The Darkside War by Zachary Brown Read Free Book Online Page B

room. “Anyone not in an assigned bunk will spend the night on the beach with me. Your names are on your bunks. Go!”
    The larger threat scattered us.
    I jogged through the hallway, looking for the bunks, exhausted, hungry, still tense with anger. I stopped when I saw a water fountain.
    â€œWe don’t have time for that,” someone passing me hissed.
    I kept drinking water. Until I felt like something in my stomach was going to burst. Part of me was trying to fill that hole the hunger had excavated in me. But I also had another trick up my sleeve.
    The end of the corridor opened up into an almost warehouse-­sized room. Hundreds of bunk beds in rows in the open area. To the back, bathrooms and showers.
    I jumped into my lower bunk. Looked around. “Hey, upstairs,” I asked the bunk above me. “Is it all boys in one row and girls in the next?”
    â€œAs far as I can see,” the voice replied tiredly.
    â€œHuh.”
    â€œI wouldn’t get out of the bed at night, though.” The bed shifted, and a brown face peered over at me. Curved gang sigils marked the massive forearm dangling over the side.
    â€œWhy not?”
    â€œForce fields. I got here a day early. Our overlords aren’t interested in anyone here getting into trouble at night. We might as well be in a jail cell come lights-out.”
    And just as he said it, the lights cut out.
    There was some muttering chatter between the rows—invitations—and then a sound like a bug getting zapped in one of those bug lights. Someone screamed and swore.
    â€œSee?” Upstairs laughed.
    â€œShit. When do they turn back off ?”
    â€œHoping to make friends with someone you met?”
    â€œNo, I drank a lot of water. I’m going to have to pee,” I told him. “I wanted to wake up early, but now I’m wondering how I take a piss in the middle of the night.”
    My bunkmate’s face came back over the edge. “Up early,” he said thoughtfully. “That’s smart. What’s your name again? I saw it when I got to the bunk, but forgot.”
    â€œDevlin,” I said.
    â€œRakwon.” Rakwon extended his hand over the edge of the bed. I shook it. It was a big, strong hand. I felt like a child.
    â€œYou play sports?” I asked.
    â€œNo. Everyone asks. We run big in my family. I guess it’s because my mother’s Samoan. Dad’s from Queens. My brother played rugby, but quit after he lost a tooth.” He laughed. “If you don’t piss the bed tonight, wake me up with you. The fields turn off right before breakfast. Getting there first while everyone is getting their bearings is a good idea.”
    Another loud zap, this time swearing in a decidedly female timbre.
    â€œThe fields are up across beds as well. So it’s only bunkmates that can move around. Get some sleep, don’t pee yourself. Wake me up when you get up.”
    +  +  +  +
    We converged on breakfast like a barbarian horde, up before the force fields around our bunks dropped out, waiting for the telltale shimmer in the air to fade away.
    The line cooks ladled porridge-like goop into divots in our trays. At the end of the counters were squares of what looked like unwrapped energy bars near large baskets of fist-sized gray blobs.
    â€œWhat is this shit?” I asked.
    Rakwon pointed with a spoon at the goop. “Slurry. Made in Accordance vats and perfectly balanced with all the nutrients a human digestive system needs. You can live off it forever.”
    â€œAnd this?” I shoved the gray blob. It wobbled.
    â€œEnergy drink, kinda. Sharpens focus. And hydrates. You can eat the film that holds it together.” Rakwon bit into his blob and slurped hard to get the liquid out before it dribbled out from the collapsing spheroid. Then, like slurping spaghetti, he sucked the remains in and chewed them.
    â€œIt looks like snot.”
    Rakwon grinned. “Keep