Transcendent (9781311909442) (19 page)

“So they lost interest because you’re only
fifteen?”

Lily looked up and shook her head.

“Then why?”

She shrugged again. “I don’t know.”

“Lily—”

“Tell me about yourself,” Lily blurted out.
“I’m tired of everything always being about me. You’ve been my only
friend for almost a year and I don’t know anything about you.”

Palla stared at her and shrugged. “What’s
there to know? The important stuff I’ve told you.”

“What about your family? Did you have one?
Were they, uh—”

“Killed?” Palla offered her a small smile.
“I think so. I was sent to hide with all the other kids while the
adults stayed to negotiate. Negotiations failed.”

Lily winced. “At least they had a chance to
talk.”

Palla shook her head. “I don’t think so.
Think about it—they had to strike hard and fast. If they didn’t,
how could they do what they did?”

“You mean butcher innocents?”

Palla pressed her lips in a disapproving
line. “I don’t think they were innocents. It was necessary, Lily.
Horrible, but necessary. For people who wanted the old ways to
return would have sown dissent. You know that from the history
classes you’ve had.”

Lily nodded. A lot of the stories she’d
heard didn’t match up with the stories Krys used to ramble on
about, but she’d never paid enough attention to his stories to
remember them. That didn’t matter, though; the day would come when
she could get Krys at her side again. She’d stopped trying to find
him for fear someone would wonder why and it might cause
problems.

“One thing nobody’s really explained is
where they all came from?”

“Where who came from? President Ondalla and
his liberators?”

Lily wanted to snort at the thought of
calling the people who killed her family and friends liberators.
“Yes,” she managed to say.

Palla shook her head. “He worked in secret,
gathering believers in his cause for many years. This didn’t just
happen; people have known for years that our society was top-heavy
and foolish. The one percent who lived off the back of the rest of
humanity could only last as long as they could keep everyone else
from realizing how used they were.”

Lily stared at her. “Just you? No brothers
or sisters?”

Palla shook her head. “No. Just me. My
parents didn’t have enough to purchase a second license.”

“So you were born in a lab?”

Palla nodded. “Most of us were. Leaving
genetics to chance? That’s scary stuff!”

“Worked okay for me,” Lily pointed out.

“Don’t forget, you’re the exception to the
rule.”

Lily nodded. “In every way.”

They lapsed into silence and Palla glanced
up at the vidcaster on the wall. Lily followed her gaze and thought
back to what had been on. The brief glimpse she’d seen reminded her
of Venus.

“Feeling better?” Palla asked, jerking her
out of her thoughts.

“Oh! Yes, I guess I am. Thanks,” Lily
said.

Palla smiled. “Anything else I can do for
you? Are you hungry? Need help studying?”

Lily raised an eyebrow, earning a laugh from
Palla.

“Okay, if I need help studying, I’ll come to
you.”

“I’m wiped out. The shower made me realize
that before I flashed you. I think I’m going to crash. I’ve got
tomorrow off and I intend to do as little as I can, for once.”

“That sounds like a great idea,” Palla
agreed. “Oh, and Lil?”

Lily paused from where she’d risen from the
chair. “Huh?”

“What I saw—in the bathroom? That was not a
boy—that was a very pretty girl who will turn into a beautiful
young woman any day now.”

“Yeah, that didn’t make me feel any more
awkward,” Lily groaned.

Palla laughed. She glanced down at the
shadows revealed by the low neck on her sleep shirt and then looked
up at Lily. She had a wry grin on her lips as she said, “Trust me,
I was pretty shocked the day I woke up and realized I had
breasts.”

Lily rolled her eyes. “They don’t grow
overnight!”

“It felt like it to me. And besides, don’t
you think it’s about time you were a late bloomer for
something?”

Lily shook her head and waved behind her
back at her as she walked into the bedroom and headed straight for
her bed. Troubled or not, she was tired. Tired and, the more she
thought about it, the more she realized she couldn’t wait for
tomorrow. A full day off meant she could do some digging and read
up on getting a head start on her biomech pilot training.

Taking time off? That could wait. She had a
life to live. And she’d learned firsthand that life could end at
any minute. She could rest when she was dead.

Krys walked through the field with his
satchel of tools in his hand. He could have taken a transporter but
he figured they were overused enough as it was. That and he enjoyed
the walk. It was a little over three veeks into a day cycle and the
sun was warm and the ground dry. And the harvester that was
supposed to be collecting the first crop of wheat was down with
what sounded like a broken drive motor on one of the wheels.

Getting the wheel off and replacing the
electric motor was a miserable job that would take a couple of
hours. Krys wasn’t looking forward to the work, but he’d taken
something his father had once told him to heart. It wasn’t about
the work that was done; it was about how he did the work that
mattered. He could fix one machine or a hundred and not be
remembered for either. If he was happy with how he did it, then
that was what would get him through the day.

President Ondalla might feel differently,
but for all Krys cared President Ondalla could have one of the
genetically modified Venerian corn cobs shoved up his—

Krys’s unkind thoughts were interrupted by a
chirp from his phone. He glanced down at it and saw that Shelby was
calling him. He smiled and answered it. “Hey, shouldn’t you be
marching up and down main street or something?”

“Very funny,” she said. “I’m calling to wish
you a happy birthday. If you’re the real Krys Evans, that is.”

Krys laughed. It was a private joke between
them after almost two years since she’d showed up and uprooted his
life. He’d adapted and even if he didn’t agree with how things were
done, he took pride in how he did his part in them. He didn’t think
of it as making things better for humanity or even the guy in
charge. Krys was more focused on how he could try to make his life
and the life of the other people who worked for the new government
better.

“Sixteen’s the age of majority—you’re an
adult.”

“Yeah, guess so.”

“You don’t sound very excited.”

Krys shrugged. “What’s there to be excited
about? I’ve been working already. Got my own place. I’ve been
driving vehicles for a while now too. What else is there?”

“You can, um, socialize.”

“Socialize?”

“Yeah, you know, social contracts and
such.”

Krys grimaced. “Marriage? Yeah, that’s a
great idea. There are so many people my age around me.”

She was silent on the other end of the phone
for several seconds until she came back on. “You’re old for your
age, Krys. Old-fashioned, too—marriage is from the old ways. It
doesn’t make sense anymore. Social contracts make so much more
sense. In fact, cohabitation and agreeing to share burdens and
tasks are precisely the ideals our society has to be based on.”

“Okay, if you say so. Oh, there’s the
harvester I’m—”

“Krys?”

Krys stared at the group of people gathered
around the autonomous vehicle. There shouldn’t have been anyone but
him within a few kilometers. “Um, sorry. Looks like something’s
broke pretty bad. I better get started.”

“Oh, okay,” Shelby said. “You’re sure
everything’s okay?”

“Yeah,” Krys said while squinting to try to
make out details of the people. He counted six of them.

“Well, whether you like it or not, I’m
making you a birthday dinner tonight. Maybe there’ll be a present
for you, too, if you’re good.”

Krys grunted. “Uh, okay. Thanks.”

Shelby sighed. “You’re already caught up in
fixing it, aren’t you? Okay, well, I’ll see you later. Hurry
back!”

Krys grunted again and terminated the call.
He tucked it into his pocket and glanced around the open field of
waist-high wheat before he started walking down the shallow hill
towards the harvester. He walked less than a dozen paces before
they noticed him and started to scramble.

“Wait!” Krys shouted and waved his hands.
“Don’t run!”

One of them stopped, which led to the others
slowing one at a time and staring back at him. Krys kept walking,
his hands up in the air, and focused on the man closest to the
harvester and closest to him.

“Krys?” the disheveled man asked.

“Mr. Strain?” Krys gasped.

“You’re alive!” Mig whooped before he
started running forward.

Krys found himself running and then he was
lifted into the air in a crushing hug. He landed hard and staggered
back but kept grinning the entire time. “So are you!”

Mig laughed and turned to motion to the
others to join them. Krys counted again and recognized the former
survivors as they approached. They’d changed, in small ways mostly.
Dirtier, for one thing, but also leaner and harder looking. Every
one of them was showing patches of skin through the tears and
worn-out fabric of the clothes they wore. Kerry was shirtless and
Stef wore the tattered remains of his shirt. The men had beards and
scruffy hair while the women looked weathered.

“Where’s Janna?” Krys asked.

Mig licked his lips and sighed. “She went
looking for you when you didn’t show up,” he said.

“The soldiers didn’t find her,” Krys said.
“I would have heard.”

He shook his head. “No, they didn’t. She had
an accident in the woods and broke her legs. By the time we came
back and found her, she was gone.”

“Dead?”

Mig nodded. He sniffed and glanced at the
ground while the others came up and offered Krys hugs, handshakes,
and pats on the back. He was swept away with all the questions
until a chuckling Mig called out loud enough to get their
attention. “Whoa, whoa, whoa! Let the boy catch his breath! Except
you’re not really much of a boy anymore, are you, son? My Lily
would be sixteen now.”

“Today’s my birthday,” Krys said. He jerked
his head and stared at Mig, stopping the man’s surprised reaction
before it started. “Lily’s alive!”

Mig took a step back and Angelo put a hand
on his back to steady him. “You’ve seen her?”

Krys nodded. “On the news. She—”

“The news?” Mig breathed.

“Yes, she’s amazing,” Krys said. He blushed
and then pushed on in spite of it. “I mean, I’ve dug up what I
could about her. She’s some kind of genius! A real genius. They’re
calling her a prodigy. The youngest student to ever obtain her
mastery and she’s competing against people four years older than
her in her ACT.”

“ACT? Mastery? What are you talking
about?”

“That’s how they do things now. All children
attend centralized education centers. Based on their aptitudes and
scores, they are assigned a mastery path. It’s like a career path
or something. Lily could have done anything when she got her
mastery. That means she graduated. She did it when she was still
fifteen!”

Mig grinned like a fool and turned to look
at the others.

“ACT is Advanced Cadet Training,” Krys
explained. Everyone stared at him with confused expressions on
their faces. “Remember those big robots that came for us? They’re
called biomechs. Lily is going to pilot one. She could do it now
but they won’t install the hardware until she’s seventeen.”

Mig shook his head. “She’s going to be one
of them? A soldier? But—”

Krys frowned. “I don’t think she wants to be
a soldier.”

“But you said…this is confusing, Krys.”

“Sorry, I know it’s a lot to take in. She
keeps talking about wanting to be the best so she can compete in
the games.”

“What games?” Fina asked.

Krys studied her and noticed how much older
she looked. A few Venerian solar cycles without proper shelter and
food would do that to a person, he supposed. She didn’t seem as on
edge as she used to be either. “It’s the new sport. Biomech
matches. There’s a league with a tournament at the end. The first
tournament is underway already. Only the best biomech pilots get to
compete. They have small unit individual classes.”

“That sounds insane,” Kerry mumbled. Stef
nodded her head beside him.

Krys looked at them all as they tried to
process what he’d told them. “Are you guys the reason my harvester
broke down?”

Gary was the first to answer while Mig
continued to stare at the ground. “Not the reason. We wandered
across it and we were about to strip it down for parts.”

“What do you mean, your harvester?” Mig
asked him.

Krys swallowed and turned to face his former
mentor. “That’s what I do now—I keep their machines running. They
were supposed to send me away for reeducation but I showed them
what I could do. The man I worked with, Lesk, was killed in a—hey!
You guys didn’t raid a convoy awhile back, did you?”

Everyone shook their heads. “No,” Mig said.
“We stay low and out of sight, mostly. Haven’t found any other
survivors either, but it’s good to know they’re out there.”

Krys didn’t trust himself to speak so he
nodded. Lesk had been his friend. The people he lived and worked
with now weren’t any different from his family had been before.
Just innocent people doing what they had to do to get by. Even the
soldiers were people. Humans, like him and Lily and Mr. Strain. All
people doing jobs they had to do because somebody had an idea of
how they wanted things to be.

“You coming with us?” Mig asked him.