Scavenger Blood

by Janet Edwards

  All our lives we’d known and accepted our minds would be imprinted during Lottery. We’d discussed it dozens of times, eagerly looking forward to being given a wealth of knowledge. Over the last few weeks, the tone of those discussions had changed from joyful anticipation to nervous whispers about exactly what imprinting would do to our minds.

  Now Lottery was upon us and we were terrified. The assessment stage lasted between three and five days. By this time next week, we’d all be imprinted and beginning our new adult lives. We’d no idea if we’d be high or low level. We didn’t know what profession we’d be given. We weren’t even sure that we’d be the same people after our minds were imprinted. We were facing the black unknown, and we screamed defiance to block out the fear.

  I was fifth in line when we started on Level 1. Riding the rail was hard, so two of us had fallen before we even reached Level 5. As the overhead signs told us that we’d hit Level 18, I counted the figures reflected in the mirrored walls. We were down to fifteen now, and I was third in line. The ones who fell down from the handrail onto the moving stairs didn’t climb back on the handrail again. Custom decreed that the last ride was over when you fell.

  I focused my eyes on the two figures still ahead of me. Tall, heavily muscled Forge, his black hair matching his red and black costume. Slender Shanna behind him, her fair hair cascading down the back of her silver dress. She was perfectly poised and elegant, looking as if she could ride the handrail forever, but then her foot slipped as the rail made the bend to reach Level 46.

  Shanna flailed her arms, teetered wildly, and tumbled down onto the moving stairs next to her. She’d barely got time to stand up before the downway reached the Level 46 shopping area, where she stepped off and waved at the rest of us. I heard her final cry come from behind me.

  “Go Forge! Go Amber! Ride the Hive!”

  I daren’t look back as she called my name, but I held up my arm in salute and farewell, and blinked back tears from behind the fake smile of my Carnival mask. Shanna had been my best friend for all my years on Teen Level. I’d lived in her shadow, been alternately grateful to her for being my friend and jealous of her self-confidence, and now I’d never see her again.

  There was a faint chance that one of my old friends would come out of Lottery as the same level as me and we could stay in touch, but I knew it wouldn’t be Shanna. She was bound to be rated far higher level than someone as ordinary as me.

  I concentrated on the red of Forge’s shirt ahead of me, and the difficult job of keeping my balance as the rail flattened out, turned, and dived down again at each level change. We were below Level 60 now, I was shaking with the effort of the ride, and my legs stung from scratches as my silver sequinned skirt blew around them.

  We were still descending through shopping areas, because all the accommodation levels of the Hive had their shops, but they were plainer here, selling more functional goods. There were no fancy mirrored walls now, but I caught a reflection of us in some glass on Level 63, and saw there were only four of us left. By Level 70, there was no one behind me, and at Level 72 Forge fell and I was left alone.

  I kept riding the rail on down, all the way to Level 100 itself. There were no shops or people there, just dusty pipes to salute my triumph as I jumped to the ground, but I’d ridden the Hive.

  I only felt the briefest moment of celebration before depression hit me. I’d ridden the Hive, I’d screamed defiance, but it hadn’t changed anything. Tomorrow morning, I would enter Lottery, because there was nowhere else I could go and nothing else I could do. There were one hundred and six other Hive cities in the world, but I wouldn’t have the right to ask to move to one of them until after I’d been through Lottery.

  Even if I could ask for a Hive transfer right now, I wasn’t courageous enough, or foolish enough, to take that leap into a darkened lift shaft. I’d no idea what life was like in other Hives. Our Hive news sometimes mentioned their names, but never gave any details about them. The occasional malcontent claimed other Hives were far more luxurious places to live than ours, but they obviously hadn’t had enough courage in their convictions to apply to move.

  Moving Hive wouldn’t help me anyway. My problem wasn’t with my Hive, but with suffering the suspense of waiting helplessly while my profession, my level, my whole future life was decided for me. Every Hive would have its own equivalent of Lottery, and it was better to face it here than in an alien place.

  I yanked off my mask, turned round, and stepped onto the upway. I stood there, weary and defeated, letting it carry me back towards my sliver of a room on Teen Level 50. It would have been much faster to take a lift, but it somehow seemed appropriate to go back the same way that I’d arrived.

  I was on Level 56 when I heard the chanting ahead of me that warned a telepath was nearby. I was looking forward to changing out of the Carnival outfit that had been chosen by Shanna, and was far too spectacular and revealing for someone like me. I was thinking about packing my bag to take to Lottery. I was planning to have an early night so I’d be well rested tomorrow. There was nothing in my head that was incriminating, but I joined in the chanting just the same.

  “Two ones are two.”

  “Two twos are four.”

  “Two threes are six.”

  The upway reached Level 55, and the people in the shopping area here were shouting it.

  “Two fours are eight.”

  “Two fives are ten.”

  “Two sixes are twelve.”

  I saw the crowd of shoppers move aside to let through a figure dressed in grey and wearing a matching grey mask. That was the telepath, the nosy, with their escort of four blue-clad hasties following behind to guard him or her.

  “Two sevens are fourteen!”

  “Two eights are sixteen!”

  Everyone was screaming it now, and I was yelling as loudly as any of them. People said that filling your thoughts with numbers stopped a nosy from reading your mind. I didn’t know if that was true, but it was worth a try. I didn’t want anyone seeing my private thoughts. I wanted the nosies to catch the criminals, to keep me safe, but I hated the idea of someone snooping inside my own head.

  The nosy seemed to be looking at me now. The bulging shape of the grey mask, and the hint of strange, purple eyes behind it, showed that the wearer wasn’t entirely human. I was grateful that the upway was carrying me to safety on the next level.

  Once the nosy and the chanting crowd were left behind, I rode on in silence again. I finally reached Level 50, scurried along a couple of corridors, and made it into my room without seeing any of the people who’d once been my friends. We’d said our goodbyes, and Carnival and our teen life was over. Tomorrow, Lottery would begin.

  Telepath, the first book in the Hive Mind series, is available now in both ebook and paperback editions. You can find full details at https://janetedwards.com/books/telepath/