Parched Read online

  At once, every person in the backyard is heading my way.

  “Hi!”

  “Hey, Tess!” The pixie girls bounce in front of me eagerly.

  “We’ve heard so much about you!”

  “Pretty tronic! Does it glow it the dark?”

  “Uh, thanks. Yeah, sort of.” Everywhere, eyes are on me: curious and excited.

  “Gem and Kissy,” Ling introduces the pixie girls. Gem’s the one with the lip piercing, Kissy’s the one with eyebrow piercings. “Sisters, obviously. The guy in the garden is Tomm—”

  Names and faces blur around me. “Hi,” I keep saying, shaking hands and bumping fists. “Hey, how’s it going?”

  “Did someone say ‘robot girl’?” A boy’s voice rings out from way above me. A pool of rope falls from the sky. The sound of friction—vvvvvvvip!—and a grinning blond boy lands squarely in front of me.

  “Benji!” A voice calls from around the same point, high up in the tree’s branches. A second rope drops down. “You were supposed to wait for”—vvvvvvvip!—“me!” A girl lands confidently. Golden-blond hair spills out around her shoulders.

  These two look different from the overall vibe of Kudzu. Blue-eyed and supremely healthy-looking, their lithe bodies are free of tronics and piercings. I would’ve assumed they were brother and sister, except the girl has a lilting accent that makes every s sound like Z.

  “Nice.” Benji grins at her.

  “Thanks.” She grins back, and they high-five.

  “Should’ve guessed you guys would want to make an impression,” Ling says. “Tess, meet Benji and Lana.”

  “Nice to meet you,” Benji says, shaking my hand. He’s wearing thick black gloves lined with a bumpy grip.

  “Welcome to Kudzu, Tess,” adds Lana. Her handshake is just as strong and assured as Benji’s.

  “Thanks,” I say. “Happy to be here.”

  “We’re psyched to have you on board,” Benji adds, running a gloved hand through his short blond hair. “This mission is going to be awesome.”

  “For sure.” I try to sound as self-assured as they do.

  Benji grins at Lana. “Race you back up?”

  Lana frowns. “No, it’s nearly lunch—” But before she finishes, she leaps for her rope. Gripping it expertly with her feet, she begins moving up it lightning fast, like a spectacularly attractive monkey.

  “Hey!” cries Benji, racing to do the same.

  I turn back around to see the guitar player sidling up behind Ling. He circles her waist with his arm and plants a loud kiss right on her ear. For some reason, I assume the tough and competent Ling would be put off by this, but instead she squeaks in surprise and whirls eagerly into his arms, kissing him hard on the mouth. She grins at him happily, then turns back to me. “This is my boyfriend, Bo.”

  “Hey.” I smile, stepping forward to shake his hand.

  “Welcome,” he says with an easy grin, then steps back to consider me with mock disapproval. “So. You’re the reason my girlfriend was running wild in the Badlands all month.”

  “She’d probably be running wild no matter what she was doing,” I say, and they both laugh. I breathe in the warm fragrant air, so sweet it makes me crave chocolate. “What smells so good?”

  “That’s the milkwood.” Ling gestures to a row of white flowering bushes that line the left side of the backyard. “Actually, that’s what we call this place. Milkwood.”

  Milkwood. I roll the new word around in my brain. This place does seem like a Milkwood. Pleasant and peaceful, but strong and solid.

  “Okay, kids!” Henny materializes behind me, her voice booming over the backyard. “Lunch is served. Get it while it’s hot, chickens.”

  Everyone begins moving past me to the kitchen. I glance at Ling, half hoping she’ll help me navigate lunch, but she’s dragging Bo off around the corner of the house and out of sight.

  “Coming to get some lunch?” Lana asks. “Henny is an incredible cook.”

  “I, um, ate before,” I find myself saying.

  “Okay.” Benji and Lana smile at me again, then head inside.

  I’m not sure why I lied like that—I am actually starving, and whatever Henny was cooking made my mouth water.

  I take a seat in an empty folding chair and try to organize my memories into some sort of narrative for the meeting. I think I know how to destroy an artilect. Obviously it wasn’t anything Mom told me directly, but I was around enough that I do have something of an idea. I remember the way Mom’s eyes would glaze ever so slightly when describing how science could make the world a better place, as if she were looking inwardly at her own private utopia.

  Kudzu begin filtering back outside, carrying bowls of soup and hunks of fresh bread. I fish the muesli bar out of my backpack. Nibbling on the corner of the hard, dry bar is like eating rocks. I can barely bring myself to swallow one bite. Giving up, I toss the stupid bar in the direction of the scrub.

  “Hey! What are you doing?” The girl with the shaved head picks up my muesli bar accusingly. “Did you just throw this away?”

  Mortified, I stare at her. Even though she’s a full head shorter than me, she is completely terrifying.

  “My family is starving to death in the Badlands and you throw away a whole bar?” Furious, she holds up the uneaten bar for everyone to see. “I knew you would be trouble!”

  “I—I’m sorry.” A deep, hot blush crawls up my cheeks. The entire Kudzu contingent is looking at me and the bar.

  “It’s just a bar, Naz,” someone mutters, but she cuts him off decisively, growing angrier by the second.

  “No, not just a bar. This is proof she doesn’t think like we do, she isn’t Kudzu—”

  “Naz!” Ling reappears from around the corner of the house, hair slightly mussed. “Calm down!”

  “She doesn’t know how to live like we do—”

  “Oh, shut up, yes she does,” Ling snaps, striding toward us. “She survived a whole year in the Badlands; she can take care of herself.” Ling snatches the bar from Naz’s hand. “Now unless you want to walk us through Aevum, keep your mouth shut.”

  Naz scowls, muttering a low fuega at me before stalking off. She speaks Mal—doesn’t surprise me. She’s got Badlands written all over her.

  Ling exhales angrily, rolling her eyes. “Sorry about that. She’s a hothead.”

  “Yeah,” I say. “She’s very . . . spirited.”

  Ling laughs. “Right, spirited. You should see her with one of her tricked-out razers. Spirit central.”

  “I thought Kudzu were nonviolent,” I say, watching Naz disappear into the weapons shed.

  “We are,” Ling says. “But sooner or later, the Trust will come for us. And we want to be ready.”

  “So, Naz—she’s weapons gal?” I clarify.

  Ling nods. “Best in the biz. She’s also got opinions. You’ll see.” She frowns at the offending muesli bar in her hand. “C’mon. Let’s get you some real food.”

  After lunch, everyone converges in the front room. Among the jostling, chatting bodies, I recognize Gem, Kissy, Bo, Tomm—the gardener in the rubber boots—Henny, and, of course, Naz, looking as surly as ever. Carlos lies curled at the feet of Benji and Lana, who sit right at the front, holding hands. After scanning the room, I count twenty-one people. I sit close to the front, but on the side, against the wall.

  Ling stands before the group, eyes glittering in the semidarkness. “Aevum,” she announces, quieting the chatter. “I’m finally ready to give everyone the full briefing on Kudzu’s next mission.”

  A small volley of whoops and whistles follows.

  Ling continues, “This mission is both a stunt to draw attention to the unfairness of such a resource-heavy undertaking while the Badlands are dying, as well as a way to stop the Trust from creating a powerful, self-aware being.”

  “Why should we care about that?” Naz asks.

  “If the Trust creates an artilect,” Ling explains, “they’re basically the artilect’s parent
s, right? The Trust can tell it whatever they want. Like it needs to keep them in power forever. Who knows what it might do then.” Everyone is listening attentively, nodding in agreement.

  I catch the eye of the olive-skinned boy who’d been lying in the hammock. He is sitting comfortably in the large red swivel chair, which I assume makes him Achilles, lord of all things tech. He gives me a quick, confident nod, as if to say, “I’m on board.” I nod back, then refocus on Ling.

  “As most of you know,” Ling says, “we have someone helping us with this one—Tess Rockwood. Tess’s mom designed the first attempt at an artilect, Magnus.” A flash of pain cuts through me. “She knows Simutech, she knows artilects. We’re lucky to have her on our side.”

  “All right, Tess!” Lana grins.

  Ling gestures for me to take her place at the front of the room. The room is a sea of eyes, heavy with expectation.

  “Okay, so I’m not exactly sure what I’m supposed to do right now,” I begin, half joking.

  “Tell us about this stupid robot, Rockwood,” Naz drawls sarcastically. “You’re the freakin’ expert.”

  I bristle, suddenly filled with a sharp desire to prove myself. “First off, it’s not a robot. It’s an artilect; an artificial intelligence. A machine that can think and feel like we can.”

  “How is that even possible?” Bo asks.

  “My mom was aiming to create something with free will, morality, and empathy,” I explain. “Basically what the science types agree could constitute a living machine.”

  “Why?” Achilles asks.

  I shrug. “She was idealistic. She thought a new life force could make things better—see the world in the different way, and try to fix things.”

  “So, why does the Trust want one?” asks Benji.

  “Yeah,” adds Achilles. “The Trust doesn’t want to make things better. They think they’ve already done that.”

  I shake my head. “I really don’t know why they want an artilect. It doesn’t make a lot of sense to me, either.”

  “How do you make one?” someone calls.

  “Robotic neurocircuitry,” I reply. “They’d have an artificial central nervous system, with an artificial brain called a singularix.”

  “What’s the difference between an artilect and a substitute?” asks Tomm.

  “Artilects are alive, substitutes aren’t,” I explain. “We control substitutes, right? We tell them what to do. Artilects will be able to think for themselves and make decisions on their own.”

  “Substitutes just emulate emotions,” adds Achilles, “instead of really having them. Right?”

  “Exactly.” I nod. “But Magnus could feel things, and Aevum, theoretically, can too. Hypothetically, they’ll be capable of wanting things, and then acting on their desires to get what they want. Free will. As well as having a sense of right and wrong, a sense of morality.”

  “Morality created by Simutech, and the Trust,” Ling says.

  “That’s right,” I say.

  A ripple of understanding filters through the room.

  Achilles taps his fingers together, looking fascinated. “Will it look like a person?” He has a clipped, quick way of speaking.

  I shake my head, feeling my confidence grow every second. “That would require human cloning, which has never been done successfully. Plus, it’s against the law. Aevum will almost definitely be human-shaped, with a head and arms and legs.” I flash on the cold piece of bone-shaped metal I picked up in Abel’s basement lab. I wish I’d studied it more carefully. Was it leg or arm bone? Was it much bigger than my limbs or the same size? I refocus and add, “But there’s no scientific benefit to creating an artilect that is overly human.”

  “Why not?” asks Kissy, sounding almost offended.

  “Human bodies are weak,” I reply simply.

  “Speak for yourself,” quips Achilles, flexing barely-there muscles. Everyone titters, even me.

  “We bleed, we bruise, we break,” I explain. “They’ll make something harder to destroy.”

  “But not impossible,” announces Ling. “Which brings us to Simutech.”

  Ling nods to Achilles, who pulls up a holo of Simutech’s main entrance. Six floors of undulating dark glass, wider than it is tall. Ling gestures at the holo. “Aevum is being developed at Simutech itself, which is located in the Hive.” The holo cycles through the building’s entire exterior, showing loading docks and side entrances.

  “Tess?” Lana raises her hand politely. I hide a smile and nod at her to ask a question. “If this artilect is so powerful, and we don’t know what it’s like, isn’t it a bit dangerous to try to destroy it?”

  Now I can’t help smiling. “It’s more than ‘a bit’ dangerous. That would be crazy dangerous. I don’t think we should destroy Aevum.”

  “You don’t?” Ling says, momentarily horrified.

  “We should destroy its power source.” I address the whole room. “Mirror matter.”

  “Mirror matter?” Achilles repeats the words, half confused, half excited. “What’s that?”

  I turn to him. “Can you bring up the security stream for Innovation Lab C? It’s part of the Innovation Department on Level Six.”

  The tech king frowns. “I can,” he says cautiously. “But I don’t want to lurk too long.” He gestures to the holos of Simutech’s exterior. “Outside is one thing, but inside is risky. They sweep for bugs and viruses more often. Can’t have my identity as a Peeping Tom discovered.”

  “I just need a minute,” I tell him, a little disappointed. It would have been helpful to watch the security streams for longer; maybe we would’ve found Aevum itself.

  “Okay.” His lithe fingers swish in the holo and the loading dock is quickly replaced by the lab. It actually looks more like a factory floor than a laboratory. The ceilings extend to the top of the whole building, maybe thirty feet. They need to be that tall to house a dozen tall, silver cylinders.

  “What are those?” Ling frowns.

  “I assume they’re Aevum’s processors,” I reply. “Same ones they used for Magnus.”

  “But they’re huge,” Achilles says wonderingly. “And there are so many of them.”

  I nod. “Even though it’s supposed to be a living thing, Aevum would still be the most powerful machine created by humans,” I explain. “And those are what a powerful machine needs to run.”

  Achilles swishes through different angles of the spacious lab until I see what I’m looking for. “There.” I point, stopping his flow. “That’s mirror matter.”

  I’m pointing to a small glass case surrounded by a larger one. It’s lit overhead by a bright white light. In the case is a baton-shaped cylinder, about six inches long. It lies lengthwise, seeming to float inside the glass box. But it’s what is inside the baton that silences the room.

  A glowing, brilliant silver liquid. Without a sound, it seems to hum, to vibrate, to beckon. Tiny sparks ebb and flow inside it. It looks like a million tiny mirrors that have been poured into the cylinder.

  “It’s . . . beautiful,” Ling murmurs, sounding surprised.

  “What is it?” asks Achilles.

  “An extremely powerful, concentrated form of energy,” I explain. “It fits into an artilect’s singularix—“

  “Its brain,” Achilles reiterates.

  “And charges it up,” I say. “Think of mirror matter as an artilect’s heart. Rather than it being inside their body all the time and powering them like our hearts do, artilects only need their hearts for a few hours a day. The rest of the time, it’s recharging here—”

  “And waiting for us to steal it,” Achilles finishes, getting it.

  “And because we can see it here,” I add, “we know that it’s powering a singularix somewhere. Aevum might not be finished yet, but it’s finished enough for us to destroy it by destroying the mirror matter.”

  “Sorry to ask a dumb question,” Achilles says. “But isn’t there, like, an exit program? Some easier way to shut it off?” />
  “Yes, but it wouldn’t be permanent,” I say. “This is the only way we could destroy it for good.”

  “Mirror matter is life,” Achilles muses. “Destroy mirror matter. Destroy life.”

  “Exactly,” I say.

  “And how do we do that?” It’s Naz, sounding slightly less surly than before. “Destroy the mirror stuff?”

  “Extreme cold works,” I reply. “So does extreme heat. Over two thousand degrees Fahrenheit.”

  “Fire,” Bo says, and I nod. He smiles at his girlfriend. “Burn, baby, burn.”

  Ling nods back, eyes shining.

  “But wait, if we steal that”—Achilles points to the mirror matter in the holo—“can’t Simutech just make more of it?”

  I shake my head. “If we destroy that mirror matter, or if it ever runs completely dry, the singularix stops working. Permanently. Like a human brain without oxygen.”

  Achilles whistles. “So they’d have to make more mirror matter and a whole new artilect.”

  I nod. “I know. They’re just not planning for anyone to destroy it or for it to ever completely run out of charge. Artilects,” I add for emphasis, “are living machines. They can be killed.” I point to two small boxes set into the side of the glass. “Unfortunately, we can’t just open the case. You need two separate security swabs. I only have one. My uncle’s.”

  Benji squints at the case. “I suppose we could smash it open?”

  Ling frowns in disapproval. “Noisy. And dangerous.” She glances at Naz. “Can we cut something like that quietly, without it breaking?”

  Naz studies the stream for a second, then nods.

  “So we’re stealing the mirror matter, then destroying it with fire,” Ling announces. “Tess, when’s the quietest time to hit Simutech?”

  “I’d say late on a Sunday,” I guess. “Even the workaholics aren’t usually there then.”

  “Perfect.” Ling nods. “Now we just need to work out how to get past whatever’s guarding the building.” She turns to Achilles. “What’s our best access point?”

  Achilles spins in his swivel chair. He seems relieved to switch the stream from the Innovation Lab to one of Simutech’s back entrances. “There are only three subs on this loading dock. It’s mostly access for sanitation and cleaning.” His fingers wiggle in the air and holos of the three substitutes on guard fill the room. Even in the dappled afternoon light, they look ominous.