Cage grabs his gear. “Anyone have any last words before we take off?”
Dahlia’s eyes pivot from one to another. “Here’s to making it back in one piece.” She pauses for a moment while the others cheer the sentiment. Then the Company’s mood grows somber. “All of us. Wherever we may be.”
Do they know I can hear and see them? It doesn’t really matter one way or another. I’m not a part of anything anymore and can never be again.
“Saddle up, people,” Rios barks. “It’s time.”
They slap each other’s backs and scramble inside their ship.
When I press my thumb against the palm, I instantly get a fourth set of feeds from inside a cockpit.
“Pilot Lignier initiating engines,” Corin announces. He flips a few switches on his console and his fighter’s engines roar to life.
He’s part of the airstrike.
It dawns on me that I haven’t tried the last channel yet. My little finger settles against my thumb. I hesitate. What’s the point? That life is over now. I can’t afford to let anything pull my focus from what I have to do.
I’m just about to rip off the glove when the sound of another engine catches my attention. I clench my fist, cutting off the Opticom’s feeds.
Outside the cockpit window, a sleek ship hovers overhead, then descends alongside my own vessel. There’s no point in grabbing my weapon. If they wanted me dead they’d have blasted me out of the sky the moment I entered Thorn airspace.
The ship’s gangway extends. I brace myself for the inevitable onslaught. Instead of a squad of Imps, a long shadow stretches through the hatch, followed by its owner, a solitary figure that stands there, unmoving.
Waiting for me.
My fist jams against the hatch release switch. I stride out of the cockpit, down the gangway, and come face to face with Cassius Thorn.
Straining my eyes, I pick out the Imps positioned at a distance among the trees, sharpshooters ready to spring to action if I should make any threatening moves toward their leader, no doubt.
“I knew you couldn’t stay away,” he says.
My gaze drifts back to Cassius. “You didn’t really leave me with any other choice, did you?”
His expression’s vacant. “There’s always a choice, Lucian.” He motions toward the river. “Walk with me?”
Instead of answering, I trudge past him, my boots crunching the dead leaves as I make my way down to the river bank, relishing the chilly wind against my cheeks.
He catches up to me, scoops up some pebbles from the ground and tosses one of them into the river’s current. “I was so young the last time the two of us stood here.”
“Sixteen years old and ready to take on the Trials and the whole world. I remember too well.”
His smile’s wistful. “You were only fourteen. Just a baby.”
Our eyes meet. I can’t help notice the dark circles under his. “I think we both know I’m much older than that now.”
Cassius shakes his head. “I wasn’t really speaking of my chronological age anyway. It was more like my spirit. I still had blinders on back then.” He’s staring at the choppy river flow now. “Sometimes I wonder what things would be like if I’d never taken them off. If I could unsee what I’ve seen.”
“And just what is it you’ve seen, Cassius?”
He tosses another pebble into the river. It manages to skip a few times over the chaotic stream before sinking into the depths. “What would you say if you found out during the Trials that you were nothing but an experiment, and that the parents you loved so much were merely monitoring your brain, seeing how much pressure they could apply before memories of a previous life surfaced?”
“You were Sown, too? A Repro?”
His eyes narrow. “Abomination is a much more accurate term. But after dear old dad died in the trials and I emerged victorious, I started doing some digging and discovered some very startling and valuable information.”
“I take it this information is what got you appointed Prefect, the youngest prefect ever, only two years after you completed the Trials?”
“Yes.” Cassius flings another pebble into the river, this time managing to make it skip four times before it disappears in a white cap. “Following the leads I got from my adopted mother, I started investigating things and gathering evidence while stationed at the Citadel. It wasn’t long before my diligence paid off, and I discovered who it was that actually gave birth to me.”
Little by little the pieces of the puzzle are all starting to form a clear mosaic. There’s only one person that had the authority to pull strings and expedite Cassius’s rise in rank so quickly.
“Prime Minister Talon. She was your mother. And you murdered her.”
Cassius pauses in mid toss. “No. She wasn’t my mother. A mother is someone that’s supposed to care for you, nurture you. Love you.” He finishes his toss, only this time the pebble immediately plunks down into the river like a heavy anchor. “Talon was just a vessel, an unfeeling incubator that carried an implanted embryo. An experiment. Me.”
“Not surprised. I never pegged Talon as the motherly type.” I toss my own pebble in after his.
He nods. “You see, in her younger years, just before she became obsessed with her political aspirations, Talon was part of a secretive study conducted by a conclave embedded deep within the Establishment since its founding.” He turns to me. “Since you founded it.”
Flashes of memory ignite through my brain. I remember something about appointing a special council that would be responsible for reintegrating the Sown into society.
A secret order embedded in the Establishment’s religious Foundation, hidden in the bowels of the Priory.
A powerful sect dedicated to bringing about my own resurrection.
“I can see by your expression that it’s starting to come back to you, Lucian. Or have you embraced Queran yet?”
I ignore the taunt. “So Queran founds the Establishment, then he sets up this secret society hidden in the Priory to use genetic samples stolen from Nexus to revive the survivors and achieve a level of immortality. But something went wrong, didn’t it?”
My temples start to throb and my heart’s racing. Why can’t I remember?
“Something did go wrong, Lucian. Very wrong. It seems the first test subject they attempted to resurrect wasn’t entirely stable.” He purses his lips, staring at the rippling river. “This specimen was an amalgamation of the genetics of several different candidates. The test subject couldn’t handle the onslaught of a myriad of memories. He suffered from terrible hallucinations, the onset of a bipolar condition and acute schizophrenia.” Cassius turns to me. “But instead of treating this pitiful creature and finding a way to alleviate its misery, do you know what they did?”
Another wave of pain and nausea hit me. My eyes squeeze closed. When the wave passes, I force myself to meet his gaze again. “They killed the subject. Then attempted the revival again.”
Of course I know. I’m the one that issued that edict to make sure all the kinks in the process were ironed out before it was attempted on Queran Embers.
Before it was attempted on me.
Cass’s eyes are glassy shards. “Yes. They murdered that poor specimen, which would have been a mercy had they left it at that. But then they revived it. And killed it anew. The cycle of death and rebirth, over and over and over again.” His shoulders hunch. “Each rebirth and death, this specimen remembered every… single… agonizing second of suffering it had endured in its prior incarnation. They didn’t care. This was just genetic material to be dissected, studied, and discarded.”
I nod slowly. “Until something began to change.”
“It did. After each subsequent Sowing, the specimen, designated Case 1-Unit: Sowing, began to stabilize. Began to learn.” He smiles. “Eventually, after the original team of scientists succumbed to the ravages of time and died out, subsequent personnel grew lax. They allowed their little experimental freak some freedoms.” He leans
in close. “They had no idea that Case 1 had learned the virtues of extreme patience. Eventually Case 1 sabotaged their experiments by destroying data, corrupting and stealing the other genetic samples, setting back the Sowing research decades.”
My mind’s racing. “The personnel running the Sowing program must have realized what was going on and shelved this subject permanently.”
“Oh, yes. They did. But not before Case 1 had altered a few labels on certain samples, preserving his own genetic material so it would be unwittingly revived. The irony is, Case 1 knew that, as the Sowing became more viable, his participation in the experiment must come to its inevitable conclusion. But he wanted to live now. Live and come back, one last time—to destroy all of it so no poor creature would have to endure that kind of unnatural suffering ever again.”
We stare at each other for a very long time without saying a word. The only sound is the roar of the rushing water crashing round the river bend.
“It’s you,” I finally say. “You’re Case 1-Unit: Sowing. Case 1-U.S… Cassius.”
Cassius’ eyes are moist. He lets out a laugh, not one of malice, more like relief. “In the flesh. As Case 1, I made sure my specimen was named appropriately and introduced into the Talon family, one of the most powerful political dynasties in the Establishment. I wanted to position myself in the place where I could do the most damage upon my return. Despite all my planning, I didn’t count on what it would feel like when I was unwittingly revived as a different specimen. All those horrific memories came rushing back during the mental and physical stress I was subjected to during the Trials.”
My mind flashes to all the specimens we discovered at Nexus Prime, including Breck, Saffron, and Cephas. “Every Imposer recruit that endured the Culling during the Trials. They were all Sown as part of this same experiment, Repros purposely subjected to physical and mental torture to unlock their genetically inherited memories—”
“And create an elite strike force of loyal followers for President Queran Embers to command upon his return,” Cassius finishes. “After I endured the Culling, those emerging memories led me to Straton and Sanctum, and we began to share classified information to destroy your Establishment.”
“Until you betrayed Straton, too.”
“Sanctum was only a tool to achieve what I couldn’t singlehandedly.” Cassius swipes his hand over his eyes. “I can still hear them, you know? Every single genetically grafted memory crying out in my mind. All of them. Even when I’m asleep.” He laughs again.
“Cassius, I’m—”
“Don’t even think of saying you’re sorry.” His eyes narrow to slits. “You’re responsible for all of it. It was Queran’s decision to begin experimentation on me after he nearly killed me during the Ash Wars. Can you imagine what it must feel like to discover that the boy you loved more than anything in the entire world is the same monster who condemned you to generations of pain and suffering?” He smiles. “It has quite an effect on you.”
“Why don’t you just kill me now and get your revenge over with?”
Cassius shakes his head. “Haven’t you been listening? This has never been about revenge. I want to stop it from ever happening again. And you’re the key, Queran.”
“What the hell do you mean?”
“The codes to launch nuclear strikes against every single hub of the Nexus are buried in your subconscious. With the entire Nexus destroyed, every single piece of data necessary to implement the Sowing ever again will be obliterated.”
“Nuclear strikes? If you do that you’ll destroy all those dormant survivors that have been waiting for ages to be rescued. It’s mass murder, Cassius.”
He shakes his head. “Surely, you of all people aren’t going to give me a lecture on morality? Didn’t you order strikes against those you perceived as a threat to your stockades of provisions during the Ash Wars?”
I remain silent.
“Tell me, just how many deaths are you responsible for? Hundreds of thousands? Millions? Your hypocrisy would be amusing if the stakes were not so high.”
I swallow hard. “You’re the one that’s being hypocritical. You claim everything that you’ve done is to prevent others from suffering the horrible fate that you have, yet you’re willing to destroy countless innocent lives to attain that goal. Besides, I never ordered any strikes.”
Cassius sighs. “I thought we’d worked through the denial stage. Every single cell and memory in that body you’re wearing belongs to Queran Embers. That’s who you are.”
Pain sears my brain. Images flash.
A boy a little older than me, about fourteen or fifteen, with auburn hair and green eyes, entering the foyer of a palatial manor. My home. He’s with a woman. His mother. And she’s just married my widowed father.
My father turns to me, his smile cold. “Meet your new stepbrother, Queran.”
My new stepbrother.
Lisandro.
I rub my temples until the throbbing subsides to a dull ache and the memory fades. “We knew each other before all of this. Before the Ash Wars.”
Cassius moves in closer, his eyes pleading. “Trust me, I understand your conflict. There was a time after I discovered the truth about you that I didn’t want to accept it either. I still thought I could save the boy I’d grown to love with all my heart.” He takes my hands, and I’m too numb to stop him. “But I was devastated by the fact that you can never escape who you truly are.”
I stare deeply into his eyes. “Neither of us can.”
He clears his throat and turns to face the turbulent waters of Fortune’s River again. “I think it’s quite fitting that we should have this enlightening exchange at this specific spot. Do you remember that day? When I left you to embark on the Trials?”
I nod, even though he’s not looking at me. “We thought we might never see each other again.”
“Neither of us had absolutely any idea how prophetic our fears would prove to be.” His words sound brittle, as if all the emotions have leaked away. When he turns to me his skin looks ashen, his eyes wet and weary. “That was the very last time that Cassius Thorn and Lucian Spark ever faced each other. Those two ceased to exist that day, if they ever truly existed at all.”
The wind picks up, moaning through the dying trees and echoing the deep melancholy that chills my bones.
Dead leaves swirl about Cassius. “This was the exact spot where we once promised we would never forget each other, no matter what happened. Now, I make you a new promise. I promise to utterly destroy the evil that you represent, no matter what it takes or how I may feel.”
I smile. “And I promise that you’ll die trying, no matter what I have to do.”
He presses a button on his wrist band.
The rust-colored leaves crackle around us. A platoon of Imps emerges from the trees and surrounds us, their weapons trained on me.
“It’s time for us to go,” Cassius says.
Taking a deep breath, I allow the soldiers to lead me to the ship and up the gangway, cuffing me into my seat. In moments, the engines rev and we lift off from the clearing.
I glance out the porthole, taking in what will probably be my last glance of Fortune’s River, gazing at the foaming current, violently churning its way around the bend and colliding against a fork. Some of the waters rush to the left, heading back toward the remnants of my old tenement, the former life of Lucian Spark, while the rest of the river plunges toward the right, toward the Citadel of Truth and my life as Queran Embers.
If I was a pebble cast into this maelstrom, which way would the current carry me?
TWENTY-SEVEN
The Vulture swoops toward the towers of the Citadel. My mind races with anger and anxiety. Twiddling my thumbs, I catch sight of the Opticom glove I’m still wearing. Corin was right. When the Imps searched and scanned me for weapons, they didn’t detect it.
Clenching my fist, I activate the unit, tapping my fingers against my thumb.
The box in the corner of my field of
vision appears. Once again, I maneuver my index, third, and ring fingers into a steady rhythm to follow the feeds.
Cage and the rest of the crew are just landing their transport on the outskirts of the Parish. Arrah hops out of the hatch. “Do you think they picked us up on their scanners?”
Joining her, Dahlia checks her holocam. “That would be a negative. My scans show we’re clear.”
Another group of a half-dozen black clad figures rushes to greet them. This must be the Worm team.
The leader, a slender young woman with cropped dark hair, checks her chron and steps forward to meet Rios. “We’re running out of time.”
“We’re ready.”
Another Worm, a young man who reminds me of the ill-fated Tim Fremont from that long ago alley, rushes up to the others. “We’ve got company. Recon patrol’s heading this way.”
The Worm leader scrambles into the abandoned power relay station, with Cage and the rest of the ground assault team slinking into the darkness after her.
“Time to blend in with the shadows, people.” Dru tosses each of them a pair of the Shadow tech night vision goggles, which they quickly don.
Cage is busy with a blow torch, cutting an opening into the metal hatch leading into the access tunnels.
“You think we could hurry this up a little?” Dahlia’s weapon is drawn, ready to take on the new arrivals. “Now would definitely be good.”
Looking up, Cage gives her a wink. “Just a few more minutes, mates.”
He finally kicks a metal panel out of the hatch. “Let’s go.”
They all drop into the darkness.
Remembering the fourth channel I never activated, I press the tip of my little finger against my thumb.
Someone’s piloting a ship, but I can’t tell who it is. All I can see are the legions of Flesher ships flitting past the cockpit windows.
They must be heading to the Parish for the armistice ceremony. But something about their formations doesn’t feel right.
Before I can figure it out, the Vulture I’m aboard dives into the hangar bay atop the Citadel and descends to the landing platform. The engines cut out. A group of Imps surrounds me. I clench my fist to disable the opticom. The guards uncuff me from my seat, pull me to my feet, and drag me toward the gangplank.
The Raising (The Torch Keeper Book 3) Page 24