Britton guessed would never become a true moustache. “Looks more like they shot genius here in her head, eh, Pyre?”
“Brain’s still addled,” Pyre agreed. “She’ll get it eventually.”
“I already get it!” Downer stood, her adolescent fury showing in spite of the Dampener. “You don’t get it! Why would you want to be a fucking Selfer?”
“Selfer is a badge of honor,” Swift said. “Someday, hopefully, you’ll come to understand that. Now, sit down, little girl, and mind your elders.”
Pyre flicked Downer his middle finger, which burst into flame.
“Unauthorized,” Salamander gestured at him, his current reaching out to Suppress the Pyromancy, “and that’s yet another point added to your record. What does that put you at now? One million? Two?”
“Fuck you,” Pyre said. “And maybe fuck you, too,” he said to Downer. “Jury’s still out on that so far.”
Britton stood between them. “She’s just a kid. Leave her alone.” The Dampener kept his emotions in check, but he could feel the eddying magical currents intensifying around Swift and Pyre.
“Now, now,” Salamander said, waggling a finger. “Swift? Pyre? Do you want to join your mommy in the hole?”
The currents died, and Swift slumped in his chair, chastened.
“She’s going to get out, someday,” Swift said, “and when she does, we’re free, and you’re screwed.”
Salamander chuckled. “For your sake, I sincerely hope that day never comes to pass. Because we both know nobody is going to be free. Everybody, including you, will be dead.”
Swift sat silent in his chair, his fear palpable.
“All bark and no bite.” Salamander smiled. “Swift, Novices Britton and Downer are contractors from Umbra Coven. They’re only here to go through basic indoc and control. They’re already spoken for. You’re wasting your time.”
“Maybe,” he said. “But it sure is fun…”
The door hinges squealed again, and another woman entered. Britton caught his breath. He rifled through his mental index and quickly came to the conclusion that she was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. She wore faded blue jeans that hugged slender thighs and rode low on gently curving hips. Her shirt blazed an image of a beatific Christ, dispensing benediction from a metallic burst of golden fire that accented her breasts. Almond- shaped eyes dominated her face. Black hair fell to her back, thick and shining.
“Ah,” Swift said. “Our lady of perpetual, nagging guilt. Nice of you to join us.”
“Hi, Ted,” the woman said, ignoring Swift and addressing the soaking boy in the corner, smiling warmly. He mumbled a greeting, shooting a fearful glance at Swift, who stared daggers at him.
“Don’t talk to her, Wavesign,” he said. “She’s so keen to raise the flag, you can feel it. That crap’s contagious.”
“Shut the hell up, Swift,” another woman said. She was pale and raven-haired, lean like Swift but with a gentler look. “He can do what he wants.”
“Aren’t we all here for instruction, Tsunami?” Swift said to her, cocking an eyebrow. “I’m instructing.” He turned back to the new arrival, unfazed by her beauty. “Besides,” he said, “somebody’s got to counter the bullshit this one can’t seem to stop spewing.”
The beautiful woman ignored him, smiling at Britton.
“Welcome, Therese,” Salamander said. “Better late than never, please take a seat.” Therese pulled up a chair behind Britton, who was facing forward but could feel her presence behind him, like a heat on his shoulders.
If Swift’s attitude cowed her, Therese didn’t show it. “Hey, man.” She engaged Wavesign again. “What’s going on?”
Swift growled, but Wavesign only glanced uncomfortably at him for a moment before turning back to her. “Steak night.” He chuckled.
Therese chuckled with him. “Everybody loves steak night.”
Swift and Pyre scowled at the conversation, but Wavesign seemed to be taking courage from Therese’s presence and pretended not to see.
Britton seized the opportunity and leaned into them. “What’s steak night?”
“We get second round off the main chow hall’s supply. They have steak night on Tuesday, we get it on Wednesday,” Wavesign explained.
“What’s wrong with that?” Britton asked. “Steak doesn’t go bad in a day.”
“This steak was never good,” Wavesign said. “Therese found one of the flattened boxes in the Dumpster before they carted it off.”
“Grade B: for military or prison consumption only,” she said.
Britton smiled. “That’s no surprise. You learn to get used to that when you’re in the military. It may be new to you folks, but I’ve been eating that crap since I signed up.”
“You were army?” Swift asked, taken aback.
Britton nodded.
Swift was silent at that, brooding, but Pyre laughed out loud. “Man! That sucks. You’re in the army, and your punishment for coming up Latent is that you have to join the army!”
A few of the No-No Crew chuckled at this.
“That is truly special,” Tsunami said.
“All right, all right,” Salamander said. “If we’re all done getting to know one another, let’s get started. As you can see, we have two new enrollees here, Oscar Britton and Sarah Downer from Umbra Coven. They are already assigned and billeted elsewhere. I certainly hope you’ll give them a genuine SASS welcome and be extra nice. The rest of you are here either because you’re new to the SASS or we feel that your loyalty to the United States is questionable.
“But you all have one thing in common. You all ran from the SOC and violated the McGauer-Linden Act. We had to track you down. We had to bring you to justice. You are publicly dead. You belong to us. You may not be grateful for the gift of your lives, but that doesn’t change the fact that it’s a gift your government has graciously given you.
“The SASS is a second chance for all of you. The smart ones will realize that, like it or not, your Latency has changed your place in the world. You have the option of trying futilely to buck a system that, for all its flaws, was established for everyone’s improvement and safety”—he gestured to Swift and the No-No Crew—“or you can do the smart thing and realize that the only way to use your magic productively and rejoin society is attached to that flagpole out there. There are two questions, and I’m sure you know them by heart now. The only acceptable answer to both is ‘yes.’ You must mean it, and you must adhere to that oath for the rest of your lives.
“The essential challenge that we’re trying to overcome”—Salamander paused to sip at his coffee—“is that some of you still harbor dumb-ass notions of who the bad guys are. The video you’re about to see should put paid to that notion. In case it doesn’t, you’ll be pleased to know it’s the first in a series that will continue throughout your training.
“You hear a lot about the Mescalero insurgency. Most of what you hear is filtered through sympathetic media outlets. The poor Indians are having their culture squashed. Magic is their birthright. It’s the big, bad white man oppressing them all over again. What you don’t see is what these bastards do to their own.”
The screen flickered to life, showing a clip of Apache Selfers, stripped to the waist and brightly painted, gathering a string of other Apaches, mostly old men, into a line. Their mouths moved silently, screaming. The men were forced to their knees, their hands bound. Britton could make out a few women among them.
“You can guess what’s going to happen,” Salamander said. “You should know that the crime these people committed was ‘collaborating with the enemy.’ That’s us. That’s the United States government, it’s every American.”
One of the Selfers stepped forward sweeping his hands upward. Scorpions boiled out of the sandy earth around the prisoners, enveloping half the line. They covered the prisoners until no flesh could be seen, only a surging mass of the stinging arthropods. They scattered at a gesture from the Selfer, leaving a pile of discolored, swollen bodies, some still twitching in their death throes.
Britton’s stomach heaved. Downer gasped in horror. Therese shifted behind them both. The No-No Crew’s
