Chapter 13: Nice Try, Livestock

Nova stood there cloaked, heart pounding in her chest. The masked bomber said people would die if she didn’t faint. The instructions were clear. But, up until the wooden floor shimmered beneath her boots, she didn’t think they were actually going to do a replay of her.

She stared at it. Then her stomach dropped.

This was the floor of the cognitive testing facility. Not endurance. Which meant they were playing the wrong test. Of course they were. They hadn’t even announced intelligence scores yet.

The crowd was silent for a few seconds. Nova assumed they were probably waiting for the hologram to cut out and the endurance one to start. Or they were confused why she was getting one at all.

Wrong.

The crowd un-muted as a unit and jeers stacked instantly. Her face turned the color of a pomegranate under her hood.

"Fuck. That’s a slave? I just shifted in my pants."

"Starborne, you sneaky bastard!"

"You telling me Kai Starborne saw that and didn’t play with it. Bullshit."

That observation rippled through the crowd. Nova fought the urge to put her face in her hands. She would rather be kidnapped by a mask-bomber a hundred more times than do anything with Kai Starborne. The only bright side was the disgust was mutual. Being linked to her right now was probably making Kai nauseous.

Then she heard her own voice fill the arena. The crowd got worse.

"She talks like old money and private school."

"She was raised in Starborne’s house, you idiot. He doesn’t let his toys sound cheap."

"Pretty talk, pretty price. Starborne knows what he’s doing. Highest bid in the Underground tonight. Bank it."

Why were they still playing the hologram? Surely someone would stop it. She stole a glance at the elders’ panel. They were all out of their seats like the building was on fire. No one even noticed her split-second face cameo. Luckily, her hologram was the main event.

"Respectfully, Elder, the question as phrased is misleading," she heard herself say.

The hologram-proctor looked up.

"The Hovergrid Doctrine was amended twice. Once after the Grey Zone Conflict, which redefined ’navigable transit’ to exclude routes still affected by blackouts, and during the Off-Grid Reformation, which added the shadow route clause. The question implies the original doctrine is still in effect. It isn’t. The current operative framework is the Amended Doctrine with the Off-Grid Reformation rider, and under that framework, the answer I just gave is correct but the question itself wouldn’t be asked because the premise was superseded forty years ago."

The hologram-elder looked down at his tablet. Swiped three screens. Read. Swiped back. Read it again. His face started at confused, hit annoyed, landed on fuck, she’s correct.

The crowd’s jeering turned into full-blown laughter.

Question nine.

The hologram-proctor read the prompt. War arithmetic. Multi-step calculation. Most slaves didn’t attempt it. Every princess solved it on the holo-tablet and it took around five minutes.

Hologram-Nova answered in eight seconds. No holo-tablet.

"That’s correct."

"Thank you, Elder."

"How did you do that so quickly?"

"The troop movement variable is a distraction. If you strip it out and calculate the supply chain independently, the territorial distance becomes a fixed ratio."

"Careful, 7709. Cleverness in silver is just disobedience with better packaging."

"Yes, Elder."

The hologram-Elder gave her a once-over and didn’t even pretend to hide his contempt. "The silver hasn’t eaten your mind yet, but it will."

That sentence burrowed in. Past the skin, past the muscle, into the place where she kept the version of herself that still believed she might survive this. It wrapped around that version and squeezed.

Booing started, drowning out the next question. Nova wasn’t sure if it was at her or the elder. But she hoped it was her because booing old power was how slaves disappeared. She stole another glance at the panel. About half of the elders had sat back down and were watching. The one from her exam was gone from his chair.

Her voice cut through the boos and the crowd quieted down.

"The question assumes two active fronts, Elder. But the eastern front’s supply line passes through a neutral territory that has a mutual defense clause with the western aggressor. If you invoke the clause, the eastern front collapses on its own because the neutral territory is treaty-bound to cut the supply line. There is no two-front war. There’s a one-front war and a logistics problem someone misclassified as a military one."

"You made that up. Meridian Law is not taught in academy and I highly doubt a slave such as yourself would just happen to know about it. Nice try."

"My apologies, Elder, I think I may have been unclear and caused a miscommunication. I’m not referring to Meridian Law here. I’m referring to the Hargrove Doctrine, Section 4.5, Subsection C. My goal here is to eliminate that variable if I am allowed, so that I can answer the question correctly."

Silence. Nova prayed they stopped it here. Or maybe they were skipping to the next question.

Nope.

When she heard the elder’s response, her knees almost buckled. What came next was definitely something that would earn her lashes. Underground or not.

"And how would a slave girl know that?"

Hologram-Nova flashed a grin. "If it helps, I am just as surprised as you are."

The arena started laughing again.

Hologram-her had more courage than real-her. Right now, real-her was full-on fidgeting with her cloak like an amateur. She forced her hands still. This didn’t automatically mean she was completely fucked. There was a small chance the Starbornes were using this time as a bathroom break. There were also goddamn bombs in the arena. Perspective.

"Don’t get cute with me."

"Yes, Elder."

"A parrot can repeat words too. It doesn’t make them a scholar. You certainly didn’t read that in a book. So tell me girl, who did you spread your legs for? I doubt they know their slave is listening to their private conversations."

She blinked, completely stunned. "I h-haven-"

The elder cut her off. "I’ve seen this before 7709. Let me guess, your mother was a whore? Inherited trait."

"No, Elder. I’m afraid I don’t have parents. I was found as an infant."

"I don’t care. If it were up to me, all slaves would be sent to the Lottery automatically. Remember your place. You are livestock that got lucky because your Alpha is following the law and sent you here. You exist for breeding. On your back. That is your function."

"Understood, Elder."

The elder shook his head. "A parroting slave girl, who knows nothing but dirt and chains, thinks she has the right to ask ME questions during the Moonfire. Such a waste of my time."

Hologram-Nova lifted her head and looked at the elder square in the eyes.

"And yet here you are, wasting your time answering the questions of a parroting slave girl who knows nothing but dirt and chains."

The elder’s eyes flashed wolf-gold. Then the hologram cut off.

Nova heard herself say it and her lungs stopped working. That was the single dumbest, most reckless thing she had done in her life. In the moment, it felt worth it. Now? If she could take it back, she would. It was a death sentence delivered with a smile, and the girl who said it didn’t know what it was going to cost, but the girl standing in the arena right now did.

The arena buzzed like a kicked hornet’s nest. A slave who just back-talked. She understood. There was no chanting her number, which she was skeptical of ever happening to begin with.

There were no stomps for her to count. If she fainted now, it would definitely look like she was faking it. Should she?

"WHAT THE HELL DID I JUST WATCH?" someone shouted.