With such a stellar result, he’d be guaranteed entry into the Cognos Populi. He’d also earn the right to union, unlimited reproduction, a private abode, an abundant grooll ration, and much more. Filtered through that shining lens, Heqet would see him anew. She’d realize what a glinty life they could build together.
The maternal voice revived its soothing strains. “The Survival Aptitude Test concludes in five, four, three, two, one . . .”
Forty thousand touch-screens turned black, triggering a crescendo of anguished howls. A few nearby prospects wore satisfied smiles. Most exhibited crushing tension, their foreheads scored like wind-rippled dunes. Two rows away, an Africoid girl tore at her restraining straps, spittle spraying from her mouth. Her test obviously hadn’t gone well.
Beyond the spastic prospect, Julinian’s posture displayed perfect serenity until she caught sight of Mako. Serenity morphed to smugness with a curl of her lips.
“Now tabulating scores.”
Mako left Julinian to her smugness and stared at his touch-screen, taut with anticipation. It burst to life, drowning him in blood-red light.
. . . FAIL . . .
. . . FAIL . . .
. . . FAIL . . .
The single word strobed, scribed in grotesque red letters. Below it, an accusing score flickered.
9,462.
Mako squeezed his eyes shut. What in Sha’s name was happening?
He rattled his head, trying to shake loose the misfiring neural connection playing tricks with his vision. He opened his eyes with deliberate slowness.
The FAIL strobed. The score flickered. It wasn’t a trick. It was—
A joyous whoop penetrated the muddling fog.
Three rows away, Julinian thrust her arms toward the ceiling. Her glass halo projected an interlaced white globe around her head. The globe scintillated with blue, inward-directed light pulses. Her hair vaporized in a smokeless flash, leaving black stubble in its place.
Throughout the Center, thousands of restraining straps unlocked with a double-click. Julinian and legions of close-cropped denizens sprang to their feet and rushed for the archways, sandals slapping the floor. Their shouts faded, exposing the pleas of the failing prospects still anchored to their seats.
Mako didn’t cry out. He could barely breathe.
There had to be a mistake. He’d answered every question, proofed every answer, verified every proof. Failure wasn’t possible. It wasn’t possible. It—
“—isn’t possible!”
His shout echoed in the half-empty Center. Libraria ambled toward the archways. None glanced his way.
“Tarry!” he called to them. “There’s been a mistake! I know I passed!”
A voice rumbled behind him. “Time to leave, old man, lest you want to join him on his journey.”
Mako reefed his head to the side.
Laoshi stood next to the seat. A bewildered gaze erased every sign of warm curiosity from his face.
“This can’t be happening!” Mako said. “I remembered your teachings and trusted my instincts! I answered every question!”
Laoshi touched Mako’s hair. “There’s nothing I can do, boy.”
The Slavvic Jiren with the scarred jaw strode into view. She aimed her dart gun at Laoshi. “You can leave before you’re harvested, Primae Librarian. That’s one thing you can do.”
“No! Don’t leave!”
“I’m so sorry, Mako.”
“Don’t leave me here! Please!”
Laoshi limped toward the nearest archway. The Jiren trailed him by two paces until they disappeared.
Mako and twenty-thousand hysterical failures had the Center to themselves. A subtle, almost subliminal whir wafted through the air, growing louder by the second. Lights recessed into the ceiling grew dimmer by the second, power draining in tandem.
The skin on the back of his neck dimpled. Nearby prospects thrashed in their seats, prying at their restraining straps. A few wrenched off their glass halos—ruddy mist erupted from their ears and eyes. Their heads lolled forward, chins flopping onto blood-stained lapels.
Mako lost control of his bladder. Involuntary spasms huffed his chest.
The whir reached the amplitude of a thunderclap, drowning out the screaming. Light bled away, occulting the terror etched on the surrounding faces.
Mako voiced the one thought he had left. “I don’t want to be harvested! I don’t want to be harvested! I don’t—”
An almighty zap pierced the darkness.
Ferocious heat coursed through his temples, then—
* * *
OUTSIDE THE CENTER, Daoren watched from a new vantage point while thousands of ecstatic, newly ordained denizens reunited with their families.
Over the eight-hour vigil, he and his parents had picked their way up the northern stairway. They’d stopped on the landing beneath the uppermost flight, eighty vertical feet below the darkened archway, when the first wave of survivors gushed from its yawning mouth.
The wave had since slowed to a trickle. Above and around him, delirious fathers and mothers embraced their children, rubbing their cropped scalps and kissing their tear-stained cheeks. Other childless parents searched the throng, crumbling mouths registering their worst fears.
Two steps below, Lucien and Cordelia scanned. Cordelia clutched Lucien’s tunic. Her white-knuckled fingers crumpled its gleamglass fabric. “Where is he? Where’s my Mako?”
A skirmish line of Jireni formed outside the archway. They donned helmets and lowered their faceplates. An unheard order brought their dart guns to the ready position across their chest plates, muzzles raised at a forty-five-degree angle.
Crystalline shards needled Daoren’s gut. Mako should have come out by now.
He turned to his parents. “He may have come out another archway,” he said, neutralizing his expression and filtering his words to remove any sign of worry. “You know what he’s like when he’s under stress.”
Cordelia grabbed onto the suggestion as tightly as Lucien’s tunic. “Yes! We should check the other exits. Check all of them until we—”
Lucien’s moan cut her off. He pointed up the stairway, hand trembling. “Look to Laoshi.”
Daoren tracked his father’s trembling hand up to the archway where Laoshi lingered behind the line of Jireni.
The old Librarian’s gaze locked onto Daoren. His eyes communicated a solitary, unmistakable emotion.
Remorse.
Crystalline shards shredded Daoren’s gut. No . . . no . . . no. . . .
“No . . . no . . . no . . .” Cordelia whispered behind him, mirroring his thoughts. “This can’t be. This can’t be!”
Enraged shouts punched down the stairway. At the top of the upper flight, ranks of grief-torn parents surged toward the skirmish line. The Jireni aimed their dart guns at the mob.
Molten glass flushed Daoren’s veins. The muscles in his legs tensed, ready to propel him up the steps. His hands curled into fists, ready to strike. A singular impulse burned slag-hot in the most primitive part of his brain. Join them. This injustice called for—
An azure figure streaked past him.
“Cordelia!” Lucien said. “Stay here!”
Daoren blinked. Two precious seconds passed before he realized the azure figure was his mother . . . and she was rushing up the stairway to join the mob. He bolted after her.
Above, the mob advanced toward the archway, fists shaking, shouts taunting. The Jireni issued no warnings.
A fusillade of razor-sharp darts tore into a wall of unprotected flesh. Impaled denizens pitched backward and toppled down the flight. Innocent onlookers gathered below the mob collapsed and screamed, struck by stray darts.
Daoren’s sandals pounded the steps. He leaned forward, hand outstretched to snag Cordelia’s billowing tunic. His fingers brushed its fabric.
She veered to the side, skirting a cartwheeling body.
Daoren leaped to clear the tumbling form.
His foot struck a lifeless limb—he t
hudded face-down on the steps. He raised his head, dazed and winded.
Cordelia barreled at the Jireni as if intent on suicide. The Jireni trained their weapons, ready to oblige her.
Daoren planted his feet and pushed off. He mounted three steps at a time, arms and legs pumping, muscles searing.
The Jireni triggered their weapons. A volley of percussive reports rippled down the flight. A lethal grouping of darts homed in on Cordelia’s chest.
Daoren dived forward. His hands found the back of her shenyi and clamped on, dragging her onto the steps.
The darts flashed overhead. Their supersonic shockwaves crackled, caressing his cheek.
He covered Cordelia with his body, one hand raised to the line of Jireni. “I have her! Hold your fire! Hold your fire!”
The Jireni held their fire.
Daoren lowered his hand and rolled to the side, fighting for air. Lucien arrived seconds later, pale and gasping. He fell with a wrenching groan next to Cordelia. They buried their faces in each other’s tunics, wet sobs bursting from their mouths.
Daoren had to look away.
Down the blood-spattered stairway, the Unum and Julinian sauntered toward the regal fleet, rasplaughing and well clear of the carnage. They climbed into the middle levitran. Their Jireni guard clambered into the other vehicles. The fleet whisperglided away.
Daoren’s numb gaze swept over a mass of impaled denizens. Asianoids, Indonoids, Africoids, Caucasoids—the glass darts hadn’t discriminated. His parents’ wails blended with those whose kin lay dead or dying.
A harmony of hopelessness.
The stench stung his eyes. He grunted to release the pressure constricting his throat.
It didn’t work. The one certain cure was crying, but he’d long since forgotten how to invoke his tears thanks to Daqin Guojin’s ruling caste and humanity’s future.
Another grunt echoed behind him. He twisted to the archway.
Laoshi stood there still. His sullen nod acknowledged Daoren and perhaps reflected the same painful condition.
4
Sparring
DAOREN SPUN TO the left and raised the staff with both hands, careful to align his palms with its knurled grips. Fifteen minutes of air-sparring in his abode’s courtyard had generated a slick sheen of sweat. The last thing he needed was to send a twelve-pound, combat-hardened glass rod sailing through the door leading into the parlor. He took a wide-legged stance and chose his target—an imaginary head four feet away.
To whom the head belonged changed depending on his mood. On one day it might be a brutish Jiren who’d detained him for biometric scanning. On another it might be a pompous Librarian who’d long ago dismissed his ideas. Some days it was his father’s imperious head, conjured up in the aftermath of a heated argument. Other days it was the Unum’s, but not today.
Today’s imaginary head belonged to the Unum’s niece.
The staff’s beveled tip carved a semi-circle. Daoren checked the swing after it passed the point in space where Julinian’s suitably smug jawline resided. He spread his hands apart and hoisted the staff to a blocking position. Without pausing, he crouched and raked the staff outward at knee level.
He repeated the fluid pattern until shortness of breath forced him to stop. The pause gave him an opportunity to stretch; a week of inactivity had left his muscles tight.
A week had passed since Mako’s harvesting. For seven days he’d observed the customs expected of a grieving family member. For seven days he’d worn a mourning shroud, offered the requisite petitions, avoided physical activity, and fasted.
Today he returned to living on his own terms. A white pienfu once again chaffed his skin, Sha was pushed to the back of his mind, and he was back to his daily sparring routine. The one routine he hadn’t resumed was eating; a casual glance at the urns of grooll in the pantry thirty minutes ago had soured his stomach. He’d retreated to the courtyard, eager to convert exercise into appetite.
Recovered, he launched into an eight-move defensive taolu designed for multiple opponents, maximizing his use of the courtyard. Its frosted-glass walls blocked the outside world and muffled the mid-day din of Meiguo Cheng. Their height and alignment let morning sunlight flood the twenty-by-twenty enclosure, but provided welcome shade in the afternoon. It was his favorite place in Daqin Guojin; four hundred square-feet of ceramic-tiled tranquility.
Today its tranquility competed with a mosaic of disturbing echoes from a week earlier.
Mako’s sullen words.
The Indonoid prospect’s dying gargles.
The Jireni’s blood-soaked volleys.
His parents’ sobs.
Julinian’s callous rasplaughter.
Daoren stumbled, mid-pivot. The sparring staff’s whirling tip clipped a wall; its stinging vibrations focused his attention onto the most troubling echo.
Julinian’s smug look had been bothering him all week. Why would a prospect with such obvious intellectual shortcomings, moments away from sitting the S.A.T., show such an obvious lack of concern for her fate?
He lowered the staff, chest heaving. Maybe she’d concealed her concern, putting on a brave face to mask a cowering heart. While possible, the explanation rang false. Julinian was brash and prideful, but not so much that she could overcome the fear of her imminent death. It would have shown itself in other ways, divulging telltale signs.
He leaned on the staff, gaze tacked onto the tan tiles beneath his sandals. But what if she felt no fear? What if she’d known she was destined to pass despite her shortcomings, no matter the tally of her final score? If that was the case, it raised a more distressing question.
How did she know?
The sun-drenched courtyard held no answers nor tranquility. He turned to the parlor door.
Inside the parlor, Lucien and Cordelia inhabited opposite sides of a square table. Both wore mourning shrouds. The sheer fabric dulled the sheen of their shenyi. Their faces cast an equally gray pall. Crystal tongs, bowls, and cups glinted atop flexglass napkins set before the four chairs surrounding the table.
Daoren set the staff against a wall and entered the parlor. Suffocating heat struck him—the inductive panels embedded in the walls had been activated. “May I switch off the panels?”
“Your mother’s cold.”
“That’s because she hasn’t eaten.”
“She can’t eat.”
Daoren wasn’t surprised. The sparring routine hadn’t sparked his appetite; Mako’s harvesting was still too fresh. “It’s been seven days. Are you going to remove your shrouds?”
“Soon,” Lucien said.
Cordelia fingered her shroud. Her statuesque face showed signs of severe erosion.
Daoren couldn’t deny that his mother’s physical and emotional qualities resembled a living statue. The physical quality had figured into Lucien’s decision to ask for her hand in union, twenty-three years ago. It wasn’t for your dowry, was his standard response whenever she asked why he’d chosen her. Lucien usually chucklebucked when he said it. Cordelia, more often than not, rolled her eyes.
At the moment, her sunken eyes reflected boundless pain, but—as Daoren knew too well—her personality muted her ability to share it.
“We’ve been talking,” Lucien said after an uncomfortably warm silence.
“About what?”
“About you returning to the Librarium.”
“Why would I do that?”
“To complete your tutelage before your S.A.T.”
Daoren snorted. “I don’t need the help of the Libraria to pass.”
“You can’t take that chance!” Cordelia said, flaring to life. “I won’t lose another son to that damnable test!”
“I’m not going to fail, Cordelia. You’ve seen my prep-tests results. They—”
“Mako’s prep-tests were stellar,” Lucien said. “There’s more to passing the S.A.T. than technological knowledge.”
Sweat tracked down Daoren’s forehead, rimming his eyebrows. He wiped it away wi
th his sleeve. “I have all the tools I need. There’s nothing the Libraria can teach me.”
“They can impart techniques that maximize the chances of success,” Lucien said. “Techniques to handle stress, manage time, and more.”
“What use were they to Mako?” Daoren asked.
The question bounced off the parlor’s tiled walls. It grew hotter with each reflection.
Cordelia smothered a sob. Lucien flexed his hands as though grappling with the reality in which they now lived. “You’re going back to the Librarium,” he said, hurling the pronouncement across the table like an inflexible edict. “That’s the end of it!”
For seven days Daoren had bottled his rage over Mako’s death. His father’s dictatorial stance and the parlor’s oppressive temperature combined to uncap it. “Why didn’t you tell Mako before the test?”
“Tell him what?”
“That the Cognos Populi had raised the passing score! Maybe it upset him enough to ruin his focus! Maybe you’re to blame for his failure!”
The violet stud quivered beneath Lucien’s lower lip. “You think I would have kept it from him if I’d known?”
The tortured response appeared to be aimed more at Cordelia. She must have been asking him the same question since learning of the raised score from Laoshi. “How could you not know?” Daoren asked.
Lucien’s mouth twisted. “The Assembly didn’t raise the score.”
“What?”
“The Unum raised it . . . on his own.”
“He can do that?”
“He’s the Unum.”
Daoren sank into his chair with a jarring oomph. The jolt to his mind was just as forceful.
Even the dimmest prospects knew the Unum was the most powerful man in Daqin Guojin, but none would suspect he had the power to raise the S.A.T.’s passing score without consulting the Assembly. What else could he do without their knowledge?
“And Julinian?” Daoren asked.
“What of her?”
“She receives a passing score?”
“She’s the Unum’s niece.”
“So?”
Lucien averted his gaze. “So she’s subject to a different set of rules.”
Survival Aptitude Test: Sound (The Extinction Odyssey Book 1) Page 4