CHAPTER ONE

Outside the vehicle, everything was silent. The boys, wearing the same camouflage uniform as him, didn't say a word, but kept their eyes fixed on the rifles they held in their hands. David abandoned himself on the backrest and closed his eyes. The image of home was perfectly sharp in his memory, or at least sharp enough to make him suffer. He remembered perfectly the moment when he had been summoned, and when his life had tragically changed.

Outside the armored jeep the silence was becoming more and more deafening. Inside, some of the soldiers said something, but it was of no importance. David remembered his sister's face perfectly when he had held her before leaving. She was twelve years old, and he didn't understand why his brother had to disappear from his life at any moment.

David was only eighteen years old, and yet, as well as the peers who sat next to him at that moment, he had known aspects of life that an ordinary person would not experience even in a hundred years. His twelve-year-old sister was named Anna, and his twin sister, also eighteen, was Alice, and they were both at home waiting for him. Truth be told, though, David had no idea if he would ever return to them.

The vehicle stopped. As if moved by a silent order, now alienated and unable to object, all the boys got out of the jeep in an instant, David being the last. They had received instructions on how to behave. The instructions, however, stopped at the moment they would get out of the vehicle. Otherwise, all the instructions they had been given were "back to base within twenty days." The problem was that none of them had any idea where the base was, or how far away it was, nor did they know anyone to ask.

David looked around. The landscape was desert, the ground was sandy, and it was hot as hell, but they couldn't take off their uniforms and equipment. In the center of that depressing desolation was a sign implanted in the ground, barely standing up straight.

"Kuwat" was written on it, and it pointed west.

They all stood in silence for a few more seconds, until Theo, without a word, walked in the direction indicated. Theo was a silent and pragmatic boy. Obviously eighteen years old, like everyone else present, but he proved to be much older. He was one of the tallest among them, and undoubtedly the most robust. Every inch of his body expressed strength and determination.

"Let's go to Kuwat," exclaimed Pete as he saw his companion starting up. He followed, and they all did the same. There were twelve of them in total, and each was particularly relevant in his singularity. The program through which they had been selected, after all, aimed to do just that. The twelve boys were those who stood out among the crowd, who stood out from mediocrity and shone in their own light. Or at least that's how they were before they were called up. Now in that desert, who knows in what part of the world, their light seemed to have gone out.

None of them would have ever undergone the program of their own free will, but the requirements for which they had been chosen were clear to all, or so it seemed. They represented the best that human genetics could offer: extremely high IQs, above-average physical abilities, adaptability, lucidity, and calculating skills. Everything had been measured down to the smallest detail, and the Government had chosen them out of all the existing eighteen-year-olds.

They had been taken to the so-called "base", where they had been trained for six months. Trained for what? They had no idea, and that was the day they would find out. They had been taught how to defend themselves, how to attack, how to predict, how to use all kinds of technology, and now, although they were not yet aware of it, they had become perfect machines.

The training had been extremely hard, so hard that thirty of them had left, and the twelve of them were the only survivors.

They walked for a while longer, and the monotonous landscape around them seemed to have no intention of changing. Silence, once again, was the protagonist. Although that was not the goal of the program, the boys seemed to have been stripped of any kind of humanity. They were much more like robots than human beings. They were so accustomed to silence now that the thin breath of wind seemed to them an unbearable din.

After the six months they had been through, they were at once stronger and more fragile than they had ever been.

David walked with his gaze fixed ahead, as if his surroundings didn't interest him at all, at that moment he just wanted to get to Kuwat. They didn't even know what that name stood for, really, but it certainly had to be a town. None of them had ever heard of him before, but the fact that they were in a wasteland far too far from each other's homes was nothing new at all. David was quite tall, had dark black hair, eyes as green as a leaf, and his features were simply perfect. After all, he represented the best of human genetics, and being attractive was the last thing he cared about at the moment. He had cared, actually, when he was still a normal kid and could care about that sort of thing, but that life was over now, lost to the past, and he had accepted the facts of life. He had convinced himself that he had accepted it, at least. David was also extremely intelligent, but so was everyone.

Pete, a blond boy slightly shorter than him, approached him on the way. They must have been going for about twenty minutes now.

"What do you think Kuwat is?" he asked David.

"I can't know."

"Of course, neither can I, but what do you think it is?"

"It could be a city, as well as a town, or maybe a cafe, what I think doesn't matter"

"A cafe, interesting" pondered Pete "I wouldn't mind that at all. How long has it been since you've seen a cafe?"

"I'd say about six months"

"Yeah, friend, I know, it was a rhetorical question."

David didn't answer, the word "friend" had unexpectedly upset him. It was an exaggerated term. He had no idea how he should regard these guys. There was no question that there was a bond between them, but what had developed over those months was certainly not friendship; rather, there had been a widespread fear of bonding with anyone, given the eighteen of them who had failed.

"Everybody stop!" shouted a voice from ahead of the line, "look."

It was the boy named Kio who had spoken, and with his right index finger he pointed to something in front of him. David and Pete leaned slightly out of line, and only by concentrating could they see a silhouette appear over the line of a huge sand dune. It was something in motion, and as it grew larger by the second, it was clear that it was headed their way. A few more moments passed, until they recognized that it was a car.

"Alert," Kio commanded. Theo, at his side, held his rifle, and once again everyone followed his movements. They stood still for a few minutes, arranged in two rows, side by side, until the vehicle stopped right in front of them. Five men came out, their faces covered by thin veils, and it was impossible to tell whether they were trying to hide their identities or were simply covered by the heat and sand.

"Who are you?" asked Kio.

The wait that preceded the answer almost gave them the impression that they did not speak the same language, but after a few moments the man in the center spoke.

"Simple workers, but also inhabitants of Kuwat".

"Kuwat is a city then?" asked Kio.

"What else would it be?"

Pete and David looked at each other, with the same implied thought.

"How far is Kuwat?" intervened the boy named Adrian.

"How come you're headed to our town?" asked the man in the middle.

"We follow directions, and it's probably the only place nearby," replied Adrian.

"It is, in fact," said the man, "would it be rude to ask who you are or where you came from?"

"It's complicated."

The five men looked at each other, as if that answer meant something specific to them.

"Why do you carry guns with you?" asked another of the men, the shortest.

David thought that, to be honest, they had no idea why they were carrying those weapons, however, the men in front of them were also armed, which is why it seemed to be a justified precaution. There was something suspicious in their behavior, but it was inevitable to be suspicious of a group like theirs. The question went unanswered.

"Are you from the program?" the same man asked worriedly.

Again there was no answer, but the silence was an implied yes. The boys didn't know if they should say it or keep it a secret, in fact they didn't know anything at all.

"I'm sorry," said the one who had spoken to his partner, "but I have family in town, I can't risk putting them in danger again."

They hadn't even had time to comprehend what he had said, when the man pulled out a gun and suddenly fired on the boys. Several shots, one after the other, and the veil of silence that still hovered in the air, was violently torn apart.