Awakening (29 page)

Help them. Inject them with something to hasten their death, more like it.

“I can’t believe Pitamah would sanction this.”

Waji met his gaze. “He may not. I’ve heard . . .” The GEN glanced away, then back at Devak. “He has less sway now with the Kinship than he used to. Ever since . . .”

Since they lost so much status. Anger burst inside Devak at the realization that Junjie was entirely right. The Kinship was just as fixated on status as trueborn society at large. For them to callously allow the death of sick GENs, when their mission was intended to save lives, to improve GEN rights, made the Kinship no better than these arrogant enforcers.

He had to speak to Pitamah about this as soon as possible. This was what came of avoiding attending Kinship meetings with his great-grandfather. He might have seen before now
that Pitamah was losing influence. Maybe he could have done something.

The two enforcers finally signaled to Devak they’d finished their inquisition of the GENs. Devak went along the line, using his datapod on the cheek of each adult male, then pretending to check the download against a list on his sekai reader. He took care to place the datapod on each GEN’s cheek in a spot that hadn’t already been savaged by the enforcer, then waited to be sure the extendibles had retracted when the download had finished. Even so, he wished he could have apologized to each man.

The man whose nurture daughter had been killed in the explosion was the last one to be downloaded. He was tall enough to meet Devak’s gaze, and his unguarded rage startled Devak. He hesitated putting the datapod to the man’s cheek.

“Why are you bombing our warrens?” the man asked, his voice so soft Devak was sure the enforcers couldn’t hear.

“I had nothing to do with it,” Devak said.

“You trueborns—haven’t you made our lives wretched enough? But to take our homes, kill our . . .” The GEN man swallowed convulsively.

“It wasn’t trueborns. And you’d better not let them hear you say such things.” He held up the datapod. “I have to download you. If I don’t, they’ll wonder why.”

The man’s dark gaze burned into Devak. Then he turned slightly, offering up the GEN tattoo on his left cheek. “By the Infinite, take what you want.”

Devak applied the datapod, and as the download initiated, the GEN man’s eyes went blank as he blacked out. What kind of strength this man must possess to speak out that way. He’d
made himself so vulnerable to Devak when he clearly would as soon have wrenched Devak’s head off.

Devak looked down the line at the gathered GENs, at Waji, a Kinship stalwart. The placid, despairing acceptance with their lot he saw in so many GENs was missing in this group. It might be difficult for GENs to communicate across sector borders, but they managed it, when GEN Assignments moved them from one place to another, or when an itinerant GEN like Kayla passed on news.

As more GENs heard about the bombings, as their anger grew, then what? They couldn’t all be reset to keep them under control. Some would surely escape, some might strike back.

The datapod dropped from the man’s cheek into Devak’s palm. The GEN man’s eyes regained their sharp intelligence. He reached out his hand, although he didn’t dare touch Devak.

He said softly, “Thank you. For covering her properly.”

Devak gave a brisk nod and turned away. His throat felt tight.

He narrowed his gaze on the smirking captain and his arrogant squad. Why couldn’t the trueborn enforcers see the humanity of these GENs? Or the worth of Waji, a faithful member of their ranks despite their dismissive treatment of him?

And Kayla, the best of them. Courageous, strong, kind, but fierce. Protective of those she cared about.

Yet these trueborn enforcers would abuse her at the least imagined transgression. They would reset her, turn her into someone else, at the slightest impression of disrespect. Even he would not be able to protect her if she fell into the hands of the Brigade.

And the Kinship, the one place he thought he and Kayla might have cobbled together a friendship—now he saw the truth. Even within the Kinship, he and Kayla couldn’t be together. There was judgment even there.

It had to change. Someday, surely it would be different. A few trueborns would first accept, then embrace equality, then a few more. Someday, all of Svarga would see nothing wrong with a marriage or joining between a GEN and high-status trueborn.

But not now, and not for a long, long time. And the only way to save Kayla from trueborn judgment would be to give up even the least dream of any alliance between them. To let her be with Abran, or someone like him.

His wristlink beeped, signaling a message from Pitamah. He dragged himself from his despair to read what his greatgrandfather had sent.

They took Gemma to Ret sector,
the first message read.

Then,
She died along the way.

Devak’s heart fell, even though he’d never met the girl. Then the next message came through, and he read it over several times in hopes it would somehow make sense.

She’s alive again, and healing everyone she touches.

J
unjie galloped as fast as he could to the Daki sector GEN warren, but he was still soaked by the time he reached the blocky building and got under cover. As he headed down the warren’s first-floor hall, his teeth chattered so hard he bit his tongue. When he got to the communal washroom at the end of the hall, his stiff fingers twice flubbed the code to the safe house trap door hidden in one of the showers. A third time would have locked him out.

To his infinite gratitude, the moment he emerged from the access tunnel into the safe house, Xiana, a lowborn kitchen worker, spotted him and ran for a cup of hot kelfa drink. Xiana shouted to a GEN assistant for a blanket, which the GEN, Zo, threw across Junjie’s wet shoulders, at the same time offering a towel to dry Junjie’s drenched hair.

He turned down the towel, but asked for a quiet corner to work, explaining he was there to correct a small programming problem in Kayla 6982. Xiana’s and Zo’s faces lit up at the mention of Kayla. All the safe house people seemed to know
her, and idolized her almost as much as they did Zul. Junjie wondered if Kayla even knew what it meant to Kinship GENs and lowborns alike that she’d helped save those lowborn children and had sacrificed the restoration treatment in lieu of her friend.

They led him into the meeting room where the Kinship usually convened. Carved out of Daki’s red rock, the roundish space was just big enough for a two meter by three meter table and ten chairs. More important, the room had a door for the privacy Junjie would need.

Xiana refilled Junjie’s kelfa cup and Zo fetched a plate of kel-grain rolls that he set on the table. Then they went back to their work of cleaning up from the morning meal, conscripting some ninth- and tenth-year boys and girls to help. They scolded anyone who so much as looked Junjie’s way.

From the doorway to the meeting room, Junjie could watch for Kayla’s arrival from any of the four entrances. As he waited, sipping the kelfa, he ran through his mind the sequence of uploads and downloads he’d be doing via his datapod and wristlink. It would be a lot to add all at once, but with Kayla already so self-aware of what had already been done to her, they might not have another chance to install everything else.

Despite his needling of Devak to come with him, Junjie never expected his friend to say yes. It would have been awkward to have Devak along. He might ask questions. But Kayla was so used to uploads and the occasional download, she likely wouldn’t say a word.

When she finally stepped from the tunnel on the far side of the safe house main room, he waved her over. Then she got
close enough for him to make out the serious, determined look on her face, and unease prickled up Junjie’s spine. But maybe she was just preoccupied with some detail of her work with Risa, or the inconvenience of having that GEN boy, Abran, with them, or Daki’s nasty weather.

He motioned her into the meeting room and shut the door, then waited for her to sit. But as he took a chair facing her, her eyes narrowed on him and the words spilled out.

“I’m fed up with being programmed, Junjie, without anyone letting me know what or why. That stops right now. I want to know everything you’re doing today, before you do it.”

Everything.
Everything.
He couldn’t possibly reveal all of it, at least not yet. His compatriots weren’t ready for that, most especially not Neta.

“I . . . ah . . .” He offered up his datapod. “First I need to turn off the Kinship failsafe. So I don’t, you know, fry your brain.”

She plucked the datapod from his fingers. “The only reason to turn off the failsafe is if you plan to download me.”

“Sorry, I have to.” Truth. “I have to know what all might have gotten stored in your brain.” Mostly truth. “So I can clear out what shouldn’t be there.” Mostly a lie.

She waggled the datapod at him. “That’s all that’s in the first upload?”

“Yes. I swear.”

She stared at him a few moments longer, then activated the datapod. “I’ll do it.” One last suspicious look at him and she applied it to her tattooed right cheek.

She didn’t even flinch at the bite of the extendibles into her skin. He supposed with all the uploads she got, she was used to the momentary pain of the needle-like extendibles.

She kept her gaze on him and Junjie felt like she was stripping his thoughts right out of his mind, the way an enforcer would download a GEN’s annexed brain. He wanted to tell her,
It wasn’t me that programmed you.
But that wasn’t exactly a hundred percent true.

And would be even less true after today’s session.

The red light on the datapod flashed green and Kayla caught the device as the extendibles retracted. He reached for the datapod, but she closed her hand around it.

“What else are you going to do?” she asked. “Step by step.”

Oh, sweet Infinite, he was a terrible liar. But if he didn’t say something, she might use her sket and crush the thumb-sized datapod with her fingers.

His mouth went bone dry as he cast about for a story. Something he could tell her with a straight face that might persuade her to go through with everything.

But what if he said the wrong thing and made her mad? She wouldn’t hit him, would she? Take a swing at him with one of her powerful fists?

No. Kayla wouldn’t hurt
him.
But the datapod, with all the culminating programming on it, might not survive.

He made the leap into some more partial truth. “Okay,” he squeaked. “It
was
me.”

“What was you?” Kayla snapped.

“The extra programming,” Junjie said. “I created it. I had it added to the datapod uploads you’ve been getting.” Mostly a lie. He’d only written a small part of the code, and someone else distributed it.

Kayla’s fingers flexed around the datapod. “Why?”

Careful.
“Sometimes it seems the Kinship moves so slow.” That was nothing but the honest truth. “I think GENs deserve more. Sooner. Now. And especially you.”

“Why me?”

A lump lodged itself in his throat. Because
she
wanted it, that’s why. But he couldn’t say that. “Because of everything you’ve done. Because I think you deserve better.”

“What’s this
better
that you decided I should have?” She pinched the datapod between thumb and index finger. “Without asking my permission?”

He wanted to beg her forgiveness. Because he hadn’t liked it one bit that his compatriots were deciding for her, just like Zul and the rest of the Kinship did. But sometimes trueborns just couldn’t seem to help themselves. It was as if they were genetically engineered to run things. For the first time, Junjie sort of wished he’d been demoted to a lowborn instead of a minor-status when his mother died.

“You’ve already noticed some of the changes,” Junjie finally said. “You’re better able to see what’s being uploaded. And it improves some of your GEN abilities, like the speed of your circuitry. You can warm yourself faster and more efficiently. You can track data and make mental computations and such much quicker.”

“And the healing,” she said.

He hadn’t a clue why she might be healing faster. “Yeah, sure. But Zul doesn’t know,” he said hastily. “No one knows but me.” That last word almost got stuck in his throat.

Her hand closed around the datapod again. “You’re not changing my genetics, are you? Your programming can’t do that, can it?”

Suddenly he remembered the overheard conversation
between Hala and Akhilesh. How Akhilesh implied his experiments were using upload programming to alter GEN genetics.

“No,” Junjie said emphatically. “The uploads have only altered or replaced the programming in your annexed brain. Anything genetic, like your strength sket, I can’t change.”

“And how did the letters FHE get stored in my bare brain?” She asked.

That was a stumper. Some hotshot programmer thought he or she was being cute.

“I don’t know,” Junjie said. “Truly. My stuff didn’t put that there.”

Quicker than he might have expected, her free hand shot out and grabbed his wrist. “Then there’s someone besides you involved.”