Read Shifting Fates for Free Online

the entire way. Out in the lounge, the grunt on night watch is lying on the couch with his feet up on the armrest. He snaps to attention and salutes, trying to pretend he wasn’t just dicking around with a comic book. I return an exhausted salute. I’d chew him out on any other day, but I’m too tired right now to care. Instead, I keep going straight past him, past our makeshift mess-hall in what was once an executive break room, and out into the stairwell.
    If there’s one thing that’ll wake anyone up, it’s climbing fifteen flights of stairs. I sure as hell ain’t enjoying it, but by the time I’ve huffed and puffed all the way up to the roof access door, my head’s as clear as ever. The rusty hinges squeal in protest as I shove the door open, and I slip out into the cold morning air.
    I may be a bit of a country boy at heart, but I’ll tell you one thing: I’m never gonna get tired of the view from up here. The city feels like it goes on forever, a speckled checkerboard of light and dark thanks to limited electricity. If it wasn’t for the winter haze, you could probably see Ground Zero from up here, the deep, black-charred hole where the first bombs struck. Tonight, though, the city just fades to a deep, midnight blue on the horizon.
    “What, you ain’t sleeping either, Cage?” asks a soft voice from my left, and I nearly jump out of my pants in surprise. About fifteen feet away, a short blonde leans out over the railing with her arms crossed before her. It’s Emma, a second lieutenant in the Alpha Platoon.
    Shame on me not checking my surroundings, but she scared the shit out of me.
    “You shouldn’t be awake either, Emma,” I answer gruffly. I’m not very good at avoiding questions, and she sees straight through my non-answer.
    She cocks her head to the side and raises one eyebrow as she looks me up and down, and then she grins, pushes off the railing and saunters over to me.
    “My excuse is the snoring and I’m sticking by it,” she says, leaning in so close to me against the railing that I can feel the heat radiating from her skin. “What’s your reason, or do I need to play twenty questions like last time?”
    I shuffle a few inches to the right and put a little space between the two of us before answering.
    “Thinking about Ben again. More of the usual.”
    She nods and then turns away, staring down at the city as her shoulder-length blond hair dances on the wind. I try not to be too critical of military management now that I’ve gotten a taste of how hard it is to keep the grunts in line, but some administrator seriously screwed up when he deployed Emma with us. Not only is she the only woman in our pathetic excuse for a company, but she’s just barely eighteen and so thin that I could pick her up with one hand. I’ve seen her handle a rifle during training exercises, and she’s living proof that even the best stance in the world won’t help when you’re too light to stop the recoil. What sort of madman thought it was a good idea to send a frail young girl into the Lazaretto Containment with a bunch of unruly grunts like us?
    “I’d ask if you want to talk about it, but I already know the answer,” she says, still not looking at me. “Eventually there’s nothing more you can say, is there? You just want it to end so you can move on, but it keeps on hiding inside and waiting for you to let your guard down, doesn’t it?”
    And there’s why Emma doesn’t belong here , I think. She shouldn’t be here because she’s too damned smart to be stuck at Ground Zero. She should be off working as a psychiatrist or something, not stuck here in hell with me. I’m here because my big plans all died along with Ben, but why on earth did she join up?
    I just nod back to her and stare silently out over the city. She’s right as usual—she’s heard Ben’s story plenty of times. The show’s over and there’s nothing left to talk about.
    “I probably ain’t supposed to ask this, but