The Summer Prince by Alaya Dawn Johnson Read Free Book Online Page A

then I release my hands and hang, wild and free by my feet while wave after wave chokes me and I have only instinct to guide me higher up the smooth glass curve of the algae vat. I plant my hands, shake the water out of my eyes, and let out a whoop of sheer terror, sheer joy.
    And for the next half hour, that’s my life. Plant my hands, release one foot, then the other. Creep like an inchworm across the deceptively large bulk of the vats. I would be sweating if I weren’t so wet, but at least I’m not cold. I keep moving. This is higher up than I’ve ever gone with Gil. Higher than we’ve ever dared. I’ve long since cleared the terraces. Only repair bots and technicians venture as high along the base pyramids as I’m going. It’s exhilarating and it’s exhausting. I wonder how I’ll get down, but then I put the thought out of my head, think of Enki dancing before the Queen, think of Gil dancing before Enki, and keep going.
    I’m trembling by the time I clear the last row of vats. Up here, I’m protected from the weather a bit by the overhang of the giant bubble of Carioca Plaza. I let myself relax, lean into the grip of the nanohooks, and take a deep breath.
    It isn’t the wind or the waves that get me, but a skittering mushi bot that for some reason hasn’t retreated to its storage hole to wait outthe weather. Its six sparkling mechanical legs slice through the fabric on my right arm as it crawls over me, on its way to repair a fissure in the concrete. I shriek and flinch at the sharp sting of salt water in the cut. The mushi bot pauses and turns its metallic head. It concludes that I am a foreign object invading its territory.
    If I were an engineer, I’d have special clothing and a flash that would disarm the bot’s defense mechanisms.
    If I were an engineer, I wouldn’t be here in the first place.
    The mushi bot runs toward me, the sharp fringes in its legs alert and buzzing. I know I’ll get sliced to ribbons if I let it run over me so I start to dash, crab-like, over the concrete slope. But my human hands and nanohooks are no match for the mushi bot’s specially engineered legs, and I yelp as it slices into my hip.
    I curse, and then again, because I don’t know how I’m supposed to get out of this one now. If only Gil were here!
    I look down, back at the smooth glass of the algae vats, and get an idea.
    Quickly, knowing that if I wait much longer the other mushi bots might wake up to see what the fuss is about, I scramble back down, slipping down the concrete in my haste. I don’t land so much as bump onto the hard surface of the first vat, slick with rain. I start to slide down and only at the last minute manage to get one hand to stick.
    The mushi bot doesn’t manage even that much. Its sharp-cutting legs and concrete saliva, perfectly engineered for the top half of the concrete pyramid, are useless just a few feet away, on the glass of the algae vats. It tries to stay upright, but the surface is too slick and the wind is too strong. I watch as it plummets over the side. Suspended in the air, legs flailing uselessly and metallic antennae swatting the air in robotic panic. I wonder how it came so close to beating me. It looks almost comical before a gust of wind pushes it out over the bay and it disappears from view.
    Laboriously, almost numb from exhaustion and the giddy aftermath of terror, I climb back up the vat. There are no more mushi botson the concrete, but I look around carefully before I reach into my vest and pull out my paint can. There’s usually enough pigment packed into each of these for a mural.
    Which is what I came here for.
    “My name is June,” I say, like I say every time, “and I’m the best artist in Palmares Três.”

    You’re the best artist here , Gil said to me when we were thirteen, the day we first loved each other. The best artist in Palmares Três. Even then, I knew it wasn’t true, but I knew why he said it: because I had to believe that one day it could