The Rift Uprising. Amy Foster S.

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       CHAPTER 6

      Beta Team is on reserve duty the following Monday. We are staggered throughout the forest with almost seventy troops, about three-quarters of a mile from The Rift. The four of us sit underneath a canopy of tree branches. A weak sun dapples through them and the shapes throw down pockmarked shadows. We are not at attention, but we are not relaxed, either. We are ready to push forward should the need arise at a moment’s notice. We hear the other teams check in. The Rift is silent, a closed mouth. No fighting today.

      When our rotation is up, we take the transport back to base. My team is unusually quiet.

      I wonder if my team is annoyed at me for leaving without saying good-bye, but I don’t provide a reason for leaving and they don’t ask for one. I wonder, too, if Henry had to step in at some point and make sure Boone and Vi didn’t spend too much time alone. That would be reason enough for all three of them to be irritated.

      When we arrive back at the base we go to our separate changing rooms and dress for training. Our training uniforms are much like our combat ones, only black and with less padding. The four of us spend an hour doing circuit training, which is kind of like an amped-up version of CrossFit, in the facility’s large gym. Then we spend another hour working on agility and hand-to-hand combat skills in a different part of the building that is a huge room with padded floors divided into dozens of small rings. We do a lot of stretching to keep our muscles limber and flexible—Violet has us all beat on this front, but what’s always so surprising is how giant Henry can contort his body.

      Like I said: every gay guy’s fantasy come true, and probably most straight women’s, when it comes down to it.

      Then we spar in a style that is, for the most part, mixed martial arts but with an emphasis on a particular martial art given our individual strengths. For me, it’s Krav Maga.

      When that’s done, we spend an hour outside with weapons. The base already had a significant target range; our group just enhanced it. We shoot for a while. Then we practice knife throwing—at the same distance we shot. Sometimes we work with explosives. We know how to build bombs and how to detonate much more sophisticated ones. Sometimes we do survival weaponry, which means we learn how to turn a dead branch into a spear, or we make our own arrows from flint and fallen logs. There is an array of bows hidden throughout the forest, just in case things get truly terrible and we run out of ammo. This hour also sometimes incorporates survival training. We hunt game and learn how to skin and cook it. We learn about the medicinal properties of plants and how to make a fire without matches. The boys universally love this hour—some of the girls do, too, but it really feeds into all the boys’ Red Dawn fantasies. I generally excel when I’m in survival mode, but please, give me a hot shower and a comfortable bed any day.

      For the last hour of training we run. As Citadels, we run fast and we run hard. Our speed is inhuman, almost faster than a human eye can track. There is a number that we have maxed out at, miles-per-hour-wise, but I prefer not to know it. They were smart like that, to give us the choice. Some people like Boone and Henry want to know how fast the fastest Citadel can run. Me? I prefer not to know. I don’t want to know my limits. I don’t want to have to make those calculations in my head if I am fleeing a nightmare. I’d rather go on thinking I have a fighting chance to escape to safety or, at least, to fight another day.

      Of course, I don’t like running. For one thing, I prefer fighting rather than fleeing, and I’d rather spend my time training at that more. Hell, I think I may even prefer hunting and skinning to running. Sure, it’s vital that we keep our stamina up, but I find it so … stupid.

      Maybe I should clarify: I don’t dislike racing through the uneven terrain of the camp because it’s exhausting—it takes a lot more than that to tire out a Citadel, even after the three hours of training that went on before—it’s just, well, boring. Henry, as well as other Citadels, finds the running soothing, like meditation. I wish I could zone out like that. My brain won’t stop turning, though. I’m always imagining other things I could be doing, would rather be doing, like reading or watching some lame TV show (if I’m being completely honest with myself).

      Thankfully, it’s not only running we do. Very rarely are we on clear terrain, so it’s crucial that we use the trees and other aspects of the forest to give us an advantage: a kind of bastardized version of parkour. We don’t use traditional obstacle courses and obviously we aren’t around much cement. But the woods provide more than enough to work with. We spin and leap and flip over rock formations and logs. We use the soft moss covering the firs to swing for momentum and jump down. We use the massive tree trunks by pushing the tread of our boots into the bark for traction to spring up and out in any direction. I prefer this to running. As a woman I can use my flexibility to my advantage and my light weight to scramble up places that are almost impossible for someone like Henry to get to.

      More important, this comes naturally to me, and unlike while sprinting along the roads of Camp Bonneville, I can let my mind wander. So today I use this hour to strategize even as I leap through and fly over the green and brown at my feet. My focus: I have a way to get into the Village.

      The problem is, I have no real idea what the Village is like inside. Citadels who are old enough to work there are not permitted to talk about what goes on with those of us who aren’t. As soldiers, we accept the hierarchy of secrets. It has always made sense to me before, but as I look at it now, it seems illogical. Why does the Village even need to be a secret? What is ARC hiding from us there?

      And now my imagination is in full overdrive.

      They wouldn’t make Immigrants live in tents, would they? Always cold, never truly comfortable. Surely they would have built proper barracks. If they imagine Immigrants living out their natural lives in the Village, then even barracks wouldn’t cut it. They must have prefab homes, even neighborhoods. Maybe. Or maybe it’s built like a prison. Maybe they keep the Immigrants in cells, behind bars. The idea of that makes me suddenly nauseous.

       How can I not know?

      And the answer is more than just how well ARC keeps its secrets. The fact is, it’s been three years and all I’ve thought about is The Rift. I have been obsessed with keeping everyone safe: my fellow soldiers, my family. I don’t know why that concern has never extended as far as the Village, and I am ashamed. The Immigrants, as part of this Earth now, deserve my protection, too.

      I jump ten feet in the air, grab a tree branch, swing myself up onto a thick limb, and squat down, bracing my back up against the trunk. I guess I have chalked up what happens with the Immigrants СКАЧАТЬ