NAME: Karl Marsters

CALL SIGN: Vanquisher

RANK: USIF, Grade VI, Camelot Company, Genghis Division

ORIGIN: Chicago, IL

ACHIEVEMENTS: Two-year winner of Mr. Illinois Heavyweight Wrestling title, John Schultz Heavyweight Wrestling Excellence Award, Terminator World Championship first runner-up

IP: 2053:db7:lj71::231:ll3:6e8

SECURITY STATUS: Top Secret LANDLOCK-6

At least I got to punch him, Tom thought venomously, and forced himself onward instead of jamming the bacon down Karl’s throat. He arrived at the Alexander male plebe table, and found Yuri standing with Wyatt, trying to coax her into sitting down with them.

“You are always sitting alone,” Yuri said. “There is no need. You can join us.”

She shook her head, arms crossed over her chest. “It’s not my table. I should sit with my division.”

“Why?” Vik called back to them, mouth full. “No one in Hannibal Division talks to you.”

Wyatt glared at his back.

Yuri was more diplomatic. “This is not morning meal formation. No one cares about assigned seating.”

Wyatt made no effort to lower her voice. “But, Yuri, Vik sits with you. I don’t like Vik.”

“Hey,” Vik protested, looking over his shoulder, “Vik is two feet away from you.”

“You call me Man Hands.”

“I only point out the obvious facts, such as the manliness of your hands and the way your division—” Vik stopped mid-sentence when he spotted Tom, hanging back with his tray. Wyatt’s dark eyes moved to him, too, and widened. She closed her mouth tightly, as if biting back whatever she wanted to say.

“Timothy,” Yuri said softly, “you look troubled.”

“Really? Why would that be?” Tom sniped. “Maybe something to do with Programming?” He realized only after dropping into his seat that Yuri couldn’t know what happened. Already, he was zoning out, staring into space, his face cloudy.

Awkward silence hung on the air. Then Wyatt blurted, “How was being a dog?”

Tom scowled. “Great, Wyatt. Really great. I love looking like a moron in front of hundreds of people.”

Vik and Wyatt watched him with grim expressions. And then, Vik’s lips twitched. And twitched more.

“And I can’t figure out why he kept programming me to obsess over his stupid podium,” Tom ranted on. “Maybe he’s fixated on the podium, huh?”

Vik’s entire face spasmed.

“And thanks for leaving me there, by the way, you guys. I got to wake up to Elliot Ramirez stroking my hair! You know what I want to wake up to? Gosh. How about anything other than some guy stroking my hair?”

“Look on the bright side,” Vik said, his voice choked. “At least Blackburn didn’t add an algorithm to make you start humping anyone’s legs, or, you know, the podium.” He might’ve been trying for something genuinely consoling, saying that broke his self-control. He burst into laughter.

Wyatt pressed her palm over her lips, too.

“Glad this is funny to you people,” Tom said.

But Vik was doubled over, and Wyatt’s shoulders were shaking, and suddenly Tom’s black mood broke, and he found his lips pulling up in a grin. Just like that, it was funny to him, too.

Because yeah, they were laughing at him. They were laughing with him, too.

Tom had never stayed in one place long enough to make a friend before. But he began to understand suddenly what friends were for: they reminded you that things weren’t so bad after all. Reminded you never to stop laughing at yourself. He might’ve felt for a minute there like he’d turned back into Tom the Loser, but he hadn’t. This was never going to be Rosewood.

CHAPTER EIGHT

TACTICS WAS A different beast from Programming. Located on the very top floor of the Spire, the MacArthur Hall was a vast planetarium. A screen curved over their heads, and the diagrams in Tom’s head informed him the roof and screen were capable of retracting. CamCo held postmission briefings here to analyze their battles and see where they went wrong.

Here the plebes got to analyze CamCo’s past battles, too.

Here they learned about real war.

Tom watched Major Cromwell assume the podium at the front of the room. “Sit down.”

Her hoarse voice flooded the room without her raising it. The last stragglers were in their seats before the ping could even say, Afternoon classes have now commenced.

“You’ve downloaded this information,” Cromwell said briskly, “so let’s make sure you understand it. We’ve been examining the evolution of combat, weaponry, and tactics. History has shown one simple fact: people are people. Period. All the technology and progress in the world can’t change the fundamentals of human nature. There will always be war as long as human beings are capable of envy, hatred, and fear.”

Cromwell typed something into a keyboard attached to her podium. An image of an oil painting depicting a bloody battle plastered itself across the vast screen. “Combat itself has taken new forms over time. In the ancient times, whole armies descended upon nations, fighting in the names of kings, of religions. Over the years, the scope of violence narrowed. Technology improved targeting to the point where we could destroy certain individuals rather than whole communities, attacking by air rather than by planting armies.”

Tom heard a rustling next to him. He looked over and saw Beamer slouching down in his seat. Greenish light flickered over his pale features, and Tom glanced back at the grainy image on the screen—a target locked on a flat, rectangular building from somewhere above it.

“Wars were fought over oil, over territory. And now, the last engagement on Earth thirty-three years ago saw us destroying people and leaving buildings and infrastructure intact, all on behalf of private business, in the name of patents. Your generation may take for granted that countries go to war on behalf of private rather than public interests, but this wasn’t always considered an acceptable reason for violent conflict. Let’s trace the changes that led to this.”

“Let’s not,” Beamer murmured.

Vik elbowed him but kept his dark gaze on the front screen.

“Early in the century,” she said, “globalization was uniting countries across the traditional bounds of cultures, languages, and borders. Old boundaries became virtually obsolete. As a result, a corporate class emerged, with executives who identified not with any nationality but rather with the business interests that bound companies to one another. Without national loyalties of their own, large businesses moved jobs from country to country whenever labor was more affordable. This depressed wages worldwide. Most businesses were left without a consumer base, and this led to the Great Global Collapse. The companies that survived were the ones with control over vital resources. There are two prominent examples. The first one is Dominion Agra.”

Tom stiffened. Dominion. Where his mother’s boyfriend, Dalton, worked.

“As you know, when a company creates life, they own the patent to it. Over the last century, Dominion Agra’s genetically engineered plants and animals cross-pollinated and crossbred with the natural food supply. There are no consumables today without some trace of Dominion’s patented genetic material. The dominance of their genetic strains led to their total ownership of the food supply. This leads to the other monopoly you’ve heard of: Harbinger Incorporated, with their patent on Nobriathene, an industrial by-product that, over time, leeched into the water supply all over the world. It’s completely nonreactive in a human body, but to this day, no one has developed an effective filter for it. If you drink water, use water, irrigate your crops with water, you’re making use of their patented chemical. That’s why your families pay a usage fee every year to Harbinger along with their water bills. Whatever the global situation, the elements of basic subsistence are always in demand. Dominion and Harbinger have both thrived in this post-Collapse world.”