The Designate Read online

  The Designate

  Lens Book 1

  J. B. Cantwell

  Copyright © 2017 by J. B. Cantwell

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  This book was previously published as

  PINK: Warrior Games Book 1.

  Visit www.jbcantwell.com to join the J. B. Cantwell mailing list and receive the collection of Aster Wood: The Lost Tales short stories for free! Sign up today!

  Contents

  Episode 1

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Episode 2

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Episode 3

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Episode 4

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Episode 5

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Episode 6

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  The Volunteer Excerpt

  Also by J. B. Cantwell

  About the Author

  Episode 1

  Chapter One

  I kicked a piece of fallen rock from a decaying building as I walked. I was anxious, not just for the testing, but for the trip to the city. Too many people around made me nervous.

  I walked past an advertisement for enrollment. It was stuck to a brick wall, moss crawling through the mortar. Two men stood in their battle uniforms, rifles on their shoulders. They looked hard, dirtied, scraped up, their camera-ready scowls hinting at courage.

  “Defend the Nation” read the sign.

  From what?

  It didn’t matter. The payoff was what counted. The chance to start a new life.

  Slowly, commuters started to emerge from the shadows as night slipped away. My lens immediately started calculating, identifying each individual by name and designation.

  Michael Conrad

  Designation: Green

  Jackson Perez

  Designation: Green

  Akasha Inhari

  Designation: Green

  and me,

  Riley Taylor

  Designation: Green

  All Greens. I was perfectly safe. No unknowns. No criminals. I took a deep breath and hurried toward the platform.

  As I took the first step up the stairs, my stomach lifted and I gasped a little. It was an unfamiliar feeling, a sudden nervousness.

  Excitement, I thought.

  Things were about to change, one way or the other. If I could just find a train out of Manhattan to somewhere cheap, somewhere with opportunity, then maybe I’d be alright. Maybe I could find a way out of my plan to join the Service. Maybe I wouldn’t have to risk my life in order to live it.

  I climbed the narrow staircase and stood behind the others, waiting. The train arrived, on time to the second, the banged up doors opening with a loud squeak. I stepped inside quickly, knowing that when the doors closed, they wouldn’t open again for anything.

  My lens scanned the people inside. Green. Green. Green.

  Orange.

  Lydia Davis

  Designation: Orange

  My breath caught.

  It was a young woman, just a handful of years older than me. Dressed all in black, she sat at one end of the car, her feet propped up lazily on the empty seat opposite her. Her dark hair was cropped short, her eyes covered in thick, black makeup.

  I tried not to stare, but fear held me frozen. My lens was flashing, covering my vision with a blinking orange overlay, urging me to turn and move in the other direction.

  The woman snapped her gum, looking around the train car at all the Greens who avoided her. Then her eyes caught mine. She smirked, then winked.

  I started, immediately dropping my gaze. My heart thudded as I moved to the other end of the car, hoping she would leave me alone. I shouldn’t have looked, shouldn’t have tempted her. My lens stopped flashing as I surrounded myself with the other Greens. This side of the train was much more crowded than where the Orange woman was keeping court. But as I squeezed into a seat, I saw that she was distracted by her lens, still sitting in the same spot as her eyes flitted back and forth, quickly sorting through whatever information interested an Orange. I exhaled and sat back as the train began to move.

  We climbed up, up, as the tracks soared above the water that now covered much of the city. Not far from the tracks the buildings gradually fell into disrepair in the places where the sea had reclaimed the land. They were long abandoned, their lower floors flooded. Soon enough, with no sea wall to protect it, the rest of Brooklyn would be underwater, too. I squirmed in my seat as I imagined what it would be like to stay there, trapped in our apartment as the waves slowly crawled closer with each passing month.

  APPROACHING MANHATTAN WALL

  The words blinked across my lens, then faded out again. I looked through the window and saw the wall that encircled upper Manhattan. It was a hundred feet tall, recently increased from the fifty foot barrier that was slowly becoming obsolete as the water continued to rise. The white stones, new and yet untouched by the water, rested atop the older, darker ones that had guarded the city since before I was born.

  Half of the city was now on the outside of the wall, and as the train sped by the long-abandoned towers, I stared inside, searching.

  I had seen the people in those buildings before on videos I watched through my lens. They lived behind the wall, squatting in the upper floors of the high rises that used to line downtown. We called those buildings the Stilts. They were all but abandoned, just barely staying upright over the water with only their washed out lower beams to support them. With not enough room in the boroughs, and none of the squatters willing to take on government jobs, there was no stipend for them. The videos painted them as thieves, but I figured everybody needed to eat.

 
; The train rushed forward toward the open gates in the thick concrete. My heart jumped as we burst through the gateway into the city. This train only had one stop inside, and as it pulled up to the outdoor platform, we all stood up, ready to disembark.

  I stood back, let the other people on tighter schedules jostle each other as they made their way toward the exit. As they filed out, the countdown clock above the door started ticking down.

  10 … 9 …

  I tried not to push the woman in front of me.

  … 8 … 7 …

  Finally, she had found her opening, trotting through it and out into the morning beyond. I intended to follow her, but once her frame disappeared around the corner, I found a set of eyes looking at me I hadn’t expected. Standing directly across from me was the woman, the Orange.

  … 6 … 5 …

  I froze, staring. She smiled wickedly and held out her hand, indicating I should exit ahead of her. I swallowed heavily. Most of the Greens were already off the train now. I needed to get out of here or it would be just the two of us left inside, trapped together for the long ride back to Brooklyn. A dangerous situation for anybody to find themselves in.

  … 4 … 3 …

  I ducked my head and made for the opening. My lens flashed, warning me to turn back. I just managed to hold back a yelp of fear as I passed by her and the dreaded jaws of the doors, not daring to look her in the eye.

  I quickly moved away towards the vanishing group of Greens, seeking to hide myself within their safe numbers. I didn’t even glance back as I held my breath, trying to push my way in.

  I felt a strong shove between my shoulder blades and nearly fell face first onto the platform. I grabbed the jacket of the man in front of me, trying to right myself. He glared back at me.

  “Sorry,” I said, looking around.

  She had already turned away, was jogging across the open platform toward a different staircase.

  I panted, still clinging to the man.

  “Excuse me, miss,” he snarled.

  I looked up, dazed, and released him.

  “Sorry,” I said again.

  He headed down the narrow staircase. I stood still for a moment, staring at the spot where the woman had disappeared. Finally, when I realized I was the only one left on the platform, I turned and followed the others down, hoping she wouldn’t be there to meet me at the bottom.

  Chapter Two

  The sun was barely up over the horizon, but it was already sticky hot. I peeled off my sweatshirt, stuffing it into my bag as I started the long walk up Broadway. The trip would take me over an hour, but it would save me forty credits. I had already burned through a hundred on the train ride in. As I exited the station, another elevated train whirred by overhead. It was nothing like the train I had come in on. Even from down here I could see the polished silver skin of the cars shining in the morning light. It was transportation for the elite, for those who couldn’t afford to lose an hour walking down on the street with the common people.

  I had only been into the city once, when my dad was still alive. I was little, maybe three or four, and he’d taken me to the New York City Service headquarters for an afternoon. The headquarters were boring, with a smell like dust and decaying carpet, but he had made up for it later in the day when he bought me my first ice cream. It was May, and the weather was stiflingly hot. A late rain had washed the chemicals down from the atmosphere and into the drains, so everyone could breathe the clean air. Dad had just finished his first year in the Service, so we had some money for things.

  “Soon, we’ll be moving out of our apartment,” he’d said, looking around. “Would you like to live here in the city?”

  I would’ve agreed to anything through that mouthful of pralines and cream. I looked around as my tongue chased a melted drop down the cone and nodded.

  “Me, too,” he said, sitting back against the bench. For some reason he looked worried. “Just two more years and that’s exactly what we’ll do.”

  “How high will we go?” I asked, staring up at the giant buildings surrounding us.

  He put one arm around me and tickled my stomach.

  “All the way to the top,” he said, smiling.

  He left again the next day, and things were good around the house for a while. There were extra credits now for things like bread and milk, sometimes candy if Mom was feeling generous that day. Everyone ate the nutrition squares provided by the government, so we wouldn’t have gone hungry without the extra food. But the texture of the treats brought new sensations to my mouth and stomach, and instilled in me a desire to get more sugar, more milk, more chocolate. Anything that wasn’t the same dry, mealy crackers we had, that everyone had, to sustain us.

  I couldn’t wait for Dad to get back so he could try the new foods I had discovered. This time I would be introducing delicious delicacies to him.

  But the money only lasted two months. After that, he was dead with no explanation given to us by the Service. Not even a knock on the door; just a message sent to Mom’s lens.

  The city began to fill as I walked. By the time I crossed Canal Street, the sidewalk was full of people rushing in every direction. My lens constantly scanned, but only once did I see it flash Orange. I whipped my head around in the direction the screen indicated, anger and fear flaring inside me, automatically expecting to see the woman from the train. But it was someone else, an older man in ragged clothes who stared absently into the crowd. I quickly turned away before he noticed I was looking and hurried along.

  My path through the city narrowed the farther I went, and the great protective walls got closer and closer until I was walking through what felt like a tunnel. In this part of the city they had only saved the buildings on Broadway. The towers just a block beyond had been torn down to make way for the wall, or in some cases filled with cement and made part of the wall itself in order to save resources. I had heard there were places where you could walk up to the entrance of a building, open the door, and be greeted by nothing but a solid sheet of concrete on the other side.

  I paused, looking down a side street toward the wall beyond. I had never gotten very close. The inner edges were protected by police, constantly scanning the area. All it would take to bring the city to its knees was one big breach in that massive dam. It had been attempted before. Whenever an attack was made, lenses would flash black, enough to chill anyone paying attention to their core. Black was reserved for only one designation of person.

  Terrorist.

  One officer patrolled along the street beyond, and I looked at him for a moment. I wondered if he was scared, doing a job like that.

  He noticed me, and I saw him lift a finger to his ear, saw his lips move.

  I quickly moved on. Showing too much interest in the wall could land me in more trouble than I knew what to do with, and I wanted no part of it.

  Several others, clearly on the same path as I, whizzed by, their bodies accustomed to the long walk to and from the north end of town. When Mom had still worked, she’d made this walk every day to save money, just as I was doing now. But it had been a long time since she had worked anywhere. Now, as I walked along her old commute route, I wondered what would happen to her after I was gone.

  Nothing, probably. After the initial flurry of searching for me, she would probably just sit, slowly wasting away on the liquor she bought with her remaining, paltry rations. And, after a while, she would just stare at the screens before her, barely noticing anything had changed. Barely noticing that that the last of her family was gone.

  My chest felt heavy with this thought, and my pace slowed as I imagined her dead. Alone. Guilt pricked up the skin on my back.

  I looked up at the narrow passageway before me, and suddenly I felt desperate; I had to get to the other side. I couldn’t breathe here, with the buildings rising up around me and the wall threatening to cave in just beyond. I broke into a run.

  I couldn’t stay. Not with her. I had to get out. And once I did, I would never come back.
Never.

  I ran all the way up Broadway and didn’t stop until the wall receded further back into the city. I was deposited onto Park Avenue. I stopped, heaving, and leaned against a tall, white building to catch my breath.

  Here was a little better. When I looked up, it felt like I could see a little more sky. The buildings that shot up into the morning were like pieces of both ancient and modern art, weaving together as they reached upward, a great exhibition of human innovation and passion. Together, they combined to create a beacon calling people to what was left of this great city. The buildings here seemed untouched by the oppressive concrete structure that kept the encroaching world out.

  I rested my hands against the cool, white stone at my back and breathed deeply. I would have loved nothing more than to disappear into one of these great monoliths, to hide out and be forever impossible to discover. I could start over inside their vast interiors, be somebody else, somebody so different that no one would ever guess that I was just a rat from the wasted streets of Brooklyn.