by Marie Lu
From the corner of my eye, I can see that Thomas is still looking at me. Commander Jameson officially promoted him to fill my brother’s position, but Thomas has little power over what I choose to do on this test mission, and it drives him crazy. He would have balked at letting me go undercover in the Lake sector for days on end, without a pair of strong backups and a team to follow me.
But it’s going to happen anyway, starting tomorrow morning.
“Look. Don’t worry about me.” Through the glass, I see the spy arch his back in agony. “I can take care of myself. Day isn’t a fool—if I have a team following me through the city, he’ll notice it in no time.”
Thomas turns back to the interrogation. “I know you’re good at what you do,” he replies. I wait for the but . . . in his sentence. It doesn’t come. “Just keep your microphone on. I’ll take care of things back here.”
I smile at him. “Thanks.” He doesn’t look back at me, but I can see his lips tilt up at the edges. Maybe he’s remembering when I used to tag along after him and Metias, asking them inane questions about how the military worked.
Behind the glass, the spy suddenly yells something at Commander Jameson and thrashes violently against his chains. She glances over at us and motions us in with a flip of her hand. I don’t hesitate. Thomas and I, and another soldier standing close to the interrogation room’s door, hurry inside and spread out near the back wall. Instantly I feel how stuffy and hot the room is. I look on as the prisoner continues to scream.
“What’d you say to him?” I ask Commander Jameson.
She looks at me. Her eyes are ice-cold. “I told him that our airships will target his hometown next.” She turns back to the prisoner. “He’ll start cooperating if he knows what’s good for him.”
The spy glares at each of us in turn. Blood runs from his mouth to his forehead and hair and drips onto the floor beneath him. Whenever he thrashes, Commander Jameson stomps on the chain around his neck and chokes him until he stops.
Now he snarls and spits blood at our boots, making me wipe mine against the ground in disgust.
Commander Jameson bends down and smiles at him. “Let’s start again, shall we? What’s your name?”
The spy looks away from her and says nothing.
Commander Jameson sighs and nods to Thomas. “My hands are tired,” she says. “You do the honors.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Thomas salutes and steps forward. He tightens his jaw, then balls up his fist and punches the spy hard in the stomach. The spy’s eyes bulge out, and he coughs up more blood onto the floor. I distract myself by studying the details of his outfit. (Brass buttons, military boots, a blue pin on his sleeve. Which means he had disguised himself as a soldier, and we caught him near San Diego, the only city that requires everyone to wear those blue pins. I can tell what gave him away too. One of the brass buttons looks slightly flatter than those made in the Republic. He must have stitched on that button by himself—a button from an old Colonies uniform. Stupid. A mistake only a Colonies spy would make.)
“What’s your name?” Commander Jameson asks him again. Thomas flips open a knife and grabs one of the spy’s fingers.
The spy swallows hard. “Emerson.”
“Emerson what? Be specific.”
“Emerson Adam Graham.”
“Mr. Emerson Adam Graham, of East Texas.” Commander Jameson says it in a light, coaxing voice. “A pleasure to meet you, young sir. Tell me, Mr. Graham, why did the Colonies send you over to our fine Republic? To spread their lies?”
The spy lets out a weak laugh. “Fine Republic,” he snaps. “Your Republic won’t last another decade. And all the better, too—once the Colonies take over your land, they’ll make better use of it than you have—”
Thomas hits the spy across the face with the hilt of his knife. A tooth skids across the floor. When I look back at Thomas, his hair has fallen across his face and a cruel pleasure has replaced his usual kindness. I frown. I haven’t seen this look on Thomas’s face often; it chills me.
Commander Jameson stops him before he can hit the spy again. “It’s all right. Let us hear what our friend has to say against the Republic.”
The spy’s face is scarlet from hanging upside down for too long. “You call this a republic? You kill your own people and torture those who used to be your brothers?” I roll my eyes at that. The Colonies want us to think that letting them take over is a good thing. Like they’re annexing us or doing us some kind of favor. That’s how they see us, a poor little fringe nation, as if they’re the more powerful one. That idea is in their best interest, after all, since I hear the floods have claimed much more of their land than ours. That’s all it’s ever been about. Land, land, land. But becoming a union—that has never happened, and that will never happen. We’ll defeat them first or die trying. “I’ll tell you nothing. You can try as hard as you want, but I’ll tell you nothing.”
Commander Jameson smiles at Thomas, who smiles back. “Well, you heard Mr. Graham,” she says. “Try as hard as you want.”
Thomas goes to work on him, and after a while, the other soldier in the room has to join him to hold the spy in place. I force myself to look on as they try to pry information out of him. I need to learn this, to familiarize myself with this. My ears ring from the spy’s screams. I ignore the fact that the spy’s hair is straight and dark like my own, and his skin is pale, and his youth reminds me of Metias over and over again. I tell myself that Metias is not the one whom Thomas is now torturing. That would be impossible.
Metias can’t be tortured. He is already dead.
That night, Thomas escorts me back to my apartment and kisses me on the cheek before he leaves. He tells me to be careful, and that he will be monitoring anything that transmits through my microphone. “Everyone will keep an eye on you,” he reassures me. “You’re not alone out there unless you choose to be.”
I manage to smile back. I ask him to take care of Ollie while I’m gone.
When I’m finally inside the apartment, I curl up on the couch and rest my arm on Ollie’s back. He’s sleeping soundly, but has pressed himself tightly against the side of the couch. He probably feels Metias’s absence as much as I do. On the coffee table, stacks of our parents’ old photos from Metias’s bedroom closet are strewn across the glass. So are Metias’s journals, and a booklet where he used to save little mementos of the things we did together—an opera, late-night dinners, early practices at the track. I’ve been looking through them ever since Thomas left, hoping that the thing Metias had wanted to talk to me about is mentioned somewhere. I flip through Metias’s writing and reread the little notes Dad liked to leave at the bottom of their photos. The most recent one shows our parents standing with a young Metias in front of Batalla Hall. All three are making thumbs-up gestures. Metias’s future career is here! March 12th. I stare at the date. It was taken several weeks before they died.
My recorder sits on the edge of the coffee table. I snap my fingers twice, then listen to Day’s voice over and over. What face matches up to this voice? I try to imagine how Day looks. Young and athletic, probably, and lean from years on the streets. The voice sounds so crackled and distorted from the speakers that there are parts I can’t understand.
“Hear that, Ollie?” I whisper. Ollie snores a little and rubs his head against my hand. “That’s our guy. And I’m going to get him.”
I fall asleep with Day’s words ringing in my ears.
0625 HOURS.
I’m in the Lake sector, watching the strengthening daylight paint the churning waterwheels and turbines gold. A layer of smoke hovers perpetually over the water’s edge. Farther across the lake I can see downtown Los Angeles sitting right next to the shore. A street policeman approaches and tells me to stop loitering, to keep moving. I nod wordlessly and continue along the shore.
From a distance, I blend in completely with those walking around me. My half-sleeve collared shirt came from a thrift emporium at the border between Lake and Winter. My trou
sers are torn and smeared with dirt—my boots’ leather is flaking off. I’m very careful about the type of knot I use to tie my shoelaces. It’s a simple Rose knot, something any worker would use. I’ve pulled my hair back into a tight, high ponytail. I wear a newsboy cap over it.
Day’s pendant necklace sits snugly in my pocket.
I can’t believe how filthy the streets are here. Probably even worse than the dilapidated outskirts of Los Angeles. The ground sits low against the water (not unlike the other poor sectors, which all seem to look the same), so that whenever there’s a storm, the lake probably floods all the streets lining the shore with dirty, sewage-contaminated water. Every building is faded, crumbling, and pockmarked—except, of course, the police headquarters. People walk around trash piled against the walls as if it isn’t even there. Flies and stray dogs linger near the garbage—as do some people. I crinkle my nose at the smell (smoky lanterns, grease, sewage). Then I stop, realizing that if I’m to pass as a Lake citizen, I should pretend to be used to the stench.
Several men grin at me as I pass by. One even calls out to me. I ignore them and keep going. What a bunch of cons, men who had barely passed their Trials. I wonder if I can catch the plague from these people, even though I’m vaccinated. Who knows where they’ve been.
Then I stop myself. Metias had told me never to judge the poor like that. Well, he’s a better person than I am, I think bitterly.
The tiny microphone inside my cheek vibrates a little. Then a faint sound comes from my earpiece. “Ms. Iparis.” Thomas’s voice comes out as a tiny hum that only I can hear. “Everything working?”
“Yup,” I murmur. The little microphone picks up my throat’s vibrations. “In central Lake now. I’m going dark for a bit.”
“Got it,” Thomas says, and his side falls silent.
I make a clicking sound with my tongue to turn off my microphone.
I spend most of this first morning pretending to dig around in the garbage bins. From the other beggars I hear stories about plague victims, which areas the police seem most nervous about, and which have started to recover. They talk about the best places to find food, the best places to find fresh water. The best places to hide during hurricanes. Some of the beggars look too young to have even taken the Trial. The youngest ones talk about their parents or how to pickpocket a soldier.
But no one talks about Day.
The hours drag on into evening, then night. When I find a quiet alley to rest in, with a few other beggars already asleep in the garbage bins, I curl into a dark corner and click my microphone on. Then I take out Day’s pendant necklace from my pocket, holding it up slightly so I can study its smooth bumps.
“Calling it a night,” I murmur. My throat barely vibrates.
My hearing piece crackles faintly with static. “Ms. Iparis?” Thomas says. “Any luck today?”
“Nope, no luck. I’ll try some public places tomorrow.”
“Okay. We’ll have people over here twenty-four seven.”
By “people over here twenty-four seven,” I know Thomas means he’s the only one there, listening for me. “Thanks,” I whisper. “Going dark.” I click my microphone off. My stomach rumbles. I pull out a slice of chicken I found in the back of a café’s kitchen and force myself to munch on it, ignoring the slime of cold grease. If I need to live like a Lake citizen, I’ll have to eat like one. Maybe I should get a job, I think. The idea makes me snort a little.
When I finally fall asleep, I have a bad dream, and Metias is in it.
I find nothing substantial the next day, or the day after that. My hair grows tangled and dull in the heat and smoke, and dirt has started to coat my face. When I look at my reflection in the lake, I realize that I look exactly like a street beggar now. Everything feels dirty. On the fourth day, I make my way to the rim of Lake and Blueridge and decide to spend my time wandering through the bars.
That’s when something happens. I stumble into a Skiz fight.
THE RULES FOR WATCHING—AND BETTING ON—a Skiz fight are simple enough.
1. You pick who you think will win.
2. You bet on that person.
That’s about it. The only problem that comes up is when you’re too infamous to risk placing a public bet and possibly getting picked up by the police.
This afternoon I’m crouched behind the chimney of a crumbling, one-story warehouse. From here I can see the crowd of people gathered in the abandoned building next door. I’m even close enough to make out some of their conversations.
And Tess. Tess is down there with them, her delicate frame nearly lost in the shuffle, with a pouch of our money and a smile on her face. I watch as she listens to other gamblers discuss the fighters. She asks them a few questions of her own. I don’t dare take my eyes off her. Street police who are unhappy with their bribes sometimes break up Skiz fights, arresting people as they go, and as a result, I never stand with the crowd when Tess and I watch the fights. If they catch me and fingerprint me, it’s over for both of us. Tess, though, is slender and wily. She can escape a raid much more easily than I can. But that doesn’t mean I’ll leave her on her own.
“Keep moving, cousin,” I mutter under my breath as Tess stops to laugh at some young gambler’s joke. Don’t get too close to her, you trot.
A noise comes from one end of the crowd. My eyes flick there for a second. One of the fighters is stirring up the onlookers by waving her arms and yelling. I smile. That girl is named Kaede, or so the crowd’s chants tell me. Kaede is the very same bartender I met days ago while passing through the Alta sector. She flexes her wrists, then bounces on her feet and shakes out her arms.
Kaede has already won a match. Going by the unspoken rules of Skiz, she must now fight until she loses a round—until her opponent throws her to the ground. Each time she wins, she gets a cut of the overall bet on her opponent. My eyes wander to the girl she just picked out to be her next challenger. The girl is olive-skinned, with furrowed brows and an uncertain expression. I roll my eyes. Surely the crowd must know that this fight’s going to be a no-brainer. This challenger will be lucky if Kaede lets her live.
Tess waits for a moment when no one is paying attention to her, then glances up quickly in my direction. I hold up one finger. She grins, then winks at me and looks back to the crowd. She hands money to the person organizing bets—a big, burly guy. We’ve cast one thousand Notes, almost all our money, in favor of Kaede.
The fight lasts for less than a minute. Kaede strikes early and hard, lunging out and striking the other girl viciously across the face. The other girl wavers. Kaede toys with her like a cat playing with her food before lashing out again with her fist. The challenger crashes to the ground, hitting her head on the cement floor, where she lies in a daze. Knockout. The crowd cheers, and several people help the girl stumble out of the ring. I exchange a brief smile with Tess, who gathers up our winnings and stuffs it into the pouch.
Fifteen hundred Notes. I swallow hard, warning myself not to get too excited. One step closer to a vial of cure.
My attention is back on the cheering crowd. Kaede flips her hair at the audience and strikes a mock pose for them, which makes them go wild. “Who’s next?”
The crowd chants back. “Choose! Choose!”
Kaede looks slowly around the circle, shaking her head or sometimes tilting it to one side. I keep my eyes on Tess. She stands on her tiptoes behind several taller people, straining for a good look. Then she taps them hesitantly on their shoulders, says something, and pushes her way forward. I tighten my jaw at the sight. Next time I’ll join her. Then she can sit on my shoulders and finally get to see the fights, instead of calling unwanted attention to herself.
A second later, I bolt upright. Tess has pushed her way past one of the larger gamblers. He shouts something at her, something angry, and before Tess can apologize, I see him shove her roughly into the ring’s center. She stumbles, and the crowd roars with laughter.
Anger boils up in my chest. Kaede seems amused by
the whole thing. “Is that a challenge, kid?” she shouts. A grin breaks out on her face. “Ya look like fun.” Tess looks around, bewildered. She tries to take a step back into the crowd, but they block her path. When I see Kaede nod her head in Tess’s direction, I rise up from my crouch. This trot’s going to choose Tess.
Oh, hell no. Not while I’m watching. Not if Kaede wants to live.
Suddenly, a voice rings out from below. I pause. Some girl has made her way to the front of the ring, where she stares at Kaede. She rolls her eyes. “Doesn’t seem like a fair fight,” she calls out.
Kaede laughs. There’s a brief silence.
Then Kaede shouts back, “Who the hell you think ya are, talking t’me like that? Think you’re better?” She points at the girl, and the crowd lets out a cheer. I see Tess scurry into the safety of the crowd. This new girl has taken Tess’s place, whether she meant to or not.
I let out a long breath. When I’ve managed to calm down, I take a closer look at Kaede’s new opponent.
She’s not much taller than Tess and definitely lighter than Kaede. For a second it seems like the crowd’s attention has made her uncomfortable and I’m ready to dismiss her as a real contender until I study her again. No, this girl is nothing like the last one. She’s hesitating not because she’s afraid to fight, or because she fears losing, but because she’s thinking. Calculating. She has dark hair tied back in a high ponytail and a lean, athletic build. She stands deliberately, with a hand resting on her hip, as if nothing in the world can catch her off guard. I find myself pausing to admire her face.
For a brief moment, I’m lost to my surroundings.
