Captives Read online

  CAPTIVES

  BOOK ONE OF THE

  SAFE LANDS SERIES

  JILL WILLIAMSON

  Map

  King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon declared war on Jerusalem and besieged the city. The king told Ashpenaz, head of the palace staff, to get some Israelites from the royal family and nobility—young men who were healthy and handsome, intelligent and well-educated, good prospects for leadership positions in the government, perfect specimens!

  —Daniel 1:1, 3–5, The Message

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Map

  Epigraph

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  CHAPTER 28

  CHAPTER 29

  CHAPTER 30

  CHAPTER 31

  CHAPTER 32

  CHAPTER 33

  CHAPTER 34

  CHAPTER 35

  CHAPTER 36

  CHAPTER 37

  CHAPTER 38

  CHAPTER 39

  CHAPTER 40

  CHAPTER 41

  CHAPTER 42

  DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Preview

  About the Author

  Other books by Jill Williamson

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Share Your Thoughts

  PROLOGUE

  MAY 2088

  They’re ready for you, Miss Rourke.”

  Ciddah looked up at the enforcer and took a deep breath. She hugged her CompuChart and stood from her seat on the bench, wobbling on her stilettos. The enforcer pulled open the door, a yawning maw that expelled a breath of frigid air into the warm hallway.

  She tottered toward the entrance but stopped on the threshold.

  The auditorium loomed before her, a vast and silent cube. She’d seen it on the ColorCast before: a purple concrete floor; a field of orange velvet bucket seats; walls painted in gradient: lime green at the bottom to black at the top. A spider’s web of pin lights hung under the vast ceiling. Though the room had seemed vibrant and cheerful when she’d seen it on her Wyndo, in person everything seemed almost dull and cold.

  Three tables on raised platforms stretched along the front and side walls and were covered in lime-green tablecloths. The hooded Ancients of the Safe Lands Guild sat behind each the tables, six to each wall—their eyes fixed on her like predatory creatures.

  “Miss Rourke?”

  Ciddah spun to face the enforcer, who was holding the door partially open. No; he was trying to close it, and she was standing in the way.

  She stumbled forward, and the enforcer shut her inside. Another deep breath, and she started down the center aisle, each step a sharp crack that echoed through the vast chamber as she made her way toward the witness podium in front.

  “The Director of Medical Care’s Public Health Report has changed little since our discussion six months ago when this guild approved the requisition of Miss Kendall Collin from Wyoming. We still face a lack of healthy children born within our walls.”

  Lawten’s familiar voice was somewhat comforting, and Ciddah searched for him on the platform. He sat in the center of the front table. His face—the only one uncovered—looked small among the hooded Ancients.

  “Then present your case, Mr. Task Director,” a grizzled voice said from the left wall, “and we will determine a course of action.”

  “I call Ciddah Rourke to the witness podium to give her report on the status of Miss Collin’s pregnancy.” Lawten turned his calculating gaze down to Ciddah as if to remind her, Just like we practiced.

  Ciddah reached the “podium,” a short platform that sat in front of the head table. She climbed three steps to the top and sat in the chair facing Lawten, relieved not to have fallen on her face.

  The air-conditioning being pumped in was meant to compensate for several hundred bodies, not the nineteen now present, and Ciddah shivered. It didn’t help that her blouse had a low back and capped sleeves, or that she was about to testify before so many faceless Ancients.

  “Miss Rourke,” Lawten said, “please inform the Guild how Miss Collin is doing. Take your time.”

  Ciddah didn’t need long. There was little to say. Still, she took a deep breath to calm her sparking nerves. “Kendall and her unborn baby are both infected.”

  Everyone seemed to speak at once. “What do you mean?” “Surely not!” “How could this have happened?” “Where did we go wrong?”

  Lawten struck the gavel against the sound block. “Please hold your questions until Miss Rourke is able to complete her report.” He looked down to Ciddah. “Continue, Miss Rourke.”

  She focused on Lawten’s face, as if speaking to him alone. “The goal with this transfer was to discover whether we could match an infected donor male with an uninfected female. As you know, it seemed successful at first. But the virus appeared in Miss Collin in the twenty-first week of her pregnancy. We still held out hope for the baby, but in week thirty-five, just last week, tests showed the fetus is now carrying the virus as well.”

  “Is there any chance that once the child is born …?” a hooded Ancient asked her.

  “I cannot imagine that the virus will disappear, sir.”

  “What’s to be done, then?” the Ancient asked. “Is there no way to irradicate this virus from our populace?”

  “I cannot speak to cures, sir, as that is not my area of expertise,” Ciddah said. “But if you want to produce a healthy child, it seems you must have two healthy donors.”

  A stunned pause. “But there are none!”

  “There are the Naturals,” another said.

  “A myth!”

  “Naturals are no myth.”

  “If they are real, how do they continually hide from enforcers?”

  “They’re no use to us if we cannot find them.”

  Ciddah sat back and waited as the faceless men argued.

  “Forget the Naturals. We should trade for more people from Wyoming. How much will that cost us?”

  “Kendall Collin was worth more credits than we all make in a year.”

  “What a waste.”

  “We might be able to afford a half dozen more uninfected trades from Wyoming, but will six to eighteen children a year, if Fortune favors us, be enough to save our land? And what after that? How will we ensure these people remain uninfected? That they serve more than one successful term as conscripted surrogates?”

  “Kendall Collin received status as a national, a citizen of our land. In the future, we shouldn’t allow outsiders to fully integrate into our world.”

  “We cannot imprison innocent people. And Fortune would not favor us if we did. We are not barbarians.”

  “Hang Fortune! She has not favored us either way.”

  “We must provide national status to outsider women. The public will be watching.”

  “Agreed. The publicity of our ‘queens’ through the ColorCast is too important to morale in the Safe Lands.”

  “No one need know what happen to the queens postpartum.”

  “Too dangerous. We need our past queens long a
fter a successful delivery. They are the faces of the future.”

  “Some future.”

  “I have another suggestion, gentlemen,” Lawten said.

  All heads turned to the task director general. Good. Lawten would add some reason to this senseless debate.

  “One of our enforcer patrols happened upon an outsider a few weeks back.” Lawten’s clear voice echoed around the room. “A young male, clearly uninfected. After some discussions, we learned it had always been this outsider’s desire to come inside our fair city, and so the enforcers brought him to Otley, who brought him to me.”

  “Now we have a male donor and no females?” an Ancient asked. “So we attempt another trade with Wyoming and hope that the next girl remains healthy?”

  “Hear me out, sir,” Lawten said. “I am suggesting something on a grander scale. Enticement. Recruitment. Enrollment.”

  “I’m not following you, Mr. Task Director.”

  “We visit this young man’s village and encourage his people to relocate.”

  The Ancient’s brow lowered. “A large number of outsiders in the Safe Lands?”

  “If they haven’t wanted to live here for the past eighty-some years, why would they now?” another added.

  “Why give them a choice?” Lawten said, as if just coming up with the idea.

  Ciddah’s breath caught. How could Lawten suggest such a thing?

  “This Guild will not lock innocent people in cages, Mr. Task Director,” an Ancient said.

  “Please, hear me out,” Lawten said. “This young man had been told lies about our people and our way of life. Once he saw our city with his own eyes, he wanted to live here more than anything. And he believes that, once his people visit, they will too.”

  A thoughtful pause. “So you propose bringing people here, possibly against their will, in order to show them what they really desire?”

  “In a way. And I truly believe the outsiders will enjoy living here in time. We only need to require the men to donate for a month or two,” Lawten said. “That would give us enough uninfected samples to last for years. With the procedure, of course, the women will have to make greater sacrifices.”

  “Spoken like a man.” This was the first female voice to come from the Ancients.

  “I cannot help the facts of biology, madam,” Lawten said. “But this sacrifice also means the women will become queens, with the adoration of the Safe Lands heaped upon them. Their surrogacy terms will be filled with luxury.”

  Ciddah had heard Lawten’s ambition before and never cared for it, but here, now, she found his words terrifying. How could she have trusted such a man? How could anyone?

  “There are at least three villages in the surrounding area—Jack’s Peak, Glenrock, and Clean Creek,” an Ancient said. “Maybe more. In the very shadow of our city. That could provide hundreds of surrogates. An entire new generation of uninfected.”

  Ciddah’s hopes flared at the very idea. If they could convince the people to come willingly …

  “And what’s to ensure they remain uninfected?” an Ancient asked.

  “Fortune’s numbers. We add a zero, then create a law that only zero can match with zero.”

  “We can’t add a zero, and you know it.”

  “Yet we can’t allow the uninfected the freedom to become infected,” another Ancient said. “And we’d still have to number the outsiders to avoid consanguinity.”

  This train of dialogue confused Ciddah. Were Fortune’s numbers based on something other than which life a person was currently living? On DNA? She’d have to investigate this possibility.

  “If we would simply remove the stimulant from the ACT treatment each person receives, we would go a long way toward managing this virus and living longer lives.”

  Another shock. There was stimulant in the treatment? Ciddah’s mind grew dizzy with this new information.

  “That is not a real option, and you know it. The virus would still exist. And no one wants to grow old,” a very Ancient voice said. “Our people want youth, to enjoy this life as much as possible before going on to the next.”

  No one spoke for a moment. Ciddah was sure they could all hear her heart pounding.

  Then the Ancient on Lawten’s left spoke. “We will try it your way, Mr. Task Director. Take your troops to one village. One. Present the benefits of relocation. And should these people take arms against us, or simply refuse to come, you are to leave. Arm your enforcers with sleepers only. These people are not Safe Landers and, until they are inside our walls, owe no allegiance to our enforcers. Bring back those willing to consider relocation and no one else. If this mission is a success, then perhaps we can approach the other villages in the area.”

  The group seemed to consider the proposal.

  “May I speak?” a familiar voice asked.

  Ciddah spun to her right. At the very end of the table, sitting in the back corner, was General Otley. Ciddah had forgotten that there were two guild members under age forty who were allowed to show their faces: the task director general and the enforcer general.

  Lawten nodded. “Go ahead, General Otley.”

  “Outsiders are aggressive,” Otley said. “Permission to take dual-action pistols as well? I hope to avoid such force and bring the outsiders in quietly, but sleeper downtime can take as long as two and a half minutes between shots. One outsider can take out a lot of enforcers in that time. I need a way to protect my men in case the worst happens.”

  Lawten pursed his lips. “Very well. As long as your men understand the goal, General Otley. Uninfected people do us no good if they’re dead.”

  “Understood, sir.”

  “Thank you for your time, Miss Rourke,” Lawten said, looking down on Ciddah. “You are directed to keep this meeting to yourself. If we learn that this discussion has leaked, the consequence will be premature liberation. Is that understood?”

  This time the dizziness overwhelmed Ciddah, and she clutched the sides of her chair to keep from falling out. Now Lawten was threatening her? “Yes, Mr. Task Director.”

  “We look forward to a time when you bring us good news,” Lawten said.

  “As do I.”

  “You are dismissed.”

  Ciddah left the podium and walked across the auditorium, feeling as though all eighteen Guild members were watching her go. Her legs felt rubbery, and she fought to contain her composure at least until she exited the auditorium.

  Once the doors shut behind her, she found the nearby bench and collapsed, puzzling over all she’d heard from the leaders of her nation … and Lawten’s coldness.

  Stimulant in the ACT treatments? Fortune’s numbers assigned for genetic purposes? She couldn’t fathom any motivation behind such measures, but she’d look into the matter as soon as she was able. And this new attempt to find uninfected donors … only Fortune knew if the Safe Lands had a future. Ciddah could only hope the people of the outsider village would be open to change.

  CHAPTER

  1

  JUNE 2088

  Father invaded Mason’s bedroom like a hornet. He yanked the psychology textbook from Mason’s hands and tossed it on the floor. “You hear me calling for Omar, boy? Stop wasting time, and go find your brother. And don’t take all day doing it.”

  “Yes, sir.” Avoiding eye contact, Mason jumped off his bed and darted into the dark hallway, heading for the front of the house. He had indeed heard his father bellowing Omar’s name. But since it was Omar’s name and not his own, Mason had made the logical assumption that the solicitation was not for him. But such logic had never been Father’s companion.

  Father’s footsteps clomped behind him, and Mason walked faster, not wanting to become the focus of Father’s anger. Three more steps to the door …

  “Now that Levi’s getting married, it’s your turn.”

  That announcement stopped Mason completely. He turned around in the living room, glanced at his mother, who stood at the kitchen table, drying jars for canning, then looked at h
is father. “Me marry? Now? I’m only seventeen.”

  “Why wait?”

  “Because there’s no one I feel particularly drawn to in Glenrock or Jack’s Peak.”

  “No matter,” Father said. “I’ve made arrangements with Mia’s mother.”

  Mason felt as if his father had slammed him into a brick wall. He glanced at his mother, but she turned her head back to the jars before he could make eye contact. “Father, there’s no sense in my marrying Mia. I’d be more compatible with any other girl, in fact. We should exhaust all options before making such a rash pairing.”

  “Everyone else is too young.”

  “I can wait.”

  “Mia needs a husband. Her mother needs a son.” Father shrugged. “No reason to wait.”

  “But she and I would be terrible together. We’re not even friends.”

  “Focus on her pretty face.” Father slapped Mason on the back and stepped toward the front door. “Now stop arguing, and go find your brother. I may have managed to marry him off as well, but it’s no good if I can’t find him. And I don’t want to keep Elsu waiting. Need to leave now if I want to get to Jack’s Peak in time.”

  Mason stared at the open door, listening to Father’s footsteps pound across the porch, down the steps, and crunch across the rocky path that led to the village square. His cheeks burned with fury over the nonsense of Mia becoming his wife. “I don’t want to marry Mia. I won’t.”

  “Mason,” his mother said, “you’re smart enough to find a way to make this work.”

  “But she despises me. And from what I gather from the books Levi brought me, and from my observations here in Glenrock, marriage is difficult enough when the pair have strong affections for one another. I don’t want a future of misery for myself or for Mia.”

  “It’s been two years since Mia’s mother lost her husband. This marriage will mend the hole in their family. They’ll have a man in their home again.”

  He stared at her. “But Mother, I will never love Mia.” He couldn’t even force himself to like her.

  “Since when has love ever been important to your father? He values strength. Show your strength by making this work.” Mother went back to drying the jars. “You’d best go find your brother before your father catches you dawdling.”