Page 12 of Silver Elite

They bring me a bed. Or rather, it’s waiting next to Kaine’s when the Black Cell members return to the barracks after evening meal. My first day as a Command recruit wasn’t as horrendous as I anticipated. Of course, that doesn’t mean I’ve resigned myself to my fate. That night, I slide under the covers and plot my escape, but by the time sleep claims me, I’m no closer to figuring out how I’m going to get out of this place.

The next day starts with what is essentially a geography class. I hate this stuff. My seatmate, on the other hand, finds deep enjoyment in it. Lyddie devours the old maps projected from our sources. Locations with names like New Virginia and South Ontario jump out at us, all utterly foreign to me. Hadley explains they’re places that survived the bombings of the Last War, long before the ward system was implemented. And while they’ve long been free of radiation, they were never properly rebuilt.

I touch the glowing white holo-map, tracing my finger over the triangular piece of land that comprises the continent of Carora.

“What do you think is down there?” I ask Kaine, who’s sitting at the workstation next to ours. I would ask Lyddie, but she’s an overachiever and has been biting her lip for the past ten minutes as she tries to memorize all these sites as if expecting to be tested on them.

Kaine shrugs. “Cannibals.”

I laugh. “Be serious.”

“I am. What other reason would they have to erase themselves from the map?”

“They haven’t, though. They’re right here.” I swirl my finger over the projection.

“From civilization, then,” he amends. “Nobody chooses to cut themselves off from all human contact for anything other than nefarious reasons.”

In the front row, Ivy and her seatmate Bryce seem to be homed in on Carora as well. “Why hasn’t the Command been able to install an outpost in Carora?” Bryce asks our instructor, a female soldier named Dava.

“It’s been attempted. But those plans were abandoned decades ago. It’s not worth the risk anymore.”

I remember Jim talking about this once. How the Company is no longer willing to dispatch soldiers down there. There’s been no communication from Carora in more than a hundred years. Anytime an aircraft or ship has traveled that way, it hasn’t returned.

“We send the occasional Intelligence unit on flybys, but always with no results.” Dava shrugs. “It’s no longer a priority for the General.”

We return to our maps after that, and I return to a state of boredom.

During our afternoon break, Roe sidles up to me while I stand in line waiting for my meal tray.

He’s not as handsome as his brother, likely because Cross bears very little resemblance to the General other than sharing his height and build. Roe meanwhile inherited Merrick Redden’s harsh features. The hard lines and unsettling dark eyes. And he walks with the arrogance of someone who’s never felt threatened his entire life. He’s always had the protection of Daddy. Yet not his last name—our morning instructor referred to his surname as Dunbar. I find that noteworthy.

“What?” I say when he continues to stare.

“Anson thinks you’re the sexiest woman here.”

“Is that so?”

“Indeed…” He trails off thoughtfully. “I think I disagree with him.”

I step forward as the line moves. “Thanks for letting me know. I was wondering where I stood in the hierarchy of sex appeal among recruits. Now I know.”

He chuckles. “Ah. I see it now.”

“What?”

“What makes you appealing to him.” He leans closer. “Because you’re a complete quat.”

I can’t stop a snort. “Who taught you how to flirt?”

“I’m not flirting. I don’t want to fuck you.”

“Thanks for clarifying that, too. I was in the throes of lust for you until you said that.”

I stride off. He’s entertaining, but not in a reassuring way. He seems like the kind of guy who could slit your throat without blinking. That’s probably why he gets along with Anson so well.

I join Lyddie and Kaine, keeping my head down as I eat my food. I feel Roe’s eyes on me the entire time.

—

Shielding. It’s our first class after lunch and I’ve been dreading it since I saw it listed on my source.

I sit next to Lyddie, my hands folded in my lap, trying to ignore the nagging sense of unease that coils in the pit of my stomach. I get it, though. Protecting your mind is a skill deemed essential for anyone living in a world where there are people who can infiltrate it. And I can’t deny I’m curious about their tactics. Maybe if I know exactly how they construct their shields, I can learn how to dismantle them.

While we wait for our instructor, I send out the usual mental feelers. Polly. Declan. Tana. Only the latter reciprocates. My best friend sounds increasingly worried each time we link.

“You good?”

“For now. I barely slept last night. I was trying to figure out a way out of here.”

“Honestly, maybe you should stay put. You’re probably safer on that base than you’d be in Hamlett right now. When I showed up to work at the inn this morning, there was a surveillance drone in the town square. They’re watching our every move.”

Guilt tugs at my insides. “I’m so sorry. They’re only there because of Jim and me.”

“That’s why you shouldn’t come back to Z, babe. Even if you find a way to escape, don’t come home.”

The guilt tightens into a knot of pain. Then where am I supposed to go? I want to shout.

“Where are you now?” Tana asks. “Are you alone?”

“No. I’m in a class about shielding.”

“Ha. That should be interesting.”

Tyler Struck walks through the doorway. She takes her place at the holoboard and begins without preamble.

“To beat your enemy, you must understand your enemy.”

Her finger moves through the air, and a scribble of white letters appear in the blackish ether.

She writes Telepaths.

It’s hard to resist the sarcastic urge to raise my hand and say, That’sme.

She writes Projectors.

Also me.

Mind readers.

Me again.

Healers.

I wish.

Empaths.

No thanks.

Precogs.

Definitely not. I don’t want that burden.

Inciters.

My humor dies.

I wring my hands as a queasy sensation washes over me. I could attempt it. I should. Try to poke holes in her shield, thrust my own intentions into her mind. Pick up your gun and shoot yourself. Shoot everyone here except for me. If her shield weren’t nearly impenetrable.

And yet I breached eight shields at Jim’s execution. They weren’t Silver Block, but that doesn’t mean they didn’t take classes like this one in their own training programs. Somehow, in a moment of pure desperation and rage, I broke through those shields, but I don’t know if I can replicate whatever process led me to that point. It’ll require a lot more training, which I don’t have the luxury of on this base. And a training partner, which is an even more dangerous prospect because it would mean confiding in someone about my ability to incite.

Uncle Jim was the only person in this world who knew I possessed that power, and he drilled into me the importance of secrecy. “Nobody can know,” he used to warn in that brusque, no-nonsense voice of his. “Nobody, Wren. Not even your closest friends.”

He was adamant about it. If the Primes found out there was an inciter in their midst, I’d be killed on the spot. But even Mods are uneasy when it comes to inciters.

President Severn gave us a bad rap, what with his penchant for compelling the will of even his Modified allies. Unlike me, our former leader didn’t grapple with the moral implications of using incitement.

“With empaths,” a guy with curly hair says, hesitant to speak, “can they make you feel something? Like hurt you or make you feel pain?”

“No, but they can feel what you’re feeling,” Struck answers. “Whether it’s pain, arousal, sorrow. Your emotions become theirs.”

“I don’t fully understand the conception of projection,” someone else puts in. A young woman with dark skin and short black hair. I think her name is Betima. “Can they make you see something that isn’t there? For example…if you’re on a city street in the rain, can they make you think it’s a sunny day at the lake?”

“No. They can only project what they are seeing in that moment, not something they’re conjuring in their mind. As far as we know, anyway. It’s possible they can make you see other things. Anything is possible with the Aberrant. After more than a century of research, there’s still so much to learn and so much we don’t understand.”

She’s not wrong. Half the time, I don’t understand myself. Why are the veins in my arms normal when Tana needs long sleeves if she wants to use telepathy in public? Why can I open a path so fast when others often take a full minute or more? Why do some Mods possess healing energy when I don’t?

“What we do know is that there are ways to protect ourselves from them. And the most effective way of doing that is to keep your minds shielded at all times.”

“What about when you’re asleep?” asks Pera. She’s as timid now as she was yesterday. Her voice trembles every time she opens her mouth.

“You don’t need to shield yourself in sleep. Your brain waves restrict the Aberrant from infiltrating when you’re in that state. But in your conscious hours, it should be something you wear like armor. It should become instinctual. You should constantly be self-checking, reminding yourself throughout the day to ensure your shield is intact.”

“We learned this shit in lower school.” Roe sounds bored.

“No, you learned rudimentary shielding,” Struck corrects. “If you’re accepted into Silver Block, you’ll be coming into contact with silverbloods, often without your knowledge. Your shield needs to be ten layers thick and inaccessible to them. You can never lower your guard. Can never leave your minds susceptible. If you do…”

She circles one word on the holoscreen.

INCITERS.

“These guys? They’re monsters. They have no compunction about infiltrating an innocent mind and manipulating it. Robbing someone of their own will.”

I feel queasy again. She’s wrong. I’m not a monster. If it were up to me, I’d never incite at all. It’s only ever happened spontaneously, and typically in situations of high stress. I don’t know how to control it.

Ivy speaks up. “There was an inciter in the crowd of an execution the other day. Did you catch them?”

“How did you hear about that?” Struck’s tone is calm, but her gaze flicks in my direction.

I stare back at her without expression.

Ivy gives me a quizzical look before focusing on our instructor. “My block guards the gates in South Plaza. One of my fellows was there when it happened.”

“Who was the corpse?” For once, there’s some life in Anson’s expression. At the idea of death. He’s a proper psychopath, this one.

“He was a Command deserter who turned out to be Aberrant.” Struck sweeps her hand over the holoboard and all the words disperse like dust particles. “Enough chatter. Let’s get started.”

For the next hour, she walks us through the basics of shielding, taking us through several visualization exercises. It’s not unlike what Jim did with me as a child, although Tyler Struck’s teaching style is far gentler. And patient. Uncle Jim wasn’t known for his patience.

Lyddie is entirely focused on the task. Closes her eyes when she’s told to. Inhales, exhales, when ordered. Her eyelids twitch wildly, confirmation of how much mental effort she’s exerting, how intently she’s visualizing the doorless, airless steel vault our instructor is describing.

I play along, but I’m far more interested in watching my fellows. At one point, when I open my eyes a slit to study the faces around me, I catch Kaine watching me right back. He grins and whispers, “Wanna make out?” I roll my eyes as Struck orders him to shut up and focus.

There are ten minutes remaining when Struck ends the class, but she doesn’t dismiss us yet. Instead, she says something into her comm. A few minutes later, another woman enters.

Murmurs of discontent travel through the classroom.

I immediately know the cause.

She’s Modified.