“Wow,” Tom murmured. “We’re superhuman. We’re actually superhuman.”

Heather winked. “Puts it into perspective, right?”

CHAPTER ELEVEN

THE MALFUNCTIONS HAD spread outside the simulation chambers. A few high-ranking generals came for a status update with General Marsh, and the trainees they passed reacted as if to some terrible stench—clutching their hands over their noses and running away. As more trainees reacted to the high-ranking generals the same way, Marsh signaled Blackburn, who isolated the exotic computer virus before it spread through the entire system. Nevertheless, the generals were disgruntled over it, and it became a black eye for General Marsh—and for Blackburn himself, especially when he couldn’t find the source of the virus.

Blackburn was in a thunderous mood because of all the chaos. The programs were maliciously playful enough to make him suspect one of the trainees, but according to Wyatt, Blackburn also thought that might be a ploy, too, to throw off suspicion from someone else. It wasn’t a stretch to guess who had motive to see Blackburn fired. Obsidian Corp. had already put out feelers with the Senate Defense Committee, seeking a return to their old role of software writing at the Pentagonal Spire—citing the recent software issues as evidence it was necessary.

Blackburn began watching Tom more than usual, like he suspected him of having some hand in the breaches. Then again, Tom wondered uneasily if Blackburn had an idea of what he’d been up to. Medusa still hadn’t responded to him, so he tried annoying her by returning to the Citadel’s systems and planting the Gnomes virus right into her neural processor. Then he headed to Calisthenics. They went through the usual routine for Monday morning, with Blackburn guiding them through marching drills and an exercise where they reached down with exosuited hands and picked objects up, then put them back down.

Tom spent the whole time thinking of Medusa as Vik smashed a cantaloupe between his metal fingers, and Blackburn said, “Congratulations, Ashwan, you set off that bomb. Now you’re dust.”

Then they got to experiment with metallic instruments that looked like irons for pressing clothes. They were called centrifugal clamps. One flip of a button, and the internal centrifuge activated, adhering the clamp to any nearby surface. Wyatt used them to climb all the way up a wall, then she got stuck, since she was too anxious to climb back down, even with a half-dozen people below her ready to catch her. Tom started climbing up to give her a piggyback ride down, but Blackburn ordered him to the ground. Then he started after her. Blackburn reached her side at the top of the wall, spoke quietly to her, and they started down side by side, one clamp at a time.

Tom was the last to stash his exosuit at the end of Calisthenics. Most trainees lowered the hanger, stepped onto it with the exosuit, then climbed out. Tom usually skipped the lowering-the-hanger part and jumped on top of it while it was still high, then took the suit off. Whenever he caught him, Blackburn gave him a weekend of restricted libs and scut work detail—cleaning around the Spire—but Tom did it, anyway.

Just as Tom popped his exosuit off today, a surprising thing happened: one of the suits came to life on its own, and two metal, exoskeletal hands shot down, seized him by the upper arms, and hoisted him up into the air. Tom gasped in shock, legs kicking out wildly, and words flared before his vision.

WHY DO I KEEP SEEING ANGRY GNOMES?

Tom managed a grin where he was dangling, his initial worry about an AI doomsday scenario fading away, replaced by glee that he’d finally gotten his reply. “You’re here! It’s so great you’re here!” he said to the air.

STOP sending gnomes. I mean it!

Tom laughed, giddy. The hand wasn’t crushing him, just giving him a scare. “Medusa, meet me online.”

I do not want to talk to you. Stop trying to contact me.

“Online. Once. Only once. Hear me out.”

No. You don’t know what you’re doing, Mordred. Stay out of our system. If I see gnomes again, I will come back here and kill you.

“Nah, I don’t think so. You might kill me one day, but it won’t be over gnomes.”

You underestimate how annoying it is seeing them everywhere!

“No,” Tom said honestly. “I know exactly how annoying it is. But I still believe you won’t kill me over it. People kill over money and power and love, but no one kills over gnomes.”

I AM NOT JOKING!

“Neither am I. Meet me. Come talk to me, and I’ll leave you alone.”

The machine drew him up closer, so he was staring into the empty space where eyes might’ve been. You promise me one thing. Swear it to me: you won’t interface with the Citadel’s systems again. Then I’ll come.

“I swear,” Tom said.

The machine released him so abruptly, he tumbled right off the hanger and smacked to the floor. Tom pulled himself to his feet, eyes on the exosuit, but it had gone totally immobile. Medusa had left the system as quickly as she’d come.

TOM’S NEXT FLY-ALONG with Heather was supposed to be an easy mission, a milk run. It was the rare day when Vik, Tom, and Wyatt all had their fly-alongs together. A handful of American Combatants and India-based Combatants were guarding harvesters, those ships that collected hydrocarbons from the atmospheres of gaseous bodies such as the atmospheres of Jupiter’s moons.

Heather took advantage of the opportunity to pry into Tom’s thoughts.

I’m ninety-nine percent sure Enslow is the one who told Marsh what I was doing. You can tell me if it was. I want to know, she thought to him as they did a slingshot around Europa, one of Jupiter’s moons.

Can’t you get over it? Tom wondered.

She ruined my career, Heather almost snarled back in his thoughts.

Heather ruined her own career, he couldn’t help thinking. Wyatt just noticed what was happening. Then he winced at what his thoughts had betrayed.

Heather thought, Ha! So it was Enslow! I’ll destroy her for this.

No, you won’t, Tom thought. Wyatt may seem like a wimp, but, trust me, you don’t wanna mess with her.

They were both distracted when the harvesters ahead of them stumbled into a Russo-Chinese minefield. The Combatants snapped into action, firing their thrusters to place themselves between the mines and the harvesters. The mines locked onto their vessels and accelerated toward them, so the CamCos veered toward Europa’s surface, until gravity tore the mines down to burst against the massive ice layer.

Tom found himself gazing at that moon. Along with the underground of Mars, it was one of these spots in the solar system suspected of harboring microscopic life. Just suspected, though. Since they were both such strategically valuable, resource-rich territories, the Coalition shut down any efforts to actually test the territories for life. After all, it would be way too inconvenient, dealing with massive public protest if somehow the war eradicated the only life found to exist elsewhere in the solar system.

They completed their slingshot around Europa, launching straight toward Jupiter to catch up with the harvesters.

We’ll slingshot around Jupiter again to get some momentum for the return trip to the talons, Heather thought.

Right, Tom thought, mind flickering to those magnetized talons there to serve as collection points for spent drones to await refueling and future use.

Then I’ll enjoy having a word with Wyatt Enslow, Heather thought viciously.