Awakening Read Free Page A

reminded her of the hand-written script in a decades-old journal she’d once found. It had been written by Zul, the elderly trueborn who’d helped start the Kinship. Zul called that kind of script longhand.
    “What’s that?” Risa asked, using the toe of her boot to tap the corner.
    Kayla had learned to read longhand pretty well, so she studied the GENscrib with that style of writing in mind. “Free—” Kayla cut off her answer as she scanned all three words and their meaning sank in.
    FREEDOM. HUMANITY. EQUALITY.
    Great Infinite, who would be reckless enough to writethat where it could be seen by anyone? If an enforcer spotted her even reading the message, she could be reset for potential sedition. The Kinship might be fighting for those very things for GENs, but no one spoke that mission out loud, let alone wrote the words in public view.
    GENs weren’t free. They weren’t human, at least according to trueborn law, let alone equal to anyone higher status than a rat-snake.
    She backed away from the dangerous words just as the door rattled then rose with the grind of gears. Relief washed over her when the message rolled out of view.
    “What?” Risa asked.
    Kayla forced a laugh. “Something about free rat-snake meat. All you can eat.”
    Risa made a face, diverted by Kayla’s lie. She could have told the lowborn woman—she trusted Risa with her life, why not the truth? But Zul and the rest of the Kinship were always telling them that the less any one of them knew, the less they could reveal at the Brigade’s hands. Better to keep that message from Risa.
    And what did it mean, anyway? No one from the Kinship would have dared write something so inflammatory in a GEN sector. It was probably nothing more than words written on a dare by some under-fifteen GEN.
    Two brawny GEN boys, maybe a couple years older than Kayla, stepped out onto the loading dock. She considered asking them if they’d read the graffiti on the door, all of it. But likely they’d been genned the same as most dock workers. Stronger than average—though nowhere near her extraordinary strength—and with little imagination, better to keep themfrom balking at the dull work. She doubted they’d even noticed those dangerous words.
    Risa’s seycat, Nishi, streaked out of the lorry’s cargo bay the moment the doors were open, hissing and snarling at the GEN boys, who scrambled out of Nishi’s way. A flash of red-gray, she dashed into the brush along the riverbank, running as quickly on five legs as another seycat might on the usual six.
    The GEN boys hung back, eyes wide. “Are there any more in there?” one of them asked.
    “Just the one,” Kayla told them. She laughed. “You’re not afraid of that little thing?”
    Kayla wasn’t being fair. Seycats like Nishi might be barely knee-high to the tall GEN boys, but they could slash even a full grown man to ribbons with those claws and teeth.
    To show it was safe, Kayla stepped into the bay. She piled two sacks of kel-grain on top of two stacked crates of synth-protein, and started toward the warehouse door. She cast a look over her shoulder and sure enough, the boys were trying to shift as much as she was, but couldn’t budge a load that size. Risa knew better than to try to compete with Kayla’s strength—she took only one crate. The boys finally gave in and settled for one bag and one crate each.
    It started to drizzle with their first trip across the plasscrete dock, the force of the rain increasing with each load. Before long, the rain soaked right through Kayla’s cheap duraplass hat. Risa’s hat as well from the looks of it—the lowborn woman’s dark, gray-speckled hair hung lank, and water soaked the back of her sturdy drom-wool shirt. Kayla’s brown-beigey braid, which usually kept her long, tangle-prone hair under control, had unraveled in the dampness, curls and tendrils poking everywhich way. Risa’s usually-pale skin looked even more pasty white in the cold. Even