The Sowing (The Torch Keeper)

by Steven dos Santos

  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 t
he 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.”

  “Thank you,” she whispers, trying to stop the streams leaking down her cheeks.

  All the edge seeps from Jorgen’s face. Suddenly, he looks like a child. “But we’ll never see them again, will we?”

  I feel the weight of all their stares bearing down on me—Jorgen, Mrs. Grimstone, Mr. Ryland, Corin, and Tristin. Any anger and contempt they felt at my presence is gone, replaced by fear and the embryonic glow of hope. I gulp down my last mouthful of steaming gruel. “Yes. You will see them again.” It’s not really a lie. To say more would shred whatever comfort they can wring from my words, and I can’t do that. There are plenty of things you can rip away from a person—their dignity, self-respect; hell, even a limb or two—and they can somehow find a way through it. People are strong like that. They’ve had to be. Even organs are replaceable with synthetic replicas if you have the cash.

  But once you take away hope, that’s it. Game over.

  That’s when people break for good and can never be repaired. I’ve seen it happen over and over, ever since I can remember.

  Corin taps me on the hand. “We’re gonna die, aren’t we?”

  The kid’s rough exterior is all but gone. This is the first time I’ve seen his true age in his eyes. I’ve managed to hold it together until now, but those five words hit me hard.

  I stare at each of them for a few seconds before returning my gaze to Corin. “You’re not going to die, kid. I promise.” My eyes sweep my former comrades at the next table. “With the way the Establishment’s set things up”—I raise my voice—“the Imposer trainees and myself are a buffer between you and anything bad happening. As long as we’re around, you’re all safe.”

  Mr. Ryland snorts. “Oh, yeah? What happens when the five of you are k—”

  I cut him off with a glare that reaps the air between him and Corin.

  Ryland clears his throat. “When the five of you are no longer part of the Trials?”

  Corin glares at him. “You mean when they bite it.”

  I shake my head. “A lot can happen between now and then.” I pause for moment before turning to the others. “You should all consider yourselves very fortunate under the circumstances. You’re not just stuck in this hellhole with five othe
r regular Incentives.” I turn to face Leander’s table. “You’re in here with one of the best Imposer trainee squads ever to survive the Trials.”

  Through the icy stares I get back from my former squad I see something shift, if only for a second. Then it freezes over again in a blizzard of hatred and they all turn away again.

  I’m going to need their help to get us all out of here. But it’s going to take more than words or playing to their egos to get my former allies to consider any kind of truce. And I don’t have much time to make it happen.

  sixteen

  This is it. After several weeks of being confined in the dark and cold, subsisting on gruel and enduring back-breaking labor, the Trials are about to begin.

  This is the first morning that no one has said a word during breakfast. Everyone looks weary. From the look of the bowls around me, no one seems to be feeling particularly hungry either.

  The mess hall doors burst open. “Chow time’s over!” Echoes barks. “Let’s go!”

  This time, I’m the last one in the single-file line as we make our way back to the common room. Ever since our arrival I’ve been cataloguing the layout of Purgatorium in my mind, not only memorizing the order of the winding passageways but also committing to memory the number of steps to any given area. If I’m somehow able to gain access to the vent shafts, air ducts, and/or drainage systems, this will definitely help me with finding my way around. The one thing that’s going to be a challenge is getting my hands on tools and some type of light source. Tricky, but not impossible; if I could make it through the last Trials in one piece, this shouldn’t be too difficult. At least that’s what I’m telling myself to keep from cracking.

  Trying to get my former squad to work with me, though, has been less fruitful. Every time I attempted to talk to them, they either outright shunned me, gave me pissed-off looks, or grunted and muttered some colorful epithet. I’m going to need more time to win them over.