I sleep like the dead, my body surrendering completely to ten hours of dreamless slumber in the most comfortable bed I’ve been in for a year. When I wake, my hand’s under the pillow and scrambling for Mack before I remember where I am. I don’t need to defend myself or hit the ground running. I’m back in Eden. I’m safe.
By Eden standards, the guest bedroom is sparsely furnished. But the flowing curtains that let in clear morning light and the soft carpet my feet sink into feel embarrassingly luxurious.
Towel in one hand, I uneasily face off against the shower. The neat guest bathroom is evidently rarely used, as a fine layer of dust lines the shower’s ribbed floor. Thumb-sized bottles of shampoo, conditioner, and cleanser squat on a silver ledge.
A warm, gushing waterfall cascades around me. The water hits my skin in all the right places, like an all-over massage. I can’t help groaning with pleasure as it drums into my shoulders, my back, my chest, my neck. I close my eyes and turn my face to the spray, letting it fall over my cheeks and forehead and scalp. I soap up my skin with an opaque goo that smells like ripe peaches. Layers of dirt and sweat and grime disappear in the bubbles. The sweet smell of peach mixes with the steam. I never want it to end. I want to stand here forever.
But as the dirty rivulets swirl down the drain at my feet, the pleasure starts to sour. This is more water than anyone in the Badlands gets in a month. And it feels good—damn, it feels so good—but I can’t help feeling a little guilty. And then I can’t enjoy it anymore. I dry myself with the soft, fluffy towel, feeling clean and refreshed and like I’ve done something wrong.
I comb my hair into something passing for neat and change into the dress Ling gave me. I wonder if the Tess of a year ago would’ve liked this dress. It feels like trying to recall memories that aren’t even mine. I know for sure Izzy would love the way it only just covers my butt, which means I probably would’ve liked it too. The foggy bathroom mirror reflects the old me looking at the new me looking at the old me.
I do a terrible impression of myself.
“Ah, screw it,” I mutter, and change into some Badlands clothes I have stuffed into my backpack. Loose black pants and a dark red tank top, both lousy with stains and sweat. I don’t look entirely Eden, but if I get new clothes and a haircut, it shouldn’t matter too much. This outfit only breaks social conventions, not actual laws.
I twirl Mack through my fingers and consider taking him with me, but I don’t need his protection anymore. And besides, carrying weapons in Eden is illegal. I leave my old friend on the bedside table, looking decidedly out of place next to the cheery yellow lamp.
When I come downstairs, Abel is already at the dining room table. “Tess!” he exclaims eagerly. “Your heightened anabolic state has come to an end.”
I translate this as “you’re awake.” He’s flicking through a busy morning news stream, one hand curled around a cup of tea. Little clouds of stories about sports results, a buzzcar crash, and the set temperatures for the next few days hover about cheerfully. All so nice. All so normal.
“Morning,” I say.
“Sleep well?”
“Like a baby with a hangover.”
“Like a what?” he asks, thrown.
“Sorry.” I smile, biting my lip. “Badlands expression. It means I slept well.”
“What a colorful phrase,” he says diplomatically, before stifling a yawn.
He has bags under his eyes. “What about you?” I ask curiously. “You look beat and it’s not even nine A.M.”
His fingers tighten around his cup. “I must admit, having you back is somewhat surreal. I didn’t sleep a wink.”
“Sorry,” I mutter softly, sliding into a chair across from him.
“You don’t have to apologize,” he says. “It was hard for all of us, but it must’ve been hardest on you.” Abel peers at me, eyes bright despite the bags. “Are you sure there’s nothing you want to talk about?”
My nails dig into my palms and I smile tightly. “Nope.”
“Well, how about some breakfast?”
“Sure.”
“Kimiko!” he calls. “Our guest requires some breakfast.”
The fembot zips around my backpack toward me. “What would you like to eat, Tess?”
I blink fast a couple times. I’m back in Eden now. These sophisticated, silver-eyed substitutes are just something I’ll have to get used to.
The fembot repeats itself, “What would you like to—?”
“I don’t know,” I cut it off. I haven’t ordered breakfast in a year.
Abel answers for me. “Just some fruit is fine.”
Lucky for me, robots don’t hold a grudge. Kimiko rolls off to the kitchen without another word.
“I was thinking we could have dinner together tonight,” Abel says.
I raise an eyebrow. “We haven’t even had breakfast yet.”
“I mean, a special dinner. To celebrate your homecoming.”
“Okay.” I nod, trying not to feel wildly overparented.
“Kimiko will do the cooking. The kitchen isn’t really my forte. She’s been a real addition. Very helpful.” Abel begins chattering blithely about Kimiko’s make and model: she’s called a Companion, very articulate, designed to be socially intelligent and synergistic with everyday life. . . . I nod politely, trying to gauge the subtext of what’s going on. He seems nervous. The shock of my return? Uncertainty about our future? Or guilt about his involvement in something that sent me to the Badlands in the first place? I suppose it could be all three.
I eat Kimiko’s fruit salad obediently, savoring the sweet slices of nectarines and plums. Good, healthy food was a part of my old life. As I crunch a green grape between my teeth, I almost swoon. Showers. Soft beds. Fresh fruit. Why did I ever leave?
And so when Abel asks me what I’m going to do today, I don’t hesitate.
“I’m going to see Izzy.”
Izzadore Lucy Williams and I met on the first day of pre-education. I’d been busy stealing all the coveted golden building blocks from the communal stash in order to make a castle. When the teacher finally worked out that someone wasn’t playing fair, she gently suggested I show her what was under the basket behind me. When I did, nothing was there. The blocks were gone. Izzy sat a few feet away, a pint-sized picture of adorable innocence. Under her cute ruffled skirt hid a treasure trove of gold. We split the blocks, then worked a two-man scam on Alby Peterson for his milk and pudding cup. We’d been partners in crime ever since.
Part teddy bear, part shyster, that’s how she’d always been. I’m average for my height, but Izzy clocks in at five foot two. Her enormous dark blue eyes rimmed with ridiculously long lashes give her a look of perpetual naïveté, which we often used to our advantage. She commanded male and female attention effortlessly and collected broken hearts for a hobby. She was excellent.
Izzy’s father is a Guider, which means they live in one of the South Hills houses that have a killer view and a pool. Even though every house in Eden is supposedly as good as the last, some are simply more advantaged, and people who work for the Trust are always given the “advantages.” We’d spend our weekends soaking up the sun by the pool, workshopping our love lives—hers: colorful, mine: nascent—and starting rumors about people we didn’t like.
But then Mom died and I left. I have no idea how she’ll feel about seeing me. Betrayed? Ecstatic? Furious? For all her wickedness, Izzy is, at her core, a total sweetheart who always had my back. I didn’t even say goodbye.
“I’m heading out!” I call to Abel, who’d disappeared into his study after breakfast. “I’ll see you later!”
“Tess. Greetings.” Abel’s assistant, the tall boy I met yesterday, emerges from the study.
I’ve completely forgotten his name. Harrison? Hugo? “Hey, um—”
“Hunter,” he supplies, unfazed at my faux pas. Physically he’s neither particularly good- or bad-looking—mop of dark hair that looks uncombed, typically pale Eden skin, thickish eyebrows above eyes that could be gray or green. It’s his unselfconscious focus on me that’s the point of difference.
“Hunter, right.” I laugh, shifting awkwardly in his gaze. “Sorry. Bad with names. Surprised you remembered mine.”
He cocks his head at me. “Tess Rockwood, the missing niece who returns after a year in the Badlands? That tends to make an impression.”
I wince. No wonder he’s staring at me. Most Edenites never leave the city, even for a night. “What’s up?”
“Abel said to come say hello,” he says, inclining his head toward the study.
“Abel said to come say hello,” I repeat in confusion. “Why?”
An embarrassed smile colors his face. His gaze drops to floor. “I wanted to come and say hello,” he corrects himself.
“Oh.” I nod. I’m momentarily unsure of how to react to this level of social awkwardness. My fingers worry the gold sword on my necklace. “So, he’s got you working weekends, huh?”
“Yes,” Hunter replies. “He’s a gauche slave driver who is guileful and malevolent in nature.”
I blink. “He’s a what-now?”
“I was being sarcastic,” Hunter clarifies quickly. “Or trying to be, I guess.”
And suddenly, a new level of awkwardness has been reached. “Well, have fun with that,” I say, edging for the front door. “I’m going to get a makeover. An Eden makeover.”
His eyes examine my face as if I were a science experiment. “You don’t need a makeover.”
I hook up an eyebrow. “Sarcasm and you do not a fine match make.”
And it’s his turn to blink in confusion, just for a second, before his face clears into understanding. “I wasn’t being sarcastic,” he says simply. “See you later, Tess.”
“Bye, Hunter.”
“You remembered!” I hear him call out as I head down the hallway. I roll my eyes, a faint smile teasing my mouth. What. A. Weirdo.
Joggers huff and puff past me, lightly sweating in all-white exercise suits. I scan their faces intently. Izzy never used to miss her Sunday jog: How can I demand physical perfection in others if I’m not committed to it myself? My foot jiggles with nerves. I feel a bit sick—lucky I didn’t have a big breakfast.
Just as I’m about to give up hope, I see her. She’s changed her hair. An elegant pixie cut shows off her heart-shaped face and makes her look a few years older. She’s chatting with a cute little sub that hovers next to her as she runs. It’s soft and cuddly, with snow-white fur and eyes as big as hers. Izzy always did prefer the adorable designs to the more functional types. She’s just about to run right past when I call out a tentative “hey!”
She glances up and promptly stumbles to a stop. Her eyes widen as she pants, catching her breath, face frozen in a comical mask of shock.
I wave an unsure hello. “Never thought I’d see Izzy Williams lost for words.”
“Metabolism slowing,” chirrups her sub. “Continue jogging to achieve—”
Izzy hushes it. It buries its head in her neck, purring. She waves it away distractedly, eyes locked into mine.
“Tess?” Her voice is deep with disbelief.
“In the flesh.” I nod, swallowing. Please be happy to see me.
Her eyes race frantically around my dyed black ponytail and shaggy undercut, my grimy clothes, my dirt-caked boots. “Where have you been? You just—Tess, where have you been?”
“Away?” I offer tentatively. “But I’m back now.” I exhale a breath I didn’t even know I’d been holding. “It’s really good to see you, Iz.”
“You’re . . . you’re so skinny,” she says. Then her eyes bug. “You got a tronic?” She flips my wrist to get a better look at the four words that glow under my forearm: No feeling is final. “You got a tronic?” She sounds equal parts disbelieving and disappointed. Izzy and I were going to get electronic tattoos together, the day we graduated education. We’d spent hours arguing over what to get: a heart, a leaf, the word beautiful, the word true. But whatever it was, it would be the same.
I make a noncommittal noise, tugging my arm out of her grasp.
She blinks, words stumbling, hands waggling. “You look so—”
“Disheveled, tired, scraggy, wild?” Izzy’s sub buzzes helpfully, hovering at her head like a friendly ghost.
“Different,” Izzy finishes. We lock eyes. A huge, excited, overwhelmed smile bursts onto her face. “Tess!” She squeals, leaping forward to kiss me flush on the mouth and throw both arms around my neck. I go to hug back, but before I can, she pulls herself from me. Her face is screwed in disgust. “Oof. Tess, you stink.”
“Oh.” I smile, giving my top a sniff. “Yeah. Guess that’s part of the story.”
I see a clutch of white-suited joggers heading toward us, and instinctively move off the path, drifting into the trees behind us. Izzy trots along next to me, eyes unable to leave mine. As we walk, I start with her small questions: I’m fine; I’m staying with Abel; yes, you’re the first friend I contacted; no really, I’m fine. Then I answer the big one. “I’ve been in the Badlands.”
The news cuts through her like an electric shock. “The Badlands?” She gapes. “As in, the Badlands Badlands?”
“On your own—for the whole year?”
“After Mom died, I just needed a change.”
“I never got the chance to tell you how sorry I was to hear about her.” She shudders, stopping to face me. “So awful, Tess. I can’t imagine . . . I mean, the thing she was working on. What was it?”
“Magnus.” The word is an unwilling whisper.
“That’s it. I had no idea it was actually dangerous.” She stares up at me, expression pained and pitiful. “Are you okay? I know it was ages ago, but . . . I wished you’d commed. You just left. You were just gone—”
“I know,” I say. “I’m really sorry.” I grimace. “Can we change the topic?”
Without skipping a beat, Izzy says, “Sure.” The air is warm around us, heavy with summer scents and the light trills of birds. We’re heading toward a more populated part of the park. Around us, families are out picnicking and tossing Frisbees. Izzy links her arm into mine, a gesture so familiar it’s almost automatic. “So,” she says, trying for upbeat, “what are we doing today?”
“Actually,” I say, “I need your help.”
Izzy wrinkles her nose. “I hope it’s help with your dirty clothes situation.”
I laugh. Already I’m feeling lighter. “It is. Your father’s still a Guider, right?”
“Daddy dearest surely is. Day off today, though.”
“Which means he’s working in the garden?” I guess.
She nods, grinning, pulling me closer to her. “It’s like you never left!”
“Excellent.” I grin back. “Now, I don’t exactly need to break any rules . . .”
“Just bend them into pretty new shapes?” She blinks coquettishly. “Luckily, I am in a very flexible mood.”
I tell Izzy I lost my ID in the Badlands, and the border control official said to get a new one when I was back. I tell her I want to see her dad because that process takes days, and I want a new ID now. The truth is the panel of Guiders I’d have to present this story to at a local meet would see through it in a heartbeat.
Izzy’s house is just as light and airy as I remember it, all stainless steel and sparkling glass. I’m a little winded from the walk up, but the view across Eden still takes my breath away. The curved glass skyscrapers in the Hive catch the light brilliantly, as do the glittering solar panels on the roof of the house below. I can even glimpse parts of Moon Lake way up in the north, shining like sunlight on a mirror.
It really is a stunningly beautiful city.
Izzy dismisses her sub, who burrows into a sofa like a white furry cushion. I wait next to it while she changes out of her exercise suit. I used to love coming to Izzy’s house. Compared to mine, it was so clean and perfect. Their pantry was always full and her mom was always whipping up snacks: cheese and spinach triangles or homemade lemon gelato. But now it feels different. Empty and too quiet, like I’m waiting for someone after everyone else has gone home.
Izzy emerges wearing a floaty yellow dress and heeled sandals. “Pretty,” I say, and in response she curtsies, smirking at me. Then we head out to the back deck to look for her dad, who’ll be lost in a maze of flower beds and potting mix. The crystal clear water of their pool sparkles invitingly. As always, it’s a perfect day for a swim.
Izzy cracks her knuckles. “Want me to do the talking?” It sounds more like a statement than a question.
“I can do it,” I reply.
She throws me a sideways glance. “You sure? I don’t mind.”
“I’m sure,” I say, spotting her dad raking an empty flower bed. “Ready for a big reaction?”
Izzy bought my story unquestioningly, but her dad is more suspicious.
“You’re not supposed to be able to cross the border without ID.” He frowns. Izzy takes after her mom; Mr. Williams is long-limbed and wiry—a man-sized toothpick. He wipes a dirt-stained gardening glove across his brow, leaving a dark smudge. “Maybe I should comm them to make sure. Which crossing did you say you came through?”
Izzy opens her mouth to jump in, but before she can, I fix him with a sincere gaze. “Mr. Williams, I’ve been away from Eden for a year—a year too long. I just want my old life back. Please? I wouldn’t ask if it were’t important.”
“Yeah, c’mon, Daddy!” I should’ve known Izzy wouldn’t be able to keep her mouth shut. “I mean, look at her! It’s criminal such a hot girl is forced to look this way.”
He chuckles nervously. “All right,” he acquiesces. “Just this once.”
Whereas Abel’s study is all dark wood and dust motes, Mr. Williams’s study has floor-to-ceiling windows and a long clear desk that’s perfectly spotless. He pops open a drawer to reveal a roll of bright blue scratch. Guider scratch. Their exclusive portal to the Trust.
“I’ll take a new loop for you,” he says. “But I need to actualize the ID alone.” He means print it, in a special 3D printer that can produce official objects for Guiders. And he means alone because only Guiders are allowed to open blue scratch. We’re not even allowed to watch.
“Thanks, Mr. Williams.”
He smiles at me fondly. “Only because I know I can trust you, Tess.”
Of course. If nothing else, the Trust has taught us to trust: in them and in each other.
I smile back at him.
The Hive feels . . . sanitized. I don’t mean everyone’s walking around like they’re lobotomized. People chat or laugh or look bored as they go about their business. Substitutes of all shapes and sizes glide, whiz or stride to keep pace with their owners. But there’s no underlying urgency. When a buzzcar backfires in a vertical ascent, I’m the only one who cowers. It’s as if no one ever told Edenites that life can be dangerous.
What strikes me the most is the sound. In the Badlands, people play handmade instruments—upturned bins for drums, a piece of metal strung with string. When we danced, it was barefoot, stomping our feet into the hard dirt in raw release. It was music that defied, music that celebrated, music that kept us going. In the Hive, classical music drifts from unseen sources. It’s as elegant and precise as fine china.
Shimmering holos of Gyan are everywhere. Pearls of his infamous wisdom ripple under the image of our bearded, beatific leader: Freedom for the self is freedom for the whole. All are equal, equal is all. Evolution, enlightenment, en masse: Eden. Each of them bears the Trust logo: the swirling white T enclosed in a yellow-trimmed blue circle. Either more appeared after I left or, more likely, I just didn’t notice how many there are. As we pass through one, the hard flash of light makes me shiver.
In order to begin my much-needed makeover, Izzy drags me into her favorite new boutique. We’ll use my new ID to collect clothes. Because I haven’t used my Goods Allowance in a year—the Allowance we have for everyday, essential items like clothes, homewares, education supplies—I have a ton of credit.
Izzy marches inside like she means business. I trail behind. Funny—this used to be our old dynamic. Even though I always thought of us as equals, ultimately Izzy called the shots. I was always along for the ride. It never used to bother me. It’s just the way it was. But it’s different now.
“This is cute, and so is this and this and this!” Izzy emerges with an armful of dresses—swaths of pale, pretty cloth. “You have to get this one, it’s just to die for.”
“Actually,” I say, “I’m just going to try these on.”
“Pants?” She reacts like I’ve held up a clown suit. “You don’t wear pants.”
“I have a top too,” I argue, holding up a black V-neck.
“Very . . . utilitarian.” Izzy shakes her head, unable to compute. “You can get anything in this store, and this is what you want? Seriously?”
“I’m not really in a dresses mood right now.”
“But these would all look amazing on you,” she insists. “You have to get at least one.”
I used to buy whatever Izzy suggested. I realize how unused to following orders I am now, even orders from a friend. But I don’t want to upset her.
“I just have so much to do now that I’m back, and dresses aren’t as practical,” I say in my most reasonable voice. “Next month, for sure.”
She sighs, relenting. “Fine.” Then, with a consoling grin: “Guess I’ll have to try this on myself.”
The pants and top fit well, both made from a fine hemp that feels strong and resilient. And I like how I look in them too. Capable is the first word that comes to mind. How weird—that’s never been an adjective of any importance to me until now. The tag inside both the shirt and the pants says, “Made in the Zone.” No wonder they’re so well made. Substitutes sewed these strong seams. For a moment I consider not getting these clothes as a protest, and collecting clothes from someplace else, before I realize there isn’t a someplace else. Unless I want to make my own clothes, I have to get items created in the Manufacturing Zone.
“Hey, Tess?” Izzy calls out. I peek out from behind my curtain. Izzy stands in the center of the fitting rooms wearing the flimsy dress she’d wanted me to try on. And nothing underneath. She twirls provocatively. “How does it look?”
Where I’m flat and sinewy, Izzy’s got more curves than the South Hills. She’s hot and she knows it. I give her an unimpressed shrug. “It’s fine,” I tell her with deliberate boredom. “Bit frumpy.”
“Bitch!” she exclaims with a grin. She goes to swat me but I duck out of reach. She starts giggling, which makes me start giggling. “I’m getting a second opinion.”
And with that she flounces out into the store, basically naked. I shouldn’t be surprised, but I am. Izzy has shock value down to a fine art. She wouldn’t last five seconds in the Badlands.
I end up getting five tops, three pairs of pants, a black jacket, and a random selection of socks, undershirts, and underwear. I stopped wearing a proper bra in the Badlands because no one else wore one. Now they feel too restrictive, and I’m too flat-chested to really need one. At the last minute, I let Izzy switch my black jacket for a blood-red one, which actually looks pretty badass. As a delicate-looking sales assistant scans my new ID, I tell her I’ll wear my new clothes out of the store.
“Sure thing,” she says, nodding at the Badlands shirt and pants in my hand. “Do you need a bag for your old clothes?”
“No,” Izzy answers for me flatly. She’s behind me, fully clothed and fiddling in her purse. “You can burn them.”
“Oh, c’mon,” I tease her. “Don’t you want to keep them?” I wave the clothes in her face. “They’d look great on you.”
She smacks at my hand. “Get those away from me.”
I blink. “C’mon, Iz. I was kidding.”
“Well, I’m serious, they’re disgusting. I can’t believe—” She catches herself and shakes her head, just once. Her eyes are flashing with a hardness I’ve never seen before. “Never mind. Let’s go.”
Without another word, she turns and strides out.
The clear sound of two bells rings out across the Hive as I hurry to catch up with her. Two o’clock. I’d been hungry for lunch but now my appetite is gone. When I reach Izzy, she addresses me with a cool, no-nonsense expression. “You should use your Pleasure Allowance for a cut in Charity.” She means getting a designer cut with a stylist, instead of using my Goods Allowance for a standard style at an ordinary barber.
I nod, wanting to make peace. “Should we take an airbus?”
Home to most of Eden’s artisans, the colorful and charming Charity oozes an effortless hip feel. Post-ed students squat on wooden crates in the coffeehouses to discuss art and philosophy and poetry. Street healers offer everything from reiki to aura cleansing. Storytellers tell tall tales in underground performance spaces, while dancers spin through the plazas, silk ribbons rippling out behind them. By the time we jump off the clean, spacious airbus, being back in our favorite part of Eden has cut the chill between us. Izzy’s fingers curl into mine, pulling me into the salon she’s chosen.
My stylist’s name is Starfish. He’s well over six feet tall and skeleton-thin, with large, luscious lips that curl down in a permanent pout. Bangs flop over one eye. The one I can see regards me suspiciously as I sit down in front of the mirror, black cape around my shoulders to protect my clothes. “Sooo, what are we doing today?” Starfish has a habit of drawing out his vowels.
“Cut and color,” Izzy answers. “For the cut, I’m thinking something girly, sophisticated, definitely cute, a little bit sexy?”
“Okaaaay,” drawls Starfish. “And color?”
Again, Izzy takes the floor. “You wouldn’t know it, but she’s a natural blonde.”
Starfish feels the texture of my coarse black hair reluctantly, speaking to Izzy via the mirror I’m sitting in front of. “I can use henna to warm this into a nice chocolate brooown.”
“Perfect.” Izzy nods.
“Do I get a say in this?” I ask, half amused, half annoyed.
Izzy rests her hands on my shoulders. “No offense, Tess, but the decisions you’ve been making lately have been pretty freakish,” she says sincerely. Then, as if speaking to a child: “Lucky you’ve got me to help guide you back to the world of the sane and the stylish. Oh,” she adds to Starfish, “and lose the weirdo plaits with the feathers.”
“No.” I pull back, my fingers moving to my Badlands plaits protectively. “I like them. Leave them.”
Starfish frowns. “But I need to unbraid them for the color—”
“I said, leave them.”
After washing my hair, Starfish wraps the three plaits in tinfoil, not bothering to hide his distaste. Then he mixes the color and starts working the cool, sticky mixture through. I’m not in a talkative mood, so I let him tell a long-winded story about a fight he’d gotten into last night with his boyfriend that involved a disagreement over a gray scarf. Izzy flicks through a fashion stream using the salon’s scratch, one eye on me, one eye on a flashing carousel of woven straw purses.
Washing the henna out seems to take forever. I’m overly conscious of the amount of gushing warm water Starfish is using. As it gurgles into the basin behind me, I find myself calculating what I’d do with it if I was still out there. Wash everything I own. Bottle it and keep it somewhere safe. No, sell it in Zhukov’s bar and live like a king.
Back at the mirror, Starfish unwraps the plaits and then starts drying my hair with a hair dryer. Wet, it looks the same color as before, but as it dries it looks . . . pretty, turning my ordinary brown eyes the color of rich milk chocolate. When I run my fingers through it, it feels as soft as lamb’s wool. Starfish swats my hand away. “No touching the masterpiece until I’m finished.”
Even though I like how it looks, all the water needed for this whole production gnaws at me. The more I think about it, the more flat-out ridiculous it seems. I make the mistake of mentioning this to Izzy.
“Yeah.” She nods, swishing through a collection of light pink tops. “Totally.”
“Izzadore.” That catches her attention. “You’re not listening to me. This is a waste of water.”
“No, it’s part of your allowance,” she corrects me. “When you get your hair colored, that uses some of your Lake Allowance, right?”
Starfish nods in agreement. “Sooome.”
“That doesn’t change the fact that I just used a week’s worth of water coloring my hair,” I say. Then, after Starfish’s look of confusion, I add, “A week’s worth for someone living in the Badlands.”
“I don’t think so.” Starfish sniffs. “Not a week’s worth.”
“It’s true. I was just—”
“Tess,” Izzy warns.
“I was just there.”
Starfish glances at Izzy, and for the first time, I see something real and human on his face. Alarm. Izzy’s lips are pressed together so tight that they’re white. Starfish clears his throat uncertainly. “So, your cut. Let’s start by losing these.” He twists his fingers around my three thin plaits and gives them a sharp tug.
“Ow!” I exclaim. “I said leave them.” I jerk away from him. My face is hot. I feel sweat on my brow. In a voice that’s unexpectedly loud, I blurt out, “Edenites should be using less water. And it was wrong of Gyan to cut off Moon Lake.”
The salon goes dead silent, as if everyone has frozen at once. Izzy’s mouth drops open. Starfish laughs nervously, high and weird. I glance around. The other customers click their gazes away quickly, but two older women with heads full of tinfoil glare back at me with ugly disapproval. Publicly denouncing Gyan is a crime against the state. Plus, everyone has a comm, and everyone has scratch. Everything I just said could’ve easily been recorded. The air feels like it’s alive with electricity, the tension so palpable I can feel it on my skin. The thought repeats itself, giddy, elated, and panicked. I just broke the law.
Izzy is staring at me, her chest visibly rising and falling. “We should go,” I say, whipping the cape off my shoulders and grabbing my bag of clothes from the boutique.
In what has to be a first, Izzy is silent as we book it out of the salon. And the only thing she says when I say we need to talk is, “Where?”
Animal Gardens are the extensive grounds that form part of Eden’s Central Zoo. Animals that don’t need to be locked up are free to roam in habitats curated especially for them, making the gardens educational as well as beautiful. I lead Izzy to the glass-enclosed rain forest.
Here, the air is humid and sticky-warm, alive with the ringing chorus of tree frogs. We move along a slatted wooden walkway, deeper into jungly scrub. The vines overhead form deep shadows. We’re the only ones here, the steamy air proving too unpleasant for most Edenites. It’s also completely off-cycle: the educational streams that defined plant species, bird calls, and animals had to be taken out a few years ago after the humidity kept corroding the scratch.
My feet move soundlessly along the damp wooden walkway. Izzy lags behind. We haven’t spoken since the salon. Even though I’m wired, my brain playing what I said in the salon on repeat, being here is taking the edge off. I don’t want to fight with Izzy. I want to talk. I breathe in the smell of fresh, wet green and blow it out through my lips, trying to calm the insistent tap tap tap of my heart.
Through the trees, I glimpse a tall, ungainly bird pecking around a tree trunk. It’s a dodo. Years ago, Abel worked on bringing the once-extinct bird back to life. There’s something distinctly comical about its tiny eyes, bulbous beak, and oversized feet. I go to point it out to Izzy, but she’s too far behind. By the time she catches up, the dodo is gone.
Eventually, the path widens to form a deck overlooking clear water rushing down wet, mossy rocks. Fine spray dampens our hair and clothes.
Izzy turns to face me, her voice raised to be heard over the burble of tumbling water. “Look, I get it. You’ve been through a lot. You’re not thinking straight.” She sighs, placing one small hand on my arm indulgently. “I forgive you, okay?”
I frown. “Iz, I didn’t bring you here to apologize.”
She blinks and drops her hand. “You didn’t?”
I take a deep breath. “I need to talk to you. About the Badlands.”
Izzy freezes. Her voice drops a full octave. “What?”
“What I said in the salon, it’s true. It’s—”
But Izzy cuts me off with a raised palm. “Tess,” she says, swallowing hard. “I am really trying here. Okay? I am really friggin’ trying. But this, this Badlands stuff? I just cannot—” She spins away from me for a second, just a second, before whirling back, eyes glittering. “I thought you were dead, Tess. I thought you were friggin’ dead. And then you show up, and you’re like, ‘No, I’m fine, I was just in the Badlands’—the friggin’ Badlands. And you’re acting like, like I’m not supposed to freak out, like we’re just going to go back to normal.” She’s pacing before me, words pouring out of her. “And at first I felt like, great. Yeah. Let’s go back. Because I loved the way things were. I friggin’ loved it. You were my best friend.” Izzy’s voice cracks and she struggles to keep it even. “I don’t get it.” She stops to face me, mouth working. I know she’s trying hard not to cry. “I don’t get what is happening.”
I stare at the waterfall, at the tumbling, endless water gushing into the rockpool. “People are starving out there, Izzy,” I say. “They live on a bowl of pourriture a day. Kids, Iz. Kids live like that.”
She shakes her head in confusion. “What’s poo-rita?”
I shake my head, trying to arrange my thoughts. “It’s not important. Look. All this exists because people out there are dying and the Trust is letting it happen. They’re making it happen.”
Izzy rolls her eyes. “Don’t be so dramatic. It’s not that bad.”
“I’m telling you it is,” I explain incredulously. “I was there. We have to do something about it.”
“Do something about it?” Izzy repeats scornfully. “What are you going to do, Tess?”
I shake my head, caught out. “I . . . I don’t know. I only know I have to change things.”
Izzy looks at me with gentle pity. She sighs, and softens her voice. “Tess, this is just the way things worked out. We ended up the lucky ones.” She puts one hand on my arm and gives it a reassuring squeeze. “Look, I’m not totally heartless. I care about the Badlands, sure I do. But we’re in Eden and they’re out there. You can’t change that. So you may as well just enjoy it.”
I twist my arm out of her grasp.
Izzy just stares at me. I know she doesn’t care. I know because I didn’t used to either.
Then, after a few moments, Izzy says in a voice as small as a lady-bug, “I feel like I don’t even know you anymore.”
Suddenly, I am overcome with exhaustion. “I feel like I don’t know me either,” I say blankly. I sink down onto the wooden bench and lean my head back against the railing. A family of spider monkeys swings through the tops of the tall trees above me, a canopy of endless, tangled green.
Izzy sits down next to me. “I know you,” she says. “The old you. Tess Rockwood: fun and loyal and up for anything. Tess Rockwood: smart, way smarter than me.” She draws in a deep breath, gaze dropping to the wooden walkway under our feet. “I’ve been thinking a lot about you since you left.” Her eyes find mine again. “Maybe I stopped you from doing stuff you wanted to do?”
“What stuff?” I ask.
She shakes her head, overwhelmed. “I don’t know, all that science stuff. You were always so into it. Maybe I was . . . mean about it, sometimes?”
I’m stunned. Izzy doesn’t apologize, and more importantly, I’d always thought she had little to no self-awareness.
“Maybe,” I say hesitantly.
She takes both my hands with hers. “I won’t be like that anymore. I’ll be . . . whatever, supportive. Just forget the Badlands, Tess. Please. I missed you so much.”
I always thought Izzy was the most rebellious person I’d ever met. But now I see that we weren’t rebels at all. I pull my hands gently out of hers. “I’m sorry,” I say. “I can’t.”
When I get up to leave, Izzy doesn’t try to stop me.