Entropy Read online

  SILVER:

  Entropy

  Written By

  Keira Michelle Telford

  Copyright © Keira Michelle Telford 2012

  Venatic Press

  All Rights Reserved

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination, or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Chimera & Cover Artwork by

  Kitt Lapeña

  www.facebook.com/scarypet

  scarypet.deviantart.com

  Other Books in the Series…

  SILVER: Acheron (A River of Pain)

  SILVER: The Lost & Damned

  WWW.ELLACROSS.COM

  JOIN THE FIGHT

  Amaranthe

  (Circa 2319 CE)

  Chimera

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER ZERO

  Into the Fold

  The Sentinel District

  Amaranthe, 2220 CE

  – Ninety-nine Years Ago

  A scream breaks the silence of the night.

  Not a cry for help or an exclamation of pain: a baby’s wail for comfort.

  In the master bedroom of a newly built apartment building in the Sentinel District, a woman nudges the man sleeping in the bed beside her.

  “It’s your turn.”

  The man grumbles, but complies. Groggy from sleep, he fumbles his way in the darkness to the baby’s room, trying not to trip on toys that are scattered about the floor. Flicking on a night light, he gives his eyes a moment or two to adjust. Rocking the cradle with his foot, he places a gentle hand upon the writhing baby’s chest.

  “Ssssshhhhhh, Ellie.” He rubs her tiny chest. “Quiet now.”

  Latching onto his finger, the baby begins to settle. The man’s Hunter Division dog tags clink together around his neck, and baby Ellie likes the sound. He jangles them for her, teasing out a gurgle-like giggle. The dancing light of the night lamp highlights a mark branded onto his wrist.

  The letter ‘R’.

  It identifies him as a Refugee.

  A Hunter, and a Refugee.

  Virgil Grant.

  Upon their arrival in Amaranthe, all able-bodied Refugee men were mandatorily enrolled in the Hunter Division to replenish the stock that’d been depleted by the First Reclamation.

  Grant’s wife bears the same brand, though their daughter, Eleanor, does not. She was born in Amaranthe, and shall be raised a citizen of the city. Unlike her parents, she will be able to practice medicine, or law. She’ll be able to vote, and join a political movement.

  She could even run for office.

  She’ll be afforded all the privileges of the other children born within these walls. Her parents will always be outsiders, but the minute she received her blue tag, she became an Amaranthian. By placing their metal beneath her skin, Omega had claimed her. Her parents couldn’t remove her now, even if they wanted to.

  Human propagation of the planet is Omega’s number one priority. For that, they need a new generation of breeders with fresh genetic material. The refugees may not realize it, but the warm welcome they received upon their arrival was not for their benefit.

  Not at all.

  Omega just wants their DNA.

  Their children.

  How could Omega ever have known that their plan would backfire so spectacularly?

  Once baby Eleanor is sound asleep again, Virgil makes his way back toward the bedroom. Stopping in the en-suite bathroom to attend to a call of nature, he flicks on the main light.

  Evidence of a recent Hunter Division war wound is strewn about the counter.

  A Chimera talon.

  A needle and thread.

  Blood.

  A wound on Virgil’s shoulder is already beginning to heal.

  The mirror of the bathroom cabinet is smeared with bloody fingerprints and the door is ajar, the contents exposed. There’s no medicine inside, only colored contact lenses. Virgil clicks the door shut and looks at his weary reflection in the dirty mirror.

  His bright, violet eyes gleam back at him.

  Banished from their Fusion colony, he and his pregnant wife had no choice but to seek shelter in this small chunk of human-occupied land. Foraging for food in the abandoned Old World land of New Jersey, they’d stumbled upon an old shortwave radio.

  The Fusion colonies use radios like these all the time to monitor the humans’ progress—and to avoid them at all costs. On it, Virgil had stumbled upon the Amaranthe emergency broadcast, calling for any surviving, isolated pockets of humans to be welcomed into the protective fold of a new human civilization.

  And so they came.

  And others followed.

  Human or not, this is their home now.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Lessons in Structure

  The Sentinel District

  Amaranthe, 2319 CE

  – Present Day

  The corpse of the dead blackbird doesn’t smell nearly as bad as she thought it would.

  In fact, on this crisp spring morning, it really doesn’t have much of a smell at all. It’s desiccated, of course, and crawling with maggots, but the anticipated odor of putrefaction is oddly lacking.

  She’d smelled death before, and held certain expectations of how the process of decay should be. Yet, the experience of keeping a dead blackbird in a plastic box and watching the daily progression of its decomposition has been fairly unremarkable, so far.

  She’s disappointed.

  She’d hoped for something more dramatic.

  She’d watched them bury the corpse of the man they called her father less than a week ago, and her five-year-old brain is still trying to wrap itself around the notion. On a regular basis, she finds herself imagining what his body might be going through, entombed beneath the Earth’s surface.

  She needs a bigger test subject, she concludes. One with more flesh.

  She hears her name called, but ignores it.

  Poking daintily at the bird, her finger easily breaks straight through its rotting flesh and squishes into the gooey innards with a squelch.

  Death changes things, she surmises, the experiment proving not to be a complete failure after all. On all levels, death alters the fabric of existence. Everything changes: organically, emotionally, and practically.

  One week ago, she was a general school first-grader, reading books at a third-grade level. Two days ago, she was withdrawn from general school and enrolled in the Hunter Division Academy. Today is her first day of a formal education that will span the next decade of her life.

  More muffled name calling.

  Finally, the glass patio door slides open and a uniformed Hunter steps out.

  Gabriel Maydevine.

  He’s in his mid-thirties, and there’s not a hint of gray in his jet black hair.

  “Geez, there you are.” He sighs. “Didn’t you hear me calling your name?”

  The little blonde girl, Ella, holds back tears and says nothing.

  Gabriel kneels down beside her and backhands the escaping moisture away from her cheeks. “What’s the matter?”

  Sniffles. “I don’t want to go.”

  “Of course not.” He smiles. “No kid’s ever looked forward to their first day at a new school.” Reaching for her hands, he discovers the bird entrails on her fingertips and glances over at the plastic box. “How’s the hobby going?”

  “I need a better specimen.” Ella pouts.

  Gabriel peaks an eyebrow at her. “Better?”

  Ella pantomimes a fisherman’s most exaggerated catch. “Bigger!” She beams.

  Gabriel wipes the remnants of bird soup off her fingers with a handkerchief and smiles. Others
had warned him not to humor her morbid little fascinations, but he saw nothing harmful in them. Their grief counselor feared that her preoccupation with death was an unhealthy reaction to the untimely passing of a parental unit, and had told Gabriel to distract her mind with things of a more pleasant nature.

  They hadn’t been back for another visit since.

  Ella Cross shall be raised in a manner befitting of her bloodline. She will not be pampered and coddled. She’ll be nurtured, and prepared for the life ahead of her.

  A life in the Hunter Division.

  A life as a soldier.

  First, though, we have to get through the first day of school.

  Gabriel makes a deal with her. “I’ll tell you what. If you suffer through this day without complaint, I’ll see what I can do about your specimen. Okay?”

  Ella smiles. “You promise?”

  “I’ll never tell you a lie, kid.”

  “Is that why you said all those mean things about the Easter bunny?”

  “You wanted to skin it and eat it. I didn’t want you to be disappointed.” He gets to his feet and scoops her up into his arms. “Come on, we’re late already.”

  Late.

  Ella knows what that means. She was late to her general school class once, and had to walk in on a room full of her peers, all gawking at her from their desks. Of course, it was worse that time because she was covered in blood.

  Her ‘father’ was at work and couldn’t take her in for morning classes. When Gabriel’s shift had finished, he’d picked her up from her nanny’s house and driven her to school himself. In a hurry to get her there before the afternoon classes started, he hadn’t had time to go home and change out of his Hunter Division uniform, which was soaked in Chimeran bodily fluids.

  Instinctively, she’d leapt into his arms when he’d come to fetch her, and neither of them realized the mistake until it was too late. She was already in his arms, and the blood was already smeared onto her clothing.

  She hadn’t cared.

  Since birth, she’d spent more time with Gabriel than she had with the man she was told to call ‘papa’. With more seniority, Gabriel—recently promoted to the rank of Deputy General—could pick and choose the shifts he worked, and was often left in charge of delegating shifts to the Hunters beneath him. Somehow, he was almost always the one around for the back and forth to general school, and she’d spent the night at his home on more than one occasion.

  Truthfully, she’d been confused when her ‘father’ had died. She wasn’t sure precisely how she was supposed to feel, or if she was supposed to feel anything at all.

  But she feels something now.

  It’s a surge of anxiety at the sight of the Hunter Division Academy building—it’s massive. To a five-year-old girl, it appears even larger and all the more daunting. Impressive, gleaming, asymmetrical architecture stands out prominently against the skyline, and a large Omega emblem dominates the building’s frontage. The Hunter Division motto is written over the main entranceway, and Ella already knows those words well.

  Destroy. Reclaim. Rebuild. Control.

  The first words she ever spoke.

  They park in a spot reserved for Hunter Division guests, and she clutches at her version of a security blanket in her pocket.

  A Chimera talon.

  Torn from the Chimera she shot and killed just a few days ago, Gabriel had given it to her as a reminder. Not of her last parental unit’s death at the creature’s jaws, but of her strength and potential. He’d told her, whenever she feels insecure, she should squeeze it tight in her hand.

  She’s a monster slayer.

  Not a frightened little girl, but a fearless monster slayer.

  She squeezes it now.

  Bisecting the main parking lot, Gabriel steers young Ella toward the Junior Academy building. On the way, Ella smells something familiar.

  Cigarette smoke.

  Except, this time it’s not Gabriel’s. Behind the janitorial building, a group of pre-teen Academy Cadets are cutting class. Caught skipping, and smoking underage, they quickly crush the evidence and scatter, but not before Gabriel grabs one of them by the collar of his Cadet uniform and holds him back.

  “Not so fast, son.”

  The boy—a skinny eleven-year-old with dark hair and honest brown eyes—looks immediately apologetic. “I’m sorry, sir.”

  “I expect better from you,” Gabriel growls and releases him.

  The boy can’t make eye contact with him. “It won’t happen again. I swear.”

  “Let the others be wasters, if they want it that way. But I’ve told you before: you have something real to prove here. Don’t make me regret vouching for you, King.” Gabriel wags a finger at him.

  Shamed, the boy scurries off to class.

  Gabriel leads Ella into the Junior Academy hallway. Every inch of wall between classroom doorways is filled with students’ drawings, sorted into age groupings, and Ella is transfixed on them.

  In general school, there’d be pictures of family life: a mother, a father, and the family cat. Pictures of brothers and sisters and sunny days, and flying kites.

  Not here.

  Every single drawing depicts a Chimera being slain or mutilated by one Hunter or several, and Ella feels instantly more confident—she already has one up on these kids. They draw from stories: tales they’ve been told by fathers, grandfathers, and family friends.

  She can draw from experience.

  Counting the different age clusters, Ella concludes that she’s going to spend the next five years here. At the age of ten, she’ll graduate to the main Academy where she’ll officially become a Hunter Division Cadet.

  Eager for that already, impatience conquers the fear as she watches Gabriel knock on one of the classroom doors. Expecting their arrival, the teacher gets up from her desk and opens the door to them.

  Veronica Valentine.

  Veva.

  She’s barely touching her mid-twenties, and her skirt barely reaches her knees. Ella can sense familiarity in the way she smiles at Gabriel, but doesn’t quite understand it. Veva greets him with a kiss on the cheek and something whispered in his ear, then drops to her knees in front of Ella.

  “Hi, Ella.”

  Ella scowls at her. “Who the heck are you?”

  Veva sighs; she’d expected as much. The kid’s only parent just died, and she disapproves of Gabriel’s eagerness to enroll her in classes so soon. Glancing up at him, she catches the briefest tug of a smile at the corner of his lips.

  Great, she thinks. Not only is he going to push her too hard, but he’s going to encourage her insolent behavior.

  Turning back to Ella, “I’m Miss Valentine, your new teacher.” Veva tenders her most winning smile. “I very much hope that we’re going to be friends.”

  “Why? Can’t you make any friends your own age?”

  Gabriel tries to stifle it, but his smirk escapes. Unimpressed, Veva shoots him a dirty look and ushers Ella toward an empty desk.

  “We break for recess soon, and we’ll do introductions then. In the meantime”—Veva slips a book onto the desk in front of Ella—“do you know how to read?”

  Ella nods, aware that twenty pairs of eyes are silently watching her.

  “Good.” Veva flips open the book to page one. “We read for an hour every morning.”

  She pats Ella on the head and slips out into the hallway to speak privately with Gabriel, closing the door softly behind her.

  Watching Ella through the door’s little window, Veva’s brow creases with concern. “You’re sure she’s ready for this, Gabe?”

  “The Hunter Division’s in her blood. She’s been ready for this since the day she learned how to walk.”

  Veva shakes her head. “It’s not what her mother wanted.”

  “She would’ve changed her mind.”

  “And J.C.? He would’ve hated this.”

  “He was holding her back.”

  “For christ’s sake, Gabe. He’s only be
en dead a week, and already you’re undermining what little influence he ever had over her life. Don’t you think she needs some time to adjust to all of this?”

  “She needs structure.”

  “She does? Or you do?”

  Gabriel doesn’t answer that. He’s a man of discipline and everyone knows it. He follows a daily routine you could set your watch by, and finds comfort in the order that strict regulation and control can draw from chaos.

  “I heard you pulled her out of grief counseling.” Veva folds her arms. “You must know that’s a mistake.”

  “You don’t know the kid, Vee. She’s tougher than you think.”

  “Hunters are still human, Gabe. I think you forget that sometimes. And she’s a child. Have you thought to question whether or not your guardianship is really the best way forward for her?”

  Gabriel’s expression turns fierce. “How could you say that to me? After everything.”

  “Your responsibility is to serve her needs, not your own.”

  Taking her by surprise, Gabriel moves her away from the doorway and pushes her up against the wall. He’s forceful, but not punishing. His touch is firm, but not painful.

  “I will raise her as my daughter,” he insists, his voice deep and restrained. “Whether you choose to be a part of that life or not.”

  Before she can respond, he smothers her lips with a kiss. He thinks Ella can’t see, but she can. She sees Veva fight it at first, then watches her succumb to the power of it.

  Whether it’s habit or desire—or a mixture of both—Veva begins to kiss him back with equal passion. Regardless of their personal history together, it’s almost impossible for a woman to resist a Hunter in uniform, and Veva is no exception.

  When at last the kiss breaks, she’s lost for words and Gabriel doesn’t stick around a second longer. He leaves without saying anything at all.

  Shaken, Veva takes a moment to steady herself before reentering the classroom, making sure her lipstick isn’t smudged. Settling back at her desk, she can feel Ella’s eyes upon her—glaring at her.