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worthless. And Tom would be worthless, too, if he didn’t get away while he had the chance.
    “I don’t have to join the military, Dad. I want to.” He opened his eyes and approached it from his father’s perspective. “Is it the money thing? My salary will be in a trust, but I get a living allowance. I can send some along. I can help you out.”
    Why was Neil looking at him like he’d stabbed him or something? They both knew Tom was the one paying for their rooms lately.
    Neil’s jaw clenched. “Fine. Fine, Tom. I’ll sign whatever blasted form you want. You want to throw your life away? Want to pledge yourself to the corporate war machine?”
    “Yes, Dad. I want to pledge myself to the corporate war machine.” Tom’s voice grew ferocious. “It’s my choice.”
    “It’s your mistake.”
    “Maybe. But it’s mine .”
    Neil yanked the consent form from Tom’s hands. “This isn’t how teenaged rebellion’s supposed to go. You’re supposed to shock me by doing something scandalous. Not by joining the establishment.”
    “This is about as scandalous as I’m going to get, Dad. Sign the form.”
    “I’d rather you got a tattoo.”
    Neil scrawled his signature on the form and handed custody of Tom over to the US military.
    L ATER IN THE afternoon, General Marsh returned to collect the contract—and his newest recruit.
    “Mr. Raines, you have no need to worry about Tom while he’s with us. We’ll take good care of your boy.” Marsh offered Neil a hand to shake.
    Neil stared back at him with stony hatred. He ignored Marsh’s hand and instead reached out to envelop Tom in a rough, parting hug.
    “Tom”—Neil ruffled his hand in Tom’s hair—“whatever happens, you take care of yourself. Got it?”
    “Got it.”
    Tom couldn’t help wondering at the look on his dad’s face when he walked away. Neil stared after him like he was sure this was the last time they’d ever see each other.

CHAPTER THREE
    A S THE AIRPLANE hummed around him, Tom imagined himself as a Combatant, saving America from some devastating Russo-Chinese plot. And maybe then Ms. Falmouth would see him on TV and gasp, realizing her least favorite student had just saved her country. Then everyone at Rosewood would find out, too.
    Suddenly he wanted to tell her where he was going. He had this weird need to hear what she’d say. But when he asked about visiting Rosewood one last time, Marsh shook his head.
    “As far as your Ms. Falmouth is concerned, you’ve been moved to a foster home. We keep as quiet as we can about our young recruits, Tom. The only face we put out there publicly is Elliot Ramirez. The rest of you are only known to the public as call signs.”
    The flight from Arizona seemed to take forever. When they flew over Arlington, Virginia, Tom finally spotted the building he’d been watching for since takeoff: the Pentagonal Spire, military headquarters for the Intrasolar Forces. The massive spire rose from a five-sided pentagonal base and twisted up into a gleaming, chrome point.
    Marsh rapped a knobby knuckle on the windowpane. “Used to be, when I was a kid, Tom, this building was a giant, flat pentagon. The place where the Spire is? Right where it’s planted, there used to be a courtyard and two inner rings of the Old Pentagon. We called the courtyard ground zero. It got that name way back in the Cold War, when everyone thought that would be the first place the Soviets bombed. A lot of people were upset when the higher-ups decided to build the Spire over that piece of history, but we were just ramping up competition with the Chinese in space, and we needed an edge. The Spire itself is more than a building. It’s the most powerful transmitter in the Western Hemisphere.”
    “What do you do in the old building?” Tom said as the plane rudders tilted up, outside his window. They decelerated as the hybrid plane shifted into helicopter mode.
    “We’ve got some military traditionals stationed in the remaining