“No messing around, am I clear?” For some reason, he was staring directly at Tom and Vik, even though there were five other newly certified, exosuit-competent Middles. “You start screwing around up there, and you are walking back down the stairs. One of you goes splat, then someone gets stuck with a whole lot of paperwork. Know who that person will be? Me. That’s why you are going to suit up, pair up, and above all, be careful.”

Tom and Vik stayed side by side, and Wyatt kept turning to people, who then paired with other people, and looking increasingly dejected over it. Blackburn produced a bunch of climbing harnesses and tossed one at each pair.

“The idea here is that if one of you loses your grip—which you should not—the other one will still have it.” He tossed another harness, and paused by Tom and Vik. “Oh, no, no. You two are not going together.”

“Huh?” Tom said.

“Huh?” Vik said.

“Ashwan, climb with Enslow.”

Vik turned to Wyatt, eyebrows raised. “What do you know. We’re together. Now my life depends on you, and your life? It depends on me.” He waggled his eyebrows.

Wyatt began to look frightened.

Tom automatically cast his gaze toward Kelcy Demos, hoping Blackburn would break up other pairs so he could claim the curly-haired girl as his partner. Then he felt something hook into the frame of his suit. He glanced back—and his stomach plummeted.

“No way,” he protested. He did not want to be harnessed to Lieutenant Blackburn. “No. Sir, come on.”

“This isn’t up for debate,” Blackburn told him, tugging on the harness connecting them to test its strength.

“But I’m the best exosuiter here. I don’t need to get harnessed to the instructor.”

“Your capability,” he said, speaking slowly as though fighting to remain patient, “is not what I question. Your judgment is.”

“I have fantastic judgment.”

“You have horrendous judgment. Of all the trainees here, you’re the likeliest to severely overestimate yourself and do something reckless and phenomenally stupid. That’s why you’re with me. You’ve proven yourself unable to realistically gauge your capabilities, so I have to gauge them for you. It’s that, or you don’t climb.”

Tom bristled.

“Well?”

“Fine. Sir.”

Getting harnessed to Blackburn for the climb killed it for him. They all donned optical camouflage, attaching the fiber-optic material to specific hooks in their exosuits, and hid themselves from the view of any civilians gazing toward the Pentagonal Spire. They also used the iron-shaped centrifugal clamps to hoist themselves up the side of the building.

The cold wind couldn’t penetrate the optical camouflage, and the exosuit replaced the need for actual exertion, so Tom found himself bored for most of the climb—especially with his pace hobbled by Blackburn, who insisted on staying below the slowest pair of trainees, Jennifer and Mervyn, to keep an eye on them.