Rebel Born (Secondborn #3)(87)

We’ve gathered in a large arena formed of safety glass and illuminated by bright-white lights. Reykin and Ransom created this training facility together. They improve on it almost daily. Located on a lower level of Clifton’s sphere, it’s been almost home for the past several weeks.

Standing on the opposite side of the glass barrier, Ransom activates the holographic walls. The arena transforms into a three-dimensional world pieced together from satellite imaging of Crow’s island Base in the Fate of Seas. I’ve used Ransom’s memories of the interior of some facilities to construct a profile of what we can expect to find inside the Trees that contain Spectrum’s labs. The minutiae—from routes, to the equipment we need in each facility, to the best places to plant incendiaries, to extraction points—are tweaked constantly as we work out simulated scenarios.

“Strike!” Ransom orders, his voice an echo from the mountain range in the distance.

In this simulation, we’re outside a Tree on the Fate of Sea’s Base. Waves crash against the piles of rock erected as breakers. Tall lamps illuminate the night, detailing cracks in the pavement where weeds grow through. Steel military trucks loom. Out-of-date air-barracks dangle from the Tree branches.

Reykin, Cherno, and Clifton, playing the roles of villains in our scenario, attack my circle of volunteer soldiers from different angles. The VPMD-implanted squadron surrounding me brandishes fusionblades, but it’s really me. They aren’t self-aware. My intellect possesses all of them. Reykin strikes first, burning one of my middle-aged soldiers with a swift blow to his forearm. His weapon falls from his grip, his fingers tingling. I can feel a dull echo of the pain in my own hand, and it only serves to annoy me. Frustration makes me growl.

Cherno snatches another one of my soldiers from his feet and tosses the burly combatant aside with ease. I counter the dragon-man’s aggressive move with a fusionmag attack from a female volunteer. Without even a grimace, Cherno absorbs the low-energy pulse with his thick skin.

Clifton, outfitted in tactical armor he created himself, fires simulated missiles at my volunteers. According to the sparkling fallout, my soldiers should be nothing more than vapor. All my adversaries rush me at once. Growling through my teeth, I lift my palms and send out bursts of energy to repel them. Heat gushes from my fingertips. Cherno and Clifton hurtle backward and come to rest in a heap at the far end of the arena. I don’t use the same strike on Reykin, because he’s mortal and decidedly more breakable. Instead I erect an invisible barrier between us. When he runs up against it, he hits it hard and glowers.

Reykin gnashes his teeth, rubbing his nose, and then his forehead, which bore the brunt of my blockade. “This isn’t the plan we discussed, Roselle.”

“I’m improvising.”

“You’re supposed to be keeping us back with your soldiers.” He places his hand on his nape and kneads out the kink in it.

“This is a dumb plan, Reykin. The volunteers don’t possess the musculature to do what I want as quickly as I need them to do it. They’ll get hurt.”

“That’s not the point, Roselle. The point of the exercise is to practice using them, because Crow will, too. What happens when he throws a hundred thousand at you at once? You won’t be able to keep his forces back without using Black-Os, zeroborns, and Numbers of your own. You know this. Do the math.”

“There are other strategies to consider. I can turn his tide against him.”

“Can you? You know that for sure?”

“Using living shields is cowardly.”

“Crow is a coward. You need to fight him with his methods, so you must train. The sheer numbers of his arsenal will drown you in bodies if you don’t. Let’s go again.” He calls out to the sky and lifts his finger in the air, twirling it in a circle to indicate that Ransom should reset the program. Clifton and Cherno have gotten to their feet.

“We’re not going to beat Crow in a ground war. I can’t face him like that,” I implore. “I might win, but everyone else will lose. Everyone. There won’t be many left standing. I’ve run the scenarios in my head over and over. It’s bloodbath after bloodbath without end, until the annihilation of life as we know it, or until Crow kills me. We need to find another way. It has to be unorthodox—something he won’t expect.”

The lights come up, and the terrain around us changes. A snarl of dark and destructive energy digs into my mind. Crow’s essence slips inside the facility. It makes my heart race and my stomach roil. Sweat breaks out on my upper lip. The Trees in our simulation begin to melt and bend, and the screech of metal against glass fills the air. My hairs stand on end. Ransom has entered the arena now, too. He drags the sharp edge of a long-handled knife along the lab wall, but it looks as if he draws it through the air.

“This is your lair, Roselle?” Ransom’s mouth moves, but it’s Crow’s perfect elocution that tumbles from it. “Submerged in a watery graveyard, among the ruins of another lost civilization. You hide like a little girl who’s petrified of monsters.” He slowly strolls nearer with a maniacal leer.

My expression remains taciturn, but fear slides icily from the base of my brain down my spine.

“Imagine The Sword too afraid to face me.” He drags a fluttering hand above Ransom’s heart in mock fear. “Your ancestors must be disgusted by the way you’ve deserted your people.”