The Sowing (The Torch Keeper) (11 page)

fourteen

I follow Valerian through the bulkhead into the corridor. “Where are we going?”

“You’re an Incentive now,” she says without looking back. “Time to find out just who will be championing you this time.”

Considering that I’ve betrayed every single one of the Recruits, I wouldn’t be surprised if they’ve already made a pact that whoever I’m paired with will lose the first round of the Trials deliberately, just so they can all watch me die as soon as possible.

That is, unless my former trainee companions—now fellow Incentives—don’t take me out first.

“Let’s go,” Valerian grunts.

After having been confined to that cramped berth for days, my limbs ache as I hurry to keep pace with her, the guards’ neurostims digging into my back every time I start to fall behind. We head forward, down the narrow passageway, until we reach the hatch leading to the nerve center of the entire craft: the Control and Attack Center. I pause for a moment just outside the CAC hatchway before following Valerian through.

The chamber is much wider than the corridor, running the full width of the Eel. A myriad of screens and equipment banks blink and flash with activity as crew members seated at the consoles monitor screens and gauges.

To my right, several Imps stand watch over a disheveled group of five people who are shackled just like I am. They must be the family members of the rebel Recruits. The only
one I recognize is Corin. The poor kid. The fear on their
faces sends ice caps bobbing through my blood. That look is engraved in my brain. I saw the same look on Gideon’s parents, the Warricks, and even on Ophelia’s mother, Mrs. Juniper. It’s the look of people who know they’re going to die and are just waiting, wondering which second it will strike.

To my left, Arrah, Dahlia, Leander, and Rodrigo stand shackled as well. They look exhausted, their eyes bloodshot, shoulders sagging. But the moment our eyes connect it’s like a wave of electricity courses through them, making them stand erect. It fills their eyes with crackling fire that burns right through me.

I look away.

Dead center, Sergeant Slade stands on a raised platform that houses the periscope, the eyes of the Eel. She sneers at the sight of me. “Good. Now that everyone’s here, it’s time to find out what the Incentive pairs will be.” She pauses. “Of course, all the selections have been made randomly.”

Her smirk says otherwise.

She taps a few keys on a control panel and the screen
dominating the chamber flickers on. Half of it displays
images of the five Recruits: Cage, Drusilla, Boaz, Crowley,
and Preshea. The other half is a blur of shuffling images
moving
faster and faster, racing to catch up to the rhythm of my
heartbeat.

The first of the Incentive images freezes, then slides into the slot next to Preshea’s image.

It’s Rodrigo.

Then Dahlia’s image appears and moves into place besides Crowley’s.

A few seconds later, Leander’s face takes it’s place besides Boaz’s.

Just two more. Arrah and me.

Faces slide across the screen, right in between Cage and Drusilla, hesitating for an instant—and then my image glides into place besides Cage, the one rebel I
personally
betrayed. The Recruit who I’m sure would be more determined than any of the others to make me pay for what I did.

Arrah buries her face in her hands as her image connects to Drusilla’s. I’d experienced that same feeling when Cassius informed me that my new second Incentive—replacing Mrs. Bledsoe—was Digory.

Of course, the Establishment has planned these pairings for maximum effect. We’re all just pawns in a game for their twisted amusement.

“And there you have it,” Slade hisses. Her eyes fix on me and her tongue darts across her lips. “This should make for the most intriguing Trials ever to take place.” She motions to the guards. “Make sure our Incentives here are nice and comfortable, regardless of the length of their stay.”

“C’mon! C’mon!” one of the Imps barks from behind.

A squad of Imposers herds all the Incentives single-file off the sub. From there we exit the docking bay and pass through an aircraft hangar, heading into a section of Infiernos I’ve never seen before. With the muzzles of Imps’ guns pointed at our backs the entire way, we trudge over a narrow underground gangway. We’ve been placed in alternating order—each former-trainee Incentive followed by a family-member Incentive. Cage’s other Incentive and I are at the end of the line.

I’d expected Cage’s other Incentive to be Jeptha. A logical choice. After all, not only is he Cage’s father, but he’s also a member of the rebellion. But instead I’m unsettled to find myself teamed up with a teenage girl, maybe a year or two younger than me. From the color of her hair and tear-soaked eyes to her facial features, it’s obvious she and Cage are related. His younger sister, I’d bet.

Even if Cage didn’t already have reason to want me dead, I’m sure he’ll do anything to protect his sibling.

After all,
I
did.

Hopefully that blood bond will translate into logical thinking and he’ll put aside any possible thoughts of throwing a Trial just to get his revenge on me. The sooner disposes of me, the closer he brings his sister to death. And the longer he avoids getting the lowest score on a trial, the longer I have to plan my escape.

The girl’s foot collides with the back of mine and she gasps. I turn just in time to see her teetering over the edge of the gangway, and I grab onto her.

For a few seconds, I’m staring into the abyss below, a landscape of twisting machinery and pipes extending hundreds of feet, flowing through and around the natural rock formations. I hold on tight as I pull her up, just as much to make sure I don’t go over myself.

“Thanks,” she half-sobs into my shoulder, her arms noosed around my waist.

I wonder if she knows that I’m the one responsible for what’s happened to her brother, and for what’s about to happen to her.

A dark caul descends over us.

Slade.

She leers at us like she’s stepped in shit. “Spark! Of
course
you’d
be the reason for the delay!”

I untangle myself from the girl and carefully rotate on the walkway so that she’s now behind me, away from the sergeant. “She tripped and almost—”

The snout of Slade’s gun shoves into my gut. Sparks of pain rip through me as if I’ve been stung with a cattle prod.

I double over, trying to snag a breath, wiping the blurry moisture from my eyes.

“I’m not interested in your pathetic excuses.” Slade grips me by the hair and pulls me to my feet. Her eyes glance at the chasm, then back to me.

I take a deep breath. I can’t make my move.

Yet.

When I look around, I catch a glimpse of the others staring at me. Arrah’s face is cold, impassive. She’d probably push me over herself if she could.

Guess she’ll have to wait her turn, in line along with everyone else.

I focus on the back of the person ahead of me as the queue continues moving forward.

We reach two massive gleaming doors on the far side of the gorge. They rumble open.

“Welcome to Purgatorium!” the Imposer at the head of the line grunts as we follow him through.

The massive cavern we enter resembles the insides of a behemoth’s rib cage. Bonelike support braces made of metal are spaced a few feet apart. They curve up the walls and fuse at the ceiling. Between each rib is a small, transparent cubicle with barely enough room for two bunks.

Holding cells.

Appropriate that they should be located inside what appears to be the torso of a dead body.

As I look closer, I can make out wheels, pulleys and gears just above and below each cubicle, which rest on a series of tracks. Of course. In order to avoid the delay of having to transport all the Incentives to the location of each trial, this conveyer system is constantly moving through the Skein, keeping the Incentives readily available and accessible for disposal.

How efficient.

At the far side of the chamber, an enormous black screen dominates the wall. Slade marches into the center of the room. “This area is known as the Pen, your home for the duration of the Trials.” Her serpentine slits scan the room. “Of course,
some
of you will enjoy a shorter stay than the rest.”

Some of the other Imposers chuckle at this, and Slade doesn’t bother to discipline them.

“You will all be confined to this common area during the Recruits’ rest periods,” she continues, “but during each round of competition, you will remain in your cells unless otherwise instructed.” She paces back and forth, stabbing each of us with her gaze. “Anyone who disobeys this regulation will be considered to be in direct violation of protocol and will be shelved immediately.” She motions to the Imposers standing guard on the upper levels.

“One more thing.” Slade clears her throat. “Due to the
unusual composition of Recruits and Incentives selected for the Trials this year—namely, the better-than-average skills
possessed by this distinguished group of candidates—the
committee has agreed that the pre-Trial training and orientation, usually scheduled for a ten-week period, shall be considerably shortened.” Her voice echoes through the chamber. “Any questions?”

Cage’s Incentive lifts her gaze and clears her throat. It sounds like the last sputter of a dying engine.

Slade’s eyes skewer her. “Yes? Speak up!”

“When … w-will I … ” The girl drops her gaze again. “Get to see … my brother Cage … again … ”

Her words trail off into barely a whisper.

I was right. They
are
brother and sister. And I know exactly what she must be feeling.

Slade walks up and hovers over her. She smiles like a mother about to eat her young. “You miss your brother very much, don’t you, my dear?” She grips her by the shoulders.

“Y-yes. Yes, I do.”

“What’s your name?”

“Tristin.”

“And you’d like nothing better than to talk to your brother, if only for just a few moments, wouldn’t you, Tristin?”

The girl looks up at Slade, eyes barely able to contain their wetness. “Oh, please … ”

The Sergeant leans in, as if to whisper in her ear. “Be careful what you wish for. The next time you see him might very well be the last time you’ll see him … or anything at all, for that matter.”

She shoves the girl away and whips around to face the rest of us. “That goes for every single one of you suffering from a sentimental streak or”—her eyes penetrate mine—“the pangs of a guilty conscience.”

GONG!

The sound of the deep clang reverberates throughout the chamber, drowning out the rest of Slade’s words and sending a frost spiraling down my spine. I recognize that sound.

It’s the call of the Fleshers.

Grisly images flash in my memory. Sitting around the campfire with Digory and the other Recruits during one of our training exercises … the legend of the Fallen Five … trekking through the island wilderness in search of the missing recon team. Then there was that canyon filled with mounds
of human bones, skulls screeching as the wind passed
through their gaping sockets, and the dark, barely glimpsed horde of Fleshers that chased the five of us.

The room is doused in the crimson glow of emergency lights.

Attention!
a voice blares through the speakers.
Possible breach in quadrant seven. Repeat. Possible breach in quadrant seven. Initiating emergency containment procedure. This is not a drill.

The smug look on Slade’s face turns to concern. She jabs a finger at one of the Imposers stationed at the control console above. “Seal it!”

The officer jams his fist onto a switch embedded in the wall. A drawn-out
sssssshhhhhh
drowns everything out as all the cell doors slide open.

Slade gestures at us, then at the holding cells. “Each pair is to proceed inside the pen closest to you.” Her panic disappears. “Now!”

Where the Fleshers are concerned, I don’t need to be told twice. I grab Tristin’s hand and pull her with me. “Everyone inside! C’mon!”

Then we’re tumbling through the cell doors, just as they seal behind us.

“Are you okay?” I ask Tristin.

But she’s not paying attention to me. Instead her eyes are glued to the scene playing out through the transparent walls.

Imposers dash to and fro, checking control panels, shouting into com units. Across the way, Arrah, Leander, Rodrigo, and Dahlia are pressed against the glass of their cells while their fellow Incentives cower in the corners.

They’re all looking at me, and I can tell that they know I’ve got some idea about what’s going on.

Minutes later, the emergency lights switch back to normal and the activity peters out. Slade nods to an officer nearby, who punches the keys of his terminal.

Attention,
the voice blares through the speakers again.
Breach has been contained. The facility is secure.

Slade takes the mic. “Time for you to get your rest. Lights out.”

Then the cells are plunged into darkness.

As I lie on the cold floor listening to Tristin’s quiet sobs, my mind races with possibilities.

I’m still not sure what the Fleshers are and why they scare the Establishment so much.

But they might just be the advantage I need to break out of this hell.

fifteen

“Rise and shine, people!”

The booming voice is accompanied by a blast of light as powerful as a solar flare searing through the darkness of space. I squint and rub my eyes against the blindness, trying to focus.

The door to our cell opens and one of the Imps is standing there, amusement plastered all over his face.
Ensign Echoes
, his name tag says. It’s the officer who was in charge of sealing the outer doors against the Fleshers.

Beside me, Tristin is hunkered down, hugging her knees to her chest. Her eyes are red and puffy, her cheeks stained like a dried-up riverbed. I’m not the only one who didn’t get any sleep last night.

“Don’t just sit there,” Echoes grunts. “You have fifteen minutes to shower and eat.” He checks his chronometer. “Fourteen and a half now. Hurry it up.”

He steps aside and I force my aching limbs to piston
my body through the door. I can hear the soft pad of Tristin’s footfalls behind me.

My Imposer training has taught me to survey situations very quickly. In a matter of seconds, I take in the guards on the bridge; the two exits to the control area, one on either side; and the number of guards on the floor, maybe half a dozen at present. Getting up to the control room will be difficult. But not impossible.

In the common area, the other Incentives are being herded out of their cells by Imps armed with long taser wands. One of the family members, a thin, middle-aged, haggard-looking woman with grayish hair, lags behind the others. A guard walks up behind her and shoves the weapon into her back. Sparks fly. She screams. Then she stumbles forward and follows the rest, disappearing through a passageway. If I had any doubts where to go, all I’d have to do is follow the stench of scorched skin marking her passage.

I risk a glance behind me before entering the corridor. There’s only Tristin and Echoes. I don’t see Arrah and the others. They must be leading the pack. Good. I’m still dreading what that confrontation is going to be like when it finally happens.

My boots clank against the floor as I examine the gratings both above and below. There appears to be a sub-flooring conduit located underneath me, and ventilation shafts located beyond the ceiling. Assuming the crawl space is big enough to accommodate me, these might provide alternate accessways to the control center, or maybe another way out. As the hallway zigzags on, I commit the maze to memory, filing it away for future reference. Hopefully I still have enough of a future left that it might come in handy.

“Do you know where they’re taking us?” Tristin whispers. Every syllable quavers in the frigid draft seeping through the passageway.

“Don’t worry,” I whisper back. “It’s going to be okay.” Though I try to disguise the anxiety in my own voice, I’m sure she doesn’t believe me. How could she?

Echoes strikes his wand against the wall, where it sizzles and pops. “Cut the chatter, you two.”

We turn another corner and my stomach clenches.

It’s another cell block. But instead of containing separate transparent cubicles, the walls themselves are enormous pens of reinforced glass, revealing a horizon of human suffering as loathsome as I’ve ever seen.

On both sides of me, bodies are strewn everywhere, some lying in heaps of tangled flesh, others huddling in clusters, surrounded by clumps of their own filth. Their expressions are so drawn and vacant I’m not sure if they can even see us, or if this glass is a two-way mirror, allowing us to see them, while reflecting the grimness of their living hell back at them and wringing out what little hope they might have in the process.

This is the Establishment’s idea of justice. These prisoners’ only crimes were probably petty theft due to starvation or standing up for themselves against abuse. Yet they’re shipped here to be fodder for the Trials, medical experimentation, and who knows what else.

I swallow hard. This isn’t the first time I’ve come across scenes like this. I still get nightmares of the time when I had to wade through bodies during one of the trials to find locator bracelets. I tried not to focus on the agony around me as I fought to save Cole and Digory’s lives.

A little boy’s face and palms press against the glass. I stop. I can almost feel that he sees me. I turn away. There’s probably no hope for this boy. For any of them. All the acts of sabotage I’ve committed over the last year—what good have any of them really done? No matter how many people I might free from the Emporiums, there are a hundred more that’ll die.

Suddenly it feels like an enormous weight is bearing down on me, squeezing my organs together until they’re nothing but bloody pulp. My skin burns from the rage and frustration welling inside me. No matter how hard I try, I can’t save them all.

Tristin’s hand touches my shoulder.

A jolt of lightning surges through me, slamming me to the floor. I look up to see Echoes hovering over me, his prod still smoking. “I said keep mov—”

I spring up and snatch the wand from him, and his eyes look like they’re going to burst through his skull. I jab the wand at his throat. “We’re
not cattle.
”

Then I toss it at his feet and whirl past Tristin, continuing after the others before I can gauge his reaction.

I don’t really care what it is.

The next corridor we enter opens into a yet-larger room, this one covered in soap-scummed tiles. A series of pipes
jut inward from the ceiling like rusting tentacles. The entire room reeks of body odor and disinfectant, battling it out for supremacy.

A communal shower.

The others, including my trainee team, are already in various stages of undress, tossing their clothes in a heap in the center of the room.

“Strip!” The officer on duty spits the words at me like a glob of phlegm.

It takes a little time to pull my boots off my aching feet. Then I slither out of my jumpsuit, pulling down my underwear until I’m standing there naked, trying not to shiver from the cold blast of air prickling my skin.

“Spread ’em,” the guard grunts. I extend my arms and legs as he circles my body with an icy steel probe.

Beside me, Tristin’s being searched by another guard. Our eyes meet for a second before we both turn away to protect what little’s left of our modesty.

The Imposer slaps me on the butt and smirks. “Hit the showers, Pretty Boy.”

My bare feet pad across the frigid tiles and the next available showerhead. I hesitate. It’s right between Arrah and Leander. I’m about to turn toward a spout on the far corner of the room when another Imp grabs me by the nape of the neck.

“We haven’t got all day, traitor,” he snarls.

The next thing I know, he shoves me forward. I slam into the porcelain wall, banging the side of my face against a broken tile.

Water jets from the nozzle above, piercing the numbness as every single one of my nerves is shocked. This is even colder than the showers in the trainee barracks were.

Leander’s hulking body leans in close. The stream of water glistens on the muscles of his arms and chest as one of his hands flexes into a fist and punches his other palm. “That’s nothing compared to what
we’re
gonna do to you,
Lucy
,” he snickers. “You’re a dead man.”

I turn away. Even though I’m shivering, I welcome the jets of ice. Grabbing the bar of lye soap embedded in the wall, I scrub my skin with vigor, trying to rid myself of the remnants of that probe’s touch, the memory of those festering prisoners, the anger in Leander’s face. I let the water reinvigorate my sore body.

“I understand why you thought you had to do what you did, Lucian,” a voice whispers to my right.

Arrah.

I open my eyes.

She’s just standing there shivering under the shower, her brown eyes staring at me, unflinching beneath the deluge of water pelting her. She looks so sad and vulnerable, like a little girl lost in a thunderstorm, wondering how, and
if,
she’s ever going to find her way home again.

“Arrah. I swear I didn’t mean to betray you or the others. I had no choice. I didn’t know Cole was going to be there. I couldn’t just let him die. Surely you can understand that?”

She nods, water dripping down the bridge of her nose. “I do understand.” She purses her lips. “I know what it’s like to love someone, to feel you have to do anything possible to protect them from danger. Unfortunately, you didn’t think things through. What do you think is going to happen to your brother now that you’ve been arrested? You really think you saved him? At least if he’d died on that podium, he would have died for the greater good.” She shakes her head, spraying droplets to and fro. “Now his death will be meaningless. As will all of ours.” She steps away from the shower. “At least you won’t have to live with the guilt for too long.”

She walks away. The showers shut off. And this time I can’t control the shakes that wrack my body.

“Get dressed,” one of the officers barks.

As I step away from the shower, I notice that everything we were wearing is gone. In its place is a pile of tattered clothing, much like the rags that the prisoners in those mass pens were wearing.

I join the others in sifting through the stack of clothes, covering my nakedness with a pair of ragged pants that barely run from my hips to my knee caps, and a sleeveless shirt that’s missing most of its buttons and fits more like a vest. There aren’t even any shoes to protect our feet from the cold, hard floor.

“Time to eat!” the Imposer that frisked me shouts.

They jostle us into an adjacent chamber with the noses of their weapons. The steel and chrome fixtures remind me of the commissary back at the Citadel only a lot more threadbare, with just a few tables and no variety in menu items.

The Imposer smirks. “Grab it while it’s hot,” he snickers to his companions.

One by one, we take steaming bowls of grayish clumps. There aren’t even any utensils. I’m the last one at the gruel station. The rest are already seated, divided between two tables. My former squad stares at me with looks that smolder more than the glop in their bowls, and Leander kicks the remaining chair at their table away. Tristin and the rest of the family members, at the other table, barely look up as they scoop the goo into their mouths. I decide to take my chances and sit with the latter group. At least they don’t look like they want to kill me as much.

Tristin gives me a tentative smile as I set my bowl beside hers. Then I stoop and right the chair Leander kicked, scooching in close to the table.

“Hello,” I mutter as I tilt the bowl to my lips, letting the noxious gunk seep past my tongue and throat. I churn it past my gums as quickly as garbage through the sewer treatment plants. I need the nourishment, not the taste. At least it’s hot.

“What’s
he
doing here, Jorgen?” It’s the pale, gaunt, middle-
aged woman with stringy brown hair I saw prodded by the Imp earlier. She’s sitting across from me, loudly whispering into the ear of the tanned young man seated beside her.

Jorgen’s dark eyes are as cool as the stew is hot. “Mrs. Grimstone, I’ve been asking myself the same question.”

Tristin pushes her three-quarters-full bowl away from her. “Everyone, this is Lucian Spark.” You’d think we were at a social affair. She half-smiles at me and I’m reminded of Cage’s infectious grin.

The balding man seated on the other side of Tristin slams his bowl down, rattling the table. “We
know
who he is!”

Mrs. Grimstone and Jorgen nod their heads.

Corin glares at me and spits a wad of food in my direction. “He’s the snake that got us into this mess.”

I expected hostility from these people, so it doesn’t surprise me. Scanning their eyes now, I wonder whether they distrust me simply because I’m a former Recruit or because they, like their recruited loved ones, are part of the rebellion and know that they’re here because I betrayed the cause.

As if reading my thoughts, Jorgen clears his throat and stares me down. “You’re not welcome here. Why don’t you go sit with your little
friends
over there?” He nods his head in the direction of my squad, who, with the exception of Arrah, are staring at our table with amused smirks on their faces.

“Because even
they
won’t have him,” Baldy grunts
through another swig of the slop.

“True, Mr. Ryland,” Tristin says to him. “But we’re not
like Imposers, even those in training, are we?”

“They wouldn’t show any pity on us,” Jorgen growls.

Tristin grabs my arm to prevent me from leaving. “That’s exactly my point,” she continues. “What would the Deity ask us to do?”

The others drop their gazes.

I think of this poor girl at the mercy of slime like Prior Delvecchio and his minions. “You actually attend services at the Priory?”

She shakes her head. “Our family can’t afford the tithing. And Cage thinks I’m crazy. But I still believe on my own.”

There’s something so profoundly innocent and tender in her demeanor and tone that I squirm in my chair. Lately, I haven’t been the most compassionate person in the world, and my motives haven’t been the purest. I’ve done what I’ve had to do. I’m not even certain if there is or there isn’t some mystical Deity, whether everything we do is based on free will or some sort of divine determinism. The only thing I’m sure of is that we can’t just sit around on our asses and wait for things to happen.

Mrs. Grimstone’s cold fingers touch my hand. “Please. I remember when you were recruited. You’ve been through this before. Is my daughter … my Preshea … is she safe now? Are they torturing her? I
need
to know … ”

The fear and worry on her face wrench my gut. I pat her hand. “Your daughter’s fine right now.” I turn to the others. “All of your loved ones are. They keep the Recruits strong and healthy so they can compete in the Trials. Just like they’ll keep us alive.”