Chapter 6

SIM IS ALREADY PUSHING TOWARD me as soon as Ruger instructs us all to partner up, but she doesn’t make it halfway to me before he adds, “If you are Team Sever, pick someone from Team Matrix only. And vice versa. This person will be your partner for the week. The theme is information retention. The goal is to not be in the bottom six on the murder board this time Friday. If your partner fails, you fail. So, help each other.”

Sim and I make eye contact, and I shrug. Then a body shifts between us, blocking her from view. I’m face to face with some guy’s chest, and I have to crane my neck to make eye contact. I recognize the square jaw, the smooth features, the dark military hair. It’s the guy who caught Mouse when she almost fell last night, and he’s staring down at me like I’m the most interesting creature he’s ever seen. He’s handsome, in a classic way, symmetrical features, smooth skin, and he practically oozes charm. He’s the stereotypical “that” guy. I go to school with at least fifty of him. He’s going to have do more than radiate self-confidence to interest me.

“Hey, I’m Ghost. You’re Infinity, right?” His voice is smooth and rich, and it warms like hot cocoa on a winter evening.

“The one and only,” I tell him and mentally kick myself for not coming up with something less cliché to respond with.

“Wanna pair up?” He’s just asking me to be his partner for the week, but with that movie star voice and the way he’s looking at me, it would be easy to pretend he’s asking me for something more.

Okay, so maybe I’m a little interested. Externally, I school my features and do my best to effect an air of aloof acceptance. I check the murder board for his rank. Eight. He’s pairing down. Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth. If he wants to team up with me even though he’s ranked higher than I am, who am I to judge? “Okay.”

He moves to my left, and we stand side-by-side like poorly matched bookends while we wait for more instruction. “What do you think they’re going to make us do?” His voice is low and soft, barely a brush across my ear.

“Dunno. Something to do with memory.”

Eventually, everyone finds a partner. Sim ends up with a boy called Redux, and I hope for their sakes that the game is mental rather than physical. He looks like she could pick him up and throw him faster than he could power himself anywhere.

Ruger hands the lead over to Matrix and grabs a large stack of cardstock from the floor next to her. “This week, we’re going to focus on observation and recall. Memory. What you notice about your surroundings and how much can you remember.” It’s the first time she’s spoken to our group, and the husky quality of her voice is surprising. She’s fit and well-muscled, but small. And young. I wasn’t expecting such a grown-up voice from someone who looks like she was standing where I am just last year. “This morning, we’re going to start with a test. Usually, we will start with a workout to get your blood flowing, but today, we want to see how you perform when you’re at your baseline.”

While she is speaking, Ruger is handing out smaller groups of cards from his sheaf, two sets for every team. He hands both of ours to Ghost. When each team has their own small stacks of cardstock, Matrix continues, “ One partner will hold the panel up for the other to see. You will have two seconds to commit whatever is on that panel to memory before moving on to the next. It could be anything: a word, an image, a number. When you are finished, you will be expected to recall what was on each of those panels. In order.”

That doesn’t sound too bad.

“We’ll start with Shadow and Dodge.” Matrix pushes a button on her wristwatch.

Two boys step to the middle of the room and sit facing each other on the floor. One by one, they go through the cards Shadow holds up. After two seconds of viewing each card, Matrix calls, “next,” and they move on. I’m not at the right angle to see what Dodge sees, but when he finishes, he looks anything but confident.

He’s allowed to think about it for thirty seconds. Then it’s time to repeat them back.

“Monkey; ten; water…” He trails off and spends several long seconds thinking about it. “Music?”

“Negative, recruit. That’s four correct. Switch.”

They do the whole routine over again, and Shadow gets six correct.

“That makes ten for Shadow and Dodge,” Matrix tells Ruger, and he marks it down on a clipboard.

Three more sets of teams go, with similar results. The best is Bug and a girl code named Hack with a combined score of fourteen.

My turn comes too soon, mine and Ghost’s. I’m not ready, and I have the quivery stomach and sweaty palms to prove it. Twenty-two minutes have passed since the game began. I’ve been watching the minutes tick away on the clock on the far wall. We sit in the same spot in the center of the floor that everyone else has sat in before us. Nervous energy collects in the pit of my stomach and becomes electricity in my veins when I make eye contact with Ghost. His brown eyes are so pale, they’re almost gray. The kind of gray a girl could get lost in, and I almost do. Until he winks at me. He knows I’m being all swooning maiden just from making eye contact with him. Yeah, that’s not embarrassing. I reign my poorly timed hormones back in and close my eyes, shake my shoulders to loosen my muscles.

“Go,” Matrix instructs, and I open my eyes to look at the first panel.

It looks like something out of a Rorschach test, but better defined. A butterfly, maybe. The rest are easier to figure out: a dog, thirteen, drive… I get through the panels without incident and with all the confidence of someone who’s never done this type of exercise before. Which is exactly none. But when it comes time to recite them back, I manage nineteen. More than anyone else so far. Pride wakes in my chest, ready to make prey of any lingering self-doubt.

We switch roles, and I hold up the cards for Ghost. His brow is lowered in concentration, and he stares intently at each and every card, but when it comes time to repeat them back, he only gets seven. Which gives us a total score of twenty-six. We’re in the lead. I’ll take it.

We move to the outer edge of the room where the other recruits are waiting and watching. I lean against the wall and observe. The last team to go is Maverick and a tall, lanky, blond boy Matrix calls Recall. As soon as I hear his code name out loud, I know Ghost and I are about to be dethroned.

“They’re going to take it.” Ghost speaks so close to me that his words are less than a whisper and more of a well-shaped breath against my skin. Maybe his lips brush my earlobe. Maybe it’s just wishful thinking. Either way, love in the time of captivity doesn’t exactly seem like it would be my shtick, so I brush my ear against my shoulder to chase away the lingering sensations and keep watching.

Maverick goes first, and he does about average with a final tally of six. One less than Ghost. Which means if Recall gets anything less than twenty, we’re golden. Recall seems perfectly at ease as Maverick shows him the panels, and Matrix calls time on each. He taps his fingers together with each new card, but other than that tiny movement, he’s perfectly still. When they get to the end, he stares into the air like he’s counting dust motes for less than the thirty seconds allotted. At exactly 7:29 a.m. Recall starts listing his panels. He finishes one minute later with a total of thirty-two. Every single panel.

And he doesn’t even have the sense to look proud of himself. He is completely unfazed by the fact that he just blew the rest of our scores out of the water. Maverick, on the other hand, is like the cat that got the cream. His smug expression speaks volumes. He knew exactly what he was doing when he teamed up with Recall.

“It’s all fun and games until they recruit the savant,” Legacy mumbles, and a wave of awed whispers ripples down the line in response.

Ruger steps to the center of the room with his handy dandy tablet at the ready. “Preliminary scores are as follows.” He taps his tablet, and our scores replace our rankings on the murder board.

Maverick + Recall: 38

Ghost + Infinity: 26

Cipher + Prodigy: 24

Figment + Tally: 21

Augur + Legacy: 21

Chance + Havoc: 17

Redux + Sim: 15

Ammo + Trace: 14

Bug + Hack: 14

Anomaly + Houdini: 14

Aspect + Vita: 12

Shadow + Dodge: 11

Hazzard + Mirage: 11

“Second place is still at the top of the board,” Ghost says, and I nod my agreement.

Matrix steps up next to Ruger. “Now, it’s time for your morning workout. By the end of training, you will all be able to run ten miles a day. But we’re going to start easy. Today, you only have to run five.”

A round of moans and mutters rise up from the other recruits, and I’m tempted to join in. I’ve never run five miles in my life. I’ll never make it. But I don’t join in the griping. Matrix’s tight-lipped expression is enough to keep my own mouth shut. Are complainers losing murder board points the same way Sim did for being late? They did mention that attitude plays a part in scoring. I’m certainly not going to be the one to test that theory.

“Let’s get stretching, recruits!” Ruger’s voice is solid and loud and echoes in the large room. His command immediately brings the room to order, and he leads us through a short series of stretches. Then, the instructors take us outside for a nice, leisurely death run.