The Choosing (The Arcadia Trilogy Book 1)

by James, Bella

  "Line up!" shouted the Centurions, and began moving through the youth, pushing and sending them tripping through the streets. The orders were loud and too fast, demands to hurry and comply, get to where you belong, the lines were long and organized as green for Pastoreum, blue for Oceanus, grey for Tundrus, and they needed to move, to run, to hurry, to not ever hold up ones who ruled.

  "Line up and get inside. Now, now, now! Inside you will find regulation uniforms, in your home colors. You will file inside, strip, throw away your clothing. You will not need it again. Your clothing here will be provided for you. Shower. Change. You will have ten minutes before guards are sent to haul you out, so do. Not. Dawdle."

  They stared at each other, horrified, boys and girls from different lands, dark faces facing light faces facing those pale and angular, the people from the islands of Oceanus. The buzz of voices cut through their ranks – do they mean for us to shower together? It's not right.

  They didn't just mean boys and girls, the problem of which was solved when they approached the structure the guards had indicated and found the line split in two with boys one way and girls the next.

  They also meant showering with each other.

  Between provinces.

  There were indoor showers, with warm water.

  There was food and there was clothing and most of them didn't mind discarding the soiled rags they'd been traveling in.

  It was the lights that startled. The way indoor was changed from night to day. There was some electricity in some of the lands. Not much and most of the time it didn't work.

  It's wonderful, Livy thought, and instantly felt guilty.

  But she did like the way the electric lights pushed back the night.

  They ate while they moved slowly through lines, being processed. Their ID chips were modified by a woman with a sharp knife who cut into the flesh of their wrists and extracted the cards long enough to add filaments of wire, changing them somehow.

  Clutching bloodied wrists, they moved past into the Institute, separated again now as they were led into the dorms, girls on one side and boys on the other.

  Livy found herself in a small room, no door to it but bars lifted up to the ceiling in the doorjamb, ready to slam down if their jailors meant it. The room itself was large enough to hold two identical desks, with two identical chairs, two storage lockers, open and empty, and a bunkbed arrangement. A girl with a sharp foxy face lay on the top bed, her dark hair braided down her back. When Livy walked in, she rolled onto her belly and gripped the edge of the bed with both hands as she stared down at Livy.

  "I took the top bed because I didn't think anyone ever wanted it. If you do, I'll hand it over. I'm Julia."

  The sight of the bed felt like the last straw for Livy. Exhausted, still hungry, cold and scared, she felt the shaking start in the pit of her stomach and radiate outward until she couldn't control it and stood shuddering, just trying to breathe.

  The girl vaulted off the bed, took Livy in her arms and sat her on the edge of the lower bunk. "It's all so strange. Take a deep breath. We'll get used to this. Are you cold, hurt or scared?"

  "Scared?" Lily asked. "Should I be?"

  The other girl looked shocked. "Don't you know about this place?"

  Livy shook her head.

  Julia bit her lip. "I don't know much, but I know once you get here, you never leave."

  "Never?" Livy's voice quavered.

  Julia shrugged. "A few people do. My parents said sometimes a few people will come back."

  Livy looked at her.

  Julia said, "As Centurions."

  "I'd never do that," Livy declared and clapped both palms over her face.

  "Not much for war games? But you might be surprised. From what I've heard, the schooling here will kill you. You have to be strong and talented and never back down."

  Livy took her face out of her hands. "This has happened before?" Her voice was flat.

  "Once a generation," Julia said. "It's how the Plutarch keeps his family in power."

  "How do you know all this?"

  "My mother's brother was collected. He told her, before – " She frowned and stopped.

  Into the sudden silence, Lily said awkwardly, "I'm Olivia Bane. You can call me Livy."

  The other girl startled and smiled though it didn't reach her eyes. "Okay, Livy Bane. You better get ready. Trials start soon. You should get as much rest as you can." She stood. "Did you want the top bunk?"

  Livy absolutely didn't care. All she knew was she was suddenly more exhausted than she'd ever been in her life, even after her first day on the fields at home. "I don't care. If you want the lower, you can have it." They were both standing now, and Julia looked down at her kindly.

  "Nah, you're short. It will be easier for me to get up and down. Goodnight, Livy Bane."

  "Goodnight, Julia. Julia what?"

  Silence from above, and then, faintly, Julia said, "I guess now it's just Julia."

  Livy heard her roll over then, and a few minutes later, heard her start to snore lightly.

  Livy herself lay quietly on her back, trying to control her trembling as she stared up at the bottom of the bunk above her.

  Smoke turns the sky black, and the sun orange. Villagers run for their lives, familiar faces whipping past Livy in a frenzy of fear as the village burns down.

  Livy runs toward the village, not away, and the Centurions gallop toward her on their mounts, gripping flaming torches. Grandfather Bane falls behind quickly, too old and sick to keep up with the fleeing community. Even as he falls Livy sees he hasn't been shot. The closest Centurion didn't seem him fall. By the time the riders thunder their way, he looks dead in the muddy earth already. She holds out the hope he's still alive.

  Then she sees Maddy. Livy's mother runs with her neighbors, clutching a baby close against her body. Breaking free of the panicked people around her, she runs into the forest, her child held tight, heading for the first copse of trees to hide behind, and stumbles directly into the path of a Centurion. He raises his rifle, takes aim, and shoots.

  And Livy flies upright in her bed. There's no sunlight in the tiny interior room she shares with Julia, no way to tell the difference between night and day.

  Except for the alarm sounding, waking them all to their first day in Arcadia.

  "Hurry," Julia said, rushing to pull on the uniform she'd been given the day before.

  "What is it?" Livy panted.

  "Breakfast? I don't know. I just know that noise means hurry."

  Probably she's right. But her dream meant hurry also, Livy thought.

  Hurry. Run for home.

  Before it's too late.

  The mess hall was chaotic. Today there would be no order, no matter how loudly the guards barked at them where they were meant to go, to sit, what to eat, how long they had. Speculation ran riot. Voices soared upwards. Boys and girls alike cried for home and mothers and fathers.

  The scent of food wafted over the madness. The entire room smelled of salt and chicken and coffee. Livy also smelled bread, though nothing as delicious as the bread made in Agara. Julia dragged her into line for a tray of food, and then to a table, and then, despite the level of noise, the orders and the babble and the crying, there was a measure of calm, and all they had to do for the next several minutes was eat.

  When the basic needs were taken care of, Livy found herself looking up. She was surrounded by people her own age, everyone here was sixteen, either on the early end of it like she was, or nearing seventeen, only just a little too late.

  Across from her two boys in grey uniforms shared some story, their eyes serious and intent as they talked. Watching them, she realized the one on the left, diagonal from Livy, was Simon, who might have been sixteen, but looked older, on the brink of adulthood. He was fair haired, the way so many from Tundrus were. Her father had introduced her over the years to more visitors from the cold countries than most people in Pastoreum might have met. It always seemed to Jep Bane that an exchange
of information could lead to an exchange of talents and skills, so into their house came mathematicians and bakers, seamstresses and other blacksmiths, masters of horse and veterinarians. The cold country produced men who knew how to sail the icy seas that lapped from the northern end of Oceanus, and those who knew how to ice fish. Her mother often asked what good that would do anyone in Pastoreum, her voice lightly teasing, but Jep believed in exchanging knowledge and he taught ice fishermen and shipbuilders how to shoe horses they didn't have and bend iron into implements they didn't need. That truly was a fair exchange of information – equally useless to both.

  Simon, the boy from the cold countries – both of them were, really, but the only one who caught and held her attention was Simon – had the chiseled cheekbones and jaw of a northerner, and the light blue-grey eyes. Broad shoulders and heavy, well muscled arms showed now that he was off the bus and wearing only a loose uniform with short sleeves.

  His friend, beside him, was also fair, the two of them seriously talking and the friend chewing the edge of a thumbnail. Livy could remember her mother once laughing at Pippa who, in the throes of a crush that wasn't yet on the hapless Denny, had just told her mother how smart a particular boy seemed to be. Mad had replied maybe he was and maybe he wasn't, but it was best not to confuse the squinting of nearsightedness with intelligence.

  And during the laughter that ensued at Pippa's expense, she'd added quietly, "Sometimes nearsightedness can make it very difficult for the person to see anything at all."

  That just made her homesick all over again. So into the conversation across the table, she said, "Hi. I'm Olivia Bane, and this is Julia – 'er, Julia." And held out her hand, knuckles first, expecting the boy she didn't know to greet her back in the familiar Pastoreum bump that spared the fingers for the work of growing and harvesting food.

  Instead, the two exchanged a quick glance, then the boy she didn't know slid his open palm onto her forearm and wrist, and Livy blushed, remembering only then that Tundrus people, often hampered by woolen mittens or leather gloves, greeted this way.

  "Trevor," said the boy, and motioning to the boy Livy had been watching with the intensity Pip watched Denny, and gestured at his friend. "And Simon."

  "We've met," Simon said, and smiled lazily.

  They were interrupted by two girls on Trevor's far side, who piped up and held out their hands. They wore the sea blue uniforms of Oceanus, and greeted by grasping wrists, as if holding the other person still against a current long enough to exchange information. Introductions stopped midsentence when a booming voice told them all to sit, finish their food, and enjoy the luxury of the longer meal periods they'd have today, because tomorrow work would begin in earnest.

  The two from Oceanus, tall Kara with her light brown hair and serious straight brows and Viola, medium height but standout with bright carrot-red hair, sank back in their seats, mouthing at Livy and Julia – "Does anyone know what's going on?"

  Olivia shook her head, and fell to finishing her breakfast even as Julia coaxed a sullen dark haired youth named Damien into their circle. After all the weeks on the road and all the time for silence in her own head as she'd let other people have conversations around her and, staying true to herself as her grandfather had asked, she'd tried to remember anything at all that sounded like what was happening. Now, in the midst of first morning confusion and all the conversations around her, she remembered two small things.

  She remembered her parents talking at dinner about the new tax, the collection of which was coming up, and that they'd said something about sixteen. That made sense now. A little too late to help.

  And the other thing, something Grandfather had told her maybe a year ago, his usually jovial voice hoarse and weak with sickness. Livy had feared they were going to lose him then, but the old man had pulled through and lived to tell her more tales, some true and some so invented even she laughed long before he admitted they were a farce.

  What he'd told her that day was sacrilege and hearsay, slander and treason, all rolled up into one story but she'd been old enough to know the value of discretion, and had always loved him deeply enough to keep any secrets.

  They'd been sitting in the sun, she remembered, and the scent of honeysuckle colored the day.

  * * *

  "There's an old myth from Before Times, of a king who ruled a kingdom beset by a wild beast. It roamed the catacombs under his palace, and took servants, which the king didn't care about, and nobles, which he did. It had the head of a bull with razor sharp horns and the body of a man, a huge, strong, blue man."

  She'd laughed at blue and started making a daisy chain as she listened. In her mind she named the parts of the flower and the medicinal purposes her mother had taught her, and so the story was fragmented, but she remembered he'd said the king would take an even number of boys and girls from neighboring kingdoms and set them loose in the maze beneath the palace, sport for the creature to kill, to satisfy its blood lust and slake its hunger.

  "And the children?" she'd asked when his voice had faltered and run down.

  "If they survived, they would inherit his kingdom."

  She'd been a wise child. Looking up from the flower, she'd said, "But none ever did."

  Her grandfather had repeated it. "But none ever did."

  And then, in hushed tones, fast and with a feeling of apprehension, he told her about the Culling, about the times the Centurions came into villages, sent by the Plutarch himself with orders to bring every sixteen-year-old youth in the commonwealth, taking them to the domed city of Arcadia.

  She'd stopped fiddling with the flower then, her heart beating unaccountably quicker. They'd passed from myth to history and near history at that. She'd felt afraid.

  "Why? Why do they take them?"

  And in a rush, he'd told her. Once a generation, so far apart that people forgot or died without telling their descendants, the Plutarch and his government, sent for those children on the brink of adulthood and an entire year's worth of children went away. They learned, he told her, and for some life didn't turn out so poorly. They learned arts and government, and for those things were all right. Others were drafted into the service of the land by way of the ranks of Centurion and though life was bleak and dark for them, still they were usually martial in aspect, children of violent temperament or cold steal reason who would rise within the ranks.

  She'd asked about those from Pastoreum, but he simply didn't know, and she'd asked about those children taken who were not quick and bright and sometimes not even beautiful, and he hadn't known that either, though something in his eyes told Livy he did, and simply didn't want to tell her.

  Well, she was here now. She'd forgotten that beautiful day's story until it was too late. Now her grandfather's tales had proved not only true, but prophetic. Now she would find out all of it.

  And live to tell the tale.

  Somehow.

  Now the director of the institute stood before them. He was old, his face lined like Grandfather Bane's but possessing none of Grandfather's patience.

  "You are here at the will of the Plutarch," he addressed them, surveying the mess hall with cold, reptilian eyes. "You eat and breathe and live at the direction of the Plutarch and you will serve at his pleasure."

  He paused, as if waiting for his words to sink in, but Livy thought that probably most of them were saturated with newness and incapable of doing more than listening and trying to remember.

  "While you are here, you will be educated, given opportunities your poor countries could never have afforded you. You will have the opportunity to learn language and the arts, technology, war craft. You will all begin at the same level and the same ranking, the raw red sash of the beginner and at the end of the first learning period you will be tested in every subject. Those who excel in all three areas – language and arts, war and technology – will move up to a blue ranking. Pass two, and you shall wear a green sash. Pass one, and you will wear the yellow. Pass none, and you will be deem
ed Untouchable and cast out accordingly."

  Even the presence of this man, his authority made clear by the Centurion honor guard, wasn't enough to stop the buzz of panic at his words. The director simply spoke over it.

  "Blues are afforded luxuries, trips outside, trips to visit museums or the Senate, to have private audiences or dinners with the Plutarch."

  He surveyed them all coldly for a second and Livy doubted he saw any of them, only a sea of colors, pale and dark faces looking up at him, apprehensive or downright scared.

  "After the testing comes the trials, when you will present before a board of examiners, answering oral questions and showing off what you have learned. You will be tested into personality types and genetically screened. Your caste will then be assigned."

  He raised his voice over the groundswell of panic.

  "Alphas will continue their education before taking their places in the aristocracy. They will be leaders, Senators, Centurions. They will be the captains of industry and the officers in war. It is worth your time to work for such attainment."

  Again another long look at the assembled prisoners, all of them holding their breaths.

  "The Beta groups are the workers. To you fall the tasks that keep Arcadia running, to bake, to cook, to clean, to patrol, to care, to toil. It is not a hopeless life. You will work. You will be valued. You will not be cast out. You will not be Untouchables."

  A long look. "Alphas and Betas will not be Gammas."

  Livy realized she was squeezing her fists together in her lap.

  The look the Director now gave them was cold. "Gammas have one place in our society. They are good for one thing." He paused, almost as if he expected call and response.

  No one spoke.

  "Gammas are sent to the pleasure palaces. To serve."