Two hundred years ago, the world ended. Cities sank, nations perished, but the rich...they headed to higher ground. And in two hundred years' time, Dev wondered if human evolution ever factored in Senji and his megalomaniac father.

Someone said in passing once that the Volunteer cadet HQ was fashioned after an old prison. The open area in the center was massive, with rooms on the first and second floor. There were nine divisions. No one had a number yet. So nine teams, of boys then nine teams of girls, eighteen teams in total. And all eighteen filed out of their rooms and into the open field.

Head cadets like Dev wore helmets with filtered air. New recruits, fresh from the streets, did not. All eighteen groups were meant to have sixty recruits to shuffle through. All did. All but Dev...and Sen.

So while sixteen lines of sixty uncomfortable faces stood at attention looking up at a stage platform, Dev and her seven, stood beside Sen on the stage.

And Sen's recruit? He sported a black eye, standing at attention like some skeletal foot soldier. Of the multiple stitches he had to get—ones he did on his own, to Dev's amazement, three were on his temple.

He walked away from the hazing with only a black eye.

But at least he had both eyes, which was more than anyone could say for Sen.

Sen stood at attention as well, a white wrapping guarding his injury.

If this place was fashioned after a prison, then on Sen's right, stood the warden, his father.

Warden—overseer Anderson Ryker was a doctor by trade. He was also Dev's uncle. Somehow he'd ended up here teaching these hapless recruits. He was also the only person Dev, and to some degree Sen, ever feared.

He was dressed in his civilian clothes, his left hand holding the collar of his ornate red vest.

Despite the beauty of his coat which reached down to his thighs, he wore an ugly scowl of disgust.

"Look at him," the overseer said, "look at my son. The shining example."

Sen began to smile. Finally, he grinned.

Even a slap to the back of the head didn't wipe that expression away.

"Go on then," Sen urged, "punish me. What's it gonna be? Breaking a finger? Or best yet, take a life-line. Go on and take all three that's left. Since you've given me six—"

The backhand across his face that time shut him up.

Six. He had six lifelines. How? The numbers didn't even go up past three.

"You will apologize to this recruit," the overseer said, leaning in close. "Then and only then will I provide you with yet another eye, you brat."

Still grinning wide, Sen replied, "Bet you I won't. Yours and his problem could be solved real easily—let him rescind his application."

At the silence, nothing moved—no one breathe.

Overseer Ryker turned to address the crowd. "I won't make it a secret, this is my boy and he runs no risk of being kicked out." He met his son's sideways glance, insisting, "Ever."

Sen's smile wavered. Once it dawned on him the man was serious, he had no more boasting to offer.

"Let me leave, old man. That's all I want to do, just leave. Let me—"

He stopped speaking. Dev, still facing forward, tried to see if her cousin'd been injured without her knowing. Something must have prompted him to shut up, which wasn't like him.

Whatever the reason, he was quiet now.

"It is an unfair advantage," the overseer admitted. "But it's more than that. It's a blight on the division. But why do I allow it?"

He waited and the head cadets, even Dev, announced, "Trust in the process."

"Exactly. I trust that by the time this program is done with you, any of you lucky enough to make it that far, you'll be the strongest Volunteers yet. Let me remind you, there is one final cadet per class. Eighteen classes, eighteen spots. Your head cadet will get recycled back into the program again and again until he or she either gives up and takes an administrative job, or succeeds. You Vagrants will not. You will drop like flies until the strongest remain. And you'll have to do so putting up with my ungrateful spawn."

He left the word to linger, scanning the crowd in its entirety.

"Those who fail early will exit upright, but those who soldier on, can only leave due to injury. Should you have any physical ailments you've somehow masked, now is the time to fess up, take the free food, and go back to where you've come from."

He turned to make his way off the stage. When he reached Sen's lone-recruit, he paused and told him, "Keep in mind, my son gets a pass; you do not. You are just like the other rots looking to be someone. Whatever mess you make, whatever mistakes you wroth, they'll take you down and he'll walk away. You've taken his eye, meaning his peripheral is compromised. That is not a win for you."

His fancy shoes echoed against the rubber floor, making a dull thud with each step. Once he was out of the room, everyone sagged, ever so slightly.

Dev dared not make eye contact with the other head cadets, less than pleased with her and her idiot cousin.

Instead, she made her way to Sen and turned him to her. once she examined the bandage, she sighed. "How bad is it? Can you see a bit out of it?"

"There's no it," Sen muttered. "The jerk hit the matrix back into it. It ruptured."

Closing her own eyes, Dev let out a haggard sigh. "What were you doing? What were you thinking?"

With everyone else, Sen had a fight—a bone to pick, with her, he looked defeated.

"So you're turning your back on me, too?"

Head cadets gathered their groups and began the culling process. None paid them any mind.

Dev wasn't often embarrassed by Sen, but this was beyond the pale.

She didn't focus on Sen's single recruit, she instead regarded her cousin and formed one conclusion. "I can't choose family and I want to support you. I want to understand why you're losing your mind."

Sen shook his head. "I don't want to be here." He thrust out a finger at his recruit. "Or for this nimrod to be here. Now I'm stuck."

But with his father as the overseer, he'd always been stuck.

Dev took him into a hug and soothed, "I'm here, too. Let's just try to make this work. Please. I beg. Get him cleaned off—"

"I'm not. I won't." Sen broke her hold and made his way down the stage. "I'm going to my room. If you want to help me, get it to run off."

The silence was awkward after that.

Dev peered back at her own seven pitiful recruits who looked uncomfortable in their dingy clothes and too-small shoes. When her eyes landed on Sen's recruit, she marched over to him.

"Sorry." The boy hurried to her instead, insisting, "I can't let him hit me in the head, you see. It's all I've got. And Lotsu always said—"

"Stop talking." Dev stare at him. There wasn't much to see. His dark skin complimented his green eyes. The tight curls of his hair was shaved nearly clean, but it wasn't neat. He was scrawny, too, and short. Maybe that was Sen's displeasure with the boy—he looked like a lost cause. "I'm going to help you," Dev decided. "I think...I'm sure, that if we can get you viable, my cousin will treat you better."

The boy calmed. Relief filled his face. "Yeah?"

Dev was certain of it. "But he's your superior and you must acknowledge that. For now, let's get you deloused and checked. Or it's both our hides."

The full lips parted and formed into a smile. "You won't regret this, ma'am. You won't regret this."

Despite his enthusiasm, those words left her with a pit in her stomach. She was already regretting it.