Mealtimes were quickly becoming Sam's favorite time of the day, mostly because he could ignore the rest of the training and just focus on eating.
He was usually hungry, and eating at the cafeteria – the mess hall, he reminded himself – was one of the few times he could get enough food, though not enough to make him vomit. He wasn't gonna make that mistake again.
The lessons with the computer lady, Déjà, had covered this a little. Food was fuel to people, like electricity to machines, or gas to cars, and the more a person moved and exercised, the more fuel they needed.
That made sense, because Sam was moving a lot these days. He'd always enjoyed recess, always enjoyed running around the farm. He'd been looking forward to doing some of the harder chores, the ones that older boys had complained about, but he wasn't on Harvest any more. He was on Reach.
And yeah, that was a hard thing to deal with. The Chief had told them about duty, courage, and honor. Déjà had explained what a cost-benefit ratio was, and how sometimes you needed to sacrifice little things to save big things. Doctor Halsey had told them all how important their mission was on that first night.
It didn't make things any easier, thinking about the big picture. It was just… too big. How was he, a kid, supposed to be important to the future of everyone?
It was much better to look at the small stuff, Sam was finding out. Linda might have had better eyesight, but Sam still saw more things. He paid attention, and it came in handy dozens of times. He knew things that the others didn't. What they would be eating that day. What the next exercises were. What the next lessons in the classrooms would be. Which of the other kids were the most homesick.
That last one was the most important. All the others were stuck in place, and nothing he could do would change them. But he could help the homesick kids. He could distract them when they needed to pretend nothing was wrong, or listen to them when they had to cry. James had trouble getting up in time, so Sam got up early to wake him before the trainers came in. Li ate slow and got stomach pains if he ate too fast, so Sam made sure he was always first to get his food, so he had the most time to eat. Vinh was hesitant to team up, so Sam asked her to join him, John, and Kelly for some teamwork assignments.
Small things, but they added up, and Sam knew that his actions here, right now, would matter.
But sometimes, being the kid who saw everything was a problem.
"What happened?" Kelly whispered, hissing out the words in between breaths as their feet pounded the dirt, and they turned for the next lap.
"I don't know," Sam admitted quietly.
They were out jogging around the compound, and for the first time since they'd started the program, each and every child was not accompanied by a trainer hanging by their shoulder with watchful eyes and ears.
The Chief hadn't said anything about it. No explanation, no excuses. He just ordered them into line, and took off on his usual jog. Instead of seventy-five trainers accompanying them, today there were barely ten, jogging around the edges of the formation as they went for their usual PT.
"Hey, you know what's going on?" another kid muttered as they rounded a corner.
"No," Sam said, for what felt like the tenth time.
Everyone noticed, and most of the kids had the same solution – go bug Sam about it, see what he knew. But this time, Sam didn't know anything beyond what they did.
He tried figuring it out. The Chief was like the mountains, stone cold and unreadable. He hadn't seen Doctor Halsey today. He hadn't had a chance to ask Déjà yet, and he didn't think she'd give him a straight answer either, because this was way more important than what they were having for dinner.
The only way he could possibly figure out what was going on was to look at the other trainers. That was something Sam tried to avoid when he could. They spotted him watching sometimes, and that meant they might decide to do something.
Plus, he never knew what he'd get with the trainers. Some were like the Chief, impossible to read. Some were easier, but they just focused so hard on something else that you still didn't learn anything. And some of them were a little less focused, and Sam could tell that they were mean.
Those kinds of trainers were the ones that Sam tried to keep the others safe from. Some of them had been at the Pelican yesterday, and had been waiting to beat them up. John spotted it a little after Sam did, but he hadn't thought to speak out about it, and John did – and John had probably saved some of the kids a beating.
Sam had worried about what the Chief would think of that, but the Chief had come out this morning and told them all that John was now a squad leader, whatever that meant.
He tried to glance at the closest trainer with a sideways glance as they kept jogging. The trainer didn't spot him, too busy looking up and down the line of jogging kids. He looked… tired? No, that wasn't it. Worried, maybe.
That bothered Sam more than not knowing, honestly. The trainers were grown men who'd gone through the same kind of things that they had, and so this should all be normal to them, right? Why would they be worried, unless things weren'tnormal? Unless something had gone wrong, that something was bad?
Sam glanced to his other side, at the kid running by his side now.
"Hey," he muttered. "I think something's wrong with the trainers. They're worried."
John glanced at him, and frowned, his head still bobbing up and down as they kept jogging around the beaten dirt track that went around the entire compound.
"The Doctor," John whispered back.
"They're worried about the Doctor?" Sam asked softly, confused. "But…"
"No," John shook his head a little bit. "I think they're scared of her."
Sam didn't understand. How could they be scared of Doctor Halsey? She was smaller than all of the trainers. She wasn't even military.
Sam's heart lifted a bit as he saw that they were approaching the playground. Every single day it was changed into a new shape, a new layout of pipes and beams and slides and ropes, stretched out over a large pool of water – the penalty zone, where you'd wind up if you weren't careful.
It was a challenge like nothing else he'd ever done before. He'd enjoyed the playgrounds at home, but they were boring after a while, when he could remember every foothold, every grab bar, every place where he could swing and jump when all the other kids couldn't. The playground here was always challenging because he'd have to learn those things new.
And of course, the other cadets were much better competition than the kids back home. Nobody was as strong as him, but plenty were faster, more daring, more flexible, more slippery. It was the best kind of exercise – the fun kind, where you were having such a great time that you didn't notice any kind of tiredness until hours later. It was like how the hills blurred when they were in the Pelican flying around; a magical kind of feeling where the less important stuff stopped mattering for a little while.
Today, the playground was split into two bulkier sections, separated not by walkways or rope bridges, but by a two foot gap running down the middle. Each section had three or four different levels, with larger, wider platforms than the playground usually had. There were gaps and ladders all over the place, and a person could have climbed or dropped between the levels really quickly if they knew how. A pair of wooden planks with little raised steps led up from the ground to each section of the base.
At the highest point, like usual, was a special object: this time is was a flag. The flag was at the furthest edge of the sections, as far as possible from that diving line in the middle. There were two flags, one red and one blue. Even parts of the two sections were painted red and blue, matching their flags colors.
"The game is capture the flag," Mendez called out, as the cadets gathered around. A few of the trainers were pulling out two boxes with jerseys, matching the flags. "You will be divided into two teams, and your goal is to capture the other team's flag. Winning team gets dessert, ice cream sundaes. Losing team does the dishes."
Some of the kids hissed. Ever since they'd started doing better at the exercises, the Chief had gotten nasty with the punishments. After the first week, nobody had their dinner taken away again, even the kids who came in last. They were all 'putting in enough effort', as one of the trainers had said. But now, instead of it just being a few kids who got punished, it was larger and larger groups of them. It didn't feel fair, but it was still better than going without a meal.
"The rules are simple," Mendez told them, holding out a hand as if to split the cadets in half, and gesturing at everyone on one side of his arm. "You are Blue Team. The rest of you are Red Team. You can tag any member of the other team in any location. If you are tagged on your base, then you sit down where you were tagged. While you are down, you cannot tag anyone. Any other member of your team can revive you by tagging you. If you are tagged while on the enemy's base, you must go to their prison."
Mendez pointed to the lowest level of the two sections, near the back.
"The prison is marked out by tape, and you will stay inside that prison until one of your teammates frees you with a tag," Mendez continued. "Once you've been freed from a prison, you are immediately active, and can tag or be tagged. To win, capture the enemy's flag and return it to your base. Put your jerseys on, and form into ranks."
Sam fell into line with the other kids from Red Team, and looked around. John was on the Blue Team, but Kelly was with him, so that was good. He saw Fred, Joshua, Vinh, Jerome, and Douglas, which was a pretty solid team around him. The rest were probably fine, but he was still getting to know them. The other team… he glanced over, and saw John talking to Linda, Alice, Daisy, James, Li, and Will.
The trainers walked around, counting as the kids formed into ranks. With seventy-five kids, it looked like John's team would have a one kid advantage, but that wasn't too bad.
They were hustled off to their side of the playground, away from the other kids. Some of the trainers were climbing up into little towers and observation posts, while a single trainer went to each of the prisons and each of the flags. Their stark black jumpsuits stood out from the gray of Sam's own jumpsuit, and the colored jerseys they wore, which should make it easy to tell them apart.
He licked his lips, and shared a grin with Kelly. This was gonna be good. A real competition. The kind of thing that he wished he could do every day, instead of sitting in the classroom with Déjà's lessons, no matter how important those things probably were.
"Okay, what's the plan?" he asked, looking around. The rest of the kids looked back at him, unsure, hesitant to respond.
"I can take a few people and go up that far side," Jerome volunteered. "It looks like it goes straight to the flag."
"Yeah, but it's narrow," Fred pointed out. "They'll only need to put one person on it, and they can keep it guarded."
"Not if we tag them first," Vinh murmured. "I'll go with him."
"I'll go up the middle," Kelly announced, bouncing lightly on her feet. "I think I could outrun them, grab that flag, and get away."
"They'll see you coming," Jerome said. "It's what John would have had you do anyway, so he'll know."
"Yeah? So what?" Kelly asked, jutting her chin out at the boy.
"So wait until I go up that side first," Jerome said, pointing with his hand. "We'll make a bunch of noise and draw their attention, and then you go, while they're distracted."
Kelly squinted at him, tilting her head from side to side.
"I guess that works," she said, shrugging. "I don't think it's really needed, though."
"I'll run the defense," Sam said. "Let's hold at least half of our team back for defense."
"Isn't that too much?" someone asked – a boy that had 059 stamped on his jumpsuit. "What if we don't send enough people on the attack?"
"Then we'll have a reserve we can use to free them," Sam argued, remembering the idea of a 'mobile reserve' from something that Doctor Halsey had been teaching them. "If we send too many of us on the attack and they get tagged, they're stuck in the prison. But if we get tagged here, we'll just tag our own guys back up, which is a lot easier."
Cadet 059 frowned, but didn't say anything else.
"Why can't we just guard the prison and the flag, and stay put?" another kid that Sam didn't know asked – a girl marked 016. "They're far apart, but we've got thirty people, we could easily guard both."
"Didn't you hear the Chief?" another kid asked from the back of the crowd. "We can't win without taking their flag."
"But if we tag most of them out first, then we'll have superior numbers, and then–" Cadet 016 tried to argue, before a sudden shout cut her off.
"Begin!" the Chief roared, blowing a whistle.
Sam jumped, and ran for the planks. He was one of the first ones up, and wobbled a bit on the board, because there were no handrails, but it was wide enough that he didn't fall. As soon as he got to the top, he jumped to the side and started climbing up to the top level, so he could see what was around him. The girl who'd spoken up – Cadet 016 – was following him.
Jerome had gathered up five other kids, including Vinh, and was already racing for the left side of the playground. They jumped over as a group, clearing the gap and charging headfirst into the enemy base. Half of them had a nice flat section to run on, but some of the others had to climb up a rope ladder to go one level higher, with Jerome taking the first group and Vinh taking the second group.
Blue Team was already moving. Kelly had been standing by the center of the second level, ready to jump over and gun it for the flag, when a group of kids leapt right over and charged her. She was fast, but there was at least seven other kids. She got two of them with lightning fast hands, but then got tagged, and with an angry scowl, plopped down on the ground.
Sam looked out, and saw that Jerome's team wasn't doing too well. Vinh and her entire group were already tagged, with James having jumped down from the top level behind them and tagging them all quickly, before they'd noticed.
Li was doing even better – he'd go partway up a ladder and reach out with a hand to smack one of Jerome's team, before dropping back down to avoid getting tagged. He'd already gotten one of Jerome's group, and now it was a two-on-five matchup, as three more kids from Blue Team came running straight at Jerome.
"You do the defense thing," Sam told Cadet 016. "I'm gonna tag Kelly!"
"Okay!" the girl nodded back, a serious look on her face, as Sam took off, hopping over a ladder and racing towards the dividing line.
A swarm of Red Team kids charged at the invading Blue Team. Sam was one level too high to join in, and he wasn't sure it was the best move anyway, so he kept running, moving past the confrontation. If you fought someone else, you could tag or get tagged, and either win it all or lose it all. But if you went to revive your buddies, then you added to your team's numbers while risking much less.
He stopped near the diving line between the bases and slid down a small pole, dropping right next to Kelly.
"Bad luck," he said as he tagged her outstretched hand.
"Good luck from John," Kelly muttered. "He sent them, I know it."
"Can you blame him?" Sam asked. "It worked."
Kelly grumbled under her breath, while Sam quickly glanced at both bases. The initial surge had slowed down, and now there was maybe a dozen kids trying to tease the other side into jumping across the line. The prisons were filling with early aggressors, making it all pointless. His Red Team had lost maybe fifteen kids, and Blue Team had lost maybe ten.
"She's right," Sam realized.
"Who?" Kelly asked, eyeing a kid from Blue Team that was walking towards the diving line, ready to tag him if he jumped over.
"That girl, Cadet 016," Sam told her. "If we'd played all defense, even just for the first wave, we'd outnumber them right now, four to three. Instead, they outnumber us."
"Can't win a fight with all defense," Kelly objected.
"No, but you don't have to stay on defense the whole time," Sam pointed out. "They would've stopped coming, and then we'd jump them with overwhelming numbers."
"Too late now," Kelly said with a shrug. "We'll have to just keep pushing for the flag."
Sam inspected the route to the flag, and frowned. The bases had four levels, with the flag on the highest, but that top level didn't extend out to the boundary line. They'd have to jump across on the second-highest level, then charge through the narrow pathways like Jerome had tried. It was just too open – Li and James had taken out three times their numbers without getting downed.
Maybe if they charged with enough kids… but that didn't seem right either. Déjà had been telling them about the differences between good commanders and bad commanders, and throwing away lives in a frontal charge was a bad commander's move. Plus, even if they did, and they took out a bunch of Blue Team, then they'd just be revived instantly anyway.
Sam glanced down towards the Blue Team prison. He could see Jerome standing there, scowling in frustration, along with the other fourteen kids. Around a third of their total numbers, just stuck in prison unable to do anything, whereas Blue Team had only lost… a quarter of theirs? That seemed about right.
He kept looking, and then paused as he saw something. Way at the back of the prison was a couple knotted ropes that hung down from above, clearly intended for climbing. He followed them up, and his jaw fell open as he saw that they went all the way from the bottom level to the top – next to the flag.
The prison had looked like a good place to hit because it would free their teammates and make it easier to defend… but what if they didn't defend? The Chief had said that the prisoners would be active immediately after being freed. So if Sam and Kelly freed them, then they'd had seventeen kids right there. It'd be a fast climb up to the top, but the other levels didn't even come close to the rope ladders, so it'd be hard to tag them until they were back on their feet, and were even behind the defenders.
Of course, if he messed it up, then he'd be adding himself and Kelly to the prison without any real gain. They needed more people. And if they took too many, then they might make their defenses too weak, and John could attack with a group of his own while they were busy at the prison.
"Come on, I've got an idea," he said to Kelly, pointing back up towards the back of the base, where more kids were congregating, safely back from the midpoint.
They jogged back up towards the flag, where Cadet 016 was shouting at kids, waving her hands and trying to direct them. It was slow, but some of the kids were already moving towards chokepoints and narrow paths, so it was coming along.
"Hey, I think I know how we can win!" he burst out as soon as he got up the ladder. "I'm gonna take five kids and go hit their prison. You keep everyone else here and defend."
"Not the flag?" Kelly asked, bewildered. "Why?"
"Once we free the prisoners, they can join us as we move immediately to the flag," Sam explained, glancing between her and Cadet 016. "Then we won't have six kids, we'll have twenty-one. More than half our team, all at once! There's a couple ropes that go right up to the top, and I think we can get up those fast enough to surprise them."
"A shock troop infiltration," Cadet 016 murmured, tilting her head. "Not a bad idea. But you'd have to be fast. Surprise is your best tool, and once that's gone, you'll be swarmed."
"If we go to the bottom floor before we attack, then they'll have a harder time seeing us," another kid pointed out, a boy with the number 051 on his jumpsuit. "All that other stuff gets in the way. I think it'll work! I'm with you."
"I'm Sam," he identified himself, extending a hand like adults did.
"Kurt," the other boy replied with a smile, grabbing Sam's hand and shaking it excitedly. "Six total, yeah? With us, that's three. I'll grab three more, and meet you down by our prison."
"Don't slow us down," Kelly cut in, nudging the boy with a small grin of her own. "Pick fast kids."
"Right!" Kurt nodded, as he turned away and waved at a gaggle of kids that was watching over one of the narrow paths to the flag. "Hey, listen up!"
Sam moved over to the back of the top floor, and sure enough, their base had the same set of knotted climbing ropes and slick poles at the back, right next to the flag.
"Make sure they don't come up these," Cadet 016 barked at a couple kids near her, pointing at the ropes. She sounded fierce, almost as much as the Chief. "If we can spot this, then so can they! And you three, go down to the prison and reinforce the guard there! We can't have them getting loose!"
Sam grabbed onto one of the poles, glanced down quickly to make sure nobody else was in his way, and jumped, his body swinging around the pole as he slid quickly all the way down to the bottom. Kelly was right beside him on the other pole. Kurt and the other three kids followed shortly after, and they all gathered up by the prison, nodding to the couple of kids that had voluntarily come down to guard it.
"Alright, everyone ready?" Kurt asked, glancing at each of them in turn. Everyone nodded back, and Kelly started to bounce on her feet again.
"We can't just run in blind," Sam cautioned them. "And no splitting up, that's just a good way to get picked off."
"Once we jump the gap, go right on that suspended bridge," a girl said, pointing to it. "They can't reach us while we're on it. Then it's a straight shot to the prison. Looks like four kids guarding it."
"That's okay," Sam said. "Even if we trade tags, we've got two more people, and we'll all wind up at the prison being freed anyway."
"Let's do it!" Kelly cheered. "I'll go first, and try to get some quick tags!"
Sam held his hand out in the middle of the group. Kurt and the others looked at it, unsure what he was doing, but Kelly instantly got it, and put her hand on top of his.
"Come on, Red Team on three!" she said, gesturing at the others. They put their hands in as well, and Kelly counted down. "One, two, three!"
"Red Team!" they all chanted, and Sam felt a surge of pride as they all turned and started running for the midpoint.
Kelly got there five steps before Sam, already flying ahead. She took a short hop over the gap, sailing over the water below, and hit the ground running. Sam, Kurt, and the others followed behind, with Sam closest behind.
Their feet pounded across the planks of the suspension bridge, bouncing it up and down as they rushed.
"Incoming!" the Blue Team prison guard yelled. "I need help down here!"
"Faster!" Kurt called, as they left the bridge.
There was only a short ways left until the prison, and the guard came charging out, probably figuring out that if they got too close, they'd just ignore him and go for the prisoners. He was right, but he tried to lunge too early, and Kelly abruptly stopped just short of his reaching hand, leaning to the side and slapping him right across the chest.
Someone shouted above them, and Li swung down from the floor above, with just his upper body dangling upside down as he tagged one of the other Red Team kids. Sam didn't know how he was doing it – maybe he'd tangled his legs on something, and was holding himself in place?
Another couple Blue Team kids jumped down, with James at their head, dropping out of a small hole in the ceiling off to their left, near one of the side-routes to the prison.
"Charge!" Kurt barked, turning on his heel and running straight at the enemy team. Two of the other Red Team kids followed him, hands outstretched like lances.
"Get the prisoners, we'll hold them off!" shouted their last teammate, as he jumped up to try to swat at Li, just as Li shot back upwards, like he was on a fishing line and had just been hauled back.
Kelly and Sam raced forward, reaching out to smack Jerome's extended arm.
"Oly oly oxen free!" Kelly cried out happily, as she ran down the line of tape that marked the prison, tagging every single kid she could. "All out in the open! We're all free!"
Sam didn't know what that meant, but Kelly's cheer was so giddy that he couldn't keep a smile from his face as he went down the other side of the prison, freeing teammates.
"Go up the ropes!" Sam told them, pointing over their heads, to the back of the Blue Team base, where the floor ended and the climbing ropes dangled.
There was no back wall, no handrail, because the base had so very few of those. If a kid wasn't careful, he could easily fall right off, into the water below. After the first few times they'd each had to swim out of the water, soaking and embarrassed, few of the kids made that mistake any more.
"Come on! Straight to the flag!" Kelly encouraged them, as Sam grabbed the first rope and started climbing. He was stronger than almost everyone else, and this was all about strength. He practically flew up the rope, barely using his legs as his arms pull him further and further upwards. Other kids followed him.
There were more shouts coming from Blue Team now. Sam focused on the rope above him, but he could still hear them.
"They're coming for the flag!"
"Hey, get back here! We need help!"
"No, don't attack now, get back here!"
Then he was almost to the top. He paused just as he crossed onto the top level, and locked eyes with the Blue Team guard by the flag. The cadet couldn't reach him, they were just a hair too far apart. Even if he'd jumped on the pole and slid down, stretching out a hand to tag all the kids on the ropes, he couldn't have done it.
"You know I'm gonna tag you instantly, right?" the kid tried to argue with him.
Sam thought about replying, about saying something back – but he could see other kids from Blue Team trying to get back to the flag. They were slowed by the tight walkways that approached the top level, hampering them as much as it would have helped them against attackers who tried a frontal assault. Arguing would only delay him, and aid the other team.
He tensed his legs, and jumped. The Blue Team kid lashed out instantly, and Sam felt a hand smack his shoulder as he landed.
"You're out!" barked an adult voice – the trainer, standing there in a black jumpsuit, pointing at him. "Go to prison, don't interfere with active players!"
Sam looked up, and realized he was blocking the Blue Team kid from play. He stepped aside quickly, and two more of his teammates jumped from the ropes the moment he did. One of them got tagged instantly by the panicked guard, but the second one tagged him, and the guard was done.
"Come on!" Sam said, tugging on the other tagged kid. "If we hurry, they'll free us fast, and we can still get up here!"
They grabbed onto the poles and slid down, dropping three levels in seconds, much faster than climbing the ropes. The poles came to a stop, and they hopped off.
"You're out already?" Kelly teased, as they walked over into the prison, and were instantly free as she tagged them again. "Go on, get out of here!"
Sam looked around. Of the fifteen kids that had been imprisoned, maybe five had jumped in to help Kurt and his team. Even when they were tagged, they were so close to the prison that it didn't matter, and the frantic slap-battle as the two forces tried to tag their opponents and revive their allies was coming to a close as Red Team overwhelmed them with numbers. The other kids had all gone up the ropes.
"We've got this, go!" Kurt said, noticing Sam's hesitation. "Get the flag, and win it!"
Sam took a breath, and jumped back up onto the climbing rope, his arms burning as he started his second journey upwards.
At the top, the surge of Blue Team kids were stumbling against the overwhelming numbers of Sam's Red Team. Some of the tagged kids were getting revived quick, but they were still blocking the narrow passages, and they couldn't spread out and start tagging everyone.
"We can't get out this way," one of the Red Team kids said to Sam as he hauled himself up.
"Then we go back down!" someone else said, pointing at the poles. "The bottom floor's easier to get out of anyway!"
Sam shook his head. Up and down, up and down. He just wanted to get the flag already.
"Red Team, retreat!" he shouted over the cries of the other kids as they tagged back and forth. "Back down the poles!"
A girl grabbed the flag and fled down swiftly, wrapping her legs around the pole with wide eyes as she held the flag with her off hand. A tide of red jerseys followed her, and Sam took a moment to wave at the approaching Blue Team kids with a wide smile before he too grabbed onto the pole and slid down.
"Go, go, go!" someone shouted.
"Push to the midpoint!" he heard Kurt yelling in the middle of the kids. "Don't stop, just keep pushing!"
By the time Sam hit the bottom floor, the tagging battle was over, and plenty of blue jersey wearing cadets were glaring up from the floor as a mob from Red Team surged away, the flag somewhere in the middle.
Sam took off after them, and he was barely halfway across the bridge when an air-horn blew, and the Chief was roaring out for them to all fall in. They fell in, forming up quickly, and the Chief spent a few minutes inspecting them before ordering them back up.
"Again!" the Chief barked.
Red Team won three out of five games, and went back to the mess hall to ice cream sundaes. It took Sam about an hour after the last game to realize that he was still smiling.