Halo_ The Fall of Reach - Eric Nylund [15]
without food.” They children fell silent—and then looked at each other warily. “Make ready,” Mendez said. “I’m Sam,” the boy whispered to John and the girl on their team. She said, “I’m Kelly.” John just looked at them and said nothing. The girl would slow him down. Too bad. He was hungry and
he wasn’t about to let them make him lose. “Go!” Mendez shouted.
John ran through the pack of children and scrambled up a cargo net onto a platform. He raced across the bridge—jumped onto the next platform, just in time. The bridge flipped and sent five others into the water below.
He paused at the rope tied to the large basket. It ran up through a pulley and then back down. He didn’t think he was strong enough to pull himself up in it. Instead, he tackled a knotted climbing rope and scrunched his body up. The rope swung wildly around the center pole. John looked down and almost lost his grip. It looked twice as far down as it had looked from the ground. He saw all the others, some climbing, others floundering in the water, getting up and starting over. No one was as close to the bell as he was.
He swallowed his fear and kept climbing up. He thought of the ice cream and chocolate brownies and how he was going to win.
John got to the top, grabbed the bell, and rang it three times. He then clasped the steel pole and slid all the way to the ground, falling into a pile of cushions.
He got up and ran smiling all the way to the Chief Petty Officer. John crossed the finish line and gave a victory cry. “I was first,” he said, panting.
Mendez nodded and made a check on his clipboard.
John watched as the others made it and up rang the bell then raced across the finish line. Kelly and Sam had trouble. They got stuck in a line to get to the bell as everyone bunched up at the end.
They finally rang the bell, slid down together . . . but they crossed the finish line last. They glared at John.
He shrugged.
“Good work, Trainees,” Mendez said, and he beamed at them all. “Let’s get back to the barracks and chow down.”
The children, covered in mud and leaning on each another, cheered.
“—all except team three,” Mendez said, and looked at Sam, Kelly, and then John.
“But I won,” John protested. “I was first.”
“Yes,you were first,” Mendez explained, “but your team came in last.” He then addressed all the children. “Remember this:you don’t win unless your team wins. One person winning at the expense of the group means that you lose.”
John ran in a stupor all the way back to the barracks. It wasn’t fair. He had won. How can you win and still lose? He watched as the others stuffed themselves with turkey, white meat dripping with gravy. They spooned
down mountains of vanilla ice cream and left the mess hall with chocolate encrusting the corners of their mouths.
John got a liter of water. He drank it, but it didn’t have any taste. It did nothing to fill his hunger. He wanted to cry, but he was too tired. He collapsed in his bunk, thinking of ways to get even with Sam and Kelly for messing him up—but he couldn’t think. Every muscle and bone ached.
John fell asleep as soon as his head hit the flat pillow.
The next day was the same—calisthenics and running all morning, then class until the afternoon.
Today Déjà taught them about wolves. The classroom became a holographic meadow, and the children watched seven wolves hunt a moose. The pack worked together, striking wherever the giant beast wasn’t facing. It was fascinating and horrifying to watch the wolves track down, and then devour, an animal many times their size.
John avoided Sam and Kelly in the classroom. He stole a few extra crackers when no one was looking but they didn’t dull his hunger.
After class, they ran back to the playground. Today it was different. There were fewer bridges and more complicated rope-and-pulley systems. The pole with the bell was now twenty meters taller than any of the others.
“Same teams as yesterday,” Mendez announced.
Sam and Kelly walked up to John. Sam shoved him.
John