UnBound - Neal Shusterman Page 0,13
up and down the court, Logan forgets she exists. She eases off the yard and gallops up the back staircase to Thor’s room.
He’s not there. She heads for the audio labs where the deaf kids hang out. Thor says it’s ironic, but she doesn’t get it. She taps Hera’s shoulder and asks where Thor is.
Hera looks half-annoyed at the interruption, but in the same way Brooklyn’s relationship with Logan gains her acceptance with the squad, her friendship with Thor earns tolerance for her with the deaf. Maybe they make fun of her “English” (she resorts to spelling out words she should know) and for “signing like a boy” and her monotone fingering—but knowing their language makes her a member of their tribe—even if just an honorary one.
Hera signs, He skipped tonight. Said he had to finish a project in the computer lab.
Brooklyn should have thought of that herself. Breaking through some firewalls Thor can do safely from his own computer—but hacking through the trickier ones, he’d use a computer not traceable to him. Her fingers flashing her thanks, Brooklyn heads down the east staircase and to the computer lab.
On a Sunday evening the computer lab is nearly empty except for a couple of younger kids brushing up on factory apps and Thor sitting at a back station, keeping an eye on the computer room attendant, who seems fairly disinterested and unobservant. When she slips in, he waves her over.
You were right, he signs her. Twenty-one kids will be unwound, seven each from the academic, physical, and arts divisions.
She tries to keep her hands from shaking as she signs back: Twenty-one is supposed to be a lucky number.
Thor shakes his head. This is a very unlucky blackjack.
His fingers fly with explanations on how he retrieved the data off the server, built matrices of the inputs, and applied his algorithm, but she doesn’t care. She waves her hand to stop him, then fixes her gaze on his dark eyes and signs, What’s my ranking?
Revealing nothing in his eyes, he swivels the screen to her. A few names jump out at Brooklyn right away. Logan is safe. So is Risa, both a decent distance above the bloodred line of the cut, and Brooklyn finds herself aggravated that she saw Risa’s name before her own. Finally she finds herself. Brooklyn Ward SH23-49285. She’s safe! Three spots closer to the cut than Logan—but two farther than Risa. Brooklyn has escaped the Blackjack of Doom. She’d really have to screw up tomorrow’s testing to be put on the harvest camp bus!
Brooklyn feels featherlight and laughs out loud. She beat out Piano Girl by two. It’s the first time since that life-altering ruckus with Risa when they were seven that she’s had the upper hand. She can’t remember ever feeling this powerful, this fierce, this good.
• • •
Testing day dawns damp and cool. The latter seems a good omen. Heat saps you. Brooklyn makes her best times when the temps are low. Out on the field her sarge looks them over, sneering at some, his gaze passing over others indifferently. He growls at Logan to “Move left” for no reason. Maybe Logan was a fraction of an inch too close to her again. She misses his warmth as he shifts away.
Then she realizes that the sarge is nervous, and so is the lieutenant. Do they know about the StaHo unwinding cuts? They must. She scans the bleachers for the scorekeepers and freezes when she sees adult boeufs in the stands. She sees a major in khakis, his oak clusters glinting off his shoulders in the weak sunlight. Why are they here?
“What’s with the brass?” she asks Logan, her voice low, her lips barely moving.
Logan’s eyes flick to the clutch of uniforms. “Don’t know, don’t care. Ready to put on a show?”
Brooklyn debates telling him about the headmaster’s list, then figures it’s kinder to keep quiet.
“Yeah.” Her whisper is predatory, and she squints her eyes dangerously. “I’m ready.”
Some of the squads are sent to the shooting range, but her squad is up for the fitness test first. The 2/2/2: two minutes of push-ups, two minutes of sit-ups, then a two-mile run on the track. She wishes she could be shooting first, having qualified for a marksmanship badge last year. It would give her an early lead in the rankings, and a nice psychological bump is always a good thing.
When it comes to running, Brooklyn is not the fastest on the squad, nor is she the slowest. She is