I only wish Sal was here to see me standing before a hall full of adoring humans.
“I knew you’d do it, kiddo,” I imagine her saying. I hope this is the ‘being better’ Sal talked about; I’d like to believe she’d be proud of me. Ahlgren stares at my arm in dismay but still gestures for me to take another bow. The crowd continues to clap and whistle, shouting ‘bravo’ and ‘encore.’
I find Tyri’s face in the crowd, her eyes bright and cheeks flushed. Have we changed the world with this one moment of revelation? No.
But it’s a start.
Acknowledgements
I owe my love of classical music in large part to my grandfather. Some of my earliest memories are of playing in the lounge on weekend afternoons while my grandfather sat mesmerized by the melodies and harmonies of Beethoven and Brahms, Schubert and Mendelssohn, no longer able to play his violin, but no less in love with the great composers.
At age six, I was given the choice between learning to play violin and piano. Despite knowing my grandfather was an accomplished violinist – or perhaps because I wanted to forge my own path – I chose to play the piano and thus music became an indelible part of my life, progressing from childhood hobby to serious academic pursuit, and eventually becoming my career. Even after my grandfather died, my parents continued to nurture my passion for music. I cannot thank my mom and dad enough for taking my love of music seriously and letting me pursue my dream – even if that dream took a detour and I ended up writing books instead of being the principal flutist for the Vienna Philharmonic.
Other people without whom this book would not have been possible are as follows: Wiz Green, who read a very early draft of this story and gave me wonderful feedback, feedback that has helped shape this story into the novel it is today. Jordy Albert, my lovely agent, who fell in love with my robots and believed in this story from the very beginning. Georgia McBride at Month9Books who ‘got’ this quirky romance when I wasn’t sure anyone would. Nichole LaVigne and my team of editors at Month9Books who have read and reread this novel almost as many times as I have in the hopes of making it as close to perfect as humanly possible. If only I had my own personal Saga-droid to sniff-out typos and errant commas. Terry Cronje, who is an outstanding artist and design genius, and the many music students with whom I had the pleasure of spending more than six years of my life both in South Africa and Finland, they have left me with so many wonderful memories of being in wind bands, ensembles and the orchestra – even when I was relegated to the percussion section and given the triangle to play.
My pooch, Lego, for breathing life into Glitch, and finally, my other half, Mark, who has not only put up with my authorly pursuits and been a patient technical advisor on all things ‘science’, but who has never ceased to encourage and champion my efforts no matter what. I love you more than words could ever hope to express.
SUZANNE VAN ROOYEN
Suzanne is a tattooed storyteller and peanut-butter addict from South Africa. She currently lives in Finland and finds the cold, dark forests nothing if not inspiring. Although she has a Master’s degree in music, Suzanne prefers conjuring strange worlds and creating quirky characters. When not writing, she teaches dance and music to middle schoolers, collects bruises on the climbing wall, and entertains her Shiba Inu, Lego. She is repped by Jordy Albert of the Booker Albert Agency. Feel free to hang out with Suzanne on Twitter (@Suzanne_Writer) or get in touch via her website: suzannevanrooyen.com
LIFER SAMPLE CHAPTER
Chapter One
[Asher]
I mark my body for Samuai.
My right hand is steady as I press the slim needle into my skin. It glints under the soft overhead light of the storage locker, the only place to hide on Starship Pelican. Row upon row of shelving fills the room. Back here I’m hidden from the door.
It’s been seventeen days since Samuai passed. Seventeen days of neutral expressions and stinging eyes, waiting for the chance to be alone and pay my respects to the dead Official boy in true Lifer fashion. With blood.
The body of the needle is wrapped in thread I stole from my spare uniform. The blue thread acts as the ink reservoir. It’s soaked with a dye I made from crushed feed pellets and argobenzene, both swiped from farm level. The pungent fumes sting my eyes and make it even harder to keep the tears at bay. But I will. There will be no disrespect in this marking.
My slipper drops to the floor with the softest of thuds as I shake my foot. I raise it to rest on a cold metal shelf. Samuai always held my hand when we met in secret, but I can’t bear to examine those memories now. The pain of him being gone is still so fresh.
The first break of skin at my ankle hurts a little. Not much, since the needle is nano-designed for single molecule sharpness, and it’s not as though I haven’t done this before. Recently. The tattoo for my brother circles my ankle, completed days ago, a match for the one for my father. My memorial for Samuai had to wait for privacy. The blue spreads out into my skin like liquid on a cloth. The dot is tiny. I add another and another, each time accepting the momentary pain as a tribute to Samuai. Soon I’ve finished the first swirling line.
“Are you mourning my brother or yours?”
My hand jerks at the familiar voice, driving the needle deep into the delicate skin over my Achilles. Davyd’s voice. How did he get in here so quietly? I wince, clamping down on a cry of pain. No tears though. Nothing will make me disrespect Samuai. I remove the needle from my flesh and school my features into a neutral expression before I turn and stand to attention.
“Davyd,” I say by way of greeting. Despite my preparation my throat thickens.
My response to him is stupid because he looks nothing like Samuai. Where Samuai radiated warmth from his spiky dark hair hinting of honey and his deep, golden brown eyes, there is only ice in his brother. Ice-chiseled cheekbones, tousled blond hair, the slight cleft in his chin, and his gray eyes. Eyes that see far too much.
But he’s dressed like Samuai used to dress. The same white t-shirt and black pants. It’s the uniform of Officials, or Fishies, as they’re known below. He’s a little broader in the shoulders than his older brother was—to even think of Samuai in the past tense is agony—and he’s not quite as tall. I only have to look up a little to meet his gaze. I do so without speaking.
I shouldn’t be here, but I’m not going to start apologizing for where I am or his reference to my forbidden relationship with his brother, until I know what he wants.
“Is that supposed to happen?” He points at my foot, where blood drips, forming a tiny puddle on the hard, shiny floor.
His face is expressionless, as usual, but I can hear the conceit in his voice. I can imagine what the son of a Fishie thinks of our Lifer traditions.
Today, I don’t care. Even if his scorn makes my stomach tighten and cheeks flame, I won’t care. Not about anything Davyd has to say.
“It’s none of your business.”
One fine brow arches. Superior, knowing.
He doesn’t have to say the words. The awareness of just how wrong I am zaps between us. Given our relative stations on this journey—he’s destined to be a Fishie in charge of managing the ship’s population, and me to serve my inherited sentence—whatever I do is his business, if he chooses to make it so. He’s in authority even though we’re almost the same age.
In order to gain permission to breed, Lifers allowed the injection of nanobots into their children. These prototype bots in our cells give our masters the power to switch us off using a special Remote Device until our sentence is served. At any time we can be shut down. I’m not sure how exactly, only that each of us has a unique code and the device can turn those particular bots against us. It’s an unseen but constant threat.
I keep my face blank and my posture subservient, but my fingers tighten around the needle in my hand. How I long to slap the smooth skin of his cheek.
For a second, neither of us speaks.
“Your brother or mine
?” he asks again. Softly this time. So low, the question is almost intimate in the dim light.
I inhale deeply, welcoming the harsh fumes from my makeshift ink. The burning in my lungs gives me a focus so the ever-present emotional pain can’t cripple me. My brother and my boyfriend were taken on the same day, and I’m unable to properly mourn either thanks to the demands of servitude.
I can’t let it cripple me. Not if I want to find out what really happened to Zed and Samuai.
“Does it matter?” I ask. Rather than refuse him again, I twist the question around. He would never admit to having interest in the goings-on of a mere Lifer.
“No.” His voice is hard. Uncaring. He folds his arms. “But it’s against ship law to deface property.”
It takes a heartbeat, and then I realize I’m the property he’s talking about. My toes curl because my fists can’t. I see from the flick of his eyes to my feet that he’s noticed. Of course he has. There’s nothing Davyd doesn’t notice.
It’s true though. The marks we Lifers make on our bodies are not formally allowed. It is a price we pay for the agreement signed in DNA by our parents and our grandparents. They agreed to a lifetime of servitude, and their sentence is passed down through the generations for the chance at a new life on a new planet. I am the last in the chain, and my sentence will continue for twelve years after landing.
We Lifers belong to those above us, body and soul, but no Fishie or Naut—the astronauts who pilot the ship—has ever tried to stop the ritual. In return we are not blatant. We mark feet, torsos, and thighs. Places hidden by our plain blue clothing.
If the son of the head Fishie reports me, it will go on my record no matter how minor the charge, and possibly add months to my sentence. A sentence I serve for my grandparents’ crimes back on Earth after the Upheaval. Like others, their crime was no more than refusal to hand over their vehicle and property when both were declared a government resource.
I swallow convulsively.
I don’t want that kind of notice. Not when we’re expected to land in my lifetime. Not when I hoped to find answers to the questions that haunt me.
The first lesson a Lifer child learns is control around their superiors. I won’t allow mine to fail me now.
“Did you want something? Sir?”
If there’s a faint pause before the honorific, well, I’m only human.
He lets it pass. “The Lady requires extra help at this time. You have been recommended.”
“Me?”
His lips twist. “I was equally surprised. Attend her now.”
The Lady is the wife of the senior Official on board the Pelican, and both Samuai and Davyd’s mother. She’s a mysterious figure who is never seen in the shared area of the ship. I imagine she’s hurting for her dead child. Sympathy stirs within me. I’ve seen the strain my own mother tries to hide since Zed died, and I don’t think having a higher rank would make the burden any easier to bear.
It’s within Davyd’s scope as both Fishie-in-training and son of the ship’s Lady to be the one to inform me of my new placement, but I can’t help looking for something deeper in his words. There should be a kinship between us, having both lost a brother so recently, but Samuai’s death hasn’t affected Davyd at all.
“Who recommended me?”
He shrugs. “Now. Lifer.”
I nod and move to tidy up, ignoring the persistent pain in my ankle where the needle went too deep. My defiance only stretches so far. Not acting on a direct request would be stupidity. I will finish my memorial for Samuai, but not with his brother waiting. It’s typical that Davyd doesn’t use my name. I can’t remember him or his Fishie friends ever doing so.
It was something that stood out about Samuai from when we were youngsters and met in the training room. It was the only place on the ship us Lifers are close to equal. I was paired to fight with him to first blood, and he shocked me by asking my name. “Asher,” Samuai had repeated, like he tasted something sweet on his tongue, “I like it.”
In my heart there’s an echo of the warmth I felt that day, but the memory hurts. It hurts that I’ll never see him again, that he’ll never live out the dreams we shared in our secret meetings. Dreams of a shared future and changes to a system that makes Lifers less than human.
When I’ve gathered the small inkpot and put on my slippers, I notice a smear of blood on the slipper material from where I slipped earlier. It’s the opportunity I need to let my change in status be known below.
“Umm.” I clear my throat. Please let the stories I’ve heard of the Lady be true.
“What?” asks Davyd from where he waits by the door, presumably to escort me to his mother. The intensity of his gaze makes me quake inside. It’s all I can do not to lift my hand to check my top is correctly buttoned and my hair hasn’t grown beyond the fuzz a Lifer is allowed.
“My foot attire isn’t suitable to serve the Lady.” I point to the faint smudge of brown seeping into my footwear. It is said by those cleaners who are permitted into the Fishie sleeping quarters that the Lady insists her apartment be kept spotless. She’s unlikely to be pleased with me reporting for duty in bloodstained slippers.
Davyd’s jaw tenses. Maybe I’ve pushed him too far with this delay. I hold my breath.
But then his annoyance is gone and his face is the usual smooth mask. “Change. I will be waiting at the lift between the training hall and study rooms.”
He doesn’t need to tell me to hurry.
He opens the door leading out into the hallway and I expect him to stride through and not look back. Again he surprises me. He turns. His face is in shadow. The brighter light behind him shines on his tousled blond hair, which gives him a hint of the angelic.
“Assuming it’s my brother you’re mourning,” his voice is deep and for the first time there’s a slight melting of the ice. “You should know. … He wasn’t worth your pain.”
FIRE IN THE WOODS SAMPLE CHAPTER
1
The walls shook.
My favorite sunset photograph crashed to the floor. Again.
Why the Air Force felt the need to fly so low over the houses was beyond me. Whole sky up there, guys. Geeze.
I picked up the frame and checked the glass. No cracks, thank goodness. I hung the photo back on the wall with the rest of my collection: landscapes, animals, daily living, the greatest of the great. Someday my photos would be featured in galleries across the country. But first I had to graduate high school and get my butt off Maguire Air Force Base.
One more year—that’s all that separated me from the real world. The clock wasn’t ticking fast enough. Not for me, at least.
Settling back down at my desk, I flipped through the pages of August’s National Geographic. Dang, those pictures were good. NG photographers had it down. Emotion, lighting, energy …
I contemplated the best of my own shots hanging around my room. Would they ever compare?
Another jet screamed overhead.
Stinking pilots! I lunged off the chair to save another photo from falling. The entire house vibrated. This was getting ridiculous.
Dad came in and leaned his bulky frame against my door. “Redecorating?”
“Not by choice.” I blew a stray hair out of my eyes. “Are they ever going to respect the no-fly zone?”
“Unlikely.”
“Then next time you have my permission to shoot them down.”
“You want me to shoot down a multi-million-dollar jet because a picture fell off the wall?”
“Why not? Isn’t that what the Army does? Protect the peace and all?” I tried to hold back my grin. Didn’t work.
He grimaced while rubbing the peach fuzz he called a haircut.
So much for sarcasm. “It was a joke, Dad.”
A smile almost crossed his lips.
Come on, Dad. You can do it. Inch those lips up just a smidge.
His nose flared.
Nope. No smile today. Mus
t be Monday—or any other day of the week ending in y.
The walls shuddered as the engines of another aircraft throttled overhead, followed by an echoing rattle.
Dad’s gaze shot to the ceiling. His jaw tightened. So did mine. Those planes were flying way too low.
My stomach turned. “What—”
“Shhh.” His hand shot out, silencing me. “That sounds like …” His eyes widened. “Jessica, get down!”
A deafening boom rolled through the neighborhood. The rest of my pictures tumbled off the walls.
Dad pulled me to the floor. His body became a human shield as a wave of heat blasted through the open window. A soda can shimmied off my desk and crashed to the floor. Cola fizzled across the carpet.
My heart pummeled my ribcage as Dad’s eyes turned to ice. The man protecting me was no longer my father, but someone darker: trained and dangerous.
I placed my hand on his chest. “Dad, what…”
He rolled off me and stood. “Stay down.”
Like I was going anywhere.
As he moved toward the window, he picked up a picture of Mom from the floor and set it back on my dresser. His gaze never left the curtains. How did he stay so calm? Was this what it was like when he was overseas? Was this just another day at the office for him?
The light on my desk dimmed, pulsed, and flickered out. The numbers on the digital alarm clock faded to black. That couldn’t be good.
Were we being attacked? Why had we lost power?
The National Geographic slid off my desk, landing opened to a beautiful photograph of a lake. The caption read: Repairing the Ozone Layer. I would have held the photo to the light, inspected the angle to see how the photographer achieved the shine across the lake—if the world hadn’t been coming to an end outside my window.
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