AFTER THE SOLDIER AND I LEFT THE BALCONY AND the throng of people outside our hospital room, I made sure guards stood outside our door (“In case any fans come barging in,” the soldier said before she left), then requested extra blankets and medicine for June. I didn’t want to get up and see Kaede still standing below the balcony. Gradually, the shouts outside started to die down. Eventually, everything sank into silence. Now we’re completely alone, except for the guards standing outside our door.
Everything’s ready to go, but I stand unmoving at June’s bedside. There’s nothing in here I can make into a weapon, so if we really do need to make a run for it tonight, all we can hope for is that we won’t have to fight anyone. That no one will notice we’re gone until morning.
I get up and walk to the balcony. The snow on the ground below is completely trampled and dark with the dirt of boots. Kaede isn’t there anymore, of course. I soak in the Colonies landscape for a while, puzzling once again over Kaede’s sign.
Why would Kaede tell me to return to the Republic? Is she trying to trap me or warn me? Then again—if she wanted to hurt us, why did she hit Baxter and let us go in Pierra? She’d even urged us to escape before the other Patriots could get to us. I turn to June, who’s still sleeping. Her breathing is more even now, and the flush on her cheeks is less pronounced than it was several hours ago. Still, I don’t dare disturb her.
More minutes drag by. I wait to see if Kaede will try again. After the dizzying speed of everything that’s happened to us, I’m not used to being stuck here like this. Suddenly there’s too much time.
A thud sounds out against the balcony doors. I jump to my feet. Maybe a branch broke off a tree, or a shingle fell from the roof. I wait now, alert. Nothing happens for a while. Then there’s another thud against the glass.
I get up from June’s bed, walk over to the balcony doors, and carefully peek out through the glass. No one’s there. My eyes skip to the balcony floor. There, in plain sight, are two small rocks—one with a note tied to it.
I unlock the balcony door, slide it open a little, and grab the note from the rock. Then I lock the door again and open the note up. The words are hastily scrawled.
Come outside. I’m alone. Emergency. Here to help. We have to talk.—K
Emergency. I crumple the note in my hand. What does she think is an emergency? Isn’t everything an emergency right now? She had helped us escape—but that doesn’t mean I’m ready to trust her.
Not a minute has passed before a third rock hits the door. This time, its message reads:
If you don’t talk to me now, you’re gonna regret it.—K
My temper rises at the threat. Kaede does have the power to turn us in for messing up the Patriots’ plans. I stay where I am, rereading the note in my hands. Maybe just for a few minutes, I tell myself. That’s it. Just long enough to see what Kaede wants. Then I’m coming back inside.
I grab my coat, take a deep breath, and step back over to the balcony doors. My fingers quietly undo the latch. A cold wind hits my face as I sneak out onto the balcony, crouch low, lock the balcony doors, and push them closed. If anyone’s going to break in to hurt June, they’re going to have to make enough noise to alert the guards outside. I leap down the side of the balcony, twist around, and grab on to the ledge with my hands. I lower myself down until I’m dangling halfway between the first and second floors. Then I let go.
My boots land in powdered snow with a soft crunch. I take a last look at the second floor ledge, memorize where this hospital building is on the street, then tuck my hair into my coat and flatten myself against the wall.
The streets are empty and silent at this hour. I wait against the side of the building for a minute before I step out. Come on, Kaede. My breath comes out in short bursts of steam. My eyes scour the nooks and crannies around me, checking for danger. But I’m all alone. You wanted me to meet you out here? Well, I’m here.
“Talk to me,” I whisper under my breath as I walk alongside the building. My eyes search for street patrols, but no one’s out here.
Suddenly I pause. There’s a subtle shadow crouched in one of the nearby alleys. I tense up. “Come out,” I whisper loud enough for the person to hear me. “I know you’re there.”
Kaede materializes out of the shadows, then waves me over. “Walk with me,” she whispers back. “Hurry.” She scurries off into a narrow alley hidden behind a row of snow-laden bushes. We go down the alleyway until it crosses a wider street, which Kaede turns onto sharply. I hurry after her. My eyes search every corner. I gauge all the spots where I can shimmy up to a higher floor in case anyone tries to take me by surprise. Every hair on my neck stands on end, rigid with tension.
Kaede gradually slows her walk until we’re side by side. She’s wearing the same pants and boots that she had on during the attempt earlier in the day, but has switched out her military jacket for a wool cloak and scarf. Her face is scrubbed clean of the black stripe.
“All right, be fast about this,” I say to her. “I don’t want to leave June for too long. What are you doing here?” I make sure to keep a good distance between us, just in case she decides to get happy with a knife or something. We do seem to be alone, I’ll give her that much, but I still make sure we stay on a main street where I can get away if I need to. A few Colonies workers hurry past us, aglow from the lights of building ads. Kaede’s eyes glitter with near-frantic anxiety, a look that’s completely foreign on her face.
“I couldn’t climb up to your room,” she says. The scarf around her mouth muffles her words, and she pushes it down impatiently. “Damn guards would hear me. That’s why you’re the Runner, not me. I swear that I’m not here to harm your precious June. If she’s just by herself up there, she’s gonna be fine. We’ll be quick.”
“Did you follow us down through the tunnel?”
Kaede nods. “Managed to clear enough rubble away to squeeze through.”
“Where are the others?”
She pulls her gloves on tighter, blows warm air on her hands, and mutters in disgust about the weather. “They’re not here. Just me. I needed to warn you.”
A sick feeling rises in my stomach. “About what? Is it Tess?”
Kaede stops what she’s doing to poke me hard in the ribs. “Assassination was botched.” She holds up two hands before I can interrupt. “Yeah, yeah, I know you’re already aware of this. A lot of Patriots have been arrested. Some of them got away too—our Tess did, at least. She ran with a few of our Pilots and Runners. Pascao and Baxter too.” I spit out a curse. Tess. I feel a sudden compulsion to chase her, to make sure she’s safe—and then I remember the last thing she said to me. Kaede plunges on as we continue to walk. “I don’t know where they are now. But here’s what you don’t know. I didn’t even know, until you and June stopped the assassination. Jordan—the Runner girl, you remember, right?—uncovered all this info from a comp drive and handed it off to one of our Hackers.” She takes a deep breath, stops, and turns her head down to the ground. Her voice’s usual strength fades. “Day, Razor played all of us. He lied to the Patriots, then handed them over to the Republic.”
I halt in my walk. “What?”
“Razor told us that the Colonies hired us to kill the Elector and start a revolution,” Kaede says. “But that’s not true. Found out on the day of the assassination that the Republic’s Senate is sponsoring the Patriots.” She shakes her head. “Do you believe that? The Republic hired the Patriots to assassinate Anden.”
I’m silent. Stunned. June’s words echo in my mind, how she’d told me that Congress dislikes their new Elector, how she thought Razor was lying. The things he’s told us don’t add up, she’d said.
“Blindsided all of us—except for Razor,” Kaede says when I don’t respond. We start walking again. “The Senators want Anden dead. They figured they could use us and pin the blame on us too.”
My blood is racing so fast I can barely hear myself speak. “Why would Razor sell out the Patriots like that? Hasn’t he been with them for a decade? And I thought Congress was trying not to cause a revolution.”
Kaede slumps her shoulders and lets out a breath of steam. “He got caught working for the Patriots a couple of years ago. So he made a deal with Congress: He leads the Patriots into killing Anden, the young revolutionary spitfire, and Congress forgets about his traitorous ties. At the end of it all, Razor gets to be the new Elector—and with you and June working for him, he comes off like the people’s hero or something. The public would think that the Patriots took over the government, when it’s really only the Republic all over again. Razor doesn’t want the United States to be restored—he just wants to preserve himself. And he’ll join whatever side’s most convenient to achieve that.”
I close my eyes. My world is spinning. Hadn’t June warned me about Razor? All this time, I’ve been working for the Republic’s Senators. They’re the ones who want Anden dead. No wonder the Colonies don’t seem to have any idea what the Patriots are up to. Then I open my eyes. “But they failed,” I say. “Anden is still alive.”
“Anden is still alive,” Kaede repeats. “Thankfully.”
I should have trusted June all along. My anger toward the young Elector shudders and trembles, grows weak. Does this mean . . . that he actually did release Eden? Is my brother free and safe? I study Kaede. “You came all the way here to tell me that?” I whisper.
“Yup. Know why?” She leans closer, until her nose is almost touching mine. “Anden is about to lose his grip on the country. The people are this close to revolting against him.” She holds two fingers close together. “If he falls, we’re gonna have a lot of trouble stopping Razor from taking over the Republic. Right now, Anden’s fighting for control of the military while Razor and Commander Jameson are trying to wrestle it away from him. The government’s about to split in two.”
“Wait—Commander Jameson?” I ask.
“There was a chat transcript recorded between her and Razor on that comp drive. Remember how we ran into her on board the RS Dynasty?” Kaede replies. “Razor made it sound like he had no idea she’d be there. But I think she totally recognized you. She must’ve wanted to see you with her own eyes. To know that you were truly a part of Razor’s plans.” Kaede grimaces. “I should’ve sensed something off about Razor. I was wrong about Anden too.”
“Why do you care what happens to the Republic?” I say. The wind whips snow flurries up from the street, echoing the coldness in my words. “And why now?”
“I was in it for the money—I admit that.” Kaede shakes her head and sets her mouth in a tight line. “But first of all—I didn’t get paid, because the plan didn’t go off. Second, I didn’t sign up to destroy the country, to hand all the Republic’s civilians right back to another goddy Elector.” Then she trails off a little, and her eyes go misty. “I don’t know . . . maybe I was hoping that the Patriots could give me a nobler goal than making money. Joining these two cracked nations back together. That would’ve been nice.”
The winter wind stings my face. Kaede doesn’t need to tell me why she came all the way here to get me. After hearing this, I know why. I remember what Tess said to me back in Lamar. They’re all looking to you, Day. They’re waiting for your next move. I might be the only person who can save Anden now. I am the only person that the Republic’s people will listen to.
We fall silent and sink farther into the shadows as a pair of Colonies police guards rush by. Snow flies underneath their boots. I watch until they disappear down the last alley we’d come through. Where are they going?
When Kaede just continues walking with her scarf covering her mouth again, I say, “What about the Colonies?”
“What about them?” she mutters through fabric.
“What about letting the Republic collapse and the Colonies take over? What about that idea?”
“It was never about letting the Colonies win. The Patriots are about re-creating the United States. However that can be accomplished.” Kaede pauses, then motions for us to turn down a different street. We walk two more blocks before she stops us in front of an enormous row of dilapidated buildings.
“What’s this?” I ask Kaede, but she doesn’t respond. I turn back to the building in front of me. It’s about thirty or so stories tall, but stretches unbroken for several city blocks. Every few dozen yards, tiny, dark entrances are carved into the compound’s bottom floor. Water drips from the sides, from windows and decaying balconies, carving ugly lines of fungus into the walls. The structure stretches on down the street from where we stand—from the sky it must look like a gigantic black cinder block.
I gape at it. After seeing the lights of the Colonies’ skyscrapers, it’s shocking to know that a building like this exists over here. I’ve seen abandoned Republic complexes that look better than this. The windows and corridors are squeezed so closely together that no light could possibly get down to the bottom. I peer inside one of the black entrances.
Darkness, nothing. The sound of dripping water and faint footsteps echoes from inside. Now and then, I see a flickering light go by, as if someone’s in there with a lantern. I peer up at the higher floors. Most of the windows are cracked and shattered, or missing altogether. Some of them have plastic taped across the opening. Old pots on the balconies catch dripping water, and several have lines of tattered clothing hanging off the ledges. There must be people living in there. But the thought makes me shiver. I look back once at the glittering skyscrapers on the block right behind us, then forward at this rotting cement structure.
A commotion at the end of the street catches our attention. I tear my eyes away from the compound. A block down, there’s a middle-aged woman in men’s boots and a shabby coat pleading at the top of her lungs with a pair of men dressed in heavy plastic gear. Both have clear visors covering their faces and large, wide-brimmed hats on their heads.
“Watch,” Kaede whispers. Then she drags us into one of the dark entrances between two doors on the compound’s ground level. We lean our heads slightly so that we can hear what’s going on. Even though they’re fairly far away, the woman’s voice carries clearly across the quiet, icy air.
“—just missed one payment this year,” the woman’s saying. “I can run to the bank first thing in the morning and give you as many Notes as I have—”
One of the men interrupts her. “DesCon policy, ma’am. We cannot investigate crimes for customers who have been delinquent on payments to their local police.”
The woman is in tears, wringing her hands so hard that I feel like she’s going to rub her skin right off. “There must be something you can do,” she says. “Something I can give you or another police department I—”
The second man shakes his head. “All police departments share DesCon’s policy. Who’s your employer?”
“Cloud Corp,” the woman says hopefully. As if this info might persuade them to help her.
“Cloud Corp discourages its workers from being out past eleven P.M.” He nods up at the compound. “If you don’t return to your home, DesCon Corp will report you to Cloud and you might lose your job.”
“But they’ve stolen everything I have!” The woman breaks into loud sobs. “My door is completely—completely bashed in—all of my food and clothes are gone. The men who did it live on my floor—if you please come with me, you can catch them—I know which apartment they live in—”
The two men have already started walking away. The woman scampers behind them, begging for help, even as they keep ignoring her.
“But my home—if you don’t do something—how will I—” she keeps saying. The men repeat their warnings to report her.
After they’re gone, I turn back to Kaede. “What was that?”
“Wasn’t it obvious?” Kaede replies sarcastically as we step out from the building’s darkness and back into the street.
We’re quiet. Finally, Kaede says, “The working class gets shafted everywhere, don’t they? My point is this: The Colonies are better than the Republic in some ways. But believe it or not, the reverse is also true. No such thing as the stupid utopia you’ve been fantasizing about, Day. Doesn’t exist. There was no point trying to tell you that before. It’s just something you had to see for yourself.”
We start heading back to the hospital. Two more Colonies soldiers hurry past us, neither of them bothering to take us in. A million thoughts whirl through my head. My father must never have set foot inside the Colonies—or if he did, he only skimmed the surface of it, the way June and I had when we first arrived. A lump rises in my throat.
“Do you trust Anden?” I say after a moment. “Is he worth saving? Is the Republic worth saving?”
Kaede makes several more turns. Finally, she stops next to a shop with miniature screens in its window, each one broadcasting different Colonies programming. Kaede guides us into the store’s tiny side street, where the darkness of the night swallows us. She pauses to motion at the broadcasting screens inside the store. I remember passing a shop like this on our way into the city. “The Colonies always show news snatched from Republic airwaves,” she says. “They have a whole channel for it. This news bite has been on repeat ever since the failed assassination.”
My eyes wander over to the headlines on the monitor. At first I just stare blankly, lost in my churning thoughts about the Patriots, but a moment later I realize that the broadcast isn’t about warfront skirmishes or Colonies news, but about the Republic’s Elector. A surge of dislike instinctively courses through me at the sight of Anden on the screen. I strain to hear the newscast, wondering how differently the Colonies would interpret the same events.
A caption runs under Anden’s recorded address. I read it in disbelief.
ELECTOR FREES YOUNGER BROTHER OF NOTORIOUS REBEL “DAY”; TO ADDRESS PUBLIC TOMORROW FROM CAPITOL TOWER.
“As of today,” the Elector says in a prerecorded video, “Eden Bataar Wing is officially freed from military service and, as thanks for his contributions, exempt from the Trials. All others being transported along the warfront have been released to their families as well.”
I have to rub my eyes and read the captions again.
They’re still there. The Elector has freed Eden.
Suddenly I can’t feel the cold air anymore. I can’t feel anything. My legs feel weak. My breath keeps time with the hammering of my heart. This can’t be right. The Elector is probably announcing this publicly so he can lure me back into the Republic and into his service. He’s trying to trick me and make himself look good. There’s no way he would’ve released Eden—and all the others, the boy I’d seen on the train—of his own accord. No possible way.
No possible way? Even after everything June had told me, even after what Kaede just said? Even now, I don’t trust Anden? What’s wrong with me?
Then, as I continue watching, the Elector’s recorded address makes way for a video showing Eden being escorted out of a courthouse, shackle-free and dressed in clothes that usually belong on the child of an elite family.
His blond curls are neatly brushed. He searches the streets with blind eyes, but he’s smiling. I push my hand deeper into the snow in an attempt to steady myself. Eden looks healthy, well taken care of. When was this filmed?
Anden’s newscast finally ends, and now the video shows footage of the failed assassination attempt followed by a reel of warfront battles. The captions are wildly different from what I’d see in the Republic.
FAILED ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT ON REPUBLIC’S NEW ELECTOR PRIMO, THE LATEST SIGN OF UNREST IN REPUBLIC
The caption is wrapped up by a smaller line in the corner of the screen that says THIS BROADCAST BROUGHT TO YOU BY EVERGREEN ENT. The now-familiar circular symbol is beside it.
“Make up your own mind about Anden,” Kaede mutters. She stops to wipe snowflakes off her eyelashes.
I was wrong. The certainty of this sits in my stomach like a dead weight, a rock of guilt for turning so viciously on June when she’d tried to explain all of it to me in the underground shelter. The awful things I’d said to her. I think of the strange, unsettling ads I’ve seen here, the crumbling living quarters of the poor, the disappointment I feel in knowing that the Colonies aren’t the shining beacon my father imagined. His dream of glittering skyscrapers and a better life was just that.
I remember my dream of what I’d do after all this was over . . . run into the Colonies with June, Tess, Eden . . . start a new life, leave the Republic behind. Maybe I’ve been trying to escape to the wrong place and run away from the wrong things. I think of all the times I clashed with soldiers. The hatred I had for Anden and everyone who grew up rich. Then I picture the slums that I’d grown up in. I despise the Republic, don’t I? I want to see them collapse, yeah? But only now do I make the distinction—I despise the Republic’s laws, but I love the Republic itself. I love the people. I’m not just doing this for the Elector; I’m doing this for them.
“Are the speakers at the Capitol Tower still hooked up to the JumboTrons?” I ask Kaede.
“As far as I know, yeah,” she replies. “With all the commotion over the last forty-eight hours, no one’s noticed the modified wiring.”
My eyes go to the rooftops, where fighter jets lie in wait. “Are you as good of a pilot as you say?” I ask.
Kaede shrugs her shoulders and grins. “Better.”
Slowly, a plan starts to form in my mind.
Another pair of Colonies soldiers runs by. This time, an unsettling feeling creeps down my neck. These soldiers, like the last ones, also turn down the alley we’d come through. I make sure there are no more coming, then hurry out into the darkness of the street. No, no. Not now.
Kaede follows close behind. “What is it?” she whispers. “You just turned as white as a goddy snowstorm.”
I’d left her alone and vulnerable in a place I once thought would be our safe haven. I’d left her to the wolves. And if something happens to her now because of me . . . I break into a run. “I think they’re heading toward the hospital,” I say. “For June.”