Dove Arising (13 page)

“OW . . . I SWEAR, THIS THING HURTS WORSE than a kidney stone.” Eri reclines on her cot, rubbing her hand over the sole of her foot.

“Ever
had
a kidney stone?” Vinasa asks.

“No, I’m too young; but
you
try walking around with a blister the size of your eyeball. . . .”

The blister on her left big toe is not, in fact, the size of her eyeball. It isn’t even as big as a typical kidney stone, which would have a diameter of two centimeters or fewer. Eri should stop complaining. After a hard day’s work, we’d all stab noisy people to get some quiet, and the girl two cots away from Eri is looking particularly murderous.

Eri weeps into her hands, mumbling about
real
shoes,
real
food, a
real
cot. . . .

“Want me to take you to Medical?” Nash offers.

“Oh no. They’ll laugh at me. It’s only a
blister
.”

What a stubborn, spoiled girl. I’m fond of her, though, and know how to fix the problem in the most cost-effective manner possible. I swing over the edge of my cot and plummet a meter and a half to the ground, landing squarely on my feet. “I’ll get Wes.”

As Eri beams, her pale face glows against her halo of orange hair. Her head bears an uncanny resemblance to the sun; the blushes on her cheeks could be solar flares on a much smaller scale.

On the boys’ side of the room, Orion and Wes sit on a cot, playing handscreen chess. The names of the pieces used to be aristocratic and religious, outmoded words like
queen
and
bishop
, but the Committee changed them about twenty-five years ago to things like
general
for the most important and
privates
for the expendables. The players move them by touching and dragging, and they need to be meticulous. A move outside the rules causes that person’s handscreen to vibrate jarringly for five seconds or so.

I’m not surprised when Orion snarls and slaps the back of his hand on his knee. “Ooh, damn it! Didn’t see your colonel there! I was
so close
.”

Wes grins dimly, and that’s his entire reaction to winning.

He’s not grinning anymore when we arrive at Eri’s cot, although she is.

“I have a teensy bit of a blister,” she explains. “We tried draining it with a knife, but we couldn’t get through.”

Wes prods Eri’s toe, producing a whimper of pain from her. “Give yourself more credit—this thing’s got to be punctured with a needle. Most of it is hidden under that monstrosity of a callus. . . . Hold on; I’ve brought some Medical knickknacks with me—it’s under my cot.”

When he’s out of earshot, Eri says to me, “Thank you
so much
for inviting him over! You’re such a good wing-woman.”

I gather she doesn’t mean I’m good with spaceship wingtip weapons.

Nash cackles. “Chill, Eri. She brought Wes because Wes can fix your foot.”

When Wes returns with his Medical kit, Eri studies him as attentively as she should have been studying her weapons manual. If he were any other boy, I might find it comical.

Wes scatters first-aid miscellanea all over the floor: a needle, ethyl alcohol, bandages, scissors, and a miniature drill—which I hope he won’t use, for the sake of Eri’s mental health. He rubs the needle with the alcohol.

If Eri’s feet stink, his face doesn’t show it. He prods her toe with the blunt end of the needle. Now that I’m closer to the infamous blister, I have to admit that it’s quite infected—it changes color depending on where pressure is applied.

“You’re gonna be okay, baby.” Nash squeezes Eri’s hand so hard that both girls’ knuckles whiten.

Eri begins to cry.

Wes stacks his hand atop theirs. “It’s all going to be over soon. Are you ready?”

Eri gapes at the pile of hands as if she can’t believe Wes’s is really a part of it. “Okay.”

“This is one of many unglamorous parts of Militia.” Wes flips the needle around and shoves it into Eri’s toe.

I shut my eyes before he pulls it out, and then wait five seconds before daring to look.

Wes is mopping up the pus and blood with a piece of gauze. Though Eri weeps and wallows in the crisp memory of pain, the fully drained patch of dead skin won’t bother her anymore.

After Wes cleans the needle, he bandages her foot. Pointing to a lone boot on the floor, he asks, “This yours? Would you mind if I have a look?”

“Nope,” Eri pants.

As Wes examines the shoe, he makes a
tsk
noise with his tongue. “Height-enhancing boots—really? These slope downward from heel to toe, which is causing rubbing at the front of the foot, especially with all that sliding around in weapons training. Get yourself normal boots the next time you go to the Exchange. As for the blister, take off the bandages in two days, and don’t pull off the dead skin, or it’ll get infected.”

“Thank you so much.” Eri tips forward as if she’s trying to count his eyelashes. “You’re
amazing
.”

Terror crosses Wes’s face before he bends down to clean up his Medical tidbits.

As Wes hurries away, he shoves the last of the supplies into his kit. He narrowly misses ramming his forehead into a bedpost.

Although I’m laughing along with Vinasa and Nash, I don’t like seeing Wes so uncomfortable. The next time Eri gets hurt, I’ll take her to Canopus instead.

Just like Eri, I need better boots. Mine are worn out from the running, jumping, sliding, and all-around roughness of my time here, so I go to the Exchange with Eri and my other friends the next day. Orion, Wes, and a burly trainee I’ve seen them with before join our burgeoning group. Nash can barely contain her excitement at the thought of seven people doing something together besides train, and she buys each of us a small pouch of tangy dried cranberries in celebration. I pocket mine to eat later as a post-workout snack.

Purchases at the Exchange, or anywhere else, are simple. As soon as someone walks out the door with merchandise, its price is deducted from their account balance. Vinasa decides upon some faintly glittery elastics for her hair, because “why not feel pretty without getting busted?” She uses one to tie off the end of her braid and coils it in a bun, tucking in the end to hide the sparkle. Defense has the strictest dress code of any department, so she’ll have to wait two years before she can properly show off her bauble. Neither men nor women are allowed ornaments because they make us easy targets. In contrast, the History Department, where Vinasa hopes to work, allows women to wear their hair unbound, and they can even adorn it with accessories, as long as the decorations aren’t unpatriotic.

In the footwear section, rows upon rows of seemingly identical black boots line the walls. They all have special features: steel-weave, good insulation, superior traction. Eri picks up lightweight, flat-soled boots, and with Wes’s approval, decides to buy them without blinking at the exorbitant price of two hundred Sputniks.
Two hundred
. I was right about her family’s wealth.

New boots are more than I can afford, but I manage to find a mildly used pair with “extra-durable” soles and built-in sheaths for five standard-issue daggers. I almost leave them behind because they’re a full twenty-six Sputniks. But Orion says, “If they get you a higher rank, it’ll make up for the price pretty quick.” So, with a twinge of guilt in my intestinal region, I stroll out of the Exchange, the synthetic leather already molding to my feet.

14

OUR STRESS HORMONES REACH NEAR-CRITICAL
saturation as the second evaluation approaches. The instructors don’t reveal anything about its content, but I suspect it will include knowledge and skill assessments concerning the myriad of arms in the lectures and workouts.

Even after an introduction to an array of other instruments, my weapon of choice is still the dagger. I perform decently with a crossbow, another weapon of old, but I find guns with copper bullets too clunky. The reloading is also a pain. I like Electrostuns, electrocution guns of an old Earthbound design, but they’re inefficient weapons, taking too much time to incapacitate an opponent. Militia members on patrol prefer using them to stun rule-breakers. My aim with the standard Lazy was at first shaky, literally, because I trembled whenever I pointed one at a moving target. The thought of putting a destructive violet beam through a living thing still disturbs me far more than the act of stabbing. It’s less organic.

When evaluation day arrives, the instructors surprise us with a written test, which makes me cheer internally. “You’ll get more than enough practice with the weapons later on,” Yinha says. “But if you didn’t want to study them, we don’t want
you
. Today we’ll pick out who paid attention and who was just toying with them. Cool?”

On all sides of me, trainees groan.

Parts of the training floor invert to become rows of desks equipped with large touch screens. There are one hundred open-ended questions, such as “What is the percent efficiency of the standard laser blaster, and what is the wavelength of light emitted?” and “What are the dimensions of the ‘Little Sagittarius’ warhead?”

It’s just another test in Primary
. As I submit one answer after another, I feel grateful that I absorbed the weapons lectures, when quite a few of the other trainees stared off into the distance, talked with friends, or even slept.

Forty-five questions in, I allow myself a break. I wiggle my fingers and roll my head in a circle, cracking the stiff joints in my neck. In the desk to my right, Nash crosses her legs, jiggling the top foot. Two desks behind her, Wes hunches over his desk, his head tilted in confusion as if the text were displayed sideways.

I calculate projectile trajectories and draw collision vectors. I type out redox reactions illustrating the effects of chemical agents on humans and, thinking back to Primary class, describe the source organism or process involved in producing the agents. Although most of the questions don’t worry me, three make me wrinkle my nose and guess. I’m not the best at remembering which Earthbound civilization created which ancient weapon.

This time, the results come out quickly. My heart plummets when I read the name at the top: Callisto Chi.

Wes is second. A month ago, I wouldn’t have cared; I would have even cheered Callisto on because she’s a female in a position usually occupied by a male. But the fact that Jupiter’s girlfriend beat Wes annoys me. And with Jupiter placed sixteenth, I’m impressed that he hasn’t stabbed
her
in the arm yet.

My name appears next to the number eight; I’m satisfied, but frustrated all the same. If I had just remembered who invented the musket, I might have made top seven and would have been en route to paying off Mom’s treatment.

That night, at the Medical quarters, Wes and I go for a long run. I always run faster when he’s around, as if something’s chasing me, but I can’t figure out what it is.

“What happened?” I can’t help but ask.

“You mean on the written examination?” he clarifies, his breathing regular. “Unfortunately, I forgot some obscure facts. Like what exact model of Lazy the Lunar Forces used when they fought off Pacifia and Battery Bay.” The sarcasm in his voice practically drips onto the shiny floors. “Honestly, I didn’t pay attention during the weapons lectures. I thought I was done memorizing things after Primary.”

“It’s hard not to learn when Yinha’s shouting facts at you.”

“I’d disagree. . . . Tell me, do you have an easy time memorizing random bits of babble?”

“As long as they’re interesting.” Ancient history surely isn’t.

“I’m no good at it. Too much memorizing in biology; small wonder I had issues there.” He exhales deeply and lowers his voice. I can barely hear his whisper over our footfalls—and hopefully, neither can anyone listening to our handscreen feeds. “Well, I’m glad someone else is ranked first now. I needn’t fret about Jupiter’s miniature death squad as much.”

My palms grow sticky with sweat, not from exertion but from genuine alarm. “Has he tried to harm you again?”

“His sneaky associate did. Ganymede. If Orion hadn’t gone to the toilet two nights ago and found him hiding near my cot, I’d have a slit Achilles tendon . . . or so I’m told.”