The Armor of God (8 page)

Or maybe you were being a bitch,
Ezra thought bitterly, and then regretted it.

“I saw you in the showers yesterday, giving crap to my boy Ezra,” Jena said and shook Poole’s hand. “So you’re in the program too? I’m Je—I mean: Private First Class Crescent.”

“Private First Class Poole,” she replied. “But I prefer Vivian.”

They continued a conversation that he didn’t hear, and didn’t want to hear. At Akiva’s suggestion, Ezra got up and walked towards the counter for another round of food. Maybe he did need to eat more now; he didn’t want his uniform to be so loose forever.

“Hey, Ezra,” Jena said when he returned with a fresh plate. “If you’re tired, maybe you can catch some sleep on the way to Zenith.” She spread butter on her toast.

“Oh, I don’t think so,” Susan chuckled, glancing up from the book she was studying. Ezra saw the extremely long title on the spine:
The Brain, The Nervous System and Cognition: Teaching and Research Methodology
, by Dahlia Mizrahi. Ezra knew that name. Dahlia Mizrahi had been his mother’s friend. She was Eliza’s deceased sister. “I don’t see how.”

Not five minutes had passed since Ezra, Jena, Kiva, and Vivian boarded the train to Zenith when Sergeant Barnes, whom Ezra had met as a tough but friendly man, appeared from the front cabin, transformed into a horrifying thing.

His uniform made the already huge man look even larger; the ring he wore on his nose was black and thick, lined with a yellow stripe. His brow was twisted into a scowl, and his eyes didn’t seem to blink. He didn’t speak, but his presence was incredibly oppressive.

All five of them were on their feet because the train—or at least this car—didn’t have seats: only tough plastic loops that hung from the ceiling like nooses. The car itself was strangely empty; it even lacked windows: the walls were just dull, solid gray. Ezra would later find out that the train track was built several dozen feet underground, as construction in the infected and hostile environment above ground was impossible.

All that told him was that construction of the Zenith Headquarters so far away from Roue was a sound strategic choice. Zenith, for whatever reason, should be vastly separate from the civilian haven that was the Roue dome.

“We will be in the Zenith HQ in about twenty minutes,” he yelled through the roar of the train; his voice commanded power few animals could match. “When we get there, you will walk straight to Auditorium B, where you will meet with Dr. Yuri Logan. He is the president of Zenith and one of the heads of the Creux Defense Program
and your superior
. You will undergo New Member Orientation, a lecture that will last until noon. Further instructions will be given to you then. In the meantime, you will read and sign a confidentiality agreement. Nothing of what you see, hear, or do in Zenith will ever leave Zenith or you’re facing martial court. Don’t even share anything that happens in there, down to the consistency of the craps you take,
got it
?”

“Yes sir!” all four of them yelled together.

Sergeant Barnes left the car and returned a minute later with four documents, which he gave to Akiva to pass to the others.

A sudden curve in the track made the train swerve, sending Poole crashing against Ezra. He caught her before she fell and helped her back up. She thanked him when she grabbed onto her loop again.

“Nice,” Barnes said to Ezra, producing a pen from one of the many pockets in his uniform. Somehow, that minor acknowledgement make Ezra feel good about himself. He looked at Poole; her eyes were on the windowless wall.

“Sir?” Akiva said. “It says here we won’t have means of communication to Roue.”

“That’s right,” Barnes replied. He seemed to have a center of gravity like a pyramid; not hanging on to anything, he was standing in the middle of the car like a thousand-pound statue. “From now until your first visit back to Roue, you will be entirely secluded in Zenith. Now sign.”

Akiva took the pen from Barnes’ hand and read the document reluctantly. Finally, Jena passed a copy to Poole and finally Ezra, so he could get to reading.

The jargon was technical and confusing, but the message was clear, and made clearer by Barnes: his life in Zenith could only exist in Zenith, and be shared only with those within Zenith. The alternative was too terrifying to consider.

Of course there was no point in trying to negotiate; the agreement was a standardized document without room to accommodate either one of them. After skimming through it, finding nothing to surprise him further, Ezra asked for the pen and signed, being the first to do so.

Barnes took the document and pen from Ezra’s hand and waited for the rest. He went back to his loop.

They were all in silence when the train came to a halt.

“Welcome to Zenith,” Barnes said and invited them to step outside.

“What is a Creux?” the tall, thin man said, and the acoustics of the enormous auditorium carried his voice.

The group had followed Barnes from the train to the auditorium, never slowing their pace. Ezra had hoped he’d get at least a glance of what the Zenith headquarters looked like, but all he managed to see were long, white hallways. They had found the auditorium ready for their orientation: four desks in the front row were ready with a bottle of water and a thick plastic-bound booklet for each.

“The Creux is a mystery. We don’t know who made them. We don’t know where they come from. All we know is what they do: They save humanity from extinction. Refer to figure 2.0 in your booklet, please,” he said.

The man giving them the lecture was Dr. Yuri Logan, and there was something about him that made Ezra uncomfortable. His hair was slicked back tightly, and a thin mustache did not flatter his pale complexion. Also, the expensive suit he wore was far too large for a man of such narrow frame.

“Figure 2.0 is a picture of the first Creux that was excavated. It was discovered twenty-seven years ago by Dr. Julian Mizrahi, who christened his discovery a Creux, after a word in a dead language meaning ‘hollow.’”

Ezra looked at the picture, which showed a man standing next to a forty-foot-tall suit of armor, surrounded by desert. The photo was captioned: DR. JULIAN MIZRAHI & CODENAME ‘FIRST SILVER’ // 6/5/504 A.F.

Was that suit of armor the Creux?

“The Creux are beings of varying sizes and shapes. Though some pieces of the Creux appear biological in nature, they are entirely covered by a hard outer shell: an exoskeleton. They possess some very unique abilities you will learn about during your time here. A total of twenty-six Creux have been excavated since First Silver, all discovered inside or close to Roue. Ever since First Silver, studies have been made to determine the suits’ origins, but nothing conclusive has been discovered—
no questions
,” he said when Jena raised her hand. “Next image.”

Ezra flipped the page of the booklet. Every page was stamped with the words ZENITH in black and a large CONFIDENTIAL in red. The next photograph depicted a tiny shadow against a grainy gray background Ezra couldn’t really recognize.

“What you’re looking at is Creux model c-05, codename Vector Prima. It was discovered a few years after First Silver, and it measured thirty-seven feet in height. That photograph shows Vector Prima measuring less than a micrometer.”

“Wait, what?” The words escaped Ezra.

“Through nearly two decades of studying the Creux, we discovered their purpose: they have the ability to change in mass without losing its structural integrity or its power. They can become as small as you can appreciate in that photograph and return to its original size. Zenith was created to study and harvest this ability, and use it in the benefit of humankind.”

“You use it to fight disease?” Jena asked, disbelieving eyes on the picture.

“Yes,” Dr. Yuri said. “Whoever built the Creux, they did so for a very specific purpose: to combat the laani.”

Ezra frowned. Five centuries earlier, during an event called the Fall of Terria, an alien organism had crashed on the planet, bringing with it a deadly virus and an army of monstrous creatures that had wiped out most human life on the planet. They were the reason why cities like Roue were built in domes, secluded from the contaminated air that populated the rest of the world, and whatever monsters remained.

“There’s a
cure
for the laani?”

“I never said that word,” Dr. Yuri replied. “So far, the use of Creuxen has proven useful in combating the virus, but it will be years, maybe decades, before an actual cure is found. Zenith, and the Creux, are tasked with this enormous responsibility, which you will now share.”

Ezra felt as though his throat would close up. He could barely breathe. Pieces began to fall into place as he remembered the conversation in Mizrahi’s office. Akiva and Jena had been barely familiar with the Creux, but not one of the four knew their purpose. Mizrahi had used the word
commune
. His father had used the word
protect
. They expected him to get into those monstrous suits and battle the laani?

“I expect you have questions,” the man said.

“Are
we
going to be trained to pilot these Creux. . .en?
Inside
an infected body? How does that even work?” Jena asked.

Once again, everyone except Ezra seemed to be far too calm for the information being given.

“A lot of people have died trying to understand the way a Creux is piloted. It needs to be synchronized with the mind of a human being, who controls it remotely. The pilot’s body is never put inside the actual Creux—his mind is.”

This was too much information for Ezra to absorb or understand.

“In here we have a saying: For every body a soul, and for every Creux a pilot. The reason why you’re here is because the Creux rejects control, and each can only be host to one very specific person. The blood inside the four of you is a match to one Creux that was made for you to pilot, even before you were born.”

None of this makes any sense. What the hell is happening?

For the first time, both Kiva and Jena seemed to be as concerned as Ezra felt.

“Pages four and five in your booklets will show you a up-to-date roster of the Creux that have been discovered. The first column is the Creux model, numbered in the order they were discovered; the second column is the code name, given to it by its discoverer; the third column has the alias of that particular model, if it has one; the fourth is the pilot who matched the Creux; and the final one delineates the current status of the Creux.”

Ezra looked down at the roster.

“One of the ones that are defined as ‘vacant’ will be yours: your new home, your new id, from now until the day you die.”

Chapter 5

To Each His Own

The rest of the lecture was a haze
of confusing new information that scared him but left him with a paradoxical thirst for more. There were far too many questions he wanted an answer for, and very few
could
be answered.

It was difficult for Ezra to understand that a whole branch of the government, millions in resources and manpower, were being used to support a program entirely based on a mystery. How was it possible that even Dr. Yuri knew next to nothing about the origins of the Creux?

Maybe it was his own skepticism and cynicism, but Ezra was sure that he was keeping secrets from the four new members of the program. Maybe once they had advanced a little in their training, they would be qualified to receive more information.

“Like I said, there are eight vacant Creux, three of which you will fill. Unless more are found, soon all our Creux will be matched with a pilot.”

“Excuse me, sir,” Jena interrupted, raising her hand. “I counted nine.”

“Eight are marked as vacant, not nine,” he said. “Milos Ravana indeed does not have an assigned pilot but that particular Creux has been discontinued, as the sheet says. Though it appears to be the most powerful Creux we have found, it has taken the lives of four people who have tried to pilot it, despite appearing as matches, and has never launched successfully. We keep it for studying purposes, but it cannot be piloted.”

Ezra looked down at his sheet again. Milos Ravana was the second one to be found. It was also known as
The Armor of God
. He looked at the name and imagined what the Creux itself would look like to get such a name.

After Dr. Yuri finished talking about the Creux, he began to explain what their lives in Zenith would look like. Ezra wondered when it would be a good moment to make the request to have Susan transferred.

“Piloting the Creux is both a physical and mental effort, but as I explained, it is also a very technical business and you need to know the machines as much as they can be known. To that end, education on the engineering and biology of the Creux will be a focal point of your learning career in Zenith. As support, you will also be studying advanced mathematics and physics. I understand one of you failed the Moreau test.”

“Well, not
failed
,” Ezra said.

“
Failed
. You will be taking remedial lessons out of your recreation time, until you pass the Moreau. You will need a tutor.”