The Proving (14 page)

“No! No. There’s a building with the same architectural design downtown. It has a front entrance and a rear entrance. For loading and unloading. It’s, uh, an old design.”

Skye’s eyes darted to Cleo. The Persian turned, pulling up a new holoscreen map as her console. She pinched the image of the supply building, enhancing it and spinning it 180 degrees. “Mmmmm . . . this schematic Parliament sent us before the satellite blackout shows
something
. Unless an automated network drone flies by — and I doubt that’ll happen, by the way — we’re not going to know for certain without taking a mosey on over there.”

Skye turned to the passenger’s seat. Her eyes narrowed. She tapped her brother on the shoulder. “Wake up. We’re here.”

Ben unbuckled, then reached for Tahlia’s buckle. She slapped away his hand. “I’m not a baby, Ben!”

A snicker from Cleo. Ben felt his face redden so he bent over, adjusting the straps on his boots. His feet were so big. He wished they weren’t so big. They’d been big since his growth spurt at age fourteen; he cursed whoever among his ancestors was responsible for passing on clown feet genes.

Skye brushed past him, making her way to the rear of the vehicle even though it hadn’t yet reached a full stop. She opened the weapons locker just past Seamus, who watched with a quiet contemplation. The moment Ben saw the weapons stashed inside, he felt a chill go down his back. This was real now. A serious threat could lay out there, somewhere, and it would be up to him to keep Tahlia and himself safe.

No. Tahlia shouldn’t go out there. It was too dangerous. She hadn’t even undergone any weapons training yet. The only Young Adult who went through weapons training at such a young age was the Spartan boy, and by the looks of it he wasn’t all that interested in testing his skills. He looked sleepy. Sleepy and afraid. He’d begun biting his knuckles, glancing in Skye’s direction until she gave the command. He slowed the Tumbler to a stop just a few meters away from the front of the depot.

“I’m turning everyone’s smartglasses on,” Cleo announced. “The magic word is
Chi
, if you want to give your glasses any commands.”

“Anyone need a primer on the pistols?” Skye asked. “No? Good. Ben. Gabriel. Cleo. Historian.”

She passed out the VR pistols one at a time, taking care to aim the barrels downward. Ben grabbed his, weighing the cool fiberglass in his hand. Lights — there were supposed to be three blinking lights on the side, next to the rear sight. Two lights indicated the charge level, and the third light indicated the proton projectile strength. There — he remembered enough. He could do this. But why weren’t those lights on?

“Uh . . .?” Ben held out the pistol.

Skye reached out, aiming his barrel at the floor. “Look down,” she said calmly.

Ben did. Her hand was wrapped over his. She had a strong, small grip. She was wearing her black gloves. “Oh. Right. My gloves.”

“Magnetic sensors,” Skye said with a smile. “Helps keep Athenians from accidentally shooting themselves.”

“Right.” He reached into the metal container at his belt, pulling out his gloves. He unfolded them and slipped them on. The moment his fingers touched the hilt of the VR pistol, the magnets slid his fingers into the right place. Three lights blinked on: two green, one red.

Skye handed off the last pistol to the Historian, who held it limply in his hand. “I’m not allowed to interfere in the Proving,” he said.

Skye grabbed the pistol back and attached it to his belt, on the magnetized space near his right hip between two small capsules. “This is in case things go bad.”

“What would go bad?” the girl named Wei asked. She was standing beside her older brother, one finger hooked around his belt. She looked more afraid than the others. Through Ben’s glasses, a small readout appeared beside her:

WEI MARTINEZ

AGE: 13

DAUGHTER OF CARMEN MARTINEZ, PREMIER OF PARLIAMENT.

“Nothing is going to go bad,” her brother said. What was his name again? Gabriel! Just as Ben remembered, a similar readout appeared on his glasses. “Now move your finger.” Gabriel brushed her hand away, attaching his pistol to his belt. “Thank you.”

Gabriel. Gabriel. Ben wanted to make sure he remembered all the names. The young man was definitely more important than the free citizen he’d replaced. Ben could remember his first Proving, how after Skye had destroyed the Specter, the free citizen in their Coterie had run off. All of the New Adults had run after him. Skye had kept Ben and Cleo with her, her pistol shaking in her hand as she searched the dark forest for additional threats.

“I’m at your command, dear brother.” Wei mock-bowed, then stepped beside young Reza so she wasn’t in the way. Reza, Ben noticed, looked more than a little uncomfortable being so close to her. He’d paused his game, and Ben suspected it was because the young boy didn’t like it when people walked behind him. He had his back to the console now, watching warily as Skye returned to the driver’s seat. She slid her finger across the glass console.

Underneath their feet, the engine began to gently hum.

“Engine is on. Shields are nominal,” Skye announced. “Let’s do this by the book. Cleo: confirm there’s no contact inside the supply building.”

Cleo typed a command in her computer and waited. It all felt so real now. Real enough that Ben felt a little dizzy. A million things could go wrong out here, not the least of which being a short in the Tumbler’s shield system.

Of course, the worst-case scenario was a Specter attack.

“We’re not going to leave the young ones here, are we?” Ben asked, glancing at Tahlia. She was staring up at Seamus; Seamus stared back with an equal amount of curiosity.

“That’s the protocol,” Skye said. “The Parliamentarian stays with them.”

“I . . .” Gabriel stopped. Ben looked at him, trying to read his thoughts. What had he stopped himself from saying? “I’m not their babysitter” or “I can speak for myself” topped the list. Ben felt sorry for the young man; this was the son of Carmen Martinez, one of the most respected Parliamentarians on the planet. Surely he had to be cautious about making sure he never said anything that might hurt his future political prospects. And there was no shortage of opportunities for kids to embarrass themselves, either with social networking or personal videos. Lots of kids in Clan Athens kept video blogs of their grade school science experiments, and those videos could get pretty humorous when the experiments went awry. Ben himself had kept a video log of his experiment on cancer tumors with cannabinoids that had been quite popular, so popular in fact that his email box had been flooded for months with orders for cannabis.

But for the children of Parliamentarians, the stakes were higher. The Internet never forgot.

“We’re following protocol, Gabriel,” Skye said. She punched one of the analog buttons on the console above Reza’s head, causing the boy to flinch. The transport door beside the seats beeped twice. “That’s our cue,” Skye announced. “Let’s go.”

Ben followed Cleo to the door, which had begun beeping more rapidly. Cleo looked back over her shoulder. “Turn off your stupid game and set up the cameras!”

“All right, all right,” Reza said. The boy turned off his game, typing a command into his console. On the screen were images of Ben and Cleo and Skye, each through the camera of another person’s smartglasses. Ben noticed there was a blank spot in the lower right-hand corner and put two and two together. He turned to Seamus.

“Better put your glasses on before Skye yells at you,” he whispered.

“Oh. Of course. I’d forgotten.” Seamus reached into the box on his belt and unfolded the smartglasses. He put them on. “They’re not functioning.”

Ben reached up and tapped the side of his glasses. “Say Chi, power on.”

“Chi, power on.” Seamus blinked a few times, looking around. He gave Ben a nod.

“The moment we step out,” Skye said, “we’re going to be in combat mode. That means everyone’s camera will send info to the Tumbler. Then the computer in the Tumbler will piece together the environment by looking at the images coming in from all of our cameras.” She turned to Cleo, who was leaning against the edge of the doorway. “Right?”

The Persian shrugged, blowing a bubble with her gum. “More or less.”

Skye returned to the doorway. She was clutching her VR rifle with two hands, running her thumb along the small touchscreen on the side of the gun. Ben watched, wondering how many hours she’d put in with it. What else did she do? What did she enjoy doing, besides shooting Specter targets all day?

More important: what did it matter?

“Safety locks disengaged,” came the female voice through the speaker in the ceiling.

“Are you sure about that backdoor?” Skye asked Ben.

Ben took a deep breath. His stomachache had returned. “I’m nearly positive.”

“Remember what the building looked like on the inside?”

He shook his head. “Not the rear. But, uh, the front was wide-open. The building downtown is a museum.”

Skye turned to Cleo. The Persian glanced over her shoulder, blowing another bubble. “Bro-bro, give us a pic-in-pic of the floor plan.”

“Fine.”

Ben turned — all of the kids were huddled around Reza’s console, and the poor young Persian was crunched in his seat as if trying to avoid them all. A box appeared in the upper right-hand corner of Ben’s right lens, revealing the circular floor plan of the supply depot.

“Highlight the entrances,” Cleo said. A single blue line appeared on the south end of the depot. Cleo looked at Ben, raising her eyebrows in what he thought must be an inquisitive gesture. It didn’t come off exactly right, though.

“Well, I could be wrong . . .”

“We’ll check,” Skye said. “I’ll move around the rear while you two cover the front entrance. Ready?”

Ben nodded. He wasn’t exactly ready, but at least the nanobots had managed to regulate his nerves a bit. Well, he
imagined
them doing so. Surely they had to be doing
something
in there.

The door slid open. Mid-day sunlight streamed in. They stepped out of the Tumbler one-by-one, onto the old bleached concrete parking lot. Heavy brush and tall weeds pushed their way between the rusted steel links of the fence to Ben’s right. Beyond the building were mountains, beautiful and exposed, with bright gray rock and a spattering of pine trees.

“Guns,” Skye said.

Ben pulled his gun from his belt, feeling the magnetic lock deactivate when his fingers touched the hilt. His shaky thumb found the safety button; he pressed it, and the Intensity light turned from red to green. He followed Cleo toward the front of the building, watching his footing, giving a pothole a wide berth just to be safe. The sunlight was warm, the air nearly perfect. This was exactly the type of day Ben would spend outside with friends, exploring the city.

Being out here felt so peculiar. It was as if his body had no idea what to do: release dopamine or norepinephrine, slow down his heart rate or speed it up, tense his muscles or relax them . . .

This was why the Proving was so important, he realized. Without experiencing this, there was no real way to prepare for it. During his first Proving, he’d felt secure with the New Adults. Even before Skye killed the Specter, it hadn’t seemed dangerous. Here, it felt dangerous.

“Hold your position,” Skye said. She quickly strafed the side of the wide building with her rifle aimed squarely at the shuttered steel exterior. As she moved, a new 3D image of the building’s exterior appeared in the pic-in-pic: it was using Skye’s camera to show Ben what he couldn’t see from his vantage point.

“Wow,” he whispered.

“Yeah, it’s totally cool,” Cleo said. She had both hands on her VR pistol, aiming it squarely at the damaged front door while forcefully chewing her gum. She’d no doubt been told at some point that chewing with one’s mouth open was an ages-old faux pas, but had disregarded the information. Ben glanced over his shoulder — Seamus was standing behind him, watching with his hands behind his back, his gun at his belt.

“Coming up on the rear,” Skye said, her voice coming through the little earpiece attached to Ben’s glasses.

Cleo snickered. She had an earpiece in, too, but since she didn’t have smartglasses, hers simply hooked around her little ear. She glanced at Ben. “Rear.”

“OK,” Skye said. Her tone had changed. Gotten darker. “Don’t panic.”

Cleo’s snickering stopped. Ben’s eyes looked up at the pic-in-pic in the corner of his right lens. His breath escaped in one quick whoosh. Adrenaline coursed through his body. All natural. Nothing to worry about. If anything, his body seemed oddly calm about the image coming in through Skye’s camera.

Cleo made a gagging noise. She spat out her gum. “Please tell me that’s fake.”

“Fake?” Skye asked, annoyed. “How in Hades would it be fake? Ben, can you see this?”

“Not well enough,” Ben said. He swallowed hard. “I’ll need to see the, uh,
body
close-up.”

“Cleo, cover the front on your own,” Skye said. “Cassy, watch Cleo’s back. Let Reza keep an eye on the Tumbler’s sensors. Take a position at the Tumbler’s side door with your pistol.”

“OK, Skye,” came the young boy’s voice. A little shaky. A little nervous. Ben couldn’t imagine what was going through the boy’s mind — although, given Clan Sparta’s obsession with war, maybe the boy had seen enough images of dead bodies to thoroughly desensitize him. Ben doubted Gabriel’s sister had had the same opportunity.

Tahlia certainly hadn’t. Her voice squeaked in his ear: “Ben, is she
dead
?”

Ben’s mouth moved, but no words came out. Tahlia was right: it looked like a woman, judging by the long hair.

“Make your way to me, Ben,” Skye said. “And do it fast. This rear door is open and we need to move the body to get it closed.”

Ben walked around the building on numb legs. He willed the nanobots to restore calm, even though it was fruitless. The nanobots weren’t designed to combat the body’s natural defense systems, and right now his body was simply preparing itself for danger. It was a natural response, truly awoken for the first time.

He tripped on a crack in the concrete, nearly falling, nearly dropping his gun, and nearly crying out all in one awkward moment. It was only the magnets on the tips of his fingers that kept the gun firmly in his grip. He saw his shadow wobble, then right itself.