The Death of the Wave Read Online Free Page B

to translate the Aristo message to the people.
     
    I set a trap and penned the lies to the world.
     
    What choice did I have?
     
    What choice do I have?
     
    The letter rests temptingly in my hands.
    Five seconds more and it will lie torn into anonymity.
    It was a cold December morning twenty years ago when last words fell into my hands
    and attempted to tear down a dynasty.
    I trusted long ago in the power of those words and I ended up here.
    What was left for me without one last story?
    What else exists for me but to again pick up the paper and the pen?

PART ONE:
Dormant (Cont.)
BREAKER 256
----
    The tests get harder every year for everyone, including new Breakers,
    but it doesn’t stop there for the Watchmen.
    First few weeks are always the hardest.
    Your district group of prospective Breakers is brought to the Palaces by your overseeing Breaker where you undergo a physical evaluation overseen by norm assistants.
    If you pass that, you are put through a special series of exams in the Citadel
    to further test your mental acuity.
    Failure in any examination results in execution.
    If you pass the exams, you are permitted to go into training,
    which involves first a ten-day stint in the Palace training fields and gymnasiums.
    You are given marginal food, water, and sleep.
    Failure to keep up with training results in execution.
    Pass initial training and you meet your first aristo.
    For our section of Eden, we had Human Services Coordinator Galileo
    and Human Services Assistant Newton.
    Who ever is Coordinator now, young Darwin, gives you your initial beats.
    Survive a year on all your assignments while wearing the red uniform and you are given
    an official badge with your number, a place in a Breaker village with your kin, and a destiny.
     
    I remember the glory of that day,
    the freshness first off the training field, drenched in sweat and blood.
    There were only five survivors in my grouping, with 376 as one of them.
    I remember 376, the man who would become my shadow, and far more.
    How he did not smile when the uniforms were presented,
    but wore his like a second skin.
    We stood in a haggard line, gazing with veiled mistrustful eyes at
    the mass of sleek Breakers watching us indifferently,
    for they must have known that our suffering was far from over.
    None of us were naive enough to believe that our lives would be improved.
    Not after testing in the Hives, not after our training.
    But despite this, our weary hearts were heavy with the Duty,
    and some fools such as me were filled with the fire
    to serve to make the lives of our families better.
    But all of us knew that we were traitors.
    Every last one of us had been born into poverty in the Camps,
    and we shivered there, at the center of the State
    that had murdered our people.
    We were guard dogs meant to run with the wolves.
    But with your stomach full, a gun in hand loses its abhorrence,
    and a traitor lives, if only as a traitor.
     
    So I watched the Watchmen after my report.
     
    I was in the house of Galileo, who sat gracefully
    and watched the recruits on the training field with hooded eyes.
    Sonnet’s poetry still echoed in my mind, but I feared that he could read my thoughts.
    Sometimes Galileo watched me instead, as if he would speak.
    He was beautiful in the synthetic light, and on his face I traced lines that looked like my own.
    I wanted to ask him how many Watchmen he thought would survive,
    but I did not open my mouth quickly enough.
    His young child asked it for me.
    Aristos are predominately male, but it took me a moment
    to recognize the child is referred to as a boy.
    The child, Darwin, moved with small, careful movements as he constructed with rapidity
    a perfect copy of the major Palace collection,
    the Citadel and its clock-tower, out of interlocking blocks.
    It was a casual question, a throw-away, and Galileo smiled a sudden secret smile.
    Outside a Watchman lagged behind the group, and a shot rang briefly out upon the air.
     
    As many as