Deadlock by Robert Liparulo Page B

his head away. “You sound like Declan.”
    When Page remained silent, the boy turned a hard glare on him.
    â€œI know what this is,” Julian said. “I know what you’re doing.” His dad raised his eyebrows. “Oh?”
    â€œIt’s punishment,” Julian continued. “For . . . for what happened in Canada.”
    His father raised a shoulder. “That’s in the past.”
    â€œThen why are you doing this, making me be here? I’m fourteen,” he said. “Everyone else is, like, eighteen, nineteen, twenty. I don’t belong here. All they do is talk about war and fighting. Even my school curriculum focuses on war. I don’t know how you pulled that off. For English . . .” He twisted, grabbed a paperback book off a nightstand, and tried to hand it to Page. “The Red Badge of Courage . Before that, it was War and Peace . . . The Art of War . . . A Farewell to Arms . . . Slaughterhouse Five.”
    â€œYou do other things,” Page said. “Movies. Video games.”
    Julian pointed at a wall. “Go ask those guys what they watched last. How much you wanna bet it was something like Enemy at the Gates or Saving Private Ryan? Some documentary. Same with the video games. There’s not one racing game in this whole complex. Or a roleplaying adventure. They’re all personal shooters or war strategies like Command & Conquer .” He looked away again. “It’s not very subtle, you know.”
    â€œIt’s not supposed to be. It works.”
    â€œIt works, how? Okay, I get it,” Julian said. “You make soldiers here. That’s what Outis does. And apparently they’re really good soldiers, because everybody wants them. There’s, what? Thousands of Outis soldiers fighting in wars all over the world?”
    His father smiled.
    â€œWhat I want to know, Dad, is why am I here, me? I never wanted to be a soldier.”
    â€œIt’s good to know the family business.”
    â€œIt’s your business. But if you want me to learn it, that’s not what they’re teaching me! This isn’t business. It’s . . .” He searched for a word. “It’s death.”
    They stared into each other’s eyes. His father’s were dark, unreadable. Julian knew his revealed every emotion raging behind them. That’s just how he was made. He couldn’t help it and didn’t want to. He knew his father saw that as a weakness, as giving too much away.
    Well, Daddy, he thought, you’re not going to change me by putting me through this boot camp. You’re not.
    But deep down, he wasn’t so sure. He’d seen the people who’d come through here: normal kids at the beginning, hardened automatons by the time they were sent off to kill other people’s enemies for six hundred dollars a day.
    His father stood. He leaned over to lay his hand on Julian’s head.
    Julian flinched.
    â€œYou’ll do well here,” his father whispered. “I know it.”
    Julian blinked, and tears spilled out. He resisted wiping at them. When his father raised his head, Julian tightened his jaw and glared at him.
    â€œSee?” his father said. “It’s working already.” He went to the door and began pulling it shut behind him. He said, “You’ll do the allterrain course again next weekend. Finish it this time, Julie.” The door clicked shut.
    Julian grabbed the paperback off the bed and threw it at the door. He fell onto his pillow. Smoke swirled against the ceiling like a brewing storm.

TWELVE
    Hutch sat on Logan’s bed and brushed the hair off his son’s forehead. He said, “I noticed you were trying to be nice.”
    Logan wiggled his head deeper into the pillow. He tugged a blanket up to his chin. Smiling, he said, “Just trying ?”
    â€œYou got in a few jabs.”
    â€œIt’s just . . .” He shook his head. “I don’t