8 Trials Deep

CHAPTER 14: YOU ARE THE APPLE OF MY EYE

Can you get the get the master access code of all the holding cells?”

“Yes,” Leta said a little puzzled, “but it will probably take a little time. I can just open the cell you want if you tell me?”

“No, try to get me the access codes. The control operators are getting suspicious, we’ve been meeting sentinels on every turn and it’s increasingly becoming hard evading the drones. They must be specifically searching for me,” RF-13 concluded.

He had to enter a vacated holding cell as a drone zoomed past. Two drones crossed paths but still found no trace of their target. Even the sentinels that had received tracking instructions had circled the perimeter twice without encountering any signs.

“Connect me to general Morret,” the senior officer ordered the younger man.

The man immediately sent a communication request to the general's direct line, bypassing the usual academy connection checkpoint.

“F-78956 what is it?” came the general’s voice from the other line.

“Are you the cadet’s patron, have you tipped him off?” the senior officer asked. Aside from formal or public occasion the two former classmates had already discarded military formalities between them.

“What cadet? What is this about?” the general answered, equally unaware.

“Your trainee, RF-13, he has been evading our surveillance team since the trials started. Are you aiding him in some way?” F-78956 questioned.

“He joined the Trials?” the astonishment was apparent in the general’s voice.

“You didn’t know. What in the- you were the one who recommended him to the committee of selections! You’re asking me?”

There was a short silence before the general responded, “I recommended him but I didn’t think he would really report. And he’s no longer an RF, he should be civilian by now.”

The entire room had gone quiet, even the operators manning the other stations had paused.

“He can’t be a civilian,” F-78956 said in incredulity, “We have not received any memorandum from the Citizen Tracking Bureau or the Name Order Enforcers. He was certainly a Reserved Force when he was admitted into the competition.”

It was clear that they had met a situation that the team had never anticipated or prepared for.

During the selection process, it had been an open secret that all selected qualifiers were either from prominent and powerful families or individuals from the military who were showing great promise. The lowest station accepted was that of an RF. And general Morret’s recommendation was the only RF who was squeezed into the list, mainly because of the general’s background. However, even if it was Morret or any more prominent figure who recommended a civilian, even if the person showed great promise, he would still not be included.

Some members of the committee had only agreed to concede thinking that the Reservist would eventually be eliminated or voluntarily withdraw. After all, Trials was designed such that only those with connections or patronage would be able to surpass the challenges. Now on the contrary it looked like the RF had a powerful anonymous patron. What was more serious was the general’s report. The young man was no longer in the military. He was now citizen, the committee would be in uproar if they knew this.

The staff in the control center had obviously realized the same point and looked as if they were holding their breath. In the long history of the Lychinus Empire, the Regiis royal family had never had a member from the peasantry. They had either intermarried with distant relatives or welcomed powerful dignitaries from other regions of the Visus Alliance. The RF would definitely be a target of the committee and even the Trial organizers themselves.

“The month long buffer,” the general said in a pensive tone, “He probably has not registered the change yet in the Citizen’s Database. There is a moth long buffer before an individual with a Name Change is obliged to present himself to the Citizen Tracking Bureau to register the adjustment. There’s still four days more before the Name Order Enforcers can start going after him.”

“Do you realize where this is going Morret?” there was a hint of exasperation in the senior officer’s question.

“Pretend that this conversation has never occurred, this is all on me,” the general replied before abruptly cutting the line. There was a long uninterrupted ringing sound as the other side dropped the connection.

If it was 10 years ago, when the senior officer was still young and hot-headed he would have dropped everything, got into a high-speed jet and rushed to wherever Morret was to knock some well-needed sense into his classmate’s head.

The stubborn jarhead was asking him to stay mum, cover everything up and throw all the consequences on him. This would definitely crack the already precarious relationship between the King and Morret.

Meanwhile the subject of the senior officer’s vexation was standing on a wide training ground. He was frowning. The cadets who had seen their drill instructor’s deadpan countenance turn even more frightening had either doubled their push-ups or increased their running speed.

Morret’s mood had been dark the past few weeks after their salutatorian’s surprise drop-out. He had become even stricter and exacting that they could hardly breathe in his presence. All the ‘pruning’ attention that RF-13 used to bear on his own had been turned on them.

In the past, they would good naturedly encourage and pat RF-13 as he came back soaking with sweat after Morret found trivial excuses to send him to the training exercises. Whenever RF-13 was seen with crooked tie, a tiny speck of mud on his shoes or a subtle misplaced crease on his uniform it would be, ‘Off to the training ground’ or ‘do 10 iterations in the simulation chamber’. This would also happen if RF-13 was seen 5 meters within radius of any clutter or misplaced equipment, even if Morret knew that it was not RF-13’s trash or responsibility to keep those things in order. As his classmates, they would all laugh saying it was the weight of being the drill instructor’s apple of the eye.

Although the number of times that Morret would catch their salutatorian had decreased as they progressed through the Academy, the habit of being impeccably dressed or straightening out any mess within his radius had already been deeply ingrained on RF-13. He had also become eerily sensitive to Morret’s presence that he would automatically sense if the instructor was within range or were looking at them. As a result he had become the class’ Morett warning sensor. Whenever he turned unusually alert they would also straighten out their postures or busily occupy themselves with any ‘worthwhile’ exercise, it was sure that Morret was either about to appear on the corner or was observing from a distance.

Now that their salutatorian was gone not only had the class spirit dampened they also had to bear Morret’s intensified attention and exercise drills without their warning sensor. RF-06, their valedictorian also took an ill-timed leave. Nowadays the number of times they had been penalized had increased they hardly had enough sleep. Some cadet was even so sleep deprived that he crashed on his plate during dinner.

The other instructors, different from their usual behavior, had silently sent the cadet to the recovery unit. When the cadet came back a day after, aside from losing the panda eyes he had also not received any penalty. Even the other instructors had begun to avoid Morret for the time being. They would sympathetically look at the file of cadets as they passed through the corridors with their haggard expressions. But since they could not save them from Morret they avoided adding burden and had reduced their course workload by half.

Morret, the drill instructor, was almost untouchable in the Academy. He was a brigadier general by rank and yet when he was not in the front lines, he would run back to the Academy and supervise the cadets himself. The other mentors were several ranks lower or were even his former students, so what he said goes. He also had a mysterious relationship with the King. So what he said definitely goes.

The Academy or the instructors had not really minded the extent of his control. Though Morret was strict he was typically reasonable. There were just rare instances when Morret appeared to be obsessed on plummeting the Academy’s overall temperature to subzero with his demeanor. He had argued fiercely against letting cadet RF-13 to drop-out. However, since the person himself had already cited psychological incapacity as the cause of his resignation they could not hold him back. The former cadet showed great promise, no doubt he would have excelled in the military. But if he wanted to withdraw there was nothing the Academy board could do. Morret knew this and it was why he was silently fuming. At this moment, the whole of the Academy wished it was Morret’s tour of duty. That way, he could go vent on the front lines.

Morret had more or less an inkling of what the Academy was thinking. But he ignored it, just as he always ignored all things he deemed inconsequential. He was still hoping he could find a way to drag the brat back but it seemed it was now impossible. He had already entered the Trials.

When Morret recommended him to the committee he was certain that the cadet would just ignore the invitation. It was just that when he had seen the list of contenders drawn by the committee he couldn’t suppress a sneer. Except for two or three it was practically a basket of rotten eggs, fattened pigs and cotton-kneed greenhorns. He had thrown the cadet in simply to taunt his brother and those flock of pompous pricks. Instead of coming up with a sensible solution to the problem they had actually proposed this preposterous line of action.

For the first time in a long while, Morret’s mood lightened by a few degrees. It looked like the brat could still entertain him.

He turned towards the sweat soaked cadets on the ground with a frown on his face. This group of idiots actually had the guts to look dispirited in front of him, as if he needed any more reason to scowl. Instead of trying harder now that they had lost a comrade, they became a swarm of confused bees that lost their queen bee.

Morret peered at the group. Normally he would be chuckling inside whenever he saw them acting like a group of mice about to be pounced on by a cat. However when he saw the trembling, haggard, and nervous expressions on their faces as they anticipated his order, he changed his mind. “Drill over. Tomorrow report to the ground again in seventeen hundred hours. Dismissed.”

The cadets’ expressions were uniformly slack-jawed. They were expecting the Morret to make them go through another drill iteration when he actually dismissed them. There was a full 12-hour buffer before they needed to report. Some of the cadets had already lain on the ground, disregarding the grim and stains. The others were somewhat dazed. After a month of torture, the drill devil let them go just like that. Whatever happened with his call, they were perpetually grateful.

Meanwhile the drill instructor marched directly to his office. He settled on a leather chair and spoke to the air, “Get me preview of the Trials.”

The glass wall opposite of the man lit and a woman dressed in military uniform appeared. She gave her a slight nod and the glass interface turned into a wide theater screen.

An expansive confinement chamber was displayed. There neat rows of holding cells, some empty, some still occupied. On the right side of the screen was a scrolling list of contenders who had either voluntarily withdrawn or were eliminated. Morret patiently examined the list, RF-13 was not among them.

“Good, good,” the general murmured satisfied. “Now, just where is he?”

The AI assistant was summoned again with an order, “Get me view on the other feeds.”

There was a pause before the AI replied, “Unable to retrieve feeds, attempt was flagged as unauthorized access.”

“Use access code: Alpha – Mike – Lima – Alpha – 8 – 5 - 6 – 3 – 3 – 9 – 1 – 0 – 4 – 6 – 3 – 7 - 4,” Morret replied.

“Retrieval successful,” the AI responded. Several smaller screens appeared on the glass interface, it was all the feeds of the surveillance drones.

Morret scanned all of them. It was true, none of the drones could catch head or tail of the elusive brat. A smile crept on the drill instructor’s lips. “Good,” he remarked.

If the young man continued as is, the organizers and even those pompous pricks would not have an easy time pinning him down. He just wondered what the young man’s intention was in joining the competition. If he had become disinterested in the military, Morret was certain he was more disinterested in politics. Morret had observed the former cadet’s evasive measures during the past few years, always cleverly avoiding the spotlight and even pushing RF-06 in front.

His classmate was right. RF-13 could not have cleared the obstacles and disappear like a ghost without the help of a powerful backer. Just getting out of the Inviola glass confinement could be considered accomplishing half of the mission. Who could it be? RF-13 did not seem to be one who cared about creating connections.

Morret threw those thoughts at the back of his mind. What he was really curious about was RF-13’s plan of action. Did he expect to clear the first stage by remaining hidden? If he did, Morret taught him in vain.

Just as the man was thinking that something was not right, that something did not fit in place a familiar figure flashed on the glass interface. A young man dashed through the occupied cells and began releasing the still confined prisoners. He did not even stop to talk with any contenders but instead turned right and left keying the right release codes on the cells until all of the holding cells were empty.

The general knew that RF-13 was neither a martyr or a saint. If any of cadet under Morret had wings or halos on their heads, Morret would have long snipped off those feathers and painted those ray of lights. The military was no place for angels or cherubs. According to RF-13’s character he would not go releasing his competitors unless it was a part of his plan. Things were getting interesting.

He had no doubt his classmate was now internally banging his head against an imaginary wall. They had most likely not anticipated a possibility of a contender releasing all the rest. Morret watched as the face recognition features of the surveillance drones failed to keep up with RF-13 as the crowd of released prisoners swarmed like a flock of birds from a cage. He had blended into the group and disappeared once again.

The general had stopped from trying to find RF-13 too. It was obvious that he would appear if he wanted to appear and he would stay hidden for as long as he wanted. For a moment he admired the cadet’s patron. To be able to get ahold of the master access code and let the young man use it as he willed, just how did RF-13 lure such an avid and far-reaching supporter? Even the king would not be so generous to his champion.

Alone in the room, the general stood from his chair and with an almost gloating smile put his hand together in a slow clap. He himself had no idea how to get the master codes, while RF-13’s backer got it within that limited time frame.

In order to understand how tricky it was, one had to know that even his classmate or any of the people behind the operations control center knew the master access code. It was computer-generated and only the mothership commanding officer knew. However in the scenario that the organizers had set-up, aside from the contenders none of the other characters were human. The AI behind the virtual dimension could calculate a certain character’s expected behavior and let it respond as such. An enemy soldier would unhesitatingly shoot any of the contenders he encounters as the enemy commander would never disclose the release code to an enemy. He was....impressed.

“Impressive choice of backer,” general Morret murmured to the empty room.