The Sowing (The Torch Keeper)

  She paces the floor, taking us all in. “I regret that we had to cut your family time short this month, but I’m sure you’re all wondering why a detail has been sent from the Parish to such a remote station as this.” Her eyes impale each of us in turn, like darts. She pauses, in between Leander and Dahlia. “Some of you have shown a certain degree of proficiency in your posts and have proven that you actually might have what it takes to serve among your fellow officers.” She cuffs Dahlia’s cheek with an audible slap and beams at her.

  “Thank you, Sir.” Dahlia nods, her face turning a slight shade of red.

  “Unfortunately,” Slade continues, “it appears that late last night there was a terrorist attack on the Pleasure Emporiums.” She sighs. “As you know, the Emporiums play a vital role in curbing the baser instincts inherent in human nature, providing

  a safe and secure outlet for our citizens to embrace their natural tendencies without interference from the rabble who possess no self-control.”

  All I can see are the faces of the kids in those tanks at Harmony House. But I just nod and take deep breaths until my muscles relax.

  Renquist lumbers over and hands Slade a small packet before returning to his post by the door.

  She holds up the packet. “This was found in the wreckage of Harmony House.”

  Tearing open the packet, she pours something into her open palm. Her fist uncurls, revealing a charred silver disc—one of the concussion charges that didn’t detonate during my attack on the Emporiums.

  She waves the disc for all to see. “Forensics will be reconstructing this specimen, and then checking the markings and serial numbers against our arsenal inventory.” Her face radiates pure hatred. “It’s only a matter of time before it leads us to the terrorists.”

  I never break eye contact.

  Slade stops directly in front of me and her eyes narrow. “This isn’t the first of such terrorist attacks. Several weeks ago, someone set a fire at one of the plants supplying power to the Fringelands’ generators, and a month before that, a precinct office was fire-bombed. In each instance, a lit torch in the shape of a T was set ablaze at the scene of the crime.”

  I suppress a satisfied smile. Looks like they’ve been taking note of my messages.

  Good.

  My eyes hold against Slade’s. “How tragic … Sir.”

  She glares at me. “Yes. Quite tragic, Spark.”

  Dahlia clears her throat. “Permission to speak freely, Sir?”

  “Permission granted, Private.”

  “What can our unit do to help apprehend these criminals?”

  Slade smirks. “Spoken like a true leader, Private.”

  “Yes, Sir!” Dahlia puffs out her chest.

  “It seems last night’s terrorist act was part of a coordinated effort,” Slade announces. “At the same time the Emporiums were being hit, a team of insurrectionists overran a medical research facility in Asclepius Valley, murdered the officers on duty, and commandeered the station in their first open action of sedition. Even as we speak, there’s a small group of Imposers who were delivering supplies who are now trapped and engaged in a firefight with the traitors. But communications have been lost.”

  Asclepius Valley? Why would the rebels hit a community of peaceful researchers and their families sequestered on the borders of the Parish … unless they were looking for something?

  “This base is the closest to the station,” Slade continues. “Unfortunately, the bulk of your personnel have been deployed to investigate and deal with an emerging threat on Infiernos.”

  Slade can vague it up as much as she wants. “Emerging threat” is code for the Fleshers. Whatever those things were that I encountered while training for the Trials, they’re still out there. And growing stronger.

  “With time being of the essence, that leaves only Flame Squad to conduct the raid on Asclepius Valley, with a handful of fighter pilots to provide air support.” Slade turns her head. “Styles! Renquist! I want these grunts prepped and boarded for the war zone, stat.”

  Around me, there are hushed murmurs, glances cast around the room. This is it. After all our training and Sims, we’re going into real combat.

  Slade’s eyes sweep the room. “I assure you, the Trials were nothing compared to what you are about to face.” She turns her back on us. “Get them loaded for immediate departure.”

  “You heard the Sarge,” Styles growls. “Asses in motion!”

  The next thing I know, we’re hustling to gather our gear and scrambling up the ramp that leads into the belly of the Vulture craft.

  As much as I’ve been longing to escape this hole and get hands-on into the struggle between the Establishment and the freedom fighters, I never thought it would be under these conditions.

  How am I going to face off with rebels, and not murder them while also not giving myself away?

  three

  The Vulture craft swoops down into the canyon of Asclepius Valley, jostling us with its bumpy landing.

  My old nemesis Captain Valerian, her lean body already clad in a form-fitting gray envirosuit, bustles through the cockpit door. For a split second, I flash back to that time in the alley with Digory when we watched from the sewer grates as she unleashed a Canid on that poor kid. I can still hear those screams.

  Everyone snaps to attention, but Valerian barely acknowledges us, as if we’re specks of dust to be flicked away.

  She points to the overhead compartments. “Listen up, Flame Squad. Your mission is multifold. Fight your way past the traitors until you get into the research facility. Once inside, dispose of any opposition and retake the labs until reinforcements arrive. Do not touch a thing. It is vital that the insurrectionists not smuggle any of the research out of the valley.

  And finally, be careful not to trigger the facility’s failsafe. If you do, you’ll only have fifteen minutes to get your butts out of there. Now suit up, kiddies. We wouldn’t want any blemishes on that sensitive skin. No telling what bio-

  weapons those insurrectionists have been cooking up.”

  Reasonable. Except I don’t think it’s the insurrectionists who have been dabbling in bio-warfare.

  Arrah pauses and turns to Valerian. “Permission to speak, Captain?”

  Valerian glares at her. “What is it, Private?”

  “What about the civvies? Won’t they be in the line of fire?” She glances at me, then back. “How are we supposed to know the dif—”

  “Any civilians in your way are to be considered collateral damage,” Valerian snaps. “Now get moving. Keep helmet coms on channel three.” As she rumbles past me, she sighs. “One day you’ll learn.”

  The cabin’s filled with the creaks and clicks of harnesses being disengaged. For the next thirty seconds we all scramble into our envirosuits and snap on our oval helmets equipped with built-in scanner shades.

  “Thanks for backing me up, Spark,” Arrah grumbles as she zips up her suit. “I thought you understood.”

  “Ooh,” Leander chuckles. “Poor little Arrah’s afraid we might hurt somebody.”

  Rodrigo slaps him on the back. “I say bring ’em all on—civvies included.”

  Dahlia smirks and shoots me a look. “Just more target practice.”

  Ignoring them, I lock my helmet into place and stare down Arrah. “Just keep your mind on the mission. You’re not going to be helping anyone if you’re dead.”

  Grabbing my own pulsator rifle, I follow the others down the gangplank and into the carnage of Asclepius Valley, which has been transformed from a quaint borough of neatly paved streets into a scorched landscape of pathways littered with bodies.

  “Stay in formation!” Leander shouts.

  I can barely hear his voice through my helmet over the shrieks and weapon fire. We scramble down a side street toward the research facility.

  When we emerge into
the remnants of an intersection, the smoke becomes less dense. Searing sunlight bleeds through the dark plumes that smudge the morning sky, providing vivid snippets of the devastation looming all around us. Downed power cables hiss and crack, snaking across the ruined sidewalks. Dark pools have formed in craggy potholes—filled with fuel? Blood? I can’t be sure. Most of us are panting like a pack of Canids, drenched in sweat even with the temperature regulators in our suits.

  A woman shambles out of an alleyway in front of us. The once-white lab coat she’s wearing is drenched in blood. I wince as I catch sight of crimson handprint stains.

  “Thank the Deity,” she wheezes as she stumbles closer. “We need help … ”

  My mouth goes dry as she staggers toward me, her eyes bleeding and her yellowed skin ravaged by oozing pustules. I can’t help but think of what happened to Digory.

  “Stay back!” Leander shouts.

  But I’m frozen in place as the woman collapses against me, her grip surprisingly strong, her face desperate.

  “Please stop the pain … ” she croaks.

  “Don’t worry. We’re going to take you back to MedCen and—”

  Black blood bursts from her cracked lips, spraying my helmet.

  Instinctively, I swipe at my faceplate with a gloved hand as she begins to scream.

  “It hurts,” she wails. “Stop the pain. STOP THE PAIN!” She digs her fingers into her eyes, clawing, twisting them into clots of gory pulp.

  “Move away from her, Spark!” This time it’s Rodrigo who’s yelling.

  Arrah rips me free as the madwoman begins to laugh, hysterical, drawn-out blubbering. “That’s better.” She grins through blood-caked teeth. “Now it’s your turn … ” Her still-dripping fingers curl into claws and she lunges, grabbing for my suit.

  I whip my pulsator toward her, but before I can fire, a searing burst of heat soars over my shoulder and engulfs the woman, turning her into a writhing torch of human flesh.

  She doesn’t scream. Doesn’t make any sound.

  Behind me, Dahlia lets loose another blast from her flamethrower before releasing the trigger and shifting the still-smoking nozzle in my direction. “You’re welcome.”

  Rodrigo’s holomap lets out a plaintive beep. “The research center’s up ahead!”

  Leander slaps me on the back. “C’mon! Let’s roll!”

  The roar of Squawkers zooming overhead drowns out the rest of his words. We run after him, trying our best to keep formation. Explosions rip chunks from the ground and remaining buildings, spraying the air with a deadly mixture of glass shards, blinding grit, and flaming projectiles.

  Refugees scramble around us, dodging debris, clutching bloody stumps. One young woman is staggering around, a gore-soaked hand pressed to her abdomen.

  Just ahead, another explosion rips through a half-dozen fleeing people. Screams are cut short as heads burst, spewing brain matter like over-ripe melons.

  I grit my teeth. No Simulation has prepared any of us for this. At least these people died quickly.

  The front of the research lab is a smoldering crater of debris, blocking the entryway.

  “Damn it!’ Leander spits.

  “Any other ways in, Rod-Man?”

  The holomap is a blur in Rodrigo’s palm as he scans through it. “There’s a subterranean loading ramp they use to ship supplies, about a hundred and fifty yards around the corner. From there, we can splice into the freight elevator bank, bypass security, and hitch a ride into the main complex.”

  “Then I guess we better not waste any more time.” Dahlia sprints in that direction, the rest of us on her heels.

  The loading ramp dips down at a steep forty-five degree angle, into a thick wall of blackness.

  “Great,” Rodrigo mutters. “Power must’ve been knocked out by the blasts.”

  “Or cut deliberately,” Arrah says.

  Leander punches a button on his helmet. “Everyone switch to shadow-imaging tech.”

  The blackness is replaced by a sea of sickly green infrared images. A couple of freight sleds lie crashed into piles, their cases of med supplies strewn across the bay floor.

  “Dahlia,” Leander whispers. “You and me take point. Arrah and Rod-Man assume flanking positions. Spark—”

  “Yeah, I’ve got caboose duty.”

  A series of sounds squirm through my headpiece, raising all the hairs on my body. Then something eclipses the sunlight. I turn to glance behind me.

  The top of the loading ramp we just came down is jammed with festering people.

  “We’ve got company.”

  Just like the infected woman who attacked me, this horde is filled with hemorrhaging eyes, some dangling from strings of dripping tissue, some with noses torn, exposing gaping nasal cavities gushing dark ooze. One young man, his clothes a tattered mass of blood-soaked rags, grins through split lips, revealing teeth caked with who knows what.

  Then the entire pack is rampaging toward us.

  “Open fire!” Dahlia shouts.

  The first wave of diseased attackers disappears in a spray of limbs and guts as we hit them hard with volley after volley of blasts from our pulsators.

  Rodrigo and Leander make it into a game, deliberately shooting off body parts to cripple first rather than shelve, in a sick attempt at prolonging the fun. Dahlia joins them, choosing

  to fry people with her flamethrower instead of firing kill shots.

  Aiming for the heads and chest, I do my best to put these poor people out of their misery as quickly as possible, just like Arrah’s doing. No matter how many we shoot or maim, though, they just keep coming, wave after wave.

  “Fall back into the loading bay,” Leander commands.

  That’s when the infected who’ve been lurking in the darkness begin to drop from the ceiling pipes and lumber out from behind pillars. We’re trapped and outnumbered.

  “There’re too many of ’em!” Rodrigo yells.

  “Get to the freight elevator!” I cry.

  Droves of infected people swarm into the bay, forcing us to scatter. I dive behind an overturned supply crate and something brushes against me, causing my muscles to tense until I realize it’s Arrah, crouched beside me.

  Crack!

  A man crouches on the crate right above our heads, what’s left of his nasal cartilage sniffing the air. Beads of saliva drip from his open mouth onto my faceplate.

  Gripping Arrah’s gloved hand in mine, I tiptoe one hundred and eighty degrees around the crate and spot Rodrigo hugging one side of a downed freight sled to our right. On the opposite side of the sled that Rodrigo’s hidden behind, an obscene mass of groping, sniffing, clawing people is slowly making its way around to him from his blind side.

  “Rod-Man! What’re you waiting for?” I hiss into my helmet mic. “Move, damn it.”

  But he doesn’t move a muscle. No reaction at all.

  The contaminated horde is practically nipping at Rodrigo’s boots. In a few seconds, it won’t make any difference whether we warn him or not.

  “His com unit must be damaged,” I say to Arrah. “I’m going after him.”

  I lunge forward but snap back as if bound by a giant rubber band. It’s Leander’s steel arm around my waist, pulling me back into the shadows against the brick wall of his chest. “You’ll give away our position, Spark.”

  A skull peers at us from our left. No. It’s Dahlia, her eyes deep canyons, her mouth opened in a silent shout. She jabs a finger in the direction of the freight elevator and the expression on her face is clear.

  We gotta move. Now.

  I thrust my hand into the darkness and pick up the first thing I touch. I wince. It’s a severed foot. At least it’s still encased in a ragged work boot. I hurl it across the gulf. My grisly projectile grazes the side of Rodrigo’s helmet.

  A twisting shadow falls over
Rodrigo. He whirls, weapon raised. “Die, Mother F—”

  BLAM! BLAM! BLAM!

  The deadly spray of Rodrigo’s weapon fills the claustrophobic space with a deafening roar. Body parts fly as our attackers scatter in every direction.

  “Get your asses to the freight elevator!” Leander shouts as he sprints from our hiding place. I start after him, but turn when I hear a moan behind me.

  Arrah’s on her knees, clutching her left thigh. Dark streaks spill from the wound onto her hand.

  “Friendly fire,” she groans.

  Right behind her, the twisting bodies of more infected

  people approach, making those sickening sloshing, slurping, and crunching sounds that drown out everything—the weapons blasts, the pounding of the blood through my veins …

  Aiming my own pulsator, my finger tightens on the trigger repeatedly. Energy bursts find their targets and the survivors scramble.

  Arrah and I collapse into each other’s arms.

  Through the swirl of emergency beacons, I see the contaminated horde all around us in a nightmarish strobe, wriggling out of the walls and ceiling, more and more, too many to stop before we run out of ammo.

  I can’t get my brain around it. It’s all wrong. Slade said the rebels had taken over the facility, but these are obviously victims. And I’ll bet my life that this outbreak is the Establishment’s doing.

  “Rip out their livers and make them eat!” a voice bellows, prickling every hair on my body.

  I’m not sure who shouted that, but we’re not sticking around long enough to find out. I pry myself from Arrah’s grip and drag her to her feet. “We’re outta here!”

  “Spark! Arrah!” Dahlia cries from up ahead. “We haven’t got all day!”

  Slinging Arrah’s arm over my shoulder, I start running toward the freight elevator. I can hear the awful sounds of our pursuers not too far behind us, grinding through my brain, getting louder and louder.