Chapter 7 - Somebody Changed My Score
The integrity review did not stop training.
That was intentional.
The cadre wanted the course to keep moving while they quietly watched the people inside it.
For Briggs, that meant pretending nothing had changed.
For me, it meant performing while half the class wondered whether I was a victim, a liar, or something more complicated.
The next assessment was a timed endurance circuit.
It combined a run, weighted carries, body-weight stations, and a final sprint.
Nothing glamorous.
Nothing subjective.
That was why I welcomed it.
A clock did not care who liked me.
A distance did not care who believed Briggs.
Numbers were clean.
At least I thought they were.
My first circuit went well.
I crossed the final marker with enough breath left to know I had paced correctly.
A civilian technician scanned my bib number and read the time aloud.
"Thirty-eight twenty-one."
I nodded.
"Copy."
Torres finished two minutes later.
Price came through after her.
Briggs finished in thirty-six fifty-eight.
He looked at the clock, then at me.
"Guess the notebook doesn't make you faster."
"Guess talking doesn't make you quieter."
He smirked.
"Enjoy second place."
"It's an individual benchmark."
"Everything has a ranking."
He walked away.
An hour later, the preliminary scores were posted.
My time read forty-three twenty-one.
Exactly five minutes slower than what the technician had called.
I stared at the sheet.
Torres came up beside me.
"That's wrong."
"Yes."
"You heard thirty-eight?"
"So did you."
"So did Price."
Price leaned in from behind us.
"Thirty-eight twenty-one. No question."
Briggs approached from the other side.
"Problem?"
I did not answer.
He looked at my posted time.
"Ouch."
"Go away," Price said.
Briggs ignored him.
"Maybe you heard the clock wrong."
I turned.
"You were fifty yards away."
"Sound carries."
"Apparently numbers travel too."
His smile thinned.
Staff Sergeant Kim approached.
"What's going on?"
I pointed at the sheet.
"My posted time is five minutes slower than the finish time called at the line."
Kim checked his clipboard.
His expression changed.
"Paper record says forty-three twenty-one."
"It was thirty-eight."
"Who heard it?"
Torres and Price both raised a hand.
Kim looked toward the timing station.
"Come on."
We walked there together.
The civilian technician was gone for lunch.
Another technician was setting up the scanner.
Kim asked for the raw timing log.
The second technician opened the file on a laptop.
My bib number showed forty-three twenty-one.
For the first time, doubt flickered through me.
Had I misheard?
No.
I knew what I had heard.
So did two other people.
Kim scrolled through the entries.
"This system records edits."
He clicked a small icon beside my line.
A change history opened.
Original entry: 38:21.
Edited entry: 43:21.
Change made at 0907.
User: ADMIN-04.
Kim's face went still.
"Who has that login?" I asked.
"Cadre support."
"Specific person?"
"Several."
Torres leaned closer.
"Can you see the terminal?"
Kim clicked again.
Terminal ID: MOBILE-2.
The mobile terminal had been sitting beside the finish table all morning.
I remembered who had stood there after his run.
Briggs.
He had leaned against that exact table while talking to another soldier.
But a trainee should not have known the password.
"How hard is it to access?" Price asked.
Kim looked uncomfortable.
"Not hard enough, apparently."
I turned.
Briggs was no longer near the score sheet.
He was walking toward the gym.
Kim saw him too.
"Stay here."
He went after him.
Torres folded her arms.
"That's clean evidence."
"Of an edit."
"Come on."
"Not of who made it."
"Who else cares about adding exactly five minutes to your score?"
"Somebody who wants us to say Briggs before we can prove it."
She studied me.
"You think it could be another setup."
"I think assuming is how people get manipulated."
Kim returned ten minutes later without Briggs.
"Where is he?" Price asked.
"With Hayes."
"Did he do it?"
"I don't know."
Kim looked at me.
"Your original time is restored."
"Thank you."
"And access credentials are being reset."
"Good."
He started to walk away.
"Staff Sergeant."
He turned.
"Did Briggs know the login?"
Kim's expression told me he did not want to answer.
"Briggs spent six months attached to a training support section before this course."
That was new.
"Here?"
"Different installation. Same software."
"So he might know a default credential pattern."
"He might."
Kim lowered his voice.
"That is not proof."
"I know."
He looked almost relieved that I said it.
Then he left.
The afternoon exercise involved navigation through a mock urban training site.
Pairs received coordinates for marked buildings and had to identify information at each location.
I was paired with Torres.
Briggs was paired with Reed.
That pairing made me uneasy.
Reed had avoided me since the false statement.
He looked exhausted.
Dark circles sat under his eyes.
During the brief, his hands shook when he unfolded his map.
Briggs noticed.
He leaned close and said something I could not hear.
Reed went pale.
Torres followed my gaze.
"He's scared of him."
"Looks that way."
"We need to get him alone."
"We're under orders not to."
"Orders can change."
"Not because we want them to."
She exhaled sharply.
"You are infuriatingly disciplined."
"That's what Briggs hates."
"Fair point."
The exercise began.
Our route took us through plywood structures built to simulate offices, stairwells, alleys, and residential rooms.
We moved quickly.
At the third checkpoint, I noticed a red training marker lying in the dirt.
It belonged to another team.
I picked it up and handed it to an instructor.
At the fourth, we heard shouting from two buildings away.
Not training commands.
Real shouting.
Torres and I looked at each other.
Then a whistle sounded.
One long blast.
Emergency stop.
Every trainee froze.
Another whistle came from the north lane.
We moved toward the designated assembly point.
Halfway there, Reed stumbled out from behind a structure.
Blood ran from a cut above his eyebrow.
His vest was torn at one shoulder.
He looked behind him like someone was chasing him.
"Reed," Torres called.
He stopped.
His eyes found me.
"I didn't do it."
"Do what?"
"The card."
He was breathing too fast.
"I didn't make the card."
Torres stepped closer.
"Who did?"
Reed opened his mouth.
Then Briggs appeared around the corner.
"There you are."
Reed flinched.
Briggs saw us.
His expression changed instantly.
"He slipped," Briggs said.
Nobody had asked.
I looked at Reed's face.
"Did you slip?"
Briggs answered for him.
"I just told you."
"I asked Reed."
Briggs stepped closer.
"And I'm telling you what happened."
Torres moved between them.
"Back up, Sergeant."
Briggs stopped.
Reed looked at the ground.
"I slipped."
The words were barely audible.
"Where?" I asked.
"Stairs."
"Which building?"
"I don't know."
Briggs laughed once.
"He hit his head. Give him a break."
An instructor arrived and escorted Reed to medical.
Briggs was ordered to remain at staging.
As Reed walked away, he looked back at me.
He did not speak.
He touched two fingers to the pocket on the left side of his vest.
Then he turned around.
I waited until the instructor and Reed disappeared.
Twenty minutes later, the exercise resumed without him.
Reed was transported to medical, and the cadre froze both his and Briggs' training lanes.
That left the rest of us waiting beneath a covered walkway while rain hammered the roof.
Briggs stood alone near a support post.
For once, nobody gathered around him.
Price watched him from twenty feet away.
"He looks worried."
"He should be worried about Reed."
"That's not what I mean."
I knew.
Briggs kept checking the path toward medical.
Every time an instructor appeared, his posture changed.
Too straight.
Too attentive.
He was waiting to learn what Reed had said.
Then Lieutenant Palmer arrived.
Briggs immediately moved toward him.
Hayes blocked the path.
"Stay where you are."
"I need to explain what happened."
"You'll get the chance."
"Reed is confused."
Hayes' eyes narrowed.
"Interesting word."
Briggs realized the mistake.
"He hit his head."
"Medical hasn't said that."
"He fell."
"You already told us."
"Then why am I standing here like a criminal?"
Hayes' voice stayed even.
"Because I told everyone to stay put."
Briggs looked around.
He had not noticed that the order applied to all of us.
He had assumed the instruction was about him because, for the first time, he was afraid it might be.
That reaction lodged in my memory.
Half an hour later, training resumed for the unaffected lanes.
Briggs did not return to his team.
He remained with cadre.
The absence changed the atmosphere immediately.
People spoke more freely.
A soldier from his group told Price that Briggs had been riding Reed all afternoon.
Another said Reed had tried twice to switch positions with someone else.
Nobody had understood why.
Now they wondered.
I did not collect their stories.
I told them to speak directly to cadre if they thought it mattered.
For once, I refused to become the hub of the information.
I had learned what happened when everything flowed through one person.
By final formation, the rain had stopped.
The clouds lifted enough for a strip of orange light to break across the horizon.
Briggs was released from the administrative tent but told not to approach Reed.
As he walked away, he looked at me.
No smile.
No joke.
Just calculation.
That was when I knew something had changed.
And then I found the folded note waiting near my locker.
At final formation, Reed was still gone.
Briggs stood two rows behind me.
I could feel him staring.
After dismissal, I returned to the locker room.
Something was sitting on the bench in front of my locker.
A small folded square of paper.
I opened it.
Three numbers were written inside.
217.
Torres looked over my shoulder.
"What is that?"
I remembered Reed touching the left pocket of his vest.
May you like
Training vests had numbered storage cubbies at medical intake.
"I think Reed just gave us a locker number."
