Free Vortex by S. J. Kincaid

an idea. “Actually, that’s a great idea.”
    Vik raised his head blearily. His voice was so hoarse and faint, Tom barely recognized it. “This does not sound like a great idea.”
    “No, it is. I’ll jump in the water, swim far enough from the raft that Yosef will know I can’t save myself by swimming back, and he’ll come for me. I’ll kill him.”
    “Or he’ll kill you,” Lyla said hopefully.
    “That is a possibility,” Tom admitted. “I’m going for it.”
    He threw himself into the cold water with a resounding splash and began swimming, spear in hand, the ocean dragging at his legs, Yosef hanging at a distance. A few times the shadow shimmered its way toward him, the lethal fin cutting a path through the water, but Yosef always veered off. He was feinting, testing whether Tom would flee to safety.
    And then Yosef must’ve realized Tom had reached the point of no return. This time, he committed. His fin sliced through the water toward Tom. For a moment as that black shadow mounted upon him, a creeping horror grew inside Tom, realizing this was going to hurt, realizing what he’d done, what he’d invited upon himself. . . . Even if he got a spear thrust in, he was probably about to get chomped by a shark.
    But then a crazed sort of euphoria swept over him, and Tom whooped in glee and thrust his spear forward as Yosef’s razor-sharp teeth flashed right in his face—
    And then his eyes snapped open in the training room. For a moment, Tom felt a profound relief, realizing his death had been painless. Then Snowden leaned over him, and Tom realized he’d been unplugged.
    “We need to have a chat.”
    Tom sat bolt upright. “You unplugged me.”
    “I don’t appreciate being killed by my own troops,” Snowden informed him. “George Washington’s troops didn’t stab him to death. That’s why we’re not speaking British. . . . I mean, we are speaking British,” he amended, “but not with a British accent.”
    Tom kept staring at him. Snowden had unplugged him at the most critical moment of the sim. He couldn’t believe it. He’d been seconds from winning!
    “Maybe someone should talk to you about the chain of command,” Snowden decided. “Who was your old sim group leader?”
    That’s how Tom ended up waiting on his cot for Elliot Ramirez to come. He looked inward at the chronometer, his neural processor swiftly calculating the ratio between simulation time and real time. In the hours from Snowden’s time of death to the time of his confrontation with Yosef, less than thirty seconds had passed, real time.
    His head throbbed. It hadn’t felt like thirty seconds at all. He rubbed at his temples. He couldn’t believe all those days at sea had happened in mere hours.
    “You get a time dilation hangover the first few extended sims.” Walton’s voice drifted over from a nearby cot. “You’ll get used to it.”
    “I can’t believe he pulled me out,” Tom complained. What would happen to Vik and Lyla in the simulation now? He’d had the spear, and he’d been taken out of the sim. They had no weapon.
    Walton sidled over to him and turned to keep his side to Tom while he spoke, like he was trying to fool a casual observer into thinking they weren’t talking. “So, Raines, you killed Snowden, I hear?”
    Tom eyed him, wondering if he’d react like Lyla. “Yeah, I kind of did.”
    Walton nodded crisply. “This pleases me.”
    “Sorry you got eaten by sharks, man. If it makes you feel better, I was so dehydrated, I actually thought you had gnome minions.”
    Walton stared at him intensely until Tom’s smile faded away. Then the other boy leaned forward and propped his elbows on the cot. “Tom, I don’t really have gnome minions.”
    He said it so seriously that Tom grew confused. “Uh, yeah, I figured that.”
    Walton eyed him dubiously, like he doubted it. “It would be better if you kept quiet about what I said in the sim while my judgment was impaired. I’d hate for people