Tom tried to shove past him, but one meaty blow to the chest sent him reeling back. He caught himself against the wall, then yanked himself upright, his heart thudding.
“I hear you’re giving my boy Elliot a hard time,” Karl said.
“Your boy Elliot? Why do you care?”
Karl looked at his buddies, three large guys and a muscular blond girl. “You’re a spelling bee champ, aren’t you, White Fang? How do you spell ‘If I don’t learn to speak to my betters with more respect, I’m going to get my face smashed in’?”
Tom laughed, unable to resist: “That one’s easy. It’s K-A-R-L.”
In a flash, Karl’s fist flew toward his face. Tom ducked just in time. An ugly crack split the air as Karl’s knuckles met the wall. Karl screamed out, and Tom didn’t need any warning message to flash across his vision center this time. He knew this was trouble. He hurled himself past the large Genghis and made for the elevator. But it would never arrive in time, so he swerved around it, hoping he could duck into one of the other divisions.
Luck was on his side. The first door he reached slid open. He stumbled through and locked it behind him. Thumps against the door, bodies crashing against it, people who’d pursued him coming to their sudden halt.
Tom laughed, breathless, elated, the weird pain in his joints all but forgotten in the surge of adrenaline. He heard soft footfalls on the floor behind him, and then a familiar voice, “Take a wrong turn?”
Tom jumped. He whirled around to catch gazes with a familiar pair of yellow-brown eyes. “Heather.”
She leaned against the wall of the corridor, her dark hair loose about her shoulders. “You realize this is Machiavelli Division, don’t you?”
Fists drummed against the door behind him. Tom jabbed his thumb toward it. “Any way to seek asylum? I’m being chased.”
“Who’s chasing you?”
“Genghises. Large, angry Genghises.”
Heather propped a hand on her hip and made a tsking sound. There was a playful twinkle in her eyes. “Did you do something bad, Tom?”
“No, I swear, I barely even know Karl Marsters. He got all in my face about me messing with Elliot.”
“Oh, of course.” Heather swayed forward, then looped her arm through his and led him down the hallway to a living room area with a circular arrangement of chairs. “It’s because Elliot’s a Napoleon. Napoleons and Genghises are allies. They always look out for each other. You should’ve gone to Hannibal Division. They’re aligned with the Alexanders. They’d protect you.”
She was pressed close up against him, her warmth seeping into his arm. “Huh,” Tom said, trying not to get too distracted by it. “It’s funny. I didn’t even think divisions mattered that much.”
“Right now, for you, they’re just dorms. It’s really later on when it comes to potential corporate sponsors that divisions matter at all. Alexanders and Hannibals will introduce you to their company reps—those are the people in each Coalition company who determine which Combatants they want to sponsor. They pay for a Combatant’s airtime, supply ships for them to use in combat, and basically make it financially viable for the military to use them in space battles.”
“So people aren’t CamCo because they’re good.”
“Being good helps. But this isn’t a pure meritocracy, no. It’s also about knowing people.”
“I thought this place was all about war. I didn’t expect it to be political.”
She bumped him with her hip. “Tom, haven’t you heard that phrase—‘Politics is just war by other means’?”
“What about Machiavellis?” Tom said, his eyes dropping to the quill on her shoulder. “Who are you guys aligned with?”
“We Machiavellis shun permanent alliances. We’re free agents.”
“Freedom’s good. I’m all for freedom.” He was all for Heather’s hands all over him like this, too.
She tugged him around by the arm, then pressed on his chest. Tom moved back at her urging until his legs met the soft cushion of a chair. He dropped back into it.
“Well,” Heather said, dropping back into her own chair and crossing her legs, “freedom has disadvantages. I’m the only Machiavelli in CamCo because the alliances stick with their own when they’re introducing potential Combatants to their sponsors. Alexanders and Hannibals introduce each other, and Napoleons and Genghises introduce each other. It’s all about influence. When you have more people from your division in CamCo, you’re able to get more people from your division in CamCo. That’s why it was so hard for me to get in.”
“Hard for you?” Tom said, disbelieving. Someone who could fly like her, and looked like her, and she didn’t have companies falling over each other to sponsor her?
“I got in the program in the first place because I actually earned it. I didn’t have a rich uncle to connect me with Matchett-Reddy like Lea Styron, or a dad who used to work for Dominion Agra like Karl Marsters.” She tapped her fingers on the armrest of her chair. “Actually, it’s why I’m visiting the plebe floor. It has the biggest common area, and we’ve been plotting how to get another Machiavelli into CamCo. General Marsh agreed to approach the Defense Committee and nominate an Upper from our division, so now I have to figure out how to get a company behind him.”
“Why don’t you just use your sponsor?”
“I tried, but I can’t get Wyndham Harks onboard. So we have to look somewhere else and figure out how to get someone from another division to help.”
Tom thought of the other two Camelot Company members sponsored by Wyndham Harks: Yosef Saide of Genghis Division, and Snowden Gainey of Napoleon. They were both clean-cut, symmetrical-featured guys with ready grins. Between them and Heather, Tom figured there was one specific criteria Wyndham Harks cared about in their Combatants: looks.
“Who are you putting forward?” Tom asked her.
Heather’s nodded to someone in the hallway behind him. “Nigel.”
Tom turned, saw a weedy guy lingering in the hallway beyond. He was skinny and delicate, with full lips, a tiny nose, and a face that looked almost girlish.
NAME: Nigel Harrison
RANK: USIF, Grade V Upper, Machiavelli Division
ORIGIN: Cambridge, England
ACHIEVEMENTS: Winner of the International Linguistics Olympiad, member of the British Association for Computational Linguistics
IP: 2053:db7:lj71::262:ll3:6e8
SECURITY STATUS: Top Secret LANDLOCK-5
“I guess you’ve been listening. Did you hear about Tom’s situation?” Heather asked him.
“Yes. Those are Genghises trying to break in here, are they?” Nigel’s voice had a crisp British accent. Everything about the kid was smooth, from his gelled hair to the way he walked so lightly Tom couldn’t hear his footsteps. He had a strange tic going on with his face. It was this low, continuous spasm around his right eye, like he wasn’t quite in control of it.
“Yeah.” Tom tried not to stare at his twitching face. “Sorry about the door pounding.”
“It’s fine. It makes me wonder about something. You?” Nigel looked at Heather.
Heather cupped her chin in her palm. “Maybe.”