Parched Page 2

  That stops me short. “Kudzu?” I stare at her in shock. “You guys actually exist?”

  I’d heard of Kudzu. Or, I thought I had. It was years ago now.

  It was winter, when the temperature in Eden is dropped into the high forties, cool enough to warrant wooly scarves and morning mugs of hot apple cider. Our Year 7 teacher, the endlessly enthusiastic Ms. Hutchinson, had taken our entire class ice-skating. I remember careening forward, legs wobbling, breath steamy in front of me. I remember feeling like I was flying.

  And then I remember the rats.

  Hundreds of rust-brown desert rats, suddenly skittering on the ice. Instant chaos. Kids were screaming, falling over each other, scrambling to get out. And that’s when sheets of paper tumbled from the sky like snowflakes. I’d only ever seen paper in collectibles like books and posters, never like this; rough and slightly uneven, as if it was handmade. But what was stranger was the message it contained: KUDZU RATS OUT THE TRUST. It had to do with the Badlands. Something about people having to live on scraps like rats. I remember words like desperate, drought-stricken, and dying. I was stunned by this different take on the Badlands—after all, we all thought of the Badlands as exotic, not dying. But everyone knew dissent created instability, which was why it was against Trust law. When Ms. Hutchinson snatched the paper from my hand, I didn’t argue. In fact, I felt relieved.

  That night, a news stream explained the rats as a freak infestation. There was no mention of Kudzu. When I asked Ms. Hutchinson about it the next day, she looked pained, then patted my shoulder and told me not to worry about it. And not to talk about it.

  After that, I’d heard vague rumors of other stunts over the years. Poisoned grass in a park spelling out Untrustworthy in thirty-foot letters. A painted ladder on the inside of the city walls, all the way to the top, and the word Welcome. But no one ever talked openly about Kudzu. My best friend, Izzy, didn’t believe in them, and made me feel babyish the one time I brought it up, saying it was like believing in the tooth fairy. In the end, I assumed the group wasn’t real.

  “We definitely exist,” Ling assures me. “We’re a nonviolent collective working to undermine the Trust and free the Badlands. Once the Trust is exposed as lying and corrupt, we believe Edenites will do the right thing. Open the borders. Save the Badlands.” Ling lowers her voice with deliberate control. “Kudzu is going to destroy something called Aevum.”

  I hesitate, curiosity trumping caution. “What’s Aevum?”

  “Aevum is being developed by Simutech,” she replies. “It’s their second attempt at creating an artilect.”

  No. No. No, don’t say it—

  “You might remember the first attempt.” Ling smiles cannily. “Magnus.”

  Magnus. The word punches me in the stomach. I struggle to keep my voice even. “That’s impossible. After Magnus—Simutech shut it down, his programming was destroyed. Artilects are over, they’re done.”

  Ling rocks back on her stool, looking relieved. I realize too late I’ve just confirmed everything she thought she knew about me.

  “It’s not over.” Ling leans across the bar, her voice barely a murmur. “The Trust restarted everything six months ago. It’s just top secret this time. No information is public.”

  Dread prickles my body like a rash. “Then how do you know all this?”

  Her smile is sly. “We’re not the public.”

  I realize I’m clenching the edge of the bar. I drop my fingers, not wanting her to see the full effect of what she’s saying to me. My heartbeat is crashing in my ears.

  Magnus.

  A black volcano is boiling up inside me and before I can stop it, Mom’s face shoots into my mind, her brilliant blue eyes wide with horror. The memory of my voice, alien in its terror: “Get away from my mother!”

  Frantic, I push the image away. I push everything out and away. Disconnecting.

  “Aevum is completely outrageous,” Ling continues. “The Trust shouldn’t be funneling resources into a stupid science experiment. They should be fixing the problems out here.”

  I can’t believe this is happening. It’s been a whole year. I changed everything. I speak to no one. I have nothing so that nothing can hurt me.

  “C’mon, Tess. You, of all people, can see how bad things are getting, especially since the dam was built.” Ling’s voice swells with insistence. “We’ve been monitoring the project and believe it to be in the final stages. We have to act now. You, of all people—”

  “Stop saying, ‘You of all people’ ” I choke out, spinning back around. “I am not involved in—”

  A crash cuts me off. I whip around. Shards of glass fall from Robowrong’s metal fingers. It had gripped the bottle too tight. At the sound of the breaking water bottle, the kids outside jerk to attention, like pack animals picking up a scent. A few of the braver ones dart forward but stay beyond the open doorway.

  Ling looks at me pointedly. “Not involved? Those kids’ll be dead in a month if Lunalac runs dry.”

  “Don’t be so sure,” I snap. “Badlanders are more resourceful than the Trust gives them credit for.” But even as I say it, I know Ling is right.

  At over ten thousand square miles, Moon Lake keeps Eden flush with clean water. Until a month ago, it also fed a sizable river in the Badlands called Lunalac, which provided a limited but livable supply of water for the locals. The Trust changed that by building a dam to block off the aqueduct. Now, Moon Lake suckles the shining city exclusively, leaving the Badlands to fend for itself.

  Damming Moon Lake wouldn’t kill everyone in the Badlands right away. The survival instinct of two hundred million people is too strong. We’re already making a day’s worth of water last a week. But millions will still die without Lunalac. It might take a year; it might take ten. But it’ll happen.

  Ling draws in a breath and lets it out slowly, as if to help distill everything she’s saying to me. Her words come with calm control. “Kudzu are going to destroy Aevum to draw attention to Moon Lake being cut off from the Badlands,” she says simply. “That’s the whole point of the mission—No new life until all life is equal. But we need your help.”

  I know why.

  For years, Simutech had been trying to make an artilect, a different kind of substitute that could think and feel and reason. Artificial intelligence. Magnus was the first attempt. The reason Ling had left the safety of Eden to track me down was because Magnus had been created by, and then had killed, my mother.

  According to the official story, Magnus killed Dr. Francesca Rockwood accidentally: a test went tragically wrong with no one to blame. The true reason for her death was something only my mom, Magnus, and I knew. And I am the only one of those three still alive.

  Ling swats a fly away. “We have information that they’re working with a combination of robotic and biological technology.”

  I blink and refocus, the words coming more on instinct than by design. “Robotic neurocircuitry.”

  Recognition sparks behind her eyes. “That sounds familiar.”

  “The biological side of things is to make sure it has a nervous system.”

  Ling wrinkles her forehead. “Why does Aevum need a nervous system?”

  “So it can feel things, respond emotionally to what’s going on. That’s a part of being alive.” I feel like I’ve stepped outside my body and am watching someone else reeling off facts as easily as breathing. I can’t believe I remember all this. Listening to my mom, reading her reports, doing my homework at Simutech surrounded by scientists—it seems like a lifetime ago. “The processing speed of the singularix would have increased exponentially.”

  “The singu . . . What?”

  “Singularix.” I pause. “Their brain.”

  “Tess, you know more about this than any civilian out there.” I can almost taste the passion in Ling’s voice. “More than any of us, that’s for sure.”

  “I sold my ID for iodine. I can’t get back over the border.”

  “I figured as much.�
� Ling unzips a hefty-looking bag slung over her leg and pulls out one of the shiny red ID cards every Edenite is supposed to carry. For a moment, I’m mesmerized by the five-second loop of me—the old me—that plays on the card. My eyebrows slowly rising, then a smile that’s more of a smirk, followed by a toss of silky blond hair. The way Izzy taught me to take a loop. Looking at it now, I almost see my best friend’s face instead of mine. I barely recognize myself. The loop ends and starts again, thin eyebrows rising in an endless cycle.

  The name, however, is not mine.

  “Carin St. Clare?” I ask.

  “Completely fictional,” Ling assures me. “I’ll prep you on her background so you can pass border control. That ID will pass a DNA scan.”

  “How did you get my DNA?” I ask, alarmed.

  “I didn’t say we had your DNA. I just said it’ll pass a scan.” Ling leans toward me intently. “I can get you back over the border. But we have to leave now.”

  I could go with her. Part of me knows I should. “Why do you think you can trust me?” I ask. “What makes you think I’d want to help?”

  Ling holds my gaze unflinchingly. “Because I read about what happened to your mom. I know Magnus killed her.”

  And just like that, the itching, driving urge to flee takes over. I pluck Mack out of the bar and drop him into the leather sheath on my belt, then slip both arms into my sun robe. My backpack pulls down on my shoulders. “Thank you for a fascinating conversation. Let’s never do it again.”

  As I head for the door, I feel undone. Angry at Ling for tracking me down. Angry at Zhukov, at the Trust, at everyone. The barefoot kids part for me as I stride through them. I don’t need to join Kudzu to help them. I spin back to the small crowd and call, “Acqua azul, à porte! Dalé!”

  They just stand there, staring at me in dumb disbelief. I gesture at the open doorway. “Dalé! Dalé!”

  One darts inside. The rest keep staring at me, and I nod encouragingly. “Acqua azul,” I repeat, pointing at the bar. “Lake water.” Another kid follows the first. Then another. Then en masse, the kids rocket inside the bar—a dam bursting. I watch them scamper past Ling to jump over the wooden counter, shouting with delight. My anger disappears, flipping into amusement. My mom always said my impulsiveness was my best and worst quality. Right now, it feels like the best. Satisfied, I spin around and head up the street.

  The sun turns everything into hot metal, even the shadows. After half a minute, I hear Ling call after me, mocking, “What are you going to do, Tess? Keep running?” She’s chugging behind me on one of the bulky solar floaters most Badlanders ride. The castoffs from Eden hover a few inches off the ground. This one has faded red-and-yellow flames painted on a silver body that has definitely seen better days. “How’s that working out?”

  “Perfectly,” I snap. But the truth is, I’m not even sure how I’ll get a ride out of town. I’m about to celebrate a year of aimless backpacking. I’ve spent everything I had on pickup rides, tasteless food, and thin bedrolls in airless rooms. I don’t even have a floater. No possessions, no plan.

  Maybe this whole Kudzu thing is an option. Head back to Eden, where life is lush and sheltered and easy. Take a shower for the first time in a year.

  Meiyou—no. I squash the idea before it can bloom.

  Ling’s voice is urgent. “Tess! You know this is important. Come with me!”

  I spin around to address her directly. “Ping.”

  She scowls. “It’s Ling.”

  “You’re looking out for the Badlands. That’s great. But you know what I’m looking out for?”

  She squints at me. “What?”

  “Myself.”

  “Scucha!” A huge, angry voice cracks up the street. A swarthy, shirtless man with a long ponytail made of real horsehair fights off the riot of kids looting his bar.

  Zhukov. The kids are scattering, but it’s too late. Dozens already have armfuls of expensive acqua azul, because I let them steal it.

  He points at me, yelling at someone to bring him the fuega. Not someone—something. Substitutes. The two old Divers Zhukov had repurposed as his own personal security emerge from the shadows, motors sputtering into action.

  I swear loudly.

  Divers could haul me back to Zhukov in a heartbeat.

  “Get on,” Ling urges.

  “No.” The Divers begin gunning up the empty street toward me, their three large wheels zooming easily over the unpaved roads. I can see their weird, open mouths from here, set in a permanent O to suck out floodwater that no longer exists. I start to run but the Divers are gaining ground.

  “Tess, get on!”

  I hesitate for a nanosecond before swinging my leg over the floater, leaping in front of Ling and shoving her down the seat. “I’m driving.”

  “Hey!” She barely has time to grab on to my backpack before I shoot us forward.

  “I know the streets better!” I yell over the roar of the engine.

  We race jerkily up the narrow, twisting street, weaving around men lugging canvas bags of spare sub parts and barefoot kids playing chase. Zhukov once gave a local boy a black eye for refusing to pay for a bottle of lake water. I shudder to think what he’d do to me now.

  I take a turn so tight we tip to one side, so close to the ground my ponytail skims the earth. My stomach rockets into my mouth. Ling lets out a little shriek, but I manage to pull us upright, heart drumming furiously in my chest.

  We pause at a cramped cross street. Left or right? In a roar of twin engines, the Divers appear at the far end of the street to my right. They whip themselves in our direction. Left.

  “We have to lose them!” calls Ling.

  “You don’t say!” I call back.

  Red dust sprays out on both sides as if we were cutting through water. We curve left, then right, shooting up streets as squiggly as noodles. Through an upcoming archway, I spot a flight of stairs. My teeth chatter as we hurtle up them and I almost run straight into a woman with a huge basket of pots and pans. The basket goes flying. She curses at me furiously over the oddly musical sound of metal clattering down the stairs.

  “Sorry!” I yell over my shoulder.

  At the top of the stairs, I pause. We’re on the second floor, which overlooks a square interior courtyard. A handful of young girls are playing in it, amid trash and debris. “This used to be a school,” I tell Ling quietly. “But people live here now.”

  Slowly, I begin chugging us down the corridor. Dirty clothes are strung up between gray concrete pillars. Most people can’t afford water to wash them, but sunlight gets rid of some of the smell. Through the open doorways, we pass classrooms repurposed as one-room apartments. Some are jam-packed with dozens of makeshift beds, some contain no more than a bedroll and a bucket. Looks of surprise morph quickly to anger, and within a minute, we’ve attracted a trail of men and women yelling at us to get the hell out of their building.

  “Tess?” I hear Ling say uncertainly. “I don’t think we’re exactly welcome.”

  “We’ll just be a minute,” I mutter. I need to stretch out our hideout as long as possible.

  In a familiar roar of engines, the Divers appear at the top of the stairs behind us.

  I power us forward at full throttle. “Yídòng, yídòng!” I shout at the Badlanders coming out of doorways in front of us to see what the fuss is. I hear Ling gasp as we take the first turn. The dull buzz of the Divers behind us echos around the corridors. Another turn. Another. Then we’re in the final stretch. “Hold on!” I yell to Ling as we careen back down the stairs. The woman with the pots and pans is standing in the stairwell entrance chatting to someone. “Yídòng!” I yell, and she does, just in time.

  Back in the streets, my foot jams on the accelerator. “Are they behind us?” I yell to Ling. I feel her body twist as she turns to look.

  “Yes!” she calls. “Gaining!”

  “C’mon,” I mutter anxiously, scanning the storefronts for a way out. An alley. I wrench the floater into it, bare
ly keeping us horizontal. We fly toward the bright light at the end and burst out onto a market square.

  Hundreds of men, women, and different kinds of junky substitutes—Divers, Sweepers, Strongs, Mulchies—crowd around us. Beat-up old floaters laden with cages of cackling prairie chickens are crammed next to guys haggling viciously over livestock and solar bars and barrels of aqua ferro. I almost laugh in relief. We’re saved.

  Amid a chorus of honks and beeps and yells, we start blending into the ragtag crowd. After a few minutes, I’m sure we’ve lost the Divers. Eventually, we pass all the way through and emerge on the other side. With no particular destination in mind, I join a throng of floaters heading for a main road.

  “There’s another reason you might want to come back,” Ling calls from behind me.

  “Oh yeah?”

  “The new head of Innovation at Simutech is Dr. Abel Rockwood!”

  I’m stunned. “My uncle? That’s not possible.”

  “What?” she calls over the roar of hundreds of old floaters.

  “He split—quit!” I call back. “He told me himself he’d quit Simutech. He promised he’d destroy Mom’s research!”

  “Guess they made him an offer he couldn’t refuse!”

  My uncle is the head of Innovation? The position that got his own sister killed? I wouldn’t have picked Abel as a career-hungry grave digger. The idea tastes as bad as pourriture. All my fear and panic and guilt begins to solidify into another emotion, as clean and pure as a flame. Anger.

  “That’s why we need you, Tess!” Ling continues. “Dr. Rockwood is our best way in, and you’re the only person who knows what to look for!”

  Going back to Eden means getting close to secrets—horrific, ugly secrets that I’ve worked hard to bury. But if I don’t really get involved with Kudzu and Simutech and Aevum, those secrets will stay where they belong—unknown, and then lost forever. I can pretend I’m interested, take the free passage, then disappear as simply as smoke clearing.

  “Okay!” I yell. “I’m in!”