Elected (The Elected Series Book 1) by Rori Shay

Author:Rori Shay [Shay, Rori]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: young adult, dystopian, fiction
Publisher: Silence in the Library Publishing
Published: 2014-04-21T00:00:00+00:00

18

There are hundreds of them. We scoop them out of the ground in handfuls, depositing them in wheelbarrows.

“What are we going to do with them?” asks Vienne, her hands covered in the chemically orange dirt.

Griffin answers for me. “Melt them down. Just like Aloy’s father did years ago.”

“I don’t know how these got left out,” I say, incredulous.

We send the miners all back to their work. Last thing we need are a few bullets straying into their hands as souvenirs. This thought worries me—I’m starting to distrust my people. I shake the notion from my head, intent on clearing out the ground of these vile cylinders as fast as possible.

“Can you imagine if Imogene had found these and loaded her gun?” asks Vienne.

No, I don’t want to imagine. I roll one of the cylinders in between two of my fingers, pushing it back and forth across my palm, thinking fast.

“These are different than the ones my father melted,” I say into the air.

“What do you mean ‘different’?” Griffin asks.

“I’ve seen sketches of the old bullets. These are more circular, little ovals with a stamp in their side. I peer closer at the pellets to see the stamp. It’s a ship cresting over a series of waves. This is strange too, as ships were also eradicated years ago.

Ships, of course, make me think of my brother.

“They’re newly made?” asks Vienne, pulling me away from my thoughts of Evan.

“Yes, I think so.” The metal isn’t corroded at all. See how shiny it is?”

“You think our people have the capability to construct these?” asks Griffin.

“No, we don’t have the technology. I’m sure of it. Our people didn’t make these. These came from somewhere else.”

“Someone is hoarding them here. Getting ready for an ambush?” asks Vienne, a few bullets in her palm.

“Maybe,” I say.

“If it’s for an ambush,” asks Vienne, “why now? We’ve maintained peace with the surrounding countries for so long. Why would they start a war with us now?”

“Maybe their resources are waning,” I say. “Maybe they’re desperate. That was how war started before. When the resources were so thin countries started stealing from one another via unmanned airrides.”

Griffin picks up the metal scanner and begins sprinkling more chemical in outward circles. “I’ll do a more extensive scan right now. And I’ll come back later with a larger force. We’ll scan up and down the hills.”

“Yes,” I agree. My head is lost in thoughts of Mid and West Countries arming themselves against us, intent on stealing our resources. We’ll have to take some kind of defensive action, but I just don’t know what yet.

We load three wheelbarrows full of bullets onto carts attached to our horses. We’ll melt these down tonight. First I’ll remove the gunpowder from the casings, as my textbooks instructed. Then the metal workers can heat the ovens to melt the gold shells.

The question is what I’ll do with all the gunpowder. Where I’ll put it. Later that afternoon when I’ve personally escorted the bullets to one of the metal worker’s huts, I ask Tomlin to meet me and dispense his advice.

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