Secondborn

by Amy A. Bartol

  I shudder. The thought that I may have provoked him is not something I can just shove away. “You murdered her. She was no more thirdborn than you or I.”

  He grabs my elbow. “Careful, Roselle. Questioning the integrity of a Census agent has consequences.” I clench my teeth, knowing that there’s nothing I can do to prevent him from hurting whomever he wants, and calling it justice.

  He strokes my hair. “What I find most intriguing is that this Moon-Fated Agnes would be an advocate for you. Why would a thirdborn enter Census knowing that she could be discovered?”

  I shy away from his touch. “I’d imagine that she was instructed to do it. Grisholm Wenn-Bowie was particularly interested in you, Agent Crow, in my debriefing. He found the idea of sending you that basket amusing.” Disinformation. Steer him away from Hawthorne.

  “The First Commander is interested in very little that happens outside the Fate of Virtues, that I can promise you. You must have made an impression on him.”

  “I’ve known him for a long time. One could say I’ve left a dent in him,” I reply. “Did Agnes say someone sent her?” How much does he know? I cannot allow this to lead back to Hawthorne, Walther, or Dune. The thought of Dune at the mercy of Agent Crow pains me.

  “I never got around to asking Agnes about her connections—I know it was bad form. Anger does not usually overwhelm me, but she was solely to blame for it. She provoked me at every turn. Her relentless pursuit of your release was something I found . . . personal.”

  “It wasn’t personal. It was her job as a Sword advocate.”

  He ignores me. “In light of this new information regarding Agnes Moon, her being thirdborn, I have some questions for you, Roselle. It’d be more appropriate to ask them in the secure surroundings of an interrogation cell in Census.” He raises his hand to my mouth. His thumb brushes my cheek, skimming over the scab there. It’s still sore from Hawthorne wrestling me to the floor. “I’d like the chance to taste your blood.” I pull away.

  Four military policemen approach us. A dark blue armband, bearing an emblem of a golden sword over a black shield, encircles each soldier’s left arm. “Roselle Sword,” the lead MP addresses me, “you’ve been found in violation of code 47257. You’re ordered to come with us.”

  I know the code he’s referring to. I violated it just a few hours ago. It’s called brandishing. I’m not allowed to ignite my fusionblade in noncombat or non-training situations. I don’t resist when cuffs restrain my wrists.

  Agent Crow scowls at the MP. “I have reason to suspect this soldier has information regarding an investigation into thirdborns.”

  “She violated code. She gets a couple nights in the cooler. You can visit her there, at the detention center, and ask your questions. Contact her commanding officer if you want to make arrangements to see her.”

  Agent Crow’s eyebrows slash together. “I cannot possibly ask the kind of questions that I need to ask in your facility. This is classified information.” They ignore him. I’m relieved of my weapon by the youngest of the soldiers.

  The one in charge is a middle-aged man with the lined face of someone who has seen a lot. The creases around his mouth deepen. “Then I guess you’re gonna have to wait until she gets out,” he says. “Oh, but her regiment is scheduled to go active in less than forty-eight hours.” He snaps his fingers, like the thought only just occurred to him. “You’ll have to follow her to the battlefield to get your answers.” He leans closer to Agent Crow. “But then, men like you don’t fight when your enemy has a weapon and can fight back, do you?”

  Agent Crow gives him an icy stare. “You’ll live to regret this.” The dark lines by his eyes bunch together.

  “I’ve lived to regret a lot of decisions, Census. This ain’t one of ’em.”

  “Who’s your commanding officer?” Agent Crow demands.

  “Commander Aslanbek,” he replies in a bored tone. I bet a lot of people ask him that, hoping to intimidate him. “Say your good-byes. You can see her in a few months when she gets back from active duty.”

  My smile for Agent Crow is forced, intended to make him believe that I don’t fear him. Right now, it’s the best I can do. I’d been waiting for the MPs to arrive and arrest me since lunchtime, but I hadn’t known I’d be grateful to see them.

  “Don’t get comfortable, Roselle,” Agent Crow murmurs.

  I don’t respond as the soldiers march me out and onto a heartwood.

  Chapter 12

  Detention

  We travel almost all the way down the Tree’s trunk to the detention center on the second level. The lead MP scans his moniker at the steel doors. One thick door opens. Inside is a small antechamber with a glass divider to a larger area. We walk to the glass. Behind it, a lone guard waits.

  “One for detention. Detainee was quiet,” the lead MP says to the female guard on duty behind the glass. “No additional charges to assess, Tula.” The guard, in possession of my generic fusionblade, deposits the weapon into a phloem. The air-powered pipeline sweeps it away.

  “Scan her over to us,” Tula replies without inflection.

  The lead MP takes me to the panel on the wall. My cuffs are taken off and my moniker is scanned. A piece of the glass that separates this room from the rest of the facility descends into the floor. “Step through,” the lead MP orders. I obey, passing through a laser that scans my entire body. On the other side, I look at the glass, which projects my complete body-image scan. I can see all my vital organs and the moniker chip inside my hand. The missing piece in the glass ascends from the floor and seals shut.

  “Present your hands,” Tula orders. I do as she says, and she cuffs my wrists in front of me. We walk a few steps to another guard. “One for cell 685.” She lets me go and returns to her post.

  I’m remanded into the custody of an older guard with thinning hair. He leads me away and scans me through several corridors to a hallway of individual cells. He opens one and indicates that I should enter. I do. He formally reads me my sentence of forty-five hours’ confinement. The officer takes off my cuffs and leaves, closing the cell door behind him. Sinking wearily onto the bottom bunk of a stack five high, I cover my eyes with my hands, thanking whatever providence allowed me to escape Agent Crow for a third time.

  “Brandishing is sort of an asinine thing to get arrested for,” a lilting feminine voice informs me from a bunk above mine. I thought I was alone. She sticks her head over the side of her berth, two pallets up, and looks down at me. “Are you thickheaded or something? Why would you threaten some heathens with a sword in front of everyone? I can think of better ways to get your point across.”

  “I find that being direct works for me,” I reply.

  She snorts. “Being direct here isn’t the best strategy.” Her black hair falls around her face. She has a line of star tattoos over each of her eyebrows. “It gets you thrown in the cooler faster than you can say ‘St. Sismode Sword.’ Would you look at that? I just said your name, and I didn’t even mean to. It’s just a saying we have here.”

  “It’s a stupid saying,” I mutter.

  “Aye, maybe ’tis at that, but I’m not wrong about what I said. Brandishing is a threat for the slow-witted. Never threaten. Promise—in private—and back it up with something more than words.”

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name.”

  “Flannigan, but my friends call me Flan.”

  “What are you here for, Flannigan?” I ask.

  “Ah, this and that, if you know what I mean.”

  “No, I’m fairly slow-witted, so you’ll have to explain it to me.”

  “I get things. Things people need. Useful things.”

  “You’re a thief?”

  “I’m a privateer,” she retorts. Her hand hangs over the bunk, showing her Stone-Fated moniker.

  “Those stars above your eyebrows, what do they mean?” I ask.

  “I fell in love with the night.” They look as if they’re ascending over the peaks of her eyebrow
s, like rising stars over mountains. “I have a business proposition for you.”

  “A what?”

  “I need your assistance. In return, I’ll be indebted to you until such time as I can return the favor.”

  “Why would I need the services of a failed privateer?”

  “I’m very good at what I do.” She narrows her eyes at my insult.

  I can’t believe I’m having this conversation with her. “If you’re such an exemplary privateer, why is it that you’re locked up in a cell?”

  “I wanted to get caught.” She sniffs and looks at her black-painted fingernails.

  I think she must be joking, but her expression doesn’t change. “Why would you want to get caught?”

  She climbs down from her perch and stands by my bunk, waiting for me to move over. I grudgingly scoot to the wall and she lies beside me, her black hair covering mine. “I wanted to get locked up because it’ll give me time to figure out a strategy to escape,” she whispers.

  The thought of escaping this existence is a tempting one. I have no idea where I’d go, but anywhere seems better than here, within reach of Agent Crow. “Why would detention be any easier to escape than your air-barracks?”

  “It isn’t, but I needed a place to hide.”

  “From whom?”

  “Monsters in black coats.”

  “You’re hiding from Census? In here?” I gesture to our cell.

  “That’s right,” she whispers. “They’re changing out monikers. Mine is cloned—they’ll be able to tell when they extract it. I must find a way off this Base without getting caught. They’re working on the Tritium 101 monikers right now because we’re scheduled to ship out soon to the Twilight Forest, and from there, the front line. I just have to avoid them until we do.”

  I’m shocked. “You’re in my air-barracks?”

  “Aye. It was me who put your leather jacket in your locker for you. I never felt leather that nice before. It’s contraband, mind you, and if they catch you with it, you’ll do time in here again. You’re in Section Black, same as me, except I’m in the underdeck, where they put all Stones who assist Swords.”

  My eyebrows lower in confusion. “I didn’t see my leather jacket in my locker.”

  “Oh, I hid it for you. It’s there, in the false bottom that I created for you. You’re welcome, by the way.”

  “Thank you.”

  “I can find a buyer for you, if you’re interested. You can get quite a few merits for it, if you go through me.”

  “Are you thirdborn?” I ask, on a hunch.

  She wrings her hands, the first sign of fear I’ve seen from her. “No. I’m secondborn. I just don’t come from the Fate of Stones.”

  “You’re from Stars.”

  “Aye.” She points to her tattoos. “I got these beauties before I became a privateer.”

  “Why would you change your moniker?”

  “Stone-Fates don’t have many advantages. It’s probably the worst Fate to be born into if you have ambition, but it’s the best Fate if you want to become invisible. No one sees us, even in our orange uniforms. We’re beneath notice. Being invisible is an advantage for someone in my profession.”

  “What will happen if you’re caught?”

  Her face pales, and she looks away from me. “They may think I’m a good-for-nothin’ thirdborn, but even if they do believe that I’m secondborn, they’ll want to know how I came by my cloned moniker, and that I can’t tell ’em. If I do, people will die. So they’ll torture me until I talk, or until they kill me. Either way, it’s not worth livin’ for. I have this.” She holds up a small white capsule. “Cyanide. It’s a better death.”

  I rub my forehead. The stress of the day has brought on a headache. “Listen, I’ll help you avoid Census. Please get rid of that.”

  “I promise you that I will pay you back.”

  “You don’t have to.”

  “Why would you help me and not expect payment in return?” She’s studying me.

  I lower my chin, unable to meet her hazel eyes. “I’m responsible for Census’s getting someone who tried to help me—a Moon-Fated advocate. An agent named Crow killed her. In a way, I owe a debt.”

  “Then, you’ll help me . . . for real.” She expels a pent-up sigh.

  “I’ll help you. What’s your plan?”

  A little more than thirty-two hours later, at around midnight, I’m writhing on my bed, pretending to be ill, watching as Flannigan tries to get the attention of the MP on duty. It takes a lot of door-banging, jumping up and down, and hand-waving, but she finally gets a detention guard to come into the cell.

  “Oi, are you sick?” the guard asks, twisting his mustache like he doesn’t believe a word.

  I groan. “I’ll be okay,” I reply, holding my hand to my stomach, lying on my bunk in the fetal position. “Stomach problems. I ate the porridge.”

  He’s not unsympathetic and calls an Atom-Fated medic for me. The medic dispenses a couple of antacids and tells me to drink water. Before the guard leaves, Flannigan rests her hand on his arm and thanks him. The guard sees the doctor out and closes the cell door behind them.

  When he’s gone, I sit up, drinking water to wash away the taste of the chalky antacids. “Did you get it?” I ask.

  “Aye.” She sits beside me on the bunk, showing me her moniker, which has changed from a brown mountain-range symbol to a silver sword-shaped symbol.

  “How did you do that?” I ask.

  “’Tis my processor. They call it a copycat. It cost me a fortune, and by tomorrow, it’ll be absolutely worthless. The new monikers repel its ability to infiltrate the technology. Until someone comes up with a way to beat the new moniker processors, I’m in serious trouble.”

  “Do you still have your old moniker?”

  “I do, but it’s not here. It’s back in Stars. I couldn’t let it be found on me when I crossed fatedoms.”

  I lift her hand and admire the sword hologram. “Have you been many places?” I ask.

  “I’ve been everywhere. I’ve had thousands of lives that were not my own.” She doesn’t look much older than twenty as she stands and crooks her finger at me. “And now, whenever you’re ready, I’ll have one more to share with you. Follow me, and we’ll be Holcomb Sword for a while.” She giggles, like this is a game, but it’s a deadly game, and I’m just waking up to the fact that I’m ready to play it.

  When the hallway is clear, Flannigan scans her cloned moniker at the gateway. Circumventing the guarded hallways, we reach the heavily guarded outer gate of the detention center, and Flannigan pulls me into a room filled with cleaning equipment. She opens a grated vent at the back wall. “Follow me,” she whispers and disappears into the vent. I climb in next to her, and she pulls the grate back into place. We crawl through a metal shaft that leads to another grate. This one empties out into a dim concrete tunnel.

  This tunnel is empty and dank, lined with sapwood pipes that transport water, fuel, and waste along the trunk of the Tree. It also has clear tubes filled with data lines. Flannigan looks directly at one of these and follows it down the tunnel until she comes to a small access panel with a holographic scanner. “There it is,” she says, rubbing her hands together.

  “What is it?” I ask. My heart is pounding. I’m afraid we’ll be caught at any moment. Flannigan doesn’t seem to share my concern and places Holcomb’s moniker under another scanner. “What are you doing?”

  “I’m accessing the detention center’s inmate roster, making it look as if you were in our cell all night. I’m scheduling you for release at five a.m. I, on the other hand, was never even there. No connection will exist between us. You won’t have to go back to the cell. I’ll make the action log close out seamlessly.”

  “You can do that? You can take yourself right out of the detention center logs?”

  “I can do anything,” she says. Her grin is full of bravado. “Watch—I just erased myself from this Base.”

  “What happens if we get
caught?”

  “We won’t.” She winks at me. “This is like a golden halo stroll down the streets of Purity,” she whispers.

  “How do you know how to do this?” I ask.

  She quirks her eyebrow. “I’m a Star, remember? I was born to create this kind of technology for the ease and comfort of the aristocracy. I got bored and decided to see the world instead.” She plucks at holographic screens with her index finger.

  “Of all the places to go, I’m surprised that you ended up here.” Something isn’t quite right about Flannigan. She may try to appear as if she’s just a free spirit, but there are an underlying intensity and drive that don’t quite fit what she’s telling me.

  “I took a wrong turn.” She shrugs. “Believe me, I want out of here as fast as I can manage it.” That I can believe. She closes down the holographic screen. “There,” she says triumphantly. “We are officially free women.” She links arms with me. “C’mon, let me show you my world. But first!” She holds my hand and lifts her boot up. Sliding the heel to the side, she reveals a small compartment. From it, she extracts two pieces of thin metal, two inches by four inches. She slides the heel closed and extracts a couple of fingerless gloves from the heel of her other boot. Both are left-handed.

  “This,” she says, holding up one of the pieces of metal, “is lead.” She opens a small slot between the finger and the thumb of one of the gloves and slides the metal into it. She hands me the glove. “Put this on.”

  I slide the black glove on my hand. The lead covers my moniker.

  “Your moniker can be tracked. Right now, your signal is coming from the detention center. When you move away from it, you leave a trail, unless your moniker becomes invisible by blocking that signal. With that glove, you can walk right by a stinger and it will never know you’re there. It won’t challenge you. It won’t report you to the MPs. It will be blind. Stinger drones send out high-frequency pings that interact with your moniker. With the source covered, they get no feedback.” She puts her own glove on. “Now, let’s see what mischief we can find.”