CHATINE RENARD HAD KNOWN DARKNESS all her life. From the moment she was born eighteen years ago, it had surrounded her, clinging to her like a cloak. But nothing compared to the darkness that lurked two hundred mètres below the surface of Bastille. This was a darkness like Chatine had never known. It was a living, breathing thing. A murkiness that seeped into her bones and coated her lungs.
This was the kind of darkness that brought the dead back to life.
The droid closed the metal cage with a bang that reverberated down Chatine’s spine. The lift started to descend, slow and painful and creaking, into the ground. With every centimètre they lowered, Chatine’s teeth chattered harder. Not because of the temperature. It was mercifully warmer down here than on the surface of the moon. But if Chatine had learned anything since arriving on Bastille, it was that the cold wasn’t the only thing here that could make you shiver.
The lift wrenched to a stop and the door of the cage creaked open, revealing a warren of gloomy passageways that extended out from the main shaft. Two more bashers stood watch, their bright orange eyes cutting through the darkness. No human guards dared set foot on this wretched moon. The prison was manned entirely by droids while some overpaid warden supervised from his plush, cushy office back in Ledôme.
“Single-file line,” one of them droned. “Look down. No talking. No running.”
Chatine almost snorted aloud at the warning. Running? Seriously? Where would they even run to? The craggy walls and looming ceilings of the exploit tunnels snaked and dipped, burrowed and crisscrossed through the Bastille rock, going nowhere. Always ending in cold, dark nothingness.
And even if it weren’t for the dead-end tunnels, Chatine was barely capable of crawling out of her bunk each morning, let alone running. Her body had never felt so useless and heavy and beaten. Her head was almost always pounding, her mouth was constantly dirt dry, every centimètre of her ached, and no matter how tired she was at the end of her twelve-hour shift down here in the darkness, she could never ever seem to get enough sleep.
The inmates called the condition the “grippe.” Chatine could certainly understand why. It felt like every organ in her body—including her mind—had been placed in a merciless vise. It was the result of the thinner air on Bastille. Chatine had heard that it could take up to six months for your body to adapt to the climate.
She had been here two weeks.
The inmates formed a line and began to shuffle into the tunnel. Beside them, the droids paced, their heavy metal footsteps clanking, the rayonettes embedded in their arms glowing menacingly in the dim light. After grabbing a headlamp and a pick, Chatine followed the procession into the tunnel. With each collective step they took, the walls and ceilings rumbled ominously around them.
Chatine hated the crackles and pops that came from above, rippling through the ground and threatening to bring two hundred mètres of hard rock crashing down on top of her. She’d heard stories of prisoners dying in the zyttrium exploits. They were some of the first stories told to newcomers on Bastille.
She paused, glanced up, and cringed as a scattering of loose dust and debris rained down on her face.
“Prisoner 51562,” one of the droids boomed, “look down and keep walking.”
Chatine lowered her gaze and scuffled forward. They seemed to be walking forever today. Much farther than Chatine had ever ventured into the tunnels. The light from the headlamp clipped onto her helmet was a poor contender for the murky depths of the exploit. And the farther away they got from the main shaft, the darker the tunnel became.
Chatine pushed back the sleeve of her prison uniform and touched the darkened screen just above her wrist. It blinked to life, providing a dim halo of light. The Skins had limited functionality on Bastille. There were no broadcasts, no AirLink messages, no Universal Alerts, no Ascension points or tokens. Up here on the moon, the Skins were only used to track time and people. Including, now, Chatine. All her former Skin hacks had been removed by the droids when she’d first arrived. But Chatine liked to look at her Skin from time to time, if for no other reason than to remind her of why she was really here. Why all of them were here. This small rectangular device that had been implanted in her flesh since childhood was the reason the Regime spent millions of tokens a year running this Sol-forsaken prison.
The Skins were needed to keep the Third Estate in line.
Zyttrium was needed to make the Skins.
And the dusty craters of Bastille held the last known deposits of zyttrium in the entire System Divine.
Chatine spotted the glint of metal up ahead, and the procession finally slowed to a stop. In front of them, the giant machines that dug the tunnels and secured the supports stood motionless, idling like sleeping silver beasts.
“Every inmate is required to excavate one hundred grammes of zyttrium,” the nearest droid announced, causing a stirring among the prisoners.
“One hundred grammes?!” shouted one of the inmates. “That’s double what we had to dig yesterday.”
“No talking!” the droid boomed, its eerie monotone voice ricocheting off the low-ceilinged tunnels, making it sound even less human than it already did. “Look down, start digging.”
Silently, Chatine positioned herself in front of the tunnel wall and got to work, jamming her pick into the hard rock. With each strike, she paused and waited, listening, expecting, holding her breath. Would today finally be the day the voice in her head didn’t come? The day that Chatine’s mind finally got ahold of itself and came back to its senses?
Chatine couldn’t decide what was worse: a mental breakdown, or losing that voice all over again.
And then, finally, after the tenth strike of her pick against the wall, Chatine heard it. From deep in the dark corners of her mind.
“Brrr! It is so chilly here. Way colder than on Laterre.”
Chatine’s shoulders slumped in relief. Azelle was here. For at least one more day, Chatine would not be alone on this moon.
“How are you not freezing, Chatine?” the voice asked.
Chatine didn’t reply. She never replied to the voice of her dead sister. But just like in life, it didn’t stop Azelle from talking.
“Did you hear those new quotas? You’re going to be here forever. How do they expect you to mine one hundred grammes in a day?”
Chatine shone her headlamp into the heap of rock that had gathered by her feet. There wasn’t a single hint of glowing blue zyttrium. She’d heard prisoners whispering about the shortage on Bastille. How each week, the tunnels stretched farther and farther, and the exploit carts came back less and less full.
“I remember this being a problem back at the Skin fabrique,” Dead Azelle said knowledgably. “Not enough zyttrium to make the new Skins. The superviseurs tried to hide it from us but we weren’t stupide. We saw the supply transporteurs coming in. How many of these prisoners do you think are here because of an actual crime they committed? And how many are here because the Ministère just needed more people to dig?”
Chatine momentarily glanced up at the inmates lining the tunnel, wondering if Azelle was right. Was Chatine’s existence here—as well as the existence of every other prisoner on this moon—no more complicated than a dwindling supply of zyttrium? Chatine had never known her older sister to be very wise or observant in life. But often, as Chatine lay in the cold, damp prison bunks, she wondered if she’d underestimated her sister. If maybe there had been more to Azelle Renard than Chatine ever knew.
Of course, she’d never have a chance to find out now. An explosif in the Skin fabrique two weeks ago had made sure of that.
“It also kind of stinks down here,” Azelle added. “Much worse than the Frets.”
Chatine almost smiled at that one. She knew that the Azelle who spoke to her down here in the dark exploits wasn’t real. Obviously, she knew that. She just assumed it was another symptom of the grippe. A symptom that—unlike the bone-splitting headaches and waves of dizziness—was not entirely unwelcome. It gave her something to listen to besides the monotonous banging of the picks hitting rocks and the ominous rattles and tremors that followed.
And also, it kept her mind off Henri.
Because Dead Azelle knew better than to talk about him.
One ghost to distract you from another.
“Is this how it’s going to be every day?”
Chatine reared back her pick and slammed it into the wall, bringing down a fresh cascade of rock to add to her pile.
“How long do we have to be down here? It’s really dark. I didn’t think it would be this dark. Cold, yes. You always hear about the cold. But no one ever tells you about the darkness.”
Chatine sighed and pitched her pick back again, letting Azelle’s quiet prattling voice continue to envelop her like a blanket.
“Excuse me. Can you hear me? Or are you just ignoring me? People often do ignore me.”
The pick paused over Chatine’s head. She looked to her right, where a slender girl in an exploit coat too big for her small frame was waving her hand back and forth, trying to get Chatine’s attention.
How long had this girl been talking? She sounded just like Azelle.
“I know we’re not supposed to talk,” the girl went on in a low voice.
“You’re right,” Chatine snapped with a cautious look over her shoulder for nearby droids. “We’re not.”
“But I’m going a little bit insane,” she said, shaking her head. Her helmet—like her exploit coat—was too big, and it rattled haphazardly, causing the light from her headlamp to flash and bob. “No one here talks to anyone. It’s my first day, and I haven’t been able to get anyone to say a single word to me.”
Chatine sighed. Of all the people she could get stuck next to, she’d ended up with a babbler.
“And why is everyone so mean here?” the girl continued.
“They’re not mean,” Chatine whispered harshly. “They’re tired and cranky. And don’t want to get tazed for talking.”
“I’m Anaïs,” the girl went on, clearly interpreting Chatine’s dismissal as an invitation to introduce herself. “What’s your name?”
Chatine didn’t reply. Maybe if she just ignored her, the girl would give up and stop talking.
“Did you come from Vallonay?”
Chatine kept digging.
“I came from Delaine in the Northern Région. Do you know it? Probably not. It’s a very boring town. Mostly just sheep. You’re probably wondering why I’m on Bastille.”
Actually, Chatine thought bitterly. I wasn’t.
“I got rounded up for being out after curfew. They’re being really strict now. Anyone out after hours gets sent straight to Bastille. It’s not fair. I wasn’t even doing anything wrong! I swear. I was just—” The girl’s voice was cut off by her own scream as her body convulsed violently and her pick fell to the ground. Chatine glanced over to see the nearest droid retracting its tazeur.
As she watched Anaïs’s eyes roll back into place, Chatine couldn’t help but feel the slightest bit sorry for the girl. But also the slightest bit relieved. Maybe now she would finally understand the consequences and shut up.
“Look down, keep digging,” the droid admonished.
Whimpering slightly, Anaïs picked up her fallen pick, and the basher moved on. Chatine watched as the girl wiped tears from her face and tried to shake off the lingering effects of the tazeur. Then she hoisted back her pick, nearly collapsing under its weight, and brought it crashing clumsily and noisily down into the rock, mere centimètres from the nearest anchor bolt.
“What are you doing!?” Chatine hissed. “Are you trying to kill us?”
Anaïs sniffled. “No.”
“You have to dig around the rock bolts. If you knock one out of place, you could bring the whole tunnel down on top of us.”
Anaïs glanced in confusion between her pick and the tunnel wall.
Chatine huffed. “Watch me.” She demonstrated, carefully aiming her pick at the space between the two nearest anchor bolts. “See?”
The girl nodded but didn’t go back to work. Instead, she leaned on her pick and let out a melancholy sigh. “Do you think he’ll wait for me?”
Chatine’s grip around her pick handle tightened as she buried it into the wall with more force than she’d ever used before. Rock skittered around her feet, and there was a flash of blue under the light from her headlamp. It was a thread of zyttrium laced through a shard of rubble. That would barely make up five percent of her quota today.
Anaïs turned her head upward and stared at the ceiling of the tunnel, as though she could see right through it, all the way back to Laterre. “We were going to get married. I didn’t even get a chance to say good-bye to him before they took me away. But he’ll wait for me, right? They only gave me eighteen months. He’ll be true to me, right?”
“He’s probably already forgotten you,” Chatine murmured to herself, and then, with a clench of her stomach, silently added in her head, Just like he’s forgotten me.
She had no doubt that whatever Marcellus Bonnefaçon was doing back on Laterre, he wasn’t thinking about her.
“What did you say?” Anaïs asked, her eyes twinkling in the low light of Chatine’s headlamp.
“Nothing,” Chatine said, feeling a flicker of guilt. She softened her voice. “You need to be quiet, or that droid is going to come back. Just keep your head down. Don’t look up. There’s nothing to look up for.”
Thankfully, this time Anaïs listened to her. With another sigh, she grabbed her pick and, struggling to even lift it over her head, brought it smashing recklessly down against the side of the tunnel. Right on top of the anchor bolt.
“No!” Chatine cried, lunging toward her. But it was too late. A terrible cracking sound rang out above them as a plume of dust billowed down from the low ceiling, followed by a cascade of small rocks that rained and smacked onto their helmets.
“Watch out!” Chatine jumped back from the falling debris. Anaïs looked up just long enough for Chatine to peer into her wide, terrified eyes before a giant slab of rock shook loose from the ceiling and collapsed, in another thundering wave of dust, right on top of the girl’s head.
For several heart-pounding seconds, Chatine could only stare. Stare at the girl’s frail, unmoving body peeking out from beneath the stone. Stare at her frail shoulders and slender arms and scuffed boot … which suddenly twitched. Chatine stumbled backward, tripping over her pile of excavated rock and slamming into the wall.
“Sols!” she cried, glancing up the tunnel. The other inmates had stopped working and were gathered around Anaïs’s body, staring incredulously at her foot, which now jerked and trembled.
“She’s alive!” Chatine called, lunging toward the massive boulder and trying to shove it out of the way. But it was so heavy, and she was so weak, it barely moved. “Someone help! She’s alive and she’s trapped!”
The sound of whirring metal clanked down the hallway as a droid fought to make its way through the debris. The gigantic metal monster paused in front of the girl, the glow of its orange eyes roving up and down her quivering body.
“Don’t just stand there!” Chatine screamed. She’d never raised her voice at a basher before. “Do something! Help her!”
The droid continued its scan, its robotic face emotionless and calculating. Finally, it took a step forward, extending its arm toward the girl. Chatine let out the breath she’d been holding. Anaïs would be okay. She would be taken to the Bastille Med Center. Her wounds would be treated. She would be fine. She would live. She would—
Whoosh.
The girl’s twitching limbs fell still. Very still. The droid lowered its arm, which Chatine now saw was glowing, the deadly rayonette still armed. A deep, soul-splitting shiver traveled through her body.
“You …” Chatine stared up at the droid, her voice frail and thin and hollow. “What did you do? Why did you do that?”
The droid’s orange eyes tracked over her entire face, as though searching for signs of life left in Chatine, too. She honestly wondered if it would find any. The day she was shipped off to this abominable moon was the day she’d stopped living. Stopped caring. Stopped climbing. Stopped conning. Stopped looking up to the skies, hoping for something better.
Stopped being Chatine Renard.
Now she had become someone else. A cursed soul who brought about nothing but chaos and destruction and death wherever she went. A shell of a person reduced to nothing more than a number.
“Look down, keep digging, Prisoner 51562,” the droid said before turning and disappearing into the darkness of the tunnels.