“All right,” he said, pushing me forward. “Go ahead and open her up.”

“We were gonna let you go,” I said. “Soon as we found land.”

“Too late for that, bro. I want to see what you were so keen to keep hidden away.”

“Clear your people out,” I muttered, so only he’d hear me. “It’s better to keep this thing secret till we get somewhere safe.”

“Not the way I operate.”

“You know these people? You think you can trust them?”

“Only person I don’t trust is you.” He stepped closer, raised the knife, and prodded it at my shoulder. “Now show me what’s in there. Come on. Show us all.”

I found the panel and set to prying it open, and as I did, the golden lights spilled out and turned red. The tank flashed and flared, and I stared at the numbers blinking on the glass. The first number was a two, followed by an eight, and all the way at the end, the last digit dropped lower with each beat of my heart.

I thought of that damn control pad, up in the cockpit. But could it do any good, anyway? All we’d used it for was steering the tank around. And if this tank that protected the trees was about to run out of power, then the only place I knew to charge it was back in the Orchard on Promise Island.

“You gotta get close to see it,” I muttered, backing away so Kade could push up to the glass and peer inside.

If it hadn’t been tied to his stump, I swear he would have dropped his damn knife. I could see his shoulders lose traction. His whole body went soft. And when he pulled his face away, the glass was steamed up from him breathing on it.

Then there was this moment where he tried to stop the bodies rushing past him for their own look at what was inside the tank, but Kade couldn’t focus right or get his arms up, and when he spoke again, his voice didn’t come out half as commanding.

“What is it?” he whispered, bringing his gaze to meet mine.

“You know what it is.”

He rubbed his thumb in his eyes. “Tell me what you see in there.”

“Same thing you see.”

“It’s real?”

“Kade,” said one of his buddies. “You all right?”

“You saw it?” he asked them. He was scratching his left arm with his one hand, fingering the holes GenTech’s cables had left behind. “You all see it?”

“It’s trees,” I said, just to shut him up. “Them are saplings, you damn fool.”

I watched as the strugglers feasted their eyes on my father—the human skin turned green and craggy, the shoots coming out of Pop’s hands and feet. They’d see the sapling curling from the remains of his stomach, and the one that had sprouted from out of his heart. And what did they think when they saw the little tree where his mouth had once been? Did it unravel their insides as it uncoiled towards them?

“How?” Kade’s voice trembled. Not so damn sure of himself now.

A couple folk had dropped to the ground and bowed their heads to the floor, like they were praying to that tank and all that was in it.

“Science,” I muttered. “GenTech.”

“But the locusts ate everything.” Kade shook his head like you do when you’re trying to wake yourself up. “After the Darkness. Every animal and plant. The swarms ate it all when the sun came back. Everything except GenTech’s corn.”

He was almost right. Far as we knew, after the Darkness changed everything, the whole world over, more than a hundred years back, the locusts had consumed anything that tried to grow, anything that had somehow survived. Anything, that is, but for the engineered corn that grew with GenTech’s logo stamped on the kernels.

Got so the locusts started feeding on human flesh, and GenTech grew powerful inside the walls of their city, Vega, stuffing themselves full of corn and brewing it into fuel, while most outside the Electric City struggled on in ragged bunches, trapped in the dust, with the surging oceans on both coasts, the massive South Wall sealing things off at the bottom, and the Rift pinning things in from up top.

“But GenTech found a forest on that island,” I said. “And they fused a man with what was left of the trees.”

“Why?” a woman asked, her eyes wild as she turned from the tank and looked to me for answers.

“So they could change the trees up, mess with them, make them too tough for the locusts. Then they could bring a forest back to the mainland and sell us apples like they sell us the corn.”

“Apples?” Kade’s gaze tightened, and I swear that dude’s teeth chewed the air for a second, like his mouth was watering and his brain could hardly keep up. “Fruit trees?” He said it like he was ringing a bell to force himself back to business. “Apples? And you kept this good news to yourself?”

“Guess you’d have been throwing a party.”

“You give me some apples, we’ll have a party, all right. You ever heard of cider? Ah, yes. A drink from the age of plenty. The days of governments and law and order. The days of food growing everywhere.” There he went again, like he knew everything you didn’t. “Cider’s sweeter than corn whiskey, I’ll wager. Ladies and gents, do you realize what we’ve got here? Do you realize what our young friend stole?”

“I didn’t steal it.”

“Then GenTech Corporation must think mighty highly of you.”

I pointed at the holes they’d drilled into his skin. “They were gonna do this to you. All of you. You were gonna be used up for their forest. Until I yanked their damn cables out of your arms.”

“Needed our help, I suppose.” His eyes flickered to the tank. “So you could get this thing out of there.”

“It ain’t a thing. It’s trees. All of the trees we’re gonna get. And that man who died in there was my father, so maybe you ought to show some respect.”

“Your father?” Kade’s eyes were like a battle between crazy and calm. “Well, who the man was does not concern me. Apples, on the other hand, certainly grab my attention. How long till we see one?”

“Never.” Zee stepped up beside me and sounded about as spiky as she looked smooth. “Unless we stop arguing and start to work things out.”

Before Kade could respond, someone was hollering his name from up on deck. I turned and saw Muscles running down the ramp towards us. “You gotta come,” he was shouting. “Kade. Come quick.”

“Boats?” Kade asked. “Or land?”

“Neither. There’s a message coming in.”

CHAPTER FIVE

Kade made me scamper up the ladder to the cockpit, and once he pushed me inside it, I found Crow and Alpha on the floor with their backs pressed together, bound with the same purple wire I’d built my little tree from.

“You should go easy,” I said to the strugglers messing with dials and switches on the far wall. “Before you break something.”

“Never mind him,” Kade said, bumping fists with his cohorts. “He’s had a rough day. Now, what do you have for me?”

“Can’t get it back.” This was some bucktoothed geezer. “But there was a voice coming in. That screen over there.”

A transmission? Out here? It could only be GenTech. And there could be no worse news.

“Untie my friends,” I said to Kade as he tapped his knife on the monitors. “You’re gonna need our help.”

“Doesn’t work that way, bro. The girl’s a little too feisty. Even for me.”

“Just eating this up,” I said. “Ain’t you?”

“No, sir.” He jabbed his stumped arm at his belly. “I’m saving myself for those apples.”

“Half the hands,” Alpha muttered from the floor. “And twice the mouth.”

“Funny. I don’t remember you and my mouth getting acquainted. But maybe we can find time for that later on.” Kade turned from the monitors so he could flash her his handsome grin, but then the screen behind him was sparking to life.