“Error message. Zero points. Zero tokens.”
Chatine jumped back, nearly dropping the leveler. She told herself not to look. She urged herself to just keep going, move on, finish this job and be done with it, but she couldn’t help it. Her gaze was pulled back toward the man.
Toward the prisoner.
He had to be. Only those arrested and sent to the moon had their accounts completely emptied. And it was only now that she took note of the color of his ripped and tattered clothes. Bastille blue. This man had died on the moon. He’d died a convict.
But what was he doing here?
Plenty of prisoners died on the moon, which was why it had its own Med Center and morgue. The bodies were normally disposed of there. Everyone knew life sentences were short on Bastille. Living conditions were even worse there than they were in the Frets.
Keeping close to the edge of the gurney, she skirted around to the man’s other side.
Don’t do it, she told herself, but her hands seemed to move on their own. She had to see it with her own eyes. She had to know for sure.
Chatine slowly peeled back the man’s other sleeve, sucking in a sharp breath when the neat row of metallic silver bumps came into view.
His prisoner tattoo.
A lifelong brand. Even those who did their time, who survived the harsh conditions of Bastille, were forever marked.
Chatine suddenly felt a longing to touch the markings. To feel the raised surface under her fingertips. To imagine what it must feel like to have those metallic bumps seared into your flesh. Was it similar to having the Skin implanted? But of course, Chatine couldn’t remember that. Just like everyone else in the Third Estate, she’d been a small child when the médecins had implanted the Skin into her left arm and the connected audio chip into her ear.
With shaking hands, she slowly reached out. Her fingertip had barely brushed the surface of the first bump when she heard the doors of the morgue hiss open and footsteps echo down the corridor.
Chatine glanced around the crowded morgue, searching for a place to hide. But there was nothing. No curtains, no closets, no supply cabinets. And anywhere she tried to go would certainly trigger the microcams.
The footsteps grew louder.
Chatine’s pulse raced. If she was caught in here stealing from the dead, she’d most certainly end up with a prisoner tattoo of her own.
She had only one option.
She hopped onto the neighboring gurney, scooted the blood-bordel girl aside, and lay down next to her, hiding the leveler inside the sleeve of her coat. Her skin crawled and bile rose in her throat as she felt the girl’s cold, scaly flesh brush up against the back of her hand. She kept her eyes open, staring at the ceiling as she held her body perfectly still, trying to emulate the frozen expression of terror that was on all these faces.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw two men enter the morgue. One was dressed in green scrubs. A médecin, judging from the cyborg circuitry implanted in his face. The other was wearing a crisp, bright white military uniform with silvery titan buttons, marking him an officer of the Ministère.
What is a member of the Second Estate doing in a Third Estate morgue?
“My records state that he died of frostbite,” the médecin stated with an emptiness in his voice that mirrored the eyes of the cavs. “I’m very sorry for your loss.”
“Don’t be,” the second man replied flatly. “This loss is a gift to Laterre.”
Chatine fought to keep the surprise from her face. Who is he talking about?
She held her breath as the two men walked down the row of gurneys, stopping at the one just next to Chatine. The prisoner.
“Were you close to your father?” the médecin asked.
“No,” the other man replied, and Chatine thought his voice sounded vaguely familiar. “I never even knew him.”
His father? Chatine thought. This man—this officer—has a father who was in prison? She didn’t think Second Estaters were even sent to Bastille. They were hardly ever convicted of crimes. She was desperate to turn her head, flick her gaze to the side for just a moment. She wanted so badly to find out who this officer was.
“I’ll leave you alone with him,” the médecin said, and then Chatine heard the clacking of footsteps receding back down the hallway.
The man in uniform walked around the gurney, standing between Chatine and the prisoner. Chatine saw the twinkle of something shiny on his finger. A ring. Definitely valuable. Maybe even titan. She contemplated leaping up from the gurney now and using the element of surprise to swipe the ring and run. But she worried about the aftermath. The motion-sensor microcams had most definitely been activated as soon as this man entered the morgue. She simply couldn’t risk getting caught. Not when she was this close to freedom.
The man stood motionless next to the body, staring down at it. She could see his hands curl into fists, as though he were angry about something. Then, a moment later, his hands relaxed and Chatine heard him speak.
“Why did you do it?”
There was something soft and fragile in his voice. Broken, even. Chatine was almost certain he was speaking to the dead prisoner. But before she could begin to fathom why, out of the corner of her vision, she saw the man touch the fabric of the prisoner’s sleeve. The one Chatine had peeled back to reveal his prisoner tattoo.
“What is this?” he asked, and it wasn’t until right then, seeing the shirt from this awkward angle, that Chatine noticed what had evidently caught the man’s eye.
There was something stitched into the inside of the prisoner’s shirt.
Could that be what I think it is? Chatine wondered.
The man quickly grabbed something from a nearby tray and started to cut away at the convict’s shirt.
Chatine flicked her eyes to the side, trying to take in as much information as she could in a single glance, but it wasn’t enough. She still couldn’t make out what was stitched into the fabric.
Careful not to make the gurney creak, Chatine slowly turned her head a millimètre to the right, letting her gaze fall upon the man gripping the tattered shirt in his hands. She had to fight back the gasp that sprang up in her throat.
She recognized him.
How could she not?
Nearly everyone on Laterre would recognize him. That shiny dark hair with just a hint of a curl; those sharp, handsome features; that tall, slender build. In her shock, Chatine must have completely forgotten about the leveler shoved into the sleeve of her coat, because suddenly she heard a loud crash as the device slipped off the gurney and fell to the floor.
- CHAPTER 5 -
MARCELLUS
HISS.
The doors of the morgue sealed shut and Marcellus was finally alone with his father. A man he’d never met. Never spoken to. Barely even remembered.
His hands trembled. He tried to remind himself that the man on this gurney meant nothing more to him than any of the other lifeless faces in the room. He swallowed hard and cast his gaze downward.
At the infamous traitor, Julien Bonnefaçon.
Marcellus studied the deep, jagged lines of his face, his cracked purple lips, the vacant dead stare of his hazel eyes.
And yet, Marcellus felt nothing.
Or, at least, that’s what he told himself. He had to feel nothing. Feeling anything at all would only confirm the suspicions that Marcellus was sure everyone had about him.
That had always been his punishment for his father’s crime, ever since he was a little boy. When you’re born the son of a traitor, you are forever a suspect. Forever guilty of a possible future crime. Forever your father’s son.
Marcellus had spent his entire life fighting against those suspicions, trying to prove to everyone in the Ministère—everyone on Laterre—that he wasn’t anything like his father, and he would never betray his planet, his estate, his family.
So why were his hands still shaking?
A body. Not a person.
Just as his grandfather had said
.
He balled his hands into fists, willing them to stop trembling. As Marcellus gazed into his father’s open, unseeing eyes, he felt at once frustration, shame, revulsion, and most of all, anger.
This was the man who’d abandoned Marcellus when he was just a baby. This was the man who’d chosen to join the Vangarde, an unruly group of known terrorists, instead of being a father. When Julien had betrayed his family, Marcellus’s mother had died soon after of a broken heart and his grandfather had had to raise him as his own. But most important, this was the man single-handedly responsible for the biggest tragedy of the Rebellion of 488: the bombing of the copper exploit that killed six hundred people. Poor people. Innocent people.
What kind of man does that? What kind of man brings such shame on his family?
The man laid out on the gurney in front of him.
That kind of man.
Marcellus thought back to the first time he’d seen the footage. He remembered it so clearly: The insanity in his father’s eyes as he was captured and loaded into a voyageur bound for Bastille. The babble spewing from his lips as they took him away. They were the rantings of a madman. A fanatic. A terrorist.
That was seventeen years ago, and ever since then, Marcellus had been trained to hate this man, to despise him and loathe everything he stood for. But now, standing here, in front of his frail, frostbitten body, Marcellus felt something else tugging at him.
This was his father.
His father.
A man who had loved and married his mother. A man whose blood he shared.
He’d come from one of the most reputable families on Laterre. And yet he’d joined the Vangarde and killed so many people.
“Why did you do it?” Marcellus didn’t realize he’d asked the question aloud until it was out of his mouth. Now it was too late to take it back. And it was far too late to answer.
But the reason shouldn’t matter. Marcellus knew that. He shouldn’t wonder about these things. He shouldn’t try to get into the head of a madman. He should just turn and walk out of here, give his permission to dispose of the body, and go on with his life, become the next commandeur of the Ministère.
And yet, Marcellus couldn’t bring himself to move. While one part of him tried to push down these dangerous questions, another part of him, the painfully curious part—the involuntary part—slowly reached out and touched the back of his father’s hand. It was cold and rigid in death, its fingertips scarred from years mining zyttrium on Bastille.
Marcellus wondered how often these hands of his father’s had bled. How often they’d shivered in the freezing cells of the prison. How often . . .
His thoughts came to a halt when his finger snagged on the sleeve of his father’s blue prison shirt. A piece of loose gray stitching inside the cuff caught his eye, and he pushed back the torn sleeve.
“What is this?” he said aloud as his gaze fell upon a series of crooked lines and rounded loops of what could only be described as letters.
Letters?
But that couldn’t be. The Forgotten Word wasn’t used anymore. It was lost several centuries ago, shortly after the early settlers had come to Laterre. No one could even read it. Let alone write it.
But you did once, a voice in the back of his head reminded him.
“M is for Marcellus. . . .”
Marcellus hastily shoved the voice away, back to the far, dark corners of his mind where it belonged. He didn’t think of that anymore. Those thoughts were strictly forbidden.
His fingers were trembling again as he pushed back the sleeve a little more. The stitching continued on and on, up the arm of the shirt. Marcellus glanced around the crowded morgue, spotting a scalpel on a nearby table. But then his gaze snapped up to the corner of the room, where he knew the security microcam hung like an invisible eye.
Of course, he thought.
He was never really alone. The Vallonay Med Center—like most Ministère buildings—was under constant surveillance. There were very few places on this planet where Marcellus could escape the eyes watching him, analyzing his every move.
Careful to keep his back to the microcam the whole time, Marcellus snatched up the scalpel and began cutting away at the fabric of the shirt. His father’s body was rigid, though, and Marcellus had to tug hard at the garment to pull it free.
He turned the shirt inside out and laid it across his father’s chest, using his body to block the microcam’s view.
That’s when he knew for sure what he was looking at.
The Forgotten Word stretched out across the lining of the shirt, sewn right into the fabric with thread. The letters traveled up the sleeve, across the shoulder, and down the back. The sight of them made Marcellus nauseous. It had been so many years since he’d set eyes on those cryptic symbols. And yet every loop and line seemed so familiar. Familiar and revolting.
Did his father write this? But that was absurd. A prisoner who could write the Forgotten Word? It was as preposterous an idea as a droid who could dance.
And yet, Marcellus couldn’t shake the unsettling suspicion that somehow his father had left that message. For him.
Crash!
The sound yanked Marcellus from his thoughts as something hit the floor beside his feet. He jumped back, stumbling into the gurney behind him. Shaky and spooked, he picked up the fallen object, realizing it was a device he’d never seen before.
Marcellus felt movement at his back and spun around to see two bodies shoved side by side onto the same gurney: a girl with blemished, flaking skin, and a young boy in a tattered black coat.
Except the boy wasn’t dead.
He was very much alive.
And he was watching him.
- CHAPTER 6 -
CHATINE
CHATINE HAD ONLY ONE THOUGHT in her mind as she gazed into the hazel eyes of Marcellus Bonnefaçon: Get the leveler.
If her father found out Chatine had let his precious larg-stealing device fall into the hands of a Second Estater—an officer of the Ministère no less—he would have her strung up and yanked to pieces. Thousands of tiny painful pieces.
She knew she had to act fast. The security microcams had already captured her face and most likely scanned her Skin. Now she just needed to get out of there. She sprang up from the gurney and lunged for the device clutched in Officer Bonnefaçon’s hand, certain he was no match for her speed and dexterity. After all, Chatine had grown up in the Frets—in the slums of society—while this coddled pretty boy had grown up sleeping in titan-colored sheets and having his satin slippers delivered to him by servants every morning.
But Chatine felt her hand grab empty air as the officer pulled the leveler up and out of her reach. Chatine recomposed herself and made another attempt. She had to jump because the officer was tall, and holding the leveler high above his head appeared to be a game to him.
Of course it was a game to him. This was Marcellus Bonnefaçon! The grandson of the general. This whole miserable planet was their playground, and Chatine and the rest of the Third Estate were just game pieces to them. Objects put forth for their amusement.
Chatine let out a low growl and jumped for the device again. “Give that back, you rotten pomp!”
“Whoa, whoa. Calm down,” Marcellus said, looking surprised by her efforts, but still not lowering the device. Then, after a moment, he asked, “Wait, what did you call me?”
Chatine ignored him and kept jumping. She knew it was foolish to insult an officer of the Ministère and a member of the Second Estate. It would only add time to her sentence if she was caught. But she didn’t care. She needed to get that leveler.
“A pomp?” Marcellus asked. Except he didn’t sound angry. He sounded amused. Chatine swore she could hear a hint of laughter in his voice.
And that’s when she punched him.
Hard, in the gut.
He buckled forward, but only for a second. She’d clearly surprised him more than winded him, and he still kept a firm grip on the leveler, which was now thankf
ully within Chatine’s reach. She leapt forward and attempted to pry his fingers from the handle. But as hard as she tried, she couldn’t loosen his grip.
Defeated, she stepped back to catch her breath.
“You really want this thing, don’t you?” Marcellus asked, holding his stomach and looking at the leveler. “What is it, anyway?”
“None of your Sol-damn business.” The words puffed out of her, hard and angry.
The corners of the officer’s mouth tweaked up, like he might be about to smile, and Chatine’s hands balled into fists once more. She couldn’t stop herself. Her rage got the better of her. She lunged at him again, but this time he saw it coming and was ready for her. He jumped back, away from her punch. Then, with a firm but careful hand, he grasped the top of her head—right over her hood—and pushed her an arm’s length away from him. For a few seconds, she flailed beneath his hand, punching and kicking at the air.
She hated how strong he was, how tall he was. She hated even more that he still had the leveler.
“You’re a feisty kid, you know that?” Marcellus said as she began to lose energy and her thrashing slowed. “The Ministère should sign you up for informant duty.”
Now it was Chatine’s turn to laugh. It came out strong and bitter, like the weed wine her father’s gang illegally brewed from unwanted plants and sold to people in the Frets.
“I would never spy for the Ministère!” Chatine spat out the words.
“Too bad.” Marcellus shrugged. “My grandfather always needs fearless new recruits. Boys like you, who aren’t afraid to fight for their Regime.”
“You mean like you?”
Chatine noticed a slight twitch on Marcellus’s face before he slowly released her. She jumped back, out of his reach, but the sudden movement caused her dark hood to begin to slip from her head, threatening to reveal her long hair tied up underneath and the whole of her face—eyelashes, cheekbones, and all. She yanked the hood back into place.
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