“Again, program. Designed that way.”

“I don’t do that, okay? I always know when people are scamming me. I just don’t do the blind devotion thing. I’ve never even trusted my dad like that!”

Wyatt looked at him sharply, then bit her lip, because this was something even she knew better than to ask about.

Tom glared across the field, feeling sick over it all. He kept thinking of Dalton showing him how to put on a tie—and he just wished he could go back in time somehow and strangle him with it. He felt like he’d done something awful, like he’d committed some terrible treason against his dad, because even now he could remember how it felt for that fleeting instant to trust someone so absolutely, to believe so unquestioningly everything Dalton did was for his own good....

And most shameful of all, he missed that feeling so much he felt hollow inside.

Tom thrust himself to his feet and drew his sword. “This is stupid.” He needed to fight. Some fake violence against fake people would cure everything. “Just forget it all.”

“So you don’t have any more ‘I feel’ statements?”

Tom laughed harshly and headed toward the battle. “Wyatt, no offense, but you suck at playing therapist. How about you go back to being you, I go back to being me, and we forget this ever happened, okay? But thanks anyway.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

A WEEK LATER, WYATT still received no sign of forgiveness from Blackburn. He deposited a curt message in her vision center, assigning her a room to work alone in the basement, and so much tedious reformatting that she had to start leaving dinner early every night to make headway on it.

Tom knew his payback was next.

The first few days back in Programming were agonizing, knowing something bad had to be coming. Blackburn confirmed it for him by veering off his planned discussion of compilers and introducing a repertoire of new weaponized viruses, which Tom studied with a mounting sense of unease.

And then the day came.

“Today in class, we’re going to apply the knowledge of the last week.” His eyes found Tom, promising death. “Consider this exercise like a fox hunt, though if you want a formal name for it, I’ll call it Crossing the Wrong Person Is Bad for Your Health.”

Confused mumbling filled the room, as people looked at one another, trying to figure out who this was aimed at. Tom slouched down in his seat. Well, they’d know soon enough.

“All of you are hunting down one target,” Blackburn went on, “one fox. Use whatever programs you’d like to take that fox down. Hopefully, this will teach that fox a valuable lesson.”

In other words, Blackburn was declaring it open season on him.

“Tom Raines,” he announced, “you have a very exciting job today. You get to be the fox.”

“I’m so shocked,” Tom said sarcastically.

“If you manage to evade your fellow trainees until the end of this class, you win,” Blackburn said. “Use whatever means of escape you want. The rest of you will be competing against one another to see who gets the fox first. The winner can skip a day of class.”

Everyone sat up straighter. Even Vik, next to Tom.

“Traitor!” Tom said.

“Call me Doctor Benedict Arnold,” Vik answered.

Tom waited for his neural processor to call up the reference.

“You’re the American here. What’s the matter with you?” Vik said.

“Look, Vik, you’re my buddy. You can destroy me before anyone else does.”

“That’s what friends are for,” Vik agreed.

“So, Mr. Raines?” Blackburn said, elbows on the podium. “Are you going to run for it? It’s really no fun for anyone if you make this too easy.”

Tom shrugged and stayed right by Vik, content to let his friend hit him with a virus first. “No point, sir. I can’t win. Almost every trainee in the Spire is here. I might as well not bother.”

Blackburn considered it a moment, and then nodded. “Fair enough. Let’s give you more of a chance. A good programmer on your side. Mr. Harrison? You’re fox number two.”

Nigel Harrison, closer to the front, sat up in his seat, horrified. “This is completely unfair!”

“Really?” Blackburn said drily. “I didn’t hear you screaming injustice to the skies just a few moments ago when it was just Raines. Now it’s unfair?”

The black-haired boy gazed up at him with open loathing.

“Go, you two,” Blackburn said. “You get a five-minute head start.”

Tom didn’t move. Neither did Nigel. Five minutes was nothing. Nothing.

Blackburn looked directly at Tom again. “Or is the challenge too much for you?”

Blood roared up into Tom’s head. Oh, that was it.

“Don’t fall for it,” Vik warned in an undertone.

Yeah, he knew Blackburn was just goading him. But the accusation that Tom wasn’t getting up to fight because he was afraid just wasn’t something he’d let stand. He was going to prove Blackburn wrong. Prove them all wrong.

Tom leaped to his feet, ignoring Blackburn’s ferocious smile, and headed toward the front. “Come on, Nigel. Let’s get out of here.”

Nigel Harrison’s face twitched. “Ten minutes or it’s no deal. Sir.”

Blackburn waved his hand. “You can take fifteen, even.” His tone said, It will make no difference.

Tom knew it wouldn’t, but he bolted for the doors. This time Nigel followed.

TOM RACED DOWN the corridor to the elevator. “This is what I figure, Nigel … Nigel!”

He realized suddenly he was alone. The slim, black-haired boy was following him at a maddeningly slow pace, his pale face blank. Tom rushed back to his side, and matched his steps.

“This is what I think.” Tom practically hopped in place, fighting the urge to sprint, knowing he needed the other kid cooperating if they were going to win this sucker. “We should pick somewhere secure where we can control who gets in, like the Census Chamber, and then we make a stand. We can do it. We can stomp them all.”

“No, we can’t,” Nigel said.

“You and me, we’re going to be like those three hundred Spartans, okay? This is our glorious moment where we take on a vastly superior enemy force and win. Ever played that game, Sparta 300?” He fought the urge to grab Nigel’s arm and hoist him over his shoulder to move him faster.

“You’re such a child,” Nigel muttered. “You and your dumb friend, Vik. Life isn’t a stupid video game. Do you realize that? And seriously, who calls themselves the Doctor Dooms? You stole that from The Fantastic Four.”

Tom pounded on the button for the elevator. “First of all, we’re Doctors of Doom—there’s an ‘of’ and it’s plural. Second of all, that doesn’t have anything to do with the here and now.”

The elevator doors slid open. Nigel slumped back against the wall, wasting precious time that Tom knew they couldn’t afford to lose if they were going to have a chance of surviving the class period.

“Come on. Come on, Nigel! We’ve gotta go somewhere we can defend ourselves.”

Nigel fixed him with cold, blue eyes. “Is it true you blew up the Beringer Club?”

“You know about that?” Tom said, startled.