The Harvest Read Free

don’t doubt her.
    She opens a box on the table and begins taking out items. “Five apples, a pound of smoked elk, root vegetables, various greens. Should last a week if you’re careful.”
    â€œYou’re a lifesaver,” I say, grabbing one of the apples and wiping it on my shirt. I haven’t eaten in over twenty-four hours. If I tried to buy food from a restaurant or street vendor, my biomarkers would identify me, and without a manufactured identity to replace my old one in the Personhood database, the authorities would immediately be notified. After Corine Orleán promised to publicly execute me if they ever catch me, I’d rather go hungry than risk identification. Meera is keeping me alive.
    â€œAny news?” I ask through a mouthful of apple.
    She leans forward, a promising flush on her cheeks. “A meeting.” Her eyes twinkle like she’s presenting me with a precious gift.
    I drag a sleeve across my face as juice dribbles down my chin. “With who?”
    â€œA snake.”
    I arch an eyebrow at her. S¬he giggles. Meera is captivating, her smile contagious, her face open and honest. It’s how she gets around the city as an Outsider. That, and her forged documents. Her wide-eyed innocence is capable of charming everyone she meets—and deceiving anyone who doesn’t know her.
    â€œOkay, it’s a guy named Snake. But he slithers around the city,” she waggles her hand through the air, “silent and deadly.” She hisses aloud, as childlike as Osprey.
    â€œI’m picturing a guy with bright green hair and fangs.”
    â€œOh, Snake is definitely like that. Not the fangs, though. He hides in plain sight. Knows everyone, has contacts everywhere. I always go to him when I need information.”
    â€œCan he help me find Vale?”
    â€œIf anyone can, it’s him. Tonight, thirty minutes after sunset, at The Elysium. Look for the waiter with purple hair—”
    â€œPurple?”
    â€œI told you, he hides in plain sight. Anyway, ask him for the green apple indica. It’s off-menu and we use it as our code. It’s also delicious.”
    Soon all that remains of my apple are seeds. I toss them in the box and grab another. This is not the first clandestine meeting Meera has arranged for me, but it’s the first time she’s sounded so hopeful.
    After Vale’s fall, when the drone whisked him away to the gods only know where, I stayed in the apartment Chan-Yu had arranged for us. Damn the risks , I told myself then. Corine’s promise to execute me most likely meant she’d be looking for me out in the Wilds, or at the Resistance bases. As far as I could tell, no drones or Watchmen were able to ID me, even when Chan-Yu and I were chasing Jeremiah through the city streets. In a way, staying here is safer for me than heading back out with the Resistance. Like Meera’s mysterious purple-haired Snake, I am hiding in plain sight.
    I know it’s dangerous to stay, but my instinct screams: I can’t leave Vale. I have to find out what happened to him. Is he alive? Is he with his parents? What have they done to him? And by all that grows, what was he doing on that roof?
    Chan-Yu, it turned out, had only paid for the shortest possible lease: two weeks. I spent three nights in the sewers after the rental term was up. That’s when I met Meera. I’d taken to spending much of my time in the smoke dens—places I never knew existed—because it was so easy to blend in. Like everything else in Okaria, the dens are heavily regulated, but they’ve all taken on the personalities of their neighborhoods. With black walls, heavy floor-to-ceiling curtains, dirty velour booths, and small, blood red biolights at every table, Le Mouton Noir quickly became my favorite. It was close to the apartment we’d used, everything seemed to be covered in a thin film of grime, and most of the regulars worked in