CHAPTER 24

“HOW’D YOU DO IT?” ANOMALY corners me at the bottom of the stairs, barring my access to the second floor like some kind of bedroom gatekeeper, the troll under the stairs demanding her due before she’ll let me through. Her flat black hair hangs like solid sheets, blocking most of her face from view. Her eyes are intensely dark, almost black, and they’re vacant, devoid of any emotion.

“Do what?” All I want is to get up to my room and shower away the sweat and stress of the day. Then I need to talk to Maverick, after which, I plan to do absolutely nothing. All weekend long. And if that means humoring Anomaly so she’ll let me pass, then so be it.

“How’d you guys get that guy to break so quick?” Her tone makes it clear that she’s not asking for interrogation tips.

I bristle at the implication. “What are you trying to say?” Better to get to the point and get whatever this conversation is over with.

“Nothing,” she answers, but that one word says everything. “Just think it’s weird; that’s all.”

My stomach clenches. She’s implying that we cheated somehow. But I know I didn’t cheat, and I can’t imagine how Legacy could have cheated without me realizing. Sim slips past me and brushes by Anomaly on the stairs without a word. She keeps her head ducked low and her gaze averted. We’re not best buds or anything, but the tiniest sliver of abandonment twitches in my gut.

I’m on my own. Everyone else seems to have scattered pretty quickly. Except Cipher, who leans casually against the wall by the door, watching us.

I steel my spine, square my shoulders, and look Anomaly straight in her dead eyes. “Weirder than you cornering me on the stairs to point out how weird it is?”

She blinks in surprise. “I just want to chat.” But we both know she doesn’t want to chat. She wants me to admit to something that didn’t happen.

“And I just want to take a shower, but here we are… me not showering and us not chatting.”

“Let her through, Anomaly.” Legacy squeezes into the space between me and the banister and crosses her arms over her chest.

Anomaly switches her attention to Legacy, and her brows crease. “You gonna make me?”

I wait for Legacy to come back with some cliché response, but instead, she clamps her lips shut, uncrosses her arms, tucks her hands into tight fists, and takes a large, menacing step toward Anomaly. She doesn’t need to say a word; her actions shout the implied threat.

Anomaly buckles, curling into herself and dropping her gaze in submission. She steps out of the way quickly, pressing her back to the wall and skirting us as widely as she can. Then she disappears around the corner into the dining room.

“Thanks,” I say to Legacy as I follow her up the stairs, but she doesn’t respond. I have no idea if she was standing up for me or just looking for a fight, but either way, I benefited. No point analyzing things too much, even if her behavior is completely out of character for her. Maybe she’s finally warming up to me. Have we become friends?

#

The rest of the weekend passes pretty much without incident. I spend more time than I should thinking about Maverick. And Ghost. I consider, a million times over, going to find one of them or the other, but I don’t. If one of them sees me talking to the other, things will be way weirder than they already are. And nobody needs that. The days blend together, and by the time Monday morning arrives, I’m almost desperate for something interesting to happen. After our usual morning run and target practice, we head into the upstairs of Matrix Manor, but at the top, instead of taking us left, like last week, Matrix leads us to the hallway on the right. This is where mine and Sim’s room is in Sever House, but here, it’s outfitted like a techie’s dream. A workstation with eight monitors stacked in two tight rows is set up in the corner, surrounded by wires and machines I don’t recognize. VR headsets hang from hooks on the wall next to the monitors. The workstation only has two chairs, but a row ten chairs long lines the opposite wall—where my bed would be.

“Welcome to week five, recruits,” Matrix tells us, as if that’s all the explanation needed on the equipment across the room. “This is where we’ll teach you hacking and surveillance. You’ll get a peek at some of the tech we use and today, you get to practice hacking drones.”

I cringe internally. I know almost nothing about hacking, and even less about drones.

Matrix directs us to fill the chairs along the side wall, and we play an awkward game of musical chairs with one more recruit than available seats. I’m at one end of the row, in the corner. Halfway down, Maverick and Ghost end up seated next to one another. And they look thrilled to be there. Houdini ends up offering his spot at the end of the row to Sim and stands beside her like a dutiful boyfriend. At first glance, they look like polar opposites, but the idea of them together has kind of grown on me. Have they made it official?

The other three instructors are mysteriously absent as Matrix boots up the workstation and loads an operating system I’ve never seen before. When she’s finished, she turns to the group. “Sim and Hack are our tech recruits. Why don’t you two show the rest of them how it’s done?”

Hack is quick off the starting block and claims the chair on the left before Sim is even out of her seat. When she does saunter over to the work area, Houdini sits in her absence and watches her attentively. My heart warms a little. Maybe he isn’t quite the bro I pegged him for.

Hack and Sim require zero instruction on their task. They jump right in the minute Matrix calls, “Go,” and their fingers fly over the keyboards. Best I can tell, the four screens on the right display whatever Sim is working on, and the ones on the left, Hack’s activity. I can’t make heads or tails of any of it though. There’s some sort of areal feed, like from a satellite on Hack’s side, and some sort of free-flowing code on both sides, nothing I can make sense of. It’s all computer gibberish to me.

The feed on Sim’s upper left screen cuts out, narrowing to a thin horizontal line before blinking out to a blank screen. A heartbeat later, Hack’s areal feed flips to something much closer to the ground, and it’s moving, hovering over a rural highway.

“She hacked me!” Sim calls out. Her tone is angry and accusatory, and she stares at her blank screen like she can’t quite believe she didn’t win.

Hack doesn’t seem at all bothered by Sim’s ire. “Hello… code name Hack. What did you expect?” Then to Matrix, she says, “I hacked a drone about a quarter of a mile from here. Anything in particular you want me to do with this thing?”

“That will suffice for now, Hack. Thank you.” Matrix opens the drawer of a filing cabinet next to the workstation and pulls out a stack of tablets. As she passes them out, she tells us, “These are pre-programmed with a hacking simulation like the one you all just witnessed.”

“Wait? That was a simulation?” Hack cuts in, surprise making her voice high and tight.

Matrix doesn’t even spare her a glance. “Correct.”

If even the recruits here because of their tech skills couldn’t tell that was a simulation, it must be pretty hardcore stuff.

Once Matrix has handed out all the tablets, she moves back to address us as a group. “You will have four days to practice. As with your first week here, these computers are specifically designed to not allow you access to the outside world. No internet connectivity or possibility for any such use whatsoever. Try if you want; it won’t work. The better way to spend your time would be to practice what you just saw. Your final assessment this week will be different, but will rely heavily on that type of technical skill. So, if you don’t know what you’re doing. I suggest you learn quickly. You are dismissed.”

Awesome. I’ve got four days to learn computer gibberish. Piece of cake.

Maybe I can convince Sim to give me some tips.