by Joan He
“I’ve developed bots that know exactly how to stop yours.”
So? Kasey almost asked. You don’t get to choose who wakes and who doesn’t. Only I can. Without Kasey, in fact, no one would wake—
No one would wake.
Stop her, stop her bot from waking her, and everyone would stay in stasis.
It’d be a world without people.
“You can’t stop my bots.” Kasey was glad for her naturally monotone voice; it gave nothing away, none of her horror or disgust or shame. She was wrong. He had changed—from a monster to something worse. “Kill them, and they’ll just regenerate.”
“There are other ways to sway a person from their course,” said Actinium.
“Are you speaking from personal experience? Because I don’t think I swayed you from yours.”
At that, he grinned. The nerve! He took another step forward, and Kasey instinctively reacted with another backward one. Except there was no more pier behind her.
Just sea.
Her center of gravity tipped. The sky spun overhead—and stilled as something caught her around the waist.
“Others might believe there’s power in a single step,” murmured Actinium, the cadence of his breath brushing Kasey’s ear. Her eyes widened. His warmth was real. So was the brace of his arm. The press of his chest. “But most choices are made before you reach the edge.”
He released her, and stepped back. As he did, his figure shimmered. His opacity increased to 100% as he turned off the illusion filter he’d set upon himself. He had calibrated it to match Kasey’s Intraface presets perfectly, tricking her, fair and square, into thinking that he’d come as a holograph when really, he was here. Physically here.
In the flesh.
She could kill him. He could kill her. This close, he could have shot her point-blank.
Why hadn’t he?
“I know your mind as well as you know mine,” he said, but did she? Why would he give up the element of surprise? Where was the benefit to offset the risk? Surely, any moment now, he would reveal his true hand.
But as Kasey’s brain fired through the possibilities, all Actinium did was turn away.
“We’ll see who wins, in a millennium,” he said, walking back down the pier. Something shimmered at the end of it, concealed by the same illusion tech Actinium had used on himself.
A copterbot.
The sight of it restarted Kasey. She whipped out the REM she always carried with her and fired.
Missed.
Her next shot hit the copter, denting it, but the paralysis effect was negated on the inanimate object. Actinium dove in and the copterbot rose.
It vanished with a wink.
• • •
Back in her unit, Kasey stood in her airshower. After a few minutes, she switched to aqua-mode.
It was one of the few luxuries she allowed herself. Celia had been right; air didn’t come close to the cleansing effect of water. At the end of a long day, sometimes a hot shower was what Kasey needed to feel reborn.
But today, no matter how scalding the temperature, she couldn’t seem to sanitize her skin. It only reddened, and her blood heated with it.
If she’d realized he was real from the start, Actinium would be captured by now. If she’d been faster, sharper. If she’d had better aim—
Most choices are made before you reach the edge.
Without toweling off, Kasey sat at the foot of her stasis pod, rubbing the C tattooed around her right wrist as she deliberated.
The average person in her position, with conventional morals, would notify the Worldwide Union of Actinium’s newfound—or rather, never-forgotten—intel. Having devoted the last few years of her life to studying them, Kasey was capable of average human behaviors. She could lay bare her past relationship with Actinium, if asked, even if it meant losing her authority as Chief Science Officer. That wasn’t the reason for her reservation.
Wasn’t the reason why the doubt seeped in.
People are the disease, Mizuhara.
Just as Kasey knew typical human behaviors inside and out, she also knew the typical pitfalls. The logical fallacies. The bias for certainty. Introduce any possibility of the solution being compromised, and Operation Reset would be canceled at worst, stalled at best. The suffering would be protracted for who knew how long while the world redoubled its efforts to catch Actinium. He’d win at his own game simply by eluding capture.
What a nuisance. He ought to have just killed her. Why didn’t you? Kasey thought.
Her own brain conjured Actinium’s response. For the same reason you didn’t kill me.
Jaw tensing, Kasey stood up and faced the interior of her stasis pod. Its high-shine finish reflected a woman who’d successfully convinced her species to follow her to the depths of the sea.
But she wasn’t one of them. And unlike the girl she’d been, she’d stopped wishing to be. This was who she was.
She had her worldview, as did he.
She had her bots. He had his.
It would be his hypothesis versus hers.
Let the experiment run, she could almost hear him say. If you trust yourself.
And not tell the rest of the world? It’d been seen as gambling with lives. But not all gambles were reckless. Her labs had put her bots through every simulation imaginable, for a success rate of 98.2%. The average population might not have been able to tolerate a 1.8% chance of failure, but Kasey could. Probability was on her side.
It hadn’t always been. The first bots had deviated from their programming one in five times to choose their own freedom. Not everyone was as socially driven as Kasey had assumed. It took a certain kind of person to carry out the mission to termination, a person powered by the need to be needed, who took shelter not in a house but in a heart. Celia was that person, Kasey realized, when she ran the chip of her sister’s memories through the simulation generator. She’d accepted her terminal prognosis, in part to avoid condemning herself to a lifetime in a pod and in part to prevent Kasey from podding herself as well. To this day, Kasey disagreed with the decision. Found it extreme and rooted in Celia’s own biases. But her sister was only human, as prone to harmful beliefs as much as the next person. It’d taken Kasey a while to come to terms with that—that Celia’s fear of letting her loved ones down could be considered a flaw. She had her own insecurities, just like Kasey, and a million facets that Kasey, too blinded by the brightest ones, only saw after her sister was gone.
But better late than never. Once Kasey accepted that she and her sister were equals, she knew what she had to do. With her blessing, her lab had abandoned programming the bots with generic memories and used Celia’s directly. It was the logical choice, eliminating replication errors, and even provided Kasey a bit of illogical comfort. She trusted Celia. They might not have been “joined at the hip,” to use the language of normal people, but their bond could bridge any distance of minds or millenniums.
Yes, Kasey now thought to Actinium. She believed in herself. Believed in the perfection of her design.
Like everything else, though, it’d taken time, and the last six years had exacted their toll. Had Celia been alive, she would have been horrified to see the state of Kasey’s hair, buzzed to save on the upkeep, and her living space, spartan as a space station, and her nonexistent social life. But Celia also would have been proud. As Kasey came to understand her sister’s every side, she realized Celia had never been scared of her bots. She was scared that she’d failed Kasey, been absent when Kasey, unaware of it herself, had needed a sister most.
Celia shouldn’t have worried. These days, Kasey needed very little. The things she did need—her bots, her labs—were dispensable. Not Celia.
The only place Kasey still found Celia was in her dreams. Her sister would be waiting every night, no matter how long it took for Kasey’s mind to release her. Together they would go down to the sea on a ladder. They would float for days under the sun, never pruning, and Kasey would reel up the words from the b
ottom of her heart:
I love you.
And even if you failed me,
I’d never replace you.
While I first drafted this story in 2017, I was revising it through 2020. It was a strange experience, to say the least, working on a plotline centering on a global disaster as one unfolded in real life. But even in an isolation not so different from Kasey’s, not a day went by without me thinking about people—specifically, the ones who made this book possible.
To Leigh (again) and Krystal: You believed in this story before I did. When I was facing a dead end, your words gave me the courage to hit SEND.
To John, who took on the torch of belief and pitched this one fiercely to all the right people, and to Folio, Kim Yau, Ruta Rimas, and Sarah McCabe as well: I will always cherish your reads.
To Jen Besser, who made me feel calm and at ease during our first call (a huge feat, for anyone who knows me): You helped me turn this story into something I could believe in myself. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.
To the entire team at Macmillan, not limited to but including: Luisa Beguiristaín, Kelsey Marrujo, Mary Van Akin, Kristen Luby, Johanna Allen, Teresa Ferraiolo, Kathryn Little, Bianca Johnson, Allyson Floridia, and Lisa Huang. Thank you to Brenna Franzitta, and an extra big thank-you to Aurora Parlagreco, not only for the design but also for the hand-lettered title.
On the topic of art, my unending gratitude goes to Aykut Aydoğdu for the cover, Paulina Klime, and Eduardo Vargas for the gorgeous endpaper illustrations. Thank you for gracing this story with your gifts.
To the entire team at Books Forward, especially Chelsea Apple, Ellen Whitfield, and Marissa DeCuir. Thank you for pitching Kasey and Celia so passionately.
To Marie Lu, for replying to that one email many years ago and for the kind words that have given me one of those rare, full-circle moments in this career.
One more time, to everyone involved in Descendant of the Crane. Eliza, you helped me grow immeasurably as a writer, and I will be thanking you with every book. Jamie, Lyndsi, Onyoo, Marisa, and Jordy, thank you for staying by this hermit in the most hermit-y year yet.
To Indigo for the staff pick of the month; Liberty Hardy for Book of the Month; Daphne Tonge for Illumicrate; Emily May, Chaima, and Vickie Cai for the reviews that introduced the book to so many new readers; and the bloggers, librarians, and booksellers who helped Descendant of the Crane find its footing. Last but certainly not least, thank you to all of Hesina’s Imperial Court, with special shout-outs to several members of the old guard: Shealea Iral, Mike Lasagna, Vicky Chen, Samantha Tan, Adrienne McNellis, Mingshu Dong, Bree of Polish & Paperbacks, Megan Manosh, Harker DeFilippis, Shenwei Chang, Jaime Chan, Sara Conway, Felicia Mathews, Lexie Cenni, Hannah Kamerman, Julith Perry, Sophie Schmidt, Emily Cantrell, Kristi Housman, Aradhna Kaur, Avery Khuan, Nathalie DeFelice, Justine May, Rebecca Bernard, Lauren M. Crown, Noelle Marasheski, Maria, Angela Zhang, Rita Canavarro, Heather (Young at Heart Reader), Lili, Stella NBFD, Davianna Nieto, Auburn Nenno, Jocelyne Iyare, Maddi Clark, Danielle Cueco, Zaira Patricia SA, Lauren Chamberlin, Kris Mauna, Sarah Lefkowitz, AJ Eversole, Michelle (magical reads), Anthony G., and Ashley Shuttleworth.
To Michella, Jamie, Kat—first friends and fans. To June and Marina (fact: Umami Girls is the best chat, and I can’t wait to see all our books on shelves one day). To Hafsah, most wise and wondrous goat with the best taste and keenest eye: I don’t know what I’d do without you.
To Heather: This rewrite exists thanks to you. More stories of mine will likely exist thanks to you. Much love, friend. I hope we get to do this again and again and again.
To my parents, always. Thank you for keeping me alive all these years.
And finally, to William. I saved the cheese just for you. Through thick and thin, proximity and distance, you are the one I was meant to find.
Joan He is a Chinese-American writer. Descendant of the Crane was her debut young-adult fantasy novel. She is donating some of the proceeds of her second novel, The Ones We’re Meant to Find, to Ocean Conservancy. Joan lives in Philadelphia and writes from a desk overlooking the Delaware River. joanhewrites.com
PRAISE FOR
THE ONES WE’RE MEANT TO FIND
‘Smart, twisty and electrifying, this is the work of an astonishing mind.’ Davina Bell, author of The Endofthe WorldIs Bigger than Love
‘In a climate-ravaged future, the love between two sisters is the only hope for humanity’s future. This is sci-fi at its best: floating cities, kindness and desert islands.’ Lauren James, author of The Reckless Afterlife of Harriet Stoker
‘Much like the floating cities within its pages, this book is a perfect synthesis of high-tech futurism and dreamlike imagery. Gripping, heartfelt, and joyously cerebral, this is a story to dive into and let its twisting currents pull you into a strange, clever, and startlingly original world.’ Emily Suvada, author of This Mortal Coil
‘I fell in love with this haunting, futuristic world and the sisters searching for each other in it. He’s words will stay with you long after the final page.’ Marie Lu, #1 NYT bestselling author of Skyhunter
‘Readers tired of cookie-cutter stories will find some surprise twists here, along with complex world-building and character development.’ Kirkus Review on Descendant of the Crane
‘Top-notch thriller and complex characters… Should appeal to teens and adults alike.’ Publisher’s Weekly on Descendant of the Crane
textpublishing.com.au
The Text Publishing Company
Swann House, 22 William Street, Melbourne Victoria 3000, Australia
The Text Publishing Company (UK) Ltd
130 Wood Street, London EC2V 6DL, United Kingdom
Copyright © Joan He, 2021
Inside cover illustrations © Eduardo Vargas, 2021
The moral right of Joan He to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted.
All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright above, no part of this publication shall be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the publisher of this book.
Originally published in the United States by Roaring Brook Press, a division of Macmillan US, 2021
Published by The Text Publishing Company, 2021
Cover design by Aurora Parlagreco
Cover image by Aykut Aydoğdu
Page design by Aurora Parlagreco
ISBN: 9781911231332 (paperback)
ISBN: 9781925923995 (ebook)
A catalogue record for this book is available from the National Library of Australia.
