UnBound (7 page)

But she grabs him before he can walk away and signs impatiently,
Tell me now!

Then she sees the tiny tic at the corner of Thor's mouth and the dread in his eyes. He hesitates a moment more, then finally he levels the news at her.
Blackjack,
he signs.
As of now, you're number twenty-one.

She flattens herself against the wall and slides down till her butt hits the floor. She missed the cutoff by one. She's on the harvest list. She will be unwound.

She ignores Thor kneeling next to her and his flying fingers. Everything that happened that morning crashes over her.

Thor gets in her face, shouting with his hands.
We can fix this!

Poor kid,
she thinks.
He's delusional. Nothing can fix this. Not after another fight. Not after that low marksmanship score.

Still, she manages one sign.
How?

An arts kid might bump you off the harvest list, once they test,
he signs.
And if not, we can bump someone else on it.

She frowns.
How?
she signs again.

Leave that to me.

•  •  •

The cafeteria is only half-full for lunch. Having eaten earlier, the arts kids are now beginning their marathon of tests. The hall has a different vibe without them. The sounds are more bass, with sudden silences intermixed with gravel-rattling voices and squeaking benches. The deaf kids are there, sitting at the far end of the room, comfortable in their forest of signs—but Thor has left for the computer lab in his attempt to save Brooklyn's hide. He might be smart, but Brooklyn doubts he can influence the list at all.

As she exits the lunch line with her tray, another random lull descends. The slower eaters in her squad sit at the table under the clock. The most offensive members have already left. There are allies—or at least those who remain neutral—at the table, but still she stalls, not wanting to hear them rehash the tests, or worse, her fight with Pecs. At least he's not there. She looks around for a safe harbor away from her squad. She can't sit with one of the other squads, and she can't sit with the deaf kids without Thor there. In the end, she starts for an empty table. Ironically, if Risa were here, Brooklyn might consider joining her. As much as Brooklyn has despised her, she can't deny the fragile connection they made in her dorm room. And all that old baggage—the things that made Brooklyn feel thorny with resentment and shame—suddenly pales with the rawness of this morning's many failures.

But before she even puts her tray down, she hears, “Yo, Brooks. Over here.”

From her squad's table Logan waves at her. His back had been to the doorway, and someone must have told him that she was there. Reluctantly she walks to the table. Before she gets there, several of the others leave, averting their eyes—both guys and girls. But even the ones who remain don't seem too hot on sitting with the Pariah of the Day. And of course there's Kip, complete with a bandaged ankle that he wears like a war wound. He sits at the end of the table with a trio of scrawny plebes. They'll fawn all over any older boeuf who gives them attention, and Kip always does. He gets off on being worshipped. If humans licked their wounds, she's sure Kip would make the plebes lick his.

Writhing inside, but unable to escape, she sits next to Logan.

“Bombed the written test,” Logan announces cheerfully.

She's grateful that he's taken the sting out of her own failures by starting the conversation with his own. She can't help wondering whether he has really failed the written, or is he just saying that to make her feel better. Could he be on the preliminary harvest camp list too? Thor didn't tell her anyone else's standings.

“You probably did better than you think,” she says generously.

“Don't see how.” He seems to meditate briefly on it, and then shrugs. “Can't do anything about it now.”

Not without a Thor to change his standing,
she thinks, and takes a hefty bite of her burger.

“At least he didn't break a fellow soldier's nose,” Kip says. The burger suddenly tastes like a turd in her mouth. One of the plebes giggles nervously.

Logan frowns at his best friend. “Man, that's not cool.”

“Yeah? Well what she did was worse.” Without looking at her, Kip grabs his tray and leaves. In his dramatic departure, he forgets to limp. The plebes slink after him, one girl shooting Brooklyn a dirty look after reaching a safe distance.

Logan bumps his shoulder against Brooklyn's. “Don't worry about him. He's just sore you beat him in the two mile. And so what if you tripped him—Kip needed his ego taken down a few notches anyway.”

Brooklyn bristles. “I told you—I didn't trip him.”

“You know what? It's over. It doesn't matter.”

But it does matter. Because Logan is taking Kip's word over hers. He thinks he's being magnanimous by forgiving her—but he's forgiving her for something she didn't do.

Logan goes on talking, not even noticing Brooklyn's slow boil. “And Pecs—I wouldn't worry about him, either. He's leaving the home soon anyways. Turns eighteen in three months.” Then he looks at Brooklyn's burger. “You gonna eat that?”

She finds what little appetite she had is completely gone. She puts the half-eaten burger on his plate. “All yours.”

Grinning, he wolfs it down and talks with his mouth full. It barely sounds like human speech.

“Didn't understand a word you said.”

He wipes grease and mayonnaise off his mouth with his hands. “I said . . .” He speaks with exaggerated clarity. “Weird about your rifle malfunctioning.”

“Yeah. Weird.” She doesn't want to talk about it. Even thinking about it makes her sweat.

“No one else's did. Well, Shanda's weapon jammed a couple of times, but hers always does. You used your own rifle, right?”

“Yeah, I did.” Then she thinks about it. She was the last one in line, still shaking from the encounter with Pecs and the long walk alone with the sarge. A plebe had unlocked her weapons locker before she arrived. Had he switched it with someone else's—or worse, had someone tampered with her rifle somehow?

Thoughts swirl in her head like furious hornets.

•  •  •

After lunch Logan slopes off to watch one of his nonboeuf friends in a jazz recital. A kid who tutors him in math.

“You should come,” he says. “Get yourself a little culture.”

She's about to say she likes classical better than jazz but decides against it. “Sorry, music isn't my thing.” Then one of the other kids mimes the breaking of her recorder—which is apparently legendary—and it gives her all the excuse she needs to slip away and find Thor. But once she's alone, her natural paranoia rises. Had the plebe at the weapons cart given her a bad rifle? Before she knows it, she's turning for the stairwell that leads to the basement weapons cage. She keys in the digital lock, which she always knows, no matter how often they change it, and takes the stairs three at a time.

A different code opens the door at the bottom of the stairs, and through long practice, she ducks her head to avoid the camera. The basement is a warren of storage areas. An atmosphere of old paper, decaying rubber, and petroleum permeates the place. It's colder than upstairs, but not by much.

The armory is in the back. She passes the freight elevator and the long row of file rooms behind more locked doors. She's used information in those files in trade for goods and favors. She could probably find something in there that would save her now, but there's not enough time. Too bad she hadn't found a hideous scandal that could keep her safe until she turns eighteen. If she survives this harvesting, that will be her new priority.

The weapons are stored in rows behind a rigid cage of steel bars and chicken wire. She stalls on the north side of the armory, hearing a rattling inside. Between the third and fourth rows she sees someone standing at a workbench; an overhead lamp lights him and the bench. His back is to her, but he looks like the plebe who was responsible for the weapons lockers at the rifle range, a wiry kid with nasty knuckles and large ears. He was also part of Kip's entourage at lunch. Two lockers are open on the bench. The plebe is disassembling a rifle.

She's too far away to identify either of the lockers as hers. She clutches the cage bars, straining to see. In its concrete foot, the steel squeaks against her weight, and she reflexively backs away into the shadows.

“Who's there?” the plebe calls. His voice squeaks like the cage bar.

Soundlessly she flees down the long corridor, then ducks down a side hall when she hears the ponderous opening of the cage door. She finds a second stairwell, not daring to return to the main one. She fumbles the exit code and is sure the camera caught her profile leaning closer to the keypad. Can they identify her from a dim silhouette? Just one more thing she wishes she didn't have to think about.

She heads for Thor's small bedroom and is grateful he isn't there. He might have talked her out of her rampant paranoia, and she wants to let it range free.

Her thoughts buzz angry and bewildered. Did the plebe sabotage her gun and is now hiding the evidence of his tampering? And if it was sabotage, who ordered it? A plebe that age wouldn't act alone. This would have to have been planned long ahead of time, so it couldn't be Kip. Or could it? He'd never liked her, even before his catastrophic fall on the track. Maybe it was the sarge. The man always seemed to have it in for her. He treats her as if she's not a true boeuf, no matter how well she scores on tests and performs on the field. And it can't be just because of her fighting.

The lieutenant couldn't be involved in the conspiracy, could he? Maybe the sarge, but not the lieutenant. She wants to think at least one person besides Thor is on her side. Logan doesn't count. His protective power expired the moment he chose to believe Kip instead of her. Maybe she'll talk to the lieutenant about the rifle. Maybe he'll treat her fairly—and maybe Thor
can
keep her off the harvest list this time. But what about next time? She'll need to scrape deep for information that's so awful it'll keep her safe for the next two years. From now on she must protect herself. No matter who gets unwound because of it.

•  •  •

The recitals are finished. The art galleries closed. The committees are tallying the arts kids' final scores.

As Brooklyn heads for the staff offices, she has to step around a group of arts kids huddled in the stairwell. Two are crying. She thinks she hears Risa whispering, an edge of despair in her voice, but Brooklyn is on a mission and hurries past them.

Since she has time before Thor can run the results, she decides to see her lieutenant. No harm in currying favor in this final hour.

His office is near the headmaster's. Brooklyn uses covert measures to slip past the headmaster's office. Although she hasn't been called in to answer for the fight with Pecs, she doesn't want the headmaster to conduct an impromptu reprimand on a chance meeting.

“Sir?” She taps lightly on the lieutenant's open door.

His expression darkens seeing her. “Yes?” No welcome, no warmth in his voice.

“A moment, sir?” Maybe this isn't a good idea.

“A moment.” His nod at the chair before his desk is as crisp as his shirt.

Best to get it over with. “Sir, I believe someone tampered with my rifle on the range this morning.”

His jaw juts. “And do you have proof?”

“No proof, sir. But suspicions that can be—”

He waves her to silence. His eyes glint coldly. “Are you making an unfounded accusation against a member of your squad?”

“Sir . . .”

“Because soldiers don't do that. No matter what, the squad is your family, and its members are your brothers and sisters. Do you have any inkling of what that means?”

“Yes, sir.” She can barely hear herself, so she clears her throat and repeats loudly, “Yes, sir!”

He leans slightly forward, his words still frosty. “I can lower your score further. Is that what you want?”

“No, sir.”

“You understand what it means to be a team player?”

“Yes, sir!”

He nods and spins his chair back to his computer. “Then remember that before you waste my time again. Dismissed.”

•  •  •

In the computer lab Brooklyn's left leg jitters. She and Thor are alone. It's late afternoon, but after a marathon of testing, no one's working on anything mundane like homework. She hears muffled shouts from the playground below—the littler kids are oblivious, but everyone else is shell-shocked.

If Thor looked morose before, he looks positively miserable now.
Remember,
he signs.
We can fix this.

He slides to the left so she can get a better look at the screen. Her mouth goes dry and her leg stills. She's still twenty-one.

And Logan is just above the cutoff, at twenty-two.

I can switch your names,
Thor signs, like it's nothing.

Then she sees the name right before Logan's. Number twenty-three. Risa. Did she flub her piano recital so badly that she's come within two spots of being unwound? Even in the shock of finding her name there, Brooklyn can't help but take a little bit of pleasure in it too. Did little Miss Perfect have stage fright? Or maybe she got sabotaged too.

Then she thinks about how Risa stopped by her dorm before lunch. How she had acted like they could be friends. Of course they never would—but now they were no longer enemies.

Her thoughts racing, she signs,
Can we substitute any name for mine?

Thor shakes his head.
Got to be someone very close to you on the list, or it will be a huge red flag.
They'll know the list was compromised, and they'll figure out who did it.