Russell The Last Seed Keeper

1. Auflage 2025
ISBN: 978-1-991001-64-1
Verlag: Exisle Publishing
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 0 - No protection

E-Book, Englisch, Band 1, 232 Seiten

Reihe: The Last Seed Keeper

The first instalment in a gripping new trilogy, The Last Seed Keeper is an empowering read about corruption, environmentalism, and what we would do if nature gave us a second chance. 

Ivy is a Groundling, bound to roam the surface of the Earth, eking a living from the rubble of the past. Skyler lives above the clouds in a haven of technology, wanting for nothing yet knowing there must be something more. Their paths are fixed, in a barren world that has forgotten nature... until Ivy makes a discovery that changes everything.  

Suddenly, a forgotten orphan from the Piles holds the key to building a new world. But change is never popular with those in power, and as word gets out, society begins to fracture. Both girls' lives unravel as Skyler uncovers the secrets that have been kept from her, and Ivy finds out just how important she is to the new world. 

The Last Seed Keeper is a tense, heart-pounding adventure about friendship, secrecy, breaking down barriers, questioning everything, and holding onto hope in the darkest of places. 

Autoren/Hrsg.

Russell, Paul

Leseproben

CHAPTER

1

‘Stop looking up. We don’t look up,’ Hutch mumbled at Ivy through his thick beard, the silver flecks around his mouth catching the light, as he caught her gazing up through the skylight again.

Why did they even have a skylight if they weren’t supposed to look up? Ivy nodded to the giant next to her and forced her eyes back down to the rusty floor. She couldn’t help it. She knew that she wasn’t supposed to do it, but she always looked up. Normally, she wasn’t foolish enough to get caught doing it, especially by Hutch. Well, mostly anyway. It was probably just the fresh air playing tricks with her concentration.

Hutch was weathered and grumpy. The ring of hair around his mouth had started to whiten, but the rest of him was as black as everyone else. Thick dreads of tar-covered hair poked from his chin like barnacles. Despite his grouchiness, Ivy liked him most of all. Most days he could be found at the station from the middle of the day, and more often than not there was a spare seat next to him. He didn’t talk too much and, unlike the other old Pickers, when he did talk it wasn’t about the Great War or better pickings of days gone by. Ivy liked comfortable silences. She sat there squashed between one of the bags that hung from his hip and the cold wall of the station and felt like she was exactly where she should be.

Station 57A wasn’t the best station for payment and the door seal was one of the old-fashioned mechanical types that whistled most of the time, letting the outside air in, but the old Pickers still came here and so did Ivy. Pickers were superstitious and sentimental. One change in their routine could lead to a catastrophe of unlucky days with no finds and nothing else to blame but themselves. Pickers hated change and everyone knew that the world had changed enough, without helping it along.

Ivy, however, was the only Picker in the place without a beard. She looked around at the cold, metal room, chairs bolted to the floor and groups of men stacked on top of them. Weary and dirty men staring at their own feet or napping, nestled in their matted beards.

‘Number 42.’ The announcement spluttered through the speaker in the corner. Till she was seven, Ivy thought that the Sorters had their own language. It wasn’t until later she realized it was just the distortion through the old speakers that crackled when they spoke. Sorters always worked behind glass, and they only ever communicated using those speakers. Protected by a single clear window from the rest of the world.

‘Bye, Hutch,’ Ivy said chirpily, as she gestured to the number in her hand. Hutch grunted back, now with his eyes closed, his long, deep breaths making the hair on his lip dance. Ivy stood up from her chair and dragged herself over to the thick glass. A tired red speaker in one corner rattled and vibrated to life as she approached. The speaker wheezed to attention but the Sorter behind the counter barely looked up.

‘What have you got this time, Puggle?’

‘It’s Ivy.’

‘Everyone thinks you Pickers are insane for stepping out onto those rubbish piles, but you Puggles are certifiable — deliberately digging into a Pile. It’s senseless, not to mention dangerous. Assumed last week was going to be the last time I ever saw you.’

Ivy just sighed. Same speech every time. She dug into her pack and pulled out a small metal cube. There was a dull green light on one corner that flickered a little when she shook it. There were two distinct sections joined with a smooth, flat rectangle. It fitted neatly into the palm of her hand and had been completely cleaned of dirt and grime. It almost sparkled as she placed it into the Sorter’s box.

‘It’s a bio-lock,’ Ivy gloated smugly, just loud enough for the other Pickers in the room to hear, but none stirred.

‘Two credits,’ the speaker mocked back.

‘But it’s still green. It hasn’t even been set yet. It’s worth twenty at least, more if you find the right buyer.’

The Sorter turned the cube in his hand before he dragged his thumb across the rough edge of his desk. A few small drops of blood appeared as Ivy’s stomach sank. Why did she hand it over and not just hold it up?

The Sorter pushed his thumb against the smooth rectangle in the middle and the green light flashed a few times before turning to red as the cube fell into two separate pieces.

‘Two credits. Anything else?’ He pushed the two pieces back together and tossed them sullenly into a box under the counter.

Two credits wouldn’t be enough. Ivy had been saving the other thing for an emergency and was desperately hoping she wouldn’t need to use it today. She spun her pack around and dug into it and pulled out a larger flat rectangle. It was slightly bigger than her hand, but thinner. She held the item up and pressed it against the glass.

‘Put it in the box,’ crackled the Sorter without even looking. Ivy looked around the room for some support. ‘In the box or on your way.’

Reluctantly, she placed the item in the small box in front of her and the Sorter on the other side of the glass flipped it, so the object was suddenly in front of him.

‘Push the button,’ Ivy said, a smile creeping across her face as the Sorter turned the object in his hand. ‘The round one on the front, push it down.’

Sorters were notoriously bad-tempered; it was part of their job. They could never show emotion or look excited. It would get in the way of making a good deal, and they were all about the deal. Each station would usually only have one Sorter, and Station 57A had this one. Ivy was sure he had a name. She’d asked him countless times, but he’d never told her. In her mind she called him Bubbles, because of the thick glasses pressed to his eyes, but really it was just a silly name to try to make him seem a little less scary.

Bubbles obliged Ivy’s request and pushed the round button, and a small screen on the object lit up with numbers and symbols. The Sorter’s eyes enlarged for a fraction of a second behind his glasses, before he groaned again and pretended he wasn’t interested.

‘Still got battery life. Worth at least thirty,’ Ivy said, standing on her tiptoes to try to appear taller behind the window.

‘I’ll give you ten,’ the Sorter said, trying to show no interest at all, but holding the object very tightly in his hand as he did. Ivy had been in this position enough times to know that if he really wasn’t interested it would already be back on her side of the counter.

‘Nah, give it back. I’ll take it down to 36B. The Sorter down there owes me a favour from a deal I did last month.’

‘But I don’t want to hand it back, Puggle,’ Bubbles said, reaching his other hand over the top to hide the object between both of his hands.

‘Then you’ll have to pay me twenty-five,’ Ivy said, opening her hand for the thing to be returned.

The Sorter just held it tighter. Ivy heard a chair creak behind her and watched as the two bubbles on the Sorter’s face stopped looking at her and gazed upwards. She knew that Hutch was standing right behind her.

‘Twenty!’ the Sorter protested, showing his yellow teeth as he did. He didn’t look back to Ivy as he said it, staring instead above her head. Ivy knew she could probably push him for twenty-five, especially with Hutch standing behind her, but it was already on the other side of the glass and, if push came to shove, the Sorter might just put it in his pocket and give her nothing at all.

‘Deal.’

The object vanished into a drawer below, much more gently than the bio-lock, and slowly the small display screen on the counter flashed with a large red ‘22’. Ivy brought her small grey wristband over and tapped it on the screen. The screen flashed red, but the number remained. Ivy pulled her arm back and hit the wristband with her other hand, then tried tapping it again. The number disappeared from the counter and reappeared on her wrist.

‘Can get you a new one of those for two hundred,’ the Sorter snorted.

Two hundred. What Picker would ever even see two hundred?

Ivy didn’t even smile. She felt something press against her backpack and it shifted slightly on her back, but by the time she turned from the counter Hutch had already returned to his seat, his eyes closed again. She walked over to a large grey machine in the corner of the room. Pulling three bottles from her pack, she saw a small green book that Hutch had dropped in there when he was behind her, thinking she hadn’t noticed. There was a picture of animals on the cover, but they were dressed like people. The title was something about wind blowing through a tree but she had to be careful with such a thing in this place, so she didn’t investigate it any further.

The liquid inside the bottles was coffee coloured and there were various lumps both floating on the surface of the liquid and swirling suspended just off the bottom. She inserted the bottles one at a time in a small opening in the side of the machine and scanned her wristband on the side. The twentytwo that had appeared only moments earlier dropped down to nineteen, and with a heavy wheeze the machine trembled to life. A few seconds passed before Ivy pulled her three bottles out again. The liquid, although still fairly brown, was now almost completely lump free, with silver stickers stamped on the top of the bottles with a perfectly centred and a very familiar yellow logo.

Ivy walked over to a large vending machine in the other corner of the room. The machine was stocked with rows of identical small, silver-coated bricks with the same yellow circle and XyleCorp logo in one corner. Ivy scanned...