Silver Elite: Chapter 22

[penwalla]

For tonight’s city drills, a Command craft flies us to the Point, landing on a paved lot with a backdrop of sprawling warehouses, small factories, and low-rise buildings. There’s a heavy, oily scent to the air, a mixture of exhaust fumes and a burnt odor that makes me wonder what they’re doing in those buildings. While my fellows gather around awaiting instructions, my gaze is busy searching for an escape. If the network wasn’t ignoring me, they could have taken advantage of this. Attempted a rescue while I was off base.

Remember when Wren briefly realized she was in a position to be an asset to the Uprising? Yeah, she's already forgotten and back on her "why won't anyone risk their lives to rescue me from this problem I created myself" bullshit.

And in this drill, their task is to climb a building and jump to another building from there. Without any safety gear. Because...uh...wait, why wouldn't they have safety gear? Don't know! The book tries to argue that they wouldn't have gear during an op, but I don't see why that matters. Getting your recruits killed during training is dumb because they presumably can't be easily replaced in your elite military training program and oh god, this is just Fourth Wing again.

Wren's team is first, so they start freeclimbing the building. Lyddie struggles, because she doesn't have the arm strength. So this elite training program didn't have minimum athletic requirements to get in? Yeah. Okay.

When my boots hit the gravel that coats the rooftop, my heart beats even faster. The building is only five stories tall, so I can’t see the entire city from up here, but I do catch glimpses of the skyline. Winking lights. Windows emanating a pale-yellow glow. I imagine all the obedient citizens in their tidy homes and apartments, going to sleep so they can wake up and go to their jobs in the morning. They earn Req credits to use for meals, necessities. Lux credits for the shinier things. They have schools for their kids. Safety on their streets. Maybe Cross is right. Maybe I should accept this life. There are far worse things than—

This is coming out of fucking nowhere and makes no sense with Wren's previous characterization and has no bearing on the situation at hand. Wren's not living that safe, mundane life. She's literally in a military training program meant to make her kill her own kind.

Anyways, they pass the test, and Wren even encourages Lyddie so that they don't fail.

Would have been interesting conflict if Wren had struggled with this, like if she sabotaged Lyddie and felt bad about it, or helped her and then felt bad about that. Maybe there could be consequences to her actions that would make us care.

Or, you know. Not.

Oh hell. I’m softening to her. It’s getting harder and harder to stop these little seeds from sprouting into a genuine friendship. It’s the same with Kaine—I’m a victim to his charms. And Betima, who lures me in with her top-notch sarcasm.

In another life, an alternate universe, I could see myself being friends with these people. Or maybe that’s where I am now, standing at the crossroads of some parallel universe, staring at divergent paths, one where an alternate reality is mine for the taking. Maybe I should not only accept my fate like Cross advised but embrace it.

Let myself care about these people with whom I’ve just spent three grueling weeks, truly care about them.

Give up my childish desire to become a valued member of the Uprising like Jim and my parents.

Forget that I’m Modified. I suppose that one won’t be too hard. Telepathy is the only gift I rely on regularly, anyway. I can cut my links to Tana. To Wolf.

I cannot stress enough that this shit is coming out of nowhere and makes no sense. It has been three weeks and at the start of those three weeks HER UNCLE WAS MURDERED. What benefit does Wren derive from accepting her fate? She is not going to be safe in the military--at best she will be risking her life doing the bidding of people who want her dead and who killed her loved ones. And her friendships with the others are just not that convincing, because Wren has never actually tried to not be friends with them. Wren isn't comfortable here! Just two chapters ago she was borrowing clothes from Betima because the military stole everything she owned!

Anyways, Wren's maudlin musings are interrupted when one of the other recruits fails to make the jump and falls to his death, getting impaled on a metal spike.

Whoops.

Side note but I think this is foreshadowing:

Betima starts to back away. Hugging her arms to her chest and shaking as if she’d just entered a freezer. She pulls her sleeves down as far as they’ll go and hugs herself tighter. She’s in shock.

Betima is Aberrant, right? She's covering her arms so no one sees her weird magic veins.

Anyway, the scene ends, and we move to the barracks, where Betima is still traumatized by watching a man die in front of her. She slips out of the barracks and Wren follows her.

Betima goes up the roof to smoke euca, which is some kind of drug. Apparently in this country you can't get cocaine or cannabis anymore, though they still have it in Tierra Fe. So it is dystopian South America, huh.

They're having a heart to heart about how hard it is to watch someone die when Anson and Roe show up.

Roe has a gun, and they're all trapped up there while Roe starts doing evil monologues. See, his dad loves to do murder mystery games at dinner parties, and he always lets his important guests win. Roe is banned from these parties. Probably because he did a murder at one of them.

Wren tries to leave with Betima.

“Actually, I think my brother will be more concerned with the fact there’s an Aberrant bitch among us.”

My blood runs cold.

By some miracle, I manage to keep my shoulders straight, my jaw locked, even while my knees are weakening and my breath thins from the panic flooding my body. Beside me, Betima goes stock-still. Her gaze darts toward me as if to ask, What the hell is going on?

Ah! I was right! Now, this probably should have been set up more than one chapter before it was revealed, because it was obvious that something was up with Betima because she's been onscreen and important since the moment she saw that guy die, and in books like this a character is only important when they're about to have plot involvement.

Betima is an Aberrant, too, and Roe shoots her in the head.

Chapter end.

Hey, something happened in this one! Maybe this will be the catalyst that gets Wren to do something besides whine and be horny. Probably not, but we can dream.