my head.”

I shrugged, so he continued talking.

“Our current leader, Otk, he regulates tax cuts to all the bigwigs in town, like the genetic mutation companies, the electric companies, high-end retailers for automatons, automaton manufacturers, companies like that. Companies that make a shitload of money and feed it all right back into the pockets of the government. But Otk also taxes the hell out of the lower classes. Before him, we even had an inkling toward a middle class; now it’s just Otk and men like him, and the lower class.”