The Seeds Trilogy Complete Collection: The Sowing, The Reaping, The Harvest (including The Prelude)

by K. Makansi

  “Goddamnit, Soren, I’m trying to help you. You’re turning into a recluse. You spend every night here. You claim you’re doing lab work but all I ever see from you these days is junk. You’re smarter by leagues than what you’re turning in. What the hell is going on?”

  I inhale, hold it for a moment. Blow out my breath as if to knock down the walls I’ve built around me. He huffed and he puffed and he blew the house down. A line from an old story my parents used to tell me.

  “Something’s wrong,” I whisper. James doesn’t move. “The Alexanders disappeared and no one will talk about it. Elijah Tawfiq gone at the same time. And now Kenzie Oban’s family. Jeremiah’s mother died of a disease that doesn’t exist anymore, along with thirty-one other people from her town. And eight innocent academics murdered by the Outsiders in a random assault that was never pursued or investigated.” I pause a moment, thinking of Hana Lyon’s fingers dancing over an ivory keyboard, remembering the honey-salt taste of her lips and her hands running through my hair. “It doesn’t make sense.”

  James glances around us as if expecting to see eyes in the darkness.

  “Close the door,” he says. I obey. I palm the door shut and it closes with a whisper. I sit again, watching him.

  “Listen to me, Soren. This is dangerous stuff. I can’t tell you what to do or what not to do, but if you’re going to do this, you keep your head down, cover your tracks, and don’t talk to anyone about it. Not even me.”

  “But you know what I’m talking about, don’t you?” I lean forward. “The disappearances. The deaths. It’s all connected, isn’t it?”

  “I don’t know shit about whether it’s connected or not, but you keep your head to the ground and don’t fucking talk about it!” James’ voice shakes. “My oldest friend is dead, and seven of his students shot with Sector weaponry in broad daylight in one of the most secure buildings in Okaria. The idea that this was an Outsider attack is a joke. A lie. A theatrical performance put on to placate the masses who thirst for revenge. But revenge hasn’t happened yet. Maybe it never will. The people responsible have not been held accountable.”

  “Who are you talking about?” I whisper.

  “I don’t know yet,” he says softly, his eyes dropping to the floor. “I’m asking the same questions you are, and I don’t have any answers. I have theories but no proof. But even if I did, I wouldn’t share it, and neither should you. Maybe fewer people will end up dead that way.”

  James grabs his cane off the table and uses it to lever himself to his feet. He stomps to the door and palms it open.

  “Be careful, Soren.”

  For the first time in a long time, I was scared. My parents had taken our airship for a weekend away at one of the Sector’s holiday resorts and the PODS were shut down for the evening, so I had to walk. I went, not to my own flat, but to my parents’, jumping at every shadow and every city sound through the dark streets. I made up the spare bed they keep for me and curled up, terrified and alone.

  And now I lie awake as the sun rises and the sky turns orange, red, and yellow.

  Red at night, sailor’s delight. Red in the morning, sailors take warning. A saying from the Old World, when enormous wooden ships three times the size of our airships would traverse entire oceans using nothing but canvas sails and the wind as their engines. Red in the morning, sailors take warning.

  I startle and jump out of bed as I hear a knock at the door. The robotic notification system is disabled at night and during the early hours of the morning. I am wearing my sleeper leggings and a thin shirt, and I immediately feel exposed and underdressed when the man who appears at the door is in full military uniform. His grey hair, beaky nose, and angry eyes all look familiar, but I can’t place him.

  “Soren Skaarsgard.” His voice is harsh. My name sounds like a command coming out of his mouth. “Your parents have returned from their vacation.” I glance around him and see both my parents, muscles slack and eyes tired. My father’s hair, normally so neatly combed, is disheveled.

  “Who are you?” I ask. But the moment the words are out of my mouth, I remember. The man who came for James the night of the vote.

  “I am General Falke Aulion. I was asked to escort your parents home.”

  “Why do they need an escort?” I croak. Though I am at least ten centimeters taller than the man, I suddenly feel very, very small. His demeanor and posture are so stiff, so cold, as to make me feel like a child again. It occurs to me that the last time I saw him, he wore a colonel’s uniform. I glance at my parents. Neither of them are looking at me. Instead they’re staring almost past me, as if I’m not even there.

  “Your parents were engaged on dangerous Sector business. Protocol requires that they be escorted home before and after such expeditions.” Dangerous Sector business? They told me they were going on a vacation. They’d been looking forward to it for weeks.

  He steps to the side and sweeps his arm in the direction of the door, as if formally welcoming my parents to their own home.

  My mother, tall and normally steely in her composure, instead seems disjointed as she follows Aulion’s lead. She finally looks up at me as she crosses the threshold, smiles in a way wholly unlike her, and says, “Hello, Soren.”

  “Hey, Mom.”

  My father, instead, simply seems bone-tired. He barely glances at me as he walks through the door, as haggard and empty as a prisoner of war.

  “Why are you home early?” I ask. Aulion’s eyes are still on me. His satisfied expression seems to mock me. Everything James said to me not five hours ago rings in my head. The people responsible have not been held accountable.

  “Are we back early? I didn’t notice,” my mother says, walking like a marionette.

  “Had to get back to work.” There’s boredom in my father’s voice. When has he ever been dispassionate about his research? “I’m tired, Ca—Cara. Siren. I mean Soren.”

  I watch as my parents head straight into the bedroom and close the door, without so much as a backwards glance. When I turn to Aulion, the smile has been replaced with taut lips and narrowed eyes.

  “You see what happens to those who ask the wrong questions.”

  III.

  Spring 63, Sector Annum 103, 19h45

  Gregorian Calendar: May 21

  I won’t see you again for a while. I can’t explain, everything’s spinning in my head, it’s too complicated, but I can’t be here anymore. I need you to delete this courriel from all your records—as deep into the system as you can go—as soon as you’ve read it. We’ll see each other again. - S.S.

  I push the flashing green tab on my plasma that says send and heave a sigh of relief. I sit back and set the plasma to my side.

  “Is everything all right?” Odin asks, as he pulls three Mealpaks from the fridge. He doesn’t look at me.

  “Everything’s fine.” I sit down at the table. My mother pours a glass of water for each of us and sits across from my father.

  There’s a silence as we pull the wrapping off our dishes. A silence so bleak it reverberates. It’s the burnt-orange pull of a bow over a cello’s strings, heavy, full of sadness.

  “How was work, Cara?” I ask finally. They don’t mind the quiet, but it’s still hard for me to tolerate. They don’t even notice that I don’t call them Mom and Dad anymore. It makes things easier. The pain is too sharp when I remember what they really are. What they were. They’re revenants, now. They’ll never be those people again.

  “Oh, fine,” my mother says, smiling at me. “I was inoculating lab mice today.”

  Inoculating lab mice. A task normally reserved for the lowest grade of research assistants, often students from the Academy or engineers who will never again see the inside of the SRI. Now jobs that my parents are doing routinely, because they are capable of nothing else.

  “Are you going back to Okaria tomorrow, Soren?” Odin asks.

  “I am. I have to get back to the Research Institute. James is expecting me.”

  “Ja
mes who?” my mother asks. I fight the urge to roll my eyes, and instead focus my attention on the dried figs in my Mealpak. They barely remember me when I come to visit them every week, and Dr. Rhinehouse has disappeared entirely from their mental landscape.

  “My research director.” A man who was once one of your best friends and a trusted confidante. I don’t say that. It upsets them when I try to remind them of people they’ve forgotten.

  It’s been two months since Aulion showed up at the door with the shells of my parents. Since then, they’ve been transferred to Sakari, on the far edge of the Sector. The risks were too high that someone would notice how damaged they were and start asking questions, I suppose. Easier to say they applied for a transfer to a factory town off the beaten path and get them out of the way. That was the excuse given—that they wanted to get away from the pressures of the big city, and applied for a transfer. I stuck to the Orleáns’ story. It was easier that way. Easier than explaining that my parents no longer know me when I arrive at their door.

  I told Jeremiah what really happened. I told him they were changed, that they reminded me of the Farm workers that day I visited, docile and submissive, lacking any sort of critical thought or ability to question. It was the Orleáns, I know that. But I didn’t speak that thought aloud. I don’t have any proof, and James’ words were still ringing in my ears. I wouldn’t share my theories. And Aulion’s: You see what happens to those who ask the wrong questions. No, it’s better that Jeremiah doesn’t know where I’m pointing fingers.

  I’ve come to visit my parents every weekend since. The look on my mother’s face when she opens the door still shocks me. There’s no recognition there. I have to tell her, every time, who I am and why I’m there.

  “I’m Soren,” I’ll say. “Your son.”

  “Soren!” She’ll exclaim, and a flash of recognition will pass over her. The word slices through me like a blade, every time. A knife to the gut, and I am bleeding black rage at those who did this to her. “Of course. How could I have forgotten?” She was never so bland before, so cheery, so dull. “Come in and let me get you something.”

  I haven’t gotten used to it. I don’t think I ever will.

  I put my napkin down on the table and stand up. I summon my best smile for my parents.

  “I have to get back to work.” I manage to keep the tremors out of my voice. “James is expecting a big project from me tomorrow. But thank you for sitting down with me for dinner.”

  “Oh, yes,” Cara says. “We’re always happy to eat with you, dear.” She smiles up at me. There’s no trace of the intelligence that once defined her. The warmth in her voice is a testament to the emptiness in her mind. The icy composure was her strength, before. Odin is still staring at his Mealpak. I wonder if he even registered what I said.

  I hold onto my composure until I close the door to the guest room. But as soon as I am alone, I turn and blindly slam my fist into the wall. I can’t see through the tears clouding my vision. I can’t breathe through the anger, the hatred. My hand hurts, but not enough.

  I’ve spent hours looking through their medical records, searching through the list of ingredients in their Mealpaks, going through any and all public documents I have access to, trying to find some explanation for what’s happened to them. I’ve talked to everyone I know, asking what could cause such loss of reason and function. I never mentioned the truth, of course. I knew better, by now. Everyone thinks my questions are for my research. I’ve searched through the hospital records in every health facility in Okaria, looking for entry or exit forms, a diagnosis, medical forms. I’ve found nothing. There’s no evidence. I don’t know what’s happened to them.

  I hit the wall a second time. I hear, rather than feel, a knuckle crack against the surface. It means nothing to me. I close my eyes and lean my head back, feeling the canyons carved into my cheeks, choking back sobs no one will hear.

  I stand there a few minutes and let the anger roll through me. It exhausts itself quickly, replaced by a determination that propels me forward.

  My pack goes on my shoulder. The weight against my back is comforting, in a way. It gives me strength. It reassures me of my decision.

  I check the plasma one more time before I leave, and see a new message from Jeremiah.

  What are you talking about? Where are you going? Don’t you fucking dare do anything stupid without bringing me along!–J.S.

  With nothing more than a breath of regret and a moment of hesitation, I toss the plasma to the side. Even so, guilt thuds into my chest. I’ve made my choice, but it’s a bitter seed. I wish I could say more to my oldest friend, to explain why I’m leaving. I know Jeremiah deserves the truth. He has a stake in this game just like I do. But how could I tell him? What is there to explain when all I have are suspicions and unconnected dots? I have no answers. Only fear. It’s fear that keeps me silent, now. Jeremiah will have to find his own answers.

  I cast my eyes around the room one last time. I notice something glimmering on the closet floor, a metallic sheen I hadn’t noticed before, something that must have fallen out of a box when my parents moved in. It’s not the glass reflection of the plasma, but something smaller, more fragile. I push the door open further and crouch, staring at it, amazed to find the burnished aluminum feather I won at the piano competition an age ago. The time that’s passed between then and now feels epochal. I am not that boy anymore.

  I pick it up, feel its weight, its heft against my palm. It’s so light—almost as light as a real feather. The filaments are bent slightly on one side, no doubt as a result of being tossed around as my parents were shuttled from their old flat in the city to this musty building in a distant corner of the Sector. What was it Gabriel Alexander said, the story behind the feather? Icaria used hot wax and twine to construct a pair of wings. Some said they watched her as she strapped her wings to her shoulders and stepped off the edge of a cliff near where Okaria is today. Instead of crashing to the ground below, her wings kept her aloft and she soared off like a bird.

  I tuck the feather in my pack. It’ll get dented and bruised, I’ve no doubt, but at least I’ll have it with me as a reminder. Freedom is always just around the corner.

  I wonder if I’ll ever see Gabriel Alexander again. If I’ll ever put my fingers to the keys of a piano, or hear Chopin’s Preludes performed on a keyboard, or watch a girl like Hana Lyon play for me.

  But now is not the time for wondering, for regret. I sling my bag across my shoulders and press my hand to the door. It slides open, and I find my mother throwing our Mealpaks into the compost bin, my father scrubbing the counter.

  “Thanks for having me this weekend.” I force the smile back onto my face. “I have to go now, but I want to tell you both something, okay?”

  “What’s that?” Cara asks, rinsing our glasses. She startles and pulls back from me when I come up to her and put my arms around her.

  “I love you,” I say quietly. “Remember that. I love you both so much.” She’s frozen in my arms, as if afraid of my touch.

  “Of course you do, sweetheart,” she says.

  I bend down and kiss her on the forehead. She doesn’t understand what this means, I think. But that doesn’t matter.

  “I love you, Mom,” I whisper. She is still.

  “I love you too,” she says. It’s hesitant, like she’s not sure how to respond, like maybe she’s just saying something so I’ll let her go. But I am satisfied. That’s all I needed.

  “Cara and Odin Skaarsgard, you have a visitor,” the alarm system announces. I pull away from Cara and straighten, curious, and suddenly afraid. It recalls the last time I received an unexpected visitor. I don’t want to repeat that experience.

  “Who is it?” Odin asks.

  “Dr. James Rhinehouse.”

  I whirl.

  “Do not open the door,” I command. “I’ll go out to him.”

  I turn to my father.

  “Dad, I have to go. But I love you, too. Please don’t ever
forget that.”

  “I won’t,” he says. But his eyes are blank.

  I open the door to the flat and find myself staring at James. I step outside and close the door behind me.

  “What the hell is going on, Soren?” he demands.

  “You can’t come in. They don’t like visitors.”

  “I know that. They didn’t even recognize me the last time I was here. Odin almost had a panic attack.”

  A quick glance around confirms that no one else is in the hallway.

  “You came here? When?” I ask.

  “A month ago. Trying to figure out what the hell happened. ‘Applied for a transfer,’ my ass. Would never have done that without telling me, at least.”

  “Do you know what happened?”

  “As best I can piece together, yeah. No one else is asking questions, but nothing about this makes sense.” His voice is a growl. “Tell me. When did you find out?”

  I explain what happened the night General Aulion showed up at my parents’ flat. When they arrived in Aulion’s care, dead to the world, dead to me. When I’m finished, he turns and spits on the ground at my side.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “You told me not to.”

  “I should have known,” he says, his voice tight. “That they’d stoop to this.”

  “It was the Orleáns,” I cut in.

  “I know that,” he says. “Who the hell else would it be? But why is Falke acting as their messenger boy? He’s better that.”

  I shake my head, unable to find words to deny this assertion. James says that he and the General are friends. But there’s a fear that grips at my bones when I remember the man’s face that early morning, with hollow eyes and a brittle smile. A chill as sure as a fall breeze runs through me at the thought of Falke Aulion. I never believed in monsters, demons, or other such superstitions as a child, but if I did, Aulion would be one of them.