The Culling ttk-1 Read online

  Congratulations on being inducted and honored with the opportunity to join the Imposer Task Force.

  Honored?

  The Trials will take place on the lowest level of Infiernos, in a facility known as the Skein, an intricate series of connected corridors and doorways, each leading you to one of the challenges you will face.

  My body tightens with a surge of claustrophobia.

  At the completion of each mission, the Recruit who places last will make his or her selection during the Culling. You will all then be given variable rest periods at one of the holding stations before you proceed along the accessways to the next Trial, and so on and so forth until the final mission.

  Yeah … we move on after effectively murdering one of our own …

  Once both of your Incentives have expired, you will be eliminated from consideration and immediately shipped off to the work camps in the western provinces until your services are no longer required.

  Unless you drop dead from exhaustion or disease first.

  The Trials shall continue until there is only one remaining Recruit with at least one viable Incentive. That Recruit shall earn a place in the elite Imposer training program.

  If you’re fortunate enough to have any surviving family when this is all over, you’ll live out the rest of your days in servitude to the monster.

  Any questions?

  The sounds in the elevator are a mix of clearing throats, grunts, and muttered nays.

  Another jolt and the car grinds to a halt.

  I can’t swallow.

  A slot by the doors springs open to reveal five black bands, each encompassing some kind of metal device.

  You will each take a locator and place it around your wrist before exiting and awaiting further instructions.

  One by one, we reach in without saying a word or making eye contact and pull out a locator, clamping them around our wrists like manacles.

  The doors tear open-

  And my eyes nearly leap from their sockets.

  A vast field spreads out before us, strewn with smoking debris and collapsed buildings, simulating a war zone. Countless bodies litter the horizon, sprawled out in contorted poses-just more gritty scenery in this horrific mock-up.

  It can’t be real.

  Except these bodies are twitching and writhing, filling the air with a chorus of moans that no actor or automaton could ever imitate so convincingly. The wails penetrate deep and cover every inch of my skin with goose flesh.

  Where did all these people come from?

  But I know the answer without having to be told: they’re our friends and neighbors from the Parish, the innocents dragged from their homes in the dead of night to be questioned under the flimsiest of evidence, never to be seen nor heard from again. People with families just like ours, reduced to grisly props.

  You will now take your places at the edge of the battle zone, just behind the energy barrier at the amber starting line.

  Following Slade’s instructions, I trudge toward the starting line just outside the crackling energy barrier. Filing after Gideon, Cypress, and Ophelia, I take my place beside Digory at the far end.

  Cypress sighs. “All those people … ”

  “Them?” Ophelia whimpers. “What about us? I mean they’re just lying around. Why haven’t we started yet?” She’s bouncing from one foot to the other. “I can’t take much more of this waiting! Mama and Maddie are counting on me. If I don’t come home soon, Mama’ll get all flustered with Maddie and-”

  “Shut up, Ophelia,” Digory mutters.

  Her jaw drops.

  “Digory’s right,” I say. “It’s not all about you.”

  Ophelia glares at us, then whirls on Cypress and Gideon. “You two were there last night. You saw. You heard.” Her finger stabs at Digory and me. “These two are in this together.”

  “That’s not true,” I hurl back.

  “Don’t let her get to you,” Digory says.

  Ophelia’s eyes pounce on him. “Interesting, but the fact is, you are not to be trusted. You’ll turn on anyone-use anyone-to get what you want. After all, for someone who’s married, you seem a lot more concerned with the welfare of Lucian Spark.”

  Her words sting. Last night floods my brain. She’s right. He is married.

  I move aside, leaving a wider gap between myself and Digory.

  Ophelia’s eyes dart between Gideon and Cypress like a predator’s. “Tycho and Spark have each other’s backs and will sabotage our chances while we’re forced to fend for ourselves … unless we band together and stop them. It’s our only chance. We have the majority.”

  Gideon and Cypress glance at each other. They don’t say a word, but I can already see the gears spinning in their eyes. She’s getting to them.

  The Trials have barely gotten underway and the paranoia’s already poisoning everyone’s minds.

  Attention Recruits. At the end of the countdown, the first leg of the Trials shall commence.

  On a screen on the far side of the carnage, a digital clock’s already hacking away at the precious seconds before this nightmare gets underway.

  One minute and thirty seconds … twenty-nine seconds … twenty-eight seconds …

  Your task is simple. You must proceed across the battle zone to the safety zone on the other side.

  Across the way, a yellow beacon flashes in time with my ragged breaths.

  Scattered throughout this containment area, random collaterals have been fitted with beacon bracelets that match the individual frequencies of the locator wristlets you all now wear.

  I study the locator that’s snug around my wrist. Random collaterals? What the hell does Slade mean by random col-?

  A few feet ahead of me, just past the starting line, a glint of metal on the wrist of one of the writhing bodies catches my eye. My eyes dart through the field. From what I can see, they all are wearing beacon bracelets-the wounded, the sick, the dying …

  The Establishment’s random collaterals.

  My own locator feels like it’s cutting off the circulation in my hand.

  If you come across one that’s a match, a green signal will confirm it and you must transport that beacon to the safety zone on the other side.

  In unison, our five wrists blink green.

  If you come across a beacon that’s not a match, you will receive a red signal and must continue your search.

  Our wrists flash bright red before going dark again.

  You are free to utilize any tools or equipment you find along the way to accomplish this goal, but we caution that you may encounter certain variables in your mission, such as taser mines, nerve scramblers, stun rifles, pain inducers …

  Variables. Slade’s sterile word for booby traps and who knows what else …

  The object of this Search and Retrieve Trial is to collect your one matching beacon and transport it to the safety zone. You will commence the next Trial in the order you finish this one. The last Recruit to collect his or her beacon must partake in the Culling and choose between his or her Incentives.

  Incentives. Cole-and now Digory. I glance at him. He’s as pale as stone. Even the tide in his sea-blue eyes has ebbed. His eyes meet mine and I look away. There’s no question who I’d choose first. But despite everything that’s happened between us, I can’t even think of letting it get to that point. And I have to make sure Digory doesn’t falter either, or Cole’s as good as gone. Cassius has really linked our fates with his chains.

  Good Luck, Recruits. Until we reconvene at the next launch point.

  Slade’s voice fades and the lights grow dim …

  The starting siren blasts away.

  twenty-three

  Air rushes around me. Someone slams into my shoulder, knocking me across the starting line. My eyes saucer as I brace myself for the blast of the energy barrier. But the only impact is my face thudding against the hard earth. I look up in time to see Ophelia smirk before sprinting off into the fray.

  I spit blood and spring t
o my feet, ignoring the spasms in my wobbly legs.

  A hand grabs my shoulder.

  I whirl into Digory’s gaze. “You okay?” he asks.

  I tear away from his grasp. “I’m fine.”

  Then I’m off, wading through a sea of bodies. I gag at the stench. The entire place reeks of blood, festering wounds, and death.

  Clenching a palm over my nose and mouth, I squat over the first body I come across, a teenaged guy not more than a year or two younger than I am. His scraggly dark hair is matted to his ashen face. The whites of his eyes are visible through half-opened lids. The beacon’s draped over the wrist of a bony hand, which is pressed against a gurgling wound in his abdomen as if trying to keep something from spilling out.

  Shooing away the buzzing flies swarming over his lesion, I press my locator next to his beacon.

  There’s a harsh buzz and the locator’s light turns the same color as his soaked shirt.

  Not a match. What a horrible way to die, out here, alone in such filth.

  His icy hand locks around my wrist. Bloodshot eyes spring open the rest of the way.

  My heart nearly erupts through my gullet.

  “Please … ” The word flows from his lips through a gout of blood. “Help … me … ”

  I pull my arm from his wrist and clasp his hand. “I’m sorry,” I whisper.

  Then we’re torn apart. Cypress shoves me out of the way so hard that a bolt of pain jolts through my arm. Her dark hair’s pasted wildly across her dirt-streaked face like poisoned veins.

  One look at her eyes snuffs out my anger. Stark naked desperation, the kind bordering on crazy. She eyes the boy’s tracker and grabs it with muddy hands that smell of rot. This isn’t the first body she’s come across.

  The moment her locator connects with his bracelet, there’s another harsh buzz and red flash.

  She flings his hand down as if it’s shocked her. Her engorged eyes turn on me. “Not him either.”

  Then she’s bounding off, crouching over another victim.

  The boy coughs up another mouthful of blood. “Please … don’t leave me. I don’t want to die … alone … ”

  The weight of what’s at stake crushes the air from my lungs.

  I can’t help him.

  Fog shrouds my brain, as if I’m in the throes of some terrible nightmare my mind’s trying to filter so I won’t break. This can’t be real. I back away …

  My eyes sweep the field. Everything looks fragmented. Digory hunches over a clump of tangled limbs about ten yards to my right. Lifting wrist after wrist. Holding his locator to them. Hands reach out to touch him back. He bows his head. Pity-soaked eyes. Mutters unintelligible words …

  To my left, Ophelia digs through heaps. Flings aside body after body as if she can’t figure out what to wear …

  Only Gideon appears to be taking his time, strolling through the battle zone and occasionally stooping to check a beacon as if he were in a field searching for a particular flower to pick.

  All around them, fireflies flit about, filling the air with their incessant buzzing even as they dot the landscape with bloody pinpricks of light …

  Not fireflies-beacons. The thought burns through the mist clouding my head.

  Then it’s like my brain’s launched into overdrive, careening forward until it synchs into real time. My breath comes in short, shallow bursts through my dry mouth. I squeeze slower breaths through my nostrils until the landscape stops spinning and the dizziness passes.

  I sprint over the unnamed boy without even a glance back.

  Beyond him lies a pale middle-aged woman, crumpled like a wad of paper.

  The faces.

  Don’t look at their faces.

  I grip the beacon, trying not to touch skin. But the hair on my body prickles when my little finger grazes icy flesh.

  Buzz. Red light.

  Letting go of her, I scurry through the human wreckage, dodging past Digory, skirting Gideon, leaping over a crouched Cypress, knocking into Ophelia, scavenging through body after body, groping through torn rib cages and steaming piles of entrails until I’m covered in gore and reek of the living dead myself.

  But still I push on and on, gulping down the bile and vomit. A part of me dies with every body I desecrate. And through it all, the moans and wails sear into my brain.

  I’ll never stop hearing them until I fester in my own grave.

  Soon, I’ve lost count of the running tab of bodies I’m keeping in my head. Why haven’t I found anything yet? I risk a fleeting glance around at the others. They’re all still searching, too. Could the Establishment be cruel enough to not have fitted any of the bodies with matching beacons?

  Then a worse thought hits my brain, with the same ferocity as the inner fist trying to beat its way out my chest. What if Cassius deliberately disabled just my locator? It wouldn’t be the first time he’s tampered with the Trials. After all, didn’t he have Digory recruited and Desiree Morningside murdered just so I could take her place and provide him with two pawns to play his sick little game with?

  I grab another wrist lying in the rubble. It’s so small the beacon nearly slides off the bony hand.

  A child’s hand.

  “It hurts,” a tiny voice moans over and over again.

  My eyes squeeze shut against the molten river about to burst free. I clamp my free hand against my ear, trying to muffle as much of the agony as I can. If I can’t see them, they’re not real.

  Bleep.

  The sound startles me.

  I finally found one.

  Scooping the child in my arms, I hug its head against me.

  But when I look down, the tracker’s still blinking red, sending a vibrating pulse burning into my chest.

  I spin.

  Digory’s a few yards away, cradling a frail-looking woman in his arms as if she were a newborn.

  “Don’t worry, ma’am. You’re going to be okay,” he coos. The green lights of the flashing locator and beacon reflect on both their skin like the hushed lightning of a distant storm, illuminating their faces with a shared gratitude and relief.

  Skeletal fingers clutch his collar. “My daughter … please … you have to find her … ”

  “Let’s get you out of here first.”

  Then he’s scrambling off toward the safety zone with her.

  My heart swells-then bursts with the realization of what Digory’s heroism means to the four of us still struggling to make it through this.

  A flash of green to my right blinds me, accompanied by a steady bleeping that matches the rhythm of the blood battering the arteries in my brain. For a second I’m disoriented.

  Someone else found their beacon.

  Obscured by a veil of smoke, Gideon’s silhouette props the green-flashing arm of a stick-figured woman over his shoulder and stumbles with her through the battlefield, disappearing in the same direction that Digory took off in.

  Two down and only three to go.

  I hunch my head and bury my face against the small head nestled against me. Whatever I’m going to do it has to be done fast. “Please forgive me,” I whisper into a tiny ear.

  Bleep.

  What the-?

  Cypress’s eyes lock with mine. Her locator and the kid’s beacon are both flashing green. She tries to pry the child from my arms.

  “Don’t let Goslin have the girl, Spark!” Ophelia kicks a body out of her way and scrambles toward us, eyes flickering like wildfire. “If she takes her, we’ll both be tied for last place.”

  My arms tighten around the faceless girl. She’s right …

  Cypress tugs harder. “Give her to me.” Her words are drowned out by the wailing child held hostage between us.

  An invisible force slams Ophelia to the ground. “Ungh!” She doubles over, clutching her side.

  It was a taser mine.

  I lurch toward her, dragging Cypress and the child along with me. “Ophelia! You okay?”

  Cypress’s fingers dig into my arm. “There’s no
time.”

  Ophelia stirs, rising to rest on her hands and knees like a crouching beast. “We can both save our families, Spark. You hold Goslin here while I hide the girl.”

  She lurches to her feet and sprints closer. In that instant I know that if she reaches us, she’ll stop at nothing to make sure Cypress doesn’t rescue the child.

  I can’t bear the weight of any more blood. Even if I made it all the way through this, I’d never be able to look in Cole’s eyes again.

  I release my grip and the child slips into Cypress’s arms. “Take her, and make sure she’s tended to right away.”

  “Thanks,” Cypress whispers.

  “What are you doing?” Ophelia lunges at them.

  I shove my body in front of Cypress and the girl. Ophelia rams into me, fingers raking my back like talons. Her bloody claws reach out and clamp onto the frail little shoulder.

  The child screams.

  Cypress’s fingers dig into Ophelia’s hand, ripping, pulling, but Ophelia won’t let go. Her head plunges down and her teeth sink into Cypress’s wrist.

  “Ah!” Cypress’s face contorts in agony.

  With every ounce of strength I can muster, I try to pry Ophelia loose. I twist and lock my arms around her, but it’s like trying to hug fire. Finally, I wrench her free. But her body bucks and kicks, jaws snapping like a rabid Canid, spraying me with a mixture of burning spittle and Cypress’s blood, which is dripping from the bits of flesh lodged between her teeth.

  Cypress’s face is drained of color. Dark blood oozes from the missing chunk on her hand. As she whisks the child away, large dark eyes peer over her shoulder at me like shards of guilt impaling me where I stand.

  Ophelia’s arm squirms free of my hold, and she jams a thumb into my eye.

  Blinding pain shoots through my socket. I swing her away from me, hurling her into the ground. I clutch a palm against my eye, half expecting to feel the molten gore of a shattered eyeball squeezing through my fingers. But the throbbing and blurred vision confirm there’s still something there.

  There’s a flash of her boot. Then a searing pain in my groin. I curl up into a ball, knees pressed against my stomach. Tears stream from my eyes, seeping down my cheeks and between my lips. The salty taste mixes with the blood where my teeth have bitten into my upper lip.