Parched (33 page)

My fingers rake my head until I find it. At the base of my skull, a long, vertical scar held together with neat stitches. That is where they put the chip. I drop my hands to my lap, immobile, my face a mask. I am afraid any movement will give away the sheer hopelessness and terror I am feeling. Gyan holds the chip's controller aloft, his forefinger on the red button. “I said, is that—”

“Crystal.” My voice is barely a mutter.

“Good.” He stands up and strolls over to gaze out over Eden, his back to me. “How did your mother die?”

I blink, surprised—and then scared. If he's asking me, it means he doesn't believe the cover story.

“Tess.” He swings around to face me. “I asked you a question.”

Haltingly, I begin cobbling together the story: a test that should never have happened, a tragic accident. He listens intently, waving off the end of my monologue with an impatient flick of his hand. “Yes, yes, I've heard this version.” He pauses and lightly presses the tips of two fingers into one ear. I notice a tiny comm fitted neatly in there. After a moment, he takes his fingers away to let them rest, casually, by his side. “While I very much wish to discuss this with you further, unfortunately, we have more pressing matters to attend to.”

I exhale thankfully. Good.

“Where is the rebel group Kudzu based?” he continues, his tone so light it's almost blasé. “I know they are here in Eden, and I assume you've been there. Where, exactly, are they?”

If he wants to know where Kudzu are, that must mean not all of them are dead. My chest rises and falls in sudden happiness. Gamma
team and maybe even Beta must've gotten away. Maybe even Naz and Ling and Achilles escaped too.

I wonder if this means Project Aevum
hasn't happened yet
. If it had, I doubt Kudzu would be enough of a priority that Gyan himself would be questioning me.

Of course it hasn't happened. Because Hunter is probably dead.

“Tess?” Gyan's finger lightly taps the red button.

I stiffen in fright. “I don't know,” I say. “I don't know where they are.”

He cocks his head, obviously not believing me, finger lifted to press the button. Sweat breaks across my forehead in tiny little stabs.

“I don't,” I repeat urgently. “They blindfolded me whenever we went to their HQ. I was only ever indoors. They were paranoid about security.”

“Your desire to protect your cohorts is admirable, Miss Rockwood, but misinformed,” he says. “They are not protecting you in the same way.”

I don't know what that means—just an empty threat? Or are more Kudzu locked up and betraying me? No. Kudzu would not betray me. But then, they think I betrayed them on the rooftop. . . .

“Let me ask you again, Miss Rockwood, and this time, please: no lies.” His finger hovers deliberately over the red button. “Where. Is Kudzu?”

I look him straight in the eye. “I. Don't. Know.”

Gyan regards me with profound disappointment, as if he just caught me breaking curfew. “Then you leave me no choice,” he says, and presses the red button.

A tidal wave of pain. I lurch forward, spasming into a ball on the floor. Pain splits me open, white-hot and acidic. My vision blackens and I hear myself make a choking cry.

“The Trust was willing to tolerate Kudzu's pathetic little pranks, but now you've overstepped the line and you will all face the consequences.” Gyan's tight voice is just barely audible above the war in my head. “We have streams of you and the girl Ling pulled from various traffic substitutes. Never a blindfold. We will find Kudzu, with or without your help. But might I suggest you start cooperating.” I hear him sigh, sounding almost wistful. “Because that's what civilized people do, Tess. They cooperate.”

Once again, nausea snakes its way inside me and I wretch. Thankfully, I'd emptied my stomach the first time.

“Come now,” he says with a touch of irritation. “Up you get. We're not done yet.”

I hold my broken, poisoned head, whimpering. I want to tear the stitches open and pull the chip out with my bare hands.

“Tess,” he warns, “don't make me do this again.”

Tears prick my eyes but I force myself to crawl back up into the chair.

“Why didn't you destroy the mirror matter when you had the chance?”

This question catches me totally off-guard. My head is aching so much it's hard to think. He repeats the question, pronouncing each word with cutting precision.

“Because it would kill Hunter,” I reply, unable to think of anything except the truth.

“But wasn't that the point?” he asks incredulously. Then, after a pause, “Answer me.”

“Why don't you ask him?” I wheeze, trying to stall.

His lips pull tight into a hard white line and my immediate impression is he
can't
ask him.

“Answer the question,” Gyan says softly.

I can't answer this without explaining my feelings for Hunter.

“Answer the question, Miss Rockwood. Why didn't you destroy the mirror matter when you had the chance?”

I say nothing.

Gyan's voice drops to a subzero temperature. “Answer me.”

I raise my head to meet his gaze. My eyes are dead. My mouth is completely dry. “Screw you, Gyan.”

A wolfish snarl of rage, a colossal slam of pain, and then, blackness.

I
come to sluggishly, feeling a damp washcloth wipe my forehead. “There. There,” a soothing female voice croons. “There. There.”

“Mom?” I rasp. “Mommy?”

“There. There.”

The inhuman face of a Nurse is hovering over me, a caring if crazed-looking smile on its pale pink chrome face. I gasp in fright and try to move away, but I am tucked firmly under a starched white sheet and only succeed in shifting a few inches. There's an IV in my arm.

“No. No,” the Nurse says gently. “I am here to help you, Rockwood, Tessendra.”

“Get away from me,” I say hoarsely, but I'm tempering my kneejerk reaction of fear. Nurses are just medical robots. They aren't a threat. I glance around, taking in a white hospital bed in a small, nondescript room, bathed in a comforting, warm orange light. Curtains make the fours walls around me. To my left and right, I can hear the muffled sound of other Nurses, all speaking in the same gently rolling cadence, designed to soothe the sick and scared.

“Are you thirsty?” it asks.

I nod, scooting myself up. I am beyond just thirsty. My tongue feels like a ball of dust.

With a graceful sweep of its arm, the Nurse plucks a glass of water from a small bedside table. Gently, it lifts the glass to my lips. I chug the whole glass, water spilling down my front.

“Thanks,” I mumble when I'm finished, wiping my chin. I'm still in the white clothes I'd been wearing in Gyan's quarters.

“You are welcome,” the Nurse replies musically, elegantly setting the empty glass on the bedside table.

“Where am I?” I ask, hoping against hope I am, for some reason, back in Eden proper.

“You are in the Stay Well Center in the Three Towers.” My heart sinks. “How are you feeling, Rockwood, Tessendra?”

“Fine,” I mutter. I wiggle my toes—great, feeling in my legs. I'll need those to walk, or, more specifically, run. If I can ever work out an escape plan.

“Wonderful.” It rolls away from me to interface with what I assume is my chart—holos of graphs and numbers—that springs up at the end of my bed.

“What am I doing here?”

“You are resting.”

“No, I mean, why am I here?”

“You experienced damage to your cerebral cortex.” The chip. Three bursts is enough to land me in hospital. Gyan didn't mess around.

“How bad was the damage?” I ask nervously.

The Nurse floats its head up to look at me. “The damage was minimal.”

“Is anyone else here that I know?” I ask impulsively.

“I do not know who you know—”

No, of course not
, I say to myself, trying to think of how to rephrase the question. “Is there anyone my age here?”

The Nurse smiles at me. “I am not authorized to answer that.”

“Can you remove the chip that caused the damage?”

The Nurse gently takes the IV out of my arm. “I am not authorized to do that.” A long shot, but you can't blame a girl for trying. I wonder what the range is for the remote Gyan has. Probably extensive.

“Goodbye, Rockwood, Tessendra. I am glad you are feeling better.”

“Goodbye?” I repeat. “Where are you going?”

“I am not going anywhere.” I hear the sound of heavy boots coming toward us. “You are going to the Holding Cell,” it continues, as cheerily as if I were going to a birthday party.

The white curtain is yanked aside.

“Get up,” snarls a Tranquil.

No fewer than four burly Tranquils drag me out of bed. I'm allowed to slip on a pair of white hospital slippers before they wrench me into handlocks and start marching me out of the small room, surrounding me in a square.

“What's the Holding Cell?” I ask. “How long will I be there? I need
to comm my uncle. Hey! I'm talking to you!” But unlike the helpful Nurse, the Tranquils don't say a word.

We pass a dozen curtained rooms in the little medical center, then a check-in desk manned by an identical Nurse, who waves and calls a cheery goodbye.

We burst through a set of glass double doors. The light changes from warm orange to cold blue, the temperature dropping at least twenty degrees. We're in a wide, stark corridor. The curved steel-blue walls are stamped with enormous emblems of the Trust. There are no windows, and even though I have no way of knowing, I get the feeling we are underground, buried deep in the cold earth of the Smoking Mountains.

Everywhere is busy with Tranquils, blue-robed Guiders, and the odd man or woman dressed like a regular Edenite, in swaths of flowing pale cloth. I double-take when we pass a Tower Official: an imperious, hawk-nosed man in a white robe edged with yellow. I've never seen a Tower Official in the flesh before, only ever in holos—standing behind Gyan during a speech or milling about at official Tower receptions. They are true Trust, living here in the Towers, unlike Guiders, who live in Eden with their families.

I'm marched into a silver elevator. We're on floor –36. A Tranq punches in the last button—the letters
HC
in a circle, one floor below –86. My stomach flies into my mouth as we shoot down. The doors open and the din of hundreds of people all talking and yelling at once meets my ears.

Then the smell hits me. Human waste, rotting food, and dank, musty air. The small reservoir of courage I've been cultivating promptly vanishes.

“Welcome to hell.” One of the Tranqs sneers.

In my mind, the phrase
Holding Cell
conjures up something small and clean, sort of like my hospital room but without the comfy bed. A Holding Cell—somewhere I'd be held temporarily. This, however, is much, much different. The elevator doors have slid open onto a large platform above an enormous cage; it's the size of several football fields. There must be over a thousand people in there. Through the rusty bars, I see beds made of scrap wood, an old lounge chair covered in stains, even a very old piece of scratch beaming up a flickery entertainment stream. Kids dressed in rags run through the adults' legs, playing tag. This doesn't look like a Holding Cell where people spend a few hours. It looks like the prisoners have been living here for years.

The Tranquils hustle me down a flight of metal stairs. People close to the bars start yelling at me.

“Hey, Newbie—”

“Pretty girl, my lucky day—”

“Newbie!”

“Oi! Oi!
Oi!
” A man covered in botched, tasteless tronics with a mouthful of what looks like animals' teeth leers at me. “Got a boyfriend?”

My insides shudder and I set my gaze coldly, trying to hide my rising panic.

The Tranquils march me around the corner of the cell and into a small office, lit by a single overhead light that flickers. In here, the din from the huge cage is merely a muffle. A large woman with ebony skin, bucketloads of silver eye shadow, and a hot pink cardigan over her tight blue robes sits behind a desk. A sign marked
REGISTRATION
hangs above her. She is flicking aimlessly through a fashion stream and looks supremely bored. Two red-eyed Quicks stand silently on either side of the desk, like dark, evil knights.

A small wave of relief flutters through me—a woman, a regular
person
. I can't reason with a Tranquil or a Quick. But I can reason with a person.

“Another one for you, Shanice,” one of the Tranquils says, finally uncuffing me. I rub my wrists in relief, rolling the sore muscles in my shoulders.

“Mmm-hmm,” she says, not taking her eyes off the stream.

The Tranquils turn and march out.

Silence. The woman doesn't even acknowledge my presence.

“Hi,” I say gingerly. Nothing. No movement from her or the Quicks. “I'm not supposed to be here. Oh, I guess you hear that all the time, but—look, I need to comm my uncle right now. Dr. Abel F. Rockwood.”

Nothing. It's like I'm not even here.

“It's important. It's actually a matter of life and death.” I raise my voice and take a step forward. “Are you listening to me? A company called Simutech has created something called Aevum. It's an artilect, an artificially intelligent being that looks like a person. It's going take control of all the old substitutes in the Badlands and kill everyone. I'm trying to stop it, that's why I'm here. Lock me up, I don't care, but we need to stop this.” I plant my hands on her desk. She looks up from her stream, looks at my hands, then raises her eyebrows in slow disapproval. I take my hands off her desk.

“Shanice,” I say. “You look like a reasonable person. You seem like someone who would care about the fact that everyone in the Badlands—”