Prodigy (7 page)

THE PATRIOTS DISGUISE ME BEFORE WE HEAD OUT.

Kaede cuts my hair so it stops right below my shoulders, then she tints the white-blond
strands a dark brownish red. She uses some sort of spray to do it, something they
can remove with a special cleanser if they need to strip the color out. Razor gives
me a pair of brown contact lenses that completely hide the bright blue of my eyes.
Only I can tell that it’s artificial; I can still see the tiny, tiny specks of deep
purple dotting my irises. These contacts are a luxury in themselves—rich trots use
them to change their eye color—for
fun.
They would’ve come in handy for me on the streets if I’d had access to them. Kaede
adds a synthetic scar to my cheek, then finishes off my disguise with a first-year
air force uniform; a full black suit with red stripes running along each pant leg.

Finally, she equips me with a tiny flesh-colored earpiece and mike—the first embedded
discreetly in my ear, the second inside my cheek.

Razor himself is decked out in a custom Republic officer uniform. Kaede wears a flawless
flight outfit—a black jumpsuit with silver wing stripes wrapped around both sleeves,
matching white condor gloves, and wing goggles. She’s not a Pilot in the Patriots
for nothing—according to Razor, she can pull off a split-S in the air better than
anyone he’s ever seen. Kaede should have no trouble posing as a Republic fighter pilot.

Tess is already gone, whisked away half an hour ago by a soldier who Razor says is
another Patriot. Tess is too young to pass as a soldier of any level, so getting her
onto the RS
Dynasty
means dressing her in a simple brown collar shirt and trousers, the outfit of workers
who operate the airship’s hundreds of stoves.

And then there’s June.

June quietly watches my transformation from the couch. She hasn’t said much since
our last conversation over my recovery bed. While the rest of us have our various
getups, June is unchanged—no makeup, her eyes still dark and penetrating, her hair
still pulled back in that shiny tail. She’s dressed in the plain cadet uniform Razor
gave us last night. In fact, June doesn’t look all that different from the photo on
her military ID. She’s the only one of us who isn’t equipped with a mike and earpiece,
for obvious reasons. I try to catch her gaze a few times while Kaede works on my appearance.

Less than an hour later, we head down the main Vegas strip in Razor’s officer jeep.
We pass several of the first pyramids—the Alexandria dock, the Luxor, the Cairo, the
Sphinx. All named after some ancient pre-Republic civilization, or at least that’s
what we were taught back when the Republic actually allowed me in school. They look
different during the day, with their bright beacon lights off and edges unlit, looming
like giant black tombs in the middle of the desert. Soldiers bustle in and out of
their entrances. It’s good to see so much activity—all the better for us to blend
in. I go over our own uniforms again. Polished and authentic. I can’t get used to
it, even though June and I have technically been passing as soldiers for weeks. The
collar scratches at my neck, and the sleeves feel way too stiff. I don’t know how
June could stand wearing this stuff all the time. Does she at least like how it looks
on me? My shoulders
do
seem a little broader.

“Stop tugging on your uniform,” June whispers when she sees me fiddling with the edges
of my military jacket. “You’re messing up its alignment.”

It’s the most I’ve heard her say in an hour. “You’re just as nervous,” I reply.

June hesitates, then turns away again. Her jaw is clenched as if to keep herself from
blurting something out. “Just trying to help,” she mutters.

After a while, I reach over to squeeze her hand once. She squeezes back.

Finally, we reach the Pharaoh, the landing dock where the RS
Dynasty
is resting. Razor ushers us out, then has us stand at attention. Only June falls
out of line, stopping beside Razor and facing off to one side of the street. I watch
her discreetly.

A second later, another soldier melts from the crowd and nods at Razor, then at June,
who straightens her shoulders, joins up behind the soldier, and disappears back into
the street crowd. Out of sight, just like that. I exhale, hollowed out by her sudden
absence.

I won’t see her again until the whole thing’s over. If it all goes well.
Don’t think like that. It
will
go well.

We head inside with the tides of other soldiers filing into and out of the Pharaoh.
The interior is huge; beyond the main entrance, the ceiling stretches all the way
up to the top of the pyramid and ends with the base of the RS
Dynasty,
where I can see tiny figures boarding through a maze of ramps and walkways. Rows
of barrack doors line each level of the pyramid’s sides. Long marquees of text run
across each wall with a never-ending onslaught of departure and arrival times. Diagonal
elevators run along each of the pyramid’s four main edges.

Here, Razor leaves us behind. One second he’s walking ahead, and the next he takes
an abrupt turn through the crowds and melts in with the sea of uniforms. Kaede continues
walking without hesitation, but slows enough so we’re side by side. I can barely see
her lips move, but her voice echoes with razor-sharp clarity from my earpiece.

“Razor will board the
Dynasty
with the other officers, but we can’t go in with the soldiers or we’ll get ID’d.
So sneaking in is our next best option—”

My eyes go up to the airship’s base, skimming across the nooks and crannies lining
its sides. I think back on the time when I broke into a grounded airship and stole
two bags’ worth of canned food. Or the time I sank a smaller airship in Los Angeles’s
lake by flooding its engines. For both cases, there was one easy way of getting in
undetected. “The garbage chutes,” I murmur back through my own mike.

Kaede gives me a quick, approving grin. “Spoken like a true Runner.”

We make our way through the crowds until we reach an elevator terminal at one of the
pyramid’s corners. Here we blend in with the small group clustered in front of the
elevator door. Kaede clicks her mike off to make small talk with me, and I’m careful
not to make eye contact with the other soldiers. So many of them are younger than
I’d imagined, even close to my age, and several already have permanent injuries—metal
limbs like my own, a missing ear, a hand covered with burn scars. I glance up again
at the
Dynasty,
this time long enough to note all the garbage chute openings along the side of the
hull. If we’re going to shimmy our way up into this airship, we’re going to have to
do it fast.

Soon the elevator comes. We take the nauseating ride up the diagonal side of the pyramid,
then wait at the top while everyone else files out. We exit last. As the others scatter
to either side of the top hall leading toward the airship’s entrance ramps, Kaede
turns to me.

“One more flight for us,” she says, nodding toward a narrower set of stairs at the
end of the hall that lead up to the pyramid’s inside ceiling. I study it quietly.
She’s right. These stairs go right up into the ceiling (and probably lead up to the
roof), and all along this ceiling are mazes of metal scaffolding and crisscrossing
support beams. From here, the docked airship’s back side casts a shadow across the
ceiling that swathes this part of it in darkness. If we can leap off the middle of
this last flight of stairs and climb up into that mess of metal beams, we can make
our way over to the airship undetected in the shadows and climb up the dark side of
the hull. Plus, the air vents are noisy this close up. That, along with the noise
and bustle of the base, should mask any sounds we make.

Here’s hoping my new leg holds up. I stomp down on it twice to test it. It doesn’t
hurt, but there’s a little pressure where my flesh meets the metal, like it hasn’t
completely fused yet. Still, I can’t help smiling. “This’ll be fun, yeah?” I say.
I’m almost back in my element, at least for a moment, back where I’m at my best.

We make our way up into the shadowy stairs, and then each of us takes the short leap
up into the scaffolding and climbs into the beams. Kaede’s first. She struggles a
little with her bandaged arm, but manages to get a good grip after some shuffling.
Then it’s my turn. I swing effortlessly up into the beams and weave my body into the
shadows. Leg’s good so far. Kaede watches me approvingly.

“Feeling mighty fine,” I whisper.

“I can see that.”

We travel in silence. My pendant slips out of my shirt a couple of times and I have
to tuck it back in. Sometimes I look down or toward the airship; the floor of the
landing base is packed with cadets of all ranks, and now that most of the
Dynasty
’s previous crew have rotated out of the ship, the new ones are starting to form long
lines at the entrance ramps. I watch as each one passes through a quick inspection,
ID check, and body scan. Far below us, more cadets are accumulating near the elevator
doors.

Suddenly I pause.

“What’s the problem?” Kaede snaps.

I hold up a finger. My eyes are fixed on the ground, frozen on a familiar figure who’s
cutting his way through the crowd.

Thomas.

This trot’s tracked us all the way from Los Angeles. He stops now and then to question
what seem like random soldiers. With him is a dog so white, it stands out like a beacon
from this height. I rub my eyes to make sure I’m not hallucinating. Yep, he’s still
there. He continues to weave his way through the crowd, one hand on the gun at his
waist, the other holding the leash to that enormous white shepherd. A small line of
soldiers follows him. My limbs turn numb for an instant, and suddenly all I see is
Thomas lifting his gun and pointing it at my mother, Thomas beating me to a pulp in
a Batalla Hall interrogation room. My vision swims in red.

Kaede notices what’s holding my attention and turns her head down to the ground floor
too. Her voice snaps me back. “He’s here for June,” she whispers. “Keep moving.”

Immediately I begin to crawl again, even though my whole body’s shaking. “June?” I
whisper back. I can feel my rage rising. “You guys put
him,
of all people, onto June’s trail?”

“It was for a good reason.”

“And what’s that?”

Kaede sighs impatiently. “Thomas won’t hurt her.”

Stay calm, stay calm, stay calm.
I force myself to keep going. No choice but to trust Kaede now. Eyes forward. Keep
moving. My hands tremble and I fight to steady them, to push down my hatred. The thought
of Thomas putting his hands on June is more than I can bear. If I focus on that now,
I won’t be able to concentrate on anything else.

Stay. Calm.

Below us, Thomas’s patrol keeps making their way through the masses. He’s gradually
moving toward the elevators.

We reach the hull of the ship. From here, I can see the line of soldiers waiting to
get in via the ramps. That’s when I hear the white shepherd’s first bark. Thomas and
his soldiers are now gathered at one of the elevator terminals. The same one we went
through. The dog is barking relentlessly, his nose pointed at the elevator door, his
tail wagging.
Eyes forward. Keep moving.

I glance back down at the ground level. Thomas has one hand pressed tightly against
what must be his earpiece. He stands there for a minute, as if struggling to understand
something he’s hearing. Then, suddenly, he shouts at his men and they start heading
away from the elevators. Back into the crowds of soldiers.

They must have found June.

We make our way across the shadows of the pyramid’s ceiling until we’re perched close
enough to the dark side of the ship’s hull. It looms a good dozen feet away from us,
with only a lone metal ladder running vertically up its side to the top of the ship’s
deck. Kaede readjusts her balance on the metal beams, then turns back to me. “Make
the first jump,” she says. “You’re better.”

Time to move. Kaede shifts enough so I can get a good angle on the ship. I adjust
my footing, brace myself, hope my leg stays intact, then take a giant leap. My body
slams against the ladder bars with a muffled thud, and I grit my teeth to keep from
yelling. Pain lances up and down my healing leg. I wait for a few seconds, letting
the strain die down before I start climbing again. I can’t see the patrol anymore
from this back side, but that means—hopefully—that they can’t see us either. Better
yet, I hope they’re gone. Behind me I hear Kaede take her own leap and hit the ladder
several feet below me.

Finally, I reach the garbage chute opening. I launch off from the ladder—my hands
catch the side of the chute and my arms swing me right into the darkness. There’s
another jolt of pain, but the leg still pulses with newfound energy, strong for the
first time in a long time. I dust off my hands and stand up. The first thing I notice
inside the chute is the cold air. They must have the insides of the ship cooled for
the launch.