Awakening (43 page)

“You shouldn’t blame yourself,” Kayla said. “Abran—the boy traveling with us—was working with Akhilesh. He could have reported where we were.” Abran had said he hadn’t but he’d told so many lies.

Kayla remembered the necklace with its tracking device, and how happy Akhilesh had been to get his hands on her. Akhilesh might have wanted Raashida back for the sake of his punarjanma yield, but he’d been keeping tabs on Kayla too.

“Was there any truth to what Hala told you?” Kayla asked. About fixing GENs so they could have children?”

“Akhilesh lied to Hala about that to get Raashida back. Hala felt like a stupid old fool for being taken in. His words.” Mishalla gave her another quick hug. “Risa and Kiyomi are here too. I brought you in some clothes from the lorry. There are some sani-wipes on the dresser.”

Mishalle left the room as Kayla tugged off the sleep shirt, resisting the urge to hold it to her face to see if it smelled like Devak. She used the sani-wipes to clean off three days of grime and dressed quickly, then went out to the living room.

Mishalla sat with Risa and Kiyomi on the sofa, and Junjie fidgeted on a float chair. Devak stood by the open front door, leaning against the jamb. He wore an embroidered copper-colored korta and chera pants, the pants a little short for him, the korta a little tight in the shoulders.

As she moved to sit on the sofa beside Kiyomi, Devak seemed to drink her in. She wasn’t sure she was ready to face
whatever might be in his heart. Not when she didn’t know what was in hers.

“How do you feel?” he asked.

“Good. Thank you for coming for me.” Her gratitude sounded stilted and formal to her ears.

“It was Junjie who knew where you were,” Devak said.

Kayla’s gaze shifted to Junjie. He tilted his head toward Devak and nodded. Kayla took that to mean that Devak knew about FHE. Knew that the desperate message she’d passed to her had reached Devak through Junjie.

Kayla took Risa’s hand. “Are you okay? I heard the shockgun strike.”

“Hardest punch I’ve ever taken.” She lifted her shirt and peeled back the corner of the bandage on her midriff. Her blackened skin was edged with angry red. “Feel better with the lorry back. Kinship picked it up in Amik, brought it down to Plator. Yomi drove us here.”

“The enforcers didn’t take the lorry when they took you?” Kayla asked.

Risa snorted. “Not with it half sunk in Amik mud. Brigade Daggers and Jahajas blocked me, so I tried crossing that mess to the next alley over.” She shook her head. “Stupid. Lost two lifters.”

Kiyomi threaded her fingers in Risa’s. “Then while the Brigade was pulling me and Risa from the cab, Nishi came thundering back. The poor seycat was chest deep in the mud, but she clawed to ribbons the enforcer who tried to get behind the wheel. Then she jumped on top of the lorry and kept moving so they couldn’t get a fix on her with their shockguns. But if they tried to climb into the cab, she’d claw their heads to shreds.”

“So she’s okay?” Kayla asked.

“Singed tail,” Risa said. “Yomi doctored it up. Seycat’s out hunting by the Chadi.”

Risa sighed and Kayla could see the exhaustion in the lowborn woman’s face. Kiyomi clearly saw it too. “Let’s go, old woman,” Kiyomi said. “Leave the young ones to themselves.”

Mishalla turned to Kiyomi. “Could you take me to Plator? I’d like to get back to Eoghan.”

“We’re headed up to Qaf anyway,” Kiyomi said. “Plator’s on the way.”

Kayla got to her feet, but Risa put up a hand to stop her. “Not you, GEN girl. Not yet. Medic’s got to clear you.”

“I feel fine,” Kayla said.

“Jemali’s got to check your blood levels,” Junjie said. “He’ll be here later today.”

She wanted to argue, but she wasn’t as fine as she’d told them. She felt weaker than she was used to feeling, her head still muzzy from the long sleep.

“I’ll help Risa out to the lorry then.” Kayla took Risa’s hand and pulled her to her feet, hooking the lowborn woman’s arm around her shoulders.

As they stepped past Devak at the door, his wristlink beeped. He read the message. “Pitamah needs me to pick him up from Jemali’s.”

Kayla looked back at Devak. “Zul isn’t taking the punarjanma anymore, is he?”

“Lord Creator, no.” Devak seemed shocked that she’d even asked the question. “Pitamah had all of Akhilesh’s stores of it destroyed. Now Kinship gene-splicers are trying to figure out if they can manufacture the punarjanma
artificially. No one’s going to use GENs for that anymore.”

Devak seemed convinced, but Kayla wasn’t so certain. How many clients had Akhilesh had besides Zul? She imagined they wouldn’t be happy to know the rejuvenating fluid wouldn’t be available anymore.

Despite the lowborn woman’s objections, Risa leaned heavily on Kayla and tightly gripped Mishalla’s hand as they crossed the street to where Kiyomi had docked the lorry. It seemed to take all of Risa’s energy to walk the short distance and for Kayla and Mishalla to get her up into the sleeper.

Kiyomi whistled for Nishi. The seycat must have been nearby because she appeared in an instant. Nishi leapt into the cab, then into the sleeper with Risa.

Kayla took Kiyomi’s arm as she was about to swing up into the cab. “Is Risa going to be okay?”

With a glance up at the sleeper, Kiyomi shut the lorry door. “Her heart stopped while Jemali was treating the shockgun strike. He got it going again quickly enough, but Jemali ordered me to make sure she takes it easy.”

Kiyomi climbed up behind the wheel. Kayla went around to the passenger side to give Mishalla a last hug goodbye. As she watched Kiyomi drive away, she wondered when she’d see Mishalla again.

As she returned to the house, Devak drove away in Zul’s AirCloud. Junjie was still sprawled in the float chair, the motion of his swinging leg rocking the chair.

Junjie’s agitation told her he was holding something back. Kayla caught his leg on its forward arc. “What?”

He tugged his leg back and slumped forward. “I’m so sorry. For what the FHE put into your annexed brain. For
the block they put on you. For me being involved with those sanaki people in the first place.”

Kayla had to think through her response to evade the block. Although it seemed easier to talk to Junjie with no one else around, maybe because her subconscious understood he was safe.

“Not that I wanted any of it forced into me,” she said, “but it turns out some of it is what saved me. Helped me fight off the paralytic, call her, whoever the denking hell she is, so she could call you.”

He sighed heavily. “Still. I’m sorry. I told her I wasn’t going to have anything else to do with them.”

“Apology accepted.” Kayla dropped to the sofa. “One thing I still haven’t figured out—how was it Raashida and Gemma could heal people when the other infected GENs couldn’t?”

Junjie relaxed finally in his float chair. “Their particular genetics. Their bodies created double or triple of the duwu— what Akhilesh called punarjanma. So much that they kind of sweated it out and that sweat penetrated the skin of anyone touching them.”

Kayla rubbed the fading Scratch scar on her wrist. “So, was it a virus Akhilesh created?”

“It was a virus and uploaded programming both. Similar to the kind of reprogramming FHE did to you.” He gave her another apologetic look. “But Akhilesh didn’t inject it in just any GEN.”

“When he gave it to me, he said my genetics weren’t right.”

“Only about ten percent of GENs fit the profile,” Junjie said. “But as head of GAMA, Akhilesh had access to all the GEN genetic databases. Once he identified a GEN he could use, he’d find them using the Grid. The enforcers would bring them in.”

Kayla could put together the rest. “He’d infect them. But he’d have to let them return to their Assignments. Then at some point the enforcers would gather them up, and Akhilesh would harvest them.” She shuddered, remembering Raashida and all those other GENs in Akhilesh’s gen-tanks.

“Some of them actually survived harvesting,” Junjie said, “once the punarjanma was out of their bodies. Akhilesh would let ’em go back to their Assignments to produce a whole new crop.”

“He’d have to reset them, though, right?” Kayla asked. “So they wouldn’t remember being harvested. But someone did a denking poor job with Gemma, leaving parts of her old personality intact.”

“Yeah, sloppy realignment,” Junjie agreed. “And the gen-fluid in her tank must have been contaminated, so Gemma ended up with double DNA.”

“Is Gemma her real name?” Kayla asked. “Not Gabrielle?”

Junjie’s head bobbed. “Looks that way.”

“What about Raashida?” Kayla asked. “Was she someone else before?”

“Nah. She really
did
escape the lab, that much of Akhilesh’s story was true. So they never got a chance to reset her. One piece of good news, though,” Junjie said. “Akhilesh kept good records of who he infected, where they were Assigned. So if there are any other survivors, we can find them again.”

Kayla heard the whine of a lev-car engine and looked out the window just as Zul’s AirCloud passed by. Devak was
back. Uneasy anticipation pushed her to her feet. Junjie rose too, opening the door that led from the house to the garage.

Devak helped his great-grandfather in. The old trueborn wore white and leaned heavily on Devak.

As he stepped into the living room, Zul saw Kayla. Remorse burned in his dark eyes. “I am so deeply sorry. I would never have let Akhilesh inject me with the punarjanma if I’d known its source.”

Kayla tipped back her head, squarely meeting Zul’s gaze. “Did you ask him?”

Zul shook his head, shoulders sagging. “I wanted it too much. To my great shame.”

Devak nudged Junjie. “Would you help Pitamah to his room?”

Junjie took Devak’s place at Zul’s side. They headed down the hall.

Devak studied her face as if memorizing every curve and shadow of it. “Come outside with me.”

Less than a demand, more than a plea. She nodded, then when he gestured, she preceded him out the door.

On the small front porch, a bench ran the length of the living room window. Devak waited for Kayla to sit before seating himself beside her. He left a half-meter of space between them, at once too close and too far.

Devak leaned forward, elbows on knees. “Councilor Mohapatra got Abran back.” He glanced over at her. “I thought you’d want to know.”

She shrugged. “I suppose the councilor still wants him to testify against Baadkar.”

Devak stared down at his hands. “The Judicial Council
could ignore ill treatment of GENs. But they finally took notice when it was a trueborn.”

“In other words, Abran’s worth more to the councilor as a trueborn than as a GEN.”

Devak grimaced, but he didn’t deny it. “They were able to find Abran’s sister too. A GEN in Baadkar’s household knew where she’d been taken.”

“And was his mother . . .?”

“Dead.”

Kayla felt a pang of sympathy for Abran. The murder of his mother had been a sad piece of truth in all his lies.

Devak looked over at her. “Were you and Abran . . . did you . . .?”

“There was nothing between us.”
Except that kiss.
“I never trusted him.”
And he wasn’t you.
“What happened with your father? Did it turn out he wasn’t involved?”

“He had nothing to do with Akhilesh’s scheme. Turns out the Brigade found him a few weeks ago. Living in a rundown drom shed in the Northwestern Territory adhikar. A lowborn herder found him and turned him in.” His jaw flexed with tension. “They tell me he stank of drom.”

Devak stared at the row of houses lining the other side of the street. They were small and modest like Zul’s, no holographic projections concealing their plainness.

He gestured across the street. “Demi-status live in most of those. That would have mattered so much once. Now it doesn’t mean anything to me.” He glanced over at her again. “What does mean something, what is truly important, is what I said to you at GAMA. I love you, Kayla.”

She couldn’t deny the joy inside, but at the same time,
she realized she didn’t know how to answer him. After what she’d been through, the realizations she came to, everything had changed.

The expectation and hope in Devak’s eyes dimmed a little. “I spoke with Jemali when I picked up Pitamah. With the Scratch crisis nearly handled, Jemali can have a dose of the restoration treatment ready for you within a few weeks. You can get rid of the GEN circuitry and be a lowborn. And we can be together, no matter what anyone says.”

Kayla slowly her head. This was one truth that was crystal clear. “I don’t want to be restored, Devak. I want to keep my circuitry, stay a GEN.”

He stared at her, stunned into silence. Pain flickered in his eyes, then she saw his struggle to put it aside.

“That doesn’t matter,” he said. “GEN, lowborn, trueborn, whatever you are, I feel the same about you.”

How could she ask anything more of him? Yet she still couldn’t give him the answer he wanted.

“But I’m not sure how I feel, Devak. I need time.” She rubbed his arm, her touch tentative, although she ached to have him hold her. “You need time. You were right that night in Daki sector. You and me together, high-status trueborn and GEN, would be impossibly hard.”

He took her hand. “Not impossible.”

“Even so, no matter what I feel for you, I need time.”

“Kayla . . .”

He tugged her closer and when she didn’t resist, he embraced her. Of their own accord, her arms wrapped around him.

She could have this moment, couldn’t she? Share his warmth, let his love inside?

Then he leaned back, his face so beautiful. He pressed his mouth against hers and the world dissolved around her.

For only an instant, then she let reality crash in again. She wrenched from his arms. Jumped to her feet.

“Someone could see us.” All those windows across the street, so many trueborn eyes that could be staring out of them. “We can’t.”

He rose too, and took her hand again. “We can.”

She pulled away. “Please. I have to go.” She hurried down the stairs.

“Kayla!”

She kept moving down the walk to the street, then turned left toward the trueborn warehouse district. She glanced back once at Devak. He stood at the top of the stairs, watching her walk away.