Spark of the Rebellion Chapter 7: The Cost of Survival

The holographic map cast jagged blue light across the panic room. Troy’s finger hovered over the southern coordinates, trembling faintly—not from fear, but from the adrenaline thrumming under his skin. The Scorpion’s flight path twisted northward like a serpent. He’d passed through every district in Iassor.

“Here,” he said, his voice too loud in the hollow silence. The projection rippled where he pressed, distorting the trajectory. “Southern Iassor. This is where it starts. The pattern’s too clean, Asher. Too deliberate.”

Asher leaned against the backrest of his chair, arms crossed, his polished boots gleaming even in the dim light. “I don’t disagree. The Scorpion may have handed us our first lead.”

Ester twirled her hair between her fingers, biting her lower lip in thought. “It’s a threat for sure,” she said, her voice slicing through the chill. “Our Elite Guard is gone.” She snapped her fingers. “Just like that.”

Asher pushed off the chair, his shadow swallowing the hologram. He jabbed a finger at the Silk Market’s coordinates, the light warping around his hand. “Your friend—Damen Servo. You really think he’s still worth anything after the riots? Or did the mob drag him through the streets after the Scorpion left him hanging?”

Troy’s jaw tightened. “When I left him, he was safe. But his store…his goods… He could’ve gone back to salvage what he could. If he’s alive, he could be useful. He may know why these specific spots were visited by our vigilante.”

“That’s a huge if,” Asher muttered, turning away to pace the perimeter of the room.

“Enough,” she said, rising in one fluid motion. “We’re wasting time. The Scorpion left a trail. We follow it before it goes cold.”

Asher whirled. “And if this is a trap? If the Scorpion’s luring us into the open?”

“Then we spring it,” Troy said, meeting his brother’s glare. “There is no reason for him to kill us. I don’t think he wants to.”

Ester strode to the panic room’s door. “The hyper-train departs in ten minutes. Argue on the way, or don’t. But move.”

Asher lingered, his gaze locked on the dying hologram. For a moment, his mask slipped—a flicker of unease in the tightening of his jaw. Then it was gone. “This isn’t a game, Troy. People die in the field. Even princes.”

Troy didn’t flinch. “Better a prince than a coward, eh?”

Asher looked impressed by his brother’s apparent courage. “Essie. Get your pistol. Two mags. One blank and one live.” He glanced at Troy. “Eighteen is a little young for a firearm. I’ll organize a hunting knife just in case.”

“This is exceptional circumstances…” Troy began. “Maybe I should ge—”

“We’re doing a lot of illegal things right now. Let’s not add to the list,” Ester said, cutting him off. “I’ll meet you outside the gates as soon as Mom and Dad leave for work.”

The hyper-train doors sealed with a pressurized sigh, trapping them in the sterile compartment. Troy pressed his palm against the window, watching the castle’s obsidian spires shrink behind them. Beyond the fortified walls, the city unravelled like frayed cloth—crumbling residences, makeshift hydroponic farms with murky waters, a skeletal child chasing a dented water drum down an alley.

Asher flipped open a military dossier, the holoscreen casting blue shadows under his eyes. “Stop gawking. You’ve seen the reports.”

“Reports don’t smell,” Troy muttered. The stench seeped through the train’s filters—urine, rust, and the stomach-churning stench of biofuel spills.

Ester sniffed her jasmine-scented handkerchief, a gift from their mother. “The Lower Districts always reek before harvest season. The farms—”

“Harvest season?” Troy spun to face them. “Those farms are poison now. Half the eastern crop zones have water that glows in the dark from radiation since the reactor meltdown. When will Father admit local supplies are done?”

Asher didn’t look up. “Next week’s address. He’ll announce increased imports.”

“With what funds?” Troy laughed. “The treasury’s emptier than a pauper’s stomach. Even I know that.”

Ester stiffened. “Careful. Just because we’re on the priority carriage doesn’t mean your siren of a voice won’t reach the other carraiges.”

Asher snapped the dossier shut. “You want an economics lesson, little prince? Fine.” He leaned forward, elbows on knees. “Local food’s cheap, but taxed at 30% to subsidize imports. Those things you see down there—” he nodded at the stockpile of tins outside a canteen, “—cost a commoner’s monthly wage. Nobility pay increased fees for imports but they can afford it. System’s worked for a century.”

“Worked for us,” Troy said.

“Kept the Belt fed!” Asher’s knuckles whitened around his stylus. “But now the local tax base is collapsing. No crops, no taxes. No taxes, no imports. So Father’s options? Raise tariffs on off-world traders—which starts wars—or cut nobility stipends.”

Ester touched her pearl choker, reflexively. “The nobility would riot.”

“So let them riot!” Troy gestured at the window where a mob swarmed a grounded cargo drone, fighting over soy-crate scraps. “Better than that!”

“Commoners have less leverage than Nobility. It's a bigger issue if we piss them off,” Asher said. “Besides, the numbers don’t lie.” He flicked a holosheet at Troy. “Even if we drained the royal vaults, we’d cover three weeks of imports. Tops.”

Troy scanned the data, stomach churning. “Then stop wasting money on Intel’s black-site interrogations! Or those ridiculous sky-palaces for—”

“Enough.” Ester’s voice sliced through the compartment.

For three stops, only the train’s hum filled the silence. They passed the Iron River, its waters turned yellow from the unfiltered metal content.

Asher massaged his temple. “There’s… another option. The Senate is proposing ration tiers. Priority access for essential workers.”

Ester frowned. “Define essential.”

“Soldiers. Engineers. Sanitation crews.”

“That won’t make it past the nobles. They’ll veto the bill in the blink of an eye.”

Asher’s silence provided ample confirmation.

The train dipped underground.

“So we let children starve while politicians debate who’s ‘essential’?” Troy’s voice cracked. “Did you see that girl chasing the water drum? She’s what, eight? Ten?”

Ester folded her handkerchief into precise triangles. “The alternative is chaos. We’re not savages.”

“Aren’t we?” Troy stared at Asher’s dossier. “When’s the last time you ate local produce, Ash? Actually tasted the shit we feed them?”

Asher’s jaw twitched. “Don’t.”

“The apples in the palace gardens—they’re from off-world orchards, right? But last week, Si served me Lower District honeyberries. I bit right in. Know what they tasted like?”

“Troy—”

“Burning. Like frying my tongue on a wall socket. And I vomited for hours.” He leaned closer, voice low. “But that’s what’s in the shit we feed the outer districts. That’s what you tax at 30%.”

Ester gripped his arm. “This isn’t the time—”

“When is the time?” Troy jerked free. “When the mobs breach the castle? When they string us up for hoarding clean food?”

Asher stood abruptly, bracing against the ceiling as the train banked. “You think I like this? I’ve spent months in the Senate trenches with Dad, listening to fat old bastards argue over decimal points while their people rot. But this is the game. You don’t get to storm out of the nursery and flip the board because you don’t like the rules!”

“Then change the rules!”

“How?” Asher roared. “You want us to conjure a billion credits? Invent a crop that grows in radioactive sludge? Or maybe we should just open the gates and let the hordes pillage whatever is left in the reservoirs!”

The intercom chimed. “Approaching Silk Market District. Please mind the gap.”

Ester stood, smoothing her gown. “Enough. If you two are done arguing about our shitty system, I suggest we get off.”

Asher adjusted his sidearm, avoiding Troy’s gaze. The train slowed, revealing the Silk Market’s neon signboard.

The doors hissed open.

***

The Silk Market's stench of overripe fruit and burnt wiring hit them first. Troy pushed past a vendor hawking counterfeit neural links, scanning the stalls.

"Third aisle, last time," he muttered. "Blue awning with the..."

"Gone," Ester finished. Where Damen's tailor stall once stood, a scarred woman now sold black-market antibiotics.

Ester approached the woman. "You. Where's the man who worked this stall?"

"Which man? Half 'em dead. Other half smart."

A potter from the next stall leaned in, voice low. "You mean Damen? Cleared out after the purge. Took his family north, I'd wager."

"North where?" Ester pressed.

The potter's eyes darted to Ester's holster. "Not my business."

Asher gripped Troy's shoulder, steering him away. "Dead end. Check the map again to see if the Scorpion stopped anywhere North." He pulled Troy’s hood over his face. “And keep that shit on. Don’t want to be noticed here, right?”

Troy swiped angrily at the hologram. "North Cota district, maybe? I’m looking at the time stamps and it seems that the Scorpion lingered here longest."

“He wasn’t just sightseeing then?” Asher asked. “The locals might know what he was up to there. It's a lower-class district too. The locals could also tell us if Damen moved in recently.”

“Shouldn’t we head South? To where the flightpath started?” Ester suggested.

“Not now. Later,” Asher said in a much lower voice. “He’s probably still jumpy from the Elite Guard. Let things settle down. We need information about his motives first. Then we’ll know whether we can or can’t approach him.”

A metallic clang echoed from the east. The crowd stilled, heads swivelling. Somewhere, a child whimpered. Then the murmurs began, rippling through the market like a poison.

“Troopers…”

“Move, move!”

"Intel." Asher froze, his grip tightening on Troy’s arm. “Back. Now. Ester, load the live rounds. Time to disappear.”

The Silk Market’s chaos swallowed them whole. Troy kept his hood low, the scarf over his mouth stifling the stench of burnt synth oil. Asher led them through the throng, his hand resting casually near his concealed sidearm. Ester trailed behind, her eyes scanning the rooftops.

They slipped into a side alley, pressed against the cracked walls as polished boots hammered the main entrance. A handful of Intel troopers marched past in formation, their black visors reflecting the market’s neon glare. One paused, tilting his helmet toward the alley.

Troy’s blade slid silently from its sleeve.

The trooper moved on.

“This way,” Asher breathed, steering them deeper into the maze of crumbling corridors. “We’re close.”

Troy’s pulse thundered in his ears. “You said they wouldn’t track us!”

“They’re tracking your link,” Asher muttered. “Just shut up and wait.”

When the Intel soldiers began prodding their guns in the face of the antibiotics merchant, Troy understood what his brother had done. He didn’t deactivate the link. He planted it.

“Please, this isn’t mine! I swear—”

The trooper slammed his rifle butt into the man’s face. “WRONG ANSWER.”

Troy lunged, but Asher yanked him back. “They’ll kill you on sight!”

“So we let him die?!”

“Yes.” Asher’s voice was ice. “Or we all die.”

Ester peered around the wall, counting enemies. “I can fire a blank. Should distract the guards and mayb—”

The gunshot cracked amidst the chaos. The vendor collapsed, a smoking hole in his temple. The trooper pried the data drive from his fist. “CLEAR THE SQUARE! BY PROCLAMATION OF KING ARTHUR!”

“Fuck!” Asher hissed as the guards began to secure the perimeter of the market. “We’re blocked in.”

Troy looked below him noticing a manhole cover that had slipped open. “Pinch your nose.”

***

The tunnels reeked of decay and chemical runoff. Troy gagged, stumbling through ankle-deep sludge. Somewhere above, the troopers’ boots echoed.

“They’re herding us,” Asher whispered, wiping grime from his pistol. “This leads to the slaughterhouse district.”

Ester checked his ammo. “Then we wait for them to pass. We’ll end up getting lost in these sewers.”

The distinct clang of the manhole opening made Troy spin around. Troy noticed a shadow move in the tunnel ahead. He grabbed Ester's gun from its holster, closed his eyes and fired in the general direction. The shot ricocheted, sparking off pipes. “RUN!”

They splashed through the muck, rounds pinging around them. Troy’s lungs burned. A trooper jumped them as they turned the corner. Troy instinctively unsheathed his blade and drove it into the man’s chest, twisting it. When he removed it, the man crashed to the ground.

“No,” Troy breathed. He dropped to his knees, rolling the soldier onto his back. The armor was heavier than he’d expected. Cold. “No, no, no—”

Blood seeped through the cracks in the man’s chest plate, glistening black in the dim light. Troy fumbled with the neck guard, fingers slipping on the latches. “Come on, come on—” The metal clattered away, revealing a face not much older than his own. His features made Troy freeze. 

Damen.

"H-how? W-what?" Troy stammered. "No... It can't be him..."

He pressed two fingers to the boy’s throat. His own pulse roared in his ears, drowning out the silence.

Nothing.

“Check the wrist,” Ester said, her voice distant, clinical. “Sometimes—”

Troy grabbed the limp hand, pressing so hard that the bones shifted. The skin was still warm. Alive-warm. But the veins beneath were still. Troy stared at the blood on his palms. It crawled into the creases of his skin, under his nails, the iron stench clawing up his nostrils.

He scrambled back until his shoulders hit the wall, dragging his knees to his chin. “I didn’t—he came at me, I just—I pushed—”

“It was either you or him,” Ester whispered. “You saved us.”

“It's not me or him. It's not supposed to be that way. Stop.” The word tasted as disgusting as the sewers they were in. “Just stop!”

Troy’s scream bounced off the concrete walls. The Damen's head lolled toward him, eyes glassy and wide. A boy who’d never see the stupid, fragile things that made a life.

He'd killed him. No, he'd murdered him. He was just a tailor in a stolen uniform. Troy let out a primal scream, echoing through the sewers. 

I killed him.

His world went mute, condensed and compressed into just a murderer and their victim. 

I killed him.

His breathing quickened, heart pounding in his chest as loud as an elephant's footsteps. Every second that passed, the blood on his hands seemed more and more permanent.  

He faintly heard boots thumping on the ground. A firm hand on his back forced him to the ground. Ester screamed in protest as she was dragged from her brother by her hair. Asher fell to the floor discretely sliding the knife into the flowing sewerage amidst the chaos.

"Troy, Asher and Ester Izzard! You are under arrest by order of the Council for the removal of classified information from Intel archives."

Troy closed his eyes in acceptance. Then, everything went dark, a distant echo of Damen's cheery voice at the back of his mind.

Questions (if you feel like answering ;) )

1. How's the pacing of this chapter? Am I jumping areas too quickly?

2. Does Troy and Asher's argument on the train make sense?