“Yes, you’ve got a virus.” Wyatt tapped on her forearm keyboard as she examined the results. “The program’s called Gnomes. Looks like it tampers with your vision center.”

“Walton Covner,” Tom grumbled.

“He must’ve slipped it into your homework feed.”

“Can you block it out? I don’t wanna see gnomes all day.” He could see them even now, right across the room, hanging out near Walton.

“I’ll patch your firewall tonight. You have to endure the gnomes in the meantime.”

The tiny gnomes were obviously on to the fact that Tom was trying to get rid of them, because they began shaking their fists at him. Tom almost returned the gesture, then he caught himself and shoved his hands in his pockets instead. No. He refused to exchange angry fist shakes with nonexistent gnomes.

Tom surveyed the crowd as Wyatt studied the program’s code again. Middle Company had the most trainees. It was a bottleneck, because it was unlikely to be breezed through in six months, the way many could change through plebe company, but it was also too late for most trainees to get a phased removal of the processor and wash out altogether. That fact was a comfort to Tom. After the initial six months or so, their brains grew more and more dependent on the processor to carry out vital functions. Tom figured that, whatever happened, his brain’s growing dependence at least ensured he’d never get threatened with removal of his processor again . . . well, not unless someone outright planned to kill him.

The chatter died as Major Cromwell strode into the room. She reached the podium and leaned against it. “One of the weaknesses of this training program is the lack of experienced veterans,” she said in her hoarse voice. “You are the first generation with successfully implanted neural processors. The first generation to become Intrasolar Combatants. So we rely upon our current, active Combatants to assist with your training far more than we should. This is simply something we have to do because soldiers like me do not have the direct experience you require. One of these training exercises you need the Combatants for is the fly-along experience.”