Instinctively, I hoist the first guard on top of me and the blast hits him instead.
Then in one fluid move, I grab the fallen guard’s weapon, roll him off me, and let loose a barrage on the second guard. She collapses face-first, her nose crunching and popping against the floor as I take out the guards who are still stirring.
The weapon clicks empty and I toss it.
By this time the entire room’s covered in a thick blanket of filthy mist. To my right, a curling tongue of flame laps the underside of one of the cylindrical prisons. Inside their capsules, the children are screaming, pounding against the reinforced glass, falling to their knees, gasping for breath.
Their cries jolt me into action. I scoop up the master control unit and activate the fire suppression system. Water jets from the sprinklers throughout the parlor and smothers the flames into submission. As soon as it’s clear, I engage the activation button for the slaves’ capsules and restraints.
Instantly the display tubes are lowered to ground level, dozens of them, row upon row of living cargo. They creak open, spilling out waves of dazed and coughing children. Clanking metal echoes through the chamber as the security bracelets spring apart and drop from their wrists, clanking onto the floor.
I kneel and grab a gun from one of the fallen guards, expel the spent cartridge, and jam in a fresh one. Then I stand to face them. “We’re getting out of here. By now, reinforcements should be on their way. I want you to grab anything that looks like a weapon and empty the cash coffers behind the bar. Once we exit Harmony House, head west past the city limits until you reach the canyon. You’ll be able to find shelter there and barter for provisions with one of the trading caravans I’ve arranged to meet you.” They’re all staring at me, hanging on every word. “I’ve hacked into the system and disabled every security bracelet in the city. The others in the different houses will be free as well, but confused by everything that’s going on. Grab as many as you can on the way out and take them with you. Let’s move!”
They scuttle like a colony of ants, intent on their mission to ransack the parlor for weapons and currency. In minutes, they’re done gathering and stand ready.
A tall boy, almost my height, nudges the barrel of a pilfered weapon toward the doors. “How are we gonna get through the city? There’ll be too many of ’em out there by now.”
I reach into my pocket and pull out one of the last remaining silver discs. “I’ve taken care of that. Trust me. They’ll have their hands full.”
I slide the goggles over my eyes and drape my hood over my head.
Suddenly the gaping entryway is filled with more armed personnel, their weapons blazing. I toss the disc toward them and hit a button on my belt. “Everyone down!”
They follow my lead and dive to the ground. A fireball erupts in the doorway, rattling the building to its very foundations. A blast of hot air punches through the room. I scramble to my feet, pulling as many kids as I can onto theirs. “Move!”
En masse, we push toward the entryway, firing, stabbing, and slashing anything in our path, past the smoldering edges of the doorway, trampling over the bloody clumps of flailing guards on the other side. Some of the former prisoners pause to pry weapons loose from dead and dying fingers before moving on like a swarm of locusts.
Once we’re clear of Harmony House, I press another button on my belt, triggering the other silver discs I’ve scattered throughout the city to detonate in a pre-programmed sequence. Explosions shake the ground like the tremors of an earthquake. One blast. Two. Three. Four. Five…
The Pleasure Emporiums are in chaos. The air is layered with thunderous blasts, a symphony of shattered glass, screaming, shouting, weapon bursts, hundreds of feet pounding the pavement. Cement and brick groan as the structures implode all around in a thick deluge of dust and debris.
I pump blast after blast of cover fire as the ragtag caravan of former-slaves-turned-warriors maneuvers through the carnage, past the confused and panicked masses, and disappears toward the western horizon.
Reaching into my belt one last time, I pull out a small tube of flammable liquid and then sign the initial on the ground by the Pleasure Emporium’s entrance. Just one letter.
A giant T, which begins to blaze.
Then I’m trudging out of the city in the opposite direction, into the wasteland.
My glide cycle is still hidden under a tarp behind the dune where I left it. Hopping onto the seat, I flick the lever on the handlebar. I’m jostled by the familiar vibration as the wind, harnessed by the propulsion system, churns the props on the vehicle’s wings. It sputters into the air with an asthmatic wheeze.
I pause once to look behind me.
The Pleasure Emporiums glitter brighter than they ever have against the shimmering canvas of night sky. Only this time, they don’t paint the horizon in rainbow shades of seductive neon.
Gunning the throttle, I swerve and speed away into the night, away from the brilliant streamers of red and orange that dance behind me, content that by morning they will finally whither into oblivion.
TWO
“Rough night, Spark?”
“Just five more minutes,” I groan. It seems like only seconds ago that I activated my black market bio-shroud—which I keep hidden in the heel of my boot to cloak my body’s heat signature—crawled under the security fence, and crept into my bunk at the trainee outpost.
Of course, that was all after rappelling hundreds of feet down the funnel-shaped desert canyon and crawling through one of the camouflaged openings that are embedded in the craggy walls, hiding the base from view.
How long was I out for?
There’s a firm tug on my arm and I wince when I pull it free. The aches of my recent skirmish pulsate through to the marrow.
“What’s going on?” I croak, through the dry desert of my throat. Rubbing my eyes, I gradually focus, the first slivers of daylight slicing through my knuckles. Arrah’s face fades into view like a disembodied specter.
“We’ve got visitors.”
The lines on her smooth caramel face snuff out my drowsiness. I jolt up and swing my bare feet from the bunk to the ice-cold floor. “Who? When?”
She nudges her chin toward the window where our three other bunkmates—Dahlia, Leander, and Rodrigo—are clumped, peering outside.
My fellow Imposer trainees. Previous Recruits, winners of the past few seasons of the Trials. Arrah is the most recent inductee before me. The five of us are housed and trained together, with the logic being that the more experienced grunts in the group will pass their knowledge on to the others. Each year the oldest—in this case Dahlia, who’s First Tier and practically a full-fledged Imposer—graduates to full Imposer status, leaving a vacant spot for the winning Recruit from that year’s Trials.
“Convoy,” grumbles Leander, who’s second in line of succession after Dahlia. He keeps his massive, freckled back to me. “Pulled in ’bout an hour ago.” He’s built like a series of pale cinder blocks, wedged together into the shape of a mountain.
Dahlia wipes a swatch of window with a meaty palm and presses the expanse of her forehead against it. “All the way from the Citadel, by the looks of it.”
My nails dig into the bed frame. If they’ve sent in troops from the Parish, that can only mean they suspect…
“Any idea why?” I coat my words in idle curiosity, hoping she won’t notice.
Rodrigo yawns and drops to the floor and into a series of push-ups. One of his obsidian eyes winks at me. “Probably just an envoy… sent to… escort us back… to the Parish… in style…” He spits out each word out with the flex of his lean, tan muscles, which thrust his arms and chest toward and away from the floor with the fluidity of a well-oiled piston.