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  This is a work of fiction, and the views expressed herein are the sole responsibility of the author. Likewise, certain characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events or locales, is entirely coincidental.

  Insight (Colony Six, Book 0)

  Published by White Star Press

  P.O. Box 353

  American Fork, Utah 84003

  Copyright © 2019 by Teyla Branton

  Cover design copyright © 2019 by White Star Press

  Cover and ebook design by ePubMasters

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be scanned, uploaded, reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means whatsoever without written permission from the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. Thank you for supporting the author’s rights.

  ISBN: 978-1-948982-07-8

  Printed in the United States of America

  Year of first printing: 2019

  Welcome to the CORE:

  Commonwealth Objective for Reform and Efficiency

  Detective Reese Parker is a survivor. Having left behind a violent past in Welfare Colony 6, she is now a sketch artist and detective with the New York Enforcer Division. Her entire focus is maintaining peace and order among the CORE’s remaining two million residents, to make certain their society never faces another economic and nuclear Breakdown.

  She must also keep her secret. Because she never wants to be sent back to Colony 6.

  With constant Teev surveillance and rigid control in the CORE’s most heavily populated state, Reese’s job mostly consists of tracing small-time juke pushers or sending rebellious students to reconditioning. She doesn’t have to face demented fringers that encroach upon the Core like her counterparts in Dallastar do, or patrol the northern borders where radiation-crazed animals attack unwary travelers. She’s content with being the most accurate sketch artist in the CORE.

  But when one of her sketches puts her up against a human monster bigger than anything else that threatens the CORE, it’s a fight she might not survive.

  Note from the author

  This novella is part of my Colony Six futuristic dystopian sci-fi series. After finishing the first two books, I decided I wanted to write about the catalyst that took Reese, one of my important characters, back to Dallastar near where she grew up and where the series really begins. This is the case that almost got her killed and eventually led to events that in subsequent books reunites her with her childhood crew from Welfare Colony 6, otherwise known as the Coop (after the cramped conditions and chickens they raised there for extra food).

  You can read this story either before or after the other books in the series—it doesn’t have spoilers. If you are new to my series, keep in mind that this short piece won’t contain the intricacies of the much longer novels, but I hope it’ll give you a taste of my post-apocalyptic world. I’ve included terms at the end of the novel to help catch you up, so maybe take a peek at those. Enjoy!

  Prologue

  Location: Welfare Colony 6, Dallastar

  Year: 2258, 60 years after Breakdown

  THE BOYS CAME running, laughing as they sped through the hallway on the way to lunch. Ten-year-old Reese Parker couldn’t see them yet from her spot near the back door of their school wing, where she sat with her jean-covered legs stretched out in the sunlight that filtered through the glass, but she could hear their pounding footsteps as they came to meet her.

  Here in this isolated place, they would never attract the attention of a more powerful crew, because doing so was only asking for trouble, even if most of the older kids were in a different wing and had other lunch periods. In a year or two, they might be strong enough to hold their own anywhere, especially with Dani around. For now, they were comparatively strong on their own in level ten.

  Reese heard one of the boys trip—probably Jaxon, though it was Eagle who was practically blind. Eagle Eyes Jenson could remember each turn and navigated the hallways and classrooms at their school better than any of their crew. She set aside her precious sketchbook and looked up expectantly.

  More laughter and an urgent shout. “Get up! Before he finds us!” Eagle’s voice, not Jaxon’s.

  Sure enough, it was Eagle who turned the corner first and slid in beside her. His thin, freckled face held a wide smile, and his brown eyes under the heavy glasses were huge, magnified impossibly by the thick lenses. His brown hair was damp from exertion and hung limply in his eyes.

  “What happened?” Reese asked, tossing him one of the readymeals she’d already snagged from the dispenser using his code. There were rumors about implanted codes that would force each child to collect their own meal, but adults talked about a lot of things that never happened. Reese figured by the time they got around to implanting IDs, she and her crew would be leveled out of school and away from the nightmare of living in the Coop.

  Eagle caught the thin box with his scrawny arms and ripped off the plastic-coated carton top, grinning at the small bag of pretzels nestled in one of the small compartments. Reese was glad to see him so happy with his favorite snack. She had planned to give him hers if he didn’t get any, because though the meals ran in cycles, you never really had a choice about what popped out.

  He poked his finger in the thick sauce that covered chunks of what passed as meat but was really protein cubes of some sort. No one really knew. “Nice. Still hot.”

  Reese sighed impatiently. “You still haven’t told me what happened. Why are you so late?” The boys always got out after she did when they had their physical education class, which was why she picked up their meals for them, but today they were even later than normal.

  “Oh, you should have been there,” Eagle said. “It was so fu—”

  Whatever else Eagle tried to say was lost as Jaxon Crowley plowed around the corner and collapsed beside Reese. Part of his dark hair was wet with perspiration like Eagle’s, and his blue eyes were dancing with the same amusement, but his face had an added gray tinge to it. A wide, red welt stood out on his neck.

  “Did that pus licker zap you again?” Reese demanded, studying Jaxon’s neck. He was her best friend, and she couldn’t help the anger boiling up inside.

  “Yeah.” He swiped the back of his hand across his eyes, making his thick eyelashes stick together with moisture. “But this time we deserved it.”

  “Yep.” Eagle nodded vigorously. “He caught us cutting out the soles of his shoes.”

  As Eagle spoke, a flash of an image came to Reese’s mind. She saw the substitute teacher’s florid face and shaved head, his heavy body rigid. Wrinkles gathered under his eyes, and an even deeper one ran down the bridge of his nose. A circle of dark, gray-flecked hair bordered his mouth, a mouth pursed as it screamed something that started with “You” as his finger jabbed out accusingly. His big ears were quickly turning red, along with his nose and the top of his head. That was a man ready to blow, and blow big.

  Instinctively, Reese reached for her drawing pad, her fingers itching to get the image on paper. Instead, she brushed up against the two remaining readymeals. Taking a breath, she passed one to Jaxon, looking carefully to make sure he wasn’t shaking. Stunners hurt bad, and though it was supposed to be illegal for anyone but enforcers to have them, there were more than a few at the school for secret use on recalcitrant students. But Jaxon’s hand was steady, so whatever blast the teacher had managed to give him, it hadn’t been all that powerful.

  “He’s going to kill you tomorrow.” She hadn’t seen the teacher except in her mind, but his angry face scared her. Maybe tomorrow the stunner wouldn’t be on the lowest setting.

  “Nope.” Jaxon shook his head as he unhooked the plastic
fork embedded in the side of the meal and dug in. “He was only here two days, and maybe wherever he goes next, he’ll think twice about using a stunner to make boys run faster.”

  “Right!” Eagle licked off a bit of sauce that had fallen on his hand. “As if any of us are going to ever use what we learn in a physical education class.”

  “Running is important,” Reese retorted.

  Jaxon reached over to tug on one of her dark locks. “Yeah, but he can’t teach us what we already know. We’ve been running from older crews since before we left nursery school.”

  “I guess.” Reese scooped up her own readymeal. She wanted her drawing pad instead—her fingers tingled to draw the image in her mind. But she didn’t like being compelled, as if something outside her had control, forcing her to record the images that had begun popping randomly into her mind. Images that were always one-hundred percent accurate. Jaxon knew about it, of course. She told him everything. He’d been born in the small house next to hers, six by seven meters like all the other houses in their district, and they’d been inseparable in nursery school, even before they’d formed a crew with Eagle and the others. A crew that kept them safe. But though he knew her secrets, she tried not to remind him of her weakness. Of the way she had to draw. Jaxon was the only halfway normal kid in their small crew of misfits, and he would be accepted into any other crew, but he’d chosen them. Because of her.

  Pushing away the urge to draw, she leaned back against the metal door behind her that opened to stairs leading down into the bowels of the school. Eagle had once hacked into the handprint lock, of course, and that was how they’d learned what the door hid—water pipes, electrical wiring, and furnaces. Furnaces that school officials rarely thought they needed in Welfare Colony 6, even though Reese remembered too many days when the inside of the school was colder than outside, and everyone wore extra sweaters and all the pants they owned and some of their parents’ as well, if they were lucky enough to have them—both parents and pants, that is.

  She moved her legs to catch more of the sunlight, refusing to think about that now. This was April and winter was too far away to worry about.

  “So where are the girls?” Jaxon asked.

  Reese shook her head. “Don’t know.” It worried her too that they were late, though it could have been the long lines at the readymeal dispensers. She hadn’t seen them there as she normally did. She’d thought they’d already gone through, but they hadn’t been waiting here for her.

  “They’ll be here soon,” Eagle assured them.

  Sure enough, they were still eating their meals when Dani Balak and the twins, Lyssa and Lyra Sloan, showed up. More freaks. The twins because they were twins and Dani because of her short spiky white hair and her very black skin. They carried readymeals but were running, Dani a good head taller than the petite twins.

  “It’s the Jammers!” Lyssa huffed.

  Reese set aside her meal and jumped to her feet, her heart hammering inside her chest. The two Jammer brothers—Witt, an older boy, and Keag, who was their age—lived near them and were the meanest boys they knew. Their crew was mostly made up of the biggest kids in level twelve, some as big as Reese’s father and as angry as him after he’d downed a skin of sauce. Witt was their leader, and the boys followed him around like dogs, swaggering and tormenting anyone who happened to be in their way.

  “Saca!” Jaxon swore, fear making his voice tight. “What happened?”

  “It’s just Keag and some of their crew,” Dani said, pushing her readymeal at Lyra and turning to face the bend where Reese could hear someone coming down the hallway. “Witt ain’t with ’em. I can take care of it.” She raised her fists into a ready position, an expression of gleeful anticipation on her square, rugged face. Her black skin glistened under the harsh hallway light. She looked fierce and more than a little unbalanced.

  No doubt Dani could take Keag and a couple others at the same time, but Reese needed to be ready. She slipped her left hand into the pocket of her jeans and grasped the metal fork she’d stolen from the hospital last year after someone at the school had discovered her taking an important test with her non-dominant arm and realized her left was broken. Since the break thirteen months ago, she’d worked on using both hands, just in case. Both for school work and for fighting. Nothing was going to prevent her from leveling out of school and getting released from Colony 6. No way would she die working in the factories like her mother. She wanted to be out in the real world with the rest of the citizens in the CORE, instead of locked in with the poor trash that depended on charity to survive.

  Next to Reese, Jaxon was also taking something from his pocket. She knew what it was without looking—a spoon he’d shaped to go over his knuckles. He hit almost as well as Dani. Even the twins and Eagle knew how to throw a punch. Well, with Eagle it was only if he managed to see where to land the punch, but he had a pretty good right hook, and his skinny arm was long and tough.

  “If we fight, they’ll know who we are!” Lyssa protested, her long ebony hair tied in braids on either side of her face. “If we hurt one of ’em, Witt will come after us.”

  “Then we fight!” Dani motioned for Lyssa to give her space.

  “Why are they after you?” Reese switched her fork to her right hand, wiped her left on her pant leg and then switched the fork back to the left.

  Lyra’s slightly slanted dark eyes looked huge in her delicate face, a mirror image of her sister’s. “They wanted my pretzels.”

  “You should have let them take the bag!” Lyssa growled at her. “It’s not like they wanted your whole meal.”

  “But . . .” Lyra’s eyes went to Eagle, who was standing behind Reese near the wooden door leading down into the basement. “I was saving them in case Eagle didn’t get any.”

  Reese felt a little tug in her chest, but it didn’t surprise her that Lyra would refuse a dominant crew something meant for Eagle. Their crew was as close as family. Or closer in her case.

  “I just started running,” Lyra continued. “I thought I’d lost them for a while, but they followed me here. They aren’t very fast, so I caught up with Dani and Lyssa and told them to run.”

  “You did right to refuse them,” Dani said through gritted teeth. “We can’t let them take anything that’s ours. That will make them target us more. We can fight them.”

  “Or we could disappear,” Eagle said.

  Glancing over her shoulder, Reese saw that Eagle had the combination pad to the door dismantled and the door to the basement was open. Eagle shrugged as he clicked the panel over the wires. “It’s easy after you do it the first time. I remembered how.”

  Of course he did. Just as he knew how many steps were in each hallway and classroom. It was his version of using both hands. His mind, or maybe his memory, was his ticket to leveling out of school, despite the poor vision that might ordinarily cause him to fail.

  “Yes, let’s go!” Lyssa urged, focusing her attention primarily on Dani. “If we fight, they’ll remember us. But if we hide, maybe they won’t. We weren’t with Lyra when it happened. They might not know she’s a twin. And if they see you now, they’ll never forget you. You’re the only one with that skin color and hair. They won’t rest until they kill us all.”

  “We can take them,” Dani insisted.

  “Yeah, but Witt and the others too?” Eagle asked. “And for how long? What if they catch some of us alone?”

  The six kids stared at each other for a moment, all the while listening to the approaching footsteps that had slowed as the opposing crew obviously checked classrooms and other hallways. Not for the first time, Reese wondered if their choices would be different if they weren’t all freaks.

  “Eagle and Lyssa are right,” Reese said, so everyone knew where she stood. She wasn’t afraid to fight when she had to, but fighting when there was a safer option, especially for the twins and Eagle, was pure stupidity.

  Jaxon met Dani’s eyes. He was officially their leader and normally influenced
their final decisions, but Dani was a wild card. If she wanted to fight, they’d fight. Not one of them would leave her.

  Dani heaved a sigh. “Fine. But only because the twins have too many classes without me. I swear on the head of my grandmother, one of these days, I’m going to teach those pus-licking, warthog-faced, punk buckets all a lesson.”

  Reese shuddered at the threat. She didn’t envy the Jammers. In the past two years, Dani had gone from a regular girl to a fighting machine. She moved faster than seemed possible, and her punches had already laid out more than a few older kids. In a year or two, no other crew would be able to mess with them, not even those in the eighteenth level.

  Dani stood guard while they gathered up their readymeals and darted inside. A dim glow shone in the stairwell far below, and Reese was glad for the light. The door locked behind them with an automated click. Eagle sat on the first stair and the others followed. Only Dani remained standing by the closed door, ready for anything.

  Almost immediately, taunting voices filled the hallway, and someone banged on the door to the basement when they realized it was locked.

  “That just goes to the basement,” came a voice. “No one can get down there but the janitor.”

  “They must have gone outside,” said someone else. “Come on. We’ll get them out there.” Shuffled steps moved away.

  “They’ll be opening the door right . . . about . . . now,” Eagle whispered. Sure enough, they heard a loud thwack! as someone roughly pushed on the outside door.

  “They’ll have to be in class soon,” Lyssa said. “They can’t lurk around our hallways much longer.” Lyra nodded in agreement.

  “We’ve got time to finish eating,” Jaxon lifted the carton top covering his meal.

  Now that they were no longer in immediate danger, Reese’s hands itched to draw again. She had to draw the face of the substitute teacher. Her stomach ached with the need.

  “You going to eat those?” Eagle pointed at her pretzels.