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Chapter One

Devrim

Ivera, the Democratic People’s Republic of Paravel, Western Europe

Thunk Thunk Thunk Thunk Thunk

It’s the sound that heralds the beginning of every new day

I wait, sitting in my jumpsuit, atop my narrow, steel-framed bed in a tiny concrete cell I can’t call out Can’t react

Thunk Thunk Thunk

There are twenty-three cells between , and Prison Guard Wesson’s heavy baton clangs against the bars of every single one

Thunk

“Gooda ht your tea? Has he ironed your newspaper and presented ?”

I stare straight ahead at the sliver of pale blue sky through a high , beyond his hulking shoulder

Wesson glances up and down the row of cells He takes the heavy keyring from his hip and tosses it up and down He approaches the cell next toman out into the concrete corridor

A hts Wesson’s eyes as he raises his baton high over his head At his feet is Ensign Vanderburgh I was his co h is forty-five now I’row arthritic and broken I feel centuries old already

The baton falls with a heavy thunk, and Vanderburgh gives a cry of pain He dares to raise an ar at the prisoner and ruthlessly strikes hih’s nose

Our eyes meet, and I stare at him bleakly My hands clench on the steel frame bed

Over Vanderburgh’s grunts of pain, I hear a disturbance Men yelling Probably a riot in gen-pop, the main part of the prison that houses the murderers, rapists and thieves The lucky ones who’ll see the light of day again

The shouting coalesces into the sa, over and over I watch a ruby red droplet of Vanderburgh’s blood slide down the wall, trying to make the words out

Long Live King Anson

A naotten it Anson, the King’s son, and the only member of the royal faht when Paravel fell By now, he’d be a man of thirty-five

Has our dear dictator has died? I hear Chaira is decrepit and paranoid these days

Wesson pauses, his baton held high Gen-pop will all be beaten and starved for weeks for this display of contempt They must be insane