Beyond Gyan, on the wall opposite the windows overlooking the Badlands, is another floor-to-ceiling window overlooking Eden. I’m sure I’d think it was beautiful if I were here as a sightseer: the impressive white-walled city visible in its entirety from our high vantage point. We are at the highest peak of the Smoking Mountains. My heart sinks. The only way in or out of Three Towers is by air. The treacherously steep, snowy mountains offer no pass for even the most experienced climbers.
Both windows stretch all the way to the far end of the room, where there is a large piece of light gold scratch on the wall, and next to it, a single unmarked door. No handle. No lock. Nothing.
“All right, that’s enough fun for one day,” Gyan says to the bird fondly. “Papa has work to do.” He looks up, voice suddenly booming. “Enter!”
The door at the far end of the room disappears with a soft shick. Two pale silicon substitutes appear. They are surreally lifelike in appearance, with two arms and two legs, but their oval faces are inhuman: blank except for the slightest indents for a nose, mouth, and eye sockets. They wheel a large, empty cage. For a horrifying moment, I think the cage is for me, but then the two placid subs make their way toward the peacock.
“Back to the aviary for you, old friend,” Gyan says, taking a seat in the huge chair behind his desk. The subs gently shoo the bird into the cage. Once it’s inside, they wheel it back toward the door. “Not too fast!” Gyan calls after them. “He doesn’t like it.”
Obediently, the subs slow down. The door reappears after they leave.
“Has the feeling returned to your legs?”
I run a quick physical check. Yes, I am pretty sure I have feeling in all of my limbs. I frown a little at the tops of my knees, like I’m willing something to happen, before giving them a few punches with my fists. With a curt shake of my head, I indicate no.
“It will in time. Are you hungry?”
I definitely am, but the food could be poisoned, although that wouldn’t make much sense if some doctors had gone to the trouble of fixing me up. Food will make me mentally and physically stronger. But the thought of taking anything from the Trust feels wrong. I go to shake my head no, but then a half-formed plan emerges. Slowly, I nod.
“Bring in some food for Miss Rockwood,” Gyan announces. He has both elbows on his desk, fingers meeting each other lightly to form a triangle. “You are a very interesting girl, Tessendra Rockwood. You intrigue me.” He gazes at me with dark eyes that are almost black. “I am not easily intrigued.”
“Tess,” I spit out.
“Pardon me?”
“Just Tess,” I mutter, my voice croaky and hoarse. I cough and clear my throat. “Only my family calls me Tessendra.”
“All right.” He permits himself a small, amused smile. “Just Tess. Now, Tess, I have a feeling you’re under the impression that I am your enemy. Is that correct?”
I say nothing.
“Because that is absolutely untrue.” The edges of his eyes crinkle as he smiles warmly at me. “We have a lot in common, you and I. We both share concerns—deep concerns—for the well-being of Aevum. But you see, Tess,” he continues, rising to wander around his desk, “it’s very important for a person in my position to have all the facts, to be in control of everything. Otherwise, it’s very difficult for me to make the right decisions and to properly care for everyone.” He casually leans against the edge of his desk. “I’m going to ask you some questions. And I’m sure if you’re honest with me, then whatever happened before today can be forgotten, and you can go home to your uncle. How does that sound?”
It sounds like a load of crap.
Shick. The door disappears and one of the blank-faced subs reappears with a small cart. On it is a tall glass of water and a plate of food: some artfully arranged raw vegetables, a hunk of white cheese, and a sprig of crimson berries.
The food appeared sooner than I’d expected; I wanted more time to work out my plan. As the cart wheels closer, I see—just as I’d hoped—real silver cutlery. A fork. A knife. That makes the decision for me. This might be my only chance for escape.
The blank-faced sub is halfway across the room. And like before, the door is still open. I focus on taking slow, deep breaths. In. Out. Stay. Calm.
“So, Tess—” Gyan is beginning to talk to me but I am so focused on what I am about to do, I can’t hear him properly. I clench and unclench the muscles in my arms and legs.
The substitute is almost here. Gyan’s voice throbs around the cavernous space.
Not yet.
Not yet.
The sub positions the cart next to me.
Now.
In one swift movement, I spring to my feet, grabbing the silver knife, then shoving the cart into the sub. After an initial stumble, I find my footing and start running for the door. I hear a thud and a splintered crash behind me—the plate, glass, and cart hitting the ground. My legs are weak but they work. Feet pounding the cold marble, adrenaline pumping through me—and yes, the door is still open! The knife feels good and solid in my hand; it’ll work as a weapon. I am almost there, almost out—
Suddenly and from nowhere, pain explodes inside my head. With a gasp, I fall to the ground, knife clattering out of my hand. My head is in a vise, being squeezed until it will pop. I cry out, rolling into a ball. Pain is behind my eyeballs, squeezing them, wringing me out like a washcloth. I want to scream but I can’t speak. I can’t see or move except to make animalistic, choked noises. After what seems like an age, but is probably only a few seconds, the pain starts to subside.
Nausea billows up inside me. I vomit yellow bile on the clean marble floor.
“Well,” Gyan says calmly. “Evidently the chip works.”
In the same unhurried voice, he orders the sub to pick up the cart and the food, then clean up “Miss Rockwood’s . . . mess.”
Evidently the chip works.
There’s a chip inside me? Something the Trust put there when I was under?
The pain is subsiding. Within a minute it is gone, just leaving a dull, throbbing ache. I claw the floor, stunned, useless.
“Miss Rockwood. Miss Rockwood.” I force myself to look up at Gyan, hate radiating from every pore. “I wish you hadn’t done that. It makes it very hard for me to be your friend, if you’re not going to be mine.”
“I am not,” I wheeze, “your friend.”
He shrugs, scratching his beard absentmindedly. “As you wish.” Then he indicates the chair I’d been sitting in. “If you please.”
The substitute pauses by me to clean up my small pool of vomit with a napkin. It offers me a hand, which I swat away. Wiping my mouth with the back of my hand, I slowly stalk to the chair.
“You said the feeling in your legs hadn’t returned,” he murmurs as I sit down again.
I shrug, eyes hard. “I lied.”
This time, there is no amused smile. “I wouldn’t recommend doing that again,” he says softly. “We have inserted a chip into your brain that can be activated with this.” He holds up a sleek rectangular device with a single red button. “Obviously, it is not the only one, so there is no point attempting to steal it. I am going to ask you some questions. They are very important questions, so I would encourage you to answer them as comprehensively and honestly as you can. Is that clear?”
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 t
o 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.
chapter 16
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 go
ing 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.
Parched Page 25