Chuckling, he leads me to a security door at the end of the hall. “This is Intelligence,” he says.
The door slides open, and I find myself looking at a large chamber filled with workstations and holoscreens on every surface. There are people seated at various desks, swiping through the air or typing on their tablets. I also spot a surprising number of notebooks and other paper products. The decades-long lumber shortages on the Continent make paper a rare commodity.
When I try to step inside, Gray tugs me back. “You can’t go in. You don’t have the clearance. Come on, let’s get to the fun stuff.”
We ride the elevator to the Operations floor, which is a hub of activity.
“Control center is through there.” He gestures beyond the elevator bank. “It’s where we monitor satellites, comms, signals, drone control…basically everything that keeps us ahead of the Company.”
He strides in the opposite direction while I race to keep up.
“This is the sparring gym.”
The next door opens into a cavernous gymnasium full of black mats and punching bags. I catch sight of Evlynne across the room, her fists flying as she pounds into a guy twice her size.
“Equipment and weight rooms,” he says, nodding toward a wide doorway.
Beside the gym is an archery range. I give it a perfunctory glance, since archery has never piqued my interest. Excitement makes an appearance, however, when we reach the indoor shooting range.
Gray notices the way my eyes light up. “You and your guns.”
I grin at him.
“I haven’t forgotten about your Little Miss Incompetent act in Silver Block, by the way,” he grumbles. “What’s the right grip? What’s wrong with my stance?” He sighs. “Remember that day I instructed you? You must’ve had a good laugh about it afterward.”
“Sort of. But it was very sweet of you to try to help me,” I say, patting his arm.
“Well, now you can repay the favor. I’m still waiting on approval, but I’m trying to arrange for your work assignment to be here at the range.”
He approaches one of the shooting stations, grabbing a handgun from the rack. He checks the clip before shoving it back in, then raises the weapon with one hand, his stance lazy. We’re not wearing ear protection or goggles, but he doesn’t seem to care. He fires off a shot and hits the target in the chest. Dead center.
“Nice,” I say.
He winks at me, then holds out the gun, butt-first.
Grinning, I step up and mimic his pose. The same laid-back stance, same one-handed grip. My bullet connects dead center, too.
Between the eyes.
“Show-off,” he accuses.
I laugh and set the gun back on the rack.
“We have a few new recruits at the Dagger that I’d love for you to work with,” he says on our way out of the range.
“How does that work, anyway? Recruitment, I mean. Do you get a lot of new recruits?”
“Some. We have eyes and ears all over the wards, so it always gets back to us if someone wants to work for the Uprising. That’s howyougot on our radar. We received word from Tana Archer saying she and her friend wanted to help.”
I glare at him. “Yeah, and all you did was send us on minor supply runs.”
“Hey, not me. I wasn’t on the Authority yet—I only joined two years ago. You can blame Julian Ash. That man did everything in his power to keep you away from us.”
Somehow that doesn’t surprise me.
“But there are parents who are eager for their kids to join the Uprising. Age of entry is sixteen, so we get a lot of teens sent to the Dagger or Bramble Base for training. Other times, we might hear about someone in the wards with a skill we can utilize, someone with a knack for tech, maybe a pilot, an explosives expert, whatever. It’s not always a Mod, either. If we hear of someone we’d like to recruit, we reach out via the network to see if they’re interested.”
“There’s really no Primes at the Dagger?”
