look. “Performance of a lifetime, huh?”
“You said it.”
She looks guilty, worried for my safety. “You sure I’m worth it?”
I manage to fake a confident smile. “Definitely.”
My bedroom door opens and my sister Kelly swings in.
Surprised, I hop off the bed.
“So you’re back,” she says bluntly, sizing me up.
“Yeah,” I say. I’m not sure if I should rush up and embrace her.
I decide to wait and follow her lead.
“Well, that’s good, I guess.” She fiddles with the doorknob hesitantly.
“You weren’t at dinner.” Over dinner my father explained that Ivan had been promoted to a new position somewhere in the Southwest—news that filled me with such relief I had to cover my mouth so the General wouldn’t see how happy I was—but I hadn’t been given a reason for Kelly’s absence.
“Ran late. I’m doing an afterschool program at the Nursery now.” The Nursery is what some of us call the piken pens in the underground complex. Pikens are bred in the labs down there and conditioned for combat. “I think I’m going to be a trainer when I graduate. They say I have what it takes.”
“Oh,” I reply. “That’s great.”
I can’t believe how dumb I sound, how tentative. Back in the hornets’ nest of Ashwood, and I’m scared of my own kid sister. It’s pathetic.
“Whatever,” she says. “So listen. Congratulations on surviving and stuff, and for coming back here. But, you know, having you dead was embarrassing enough. Now I have to explain to my friends that my loser brother is back. You’re basically ruining my life.”
I’m stunned by her callousness, but I understand. In Mogadorian society, dying in combat is not afforded the prestige it is among most human cultures. And
“I’m just telling you this so when I ignore you in front of the others, you don’t freak out, okay?”
“Fair enough,” I say.
“Okay,” she says.
She leaves, without a good night, much less that hug.
I shoot One a despairing look.
She quickly covers her expression of pity with one of her best, most sarcastic grins. “Welcome home, Adamus,” she says.
CHAPTER 7
A kid a little older than me named Serkova comes to get me in the morning. According to the General, he’s a promising young surveyor in the Media Surveillance division. My father assigned him to bring me up to speed and put me to work.
We ride the elevator down to the underground complex together. He gives me a sidelong glance. “Heard you bit it in Kenya.”
“Yeah,” I concede, feigning sheepishness.
“And now you’re angling for a position as a surveyor?”
“That’s the idea,” I say.
He snorts. Serkova has a generic trueborn face, but there is something gross and oddly piggish about his nose that’s even grosser when he snorts.
“I didn’t know we were in the business of giving failed soldiers second chances.” He turns his stare on me. “Guess there’s an exception for the General’s son.”
The elevator doors open and we stride into the hub at the center of the underground complex. The domed ceiling and orb-like fluorescent light fixture give it the feel of a massive—and massively ugly—atrium.
Trueborns and vatborns stride in every direction in and out of the various tunnels radiating out from the hub. I feel them react to my presence: the trueborns avoid my gaze, while the vatborns sneer at me with naked contempt. Word sure traveled fast, even down here.
We make our way past the entrances to the Southeast and Northeast tunnels on our way to the Northwest tunnel. With the exception of the General’s briefing room, I’ve never been granted access to any of the tunnels off the hub before. But it’s fairly common knowledge that the tunnels lead in one direction to combat training facilities, and in the other direction to weapons stores and bunkers for the vatborn. We’re heading down a third tunnel, to the R+D laboratories and the media and surveillance compounds.
I struggle to keep pace with Serkova. It’s obvious he doesn’t like me and resents
