Free Awakening by Karen Sandler Page A

the aftermath would know better than to talk.
    Freedom. Humanity. Equality.
    They were words nearly all GENs harbored unspoken in their hearts. Yet if the source were a GEN, why destroy a warren and make GEN lives more miserable?
    Kayla returned to the lorry bay and nestled in a pile of scratchy plasscine blankets she and Risa used to protect fragile items. Her mind raced in a dozen different directions.
    Who wrote the words? Were they a warning for the GENs in the warren to leave? Could they possibly be a vile joke of some Brigade members who’d learned a little GENscrib? Or did they mean nothing, written on a risky dare by some underfifteen GEN before a routine demolition?
    Kayla fell into a restless doze. Sometime during the night, Nishi returned. After the seycat finished crunching the bones of whatever unlucky rat-snake or sewer toad had crossed herpath, she curled up next to Kayla. With Nishi’s purring warmth, Kayla finally dropped into dreamless sleep.

    Considering how upside-down everything had been the day before, Kayla was barely surprised when a Kinship tech called in the morning to tell her and Risa that Gemma couldn’t be found in the GEN database. To double-check, the tech wanted Risa to download Gemma’s twenty-digit passkey that identified the GEN girl’s unique DNA sequence. Most GENs didn’t even know there was a passkey stored inside their annexed brains, nor did they realize that the passkey was also used to reset GENs.
    But when Gemma woke, Kayla and Risa discovered the girl did know the hidden purpose of the passkey. It therefore took some persuasion for the GEN girl to allow Risa to download the passkey using her datapod. But when Risa then uploaded the twenty-digit string to the wristlink and the tech checked it, there was no record of the passkey in the GEN creation database either.
    After signing off, Kayla unearthed a last few redfruit and their store of nutras and handed them out to Gemma, Risa, and herself. The compressed, vac-sealed kel-grain bars were barely palatable, but they would keep stomachs from growling until they could restock the lorry’s pantry.
    Leaving Gemma with a nutra, a juicy redfruit, and a jug of cold kelfa drink, she and Risa went around to the back of the lorry. “What now?” Kayla asked.
    “Girl’s not on the Grid, can go to a safe house,” Risa said. “Maybe over in Nafi sector. Out of Northwest Territory.”
    “You’ll have to call Councilor Mohapatra again and have him change your delivery schedule,” Kayla said around a mouthful of redfruit.
    “Don’t like bothering the councilor twice in two days,” Risa said.
    “We can’t just jet up there on our own judgment,” Kayla said, pointing out the obvious. Irritation pricked at her. “Although I don’t see why not. If we think it’s the right thing to do, why are we always having to ask permission?”
    Risa shrugged. “Kinship rules. No way we can drop her at Qaf safe house, never mind it’s closest.”
    “I’ll go on ahead to the warehouse,” Kayla suggested. “Let them know we’re on our way.”
    GENs weren’t allowed wristlinks, so the only way to communicate with them was to hike over there through the central ward. But Kayla didn’t mind the trip, since it would give her a chance to search for any other cryptic graffiti that might be scrawled on Fen walls. She unearthed a last hidden redfruit and her prayer mirror, tucking the mirror into the pocket in the waist of her leggings.
    Nibbling around the bruises on the redfruit, Kayla wound her way through Fen’s alleys and rutted roadways toward the warehouse district. The recent rain had soaked the hard-packed gray-brown dirt and the resulting mud sucked at her feet. Her synth-leather shoes were sturdy enough, but moisture seeped through their seams and her socks grew damper with each step.
    GENs crowded the local streets that intersected the alleys. Under-tens and under-fifteens flooded past her on their way to the Doctrine school where