Ember Read Free Page A

over the border. Even if I were, I wouldn’t get far before being captured or killed. I would never find her and even if I did, and she was alive, what would I do then? Give her a ration, and some water, and hope that absolved me of killing her only brother and leaving her alone in this world?
    â€œSir?”
    â€œSorry,” I said. “I’m ready.”
    â€œWhat will you do when you go back?” he asked.
    â€œThey set me up with an apartment,” I told him, “and a job with Hangfei security.”
    â€œYou should take a vacation,” he suggested.
    â€œJob starts in a week,” I said. “Maybe I will.”
    I stepped forward, through the gate.
    Passing through a jump gate didn’t feel instantaneous, although the haan had assured us that it was. Traveling from the northern border across the entire country to the southern shore seemed to take a beat that lasted a few seconds. This lag, the haan told us, was manufactured by our brains which were not accustomed to spontaneous travel.
    Real or imagined, it was unmistakable. Stepping into a gate field always felt to me like stepping into a wall of cold, loose gelatin. All momentum slowed and then stopped, and for those few seconds I had no sense of up or down. The bustle of the terminal ahead froze like a paused video feed, and I stood suspended in mid-stride, weightless. Before I could get my mind around it, my foot came down in the Hangfei terminal as movement and sound erupted around me. The cozy heated air that had taken the chill from the border cold became crisp, cooled air to fight the Hangfei summer’s jungle heat. I turned and looked back, but the field had collapsed after I’d passed through, leaving only the Hangfei gate and a cinderblock wall. Next to it, a row of screens displayed ads for the haan-human surrogate program. The ads showed a beaming young woman who smiled down toward a bundle of blankets. She had one finger extended toward the swaddle, from which a tiny gray hand reached. The foster infant’s long, spindly fingers clutched hers.
    â€œWelcome back, sir.”
    I looked up, disoriented as one of the gate’s two guards nodded to me.
    â€œWelcome home, sir,” he said again.
    â€œThanks.”
    I adjusted my pack, and made my way toward the exit. The border zone had been quiet by comparison, and it took me a moment to get used to Hangfei’s constant buzz again. I hadn’t gotten halfway across the terminal before being swarmed by peddlers who milled through the crowd looking for marks. Information and advertisements crawled along electronic marquees that ran the length of every wall, while A.I.’s called to me whenever I passed by an interactive screen or ad box.
    â€œDragan Shao, our records indicate you have been out of country for three years, may I interest you in . . .”
    â€œ. . . may need new furnishings . . .”
    â€œ. . . attractive leases on next generation aircars and . . .”
    It didn’t take long to slip back into the groove of tuning it all out. You had to. I ignored the babble, and the bustle, and made my way forward without slowing until I reached the main exit. Near the automatic doors a Reunification Church member, or “gonzo,” as the kids called them, knelt near the exit in front of one of their shrines. Her white robes draped onto the floor around her as she fanned the sticks of incense with one hand while bowing to the wax apple that spun above them, suspended in a graviton field. The incense and ashes represented the impact site. The spinning apple, which had been a real phenomenon at the site shortly before the impact occurred, represented the haan’s arrival. Or maybe it represented the haan themselves. I wasn’t sure.
    â€œAre you seeking reunification?” she asked, without looking up. Off to her left an amber fly strip hung covered in scaleflies, the pests which the haan