Parched (35 page)

Then she exhales noisily and pushes past me, striding off.

I follow her to the front of a large tent with a wide opening. Big pieces of green fabric are strung up to form three walls and a roof. Inside, the floor is covered in faded straw mats. A few blankets are folded neatly in one corner. Cupboards made from old boxes line the walls, filled with various odds and ends: a sticky brown bottle marked
MEDICINE
, a green-handled hairbrush, a salt shaker. “This is Lopé's place,” she announces. “Home, shit home.”

The dozen people sitting inside and around the house look up at me. I feel a sharp stab of recognition. Ling and Achilles are among them.

“Tess!” Achilles exclaims. “We thought you were dead!”

“Yeah, I get that a lot,” I reply, grateful he's pleased to see me. Ling, however, remains seated and stone-faced.

Achilles hops up and limps over. I'm surprised when he goes to hug me, but find myself hugging him back.

“Love the haircut, really brings out your bruises.” He shakes his head in astonishment, eyes marveling at me. “Are you sure you're not a cat? You got more lives in you than most.”

“I'll say,” Naz mutters.

“You should talk,” I say, gesturing at his leg. “Saw you take a hit on the roof.”

“And I've got the limp to prove it. Come sit down.” Achilles gestures. “I can't
believe
you survived that razer shot! Right in the chest! Amazetown!”

“I think we've all got stuff to talk about,” Naz adds darkly. She looks over at Ling, who, after a long moment, nods wordlessly. Apprehension coils in me like a snake.

Naz asks everyone else to give us some space and we soon have the tent to ourselves. She unrolls the front flap and lets it fall. Green light makes everyone look sick and ghoulish.

We sit cross-legged, the even corners of a square. I notice the brandings on Achilles' and Ling's arms are like Naz's. I probably don't
want to know why mine's different—I doubt I've won a lucky door prize. I can feel Ling's sharp brown eyes boring into me, but I can't bring myself to meet her gaze. Instead I ask Naz what happened after I was shot on the roof. She lights a cigarette and matter-of-factly tells me they were captured, taken back here to the Three Towers and then separated for questioning as to Kudzu's whereabouts. “We all gave them a false location,” Naz finishes.

“A far-flung spot in the Farms,” Achilles adds. “It'll take them a few days to work out we were lying. Buy us some time.”

“What happens when time's up?” I ask.

“No idea.” Naz blows a line of dirty-smelling smoke above my head. “Maybe something. Maybe nothing. What about you?”

I tell them about coming to in Gyan's quarters, the chip, the questioning of Kudzu's location, the hospital, everything up until being thrown in here. I work out I'd been unconscious for two days after being shot on the roof, and another night after Gyan put me in the hospital.

“And you didn't say anything to Gyan about where Kudzu are?” Naz presses, sounding like she didn't really believe me.

“No! No, of course not. That's why I ended up in the hospital! No, wait,” I backtrack. I may as well be as honest as I can. “That wasn't the question that put me in hospital.”

“What was?” Naz asks.

I take a deep breath. “He wanted to know why I didn't destroy the mirror matter when I had the chance.”

A long, painful pause.

“And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the question on everyone's lips,” Achilles says softly.

I force myself to look at Ling. She is staring at me unflinchingly, her gaze all icy venom. “That was Aevum, wasn't it?” she says. “On the roof. The boy I shot with the flamethrower.”

“What happened to him?” I ask urgently. “What happened after I was shot?”

“I burned him to a crisp!” Ling spits. “That was him,
wasn't it
?”

“Yes,” I whisper. So it's true. Hunter really is dead. Because of me.

Ling spreads her hands in an exaggerated gesture, not needing words to ask the question everyone in the dank, smoky tent is asking:
What. The. Hell?

When I start speaking, my voice is pinched and nervous. “I met Hunter the night I arrived at my uncle's—”

“Wait—
Hunter
?” Ling interrupts. “The guy you liked? Your uncle's assistant?”

I flush. “Turns out he was more like my uncle's special project.”

“But you said artilects couldn't look like people,” Achilles says.

“I was wrong.” Haltingly, I start at the beginning: How I'd come to know the green-eyed boy who was the catalyst for our current circumstance. His role as my tutor, and as my friend. “He saved me at Simutech. After we lost each other, he saved me and that's when I worked out who he was. He was in the florist shop, where you found me—”

“He was there?” Ling cries. “With you?”

I nod. “He doesn't believe he feels any emotions, and I was trying to help him.” I explain my theory about Hunter needing to develop empathy, which was why Abel had us spend time together, but Kudzu aren't interested in that. They're interested in the fact that I betrayed them.

“So, you knew Hunter was Aevum when we made the plan to go back,” Naz clarifies.

“And you knew you had”—Ling shudders—“
feelings
for him.”

“Feelings that ended up compromising the mission,” Achilles finishes.

Shamefully, I nod, creating an angry ripple of collective disbelief. “I thought I could go through with it. I really did, right up to—”

“Right up to the moment we all got captured by the Trust,” Ling says sarcastically.

“That would've happened even if we'd destroyed the mirror matter,” I mutter.

“I can't believe you sold us out like that.” Naz spits the words darkly. “We trusted you. We took you into our home—”

“Naz,” Achilles says, voice strained. “She didn't know Hunter was Aevum until that night. And by then she knew him. They were . . . friends.”

“She should've told us as soon as she found out!” Naz yells. “I
knew
she couldn't be trusted, I knew it right from the start!”

“I tried to convince him to come with me,” I say beseechingly. “He was close to saying yes, I know it.”

“Come with you? What, with us? On the floaters?” Ling looks at me as if I'm stark raving mad. “Aevum was a
killing machine
, Tess. Built to
murder people
. And you wanted him to come with us?”

“Well, yeah,” I say helplessly. “I thought I could get him on our side.”

Ling shrugs sarcastically. “Guess he was still on theirs. Until I killed him.”

Her callousness renders me speechless. Grief-stricken. Hunter is gone.

“Well, we'll have a lot of time to mull over the specifics of it all,” Achilles says. “Unless they torture us to death first.”

“What do you mean?” I ask. “How do we get out of here?”

Achilles looks at me in surprise. Then, pity. “We can't, Tess,” he says softly. “According to the Trust, we're terrorists. They can lock us up for as long as they like.”

“What? That's crazy!” I exclaim in disbelief. “We need to get ahold of Abel!”

“Have you got a comm?” Ling's words are biting.

“No. But isn't there something we can do?” I scramble for options. “Maybe the others can get us out of here. Maybe we can break out!”

Achilles slowly shakes his head. “How? The only way out is by air.” His head drops tiredly, his hands pressing into his eyes. “Why do you think they're letting us be in here together, Tess?”

“I don't know. Why?”

“Because we're not a threat,” he replies quietly.

Ling reaches over to rub his back, her shoulders hunched. Naz's eyes are fixed in the middle distance, empty and glazed, one hand holding her stub protectively. No one says anything.

A clanging bell rings out, matching the panicked thump of my heart.

“Damn.” Naz scowls. “Dinner's on. We'll be at the end of the line now.”

The three rise quickly to their feet. “You coming?” Achilles asks, limping toward the flap. “The food's maggots-to-non-maggots ratio rises steeply toward the back of the line.”

My voice is hoarse. “I think I'll stay here.”

“Suit yourself,” he says, ducking under the flap. “Be back later for the post-meal vomit.”

“Ling.” I grab her arm as she goes to follow Naz and Achilles. “Wait.”

She shakes my hand off, but still turns to face me. Her arms fold across her chest. “What?”

“I'm sorry,” I whisper. “I'm
so sorry
. I let you down and I lied to you, and now we're . . . in here. Please forgive me.”

Ling's arms drop to rest uneasily on her hips. She rocks back on her
heels, swallowing hard and tipping her chin up, looking like she's trying not to cry.

“Please,” I beg, my voice cracking. I hold out one hand toward her, willing her to take it. “Ling,
please
.”

Ling lowers her chin and exhales with a long, shuddering breath. “I'm sorry, Tess,” she says. “I can't.” Then she turns and leaves the tent.

I'm left alone, one hand still pathetically raised after her.

The naked horror of spending the rest of my life locked up like an animal with a chip in my head for the Trust to use whenever they want sucks the breath out of me. I'm never going to feel the warmth of the sun or sleep in my own bed ever again.

I curl up in the corner farthest from the entrance.

Later, I hear the others return. The smell of rotting garbage—presumably the “food”—fills the musty air. I don't move from my corner.

After a few hours, the hubbub of the cell mutes to the occasional yell or angry exchange. Someone drapes a thin blanket over my shoulders. At some point, the huge overhead light is shut off.

I was expecting the tent to be cold, but the body heat of the dozen people keep it reasonably warm. I'm pulled down into a dense and heavy slumber.

Morning comes quickly. First, restless movement and low murmurs between people in our tent. Then the enormous light is turned on. People start rising. I hear the front flap being tied up. The clang of breakfast. I stay where I am, my back to the tent. I have nothing to get up for.

“We should we wake her,” Naz mutters.

“Let her sleep,” Achilles replies.

“But Lopé says the new ones are supposed to keep guard.”

“Naz,” Achilles says, “just let her rest.”

I hear them leave.

I feel myself start to turn inward. My heart feels like a raisin, dry and useless in my chest. I feel myself growing hard.

Days pass.

The
front door is ajar: an invitation. I push it open, knowing this is dangerous, knowing it could be a trap.

“Abel?” I call, breathless and bleeding. “Abel!”

The house is cold with moonlight, darkness crouching in every corner.

“Tess.” His voice is like an arrow. Hunter, tall in the shadows; a beautiful streak of white light.

“Hunter!” I run to him and I'm shivering and scared but he's here, he has me.

“Tess.” Arms reach out for me and I fall into them like a child, clutching his shirt, his arms, the back of his neck. He's real, he's here, he's mine. “Tess, I'm sorry.”

My eyes are streaming and I pull back to see his face. When did Hunter grow a beard?

His arms whirl me around. Kimiko advances, her metal fingers spindly as snakes. “I'm sorry,” he says. Her snakes encircle my throat, hissing and cold and tight. “Get up.”

But I can't stand. I'm on my knees, my throat is crushed, I can't breathe, I'm dying, I'm dying, Hunter standing over me and he's smiling, he's smiling—

“Get up!”

I wake with a shout, yanked into consciousness. Two Tranquils stand above me, razers aimed at my head.

“Gyan wants to see you.”

Through the open flap of the tent, I see Ling, Achilles, and Naz, stone-faced and cuffed, watched over by a couple of Quicks.

After some prodding by the sharp tips of their razers, I drag myself
to my feet. My body is so unstable, the ground feels like it's undulating beneath me.

The cell is unusually quiet when the four of us are hustled out. I stumble as we ascend the metal stairs, pushed toward the elevator.

I catch sight of myself in the warped shiny surface of the elevator walls, then instantly wish I hadn't. I'm a freshly dug-up corpse. Purplish circles under both eyes, lips that are cracked and pale. My skin feels tight over my ribs. My white hospital clothes are stained with sweat and dirt. “You stink, Rockwood,” Naz mutters.

I try to stand stoically but the thought of that hellish pain slamming into my head again makes my stomach twist into a nauseating mess.

The elevator shoots up to Floor 100. We're marched down a twisting, unfamiliar corridor where the air is frigid and smells like disinfectant. A couple of blank-faced subs press themselves against the walls as we pass. We stop at a set of double doors that disappear with a whisper-soft
shick
.

An enormous oval table with a slick mirrored surface dominates the sparse space. Like Gyan's quarters, one wall is all window, looking out over Eden. But the wall opposite is made of water, like an aquarium. A long, white shark gently cruises through the clear water, its tail fin swishing slowly from side to side. Its small eyes are dark pink, reminding me of a Quick.

The bright sunlight glinting off the distant Moon Lake makes me squint. It is, as usual, a relentlessly glorious day.

My uncle is sitting in one of the twenty-odd chairs surrounding the table, flanked by two Tranqs. His head jerks at our entrance. “Tess!” The strangled relief in his voice is pronounced. I try to say his name but it just comes out as an unintelligible choking noise. He rises, only to have two razers cocked at him in warning. Slowly, he sinks back into his chair, eyes seeming to take in every detail about me.