Free Dualed by Elsie Chapman Page B

capable of killing someone themselves doesn’t mean they don’t deserve a chance to live.”
    “But that’s how Kersh has stayed as strong as it has. By getting rid of the weak.”
    “It’s strong in the way of soldiers and war. But what about things that make us more than machines, keep us human? Balance is good. If being weak means not being able to live with the memory of killing someone with your own hands, then maybe we should all call weakness good. Being worthy should mean more than just being able to use a gun or hold a blade.”
    “If you’re really just trying to screw with the whole thing, so that the stronger Alt doesn’t win and the weaker one does, why do you still make the weaker Alt pay?” I press him.
    Dire’s face goes tight, his eyes filling with derision and emptied of anything else. As if he’s caught himself just in time and now has to regain his footing, step back into anger where there’s no room for guilt. Who could he have lost to make him see things this way, and how bad must it have been?
    “Hey, either you live or you die,” he says. “Kill or be killed. Unless you want to leave behind your dead body for your family to deal with, pay up. I’ll take the money every time.”
    Will it be the same for me? Will I end up as hard as him for using striking to fend off whatever ghosts haunt me, the way he uses his strikers to fend off his own? Will it matter, as long as I can keep going on?
    “Do you understand all that, Grayer?” Dire asks, snapping me back. “Understand and accept what comes with becoming a striker?”
    “Yes.” I meet his gaze. “To all of it.”
    “They’ll hate you if they find out, you know.” No beating around the issue, just a factual breakdown of my life from this point on. “Not only the Board, but also idles, actives, completes—and deep down, even some of the Alts who end up hiring you themselves, simply for reminding them of what they couldn’t do. Everyone who sees your marks will know you’re cheating the system. That you’re not killing for the greater good, but because you choose to.”
    “Yes.” It’s all I can say.
    “Good. Don’t screw up.” And with that, it’s done.
    I’ve been accepted.
    “You got the equipment ready?” Dire asks the woman.
    She nods, and I can tell she’s not happy with Dire’s decision to sign me on. I’m a new kind of animal with a slew of unknowns, difficult to classify: a teenaged striker who has yet to complete her assignment. Am I just a waste of their time, caught up in the initial adrenaline rush of being an actual striker, only to balk at the first sign of danger? Will I go hog wild, made hungry by opportunity and a distorted sense of impunity? Will my eventual assignment handcuff me or empower me with newfound perspective?
    Dire leaves the room as the woman slides the cardboard box over so it sits between us on the pitted tabletop. She lifts the lid and I peer inside, knowing what I’m going to see and bracing myself anyway.
    A tattoo gun. No bullet to fire into my flesh, but something else instead: the marks of a striker. Payment, just like Dire said.
    “This gun will accomplish two things,” the woman says to me. “First, the laser will score your skin beneath the surfaceand clear out a path for the mark. Then it will flood the path with the particle ink. The ink’s properties are what will allow us to keep track of you, in case the finder’s fee slips your mind and we need to contact you. Our own shadowing system, if you will.” The corners of her lips curl. Not to reassure me, but to let me know she’s enjoying my submission, whether she agrees with it or not.
    “Get on with it,” I tell her.
    Her smile slides off like grease from a pan. “It will hurt. Scream and I will have to gag you.”
    I don’t scream. But tears come all the same, streaking my cheeks. Hot as flame, my first trial by fire.
    When she’s done, the smell of burning flesh is not just in my nose but in my clothes,