Regenerate Page 2

  My Pocket Palm vibrates. Time’s up. “Guys, I’ve got to go before Mom’s virtual yoga class ends.”

  I stand up to leave and Rax jumps up too. “Do you need someone to walk you home?”

  I study his face a moment. The company would be nice given the circumstances, but . . .

  Behind him, Zeph’s nails are clicking as they drum the table. Her squinted stare slips around Rax and barely within my visual range.

  I clear my throat. “Um, no. Thanks. I’ll be fine.” Or at least I hope I will.

  Chapter Two

  The crisp night air hits my face and cuts through my tights. I should have worn thicker clothes. Every year it catches me off guard how fast the weather here in northern Arizona changes. It’s like one day I’m soaking in the warm, wet monsoon storms and the next I wake up to the brisk chill of fall. The hybrid trees are barely starting to strike their colors and I’m already considering breaking out my winter coat in the evenings.

  I shiver and start heading for home. The street LEDs are on and the sky beyond them is a blank, starless black. I pull my sweater tighter to my body.

  After passing several blocks, a small plume of dark green next to a man-made stream draws my attention. It’s peeking out from the edge of a paver stone. I crouch next to it to get a closer look.

  It’s a weed. A legitimate, non-hybrid, all-natural weed. “No way,” I whisper.

  I pick off a large stem and stuff it into my purse. As I rise, something crinkles on the synthetic lawn to my right, near the building. The tall residence column casts such a dark shadow in its corners, I can’t see if there’s anyone there.

  My whole body goes rigid and uneasiness churns my gut. I look around but the walkway is deserted.

  Stay calm, Averi. Assaults are practically unheard of . . . But that doesn’t mean they can’t happen. Or maybe a wild animal got in. My thoughts aren’t helping my “stay calm” mantra.

  I take several steps backwards, watching the shadowy corner for movement. My heart is racing like crazy. I reach in my purse and grip the red handles of my pruning shears. Once I’m a good distance from whatever is in that shadow, I turn around.

  Glancing behind me several times, I hurry home as fast as I can without actually running. I swear I hear the soft padding of footsteps behind me the whole way.

  Finally, I reach the entry level of my residence column and decide to forgo risking my life on the collection tube. As I reach the doors the anxiety pounding in my head eases. I laugh. I’m ridiculous! What did I think was going to happen to me?

  My fingers stretch out and take hold of the cool, smooth handle of the column’s entry door. Before I can pull it open, a hard, masculine hand clamps down over mine. I scream.

  My shears are out in front of me and I’m fumbling for the emergency number on my Pocket Palm before I even realize what I’m doing.

  “Whoa! Easy, killer,” says the blond, wavy-haired guy in front of me. His hands are raised to either side of his head, and he’s backing away like my pruning shears are loaded.

  A crooked smile pulls at his lips. “I was just trying to get the door for you. Sorry I scared you so bad. You all right? Nice shriek, by the way.” He wiggles a finger in his ear as if it’s still ringing.

  I stare at him blankly. He’s definitely not one of the three hundred and four people who live here. He looks about my age, a GAP, but not one I’ve ever seen before. If he’s visiting, this is his first time. Actually, he’s kind of cute. But that’s beside the point. No one said attackers have to be ugly.

  I blink several times like I’m recovering from a brain freeze of terror. He seems perfectly friendly. What’s my problem? Why am I so paranoid? I almost stabbed pruning shears into a nice, attractive guy who was trying to open the door for me. Wonderful. Imagine how I’ll react when a guy asks me to marry him.

  His bright azure eyes meet mine, and the connection stops my internal tangent.

  “Sorry.” I stow my shears back in my purse, my hands shaking, and fumble like a moron for a response. “I’m fine. Yeah. I just thought someone was following me—like there was a shadow, and then this sound, so when your hand grabbed mine it totally made me think, you know…” Ok, now I REALY sound stupid. Stop talking.

  He crosses his arms and grins at me while nodding, as if my story both fascinates and amuses him. His brow lifts as I stop mid-disjointed story. “And? Go on, this is really entertaining. Do you always babble like that when you’re unsettled?”

  Of course. The good-looking guy who materialized from nowhere is also a jerk.

  I tuck my hair behind my ear and set my jaw, then go for the door again. He slips in my way. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he says, holding his hands up. “It was just really cute how you were flustered.”

  Wow, he’s insulting and bold. I stop trying to dodge around him and take a step back. “Who on earth are you?”

  “I’m Lander,” he says, holding out a hand to shake mine. “Lander Lazarus Finch. And you are?”

  I stare down at his outstretched hand and then push past him. “Late for curfew,” I say, and yank the door open.

  Part of me considers turning back and demanding to know if he’s the guy from the diner and if he’s been following me since then. But I’m already cutting it close on time.

  Besides, so what if he was? Unless he was actually eavesdropping—which, seriously, why on earth would he?—it really wouldn’t matter if he had been there. He was probably just headed home to whoever it is he’s visiting. I bet they live in a nearby column.

  I make my way up the air lift and down the halls until I reach the door to our living quarters. I disable the automatic greeting, take a deep breath, and slip inside. Hopefully Mom’s too distracted to notice.

  I let out a sigh of relief as her voice echoes from her room, instructing her remotely attending class via Face Chat.

  How they manage to do an activity like yoga without leaving the comfort of their hovering air chairs completely baffles me.

  Mom must be pretty good at it though, ’cause she makes a decent living. Not that money matters the way it did in the olden days.

  The Local Organizers make sure we GAPs have what we need so the human race can continue. Only luxury upgrades, like the new vSpecs Mom wants, require income.

  The main projo-screen is on in our front room, and the blaring male voice of the commercial stalks me all the way down the hall.

  “Think you’re too old to be a birth mom? Concerned about the discomfort of pregnancy and childbearing? Too much hassle to raise a kid? Noooo problem! Thanks to our latest medical breakthroughs in nutrition and pain relief, you can be a birth mom into your sixties without experiencing any discomfort whatsoever. We’ll even find a placement home or live-in Grands to raise your child after they’re born.

  “Filling in the generation gap is our Executive Organizer’s number one goal, but we need every woman’s help. And to make it worth your time, we’re offering a ten-year package of free mainframe upgrades. All you have to do is—”

  Click.

  There’s something very satisfying about shutting up that garbage mid-spew.

  When I reach my pod, I want to slam my soundproof sliding door for effect, but I resist the urge. I don’t want Mom realizing I’ve been away.

  I’m still seething over that stupid commercial as I hang up my purse and put away my sweater. What they should’ve said is, “Since all of you were too vegged out on tech to go hook up, come get surgically knocked up so the human species doesn’t die off altogether. Oh yeah, and then have your kid, but never talk to them face to face. Let your own parent raise them. Better yet, let them starve to death in their crib while you play your online crap.”

  There’s a reason why our parents are called Generation Lost and why almost every GAP is an only child, like me.

  The screen on my wall lights up. “Incoming chat from: Mom,” says Ivi, the Integrated Voice Interface.

  “Receive,” I mutter.

  Mom�
�s face projects onto my wall. She looks odd, about two hundred pounds lighter and at least ten years younger. She must have left her Thin and Trim filter on again.

  “Averielle. Where are you? Do you have home-study work?” Her voice has little to no inflection.

  P.P.P. literature again. Whose dumb idea was it to make that parenting manual anyway?

  “I’m in my pod. And yes, I do have study work to do. Oh, and Mom.” I take a short, deep breath. “You don’t have to read what to say to me. You can just ask me yourself, in your own words.”

  She purses her lips tightly together. “Of course. I know I can; I simply want to make sure I’m parenting you properly. I refuse to have everyone talking about me, claiming I didn’t follow the Proper Parenting Path, if you fail to turn out the way the literature guarantees you will.”

  Ouch.

  “Your tracking device showed you left the residence column. Why didn’t you file an activities request if you wished to go out?” she asks.

  And this is why I nearly died on the collection tube. Monitored, every second. “Actually, Mom, the tracking devices have been acting a little glitchy lately. I think several of my friends had their trackers flickering in and out of weird locations and stuff.”

  If Rax can make more of those re-routers, that would be amazing.

  “Hm. My projo-screen was flickering this morning. Which wouldn’t be a problem if I could afford those vSpecs,” she mutters to herself, then sighs. “I’ll file a request tomorrow to have a tech-mech take a look at it. Now come to the kitchen for dinner; the food packets are warmed up. See you in a second.”

  No, you won’t. You’ll see me across the table through your projo-screen.

  It’s no wonder most of the naturally conceived babies in my generation died from failure to thrive. I wonder if teens can die from it too?

  I decide to leave a little early for school. I want to take a better look at that weed in daylight. I analyzed the stem for half the night, scanning it into a plant ID forum online, but there was nothing. They all just said it was a weed. So scientific, I’m floored. I may not know its name, but I still want to see it living and growing without anyone tending it.

  I leave our quarters and walk down the straight corridors and square turns of our column. I take the air lift to ground level and get off, heading towards the front doors. My steps come to a full stop the moment I see him standing there.

  “Looks like this is getting to be a thing,” Lander says, and smiles at me. “Fancy running into you here, Shrieker.” He does a wide sweeping gesture with a slight bow, signaling for me to take the lead.

  I shoulder past him and stomp as loudly as I can while doing so. “It’s not a ‘thing,’ moron. I live here.” Why am I so bugged to see him? Because I made a total fool of myself last time? Or because he’s making fun of me for it? “What are you doing here?”

  He keeps pace with me, walking shoulder to shoulder up to the entry. I try not to look at him, but I can see he’s watching me and still smiling.

  He jumps ahead and pushes the door open, eyeing me as I pass him, then he follows me through.

  The cool morning air on my heated neck and face feels good, but the bright, early morning UV rays feel like a slap to my eyes. I have to squint to see.

  “I was hoping to run into you this morning,” he says.

  “Really. Why?” I ask.

  He claps his hands together and rubs them vigorously. I hate how amused he is by all this. “Because it was so fun meeting you last night, obviously. Your shrieking can pack a punch.”

  I grit my teeth and yank my motor-bi-ped from its slot then turn to face him. “So can my fist.”

  His eyebrows raise and he glances over me as if doing a re-appraisal. The fakeness of his smile fades, and he nods to himself. “Nice.”

  I cinch on my helmet, swing my leg over the top of my bi-ped, and give him one last glare. “I’ve got some stuff to do. Quit stalking me and my residence column.”

  I sail down the street on my bi-ped, my feet turning the pedals every so often to keep up its charge.

  Lander’s voice picks up right behind me. The squelching of his tires on the dew-covered road and the whoosh of him peddling to catch up notify me how quickly I’m losing my lead. Where did a visitor get a bike? Probably stole it.

  “First of all, it’s not actually your column,” he says. “It’s the A column; you simply live in it. Secondly”—he’s now riding right beside me—“it also happens to now be my building, unless the Local Organizers decide to change that.”

  I scowl and turn toward him to gauge if he’s serious. I think he is. “Hold on, you’re new? Not visiting?”

  He sits up a little straighter on his bi-ped. “Yup. Just transferred in night before last.” He shoots a sideways glance in my direction with a very smug grin. “Guess that makes us neighbors. I’ll have to drop by your place if I ever need some sugar, neighbor.”

  I fix my gaze straight ahead and draw a sharp breath. He’s got a shocking amount of nerve. And something about his polished charisma is provoking my distrust. I open my mouth to demand how exactly he is allowed to live in my column, seeing as I live in the A column and his name clearly starts with an L. Before I get a word out, my Pocket Palm vibrates to life. Ivi’s voice picks up in my ear, alerting me of an incoming chat from Zephani. “Receive,” I say. The projo-screen appears in the air to my front right.

  “There you are! We just missed picking you up from your column,” says Zeph. “What are you doing out already? Do you want to meet up with us, or should we go on ahead?”

  My eyes dart to Lander then back to Zeph. I wouldn’t put it past this guy to invite himself. “I have something to do this morning. Let’s meet up, though.”

  “Perfect! We’ll wait for you next to K building.” The screen dissolves.

  “Looks like you have things to do,” says Lander.

  Ya think? “Yep,” I say.

  Lander checks his Pocket Palm and frowns. “Looks like I do too. I’ll see you around.”

  I don’t return his farewell since his company was never invited in the first place. I breathe a sigh of relief once he’s gone. It’s nice to be by myself. Despite this, a peculiar sense of vacancy accompanies me now that he left.

  As I near the residence column with the pavers, my heart sinks. Oh no! It’s gone. I set down my bi-ped next to where the plant was and kneel down to take a closer look.

  There’s nothing left of the small vegetation, not even a hole or a tear in the synthetic lawn. Nothing to suggest it had ever been there. Like everything that should naturally occur in these villages, it’s been sterilized. Wiped clean and erased from the realm of existence, along with all evidence of it having lived.

  Society is eerily efficient at keeping everything even and orderly. I wonder if they do to people the same as they did to that weed.

  If the Executive or even the Local Organizers find a person offensive, can they wipe away the evidence of them having lived? If they wanted to, would they do that to me?

  I sit back with a hard thump onto the ground and just stare at the place where the weed was. I feel like a friend has been snatched from me. Thank goodness I picked that stem when I did.

  A stroke of genius hits me. Maybe I can get the stem to grow. Mrs. Cobalta might let me bring potting soil home if it’s for a unit project. The agriculture unit teacher is a grump, but she does like students to take initiative.

  I check my Palm device and cringe at the time. I’d hate to make the rest of the group late for school. I grab my bi-ped and speed off.

  The gang is gathered outside Kachina’s column, the K building, under the shade of one of the ash-elm trees whose leaves are starting to change color. My friends are standing in a tight cluster, but I can’t see what has them so fascinated. Raxtin is the only one who looks like he’d rather be someplace else. He’s sighing and pacing just behind the others, doing that neck roll he only does when he’s really irritated and trying not to get fired u
p.

  “Stressed much?” I say as I pull up next to him with a smile.

  Rax stops pacing and turns to face me. His thick eyebrows lift as his eyes catch sight of me, and his shoulders relax. He reaches out to steady my bi-ped’s handles while I climb off. “Naw,” he says. “I just hate all the fanfare. Seems ridiculous.”

  Before I can ask what on earth he means by that, a less familiar voice picks up from the center of the rest of the group.

  “Hi again, Shrieker.” I turn, and there’s Lander. His lips quirk into a smile and he rocks back on his heels. His blue eyes seem to dance as he looks at me.

  My mouth falls open and I narrow my gaze. “What do you think you’re doing here?” Really? What, did he lip-read Zeph’s chat? And how dare he wheedle his way into my group of friends behind my back.

  “Oh, Averielle, this is Lander,” says Zeph, holding out her hand to indicate him. She lowers her tone a fraction as if speaking to me privately, even though everyone else can still hear her. “He’s a new GAP. He just transferred here to live with his great uncle.”

  “Yeah, I’ve heard,” I say as flat as I can. “So what?”

  Jett cocks his head, glancing between Lander and me. “Do you guys already know each other?”

  I shut my mouth and say nothing, my foot tapping a rampant pace on the sidewalk. “Know him” is hardly the term.

  Lander stretches his arms out wide to either side of him then plants his hands firmly on his hips. “We bumped into each last night. I’d say we kinda hit things off, or close to it. Right, Shrieker?” His crystal-clear eyes dare me to say more.

  My teeth clench and my neck feels warm. “Shut up.”

  Raxtin steps to my side and places his hand between my shoulder blades. “Hey man, cool it,” he says to Lander.

  Lander raises his hands in front of himself. “Sorry, I didn’t realize she was spoken for.”