The Sky is Everywhere

Chapter Thirty-Three

Her words don't register at first.

Then they sink in like the hollow toll of a bell, and I'm catapulted back to when I first met Roan, when I sarcastically asked him if he thought the CC was killing Seconds who failed the Trials. He'd dismissed it because it didn't make sense, and it still doesn't, but . . .

"I don't understand," I say.

Cole moves past me and sits on her bed. Her shoulders are hunched, and she looks hollowed out and stripped down, like I've only ever seen her wearing armour and now that's all gone.

"What do you think happens to Seconds once we leave the CC?" she says.

"If we prove ourselves at the Trials, we are given some sort of government jobs," I say.

"And that's true, but not the way we think it is."

I lean against the wall and listen.

"Seconds belong to the government. The government set up the CC, and they work to keep as much information about it suppressed as possible. The CC likes to remind us to feel grateful that they're keeping a roof over our heads, but we all know that they're not doing it out of charity, don't we?"

I nod.

"The government doesn't fund the CC. The military does. They're training us. The Trials are not to determine whether or not we can offer any value to society. They are to test how useful we are to the military."

"Wait, what?" I blink at her.

"They train us to be physically strong. They train us to obey authority. They don't allow us anything of our own, anything that might encourage us to rebel. They train us to believe that we are worthless, and we all believe it, don't we? We're all desperate to prove ourselves in the Trials, because we think it's the only chance we have."

I can't deny it.

"It is the only chance we have, but not in the way that we think," Cole continues. "The Trials is a competition, but it's testing us in the worst kind of way. It's testing us to see who's capable of killing each other."

I gape at her.

She's joking . . . right?

"I'm serious," Cole says, reading my face. "That's what the Prey/Predator designations mean. The CC's military contacts want to keep on top of who they might be expecting in their program, so in our last year here, we are assigned a label, an expectation of where we stand in the Trials. Seconds who are marked as Predators are the ones likely to succeed. They are not necessarily the strongest or the fastest – they are the ones most likely to be capable of, or willing to kill the people they have grown up with. The others, the ones marked as Prey? They're expected to be the victims."

I can't wrap my head around this. It's too much.

"Do you understand yet?" Cole says, watching me. "To pass the Trials, kids marked as Predator are expected to kill kids marked as Prey."

"Why?"

"It's the ultimate test of loyalty, to see how far they can get us to go. It's hardly unheard of for soldiers to do awful things in battle, but even the military is still supposed to play by the rules. Human rights violations are still investigated. But imagine if they had a contingent of soldiers who didn't legally have human rights. Imagine if those soldiers had been brainwashed into thinking that they had no value at all, except what the Trials assigned them. Imagine if they were so desperate to belong that they were willing to kill their own friends. If you can get people to do that, you can get them to do anything."