Secondborn

by Bartol, Amy A.

  We set off. She locates internal heartwoods used solely by the Stars, Atoms, and a few Swords who maintain the Tree Base’s infrastructure. I head toward the one that leads up, but she grabs my arm. “We can’t go up,” she says. “Most of the Census agents are up, replacing monikers. We go down.”

  One level down, we come to a laundry. Even at this hour of the night, Stone workers are busy washing bedding and uniforms. We bypass them by sneaking behind the large industrial machines. The tumble and hum drown out our sound. Coming to a separate aisle, we’re hidden behind large racks of black leather coats.

  “Here.” Flannigan takes a long black coat from the rack and holds it up to me. She hands it to me, along with the white uniform shirt and black trousers of a Census agent.

  “What is this for?” I ask, as she chooses a tailored coat for her small frame.

  “Don’t you want to get your fusionblade back?” she asks, slipping on the white Census shirt. She stares at me, a challenge.

  “How do you know about my fusionblade?”

  “I make it a priority to know all there is to know about the soldiers I serve.”

  “No,” I murmur, shaking my head. “Something’s wrong. You know entirely too much about me. Did you know I was going to be put into detention?”

  “It was over three hours from the time you brandished to the time they picked you up. In that time, Census made a move on you. You can connect the dots.”

  “You had me picked up?”

  “Of course I did. No one reported you—it’s the Sword secondborn code never to rat on each other or you’re labeled a turner, and turners die badly. I had to do something or Agent Crow was going to kill you.” She slips into the black trousers.

  “Who are you?” I ask, not moving.

  “I’m a friend. Now do you want to get your sword back or not? This is the only chance you’ll get. The Census agents are busy changing out the Tritium 101 monikers, which means there are only a few left behind to guard the lair.” She completes her ensemble with a black-leather flat cap that hides her hair and shadows her face. It’s not the uniform of a Census agent, but it may go unnoticed.

  “How would we ever find it? There’s a network of tunnels below this entire Base.”

  “I have the schematics,” she replies. She locates a bag stashed among the coats, and reaching in, she extracts a wrist communicator. “I can’t turn on the communicator until we’re underground or it will be noticed.” She puts on the powered-down wristband.

  “This is insane.”

  “No more insane than them taking away everything you cherish in one day. In light of that, I think this is a very sane decision.”

  She walks toward the heartwoods, taking the bag with her, slinging the strap of it over her shoulder. I follow, and we descend together toward ground level. Flannigan tries hard to hold back a smile. “I’m glad you could make it,” she says. I stuff my hair up into the flat cap and pull the short leather bill down low to shadow my face.

  When we reach the ground floor, we cross out of the utility corridors and exit into a warehouse area. Crossing it is simple. We just move as if we own the place. Stingers patrol the perimeter, but they’re blind to us.

  We approach Census’s steel bunker doors. Two more stingers, like enormous hovering wasps, vibrate in the air on either side of them. Icy fear prickles my spine. I swallow down bile. We stop by the door’s scanner. The hum of the automated sentinels grows louder. Every impulse tells me to turn and run. Instead, I stand absolutely still between a stinger and the privateer.

  Flannigan eases a small box from the bag. It contains a row of moniker chips individually encased in lead sleeves. She chooses one and slips it from its cover before returning the lead sleeve and box to the bag. The moniker’s hologram shines with aqua light, resembling a cresting wave of water in Flannigan’s palm.

  It’s a firstborn’s Sea-Fated moniker.

  I have a moment of sheer panic, thinking the stingers will turn on us when they read the pings from the roiling moniker on her palm. Neither one moves. The identity must have authorization to be in this area. The scanner illuminates when Flannigan flashes the shiny, tumbling wave beneath it.

  The bunker doors roll open.

  Flannigan steps inside the bunker. I follow behind. The doors slide closed. Two armed soldiers stand across a narrow hallway ahead of us, guarding elevators. The men are protected by armor, but their visors are open. A crooked smile forms on the smaller soldier’s face as we move toward him. His flirty voice is directed at Flannigan in front of me. “And who might you b—”

  In a blink, Flannigan pulls a Census tranquilizer gun from the bag. Aiming it at the one speaking, she shoots him in the cheek. Surprised, the soldier is slow to react. He doesn’t raise his weapon. Instead, his hand lifts to the silver dart embedded in his flesh. Flannigan pivots. The second guard reaches for a rifle propped against the wall. The dart from Flannigan’s gun strikes this soldier below his temple. Neither Sword drops right away, but both of them stagger, stunned. Flannigan fires two more darts, striking each man just above his jaw. Eyes roll upward. The smaller one falls first, followed close behind by his partner.

  “Help me,” Flannigan whispers, thrusting the tranquilizer gun back into the bag. I grab one of the guard’s feet while she gets his arms. We struggle to pull him into a dark room, out of sight. The next one is harder to move, but we manage it.

  Flannigan hurries to the elevators. I follow her. Using the stolen identity, she calls a lift. The doors of one slide open. We step inside.

  “Is that a copycat moniker?” I ask as the elevator begins to descend.

  “Yes, the firstborn profile belongs to a Census agent stationed in the Twilight Forest Base, but he has access to Census in this Base as well.” She slips the copycat into the slot in the side of her glove on top of the lead that covers the moniker implanted in her skin. The Census agent’s crashing wave shines dimly through the glove. “I keep a few of these handy for the doors that are hardest to open. It won’t matter in a few days. They’ll all be useless.” Switching on the wrist communicator, she pulls up the schematics for Census’s underground lair. “The key to getting around is to project confidence. Try not to look anyone in the eyes, but don’t avoid them either.”

  “How am I supposed to do that?”

  “Privileged boredom works with the aristocracy, especially in Virtues. Census agents are different. You have to behave like a predator. You fear nothing. You’re the hunter. Hunt.”

  Flannigan stops the elevator at a floor near the lowest point in the Base. When the doors open, cold air wafts over us. The black leather coats make sense now.

  What the privateer said earlier is true. Unlike the last time I was here, there are very few Census agents guarding the corridors. The ones that should be stationed by the elevator on this level are absent from the post. We just pass by the checkpoint unchallenged. The few agents we encounter in the corridors move with purpose, barely giving us a look. Their arrogant conviction that they can never be infiltrated is almost funny. If I weren’t so terrified, I’d laugh.

  We hurry through a mile of corridors, following the wrist communicator. “We’re beneath Aspen Lake,” Flannigan informs me. She stops abruptly at a couple of nondescript metal doors. “They’re in here.”

  She removes another cloned moniker from her case and opens the doors. I recognize the holographic image of Grisholm Wenn-Bowie displayed upon the access panel of the scanner. “How do you have Grisholm’s cloned moniker?”

  “He was easy to get to. He enjoys the touch of lovely women.”

  We enter. Flannigan closes the doors behind us and sets her bag down on the granite table in the center of the room. Shiny steel mesh covers the doors of the elegant cabinets lining the walls. Priceless items—jewels, art, prototype weapons—sparkle behind the mesh. On the far wall sits a vault.

  “You said we were coming here to get my fusionblade,” I mumble numbly.

  Flannigan rummages i
n her bag and takes out a small device, which she pockets. She reaches in again and extracts a fusionmag. When the bullets from the weapon hit a target, they break apart and extinguish, killing the target without exiting and doing further damage. She arms the fusionmag with a cartridge and hands me the gun. “I lied. This is much more important than a fusionblade. Cover the door.”

  She goes to the vault and uses the copycat of Grisholm’s moniker to open it. Inside are rows and rows of new moniker chips, moncalate tools used to implant the chips, and processor boxes used to program them with identities. “I needed someone to help me break into Census so that I could get new monikers. You were my best option.”

  She deftly chooses one processor box and one moncalate tool from the vault and puts them in her bag. Removing another device, she shoves it in her pocket, then steals row after row of new moniker chips from the vault until the bag is full. With a rueful sigh for the monikers still left in the safe, she sets the device from her pocket beside them.

  “This is an incendiary, Roselle. It’ll explode in five minutes and make it look as if we blew up the new monikers rather than stealing them. That way, they won’t come looking for them. Are you ready?” she asks as she arms the device.

  “How could you do this to me?” I whisper.

  “I’m not doing it to you. I’m doing it for you.” She secures the bag, moves to the door, and opens it a crack. Seeing no one in the corridor, she steps out. The moment she does, I hear shots. Blood spatters my torso, chest, and face. Flannigan falls against the door and slides to the floor.

  Instinctively, I step over her with the fusionmag raised. Four agents are approaching from down the corridor. I fire four shots, striking each agent in the head. The bullets explode, spreading bone fragments and brain matter on the walls. I pivot. The other side of the corridor is empty.

  Flannigan breathes raggedly, a shaky hand covering the hole in her abdomen. “Take these to your locker,” she says in a raspy voice. “This bag will fit in the false bottom. On the shelf, you’ll find a handheld welding tool. Seal the bottom of the locker.” Blood drools from her mouth. “Tell him it was nearly flawless. Tell him to miss me. Every day.”

  “Tell who?” I demand, my heart pumping wildly.

  She smiles. “The man who’ll ask you about me.” She reaches into her pocket and extracts the cyanide capsule, places it in her mouth, and convulses until all that looks back at me is her lifeless stare.

  In a daze, I take a few steps, but then I turn back and gather the bag she dropped. Securing the long strap over my shoulder, I reach inside her glove and find the copycat moniker for the Census agent. I slip the crashing aqua wave into the slot above the lead covering my own implanted moniker. Flannigan’s wrist communicator still works. I slip it from her and strap it to my wrist. Then I run.

  When I reach the next corridor, I slow and peek around the corner. Three agents run toward me. I step from around the corner and take one down with a fusionmag shot to the head. My next two shots find their marks before the agents can raise their drawn weapons. Running past their bodies, I turn another corner, the labyrinth of passages seemingly endless. I keep running, watching the map on my wrist so that I don’t get lost.

  Suddenly the ground shakes. The loud noise of the incendiary device careens off the tunnel walls. As it subsides, a new sound—the sound of rushing water—replaces it. The floor continues to shake. I don’t wait to see what’s coming.

  Someone behind me yells, “Stop!” I pause, glancing over my shoulder. A tall male agent stands at the junction of the corridors. He raises his gun, but before he can fire, a wall of Aspen Lake water strikes him and he’s gone, swept down the other corridor. I run again. The sound behind me is deafening. Ahead of me, the elevator looms. Only one Census agent guards it. He looks up and sees me coming. Behind me, a thundering river of water crashes and churns.

  The agent backs away and scans his moniker on the elevator’s callbox. The doors open. He backs into the car. I lift my fusionmag, pointing it at him as I run, and shoot him in the neck. The bullet explodes and sparks fly out of him. Arterial blood sprays the wall of the elevator. He holds his throat and slides to the floor.

  Leaping across the threshold of the elevator, I’m just in time as its doors roll closed behind me. Water slams against them, pushing them apart again. I’m drenched by the tidal wave as it fills the car. Coughing and panting, I tilt my face toward the ceiling, trying to tread water, but before the wave can drown me, the car lifts up and out of its path. The lake water rapidly drains through the open doors and falls down the shaft. The doors slide closed, finally.

  I clutch the railing, gasping out choking sobs. My trembling knees threaten to fold beneath me. The dead stare of the Census guard on the floor is more than I can take. Before I know what’s happening, though, the elevator stops. The doors open. I force back tears and turn, raising my fusionmag and pointing it at an empty hallway ahead of me. Nothing moves.

  Is this the same bunker?

  I pause, listening. My foot slides forward and I take a tentative step from the lift. Water in my boots makes squishing noises. I sweep the fusionmag, its aim following the path my eyes take as I scan the area. The sound of heavy breathing to my left rattles my nerves. I swing my weapon in that direction. The door to the dark room beside the elevator is ajar. I creep to it, peeking inside. The two unconscious soldiers stunned by Flannigan are still sprawled out on the floor. I back away quietly.

  Shoving the fusionmag into my jacket pocket, I strip off the wrist communicator and toss it back into the elevator. The car descends into a watery grave. The fake moniker frees me from the bunker’s prison. I stand between the open doors and covertly stow the copycat back into its lead sleeve and drop it in the bag.

  The buzz from the stingers makes my heart thrum wildly in my chest, but my own moniker remains covered in the leaded glove, undetectable. Crossing the warehouse floor, I leave a trail of dripping water in my wake. I take a heartwood up to the laundry. The welcome hum of washing machines drowns out my footsteps.

  My trembling hands strip off the wet uniform. Slipping on Flannigan’s orange jumpsuit, I find that we’re virtually the same size. I keep the flat cap, pulling it down once more over my hair to shadow my face. Retrieving the fusionmag from the Census coat, I shove it in the bag.

  The heartwood line looms ahead. I stumble from the laundry and jump on one. About midway to my floor, a blaring siren rings, accompanied by a robotic, feminine voice: “All personnel, please report to your air-barracks and to your capsules until further notice. We are on lockdown. Please report to your capsules immediately.”

  By the time the heartwood reaches my floor, I’m a trembling mess. I take the corridor used by Stone-Fated workers. The orange-uniformed personnel don’t give me a second glance. Posted signs lead me to my air-barracks. Soldiers guard the door to Tritium 101.

  A worker ahead of me tries to scan his moniker, but a soldier stops him. “You’re getting new monikers in your designated areas. Report to your capsules, and you’ll be summoned throughout the evening.” I pull my gloved hand inside my sleeve so only my fingers show. When I reach the soldier, he waves me through.

  Before I reach the underdeck capsules, I branch off and take the staircase up to Section Black, open the door at the top of the stairs, and find myself in the back corner of the locker room. An eerie silence greets me. No one is about. They’ve all returned to their capsules. My wet boots echo on the tile floor.

  Finding my locker, I’m about to strip off my leaded glove when I stop. The clock on the wall indicates that it’s half past two. I can’t open my locker yet. I can’t take the risk of my moniker showing up here while I’m supposed to be in detention. My scheduled release is five thirty. I have to wait.

  Seeking a hiding place, I go to one of the individual toilet rooms and close the door. The moment I enter it, I begin to retch. Leaning over the steel commode, I vomit until there’s nothing left in me. When I’m finally able, I rise and
lock the door. Then, I sit and wait.

  Jolting awake, I look around. Bathroom. Bag. Orange uniform. Panic. I jump to my feet. My head spins and I see spots. With my forearms against the wall, I wait until the world rights itself, then I open the door. No one is in the locker room. I listen, but the thundering of my heartbeat is all I hear. Gathering the courage to leave the bathroom, I step out with the bag. The clock on the wall reads five twenty. Close enough! I strip off the leaded glove and shove it in the bag.

  I hurry to my locker and scan my moniker. The door pops open. Dropping to my knees, I pull apart the false bottom and cram the bag inside it, on top of the outfit that I wore to the news conference. I strip off Flannigan’s orange uniform and the flat cap and thrust them into the hollowed-out bottom. Covering the hole with the piece of metal, I rise to my feet. I tug on my beige pajamas, warm against my cold skin.

  Rising up on my tiptoes, I reach and search the top shelf, knocking things over in my haste to find the welding tool that I’m too short to see. It’s there in the back. I drop to my knees again. A golden flame ignites when I pull its trigger. I put it to the floor of my locker and weld the seams. The melting metal blows curls of smoke up. I try not to look directly at it, but I’m partly blind when I finish.

  Easing my locker door closed with a soft click, I hurry back to the toilet closet, shutting the door and locking it. With trembling hands, I begin to take the welding tool apart. Footsteps sound outside the bathroom door. The first part of the tool unhinges. I drop it in the steel bowl. My fingers work furiously on the next part.

  Someone beats on the door. “Come out of there!” a deep voice shouts.

  I take a deep breath. “Just a minute!” My voice is raw and raspy.

  “You’re not supposed to be out of your capsule!” The door rattles on its hinges. Gut-wrenching fear squeezes my heart. A fist hammers again. Another piece of the welding tool slides free. I drop it in the toilet. Sweat slips down my face.