Sulan, Episode 1: The League

by Camille Picott

  ***

  We descend a staircase, and instead of entering another hallway, I find myself looking down into a large brightly lit room. In the middle of it, surrounded by half a dozen soldiers, stand a teenage girl and boy.

  It takes me a moment to recognize the tall girl with short red hair and the lanky boy with sandy locks concealing his eyes. My first look at Hank and Billy in the real-world makes my heart drop. I wish they’d gotten away.

  Hands shove us into the room. The soldiers step aside so we can be herded into the center. I get a better look at my friends. Both wear black Global jumpsuits. Hank’s jumpsuit is ripped and covered with dirt. Her eyes are puffy and red. Billy’s face is a mass of purple bruises. He has a wide-eyed look of shock. They stand very close together, holding hands. Both have cuffs around their wrists and ankles.

  Beyond them, just over the tops of their ears, is the bright-gold disc of a media drone. It makes a slow circuit around the room, red and blue lights blinking.

  The red light means it’s on and recording.

  The blue light means that everything happening here is streaming as a live video feed into Vex.

  13: The Team

  I stare at the Vex camera, horror ringing my gut.

  This is it. Hank, Billy, Taro, and I are all going to be executed. Our brains are going to be shot out of our skulls. Our murders will be broadcast across America for all to see. All my preparation and here I am: a helpless smart girl in the hands of the League.

  “Miss Hom.”

  I flinch at Imugi’s voice but force myself to turn toward him. Whatever he’s got in store for us, I’ve got to hang on to my dignity as long as possible.

  “This is your team.” Imugi gestures to Hank and Billy.

  “Huh?” I blink at him, confused.

  “This is your team,” Imugi says again. “You will lead them in all assigned tasks.”

  Does this mean we’re not going to be executed? I try to keep my voice neutral. “What kind of tasks?”

  “That remains to be seen. Most likely, it will involve genetic engineering or weapons development.”

  “What?” My mouth falls open. “How am I supposed to do that?”

  “By employing that brilliant mind of yours, of course.”

  “Just because my dad is a genius doesn’t mean I am.” I feel like I’m in a very small box, with all four walls collapsing in on me.

  “I beg to differ.” Imugi pulls a computer tablet from the back pocket of his uniform. “You are the only student at Global Arms who scored one hundred percent on the entrance exam.”

  I hear audible gasps from Hank and Billy. Taro’s eyes widen. I feel completely exposed.

  “My dad hired some hackers to fake the score,” I say weakly. “No one can score one hundred percent. It’s impossible.”

  “Is it?” Imugi flicks a finger. Six soldiers descend on Taro with the ferocity of an avalanche. They pin him to the ground.

  “Taro!” I lunge toward him. As I do, the cuffs are activated. I fly across the room and smack into the wall, my head rebounding off the surface. Pain shoots through me.

  Taro strains under the men, veins standing out on his hands and neck. He eyes lock with mine.

  I’m released from the wall. I crash to the floor and scramble into a crouch, eyes swinging wildly from Taro to Imugi and back again.

  Imugi holds out the tablet. I make no move toward it.

  “You are a math prodigy,” Imugi says. “Perhaps the most gifted mathematician of the century.”

  “I’m not,” I whisper.

  Imugi ignores me. “I’ve selected a problem for you. Solve it and save your friend.”

  “What?”

  “I dislike repeating myself.” Imugi flicks a hand.

  There’s a flash of steel. It moves so fast I can barely track its movement. There’s a snick, and Taro’s left pinkie flies across the floor.

  Hank starts screaming, a long shrill sound that seems to have no end. Taro is silent, but he bucks against the pain. His muscles bulge, his eyes seem about to pop out of his sockets, but he doesn’t cry out. The Leaguers struggle to keep him down as he strains against them. Hank collapses onto Billy, muffling her tears against his shoulder.

  They cut off his finger. The realization comes sluggishly, a monster rising slowly out of a mud pit. They cut off his finger.

  Imugi wordlessly extends the tablet to me. The threat of the knife hangs over Taro’s hand. I snatch the tablet. On the display is a problem using three different modes of heat transfer with non-homogeneous boundary conditions thrown in. I’m so freaked out I can hardly focus on the numbers.

  “You’re taking too long,” Imugi says. “Shall I cut another?”

  “No! Just give me a second.” I close my eyes. The problem blazes on the back of my eyelids. I slide the numbers around in my head, and the problem unfurls like a flower in time-lapse video.

  My eyes snap open. Everyone stares at me. Taro is pale and panting, looking like he might pass out.

  “Six hundred seventy-three point four seconds,” I say. “The answer is six hundred seventy-three point four seconds.”

  Hank looks woozy, but I can’t tell if it’s from the violence or the fact that I mentally calculated the problem in less than ten seconds. Billy’s wide eyes are glued on Hank.

  “Are you sure about that?” Imugi plucks the tablet from my hand.

  Doubt slithers through my belly. I can still see the original problem in my head. I whip through it a second time, just to make sure.

  “Positive,” I say.

  Imugi smiles, an expression that turns up the corners of the plastic around his mouth. The rest of his face is eerily motionless.

  “Very good,” he says. “I am glad to see you are living up to our expectations. I hope, for your friend’s sake, that we won’t need another demonstration of your brilliance. It would not take much effort to remove the rest of his fingers.”

  Feeling as though I’ve been whipped with a crowbar—to say nothing of what’s been done to Taro—I say, “No, Imugi.”

  His smile widens. “Very good. Now, tell me, who are these people?” He gestures to Hank and Billy.

  “My team,” I whisper.

  “I can’t hear you.”

  I take a deep breath to control my shaking voice. “My team.”

  “That’s right. Your team.”

  I sneak a glance at Taro. Pain creases the skin around his eyes, but he’s alert under the pile of Leaguers.

  Imugi faces the drone. “Ladies and gentlemen,” he says, “allow me to introduce three star students from Global Arms’s elite Virtual High School. Their team leader is Sulan Hom, daughter of the renowned Dr. Hom. As you can see, she is a gifted mathematician in her own right.

  “This next girl is Henrietta Simmons, a skilled hacker. She has successfully hacked such constructs as the Cyclone and the Dirigible. She holds the record for the fastest hack of the Medusa.”

  Constructs are obstacle courses built by hackers, for hackers. The Medusa is the most infamous; only a handful of hackers have ever beat it.

  “The boy is Billy Long,” Imugi continues. “He designs Touch programs when he’s not in school. His Vex alias is Uncle Zed. He’s the world’s most infamous Touch programmer. His black-market profits are . . . impressive.”

  I goggle. Billy is Uncle Zed? The skinny boy in front of me looks like he wants to crawl in a hole and die. I never stopped to wonder at the casual way he gave me free black tech. It all makes sense now. From the look on Hank’s face, she wasn’t aware of his secret identity, either.

  “As you can see,” Imugi says to the drone, “I have assembled a world-class team. It took minds like theirs to come up with the nuclear bomb. Each of these children, if well cared for, will live for at least another sixty years. Who can say what they will create in that time? This team can put you on the path to power. They are a long-term investment.”

  I exchange looks of horror with Ha
nk and Billy. What is going on?

  “As I’ve demonstrated,” Imugi says, “this team can be easily guided when presented with the right motivation. I will throw in the merc boy as a bonus. He should provide years of motivation if you’re careful.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, an auction lot like this only comes along once in a lifetime. The auction will take place in Vex at a soon-to-be-revealed location. Opening bid is fifty million. Bidding starts tomorrow evening at eighteen hundred hours, Pacific Time.”

  14: Riska

  I am not okay. We’re about to be sold on the black market like high-end cattle. Nothing is even close to okay.

  Imugi pulls a small remote control out of his pocket and presses a button. The blue light on the media drone turns off, which means the public show is over. The red light remains on.

  “You all did very well tonight,” Imugi says to us. “By now, the entire world knows the Anti-American League has stolen four of America’s children and intends to sell them into slavery. Not a single parent in your country will sleep well tonight.”

  “Is that your grand scheme?” Hank spits, fear bright in her voice. “To throw America into a state of insomnia?”

  I flinch. For once in her life, could Hank put a filter between her brain and her mouth?

  Imugi takes a step toward her. “I thought a clever girl like you would have a bit more imagination than that.” His words roll out like silk.

  Hank wilts visibly with each syllable. She looks like she wants to turn and run, except there’s nowhere to go. Billy wraps his arms around her. Imugi is three steps away from them.

  “I’m the imaginative one.” I put every ounce of insolence I can muster into those words, hoping to draw Imugi’s attention from Hank.

  My ploy works a little too well. Imugi swivels toward me, dark eyes fixing on me like bullets. I force myself to hold my ground. Sweat breaks out along my spine and armpits.

  “Oh, I’m well aware of your imagination,” Imugi says. “I know everything about you, Short Stuff.”

  “Don’t call me that.” The words come out before I can stop them; anger infuses my terror.

  “I’ll call you anything I want.” Imugi is so close I can smell his sweat.

  Periphery movement catches my attention—Taro, still pinned to the floor, shakes his head at me.

  “You were saying?” Imugi asks.

  “Nothing.” I force my eyes to the floor.

  “I thought so.” He chuckles. “Don’t worry. Your Vex jaunts into the merc club aren’t anything I plan to highlight at tomorrow’s auction. You are going to make the League very wealthy.”

  He turns away. I struggle to hide my relief, to keep my face composed.

  “Get the merc boy bandaged up,” Imugi says. “Make sure his hand doesn’t get infected. Secure the rest of the team.” He strides up the stairs and out of the room without a backward glance.

  The Leaguers move like well-oiled gears. Battered metal cots are wheeled in. Our wrists and ankles are secured with the cuffs to metal rails along the top and bottom of the cots. Our beds are lined up in a row. Taro and I are on the ends, with Hank closest to me and Billy next to her.

  Disinfectant and gauze is mechanically administered to Taro. All lights except one are shut off. Navy-blue jumpsuits file out.

  We’re alone except for the media drone, which makes lazy circles over us. The blinking red light tells me it’s still recording. It may not be streaming into Vex, but I have no doubt League soldiers are monitoring our every word.