Steven dos Santos - The Sowing

His charcoal eyes pierce right through me. “A decision has been reached. You are to be executed immediately.”

I struggle against my shackles. “Please…” But my mouth grows numb and I can’t form any other words. The three captors who are still hooded wheel the slab I’m shackled to out into a small auditorium jammed with people, some whispering to each other, others pointing, and more than a few glaring at me. An older, rugged man with a salt-and-pepper beard appears and holds out a hypo to the young man who’s been interrogating me. “Make it quick and painless, Micajah,” he mutters.

“I will, Dad.” Micajah hesitates, then takes the hypo. He turns to me, stone-faced, his eyes locked onto mine as he slowly approaches me. I can feel my life slipping away with each step he takes, and the fear that I’ve managed to contain behind the wall of pain and anger is breaching it at last, sending a rampaging surge through me.

“There has to be another way!” Arrah shouts.

“Arrah!” I gasp. “My brother. Cole. He’s being held at the Priory. You have to get him out of there before—”

Two of the hooded figures grab onto me and hold my struggling body in place while the third rips up my sleeve. I can see the vein in the crook of my elbow throbbing, my fear betraying me, pumping the blood so hard it’s as if it’s trying to invite the lethal invader.

“Let go of me!” I yell.

The one named Micajah stands before me, needle raised. “Sorry, mate.”

“ He was the one that let me get away in the Valley.”

This declaration sparks a wave of muttering throughout the crowd as they turn toward its source.

A figure emerges from the shadows. Even without the envirosuit, I recognize him.

It’s the boy I let escape. The boy I gave the GX07 to.

The whole chamber erupts in gasps and murmurs of surprise.

Micajah’s laughter is filled with warmth as he turns to me. “So you’re the terrorist that has the Establishment chasing its own tail? You’re the Torch Keeper?” He smiles ear to ear. “I was expecting someone a tad older.”

“Sorry to disappoint,” I manage.

“No sweat, mate.” He cocks his head toward the kid. “Looks like the ankle-biter just bought you a reprieve.”

The kid glares at him and flicks him off.

Micajah chuckles and turns back to me. “You’ve proven to be somewhat useful to the cause.”

There’s an uncomfortable moment of silence. Micajah looks away.

“Release him,” the young man’s father barks.

In seconds, I’m free of my bonds, rubbing my wrists and prompting more murmuring from the crowd. If there’s anyone more shocked at this turn of events than I am, it’s Arrah, who runs over and throws her arms around me. “For a Fifth Tier, you never cease to surprise.”

“Name’s Jeptha Argus,” Micajah’s father says, clasping my hand. “Please accept our apologies. We had no way of knowing who you were.”

The kid takes a step forward. “Corin’s the name.” He gestures to the figures behind him, who have now removed their hoods. Two guys and a girl, all around my age.

“Boaz,” mumbles the tall, lanky one with a slight case of acne.

The other male, shorter, stockier, and powerfully built with a bald tattooed head, comes forward and offers a beefy hand. “Crowley’s the name. Nice to meet you, Mister… uh… Torch Keeper, Sir.” He busts out into a chuckle, but it doesn’t sound mean-spirited, so I grip his hand firmly and return the handshake.

The female eyes me with suspicion and hesitates before stepping forward herself. She has short bobbed hair, jet black except for a scarlet streak cutting across it. “Whatever. I still don’t trust him.”

“Get over yourself,” Corin mutters. He turns to me. “Her name’s Preshea. But we like to call her a lot of other things.” He smirks.

“Keep it up, kid,” Preshea says through gritted teeth.

I attempt to ruffle his hair, but he moves away and fires a dirty look my way.

“Enough yabbering, dipsticks,” Micajah grunts.

These people are part of the insurrectionist movement? That Deity everyone likes to invoke sure has a sense of humor.

The crowd begins to disperse, moving about like worker ants on a mission. I clear my throat. “Look. I’m not here to interfere with operations. I’m just someone like all of you, fighting for what’s right.”

“You couldn’t have come to us at a more crucial time,” Jeptha says. “Now that you’re with us, there’s a better chance our plan will succeed.”

My eyes shift between Jeptha and Micajah. “What do you mean?”

Micajah clears his throat. “Before you got here, the plan was for Arrah to undertake the most difficult part of the mission, since she was the only person we could place close enough to the target.”

Arrah shoots me a look. “I’m more than capable of handling myself.”

Jeptha shakes his head. “Arrah, you’ve never undertaken an assignment of this magnitude.” He gestures to me. “Spark here has a proven track record of operating under extreme conditions and thwarting the Establishment under their very noses. We can’t afford to fail. It should be him, with you as his backup.”

“What are you talking about?” I repeat.

“Of course.” Jeptha turns back to me. “Tomorrow, during the Ascension Ceremony, we’re going to assassinate Prefect Thorn and the Prime Minister herself.”

The night seems endless. I lie on my bunk in the Citadel dorm wearing only my underwear, bathed in a cold sweat. The sheets are a rumpled valley of hills and canyons wedged around my prostrate body. I can only stare straight ahead. Vertigo overwhelms me. I haven’t had such a sleepless evening since the night before I was recruited last season.

And now here I am, on the eve of the Ascension Ceremony—the event that will culminate with me assassinating Cassius, along with the Prime Minister and anyone else unfortunate enough to be within a ten-meter radius of the dais.

Ascension Ceremony. I stifle a hollow laugh. The irony isn’t lost on me.

Ever since Cassius betrayed Cole and me, I’ve wanted nothing more than to inflict payback on him. But this assassination attempt is a cold, calculated exercise in premeditated murder.

Sure, I’ve planned and executed strikes against Establishment strongholds for months now—the attack on the prisoner convoy, disrupting the communications tower, the siege on the Emporiums—all without batting an eye. I was burning with a single ice-cold purpose, blocking out all my emotions… and becoming someone else. Someone who didn’t care whether I lived or died in my attempts. After all, the lines between the two were already so blurred, I guessed it was all the same either way.

It was all so much easier when I shut off my emotions and became Lucian Spark, Imposer trainee, the number one terrorist on the Establishment’s Most Wanted list. But I was a fool to think I could hide behind that persona for too long. No matter how hard you try, how much you delude yourself, you can never escape who you truly are.

The thing is, I’m not sure just who I am anymore.

The briefing I received before I left the rebel cell tonight replays in my head, over and over again.

Jeptha held up a small gold pin, a perfect replica of the Fifth Tier trainee insignia that’s pinned to the breast of my uniform. “Even if they sweep for weapons before the ceremony,” he told me, “you’ll be able to get this through without being detected.” He handed it to me.

I turned it over and over in my fingers, examining every inch of the gleaming pin. “What is it, really?” I asked.