The Warring States (The Wave Trilogy) - By Aidan Harte Page 0,3

to the Molè trumped all other considerations. Now, the higher the building, the greater its importance.

A third of the way up, a particularly stout tower sat isolated on a little summit: the Selectors’ Tower, a hub to the surrounding minarets. As well as bridges and stairways, Torbidda could see a tangle of wires connecting each tower, like a web. He couldn’t begin to guess their purpose.

At the end of their climb the children dragged themselves, panting and perspiring despite the cold, under a second arch that read Homo Homini Lupus, where a long rectangular building dominated the space: the Cadets’ quarters. The baths were in a bunker below the building.

Following orders, the children hurriedly stripped and ran the gauntlet of pressured water jets that struck their skin like hail. Torbidda emerged from the dousing to discover his clothes gone. In their place was a ticket. Leto quickly whispered what was coming, and Torbidda tried to compose himself.

Baaa baaa—

Baaa baaa—

He listened to the gleeful jeering as he waited in line; it made him shiver more than the bitter wind on his wet, naked skin. As he entered the refectory he felt his face redden and his eyes water. Leto had a distant, small smile on his face, but he kept his head bowed. The city boy, still angry after his humiliation at the hands of a girl, was like a trapped animal, constantly looking about for a means of escape. Torbidda thought he was just making it worse for himself – this need only be endured. To distract himself, he studied the lectern at the top of the hall, a great silver eagle. Leto said edifying Bernoullian maxims were read out from here as Cadets took their meals, but today the new second-years were to be edified with a different spectacle.

Baaa baaa—

Baaa baaa—

The refectory echoed with the mocking calls. Torbidda caught the eye of the dark-haired girl for a moment. Although she wasn’t joining in with the taunting, she was watching proceedings with interest as she ate.

Three at a time, the new inmates were summoned to the top of the hall, where an ancient trio of bored-looking legionary barbers waited, grizzled antiques who probably fought at Montaperti.

‘Ticket. Sit.’ A mechanical exchange and a rough shearing. The message was clear: A bad job is good enough for you. Torbidda had always been able to distinguish between what adults said and what they meant; the two were generally at odds. This here – this methodically orchestrated spectacle with all the nakedness, the jeering, the renaming – it was an induction into a new family. If they were lambs, they were lambs without a shepherd, for this was an abattoir where children were efficiently ground up and recomposed as engineers.

When his hair was scattered on the ground, the wheezing old sot pressed a waxy piece of paper against his skull and braced his head with that hand as he took the hot knife in the other. Torbidda didn’t flinch, but he couldn’t stop the tears rolling down his cheek. Unfair, he thought, to pry out this evidence of weakness.

Pulling off the stencil, his shearer told him flatly, ‘Your name is’ – rippp! – ‘Sixty.’ He poured a foul-smelling orange oil onto to Torbidda’s head which burned as he rubbed it in. Cold drips streaked Torbidda’s neck and back. ‘Let the scabs heal by themselves. Stand and dress yourself, Cadet.’

He was finished just before the other two. The side of Leto’s head read LVIII and the stupefied city boy’s read LIX. Torbidda was walking away when he turned and glanced back as three new naked children took their place. Already he felt different. They were civilians. He was a Cadet, Cadet Number LX. His name was Sixty.

CHAPTER 2

His mother screamed curses at the Grand Selector as they dragged him away. ‘My baby! Don’t take him from me, please!’

It was too unbelievable not to be a dream. Torbidda opened his eyes and listened instead to the storm outside the dormitory, and children weeping in the dark, weak islands adrift in a predatory archipelago. Other voices catcalled and teased, but no one ventured out of their cubicles. That first night was a period of watchful waiting, of study. Like an al-Buni grid, they had to learn the rules before advancing.

RATATATATATA TATTARATA TA TARA RAT AT AT AT T T T

The bell was the lambs’ first lesson: that belligerent mechanical rapping would henceforth marshal Cadets’ hours, dictating when to study, eat and bath; when to sleep and when