The Sowing (The Torch Keeper) (2 page)

A loud explosion roars through the parlor. We’re all hurled against the far wall. Rousing myself, I take in the carnage. From the looks of their contorted bodies, at least one of the guards broke his neck, while two others lie unconscious and bleeding. Above, the mechanisms holding the translucent prisons buckle under the impact. Children teeter inside their oval pens. The alcohol on the bar ignites. Soon the entire room is blanketed in a mantle of smoke that burns through my lungs.

I catch sight of the blinking green of the master control unit, just a few inches away. I reach for it.

Steel-like pincers clamp around my ankle, yanking me backwards.

Through the haze, I can make out one of the guards standing above me, holding my leg. His jaw is set in a grimace, blazing firelight reflecting in his eyes. He presses the butt of the weapon against my forehead.

I kick up, hitting him in the groin. His face twists in pain. I hook my foot around his, tripping him. He smashes into the floor next to me. Another guard aims her weapon at me and fires.

Instinctively, I hoist the first guard on top of me and the blast hits him instead.

Then in one fluid move, I grab the fallen guard’s weapon, roll him off me, and let loose a barrage on the second guard. She collapses face-first, her nose crunching and popping against the floor as I take out the guards who are still stirring.

The weapon clicks empty and I toss it.

By this time the entire room’s covered in a thick blanket of filthy mist. To my right, a curling tongue of flame laps the underside of one of the cylindrical prisons. Inside their capsules, the children are screaming, pounding against the reinforced glass, falling to their knees, gasping for breath.

Their cries jolt me into action. I scoop up the master control unit and activate the fire suppression system. Water jets from the sprinklers throughout the parlor and smothers the flames into submission. As soon as it’s clear, I engage the activation button for the slaves’ capsules and restraints.

Instantly the display tubes are lowered to ground level, dozens of them, row upon row of living cargo. They creak open, spilling out waves of dazed and coughing children. Clanking metal echoes through the chamber as the security bracelets spring apart and drop from their wrists, clanking onto the floor.

I kneel and grab a gun from one of the fallen guards, expel the spent cartridge, and jam in a fresh one. Then I stand to face them. “We’re getting out of here. By now, reinforcements should be on their way. I want you to grab anything that looks like a weapon and empty the cash coffers behind the bar. Once we exit Harmony House, head west past the city limits until you reach the canyon. You’ll be able to find shelter there and barter for provisions with one of the trading caravans I’ve arranged to meet you.” They’re all staring at me, hanging on every word. “I’ve hacked into the system and disabled every security bracelet in the city. The others in the different houses will be free as well, but confused by everything that’s going on. Grab as many as you can on the way out and take them with you. Let’s move!”

They scuttle like a colony of ants, intent on their mission to ransack the parlor for weapons and currency. In minutes, they’re done gathering and stand ready.

A tall boy, almost my height, nudges the barrel of a pilfered weapon toward the doors. “How are we gonna get through the city? There’ll be too many of ’em out there by now.”

I reach into my pocket and pull out one of the last remaining silver discs. “I’ve taken care of that. Trust me. They’ll have their hands full.”

I slide the goggles over my eyes and drape my hood over my head.

Suddenly the gaping entryway is filled with more armed personnel, their weapons blazing. I toss the disc toward them and hit a button on my belt. “Everyone down!”

They follow my lead and dive to the ground. A fireball erupts in the doorway, rattling the building to its very foundations. A blast of hot air punches through the room. I scramble to my feet, pulling as many kids as I can onto theirs. “Move!”

En masse
, we push toward the entryway, firing, stab
bing, and slashing anything in our path, past the smol
dering edges of the doorway, trampling over the bloody clumps
of flailing guards on the other side. Some of the former
prisoners pause to pry weapons loose from dead and dying fingers before moving on like a swarm of locusts.

Once we’re clear of Harmony House, I press another button on my belt, triggering the other silver discs I’ve scattered throughout the city to detonate in a pre-programmed sequence. Explosions shake the ground like the tremors of an earthquake. One blast. Two. Three. Four. Five …

The Pleasure Emporiums are in chaos. The air is layered with thunderous blasts, a symphony of shattered glass, screaming, shouting, weapon bursts, hundreds of feet pounding the pavement. Cement and brick groan as the structures implode all around in a thick deluge of dust and debris.

I pump blast after blast of cover fire as the ragtag caravan of former-slaves-turned-warriors maneuvers through the carnage, past the confused and panicked masses, and disappears toward the western horizon.

Reaching into my belt one last time, I pull out a small tube of flammable liquid and then sign the initial on the ground by the Pleasure Emporium’s entrance. Just one letter.

A giant T, which begins to blaze.

Then I’m trudging out of the city in the opposite
direction, into the wasteland.

My glide cycle is still hidden under a tarp behind the dune where I left it. Hopping onto the seat, I flick the lever on the handlebar. I’m jostled by the familiar vibration as the wind, harnessed by the propulsion system, churns the props on the vehicle’s wings. It sputters into the air with an asthmatic wheeze.

I pause once to look behind me.

The Pleasure Emporiums glitter brighter than they ever have against the shimmering canvas of night sky. Only this time, they don’t paint the horizon in rainbow shades of seductive neon.

Gunning the throttle, I swerve and speed away into the night, away from the brilliant streamers of red and orange that dance behind me, content that by morning they will finally whither into oblivion.

two

“Rough night, Spark?”

“Just five more minutes,” I groan. It seems like only seconds ago that I activated my black market bio-shroud—which I keep hidden in the heel of my boot to cloak my body’s heat signature—crawled under the security fence, and crept into my bunk at the trainee outpost.

Of course, that was all after rappelling hundreds of feet down the funnel-shaped desert canyon and crawling through one of the camouflaged openings that are embedded in the craggy walls, hiding the base from view.

How long was I out for?

There’s a firm tug on my arm and I wince when I pull it free. The aches of my recent skirmish pulsate through to the marrow.

“What’s going on?” I croak, through the dry desert of my throat. Rubbing my eyes, I gradually focus, the first slivers of daylight slicing through my knuckles. Arrah’s face fades into view like a disembodied specter.

“We’ve got visitors.”

The lines on her smooth caramel face snuff out my drowsiness. I jolt up and swing my bare feet from the bunk to the ice-cold floor. “Who? When?”

She nudges her chin toward the window where our three other bunkmates—Dahlia, Leander, and Rodrigo—are clumped, peering outside.

My fellow Imposer trainees. Previous Recruits, winners of the past few seasons of the Trials. Arrah is the most recent
inductee before me. The five of us are housed and trained together, with the logic being that the more experienced
grunts in the group will pass their knowledge on to the others. Each year the oldest—in this case Dahlia, who’s First Tier and practically a full-fledged Imposer—graduates to full Imposer status, leaving a vacant spot for the winning Recruit from that year’s Trials.

“Convoy,” grumbles Leander, who’s second in line of succession after Dahlia. He keeps his massive, freckled back to me. “Pulled in ’bout an hour ago.” He’s built like a series of pale cinder blocks, wedged together into the shape of a mountain.

Dahlia wipes a swatch of window with a meaty palm and presses the expanse of her forehead against it. “All the way from the Citadel, by the looks of it.”

My nails dig into the bed frame. If they’ve sent in troops from the Parish, that can only mean they suspect …

“Any idea why?” I coat my words in idle curiosity, hoping she won’t notice.

Rodrigo yawns and drops to the floor and into a series of push-ups. One of his obsidian eyes winks at me. “Probably just an envoy … sent to … escort us back … to the Parish … in style … ” He spits out each word out with the flex of his lean, tan muscles, which thrust his arms and chest toward and away from the floor with the fluidity of a well-oiled piston.

“That’s it!” Dahlia snorts, giving Leander a wink and punching the mounds of his arm.

He snickers as if she’s merely tickled him and swallows her hand with his. “We’re the elite that can’t be beat!”

Then they’re roughhousing like Canid pups.

I suppress a sneer. This is all a game to them. They’re only a few years older than me, but I can already see that the Establishment has branded its mark into their souls. I wonder which one of their loved ones they were forced to send to their deaths in order to get here.

I wonder if they even care anymore.

When I first arrived here, I thought for sure Dahlia Bledsoe and I would reconnect. After all, our families used to be close back in the Parish. Her mother even acted as a surrogate parent for my brother Cole and me after Mom and Dad passed—before being killed by our so-called Honorable Prefect, Cassius Thorn, all for daring to care about us.

So I could understand Dahlia’s coldness and contempt and accept the blame, under normal circumstances. Her mother had been her only living family member, and she was dead now because of her involvement with me. Fine. I get that. But Dahlia had shunned her own mother as soon as she was recruited, even going as far as to deny her the privilege of living in the luxury camps at Haven, where all remaining “Incentives” from the Trials are sent for the rest of their lives—top-notch accommodations, plenty of food, fresh air, a virtual paradise. Instead, Dahlia condemned Mrs. Bledsoe to a life of squalor and disease. That’s what ultimately killed her. Not Cassius. Not me.

Rodrigo, who’s Third Tier, is still straddling the fence
between immature bravado and cruel arrogance. He pauses now in mid push-up, backflips onto his feet, and spins to attention.

But Arrah, she’s … she’s still pliable, a piece of clay that hasn’t hardened yet. I can see it in her eyes, the one ingredient that’s missing from the rest: compassion. In another life, we might have been friends.

I stand and stretch, trying not to appear too eager as I saunter over to the window to get a look for myself.

Three transport vehicles are nesting on a landing platform that’s rising from the bottom of the canyon: a drifter-class Terrain Trampler with an exposed bed, a refueling air-escort Squawker, and the much larger Vulture-class transport. It’s this last one that twists the conduits of my nerves together, making them spark. Vultures are usually used for combat assaults on enemies of the state.

I walk over to Arrah, ignoring the others, who are too busy telling each other what badasses they are. “They wouldn’t have sent an envoy all the way to a trainee encampment in the Fringelands just to escort us back to the Parish, would they?” I ask. “The Ascension Ceremony’s not for another—”

“No.” She sighs. “Sorry to disappoint you, Sparkles, but I don’t think this has anything to do with a handful of trainees getting rank promotions.” Her voice drops. “Besides, rumor control has it that there was an incident at the pleasure pits last night.”

“Oh?”

She’s studying my face as if it were a map. “Not sure
what happened, exactly, but one of the sentries let it slip to me that supposedly there were deaths involved.”

My eyes retreat from hers. “Sounds serious. But what does that have to do with our unit?”

She shakes her head. “
That
, I can’t help you with. I
guess we’ll find out soon enough.”

I glance at the ships again. “Shouldn’t they have called
an assembly and told us something by now? That’s been standard protocol since we’ve been assigned here. Why are they just sitting there? Something’s not right.”

“Maybe they’re trying to figure out just what type of classified intel we should be privy to. Who knows?” Her eyes narrow. “By the way, you wander around camp last night?”

I grab my crumpled tank top from the foot of the cot and pull it over the twilight bruise setting on the ridges of my abdomen. “No. Why do you ask?”

Her lips purse. “Thought I heard someone come in. Must have dreamt it.”

Does she somehow suspect me? Did any of them see me? Did I slip up? No. I’m just being paranoid.

“You should get dressed,” she says. “It’s visitor’s day, remember?”

I sigh. “Who could forget the one day a month we get to video chat with our surviving Incentives for ten whole minutes?” Although not in my case, since my surviving Incentive—my five-year-old brother Cole—hasn’t been sent to Haven yet. I just get to receive clinical status reports on how he’s holding up, from some stuffed-shirt bureaucrat. But Cole’s scheduled to be sent to Haven this week. So maybe today will be different.

Arrah knows this, and she grins at me. “Maybe you’ll get a nice surprise this morning.” She marches over to the chair I draped my uniform over last night and grabs my fatigue pants. I can hear the jingle of the two remaining concussion discs from inside one of the pockets.

I grab the pants from her and slip them on. “Thanks.”

I’m not sure if she heard the discs or if it’s just my anxiety getting the best of me, but all I can obsess about as we bustle out of the bunkhouse is the Citadel convoy nesting in our midst. Each second that goes by with nothing happening only convinces me that something
is
happening. Something big.

The com room is pretty stark. Curved gray metallic walls enclose a series of booths; inside each booth is a seat, which juts from the wall in front of a rectangular holopad that projects the caller’s image and voice and houses its own cam and mic to transmit. Once you’re inside the booth, an invisible soundproof shield is activated to maintain some semblance of privacy.

I’m the last to arrive, and I pass Leander, Rodrigo, and Arrah on my way to one of the end booths. Though I can’t hear a word they’re saying, I’m almost moved by the animated expressions on their faces. All that arrogance and Alpha-Canid posturing is replaced by warmth and flashes of genuine emotion that can only come from giving a damn about someone.

The irony is, that very same caring is what makes the Imps so ruthless. You’d think they’d be consumed with hatred toward the Establishment, since it put them in a situation, during the Trials, of likely being forced to choose which one of their Incentives would die a horrible death. And maybe they do hate it. But by rewarding the victorious Recruit’s loved ones with a life of relative ease at Haven, the Establishment also gives its elite soldiers something to be grateful for.

Not to mention, it retains hostages—which ensures fierce loyalty from the Imps.

I’ve sometimes wondered what would happen if the top-secret location of Haven was leaked and the Incentives were released. Would the Imposers really want to go back to their old lives? Could they?

And would their loyalties shift away from the Establishment, as a result?

I quickly avert my eyes from my fellow trainees. I can’t afford to humanize them—at least not Leander and Rodrigo. When it comes down to it, they’re the enemy and will be crushed along with Cassius and the rest of the Establishment if I have my way.

The only other person not teleconferencing with a family member is Dahlia, who’s busying herself with an extra set of morning calisthenics instead. No surprise, considering her dad perished as an Incentive during her trials and her mom died as a result of being
my
Incentive during my own ordeal. I wonder what keeps Dahlia in check? As I slip into the last booth, I can feel her eyes on me, burning through my uniform and into my skin.

In seconds, I’ve activated the privacy shield, submitted to the biometric scans, and placed my own call.

“Private Lucian Spark. Identity confirmed. Now connecting … ” the synthesized computer voice announces.

The three-dimensional image begins to materialize in
a
swirling storm of crackling static. For a second I let myself
hope that this’ll be the moment I finally get to see and talk to Cole again.

But it’s not my brother. The image has formed, once again, into the familiar face of Percy Favell, the beak-nosed rep from the Child Assimilation Services. He proceeds to update me on Cole’s physical and mental well-being.

Although it’s always reassuring to hear that my brother’s doing okay, it’s just empty words without being able to see for myself. When Favell pauses from his droning to finally take in some more air, I seize the opportunity to interrupt.

“When can I see my brother? He was supposed to arrive at Haven this week.”

Favell looks up from the tablet screen he’s been reading and regards me with his beady little eyes. “I’m afraid your brother’s transfer to Haven has been delayed.”

“What are you talking about?”

Favell grins. “Cole’s been selected to take part in a very special program.”

Before I can react, the image disappears, the lights come on, and the door to the com room whooshes open. A torrent of stark artificial light cascades through the room and I squint against it.

Then the light is eclipsed by a familiar hulking shape. “Officer on the floor! ATTEN
TION
!” he barks, barreling through the doorway followed by his squatter twin. They station themselves on either side of the entrance like two concrete columns propping up the structure.

Great. My old friends Styles and Renquist. They must have arrived with the convoy.

I spring from my booth to join Leander, Rodrigo, Arrah, and Dahlia, planting myself beside them at attention like a rigid stalk.

Styles’s eyes crawl across the room and pounce on me. “Long time no see, Spark,” he mutters.

Renquist’s tongue flits across his lips. He winks at his companion. “Looks like someone’s ripened into manhood.”

“Assholes,” Arrah whispers through clenched teeth.

“Big time,” I whisper back.

“Quiet!” Styles snaps.

Styles and Renquist have got to be two of the most corrupt and sadistic Imposers I know, and that’s saying a lot. If they’ve been sent all the way from the Parish to this outpost at the ass-end of the Fringelands, it’s a good bet that Cassius has something to do with this—and that it involves me somehow.

If Cassius walks through this door, it’ll really be a test of willpower not to pounce and tear his throat out.

The shadow that falls across my fellow trainees and me doesn’t belong to Cassius Thorn, but rather to another of
the Establishment’s decadent agents, one I’ll never forget. She’s tall, with amphibious slits for eyes and small, sharp
teeth like rough gems mined from the quarries.

My old drill instructor, Sergeant Slade.

Her smile is a crooked slash across the pale stone of her face. “At ease, Flame Squad.”

In spite of the audible release of breath around me, my muscles remain tense, on alert, ready to spring at a
moment’s
notice. The last time I actually saw Slade was during the
Recruit graduation ceremony at Infiernos, right before the Trials started. But I’ll never forget the sound of her sadistic
voice guiding us through the hell of each trial. I have no
intention of giving her the upper hand again if I can help it.

She paces the floor, taking us all in. “I regret that we had to cut your family time short this month, but I’m sure you’re all wondering why a detail has been sent from the Parish to such a remote station as this.” Her eyes impale each of us in turn, like darts. She pauses, in between Leander and Dahlia. “Some of you have shown a certain degree of proficiency in your posts and have proven that you actually might have what it takes to serve among your fellow officers.” She cuffs Dahlia’s cheek with an audible slap and beams at her.