by Lu, Marie
I wonder how much the Patriots spent on this surgery. I’d seen soldiers with metal parts before, from as little as a steel square on their upper arms to as much as an entire leg replaced with metal. It can’t be a cheap operation, and from the appearance of my leg, the doctor used military-grade healing salves. I can already tell how much power my leg will have when I recover—and how much more quickly I’ll be able to get around. How much sooner I can find Eden.
“Yeah,” I say to Tess. “It’s amazing.” I crane my neck a little so I can focus on the bedroom door, but this makes me dizzy. My head is pounding up a storm now, and I can hear low voices coming from farther down the hall. “What’s everyone doing?”
Tess glances over her shoulder again and then back to me. “They’re talking about the first phase of the plan. I’m not in it, so I’m sitting out.” She helps me lie back down. Then an awkward pause follows. I still can’t get used to how different Tess seems. Tess notices me admiring her, hesitates, and smiles awkwardly.
“When all this is finished,” I begin, “I want you to come with me to the Colonies, okay?” Tess breaks into a smile, then smoothes my blankets nervously with one hand as I go on. “If everything goes according to the Patriots’ plans, and the Republic really does fall, I don’t want us to be caught in the chaos. Eden, June, you, and me. Got it, cousin?”
Tess’s burst of enthusiasm wanes. She hesitates. “I don’t know, Day,” she says, glancing over toward the door again.
“Why? You afraid of the Patriots or something?”
“No . . . they’ve been good to me so far.”
“Then why don’t you want to come?” I ask her quietly. I’m starting to feel weak again, and it’s hard to keep things from getting foggy. “Back in Lake, we always said that we’d escape to the Colonies together if we got the chance. My father told me that the Colonies must be a place full of—”
“Freedom and opportunities. I know.” Tess shakes her head. “It’s just that . . .”
“That what?”
One of Tess’s hands slides over to tuck inside my own. I picture her as a kid again, back when I first found her rummaging through that garbage bin in Nima sector. Is this really the same girl? Her hands aren’t as small as they used to be, although they still fit neatly into mine. She looks up at me. “Day . . . I’m worried about you.”
I blink. “What do you mean? The surgery?”
Tess gives me an impatient shake of her head. “No. I’m worried about you because of June.”
I breathe deeply, waiting for her to continue, afraid of what she’ll say.
Tess’s voice changes into something strange, something I don’t recognize. “Well . . . if June travels with us . . . I mean, I know how attached you are to her, but just a few weeks ago she was a Republic soldier. Don’t you see that expression she gets now and then? Like she misses the Republic, or wants to go back or something? What if she tries to sabotage our plan, or turns on you while we’re trying to get to the Colonies? The Patriots are already taking precautions—”
“Stop.” I’m a little surprised by how loud and irritated I sound. I’ve never raised my voice to Tess before, and I regret it instantly. I can hear Tess’s jealousy in every word she says, the way she spits June’s name out like she can’t wait to get it over with. “I understand that it’s only been a few weeks since everything’s happened. Of course she’s going to have moments of uncertainty. Right? Still, she’s not loyal to the Republic anymore, and we’re in a dangerous place even if we don’t travel with her. Besides, June has skills that none of us have. She broke me out of Batalla Hall, for crying out loud. She can keep us safe.”
Tess purses her lips. “Well, how do you feel about what the Patriots are planning for her? What about her relationship with the Elector?”
“What relationship?” I hold up my hands weakly, trying to pretend that it doesn’t matter. “It’s all part of the game. She doesn’t even know him.”
Tess shrugs. “She will soon,” she whispers. “When she has to get close enough to manipulate him.” Her eyes lower again. “I’ll go with you, Day. I’d go anywhere with you. But I just wanted to remind you about . . . her. Just in case you hadn’t thought of things that way.”
“Everything will be okay,” I manage to say. “Just trust me.”
The tension finally passes. Tess’s face softens into its familiar sweetness, and my irritation slips away as quickly as it had come. “You’ve always watched out for me,” I say with a smile. “Thanks, cousin.”
Tess grins. “Someone has to, yeah?” She gestures at my rolled-up sleeves. “I’m glad the uniform fits you, by the way. It seemed too big when it was folded, but I guess it turned out all right.” Without warning, she leans over and gives me a quick kiss on the cheek. She jumps away almost instantly. Her face is bright pink. Tess has kissed me on the cheek before, when she was younger, but this is the first time I’ve felt something more in her gesture. I try to figure out how, in less than a month, Tess left her childhood behind and became an adult. I cough uncomfortably. It’s an odd new relationship.
Then she stands up and pulls her hand away. She looks toward the door instead of at me. “Sorry, you should be resting. I’ll check on you later. Try to go back to sleep.”
That’s when I realize that Tess must’ve been the one to drop off our uniforms in the bathroom. She might’ve seen me kissing June. I try to think through the fog in my mind, to say something to her before she leaves, but she’s already walked out the door and disappeared down the hall.
0545 HOURS.
VENEZIA.
DAY ONE AS AN OFFICIAL MEMBER OF THE PATRIOTS.
I CHOSE NOT TO BE IN THE ROOM DURING THE SURGERY; Tess, of course, stayed to assist the Medic. The image of Day lying unconscious on the table, face pale and blank, head turned ninety degrees to the ceiling, would remind me a little too much of the night I’d hunched over Metias’s dead body in the hospital alley. I prefer not to let the Patriots see my weaknesses. So I stay away, sitting alone on one of the couches in the main room.
I also keep my distance in order to really think about Razor’s plan for me:
I’m going to be arrested by Republic soldiers.
I’m going to find a way to get a private audience with the Elector, and then I’m going to gain his trust.
I’m going to tell him about a bogus assassination plot that will lead to a full pardon of all my crimes against the Republic.
Then I’m going to lure him to his actual assassination.
That’s my role. Thinking about it is one thing; pulling it off is another. I study my hands and wonder whether I’m ready to have blood on them, whether I’m ready to kill someone. What was it Metias had always told me? “Few people ever kill for the right reasons, June.” But then I remember what Day said in the bathroom. “Getting rid of the person in charge seems like a small price to pay for starting a revolution. Don’t you think so?”
The Republic took Metias away from me. I think of the Trials, the lies about my parents’ deaths. The engineered plagues. From this luxury high-rise I can see Vegas’s Trial stadium behind the skyscrapers, gleaming, off in the distance. Few people kill for the right reasons, but if any reason is the right one, it must be this. Isn’t it?
My hands are trembling slightly. I steady them.
It’s quiet in this apartment now. Razor has left again (he stepped out at 0332 in full uniform), and Kaede is dozing on the far end of my couch. If I were to drop a pin on the marble floor in here, the sound would probably hurt my ears. After a while, I turn my attention to the small screen on the wall. It’s muted, but I still watch the familiar cycle of news play. Flood warnings, storm warnings. Airship arrival and departure times. Victories against the Colonies along the warfront. Sometimes I wonder whether the Republic makes up those victories too, and whether we’re actually winning or losing the war. The headlines ro
ll on. There’s even a public announcement warning that any civilian caught with a red streak in his or her hair will be arrested on sight.
The news cycle ends abruptly. I straighten when I see the next bit of footage: The new Elector is about to give his first live speech to the public.
I hesitate, then glance over at Kaede. She seems to be sleeping pretty soundly. I get up, cross the room on light feet, then skim a finger across the monitor to turn up the volume.
The sound is tiny, but enough for me to hear. I watch as Anden (or rather, the Elector Primo) steps gracefully up to the podium. He nods to the usual barrage of government-appointed reporters in front of him. He looks exactly the way I remember him, a younger version of his father, with slender glasses and a regal tilt to his chin, dressed impeccably in a formal, gold-trimmed black uniform with double rows of shining buttons.
“Now is a time of great change. Our resolve is being tested more than ever, and the war with our enemy has reached a climax,” he says. He speaks as though his father hadn’t died, as if he had always been our Elector Primo. “We have won our last three warfront battles and seized three of the Colonies’ southern cities. We are on the brink of victory, and it won’t be long before the Republic spans to the edge of the Atlantic Ocean. It is our manifest destiny.”
He goes on, reassuring the people of our military’s strength and promising later announcements about changes he wants to implement—who knows how much of it is true. I go back to studying his face. His voice is not unlike his father’s, but I find myself drawn to the sincerity in it. Twenty years old. Maybe he actually believes everything he’s saying, or maybe he just does a great job of hiding his doubts. I wonder how he feels about his father’s death, and how he is able, at press conferences like this, to pull himself together enough to play his role. No doubt Congress is eager to manipulate such a young new Elector, to try to run the show behind the scenes and push him around like a chess piece. Based on what Razor said, they must be clashing daily. Anden might be as power- hungry as his father was if he refuses to listen to the Senate at all.
What exactly are the differences between Anden and his father? What does Anden think the Republic should be—and for that matter, what do I think it should be?
I mute the screen again and walk away. Don’t dwell too deeply on who Anden is. I can’t think about him as if he were a real person—a person I have to kill.
Finally, as the first rays of dawn start spilling into the room, Tess comes out of the bedroom with the news that Day is awake and alert. “He’s in good shape,” she says to Kaede. “Right now he’s sitting up, and he should be able to walk around in a few hours.” Then she sees me and her smile fades. “Um. You can see him if you want.”
Kaede cracks open an eye, shrugs, and goes back to sleep. I give Tess the friendliest smile I can manage, then take a deep breath and head for the bedroom.
Day is propped up with pillows and covered up to his chest with a thick blanket. He must be tired, but he still winks when he sees me walk in, a gesture that makes my heart skip a beat. His hair spills around him in a shining circle. A few bent paper clips lie in his lap (taken from the supply boxes in the corner—I guess he did get up). Apparently he was in the middle of making something out of them. I let out a sigh of relief when I can tell that he’s not in any pain. “Hey,” I say to him. “Glad to see you’re alive.”
“Glad to see I’m alive too,” he replies. His eyes follow me as I sit down next to him on the bed. “Did I miss anything while I was out?”
“Yeah. You missed listening to Kaede snore on the couch. For someone always ducking the law, that girl sure sleeps soundly.”
Day laughs a little. I marvel again at his high spirits, something I haven’t seen much of over the last few weeks. My gaze wanders to where the blanket covers his healing leg. “How is it?”
Day scoots the blanket aside. Underneath, there are plates of smooth metal (steel and titanium) where his wound had been. The Medic also replaced his bad knee with an artificial one, and now a good third of his leg is metallic. He reminds me of the soldiers who come back from the warfront, with their synthetic hands and arms and legs, metal where skin used to be. The Medic must be very familiar with war injuries. No doubt Razor’s officer connections helped her obtain something as expensive as the healing salves she must have used on Day. I put out my open palm, and he puts his hand in mine.
“How does it feel?”
Day shakes his head incredulously. “It feels like nothing. Completely light and painless.” A mischievous grin crosses his face. “Now you’ll get to see how I can really run a building, darling. Not even a cracked knee to hold me back, yeah? What a nice birthday present.”
“Birthday? I didn’t know. Happy belated,” I say with a smile. My eyes go to the paper clips strewn across his lap. “What are you doing?”
“Oh.” Day picks up one of the things he’s making, something that looks like a metal circle. “Just passing the time.” He holds the circle up to the light, and then takes my hand. He presses it into my palm. “A gift for you.”
I study it more closely. It’s made of four unfurled paper clips carefully entwined around one another in a spiral, and pulled together end to end so they form a tiny ring. Simple and neat. Artistic, even. I can see love and care in the twists of metal, the little bends where Day’s fingers worked on the wire over and over until it formed the right curves. He made it for me. I push it onto my finger and it slides effortlessly into place. Gorgeous. I’m bashful, flattered into complete silence. Can’t remember the last time anyone actually made something for me on his own.
Day seems disappointed by my reaction, but hides it behind a careless laugh. “I know you rich folks have all your fancy traditions, but in the poor sectors, engagements and gestures of affection usually go like this.”
Engagements? My heart flutters in my chest. I can’t help smiling. “With paper clip rings?”
Oh no. I’d meant it as an honest question of curiosity, but don’t realize I sound sarcastic until the words are already out of my mouth.
Day blushes a little; I’m immediately angry at myself for slipping up again. “With something handmade,” he corrects me after a beat. He’s looking down, clearly embarrassed, and I feel horrible for having triggered it. “Sorry it’s kind of stupid- looking,” he says in a low voice. “Wish I could make something nicer for you.”
“No, no,” I interrupt, trying to fix what I just said. “I really like it.” I run my fingers over the tiny ring, keeping my eyes fixed on it so I don’t have to meet Day’s eyes. Does he assume that I don’t think it’s good enough? Say something, June. Anything. My details come bubbling up. “Unplated galvanized steel wiring. This is good material, you know. Sturdier than the alloy ones, still bendy, and won’t rust. It’s—”
I stop when I see Day’s withering stare. “I like it,” I repeat. Idiotic reply, June. Why don’t you punch him in the face while you’re at it. I turn even more flustered when I remember that I have actually pistol-whipped him in the face before. Romantic.
“You’re welcome,” he says, shoving a couple of the unbent paper clips into his pockets.
There’s a long pause. I’m not sure what he wanted me to say back, but it probably wasn’t a list of a paper clip’s physical properties. Suddenly unsure of myself, I draw closer and rest my head against Day’s chest. He takes a quick breath, as if I’d caught him by surprise, and then he drapes his arm gently around me. There, that’s better. I close my eyes. One of his hands combs through my hair, sending goose bumps down my arms, and I allow myself to indulge in a little moment of fantasy—I imagine him running a finger along my jaw line, bringing his face down to mine.
Day leans over my ear. “How are you feeling about the plan?” he whispers.
I shrug, shoving my disappointment away. Stupid of me to fantasize about kissing Day at a time like this. “Has anyone told you wha
t you’re supposed to do?”
“No. But I’m sure there’s going to be some kind of national broadcast to tell the country I’m still alive. I’m supposed to stir up trouble, right? Work the people into a frenzy?” Day laughs dryly, but his face doesn’t look amused. “Whatever gets me to Eden, I guess.”
“I guess,” I say.
He pulls me upright then, so that I face him. “I don’t know if they’ll let us communicate with each other,” he says. His voice drops so low I can barely hear it. “The plan sounds good, but if something goes wrong—”
“They’ll keep a close eye on me, I’m sure,” I interrupt him. “Razor’s a Republic officer. He can find a way to get me out if it starts falling apart. As for communications . . .” I bite my lip, thinking. “I’ll come up with something.”
Day touches my chin, bringing me closer until his nose brushes mine. “If anything goes wrong, if you change your mind, if you need help, you send a signal, you hear me?”
His words send shivers down my neck. “Okay,” I whisper.
Day gives me a subtle nod, then pulls away and leans back against his pillows. I let out my breath. “Are you ready?” he asks. There’s more to his sentence, I can tell, but he doesn’t say it. Are you ready to kill the Elector?
I give him a forced grin. “Ready as I’ll ever be.”
We stay like that for a long time, until the light filtering in from the windows is bright and we hear the morning pledge blaring out across the city. Finally, I hear the front door swing open and close, and then Razor’s voice. Footsteps approach the bedroom, and Razor peeks in right as I straighten and sit up.
