The Armor of God (20 page)

But dreams ended, and when his did, there was only pain.

A soft song drew him away from the painless land of dreams and back into reality, where life had to continue, with or without his participation. Ezra finally opened his eyes to the heartbreaking realization of having survived.

His throat hurt, as did his ears, and he couldn’t remember much of the events that had landed him in this recovery room. His last clear memory was being tackled by Garros, and then endless flashes that reminded him that Alice was dead.

That Susan was dead.

Had that part been a feverish dream? His hope was low.

Ezra turned his head to find some unlikely company: it was Poole, sleeping curled up into a ball on a very small couch that barely contained her.

“Poole?” he said in a weak, raspy voice, and the words were like claws raking at his throat.

She opened her eyes and got up with a start before leaving the room without saying a word and in a hurry.

“He’s up,” she said outside, and he barely heard—his hearing was not quite right, as if his ears were blocked. Ezra tried looking around to see that Poole had been his only company, and a thought shook him: How much time had passed since the day of the accident, and what repercussions had it had? The explosion had been enormous, making a clean sphere in the structure; had Zenith suffered further structural damage?

Was Besoe Nandi still operable, or had this accident taken more—

He winced and a tear rolled down his face.

Alice Nolan. Susan Higgins. They wouldn’t walk into the recovery room to wish him good health and thank the creator for their survival—they hadn’t had his luck, good or bad.

What about Garros? He had been burnt like raw meat protecting Ezra; would he share his guilt, or would he be part of it?

Poole walked into the room again, followed by Jena and Kiva. Jena ran to his side and hugged him. The pressure of her arms hurt. “You finally woke up!” she said, but her words were a blur to his ears. When she took a step back, Kiva hugged him in a friendly embrace.

“How long?” Ezra managed to say, licking his dry lips.

“Seven days,” Kiva said, and again Ezra had to read his lips to understand the words being said.

Ezra started crying again. Jena took his hand, squeezing it in a comforting gesture that was as futile as it was authentic. “I’m sorry this happened,” said Jena from far away. “It’s been difficult, but they said you would recover. You heal fast, Ezra—just like Garros.”

“So Garros—”

“I’m fine,” he said. The large man had been standing by the door. He was wearing his uniform already, but needed the help of a crutch to walk. Limping, Garros walked towards the couch and sat, smiling behind his beard. “We’re hard to kill, Blanchard.”

He took a deep breath, then summoned the courage to ask: “Did someone die?”

“Maybe you should—”

“Please.”

Garros sighed. “Lieutenant Nolan. Two-thirds of her crew. Corporal Higgins.”

The confirmation felt like a burning blast—like the explosion all over again.

“They had their farewell ceremonies; we missed them. We’re making preparations to move on,” Garros said and looked away from Ezra. “We have to do what we have to do.”

Move on,
he thought.
Like it’s so damn easy; just prepare yourself and move on. Yeah, right.

“Now that you’re awake, all the pilots have to vote for a new leader of the CDS,” Garros said. “Then we’ll have to try the synchronization tests again. Whoever is elected will synchronize with you.”

Ezra began sitting up and Kiva helped him. “What really happened to Alice? Did you figure it out? Why was she screaming, blaming Kiva? He wasn’t doing anything.”

“Only three bodies were found in the rubble, Ezra,” Kiva said, a bit uncomfortable. “Alice wasn’t in there, so we think that she was assimilated. She lost control and Absolute Omega betrayed her; it overcharged, causing the explosion. Nothing the computers could pick up suggested it was Milos’ fault, so it’s still considered Active and unhazardous.”

The explosion again. He tried to swallow the lump in his throat. “And Nandi?”

“Nandi and the others are active too; the damage to him was minimal,” said Garros.

It was stupid to try and think of that as a comfort; two of the only people he had grown to trust had violently died doing something he was expected to do again. How could he hope to find a silver lining?

The feelings he brought with him into Zenith returned: He wanted to go home; he was wearing boots that were too big for him. “Am I going to be okay?”

Jena nodded. “We didn’t expect you would wake up until tomorrow, so you’re probably doing well. Oh, and your hearing will return soon. Most of your injuries were external. You’ll be fine, Ezra.”

“You might return to the classrooms as soon as next week,” said Garros. “If everything goes as planned.”

“That doesn’t seem to happen a lot around here,” he mumbled.

Though his hearing wouldn’t fully recover for another week, it took Ezra four more days to feel strong enough to leave the recovery room. That day was a Wednesday, and he left the bed early enough to be able to shower and catch breakfast before his first class.

He sat down alone, not finding Jena, Kiva, or Poole, but was soon joined by Garros, Erin, and Tessa. Tessa regarded him with a shift in her judgments. She hadn’t spoken to him much and had given him the impression of coldness, not unlike Poole. But now, as she looked at him with a new sense of empathy, he felt in her a warmth he had only seen once before: during Leonardo Crescent’s ceremony, as the mournful notes of a dirge left her violin.

“Where are the others?” Tessa asked, arranging her long brown hair in a complex braid. “You look better, Ezra. Bit thinner, though.”

“Yeah, no kidding,” Ezra said, moving his food around in his plate. He had been disappointed in feeling the new uniform sag again; in recovery, he had lost some of the size he had earned during that first month. Looking at Garros, Ezra thought the same had happened to him; his arms didn’t quite fill out his very big uniform as they did before.

“You’ll be all right, Ezra,” said Erin with a smile. The memory of opening his eyes and seeing her face covered in dust, tears leaving tracks down her face, suddenly returned. “The explosion hurled you towards me. I thought you were dead, when it happened.”

“I should’ve been so lucky.”

“Don’t say that crap,” Garros growled. “I know how you feel—we were both there, and I know how it feels, having survived when Alice and the others didn’t—”

“Garros,” Erin tried to stop him.

He ignored her. “Now you know how valuable your life is in here, and how fragile. We like to say to the new guys that it isn’t, but it is. We
cannot
afford to lose pilots. We’re the only ones who can fight the laani. Without us, humanity will vanish. You follow?”

Ezra barely did. His eyes had wandered off towards the far wall by the entrance, where four new pictures had been hung. He hadn’t yet walked up to see the faces on the wall—it was too difficult to think of Alice or Susan staring back at him over proud smiles. “Who is that?” he asked.

Staring at the new pictures stood a woman in military uniform, still as a statue.

“That’s Miles,” said Erin. “What was her first name? Regina?”

“Rebecca,” answered Tessa. “Hadn’t you seen her before, Ezra?”

“I think so,” he said. “I saw her at the party when we got here, I think. Who is she?”

“She is, or was, one of Absolute Omega’s crewmembers,” replied Tessa. “She wasn’t summoned for your synchronization test so she wasn’t there when it happened. She was close with Alice. I don’t think I have seen her since the ceremony.”

“I heard she locked herself in the dormitories, only comes out to pay her respects to the picture,” Erin said. “If you think
you’re
dealing with guilt—she lost three close friends, coworkers, and maybe her job because of the accident.”

“It happened. We survived. We did. Get the hell over it,” Garros said, and Ezra didn’t think he was being honest at all. The guilt of living, the loss of a close friend—and his leader—had cast a shadow upon him he wasn’t ready to see.

Ezra stared at Rebecca. The stripes and symbols on the shoulder of her army uniform matched Kat’s, but with the addition of one stripe at the bottom, suggesting she was a rank higher. Maybe a lieutenant? Ezra still hadn’t yet memorized the system.

Suddenly, Rebecca turned away from the picture of Alice and left the dining hall.

“There she goes,” Tessa said. “Back to bed.”

“Poor girl. What else is she going to do? She’s in mourning, and it’s not like she has a pilot or a Creux to attend,” said Erin. “Blanchard, in better news, you and your friends passed the Advancement Test. How do you feel about that?”

“I’m glad,” Ezra said, but his tone was not very convincing—he didn’t even care enough to ask for his score. “Who won the pool?”

There was a quiet moment, and Ezra would have felt responsible for the awkwardness if it didn’t seem so insignificant now. “No, Blanchard, we—we didn’t think it would be appropriate to . . . never mind. We’re really proud of you. We’re happy you’re going to join us,” she said. “Tomorrow before lunch we’re gonna gather all the pilots to cast a vote for the new CDSL.”

“Can I vote for anyone?” Ezra asked. “Any pilot, I mean.”

“No,” explained Erin. “You need a few prerequisites to be a candidate: two years minimum in Zenith, at least two hundred and fifty hours in the Equivalency Suits, at least fifty successful Creux operations. The only pilots who cover those bases are Felix Goodwin, of Iron Seraphim—I don’t think you’ve met him; he doesn’t socialize—Garros, Jed, and myself.”

“Jed—is he the one in the recovery room?” asked Ezra, remembering the burnt bald man he saw before meeting Jena’s father.

“Yes,” said Erin. “He’s doing better than he was when you met him.”

“I vote for Garros,” said Ezra, and the bald pilot spat out his coffee in surprise.

“It’s a . . . private vote, Blanchard,” said Erin, sounding somewhat hurt by Ezra’s candor.

“And the
wrong
vote,” added Garros, cleaning coffee from his beard with his arm. “I know we’re friends, Blanchard, and I appreciate it, but I don’t want the position—if I win, I’ll step down, so don’t waste your vote on me.”

“I want it,” Erin said. “I’d be good at it. I was friends with Alice; I learned from her. I’m not supposed to say any of these things, but I’d appreciate your vote.”

“Well, okay. I don’t know Felix, and Jed doesn’t seem to be in condition to be promoted. I don’t care. I’ll vote for you,” Ezra said, and wanted to finish:
But you should know, last time I got someone promoted, bad things happened.

He didn’t say it. He didn’t say anything for the rest of the meal.

The only thing on his mind was Rebecca.

That Monday started a new bittersweet period in their life in Zenith. It would take months for Ezra to really recover from the effects of Absolute Omega’s destruction, but Zenith had a way of always moving forward, and Ezra felt like a passenger on an unstoppable train, always being herded forward, never being allowed to linger on what had past.

Now that all four had passed the Advancement Tests, most of the Entry Lectures were taken from their curriculums, replaced by more advanced and intricate versions of themselves. The biggest change for him was the fact that he, Jena, Kiva, and Poole wouldn’t take all their classes together. Now, each had a curriculum designed to cater to their specific educational and training needs. Ezra, being the pilot of a Tank-class Creux, would take fewer science courses and more physical and combat training. Jena and Poole’s Creuxen, though of different classifications (Long Range and Support respectively), shared many similarities in combat, so they were rarely apart.

Akiva seemed to be in too many places at once; The Armor of God was so well rounded, it didn’t have a specific class: it was a wildcard, and could function and excel in any position it was needed. His coursework would no doubt be the heaviest of all.

And then, for all the time Ezra didn’t spend with his three original friends, he spent it with Garros and by extension with Erin. The two of them seemed inseparable, and Ezra wondered if there were romantic feelings involved. Tessa joined them often; it seemed to him that she would like to enjoy their company more, but was afraid of being a third wheel. She seemed to join them more often when Ezra was there.

At the end of the first day, he sat down to have the first meal with Jena, Kiva and Poole in a very long time. Though he had grown to really like Garros and Erin, there was still another layer of confidence among the four who stepped into Zenith together—the kind of trust he had felt towards Alice and Susan—and he depended on that trust to comfortably say what he wanted to say.

When they were all sitting down, Ezra opened the conversation: “I need to tell you three something—something I haven’t told anyone else, about what happened,” he said, and this air of mystery drew their attention. “I think what happened wasn’t an accident.”

“What? The explosion?” Poole asked.