The Sowing

High Level Classification. Bio-Weapons Division. Infiernos. Containment Lab 5.

The ball of my finger highlights Tycho Syndrome and jabs the enter key once more.

Footsteps shuffle on the grates just outside the lab.

Instead of a static image arising, the screen dissolves into grainy black-and-white video surveillance footage that only takes a moment to register. It’s me. Crouching down beside Digory, holding him in my arms as we’re saying our last goodbyes in the darkened corridors of the Skein, just before I left him there, alone. Just after he sacrificed his life so that I could complete the final Trial and save Cole. Just before we told each other how we felt about one another.

At the time, Cassius said that all the surveillance in that sector was shut off. So where did this video come from?

As Digory and my lips touch onscreen, I can feel my mouth burning with the power of that moment. I brush my forearm against my eyes, trying to wipe away the feeling of violation.

I’m glued to the screen, my emotions asunder. As soon as the footage shows me running off, I watch as three figures converge on Digory. The two burly, sadistic Imposers Styles and Renquist, and—

No. Not him.

Cassius Thorn.

He kneels by Digory. My fingers curl into claws and my skin crawls as I watch him grip Digory’s wrist. He’s listening for a pulse. The bastard’s making sure Digory’s dead. Then Cassius is up and barking orders that I can’t hear. The next thing I know, a medic team moves into camera range and lifts Digory’s body into a hovering, transparent cryogenic tube, the kind used for injured elite and military personnel who have suffered grave injury and are frozen until they can be safely revived at a medical facility. Such as this one.

Cassius had Digory placed in cryo? But why? And does that mean his body’s here?

My heart’s trilling at a million beats a minute.

Oomph!

Something slams into me from behind. The impact shoves me into the monitor. It plummets from its stand and smashes in a shower of glass, sparks, and smoke.

Pain jolts through my shoulder when it smacks into the ground. The holotracker flies from my grip. Then I’m rolling on the floor, locked in a scuffle with a nightmarish, ghost-white form. A set of gloved hands grips my helmet, trying to tear it off my head and expose me to the contaminants polluting this place. I grasp the steel-like fingers, trying to pry them loose as I force my eyes to focus on the face above me.

It’s a boy no more than twelve or thirteen, clad in a rag-tag envirosuit that looks like it’s been patched together from various castoffs. What I can see of his face is as pale as a burial shroud; his dark eyes are cold and expressionless, mere slits cut into face. His teeth are gritted and the veins in his temples pulse.

Before I can reach for my weapon, he kicks it away from my hand. It clatters into a dark corner of the room. What this kid lacks in size he makes up for in skill. But unfortunately for him, I don’t have time for child’s play.

Ignoring every instinct screaming in my brain, I let go of one of the kid’s hands and grope at the med tech’s corpse, ripping out the hypodermic needle still sprouting from its wound. I slash an arc in the air with the needle, stopping just short of plunging it into the thin layer of suit protecting the boy’s neck.

The boy releases my helmet and I fling him off me. His eyes bulge as he stares at the gleaming hypo. He knows that whatever’s in this ampule is lethal. Perhaps he’s the one that killed the med tech.

I don’t wait. I slide away backward, never taking my eyes from him. My hand crunches against the remains of the holotracker, a casualty of the scuffle. I frown and toss it aside. Leaning against one of the file cabinets, I can feel the energy flowing back through me. I pull myself to my feet.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” I say. “Aren’t you a little young to be part of the resistance?”

The kid’s still sprawled where I left him, amidst the remains of the monitor and the med tech. Eyeing me. Unblinking. Still, except for the rise and fall of his chest. That’s when I notice the case tucked under one arm.

Before he can stop me, I hunch over him and rip it free, staring at the text stenciled on its face.

GX07.

This is it. This is what Valerian sent us here for. This is what they want to make sure doesn’t get into the resistance’s hands. The others are looking for this in Med Lab 10. This kid beat them to it.

The speakers crackle to life again with the warning message: Attention all personnel. The self-destruct sequence will be initiated in T-Minus five minutes. Proceed to evacuation vehicles at once.