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Yuri seera for him Tom was extremely satisfied with this for a half hour or so But then soorithht toward theestured for him to move "I need access to Sysevich’s processor"

Tom felt a jerk of alarm Yuri now had his eyes screwed shut Had they been too obvious?

"Why?"

"What did we talk about yesterday, trainee?" Blackburn put emphasis on the last word

"Sir, why, sir?" Tom said more respectfully He didn’t like this At the lethal look Blackburn sent hihast at the very idea Blackburn was going to do soure out Yuri wasn’t scrambled He looked at Vik; and Vik’s lips were a thin line, his eyes dark hollows

Toet past hi his palms, as Blackburn settled next to Yuri and seized the back of his neck, then shoved his hand down so he could hook a neural wire into his access port He stuck the other end of the wire into a s His hands were balled into fists

Tom remembered vividly how unhappy Vik had been when he’d learned Tom and Wyatt had unscrambled Yuri It was treason Vik hadn’t even wanted to know about it

Relax, Toht?

Vik drew a deep breath that lifted his shoulders, and seemed to hold it

Tom searched Blackburn’s face for any reactions "What are you looking at? Sir?"

"Not that it’s your business, Mr Raines," Blackburn said, gaze trained on the screen flashing text at a rate too fast for anyone without a neural processor to follow, "but Trainee Sysevich has a particular filtering prograonal Spire, his processor switches to an alert s any attempts that are made to tamper with his software I would’ve run this scan as soon as he got back"--his eyes flashed to Tom’s--"if some trainee hadn’t been an idiot over break and created a cleanup job for e of hope They’d tampered with Yuri’s softell before vacation, while he was at the Spire, so Blackburn shouldn’t pick up anything

And indeed, he didn’t Blackburn tapped his forearrab Yuri by the shoulder and pull hiht "Carry on," he ordered them, and headed back to the front

Toave a relieved laugh when he was sure Blackburn was out of earshot and elbowed Vik "Hey, ood" Vik slouched down in his seat "This ti lunch, but it had less to do with Blackburn’s scan of Yuri and more to do with Walton Covner’s atteh his cheeseburger when Walton strode past hiaped at hier to his lips

"No way," To of dehydration, Walton, and that is the only reason I believed for a second that you had gno fine!"

Walton gave him a decisive nod "Keep that up, Raines The more people hear it, the more they’ll believe it" Then he continued onward

Tom settled next to Wyatt and put his head on the table She struck hi his vision, and it wasn’t until To the back of his head, that he realized she’d been trying to pat his head co okay?" she asked hinome minion situation She tapped a few buttons on his keyboard to give herself remote access to his processor, then she ran a flash scan The words flickered before his eyes all the rest of lunch, and the results finally caathered for Intermediate Tactics in MacArthur Hall, the planetarium on the fifteenth floor Tohtened up fro at the massive screen that curved overhead and the roof that could retract to reveal the sky

"Yes, you’ve got a virus" Wyatt tapped on her forearram’s called Gnomes Looks like it tarumbled

"He must’ve slipped it into your honoht across the rooht You have to endure the gnonoet rid of the their fists at hiht himself and shoved his hands in his pockets instead No He refused to exchange angry fist shakes with nonexistent gnoraain Middle Company had the most trainees It was a bottleneck, because it was unlikely to be breezed through in six h plebe coet a phased reether That fact was a comfort to Torew more and more dependent on the processor to carry out vital functions To dependence at least ensured he’d never get threatened with reainwell, not unless soht planned to kill him

The chatter died as Major Cromwell strode into the rooainst it "One of the weaknesses of this training program is the lack of experienced veterans," she said in her hoarse voice "You are the first generation with successfully ieneration to become Intrasolar Combatants So we rely upon our current, active Co farwe have to do because soldiers like me do not have the direct experience you require One of these training exercises you need the Co experience"

She typed so out on her podium keyboard, and immediately, an interactive illustration of the solar system popped up Tom could see that it was split into the same zones Co battles The zones were partitioned according to their distance from the center of the solar system The space between the sun and Mercury was labeled the Infernal Zone The section froe of the asteroid belt was marked the Prime From Jupiter to Saturn was the Fallow, the closest orbit of Neptune through the Kuiper Belt was the Reaches, and a stray bit of text labeled the entire rest of the universe BEYOND SECTOR The words acknowledged the unlikelihood that hus would ever move beyond the confines of the solar system, and therefore, the rest of the universe’s utter irrelevance to the war