Immortal, Matthew McGee [top ten books of all time txt] 📗

“Approach.” the voice commanded. The man in front stepped forward slightly. He was frightened. Something terrible was about to happen. “Citizen AR2318, prepare to be decontaminated.” the robotic voice said. “No!” screamed the man as two large pads crackled with electricity on either side of him. Before he could take another breath, the man was vaporized in an instant. No trace left. Gone. No memories of him would remain.
“Approach.” the voice commanded again. He now stepped forward, knowing what was about to become of him. This was it. They were going to kill him. They weren't even going to tell him why. He stepped forward and wished for a miracle. The pads crackled to life again. He shut his eyes tight. Will this hurt, he wondered. He hoped for the best in whatever afterlife there was. It certainly couldn't get much worse than it was here.
As suddenly as it began, everything ended. The pads fizzled and died, their energy being drained by the computer system. The room began to vent as the airlock started sliding open. He couldn't believe it. He stood inches from execution, and now they had decided to let him out. He wondered if he was dead already. He looked down at his hands to see if he was not some sort of spirit or ghost. And then he really began to believe he had died.
His hands weren't like he remembered them. Instead of beige skin they were deathly white. His light blue sleeves had been replaced with a black robe. He looked at the metallic wall, struggling to see his reflection. He caught one glimpse before guards rushed in and grabbed his arms. What he saw caused him to scream. His face was obscured by a white metal plate. Icy blue energy leaked from his eyes, though his vision remained unaltered. His body was draped in a flowing black robe and hood. The guards pulled him out of the decontamination chamber and tossed him on the ground outside, aiming weapons at him and looking as frightened as he was. He regained his composure and looked at his hands again. Human skin. He saw his reflection in a window. Human face. Same clothes he was wearing earlier. But what happened? Surely the guards had seen it. Why else would they have stopped his execution?
A bespectacled man in a long coat now approached. “LS9820.” He said, calling him by his identification code. “Come with me.” Without waiting for a response, the man in the coat turned and began walking down the corridor. LS9820 hesitantly followed him, casting anxious looks at the guards who only seconds ago were intent on his death. They were now at their posts, acting as though nothing was wrong. He was led up several flights of stairs into a room full of people seated on the ground. A pedestal stood at the front of the room. A man wearing the green uniform of a government official stood behind it, talking about the will of the government, known as The Sigil. He made no notice of the two people who had entered. The man in the coat approached, whispered something to the other man, then exited the room promptly without a second glance.
The government official stopped teaching for a moment and looked at LS9820. “Sit.” He commanded. LS9820 sat on the ground near a group of other people wearing the same light blue citizen uniforms as he was. They glared at him for a moment and then looked back to the teacher. The teacher continued his lecture. “The Sigil has brought us light. They will light the darkness of this planet. Soon, we will take back our world from the night beasts and claim what is ours. But to combat the night-beasts, we must first combat the darkness in ourselves. Weakness must be purged from the world. The strong will usher in a new era of power and peace in a world that has known none! And you all will be agents of that peace! Especially..” He scanned the crowd. His eyes locked on LS9820. “You.” he said. All eyes in the classroom turned to fix upon him. He immediately became uneasy and stood up. He opened his mouth, about to say something, but was interrupted by the loudspeaker. “LS9820, report to the reception desk.” said a voice on the intercom. He looked at the teacher, who nodded, excusing him.
He remembered where the reception desk was from when he was led inside the building. While backtracking there, his mind drifted. Everything was happening fast. It was like a strange dream. This whole world was like a dream.
This was not a dream, however. This was Nox. It was a land of eternal night. The only lights came from the cities built by the oppressive Sigil. The Sigil had controlled all known land since creation, supposedly, when their founder wrested control of the land from the beasts. Outside the cities were only darkness and death. If the beasts did not kill you, starvation would. Because there was no light, no plants grew, and the beasts were too cunning and deadly to be hunted enough to survive. The Sigil controlled the one resource that kept everyone under their control: food. They had massive arboretums designed to grow food to ration to the civilians. The price of disobedience was a cut in rations. Periodically things like “population control” and “decontamination” happened, which was political language for mass genocide.
He reached the reception desk in the front of the city hall of his hometown and where he had lived his whole life, the town of Luminarium. “You called?” he asked the receptionist. “You are being transferred.” the receptionist replied. “Transferred? Where?”
“Into private custody.”
“Whose?”
“I don't know. They're not government, and they're not military. They have no identification tag. All we have is her alias.”
“Which is?”
“Pandora.”
A name. No one on Nox had a name. Everyone had their government issued ID tag number, which consisted of the first letter of your hometown, the letter of the district, and your room number. In his case, L stood for Luminarium, S-sector was an apartment complex in the southern part of the city, and 9820 was his room. For someone to have a name meant they were either very unnoticed or very privileged. Or both.
“I'm here to pick you up.” a woman's voice behind him said.
He turned around to face her. She was young, possibly younger than him at 18, wearing not a uniform but simple clothes made of cloth and denim. Black hair hung down just past her shoulders. She noticed his expression. Why am I allowed to do this? She seemed to be asking him. Watch. Her face transformed for an instant into something.. different.. He avoided screaming a second time.
Her face became metallic, with two black lines running down her face, one through each eye. Her left eye became a deep jade green, while her right swirled into a bloody red. And in an instant she was back to normal, smirking at his astonished look. No one else seemed to have noticed her transformation.
“Come,” she said. She took his hand and led him out of the reception area through the corridor to the entrance. He disliked being dragged by the hand like a child, but this woman was his only way past the guards, and he had no choice but to trust her. She carried an aura around her of wisdom and experience. And power. He didn't know what she was, but he was now sure she was older than him. Much older.
“What is your name?” she asked him.
“Do you mean my ID tag?”
“No. Your name.”
He hesitated.
“I don't have one.”
“That won't do. Not at all. I need something to call you.”
“Where are we going?”
“Not now, they're listening. Focus. Is there anything anyone used to call you besides your ID?”
He thought for a moment.
“In school, my friends got in big trouble for naming me. It only lasted a day before they were sent to a different school. They called me Sai. I don't think it means anything.”
She smiled at him
“Sai.” she said to herself, as if sampling the sound of the name. “That will work.” she said.

Publication Date: 12-17-2010

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