Welcome to this week’s M9B Friday Reveal! This week, we are revealing the first chapter for Lifer by Beck Nichols presented by Month9Books! Be sure to enter the giveaway found at the end of the post!
Synopsis:
Asher is a Lifer, a slave aboard the spaceship Pelican. A member of the lowest rung of society, she must serve the ship’s Officials and Astronauts as punishment for her grandparents' crimes back on Earth. The one thing that made life bearable was her illicit relationship with Samuai, a Fishie boy, but he died alongside her brother in a freak training accident.
Still grieving for the loss of her loved ones, Asher is summoned to the upper levels to wait on Lady, the head Official’s wife and Samuai’s mother. It is the perfect opportunity to gather intel for the Lifer’s brewing rebellion. There’s just one problem—the last girl who went to the upper levels never came back.
On the other side of the universe, an alien attack has left Earth in shambles and a group called The Company has taken control. Blank wakes up in a pond completely naked and with no memory, not even his real name. So when a hot girl named Megs invites him to a black-market gaming warehouse where winning means information, he doesn’t think twice about playing. But sometimes the past is better left buried.
As Asher and Blank’s worlds collide, the truth comes out—everyone has been lied to. Bourne Identity meets Under the Never Sky in this intergalactic tale of love and deception from debut novelist Beck Nicholas.
LIFER
by Beck Nicholas
Chapter One
[Asher]
I mark my body for
Samuai.
My right hand is steady as I press the slim needle into
my skin. It glints under the soft overhead light of the storage locker, the
only place to hide on Starship Pelican. Row upon row of shelving fills the room.
Back here I’m hidden from the door.
It’s
been seventeen days since Samuai passed. Seventeen days of neutral expressions
and stinging eyes, waiting for the chance to be alone and pay my respects to
the dead Official boy in true Lifer fashion. With blood.
The body of the needle is wrapped in thread I stole from
my spare uniform. The blue thread acts as the ink reservoir. It’s soaked with a
dye I made from crushed feed pellets and argobenzene,
both swiped from farm level. The pungent fumes sting my eyes and make it even
harder to keep the tears at bay. But I will. There will be no disrespect in
this marking.
My slipper drops to the floor with the softest of thuds
as I shake my foot. I raise it to rest on a cold metal shelf. Samuai always
held my hand when we met in secret, but I can’t bear to examine those memories
now. The pain of him being gone is still so fresh.
The first break of skin at my ankle hurts a little. Not
much, since the needle is nano-designed for single molecule sharpness, and it’s
not as though I haven’t done this before. Recently. The tattoo for my brother
circles my ankle, completed days ago, a match for the one for my father. My
memorial for Samuai had to wait for privacy. The blue spreads out into my skin
like liquid on a cloth. The dot is tiny. I add another and another, each time
accepting the momentary pain as a tribute to Samuai. Soon I’ve finished the
first swirling line.
“Are you mourning my brother or yours?”
My
hand jerks at the familiar voice, driving the needle deep into the delicate
skin over my Achilles. Davyd’s voice. How did he get in here so quietly? I
wince, clamping down on a cry of pain. No tears though. Nothing will make me
disrespect Samuai. I remove the needle from my flesh and school my features into
a neutral expression before I turn and stand to attention.
“Davyd,”
I say by way of greeting. Despite my preparation my throat thickens.
My
response to him is stupid because he looks nothing like Samuai. Where Samuai
radiated warmth from his spiky dark hair hinting of honey and his deep, golden brown
eyes, there is only ice in his brother. Ice-chiseled cheekbones, tousled blond
hair, the slight cleft in his chin, and his gray eyes. Eyes that see far too
much.
But
he’s dressed like Samuai used to dress. The same white t-shirt and black pants.
It’s the uniform of Officials, or Fishies, as they’re known below. He’s a
little broader in the shoulders than his older brother was—to even think of
Samuai in the past tense is agony—and he’s not quite as tall. I only have to
look up a little to meet his gaze. I do so without speaking.
I
shouldn’t be here, but I’m not going to start apologizing for where I am or his
reference to my forbidden relationship with his brother, until I know what he
wants.
“Is
that supposed to happen?” He points at my foot, where blood drips, forming a
tiny puddle on the hard, shiny floor.
His
face is expressionless, as usual, but I can hear the conceit in his voice. I
can imagine what the son of a Fishie thinks of our Lifer traditions.
Today,
I don’t care. Even if his scorn makes my stomach tighten and cheeks flame, I won’t care. Not about anything Davyd has
to say.
“It’s
none of your business.”
One
fine brow arches. Superior, knowing.
He
doesn’t have to say the words. The awareness of just how wrong I am zaps
between us. Given our relative stations on this journey—he’s destined to be a
Fishie in charge of managing the ship’s population, and me to serve my
inherited sentence—whatever I do is
his business, if he chooses to make it so. He’s in authority even though we’re
almost the same age.
In
order to gain permission to breed, Lifers allowed the injection of nanobots
into their children. These prototype bots in our cells give our masters the power
to switch us off using a special Remote Device until our sentence is served. At
any time we can be shut down. I’m not sure how exactly, only that each of us
has a unique code and the device can turn those particular bots against us.
It’s an unseen but constant threat.
I
keep my face blank and my posture subservient, but my fingers tighten around
the needle in my hand. How I long to slap the smooth skin of his cheek.
For
a second, neither of us speaks.
“Your
brother or mine?” he asks again. Softly this time. So low, the question is
almost intimate in the dim light.
I
inhale deeply, welcoming the harsh fumes from my makeshift ink. The burning in
my lungs gives me a focus so the ever-present emotional pain can’t cripple me.
My brother and my boyfriend were taken on the same day, and I’m unable to
properly mourn either thanks to the demands of servitude.
I
can’t let it cripple me. Not if I want to find out what really happened to Zed
and Samuai.
“Does
it matter?” I ask. Rather than refuse him again, I twist the question around.
He would never admit to having interest in the goings-on of a mere Lifer.
“No.”
His voice is hard. Uncaring. He folds his arms. “But it’s against ship law to
deface property.”
It
takes a heartbeat, and then I realize I’m
the property he’s talking about. My toes curl because my fists can’t. I see
from the flick of his eyes to my feet that he’s noticed. Of course he has.
There’s nothing Davyd doesn’t notice.
It’s
true though. The marks we Lifers make on our bodies are not formally allowed.
It is a price we pay for the agreement signed in DNA by our parents and our
grandparents. They agreed to a lifetime of servitude, and their sentence is
passed down through the generations for the chance at a new life on a new
planet. I am the last in the chain, and my sentence will continue for twelve
years after landing.
We
Lifers belong to those above us, body and soul, but no Fishie or Naut—the
astronauts who pilot the ship—has ever tried to stop the ritual. In return we
are not blatant. We mark feet, torsos, and thighs. Places hidden by our plain
blue clothing.
If
the son of the head Fishie reports me, it will go on my record no matter how
minor the charge, and possibly add months to my sentence. A sentence I serve
for my grandparents’ crimes back on Earth after the Upheaval. Like others,
their crime was no more than refusal to hand over their vehicle and property
when both were declared a government resource.
I
swallow convulsively.
I
don’t want that kind of notice. Not when we’re expected to land in my lifetime.
Not when I hoped to find answers to the questions that haunt me.
The
first lesson a Lifer child learns is control around their superiors. I won’t
allow mine to fail me now.
“Did
you want something? Sir?”
If
there’s a faint pause before the honorific, well, I’m only human.
He
lets it pass. “The Lady requires extra help at this time. You have been
recommended.”
“Me?”
His
lips twist. “I was equally surprised. Attend her now.”
The
Lady is the wife of the senior Official on board the Pelican, and both Samuai
and Davyd’s mother. She’s a mysterious figure who is never seen in the shared
area of the ship. I imagine she’s hurting for her dead child. Sympathy stirs
within me. I’ve seen the strain my own mother tries to hide since Zed died, and
I don’t think having a higher rank would make the burden any easier to bear.
It’s
within Davyd’s scope as both Fishie-in-training and son of the ship’s Lady to
be the one to inform me of my new placement, but I can’t help looking for
something deeper in his words. There should be a kinship between us, having
both lost a brother so recently, but Samuai’s death hasn’t affected Davyd at
all.
“Who
recommended me?”
He
shrugs. “Now. Lifer.”
I
nod and move to tidy up, ignoring the persistent pain in my ankle where the needle
went too deep. My defiance only stretches so far. Not acting on a direct
request would be stupidity. I will finish my memorial for Samuai, but not with
his brother waiting. It’s typical that Davyd doesn’t use my name. I can’t
remember him or his Fishie friends ever doing so.
It
was something that stood out about Samuai from when we were youngsters and met
in the training room. It was the only place on the ship us Lifers are close to
equal. I was paired to fight with him to first blood, and he shocked me by
asking my name. “Asher,” Samuai had repeated, like he tasted something sweet on
his tongue, “I like it.”
In
my heart there’s an echo of the warmth I felt that day, but the memory hurts.
It hurts that I’ll never see him again, that he’ll never live out the dreams we
shared in our secret meetings. Dreams of a shared future and changes to a
system that makes Lifers less than human.
When
I’ve gathered the small inkpot and put on my slippers, I notice a smear of
blood on the slipper material from where I slipped earlier. It’s the
opportunity I need to let my change in status be known below.
“Umm.”
I clear my throat. Please let the stories
I’ve heard of the Lady be true.
“What?”
asks Davyd from where he waits by the door, presumably to escort me to his
mother. The intensity of his gaze makes me quake inside. It’s all I can do not
to lift my hand to check my top is correctly buttoned and my hair hasn’t grown
beyond the fuzz a Lifer is allowed.
“My
foot attire isn’t suitable to serve the Lady.” I point to the faint smudge of
brown seeping into my footwear. It is said by those cleaners who are permitted
into the Fishie sleeping quarters that the Lady insists her apartment be kept
spotless. She’s unlikely to be pleased with me reporting for duty in
bloodstained slippers.
Davyd’s
jaw tenses. Maybe I’ve pushed him too far with this delay. I hold my breath.
But
then his annoyance is gone and his face is the usual smooth mask. “Change. I
will be waiting at the lift between the training hall and study rooms.”
He
doesn’t need to tell me to hurry.
He
opens the door leading out into the hallway and I expect him to stride through
and not look back. Again he surprises me. He turns. His face is in shadow. The
brighter light behind him shines on his tousled blond hair, which gives him a
hint of the angelic.
“Assuming
it’s my brother you’re mourning,” his voice is deep and for the first time
there’s a slight melting of the ice. “You should know. … He wasn’t worth your
pain.”
I always wanted to write. I’ve worked as a lab assistant, a pizza delivery driver and a high school teacher but I always pursued my first dream of creating stories. Now, I live with my family near Adelaide, halfway between the city and the sea, and am lucky to spend my days (and nights) writing young adult fiction.
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