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  TZP! The jittery ache deepened, and Solomon heard several other recruits cry out. But not him. He wouldn’t give Coates the satisfaction of seeing him in pain, and when he looked around at his fellow would-be specialists, he saw that Recruit Wen, the Japanese Yakuza lady, was similarly unflinching as she bore the pain. She must have seen him looking, as she turned her head slightly to look at him with dark, fierce eyes, and nod.

  Was that a threat or a hello? Solomon gritted his teeth against the pain as he forced his shuddering legs to stand up and once again reach for the climbing holds. It was a welcome thing to think about reaching for each hold in this slow and pained manner, instead of being reminded that he really should keep away from anyone involved with the Yakuza.

  Which seemed a hard thing to do, especially when said Yakuza lady was busy scaling the wall next to him.

  “Not bad, for an American,” the dark-haired woman growled through clenched teeth as she climbed faster than he did, and higher, to the small balcony under the roof. Solomon could see the pain she was in, as sweat was dripping down her forehead and her limbs were shaking. She was apparently much better at dealing with the constant surge of electricity.

  “I thought we were all Confederates now?” grunted Arlo, the next one to reach the top despite the pain, as Solomon came in third, gasping as he rolled himself onto the balcony.

  “Confederates? Pfft.” The woman just shrugged, climbing out from under the balcony to begin her descent.

  Crikey, Solomon thought. That woman is as much a machine as Malady is!

  The mechanized man was spared the disgrace of climbing, which would probably have been pointless for someone in a full tactical suit, as they were designed with servo-assist hydraulics, meaning that he could probably leap to the top in this gravity if he wanted to. Instead, the human-mecha hybrid had already moved onto the next of the physical challenges—multiple opponent combat.

  At the far end of the hall, Solomon watched Malady fight as he stayed hugging the railing at the top of the climbing wall and caught his breath. Arlo had already just started making his way down.

  The full tactical stood on a rounded metal circle that had raised itself some meter and a half from the floor, its edge flashing before the bout had begun. Solomon watched as holographic mecha-hounds suddenly coalesced into the air on various sides of the man.

  I guess they didn’t want to waste real ones… he thought as he saw the mecha spin, extending a heavy metal claw in a chugging backhand that obliterated the first hologram into shards of light and color. The next, though, was already coalescing behind him, leaping toward his back—

  Solomon watched as Malady dropped to one knee and hunkered down, throwing out his other arm to ‘catch’ the hologram in mid-flight, for it to similarly shatter into a thousand pieces. Another hologram of a mecha-hound, metal teeth open and snapping, leapt for Malady’s front, but the soldier merely dove forward, headbutting it into non-existence.

  Fracking stars, Solomon thought. If the full tactical was that good in imaginary combat, he wondered if he ever wanted to see what sort of damage it could do in real combat.

  But before Solomon would ever get the chance to find out, he would have to face the hologram battles himself.

  Right! He saw the flickering lights of the mecha an instant before it was in existence. With muscles shrieking, exhausted, and still burning with electricity, he managed to swerve out of the way. The hologram soared through the space where he had been and vanished in a scintillating flash on the other side.

  Solomon was too tired to fight anymore. He didn’t think that he even had the strength to raise his arms to punch or to stamp his feet at them, but he could still dodge and duck.

  Behind me! He heard the sound of metallic growling as he dropped to one knee as he had seen Malady—who was still fighting on his own platform a little further away—do, but instead of attacking, he continued into a roll, pulling short of the edge as something suddenly slammed into his back.

  “Agh!”

  Only it hadn’t, not really, right? It had only felt like it had. Solomon reeled from the blow, his entire back feeling red and sore as if something really had just pounced on him.

  The holograms must have had some kind of residual static or electric charge, which meant that when they hit him before he could hit them or dodge it, it would still hurt.

  Solomon was already scrambling back from the edge and cursing the evil genius of whoever had designed this hologram generator, when another one suddenly slammed into his shoulder from his blindside.

  “Ach! Okay, I give up! I’m dead!” he managed to gasp, not that it stopped the next hologram mecha-hound from vaulting from the air in front of him, landing square on his chest.

  “Frack!” The hologram exploded into shards of light and color, of course, but this time, it also punched him with electric pain that was enough to make his head bounce on the metal floor and for everything to go black for a second.

  Chime. The edge of his platform flashed red and a dull chime rang as his circle slowly lowered itself back into place on the floor. Solomon didn’t know how well he had done, as there were plenty of others who had crashed out like him, lying on red-lit circles while a couple of stalwarts still fought on.

  Arlo and Wen, Solomon saw. The man-machine that was Malady had finally, eventually, crashed out after fighting longer than any of the recruits or regulars combined, and now Solomon could see that the machine had placed himself at the side of the wall, where it looked like a sort of docking port allowed him to recharge the servos and mechanisms of the tough exo-suit.

  “Hyagh!” Arlo, large and loud, roared as he was hit by two of the holographic mecha-hounds attacking at the same time. He was a quick fighter, with a wide stance, but his bulk played against him as he couldn’t duck or turn in time and he fell to his knees. The tournament circle flashed red. He was out, which made Solomon grin just a little. It was always a pleasure to see bullies go down.

  Which left Wen. “Ki!” The entire force of prospective Marines was now watching the Yakuza woman fight, spinning on her heel to throw a roundhouse kick through the heads of two hologram mecha-hounds, before striking a third, turning to backhand another—

  “Enough!” a voice called. Wen’s circle flashed red and her tournament ended. It was the warden, walking toward the assembled tired and gasping soldiers, a grim smile on his face. “Recruit Wen, I think you have shown everyone your skills in close-combat. I will be considering you for the close-combat specialism program,” he stated, earning a celebratory grin from the recruit, but a sneer of disgust from Arlo.

  The large man muttered something under his breath that Solomon couldn’t hear, but he thought sounded like a very negative assessment of the woman’s skills.

  “Do you have a problem, Regular Menier? Do my recommendations disappoint you?” Warden Coates spun on his heel to face the large Frenchmen.

  “No, sir,” Arlo grunted, although his eyes sparked with rage.

  Here it comes, Solomon thought, preparing for the worst.

  “Oh, please, do speak your mind, Menier, unless you want to climb up that wall in double-time for me?” Warden Coates had a funny way of motivating people, Solomon thought, watching as Arlo took a deep breath, again considering in that arcane and private way of his, before finally agreeing with himself that he was too tired to climb any more.

  “I am a regular, Warden-sir.” Arlo puffed his shoulders as he said so, as if his bulk alone could be able to prove it. “I have much more experience zan Recruit Wen!”

  “Oh, so you think that you should be rewarded with a specialism first, is that it?” Warden Coates said evenly.

  Don’t say anything. If you value your skin, don’t say anything… Solomon thought. But he was very surprised when Warden Coates did not, indeed, punish Arlo’s impudence or for questioning the warden’s judgement at all. Instead, he seemed to reward Arlo’s arrogance.

  “Fine. The Marines value self-belief. If you think you are
ready, Regular Menier, then tomorrow, we will have a little test. A command assignment. You’ll be assigned groups with one of you acting as command and the rest as regulars, and you will have a mission to perform. You, Regular Menier, will be the command of your squad, which will feature…”

  Warden Coates’s eyes swept over the exhausted and shattered men and women around him. “Hm. As you say, Regular Menier, you have been training here a long time. I am sure that a lot of these regulars already respect you. But the test of a good leader is one who can command loyalty even with those they have never worked with before…” His eyes alighted on Wen.

  “Wen, you’ll be in Menier’s squad.” He smiled.

  Is the warden mad? Solomon thought as he massaged his knees back to life. The two had apparently already had a falling out. Wasn’t their pairing just going to foster disaster?

  “Regular Malady too.” Coates nodded. “If you are half as good a commander as you think you are, Menier, then you will have no problem working with a full tactical.” Solomon’s eyes swept to the metal man attached to the wall, who didn’t move or say anything. If it was happy or sad at the grouping, no one could tell.

  “And finally…” Coates’s eyes kept searching the room.

  Not me, the guy’s an idiot, not me… Solomon was fervently wishing. He didn’t play well with others at the best of times, and he wasn’t sure that he called his enforced training here the best times of his life at all.

  “Recruit Cready,” Coates said finally, his eyes glittering coldly. “Maybe you can manage to teach some loyalty to Cready, Regular Menier,” the warden said pointedly.

  What does that mean? Solomon almost asked, before a thought slid down his spine like a shard of ice. He knows. He knows why I’m here. He knows what I’m convicted of… The death of a friend. The murder of a friend.

  “You all have a very colorful past, ladies and gentlemen,” the warden continued to drone, his voice as gleeful as a snake about to strike. “You wouldn’t be in the Outcast program if you didn’t, after all. But some of you have particularly bad pasts. And some of you really don’t deserve to be here.”

  Don’t do it… Solomon glared back at the warden. Yes, he was in pain, and yes, he was tired, but he wasn’t scared of this little man and his electrical device.

  Don’t lose your temper, Solomon. Don’t lose your temper… he kept repeating silently.

  “What was it you’re here for again, Cready?” The warden raised an eyebrow.

  Don’t lose your temper… That’s what this little man wants…

  “Speak when your superior asks you a question, schlub!” The warden burst into a scream of sudden rage. Solomon really didn’t have a choice.

  “Murder,” he said, his voice clear in the quiet gymnasium. What was more surprising was that here, amongst this crowd, that word didn’t elicit gasps of surprise or any sign of shock at all. Solomon wondered how many of his fellow would-be Marines were also here for murder.

  “But not just murder, was it, Recruit Cready?” the warden pressed. “You killed your best friend, didn’t you? Someone who relied on you, who believed in you, I presume? Someone whom you were supposed to look out for…”

  Solomon’s jaw tightened. Don’t lose your temper, Solomon. Don’t…

  “The Marines can handle killers,” Coates hissed, although it was loud enough for everyone to hear. “We can handle thugs and yahoos and conmen and thieves. I can turn any of them into better men and women, fit to wear the power armor of the Marine. But I don’t like traitors, Recruit Cready,” he ended on an almost whisper of hate and loathing.

  Which was nothing compared to what Solomon was feeling against Coates for spilling his secrets, and against himself for having them in the first place.

  “Dismissed,” Coates said through a lip curl of utter contempt as he stared at Solomon. “Get yourselves washed up and fed, and to the study halls.”

  CLANG-CLANG-CLANG! An alarm bell rang across the gymnasium, signaling the end of their physical training and breaking the spell of hatred that the warden had cast. Coates turned on his heel to stalk out of the room. Everyone groaned and stretched and stood up, and Solomon could feel the eyes of his comrades concertedly not looking at him. Solomon had the curious sense that Coates picking him out amongst all the others had left an indelible mark on him, like a black spot of ill-luck that no one else wanted to go near.

  Or maybe no one wanted to be my friend, Solomon thought. Not that he could blame them, given his track record with friends.

  “Cready.” A shadow loomed over him as Arlo appeared, his eyes cruel and malicious.

  Not you as well, Solomon almost groaned.

  “I do not give a frack what you did, although I should have guessed, from a sneaky-looking guy like you…” the big man said, before prodding Solomon painfully in the meat of his chest.

  “Back off,” Solomon shot back. Don’t lose your temper, don’t…

  “You won’t let me down tomorrow, Cready, will you? Because if for a second you try to undermine me, zen I will kill you,” Arlo said in a low rumble, before pushing him to join the others.

  Wow. Solomon was left behind, the very last of the entire class, and no one looked back at him. I guess day one sucked, right?

  4

  Competencies

  If the first day of training had started off terribly for Solomon, it didn’t get any better the second, at least as far as his integration into the would-be group of Marines went.

  After washing and eating—more gunk, this time green and with a side slab of some type of reconstituted, high-carb biscuits—the criminals made their way through the pristine white corridors to another series of halls. ‘Study lounges,’ as their military-embossed name over the doorway stated.

  The study lounges were, to Solomon’s eyes, the nicest part of Ganymede Military Base that he had seen so far. The lounges were each arrayed in a five-petaled manner around a hub where a metal column-computer sat glittering in the center, occasionally extending screens or arms in reference to inquiries or investigations. It was here that Solomon came face to face with some of the other residents of the base. None of them looked like soldiers in his eyes.

  There was Doctor Palinov. The tall, blonde, Russian-sounding woman walked up to the computer column to tap on one of the outstretched screens, then the screens at her ‘face’ flashed and a small readout was printed, presumably with the information that she requested. Solomon paused to watch her consider the information, nod to herself, and then move to one of the five rooms and disappear behind its frosted glass doors.

  “What are we supposed to do?” Solomon breathed, not so much talking to anyone since all the other recruits and regulars were doing their best to stay always at arm’s length from him. He was starting to feel like the town leper, until he was answered by the machine voice of Malady behind him, already striding past on automated whirrs towards the central hub.

  “You type in your name, and Oracle gives you your study requirements for this session,” he said.

  “Oracle?” Solomon hurried to catch up. Although he wouldn’t class Malady as a friend, it seemed that the others of their company avoided him/it as well, so Solomon felt a sort of shared isolation with the hulking metal golem.

  “Primitive AI. Data-retrieval and systems analysis only,” Malady stated. Solomon watched as he extended one of the large metal claws of his index finger and it flipped open, revealing a tiny data-port that he slotted into an available interface.

  One of the benefits of having cyborg-adjustments, he thought, as Malady downloaded his requirements directly.

  “SOLOMON CREADY,” he typed onto one of the screens, free to use it now as the others were giving him a wide berth.

  SOLOMON CREADY, the screen flashed, and a series of numbers and letters tracked across the screen until the lights flashed green, and a tiny strip of paper was printed from one of the thing’s many metal mouths.

  LOUNGE 3. Cubicle 2. Core Intelligence and Induction.
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  “Is that it?” Solomon looked at the paper, wondering if everyone else had the same printout, and if so, why on earth did they have to do this separately? It seemed like a waste of resources, but he shook his head all the same and turned to the glass frosted door with ‘Lounge 3’ etched over it, which whisked open to admit him.

  Inside was a vaguely oval room, with rings of free-standing cubicles of white, each with a chair, a screen, and above the screen what looked like a virtual reality headset.

  Nothing but the best, he thought as he found the one with machine-plate ‘Cubicle 2’ written on it and sat down.

  Thunk! Instantly, the screen flashed and there was a slight whir as the visor extended a few inches. “I guess you want me to put that thing on,” he murmured, taking the set of what looked like bulky sunglasses and sliding them on over his eyes and ears.

  Instantly, the room washed a muted blue, but he could still see the cubicle around him and the screen under his fingertips.

  STARTING…

  The words appeared in a shimmering hologram in front of his eyes, although he was sure that if he took the VR headset off, they would disappear.

  MATCH THE UNITS… TIME CONTROLLED.

  There in the middle of the air in front of Solomon’s face and above the screen appeared a geometric shape, slowly rotating in space and glowing green. It looked a little like a selection of oblongs stacked onto each other to create a crazy, complicated knot of right angles.

  “Huh?” Solomon thought, as suddenly there appeared, on the right and the left in smaller, less-bright glows, two more objects full of projections and right angles and corners, similarly rotating.

  “Oh, mix and match…” he thought, swiping the screen under his fingertips first right and then left, swirling with his fingers to turn the smaller objects until he was sure that one of them would fit the larger one in the middle, then dragging it across.