CHAPTER 1 #2
Bogart signals for the cameras to move on with a snap of his fingers.
I stand taller, and when the third tier comes into view, filled with the Greens, a spark of pride runs through me.
We’re built for strength, stealth, and heightened senses—everything the Civilized World expects of soldiers or law enforcement.
With the low crime rate, most of us end up in sports arenas, earning our glory through physical prowess.
The broadcast drones scatter like a flock of birds, capturing close-ups of low-citizens in their finery.
Men in black tailcoats sip brandy from crystal-cut glasses while placing bets as if they’re at the races.
Who will die with honor? Who will beg for mercy?
Women in jewel-toned gowns whisper behind feather fans, their eyes fixed on Benjamin Bogart through gold binoculars.
Almost everyone, from the young to the old, smokes cigars and pipes, though cigarettes are most common.
Once considered unhealthy, tobacco is now a symbol of our victory over disease.
“This evening, we are honored by the presence of numerous distinguished individuals,” Bogart continues.
“From politicians to celebrities, professors to business magnates, these figures lead by example, consistently demonstrating the importance of the two great virtues: civility and obedience. My friends, to those watching from afar, witness the life that awaits if you, too, are virtuous.” Bogart gestures to the amphitheater.
“And the death that awaits if you are not.” He gestures to the guillotine.
As the crowd breaks into applause, Bogart’s eyes lift to the sky. The cameras are zoomed in too closely to show the entire amphitheater, but I know he’s looking at the fourth level, where the high-citizens sit.
The Blues.
Bogart clears his throat and nervously brushes his mustache with his thumb.
He signals to someone off-camera, and a moment later, the orchestra begins.
Violins pierce the air with a sharp, stabbing sound, followed by the deep resonance of cellos, violas, and double basses.
The orchestra swells into a harsh, mournful march that reverberates through the soles of my feet.
It’s my first time hearing The Last Walk, but I know it by reputation; it’s a song reserved solely for executions and death duels.
The broadcast drones cut back to Bogart, showing him standing with his feet planted wide, from an overhead shot.
“And now, my friends,” he shouts, “I invite you all once again to witness the consequence of defiance, of disobedience. It is a brutal consequence, to be sure, but a just one… An uncivilized death for an uncivilized crime.”
The music swells as the condemned arrive.
Forty-nine low-citizens are led forward, their hands bound with motion-sensing cuffs designed to shock them if they try to escape.
Each low-citizen wears a formal execution suit or gown, pure white so the blood will be visible.
My eyes drift to the rings on their thumbs, each one indicating their blood color.
There isn’t a single Blue among the group, but I’m not surprised.
High-citizens rarely face execution, and when they do, it’s never turned into a public spectacle.
“Are all of these low-citizens Heretics?” I ask Dad as the cameras track their pale, terror-stricken faces.
“Yes.” He looks at me, his expression conveying that he wants me to understand what he’s saying, not just hear it.
“Every criminal gets the guillotine, Loredana. But Heretics… they’re the only ones who get it on live television.
Bloody Sunday might seem like trashy entertainment for the masses, but it’s not. It’s a warning against treason.”
Judging by the execution rate, the warning seems to be having the opposite effect.
Today, there are forty-nine Heretics, and last week, there were nearly sixty.
It makes me wonder whether they fear death at all or whether their treasonous beliefs are so strong that they see it as a price worth paying.
The thought unsettles me because I can’t imagine dying for an idea.
The only thing I can see myself dying for is my family.
One of the Heretics, a petite, freckled girl who’s tenth in line, looks only slightly older than me.
Her eyes keep darting toward a clean-shaven, middle-aged man at the front.
With their deep-set eyes and curly reddish hair, they appear related.
Still, the father refrains from acknowledging his daughter.
Instead, he stares at the guillotine with his teeth clenched, his expression as tight as a fist.
“And now, ladies and gentlemen,” Bogart says with a sweeping gesture, “it is with great honor and glorious pleasure that I introduce you to Bloody Sunday’s only recurring character.
To some, he is a friend; to others, a foe.
But to the condemned, he is known as the black hood… the headsman… the executioner.”
The applause roars.
The broadcast drones turn toward the executioner as he approaches the Heretics, carrying a small, gold box.
The lid is cracked open, revealing a pile of neurotoxin pills inside.
One pill is enough to kill a dozen men, but the death is swift and painless, offering a merciful alternative to those too afraid to face the guillotine.
The executioner moves along the line of Heretics, pushing a neurotoxin pill into each open mouth. “You who are condemned to die may now do so,” he says, “with courage or with cowardice.”
The Heretic father spits the pill onto the platform and grinds it under his boot.
Nodding to his daughter, he urges her to do the same.
The girl’s hands tremor as she obeys, tears burning in her eyes like chemical smoke.
She’s young, probably raised on her father’s fanaticism.
Still, it’s hard to feel sorry for her when I remember the media coverage of Heretic attacks: bombs planted on crowded sidewalks and in busy cafes, aimed at corrupt Blues but killing far more innocent bystanders, most of them low-citizens like us.
I recall images of teenagers torn apart in theater rows, and any pity I might have dissolves.
The Blues are tyrants, yes, but Dad says that in their attempt to overthrow the Blues, the Heretics became what they were trying to destroy.
By the time The Last Walk concludes, the executioner has finished administering the neurotoxin pills.
Half of the Heretics crush the pills beneath their feet, while the others discreetly spit them into their palms. The executioner discards the empty box, then grabs the Heretic father by one arm and leads him toward the guillotine.
The amphitheater falls silent. The executioner instructs the Heretic father to lie on a gold bench, his neck positioned beneath the suspended blade.
As the yoke clicks shut around his head, the broadcast drones amplify the ragged sound of his breathing.
The executioner’s movements are gentle, almost tender, as if tucking a child in for bed, and the sight turns my stomach.
“Don’t look away, Loredana,” Dad says.
“I won’t,” I reply, knowing it’s not really a choice.
He’ll accuse me of being unprepared if I’m unable to watch.
His rough, gritted hands are unrecognizable from the ones that taught me to use a fencing saber, cleaned my scrapes after I fell off my hoverboard, and played moody jazz on the saxophone after family dinner.
I changed Dad’s hands. My sisters did, too. The scars and calluses came from years of training, during which he pushed us to the edge and then kicked us headfirst over. “The day you don’t need my protection is the day you can consider yourself strong,” he used to say.
The broadcast drones zoom in on the Heretic father’s face.
His lips curl into a defiant sneer as the executioner rests a hand on the release lever.
For a moment, I imagine myself in the Heretic father’s place, my head strapped into the cold yoke and my spine pressed against the hard bench.
Would I resist? Would I plead for mercy?
Or, as a last-ditch effort to preserve my dignity, could I die just as bravely?
I hope I’ll never know the answer.
“Justice is rendered,” the executioner announces. “Let its echoes be heard.”
The blade falls with a sickening thud, slicing through the Heretic father’s neck with a spray of orange blood that makes the acid in my stomach pitch up my throat.
Two.
Now I’ve seen two people die.
Adrenaline surges through me like a second heartbeat. My vision narrows, and the room’s lights spin dizzyingly along the walls. I feel for the anti-vomit pill in my pocket and grip it, fighting the urge to swallow it dry.
From the corner of my eye, I notice Dad assessing my reaction to the decapitated body and to the roar of the crowd as the executioner catches the rolling head and raises it toward the high-citizens like an offering.
I know what he’s thinking. He’s wondering whether the violence is enough to make me change my mind about becoming a Public Person.
I wish it were. I wish I could drop out of Grandmaster University and stay home until I turn twenty-one, when citizens are required to become Public People. But I can’t.
Because what happened last year changed everything.
“You doing all right?” Dad asks softly.
I nod.
And it’s not a lie.
Somewhere beyond my horror, a growing calm and even a sense of relief emerge, because there’s a difference between this death and the first. With this death, I watched from a distance as someone else’s blade took a life. But with the first, the blade was mine.