Parched Page 4

  Again, her eyes confirm her belief in this sad story, cleverly patriotic in its lies. This time when her face loses its severity, it seems genuine.

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” she murmurs, then turns her attention to Ling. “Name!” she barks.

  Ling is an impressive liar, maybe even better than me. She plays the role of the concerned best friend, eager to save me from the nasty Badlands and help me get my life back on track. She uses her real name, but I think her entire background is fake. I wonder if Kudzu maintains fictional records for all their members. I wonder if this even extends to monthly allowance usage. Do they use their allocated credit to collect Goods and Sustenance? If they didn’t, it would draw attention to themselves. I remind myself to ask Ling about this, before remembering I’m not getting involved with Kudzu. In less than an hour, I’ll never see this girl again.

  “Your reentry is approved,” says the woman, before pausing. Her gaze shifts between us both. I feel myself straightening. “I don’t need to remind you,” she continues, in a voice that is somehow both soft and hard, “that undermining the Trust is a crime which can result in allowance reduction, community service, or in extreme cases, banishment.”

  Ling and I exchange a quick look of bemusement. “Yes, we know,” I hedge.

  “It’s important you are extremely judicious over how you relay your experiences out here,” the woman finishes.

  She’s telling us to keep our mouths shut. Maintain the fiction that the Badlands are not being slowly strangled by the Trust. A sick sort of anger boils up inside me, but before it can spread to my face, Ling nods eagerly, all bushy-tailed enthusiasm. “Oh, yes, ma’am. We understand.” She drops her voice to a murmur. “Personally, I’d prefer it if the Trust just killed the whole lot of them in their sleep. The sooner we get out of here, the better.”

  The woman nods approvingly. “Welcome home, girls.”

  The sun hangs low over the horizon by the time we guide Ling’s floater onto the smooth concrete bridge for the final ride to the white-walled city. Behind us, the sounds of the protesting Badlanders begin to fade.

  We ride fast, the only ones racing along the empty bridge. The last rays of the setting sun glint brilliantly off the dark water in the moat that surrounds Eden, making it look as if it’s on fire. They say there are strange types of sharks in that moat, swimming in the tar-black water.

  The low drone of the thousands of air filters that are set into the high, white walls becomes louder as we get closer. By the time we reach the walls, the roar is so loud we can’t hear each other even when we shout. Ling pulls the floater to a stop. A small, all but invisible doorway set into the pristine white walls slides open. As soon as we’re through, it slides shut behind us.

  We steer the floater along a darkened, echoing throughway—the musty interior of the walls. The roar of the air filters is barely audible. As we putter forward, the temperature drops. Stifling heat becomes comfortably warm. I catch the zesty scent of lemons.

  Two more Tranquils scan our IDs. A final set of slick white doors slides open.

  And suddenly we are standing at the edge of a lush, sprawling park. The air is fresh, with just right amount of early evening chill. The soft chk-chk-chk of sprinklers arcing across the velvety green is the only sound that fills the pale purple twilight.

  Eden.

  chapter 3

  The air is cool and clean; it smells like water, the way it does near a gushing fountain. The oppressive dry heat that had exhausted me for a year is gone. In its place is freshness so pure, I find myself gulping it in. I fight the urge to sink into the deep grass to smell the moist, healthy earth.

  No one is waiting to get into the Badlands. There’s no border control on this side of the wall. If it weren’t for the two huge shiny doors, and the couple of silent Tranqs standing motionless on either side of them, you’d never guess it was a way out.

  Ling parks the floater, then ducks behind a bush and turns her dress inside out. The lining used to be cream but it’s now stained yellow with sweat and smeared with red dirt. But after belting it and pulling the feathers out of her hair, she at least looks more Eden than Badlands. She also has an outfit for me: a delicate slip of a dress that leaves me feeling uncomfortably exposed. I try to wipe my face clean but I’ll need a shower to get the red dust out. A shower. None of this seems real.

  We cruise slowly through the park. Several young girls in white dresses cartwheel in the soft light—a pre-education dance troupe rehearsal, perhaps. Their bare feet twist in the grass as they spin and whirl, so light and lovely they look like dandelion puffs.

  The other side of the park gives way to a quiet street. Through the ground-floor windows around me, families make dinner in kitchens lit by a cozy golden glow. A whiff of simmering onions makes my mouth water. Buzzcars zip high above us, the compact little aircrafts as charming as fireflies in the dusky light. Through the clear dome high above me is the same night sky I used to see in the Badlands. But the light from the city dulls the stars.

  Ling knows my uncle’s address and takes us on a twenty-minute ride through Liberty Gardens, the pretty neighborhood that spreads out from the western entrance.

  Eden’s shaped a bit like an ear. Lakeside bulges up in the north, dominated by Moon Lake. In the northeast are acres of pleasantly rustic Farms, where trees hang heavy with fruit and fields are filled with crops. In the easternmost part of Eden, spinning windmakers create the light breeze I can feel now. The thin, U-shaped Moon River forms a natural barrier all the way around the curved, shining skyscrapers of the Hive. I always assumed this was named for the number of buzzcars that dart in and around the heart of Eden, which is located more or less in the middle. The comfortable homes of Liberty Gardens fill the west, and the younger, hipper Charity is in the east. The squiggly streets of the South Hills rise over it all.

  And beyond the South Hills, perched at the highest point overlooking Eden, up where snow dusts the tops of the Smoking Mountains, are the Three Towers. The home of the Trust. The trio of curved buildings looks like the spikes of a jester’s hat. Gyan’s private quarters are located right at the tip of the biggest of the three buildings. It’s the only structure that offers views over both sparkling, beautiful Eden, and farther south, over the barren red earth of the Badlands.

  For the first fifteen years of my life, everything in Liberty Gardens—from the wide, green parks to the burbling water fountains—seemed normal. Now it is beyond surreal.

  We pass a young woman chatting animatedly in between bites of bright red apple. Is she talking to herself? No, a delicate silver comm decorates one ear. I’m struck by how impossibly perfect an average Eden outfit looks to me now. With her light bodysuit and mane of loose golden hair, she looks like she belongs in an entertainment stream, not on a sidewalk. She’d probably assume someone like me wanted to rob her. I catch myself—no, she wouldn’t. I’m back in Eden now. Being held at knifepoint is not a daily possibility here. The woman tosses the apple core into a sleek white compost bin on the street corner, and it chimes.

  Two men push a stroller with a chubby baby. One man touches the other’s back as they talk quietly. Presumably, they are partnered. Edenites are permitted two children per partnership or one if independent. No, I correct myself again. We are allowed that. Now, I am an Edenite again.

  “Hey, Ling, stop for a sec!”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Just pull over!”

  Before we’ve even come to a complete stop, I’m off the floater and racing to a curved white water fountain. When I lived here, I must have passed a dozen of these every day. Now they look like a beautiful miracle.

  I close my eyes and open my mouth. Nothing happens. Then I remember: my ID. I need to scan it to record my water usage, even from the public fountains. All Edenites are permitted monthly Lake Allowances, albeit generous ones. Can I use this fake ID?

  Ling answers my question by waving hers in front of the scanner with a grin. “Mine works. Yo
urs won’t.”

  Water shoots from the fountain. Cool, fresh, clean lake water. It fills my mouth, running down my chin, onto my chest. Water. I drink hungrily, in great gasps and lurches. I’m grinning like an idiot, delirious with happiness.

  I’m home. I’m actually home.

  The flow of water stops with a small chime. When I open my eyes, two young boys astride whisper-soft floaters are staring at me. Their twin looks of horrified fascination make Ling and me burst into laughter. I run back to the floater, and we take off again.

  Ling drops me around the corner from Abel’s modest two-story home. By Badlands standards, the houses look enormous. The softly curved architecture creates soothing, undulating waves that remind me of air and wind and water.

  “Get settled tonight. See what you can find out, but be careful. Don’t blow your cover,” Ling instructs. “I assume you don’t have any scratch?”

  Oh no. She’s going to give me her scratch. “You assume right.”

  “Give me your knife.” She pulls out her roll. Mack slices through the scratch like butter, cutting it neatly in two. She hands it to me. “Try it.”

  I hesitate. “I don’t really want anyone knowing I’m back.” Not only that, but I haven’t been on-cycle in over a year and I left sort of . . . abruptly. The idea of five billion messages all asking where I am? Pass.

  “Kudzu uses only off-cycle scratch and comms; you can access the streams anonymously,” Ling assures me. I hide a flicker of surprise—I’ve heard of off-cycle scratch, but I’ve never used it myself. She adds, “Be careful around subs; most of them are on-cycle these days. Just stay off-cycle altogether.”

  “Why?”

  “Because the Trust can access everything that happens on-cycle,” Ling says patiently. “It’s important you stay anonymous from now on.”

  Smoothing out the blank scratch, I press the corner of it with my thumb. It glows gold before a tangle of noisy holos spring up between us. Notices of local meets, sign-ups for open-air art classes, and a recipe for quinoa-crusted lemon tofu all scramble for my attention. I try flicking them to mute with my eyes, but I just end up making them louder.

  “Out of practice.” Ling smirks. “I’ll send you a missive via a Forest-Friend tonight, after we’ve confirmed a dead zone to meet in.”

  I give her a look. “You’re certainly not stingy with the jargon, Ping.”

  She grins, her eyes whipping through the holos. “Dead zones are places off-cycle, where the Trust can’t see us. And ForestFriends are something kids use to send messages to each other. You can program your scratch to alert you when one’s coming, even when it’s off. Here. I just sent you one.” She folds the scratch in two, shutting the holos off, and gives it to me. A second later it begins pulsing and making a peeping sound, like a baby bird. “Open it.” She nods.

  I do, and a holo of a baby bird flies out, adorably tiny and sweet. It has bright blue wings, a puffed-up yellow chest, and big expressive eyes.

  “Cute,” I admit. It circles around my head and lands on my shoulder, peeping into my ear. “Kudzu loves you!” Then the bird disappears.

  “Kids send a million ForestFriends a day, so it’s a good way to send messages on the down low,” Ling explains. “The Trust isn’t monitoring this kind of stuff. Once I send you one, you can answer it with one of your own.”

  “So if you don’t send me one, I’ll have no way of contacting you.”

  Ling looks at me as if I’m profoundly stupid. “I didn’t spend a month looking for you only to disappear after getting you back, Tess.”

  I scrunch up the scratch and shove it in my backpack, fighting a flush of guilt. I’m about to completely double-cross this nice revolutionary who’d bought me a cargo ship ticket and saved my butt from a couple of Divers.

  Ling fights a yawn. “Oof, I’m exhausted. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  “Aye, aye, Captain.” I salute.

  She smiles back. “You’re doing the right thing, Tess.” She chokes her floater back into gear, words barely audible above the motor. “And remember, you’re back in Eden now. Dissent’s against the law, so watch what you say.” Her foot presses the accelerator, and she zooms off up the empty street.

  For a few seconds, I just stand there. Alone. Even though I’ve been on my own for so long, it feels like forever since I’ve actually been alone. Unable to hear, see, or smell other people. Everything around me looks so ordered, so safe. Even the tangled front gardens that brim with plant life look perfectly composed. Considering I’d woken up on a dirty bedroll with a knife under my pillow, it’ll take a little getting used to.

  Movement.

  I flinch reflexively.

  But it’s just the dark shape of a bird flying low over the street. You’ve got to stop that, Tess, if you’re going to fit back in here, I chide myself. I swing my backpack over my shoulder, turning in the opposite direction from my uncle’s house. I’ll sneak into a Longevity Hub, clean myself up, then work out what to do next.

  But I can’t move.

  I can’t believe he’s doing it. And I’d thought, or at least I’d tried to believe, that I didn’t care either way . . . but I do. I have to know. If it’s true, and Abel really is doing this, then he lied to me. He lied about destroying the research for a project that ripped our lives apart. My uncle. My ditzy, brilliant, completely harmless uncle. He could never be involved in something so wrong, so dangerous. Could he?

  I give my head a hard shake. No, I tell myself fiercely. I don’t want to know. I don’t want to get mixed up in this. The past is the past and the members of Kudzu are all probably on a fast track to getting banished or getting themselves killed.

  I will not go to Abel’s.

  I absolutely and unequivocally will not go.

  Abel’s front door is just how I remembered it: a pane of smoky gray glass that warps my reflection into something unrecognizable. There’s a scanner for those with IDs on his home access list, and a white round doorbell for those without. Familiar and foreign at the same time.

  The doorbell chimes faintly. I hear my uncle’s voice ring out. “I’ll get it, Kimiko.”

  His voice, distracted and slightly surprised, sends a shiver of recognition up my spine. Moments later, I am face-to-face with the famous Dr. Abel Rockwood.

  Appearance-wise, we make a fine match. The man who created the much-lauded Toward an Understanding of Artificial Consciousness in Advanced Bio-Cybernetic Systems stream looks, as usual, like he was dressed by monkeys. Color-blind monkeys. His pants don’t fit, his collared shirt is buttoned unevenly, and I’m fairly certain his peach-colored housecoat was originally intended for ladies. I can’t help noticing how weathered his face is. He’s unshaven. Sleep-deprived circles cut under hazel eyes, which I watch shift from curiosity to recognition to deer-in-the-headlights shock.

  “Tessendra?”

  My full name: the one no one except my family uses. I have the urge to hug him. Or more accurately, let him hug me. It’s been so long since anyone has hugged me. Instead, I rock back on my heels. “Yo, Uncle A. What’s up?”

  He stares at me, completely dumbstruck. “But I thought . . . I thought you were—”

  “A blonde?” Without waiting for an invitation, I stride inside.

  I’m expecting to see Aevum everywhere—charts, holos, streams, reports—just like Magnus had been last year. But the spacious living-cum-dining room that the hallway opens out into is unexpectedly . . . tidy. In fact, it looks suspiciously like a regular home. Colorful cushions are neatly arranged on an overstuffed sofa. The orange tiled floor is spotless, dotted with rugs that actually match the sofa cushions. An immense wooden dining room table plays host to a bunch of poppies, rather than stacks of circuit boards. The smell-conditioning is set to fresh-baked bread. Or perhaps Abel is even baking bread himself, a concept even more far-fetched than me getting back over the border unscathed. Did Ling have the wrong intel after all? Or was Kudzu trying to set me up? My plan to confront Abel falls limply
at my feet.

  “Tess!” My uncle almost trips in his hurry to follow me. “What—Where—When—”

  “How, who, and why?” I finish. The emotion on my uncle’s face causes my throat to squeeze, and I cough. “Thought you science types answered questions, Uncle A.”

  “You’re alive! I can’t believe it. You’re alive!” Abel grabs me in a hard hug, words tumbling as if they can’t find a place to land. “I can’t—I just—I hoped, I did, but I never really thought—” He squeezes me into his chest and my defenses shatter.

  “I’m sorry,” I hear myself saying, my voice muffled against his neck. “Abel, I’m so sorry.”

  “Oh, Tessendra.” Abel chokes. Eyes wet, he pulls back to study my face. As if it’s the most important question in the world, he asks, “Are you okay?”

  I nod, and am about to tell him “I’m fine” when I catch movement from the corner of my eye. A tall, slender boy stands near us, just a few feet away. Adrenaline bangs through my system. I shove Abel behind me and whip Mack from where I’d hidden him in my boot. “Who the hell are you?”

  “Tess!” Abel’s shocked voice is girlishly high. “Oh my, what in heavens are you doing with a knife like that?”

  I’m not sure who is more startled, the boy or my uncle, both of whom evidently know each other. In the awkward pause that follows, the inappropriateness of my actions becomes painfully clear. I drop Mack to my side.

  “Give me that.” Abel pulls a handkerchief from his pocket and I let him gingerly extract Mack from my hand. Unsure what to do with the blade, he crosses to the dining room table and puts it down delicately.

  The boy stares at me, unblinking. Everything about him is sharply defined, from the straight edge of his nose to the cut of his gaze. He says, “You said Tessendra Rockwood was dead.”

  “How do you know who I am?” I ask, hackles up.