Silver Elite

Wren’s impressive shot draws attention she doesn’t want. On her motorcycle ride home, she receives a request to link from Wolf—an anonymous Mod she’s spoken to telepathically since childhood. She had excitedly told her uncle when the link first happened, but he had forbidden her from contacting Wolf again, asserting it was too dangerous. Wren continued to link with the boy in secret, and eventually they created code names to call each other by—he was Wolf, and Wren became Daisy. They joke about their various flings in recent years. Wren admits to Wolf that she feels discouraged that none of her flings will ever truly know who she is. She wishes people could know her. Wolf states that he knows her and hopes that counts for something. Back home, Jim scolds Wren for drawing attention after she tells him about saving the boy in the square: When she draws attention to herself, she makes it harder for him to deliver on his promise to her parents to keep her safe. Jim mentions the additional danger that someday she might accidentally incite: She has the rare ability to compel others, a power Mods get killed for possessing.

At dawn the next morning, while Wren mends a distant fence on the ranch, Jim telepathically communicates from the house that Command soldiers have arrived. Wren rushes to get a vantage point of the home from afar, spotting Jordan among the soldiers. When she was leaving his rooms the previous night, she made the mistake of telling him where she lived, and he has now led the soldiers to her. Command holds a gun to Jim’s head as they load him into the back of their vehicle and drive away. Jim informs Wren that they know of his identity as Julian Ash and orders her to go find Griff, who will look after her.

Wren establishes a link with Tana to inform her of Jim’s capture before traveling through the tunnels beneath the woods to meet with Tana’s father, Griff. He’s not a Mod, but he is loyal to Tana and the Uprising network. Griff believes Jim is being taken to face the Tribunal—the justice system on the Continent. Therefore, Wren is determined to go into the capital city, Sanctum Point (the Point), to rescue Jim instead of going to the safe house Griff suggests.

On the train to the Point, Wren reminisces about her Uncle teaching her to establish links as a child, a skill at which she was preternaturally adept. When arriving at the station, Wren meets her network contacts—a Prime (or non-Modified person) named Faye and a handler named Declan—who will deliver her to the safe house. Faye reveals that Jim met with the Tribunal two hours ago and was found guilty of treason and concealment. His public execution is scheduled for the following day. The Command is aware he is a Mod because Jayde Valence—a powerful mind reader and traitor to her people—delved into Uncle Jim’s mind. Wren worries what she might have uncovered about Wren herself. Faye and Declan declare that the network will not rescue Jim: With his identity compromised, he’s no longer useful to them. Wren decides to rescue him herself.

Wren recalls first being sent to Jim after the deaths of her parents. He told her she could call him Uncle though they technically have no relation. After informing her she could no longer go by her given name, Jim suggested the name Wren. As Jim’s execution approaches, Wren travels to South Plaza where it is set to take place. Jim telepathically urges her to leave. When the eight Command soldiers raise their guns, prepared to shoot Jim, Wren incites them all to raise the guns to their own heads. She commands them to pull the trigger, but her control breaks, unable to control eight at once. They swing their guns in unison and fire at Jim. Wren flees the plaza, hoping to go unnoticed, but is stopped by a Command soldier.

Wren is taken to an interrogation room where three soldiers—Xavier Ford, Tyler Struck, and the attractive, unnamed stranger from two nights prior—question her about the inciting. Wren acts oblivious and claims she had nothing to do with it. She claims ignorance to her uncle’s identity as Julian Ash, even when they inform her he was a colonel from Silver Block who deserted 15 years ago. They interrogate her about her life and the past 12 years she’s spent as Jim’s adoptive child. Though she does a convincing job of playing innocent, the soldiers are too suspicious to believe her at her word.

Struck is replaced by Jayde Valence, who intends to invade Wren’s mind for the truth. Wren has never heard of anyone who has thwarted an interrogation with Jayde, but she attempts it anyway. Her uncle has trained her for mind invasion, so Wren steels herself against it—not even flinching when Jayde’s prying sends an electric shock through her body. Wren keeps her mind occupied with one thought after another—anxious thoughts about the interrogation, planted wonderings about her uncle’s secret identity, and random thoughts about the soldiers in the room—but nothing incriminating. Jayde informs them that Wren is clean; Wren is relieved to have fooled the woman. The still unnamed soldier instructs Ford to place Wren in a cell in Stock C until he is ready for her.

Tana links with Wren from the blockade. Tana is working at the inn in Hamlett, which has been flooded with soldiers who are interrogating the villagers about Jim and Wren. Tana mentions that she heard there was an inciter at the execution, but Wren feigns ignorance and asks whether the network will rescue her. Tana informs that Wren they will not. Eventually, the unnamed soldier from earlier enters her cell. He introduces himself as Cross, the captain of Silver Block, and informs Wren that she will be joining the Command, effective tomorrow.

The assignment is not optional, as it is Cross’s way of keeping a close eye on Wren. Wren is told that her uncle’s ranch has been reassigned, and its new residents will take over tomorrow. Cross informs her that someone will arrive tomorrow to bring her to Orientation. Long after Cross leaves, Wren receives a request to link with Wolf. She accepts, and he immediately knows something is wrong. Wren claims to have had a bad day but gives him no details. When he reveals that he’s looking at the ocean—thus far, the only clue Wren has about his location is that he lives on the coast—Wren asks him to describe it.

At Orientation, Wren recognizes a soldier named Matty Hadley, whose mother, Morlee Hadley, owned a feed store Wren and Jim frequented throughout her childhood. She spoke proudly of her son and took a particular liking to young Wren. However, eventually Matty discovered that his mother was an Aberrant and turned her into the Command. She was sent to work in the salt mines of a Mod labor camp. Wren links with Tana to inform her of being forced to join Silver Block. She urges Tana to convince the network to rescue her.

Recruits are given tablets and quizzed on their observation skills. They are asked detailed questions about the woman who was in the room when they entered. Though Wren knows all the correct answers, she purposefully answers four wrong, scoring a 60%. She’s hoping it’s a poor enough score to get her cut from the Program, but she passes. However, multiple people scored zero and are kicked out. Wren decides she will simply not perform moving forward so as to increase her chances of getting cut.

Those who passed the quiz are split into two cells—Red and Black. Wren is sorted into Black Cell. Though Wren is resolved to fail, she is intrigued by the sections of the Program—weapons training, interrogation tactics, intelligence gathering, knives, hand-to-hand combat, undercover operations, and basics of flight. Wren makes conversation with another candidate named Lyddie, who grew up in Sanctum Point. Her mom works in Biotech for the Company, and her dad is in Command Intelligence. Rather than tell the truth about how she ended up here, Wren claims she is impulsive and decided on a whim to try for Silver Block after having a fling with a soldier who made it sound exciting.

The recruits are led to the co-ed barracks where only 23 beds wait for 24 recruits. A candidate named Ivy claims that it is a test to weed out the soldier compassionate enough to give up their bed for the straggler, as Command views compassion as a sign of a weakness. Suspecting they likely won’t cut her due to the circumstances that led her here, Wren gives her bed to the girl without. Rather than sleeping on the floor, Wren boldly shares a bed with a flirtatious initiate named Kaine Sutler.

Wren wakes spooned in Kaine’s arms. Officer Hadley escorts Wren to the Captain of Operations’s office to receive punishment for breaking the one-to-a-bed rule. Captain Cross waits at the desk. He confirms that he won’t cut her even if she gets written up, and he suggests she keep a low profile because “instructors enjoy making life more difficult for the troublemakers” (99). They go to meet the rest of the recruits, and Wren notices some of her female peers ogling Cross. When she meets eyes with Cross across the room, she gives him a mocking wave and smile that almost makes him smile in return, but Ivy mistakes this exchange for flirtation and grows jealous. Lyddie informs Wren that Ivy and Cross used to date. Lyddie speculates that Ivy and Cross aren’t together anymore because Cross’s father doesn’t approve. Wren is shocked to learn that Cross’s father is General Redden.