Page 11

“Careful, Princess,” I whispered to the empty room. “You play with the wolf, you get the teeth.”

I dressed fast to get clear of the suffocating steam, and I made myself stop thinking about the flush of pink that had spread down his chest before I did something reckless.

Or maybe I already had.

Hunger gnawed at my ribs by the time I reached the Nexus, a hollow ache below the sternum that the leftover adrenaline from the showers couldn’t fill. One appetite traded for another.

The noise slammed into me the moment I stepped through the doors, a chaotic din of plastic trays hitting metal tables and a thousand voices fighting the hum of the dispensers, all of it echoing off the vaulted steel ceiling.

The Dining Hall was a monument to segregation.

Above us, the Tier 1 balcony circled the room like a halo, polished chrome and soft, warm lighting, separated from the filth down here by a railing of reinforced glass, and even from the pit floor I could smell the steak. Real meat. Seared fat, roasted vegetables, the scent drifting down to taunt us with the promise of what waited at the top.

Down here in Tier 3, we got the trough.

I shuffled forward in the snaking line behind a recruit who moved too slow, still staring up at the balcony with wide eyes. Looking up was how you tripped.

“Move,” I grated out, shoving him forward with my shoulder.

He jumped and scuttled toward the dispensers.

I grabbed a tray stamped with the Academy logo, the plastic scratched and faded from years of abuse, and the server droid splashed a ladle of gray nutrient paste into the center bowl, where it landed with a wet, heavy plop that killed my appetite before I ever tasted it.

“Protein supplement,” the droid droned, cheerful and synthetic. “Caloric density: High. Enjoy your meal, candidate.”

It looked like wet cement mixed with ash.

I turned to face the room, plastic cup in hand, and scanned the sea of gray uniforms stained white with sweat salt. The fabric hung loose on the boys who hadn’t made weight yet, exposing hollow collarbones and gaunt faces, jaws working mechanically through the flavorless sludge. I scanned the tables for an open seat.

I found Elian instead, parked near the waste disposal chutes. The kid looked smaller than he had last night, hunched over his tray like he was trying to disappear inside his own uniform, and he hadn’t touched his food.

Any open bench would have done me fine. I told myself that the whole way across the hall.

I dropped my tray onto the metal table with a loud clang.

Elian jumped, nearly knocking over his water.

“Shovel it down,” I said, straddling the bench across from him.

“It smells like chemicals,” Elian whispered, poking the sludge with his spoon.

“It’s fuel. You burned three thousand calories on the field today. If you don’t replace them, the droids will be red-tagging your bunk for the scrapheap by morning.” I forced a spoonful into my own mouth, chalk and grit against my teeth. “Eat.”

Elian took a bite, grimacing, but he swallowed.

I didn’t owe him that. In Sector 9 you didn’t feed a mouth that couldn’t feed you back, that was the first rule of every ration line I ever stood in, and this kid had nothing to trade me but a dead brother and a wet blanket. But somewhere on the Front there was a trench with a fast winger’s name on it, dug by the winger himself, and the Regime had mailed his family a paragraph instead of a body. Nobody was left in Sector 9 to open a letter like that for me. Maybe that was why I sat there and watched the kid choke down his ration one grimace at a time.

It fed me nothing. I did it anyway.

Around us, the chaos of the line dulled into the rhythmic scrape of spoons against plastic. The guy on my left nursed a split lip, wincing every time the hot sludge found the cut, and across the table two defenders stared at their trays without speaking, too exhausted for words, their hands shaking as they lifted their cups. Nobody performed down here. They ate with their heads down and shoveled the fuel in, and for a few minutes the Nexus went almost peaceful, like a stable is peaceful. Animals feeding.

Then the lights died.

The Nexus plunged into a sudden, disorienting dark, leaving only the blue glow of the massive screens covering the north wall, and a collective hush rolled over the room. Forks dropped. Chewing stopped. Even the air scrubbers seemed to hold their breath.

ASSET EVALUATION: LIVE

Red pixels scrolled across the black, the letters massive and bleeding at the edges.