In Meritropolis everyone is assigned a numerical Score that decides their worth to society and whether they live or die. After a young boy is killed because of a low Score, his brother plots to take down the System.
Published: September 8th, 2014
In Meritropolis everyone is assigned a numerical Score that decides their worth to society and whether they live or die. After a young boy is killed because of a low Score, his brother plots to take down the System.
The year is AE3, 3 years after the Event. Within the walls of Meritropolis, 50,000 inhabitants live in fear, ruled by the brutal System that assigns each citizen a merit score that dictates whether they live or die. Those with the highest scores thrive, while those with the lowest are subject to the most unforgiving punishment–to be thrust outside the city gates, thrown to the terrifying hybrid creatures that exist beyond.
But for one High Score, conforming to the System just isn’t an option. Seventeen-year-old Charley has a brother to avenge. And nothing–not even a totalitarian military or dangerous science–is going to stop him.
Where humankind has pushed nature and morals to the extreme, Charley is amongst the chosen few tasked with exploring the boundaries, forcing him to look deep into his very being to discern right from wrong. But as he and his friends learn more about the frightening forces that threaten destruction both without and within the gates, Meritropolis reveals complexities they couldn’t possibly have bargained for…
Charley has escaped from Meritropolis…
but in his quest to take down the System that has taken his brother from him, he must go through Meritorium, a city where gladiatorial games of life or death combat are waged between High Scores and Low Scores, man and beast.
Charley and Sandy must face man-eating plants, religious zealots, slave traders, and the ever present mutant animal combinations that roam a dystopian Coliseum presided over by Emperor Titus, the one man standing between Charley and the answers he seeks. Man is not an animal, but if they are to make it through Meritorium, will they even be able to tell the difference?
The lines between man and beast, friend and foe, will blur in Meritorium, the riveting sequel to the bestselling Meritropolis.
EXCERPT
“Easier Said Than Outrun”
Charley crouched, motionless, willing himself not to blink.
A bead of sweat bubbled across his eyebrow and clung to his eyelash: a warm and
salty droplet hanging like a swollen piece of fruit, overripe and ready to
fall. He stared straight ahead, eyes wide open; to move now would be
disastrous.
The thing stopped, ears twitching. Charley willed himself
not to make a sound, but was suddenly aware of the faint scent of his own
sweat; he wondered whether the creature could smell it, too. He had been
following it for half of the afternoon. By this point, the thing should have
had ample opportunity to scent him, given Charley’s quite rudimentary tracking
prowess, but it hadn’t yet. Each time Charley drew close enough to chance a
shot with his bow—and he knew he would only have just one shot—the thing
capered off, leading Charley even deeper into the brush.
Charley found it maddening how fast its four legs could
move; the bushy forelegs of pillowy grey-white fur made it seem as immobile,
docile, and non-threatening as a sheep. But, as Grigor had instructed earlier,
to underestimate a llamabill was to invite disaster.
Charley reached over his head, slowly, and withdrew an arrow
from his sheath.
The profile of the llamabill shifted slightly, revealing
great big haunches of what Charley hoped would be today’s dinner, as well as the
severe-looking face of a shoebill bird. Its body, with the exception of the
incongruent webbed feet and feathery wings, was almost entirely reminiscent of
a llama: big, wooly, and slightly ridiculous. The head, however, was no
laughing matter. The wide shoe-shaped bill could decapitate a fully-grown man
with one well-placed chomp. A standard shoebill stork is not a bird to be
trifled with, at three-feet tall and a weight of ten pounds, let alone when
it’s six-feet tall and a weight of 400 pounds with the body of an agile llama.
Charley notched the arrow and pulled back slowly.
He hated to do it, really he did. He didn’t enjoy the
killing, but the truth of the matter was quite simple: they needed food, badly.
Charley steeled his resolve and dipped his head slightly
downwards to his right shoulder while closing his left eye. He sighted in on
the creature, aiming for the spot where its long wooly neck met its
substantially muscled left shoulder. He reconsidered, tipping his bead slightly
higher to avoid the feathery wing that jutted incongruently from the
llamabill’s great side.
The muscles in Charley’s forearms stood out like corded
bands. He held the bow drawn back all the way without wavering. He inhaled
through his nose, and then expelled the air slowly through pursed lips,
attempting to quiet his beating heart. He would release the arrow upon a full
exhale, and in between heartbeats, just as Grigor had trained him.
It was as good of a shot as he would ever get. Charley
didn’t really have to do anything,
now. He just needed to relax the three fingers of his string hand, and the
llamabill, still standing motionless, would be dead, motionless forever.
But he paused.
A glimmer of uncertainty, a pang of conscience—and for what? he wondered—it was just an
animal.
The llamabill turned to look directly at him, its
prehistoric eyes glinting sharply as they focused in on Charley.
A cold shiver crept up Charley’s spine. He had waited too
long, and he knew it. The droplet of sweat plummeted from his eyelash, and
Charley released the arrow. It went wild left, and the creature went wild
right—directly at Charley.
The llamabill opened its enormous bill and screamed a
challenge. For a moment, it looked like an anachronism to even more savage
times, a winged dinosaur on the rampage.
Charley did the normal human thing first, and then the
normal trained hunter thing second. He froze. Then he ran.
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About the author:
Joel Ohman is the author of the Meritropolis series --"The Hunger Games meets The Village with a young Jack Reacher as a protagonist". He lives in Tampa, FL with his wife Angela and their three kids. His writing companion is Caesar, a slightly overweight Bull Mastiff who loves to eat the tops off of strawberries.
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