Chapter 17

The city doesn't sprawl like it used to. The landscape surrounding us that used to hold neighborhoods, streets, and factories has changed. It is eerily empty. It's like the city has rolled up its doormat into a tight ball. I don't feel welcome. We see a few developments in the distance, houses maybe, but forest has swallowed up most of the rest, covering up the scars of history like a green bandage. I knew the city streets. I don't know forests. Even with Dot's detailed instructions and the remains of a long-ago road, I feel lost already.

Francis Street, I tell myself. Just make it to Francis Street.

I look at Kara. She surveys the landscape too. She looks in both directions and briefly closes her eyes. I wonder if she's having second thoughts about leaving the safety of the estate.

"We were only property, Locke," she says, shaking her head. "We had to leave. I hate him for what he did."

It's hard to believe that just this morning we were parroting our lessons and Kara was calling Dr. Gatsbro our savior. He did save us, but does that give him the right to control the rest of our existence? Kara's rage becomes my own. The anger feels good, empowering; it squeezes out my fears. It's a better place to be.

We can do this together.

Kara stares at the city. "After two hundred sixty years we deserve this."

After two hundred sixty years. Every time she says that, a part of me dies all over again. The party, the car, it was all my idea. I pull her close and press my lips against her hair, breathing in her scent. Her arms tighten around me, and she presses her cheek against my chest. I feel her heartbeat, and I know she feels mine. Maybe now that we're away from the estate, we can finally have more. The more we deserve. More of each other. Maybe this is what we needed all along to fill the empty space in us. But I have to be smart about this, and follow Dot's directions. I have to get us out of here. Fast. We only have a couple more hours of daylight left, and even though I want to hold on to Kara and never move, I gently push her away. I can't make mistakes.

"We need to get going."

She agrees and we set out across the broken landscape.

The rubble is uneven. Every step must be carefully placed. We're cautious as we approach blind crests. We are not exactly sure what Non-pacts are. Thieves? Worse? But we know to avoid them, or at least try to.

The walk is strenuous. Kara and I help each other climb over huge blocks of concrete and then carefully make our way down cascading piles of rubble overgrown with weeds, always with a watchful eye for movement around us. We stop for just a moment to rest, eyeing the next towering mound of concrete. What lies on the other side? "Got your tazegun ready?" I ask.

"Of course," Kara answers. She reaches down and snaps off a small piece of a branch from a dead bush and stuffs it in the band of her pants, pulling her shirt over to cover it. She pats the bulge it creates. "At least I have something deadly to reach for now."

I smile, thankful for even this small bit of humor in a situation that's so precarious. Here we are in the middle of nowhere in a world we don't recognize, relying on the directions of a half Bot, the security of a broken branch, and hoping for black market IDs. Kara's face is smudged with dirt, and her hair is tangled from the breeze. She doesn't look like Queen Kara anymore.

I eye some rocks at our feet and pick one up that fits my hand well. "I think I'll rely on old-fashioned technology."

"Caveman," she says.

We continue toward the city and finally reach the flat stretch and the remnants of the old highway Dot told us about. It seems like we've traveled much farther than the half kilometer she described to us, and we still have three kilometers to go to reach our destination on the outskirts of the city. The sun is low in the sky. I walk faster. Kara matches my pace.

As I walk, I search for other weapons. In this modern world I do feel like a caveman looking for a sturdy club, but there is nothing near the road, and I don't want to venture into the forest on either side to look for one. I wonder if I could find a branch and make a slingshot. It would at least allow me to protect us from a distance, but I have nothing flexible to act as a sling.

As we get closer, the Boston skyline becomes vaguely familiar in the way the jagged tops of skyscrapers cut into the sky, but the most noticeable difference is the color. The buildings--almost all of them--are white or light gray. They look like a cluster of shimmering quartz crystals sitting in a white bird nest. I assume the intricately woven nest is the transgrid, which surrounds the city. It looks like a protective wall around a fortress. Dot said that several levels of transgrid systems circle the city. It looks wildly complicated. I'm glad neither of us will be driving.

"I'm hungry," Kara says.

"Maybe Dot's contacts will feed us."

"Or maybe not. They're probably all stomachless Bots too."

And what are we? More expensive models? The upgraded Stomach200 model?

It is strange that I didn't question it more before, but now I can't stop thinking about it. I knew we were illegal, but I just thought it was a technicality, like someone not having the proper passport. It didn't make us bad or less human. It was a bureaucratic snafu, that's what I told myself, something on paper that could be cleared up eventually. It had to be. Everything about me is human. Dr. Gatsbro said so. Eighty percent. Bioengineered with some adjustments, but still human. That's what he said. Flesh. Blood. Organs. And I have my own mind. Isn't that enough? And a nail clipping. A nail clipping. That's more than Dot ever had.

"Locke!" Kara's elbow jabs into my side. I haven't been paying attention to the landscape, but I see it immediately now. In the distance, a group walks toward us. Four, maybe five. Their clothing is loose and dark and billowing in the breeze, like a pack of flapping ravens. My fingers tighten around the rock in my hand.

"Stand tall, Kara," I say. "Try to look big." What am I saying? Isn't that what you do with bears or cougars? It's all I have. I pull myself up, gaining an inch.

"Don't stop," Kara whispers when I slow down. "Keep walking. Swagger like you own the planet."

I don't even own the clothes on my back. "You think there's time to run?" I ask.

"Where would we run? They know this territory better than we do. And we don't know what they are. We don't even know if they're people."

"They have legs like people."

"And Dot had a head like a person."

They are nearly within rock-throwing distance now, and their black silhouettes are beginning to take form. There are definitely five of them. They begin to slow and spread out across the road. An attack strategy? I move in front of Kara and wave the rock over my head. "You Non-pacts have permits to be out here?" I yell. Permits? But at least they have stopped coming toward us.

They snicker between themselves and then the one in the center says to the others, "You hear that, boys? Mr. Fancy Pants thinks we don't bathe and have purrrr mits." The others laugh and make rude gestures like they're picking lice from their bodies. He takes a step forward. He is no longer smiling or laughing. "We ain't no Non-pacts, Fancy Boy. We's pirates, and you's on our ocean."

Pirates? Land pirates? Dot didn't tell us about those.

They begin inching closer. They are thin and wiry. I outweigh each one by at least forty pounds, but there are five of them, and they look mean. As mean as any of the thugs in the old neighborhood. My brother always warned me: no eye contact, look away when you meet more trouble than you can handle--it was small-time street survival--and then run like hell. Neither of those strategies will help me now. I've already stared into the leader's beady black eyes. He wants trouble, and I am not sure any kind of strategy will work on someone who thinks we are in the middle of an ocean. His ocean.

My mind races. What did Dot say, the migration something? I try to sound angry. "We're from the Office of Migration Security." They stop advancing and begin laughing among themselves. Everything I say seems to amuse them.

"And we're in a hurry." Kara takes several steps in front of me. "If you move your skinny butts down that embankment right now and save us the trouble of frying and hauling you, we'll call it a day. I'll count to three. One..." She moves her hand to her side where the broken branch is bulging beneath her shirt.

The pirates look from one to another. The leader in the middle puts his hands up in a stopping motion and smiles. "Now, let's not be hasty. All we's wanting is a little grub, mates, for--"

"Two..."

The short one on the end yells and stumbles backward, and they all scramble. They race down the embankment, two of them tripping and rolling most of the way down, their thin black coats flapping like broken wings. They disappear into the cover of the forest.

"Run!" Kara says. And we do. We don't know how long it will be before they regroup and realize they've been duped.

One mile. Two. Our breaths quickly become uneven and hoarse. We are not used to running distances, but Kara and I keep pace with each other and never slow to look back.