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.