Marsh nodded crisply, seeing that they were all done. “You’ll notice there wasn’t much to that upgrade. There’s a simple reason: Lieutenant Blackburn installed the upgrades before you left for vacation. This password unlocked them. Now, trainees, take a moment to look at the map of the installation and chuck those chips into this bin here for reuse.” He kicked a small box out from behind the podium. All the new Middles tossed their upgrade chips into the container. None missed.

Then Tom called up a map of the Pentagonal Spire in his neural processor. The familiar blueprint of the installation glowed across his vision center, showing fifteen floors of chrome and steel launching up from the dead center of the old Pentagon, but when he zoomed in to gaze inside the building, Tom found himself shaking his head. That couldn’t be right.

The Spire had changed. The Calisthenics Arena encircling the interiors of the second, third, and fourth floors now contained a massive room labeled ARMORY.

That wasn’t possible. He’d seen the upper floor of the Calisthenics Arena dozens of times. There was no armory there. He was sure of it.

And then he looked over the other new sections: entire wings for military regulars stationed in the Spire, an observation deck on the twelfth floor, sections of wall containing power relays or processor parts, and below the basement level of the Spire, there was a brand-new floor labeled Mezzanine.

Wait. He couldn’t have overlooked an entire floor for the last six months!

“You’ll notice there are new areas to the Spire,” Marsh noted. “These aren’t actually new. They were always there. Your eyes saw them, your ears heard about them, but we blocked them from your conscious brain—rendered them in a sort of stealth mode in your processor. Certain sensitive personnel are also locked out of your processors. As plebes, you hadn’t earned liberty of these areas of the installation. Now you have. This is a sign of our confidence in you.”

Tom found his eyes straying over the Mezzanine, seeing the passageway leading to the fission-fusion reactor. So that’s where that was. Another passage led to something labeled INTERSTICE.

“You Middles may not all progress,” Marsh said, “and you may not all become Combatants, but you didn’t wash out as plebes and get those processors removed, so congratulations, you’re already a step ahead. You got promoted as plebes because you didn’t prove yourselves unsuitable for life here. You will get promoted as Middles if, and only if, we think you belong in Upper Company.”

Wyatt raised her hand, then dropped it quickly, remembering this wasn’t like a classroom. At Marsh’s nod, she blurted, “Sir, if we’ve had areas blocked from our processors, how do we know there aren’t other things in the installation we can’t see?”

Sniggering from the other side of the room. General Marsh gave a stern head shake, then said to Wyatt severely, “If there are, Ms. Enslow, you will find out in due time when we decide we want you to see them.”

Wyatt fell silent.

Then Marsh went on, “You’ll all have your first meet and greets with Coalition executives this Friday. Even those of you who don’t become Combatants down the road will find this a useful networking opportunity if you play your cards right.”

Tom’s thoughts flickered to Dominion Agra. He’d flooded sewage on their entire executive board, so that was one company that would never sponsor him. He could use this chance to make a better impression with the other companies.

As soon as they were dismissed, Tom’s mind turned back to that armory. His gaze shot to Vik’s. Tom could see the same eager spark in his eyes.

“Guns?” Vik asked him, obviously ready to go to the armory right away.

“Weapons,” Tom agreed.

They realized only when they neared the door that Wyatt wasn’t with them.

“Wyatt?” Tom called to Vik.

Vik spun around, looked behind them, then answered that question with a single name. “Blackburn.”

One word, but it was enough to send an unpleasant jolt through Tom’s body like he’d been shocked by another Taser. His gaze swung around to see Wyatt and Lieutenant James Blackburn. Tom’s heart began thumping, adrenaline and hostility surging through him as he saw the large, hard-faced lieutenant with close-cropped hair and a scarred cheek leaning over Wyatt, saying something to her. He wasn’t sure when Blackburn had slipped into the Lafayette Room, but he’d obviously called Wyatt over for a quick talk by the opposite doorway.

Tom’s vision tunneled into a single focus point.

This was the man who’d tried to rip his brain apart. Tom’s every survival instinct began blaring an alarm. Blackburn and Wyatt had had a falling out of sorts when Blackburn thought she’d hacked his personnel file and told people private things the trainees weren’t supposed to know about him.

Now they were talking again. Tom’s head spun. When had this happened? How had he missed it? Blackburn reached down and clasped Wyatt’s shoulder with a big hand. Tom didn’t like this. Not at all.

Vik lightly whapped the back of his head. “Doctor, guns!”

“Right, Doctor.” Tom grinned at his fellow Doctor of Doom. They weren’t real doctors, of course, but they’d called each other this ever since the war games. “Weapons.”

It was hard to force himself toward the door when all he wanted to do was charge over and shove his worst enemy away from one of his best friends.

CHAPTER THREE

IT WAS GLORIOUS.

The armory stood like some miniature fortress in the middle of the track, obstacles, climbing walls, and shallow pools. When they crossed through the door into the armory’s depths, they found themselves in a narrow corridor. Each step carried them past racks dangling armor and other accessories such as optical camouflage suits to render a soldier invisible. There were guns of all types, some that Tom’s neural processor identified, some it would not. At the end of the hall, a massive platform rested at shoulder height on top of it. Tom and Vik saw row after row of aluminum-and-steel machines that resembled exoskeletons, like a small army of headless androids ready to go all artificial-intelligence-doomsday scenario on them.

Tom and Vik gazed up in mute reverence, vaguely aware of other newly promoted Middles walking in, exclaiming over the sight, then leaving again. Soon no one else remained, leaving them to contemplate the wonders around them. Tom wanted to test shoot every one of the guns, don all the armor, and go all out against an alien invasion, or maybe against those metal skeleton things.

Vik gingerly lifted a small cylinder that resembled some sort of handheld cannon. “Look at this.”

“I’m not sure what that sucker is, but I’m going to call him ‘Big Bob,’” Tom said approvingly.

“Your head could fit in the muzzle of this thing,” Vik said, awestruck. “Seriously. Come on and let’s see.”

“I’m not sticking my head in a cannon thing. Stick your own head in.”

“I have highly temperamental hair. It’ll get nestlike. You don’t care when your hair gets nestlike, Tom. You can’t possibly.”

Tom wasn’t listening, because he was reaching out to pick up another intriguing weapon of terrible death. His neural processor informed him it was a miniature electromagnetic pulser. For some reason, the knowledge this thing could fry a neural processor made it all the more exciting for him. Visions of firing it at Karl Marsters danced through his head.