Awakening Read Free

wedding a month ago. Nearly that since we’ve been to Chadi sector.” Kayla’s nurture mother and brother lived in Chadi and she missed them terribly.
    “Next trip south,” Risa said. “I promise.”
    Except Risa couldn’t promise since it was the Kinship that pulled their strings. When Zul had set Kayla on her mission with Risa, he’d assured her that her new-found freedom would allow her frequent visits to her family and Mishalla. But Kinship business had taken precedence over Kayla’s personal wishes, and visits home had been far and few between.
    Kayla checked her internal clock. Nearly noon, but you’d never know it the way the twin suns hid behind thick clouds. She’d never lived through such a wet autumn in all her fifteen years.
    The foodstores warehouse where they’d make their first delivery was just ahead, and Risa slowed the wide, boxy lorry to a crawl. A lorry as big as Risa’s was ideal considering how much time they spent on the road. It was essentially a portable flat for the two of them, with its broad bench seat in front and sleeper bed and tiny washroom at the back. There was plenty of storage beneath and above the bed for clothing, medical supplies, food stores, and sundries.
    But narrow GEN sector roadways, like Qaf’s main street, barely accommodated the fifteen-meter long lev-truck and its big cab. The alley alongside the warehouse would take sometricky driving. But Risa squeaked into the alley with practiced care.
    The lowborn woman couldn’t avoid another tooth-rattling pothole that shook the lorry. “Gonna break a denking control relay,” she muttered. “Chutting GEN streets.”
    The lowborn woman glanced Kayla’s way, sending a silent apology for her language. An improvement over how she and Risa had started out four months ago. Back then, GEN would have been jik or tat-face, the epithets spewing from Risa’s mouth as frequently as the juice from the devil leaf the lowborn woman chewed. The tension was made worse by the fact that they lived together in such close quarters.
    Then two weeks into their too-close-for-comfort partnership, one foul word too many broke Kayla’s patience. A shouting match followed, Kayla demanding that Risa stop, all the while shaking with fear that the lowborn woman would have Kayla ejected from the Kinship and maybe reset to boot. Instead, Risa respected Kayla for standing up for herself and her people. After that night Risa did her best to watch her tongue.
    As Risa negotiated the small apron behind the warehouse, Kayla caught a glimpse of graffiti scrawled across the big plassteel door, dark blue words written diagonally from corner to corner.
    Risa scrutinized the jaggedly written words in the lorry’s console vid screen. “What’s it say? Not any script I’ve ever seen.”
    Kayla grinned. “That’s GENscrib. Compares the local Grid supervisor to the back end of a drom.”
    “Not the whole back end.” Risa creaked her rusty laugh. “I’da been more specific.”
    One eye on the vid screen, Risa got the big lev-truck backed up to the loading dock and killed the suspension engine. Kayla shut her window and grabbed her rain hat in deference to the glowering sky, then slid from the cab. She scanned for signs of enforcers along the row of warehouses backing up to the Plator River. “The graffiti must be fresh or the Brigade would’ve had it painted over by now. Can’t risk GENs passing messages that way.”
    Risa smirked at that. Thanks to the Kinship, messages were flying from GEN to GEN and it wasn’t through words scribbled on warehouse walls.
    Kayla pulled herself up on the loading dock using the gene-splicer-augmented strength of her arms. Risa took the long way around to use the steps.
    A few more words were drawn on the door’s lower right corner. The jagged script was so small Kayla had to crouch and just about press her nose to the door to have any hope of reading it. It was GENscrib, but a variation she’d never seen before. It