Identity Zero novel · Chapter 11 of 32
Chapter 11: Night Exercise
"Then give it to somebody else," Jesse said.
"Gorham gave it to me. On purpose."
Gideon wiped rain off Jesse's mouth with his thumb, slow.
"Every report on you has my name at the bottom. Every grade. If I touch you, he owns both of us."
"He thinks you already did."
"Thinking isn't proof." Gideon's hand dropped. "Don't give him proof."
He picked up the trainers Jesse had dropped and walked back toward the gym in the rain.
He didn't look back.
Jesse stood under the roof with his mouth still burning and called him a coward to nobody.
Then he went in and lay on his bunk and touched his lips.
Ollie looked down from the top bunk.
"You're doing a new face."
"Go to sleep, Ollie."
"It's a good face. I'm just saying."
Nineteen days later, the board went up by the mess door.
NIGHT FIELD EXERCISE. SQUAD LEADERS: 4, 11, 17, 30.
Under it, in red: OPPOSING FORCE PROVIDED BY VISITING OPERATORS.
The class went wild.
Everybody knew what visiting operators meant.
The forum guys called them ghosts.
Grown men who'd been through Blackwood years ago and came back in unmarked vans with their faces covered, to run the cadets into the ground for a weekend.
Jesse read the line twice.
Three weeks, the note had said.
He looked across the mess hall.
Gideon was at the instructors' table with his coffee.
He met Jesse's eyes for one second, and then looked at his plate.
At 2100 they put the cadets in the trees.
Four squads of ten. Night vision, rubber rounds, a radio each.
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