by K. A. Trent
Contents
Title Page
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Epilogue
Shadow of the Factorum
The Interview
K.A. Trent
This book is dedicated to all of the people that managed to put up with my obsessive whining and mood swings throughout COVID. Special thanks to Harley, Donna, and Erin for not killing me during the months it took to write this. You all mean the world to me. Also, everyone on the TG Authors discord server, especially Tessa and Chelsea, thanks for believing in me, even after I rambled on about this project for months. - Karissa
Chapter 1
My senses returned to me. The brutal awakening that greeted me every morning as I drifted upward from sleep's sweet embrace to the cold void of the real world. Like swimming upward through a deep lake, the outside world became louder, and louder, the sounds moving faster until finally my eyes flew open with a jolt and I found myself tumbling to the floor, landing on all fours and dry heaving, my lungs burning. It was different this time; something was off. I was in a different place; it was warmer somehow... No, not warm, it was somewhere in between warm and cold. What had happened? Where was I? My surroundings were unfamiliar, and it was too bright. Too bright? The darkness had greeted my eyes every single morning since I could remember. My surroundings were just barely illuminated by the lanterns that hung through the halls so sparsely that it never quite seemed bright enough to light the way. And yet, here, I had to squint against the flood of brightness.
As I sat up, my eyes focused, and details began to emerge. I felt the softness of the bed against which I leaned, and across the room I noticed a metal desk bolted firmly to the wall. My eyes scanned across a smooth door that I briefly wondered if I could open, and another small room continued past the far wall. In the smaller room a door hung open wide, revealing a spectrum of colorful clothing: a blue jumpsuit among other things I didn't recognize. The next thing I noticed was the silence; it was quiet in here, so quiet. I couldn't hear a thing, or maybe I could and the silence was drowning it out. I wasn't used to quiet; until this very moment it never occurred to me that complete silence could exist. The Other One, down inside the 'Factorum,' had told me that he'd once been in a place so quiet that he could hear the blood run through his veins. I wondered if he'd heard it make its way out of them the day it spilled to the ground.
I rocked forward, the palms of my hands colliding with the smooth metal of the floor. Smooth, unmarked, solid. Like a pool of water, the surface untouched and unbothered, only dark, untold fathoms beneath. I ran my fingers along its coolness; not a nick nor a scratch, a surface untouched by the passage of time. Where was I?
Calm down, My internal dialogue delivered futile reassurances. Calm down.
What was the last thing I remembered? It was dark; but then, it was always dark. I'd been walking, but where had I been walking to? The annex. I'd needed a coil of wire for the generator. That was right. The green, twisted coil; the frayed and burnt wiring in the generator had needed to be replaced. I remembered walking through the steel tunnel, walls the color of moist earth, bright lights illuminating the corridor every few feet. I remembered now. The flickering lights. The closed door ahead. The tunnel ceiling at least a head above me. They'd come for me. Sleek black suits beneath shining helmed faces. Here, the memory seemed to stretch, float, disintegrate away from my reach.
Come back to now, I urged my wandering mind. Come back, be here, be now.
My eyes flicked over to the wall, the door, if it was a door at all. A rectangular partition built into the wall nearest the bed, a strip of crimson light tracing the top of its frame. As I stared at it, a flicker briefly darted across, bringing with it a line of chartreuse that took over the ruby glow. I remembered this from parts of the Factorum. Red meant stop. Green meant go. Had it just been unlocked?
The door whooshed open and my eyes widened in awe at the stranger towering over me. I scrambled backward at the sight of her, ankles dragging against the smooth metal, palms slapping the floor in a frantic pace as I tried to shrink away from my visitor. Beautiful and terrifying at once, her golden hair cascaded over her shoulders. She reminded me of Callie. What had happened to Callie?
I pushed myself back, farther, against the wall. I tried to make myself invisible as I had many times before, but there was no escape. There were no shadows to slink into, there were no convenient crannies to hide inside. There were no high places to climb to. She could see me; there was no avoiding it.
Her voice rang out through the room as though a giant bell had stridden in behind her. “You’re awake.” It was monotone with a shade of sweet; quiet, but deafening. The voice of a goddess speaking directly to me. “Stand up.”
Unsure of myself and all else, I maintained a near fetal position, hugging the wall as though it would shield me from her. I wanted to vanish; I wanted to will myself out of that room. I wanted to sink back into the darkness of the Factorum where her eyes could never reach me.
“I said get up. I’ll drag you out of here if I have to.” She didn’t make a move toward me, but rather stood in place, her stance menacing, her eyes demanding that my obedience be automatic. It was.
My feet found their way to the floor, my body rising as though propelled by an archer’s bow, but my hands hid my face. I was terrified to look upon her, but within seconds she had made her way across the room, her hands around my wrists and pulling down with a startling amount of force. She stared down at me and shook her head. I felt her palm on my cheek, soft hands harshly exploring every surface of my being. She turned my head from left to right as I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to will myself somewhere else.
“I don’t know how I’m supposed to work with something like this,” She clicked her tongue and stepped away from me. “Out into the hallway, let’s go.”
I focused on a lot of things; her arm sheathed in blue, her perfect skin, fingernails shiny, like mirrors. I couldn’t help but concentrate on her perfect, smooth skin; it was nothing like mine, nothing at all. Women were always perfect in comparison to our bloody, charred skin; a roughness earned from years beneath the soil. As she drew me closer to her, I instinctively pulled away from her. It was just a reflex, really. I managed to slip from her grasp; I saw her hand grab for me as I tumbled backward and collided with the bed.
I cried out as my back slammed into the frame, a searing pain shooting up my spine, a wetness beginning to form at the corner of my eyes. Just as my vision recovered, I could see her running at me full force. My body tensed as her hands wrapped around my arms and pulled me to my feet. I was ready for the worst; I expected her to at least strike me, but instead, she turned my body around and leaned me over the bed. I whimpered quietly as her fingers touched the back of my head, and then, finally, she turned me around and ordered me to stan
d straight. I did the best I could.
“Don’t ever pull away from me like that again,” She stepped back from me and brushed a strand of dirty blonde hair away from her face. “I don’t like you, and I don’t have to like you, but you don’t need to get hurt. Do as you’re told.”
I didn’t answer. I looked away, trying to concentrate on something else, anything else. The drawers on the far wall, the corner, anything. I had so many questions running through my mind: Where was I? How did I get here? Who was this...woman? A woman. There was a woman here and she wasn’t masked, and I wasn’t on the ground in pain, except for when I fell, but then she’d pulled me up. That was different. What was happening?
“Are you just going to stand there playing dumb? Acknowledge what I just said.”
“Yes Ma’am,” I croaked. My throat was parched, my lips were dry. As I stood before her I became acutely aware of every ailment across my body. Broken fingernails, calloused feet, bruised skin; all of it made me inferior next to her.
“This is going to be very simple,” She placed her hand on my back and pushed me toward the door to the room. “You’re going to walk in a straight line. You’re going to keep your eyes straight ahead. No looking left, no looking right. You look ahead at where you’re going, and you keep your mouth shut. If you have questions, you keep them to yourself. I want to hear nothing out of your mouth. Don’t even breathe too loud, you got me?”
She moved forward, pushing me from the room, through the door and into a hallway. I nearly stumbled over my own feet as the door hissed shut behind us. The first thing I noticed was how empty it was. In the Factorum, empty spaces were a myth; the halls and workshops were ever filled with bodies as they moved from one job to the next. It was never empty, and it was never quiet. My surroundings were foreign to me. We moved down the hall, my feet moving clumsily as she dragged me roughly behind her. At last we reached one thing I recognized: an elevator, but it was unlike any elevator I had ever seen. Instead of a cage, it was an enclosed car. It moved smoothly and silently, and I barely noticed as we reached our destination and the doors slid gently open with a low hum.
We emerged into another hallway, this one lined by small potted trees. I had seen trees before in some of my brief visits to the upper levels, and once in a children’s book smuggled from the surface, where I had learned they were called trees. Past this, a series of doors set into each side of the corridor, each with a sleek metal panel affixed adjacently on the wall. Illuminated triangles decorated each panel, like some kind of emerald button, but there was nothing to be pressed.
“Stop sightseeing and start walking,” the woman snapped. She placed her hand on the small of my back and shoved me along. I stumbled in front of her, nearly tumbling to the floor but somehow managing to keep my feet.
I passed an open door and briefly glimpsed a woman perched behind a desk, dark hair bound behind her head. She craned her neck to see me as we passed as if I were a spectacle on display. Finally reaching a door at the end of the hallway, like the others, but this was the last of the row. What was happening? Why were we here? What would become my fate? I suddenly longed for the darkness, for the comfort of the steel slab I’d shared with many others as we’d slept in shifts. I craved the brutal heat of the forge, the sting of my fingers as I worked in the kitchen.
We were interchangeable. One’s job in the Factorum could be done by any other, and we were made well aware that we were not special. I wanted to be there, unnoticed, blissfully invisible, faceless to all as everyone was. I was shaken from this desire by the woman’s hands. She grasped my wrists once again and glared at me. I avoided her eyes, kept my head down. I could feel the rising sting of tears in my nose, threatening to spill across my eyes. I had never been this close to a woman before. It was forbidden.
“Now listen to me,” she hissed, her voice soft but still harsh. “You’re about to meet the Prime Minister of Luna. I know that doesn’t mean anything to you, but she’s a very important woman. You will speak only when instructed. You will say ‘Yes, Ma’am,’ you say ‘No, Ma’am,’ and not a word more. If you get too close to her, if you make any sudden moves, if you even look at her oddly, I’ll snap your neck, and then we won’t have to worry about you anymore. We shouldn’t have to worry about you now. You don’t deserve to be above ground, let alone in her presence, but here you are so let’s get this over with.”
I could only nod. I didn’t know why I was here, let alone why she was threatening me with such raw, hot anger. I wanted to beg her to let me go back. I couldn’t stand it here, but I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t will my mouth to form sounds, nor could I part my lips to begin with. It was impossible. I watched the palm of her hand touch the green triangle next to the door with the force of a whisper, and less than a second later it slid aside for us.
“In you go.” She guided me into a room so vast I was instantly lost in its sheer size. Six pillars lined either side of the room, reflected faintly in the time-weathered marble floors, what appeared to be extremely wide chairs made entirely of cushions, and small, ovaled tables in the center. Along the pillars, holo-screens switched between crowds of people shouting, and a single woman delivering a monologue I could barely make out. For a moment I forgot about my guide, who strode forcefully behind me as I took in the scenery, listened to the conversations, and gawked at the graceful beauty of every single woman in the room. Their movements were nearly angelic; they were all different, unique, unlike me. I was filthy; even though I could tell that my clothes had been recently laundered. They were clean. They were so much cleaner than I could be.
“What did I tell you about looking around?” Her words sounded as if they’d passed through gritted teeth; her anger was audible. I closed my eyes and whimpered, feeling her hand move from the small of my back to my shoulder where her finger tips dug into the muscle, pushing me forward at the same time. I stumbled, drawing the attention of a few nearby women who glanced at me passingly, and then returned their attention to whatever tasks they had set themselves to. One woman simply turned back to her conversation, another barely glanced up from a tablet before looking back down, once again becoming absorbed in whatever task she was absorbed in.
It was in these few moments, crossing the marble floor, my feet padding quietly across the stone, that I realized just how self-conscious I was. It was possible that no one was really looking at me, but I felt as if all eyes were upon me. In the Factorum I was invisible, the overcrowded halls were a comfort, and the high places kept me out of sight. Here I could feel the eyes on me; I could feel all of my inadequacies laid bare. Past one of the white pillars, the woman behind me guided me up a set of curved steps, onto a mezzanine and through another steel door, this one leading into a smaller, quieter hallway, this one with two new women, dressed in purple and black.
“So it’s true.” One of them, a redhead with stern eyes stepped toward me and looked me over. I suddenly preferred the woman behind me to the piercing gaze of this unknown person. “Turn around.”
“I already searched it,” the dirty blonde told them. “And they searched it when they brought it up.”
“Let me do my job,” the redhead snapped. She forcefully moved me to the side and instructed me to lay my palms against the wall as she patted me down, starting at my armpits, recoiling at the feeling of the sweat-soaked hair between her fingers, and gradually moving down my sides. I stood motionless and kept my eyes focused on the wall. At least this was familiar, as searches were common in the Factorum, but they were usually far more invasive. She seemed satisfied with a simple pat down, and instructed me to turn around. I relinquished my control to the woman who had brought me here, somewhat relieved. I didn’t dare to sneak a glance at her face, but I could feel her annoyance and certainly heard it in her next words.
“Can we go now?” She asked evenly, but the calm was a cover for the undercurrent of irritation bubbling and expanding below her calm facade. The redhead motioned for her to walk through; we passed the thir
d woman who had remained silent throughout the entire ordeal, cold eyes following us with little interest as she tucked her pale locks behind an ear.
I was pushed through the door and into another massive room, this one furnished with chairs surrounding a large desk of sleek, polished wood. Like the hallway, this room was warm in both temperature and design. The lights were softer, the floor was covered in a fabric the rich, deep color of wine, the walls were lined with books much like the children’s book that I had seen so long ago, but thicker, heavier, older. At the desk sat a woman, perhaps a few years older than the one behind me. She was elegantly dressed, her dark hair falling loosely around her shoulders. She studied me as I was forced closer to the desk.
“Thank you, Kerra,” She said to the woman behind me. I averted my eyes to the floor. “Sit down,” she said to me.
I looked up, and she was gesturing toward a chair, whose gleaming mahogany surface matched her desk, and a thickly padded seat covered in the same fabric as the floor. Could I really sit? Why was she asking me to sit? I froze in place, unsure of what to do, but within moments Kerra impatiently thrust me into the chair, facing the Prime Minister across the desk. Prime Minister: whatever that meant, it was important. I couldn’t bring myself to look at her.
“I’ll make this brief,” She said to me. “My daughter, Callie, visited the Factorum three months ago as part of a routine survey and you spoke to her. Do you deny this?”
Callie. I remembered Callie. She was beautiful. She had been kind to me. I remembered her touching my face, soft skin against my scarred cheek. A warm smile, soft lips, deep blue eyes. Her hair had been tied back in a pink ribbon. I nodded; I had spoken to her.
“This is strictly forbidden,” She said to me. “Males do not speak to women, an offense punishable by death, and make no mistake-- I would have you killed if she hadn’t made such a big fuss over you.”
I wanted to die. I didn’t want to be here. Couldn’t she kill me and get it over with already? She was going to anyway. A vision seared into my mind of the countless males, like myself led into the cylindrical chambers on the sixth level of the Factorum. Evaporated, erased from existence. Forgotten. They hadn’t cried out, they hadn’t been afraid. They were happy to go. Happy to be free.
