Parched by Georgia Clark

Author:Georgia Clark
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Holiday House
Published: 2014-09-25T04:00:00+00:00

Slowly, our eyes begin adjusting. We are in a large windowless room, dominated by an enormous table and a dozen leather chairs. It is like the inverse of the tech room at Milkwood: coldly efficient, unflinchingly clean. The only sign of life is a long, rectangular square of plants running across the back of the room. One more step and I’d be standing in it. Looking down, I see there’s a little gap between the floor and the garden, and through the gap, I can see water and plant roots growing down toward it. Ling’s standing next to a large piece of scratch set into the wall like a square of sunlight.

“Where are you, what’s happening?” Achilles asks calmly.

“We have the mirror matter,” Ling says softly, eyes sweeping the room carefully. “Now we’re in a meeting room just off the lab.”

“There’s scratch,” I add. “I want to try turning it on.”

“Is it blue scratch?” Achilles asks.

“No,” I reply. “Regular.”

“Okay,” Achilles says cautiously. “There’s no security stream where you are, but I’ll run a search and try to find what you’re looking at.”

My fingers find the corner, pressing hard. The scratch glows gold and an intricate, crisp holo fills the table. Before any sound even begins, Ling mutes it with her eyes.

The holo is a map of Eden and the bordering Badlands, as far as the Bleached Seas circling the edges of the continent.

“Looks like some sort of presentation,” Achilles says. “I’m in. We can see it here too.”

Silently, the presentation begins. The words Project Aevum. Highly Classified, By Order of the Trust float out above everything, automatically matching to everyone’s individual eyelines.

Ling and I trade a quick look. Project Aevum? My chest is rising and falling with anticipation. This must be it.

The map starts moving. Eden fills the table, all the neighborhoods presented in perfect miniature. The Hive, Charity, Liberty Gardens. Lakeside, and the Farms. The snaking streets of the South Hills, and beyond them, overlooking all of Eden, the Three Towers. I can almost see the palatial floor of Gyan’s private quarters, right at the tip of the biggest of the three buildings.

From a single building in the Hive, a red dot glows, pulsing slowly. I recognize the location of the building—it’s where we are now. I assume that dot represents Aevum.

The view pans out to display the entire continent. Now tiny white-walled Eden is dominated by the expanse of the Badlands. Small black dots appear, labeling the human population. Numbers and graphs indicate first the two million in Eden, and then the two hundred million out in the Badlands.

It’s strange to think those tiny clusters of dots represent people. I can almost make out Kep Sai’an, a thousand miles west, on the outskirts of the Manufacturing Zone. Glancing at Ling, I see she’s looking at the same place. Sanako.

Then a new spray of dots appear. These are yellow. The words Substitute Population appear. Many yellow dots in Eden, but still quite a few in the Badlands. I can picture them easily—mostly older, clunkier models, like my old friend Robowrong.

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