Free Awakening by Karen Sandler

it’s hyper-healing me, something might be wrong inside.”
    Now Risa looked concerned. “Should ask Zul.”
    “Not tonight,” Kayla said. “Not as tired as he was.” Not to mention Devak would surely be there by now. She wasn’t sure what would be worse—talking to Devak, or having him refuse to speak to her. “I’ll run a self-check.”
    The self-check was crude and limited since trueborns didn’t want GENs having too much control over themselves. But it could report a few error codes.
    While Kayla initiated the self-check, Risa killed the cab illuminators and continued down Fen sector’s main street. As Risa nosed into a dark alley between a Doctrine school play yard and an adjacent rubble-filled lot, Kayla’s circuitry displayed the self-check results in her annexed brain.
    Kayla read the codes, then told Risa, “Everything is operating correctly.”
    “Need to talk to Zul,” Risa said. “Get you a Kinship medic.”
    Kayla shook her head. “I need a tech for the circuitry. Medics only handle the meat.”
    Risa flinched at Kayla’s use of the word meat. But she of all people knew that was what trueborns thought of a GEN’s body. Not to mention what the Brigade said when it came to handling “renegade” GENs—kill the jik, save the meat. Meaning, save the DNA for the creation of future GENs.
    Kayla and Risa took turns in the minuscule washroom. Once they’d both finished their nightly routine, Risa regarded Gemma sprawled across the bed that Risa and Kayla usually shared.
    “Wake her?” Risa asked. “Or maybe we draw for the cab seat. Other one can sleep in the bay.”
    “I’ll take the bay,” Kayla said.
    The rain had stopped, so Kayla slipped outside rather than use the hatch and risk disturbing Gemma. The clouds had cleared enough to reveal a swath of black night sky. The stars scattered across that patch of heaven burned bright with all three moons muted by the clouds. The biting autumn chill seeped through Kayla’s damp clothes.
    Without thinking, Kayla activated her internal warming system. Tugging open the bay door, she stood aside as Nishi dashed to freedom and disappeared into the darkness of the alley. She’d have to leave the door open so Nishi could return with her night’s prey.
    Just as she stepped up into the bay, Avish, the second of the trinity moons, peeked through the clouds and sent a beam of light to the rubble beside the alley. Her gaze caught a bit of GENscrib scrawled on a broken piece of plasscrete.
    Hopping back down to the ground, Kayla picked her way through the plasscrete rubble. From the broken furniture, kitchen oddments, and scraps of clothing scattered throughout, this must have been a warren. Chaff heads, scrub flowers, and even a few sticker bush seedlings had taken root, which meant it had been demolished weeks or even months ago.
    As usual, Social Benevolence was taking their own sweet time getting the warren built again. Meanwhile, GENs would be jammed into what housing remained here in Fen or uprooted to another sector.
    Kayla reached the roughly meter-square chunk she’d spied, likely part of an exterior wall. Moving the fifty-plus kilogram piece to better read the GENscrib, she waited for Avish’s light to pierce the clouds again.
    When it did, her heart nearly stopped in her chest.
    FREEDOM. HUMANITY. EQUALITY. The same three words written in that nearly unreadable longhand GENscrib in Qaf.
    She looked out at the ruined warren. The structure had to have been destroyed by Social Benevolence’s order. Yet . . . wasn’t that charring on some of the plasscrete pieces? Could the warren have burned first, then been razed?
    Surely if this warren had been blown up like the warehouse had, Kayla or Risa would have heard of it. But the trueborns could so easily control information. If they wanted everyone to believe this had been a routine demolition, they had the means to do it. Any GEN witnesses could easily be reset. The Brigade that had to deal with