Parched (2 page)

A shadowed figure appears in the doorway, blocking the sun. I whip the handle into my palm.

The figure steps inside.

A girl.

My age—sixteen—maybe a pinch older. I relax my grip. She doesn't look like a threat. Her sharp, almond-shaped eyes move around the dingy bar with the precision of a tracking beam. On seeing me, she double-takes, eyes pulsing in a split second of what looks like recognition.

Apprehension shoots up my spine. My fingers tighten around Mack's hilt.

Without breaking eye contact, the girl slides onto a stool at the end of the bar, loosening her copper-colored sun robe. Her look is typical Badlands: a loose-fitting, hand-sewn dress constructed from mismatched scraps of material and leather boots as brawny as a bull. A few stripy feathers are woven into a handful of tiny plaits. But there's no hiding the sheen of her thick, black bangs or the plump swell of her cheeks and arms. Her sun robe's not nearly as stained as mine.

“Poká, coméstá?”
She greets me eagerly in Malspeak, but it lacks the confidence of a local.

“Poká,”
I murmur back.

“Un acqua, qing beaucoup?”

“Shì.”
I drive Mack's blade into the soft wood of the bar where the kids can see it while I tend to the girl. The aqua ferro that trickles from the faucet runs opaque yellow, dribbling like syrup. It smells like wet dog.

“No.” There's a light, if frustrated, laugh in the girl's voice. “
Acqua azul
.” Lake water. Eden water.

“A dollar,” I challenge. “And you owe me ten cents for the
ferro
.”

She slides a red ten-dollar note across the bar. “Keep the copper.”

I grab it before the kids catch sight of it: ten dollars is a week's wages around here. She's a tourist, then. Slumming it in Kep Sai'an to regale wide-eyed friends back in Eden with a daring anecdote or two. Time to show her some classic Kep Sai'an service.

“Hey! Robowrong!” The substitute that'd been standing motionless
at the far end of the bar jerks its head up. Flat, mechanical eyes aim themselves in the direction of my voice. “City girl wants a city water.”

The large, ungainly machine rolls bumpily toward us. It's a head shorter than me and stout, like a dirty bronze troll. I cross my arms, a satisfied smirk creeping across my mouth. Being the world's biggest cheapskate, Zhukov has the world's shoddiest substitute.

Eden is full of sophisticated, beautifully designed substitutes, but in this backwater part of the world, we have the oldest, clunkiest subs around. It would take this hopeless hunk of metal five minutes to hand the girl a bottle of water. She knows it, but if she's annoyed, she doesn't show it.

“I haven't seen that model of substitute in a while—a Builder, right?” She gives me a quick, deliberate smile. “Did you make the modifications so it could work in here? You strike me as someone who might know her way around a substitute.” Her eyes are all questions that she already has the answers to.

She knows who I am
.

Time to change tack. I give her a big, dumb smile, and force a chuckle. “You've certainly got me pinned wrong. I don't know the first thing about all that stuff.” I cock my head, the too-friendly smile still slapped on my face. “You're not from around here, right? You know, there's a pretty decent
pourriture
stall nearby. I eat there all the time and have never gotten sick—”

“I'm not here for travel tips,” she interrupts. “My name's Ling Sun-Yi.” She sticks her hand out. I don't shake it. “And you are?”

“Lillith.” My fingers find the sharp tip of the small gold sword dangling from my necklace and press into it, hard. A nervous gesture I can't shake.

Her dark eyes practically swallow me whole. “Wasn't Lillith the woman who was cast out of Eden? According to myth?”

My skin shivers but I keep my eyes and voice hard. “Ping, was it?“

“Ling,” she corrects.

“Here's a travel tip for you, Ping.” I frame my words like a question, but they sound like a statement. “Why don't you get out of here before I tell those kids to roll you for all that spare cash you have.”

The girl's eyes drill into me, unblinking. “Are you sure your name isn't
Tess Rockwood
?”

Despite the heat, I freeze.

Ling's fist pops the bar in triumph. “It
is
you! You're hard to find,
Tess. I've been looking for you for a month!” Her words are lit with excitement. “Got a tip-off at a trading market an hour north. They remembered the tattoo. Not many people around here have electronic ones.”

My fingers move automatically to my tronic, the glowing scrawl of text implanted on the underside of my left arm, from the crook of my elbow to the bottom of my palm. Four words:
No feeling is final
. I'd never guessed it could be used to track me down. “I know my rights,” I say. “It isn't against Trust law for Edenites to be in the Badlands.”

“Tess—“

“Leave.” My fingers hover over Mack's hilt. “Or I'll be forced to get persuasive.”

“It's taken me a month to find you,” Ling says, incredulous. “I'm not leaving.”

“You can't make me come back with you,” I all but yell. “I don't care what you do for the Trust!”

“I don't work for the Trust!” She takes a deep breath, eyes burning bright. “I'm part of a group called Kudzu.”

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.