Steven dos Santos - The Sowing

“Are you okay?” I ask Tristin.

But she’s not paying attention to me. Instead her eyes are glued to the scene playing out through the transparent walls.

Imposers dash to and fro, checking control panels, shouting into com units. Across the way, Arrah, Leander, Rodrigo, and Dahlia are pressed against the glass of their cells while their fellow Incentives cower in the corners.

They’re all looking at me, and I can tell that they know I’ve got some idea about what’s going on.

Minutes later, the emergency lights switch back to normal and the activity peters out. Slade nods to an officer nearby, who punches the keys of his terminal.

Attention,the voice blares through the speakers again. Breach has been contained. The facility is secure.

Slade takes the mic. “Time for you to get your rest. Lights out.”

Then the cells are plunged into darkness.

As I lie on the cold floor listening to Tristin’s quiet sobs, my mind races with possibilities.

I’m still not sure what the Fleshers are and why they scare the Establishment so much.

But they might just be the advantage I need to break out of this hell.

“Rise and shine, people!”

The booming voice is accompanied by a blast of light as powerful as a solar flare searing through the darkness of space. I squint and rub my eyes against the blindness, trying to focus.

The door to our cell opens and one of the Imps is standing there, amusement plastered all over his face. Ensign Echoes , his name tag says. It’s the officer who was in charge of sealing the outer doors against the Fleshers.

Beside me, Tristin is hunkered down, hugging her knees to her chest. Her eyes are red and puffy, her cheeks stained like a dried-up riverbed. I’m not the only one who didn’t get any sleep last night.

“Don’t just sit there,” Echoes grunts. “You have fifteen minutes to shower and eat.” He checks his chronometer. “Fourteen and a half now. Hurry it up.”

He steps aside and I force my aching limbs to piston my body through the door. I can hear the soft pad of Tristin’s footfalls behind me.

My Imposer training has taught me to survey situations very quickly. In a matter of seconds, I take in the guards on the bridge; the two exits to the control area, one on either side; and the number of guards on the floor, maybe half a dozen at present. Getting up to the control room will be difficult. But not impossible.

In the common area, the other Incentives are being herded out of their cells by Imps armed with long taser wands. One of the family members, a thin, middle-aged, haggard-looking woman with grayish hair, lags behind the others. A guard walks up behind her and shoves the weapon into her back. Sparks fly. She screams. Then she stumbles forward and follows the rest, disappearing through a passageway. If I had any doubts where to go, all I’d have to do is follow the stench of scorched skin marking her passage.

I risk a glance behind me before entering the corridor. There’s only Tristin and Echoes. I don’t see Arrah and the others. They must be leading the pack. Good. I’m still dreading what that confrontation is going to be like when it finally happens.

My boots clank against the floor as I examine the gratings both above and below. There appears to be a sub-flooring conduit located underneath me, and ventilation shafts located beyond the ceiling. Assuming the crawl space is big enough to accommodate me, these might provide alternate accessways to the control center, or maybe another way out. As the hallway zigzags on, I commit the maze to memory, filing it away for future reference. Hopefully I still have enough of a future left that it might come in handy.

“Do you know where they’re taking us?” Tristin whispers. Every syllable quavers in the frigid draft seeping through the passageway.

“Don’t worry,” I whisper back. “It’s going to be okay.” Though I try to disguise the anxiety in my own voice, I’m sure she doesn’t believe me. How could she?

Echoes strikes his wand against the wall, where it sizzles and pops. “Cut the chatter, you two.”

We turn another corner and my stomach clenches.

It’s another cell block. But instead of containing separate transparent cubicles, the walls themselves are enormous pens of reinforced glass, revealing a horizon of human suffering as loathsome as I’ve ever seen.

On both sides of me, bodies are strewn everywhere, some lying in heaps of tangled flesh, others huddling in clusters, surrounded by clumps of their own filth. Their expressions are so drawn and vacant I’m not sure if they can even see us, or if this glass is a two-way mirror, allowing us to see them, while reflecting the grimness of their living hell back at them and wringing out what little hope they might have in the process.

This is the Establishment’s idea of justice. These prisoners’ only crimes were probably petty theft due to starvation or standing up for themselves against abuse. Yet they’re shipped here to be fodder for the Trials, medical experimentation, and who knows what else.

I swallow hard. This isn’t the first time I’ve come across scenes like this. I still get nightmares of the time when I had to wade through bodies during one of the trials to find locator bracelets. I tried not to focus on the agony around me as I fought to save Cole and Digory’s lives.

A little boy’s face and palms press against the glass. I stop. I can almost feel that he sees me. I turn away. There’s probably no hope for this boy. For any of them. All the acts of sabotage I’ve committed over the last year—what good have any of them really done? No matter how many people I might free from the Emporiums, there are a hundred more that’ll die.

Suddenly it feels like an enormous weight is bearing down on me, squeezing my organs together until they’re nothing but bloody pulp. My skin burns from the rage and frustration welling inside me. No matter how hard I try, I can’t save them all.

Tristin’s hand touches my shoulder.

A jolt of lightning surges through me, slamming me to the floor. I look up to see Echoes hovering over me, his prod still smoking. “I said keep mov—”

I spring up and snatch the wand from him, and his eyes look like they’re going to burst through his skull. I jab the wand at his throat. “We’re not cattle. ”

Then I toss it at his feet and whirl past Tristin, continuing after the others before I can gauge his reaction.

I don’t really care what it is.

The next corridor we enter opens into a yet-larger room, this one covered in soap-scummed tiles. A series of pipes jut inward from the ceiling like rusting tentacles. The entire room reeks of body odor and disinfectant, battling it out for supremacy.

A communal shower.

The others, including my trainee team, are already in various stages of undress, tossing their clothes in a heap in the center of the room.

“Strip!” The officer on duty spits the words at me like a glob of phlegm.

It takes a little time to pull my boots off my aching feet. Then I slither out of my jumpsuit, pulling down my underwear until I’m standing there naked, trying not to shiver from the cold blast of air prickling my skin.

“Spread ’em,” the guard grunts. I extend my arms and legs as he circles my body with an icy steel probe.

Beside me, Tristin’s being searched by another guard. Our eyes meet for a second before we both turn away to protect what little’s left of our modesty.

The Imposer slaps me on the butt and smirks. “Hit the showers, Pretty Boy.”

My bare feet pad across the frigid tiles and the next available showerhead. I hesitate. It’s right between Arrah and Leander. I’m about to turn toward a spout on the far corner of the room when another Imp grabs me by the nape of the neck.