He was unimpressed. “A law’s a piece of paper unless someone’s willing and able to enforce it. Let’s ask the folks with the guns, shall we? I’m breaking the law here. Anyone care to arrest me?” He threw up his hands in mock surrender and glanced back at his troops, who just stood there in silence. “No? Well, that answers that. Move aside, Ms. Ossare.”

He started forward again, but she stopped him by planting her hands on his chest. “How dare you.” Rage made her voice shake. “You are overstepping your jurisdiction. These are his legal rights—”

“Before you lecture me about rights, tell me, really, how have you been here for three long years without figuring out the way things work? He’s not at a summer camp. He’s a military asset. His rights begin and end with that neural processor in his brain, and that’s still more than most of the rabble can claim. As for my jurisdiction? I have brute force. You have words. One trumps the other. I’ll show you which.” He plucked her hands from his chest, then whirled her around, and shoved her out of his way.

She started for him again, but one of Blackburn’s men caught her around the waist. Tom jumped to his feet, because Olivia looked ready to fight them all, and he wasn’t going to let her get hurt. He’d done everything he could, coming here, seeing if there were civilian resources. There weren’t. It was done, and it would only get worse if he didn’t stop this now.

“Ms. Ossare, don’t! It’s okay. I’ll go with them.”

“Thatta boy, Raines,” Blackburn said, closing the distance and seizing him. This time, he didn’t tell the soldiers to lower the guns they’d raised. He dragged Tom from the room with a firm grip on his arm.

Olivia rushed after them as soon as she was free. She reached out, and her dark hand enveloped his, just briefly. “Tom, I will get you out of this,” she pledged. “I swear it.”

“Thanks,” Tom said, before Blackburn jerked him forward and out of her reach. He didn’t think she could, though. He knew nothing could save him from the census device now.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Today, the Calisthenics Arena resembled a tropical island. Tom charged forward, faster and stronger than anyone else in the simulation. At a quiet, sunlit cove, he waited to help Heather over a fallen palm tree. She leaped over the log, then stumbled, and gave a squeal of surprise. Her uniform had fallen off!

Her beautiful eyes rose to his. “Oh no, what do I do, Tom? It’s so cold without my clothes. And zombies are attacking me!”

A bunch of zombies began attacking her. Tom felled them all with blows of his mighty fists. Heather gasped in fear of the zombies, then in admiration at Tom’s prowess.

Tom turned around and strode forward, towering over her by a foot, his shoulders as broad as Siegfried’s. Heather’s beautiful eyes feasted upon the sight of his perfect six-pack, bared where his tunic had been torn open by the zombies. “Oh, Tom, you’re so buff and brave. You’re ten times the man Elliot Ramirez is.”

Wyatt walked by and said, “It’s true! He is!” Then she walked away.

Tom gathered Heather in his muscular arms. “Don’t worry. You don’t need clothes. Not when Tom Raines is around.”

Another girlish shriek.

It was Ching Shih, the Chinese pirate woman Medusa played in Pirate Wars. She’d tripped over the same palm tree and lost her uniform, too. But she wasn’t actually Ching Shih. It was a younger, much more beautiful version of her. It was Medusa the way Tom imagined her.

“Oh no, Tom,” Medusa said. “I’m cold now, too!”

“Well, well.” Tom chuckled. “It’s lucky for you that I’ve got two arms.” He reached out for her, and Medusa pranced over and happily joined them.

Heather pouted. “Tom, I don’t want to share you.”

“Maybe I don’t want to share Tom with you, Heather.” Medusa pressed up against Tom’s powerful chest.

Tom smiled at the two girls in his arms. “Don’t fight over me, ladies. Big Tom’s got enough loving for both of you.”

They blushed, murmuring about how good-looking and charming he was, and then they looked each other up and down.

“ALL YOUR FANTASIES go the same way,” Blackburn complained. He was seated next to the census device, coffee in hand, Tom’s mental images on the screen overhead. “Don’t you ever get bored?”

“Feel free to stop watching!” Tom screamed at him.

“Calm down. You’re getting hysterical … Big Tom.”

Tom closed his eyes. He wanted to be shot right now. But first, he wanted to see Blackburn shot. No, eviscerated.

He sat beneath the census device, arms strapped down to keep him from fleeing again, the points of light blaring into his temples from the suspended, upside-down claw. He hoped a meteor would hit the Spire and obliterate it around them. Anything, anything to stop this.

As the fantasy took its natural course, Blackburn let out an exasperated breath and said, “Enough already.” He launched himself to his feet, reached overhead, and turned off the census device.

“Are we done?” Tom asked hopefully.

“We haven’t started, Raines. You and I have wasted three hours on these inane fantasies of yours. When will you get it through your head that you can’t hide anything from me while you’re in that chair? If you’re already fighting me on something so mildly embarrassing as these—” He seemed to fumble for the right phrase. “—these implausible encounters you’ve imagined with various female trainees, then this is going to be a long ordeal for both of us.”

Tom glared at the screen, his fists balled up against the armrests.

Blackburn snapped his fingers to draw Tom’s attention back to him. “Try this, Raines. Don’t think of an elephant.”

“What?”

“Don’t think of an elephant. I repeat, do not think of an elephant.” He let those words hang in the air a moment. Then, “You’re thinking of an elephant, aren’t you?”

“Yes, I’m thinking of a stupid elephant now! Why?”

“That’s how this works,” Blackburn told him, pointing at the screen. “You’re trying not to think of that elephant, which gives you a keen awareness of that elephant. The census device can sense that awareness. It knows you’re hiding something. It won’t stop digging through the rest of your memories until it senses that you’ve stopped hiding that elephant from it.”

“So you’re saying if I don’t stop caring that you’re going to see everything in my brain, you’re going to end up seeing everything in my brain, is that it?”

“Yes, that’s it, so you’d better desensitize quickly. If you hold out too long, I guarantee you, you won’t have much of a mind left after this is over. You can’t fight a census device.”

Tom’s chest ached as Blackburn flipped the census device back on. He tried to duck his head, but he knew it was useless. The beams followed him and found his temples again. A sense of futility seeped through him. He was already so sick of this. He just wanted to go back to his bunk.

“Progress,” Blackburn noted. “Very good.”

Tom lifted his head and saw that the fantasies were finally gone. He’d desensitized to the idea of Blackburn seeing them, he supposed. But the next image the census device called up wasn’t any better.