The Armor of God (5 page)

“Oh,
yes
!” Jena joined in. “That sounds like so much fun.”

“Wait, what? Are you serious?” Ezra said, looking at Susan.

The corporal regarded the other two and looked at Ezra. “Well, your test results qualify both of you, I suppose. I’ll have to confirm in Zenith, but if Ezra doesn’t have a problem, guess he can choose one of you to be his tutor.”

“
Hooh boy
,” Ezra muttered.

Akiva and Jena looked at him, each hoping to be picked. “What do you say?” Jena asked.

He wanted Jena, if only so he could get to know her better and spend more time with her, but was afraid to put his ignorance on display; he didn’t want Jena thinking he was stupid. Akiva was obviously smart as well, and just as valid a choice, but choosing him would mean intellectually rejecting Jena.

Burn my guts, why did they put me in this position?

“Either is fine by me,” he said in what seemed like the only diplomatic escape. “You guys decide.”

At this, they looked at each other. Ezra had made the right decision to avoid choosing altogether. He didn’t know who had gotten the best score in the test, anyway; that would probably help them choose.

“All right, then. We’re done for today,” Susan said. “If you want to go home, you can go home now, but your physical test is tomorrow at eight in the morning, so make sure you’re here in time or else we’ll go looking for you, and you don’t want that. If you’d rather stay in here, we can provide you a dormitory for tonight.”

“I’ll stick around,” Akiva said. “I want to get to know the base a bit better.

“Me too,” Jena said.

“I’ll go home,” Ezra added.

“All right. Jena and Akiva, please come with me. Oh, and Ezra, you have a visitor waiting outside,” Susan said. “Go back to the main entrance, where you came in this morning. And make sure you’re here for the physical test tomorrow.”

Ezra nodded, more concerned about the supposed visitor than he was about the physical test, in which he’d also make a fool of himself.

Ezra walked across the army base, squeezing himself between dozens of soldiers and scientists making their way to their respective nightly activities. All of them were bigger than he was.

I don’t belong here. I don’t belong in Zenith. I don’t belong in the army.

Finding his way out was no problem at all—not only was his mind good at mapping space, no matter how new it was to him, but he also had a particular drive to find the exit.

Yet he knew that, in a way, he would never find it. This was his life now.

As though fate was trying to create some cruel and poetic contrast, Ezra found himself facing his old life standing at the main entrance of the base.

“Oh,
Ezra
!” she said immediately upon laying eyes on him.

He was surprised, but Ezra hugged his mother so hard, he almost cried.

Chapter 3

The Outsider

Before that night
,
Ezra didn’t know how much he had missed the house he grew up in, and something was telling him that it was the last he’d ever spend there.

He of course couldn’t know this, but he was right.

Earlier he had shared dinner with his parents, and it had been difficult to sit through for all involved. Ezra hadn’t seen his parents since the night he decided to leave the family, so it was very awkward and painful for him. It was hard to imagine what
they
were feeling. He was glad neither of his sisters was home.

“We were told this morning,” Tara said, finishing a bowl of chicken salad. “Eliza Mizrahi called me.”

“I’m sorry,” Ezra said and put a piece of meat in his mouth. He hated to admit how good it was. He hadn’t eaten decent food in too long; he understood why his father had asked him why he looked even thinner.

“Why are you apologizing, son?” his father asked, getting up to gather his and his mother’s empty plates. “We’re proud.”

“Why? I didn’t do anything to earn it.”

“We’re proud and happy you found meaning to your life—even if it was more . . .
imposed
than found,” his mom said before putting her salad plate aside and taking a sip of tea. “It’s important for parents to see their child find a path. It’s a relief and a blessing.”

Ezra looked down at his plate, a knot in his throat.

They were proud that he would become a soldier? Maybe they had never actually expected him to follow in their path. Like his mother, whose family name they all took, nearly all children born with Blanchard blood had grown to become scholars and scientists of great renown. In a society like Roue’s, where intellect was celebrated, that had turned them into icons. His older sister had both been born with the Blanchard gift, and was presently being trained to follow in her parents’ footsteps. Even his eight-year-old sister was already displaying sparks of genius in the field of music.

But Ezra had never shared that gift, or an interest in the intellectual life. He had been an adventurous brat—curious and inquisitive, but not one of above average intellect. He had always felt like a disappointment, and, perhaps a bit too late, this was the first time he realized that it had all been just his insecurity; his parents loved him for who he was.

“Son?” his father said. “What are your thoughts?”

“I don’t want to do this, Dad,” he said, and felt his voice beginning to crack.

His mother got up and walked the length of the table to kneel next to her son. “Are you scared?” He nodded. “Of course you are. Uncertainty is a monster that can only be fought with patience; but it fades, Ezra. All this pain you’re feeling will disappear in Zenith, once you know exactly what that new life is going to be about.”

“Can’t you do something about it? You’re rich, you’re powerful enough to—”

“No, son,” she said. “This is something you can’t run away from. I know it’s scary, but there is a reason why these things happen, even if you can’t tell what it is right now.”

“That’s not fair,” Ezra protested. He felt like a child.

“Tara, why are you handling it like it’s some kind of curse?” his father said after he finished lighting a cigarette. “No, Ezra, it’s definitely
not
fair, but to the other kids your age. You will learn how wrong you are soon. Like your mother says, the uncertainty inevitably fades. You’ll have a new home in Zenith, and a new life. A lot of the questions that terrify most people your age will be answered, and you will be protecting Roue from—”

“Patrich,” she silenced him.

It became immediately obvious that his dad had said something he wasn’t supposed to say. So the Creux were used to protect Roue. Did that mean Ezra would be trained to use Creux—whatever they were—in
battle
?

His future became immediately scarier.

“Sweetheart, just remember that it’s something you’ll have to do. It may be painful, and scary, but it has to come. You need to be strong enough to let it come, and let it transform you into someone new.”

She sounded like Susan. All this talk about growth and change. He wasn’t ready.

That night, Ezra went to sleep in his room, crying and letting his mother hold his head and play with his thick hair. She did her best to comfort him with stories, wisdom, and lullabies. Outside, the night was heavy, playing the song of dozens of nightbirds that didn’t really exist.

He woke up early the next day, and his mother was still there in the room that he had made his own the instant he had been deemed old enough to sleep alone. All the art he had put on the walls, his drawings, pictures, books, and toys were still in the exact same places he had left them.

“Mom,” he said. “Is there anything you can do to help me?”

“I can be there for you,” she said. “And I will. Me and your father and your sisters. You’re not going away, Ezra, and we’ll always be here for you.”

It was exactly the answer Ezra was hoping for.

Ezra took a bath and got dressed. He found his mother sitting at the breakfast table, waiting for her husband to finish cooking breakfast. The Blanchards were unreasonably rich in Roue—one of the richest families, in fact—and despite having hired a cook of incredible talent, when it came to breakfast, it was always Patrich Blanchard standing in front of the stove. His dad put before him a plate of eggs, bacon, and sausages fixed to look like a smiling face, as he always did when it was one of his children’s birthdays. Looking at that abstract face made him laugh for the first time in days.

“Thank you, Dad,” Ezra said and began eating.

“I heard from Dr. Mizrahi that you’re doing a physical test today,” Tara said, pouring what could be her second or third cup of tea. “How do you think you’ll fare? Better than in the Moreau?”

“How do you know about the Moreau?”

“Numbers fly,” she replied and winked, drinking her pleasantly scented tea that would always remind him of her.

“I don’t know what they’ll make me do. If it’s running a few laps and doing some sit-ups, I’ll probably do fine.”

Two hours later, Ezra was vomiting his breakfast all over his new boots.

As he had told his mother, he was somewhat confident in his ability to perform in a physical test, supposing that it wasn’t a truly brutal affair. Though this could barely be classified as such, it was still an unexpected onslaught on a weakened body.

He had said good-bye to his mother and father at the entrance to the base, where he found Susan waiting, a large black duffel bag in her hand. The corporal had saluted and greeted Tara Blanchard like she was talking to her CO, expressing what a great honor it was to work with a member of the Blanchard family.

“We’re happy he’ll be working with Zenith, Corporal. He’s going to make you proud,” Tara had told her.

“I am sure he will, ma’am. We’ll contact you later today and let you know what proceeds. Thank you for bringing him,” Susan replied before saluting and leading Ezra away. His mother was smiling when he walked into the base.

Not slowing their pace, she put the black duffel bag in his hand. “You’re signing your contracts after the test today, so you’ll be wearing uniform at all times while you’re in the A-District base. In Zenith it might be different, but I’m still not certain; they do things their own way.”

Still walking, he unzipped the bag to see what was inside: fatigues, underwear, socks, and boots. Not his first choice in clothing, but his mother had convinced him to stop resisting and let the army and Zenith transform him into what they willed, as it would be something greater.

They reached a large field behind the base normally used to play sport but presently the setting for the training of dozens of soldiers. Ezra hoped his test would be taken elsewhere; he didn’t want to do it in front of so many strangers—he didn’t want to be made fun of.

Susan led him to a locker room and stayed outside. “I’ll go wait for Jena. When you’re done changing, wait by the flagpole for Sergeant Barnes. I’ll see you for lunch when the test is over. There’s a lot we need to discuss, and someone you have to meet—another member of the program.”

There’s a fourth one?

Ezra had found the locker room almost empty except for Akiva and a woman stepping out of the adjacent shower stalls. Akiva had been sitting on a bench, all dressed up in uniform and boots, apparently waiting for Ezra so he wouldn’t have to be alone outside.

“Morning,” he said, shaking his hand, and motioned at the uniform he was wearing. “How does it look?”

“Like it fits,” he said, and it did. Akiva actually looked like a soldier, while he would look like a child wearing a costume. “Do I really need to wear their issued underwear? What’s wrong with mine?”

“I don’t know, but I’m afraid so,” Akiva said and began to tighten the laces of his boots. “I don’t get it either.”

Ezra stripped down to his skin and got dressed again with the clothes in his duffel bag. To his surprise, Susan’s eye had been very accurate, and the clothes fit him as well as they did Akiva, even if the fatigues hung more loosely on Ezra’s scrawny shoulders.

“Pants go in the boots,” Akiva said, and showed how he had stuffed the bottom of the pants inside his boots. “Like this.”

After arranging his pants as directed by Akiva, Ezra was fully dressed. The uniform had the effect of equalizing him with this environment, which made him feel and look more confident, so when he followed Akiva out into the field Ezra actually felt ready.

Jena had joined them only a few minutes later, fully dressed in uniform like Susan’s, her family name also stitched onto her chest.

Ezra was surprised to find Private Bullring—whose real rank and name was Sergeant Lucius Barnes—joining them exactly at the agreed-upon time, to the second. There were no introductions, conversations, or pleasantries: Sgt. Barnes got down to the test even before he reached the flagpole.

The huge man started by making them run around the entire base, and by the third lap, Ezra felt sick and regretted his dad’s heavy breakfast. After that, with no rest at all, they were asked to drop to the ground and do fifty pushups, followed by fifty sit-ups, followed by another five laps around the base (a distance of about five miles, according to Barnes, who would time this last run). Ezra did well in the sit-ups and the run, but could barely finish the pushups in a way Barnes found satisfactory.