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Light flooded her vision.
Eliana screamed and moved to yank off the helmet, but Luciano stopped her. “It’s all right,” he said. “I’m sorry. I should have warned you. I wasn’t specifically programmed for this, and it’s been some time since I’ve done it.”
Eliana took a deep breath. The light was settling into shapes: trees and little wooden houses and stone paths leading into a forest. “Oh my God,” she whispered, because as the shapes settled, the other senses caught up—a breeze ran through the trees and caressed against her skin, warm in a way she had never known. It was not the dry heat of a radiator, but damp and hazy and so thick, it seemed alive. She could smell dirt and sweet green scents, and everything was so overwhelming that she was almost dizzy.
“Luciano?” she said, her voice wavering.
“I’m here.” He sounded far away. “Can you see it?”
“Yes.”
The sky overhead was a dark purplish gray, a color she had never known a sky to be. Suddenly she was walking forward, following one of the paths.
“This is my memory,” Luciano said. “I walked, so you’re walking.”
“I’m you?”
“In a sense, yes.”
A line of light cracked across the sky. Eliana shrieked.
“Lightning,” Luciano said. “Remember, nothing happening here will hurt you.”
Eliana nodded, although the Eliana in the memory did not. A sound rumbled in from everywhere, dark and threatening. The lightning flashed again. Eliana jumped, but she was growing used to it.
And then there was a rustling, all around her, like the trees were trying to talk. She felt like she should hold her breath.
Water poured out of the sky.
It fell in raging, riotous sheets, soaking through her thin gray coveralls, plastering her short hair to her head. It dripped into her eyes. Little yellow lamps glowed at each of the houses, and their light caught the raindrops and made them shimmer like static. When the lightning flashed, it turned the whole world white. Eliana—Luciano—did not move from that spot.
“I wasn’t supposed to be outside,” Luciano said, his voice closer than she’d expected. “They activated us to ensure there weren’t any problems, but we weren’t supposed to leave our quarters. However, they never programmed the command into us, because it would have been a problem once we arrived at the park, and so I left anyway. I didn’t know it was going to rain. I understood what was happening, but I still found it—” He stopped. “I found it beautiful, I suppose.”
“It is beautiful.” The rain fell harder and harder. The water seemed to soak through her skin. She wondered if he’d worried about that, the water damaging him. Or maybe water couldn’t damage androids. She wasn’t sure.
Off to the side, someone shouted, an angry bark. A man appeared, wearing a plastic raincoat and a yellow hat, shouting Luciano’s name and then a string of Portuguese.
Everything faded away.
Eliana yanked off her helmet, expecting to find her clothes soaked and her hair dripping, but she was as dry as when she had walked into the room. Luciano sat across from her with his hands folded in his lap, a cable draped over one shoulder. It disappeared into some unfathomable place behind his ear.
“A rainstorm,” Luciano said.
“Thank you,” Eliana said.
Luciano smiled.
The rainstorm was implanted in Eliana’s memory. She could think back on it and remember the feel of the rain across her arm. It was strange, having Luciano’s memory inside her head. But she didn’t want it gone.
Rainstorms. Wind. The scent of a jungle.
She only wished those memories were hers, and hers alone. Because that would mean she had accomplished what her mother could not, what her father could not.
It would mean she had actually left Hope City.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
MARIANELLA
Downtown was colder than Marianella expected. They stood waiting in front of the city building, the dais a few paces away. It was decorated with little blue-and-white flags that hung limply in the still air.
Marianella pulled her coat more tightly around her chest. She couldn’t believe how biting and cold it was out here. At least the dome lights were bright. There hadn’t been a single flicker all day.
A crowd fa
“Are you ready?” Alejo appeared beside her, straightening his tie. “Ready to blow them all away?”
Marianella nodded, even if she found his choice of words unfortunate. Alejo turned and muttered something to his entourage, all his assistants in their own gray suits.
“Showtime,” Alejo said, and he looped his arm through Marianella’s and they walked out onto the dais.
The Independence crowd erupted into cheers. The news reporters scribbled in their notebooks. A film camera stared at her with its dark, unblinking eye.
Marianella sca
Except Alejo had brought in bodyguards, like he’d promised. Big, hulking men who ambled around the dais with their hands tucked into their jackets. AFF members. Marianella tried not to think about it, reminding herself that they were here to protect her.
Alejo and Marianella took their places at the front of the dais, in front of the microphone. His entourage settled into a half circle of chairs around them.
Marianella took a deep breath. Now was not the time to think about Ignacio.
“Good afternoon,” she said. Her voice echoed with electronic feedback. “We have something very exciting to share with you.”
“The city doesn’t want us to tell you this,” Alejo said.
Marianella smiled, and the audience tittered. She took a step back; they had agreed that he would do most of the speaking. As he was the politician, it only made sense.
“You’ve all seen the advertisements for the agricultural domes, I’m sure, the ones with myself and the lovely Lady Luna.” He gestured at Marianella, and she gave a little wave. “And of course now you all know that the domes are a reality—or rather, were a reality. My team and I were successful in building one fully operational agricultural dome out in the Antarctic desert, and we kept it ru
His team? Marianella gave a strained smile. She wouldn’t say it was a team.
“The question of who destroyed the dome is not why we’re here. But I will say this: there are those who would blame the bombing on the Antarctican Freedom Fighters.”
Boos and hisses erupted out of the crowd beyond the reporters. Alejo lifted one hand.
“I’m here to say—we’re here to say”—he gestured once again at Marianella—“that we know those who support independence for Antarctica would never destroy that thing which could give her independence.”
The boos and hisses turned to applause. Marianella clapped politely. No, the AFF hadn’t bombed the dome. Neither had Sofia. Marianella had already gone through the files on the maintenance drones, looking for a sign of betrayal. But Marianella wasn’t willing to celebrate the fact that Cabrera had destroyed their work.
“But we are choosing today not to focus on the past but to focus on the future. That’s what Lady Luna and I are doing.” He smiled. “Everyone give a round of applause for Lady Luna. She’s been much more than a pretty face for the commercials. Her financial contributions to the Independent cause have been tremendous.”
Applause thundered up from the crowd. It turned to an ocean’s roaring inside Marianella’s head. She forced a smile out to the crowd and waved, swiveling her wrist back and forth. It was hard to make out individual faces, even with her machine parts, and that made her nervous.