Ms. Octavia appeared. “Hello, Alex,” she said, peering down her snout at him.

Alex nodded. “Hi, Ms. Octavia,” he mumbled. Waiting.

“I missed you yesterday. Were you ill?”

“N-n-not exactly, ma’am.”

“I see.” She adjusted her glasses. “Well, you’ll be here today, won’t you?”

“Y-yes, ma’am.”

“Good. We’re starting your Magical Warrior Training, and I wouldn’t want you to miss that. I look forward to seeing you.” She nodded curtly. Her picture faded to the black screen, leaving Alex standing with his jaw slacked in amazement.

Clive resurfaced and gave a patronizing smile. “Well, it’s about time.”

Alex scowled. “Shove a sock in it, Clive.”

He showered, dressed, and headed off to classes, puzzling just a little over his dreams before pushing them back in the dark corner of his mind.

At the same time, just a few miles away, another boy who looked identical to Alex was doing the exact same things.

Aaron the Wanted

When the buzzer sounded, Aaron Stowe left his tiny gray dormitory room in Wanted University and entered the hallway as a dozen others did the same. They walked shoulder to shoulder to the cafeteria for breakfast and ate their gruel politely, in silence. Chatting at mealtimes was not permitted, so the students ate quickly and moved on to their assignments for the day.

While most students still went to their classrooms to continue their basic learning, Aaron had excelled and been promoted. He walked toward the exit, where a square, rust-colored Quillitary Jeep pulled up. Just as Aaron reached the edge of the narrow road that encircled Quill, the vehicle belched out acrid black smoke that smelled like burning chicken grease. He got inside and nodded to the driver.

The vehicle roared and sputtered past government offices and the new Favored Farm, Aaron’s own creation, where special high-quality, high-grade vegetables, fruits, grains, and animals were now raised for consumption by the High Priest Justine, the governors, and the Quillitary. The barbed-wire ceiling cast gridlike shadows that lined up almost exactly with the rows of crops. “It’s looking fine,” Aaron noted with a hint of satisfaction.

Since Aaron was considered to be very promising, showing not only the highest intelligence for his class but a budding strength as well, he had been chosen to train directly under the guidance of Senior Governor Haluki, a slight, graying man who was the High Priest’s second in command, and Governor Strang, a proven young man of twenty. Like Strang had been, Aaron Stowe was a serious boy, quiet and completely dedicated to the service of the high priest of Quill, at all costs. He was just the sort of boy who grows up to be a dangerously powerful man.

The vehicle clunked and groaned up the winding hill to the palace of the high priest, for on this day Aaron was being rewarded. First for his excellent work in solving the beef problem for the high priest, second for his insight into the matter of the Favored Farm at large, and third for his program, which outlined precisely how to run the farm most efficiently. It had been his last assignment in math class, and since all of the university students’ work was checked by the governors, it did not take long for Governor Strang to notice Aaron’s penchant for economics. And economics was something that the High Priest Justine was very fond of. Especially because it always benefited her.

It had been Aaron’s suggestion to work the farm in the same manner as the people of the land of Quill, sorting the farm animals into three categories: Wanted, Necessary, and Unwanted. The highest quality of animals would be sequestered at the Favored Farm to breed and be fattened up, and the lower qualities of stock would be sent to the Common Farm to be bred and raised for consumption by the Necessaries. And it had been Aaron’s suggestion to send the Quillitary to the Common Farm to transplant the highest quality crops to the Favored Farm as well.

Now that the Favored Farm was running without a single hitch and the process was complete, Aaron had been invited to the palace to have lunch with the governors and the High Priest Justine herself. It was an incredible honor. Aaron was pleased with his achievement so early in his instruction, but of course he didn’t even smile outwardly when he heard the news. After all, his full allegiance was to Quill. And since his parents were both Necessaries, he felt he had to make extra effort to prove to the governors that he was of the highest quality and worthy of his Wanted title.

All these thoughts and more filled his mind, though at one point in the slow journey to the palace—going uphill demanded a good deal of effort from the vehicle—a nagging thought pestered his brain concerning a recurring dream he’d had lately.

It frightened him more than he cared to admit to himself, because he thought he had managed to eliminate dreams entirely from a young age, once he had learned they were wrong. But several times since the Purge he’d awakened, horrified and feeling terribly guilty, because not only had he dreamed about something, but that something was his brother, Alex. A half year had passed since Alex had been eliminated, and Aaron admitted that he had felt a bit bad for at least an hour, until his mother had warned him to forget about it. And with his entrance to the university the day after the Purge, well, it really hadn’t been difficult to forget Alex. Indeed it was rare for Aaron to think of his twin at all, but on the rare occasion he did, Alex was the sort of faint and fuzzy memory after which one wonders, Did that really happen?

Aaron knew better than to tell anyone about these recent dreams, though. Now that he was held in such high esteem for a young student, it would be a definite career-killing sign of weakness were he to admit that to anyone. He shuddered to think it.