The Armor of God (12 page)

You were right, Mom.

“So who is it,” Ezra asked Alice at some point of the night. “Who is it you told me wanted to pilot my Creux?”

“Sergeant Barnes,” she had replied, inviting him to take a seat. She appeared to be tired. “You know that ring he uses? In his nose? Yeah, he’s just a big old fan of Nandi.”

“
Nandi
—so why is it called The Minotaur?”

“Well that’s just the nickname Zenith gave it. You’ll see. Nandi’s big, bulky, has these two huge horns. He’s a badass.”

“But how do you know?” Ezra asked. “I thought they had been vacant.”

“Oh they haven’t been piloted, but we study the Creux enough to extrapolate everything about them. We’ve seen all twenty-six Creuxen in action in simulations. We know how all of them work even before we find their matches.”

“So can you tell me about Milos? Why isn’t Kiva celebrating with us?”

“He’ll be here soon,” she said and turned around to look at the other pilots. Garros was drunkenly dancing with Erin, picking her up and tossing her into the air like a child. Ezra thought Garros was too drunk to be tossing people around; someone could get hurt. “But Milos is a bit of a touchy subject. Milos has taken more lives than any other Creux. There seems to be something
vicious
about it—like it wants to kill. I don’t know. There’s a process called Assimilation—no, wait. I shouldn’t talk about that right now.”

“No, please do,” Ezra said.

“Sorry, Ezra. It’s a bummer you’ll learn about when you’re not drinking. The point is that Milos has been matched with four others, just like Akiva was matched today. All four of them died the moment they tried to pilot the damn thing.”

“So what’s going to happen to Akiva?”

“Dr. Mizrahi and Dr. Logan will test the crap out of him. There’s always a chance the four other matches were errors in the computers, and that Akiva is the real match. He’ll train with you and Crescent and Poole. If every test he takes confirms he’s a match and can pilot Milos safely, it will be a bright day in here because Milos is the most powerful thing you can imagine. So powerful, it’s the only reason he wasn’t destroyed after killing so many people. If there’s even a slight chance he can be piloted, we need him here.”

“What if he can’t pilot him?”

“He’ll stay here in Zenith, but not as a pilot. He’ll probably be trained as a crewmember for another Creux. He can’t leave and go back to being a civilian.”

“
Who
can’t leave?” He heard Kiva’s voice come from behind them like he was cued.

“There you are,” Alice said and got up to greet him. “Want something to drink?”

“
Please
,” he said, just as he was noticed by the rest of the pilots, who rushed to greet him, chanting
RA! VA! NA!
in what, considering the Creux’s grim past, seemed in poor taste.

RA! VA! NA! MI! LOS! RA! VA! NA!

Kiva didn’t seem to mind. He looked tired, but still accepted a drink from Erin’s hand and a big hug from Jena. Kiva raised his glass for a cheer and downed it.

Ezra woke up the following day feeling like he had been thrown from a moving train. His head was being pounded by an invisible sledgehammer, and every hit was made worse by the incessant knocking on the door.

An instinct of panic told him he had overslept. He hadn’t been told what it was he had to be up for—or, in a more terrifying thought, didn’t remember it. Looking outside told him it was less than an hour after dawn, which put him at the end of only about three hours of sleep.

Ezra lumbered towards the bathroom, splashed water on his face and hair to try to appear less like a corpse, and opened the door. Akiva was waiting at the other side.

“Wow, you look awful. Oh, look: My room is bigger,” he said and walked inside. “I’m here to warn you. In ten minutes, Barnes is coming to take us for some training. I’m not sure what it is, but you better be ready. I already told Jena.”

“And Poole?”

“Oh, right. I’ll tell her on my way down.”

“Thanks for the tip,” Ezra said and walked into the shower, horrified of being caught exhausted and hung over by Barnes. His head hurt too much to be yelled at, and he was far too nauseated to exercise. He could only hope the shower would help.

Seven minutes after Akiva’s visit, Ezra was showered and combed, ready for Barnes’ arrival. He decided to make his bed and clean up the room in case the man decided to step inside and inspect it. Among other things he seemed to have brought back from the party, Ezra found a helmet with two huge plastic horns he had some memory of wearing. They had been a gift from Garros.

The knock on the door finally came, and, thanks to Kiva’s tip, Ezra was halfway presentable. He opened the door and there stood Barnes, looking down at him, silver bull ring on his nose.

“Oh, this will be good,” the man said, looking at Ezra with a mocking smile.

There was a harsh awakening that was both humorous and horrible that morning. Jena, Akiva, Poole, and Ezra were taken down to a field outside the main building, and the dome overhead pretended to be a bright sunny day.

All four of them, especially Jena and Ezra, were sick and exhausted, but that didn’t stop Barnes from making them run laps around the field, then do jumping jacks and calisthenics for the best part of an hour.

Other pilots began appearing from the dormitories, some looking down from their rooms, an audience to a cruel show Barnes was hosting. They began to laugh as Ezra could take the exercise no more and collapsed on the ground. He was sweating, dehydrated, and in dire need of sleep. He was completely sure he was going to throw up and faint.

Then, when they were done, the group of pilots were pointing and laughing, and when Barnes began to laugh too, it finally hit him: The whole thing had been a prank.

“How’s it going, Blanchard? Don’t throw up now,” Barnes said, helping him up. Like Ezra, Jena was so nauseated her skin was almost green. Akiva and Poole looked slightly better “Hope you liked the second part of your welcome ceremony. Follow me.”

Jena grabbed onto Ezra as she walked.

“Another drink?” Garros yelled, laughing. He looked in perfect condition, considering he had drunk more than anyone else.

Ezra smiled and walked into the main building with Barnes. “All right, as you may have guessed, this whole thing was to haze you on your first day.”

“Ah. Funny,” Jena said. They walked into the dining room, which, impressively, was spotless—like the party that took place just a few hours before had never happened.

“Your day is scheduled to begin at noon with a meeting with all the other pilots. After that, you’ll go down to the main offices to meet with Dr. Mizrahi. You will meet your crew and receive your class schedule. Then you and your crew will become familiar with the Creux laboratories and of course your Creux.” He turned to Ezra, who immediately remembered Alice saying Barnes was a fan of Besoe Nandi.

“What do we do until then, sir?” Jena asked.

“You might want to use these hours to begin your Moreau tutoring, Blanchard, but you have free time,” he said and chuckled, walking away.

“I can’t believe they did that,” Ezra said, hand on the wall, hoping not to drop unconscious or vomit again. Jena and Kiva only laughed. “I don’t know about you guys but I’m not feeling receptive for any tutoring. I’m getting breakfast and a few hours of sleep, if that’s okay. What about you?”

“Yeah. Yeah, let’s do that,” Jena said, expecting Ezra to follow her toward a table.

Akiva didn’t follow, and Ezra didn’t see him again for several hours.

Chapter 7

The Minotaur

Ezra was still tired and ill
when he met with Alice in the Compatibility labs. He was directed towards a small meeting room, where he found Alice in the presence of two others.

“Ezra, how was your morning? I hear Barnes got you good,” Alice said. She looked remarkably well, like she hadn’t had a single drink the night before. Ezra still looked at her with great respect; she was so beautiful in such an honest and human way. The fact that she was his superior and teacher gave her an added aura of intelligent authority that was irresistible.

“I think I handled it well, ma’am. Where are the others?”

“With their respective teams, in their own meetings. Welcome to
your
first Crew Meeting—the first of many. I want you to meet the two crewmembers who will be in charge of Besoe Nandi: Dr. Lance Mustang, and Lance Corporal Katherine Covington.”

Ezra shook their hands. Mustang looked down at Ezra from almost a foot above, but had a frame that made his uniform sag as if dangling loosely from a hanger. His uniform, though clearly Zenith’s, had a few differences from the rest: it lacked the shoulder pads and many of the pockets. Ezra deduced that this was the uniform worn by the non-military Zenith personnel.

Katherine seemed almost completely opposite in appearance: she was very short, yet stood with a poise and confidence that turned her into a striking figure.

“Nice to meet you Dr. Mustang, Lance Corporal Covington,” he said.

“Pleasure is mine, sir,” Katherine said, bowing her head in an awkward gesture Ezra’s insecurities did not appreciate. “Feel free to call me Kat, sir.”

“Blanchard, sir, it is an honor,” said Lance in a strange accent. “I am an admirer of your family.”

“Where’s your accent from, if you don’t mind me asking?”

“I was born in Kerek, sir. It’s another domed city, very, very far away. It—well, it doesn’t exist anymore. My family was brought here after I was born, and it fell to the laani not much after.”

“When was that, anyway? You look very young to call yourself ‘doctor.’”

“I’m thirty-two years old, sir,” he replied, and Ezra was surprised. Lance didn’t have a single hair on his face and had skin like a child. Were he to guess Lance’s age, he wouldn’t have gone past twenty.

“Normally your counselor would be here too, but you made a request for an outside transfer,” said Alice. “Corporal Susan Higgins, right?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Ezra said. “I was told I would take some tests to see if she’s a good match for me.”

“Yeah, you will, tomorrow night after classes. Just between us, I’m glad you made the request; I am very, very fond of Corporal Higgins—I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for her. As CDSL, my vote in favor of her transfer will have some weight,” she said. “I wish I had had that power last year.”

He nodded and smiled. Ezra was glad he had finally found someone who thought it was a good idea to have Susan in Zenith. He had truly begun to doubt her intentions and question her methods; Alice’s approval of Susan was remarkably validating. “Thank you very much, ma’am. I appreciate it.”

“For now, Dr. Mustang and Lance Corporal Covington are assigned to Besoe Nandi. They’ve been training to be Creux crewmembers for a while now, and they know everything you need to know about Nandi. They will be sharing a dormitory with you and are at your disposal if you need anything.”

Though it hadn’t been stated outright, it seemed to Ezra that these two individuals were his subordinates, if only to a limited capacity. Ezra wasn’t sure he liked the idea of being someone’s superior—he had imagined if he ever got to that position, he would have already gained enough experience to be comfortable.

Lance stepped forward and handed Ezra a file. “These are the specifications of Besoe Nandi, sir. We will go through them so you can familiarize yourself with the suit. Afterwards, we can go down to the docking bay so you can see it in the flesh. . . so to speak.”

“I’d like that,” Ezra said and looked down at the folder, which had the Besoe Nandi insignia printed on the cover. He opened the file to read the first document.

Something told him that it was data he had to memorize, but it was hard when he understood so little of the information presented. Of course, Dr. Yuri had said he wouldn’t pilot the Creux for at least a month, so there was time—and eagerness—to learn.

The meeting began when they sat down and the crew, with occasional contributions by Alice, answered some of Ezra’s questions. There were three topics in particular that concerned him. “It says here the suit is heavy and that I need to be physically strong to pilot it efficiently. I’m not.”

“We are aware,” Alice said. “You’ll have physical training to gain some weight and add strength so you can control your Creux like we expect you to. That is not something you should be worried about.”

Ooh boy.

“Okay. So, uh, what is this stat here—
temperament
?”

Kat answered, or tried to. “That’s a word coined by Dr. Dahlia Mizrahi, may she rest in peace. She used it to define the Creux’s personality. It’s hard to explain until you pilot it, Blanchard, sir, but each suit has a mind of its own. It will test you, play with your head, and even fight you for control; it is very important you never lose to him. Once you meet Besoe Nandi, you’ll describe the suit’s temperament to us so we can profile him.”

This was particularly hard to understand, and any further explanation coming from any of the three experts only made the whole thing more confusing.