Page 12 of Cage of Starlight

CHAPTER SIX

T he unrelenting clatter of an alarm bell rips Tory from rest at an hour no reasonable creatures crawl from their holes. He sits up on his naked mattress and looks to his roommate for cues. No luck. The man’s dead to the world.

The bell keeps going. It’s coming from behind a metal grate close to the ceiling at the back of the room, which means Tory can’t beat it into silence.

The first thing from his roommate’s lips when he wakes is, “Dammit.”

“What’s happening?” Tory chances, rolling out of bed.

“Breakfast. Training.”

That’s something. He can follow the guy to wherever they eat.

His roommate tips out of bed and glares muzzily at Tory. “You were rotten last night, y’know that?”

Tory grimaces. That might’ve been a bad move. He’s not here to make friends, but he knows exactly where he needs to point his cutting edge, and it’s not at people trapped here like him. “I felt it. Bad day.”

His roommate grunts and tugs the door open. “Fair. Food’s this way.” The cardplayers from last night, hunched and yawning, wait outside. “Normally you’d need to make your bed before leaving the room, but . . .” He flicks a hand at the bare, disgusting mattress.

“Yeah. Where can I get blankets?”

The second point on the card-playing trio, a tall guy with rat-like features, offers, “Closet two doors down has bedding. It’s locked, though. Your supervisor didn’t give you the stuff?”

Vantaras, that bastard .

His roommate laughs. “Who’d ya get, Menden? Fella’s senile.”

They stop in front of the closet door.

His roommate gestures to the third cardplayer—short and thick, with a clumsily shaven head and a scar that makes a furrow through his left ear and cheek. “Rendt here’s got your back; he can break in and no one’ll know. He did it for some of Menden’s other supervisees.”

“Don’t know Menden. My supervisor’s this guy Vantaras. And nah—I can do without a blanket until I see him next. Wanna make him work.”

The men go quiet.

“ Vantaras is your supervisor? What’s your type?” Tory’s roommate snags his wrist. “Synergistic. And . . . WS? What the—?”

Tory pulls his wrist away. It might be better to keep his cards close to his chest, say only a little. What was it Helner said, about the carriage? “Something about kinetic energy.”

“Nah, man, I’m Kinetic.” His roommate thrusts his hand at Tory, baring a tag that reads (S)K/2084. “You don’t have the K.”

“She said I threw concussive force.”

Scar-face smirks. “Oh,” he says. “Oh, man. You got Seedbait for a roommate. You’ll get the bed back in no time.”

Tory doesn’t like the sound of that. “What’s Seedbait?”

“Come on, they send you people to the front lines to catch bullets for us. You’re cannon fodder. Corpse corps. Seedbait .”

Tory shudders.

“Ain’t they CF, though? This guy’s WS.”

“Wouldn’t be the first time the idiots in the labs fell asleep on the job.” His roomie shrugs. “Well, look. I’m Gavin.”

“Tory.”

Gavin shakes his head. “Seriously, why’d they put the Lune on Seedbait ?”

Scar-face punches Gavin in the shoulder and levels a look at Tory that could melt glass. “Pick up the pace. If we’re too late for eggs and gravy, I take it out on your roommate here.”

They speed up, dodging sleepy Seeds through nondescript halls. It’s hopeless to memorize the route. “What’s the deal with Vantaras, anyway? It’s not like he’s actually the big guy’s son.”

All three men look at Tory like he’s sprouted a new head. “You can’t be serious.”

“As a sucking chest wound.”

“You think there’s any other Vantaras who’d dare to bear the Grand General’s name? ’Course he’s the guy’s son.”

“But he’s not . . .” Tory makes shapes with his hands. Bullish, boxy. Old.

“Nah, it’s a whole thing. He’s half Lune, half Vantaras.

Not good enough for Daddy, so he got shipped off to the Box.

When his first wife died, Papa Vantaras picked up some chick from across the border, married her.

Rumor has it he wasn’t just after her assets .

He wanted information, connections—whatever it is those bastards use to slaughter us so well when we’ve got three times the fighting force.

The way her kid got tossed in the Box, I’m guessing Mama didn’t fess up.

So the General went to war for it, and he sent Mama’s boy out to the ass-end of nowhere to make sure it all ran smooth. ”

“Real smooth,” Gavin’s rat-faced friend mutters. “He the one that caught you, Seedbait?”

Tory nods.

“Join the club. They send him out to catch all the escaped Seeds—the suspected ones, too. He’s never failed, not once. Perfect capture rate.”

“Yeah? Well, fuck him very mu—”

He rounds the corner and runs straight into Vantaras, who jerks back, lips pressed tight.

Hair neatly brushed, dusting over one eye.

Uniform flawless, while Tory stands in rumpled prison clothes.

Vantaras with his prim posture and his white gloves, pressing people like Tory into unspeakable prisons and onto battlefronts for his father’s pleasure.

Shame and anger make a bonfire in Tory’s belly. The finger his scalpel nicked aches.

“Good morning, Arknett,” Vantaras says.

Tory crosses his arms.

“I’m expected to show you to the mess hall.”

“I can get there on my own.”

Vantaras’ eyes pass over Gavin and his gamblers, cold. He doesn’t even have to speak to make them scatter.

Tory glares at their retreating backs. “Or not.”

“You won’t be entering with the rest. Follow me.” He strides away before Tory can respond.

Down the hall they go, past an endless line of people in washed-out gray-blue. It terminates in front of a set of wide double-doors. Dr. Helner waits on the far side of the doors, flanked by a straggly-haired middle-aged man on one side and the blond officer from yesterday on the other.

Vantaras stands at attention. “Good morning, Sir.”

“At ease, Lieutenant.” Blondie turns his gaze to Tory. “I don’t think we had the opportunity for proper introductions yesterday. I am Colonel Erwin Kirlov. I oversee the First Lieutenant.”

Heat spills through Tory’s chest. Vantaras needs oversight , does he?

This guy seems like a real stickler, too.

Kirlov turns his flat gaze on Dr. Helner. “You may leave, doctor.”

She smiles. “And miss the chance to guide our Channeler? No, thank you.”

The doors of the mess hall creak open, and Seeds pour inside in neat rows. Helner watches like she’s observing a colony of ants. Kirlov watches like he’ll gun down the first man to step out of line.

Inside, people fill their plates with a feast of different foods.

Tory moves to follow, but Helner surges forward and clamps a hand on his shoulder.

“Wait a second. I’ll be supervising your food intake, remember?

Same for Prentice here.” Helner gestures to the straggly fellow with gray-streaked brown hair.

“Supervising our food intake?” Tory winces.

“The higher-ups want to make good use of both of you and will work you especially hard given your aptitudes, so they’ve made allowances regarding your allotment of tokens. We’ll be packing your diet with nutrients. Can’t have you getting ill before we have our fun with you.”

Prentice smirks. “Degrading, ain’t it? You’ll get used to it.”

That’s what he’s afraid of.

“Hey, I’m Prentice.” The guy extends a sun-darkened hand.

“Teleporter. Had a cushy gig in the priority mail service up in Maran—folks don’t like to wait for their packages there—but they called me back to the Box to train for the battlefield.

Desperate times, you know?” He grins. “Anyway, you’re in good hands .

. . probably. Just watch out for needles.

Our doctor here has ideas about how the Box should categorize and organize Seeds.

Revolutionizing the process one experiment at a time. ”

“The current process serves,” Kirlov grits out.

Helner laughs, flat and brutal. “If losing thirty percent of your shield corps every time they run into a Legion unit serves you.”

There that word is again. Legion. Before Tory can ask what it means, the last few sleepy stragglers pace into the mess hall, and that must be their cue to enter.

Nearly everyone else is seated when Helner leads Tory and Prentice through the lines, talking loudly about nutrition and wise choices.

By the time she finishes, Tory has studiously ignored at least three calls of, “Hey, Special Diet !”

At least he has a heaping tray to show for his humiliation. There are a few times in his life Tory would have killed for a meal like this. A whole room of full plates, and the food’s not even gone. He could go back for more. He starts stuffing his face before he’s seated.

Vantaras and Kirlov settle in at the same table. Vantaras begins to daintily cut into his own food with his knife and fork held just so, and a plan hatches in Tory’s head.

He needs bedding, anyway. Carving a rift between Vantaras and his stickler overseer will be a satisfying byproduct. He doesn’t need that scalpel to draw blood.

He leans in, pitching his voice bright and curious. “Hey, where should I get blankets and pillows and stuff? I made do with the mattress last night, figured maybe you just forgot when you ran off to deal with those intruders and left me in the hall.”

He offers Vantaras a sweet smile with all the poison he can inject into it.

The fingers of Kirlov’s right hand drift over his watch, tapping the dial with sharp notes like gunshots.

Oh, yes. He’s hit a nerve.

Kirlov speaks first. “Yes, I believe we need to have a conversation about you leaving your supervisee unattended last night, Lieutenant.”

Vantaras swallows, a dry click. “It was an oversight. I apologize.”

Kirlov frowns. “Lieu tenant .”

Vantaras’ spine straightens. “Sir! It won’t happen again. I’ll be sure to prepare bedding for the Worldseed after breakfast.”