The Killing Jar (6 page)

SUBTERRANEAN CHICAGO, NORTH AMERICA

AUGUST 7, 2232

Mable’s gloved fist flew into the dark, striking nothing but air as Rowen dodged.

“Marry her son? As in Connor?” Rowen asked, all too aware of the ‘prince’ of the Root.

“Can you believe that shit?” she seethed, launching another failed punch while blocking his attempt at her ribs.

“It makes sense actually.”

In the pitch black cave, well away from the center of the city, Mable kept her eyes closed, listening for the sound of Rowen’s feet moving along the ground, the air pumping in and out of his lungs.

Mable would never be able to see like a Dark One.

And she would never marry one.

Satisfied she had located him in the dark, she threw a punch. Again nothing.

“You’re angry.” Rowen’s voice sounded louder in the pure dark. Mable couldn’t tell if he was making fun of her. “You know better than to fight when you’re mad. You don’t think clearly, you don’t listen. It’s dangerous,” he continued, but it only infuriated her more.

“So you think I
should
?” She wanted to kill him for even suggesting such a thing. Mable threw a fist in anger, but instead of contact, she only felt his feet sweep her onto her back. Her spine slammed painfully into the uneven floor. Without her vision, she struggled to reorient.

“No, I said it makes sense that she’d want it.” Rowen’s voice was close, his breath skipped across the sweat that clung to her cheek. “Don’t put words in my mouth.”

She knew he must be crouched right beside her.

Mable swung her knee toward her chest and caught him hard in the back of his head. Rowen screamed in pain and surprise as he rushed to the other side of the room.

“Damn! I didn’t say you should do it!”

Mable could hear the rustling of his medium-length locks as he stroked his injured head and felt her anger turn to guilt—but only a little.

She rotated around him, careful to keep moving. “Then what? Risk pissing her off?”

“That’s always a risk, but no, I don’t think she’d be willing to compromise. It’s not her way.”

Rowen’s fist flew out of the dark and barely missed her shoulder. She dodged at the last second.

“Just because your father’s a Collector doesn’t mean you know how to fight.” Mable continued moving around him. In fact, Collectors were notoriously awful at neutralizing anyone with a background in combat. There weren’t enough of them to warrant the training.

His voice sounded to the left, much closer than she’d thought. “Just because I’m training you doesn’t mean I taught you everything I know.”

Mable had known Rowen for almost a year. He was one of the first people she had met in the Root, and he had started training her soon after. She knew him well enough to know he was about to pull his last move.

She wouldn’t let him have the satisfaction of beating her. Not again.

Estimating his position, Mable lunged at him. Her feet pushed off the stone floor and picked up speed. Her fist cocked back for the final blow.

But Rowen would always be better, stronger.

The flat of his palm caught her square on the sternum and pushed the air from her lungs in an instant. Her body catapulted to the ground. Her back struck the unforgiving stone floor for the second time.

While the impact along her sore back stung, she knew it would be worse when her head struck the stone. It wouldn’t be the first time she’d been knocked out during one of their matches. She fell as if slowly, feeling her neck snap back, waiting for her head to strike.

Instead, her head landed in Rowen’s palm.

Mable gasped for breath with no luck, her eyes wide in panic as oxygen-deprivation gripped her.

“Just breathe,” he said as he continued to hold her head with one hand and squeeze her shoulder with the other.

In a moment, it passed. Air coursed into her lungs but made no improvement on her mood.

Instead, she pulled from Rowen’s grip and tried to push him away.

He must have known she would.

Rowen tilted his hips onto hers and used his weight to pin her to the ground.

Mable’s arms flew but were quickly wrangled at the wrists. Trapped like an animal, she fought against him, knowing she would never win a fight against his strong arms.

She bucked her hips and attempted to get him off her, to improve her position. Rowen’s hands pressed her wrists harder into the stone. “Just stop it. Damn. Just listen!”

Mable went still at once, unaccustomed to hearing such a desperate tone from him.

Satisfied he had her attention, Rowen lowered his voice. “Katherine’s son stands to inherit a powerful and independent city, exactly as she’s always planned. But she needs you to do it, and the other defectors won’t take kindly to Dark leadership based on defector talent.”

She tried to get free of him and failed again.

“Why do you have to be so difficult?” he asked harshly. He huffed an angry breath before continuing, his voice considerably softer. “He’s slime. He’s a disgusting urchin, even for one of them.”

She could feel the pounding of his chest against hers.

“You think I don’t know that?” she finally answered, too furious to maintain her silence.

“I think you underestimate Katherine. She’s exceptionally smart. She understands this city in a way neither of us ever will. If you stay here, it’s because she allows it.” Rowen sighed and leaned in close, whispering, “I think she understands that you’re different, that you’re special.”

Her pulse raced so loud she was sure he would hear.

Mable pushed against him with no success.

“Stop! God damn, you’re a pain.” At last, he loosened his grip and lifted off her.

She could hear his steps, pacing back and forth in the small cave where they held their matches. “If you want me to get you out of here, you know I can. You just have to tell me what you want.”

Mable propped herself up on her elbows and tried to think of what to say. What did she want?

When she didn’t answer, he said, “You don’t belong with a Dark One. You belong with one of your own—” Then Rowen disappeared into the dark, the sound of his feet disappearing down the lightless corridor.

LANCASTER CENTRAL HALL, LANCASTER, NORTH AMERICA

AUGUST 7, 2232

Black robes draped over his shoulders as he waited in line at Lancaster Central Hall. His hair was pulled back against his neck, the last time he would ever wear it long. The ceremonial cap on his head made him feel like a child.

A half dozen other Youths stood before him in identical robes and caps, though he could tell no other Scholars were present. He had a good six inches over them all, courtesy of his superior genetics.

As much as everyone claimed they couldn’t tell one from another, that all Youths were blank slates free to choose as they wanted, Theo knew better. A Craftsman was as different from an Artisan as an Artisan from a Scholar. They looked different, acted different. Even in identical uniforms for Selection, he could easily identify their class.

The ceremony would only make it official.

The others chatted easily, excitedly even. There was a definite buzz in the air, a newfound electricity. Theo found his hand tapping against his leg.

He wanted to get it over with.

At a table to the right, a balding man handed each a transparent card before they walked through a curtain, though Theo didn’t know why.

He checked his wristlet a dozen times, watching the digital clock slowly tick the minutes away, each one lasting an hour. He commed Nate but was less than surprised when he didn’t get an answer.

Mostly he was disappointed with the whole affair. How had the first day of the rest of his life turned out to be so dismal?

“Psst, Theo,” he heard behind him and turned to see Isaac Hunter at the end of the line.

Theo waved back at him.

Isaac, too, was taller than the others, his skin clear and his features carefully selected by a geneticist. Like most Scholars, his genetic advantages offered him a quiet confidence. He had no trouble passing the others in line and arriving to stand behind Theo.

“Is this the way they usually do it? I don’t remember anything about a card in the ecomm.”

“Not sure. Didn’t read it,” Theo admitted. He felt a twang of guilt. He probably should have paid more attention in the past few weeks.

“It’s all a bunch of feudalistic bullshit anyway,” Isaac said to himself.

“You going to defect?” Theo asked, his full attention on Isaac. The two had taken a half-dozen classes together, no surprise given their mirrored upbringing. Theo never would have thought him the type to change class, but then again, no one really thought that about anyone.

“Nah, it would kill my mom. She’s pretty set on me being the fifth generation of geneticist.”

“That’s what you want?” He knew from look on Isaac’s face it wasn’t.

Theo wondered how many were trapped in limbo between two classes. He looked around for Nate or Casey, the ones he really wanted to see, the ones he wanted to talk to one last time before it was all too late.

But all he had was Isaac.

Isaac was good enough not to notice him looking around. “I mean, I don’t know. Gens get paid enough, so that’s all right. And it’s what my parents want.”

“Same here.” Theo’s career in nanotechnology would never afford him the luxuries of a geneticist, but he would never hurt for money. While salaries varied in every field, in general, affluence was a part of a Scholar’s life.

“But it’s just all a bunch of archaic nonsense, you know? Like, why do we have to get dressed up and announce what we want to do with our lives? Why can’t we just do it?”

Theo didn’t have an answer. Rather, he was relieved to hear his same concerns aired in someone else’s voice. At least he wasn’t the only one.

The bald man at the table motioned him forward.

When he arrived at the table, the man handed him his card, some sort of transparent material with embossed letters that read:

KAUFMAN, THEODORE

1669423986

SEL CLA 14925

He turned and scanned the hallway again, desperate to see Nate or Casey, to apologize yet again for getting in the way, for what they were going through. But there was no one. No one that mattered.

“Hey, they’re just your parents,” Isaac called as he entered the Selection room.

Past the curtains, the emblems of each class were displayed above a narrow space—precisely the width of the card. Below each, a glass screen to scan fingerprints.

This was it.

On the left, the crossed paintbrush and music note of the Artisans shone in red. In the middle, a hammer and wrench in Craftsman green. The pen and quill of Scholar illuminated in blue on the right.

Theo lifted his card to the slot below the Scholar emblem and paused.

Was it really what he wanted?

Was he ready to give up his music?

Theo pulled back the card. He needed to think, to really think about it. Why hadn’t he done this earlier?

In the moment when he had to make the final choice, Theo was suddenly stuck. More so than he ever thought he would be.

His eyes scanned the three images again. Definitely not Craftsman, that much he knew. He would never make it there, could never resign himself to some menial task, day in and day out for the rest of his life.

The last kiss between Nate and Casey came to mind, their passion, the raw emotion he would surely never find in the Scholar class.

His parents were two people who happened to live in the same house and raise the same children. They never touched. It was the Scholar way.

Could he live that way? Could he spend the rest of his life knowing there was someone out there who could make him feel the way Casey made Nate feel? That he had given it up?

Torn between his whole life, his parents, what they wanted from him, and the life he wanted for himself, Theo froze. He stared at the card in his hand, such a small simple object that would dictate the rest of his life.

Such a little thing to have so much power over him.

He knew what he wanted, when it was pressed upon him to choose. Theo made his choice.

“Let’s go, Kaufman,” the man called from behind the curtain.

Theo slammed his card into the slot, scanned his thumbprint, and walked on toward the Selection ceremony.