Awakening (20 page)

As the only driver, Risa had to stop a few times to get out and stretch her legs, and for Abran to unfold himself from the cubby he shared with Nishi. One of those times Abran didn’t shut the hatch quick enough and Nishi escaped, then refused to return to Risa’s whistle. It took nearly an hour to cajole the seycat back to the lorry. Nishi leapt into the cab with a sewer toad in her jaws, completely unperturbed that she’d delayed them.

Abran was more careful when Risa pulled over later so the three of them could share a meal. It turned out the bag Abran had been carrying in Peq sector held meat pies he’d bought
from the pretty GEN girl who’d sold him fruit melds. The pies were a welcome change from the nutras they usually ate on the road. Kayla was grateful for the more appetizing dinner, but she did wonder how long his dhans would hold out if he spent them so lavishly.

As they stood beside the deserted northern highway eating their meat pies, Risa and Abran chattered away, their conversation a blur to Kayla. She was too preoccupied by what she’d found in her bare brain to register whatever they were talking about.

While Abran’s and Risa’s talk went on and on, Kayla wandered over to the high, electrified fence that bordered the adhikar along which the highway ran. Both suns had already set, although Kas’s glow still lightened the sky. Within the adhikar, Kayla could see the well-groomed pasture of a drom farm in the approaching dark, the vivid green of the scrap grass a sharp contrast to the brown tufts on the northern side of the fence. Two scruffy droms grazed maybe twenty meters from the barrier and a third lay on the ground, six legs tucked under it, its large dark eyes half-closed.

Kayla’s thoughts tumbled over and over as they had been these long hours on the road. FHE inscribed in her bare brain. Mysterious additional programming being uploaded into her, code that seemed to have nothing to do with the Kinship.

The words that FHE represented seemed to equate destruction, based on what she’d seen in Qaf, Fen, and Beqal. What did it mean that they’d been written in her brain?

In her bare brain. The only private part of her. The only place she thought was safe from datapod uploads.

The only uploads she received these days came from the Kinship. Bad enough the Kinship was apparently “improving” her through uploads, now some mysterious entities had breached her bare brain and dumped their code there.

Who or what was FHE anyway? A branch of the Kinship, one that wasn’t happy with the pace of GEN reforms? Or could the source be amongst lowborns, sympathetic to the Kinship, but not members? The issues that had led to the lowborn insurrection thirteen years ago had never really been resolved. The trueborns and the Judicial Council gave nothing but lip service to lowborn rights. Even the Kinship was focused more on GENs than lowborns.

What if those letters had an even darker source? What if Ved truly was connected to the bombings in the GEN sectors? What if his machinations had infiltrated the Kinship? He could have planted manipulator spiders in the datapod programming Feyda and the others had had Kayla upload.

It was horrifying to think that something of Ved’s might be in her bare brain. This had certainly gotten too big for her to handle on her own. It was time she contacted Zul. She would demand that he tell her about the extra programming the Kinship was installing in her annexed brain, and if they had anything to do with the intrusion in her bare brain. If it turned out Ved had been the one to inscribe those initials, the Kinship would have to know.

With Abran around, it would be all but impossible for her to get to a Kinship meeting or even use the wristlink. But she had to find a way.

Risa called to her and Kayla returned to the lorry. The lowborn woman pointed a thumb to the sleeper. “You could take a rest.”

Kayla shook her head. She wouldn’t be able to sleep anyway.

“Abran?” Risa asked. “Stretch out? Have a rest?”

Abran glanced over at Kayla. “If that’s okay.”

It wasn’t. Kayla didn’t want him there at all, let alone sleeping in her and Risa’s bed. His place was back in the bay. But even thinking that, Kayla could see her nurture mother Tala shaking a finger at her mean-spiritedness.

So he settled in on the bed, and Kayla hunched on the seat, arms wrapped around herself. She tried to lean against the door and shut her eyes, but her thoughts kept bouncing back to the illicit upload in her bare brain.

Kayla did doze a little, finally waking as the lorry came to a stop. “Where are we?”

Kayla’s internal clock told her it was nearly midnight. All three of the trinity moons had risen, Avish and Ashiv slender crescents, Abrahm full and fat, bleaching out the stars in the black night sky. Risa had parked alongside a ditch and Kayla could just make out what looked like the edge of a lowborn village on the far side, nearly hidden by a patch of sticker bushes.

“In Esa sector,” Risa said. “Couldn’t drive anymore.”

Esa was a mixed sector where lowborns lived alongside minor-status trueborns. Risa had to have been plenty tired to stop here rather than push on to the safer GEN sector, Daki.

There was no legal reason Risa couldn’t overnight the lorry in a mixed sector like Esa. But the trueborn residents wouldn’t like her stopping here without prior permission.

“If any minor-status trueborn sees you’ve got GENs with you,” Kayla said, “they’ll likely roust us.”

“Be okay,” Risa assured her. “That village is Kiyomi’s sister’s clan.” She gestured across the ditch.

Kiyomi’s sister was allabain. Most of the lowborns in a mixed sector were respectable businesspeople who lived in cheaper versions of trueborn houses. But there would often be a gathering of allabain lowborns who would settle on the outreaches of a mixed sector, in ramshackle structures they could tear down and carry to their next encampment.

To a trueborn, wherever lowborns lived was a shantytown, even in a mixed sector when the lowborn neighborhood was often a well-kept row of houses a half-kilometer down from the trueborns’ own homes. Kayla herself had grown up calling the thrown-together dwellings shanties. But Risa had taught Kayla that lowborns called a gathering of their homes a village, whether they were perma-built or portable like the ones she glimpsed in the darkness.

Kayla twitched aside the sleeper curtain just enough to see that Abran was sound asleep. Then she gestured to Risa to come outside with her. Kayla shut the lorry door as quietly as she could and Risa did the same. Risa paused long enough to ease open the rear bay door and release Nishi.

Nishi streaked past them, slowing long enough to sniff the ditch that the lorry was parked alongside. Then she dashed into the village. Kayla watched until the feline vanished in the dark spaces between the shacks.

“I’ve never seen her go anyplace where people are,” Kayla said.

“Nishi likes a rat-snake over a sewer toad any day,” Risa said. “Better chance she’ll find rat-snake in the village.” Risa shrugged. “Anyone sees her, she’ll scare them, sure. But she’ll run before they do.”

Kayla and Risa walked away from the village and Nishi’s
nighttime hunt. The black water in the ditch below them stank of sewer toads, human waste, and decay. Abrahm’s bright glow created strange dark shadows that stretched across the narrow path, concealing bumps and dips and other hazards. At one point Kayla’s foot caught on what she thought was a rock, but it was a dead sewer toad, and she sent it flying into the ditch. Its compatriots below complained at the interruption of their sleep, their scratchy croaks punctuating the silence.

They stopped beside a tall junk tree, its wide trunk casting a black shadow on the ground. Plenty of distance now between them and the lorry.

Kayla turned to Risa. “I have to talk to Zul.”

The lowborn woman huddled against the junk tree, hugging herself against the cold. “Can pass along a message.”

Kayla was cold too, and was about to activate her circuitry to warm herself. But suddenly, she didn’t trust it. For the moment, it seemed better to feel the same chill Risa did.

“I have to talk to Zul directly,” Kayla said.

“Too late tonight,” Risa said. “I’ll take the GEN boy with me for supplies tomorrow. Leave you the wristlink. Work for you?”

“Yes, thanks.”

They pushed off from the junk tree and started back to the lorry. Twenty or so meters away, a shadow detached itself from beside the bulky vehicle and Kayla realized it was Abran. He had his arms wrapped around himself like Risa had. His carrysak made a lump at his hip.

“Where’d you go?” he called out, his voice loud and demanding in the quiet.

His imperious tone surprised Kayla. Risa might be Kinship and used to Kayla’s familiarity with her, but even she had her
limits. In the absence of Councilor Mohapatra, Risa saw herself as in charge, and she demanded respect from those that worked for her. Risa might have let it go as simple rudeness if Abran had been a lowborn, but she wouldn’t stand for insolence from a GEN. Not until she knew the GEN better, anyway.

Risa closed the distance between her and the lorry. “Don’t know it’s any business of yours, tankborn.” As angry as Risa sounded, Kayla suspected that if she hadn’t been there,
tankborn
would have been
tat-face
or even
jik.

His expression stormy, Abran pushed off from the back of the lorry. His hands were closed in fists.

A big miscalculation, because even if an easy backhand from Kayla wouldn’t put him in the dirt, Risa was a scrapper. She wouldn’t hesitate taking on even a bigger, younger boy like Abran.

But then Abran remembered himself. “Sorry.” He relaxed his hands but rebellion still lingered in his gaze. “I was worried when I woke up and you two were gone.”

“Just wanted to stretch our legs,” Risa said.

“I could use a walk.” He trotted off along the ditch, his carrysak bouncing against his hip.

Risa shook her head. “Never seen a GEN so careless of his skin.” She nudged Kayla. “Go with him.”

Kayla moved along the ditch, this time taking greater care not to stumble. Ahead of her, Abran veered to his left at the junk tree, heading into a thick patch of scrap grass that was studded with fat sticker bushes.

Just as Kayla reached the junk tree, Abran glanced over his shoulder. The tree cast its dark moon-borne shadow over her, so he couldn’t see her, and instinct told her to keep it that way
for now. She suspected Risa’s scolding had embarrassed him, and he needed time alone to soothe his pride. Better if he didn’t know she was following.

When he pushed between the sticker bushes, she followed, picking her way carefully through the long thorns. The thick scrap grass muted her footsteps, and he still didn’t seem to realize she was behind him. She was about to call out when it suddenly occurred to her he might be looking for a place to relieve himself. Better stay quiet to save him the mortification. If that was what he was up to, she’d slip out of sight and wait for him beside the junk tree.

But he didn’t unfasten his breeches. Instead he pulled out his battered prayer mirror and pressed it to his lips. It was an odd way to pray—you usually wanted to see your reflected image when speaking to the Infinite. But he might have felt closer to the deity that way.

She should have walked away then, but now she feared he would hear her in the quiet. So she stood still, but with her back to him.

“It’s me,” he said.

She heard what almost sounded like a faint whisper. But it was just the breeze rustling the sticker bush spines against one another.

“I have to know they’re okay,” he said. “Please.”

It didn’t matter who he meant. His nurture family. Not likely a GEN girl he’d left behind, since he’d said they. But it was someone he loved, that he prayed to the Infinite to protect. She did it herself with Tala and Jal.

“If you could just show them to me, somehow.” She heard the desperation in his plea.

Another long hesitation, while the breeze filled in the silence with its whisper. Then he said, “I don’t know if I can do this anymore.”

That brought Kayla back around. She didn’t like the desolate sound of that. GENs did sometimes find ways to kill themselves, condemning themselves to damnation, with no chance of returning to the Infinite’s hands.

Abran stuffed his prayer mirror back in the hem of his shirt, a mix of fear and anger twisting his face. Would it be better to confront him now, or should she wait until he’d calmed himself? She didn’t want to make things worse for him.

Then he bent to the carrysak at his feet and pulled something from it. When he pushed up the left sleeve of his shirt and held his arm up into a beam of moonlight, she suddenly realized what he was doing. What he held in his right hand clinched it—a clear, palm-sized vac-seal filled with something milky yellow. Before she had the wit to step in and stop him, he’d thumbed the activator tab on the vac-seal, pressed the circular package to the crook of his left arm, and rubbed it into his skin.

Kayla’s heart turned to stone. Her feet felt leaden as she stepped in close enough for Abran to see her.

“You’re a jaf-head,” she said.

He jumped, but he kept that vac-seal against his arm. “It’s not what you think.” His speech slurred a little.

“If that’s not jaf buzz, what is it?”

He staggered a little, wincing as he backed into a sticker bush thorn. Then he looked back down at his arm and squeezed the last of the jaf from the vac-seal.

“That stuff is denking expensive,” Kayla said. “No one
outside a high-status trueborn could afford to use it. How could a GEN like you get your hands on some?”

Still, he didn’t answer. But Kayla figured it out and she felt even sicker. “You stole it. From your previous patron.”

“No.” He shook his head as if to clear it.

“Do you have a better explanation?” Kayla asked. “And have you been doing that in the bay all this time? Risking all of us with your habit?”

“No. This is the first time.”

He shoved the empty vac-seal back into the carrysak at his feet. When he straightened again, she searched for the blissed out look jaf users got. Other than a slight unsteadiness, she couldn’t see much difference in Abran.