The Hunt

by Megan Shepherd

  “Guards?” Lucky started. “But why . . . ?”

  And then his face went white.

  Cora gulped down last of the ice-cold water she’d scooped from the trough, feeling it freeze her insides. The last time guards had come, they’d dragged away Chicago.

  Oh no. Not yet. Not Lucky . . .

  “They can’t take him!” she said. “They don’t have any proof of his birth date. You know how time works differently—he must still have a few days.”

  Her voice came out desperate, but Dane still wore that thin smile.

  “Cora, it’s okay.” Lucky sounded full of resignation. “You and Mali, you’ll watch out for each other.” He faced Dane squarely, and Cora felt like time wasn’t quite moving right. No, this was all wrong. “I’m ready,” Lucky said.

  Dane’s hooded eyes flickered between them, his face very serious, and then suddenly he doubled over, fingers digging into his thighs, laughing so hard tears formed at the corners of his eyes. He straightened and clamped a hand on Lucky’s shoulder, squeezing a little hard.

  “Oh, that was priceless. That was wonderful. Thank you.”

  Cora glared at him. “It was a joke?”

  Dane snickered a few more times, fingers kneading Lucky’s shoulder. “That close to nineteen, are you? Well, it seems it isn’t your birthday quite yet.” His smile changed into something far more self-satisfied as he turned to Cora. “They haven’t come for Lucky. They’ve come for you.”

  He dragged her toward the door before she barely realized what was going on. Lucky yelled out, but it was too late. Dane had already kicked open the backstage door and there they were: five Kindred guards dressed in black uniforms.

  “This is the one,” Dane said, with relish.

  “Good,” said a deep voice. “Escort her to the Castle.” Cora twisted her head around toward the Kindred who had spoken, a man dressed in a dark-blue uniform with twin-knot rows down the front, arms folded behind his back, face pinched with that wrinkle cutting down the front of his forehead.

  Fian.

  Her heart pounded, daring to hope, remember his words the last time she’d seen him. We are on your side. Remember that. Maybe this wasn’t as bad as it seemed. But then she caught sight of another Council member beside him, a stout man a generation older whose uniform bore more knots than she’d ever seen. Twenty, she counted. He had to be the highest-ranking member of the whole Council.

  “What’s going on?” she asked. “I haven’t done anything.”

  “That is for the Council to decide,” Fian said. He turned toward the high-ranking Council member, saying a few deferential words in their language. The Council member never took his eyes off Cora, but he nodded slowly.

  The guards led her toward the door, where Tessela stood at attention. Cora twisted her head back to look at the Council member with twenty knots, who was watching her steadily. There was no emotion on his face, but a sense of danger rolled off him nevertheless.

  Had one of the Council’s spies seen something? Had they overheard something she and Cassian had said in the alcove? That voiceless whisper in her head . . . what if it was a Kindred?

  They led her into the rough-hewn foyer. The hosts and hostesses of the different menageries, dressed in their ridiculous costumes, all turned to watch. But the guards led her straight past a vacant podium and into a menagerie that was dark and smelled like dust. Only faint light came from the wall seams, illuminating outlines of furniture.

  “Leave us,” Fian ordered the guards. “I will question her here. Tell Arrowal he will get a full report shortly.”

  Arrowal. That must be the high-ranking Council member.

  The room filled with the sounds of boots as the guards left. Dust choked the air; there were no sounds of kids, no music or guests. Cora pressed a hand to her throat. Even after Fian’s reassurances, she still had nightmares about being choked.

  “What’s going on?” she asked, once they were alone. “You said I could trust you.”

  A dim light flickered on.

  “And you can,” he replied.

  She spun—they weren’t alone. Cassian stood in the shadows, and relief made her heart thump harder, though something seemed different about him. Maybe the uniform. Maybe the black eyes.

  Black, she realized. He’s cloaked.

  She quickly pinched her arm as Mali had taught her to do, letting the sting of pain shield her mind so that he couldn’t read her thoughts. One slip and he would know that she planned on cheating the Gauntlet.

  “I apologize for having to scare you,” he observed.

  Slowly, it sank in that Cassian was behind this arrest, not the Council. As her fear waned, she looked around the menagerie. The furniture was heavy and wooden. A throne. Cells made of stone and wooden beams, as in a medieval castle.

  “What is this place?”

  “An abandoned menagerie. The Council sometimes uses it for private interrogations, as its observation panels have been turned off. Fortunately, the Council specifically requested you be interrogated without anyone’s knowledge. They do not know I am speaking with you right now.”

  “Interrogated for what?”

  “A few days ago, I formally initiated the application process to sponsor a human participant in the Gauntlet. It caused a stir, as I had anticipated.” He paced the length of the room. “There are six other candidates who have submitted applications. Two Scoates. Three Conmarines. One Temporal.”

  He glanced toward the doorway, as though he feared being overheard. “The Council made it known they would prefer no human participants this time, but they cannot legally prevent it. They demanded to know the name of the human competitor I was sponsoring. I refused to tell them. Now they are systematically interrogating some of the more problematic humans. Arrowal is leading the effort. He is the Kindred’s chief delegate, which means he will also be the Kindred’s Chief Assessor for the Gauntlet. Fortunately, Fian is his second in command.”

  He nodded to Fian, who turned to Cora. “Arrowal wishes to locate this individual before the testing begins, when it will be too late to stop that person’s participation. Your name, among others, was mentioned as that of a potential agitator.”

  “Why?” Cora asked. “I’ve done everything they’ve asked. I’ve sung on cue and haven’t broken any rules.”

  Cassian exchanged a long look with Fian. “They found out the truth about your previous enclosure. That it failed because of your escape attempt.”

  “How?” she breathed. “I thought you hid that information.”

  “Somehow, someone found out.”

  Cora swallowed. “One of their spies.”

  Cassian nodded slowly. “I warned you the Council could have watchers stationed anywhere. It seems my fears were correct. They have narrowed down the list of potential agitators to six, which means they will be watching you even more closely. Mali is on the list as well, and Anya, and Rolf—”

  Cora jumped on the name. “Rolf?” Among all of them in the cage, he had been the least troublesome to the Kindred. “Why, what has he done?”

  Cassian folded his hands. “Your concern right now is not to give the Council any further cause to distrust you. Dane submits regular reports about all of your behavior to the hostess. Tessela can filter them, but only so much. Now that you and Mali are on the list, they will be watching the Hunt even more carefully.”

  Cora was silent. She pinched herself harder.

  Cassian frowned. “You are in pain.”

  She folded her arms to hide how she was pinching herself. “Just a headache.”

  “Headaches can be serious, when you’re dealing with perceptive abilities.”

  She swallowed harder, thinking of how blood had flowed from her nose when she’d broken out of her cell. “Is that what happened to Anya? Her mind ruptured?”

  “We did not realize we were doing any damage. We thought the nosebleeds and the headaches were minor side effects, not lasting—that is why we have been so careful not to push y
ou during trainings. With Anya, it got much worse. She started to hear voices.”

  “Voices?” Maybe that voiceless whisper last night really was in her head—the first symptom of a brain rupture.

  “Fian will return you to the Hunt,” Cassian said. “Be cautious; do not give Arrowal a reason to suspect you any further.”

  He turned to go.

  “Wait,” she blurted out. “I need to ask you about something. Lucky found a code one of the other boys left behind. POD30.1.”

  A ripple of confusion passed over Cassian’s face. He glanced back at Fian. “That is impossible.”

  “It means there’s just a thirty point one percent chance Earth is gone, doesn’t it? Not ninety-eight point six?”

  “The information must be incorrect,” he said, but there was a waver in his voice.

  “Did you actually see the algorithm readout that said ninety-eight point six percent? If the Council is so dead set on us never gaining freedom, couldn’t someone have tampered with it to make it seem like Earth was gone?”

  Again, he looked hesitant.

  “Look into it,” she said. “Please.”

  He gave a slight nod, then said a few words to Fian in their language. “Fian will return you now. But, Cora, one last thing. I’ve read some of Dane’s reports myself. He says you and Lucky are still very close.” No emotion crossed his face, and yet slowly, his right hand curled. “I cannot tell you what to do, but I would suggest keeping your distance. As I have been told, romantic liaisons are a bad idea between those working together.”

  She cleared her throat. She’d been the one to tell him that.

  “I understand the appeal of a bond with someone in your same situation,” he continued. “But you must not lose focus. Our mission is more important than everything else. It needs to be me you trust. Me you confide in.”

  His hand was a fist again, by his side.

  Cora’s throat felt dry. He didn’t even know about the kiss.

  “Of course. There’s nothing between Lucky and me, just friendship.”

  He nodded and left, but his fist never released.

  18

  Rolf

  “SUPPER’S READY, DARLING.”

  Nok’s voice came from the kitchen. Rolf folded his newspaper—it was from 1969 and announced the moon landing—and smoothed his hand over his tie. He smiled and took a seat at the dining room table, pulling out the chair for Nok as she carried in a tray of meat loaf. She was wearing a frilly 1950s apron with a daisy pattern, and he knew she’d rather die than put on something so hideous.

  But now she smiled, set the meat loaf on the table, and sat across from him. They began to eat. “I made sure to use plenty of fresh herbs,” Nok said. “Fresh vegetables are good for the baby’s development. After dinner, we should practice mashing up apples into applesauce. That’s the most easily digestible food for toddlers.”

  Rolf forced a smile. “Of course.”

  The newspaper, the tie, Nok’s apron. Serassi had presented each object to them formally, explaining that they were real artifacts from Earth. I want this to be as real as possible, she had said, adding, as an afterthought, for my research. She seemed to have some idea that this was how human couples acted. Rolf thought she clearly hadn’t watched enough episodes of Keeping Up with the Kardashians.

  “More, darling?” Nok smiled as she served him an extra helping, but her hand was shaking.

  Not far away, Serassi watched their every move.

  No matter how many days passed, Rolf hadn’t gotten used to the fact that an entire wall of their house was missing. In the mornings, there was usually a crowd of Kindred sitting in the spectator area, all of them cloaked and stiff. He could hear the sounds of their fingers inputting data into the computers slung around their hips as he and Nok playacted watering the house plants, reading to each other from the newspaper, putting together the crib.

  He took another bite of the bland-tasting replicated meat loaf. “Mmm,” he said, loud enough for Serassi to overhear. “You really outdid yourself. You’re going to be a great mother.”

  Today, Serassi was the only one in the seating area. She was often there even after the other scientists had left. Sometimes Rolf and Nok would go to sleep, curled together in the bed, and she’d still be there when they woke. It was seriously starting to creep him out.

  Nok stood to do the dishes. “Did you know that babies need to be swaddled for the first four weeks?” she said over her shoulder. “We can use any old piece of fabric. A towel, or even an old shirt—”

  “Stop,” Serassi commanded suddenly from the seating area. “Stop this.”

  There was an edge to her voice that hadn’t been there before. She stood, winding with quick steps through the empty seating into the house. She pointed to the baby care book sitting on the kitchen counter. “You are merely reciting facts from the books that we have provided to you. The information on fresh produce and applesauce is on page eighty-one in the ‘Nutrition’ chapter. The information on swaddling techniques is on page two hundred forty. We are already more than familiar with prenatal care that has been documented in books; this scenario is meant to teach us practices we have not found in books. Informal practices.” She picked up the book and dropped it into the trash can. “But you are not teaching us anything that we do not already know.”

  Rolf exchanged a worried look with Nok. In his heart, he felt that same familiar twist as when he had disappointed one of his teachers. Back in Oslo, he had studied all night, every night, to make top marks. It was the only time his parents paid attention to him, rather than to his brother, who was Rolf’s total opposite: a prize-winning track star.

  But not anymore, he reminded himself. He might never be a track star, but he had learned coordination and balance and felt the strength in his arms that meant his life wasn’t just about high marks. As Serassi leaned over them, he realized he didn’t feel the desire to please anyone anymore. In fact, he felt the desire to shove his fist in her face.

  “It will be different when the baby comes,” he said, trying to keep the anger out of his voice. “We don’t know much now because neither one of us has had a baby before. But we’ve both worked with children. If you let us give birth to Sparrow naturally and raise her ourselves, we will show you something new.”

  Nok looked at him in that loving way that always made his heart flutter a little.

  “No. I do not think so.” Serassi’s words made his hope come crashing down again. “This scenario is not justifying its expense. I cannot continue without immediate measurable results. The fetus is nearly viable; once it is, we will transfer it to one of our grow centers. Your participation in this child’s life will no longer be required.”

  Rolf couldn’t quite process what he had heard. No longer required? Take the child? It wasn’t until he saw the look of horror on Nok’s face that it sank in.

  “Wait!” Nok yelled. “Oh my goodness, I misunderstood!” She forced a sudden smile that was so incredibly out of place Rolf could only stare. “I feel so stupid! All this time I thought you meant you wanted us to adhere to the books.” She smacked herself on the forehead. “It was just a misunderstanding! We can certainly do what you want! Can’t we, Rolf?”

  She seemed to be struggling not to turn her smile into a grimace.

  “Yes,” he answered quickly, though the lie had him flustered. “Yes, of course.”

  “There are so many swaddling techniques that aren’t in the books,” Nok continued. “In Thailand we do this special thing with, um, pillowcases. Cut a hole in the top for the baby’s head and bind it up tight. Babies love it. Fall asleep right away. I’m sure it’s not in the books—it’s something my mother taught me, and her mother taught her before that. Really informal stuff, yeah?”

  Rolf didn’t dare move a muscle. He certainly knew Thais didn’t swaddle their children in pillowcases, but that didn’t matter. What mattered was if Serassi believed it.

  But Serassi only watched them, her face a m
ask.

  “Right, Rolf?” Nok prodded. “They do something special in Norway too, right?”

  But he only blinked. That old nervous twitch threatened to come out, and he had to press his hands against the table to keep his fingers still. “Ah . . .” But he wasn’t nearly as good a liar as Nok.

  “Oh yeah,” she covered for him. “I remember you telling me about it once. Mothers use their wedding dresses in Norway to wrap their babies. It’s a good-luck thing.”

  Serassi cocked her head slowly. “Good luck?”

  “You know,” Nok said in a rush. “Superstition.”

  Serassi slowly lowered her hands and typed something into the input pad around her hips. Rolf waited, barely daring to breathe, until she had finished typing.

  “Superstition,” Serassi said at last. “Good.”

  Rolf let out a tight breath.

  “Perhaps you have something to teach us after all,” Serassi said. “At least for the time being.” She turned to leave. It wasn’t until long after she had disappeared into the shadows that Rolf and Nok dared to sink together onto the living room couch.

  Nok immediately burst into tears.

  “It’s okay,” Rolf said, holding her close. “She isn’t taking Sparrow away. You convinced her. You were brilliant, Nok. Truly brilliant.”

  “I didn’t know what else to do!” she sobbed, brushing away sloppy tears. “I’m so sorry.”

  He blinked at her in confusion. “What do you have to be sorry for?”

  “Lying,” she spat out. “I made a promise to myself when they took us from the cage. I became such a terrible person there, Rolf. The things I did with Leon, that I almost did with Lucky too. I was awful to you, yeah? And the moment I realized how crazy I’d gone, I promised myself no more lies.”

  “This is different,” he whispered. “No lies between you and me, yes. Between us and the Kindred”—he smiled—“tell as many as you want.”

  A grin broke through her tears.

  That night, for once, they had the freedom of no eyes watching them, but Rolf couldn’t shake the feeling that at any moment Serassi might change her mind. While Nok spent the evening fabricating baby-raising techniques and writing them down in a journal for them both to study, he worked on the time conversion. He’d come close to solving the equation a few days ago. There was only one outstanding integer. Maybe it was a fraction he needed.