CHAPTER 24
Sacrifice
A Grievar must fully commit to the present moment. Weighed down by events of the past or too feather-footed in anticipation of the future, a Grievar will be unable to find the rhythm of combat. A wave rolling to shore and receding to sea knows neither purpose nor path; it has no awareness of time passing. So must it be with a Grievar’s every breath: rolling like a wave and fully in the present.
Passage Three, Twenty-Seventh Precept of the Combat Codes
On a rare bright day in the Capital, Murray Pearson climbed the long staircase of the Knight Tower. The sun peeked through the lone shield window on each floor, casting light onto drab stone walls.
Murray trudged upward, spiraling past the central kitchen, the equipment room, the Circle study, the Knight quarters. He drew a heavy breath as he neared the highest floor. It was no surprise High Commander Memnon had maintained his body so well, making this climb every evening just to rest his eyes.
The stairs ended and Murray stopped in front of an oaken door—Memnon’s quarters. He placed his hand against the door, feeling the thickness of the solid wood, the fissures that ran against the grain, the craters from decades of visitors rapping against it.
Murray curled his hand into a fist and hammered it against the oak.
“It’s open.” A muffled voice came through the thick wood.
Murray had never set eyes on the quarters before, but he’d certainly heard rumors of what the room contained. A torture chamber where the high commander strung up failed Knights on his walls. A resplendent auralite Circle that haunted Memnon with the whispers of some phantom crowd. A set of bubbling vats serving as a laboratory for growing Grievar brood.
Murray had always dismissed the rumors as crazy, but now he half expected to see every one of those things as he entered Memnon’s private quarters.
No torture chambers. No Circles or vats. No paintings on the walls. No decorative carpets. None of the fineries found in so many of the Citadel’s buildings modernday. Only a sleeping pallet on the floor, a frayed heavy bag hanging from a corner, and a tatami spread across the back side of the room.
Memnon’s quarters were unadorned, spartan, as any Grievar habitation should be.
Memnon stood at the window against the far wall, his hands clasped behind his back. The high commander stared at the Capital, the city bathed in rare sunshine.
“It’s strange how we live through such darkness just for these few bright days,” Memnon muttered.
Murray walked to the window. Every time he saw Memnon, the man looked older, the rings under his eyes deeper.
“Yeah,” Murray said. “It is strange.”
The two stood side by side in silence, watching over the Capital. Much had changed over the years. Murray had once looked up to Memnon with nearly the same admiration he held for Coach. The man was a living legend.
“What happened?” Murray broke the silence. He was truly confused. How had they strayed so far?
“We need to make sacrifices for the good of the nation.” Memnon said the words wearily, as if he were as tired of hearing them as Murray was.
Murray shook his head. “Was one of those sacrifices our honor?”
“Honor.” Memnon repeated the word. “Is it honorable for me to continue to shut down arrays across Ezo because we don’t have the alloys to keep them running? Is it honorable to blanket more of our nation in darkness? Is it honorable to let our citizens starve because we can’t win the resources to feed them?”
“The hand that feeds can also be the hand that fights,” Murray responded with a line from the Codes. “We don’t need to give up our ideals just to keep up. It wasn’t always this way.”
“Always with the Combat Codes.” Memnon sighed. “You’re just like him. He’d always take the easy path too. It’s simple that way—strictly adhering to the Codes—letting the more complex problems wash over you like the tide. Never having to consider a nation in need, a changing world around us. Just holding on to that simple point of view. The Codes, honor. I always envied him for that.”
“Coach stuck to the Codes because they were right,” Murray said firmly. “If you’d done the same, we wouldn’t be where we are right now. Living in dishonor. Artemis Halberd, dead.”
“Where we are?” Memnon asked. “We stand on new ground, finally, with a light on the horizon that will let us defeat our rivals.”
“Light on the horizon…” Murray felt his blood pumping. “Light on the horizon? Your light is a stain! You’re darkin’ growing kids in vats, exterminating them if they don’t fit your mold!”
Memnon turned to Murray. Even now, as Murray stood red-faced in his quarters, the high commander seemed tired. As if the man had been through this argument a thousand times before.
“I understand your position, Pearson, but it takes more than honor to run the Citadel. Sacrifices need to be made.”
“You choose your sacrifices, Memnon. Those kids you’re growing, experimenting with, they’re innocent. They have no choice.”
“As high commander of the Citadel, I don’t have a choice either. I need to do what’s best for Ezo.”
“That’s why we’re different,” Murray said. “That’s why Coach was different from you. That’s why he left. There’s always a choice.”
“Always back to Coach with you,” Memnon replied. “Coach, your shining beacon of honor. The man who could do no wrong.”
“He deserves my respect,” Murray growled. “He didn’t forsake his beliefs like so many others.”
Memnon looked Murray in the eye. “Coach wasn’t what you thought he was.”
Murray shook his head. More mind games.
“Don’t believe me?” Memnon asked. “Where do you think Coach really went?”
The question caught Murray off guard. “I… He never told me.”
“Why do you think he never told you where he was going? What he was doing? You were his star pupil, practically his son. You deserved to know.”
Murray stayed silent.
“You think Coach left you. But he didn’t. He never left.”
“Never left?” Murray raised his voice. “No one has seen the man for over a decade!”
“Just as it is with the Codes, things aren’t as simple as they often seem,” Memnon said.
Murray wanted to leave right then. Coach was all he had left. Everything else he believed in this darkin’ city had gone to shit.
“Yes, Coach and I had our disagreements.” Memnon returned his gaze to the city. “But making sure Ezo stayed on top wasn’t one of them. Coach understood we needed to make sacrifices too.”
“He would never sacrifice the Codes,” Murray said.
Memnon breathed out. “I miss him too, Pearson. He was a solid ear to sound off to, a fist always at your back. I understand.”
“First you’re saying he never left, now you’re saying you miss him. What games are you playing at?”
“You think I’ve made sacrifices?” Memnon asked. “You think I’ve given up on honor, on the Codes? Coach made the greatest sacrifice of all.”
Murray grabbed Memnon’s shoulder, bringing the high commander’s gaze back to him. “What the dark are you talking about?”
“He went in,” Memnon whispered.
Murray stared into the high commander’s eyes. The man spoke as if he inhabited another world.
“At first, he was against it. Against it like he was against anything that countered the Codes. No tools, no tech. He fought me every step of the way on the neurostimulants and the new experimental Trials… and it was no different with this. He threatened to leave the second I told him of our plans to access the Cradle.”
“I remember,” Murray said. “He wouldn’t say what was bothering him that day, but I can clearly remember the day when Coach lost all faith in the Citadel.”
“He was on his way out,” Memnon said. “He’d already packed up. He walked into the command center and saw the feed I had pulled up on the board. It was the prototype they… the Bit-Minders were showing me. Selling me their product. Vats… Dozens of them lined up somewhere in the Deep. The brood were inside… babies… all of them floating…”
Murray’s body trembled, just as it had when Zero had described the Cradle to him.
“He saw the feed and fell to his knees, right there in the command center,” Memnon said. “The strongest Grievar I’ve ever met, sobbing on the floor.”
Murray felt like falling to his knees himself.
“The Bit-Minders. They picked up on his weakness,” Memnon said, speaking faster now, as if he wanted to finally rid himself of the story. “They’d been running the Cradle for several years already… selling the rights to the brood they were growing to the highest bidders. But the Bit-Minders said the program needed improvement. The Guardians they were using within the Sim weren’t providing the long-term… nurture… they were looking for. They needed a guide, a mentor inside the Cradle.”
Murray was holding his breath. It can’t be.
“They told him he could still help,” Memnon said. “The Bit-Minders told him that instead of leaving, he could be a part of it all. He could go in.”
Murray repeated the words hollowly. “Go in…” He closed his eyes, trying to take a deep breath. “Coach… went in…?”
“He accepted. He saw it as a way he could still fix things. A way he could teach those kids the Combat Codes from inside the Cradle,” Memnon said.
Murray was on his knees.
“He went Deep to their Codex the following day… followed their instructions. They hooked him up. Just like the brood they were growing, they stuck him in a vat to keep his body in stasis.”
“He… he’s still down there?” Murray whispered. “Inside… the Cradle? On that island?”
“He never left us,” Memnon said. “Farmer never left us.”
Cego felt the warm sunlight against his eyelids.
The breeze gently rustled his hair, bringing with it the distant fragrance of blooming flowers.
Just a few minutes more.
He lay flat against the soft ground. He imagined he could sink into the earth. His arms and legs, fingers and toes, sinews and entrails would become roots burrowing into the dirt, his blood pumping toward some source deep below. Part of the earth. Living down in the cool darkness.
“How the dark can you be sleepin’ on a day like this?”
Cego’s eyes fluttered open. Dozer was standing above him, offering a hand, a wide grin across the hefty boy’s face.
“He be right for once,” Knees said from nearby. “Rare that we be seeing blue skies like these.”
Cego grasped Dozer’s outstretched hand and was catapulted off the ground, suspended in the air for a moment, the sunlight and sky streaking his vision. He landed, falling forward, tucking into a front roll and springing back to his feet.
Sol stood inches away from Cego, her arms crossed, her eyes sparkling in the sunshine. “Show-off,” she said.
The Citadel’s grounds looked different today. The Lyceum’s ancient grey walls stood in stark contrast to the blue skies above. Tufts of grass peppered the yard in front of the curved face of the Harmony, and the surrounding trees had begun to sprout buds. “I’ll show you how to do a proper roll,” Sol said, turning away from Cego. “Joba, stay just where you are.”
Joba lay on the grass with his hands behind his head like a giant boulder in the yard, looking at the sky. Abel, who had been propped up against the huge boy, sprang to his feet.
“Rolling contest?” Abel said excitedly. “In Desovi, we jump over rivers for practice. Wider and wider makes bigger jumps, and Abel stay dry longer than most!”
Cego chuckled. “Maybe we should check with Joba before we use him as a hurdle?”
Abel looked down at Joba, who just smiled and continued to stare at the sky. “Joba in. Joba like the plan.”
“I don’t aim to be missing out on this one,” Knees said as he lined up next to Cego. “Semester break’s only a few days more, then we be back to training… Need all the fun we can get.”
“Level Two training!” Dozer raised his fist into the air triumphantly. He was already wearing the blue second skin the team had been awarded at semester’s end. “The Whelps are gonna take Level Two by storm!”
“Not so sure about that…” Knees said cautiously. “Other teams are regrouped now. Shiar, Gryfin, Kōri Shimo… they be healed up and wantin’ revenge. And they say the Scouts be bringing in new Grievar next semester from all over the world. Besayd, Desovi, Kiroth, Myrkos, maybe even some other Venturians…”
“We’ll be all right!” Cego said, louder than he’d meant to.
Sol met his eyes before breaking into a sprint directly toward Joba’s hulking form laid out on the grass, her fiery braid trailing her. She launched into the air over the smiling boy, diving headfirst and landing in a graceful front roll before popping back to her feet. She propped her hands on her hips, looking back at Cego across the yard.
“Let’s see how all right you are trying to match that one!” Sol grinned.
Cego took a deep breath. He stepped forward and started to run.