Survival Aptitude Test: Sound (The Extinction Odyssey Book 1)

by Sheriff, Mike

  Luck or fortuitous timing had delivered him unseen to the outer door. He rapped its clear glass and entered without tarrying for an invitation.

  The inner chamber was much smaller than the Unum’s and far less ornate. Its ceiling hosted no scenic panels, its glass walls no geometric patterns. A ceramic water fountain gurgled ten feet beyond the door—the space’s sole piece of sculpture. Ten feet beyond it, Lucien sat behind a simple transparent desk, his gaze lowered to its surface.

  Pyros cursed the man’s humility. It made the task no easier.

  Lucien lifted his head. His face brightened. “Pyros, welcome.”

  Pyros stalked over and paced before the desk, still no closer to a plan of attack. Constant movement tended to sharpen his thoughts, but not today. Visions of his daughter being processed into grooll kept bubbling up like pools of slag on molten glass.

  “You look as though your mind’s being stretched in opposite directions,” Lucien said, an undertone of wariness coloring the statement.

  The wariness in Lucien’s voice was the beacon Pyros needed. He saw his path.

  Keep him off-balance. Make him draw me in.

  He kept up his pacing. “The more paranoid denizens of Daqin Guojin have long suspected that senior members of the Cognos Populi are manipulating the S.A.T. for the benefit of their kin.” He halted and leveled a bloodless stare. “I’ve dealt with these threats as they arise.”

  Lucien’s brightness dimmed. “You think me a threat?”

  “That depends. You have Julinian’s prep-tests?”

  “I received them earlier this afternoon.”

  “From whom?”

  “An anonymous source.” Lucien beckoned him to come around the desk. “A datakeeper at the Librarium, I assume.”

  Pyros rounded the desk and positioned himself behind Lucien’s seat, heartbeat throbbing in his fingertips. He glanced at the glass walls enveloping the chamber. They left him far too exposed. “I’d prefer this visit to be anonymous,” he said. “The Unum doesn’t know I’m here.”

  Lucien tapped the desktop; the chamber’s walls tinted black. He manipulated the desk’s embedded tile. A multitude of documents opened, under-lighting his chin and amplifying the creases around his mouth. His fingers swiped and pinched, arranging the documents in five rows.

  “Are those her prep-tests?”

  “For the past five years.”

  “Have you shown them to anyone else?”

  “You’re the first,” Lucien said. “You won’t be the last.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’m going to present them to the Assembly.”

  He placed a hand on Lucien’s shoulder. “Is that the wisest course of action?”

  “It’s the right course of action. Not because it involves my son, but because it involves the sanctity of the S.A.T.”

  The statement confirmed his suspicion; Lucien wouldn’t be swayed. “Is the evidence strong enough to warrant an inquiry?”

  “Judge for yourself.” Lucien pointed at the documents arrayed on the desktop. “There. See Julinian’s average score over twenty prep-tests? She earned less than ten thousand points.”

  Pyros leaned over. He slipped his hand inside his tunic and felt for its shoulder sheath. “Less than ten thousand, you say?”

  “Yet she receives a score high enough to gain unrestricted entry to the Cognos Populi when it truly matters. Does that make sense to you?”

  Pyros grasped the dagger’s handle with an overhand grip. He drew the weapon into the open, keeping it out of Lucien’s sightline. Its ceramic blade glimmered in the desk’s glow.

  It wasn’t the straight, double-edged blade preferred by the Jireni. It was a smaller, curved blade with a single, serrated edge. The kind that anyone could obtain in a glass market. The kind that was difficult to extract once driven home.

  Pyros steadied his breathing. He raised the dagger, higher and higher. “No, my friend. It doesn’t make sense.”

  Lucien’s head shook from side to side. “Mako’s prep-tests averaged twenty-nine thousand points. Is that supposed to be a coincidence? There’s no way he could have—”

  Pyros clamped his free hand over Lucien’s mouth and swung the dagger downward. It plunged hilt-deep into Lucien’s pelvis.

  Lucien’s body arched and stiffened. He clawed at the dagger’s handle, trying to draw it out. His muffled screams pumped moist air against Pyros’ fingers.

  Pyros closed his eyes and rip-sawed upward, hacking through gleamglass, skin, and entrails. He didn’t stop until the blade rasped on bone. He pressed his lips to Lucien’s ear. “Forgive me, Lucien. Forgive me.”

  Lucien’s body went limp. His muffled cries grew fainter and fainter. When Pyros felt no more breath against his fingers, he opened his eyes.

  Blood drenched his knife hand. Red rivulets streamed off Lucien’s shenyi and dribbled onto the opaque floor.

  Pyros blinked, summoning the clarity he needed to complete the task. He folded Lucien’s blood-soaked hands around the dagger’s handle. He used his own unbloodied hand to expunge Julinian’s prep-tests and open a cache of quantum images.

  One by one, Mako’s likeness resolved, filling the desk’s surface. Red droplets spattered the boy’s smiling face like bloody tears.

  Pyros rounded the desk and surveyed the scene for signs of his presence. None jumped out, but ample evidence of another kind leapt to the forefront.

  He’d culled an innocent man.

  He’d culled a man who was a credit to Daqin Guojin.

  He’d culled a man who but for a quirk of lineage and a decent heart would have been a great Unum.

  Only now, seeing the aftermath of his decision, did he recognize it.

  He’d made the wrong choice.

  Pyros trudged to the fountain. He thrust his hand into its cool stream and rinsed away the blood. His shoulders slumped.

  His path was set.

  9

  Sea of Storms

  TWO HOURS AFTER leaving the abusive Librarian in the courtyard, Heqet arrived at the southern habitation complex in Meiguo Cheng with Daoren at her side.

  She was last here just over a month ago. The pediwalks hemming the transways bristled with the same mix of Caucasoids. The yellow, blue, and purple abodes still resembled haphazardly stacked children’s blocks. Groups of prospects, no more than twelve at a time in keeping with the restriction on associations, played Jireni and Slags or Mongrel Incursions in the open spaces around the complex. The familiar landmarks offered no comfort thanks to the foreign entity walking beside her.

  He was so unlike his brother. Mako couldn’t walk five paces without saying ten words. Daoren could walk ten thousand paces without saying five words. Mako tread lightly in both his physical movements and his personal interactions. Daoren had a swagger that never went away, even when he was standing still, and a personality as abrasive as a mouthful of sand. Yes, he was smart—Mako had told her many times how Daoren was receiving stellar results on his prep-tests despite leaving the Librarium—but did that give him the right to be such a glasshole?

  She stole another glance at him as they walked. Sure enough, his expression hadn’t changed. The same disheveled bangs curtained the same disaffected brow. The same impervious cheekbones crowned the same imperious jawline.

  He turned his head and skewered her with an impenetrable gaze. He didn’t smile nor frown. He didn’t cross his eyes nor stick out his tongue. He simply granted a different view of his face.

  She looked away, too quickly. She cursed herself, again.

  “We’ll be there soon,” he said.

  “I’m not a distant relative from another district. I could close my eyes from here and still find my way to your abode.”

  “Oh . . . right.”

  Heqet sighed. Maybe she should do just that. At least with her eyes closed, she wouldn’t get caught stealing glances at him.

  Daoren possessed uncanny intuition, a sixth-sense so incisive it smacked of second-sight. He
’d displayed the gift in the market when he pulled her behind the transway column. If he’d delayed as much as a second, she’d be dead.

  Mako wouldn’t have reacted that way. He’d have been too busy pointing out the wares in the stalls to notice the man with the sonic charges, let alone the sonic charges. He wouldn’t have responded to the comment about her sore neck with indignation either; he’d have rasplaughed at the irony. And challenge a Librarian’s authority to protect a prospect?

  Never.

  The incident in the courtyard made Daoren more of a puzzle. What prompted him to race over and stop the beating? Was it compassion? Was it anger? Did he feel sorry for the prospect or did he despise the Libraria that much?

  True to form, he’d ruined the moment by snapping at her. Humanity was the price of denizenship? Daoren al Lucien was one to talk of humanity. She’d known him thirteen years, and he’d divulged few human traits other than intelligence. Yet she couldn’t shake the feeling that much more lay trapped below his sterile surface, buried like the artifact caches her grandfather so loved to examine.

  They walked another ten minutes in deliberate silence before reaching the abode’s door. Daoren opened it.

  She snatched his sleeve. “Are you sure she’ll want to see me?”

  “Why wouldn’t she?”

  “I might remind her of Mako. I don’t want to upset her.”

  “This is the only abode we’ve ever lived in. You think it isn’t full of reminders already?”

  Heqet dammed her tongue with her teeth, barricading a biting retort. It wasn’t just his words; it was the way he said them—like his excrement didn’t stink. “I suppose you’re right . . . as always.”

  His barbed glance bit into her.

  She queued a sharp comment, ready to deflate his sharp comment, but he entered the abode without another word. She followed him, disappointed by his restraint.

  The entry nave radiated an eerie familiarity. Lucien and Cordelia had simple tastes and precious little grooll to exchange for decorative wares, but their abode always gave off a vibrant and welcoming atmosphere. Now an oppressive aura dampened it.

  A crystal urn filled with grooll perched on a side table near the door as was the custom of Western Caucasoids. She took a piece and placed it onto her tongue. Its macronutrients embittered her mouth, provoking a shudder.

  Daoren walked past the urn, foregoing the offering. Three hallways lined with tan-tinted glass tiles branched off from the nave to the parlor, the pantry, and the sleeping chambers.

  Another shudder swept through her body. The cramped abode felt more confining for Mako’s absence. Did it feel the same way for Daoren? Was he capable of experiencing loss on his island of isolation? She declined to ask him. If the last few hours were any indication, he wouldn’t deign her with a reply.

  “Cordelia?” he called out. “Heqet is here.”

  Heqet bunched her shoulders. His insistence on calling his parents by their first names grated her sensibility. She wouldn’t have dared address her parents in such an informal manner. In truth, she’d gladly forsake her future to address them in any manner.

  The clink of glass-on-glass wafted down the hallway leading to the sleeping chambers. Mako’s chamber was at the end, sixteen paces away, on the right-hand side. Two feet from its doorway, a loose floor tile would squeak in protest if trod upon. She’d learned as a child how to be quiet in this abode.

  “Don’t mention the market or what we discussed at the Hollows,” Daoren said. “I don’t want to worry her.”

  Heqet would sooner forget the events herself, and none quicker than his hunch about Mako’s score being switched with a prospect related to the Unum. Now that they were here, she wished she hadn’t met him at the Hollows and agreed to come. A month may have passed since the January S.A.T., but standing in the abode conjured up a miserable tangle of emotions, the worst of which was angst at seeing Cordelia again.

  She trailed him down the hallway. Her heart raced faster with each step—faster than any time she’d stolen late-night visits with Mako. It skipped a beat when Daoren’s foot landed on the loose tile. He didn’t react to its squeak, nor did he slow before entering the chamber. She stepped over the tile out of habit and crossed the door’s threshold.

  Cordelia stood next to Mako’s bed with her back to the door. Sheer, gray fabric bereft of embroidery and adornments draped her body. A mourning shroud.

  That was odd. Heqet had worn one for seven days while she fasted for Mako, in keeping with the custom. Seven days and no more. Cordelia’s shroud hung loose, its hemline skimming the floor. Its sleeves swallowed her arms. Hadn’t she broken her fast?

  Cordelia plucked sculptglass models from the nooks recessed into the walls between the bed and desk. Cantilevered bridges. Terraced water fountains. Twisting spans of elevated transways. Angular structures with breathculling geometries.

  Mako had dreamed of constructing epic public works after his S.A.T. I’ll build us a glinty life as I build the people a better Daqin Guojin, he’d say, voice plump with mock authority.

  Seeing his models again tore at her heart. Seeing Cordelia set them in a glass crate, as if to be packed away in an unlit space, rent it in two.

  Cordelia spotted them when she turned to clear another nook. Her disposition morphed from blankness to surprise to joy in a single breath. She whisked over. “Heqet!”

  Heqet felt genuine love in the embrace. She rested her chin on Cordelia’s bony collar and squeezed back. Her tears fell as silent as the footfalls that had brought her to this chamber on so many nights—then she noticed the quantum images.

  Four images glowed, embedded in the glass face of the recessed nook above the desk; Mako and Lucien in his father’s chamber at the Assembly, Mako and Cordelia in the abode’s rear courtyard, Mako and her grandfather in the Spires of the Librarium. The fourth image in the nook captured Mako and her, arm-in-arm in the abode’s parlor, less than a year ago.

  Cracks ringed the glass overlying the fourth image. The impact looked severe enough to have fractured Mako’s knuckles.

  Heqet couldn’t rip her gaze from the shattered image. He’d struck it the night before his S.A.T., moments before she fled the chamber in tears. He’d chatterwailed for hours beforehand about their imminent union and glinty future together. She’d ended their relationship because she couldn’t keep lying to him . . . or to herself.

  The fifth image was missing from the nook; the one of Mako and Daoren, taken at the Hollows. He’d spent five minutes cajoling Daoren to pose for it. She’d been forced to tarry, stomach growling and patience thinning, while they argued. She’d rendered the image on Mako’s quantum tile three months ago on a humid November afternoon. It was the last time the three of them were together.

  She glanced over Cordelia’s shoulder at Daoren. Had he noticed the cracked and missing images?

  He stared at the pile of models set in the crate. Grief moistened his eyes and weighted his cheeks. The emotional cues vanished in a single breath, but they answered her question on whether he could feel loss.

  “It’s been too long, child,” Cordelia said, releasing her.

  “A month.”

  “You needn’t have tarried all this time before coming by. You know you’re always welcome here.”

  Heqet also knew why she’d tarried. She hadn’t come by because she thought she was responsible for Mako’s failure. She’d convinced herself that ending the relationship had wrecked his ability to concentrate on the S.A.T. She’d also convinced herself that Cordelia knew and would blame her for his harvesting. Yet here she was without a hint of blame on her face, as loving as ever.

  The emotional burden’s lifting lightened Heqet’s tone. “How are you?” She cringed at the inane question the moment it passed her lips.

  Cordelia shrugged it off with a tentative smile. “I’m surviving, child. And you?”

  “I’m taking it day by day.”

  “How’s your grandfather?” Cordelia asked. “On the
day of the S.A.T., he seemed to take Mako’s failure personally. I hope he’s forgiven himself.”

  “I’ve hardly seen him. He’s been working on some project.”

  “I’d wager he’s seeking solace in his artifacts. Tell him you’re both to come over at your earliest convenience. Lucien and I would—”

  Heavy footfalls resounded in the hallway.

  Cordelia’s smile faded. “Lucien? Is that you?”

  The footfalls grew louder. Daoren inched toward the door. His hands clenched and unclenched by his side.

  A pang of sorrow pricked Heqet; Mako used to exhibit the same unconscious tic when anxious. It was one of the few traits the brothers shared.

  Daoren stopped at the door’s threshold. Beyond it, the telltale tile squeaked. . . .

  The Unum swept into the chamber and brushed past Daoren.

  Heqet gasped. His appearance was so sudden and so unexpected, she forgot to bow. A hulking Africoid with a scarred scalp and joyless eyes entered a second later. The gold piping on his black bianfu identified him; Pyros, the Primae Jiren.

  The Unum halted before Cordelia. She managed an awkward semi-bow and clasped her hands before her chest. “Unum, what brings you here?”

  The Unum rubbed his blotchy scalp, averting his gaze. Pyros stared at Daoren, thumb hooked on his waist belt. He slid the hand closer to his dagger’s opaque sheath.

  Heqet’s throat tightened. Their stilted movements had a mechanical air, more rehearsed than natural. Her instinct told her the behavior foreshadowed ill tidings.

  Cordelia must have sensed it, too. “Unum, please. If you have news for me, speak it.”

  “Cordelia,” the Unum said, voice a mere whisper. “I don’t know how to say this. There’s been a horrible . . .” His searching gaze shifted to Pyros, like he needed help in finding the words.

  The hairs on the back of Heqet’s neck stood. From her vantage point, she gleaned more than a loss for words in the glance. The Unum had looked at Pyros to confirm that his Primae Jiren was positioned between him and Daoren.