The Sowing

Molten steel pulses through my veins. This is it.

I whip out the blade hidden within my boot and thrust it toward Featherbone. “She’s dead. Just like you’ll be if you don’t hand over that master control unit.”

But Featherbone only stares at me and yawns. “Naughty-naughty. I hope they don’t get too much blood on the carpet when they’re through with you. Just had it replaced.”

I lunge for the device but the slaver claws at me, knocking my hood away and exposing my face.

Featherbone’s eyes bulge. “You! You’re the one that won the bloody Trials! You’re an Imposer for the Establishment, on our side! Your name is—”

“Lucky,” I finish. “But unfortunately, not for you.”

Featherbone backs away, jabbing at the controls on the unit. Lights flash. Alarms blast through the air.

Above us, the children stir in their transparent coffins, cheeks and palms pressed against the glass. Even the older ones seem restless now.

“Oopsy! Security will be here in a minute,” Featherbone hisses. “And you’ll never make me give you access to the system before then, lovie, oh no you won’t!” A triumphant glare pierces me.

“Then we don’t have much time.” I shrug. “Either you hand over the unit or you force me to take it from you.”

The glint of strobing emergency lights douses my raised blade with splashes of crimson. I move in.

My shadow shrouds the flesh dealer, whose shrill screams are muffled by the blaring siren.

“Open up in there!” The rumbling voice vibrates through the other side of the parlor wall.

I dig my knife into Featherbone’s arm. The cut’s nowhere near as deep as I could go, just enough to draw a scarlet streak and an even higher-pitched yelp before I wrench the master control unit away. If the virus I uploaded has done its job and infiltrated the Emporium’s computer network, this master unit now controls not only the security for Harmony House but every house in these pleasure pits. All I have to do is select one command to free all these kids and get them the hell out of here.

Bony arms clamp around my neck. The control unit drops from my hand as my vision blurs and the cold metal of my own ID tags digs into my throat like a garrote.

“What’s this?” Featherbone croaks in my ear. “One tag says Spark… the other Tycho? You have a sweetheart, yes?” The cackle drowns out everything else and coats my ear with warm spittle. Everything’s going dark. My knees buckle. The room’s spinning. “Never see that one again, oh no you won’t!”

No. I’ll never see him again.

My head tilts so that my lips graze Featherbone’s ear. “Cypress… sends her regards.”

I rip the still-protruding blade from Featherbone’s arm and jam it deep into the slaver’s neck, feeling it cut through artery and sink into bone. Then I fling the twitching, grisly body off me. It thuds lifeless to the floor, inches from the master control unit.

BLAM!

The parlor doors burst open. Shrapnel torpedoes through the room, slicing through my hand. Before I can lunge for the control unit, a squadron of about a half-dozen black-clad security personnel swarms into the chamber, brandishing weapons that glisten in the flickering gaslights. They cut me off, standing between me and the master control.

The lead officer nudges his companions in my direction. “If he tries anything, shoot to kill.”

I drop and roll. Electric charges pierce the ground inches from me. I spring and vault behind the bar. A volley of blasts strikes the shelves above me. Bottles rain down, some shattering against the floor. I spit out the taste of metal.

No cover. No weapon. No time. It’s the Trials all over again.

“We have him cornered!” yells the leader.

“Nixter, take him alive for interrogation!” shouts another.

The glint of a steel toe rounds the bar. I grab one of the few unbroken bottles of alcohol lying next to me.

Nixter thrusts her weapon toward me like a skewer. In the flickering shadows, she resembles a wiry, bug-eyed insect. “You’re gonna need more than booze when we’re done with you.” She cocks the trigger.

I stare her down. “I wasn’t planning on drinking it.”

I hurl the bottle toward the closest gaslight and dive through the still-smoking gap in the bar, just as she fires.

Glass shatters. Sharp pain nicks my leg. I have just enough time to register the shocked looks of the guards on the other side of the bar as I slide toward them.

A loud explosion roars through the parlor. We’re all hurled against the far wall. Rousing myself, I take in the carnage. From the looks of their contorted bodies, at least one of the guards broke his neck, while two others lie unconscious and bleeding. Above, the mechanisms holding the translucent prisons buckle under the impact. Children teeter inside their oval pens. The alcohol on the bar ignites. Soon the entire room is blanketed in a mantle of smoke that burns through my lungs.

I catch sight of the blinking green of the master control unit, just a few inches away. I reach for it.

Steel-like pincers clamp around my ankle, yanking me backwards.