Fractured Read online

  Logan allowed a crooked smile. Shows how much they know. He had been sneaking into the Broken Lands since he was ten. And in all that time, not a single apparition had seen fit to sync with him.

  He had done it on a dare at first, several classmates in his learning circle having goaded him into it. They had watched from afar as several spirits approached him. But the ghostly figures had merely circled around, sniffing distastefully. Not even the invasive Breakers came near. And he had been an easy target. Normally, those under the age of fourteen were too weak to tame a spirit. Logan, on the other hand, was of no interest to them. He was lacking in some fashion.

  The destroyed buildings grew more populous around him. He walked down a distinctive street now, the rubble reaching above his head. Most of the first floors in this part of the ruins were intact with the upper levels lying in shambles.

  He glanced back, the safety of the woods far behind him. He liked it that way. While others claimed entering the Broken Lands filled them with unease, he felt something that was missing back at the Fixer Enclave: acceptance.

  Not that the spirits radiated this emotion. Above him two Weavers ducked and bobbed alongside each other, playing some form of tag. They looked to be young, their eyes wide and dark. They ignored Logan, disappearing over the roof of the most intact building along the street. To be tethered to a Weaver was well regarded. They were the builders and creators. His people always put special emphasis on any of the spirits that were productive, that contributed.

  A Breaker ghosted through the roof of a nearby structure, its long tusks leading the charge. It spun about and glared back at the roof, outraged at not having disturbed the building. Breakers thrived on destruction. Anyone tethered to them had to have supreme resolve. Controlling a Breaker, bending its will to excavate and clear the forest, was a demanding duty. This particular spirit swam in cruelty and malice. Logan shivered at the thought of its power. Without hosts, spirits could not affect their environs. If an unfettered Breaker could, the result would spell massive destruction and chaos. It took another run at the roof, ignorant of its inability to deliver even the simplest physical touch.

  The Breaker dove into the ground, its sheer mass daunting in spite of its semi-transparent appearance. Logan half-expected to feel the earth shake and fissures to appear to mark its passing, but none did. Had it been tethered to one from the Enclave, the dirt would’ve been thoroughly gouged and churned up. His father, moored to a Breaker, was always on edge, never content.

  Logan marched to his left and climbed a slight rise of a wall, hugging close to the section that was largely intact. He straddled the top of the wall and let his legs hang, rocking back and forth with contentment. He opened his canteen and took two deep pulls.

  He kept telling himself he didn't need to tether, but he knew that wasn't true. Anyone who remained untethered past the age of fourteen faced two paths: banishment to the Broken Lands—or death. Resources were finite in their tiny realm, and none of the enclaves had room for those who could not contribute. Still, there was life outside the enclaves, wasn’t there? Although bordered by the forbidden wastelands to the west, Logan often wondered why no one had built a vessel to leave Apparata by water to the north, east, or south. Surely there were other lands? Their world could not be just one solitary land mass lost in a sprawling ocean. Logan often thought of leaving by sea but didn’t feel an affinity for the water like he did the ruins. Given the choice, he would pick exile to the Broken Lands over death.

  But he didn’t have a say in the matter. His fate lay in his father's hands, and that likely meant something rather more final than a shameful exile.

  Maybe I should just stay out here, never go back, he thought. He could make the decision himself to make the ruins his home. He took stock of his supplies: a simple hunting knife, his spear, a fishing net, and flint. Along with the canteen, he had the basics. He could fashion what he needed from the debris in the ruins. Many of the buildings were cleared of anything remotely useful here on the outskirts, but what if he went deeper?

  His attention went to the west, into the heart of the ruins. What awaited him there? Back home offered nothing more than awkward goodbyes. He would miss his younger brother, but Kiff was strong for an eight-year-old with a lame leg. He had overcome much in his short life, and Logan was infinitely proud of him. But was that enough to force Logan to return home and risk hearing his father call for his death? He thought not.

  While his father would brand him a coward, Logan wouldn’t let him decide his fate. He would stay in the Broken Lands and make it his home.

  Maybe there were others like him . . . But that thought quickly dissolved. He knew of no others in the past two generations to go untethered. He was unique.

  At least for now.

  Chapter 3

  Kyle

  Dr. Pollard glanced over the patient information on his clipboard. It was said that every man, woman, and child in the city was born with the power to connect remotely to technology, to bond with a microchip from several feet away using only the power of the mind. But channeling thoughts was supremely difficult, and the tech-link was always weak—hence the implant, which boosted the signal and allowed recipients to flourish, to recognize their calling in life and contribute to Apparati in whatever technological field suited them best.

  Some young patients showed more promise than others. Even before the implant they could switch stream screens off without verbalizing the command, or open doors without touching the pad. And on extremely rare occasions, along came a recipient with a command of tech so finely tuned that an implant was unnecessary. On Mayor Baynor’s orders, such recipients vanished from the public eye and became special operatives working directly for General Mortimer.

  Kyle Jaxx was no such recipient. In fact, he lacked even the slightest hint of focus.

  The doctor stifled a yawn. Just another routine implant, then. He gave the technician a nod and got to work on his first procedure of the day.

  He stared up at the delicate robot arm and focused. The arm responded immediately, and the implant—a tiny flat device no bigger than a fingernail, with a slightly curved, needle-thin tail—descended in the gentle grip of fine pincers. There was very little for the technicians to do. Most of the white coats were for show; the patient’s father was, after all, watching from the viewing room. This work was all about Dr. Pollard, an experienced Grade-A Surgeon with a perfect score in most of his field tests. The work was easy, though he tended to screw up his face in concentration to make it look difficult. He leaned in close, nodded, made a meaningless scribble on his clipboard, glanced at the hanging monitor, and refocused on the microchip.

  Under his direct mental guidance, the robot arm positioned the implant at the back of the patient’s neck, which was visible through the opening in the chair. A red laser dot marked the exact point of insertion. The robot arm had several built-in appendages, like miniature arms folded up alongside the primary. At Dr. Pollard’s command, one unfolded with a soft hiss, wielding a tiny syringe. It quickly injected a numbing agent next to the laser dot.

  A scalpel blade appeared and made a swift and barely perceptible incision. Next, the main arm lowered and pressed the implant against the skin where a speck of blood was forming, causing a red smear. The tiny tail stuck upward like a random hair.

  When the robot arm released its needle-sharp pincer grip, the tail began to thrash—and the chip disappeared into the incision, worming its way deeper.

  The monitor beeped, reporting fluctuations in the readings. All perfectly normal. Just for show, Dr. Pollard nodded again, peering at the screen and making random marks on his clipboard. He smiled and complimented the technicians.

  “Um,” one of them said.

  Dr. Pollard glanced at him, seeing a puzzled frown. “What’s wrong?”

  Rather than say it out loud, the technician pointed at one of the large monitors on the wall behind him. It showed digitized schematics in real-time, and the chip, blown up to about a foot in size, was right there at the base of the brain where it should be. Only . . .

  “It’s not activated,” he said quietly. “Is it faulty?”

  The doctor could see that the chip’s tail had bonded with the brain stem. As far as he could tell, the implant was like every other, working correctly and ready to channel and transmit the patient’s thoughts. Yet no data was being received.

  “The implant is in send mode,” the technician confirmed. “We have a strong, perfectly normal signal from it. It’s just not receiving any data from the patient.”

  “So it must be a faulty connection,” Dr. Pollard mused. He’d overseen a thousand or more implant procedures in the last decade, at a rate of two a week. It was such a simple five-minute job that dozens of similar procedures could be crammed in every day if ever there was a need. But the city and its population were finite, and so were the number of children turning fourteen. How many faults had he run across in his time? Exactly twelve. He’d easily repaired the three bad connections and two damaged chips, but the remaining seven had simply been poor candidates, their brains unreadable.

  Seven poor candidates. Could Kyle Jaxx be the eighth? Dr. Pollard hoped not. “Check the connection,” he said quietly, knowing the technician was already running diagnostics.

  The tech shrugged. “It’s good. The chip is responding and transmitting properly. Everything is fine.”

  So the patient was indeed his eighth poor candidate, Dr. Pollard thought sadly. Poor kid. He glanced toward the viewing room and saw Mr. Jaxx pressed against the glass, a frown on his face.

  “What’s happening?” a shaky voice called.

  Dr. Pollard knelt to peer at the boy hanging under the chair, whose overlong dark brown hair hung limply. “Sorry for the delay,
son. We’re going to sit you up and run a few routine tests, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  The doctor allowed the technicians to manually retract the robot arm. They turned Kyle’s chair over and sat him up. The boy’s face was red from being upside down, and when the clamps pulled back, padded though they were, he had indentations across his forehead.

  “Let’s see what you can do,” Dr. Pollard said, nodding toward the wall screen directly opposite the patient.

  A program was launching. Normally it wasn’t necessary; the data transmitted from most patients’ brains right after connection usually provided a stream of information that meant instant classification and dismissal. This time they’d have to run the manual calibration tool. One of the technicians would get to make use of his own implant for a change.

  “Coming up on the screen is a series of classifications,” Dr. Pollard said as calmly as he could, his heart thumping. He dreaded the upcoming talk with the child’s father.

  As he spoke, rows of circles flashed across the screen, dozens of them, each with a label and progress bar. In theory, some of these classifications should match the patient’s disposition. The strongest match would determine the boy’s future.

  “Run your gaze across the labels,” Dr. Pollard told him, “and see if you can connect. It’s a very simple test. The screen acts as a conduit to a multitude of simulators spread throughout the complex. Your brain will attempt to manipulate those simulators as though you’re in the same room. If successful, the progress bar will show something more than 0%. If you reach 100%, that means you’ve found your calling in life.” He smiled tightly. “Start with the classifications you think you’re suited to, for example Mechanical. When selected, it will drill down to subcategories such as Vehicles, Appliances, and so on.”

  “Okay,” the young recipient said, sounding both excited and nervous.

  Dr. Pollard allowed one of the techs to step in for the one-on-one walkthrough and hand-holding. Sometimes this manual classification took a full hour. The test was usually reserved for those who were suited to many tasks and needed actual statistics to determine their strongest match. Unfortunately, when it came to boys like Kyle Jaxx, with no data whatsoever being received via his implant, it usually took the full hour just to prove that he was simply a poor candidate, unable to connect to anything.

  In which case, the boy had no future in Apparati.

  ****

  “It’s been two hours,” Dr. Pollard told the patient’s father, trying his best to remain calm. Mr. Jaxx looked ready to explode, and security guards were already standing by outside the room.

  “It has to be a mistake,” the man growled. “Why won’t you try another implant? How do you know for sure it’s not just faulty? If you can just try another one—”

  “You have to believe me when I tell you that the chip is in good working order. We’ve run full diagnostics three times. It’s transmitting fine. It’s just not receiving any data from your son’s brain. The implant was successful. Your boy just isn’t a suitable candidate.”

  “Meaning he’s worthless?” Mr. Jaxx snapped, his face a deep red, fists balled. “Is that what you’re saying? That my son is of no use to this city? That he’s a deadbeat, fit only for repurposing?”

  Dr. Pollard nodded. “Unfortunately, that’s exactly what I’m saying. Look at him. He’s been trying his hardest with the classes. He managed to squeeze 2% out of Robotics, but only because he tried extra hard with that one. Still nowhere near the minimum requirement of 55%, though. Otherwise he’s a flat zero across the board. I’m afraid he has no future in Apparati, Mr. Jaxx.”

  “Maybe he just hasn’t found the right class! Maybe you don’t have a class for what he can do! Did you consider that?”

  Dr. Pollard gave a curt nod to one of his techs, and the man returned the nod and opened the door. Three security guards filed in. In the larger room beyond, still sitting in the chair looking scared and confused, Kyle Jaxx persisted in staring at the screen trying to make something respond.

  “You need to make a choice, Mr. Jaxx,” the doctor said quietly. “You may of course have the rest of the day to say your farewells to your son. Your family is welcome to visit the clinic. But your son will be incarcerated here until midnight, the end of his fourteenth birthday, at which point he will be turned over to the Repurposing Factory. Unless, of course, you’d prefer that he be exiled to the Ruins.”

  Mr. Jaxx didn’t answer. His shoulders slumped as though he were suddenly tired. The expression on his face went from anger to frustration to pain and finally to reluctant acceptance. He seemed like a decent law-abiding citizen, Dr. Pollard thought, and would likely do the right thing no matter how difficult. He would, with great dignity, accept the fate of his deadbeat son and grieve in private when it was all over.

  “Mr. Jaxx? You don’t have to decide right away. The law allows you, on your son’s behalf, to opt out of repurposing anytime before midnight, after which the decision is no longer yours. If you decide he should be sent to the Ruins—”

  “He won’t,” Mr. Jaxx grunted. “Deadbeats have no place in this world, neither here in the city nor outside its walls. He’ll go for repurposing, and he’ll go with dignity.”

  Dr. Pollard nodded. “I understand. Security is here. He’ll be taken to a holding cell.” He reached out and gently placed his hand on the man’s shoulder. “I’m sorry, Mr. Jaxx. There’s no known reason for these rare defects. It just happens from time to time.”

  Chapter 4

  Logan

  Eight-year-old Kiff sank back into the tall grasses, pleased that his older brother had not detected him and sent him home. Logan usually had an uncanny knack for knowing when he was being followed, but today he seemed distracted. Kiff had managed to follow him all the way to the fringe of the Broken Lands.

  It was well known how often Logan broke the law and snuck out to the ruins. Kiff was always being harassed by his classmates about his older brother’s perilous transgressions. It had been going on for years. But while Kiff was fed up with everyone in school whispering about it, he was beginning to see his brother's point of view. Today was Logan's fourteenth birthday, and he couldn't tether. He was already considered an outsider to the enclave; after today he would either be exiled or put to death unless he tethered in the next few hours. Kiff was worried for his brother's plight . . . but more than that, he was intrigued.

  He knew what grim fate their father would choose for Logan—that is, if he got his way. Breakers like his father tended to think and act aggressively. The berserker nature of the spirit always seemed to create more strife in their family than anything else. Not many could tame a Breaker, and those who did were revered by all. They were the ones who cleared the land, dug new fields for crops, or blasted away any rocky obstructions that stood in the way of expanding the enclaves. Their father had been outspoken about further expanding their village. He had an important job, working long days and spending far too much time synced with his Breaker. No one else would ever say it, but Kiff was convinced his father’s gruff, overly authoritative demeanor was a direct result of the Breaker’s hold on him.

  Kiff winced as he stood, his left leg a constant reminder of his misfortune. He traced the scars that ran its length, finding their pronounced aspect on his skin both soothing and unnerving.

  A kaliback had expanded its hunting territory to include the field near their home. The grey and yellow-furred predator, with its distinctive double set of eyes and mouths, was the size of a market wagon. It had smashed Kiff's leg with its twelve-foot armored tail. Logan had come to his aid, beating back the animal with a simple stick until their father arrived and killed the creature with the assistance of his Breaker. In Kiff’s mind the spirit's tusks still looked stained with kaliback blood.