Devoted - Merritt's Story 2 - Chapter 10

A big thank you for your patience if you've been waiting for this chapter!  As you'll see, it's a big honker of a chapter.  That combined with my contracted novels is why this one took longer than usual.  It should hopefully be a shorter wait for chapter 11.

You can read the chapter inline or download the attached PDF.

The next DOTU page is also coming this Monday!

[Table of Contents]

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Book 2, Chapter 10

By morning, the pain from the nerve sensitizer had subsided enough that Merritt no longer felt like a helpless mess. Ellis checked on him as promised, and Belmont’s expert searched his quarters a second time, turning up a peanut-sized waterproof camera inside his showerhead that made him blanch. He couldn’t fathom what kind of information a straight guy like Evans expected to glean from that one, but Belmont’s expert assured him that the camera had been installed at least a couple decades ago, was no longer functional, and was most likely part of a blackmail effort against a previous general by the South Sphere. Apparently, no one had ever thought to dismantle the showerhead in search of a camera before, but Merritt wasn’t surprised that an ally of Belmont’s would.

He did his best to put the previous night’s unsettling feelings about Belmont out of his mind, telling himself that the nerve sensitizer had clouded his judgment. He tried to focus on his work, fielding phone calls and reviewing reports from bed in between bouts of pain and nausea. Ellis was a lifesaver, filtering and outsourcing all low-priority issues and passing on only the most critical to Merritt. 

By the following day, he was back to work at Station 1. His skin still burned with low-level pain, but it wasn’t anything his poker face couldn’t conceal. And with Belmont’s training, his poker face seemed capable of concealing more than ever before. 

Over the next couple of months, he even managed to get into a groove in board meetings. Belmont began to invite him once or twice a week, sometimes for the full meeting and sometimes for only half an hour when military matters were marginal to the conversation. In those meetings, he and Belmont were allies. “I like having you there,” Belmont had told him. “Every time someone gets snarky with you and you reply all cool and mellow as if you didn’t even notice, I want to take a picture of the other guy’s pissy face. It’s hilarious.”

Merritt hated the meetings as much as ever, but it was his duty—and his honor—to attend and offer his expertise whenever he was asked.

It didn’t matter to Merritt how much power he had over his subordinates in the military. He’d been raised to serve, and nothing felt better than pleasing a superior who was notoriously hard to please. After endless hours of issuing commands to his officers—of evaluating, directing, and even chastising them—he craved the validation that came with performing for Belmont and receiving that haughty half-smile of approval.

“He’ll stab you in the back just like everyone else, you know,” Evans sneered to Merritt one day, after Mercury approved Belmont’s plan over his. “He’s just waiting for you to present him with the optimal angle.”

Evans had a point, but Merritt knew better than to let himself be swayed. No two board members had each other’s backs the way Merritt and Belmont did, and Evans surely believed that the best way to combat their joint power was to turn them against each other. Merritt wouldn’t fall for it.

Nevertheless, when the Military Tech team informed him after four months that the improved battle simulator was ready for testing, he couldn’t shake the worry that Belmont might sabotage it in the last second. He gave it only a five percent chance—but five wasn’t zero. After all, Military Tech had been conveniently losing his emails and voicemail messages for months, causing unnecessary delays and forcing his final test session closer and closer to Mercury’s deadline, leaving him no room for error. He’d assumed they were acting out of resentment for having to report to a mere soldier, but who was to say that the delays weren’t part of Belmont’s scheme?

So when his test session was scheduled for six o’clock on the evening before Mercury’s deadline, he arrived at the Military Tech lab at half past four. He would be the first to talk to the simulator’s programming team, and he would make sure no plans were made without his knowledge.

A guard led him to the lowest sub-level and down a winding path of hallways before opening the door marked 2B. Merritt entered the room, stopping dead after barely crossing the threshold. Belmont already sat at the central meeting table with a half-empty cup of coffee, turned sideways in his seat with his long legs crossed and extended. “It’s about time,” he said with a cocky grin.

“Why did you get here so early?” Merritt asked.

“Because I knew you would.” He gestured toward the computer setup at the front of the room. “They’re still remotely loading the software. We can’t start till it’s done.”

Merritt eyed the computer setup, a dizzying arrangement of towers and panels that surrounded a pair of seats like some sort of VR arcade console. The setup was fitting: the battle simulator, in its earliest incarnations, had borrowed much of its code from pirated above-ground video games. In a sense, it was much like a video game—minus the graphics and the fun. 

“Have some coffee,” Belmont said, pointing to the buffet table beside the entrance. Merritt had never seen such a highbrow spread in the military district before, and he assumed Belmont’s presence had something to do with it. His gaze lingered on the elegant cheese board and spiraled display of tea sandwiches. Between the sandwiches and the coffee station sat four tiny parfaits in molded white chocolate bud vases, each topped with lab-grown fruit cut to look like flowers. This was a far cry from the stale biscuits and haphazard pile of preserved lab-grown meats he was accustomed to.

He declined the coffee, instead heading across the room to get a closer look at the computer equipment. He’d never turn down a chance to ogle the North’s state-of-the-art technology, and it pained him that Belmont seemed indifferent to its presence.

They waited in comfortable silence, Merritt playing with the computer equipment and Belmont sending rapid-fire texts, until the software was ready for testing.

Their first objective was to simulate three past documented North Sphere battles to see if the results would match the outcomes of the actual battles. It was a high bar to clear, and easily impeded by chance, but that was what Mercury wanted, and Merritt was determined to deliver.

He still felt conflicted over the battle simulator overhaul. But he needed to prove, as much to himself as to Mercury, that he could be the faithful soldier Mercury wanted him to be—a soldier who could cast aside personal doubt and execute his orders to the highest standard.

Belmont refilled his coffee and dragged himself toward the computer as if it pained him to leave his comfortable seat with copious leg room. He and Merritt took their seats, firing up the software.

A preliminary run of the simulator confirmed Merritt’s worst fears. The software was nowhere near precise enough to satisfy Mercury’s demands.

“I can’t believe those guys couldn’t get it right after this many months,” Belmont huffed, downing the last of his coffee. “What are they even being paid for?”

“They’re programmers, not soldiers,” Merritt said. “I consulted with everyone from private to colonel and gave them all the data I could gather, but….”

“But they thought they knew better,” Belmont finished, and Merritt gave a chagrinned nod.

“Everyone seems to think that this software teaches our soldiers how to fight, but our soldiers bring just as much knowledge to the software, if not more.”

“You really love your soldiers,” Belmont mused.

“I do,” Merritt said. “That’s why I won’t let faulty software put their lives at risk.”

“Fuck, you’re so cute when you get all chivalrous.” When Merritt frowned in response, he laughed. “What? That was a compliment. You are cute when you try to protect everyone—especially in the boardroom when you shoot down anyone who acts like a dick to me. You’re like my guard dog.”

Merritt shrugged off the unflattering comment comparing him to an enslaved West Sphere bodyguard. By now, he’d mostly grown used to Belmont’s style of issuing compliments. Refocusing his attention on the software, he opened an urgent bug report—a process that needed no input from Belmont and thus left him bored—and sent it to the programming team. He followed up with a phone call to make sure his notes were understood. Then, turning to Belmont, he said, “And now we wait.”

“I didn’t realize we’d be spending so much time waiting and doing nothing,” Belmont grumbled. “The pile of paperwork on my desk is growing a foot taller with every minute I spend here.”

Two rounds and two cups of coffee later, Belmont gave up on expecting a quick fix and whipped out his laptop, bouncing back and forth between keyboard and phone to get more work done. At a quarter to eight, he slammed his laptop shut and gave a weary sigh, leaning back in his chair. He stretched obnoxiously, the sides of his suit jacket falling back to reveal the contour of his slim hips. “Ugh, I’d kill to go to the Skin Mill right about now. I can’t even remember the last night I had off.”

“Yeah, me too,” Merritt replied absently, his eyes lingering a little too long on Belmont’s outstretched legs.

Belmont flashed a knowing smile. “Whatcha lookin’ at, Merritt?”

Blushing, Merritt redirected. “I don’t know how you ever get comfortable, being that tall.”

“The key to being comfortable is not caring what other people think of your posture.”

Merritt smirked. He had no trouble believing that was Belmont’s motto. He tilted his head, scrutinizing Belmont for a moment before saying, “Must have been nice growing up. People probably never tried to mess with you.”

“That’s what you think?” Belmont asked incredulously. “That’s really what you think?”

Merritt held back the twitch at the corner of his mouth. “What?”

“You’re usually better at reading my background. Like, so good it’s creepy. I think this is the first time you’ve been flat out wrong.”

Actually, Merritt had always assumed Belmont had grown up bullied. He saw the evidence in many of Belmont’s insecurities. He’d only claimed otherwise to see if he could get Belmont to talk about it. Apparently, his strategy had worked.

“I didn’t hit my growth spurt until I was seventeen,” Belmont said. “By that time, my dad was panicking at the idea that his son might be five-foot-two for the rest of his life, so he put me on this experimental drug that supposedly guaranteed you’d get the most out of your growth spurt as long as you weren’t part of the fifty percent of white males who died within three days of taking it.”

Merritt’s mouth fell open. “He put you on a drug that had a fifty-fifty chance of killing you?”

“That’s not the point,” Belmont said, shooing Merritt’s words away. “The point is, adjusting to that growth spurt was a bitch. I was secretly taking a pole dancing class at this club on the West Sphere border, and about four months after I took that drug, I’d already gotten so huge I accidentally kicked a hole in their ceiling.”

“You took a pole dancing class?” Merritt asked.

“That’s not the point!” Belmont repeated. “See, up until then, I was the shortest guy in my school. I was also the nerd to end all nerds, and that’s saying something when you’re in the North Sphere. And I was awkward as hell. People would see me open my mouth to talk, and they’d cringe before the words even came out.”

“We still do.”

“Do you want to hear my story or not?”

“There’s a story?”

Of course there was a story. By now, Merritt knew that Belmont was filled to the brim with dramatic anecdotes. Even when he couldn’t approve of the behavior described in the stories, he still enjoyed listening and watching as Belmont spun his tales. He didn’t know how many of them were true, but they were entertaining nonetheless.

He turned his seat to face Belmont and settled in.

Belmont took a deep breath and straightened his back, getting into position like an actor taking his cue. “So there was this kid. He was traded from the West into the North when he was ten years old because he was supposedly good at tech stuff. But he was the quintessential West Sphere asshole. Like, his red sash probably had a sphincter embroidered on the hem instead of his initials. I think his name was Gration—some typical West Sphere name—but I just called him Asshole in my head. Every day, every single day, he’d walk by me in the hall and hook his fingers under my tie and yank it loose. Every fucking day, in front of everyone. Typical bully behavior, and I just let him do it because he was three times my size and I wasn’t going to start a fight I couldn’t win.

“Anyway, this was back when Tamarin was still South Sphere Queen, and this was right after they signed the Goat Milk Treaty with the North Sphere. The South gave us goat’s milk for the first time, and in exchange, we gave them our lab-grown low-light greens and grass seed so they could feed the goats for cheaper.

“After the deal was signed, the King’s advisors invited Tamarin to the North Sphere. She brought her right hand, Celine the Goat Lady—you know, Freya’s grandmother. Back in the day, she was in charge of all the South’s specially bred goats. She was walking this white goat on a leash. The goat’s name was Jennifer; I’m not even joking. And the advisors took them on a tour through my school.

“It was an elite school, so it was one of the only schools that could afford to serve goat’s milk. But it was all propaganda, of course. The school wanted to show all the elite parents that they were feeding their brats the most expensive ‘superfood’ in the underground when, really, we only ever got goat’s milk when the cameras were on. But the point is the South Sphere Queen and her right hand were at my school, and I really wanted to see them. But just as I was rounding the corner into the hallway, that Asshole popped up from nowhere and pulled my tie loose, and that was how Tamarin and Celine saw me for the first time.”

Merritt sucked in a pained breath and shook his head.

“I know, right?” Belmont asked. “I was fucking mortified. But more than that, I was pissed off. So I followed Asshole into the gym, and I waited for him to go into the shower. I’m good at cracking numerical codes, so I popped the lock on his locker and stole his tie.

“So then Asshole comes out of the showers, and he goes to his locker and looks for his tie, and he’s freaking the fuck out because he can’t find it, and he’s running all through the locker room bare ass naked, yelling at everyone and demanding to know who took his tie. But I’d left the locker room ten minutes earlier, so there was no way he could catch up with me.”

Merritt felt the urge to ask how Belmont knew Asshole was running around the locker room naked and yelling if he’d left ten minutes ago, but he kept his mouth shut. He wanted to hear what happened next.

“So, Tamarin is giving a speech at the assembly hall, and it’s your typical South Sphere speech where she’s all overzealous and she’s getting the goat riled up, and the goat’s standing behind her bleating its lungs out and she acts like she doesn’t even hear it. The goat’s crapping on the stage, and they act like it’s a totally normal thing to be standing ten feet away from goat crap, and we North Sphere students are all sitting in the audience like, ‘What are we watching?’

“Then the speech ends, and we all clap politely because that’s what you do. But before they could leave, I jump out of my seat and leap onto the stage. I put on my most official-sounding voice and say, ‘Queen Tamarin, in appreciation for the gift given to us by Jennifer and her South Sphere goat sisters, I hereby present to you, on behalf of the Sub-Lakeview Elite Preparatory Academy, this authentic North Sphere blue tie. We have granted Jennifer honorary North Sphere citizenship, and we hope she will wear her tie with pride.’

“The North Sphere advisors don’t even stop me. They think this is something the school planned, and honestly, they were probably thrilled because they forgot to arrange anything themselves. So they just jump in behind me and repeat the same thing I said.

“Then everyone in the audience watches Celine take the tie from my hands and put it on the fucking goat. And then Asshole bursts into the auditorium—and he’s still naked of course, since that’s the only way you can get away with not wearing your tie—and he’s jumping up and down with his stupid dick swinging around like a helicopter blade, and he sees me up on stage, and he sees Jennifer, and he knows that the tie she’s wearing is his tie. But what’s he going to do? Run up on stage and make a scene in front of a Queen and her right hand?

“So Asshole had to spend the rest of the day with no tie. I think he got beaten up about seventeen times before school let out. After that day, he never dared to touch my tie again. And the last I heard, Jennifer is living out her golden years on Celine’s farm, and she still wears her North Sphere blue tie.”

Merritt grinned. He had no idea how much of the story was true, but at that moment, he decided that he would accept every word of it. “I’m never going to look at you or goats the same way again.”

“Yeah?” Belmont asked, returning Merritt’s grin. “Then I’ve done my job.” He headed across the room to pour another cup of coffee. “At least it’s better than staring at the computer in silence waiting for something to download.”

“I love listening to you tell stories,” Merritt said.

Belmont turned to him with that same skeptical eyebrow raise he always had on reserve when Merritt complimented him. “Do you?”

“They’re interesting. And the way you tell them is interesting. You’re a lot more animated than most North Sphere elites.”

“I don’t believe any of that shit the North says about always being stoic and composed. You don’t get an advantage over other blue-ties by hiding your emotions. Blue-ties are so baffled by emotion, it’s fun to dump every unpleasant emotional display on them that you’ve got—real or fake—and watch them squirm.”

Merritt gave a soft chuckle before pulling a small spiral notebook from his bag. He’d long had the habit of jotting down his thoughts on paper when it wasn’t a security risk but was too personal to put on a system that could be hacked. He quickly scribbled “SLEP Yearbook” in the margin of an already full page. He needed a new hacking project to help him unwind at the end of the day, and tracking down Belmont’s yearbook photos would be a fun one. As soon as he finished writing, he shoved the notebook back into his bag.

Belmont, none the wiser, gestured with his head toward the buffet table. “Take some coffee already. I told the assistants to come with a fresh pot every two hours.”

“You know I’m not a coffee drinker.”

Belmont turned his head away as if graciously declining to point out Merritt’s unforgivable flaw. “We’re going to be here all night, and we’re showing the simulator results to Mercury first thing in the morning. How do you expect to stay alert?”

“Focus, Spark, and a sleep enhancer.”

“So you prefer cancer to jitters.”

“You drink as much of this stuff as I do, and you’ve never shown any concern for your long-term health. You’re just being contrary.”

Belmont laughed. “Sometimes you talk like a twentieth century grandpa, you know that?” He grabbed a cup, filled it with coffee, and set it on the desk in front of Merritt.

“You didn’t follow etiquette. How do I know you didn’t poison that?”

“I wouldn’t poison my own racehorse before we cross the finish line.”

“That’s reassuring.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake.” Belmont reached for the cup. “This is damn good coffee. I’m not letting it go to waste.”

Merritt grabbed the cup before Belmont could touch it. He didn’t really want the coffee, but he wanted to see Belmont’s face when the cup disappeared millimeters away from his palm. 

“Nice reflexes,” Belmont said as Merritt took a sip. “You better stop making me respect you.”

“Oh? Why?”

“Because if I respect you too much, I’m going to have to kill you.”

Merritt turned his chair back to face the computer. “You’ve already tried and failed,” he taunted over his shoulder, “but you’re welcome to try again.”

Before Belmont could reply, both of their phones beeped in unison, signaling a new notification. Belmont glanced at his incoming message. “Next round’s ready to test.” He got up and leaned over Merritt’s shoulder, one hand on his seat back. “Fire it up.”

Merritt loaded up the first test course: a battle at the neutral border over water resources that Chem Ops had fought against the East Sphere when he was a new private. It had been a close loss for the North, and one in which he’d nearly been killed.

His first task for the simulator was to accurately replicate the results of the battle, followed by two other battles. If they succeeded, he would then have to formulate an alternate plan for the neutral border battle in which the North would have won.

The statistics team had analyzed months of East Sphere footage, working with Merritt to recognize patterns within their tightly choreographed offense. The East’s two most fearsome units, the Elite Squad and the Explosives Unit, had taken the victory in this battle.

The software didn’t play out individual attacks. Rather, it ran analyses on all fighters engaging with each other, along with environmental factors and specific battle commands, and calculated the probability that each would come out of their altercation alive. The dots were colored to match each sphere: black for East, red for West, white for South, and blue for North. Each dot had a green outline. If a soldier fell, their green outline turned to gray, and Merritt could then click on it for detailed information about the kill.

“Oh,” Merritt muttered ten minutes into the simulation.

“That doesn’t sound like a good ‘oh.’”

Merritt squinted. “The Explosives Unit is underperforming.” He pointed at a black dot meant to represent Pangolin, the East’s Elite Squad strategic officer and Explosives Unit colonel. “Pangolin, especially, is underperforming.” He opened the tuning panel and examined the text for a minute. “These values look accurate enough. I don’t know what’s wrong.”

“Are you sure that dot is acting wrong? It looks like it’s doing the same as all the other dots.”

“That’s the problem. Pangolin is practically superhuman. She should not be doing the same as all the other dots.”

After another minute of poking around in the code, he was no closer to finding the error. He called the lead programmer, but the problem couldn’t be solved on Merritt’s end. Apparently, someone had assigned Pangolin a generic Explosives Unit profile instead of the unique profile Merritt and the statistics team had painstakingly crafted for her, like they had with notable fighters from every sphere. It would have to go back to the programmers for a coding fix.

“We really are going to be here all night, aren’t we?” Belmont muttered, scrolling through something on his laptop as Merritt hung up.

Merritt’s eyes lingered on the formation of dots on the screen. “It feels weird to relive this battle this way.” He glanced at Belmont, not sure if he was listening. “My fight against Pangolin was the closest I’ve ever come to being killed.”

“Really?” Belmont asked. “I’d have thought you’d had at least a dozen near-death experiences.”

“Well, yes. I’ve dodged hundreds of blades and bullets. But that time was different. I was flat out defeated by Pangolin. I was with seven other Chem Ops soldiers, and we thought we’d isolated her from her troops. As it turned out, she was the one who had us isolated. She killed all seven of my mates singlehanded. I couldn’t save any of them. And then she came for me. She picked me apart until I had no fight left, and then she closed in for the kill. She grabbed my head, and she was about to snap my neck when Balbo dropped down from a balcony and got her in a choke hold—just long enough for me to drag myself to safety.”

Belmont examined his face. “Sounds like a tough one,” he said, and Merritt suspected he’d based the statement more on what he saw on Merritt’s face than what he’d heard in his words.

Merritt remembered his poker face. After collecting himself, he tapped on the ring in his left brow. “You know how blue-tie soldiers get piercings to commemorate battles and fallen comrades? All of mine came from that battle. This ring was for Balbo, who saved my life but ended up in the infirmary for three months. We didn’t think she’d make it.” He moved his finger to his left ear, starting with his helix cuff and tracing down to the two rings and stud in his lobe. “These were for my squad’s sergeant, two long-range poisons specialists, and my medic. We lost all of them.” On his right ear, he pointed to his two helix rings and the single ring in his lobe. “And these three were for the fire team that tried to back us up and also gave their lives.” He glanced wistfully at the computer screen. “This simulation lets you change the results of the battle so easily. I only wish….” He shook his head, maintaining his stoic composure. “No. Can’t change anything now.”

Belmont held Merritt’s gaze, contemplating his words while saying nothing. Merritt realized that was probably the best response he could have given.

Belmont’s serenity was short-lived. The next round of the software came back to them with none of the requested changes. “Did they send the wrong file?” Merritt murmured to himself as he watched the simulation flounder.

Belmont stood up from his seat, nearly knocking his chair over. He paced back and forth, ignited with fury. “We don’t have time for careless mistakes like this.”

It took twenty minutes, a firm call from Merritt, and finally a threatening call from Belmont before the software was updated to the newest version and replaced on the server. Despite Merritt’s frustration that his initial request had gone ignored, he was glad Belmont was there to strong-arm the programmers into cooperating.

There was a gentle knock at the door, and an assistant entered with another pot of coffee. Belmont had already started to get snippy, and Merritt cringed at the thought of what his mood would look like after downing the new pot. He grabbed a cup just so Belmont would have less to drink.

The East’s fighters behaved more like Merritt expected in the second test run, but they still needed tweaking. East Sphere soldiers had unparalleled reflexes, and they counterattacked faster than the snap of a pulled rubber band. Most video footage of battles fought against the East Sphere simply looked like rival soldiers going in for the kill and mysteriously falling dead. Merritt had attempted to train the programmers to recognize these attacks, but they’d fallen short of Merritt’s standards.

“They look like fire ants fighting over the last breadcrumb,” Belmont said as he watched the dots dance on the screen, accompanied by popup boxes running probability calculations in real time. “Which one are you?”

Merritt managed to find a blue dot engaging with Pangolin in a secluded dead end tunnel. “Judging by the timeline, I suppose this would be me.”

Belmont watched the program run its calculations. “You just died.”

“Damn it.” Merritt scratched his head. “I don’t know how I’m going to fix that. I really should have died during that encounter with Pangolin. It’s a miracle that I didn’t.”

“But the end result will be roughly the same, right? The North retreated from that battle, so it’s only a difference of one casualty.”

“Probably. We’ll have to let the software play it out.”

After the simulation completed, the North was shown losing 15 percent more soldiers than they had in real life. Mercury wouldn’t accept a margin higher than five.

Belmont continued pacing as Merritt made tweaks to the generic fighter profiles that the programmers had neglected to round out. “I’ll call Mannheim and chew him out,” Belmont huffed. “You shouldn’t be the one having to fill out all that data. It’s fucking ridiculous that they did such a half-assed job.”

“I doubt this was Mannheim’s doing.”

“I promoted Mannheim to Director of Technology. If it’s happening under him, it’s his doing. That’s how leadership works. He needs to learn that.”

Belmont pulled out his phone, gradually draining another pot of coffee as he lectured Mannheim. He demanded that Mannheim call in extra programming teams to address Merritt’s bug fixes in real time, and to remain on call throughout the night. After hanging up, he flung himself back into his seat and resumed watching Merritt.

“I bet having to watch you work is even more tedious than you doing the work,” he said as Merritt typed.

“Is that what you’re going to tell Mercury when you’re negotiating bonus pay?”

“You know, Merritt, I think coffee makes you a smartass.”

“It’s not the coffee. It’s the company.”

By two in the morning, Merritt had succeeded in bringing the simulation within a 4 percent margin of error. But this was only one of four tasks they had to complete before morning.

He began the next simulation: a North vs. South battle. With its drones, Robotic Cavalry, and formidable Motorcycle Squad, the South Sphere’s defensive layers were near impossible to penetrate. The North had only scratched the surface of their capabilities, so their limited information would have to suffice for Mercury’s viewing of the simulator.

The next simulation, a reenactment of the recent West Sphere invasion, was another matter. It was still fresh in everyone’s minds, so any incorrect detail would stand out. As Merritt issued commands on behalf of the North’s simulated officers, Belmont hovered over him, clutching his shoulders like an agitated parrot. “Get him! Get him! Get that one over there!” he cried, and Merritt began to feel like he was trying to pass the final level in the world’s shittiest video game.

“There you are at Station 1,” Belmont said, pointing to a blue dot on the screen. Merritt’s heart pounded as he watched the simulation play out. He felt like he was fighting the battle all over again.

“Go little blue dot, go!” Belmont cheered.

The simulator played out twenty red dots invading the control room through the roof. Merritt watched as they swarmed his dot, turning its outline from green to gray. Belmont’s grip bit sharply into his shoulders, startling him.

“I don’t know how I’m going to get that event to play out properly,” Merritt said.

“You can’t make a dot hide from its enemies?”

“You can, but apparently my dot is stupid and thinks it can take on all twenty red-sashes at once.” Merritt rubbed his temples.

Belmont stepped out for another bathroom break, a side effect of the never-ending coffee pot. By the time he returned, Merritt had managed to tweak the event settings’ threat level enough to encourage his dot not to be a hero.

He reran the simulation. Again, Belmont clutched Merritt’s shoulders as he watched the red dots pour in from the roof. This time, Merritt’s dot took on a stealth attribute that greatly decreased the other dots’ likelihood of landing a successful attack.

“Nice,” Belmont said. “You’re hanging in there.”

The simulation continued to unfold, and Merritt and Belmont watched the red dots gradually fall. “Why is this making me so nervous?” Belmont asked.

“You’re not the only one.”

“Ten minutes ago. I thought I was going to fall asleep, and now I’m too wired because I’m fearing for the life of a dot.”

Merritt leaned in as close to Belmont as he dared. “I’m flattered that you care so much about that dot,” he teased.

The twenty live red dots finally dwindled to zero, and the next scenario loaded. Merritt’s dot now appeared on the roof, overseeing Squads 269 and 270 on the ground below.

“This software is insane,” Belmont said with awe as the scene played out. “Now that you got the tuning more accurate, I can see that it’s on an entirely different level than before.”

“Yeah,” Merritt muttered, sounding less than pleased. “That means we’re going to become even more dependent on it.”

But he wouldn’t let himself dwell on that train of thought. He would deliver for Mercury as commanded.

At last the simulation finished, showing casualties skewed exactly 5 percent from reality. Merritt took a deep breath. “Now, all we have left to do is figure out a way to win the North-East neutral border battle. Easier said than done. What time is it?”

“Half past three.”

“Ugh.” Merritt wanted more than anything to rest his head and close his eyes.

“We’re almost there,” Belmont said, grabbing Merritt’s shoulders and giving a shake to rouse him. “Let’s do it.”

That shake was surprisingly invigorating. Merritt loaded the battle’s presets and fished out his notebook, opening it to a bookmarked page. The battle simulator was set to run five pre-loaded battle plans, but he was prepared to manually override various commands with alternate commands from his notebook in case the original results weren’t as expected. “Here goes nothing,” he said as he launched the simulation.

The first and second strategies bombed, killing his confidence. It took another shake from Belmont to keep him from dropping his head in defeat. He groaned, rubbing his forehead. “What time is it?”

“Half past four.”

Merritt gritted his teeth and moved onto the next round. He earned another solid loss, not even as close as the first two rounds. “At least we lost quickly,” he said as he reloaded the presets.

The fourth battle plan had him on the edge of his seat. The North got off to a great start, culling the East’s numbers early on, but the East made a comeback with some brutal explosions that wiped out large swaths of North Sphere dots all at once. Merritt lowered his face into his palm.

“We still got one more,” Belmont said, but Merritt could read the doubt in his voice. “Run it.”

Merritt reloaded the battle presets and launched the simulation. “Please work,” he said, his calm tone masking his nerves.

His shoulders were beginning to feel sore from Belmont’s relentless grip, but he didn’t say anything. It was somehow reassuring to feel Belmont’s every reaction through the pressure of his hands. “Come on,” Belmont said, his eyes glued to the screen. “Come on, come on, come on!”

The fifth battle plan was a last resort, hinging on an experimental long-range poison that had never been used in battle. The poison’s range was amplified by heat, making it three times as effective when used near explosions or fire. Chem Ops had been saving the poison for their next face-off against the Explosives Unit, hoping to catch them by surprise.

“There, they just used the new poison,” Merritt said, pointing to the screen. “If it’s thrown after any explosions, it should have a much larger range than usual. I hope the programmers got it right.”

The first wave of East Sphere soldiers fell, and Merritt held his breath. After a brief pause while the computer processed the data, a second wave fell. “Yes!” Belmont cried. “That was it! It worked!”

“Now they just need to keep up the momentum.” Merritt waited for the simulator to process the next batch of commands, and the next phase of the battle went underway.

“Go, blue dots!” Belmont gave Merritt another shake.

Merritt gritted his teeth as the simulated soldiers carried out their calculations. The East was nearly unstoppable, even with its diminished numbers. Their troops spilled into a narrow corridor, cornering three Chem Ops squads.

“Shit,” Belmont said. “If they put out another explosive now….”

“They shouldn’t,” Merritt said. “The corridor is too narrow. The West would take out their own soldiers to reach an enemy, but the East never would. As for Chem Ops, tight spaces work to our advantage.” He pointed to the next command in the queue. “When your enemies are crammed so close, you can take them all out with a single lethal vial.”

The simulated soldiers were going to go all out. There was no saving inventory for later. Chem Ops would deploy a vial of lethal SRX-4 within a large, sealed container, launch the container past the front lines of East Sphere soldiers onto a distant ledge, then shatter it with a sniper’s gunshot. This would release the poison far enough away from the North’s troops that they theoretically wouldn’t be harmed by the drug despite their depleted inventory of blockers. The only catch was that they’d be trapped in the corridor for the hours it took for the drug to dissipate.

“Cross your fingers,” Merritt said. He and Belmont watched the simulation unfold.

“Oh shit,” Belmont gasped. “Holy shit, I think it’s actually going to work!”

“Come on,” Merritt said. “Come on.”

From back to front, the cluster of East Sphere soldiers began to fall. The soldiers at the front were still brutally effective and out of range of the poison, but they were now outnumbered and unable to escape. Blue dots fell. Black dots fell.

“Shit, this is so close,” Belmont said. His grip bit harder into Merritt’s shoulders.

“There,” Merritt gasped. “The rest of the Explosives Unit is here now, but they can’t get past the SRX-4. They’re not within shooting range due to a curve in the corridor, and they can’t launch any explosives without killing their own.”

The simulator processed Merritt’s final command. The North threw their remaining vials of SYK-21, knocking out the nearest East Sphere soldiers without killing them. As long as they were alive, the armbands on the other side of the SRX barricade wouldn’t throw an explosive.

“Where’s the rest of Chem Ops?” Belmont asked.

“They’ll be here any second.”

Sure enough, hordes of blue dots began spilling in from the periphery. The computer slowed momentarily as new calculations were processed. Then, at last, the screen’s border turned white, and the Explosives Unit’s status changed from “attack” to “retreat.”

“You did it!” Belmont cried. He jumped up, throwing his hands in the air and cheering, and then he grabbed Merritt from behind, wrapping him in an ecstatic embrace. “I can’t believe you fucking did it!”

“Neither can I,” Merritt said, a wide grin plastered on his face. He watched the simulation wrap up, overcome with exhaustion and euphoria at the same time.

“That was beautiful!” Belmont squeezed tight, planting an impulsive kiss on the side of Merritt’s forehead.

Merritt froze. Belmont’s lips lingered against his skin for a moment too long, as if he’d caught himself mid-kiss and wasn’t sure whether to continue or withdraw. His lips eventually withdrew, but his arms remained. Merritt could feel Belmont’s shallow breaths against his cheek, their tickling warmth making his head spin.

Belmont’s cheek brushed his. Belmont squeezed him tighter and gave the side of his forehead a second tentative kiss.

Merritt was stunned. A kiss on the forehead, of all things? Instead of feeling discomfort from being trapped within the arms of a superior, what struck Merritt most was how strangely chaste that kiss was, coming from Belmont. It was certainly nothing like a bite to the neck.

He had no idea how long he’d sat still, locked within Belmont’s arms, when Belmont finally whispered, “Fuck,” under his breath.

“What’s wrong?” Merritt asked, his voice weak.

“I could stay like this forever.” Belmont pressed his face into Merritt’s hair and sighed. “And you want me to let go. But you won’t ask me to because you’d never disobey your commander.”

Merritt didn’t know how to respond. He didn’t know if he even agreed. Without thinking, he said, “Maybe you shouldn’t make assumptions about what other people want.”

Belmont drew his head back. He gave Merritt that familiar skeptical, scrutinizing gaze.

Merritt’s cheeks flushed. You shouldn’t have said that. You really shouldn’t have said that.

He shot up from his seat, breaking free of Belmont’s grasp. “I don’t know what I’m saying. I didn’t mean it like that.”

“You didn’t?” Belmont asked, still skeptical.

Merritt sputtered. “I’m really tired.”

Belmont seemed reluctant but willing to let the comment go. He glanced at the floor, where Merritt’s notebook had fallen from his lap and landed facedown after he’d sprung to his feet. He leaned down and grabbed it before Merritt even realized what he was reaching for.

He was about to hand the notebook to Merritt when his eyes fell upon the open page. He pulled it back out of Merritt’s reach, squinting at the scribbled text. The look on his face grew serious, then almost disturbed. “What is this?” he asked, standing up and pacing across the room. “‘My hands are your weapon. My body is your shield.’ What is this?”

Merritt’s heart dropped to his stomach. Your pledge.

Merritt’s standard military pledge had been memorized since childhood. But rumors held that anyone invited into Mercury’s inner circle was asked to give a unique pledge directly to their King. For years, Merritt had thought about what his pledge to Mercury would be. He’d crafted it word by word, revising and rewriting it, tweaking and perfecting it until he was finally satisfied.

“It’s nothing,” Merritt said feebly. “Just some crappy poetry. I don’t know.”

Belmont continued to pace. He no longer looked at the page; apparently he’d already seen all he needed to see. At last, he slammed the notebook shut and shoved it into Merritt’s hands. “Well. If that’s how you feel about him, then the least you could do is stop leading me on.”

Merritt gaped at him. “Leading you…. What do you mean?”

“Come on. You’ve been acting different around me lately. And I’ve caught you staring at me more times than I can count. I know that stare.”

“I… I’m just doing my job,” Merritt stammered.

“Flirting isn’t part of your job.”

“Flirting?” Merritt gasped, eyes wide.

“‘I love listening to you tell stories, Belmont. You’re so interesting.’”

“I didn’t say it like that.”

“You said it exactly like that.”

Merritt rubbed his temples in frustration. He didn’t have the energy for this conversation. “Belmont. I’m really tired.”

Belmont stalked across the room. His back to Merritt, he began to speak. “Ever since you were assigned to me, I’ve been on my best behavior. Because I knew you were right. If we couldn’t work together, Mercury would blame me. Now, I already knew what kind of guy you were. I did my research. I asked your CO’s about you a good two years ago. You know what Balbo said? She said that a lot of people resented you for being a suck-up, but that it all comes from people who’ve never worked with you. She said, ‘No one wants to like Merritt, but once you work with him, you realize how hard it is to hate him.’

“Colonel Harding didn’t have such nice things to say about you. He said you were disobedient and unmanageable. But when I offered to transfer you to another unit, he flipped his shit and changed his story. He claimed to hate you, but he obviously didn’t want to lose you.

“Now, when we first started dealing with each other, I hated you. And I tried to keep hating you. But Balbo was right. Once I worked with you, it became impossible to hate you. And every day it gets harder for me to be around you without...” Belmont swallowed, squaring his shoulders. He stared intensely into Merritt’s eyes. “Without wanting more from you.”

Merritt shook his head, dumbfounded. This was too much for him to process, especially now when he was stressed and jittery and exhausted. He wished he could just ask for some time to think, but his head wasn’t clear enough to steer him in the right direction.

And even if it had been, he didn’t want to look behind the door Belmont opened. Nothing good could come from confronting the feelings he’d buried after his test session with the nerve sensitizer. He had a job to do and a King to serve. He couldn’t allow his emotions to derail him.

Like the soldier he was, he turned to offense as his best defense. “You want that from me?” he snapped. “Did you forget what you’ve done to me? You tried to have my best friend killed. You tried to have me killed!”

“You tried to have me killed!”

“When?” Merritt demanded.

“What do you think would have happened if word got out that I’d poisoned Higgins? His supporters would have come after me and slaughtered me. But you still tried your best to expose me.”

“Well, you did kill him, didn’t you?”

“If you knew him the way I did, you wouldn’t be mourning his death.”

“That’s not the point.”

“You can’t pretend to be outraged about that now. Not after the way you’ve been kissing my ass for the last four months. Is it just because of the power? Because I’m a right hand and you report to me? Because you like it so much when someone gives you orders?”

Merritt’s face went cold, his exhaustion overshadowed by resentment. “That’s not fair.”

“What else am I supposed to think after reading what you wrote in that notebook? You’re sucking up to me because I’m Mercury’s right hand. But why bother with me if you can go one step higher, right?” He gestured toward the notebook. “What you wrote to him—is that really what you want?”

Merritt gripped the notebook tight. “I don’t understand why you’re so upset by what I wrote.”

“It’s like you don’t even see yourself as a person. You just see yourself as a vessel for him, for whatever he wants to do with you. Do you really want to give up your body and mind and soul—to him? Do you have any idea how little he thinks of you?”

Merritt felt almost ill. Mercury didn’t think poorly of him… did he?

“Goddamn it, Merritt!” Belmont looked ready to throw something, but Merritt didn’t respond. What did Belmont want from him? His body, mind, and soul had always belonged to his King, and he was tired of having to explain that to civilians. But Belmont wouldn’t accept his silence as an answer. “You’d do anything in the world to serve him, and you have no idea that it’s just a game to him. He’s never going to give you what you want.”

“You don’t know what I want.”

Belmont rolled his eyes. “I don’t? You’re not the first cute gay prodigy Mercury’s taken under his wing. I know how it goes. How he’s always conveniently half-naked when he invites you into his suite, even though he’s been expecting you and had plenty of time to throw on a fucking shirt. He doesn’t do that when he invites straight guys over, you know. Or how he deliberately leans across you to grab something he could have just asked you to pass to him, all so you get close enough to smell his neck? Did you know he had his cologne custom made? It’s a barbiturate. It makes you suggestible, and it’s addictive. That’s why you get all dizzy and happy whenever you’re close enough to smell him, and why you go through withdrawal when you’re away from him. The drug doesn’t work on everyone, but it works on enough people to get him what he wants.” Belmont’s lip curled. “All that shit he’s pulled with you, he did the exact same thing to me. Teasing me, leading me on for months. And then one night, he invited me into his hot tub and gave me a glass of his rarest South Sphere white wine and told me to call him Damen.”

Merritt narrowed his eyes. “Was this before or after your grandmother monogrammed your handkerchief on her deathbed?”

Belmont threw his arms up in exasperation. “You don’t believe me? Fine. You don’t have to. I’m not the one who’s going to suffer for it.”

“You don’t even call him Damen.”

“You know who calls him Damen? His lovers. His female lovers. I wasn’t going to do that. He gave me permission not to call him by title, so I call him Mercury, just like the straight guys in his inner circle. And whenever he leans in close to me, I hold my breath.” Belmont took a step closer to Merritt. “Everything he does is just a manipulation tactic to earn a higher level of loyalty from you. He uses whatever tools are at his disposal, no matter how dirty.”

“He doesn’t have to manipulate me. He’s my King. He already has my loyalty.” Merritt’s poker face was long gone, but he was too angry to care. “And so what if I like serving people who are higher than me? It’s what I’m built to do. It’s all I’m built to do.”

“Really? Because I don’t think it’s that simple. Remember when you hacked the intelligence database? Or when Rhodes was killed and you took your troops to Station 1 even though they were ordered to Hamlin? You think you’re made to follow orders, but I think you’re at your best when you’re defying them.”

“I got lucky those times,” Merritt replied, masking his doubt with his frigid tone.

“No. You followed your gut because you knew better. You like serving people, but you’ll never be happy if you’re not serving someone who actually values your mind and your independence. Someone who cares about the same things you care about. That’s not Mercury.”

“Mercury is my King. My job is to serve him. It doesn’t matter if I’m ‘happy.’”

“And what happens when you have to choose between your best friend and your King? Your lover and your King? Your values and your King? Mercury knows how to make sure that he’ll always be your choice. He’ll make sure you lose your friends, your lovers, your values. He’ll be all you have left. That’s how he keeps people’s loyalty—by stripping away anything that might ever compete with him.”

Merritt swallowed hard. He wanted Belmont to shut up. He didn’t want to hear any more.

Belmont glared at Merritt, and Merritt got the sense he was wearing anger on his face to mask another emotion. “You have this idealized picture of him in your head, and you so badly want for the man in your head to exist in real life. But he doesn’t. And the man who I know exists is sitting on his throne, laughing about how easily he can manipulate you.”

“I know what you’re doing. You told me yourself after you killed Coulter. You said anyone who got too close to your King needed to be ‘taken care of.’ You’re trying to keep me from getting close to my King because you think I’m after your job.”

“You’re really that fucking cynical about me? And meanwhile, you refuse to believe that Mercury’s motives could ever possibly be anything less than pure?” 

Merritt gritted his teeth. “You need to stop this, Belmont. I won’t take part in a conversation slandering my King. This isn’t even about him.”

After a long pause, Belmont narrowed his eyes. “You’re right. It’s not about him. If this was a year ago, it would have filled me with fucking glee to see you self-destruct for your King. I was probably better off then—before I gave a damn about what happened to you.”

Merritt forced himself to ignore the lump in his throat. He couldn’t think straight. He just wanted to put an end to the conversation, regardless of what it took to end it. “Whatever it is you want from me, I can’t give it.”

“I just want you to admit it. I want you to admit how you feel about me.”

“I don’t feel anything for you.” Merritt took a step forward, only inches away from Belmont, glaring up into his eyes. “I don’t feel anything.”

Belmont shoved Merritt against the wall then stepped in close. His eyes locked on Merritt’s, his hands on the wall on either side of Merritt’s shoulders. He stood so close that Merritt could feel his heat. He lowered his head, tilting it slightly, his lips barely an inch away from Merritt’s.

Merritt’s chest heaved. He felt himself heating up, breathing hard. He longed for Belmont to close the distance, to finish what he’d started. But Belmont wasn’t moving.

He could barely control his own heavy breaths. It was embarrassing, knowing that Belmont could hear him panting like a dog.

He couldn’t hold out any longer. Closing his eyes, he leaned in, parting his lips.

Belmont sidestepped away from him, and Merritt stumbled forward into excruciating, frustrating freedom.

Belmont gave a smirk so infuriating that Merritt wished he’d lunged with a fist instead of his lips. “It’s a shame I haven’t granted you touch permission.”

Merritt clenched his fists, burning with shame from head to toe. He couldn’t even look at Belmont. There was no way for him to save face. There was no pretending that his blushing and breathing and parted lips could have meant anything other than the truth.

Belmont straightened his tie and headed for the door. On his way out, he turned and glanced over his shoulder at Merritt. “Meeting’s in two hours. Better get some sleep while you can.”

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