‘YOU MAY REMOVE YOUR suits, but keep your headsets on. You will now be guided to your individual quarters.’

‘The intern who is chosen at the end of the process will require a companion. Within the next six hours you must supply a name. Your choice of companion.’

“What does that mean?” Hacker looked suspicious. “What would happen to them?”

“It’s not something you’re going to have to worry about,” Carter crowed as he peeled out of the sim-suit. “Not you either, web-foot. It’s only for the selected candidate.”

“Hacker scowled at Carter. Really. Enough, okay?”

Molson said, “But, yeah. They’d be brought to you.”

“And installed.” Carter leered. “I know who I want. Idoru. Man, she can be my companion.”

‘The companion must be somebody with whom you are personally close. Somebody you have already shared feelings with.’

“I shared feelings with Idoru, for sure.”

Hacker called out, “Did she know anything about the feelings you shared with her?”

Carter laughed. “I sure hope not.”

The display in Joel’s visor changed to icons. Comms and chat, audio and visual controls, and an icon for the supernet. He figured it was an encouragement to contact a potential companion. Joel was sure that any communications he attempted would be monitored.

There wasn’t much could he say, anyway, even if he thought it was safe to communicate with his mom. Or with Honey. He had no idea where he was, he couldn’t truthfully say that he was ‘fine‘ or even that he was safe. But then an idea began to form. Maybe.

As the view settled to fade completely into the normal room again, they headed for the door. They all watched each other warily, but they left the widest circle of space around Carter.

The bot gave Joel directions and a schematic showed him the way, through double doors at the far end of the games room, down a bright corridor to a door at the far end. All the others were guided to rooms of their own.

Joel reached his door and caught the flash of Carter’s teeth as he opened the door of the adjacent room.

~~

Joel’s room was a good size. The large bed seemed comfortable. A screen was on a desk top and a dining table had four chairs. He didn’t think he would be doing much entertaining.

A door let into the neat, tiled shower and washroom. Clothes were hung in the bedroom closet and folded in the drawers. All in his sizes. The screen on the desktop offered gaming, but a sign above it said the supernet connection was unavailable.

Joel sat in front of the screen and powered it up. The unfamiliar window and icons told him again that the supernet was not connected.

The voice of the instructor told him, ‘You have yet to make a valid nomination for a companion. Your companion must be someone with whom you are close, with whom you have trust. Someone you can share your feelings with. Your fear, your secrets. To keep you mentally healthy.’

The screen popped up a box asking for a ‘Designated Companion Choice.’ Joel had thought hard. He suspected that if he didn’t give a name, somebody would be chosen for him. He had a hunch he knew who that would be.

There was no way he could allow the choice to be made for him, although he found it almost impossible to make for himself. But, he’d thought about it, long and hard.

With no idea what it would mean, what would happen to the person whose name he gave, it was an almost impossible decision. It was a thing that he didn’t want to inflict on anybody. But, if he had to do it, choose or the choice would be made for him, one person could fit.

He made the only selection he believed that he could and set the name in the ‘Designated Companion Choice’ box. He was cold as he hit ‘OK?’ by the ‘Confirm Selection?’ box. It felt like it could have been a death sentence.

~~

With that was done, Joel busied himself on the screen. He hunted around for comm settings. After some poking and guesswork, he found ‘devices, network, and protocols.’ In there he saw the connection sand ports. Smiling to himself he changed the address to one in an admin level range. That didn’t work. He tried another. Still no good. Ready to give up, he set it to the usual default super-user.

And that worked. Changing the supernet ports to the infranet, he saw connections lighting up. Joel sat back. Nervous, he got up and moved to sit on the bed. Infranet connections were cloaked and encrypted, at least in theory. He knew there was a strong chance that any communication he made could still be observed. But he had a plan for that.

If it worked he could get to the place that Honey liked.

One really good thing about her place on the infranet, the area that she called ‘Hopes’’ was that it was secure. Fanatically, almost insanely secure.

Incoming comm from Ben interrupted him.

“How’s your room, buddy?”

Joel had thought of Ben as strong, quiet and a loner. He was big and good-looking and independent. In the vitrtu, he played his own game. When he took Joel’s suggestion to team up against Carter, Joel had the distinct impression it was first and foremost because he thought it would be to his own benefit.

Joel trusted his first impre’sion, too, that Ben was a believer. That made Joel doubly suspicious and ‘Buddy’ seemed totally out of character. It put Joel on his guard.

Loud and clear, he said, “I expect every drawer and corner of my room is bugged and surveilled,” Joel told him, “But it’s pretty big. Comfortable, really. How’s yours?”

When Ben chuckled it was all on one note. “Yeah. My room sounds about the same, Amigo.” Then a pause. “Listen, you’re a smart guy, Joel. You got the measure of those games pretty fast. I want to give you props for that.” Another pause. “That was a damned shame about Angelo, wasn’t it? Damn. He seemed like a nice guy, too. A good competitor.”

Joel asked him, “Do you have any idea what happened to him after the game?”

“No. None. Do you?”

“I don’t.” Joel said, “I’m kind of assuming that everyone here knows more than I do, but maybe I’m wrong about that.”

“Well, what do you know?”

“I don’t know anything at all.” Joel was becoming even more wary of Ben, but what he told him was pretty close to the truth.

“No?” Ben made that chuckle again. “You’re putting on a pretty good show, Joel.” Joel was sure he’d been about to say, ‘Kid,’ not ‘Joel.’ There was an awkward beat in his voice. “You’re not the biggest or the strongest, but you did well out there.”

Joel waited. Ben went on, “I don’t have any idea what’s coming up next, but so far it seems like you’ve been thinking your way through the games pretty well.”

There was a purpose in Ben’s call and Joel waited to find out what it was. He knew that if it came to games of strength or stamina, his chances against all four of the others were slight. Thinking about the group, all of the rest seemed much more like athletes or combatants than he was. He wondered if Carter could be right. That he was krill.

The group had only just split up minutes ago. Joel hardly had time to see around his room before the comm came in. Ben must have called him first. He must be thinking about how to win, and in his thinking, Joel had to be a part of him winning.

Joel thought that Ben was probably smarter than most of the others. Maybe all of them. Carter wasn’t clever enough to keep his mouth shut when he was winning, nor when he was losing. Hacker didn’t seem too bright, though he had sport smarts for sure.

Moslon was tough to read but Joel’s guess was that he was bright enough to keep quiet, and to watch and listen. Beyond that he had no way to know.

Ben said, “We should try to work together. You and me, Joel. We can win this. Together.”

“Do you think there can be two winners?”

Ben was starting to say something. Before he did Joel asked him, “What do you think this is all about?”

“This contest?”

“Sure.”

“We’re into some kind of an elimination for sure. Before you arrived, we all talked about it. Everyone assumed it would be either for the TopFlight USMilCorps scholarship or for The Gabriel’s body quest.”

“What do you think, Ben?”

“I have no clue. My gut feeling? This place doesn’t look military to me.”

“So?”

“I think this is The Gabriel’s. I think we’re being recruited.”

“Or one of us is.”

“Maybe more than one.” Ben said, “Who can tell?”

~~

Joel remembered Ty Bannon and Kier huddled by the container stack in the schoolyard getting worked up over their latest conspiracy stories about The Gabriel. He stole kids in the dead of night. He inhabited a semi-organic cybot and feasted on fresh blood. He ported into USAi and manipulated the intelligence.

He was an angel of death in a dead human body, kept in motion by a cyber exo-frame. He was behind a conspiracy to poison the water. And another one to keep all of the wars running forever.

To Joel, all of them were stories that kids told each other so they could get scared.

Thinking back over the call, Joel decided that Ben’s had been setting out to recruit Joel. He saw Joel had some ability to read the games. Ben seemed to think that Joel could be a part of his own success. He wasn’t a great strategist himself, obviously. He wanted Joel to help him win, but he hadn’t thought to offer him anything in return.

Joel wondered whether Ben would be a better ally that Carter. At least Carter wasn’t underhanded. Ben was probably calling everybody in turn, making the same offer.

Hacker was a straight-ahead fighter, as far as Joel could see. He would think a move or two ahead.

He’d weigh the outcomes of a move, think about where everyone would be when it played out. Joel remembered him watching when Angelo took a trophy, seeing where Carter was going to be, getting in position so Angelo would pass to him. He would watch for the ways that a play could go. But not farther ahead than that.

Molson was more of an unknown. Joel thought that to be smart, he should call Molson. Like the way that Ben had called just now. Only with a plan. Something to offer. And something to get in return.

What he wanted was to get on the screen in the room. See if he could hack past the firewalls. Get to the infranet. Then, tunnel his way to Hopes.’