NOVICE SIGMA4661101-3231E
CONSORTIUM TRAINING CENTER ALPHA, NEW TRITON
YEAR 478, SECOND QUARTER
ELEVEN DAYS AGO
Sirens wailed, exactly as they had at Training Center Sigma, and fear momentarily pinned the girl where she stood.
“It is a drill,” she reminded herself.
Her new cohort’s Recorder, however, remained calm and ushered the group toward the shielded tunnels under the Scriptorium. Murmuring flared around her. Citizens were trying to kill them again, like they had killed almost everyone at Training Centers Kappa, Mu, and Sigma. Their gossip reached the little ones, who whimpered. When a tiny one from the third cohort started crying, the girl from Training Center Sigma frowned at the gossiping novices. They should not have frightened the little ones.
This was only a drill. Drills would keep them safe.
She tugged on their Recorder’s tunic. When he looked down, she pointed at the younger cohort.
He said, “Go.”
Without a second’s hesitation, she dashed over and scooped up the crying child, uttering soft comforting sounds, telling the little one that she would be well. The third cohort’s Recorder, who carried a tiny child in each arm nodded approval.
Other than the frightened children, novices and Recorders proceeded silently and evenly toward the doors, though the tall boy who always hit the ball the hardest and the slight boy who excelled at strategic games kept peeking back at the yard.
The children and their Recorders reached the tunnels, and an Elder paced the aisles, her drones following her in a line. She paused, face stern, and pointed at the girl and the whimpering three-year-old.
“Why is this little one not with her cohort?”
The girl adjusted the child on her hip. “I offered assistance.”
“She asked permission,” her Recorder testified.
“And I welcomed her help,” the other one added.
The Elder’s solid grey eyes bored into the girl’s pale-blue ones. “Return her.”
Cautiously avoiding the Elder, the girl walked to the younger cohort and deposited the little one. The other Recorder nodded thanks.
Up and down the space, children whispered.
The Elder took three more steps, then spun so quickly that the bottom of her tunic flared. “This is not a game,” she thundered, her drones broadcasting her voice. Not a game, a game, game, echoed back. “Already, our people have been murdered.”
No one ever said how many were dead, but the girl knew the numbers from Sigma. When she had crawled out from her hiding place in the Hall of Reclamation and searched for survivors, she had counted eight hundred thirty-nine, not including anyone in the tanks themselves. She found nineteen other children, and they had hidden in the refectory, stealing food from the kitchen until Recorders had arrived to rescue them.
The girl pushed down a stab of fear. When she was older, she would have a drone, and though she knew now that a drone would never keep her safe, it would regulate her emotions. No fear in the future, she repeated over and over—a promise she knew in her deepest being to be untrue. She clung to it, nevertheless.
Resisting the urge to run, she returned to her new cohort and stood erect between two boys.
“It is imperative that you remain quiet,” the Elder raised her voice over the little ones’ noise. “An uproar like this will draw citizens to find you. And they have no mercy.”
The slight boy whispered in her ear, “Fear will train the little ones to cry.”
The Elder whipped around. “What are you implying, Novice?”
His face went ashen, but before he could answer, a new voice said calmly, “Enough.”
The girl froze. Everyone did, even the angry Elder, for every member of the Consortium knew that gentle voice.
“The boy is correct,” the Eldest said. When more murmurs filled the area, she raised both hands, then lowered them, palms down. “Be still.”
She scooped up the closest crying one, shushing him, and his sobs subsided. When he wrapped thin arms around her neck and popped a thumb into his mouth, the Eldest did not rebuke him for that comfort.
The Elder bowed her head. “Eldest. I did not know you were present.”
“Obviously.” The Eldest rested a cheek on the little one’s bald head. “Else you would not have frightened the ones we are here to protect.”
“I did not mean—”
“And yet”—the Eldest’s voice was as soft as mouse fur and as smooth as the snakes that ate the mice—“you inspire fear and shame in others.”
Another little one ran to her side, and she rested her hand on the small girl’s head.
“The boy was correct,” the Eldest said. “As was the girl when she offered help.”
Whether it was fear or pride, something stirred in the girl’s heart. To be noticed, singled out, by the Eldest?
“They deviated from the drill,” the Elder protested.
“Yes.” The Eldest’s gaze latched onto the girl and the slight boy. “Come here.”
Without daring to look anywhere except the quiet woman in dark Consortium grey, they walked in unison to stand before her. How very odd that she was not much taller than they.
“Now,” she added, “face the Elder who frightens my children.”
They did.
“Novice, repeat what you said.”
He swallowed visibly, and his voice cracked when he spoke. “Fear will train the little ones to cry.”
Around them, Recorders stiffened, and the cohorts fidgeted.
“Do you see the truth in him?”
“I see some truth.” The Elder pursed her lips. “But I also see his fear.”
The Eldest’s voice remained gentle. “Who put that fear there?”
“A trick question, Eldest.”
“Who?”
“The citizens who murdered us.”
“Only the citizens?”
The Elder took a breath. “You and I and the boy himself.”
The Eldest handed the little boy to the girl, but he whimpered and reached for the small woman who had comforted him. The Eldest touched the girl’s shoulder.
“Novice,” the Eldest said, “tell me what the Consortium is.”
The girl shifted the little one onto her hip and recited, “The Consortium is all. The Eldest is our parent. The Elders, Recorders, novices, and little ones are our siblings. The brothers and sisters must be protected.”
She did not add that family was everything, and that she would find a way to protect these little ones with everything she had. It was her own promise, but she dared not commit the heresy of adding to the creed.
“Indeed. The Consortium welcomed you all when the citizens who now seek to kill you discarded you before you were born. Elder, you used fear and harshness to control these, our future, when we have already lost many of our family. You have erred. Such an error is unpardonable.” Her voice hardened. “When you harm my children, you harm us all. You harm me.”
The Eldest’s drones shot forward and wrapped the Elder in their grip. Her eyes went wide, their grey draining away to reveal blank, bloodshot brown. She gurgled, then dropped. Her three drones folded in all arms and appendages and drifted silently to the ground.
“Return the child to his cohort, Novice,” the Eldest said calmly, “and then return to your own.”
The girl did, trying to hide her quaking hands. She walked back to her group, sidestepping the still form on the floor. The other children parted to allow her to hide in their ranks.
The Eldest bent slightly to look the boy in the eye. “Do not speak out of turn, even if you speak the truth.”
He nodded and scuttled back to stand beside the girl. The other children closed in about them, but there was nowhere they could truly hide, not from the Eldest, who saw everything.
While Recorders carried the silenced drones and their Elder away, the Eldest lifted her arms, and every member of the Consortium turned to her. Her gentle voice filled the room, sliding between the concrete pillars. “We will drill again tomorrow.”
Recorders led the youngest ones out first, and soon only the novices remained. Footsteps echoed, replacing earlier murmurs, but as the shielded area emptied, the promise of safety seemed hollow.
There would be no Recorders to guide them, if the sirens sounded because citizens attacked. The girl had counted two hundred sixty-three little ones and novices, but in this vast area, there would be nowhere to hide. She did not know Training Center Alpha as she had Training Center Sigma, where she had taken her first steps and learned her first words.
Where was the safest place, one the citizens would never find? The one everyone would avoid? One where they could hide in the dark and—
The girl’s stomach tightened, and she stopped. Sinking realization dawned.
The boy behind her hissed at her to move before the Eldest noticed, but it was too late.
The Eldest turned grey veiled eyes on the girl. She bowed, nodded, and sped up.
Tomorrow, they would drill again, but tonight, when the Recorders slept, she would find that path. Tonight would be her drill, and drills would keep them safe.