The Summer Prince (13 page)

You wonder how I speak to the city. You should wonder how I feel her. That corrosive pressure of an artery collapsing, the sudden weight of everything supported above, previously so secure, now in danger. Imagine her terror as the
humans and bots scurry to the scene, unsure of where she hurts, when it’s obvious to her as a gaping wound?

You think the city doesn’t feel this? You think it’s a metaphor?

It is, it isn’t. Sometimes metaphors are literal.

My mamãe loved Salvador, with its broken-down streets, its towering ruins riddled with blast holes. Street vendors would sell acarajé and bolo de carimã and bright orange Fanta tablets on the walls when the shooting died down. She said nothing tasted as good as the crunch of an acarajé patty, deep-fried in palm oil and dusted with a passing bullet.

But she came here to live in the verde, with its catinga and the milk that is always a day past fresh. She came here so she could have me, and I am more of this city than even you, with a family from the first wave of settlers.

I am this city because I chose her.

And now she has chosen me.

We are down in the verde, me in my hunting outfit, Enki in a pair of cut-off jeans and a football jersey. I said that maybe he should wear black, and he said his skin wasn’t enough?

“It has to get on the Sé line five minutes before the opening speech,” Enki says, not making much effort to keep quiet.

“You know I’m only going to be able to stash it on two trains … three if I’m sprinting.”

“Then sprint.”

“And what if someone notices?”

“Say you’re practicing.”

“For what?”

“You’re a waka. Let them think whatever they want.”

He hasn’t looked at me much tonight. I think something’s happened, but it’s not like Enki would ever tell me. His movements up the side of the algae vat are jerky, restless, physically punishing. His muscles bulge like cords beneath his skin, but even he gasps with exertion by the time he makes the final leap to the back of the vat.

There’s a small gap for cabling between the outside of the vat and the crawl space that the bioengineers use to access the algae. Enki can’t fit, but I’m just small enough.

“Well,” Enki says when I finally catch up to him. “Go on.”

I roll my eyes and stick my head in. Then I freeze. From farther down the crawl space, I hear a shuffle and a buzz. I pull my head out.

“There’s something in there,” I whisper, my lips brushing his ear. “We should hide.”

Enki tilts his head, as though he’s trying to catch a sound. I can barely breathe — I don’t know what the Aunties would do to us if we got caught, but it wouldn’t be good. Enki doesn’t seem worried, though. He laughs a little, purses his lips, and whistles.

I nearly hit him.

“What the hell was that for?” I whisper.

“Just a little bot,” he says, not very quietly. “I told her to go away.”

“You … Enki, what kind of mods do you have?”

It’s the first time I’ve asked him this question, though I’ve wondered plenty.

His eyes get a little wide and he reaches for my left hand with his right. The nanohooks in our gloves don’t grip each other, but I still feel as if he’s trapped me.

“Isn’t it rude to ask your king about his personal adornments?”

“Not when he claims to do impossible things.”

“Maybe there are no impossible things.”

He says this last with his cheek against mine. I think my heart might run away inside my chest. I think he knows.

“You can’t fly,” I say. “You can’t live forever. You can’t read minds.”

“I can read yours.”

“Really.”

Enki is grinning. I can feel his lips by my ear. “Sure. You think I’m crazy. You really want to sleep with me.”

I flinch back, rip my hand from his. He isn’t smiling now — he looks sort of curious.

“You verde rat!”

“Huh,” he says. “I was just guessing with that last one.”

I blush and Enki tactfully pokes his head through the opening to the crawl space.

I do not
want
to sleep with him. It would be like having sex with a thunderstorm. I
fantasize
about plenty of things I don’t want. He’s Gil’s; I can’t forget that.

“Little bot is gone,” he says, “but something bigger might come along that might not want to listen to me. I still need practice.”

“Enki …”

I don’t know why — my tone, maybe, or just whatever has been bothering him all night — but he finally answers me.

“All of them.”

“All?”

“Ones they don’t even know about. Ones they’ve never even dreamed of.”

“But how —”

His finger hovers over my lips. “Are you sure you want the answer?”

I’m not. I don’t know where Enki might be getting these wild mods, this biotechnology so advanced even the Aunties don’t have it, but I know Enki. I know how few inhibitions he has, how many limits he’ll stretch and stretch just to see how they’ll break. However he’s getting these, it won’t be legal. However he’s changing himself, once I know, I’ll never be able to see him the same way.

“Wait here,” I say, and swing my legs inside the crawl space. I have to suck in my stomach and I think the squeeze might have bruised my breasts, but eventually I’m inside.

Enki tosses a mask and gloves in after me. I put them on and step closer to the hatch that opens onto the algae vat. About a dozen cables snake out from underneath. Each helps siphon the pure hydrogen gas to the fuel cells that power the city. The water by-product gets recycled into our sinks and fountains. Energy at no cost, some would say, but Enki and I know better. The cost is the verde, the catinga, the several
hundred thousand souls who live at this literal bottom tier of society. On Tier Eight, we can forget this place even exists, except when someone like Enki forces us to remember.

Except when Enki and I force people to remember.

We’re doing this as a trial run for our big project with the lights on the islands in the bay. We want to make sure we have everyone’s attention first, before we put on the grandest art show I’ve ever heard of. Not that Mother or Auntie Yaha would consider what we’re planning art. They’d call it a prank at best, petty vandalism at worst. I’d tell them that transgression is part of what makes art
work
, but I admit I’m a little afraid that the Aunties might agree with them.

I sparked our idea for the four siblings, but this part of our project is Enki’s. I’m committed now, but I know I’m walking close to the edge. Studying past winners of the Queen’s Award, it seems to me that they never pick someone too predictable. They appreciate irreverence and a certain iconoclasm. Still, I don’t want to go too far.

The hatch operates with a simple gasket mechanism, but it still needs a flash to unlock. Enki’s would probably work, but they’d know he was down here. So he convinced a bioengineer to let us borrow hers. Enki implied the involvement of sexual favors, but I didn’t press for details.

“You ready?” Enki says as he pokes his head in.

I brush the side of the mask, activating a complete seal around my mouth and nose. The catinga, which is oppressive this close to the opening of the vats, recedes like the tide before a storm.

I nod and he hands me the flash: It’s embedded in an old copper coin from the actual state of Brazil. A flash can be anywhere, of course — implanted in your iris or the spine of a paper book — but I guess Enki’s engineer is a history buff. I wave it in front of the hatch and immediately hear the bolts snap back inside the metal door.

I signal to Enki to activate his mask — even though it’s mostly siphoned, the pure hydrogen gas could be poisonous. Once the mask
seals, I grip the gasket handles and twist. A grunt of effort, and it’s free.

With the mask on, the algae of the verde doesn’t smell like anything except plastic, but it looks like a witch’s cauldron. A hundred thousand shades of green glint in the weak artificial light of the tunnel, belching and exhaling and plopping like sloppy wet kisses.

“No wonder it smells so bad,” I say, but it’s nearly inaudible behind the air seal of the mask. Enki gestures, reminding me that we shouldn’t linger. I grab the bag and try not to think about what I’m about to do. Even with gloves on, that primordial soup looks like it might dissolve me alive.

I dunk the first container in the soup. There’s a dried enzyme inside that will activate when I shake it to change the metabolic cycles of the algae. I’m unclear on the mechanics, but after five minutes the algae will produce carbon dioxide instead of hydrogen as a by-product. They’ll smell just as bad, but they won’t poison anyone.

Something scrapes the concrete at the far end of the tunnel. I turn to Enki, hoping it’s just another cleaning bot, but his eyebrows have come together in that particular way I know means trouble. He doesn’t bother to speak, just looks at me, and I hear him perfectly:
Move your ass
.

I dip the last container in the vat, seal it, and slam the hatch back down. It’s too late to pretend that no one’s been here. But if I hurry, hopefully they won’t know
who
. The noise gets louder. I recognize the clanking footsteps as they hurry closer: a sentry bot, surely alerted by now that something is wrong.

Enki has ripped off his mask. He drops the three filled containers into his knapsack and yanks me with merciless strength through the gap in the wall.

Well, now I
definitely
have bruises on my breasts.

I still haven’t removed my algae-vat gloves, so Enki holds me in his left arm while he crawls out of the line of sight of the bot. It will see
us if it bothers to stick its head up, but we’re counting on its lack of imagination.

It checks the locked vat and pauses, considering. But then it continues on at a more leisurely pace. One of Auntie Maria’s minions will probably get an anomalous report in the morning, but with any luck, she won’t think anything of it.

Enki lets out a breathy laugh and releases the seal on my mask.

“Jesus, June, you’re heavy. Hook your feet at least.”

I do, but he still holds on. I like the feel of his arm around me. This thing between us is intellect and art, not sex, but I’m realizing that doesn’t make it less intense. I take my time with my gloves, and the whiff of catinga makes me remember my worries.

“Enki, what do you think Oreste will do?”

“Hate it. What else does she do?” He swings his head around and laughs. “Oh, but you’re talking about the award.”

“What if we’re going too far?”

“Where else would we be going?”

“You don’t understand, I
have
to win.”

His arm around me tightens and he lifts me up so I am level with his eyes. “I understand, bem-querer,” he says softly. “But how much of yourself will you give them in exchange? I’m not the best partner if you want to dance politics.”

He means, do I want to leave our project, do I want to escape back into the safety of respectability, do I want to walk away from the heat in his hands and the shimmer beneath his skin? But I can’t. I won’t. Enki became king by reminding people that the verde exists; I’ll get away with the same.

“This will work,” I say.

He smiles. “Just remember to sprint.”

At school the next day, I can’t keep still. I itch, I ache, I have verde in my bag and art in my hands. Unfortunately, I have to be here. After
this performance, the Aunties will know that Enki has an accomplice. And since they will probably try to stop her, it behooves me to make myself as inconspicuous as possible. The Aunties and Oreste might think I’m doing nothing for the Queen’s Award now, but I can’t wait to see their faces in the fall.

As soon as we break for lunch, I pull Gil aside and hand him my fono and flash.

He frowns as he takes them. “You’re sure about this?” he asks. I’ve explained some of what Enki and I are planning, but Gil only seems to see the danger of it, not the potential.

I smile and go on my toes to kiss him on the forehead. “I’ll be careful. It will be amazing, just watch.”

Gil salutes me before I walk away. I only have half an hour to plant the first container. Without my fono, I’ll need to check the public displays for the time. Enki thinks the grandes can trace us through our fonos and our flash, which is why I left them with Gil.