Authors: JA Huss
Kete.
"You are nothing! Nothing, do you understand?" He bends down to Isec and Kete and they step back with a start, but Rikan pushes them forward.
I make to get up, but Isten pushes down on my chest. "You wanted this, Junco. Now butt the fuck out."
"Isec," Ashur growls, "when you understand that your only reason for living right now is to make my nine happy, we'll get along and be just fine. Do you understand that?"
Isec, to his credit, looks up and meets his gaze. "Yes, sir."
"If you live through this Fledge and she doesn't – I'll kill you in your sleep. Do you understand?"
Isec swallows and nods.
"Your only purpose in life right now is to hope you have a chance to give up your worthless life for her promising one. Do you understand?"
"Yes, sir."
He moves on to Kete, who breaks down and cries. "You'll be the next one to die if you don't stop that fucking crying. You think I'm your clutch mother, Kete?"
She can't answer and Ashur moves on to the tall girl.
"What's your name and excuse for being here, girl?"
She takes a large gulp of air. "Tessen, sir. I quit my Cluster."
Ashur scowls at her. "You quit? You're a quitter? I hate quitters. Junco's not a quitter, she talked the fucking President into making the 039 train you, you sorry excuse for a soul. If you quit on me…" He extracts his razors and they are as long as short swords. "I'll take you out to a docking bay and throw you into oblivion. Am I clear?"
Tessen nods. "Yes, sir."
He moves on to the boy who asked me if I was a soldier yesterday. He's older, not as old as Kush, but Ashur passes him by after getting his name, Joll.
The last boy is Wyrd and Ashur leans down into his face. "I don't think I like you, Wyrd. You look like you think you can take me. Can you take me, Wyrd?"
Wyrd squints his eyes. "No, sir. I don't think that
at all
."
Ashur paces back the other way and Kete starts to cry again. He stops in front of her, and then looks over to me and his voice is back to normal. "Junco, sorry – I'm gonna go out on a limb here and predict this one will not make it."
He moves on to Isec. "I'd pick you to die as well, Isec. But since Junco always puts you first, she'll save your ass yet again."
He moves on to Kush. "You're the only one I'd take home."
He tracks back to Tessen. "You'd do if no one else was available." She looks at him and smiles, but he cuts her down. "That's not a compliment, Tessen."
He walks all the way back to Wyrd. "You come from Science?" Wyrd looks at him and nods. "We'd keep you for that and that only, then. But it's not a bad job, if you can get it."
He tracks back to Joll. "I don't see it in you, to be honest. Have you killed anyone in these fights, Joll?" Joll's eyes go wide and he shakes his head. "Well, at least you didn't lie."
Ashur walks over to my bed and rolls his eyes when the others can't see. "Is this it, then, Junco? Your team?"
I shrug. "Thank you."
He pulls me up from the bed and gives me a hug and leans down to whisper in my ear, "We're good now, right? You'll love us again if we do this?"
I push back and look up at him. "We're perfect."
Ashur looks to Ryse. "Take them up to training while I talk to Isten and Junco."
The screaming begins anew and then they are gone.
Ash sits down on the bed and he pulls me between him and Isten. "OK, Junco – you're gonna fly up and down the mast today with Isten. Things get vertical from here and you'll need new skills for the rest of the fights." He leans past me to see Isten. "Make her walk around in the observatory, Is. That will probably help with Fight Four, don't you think?"
Isten nods. "Yeah, I'll make it relevant."
Ashur looks back to me. "And don't fuck about, Junco. The levels are nothing like you've had or think they will be, so don't get complacent. Besides, if you die I'll have to kill all those pledges, and we wouldn't want that, would we?"
I smile. "I owe you. I know this is purely for my benefit."
Ash's face softens. "I get it, Junco. You have a big heart for someone who has probably killed more people than Is and me together. Just don't expect them to actually live, OK?"
I nod.
"Except for Kush. He might make it."
My eyebrows go up. "Really?"
He shrugs. "I think so, yeah."
And then he kisses me on the head and walks out.
I look over at Isten and my face gets hot. "He likes you, Junco. Whatever you said to him last night after we dropped you off," he hesitates and shakes his head, "made him
very
fucking happy."
I track back to find what it might be as I dress in my uniform. But only one thing stands out.
I didn't sleep with Kush.
Isten and I spend the entire day in the mast. At first I can barely manage it. Oh, it's not bad going from level three to level four. Or even level four to level five. But the span of space between five and six is just as enormous today as it was last night. I end up clinging to an aging architectural detail on the side of the wall before Isten comes to my rescue. This happens several times, actually. Then the flight from six to seven feels insurmountable and he has to tow me up in the light G to even make it to the observatory the first time. I can only imagine the horror inside these massive levels to require such vertical expansion.
And then he makes me fly down in a dive that reminds me of ancient dogfights. The first time Isten has to grab my uniform shirt and yank me back up to him so I don't splat on the hard stone floor. He makes me glide down slowly after that.
From the bottom we start the process all over again and I struggle back up, gradually with each assent I manage to go a little further. But in no way would I ever be considered an expert flier.
We're resting on the platform underneath the observatory when Isten catches me eyeing the church. "You want to go in there or what, Junco? You've been staring at the place the whole day."
I soar down to the sixth-level platform and land clumsily in front of the large door. I wait there until Isten reluctantly follows. "I went in last night." I wait to see his reaction, but he holds it in. "I prayed to her."
Isten laughs. "She's not real, Junco."
I shrug. "I found these prayer cards in the back, right? And the one I chose was called Acceptance of Fate." I look up at him. "It was an old Earth poem. Don't you think that's weird?"
He shakes his head. "So they stole some poetry from Earth? That sounds typical to me."
"I was raised in church, did you know that?"
He smiles. "Yeah, I know. But this isn't your religion anyway, so don't waste your time. This is some really old-ass shit, Junco. Before Crage and Inanna, before all the Seven Siblings. She's ancient – something else entirely."
"So why does she have a church here?"
He steps off the ledge and flies upward to the observatory before calling back to me, "Who cares? Let's go practice walking in the gravity curve."
I flap frantically to make up to the top one more time, but no matter how hard I try Isten has to push me the remaining hundred yards. I step onto the landing and we climb the steps together.
Chapter Twenty-Three
I don't close my eyes when we enter and I'm immediately sorry because this shit is just wrong. I can't tell what is up and what is down and my head begins to spin.
"Close your eyes, Junco." I do and things calm down. My feet float up off the ground and I feel my stomach lurch. "Keep them closed, then when you're ready open them and decide where is up and where is down, OK?"
I nod.
"There are couches all around us."
"I know."
"Oh, I forgot you spent the night with Kush up here."
I huff out some air. "I did not sleep with Kush, Isten. Fuck, you guys think I sleep with everyone."
He laughs. "Not true. Anyway, just pick a couch and then I'll follow you."
I open my eyes and choose up, then use my wings to adjust my body a little and pick a new up. I head for a couch and stand next to it.
Isten comes up next to me and pushes me back and then gravity takes hold and I'm lying down, not standing.
It's still weird.
He climbs in next to me. "You know what this place is for, Junco?"
I shake my head. "Well, I'd guess it's to look at the stars, but something tells me that's not right."
He lets out a little laugh. "Technically, of course it is to look at the stars, but Fledge is filled with superstitions and the observatory is one of them. People come up here to be reminded about how little they matter in the universe."
"That's dumb."
"Just listen. You're supposed to come up here with someone you love, which is why we jumped to conclusions with Kush. Anyway, you're supposed to cling to each other and tell each other stories about your life. Did he tell you stories, Junco?"
I shake my head. "No, we fell asleep."
"Oh, well, he blew it. But I'm not gonna." He pulls me close. "I fully intend on telling you stories."
I laugh. "Yeah, like what? Not a myth, I hope." I look up at him questioningly.
"No, my first kill."
"Oh."
"I can't get the image of you out of my mind, Junco. Six years old and being sent on missions like that."
"So how old were you?"
He smiles down at me. "Eight."
"That's pretty young too."
"Yeah, but I wasn't told to do it, I just lost my temper."
"At eight? You lost your temper and killed someone?"
"I was on Earth with my foster family. They send us at five, you know that right?"
I nod. "Tier told me about his."
Isten sits up a little at this. "Really?"
I nod. "It was the quick version, he said."
He's silent for a few moments, like I caught him off guard. "Well, I wasn't supposed to be killing anyone, I was just supposed to live with this family until I got called back. Usually it takes about ten years before they want you back to Fledge. But I saw something and when I tried to tell someone about it, you know, to make it stop, they didn't believe me."
"What did you see?"
"My foster brother molesting my little sister."
"Oh, shit."
"Yeah, so I followed him one day and took a rifle with me. My family had guns all over the house, ya know. This was Texas. Anyway, I followed him out to this pasture where he was fucking around with another girl, his own age this time at least, and I shot him in the head while they were getting it on. I got away with it too, on Earth anyway. Hid in the bushes, the girl never saw me, got home before anyone noticed, cleaned the gun, put it back. It was pretty fucking simple. But I confessed in my next report and they pulled me. Called me home to Fledge out early."
"Well, I'd be proud of that kill, Isten. At least you helped someone."
He looks over me and grins. "Do you know who you killed that day on the slopes, Junco?"
I shake my head. "No, I never did ask."
"Well, we looked it up after you told us that. And it was the President and First Lady of Sovienna. They were some fucked-up people, so if that memory ever gives you nightmares, well, I can show you what they did to children for decades before you showed up and put a stop to it."
"Hmm. I don't have nightmares anymore, Isten. They're all gone."
"That's great, Juncs. But if they ever come back, you gotta ask yourself if it's worth it, right? Because from what I can tell, you killed a lot of very bad people over your career."
I lean into him a little.
"Anyway, when I got back to Amelia they put me in a holding status, because you can't go out in the regular population until you Fledge, you have to stay in the clutch. But it just so happens that there were like sixty other guys in the hold with me. All guys who had fucked up their fosters for whatever reason for another. It was like an epidemic that year, they checked the food supply and all kinds of things even, that's how weird it was.
"So, they had to have a special Fledge to make room – we call it the Fuck-up Fledge. I was in the Fuck-up Fledge and so was everyone else in the 039. Tier, for killing his father. Ashur for killing a teacher at school. They were the oldest and most experienced." He laughs. "They were both twelve."
"So you all Fledged out together? And you all survived it?"
"Well, we didn't know each other at first. When we got to 313–"
"What's 313?"
"Oh, it's the asteroid that hosts the Aves Warrior Fledge. It's got like half an atmosphere, after a thousand years of terraforming if you can believe it, but very thin. You have to wear suits or you'll die within hours."
"Did you have to kill each other?"