But still... the way he’d looked at her made her feel as though none of that would matter—if only for one night. The Grand Imperator had organized the ball as a sort of closing ceremony, meaning Daxton would leave the next day and she could go back to her life in the Gulch under Minko’s control. One night couldn’t hurt, could it?
Tesla’s eyes snapped open at the sound of Kiyo’s voice. “You seem to be in a better mood,” he said, leaning against one of the monorail safety supports.
Tesla felt her sore muscles tense. “How’s Maeve?”
“Maeve is just a silly richie. Look, I was angry at the party and just having a little fun.”
“I noticed your fun. You made sure I did. Wasn’t that your point? To make me feel like trash in front of your new friend?”
“Tes—”
“Forget it, Kiyo,” she snapped, cutting him off with an annoyed wave of her hand. “What you do is your business. I really don’t care, and I’m too tired to fight.”
The shuttle came to a shuddering stop. The automatic doors hissed open, and Tesla hurried up the corridor to her work zone, trying to hold back the sharp prick of tears threatening to fall.
Their friendship lay in tattered shreds even the most skilled synthWeaver couldn’t stitch back together. His words last night had made that clear enough. First, she’d lost her mother, then her father, and now Kiyo—the closest thing to family she had left.
Kiyo shouted after her, and though her heart broke, she didn’t look back.
“WATCH IT, PETROV!” her spotter shouted up the bulkhead as Tesla’s foot nearly slipped from the outcropping. Fifty feet below, the man tightened her climbing harness. A fall from this height would leave her either crippled or dead.
One hand maneuvered her weld-torch and the other secured her suspension harness. If she stretched out her arms from this position, she could almost touch the opposing wall. Working between bulkheads wasn’t easy; it had taken half her shift just to make the vertical climb and settle into position.
The fire from her weld-torch glowed with a vivid, cerulean blaze, steady in her palm. The stench of overheated titanium filled her thick mask, causing her nose to crinkle. The patch wasn’t beautiful, and it certainly wouldn’t impress her supervisors, but the seams would hold well enough. At least the inspectors decided not to scale the wall. Her work was much better with a full night’s sleep and a cup of tar-black coffee.
“Coming down, Wylson,” she called out. “Petrov on belay.”
“Wait for the tool drop,” warned the portly man.
He pointed over her shoulder. It was nearing time for the shift change, and workers too lazy to use the slow, clunky equipment elevators lined up to send leather bundles filled with tools down a makeshift slide. Their gravity boots scraped against the walls, adding to the din in the narrow space.
The bulkhead vibrated as the bags rolled down the corkscrew slide, landing with dull thuds on the main floor. Tesla flexed her aching biceps. She flickered the flame of the weld-torch one last time over a molten seam, and a shower of sparks arced through the air in reply.
Wylson signaled for her to descend, and she did so within seconds, hopping back and forth between the two walls. At the last minute, however, she slipped, landing hard against her back.
“How many times do I have to tell you not to do that?” Wylson growled, looking down at her dazed expression. He tossed the pulley to the side and headed toward the monorails. “If you feel like showing off, you can stow the ropes.”
Two pairs of tiny work boots appeared next to Tesla’s head. “What do you want, misfits?” she groaned, gingerly cupping her backside as she climbed to her feet. Gritty dust, along with small metal shrapnel shards, clung to her damp skin. It would take an entire box of scouring soap to rid herself of the sweat and debris.
As suspected, Ren and Ming were already digging in her tool satchel, thumbing through its contents. Before working with the twins, she hadn’t been able to tell the two boys apart. It wasn’t long, though, before she could spot the almost imperceptible differences between them: Ren’s eyes were flecked with bits of gold, and Ming’s cheeks puffed out before reaching his small, wobbly chin—a fact Tesla attributed to the boy’s near-supernatural ability to locate any nearby snack.
Poverty had forced both boys to drop out of school to serve as supply runners for the Level Eight crews. Their uniforms swallowed their small frames, obviously handed down from older siblings who had met the same fate. Tesla didn’t pity them; it was a common thing to drop out of school down in the lower levels, and pity didn’t put food on the table. She’d been lucky to finish all ten years of primary education and get a year of flight training before ending up back in the Gulch.
“Do you have any crackers today?” Ren whined, his eyes twinkling like those of a hungry kitten looking for milk.
Tesla playfully tapped a sooty finger against his nose. “I have something better,” she whispered, hand disappearing into the bag with a magician’s flourish. “But you have to promise to keep it a secret.” She withdrew a handful of the raspberry pastilles taken from the party, and Ren and Ming hopped with excitement, eagerly holding out their palms for such a rare treat. They immediately stuffed the candies in their mouths, which caused Tesla to laugh at their puffy cheeks.
“Did you know Prince Tomasz is going to marry a girl on board?” they asked in unison, both dribbling candy juices down their chins. Ren used Tesla’s work towel to wipe his mouth while Ming simply kept eating.
“Who told you that bit of nonsense?”
“Naw nonsess,” Ming insisted, stuffing another treat into his mouth. He swallowed and looked in Tesla’s bag for more. Disappointed, he turned back to her. “Bok said it at the market yesterday. The Grand Imperator and Imperatoress want him to marry. Bok says it should be an Atlas girl. Said it would strengthen the monkey ark—
“Mon-arch-y,” Ren corrected, pronouncing each sound with increasing pride. “Bok says the First World Union will be better if the prince marries someone from the station. Do you think that means we can go to Earth for the wedding?”
Tesla tousled Ren’s hair, rubbing a smudge from his cheek with the towel. “Maybe. But not if they think you’re going to eat all their sweets!” She tickled Ming, who ran a few steps away and stuck out his tongue.
A piercing whistle made them all wince. Shift work was over. Throughout the crowded work zone, the other welders secured the supply carts, picked their way across heavy floor beams, and headed back toward the monorail.
Ren wrapped his small fingers around her wrist, gently tugging to get her attention. “Tesla? That man keeps watching you.”
To her right, Tesla noticed the inspectors intently staring in her direction. One of the men flipped a page on his clipboard and began scribbling a note. Don’t be nervous. He could be writing anything. Her welding quotas were always met, and sometimes far surpassed her supervisor’s expectations, placing her at the top of her crew. Still, she smoothed her uniform anxiously and packed up her tools with greater care than normal. When she looked again, the inspectors had closed their notebooks and both joined the other crews headed toward the monorail.
“Aren’t you coming?” Ren asked as Tesla began moving against the crowd, away from the incoming shuttle.
“I have some work to do in the junkyard.” It wasn’t exactly a lie.
Lind suddenly appeared and chased the boys through the sea of overalls, waving at Tesla as she went. Ming pumped his legs as fast as he could, doubtlessly eager to get home for another meal.
Tesla drifted, unseen, toward the far wall, where she waited as the remaining workers boarded the shuttle, all thoughts of the inspectors wiped from her brain. A few steps later, she found it—a jagged, yawning hole in the floor that gave her access to the station’s junkyard below. The climbing harness was still clipped around her body, and she quickly linked herself to a rope she’d left herself during her last trip retrieving scraps. Careful to place the rope where it wouldn�
�t snag on the serrated titanium, she heaved herself through the opening, landing on a pile of machine parts with a loud crunch.
A quick check of her wristcomm provided her with a list of parts she’d need for Minko’s new fightBot: data splicer, cooling fan, flex-joints, command router, outer casings...
A hideously scorched synthetic face—probably belonging to a former dancer at Minko’s club—crunched beneath her boots as she scooted down the metal mountain. Heaps upon heaps of discarded service robots and automatons lay in twisted wrecks of limbs and torsos, wires spilling out from their broken internal systems like artificial intestines.
“Now,” she muttered to the thousands of blank draadhart eyes staring back at her, “which of you feels like jumping into the ring?”
EIGHT
THE PRINCE RAISED HIS EYES to the ceiling once again, his head already pounding from the endless recitation of facts and data. How could his advisor drone on and on without seeming to take a breath? The man had to be some sort of medical miracle. Or perhaps lavender irises weren’t the only body modification Doyle had chosen during his lifetime, though the prince had never met anyone with enhanced lungs.
Henry Doyle, Chief Consulate Advisor to the Prime Heir, clicked his tongue. “Prince Tomasz, are you even listening? Your father would like you to address these issues while we are on board the Atlas. The Red Council has just arrived to the station, ready to represent all the major regions of the First World Union, and they expect the royal family to respond to these heinous Restoration attacks.”
“I’d be happy to explain the royal family’s stance on those traitors,” the prince’s uncle, Kyrartine LaRose, grumbled from his seat by the expansive synth-glass windows.
The three of them were in the royal antechamber, just beyond the ballroom of Level Two. Plush carpeting from the finest manufacturers in Brussels spanned the entire room, stretching out in all directions beneath a massive wooden desk. At the head of the table rested a gilded throne, its headpiece adorned with the LaRose family coat of arms—the official royal throne aboard the Atlas space station.
The prince sighed. “I think heinous is a strong word to describe the Restoration, Doyle,” he said. “Their attacks have been calculated to destroy First World Union supplies, not to harm anyone. I’d say they were... inconvenient, rather than heinous.”
“Tell that to the thousands of factory crews now out of work due to this latest attack.” Doyle pulled a list of statistics from his handheld dataport. With a swipe of his elegant fingers, he transferred the information from his HDP to the table at the center of the room, its surface now alight with a scrolling marquee of schematics and Earth newsfeeds. “Repairs to the factory will take months, not to mention cost an immense amount of corpCredits. In the meantime, these people cannot afford food, rent, or necessary medicines. Did you think of that?”
The prince frowned. He hadn’t.
“Destroying the factory was clever,” said Kyrartine. “These rebels are smarter than you think.”
“How so?” the prince asked, genuinely curious. “Other than the building itself, not much of value was destroyed.”
“No, but the factory they chose employs a large number of workers in that district. If the people can’t afford medicine, then they certainly won’t be paying their royal taxes, and without that money, we’ll be hard-pressed to fund a proper military response against a future attack. Their methods are escalating. The Restoration is cutting off our ability to fight back by hitting the crown where it matters—our coffers.”
That made the prince hesitate. Were the Restoration attacks more calculated than he gave them credit for? And were they now escalating to something beyond burning crops, torching supply transports, or bombing factories? As Defense Minister, Kyrartine was privy to every report of Restoration attacks; he would know better than anyone just how dangerous the rebels could become. If he was worried, things didn’t bode well for the First World Union.
The prince shook his head. “I still don’t understand why I have to be the one to address the ambassadors,” he said after a moment. “Wouldn’t an official statement from the Grand Imperator be more appropriate, perhaps via a planetary press conference? I thought the whole point of visiting the Atlas station was to celebrate the Centennial of the Crown. To celebrate peace instead of broadcasting talk of war.”
“We are,” Kyrartine drawled, scanning through news articles on his HDP. “But with most of the Red Council aboard, your father thinks it wise to make a show of diplomatic strength. The LaRose monarchy may have united the world into a single government, but it is the High Chancellors who keep the peace across the six remaining continents.”
Doyle cleared his throat. “And since your brother’s—” At Kyrartine’s sharp look, the man shifted uneasily and coughed. “Since you are now the new Prime Heir, it is time for you to show the High Chancellors that you are ready to stand by your father’s side.”
You mean show them I can be strong like Liam. The prince pressed his forehead against the synth-glass. “And what exactly does the Grand Imperator hope I will say about these attacks? This wouldn’t be a problem if Father had dealt with the problem sooner, when these attacks first began.”
“Then, as Defense Minister, I would be out of a job,” Kyrartine said with a wink.
It still didn’t make sense why the Restoration traitors were so unhappy with the government. They accused the royal family of having too much power, but life on Earth was far better now than it had ever been back when over two hundred separate governments fought for resources. With overpopulation, those resources had only become scarcer, until finally the Great War had erupted, plunging the planet into dozens of multi-national conflicts. Empires fell. Power shifted hands until the governments that remained had taken a drastic step toward peace—they had appointed the first Grand Imperator to lead the world. Without presidents and emperors and prime ministers to fight over territories or medicines, peace had quickly ensued. The fire of the Great War had burned itself to embers. The Centennial of the Crown celebrated one hundred years of the monarchy that had saved the planet.
“Your father expects you to represent the crown while declaring the royal family’s official response to the attacks and how the First World Union plans on addressing the Restoration terrorists,” Doyle insisted.
“And what would you have me do, Uncle?” asked the prince, running a hand through his sandy hair. “You know the Red Council. Compromise is almost impossible. A solution that will appease the African High Chancellor will only disappoint the Neo-American States. I can already see Chen Yao’s look of thinly veiled contempt. I don’t want to send the First World Union into a war if we can avoid it.”
Kyrartine’s gold eyes darkened to the color of burnt wheat. “The monarchy, and your legacy, should be protected at all costs. You need to show these Restoration scum that a crown forged in fire is unbreakable.”
Liam had always suggested that responding to the Restoration attacks with force would only escalate the conflict, stoking the first sparks of unrest until they ignited into another global war. The Grand Imperator ignored the problem; Liam had championed peaceful negotiations; and now the prince would have to choose his own path.
A serving draadhart rolled into the room, carrying a tray of cucumber sandwiches and bitter-smelling coffee fresh off a ship from Delhi Province. The food reminded the prince of the displaced factory workers who would go hungry while he dined in lux comfort. “I understand that I cannot have the power of the crown without also carrying its weight,” he said finally. “Inform the Red Council that the Prime Heir will issue an official statement regarding the attacks.”
The prince resumed watching the parade of cargo vessels arriving at the space station, like a shoal of grey fish swimming silently in black water. He half-expected the advisor to rush from the room in his haste to make the announcement, but the man made no move to leave.
“Is there anything else, Henry? Or will my father finally let me have
a moment to myself?”
Doyle fidgeted, a behavior out of character for his normally well-composed self, smoothing his long crimson overcoat emblazoned with the crest of the First World Union. The prince turned to find the man positively terrified.
Kyrartine stood, the HDP’s screen now blank. “I’ll tell him, Doyle. You’re excused.” The advisor nodded, grateful for the chance to escape, and scurried like a rabbit from a fox den.
The tone in his uncle’s voice made the prince uneasy. “Tell me what?”
“Your father is trying to prepare you for the rigors of occupying the throne,” he said gently, his hands splaying in a defensive gesture. “Since Liam’s death, and given the quakes of dissent rippling through the kingdom, it is important the royal family appears to thrive. Your father thinks it best that the Prime Heir is more... settled, in the public eye.”
“What exactly are you implying?”
“Before I tell you, I want you to know that it wasn’t my idea. In fact, I am strongly opposed,” Kyrartine said, crossing the room to rest a hand on his nephew’s shoulder. “Your happiness means a great deal to me.”
The prince stared up at the Grand Imperator’s much older brother whose features wore a gentle mixture of kindness and empathy. “Kyr, I don’t think I like where this is heading.”
“Your father wishes you to marry. You are to choose a bride at the ball in three day’s time.”
The prince inhaled sharply. Impossible. He wouldn’t dare make that decision without first speaking to me. After all, it was his life the Grand Imperator was moving like a chess piece in his diplomatic game. He pinched the bridge of his nose as a dull headache throbbed behind his eyes, his thoughts tumbling erratically. “Has my father told anyone else of this?”
“He made the declaration to the Red Council this morning after you left the negotiation chambers. He plans for it to be publicly announced kingdom-wide this afternoon.”
So it’s done. Once the announcement had been made to the council, the world leaders would take the news as fact. Going back on the plan meant going back on his father’s word—the word of the most powerful man on Earth. Fighting against his father’s decision would only make the First World Union appear weak, fractured at a time when the royal family needed to be more united than ever. If the Prime Heir refused to obey the commands of the Grand Imperator, then what would stop Restoration sympathizers from rising up and defying the crown?
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