Episode 179: Cull (Cecil)

Cecil surveyed his class, minus Asa.

Asa was alive by the string of his teeth, following a tense argument with Adele. She knew, at least, the value of Asa’s family and genetics.

Cecil had kept him alive long enough to reproduce. Whether it would be Asa or Neron who Adele earmarked for the mission, he couldn’t tell.

Time fell away from them.

If he could manage it, he wouldn’t be permanently killing anyone today.

If he couldn’t manage it…

The four dead boys didn’t know who they were. In a matter of minutes, they would.

And Thayer…

Promoted out of the group.

“Today,” Cecil announced to the nine, “you’ll be meeting girls. Sharing an apartment. The rules are inside once you get there.”

The rules were simple: Put on a very convincing show.

In reality, that was to force the Nerons and Brendans of the group to get their girl pregnant. Each girl in each room was magically medicated, a guaranteed pregnancy waiting in each of them. These were the boys who had survived every cull. The most desirable traits for this mission.

Adele wanted their children, before she killed them.

Thayer’s child, she wanted for her own.

“An apartment?” Thackery asked. “Like a house?”

None of them had slept in anything but dormitories since coming here. The same dormitory, which had begun overcrowded and now had so much space as to be absurd for the ten boys who occupied it.

Separate apartments from now forward.

Weeks, at best, until the class graduated. The last of them would be killed. Asa or Neron would be sent with the girl, Daphne.

Cecil felt intense pressure to save them all, and Guy’s group, and Emily.

Time fell away from him.

“Apartment or compartment,” Cecil shrugged, “it’s up to you.”

“Girls?” Neron asked, comically. “What do we do with them?”

It was possible he should have provided a guidebook or a video. But no, the girls were trained.

“You follow the rules,” he said flatly. “Those of you who do well will progress to the next stage.”

“Who are the girls?” Brendan asked.

He wondered how many of the boys hoped it would be Emily, or someone like Emily. Probably not many. Despite his efforts, Emily had set herself up as the mother of the group.

“They’ve trained just as you have,” he hedged. Now for the difficult part. “One of you will be promoted. Four of you will be demoted. The rest will stay here.”

The group, as a mass like a school of fish, became more tense, more alert.

It didn’t matter. It never mattered, not with this group or the last or all the culls before that. By the time they knew it was happening, the decision had already been made.

He tapped the first door. Most of the rooms had copper knobs, but this had brushed pewter. Adele had said she would be in the unique room, and he’d laughed, but apparently she’d managed to change the door while he was preparing the boys.

“Thayer?” he said.

Thayer gave the group a wary look before he approached the door and hesitated.

His was the only future where his life or death was in his own hands.

Unless Cecil succeeded, every boy here besides Thayer would be dead before his fifteenth birthday.

“What if we don’t like the girl?” Thayer asked. “Can we ask for a new one?”

With Adele, absolutely not. She had long regarded Thayer as hers.

He forced a laugh. “Four of you will be demoted. Would you like to be?”

“No,” Thayer said. “I hate kitchen work.” His voice was heavier than Cecil would have liked for when he met Adele. Cecil willed him to use all his instinct and intelligence, to live.

With Thayer gone, Cecil sped up his progression down the hall. “Brendan,” he said. He’d chosen an outgoing girl for him, someone who would do the work and boost his ego at the same time.

“Ian,” he continued. Ian got someone sweet and a little shy.

“Thackery,” his was most shy, because he liked to protect and reassure.

“Neron.” Neron’s was bossy and sure of herself, moreso than Brendan’s.

Once the boys had gone into their rooms, he faced the remaining four: Mikail, Jayden, Osmund, and Therrien. If he failed, they would be dead within an hour. If he succeeded, they would have another life in Elesara.

“You four,” he told them, in a tone that said nothing was wrong, “are going to be working with those youngest boys you met earlier today.”

“We…” Therrien managed. “What does demoted mean?”

Cecil continued down the hall, towards the larger room at the end. “If you’ll come with me,” he requested.

They followed, as he knew they would.

“Why are we demoted?” Jayden asked. Cecil could hear the worry – the panic – beneath his voice, even though he hid it well.

“I think you’ll serve the group better helping the younger boys learn the skills you’ve developed,” he lied. He led them into the bigger room. Guy’s group was already in there, along with thirty-four portable bed mats.

“This isn’t the group from earlier,” Mikail commented, frowning.

It was, in a way. Not the same boys, but part of the same group. “Pick a bed for the night,” Cecil told them. “You’ll work with the boys in the morning.”

He walked out before they could ask any questions. To be able to hug and reassure them would have been nice, but he was conscious of the ever-present cameras.

He closed the door behind him.

On the control panel on the wall, he pressed a button that sealed the room’s two doors with airtight locks. He heard them click into place.

He pressed another button, that isolated the room’s ventilation system from the rest of the facility. That made a noise too, deep within the walls.

He pressed a final button, activating a machine that would filter the oxygen from the room.

He watched through the window. He couldn’t hear them, but he saw the boys conference together. He knew they would have guessed by now. He could see it in their body language: Mikail, stretching himself, preparing; Osmund, tight and tense; Jayden, surveying for options; Therrien, hands behind his head thinking, preparing to act.

He waited for them to check the doors. The groups always did when they knew it was coming. There was always a desperate search for escape.

Instead, they started moving mats around. Therrien was calling something to the younger boys, who had stopped being chaotic and…they were dividing into four groups. Teams, with each older boy at the head.

They lined the mats up – an attack? Some sort of coordinated message?

The younger boys started jumping from mat to mat, working together to help their teammates across the bigger gaps. Laughing. Dancing in triumph.

Tears welled in Cecil’s eyes, unexpected.

A game. In the face of their own deaths, they were distracting the younger boys with fun.

When the boys began to tire – because the oxygen levels dropped so much – the older boys helped them all to settle on the mats. They took turns talking. Cecil realized they were telling stories of some sort. Soothing the younger boys until one by one they all fell into a peaceful slumber.

He felt Guy’s arm slide around him and he spun, locked in Guy’s embrace.

Their eyes met, across the minute space between them. They had always shared the outrage, the helplessness, but today for the first time they shared a hope.

It was time to get to work.

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