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out here. Once I even found the high-tension transformer of
an old microwave oven. But lithium and sulfur? How the
heck does one find those? And where? I hope Dad will indeed succeed in getting
some stuff out of the selfish Gaijins, but I know that’s unlikely.
    After a
couple of hours of useless digging and prodding, I throw away the stick and sit
on the filthy mound. “I wish I had a brain like yours, Lukas.”
    Lukas is
quiet for a little bit, scuffing the uneven ground with the tip of his shoes.
    “It’s not
cool,” he says at last.
    “Why not?”
    He shrugs
and doodles on the ground with his stick. “If something happened to your eyes, Uli
or my uncle Akari could make new ones and fix you. If Wes’s legs broke, or
Akaela’s sail—those can always be replaced. But me, if my brain failed,
they’d have to make me a new one. I’d lose everything. My
memories, my feelings, my likes and dislikes. I’d lose everything.
I—I wouldn’t be the same person anymore.”
    I think
about that. “I’m sure there’s a way to back-up your memories somewhere.”
    “Not if the
state drive breaks.”
    “You do back
it up, right?”
    He nods,
absentmindedly.
    “So what’s
the problem?”
    “I’m not
sure they could ever make another brain exactly like mine.”
    I sigh,
not sure I get his point. Lukas can be so weird sometimes. We are what we are,
and the truth is, we’re lucky to be alive and able to do all the stuff we do.
The real problem, the way I see it at least, is: how long will we be able to go
on like this? We depend on technology we cannot make. We need to either learn
how to make the stuff or face our ruthless enemies: the Gaijins.
    I take
Kael’s hood out of my pocket and whistle his call. The falcon appears in the
sky a few seconds later. “Let’s go back home,” I say. “We’re just wasting our
time out here. We’ll never find all the stuff we need to make more batteries.
And if our dads don’t come back…” I swallow and refuse to finish the sentence,
refuse to even consider the possibility.
    “Then we
need to go look for them,” Lukas matter-of-factly ends the sentence for me.
    “Yeah, but
how? We don’t even know which way they went.”
    Kael lands
on my gloved arm and Lukas gapes at him, as though suddenly struck by
lightning. I can almost hear the clicking of his neurons. “I think there’s a
way to find out. It’s risky, but…”
    My lips
stretch out into a hopeful grin. “I don’t care if it’s risky. I wanna hear all
about it.”

 
    Chapter Five

 
    Akaela
    I spend the morning at the
stables, keeping myself busy so I don’t have to think about what just happened.
I don’t want to think about aunt Kara’s face lined with tears or Skip’s limp
body as they pulled him out of the patch of reeds. My cat Ash follows every
step I take as I sweep the floors, move bales of hay, and groom the horses. The
wound where Uli implanted the chip looks clean and the kitten is already
feeling stronger and better.
    A message
flickers on my retina. “Mandatory battery check. Please meet in lobby.”
    It’s one
of those official messages sent through the central system of the Tower. My
last battery check was six months ago and I’m not due another one in a year and
a half, so I decide to ignore it.
    When I’m
done feeding the horses, I sit on the lawn outside and watch Ash chase bugs.
The sun is high and harsh, the smoke from the Gaijins’ firewall dissolved into
layers of haze blanketing the forest on the other side of the river. The tall
grass around the stables is vibrant with bugs, butterflies and grasshoppers
that skip in all directions as Ash bounds awkwardly after them. The sight makes
me smile.
    Happiness,
though, is a very precarious state of mind for the Mayakes.
    Wes—a
kid my age—comes running from the Tower and waves at me. I recognize him
from the awkward way he runs. Wes doesn’t have legs and feet, he has titanium blades screwed into his femurs. He’s so fast he