“No!” Velkan shakes his head. “Not going to happen. I was marked as a holographed serf for most of my life and I swore I’d never allow anyone to brand me like an animal again.”
I pull on his sleeve. “Please, Velkan, this is different. Think of it as part of our disguise. And it’s only temporary.” I turn to Rennan, frowning. “You can remove it afterward, right?”
“Of course. Once you return.” He lowers his eyes like he doubts that will happen.
Velkan grimaces, still wrestling with the idea of subjecting himself to the barbaric practice.
“It’s all right,” I say, seeing the pain in his eyes. “I understand if you don’t want to go through with it after everything you’ve already been through.”
I turn back to Rennan. “I’m ready. Do what you need to do.”
He reaches out for my left ear and raises the tagging tool. I close my eyes and flinch when the dart pierces my skin. Cold metal presses tight to my ear. Branded. I grit my teeth in silent protest. This is why we’re here. To break the manacles of Preeminence and set the people of Mhakerta free.
Velkan clenches and unclenches his fists, before nodding at Rennan. “I’m ready too.”
“Are you sure?” I whisper to him.
His molten brown eyes meet mine. “I’m not going to leave you to do this alone.”
I stand on my tiptoes and kiss him gently on the cheek. He smiles at me and then turns his left ear toward Rennan.
“The other one.” Rennan spins him around. “Males are tagged on the right.” He moves quickly before Velkan can change his mind. There’s a quick punching sound, but Velkan doesn’t flinch.
“Are you okay?” I ask him.
He grins. “Wasn’t so bad. Just pinched a little.”
“Let’s see if my technician’s found any good candidates to switch places with you yet.” Rennan strides across to the computers.
Velkan and I follow him, and peer over his shoulder at the screen as the young man seated at the computer scrolls through pages of photographs of hollow-eyed men and women, all dressed in the same shapeless garb we are wearing over our jumpsuits. A shiver fingers its way down my spine. If our plan doesn’t work, these could be our faces in a few more weeks, trapped on the collective, all hope lost.
Rennan taps a ragged fingernail on the screen. “This one’s a good match. Program Trattora’s tag to replace her.”
I frown at the dark-haired girl on the screen. “She’s about my age and build,” I say, “but she doesn’t look anything like me.”
Rennan curls his lips into a smile, the lines around his eyes rippling like dunes in a desert. “We can fix that.”
He signals to a short, stocky woman and passes me off to her with instructions to dye my hair black.
The woman looks me up and down, one hand resting on her hip. “Temporary or permanent?”
I blink in confusion. “What?”
“Do you want a temporary or permanent color? How long are you going undercover?”
I shrug. “I’ll only be there a day or two.”
“Uh-huh.” She arches a heavy brow at me before leading me into a neighboring cave with several small pools. “Welcome to the salon.” She gestures for me to sit down.
Fifteen minutes later, I’m staring at my reflection in a small mirror, barely recognizing the girl looking back at me. Even my eyebrows are black as the night. Without my fiery locks, I look haunted, lifeless even; like the girl on the computer screen.
“Will that work?” the woman asks.
“Yes, thanks,” I say, flatly. I hand the mirror back to her before making my way back to the main cave feeling like I’ve lost a part of myself.
Velkan and I stop dead in our tracks when we see each other. His head is completely shaved. Without his long, dark skeins of hair, he’s gaunt in the ghoulish light of the cave, his eyes huge, the tag on his ear an ominous reminder of what we signed up for. “So, they found you a match,” I say, pained at the sight of him. He looks more wretched now than when he was Sarth’s serf.
He nods, staring at me without saying anything at first.
“Well?” I demand. “What do you think?”
“It’s … very dark.”
I spare him any further awkwardness. “I don’t like it either. But it’s a temporary color.” I bite my lip. “Your hair will take a lot longer to grow back.”
He shrugs. “Small price to pay if that’s what it takes to find our parents.”
He stretches out his fingers and tentatively touches my new black locks. “No chance our parents will recognize us now. It will be up to us to find them.”
Velkan and I spend the rest of the evening conversing with the other members of Rennan’s resistance force and learning what we can about their operation. I can’t bring myself to call them an army, not after what Rennan’s divulged about their efforts so far. But at least they’re optimistic they can sneak us inside the collective. After that, we’ll be relying entirely on Ayma, and whatever information we can glean from the other workers, to get us to the CentroZone.
The few snatches of sleep I catch throughout the long night are not nearly enough to refresh me, but the dark circles under my eyes will serve me well in my new role as a foraging party worker on the collective.
Velkan too, has slept little, and the scabs on his head from multiple razor nicks add to his haunted look and fit the description of a worn-down worker.
We huddle together on some cushions in the early morning hours and sip on steaming tea as we wait for Rennan to take us to the spot where we will stake out until the foraging party appears.
A vibration in my right ear startles me. I wince when several drops of tea splatter on the back of my hand. “Do you hear anything?” I say to Velkan.
He nods, listening intently as Ayma’s voice fades in.
“… you copy? Anyone?”
“We hear you, Ayma,” I respond.
“I have the signal locked in now,” she says. “That should be a lot clearer.”
“Got you loud and clear,” Velkan replies.
“I’m inside the collective’s firewall. I can edit any schedules or rosters for you, research names, that kind of thing. I’m going to take another look at the security architecture around Preeminence, see if there’s any possible way to worm my way through to the neural network.”
“Good work, Ayma. Keep us posted,” I reply. “We’ll be in touch as soon as we’re inside.”
Ayma hesitates before replying. “We haven’t discussed a plan to get you back out yet.”
I glance at Velkan from beneath raised brows. “We’re not coming back out. I need you to put us on the food transport to the CentroZone. We have to reach the heart of Preeminence. That’s where our parents will be.”
Her breathing is ragged, but her voice holds steady when she responds. “I’ll give it my best shot.”
“She’ll find a way,” I say to Velkan when she deactivates the connection.
“And then what?” he asks.
“Then we find our parents and work together to bring down Preeminence.”
Rennan strides over to us and pushes his hat down firmly on his head. “It’s time.”
Velkan and I rise like the condemned called to their execution and follow Rennan deeper into the caves. He leads us through a damp, winding tunnel for a quarter mile or so before we pop up through another burrow into a heavily wooded area. My heartbeat clatters in my chest. I’m thankful to be back above ground, but apprehensive of what lies ahead. I especially hope Velkan and I don’t get separated at the collective.
We move through the undergrowth at a steady pace until Rennan comes to a halt in a tightly-packed network of brush. “We’ll wait here for the foragers,” he says. “They have several traps nearby. Once I pick up the signal from the workers, it will be your job to empty the traps, reset them, and then return to the transport. It’s an armored gray vehicle on continuous tracks for enhanced cross-country capability, you can’t miss it. Now, t
ake cover until I tell each of you to make your move.”
Velkan and I take up positions behind a couple of nearby trees. Despite the weighty circumstances we’re up against, the familiarity of settling in to wait for the hunt gives me a certain measure of comfort. I pass the time by gauging the direction of the wind and listening to the sounds it carries. I hear the foragers coming long before Rennan does. I motion across to him and he straightens up, eyes alert. Voices drift our way, then rustling sounds as someone forges a path to the traps. Finally, a bird call, loud and insistent.
“That’s our signal! Go!” Rennan hisses to me, pointing at a figure half-concealed in the brush about twenty feet in front of me. I leap up and hurry toward the spot. Before I even reach it, a pale, dark-haired girl springs up and darts past me, casting me only the briefest look in passing, as if afraid that I might change my mind at the last minute about taking her place.
Trembling, I tramp through the undergrowth and kneel by the trap she was supposed to be checking. There’s some kind of large six-legged hare snared in it. I stare down at it, fascinated by a creature I have never seen before, until a distant shout spurs me back into action. Hurriedly, I release the spring and grab the hare by the feet. I reset the trap before backtracking through the brush following the girl’s trail.
I slow my pace when I reach a large clearing and the gray transport vehicle Rennan described comes into view. Several foragers file toward it, clutching their kills. I take a deep breath and follow them, dropping my head and adopting the same dejected air they convey as they drag their feet toward the vehicle and toss the dead animals into a mesh cage that runs down one side of it. A bored-looking guard waits in the driver’s seat, his gun resting across his knee.
Two armored, steel-gray saucer-shaped drones flit overhead as the hunt is deposited in the vehicle, surveilling every movement. I can’t help but shudder at the sight of the plasma guns on their undersides. No wonder the guard looks bored. He’s probably never had to fire his weapon. Unsure of what to do next, I lift my head to see if the other workers are returning to the woods. I quickly avert my eyes when I spot Velkan, not wanting to betray any flash of recognition to the drones. I watch discreetly as he makes his way to the back of the transport vehicle and swings the carcasses he’s carrying into the cage.
A loud rapidly rising horn blares out and the workers return to the vehicle and begin loading up. Heart racing, I fall in behind them. Apparently, we have fulfilled our quota from the traps.
I clamber awkwardly up into the back of the vehicle and take a seat on the bench that runs down one side of the bed, quickly sliding my hands under my thighs to hide the fact that they are shaking. The man who sits down next to me sweeps red-veined eyes over me before dropping his gaze to the floor. I stiffen, waiting on him to say something, to whisper in my ear that he knows I’m an imposter and then alert the sentinel drones to my deception, but he remains silent. I wonder if the other workers were told about the swap or if they have simply learned never to question anything.
The transport vehicle whirrs into motion and pulls away with a steady hum. I rock forward and then back against the seat, tightening my muscles to keep from sliding across the bed of the truck and slamming into the cages piled high with carcasses. I chew on my lip, daring a quick peek down the line of faces at Velkan who sits hunched over, eyes glued to the floor like everyone else. A flawless performance, perfected through years of submissive posturing as a serf. My heart aches for him. I hate that he has to endure the indignity all over again, but I tell myself it won’t be for long.
Less than an hour later, we arrive at a giant steel gate topped with a spiked ridge, watchtowers overlooking it on either side. Based on Rennan’s maps, and the time it took us to travel here, I estimate the collective to be about fifty miles from the underground caves. I tuck the information away. For now, everything is important.
The steel gate recedes into the ground and we rumble through the entrance to the collective under the watchful gaze of dozens of cameras and sentinel droids. I wet my lips, my throat parched with fear. The transport vehicle pulls around to the back of a large concrete building and rolls to a stop. One by one, the foragers climb out and begin unloading the kills. I jump down from the bed, pull out a couple of bloodied hares and tromp off after the other workers toward the bleak-looking square building we are parked next to. Everything about this place is colorless, from our shapeless garb to our barren surroundings, down to the workers’ defeated air as they go about their business.
Eyes to the ground, I follow the small procession of workers as they file inside past a sentinel droid. A steel door clangs shut behind us. I flinch, and for the briefest moment my eyes meet Velkan’s before we are carried along with a wave of workers down a hallway and into a kitchen prep area. The large space bustles with workers skinning, gutting and packaging meat. This must be where food for the CentroZone is prepared, and presumably where the food transport will leave from tomorrow.
Velkan and I take our places standing side-by-side at a large steel prep station that drains toward a central trough. A wheeled droid moves fluidly up and down the rows behind us. Overhead, motor-driven cameras track our every move. In the tile floor beneath our feet, a drain filled with rust-colored liquid runs the length of the prep station.
“I don’t know how to skin an animal,” Velkan mutters to me.
“Follow what I do,” I whisper back, reaching for a filet knife from the block in front of us.
Despite slowing my movements down and whispering occasional directions, Velkan struggles with the task of skinning and dressing the hare. In desperation, I discreetly swap carcasses with him when I am almost done dressing mine and finish off the job for him so he doesn’t draw attention to himself by taking too long to complete the task. I’m halfway through gutting and cleaning my third hare when a scuffle breaks out on the other side of Velkan—two workers arguing heatedly over something. One of them raises a knife and takes a swing through the air, attempting to slice at the second worker. I glance around for the droid guard, but it’s making its rounds at the far end of the table.
Before I realize what’s happening, Velkan throws himself between the two workers and lunges for the knife. The knife-wielding man is smaller than Velkan, but lithe and quick. He snatches his wrist back with lightning speed and stabs Velkan in the upper arm. I bite down on my lip, suppressing the scream that will alert the droid, remembering Rennan’s advice to keep a low profile, but the cameras have already done their job.
A laser red light flashes around the prep room walls and a loud, insistent alarm blares in my ears as a trickle of blood runs down Velkan’s arm and drips into the drain at our feet.
17
The droid hurtles back down the line of workers so quickly that I catch only a vague blur of metal and a strange high-pitched buzzing before some kind of electrical pulse blast renders Velkan and the knife-wielding worker immobile. The scream I am holding inside claws up my throat in a painful gurgle as they collapse in a tangled heap on the concrete floor. Seconds later, a squad of guards part the crowd and drag Velkan and the other worker out of the room by their arms.
My knees buckle with shock. I release the knife in my hand and clutch at the steel table for support. I’ll never forgive myself for talking Velkan into coming here if anything happens to him. I have to do something to help him. “Where are they taking them?” I whisper to the tall, large-boned woman next to me.
She is already leaning over the table, furiously skinning another hare. I repeat my question, but to no avail. Every head is bent low, as if to indicate in no uncertain terms that this matter is not open for discussion.
I turn to the worker on my other side, but suddenly become aware of the droid hovering behind me. Twitching with fear, I reach for the knife lying on the table in front of me. I scrunch my eyes shut trying to block the memory of the blood trickling down Velkan’s arm. My mind goes blank as my fingers automatically take over, skinning and gutting in swift
, expert movements honed by years of hunting and dressing shram on Cwelt. The droid’s sensors linger on me for a few minutes longer before it rolls on down the line of workers, apparently satisfied with my productivity.
I flex my cramped fingers and let out a clammy breath. I need to clear my head and think. Rennan warned us to stay under the radar. This is the worst possible thing that could have happened. If Velkan’s IQ is discovered, he’ll almost certainly be removed from the collective and transferred to the processing plant. I need to make sure that doesn’t happen.
I lift my head a fraction of an inch and eye the droid making its rounds again. Once it passes by me I bow my head and mutter zero, gamma to activate the MicroComm in my ear.
“It’s Phin, go ahead, Trattora.”
I hack at the hare carcass in my hands and groan like I’m talking to myself. “Velkan … stabbed. Where did they take him?”
“Copy that,” Phin replies without the slightest hesitation. “I’m on it.”
I let out a shaky breath, reassured by his calm demeanor. He knows I can’t talk. His military training has prepared him for these kinds of moments, when everything imaginable goes wrong and we’re forced to regroup and improvise with limited resources, scant information, and even less time.
I continue skinning my hare, the rhythmic movements keeping me sane as I wait for Phin to get back to me. To my right, I notice the tall woman sneak a discreet glance my way. She heard me muttering to myself, but she didn’t hear Phin responding. Does she suspect something? I work steadily for several more minutes, and then peek at her from beneath my lashes. She doesn’t lift her head, but she taps with her knife on the steel table. My eyes widen. In the blood, she has smeared a rough map. She points the tip of her knife to a square at the end of what I presume denotes the corridor leading out of the kitchen prep area we are working in, and then in one swift movement wipes the map from existence with her sleeve.
My heart thunders in my chest. Velkan is still in the building. Maybe they’re just going to patch him up. I frown down at the pile of intestines in front of me and slide them toward the central trough. Why is this woman helping me? And can I trust her? Given the circumstances, I have to take a chance. “Phin,” I whisper urgently.
Girl of Stone (The Expulsion Project Book 2) Page 13
