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  My uncle quickly maneuvers himself between us, one eye still on Mack. “Tess, this is my assistant, Hunter Adams.”

  “Your assistant?”

  Abel fingers his collar in a daze, flitting his attention from Mack back to me. “Yes, I’m still teaching neural engineering at a post-education center in the South Hills. Hunter is one of my students, and yes, a very good one.” Abel turns to face the boy. “Hunter, this is my niece, Tess.”

  “I’ve seen your image on-cycle,” Hunter says, stepping around Abel to offer me his hand. “You’ve changed your hair.”

  His handshake is efficient and doesn’t linger. I can’t talk to Abel about Aevum with a stranger in the room.

  Abel coughs, inclining his head toward Mack. “Can you explain, er, that?”

  I draw in a deep breath. “I’ve been living in the western part of the Badlands, in the outskirts of the Zone.”

  Abel and Hunter stare back at me.

  “I was living near the Salt Flats and ended up helping this guy ride a bunch of camels to Potkamp, which is farther west. Rumor had it there was a freshwater spring there. But we didn’t make it—long story—and I ended up in Kep Sai’an, working in a water bar . . .” I trail off, clocking how overwhelmed Abel looks. Maybe he didn’t want that level of detail after all. “Real nice place,” I finish lamely. “If you like death and dying and stuff.”

  Abel’s eyes search mine. In a voice as soft as it is serious, he asks, “Why are you back?”

  “I’m back because—” I catch myself twisting my hands together anxiously, so I drop them to my side. Don’t be nervous. “Can I get a glass of water?”

  “Would you like me to get that, Dr. Rockwood?”

  I spin around to see a sleek, white substitute gazing at me politely. It’s a much newer model than Robowrong. Its two spindly arms end with five dexterous-looking fingers, while its bottom half widens out into a bell shape. Above bright silver eyes, two white eyebrows slant up to give the impression of curious and helpful. A panel in its chest displays the time, the date, the temperature, and more. Below the panel, the word Simutech shines in mother-of-pearl. It would’ve come from Innovation, mom’s old department.

  Abel speaks noticeably slower to the substitute than he did to Hunter. “Kimiko, this is my niece, Tess Rockwood.”

  Its smooth, silicon body isn’t distinctly male or female but it has a modulated female voice. “Tessendra Rockwood, niece.” It whirs quietly. “Missing, presumed dead.”

  This time I almost laugh. “You should teach your little fembot better manners, Uncle A. Am I going to get that every time?”

  “Why have you come home?” Abel repeats. “Why now?”

  I meet my uncle’s gaze with complete sincerity, aware how important it is that he believes me. “If I stayed out there any longer, I would’ve died. Fresh water’s impossible to find, and I am so over eating pourriture for every meal. I missed real food and showers and my friends. And,” I add, “I missed you.”

  I watch him process this, no idea if he believes it or not. “Well, where are you staying?” Before I can answer he goes on, “After you left, your home in the South Hills was reassigned. Everything was redistributed.” He frowns doubtfully. “I can inquire as to getting some of your things back—”

  “I don’t want any of that stuff. I want—I need . . .” I need to know if Ling is telling the truth. Are you really creating another artilect called Aevum?

  “What do you need, Tess?” Abel asks gently.

  I take a deep breath. “A place to stay.”

  Abel’s face relaxes into a smile. He comes over to grasp my shoulder, his eyes a little moist, his voice a little gruff. “I can certainly help with that.”

  “Dr. Rockwood?” Kimiko interrupts politely. “It is eight P.M. You are currently ten minutes behind schedule.”

  “What?” he asks, looking confused.

  “Your staff meeting,” Hunter says. “We need to go.”

  “Good heavens, yes. I’ll have to cancel.”

  “No, that’s okay,” I say quickly. “You should go. All I want to do is shower and then sleep for a week.”

  “Absolutely not, Tess!” Abel exclaims. “I can’t leave you alone. We have to talk—”

  I cut him off by yawning like a jungle cat. “Talk? Sure,” I say, affecting a sleepy tone. “But, later. Tired. So tired. Go to your meeting. I’ll be fine.”

  Abel stares at me as if I’ve just started speaking Mal. “I’m not leaving you alone, Tess. Not after—” He shakes his head. “Kimiko, I need to reschedule. Go to the study, we’ll comm from there—” Abel’s voice breaks off. I catch a quick glance directed at a red door on the other side of the room. The door to the basement. It has a computerized lock on it, the type that requires a password for entry. That’s never been there before. A basement door with a brand-new top-of-the-line lock stinks of top secret. Maybe Abel does have something to hide. Weirdly, I feel both thrilled and crushed by this.

  I glance back at Abel. He’s looking right at me—no, through me. I freeze. He knows the real reason I’m here. “What?” I ask nervously.

  “You’re your mother’s daughter, Tess. No one can tell you what to do. Just like her.” His mouth forms a small, sad smile. “Just like Frankie.”

  A spike of pain drives straight into my heart. I keep my face frozen.

  “I’ll be back in a jiffy,” Abel continues, hands fluttering in front of him. “Hunter, wait here a moment. We still have to go over tomorrow’s lecture.” Then, calling over his shoulder to me: “Hunter can catch you up on what you’ve missed!” Disappearing through the living room and into his study, he leaves me alone with Hunter Adams.

  Hunter clears his throat. I lift my eyes to his reluctantly. He offers a cautious smile, but it’s more like an impression of a smile than the real thing. “Is there anything specific you want to know?” he asks.

  “No.” I drop my gaze to the rug in front of me and concentrate on finding patterns in its geometric design. A long, uncomfortable pause follows.

  “Can I get you something?” he tries again. “A glass of water?”

  I shake my head. The long, uncomfortable pause decides to put its feet up and stay awhile. Where is Abel? I thought he was in a hurry.

  After a few more moments of awkward silence, Hunter wanders over to the table where Abel left Mack. He considers my knife with his arms folded in front of him, as if it might bite.

  “So,” he says thoughtfully, “you like knives.”

  The way he says it, so considered and without trying to be funny, actually makes me laugh. Hunter glances up, looking surprised but pleased at my outburst. “It was unexpected,” he says. “Your entrance.”

  I bite my lip, smiling in spite of myself.

  Hunter picks up Mack curiously, running long fingers over the worn, cream handle. His eyes flick back to mine. “What was it like out there?”

  I can’t articulate that to someone I’ve just met. “I don’t know,” I mutter softly.

  He cocks his head at me, intrigued. “You don’t speak English out there, right?”

  “No,” I say. His look of expectation morphs into a look of confusion, I assume at my inability to hold a normal conversation. “Malspeak,” I tell him, somewhat unwillingly. “But we just call it Mal.”

  “You said you used to eat pourriture. Is that Mal?”

  I nod, surprised he picked that up. “It’s this disgusting porridge stuff.”

  “It’s a portmanteau word, right? From the French?”

  I frown. “What’s a portmanteau word?”

  “It’s when you combine the meaning of two words into a new one.” He furrows his brow, thinking aloud. “Pourri means ‘rotten’ and nourriture means ‘food.’ So pourriture means ‘rotten food’ or ‘bad food.’ ”

  “That’s right,” I say, a little impressed. I guess it’s meant to be ironic because French food used to be the best in the word, and pourriture is definitely the worst. But no one speaks old lan
guages like French anymore. I only know the meaning because some local boy told me, tracing the words into the red dust with the tip of his finger. “You speak French?”

  “Yes,” he says, as if this isn’t unusual. “Pourriture. Pourriture.” Hunter rolls the word around his mouth with satisfaction. “That’s so clever.”

  “You’d be less enthusiastic if you had to eat it,” I tell him, and now it’s his turn to smile. This time, it looks closer to the real thing. His curious, darting eyes seem to exude intelligence. A fast brain, my mom used to say. No wonder my uncle picked him to be his assistant.

  Hunter places Mack back on the table, and I’m pleased to see he does it carefully. “So, why’d you leave?”

  “What?” I ask, although I heard him just fine.

  “Why did you leave Eden?”

  I suddenly feel light-headed. “I, um . . .” My palms are sticky with sweat. I wipe them on the front of my dress. “Why did I . . . What?”

  Hunter’s eyebrows twitch down. “Are you all right?”

  I swallow hard, glancing around. “It’s just hot in here. Don’t you think it’s hot?”

  “No.” He eyes me uncertainly.

  “I should go,” I say, backing away from him. “I’m sorry, I have to—” My leg catches the edge of an end table, knocking a photogram over.

  “What’s the matter with you?”

  I try to regain control of my voice, but it’s wavering and unstable. “N-Nothing. I just should go unpack—”

  “Okay, done!” Abel bustles back into the living room. “Managed to reschedule. Now, Hunter, why don’t we just work from the study. You don’t mind, do you? Tess, towels and sheets are—well, you know where they are.”

  I pull myself together and nod staunchly. “Sure.”

  Hunter’s on his way to the study. From the corner of my eye, I see him cut me a sideways glance. I don’t return it.

  Abel turns back to me. “If you need anything, anything at all, I’ll be right in here. And Tess?”

  “Yes?”

  Abel’s smile is genuine and loving. “It’s so good to see you again.”

  I wait until I hear the study door close. Then I fall into the sofa and press the bottoms of my palms into my eyes. I want to be swallowed up by the blackness I find there. Now that Hunter and Abel are gone, I can’t hide from the memories.

  I’ve sunbathed in the courtyard out back. I’ve burned ricotta pancakes in the kitchen that’s tucked away around the corner. The old me is in this house. My mom is in this house. The past seems so close I could reach out and grab it.

  C’mon, Tess. Get it together. Remember why you’re here.

  I make myself look over at the red door. If Abel is working for Simutech, he’d have a home lab set up. If the project is as classified as Ling suggested, the lab would be behind lock and key. My uncle’s security measures were always pretty predictable—I might be able to guess the password. But even the thought of doing that makes my blood feel icy.

  Instead, I find myself picking up the photogram I knocked over on the end table. My eyes find my own. The framed three-second loop of Mom and me cuts through everything else. I remember when we recorded this. I can hear my mom’s voice as clearly as if she were here now.

  “Oh, Tess, you look beautiful!”

  “Mom!” I spun around in surprise. My red dress whirled like a cape. “What are you doing home so early?”

  “I only have a minute.” She brushed my cheek with a kiss, before heading over to riffle through the mess on the dining room table.

  “Should I wear this or the white one?”

  “Red. You look like Joan of Arc.”

  I made a face. “ ‘Dead martyr’ wasn’t what I had in mind.”

  Mom laughed. Her comm beeped, and she switched her attention to unrolling some scratch. “Is that boy taking you?” She wiggled her fingers as if trying to conjure up his name. “Matt . . . Zinney?”

  “You mean Mark Manzino?”

  “Right.”

  “He’s taking someone else.” I replied flatly. Of course he is. “I’m flying solo.” Of course I am.

  “Good,” my mother said, with unexpected gravitas. She stopped fussing to meet my eyes, assessing me for a long, cool moment.

  “What?” I asked. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

  “I’m going to tell you something, Tess,” she said. “Something important.”

  “Okay,” I replied apprehensively. This was not Mom’s typical parenting style.

  “If you want to be happy in this world, you have to learn how to survive on your own. You don’t need a partner.”

  I rolled my eyes. “It’s my choice, I know—”

  “I mean, you’d be better off independent,” she said emphatically. “If you only rely on yourself, you’ll never be let down. Partners weaken us. Oh sure,” she continued with a wave of her hand, “love is grand, love is flowers and sunsets, but love fades, Tessendra. Love is just a chemical called dopamine and that doesn’t last.”

  I was stunned. She’d never said anything like that to me before. I felt confused and oddly embarrassed. But if she noticed the effect her words had on me, she didn’t show it. In a flash, she was back to fussing around and getting ready—as always—to leave. “Honey, I have to go. Magnus is being particularly difficult today.”

  “Sometimes I think you love that dumb robot more than me,” I said sourly.

  “He’s not dumb. And that’s just ridiculous, Tess. I could never love anyone more than you.” Her lithe fingers danced through the opaque clouds of nonsensical science jargon, moving them around at lightning speed.

  “Let me put the white one on real quick,” I pleaded.

  “No, I have to go.” She threw her arm around my shoulder, holding the scratch in front of us. In photo mode, it reflected our faces like a mirror. “Say Camembert!”

  I’m half scowling through the three-second loop that follows, but I can see why Abel has it: you can’t tell we were fighting seconds before she started recording us. I mutter Camembert, but then Mom elbows me in the ribs and I yelp in surprise, which looks charming. Then it starts again: just a flash of what looks like a loving if typically dysfunctional mom and her grumpy teen daughter, hamming it up for a photogram. Mom looks vibrant, as always—she was always more photogenic than I. She’s wearing the necklace I wear now—the light catches the intricate hand-cut gold sword. I look so young in this loop. It’s hard to believe it was only a year and a half ago. Young and naive.

  Death started the life I now recognize as mine.

  A scorching wave of tears rushes up and a painful, strangled gasp escapes my throat. I clamp my hand over my mouth. If I start crying now, I’ll never be able to stop. I stare at the loop, at my mom’s face. She was so beautiful. So bright and so alive.

  “I’m sorry,” I whisper at the loop. “Mom, I’m so sorry.”

  “Are you all right, Miss Rockwood?” I jump in fright. The eerie substitute is standing next to me.

  “Y-Yes,” I stutter in shock.

  “Can I assist you with anything?” It rolls a little closer.

  I scoot farther down the sofa. My voice shakes. “I’m fine.”

  It rolls closer still. “I’m detecting tremors in your vocal pattern, indicating discomfort. Can I assist you with anything?”

  Irrationally, my heart is racing. My instincts are telling me to flee. “Meiyou!” I snap, slipping into Mal. “You stupid fuega!”

  I’m cornered at the end of the sofa, having scrambled back as far as I can. Kimiko leans over me, a few inches from my face. “I’m sorry, I’m having trouble understanding you.” Her creepy silver eyes drill into mine. Her voice seems to warp in my ears, coming from a mouth that does not move. “Can I assist you with anything?”

  Terror seizes me. The eyes. The fact that she won’t stop, even though I’ve told her to.

  Magnus.

  The ghostly echo of the day that changed everything; distorted, drawn-out words that feel li
ke terror itself: “Get. Away. From. My. Mother!”

  A cry escapes me, a shuddering release of fear. I push the thing away, knocking it over. I grab my backpack from the floor, snatch Mack from the table, then bolt for the stairs.

  The guest room is dark when I fumble my way in, slamming the door behind me. My hands are shaking so badly, it takes forever to lock the door. It’s just a substitute, I tell myself, over and over and over again. It’s just a stupid robot.

  I allow myself one, two great sobs, and then I steel myself. I make myself as cold and hard as a blade.

  A noise. I stiffen, my body still clenched. A chirrup, like a bird. Kudzu. They’re trying to send me one of those forest things. For a few seconds I just stand there in the darkened room while a high-pitched cheep cheep cheep cuts through the otherwise quiet night.

  Then I’m moving. Unzipping my backpack. Pulling out Ling’s scratch. Shoving it between the mattress and the base of the bed. Pushing it in deep, where the heavy mattress drowns out the bright, insistent sound.

  These movements, unplanned, as if someone else is controlling my body, tell me with perfect clarity what I already know.

  I will never join Kudzu.

  I don’t care about Abel’s involvement.

  And I want less than zero to do with this thing called Aevum.

  chapter 4

  I sleep like the dead, my body surrendering completely to ten hours of dreamless slumber in the most comfortable bed I’ve been in for a year. When I wake, my hand’s under the pillow and scrambling for Mack before I remember where I am. I don’t need to defend myself or hit the ground running. I’m back in Eden. I’m safe.

  By Eden standards, the guest bedroom is sparsely furnished. But the flowing curtains that let in clear morning light and the soft carpet my feet sink into feel embarrassingly luxurious.

  Towel in one hand, I uneasily face off against the shower. The neat guest bathroom is evidently rarely used, as a fine layer of dust lines the shower’s ribbed floor. Thumb-sized bottles of shampoo, conditioner, and cleanser squat on a silver ledge.

  A warm, gushing waterfall cascades around me. The water hits my skin in all the right places, like an all-over massage. I can’t help groaning with pleasure as it drums into my shoulders, my back, my chest, my neck. I close my eyes and turn my face to the spray, letting it fall over my cheeks and forehead and scalp. I soap up my skin with an opaque goo that smells like ripe peaches. Layers of dirt and sweat and grime disappear in the bubbles. The sweet smell of peach mixes with the steam. I never want it to end. I want to stand here forever.