Parched Page 3

“Then I guess we’re heading the right way!” Ling points to the hand-painted sign we’re passing under. It has one word on it: Vuelvol. Airport.

  I’m going home.

  chapter 2

  It’s a three-hour flight to one of four crossings into Eden. A decrepit cargo ship flies us the thousand-odd miles to the Western Bridge. Like the floaters, Badlands cargo ships are also Eden hand-me-downs. The soft passenger seats have been stripped to make room for as many people and things as the fast-talking captain can cram in. This means we can bring Ling’s floater with us, but it also means I have to be sure the hungry goats in the cage next to me don’t make a meal of my backpack.

  After taking off, we circle back over the Manufacturing Zone, which most people just call the Zone: miles of stifling hot factories, where people aged seven to seventy used to do everything from recycling glass bottles to building talking tennis rackets. But there are no human workers there anymore. In the last six months, the Trust switched over the entire workforce to shiny new substitutes. There’s a tired joke about it—the Zone was the only place in the Badlands where you got good service. Everywhere else, the substitutes were a notch above junkyard.

  It’s obvious why the Trust made the change. Substitutes are more efficient. Plus, subs don’t need bathroom breaks or fresh water or shelter. Even though many are human-shaped, they’re not sentient. They’re just robots. Ex-Zone workers were left to starve like everyone else.

  When we clear the outskirts and begin to head east, the earth becomes more uniform. Glimpsed through the small, dirty windows is endless dry, red clay. Occasionally we pass over forsaken villages, or larger cities stripped of everything useful. The land, once a compact grid of people and parking lots and ninety-nine-cent hot dogs, is now empty.

  Ling and I sit with our backs pressed against the side of the plane. I toe my backpack farther from the cage of goats and say, “I assume you have some proof to show me.”

  Ling checks that her floater, which is parked directly in front of us, obscures us from everyone else’s view. Then she unzips her backpack and pulls out a folded piece of scratch. The gold computer is paper-thin, but made from a durable, flexible material that you need a knife to cut. That’s one of the good things about scratch: you can cut it if you want to share it. You can even meld together the same generation if you want a bigger piece for bigger holos. At the cinematheques in Eden, they use scratch the size of houses for holos just as big. It makes you feel like you’re in a completely different world. Ling’s scratch is the same kind I traded for Mack. When she presses her thumb and forefinger into one corner, it begins glowing a familiar deep amber.

  “Show me the Simutech file.” A silent holo materializes between us—a colorful, shifting cloud. There’s no mistaking who’s in it. Uncle Abel is speaking passionately with a man wearing a flowing yellow robe. I recognize him instantly: Gyan, leader of the Trust. Abel waves his hands emphatically as he talks, while Gyan’s fingers are clasped behind his back, gaze directed straight ahead. They’re heading into Simutech itself; I catch sight of the company slogan glowing above the imposing main entrance: How the Future Feels.

  With a small wave of her hand, Ling flicks the holo to pause and the two men freeze. “It was recorded a few weeks ago.” Specks of red dust drift through the crystal clear holo of Gyan. In his yellow robe, our charismatic father figure is unmistakable. I can see every smile line around his piercing blue eyes, every hair in his full, thick beard. He looks, as usual, powerful without even trying. On the other hand, Abel’s shirt is untucked and his hair is mussed. They’re both surrounded by a clutch of attentive Guiders—blue-robed community officials who uphold the will of the Trust. The Guiders are all looking at Gyan, even though my uncle is the one speaking.

  Ling pulls open another holo. “And then there’s this.”

  I skim the tight black print scrolling before me: Work Choice Reassignment for Dr Abel F. Rockwood. Abel’s signature is scrawled at the bottom of the page, floating just above my knee. “How did you get a copy of this?” I ask incredulously.

  Ling shoots me a look of amusement. “Child’s play. Actually, this is what tipped us off in the first place. Achilles, he’s our tech guy, intercepted some correspondence and managed to decode it. A classified stream they don’t think we know about.”

  I scan the text with small swishes of my fingers. It looks official enough, detailing Abel’s relocation from Animal Cloning to Innovation.

  “See, right there,” Ling says, pointing at the hovering text. “All the resources in Innovation are being directed to Aevum.” She shakes her head in disbelief. “That’s insane. Those resources need to be directed out here. That’s why Kudzu wants to stop this thing.”

  I frown at the text before me. “Why would the Trust want to make another artilect?” I mutter, more to myself than Ling. Cutting off Moon Lake fit the Trust’s overall agenda of keeping Eden lush with life, as did replacing Zone workers with substitutes. But Magnus was a spectacular failure. I chew on my lip, thinking aloud. “If the Trust wanted more power and control, they’d just invent more substitutes. They do what they’re told, take fewer resources to run, and are way less risky.” I glance at Ling, still frowning. “Artilects are unpredictable. They’re supposed to be able to think for themselves, that’s the whole point.”

  “You really know a lot about all this.”

  “Artilects?” I give her a sardonic smile. “Child’s play.”

  Ling looks deep in thought for a long minute. “It’s interesting,” she says eventually. “When I first heard about Aevum, I thought it was a massive waste of resources and a good target for a high-profile mission. But hearing you talk about it . . .” Ling widens her eyes for a second, then shakes her head. “I’m just doubly glad that I’m bringing you back.”

  I nod, scrunching the scratch into a tight little ball and squeezing it, hard. But I’m not coming back for you.

  “C’mon,” Ling says, gently taking the wad of scratch out of my hand. “Time to become Carin St. Clare.”

  I concentrate on memorizing Carin St. Clare’s backstory, which I’ll need to know perfectly to pass border control. I feel like I’m cramming for a test again, only if I fail this one, Ling and I will be banished from Eden permanently. Or worse.

  As the hours pass, the land below becomes more and more populated with makeshift cities. Then Ling nudges me, voice low and slightly strained. “There it is.”

  Through the dust-streaked windows of the ship, I see it: Eden, the powerful city of shining abundance. For a second, I forget how to breathe as the long, white walls rise up from the horizon, ringed by a wide moat of black water. Home. Where the clear dome that arcs from the tops of the walls filters the awful heat into pleasant, safe sunlight.

  When I was born, we’d been in a drought for over fifty years. I wasn’t alive when the planet first fell into a marathon of endless natural disasters. That was closer to two centuries ago now. As substitutes rebuilt one city from a hurricane, a tsunami hit another. People scrambled to re-create homes that the planet seemed intent on destroying. As Earth’s resources began to dry up for good, the remaining cities began an ugly fight for survival. First came food and energy limits. Then rations. City walls. A desperate race to create renewable sources of power as the old mining industries finally bled the land dry. Solar energy replaced fossil fuels. But eventually, everything was sucked into one place, one stronghold, one last beacon. My ears pop as our ship begins dipping back to earth, just a few short miles from the gleaming white walls.

  The late afternoon is alive with prehistorically ugly dragonflies the size of desert rats. The soupy air is something of a relief from the full force of the midday sun, but I still feel like I’m burning up. I have to focus hard on getting us the final few miles to the border crossing. I guide Ling through the teeming throngs of Badlanders, past ad hoc stores selling sun robes, smoky desert-rat skewers, and ridiculously overpriced water. She’s surprisingly street savvy for an Edenite, ducking o
ut of the way of kicking camel hooves and floaters zooming recklessly through the crowds. A tiny old man with a face like a wrinkled prune makes his way through. He carries a tray of small paper bags. “Grillos fritos! Grillos fritos!”

  “Good, I’m starving.” Ling waves him down. “What are you selling, señor?”

  The man opens a bag to show us a fistful of dry fried crickets.

  Ling screws her face up. “Ugh, gross.”

  I nod to the man. “Cuánto copper?”

  He flashes his open palm twice—ten cents. I drop some coins into his palm, and he gives me two bags.

  Ling blanches. “You’re not seriously going to eat those, are you?”

  I tip my head back a little and somewhat theatrically drop the biggest cricket into my mouth. Ling makes a small sound of disgust.

  I crunch the sharp, very salty cricket loudly. “Funny what you get used to out here,” I say, turning to rejoin the crowd.

  Ling shakes her head in disbelief as she walks next to me. Then, as if the movement reminds her, she unties a necklace that’s hidden under her dress—a thin red piece of string with a tiny silver charm in the shape of a K. For Kudzu, perhaps? She notices me watching her. “String breaks easily,” she says. “In case we’re caught, we can throw it away.” She tucks the small charm carefully into the lining of her dress.

  I grind up pointy cricket legs with my teeth. “A risky fashion statement.”

  “It’s not a fashion statement.” She smiles dryly. “It’s a sign that I belong to the thing that matters to me the most.”

  I shrug, thinking abstractly that it might make a good trade. “When do I get mine?”

  Ling raises her eyebrows at me. “When all of Kudzu votes on you joining. When you prove you’re one of us.”

  I tighten my sun robe. Whatever. I wasn’t sticking around long enough for that to ever be a possibility. I stride ahead with purpose. The sooner we cross the border, the better.

  “Was it a surprise for you?” Ling asks, keeping pace with me easily. “To see what it’s really like out here?”

  It certainly was. But not the fun birthday kind. More like, hey, the government lies and everyone here is really thirsty. “Sure.”

  “You really had no idea?”

  I shrug again, fishing in the side pocket of my backpack for my water bottle. “How would I? The streams all downplay it.”

  The streams are the way we access all knowledge and entertainment. And the streams are all connected—we call it being on-cycle. If you searched the streams for the Badlands, you’d see holo after holo of smiling, colorfully dressed locals living simply in exotic locales. You would not see kids with xylophone bodies or dead dogs in dry creek beds.

  “You must’ve known the Trust controls the streams,” Ling says. “They censor them. And they change things. Did you know that?”

  I drop a couple of iodine pills into the bottle to make the foul liquid a little less toxic. “That was another part of the surprise,” I admit. It was only from seeing the Badlands firsthand that I understood just how much the Trust manipulated Edenites’ understanding of the place.

  “Did you hear about the Valley of Spines massacre?” Ling asks.

  I glance at her sharply.

  “Apart from Lunalac, that’s all anyone’s been talking about,” she adds.

  Rumors of the massacre had reached my ears too. A Builder killed ten men in a bar in the Valley a few weeks ago. No rhyme or reason. It just slaughtered them all. But substitutes can’t harm humans. Not just because it’s against the law, but because they’re designed that way. No substitute can be programmed to harm a human, let alone kill one. “Don’t believe everything you hear out here.”

  “It spooked me,” Ling says with a shudder. “A substitute killing people like that.” When I don’t say anything back, she adds, “Did you feel the same way? Or is that one of those things that you get used to?”

  “Ling.” I pull to a sudden stop. “Look. I’ll help you stop Aevum. But I don’t want to . . . Y’know—” I wave my hands at her.

  “What?”

  I look at her deliberately. “Bond.”

  Her reply is interrupted by yelling. A crowd of Badlanders presses forward into a water bar, craning their necks to see something inside. They seem royally pissed off, heckling loudly. “Scucha. Dim pasó?” I ask a woman near me what’s happening.

  Her reply is sour. “Gyan habla guan yu Lunalac.”

  “What is it?” Ling asks me, eyes wide.

  “Gyan’s explaining why they cut off Lunalac.”

  The dimly lit water bar reminds me of Zhukov’s: a low ceiling and packed dirt floor. But unlike Zhukov’s, it’s packed to the rafters with hot, jostling bodies.

  Gyan’s deep voice warbles in and out. His image quivers up from one of the earliest versions of scratch, which is dull brownish-gold and as thick as a rug. “For many years, Eden has been mother to her boisterous child, the Badlands,” he intones. “But now, it is time for our child to grow up. To learn to crawl, walk, and finally run free, as we here in Eden have done. We have created our Arcadia, our utopia. Now it is time for the Badlands to define their Eden for themselves.”

  Ling and I exchange incredulous expressions. I used to think Gyan’s speeches sounded enlightened. Now they sound straight-up insane.

  “This is why we must stay firm in our decision to cut off Moon Lake as a permanent measure.” Gyan’s voice is barely audible above the howls of protests from the angry Badlanders. “Just as a mother must one day free her babe from her breast, now we must free the Badlands.”

  Ling’s face is twisted in anger. “What total bullshit,” she spits. “Any fool can see Eden has a responsibility to—”

  But her words are swallowed up by the curses coming from the increasingly angry crowd. In the din, I keep hearing one phrase over and over again: “Gyeong-gye de fronteras! Gyeong-gye de fronteras!”

  Border crossing.

  “C’mon!” I grab Ling’s hand and pull her into the swell of people.

  Leaving Eden a year ago had been so easy, I did it in less than ten minutes. It’s a different story getting back in. Hundreds of people crowd the border crossing, a mash of rickshaws, floaters, and angry Badlanders on foot. Chants rip through the mob. Empty water containers filled with stones rattle hollowly in the dying light.

  A line of ragtag subs—mostly Divers and Strongs—patrol the border, stretching out in both directions. Tranquils, the fully armored human guards of the Trust, wander among them, razers at the ready. A direct hit from their white laser guns can kill you, and everyone knows it. The Tranqs’ bulky white uniforms bear the emblem of their employer: a swirling white T encased in a blue circle rimmed with yellow. Yellow for enlightenment. Blue for liberalism. And white for peace.

  Two Tranqs man the entry gate. Their brandished razers keep the crowds at bay. Words hover above the gate: EDENITES ONLY. MUST HAVE VALID ID! The whole desperate scene makes my stomach clench.

  “Let’s go,” Ling says, but I caution her back. This is about to become a riot, and if we aren’t careful, we’ll get caught in the crossfire. I tell Ling to use her sun robe to hide her body and hair, and I do the same. If the crowd suspects we’re both actually Edenites, someone’s bound to try stealing from us—or worse.

  The crowd is forced apart. A circle of Tranquils protects a Guider making her way toward the gate. I wonder briefly what a Guider is doing out of the city—Guiders look after Eden, not the Badlands. While she’s trying to appear calm, fear flits across her pale face. Her body tenses at every yell.

  A rake-thin man in a ratty animal pelt is screaming at the Tranquils as they work their way through. “My family—we’re dying! We need fresh water! We’re all dying!” He shoves the Tranquil, who stumbles.

  The Tranq’s deep voice is tinny through an armored helmet that prevents us from seeing his face. “If you don’t have ID, we can’t help you.”

  “Soon we won’t be asking for your permission!” the man ye
lls, his words ringing out over the swollen crowd. “Soon we will take your precious city without asking!”

  “Get out of here!” the Tranq snaps, sounding almost panicked.

  “No!”

  “Fine!” The Tranquil smashes the Badlander in the face with the butt of his razer. Blood arcs from his nose and mouth, a bright, wet spray of red. My vision swims. The man crumples to the ground. His skull hits the dry earth with a sharp smack.

  All hell breaks loose.

  I grab Ling’s arm. “Now,” I hiss. As the mob turns on the Tranqs, I pull Ling toward the entry gate. We flash our IDs, and two sets of strong arms lift us clear of the crowd.

  The border control official is all straight lines and hard edges, suspicious before I even open my mouth.

  “Name?” Her question ricochets around the bare interview room like a gunshot. I barely keep from flinching.

  “Carin St. Clare.”

  “Address?”

  “Forty-six–ten Mountain View Road, Liberty Gardens.”

  Her eyes drop to the square of scratch in front of her. It’s on the 2D setting, and angled toward her, so I can’t see what’s shimmering on the flat gold surface. My answer evidently checks out, because the next thing she says is, “Education?”

  Stay calm. You know this. “I went to pre-education in Liberty Gardens, but I attend education in West Charity.”

  “Where?”

  I swallow. What was it called? All the education centers are named after Greek gods, and Carin’s is the goddess of intelligence and the arts . . .“Athena.”

  A flash of recognition, and the woman permits a smile. “My son goes there. Grey Myerson. Head of the philosophy club. Do you know him?”

  Her left eye twitches. Ling shifts next to me, almost imperceptibly. She’s lying to me. “We don’t have a philosophy club at Athena,” I say carefully.

  The border control official’s face hardens once more—I was right. “Why did you leave Eden?”

  I draw in a deep breath. The pain in my face is real, but not for the reasons I’m about to give. “My boyfriend died protecting the Trust. His work choice was a Tranquil. He was attacked and killed in a riot at the Zone.” I lower my eyes and shiver. “I just . . . needed to get out.”