Mirror's Edge

by Scott Westerfeld

  They take me to see Boss Frey.

  She’s down among the trees just beyond the border, surrounded by her rebel army. They swirl around us, hundreds of them, priming weapons and swapping out hoverboard batteries before the final push on Shreve.

  Her name—my name—is on all their lips.

  Rafi is the radiant center of the storm, her eyes alight. When she spots me and my escorts, confusion flashes on her face, as if she’s forgotten my camo-surge. But a moment later, she reconciles my new and old selves, grabs me, and spins me in an ecstatic dance.

  “You made it! You’re going to be with us for the end!”

  I pull away. “How are you here? I thought you were a thousand klicks away!”

  She smiles. “We started mobilizing the moment you left, silly. Did you think I’d let you walk into Shreve without backup?”

  I look around. This is too many soldiers for an extraction, and they’re armed with city-wrecking weapons from my sister’s secret cache—pulse bombs and plasma rifles.

  “This isn’t a rescue party,” I say.

  “Well, I knew something would happen.” Rafi laughs, as happy as I’ve ever seen her. “And it did, Frey, thanks to you!”

  My real name sends a start through me. At least a dozen people are in earshot, but everyone’s too busy to notice.

  Or maybe it wasn’t a slip.

  My voice drops. “Riggs found out about us switching places. Did she tell anyone?”

  “First daughter, second daughter.” Rafi waves a hand. “I don’t care what people call me.”

  “It matters to me. I want my name back!”

  “It’s yours, Frey. But you’ll need your old face for it to stick.”

  There, in her words, it hits me again—my dysmorphia by proxy. I’d gotten used to my camo-surge, but Rafi makes me feel like I’m in the wrong body again.

  Maybe she always has.

  “Don’t look so glum, little sister,” she says. “What matters is that Shreve is open and waiting for my army. The only birthday present I wanted, and you got it for me!”

  Her fingers touch the rings on my right hand. Her deadly gift.

  “I was only trying to get those people out of Shreve. I didn’t even know you were here.”

  “Stop pretending, little sister.” She gathers me into another hug, whispering in my ear, “I’m always with you.”

  It feels safe, here in my sister’s arms. But her buoyant mood is almost wild, at the fragile borderline of manic. Maybe it’s just that her lifelong dream is coming true.

  Rafi steps away and gives me a long look, full of sympathy for my bedraggled state.

  Then she does something sweet and simple—she hands me a canteen from her belt. I take a grateful drink of water.

  “We can end this together.” She speaks quietly, like we’re littlies sharing a secret. “Tonight.”

  Her words almost disappear into the roar of lifting fans overhead, and I look up. It’s my shuttle, repaired again, the last of the prisoners headed out into the safety of the wild.

  Rafi follows my skyward gaze. “Don’t worry—Col didn’t go. Your whole crew’s coming with us, plus a bunch of Diego jump troopers we found in the woods. We can trust them, right?”

  “Yes. It was Diego who opened the border.”

  Rafi narrows her eyes. “They also kept you in prison for a month.”

  “For my own protection.” I decide to change the subject. “Speaking of trust—this whole time, you knew who our spy was, didn’t you?”

  Rafi’s fevered smile returns. “How’d you guess that?”

  “She called me by my real name.”

  “Ugh, of course. Demeter’s my best friend, but she’s not the sharpest knife in the block.”

  Best friend. I take a step back.

  “We’ve been plotting for years, since we were kids,” Rafi says.

  “You never told me about any of this!”

  She takes my hand, drawing me near again. “You were part of it, Frey. Remember when you watched my parties? I said it was to make you a better impostor. But it was so you’d warn me if the cameras ever picked up us saying anything suspicious. You were protecting me, even if you didn’t know it!”

  “You mean, you trusted your bubblehead friends more than me?”

  “Daddy watched you closer. He was scared of you, not them.”

  I take a deep breath. What Rafi’s saying isn’t completely logic-missing, but it goes against my whole understanding of our childhood.

  We kept secrets from the rest of the world, not from each other. We were the secret.

  “Rafi, the night before I left for Shreve, you said not to trust the spy. Why, if she was your best friend?”

  “Because I didn’t want you talking to her and getting yourself confused.” Rafi turns away from me, dismissing my anger. “But I’ll admit, you were perfect. You created chaos beyond my wildest dreams.”

  In confirmation of her words, a distant rumble shakes the sky.

  I take another drink from the canteen, and the mineral taste of Rafi’s mountain lair curls on my tongue. All the logistics of this invasion unfold in my head—water, food, weapons, batteries, everything needed to fly hundreds of rebels half a continent across the wild and then throw them into battle.

  She must have been preparing for this trip for weeks.

  “You’ve kept a lot from me, Rafi. You never even told me about you and Riggs.”

  She raises a single eyebrow, the one gesture of hers I’ve never managed to imitate. “How did that come up?”

  “She thought I was you, just for a moment.”

  “How deliciously awkward.” Rafi’s tone changes all at once, sending a chill through me. “But you’ve kept a secret from me too, little sister.”

  “What secret?”

  “The free cities want you to rule Shreve,” she says.

  My anger twists in on itself.

  Suddenly I’m the hidden sister again—curtsying wrong, tying a scarf badly, forgetting someone’s name on a receiving line. Shame rolls through me like it’s spilling from my feels.

  “It wasn’t my idea,” I say.

  Rafi nods. “But it was in your head somewhere. All those years in my shadow—maybe you wanted to be me?”

  “No, it was Diego’s idea! When I was their captive, they tested me, to make sure I’m not like Father—and they couldn’t test you. That’s the only reason they wanted me in charge. I only agreed so they’d help us fight him!”

  But this whole mission, I’ve been studying Shreve. Preparing myself to lead.

  Rafi seems to see the doubts in my heart.

  “You never told me, though,” she says.

  The reasons for my silence fly through my head—Rafi’s tantrums when she was little and didn’t get her way. Her terrifying certainty, from age seven, that she’d one day kill our father.

  But all those explanations sound like attacks on her.

  She steps closer. “You thought I wouldn’t trust you, little sister? If we’re going to kill Dad tonight, we have to trust each other.”

  “I always trusted you, until …” Something becomes clear to me. “Until you stole my name. It was all I had.”

  “Ah.” She puts her arms around me. “I’m truly sorry for that, Frey.”

  There, in her embrace, the last few days come crashing down. Not only my exhaustion, but the weight of the dust always watching. The city pressing close against my skin. Its voice, so like our father’s, in my ears.

  “You were right—it was hard, coming home. He’s everywhere.”

  “Not for long.” She squeezes me tighter. “Not if we do this right.”

  “You can have the city, Rafi. Shreve was always supposed to be yours.”

  “Thank you, Frey.” She releases me at last. “But just so you understand—who do you think told me about your agreement with Diego?”

  My brain spins through the possibilities. It must have been one of the other cities in the alliance. “Someone
who wants me and you fighting each other so neither of us takes over?”

  “Clever Frey,” Rafi says, a smile playing on her lips. “Now look for a pattern.”

  A pattern. Of course.

  “Diego told you,” I whisper.

  She nods.

  Everything the city has done—testing me, offering me Shreve, changing my face—all of it was to drive a wedge between me and my sister. They admitted as much after my camo-surge.

  “Everyone wants to divide us,” Rafi says. “Because together we’re unstoppable. Now come and see.”

  She leads me through the trees, her hand in mine, like we’re littlies off to play a game. At the edge of the forest, we reach the border zone, where our father’s defenses once bristled. Now it’s a line of impact craters the size of radio telescopes, the awesome footprint of Diego’s bombardment.

  A fine ash covers everything.

  Parked along the nearest crater’s edge are dozens of hoverboards. Rafi leads me to one, sleek and black, and we stand on it together.

  She snaps her fingers. We rise into the air.

  Before us, Shreve’s skyline still shimmers from burning fires and the last patches of fighting.

  “A rebel army at our command, an open border, Shreve in tatters,” she says. “This is the best chance we’ll ever get.”

  “Yes.” My throat goes dry again. “One problem—Father’s turned his tower into a dirty bomb.”

  “So I’ve been informed.”

  I look at Rafi. “You’re going to lead your rebels into hand-to-hand combat—inside a nuclear waste dump?”

  “They know the risks. They’d rather face the nightmare now than let Dad fling it at some other city next week. There’s a thing about rebels—”

  “They love suicide missions,” I say softly.

  A smile. “You’re starting to understand.”

  I turn away from her pleased expression. Does Rafi think her rebels are expendable?

  But she’s risking herself too. Maybe she’s become one of them, with that same death wish as X and Seanan. Anything for the cause, even if her own cause is more personal than planetary.

  One fact cuts through all these thoughts—my sister is in danger, which kindles something old and pure inside me.

  “Don’t worry, Rafi. I’ll protect you.”

  She squeezes me. “I know.”

  The hoverboard gently descends, and a minute later, we’re back in the thick of preparations.

  A shout of “Boss Frey!” comes from the trees, and she heads off to handle something, leaving me alone in the whirlwind’s center.

  It’s hard to stand up straight. Maybe it’s the awesome fact that my father’s life might end tonight, or maybe it’s simple exhaustion—or that dose of radiation taking hold at last.

  I wonder if there’s somewhere to lie down, even for a few minutes.

  “Need any gear?” asks a familiar voice.

  It’s Riggs, a pair of shoes in her hand.

  I slip off the shoes I took from Terra, half a size small and coated with shame. Too bad there isn’t a fire to throw them in.

  Then I see why they hurt so much—

  There are burns on the soles of my feet.

  We both stare. The skin is red and blistering. The worst spot is the side of my left foot, which was closest to the fissure at the bottom of the crater.

  “See a medic,” Riggs says, but too softly for anyone else to hear. She knows what my choice will be.

  “Tomorrow.” I slip on the new shoes.

  They’re grippy, night-camo black, designed for hoverboarding. They fit perfectly.

  Riggs watches me put them on. “We’re all marching into a nuclear bomb, I guess. You’ve just got a head start.”

  She offers me a pair of ceramic greaves and shoulder pads.

  I shake my head. “If my father blows up his tower, body armor won’t do much.”

  “You’ll regret it.” She looks around to check that we’re alone. “Just so you know, I didn’t tell anyone your real name. Didn’t want to cause trouble before a battle.”

  “I don’t think she cares,” I say.

  Riggs nods. “Your sister will have what she wants, and I’ll get back my crew.”

  “Still, thanks for keeping our secret.” I offer to shake. “And for the shoes.”

  Riggs stares at my hand a moment, hesitant.

  “Least I could do,” she says, “after the shame thing.”

  “The shame thing …” Then it hits me. “You.”

  She looks away. “After I left you and Col last night, I heard some Futures talking. They said that girl, Terra, lent you her shoes. So I tracked her down and told her that you wanted to be reported for theft. A little extra drama.”

  “And she believed you—that I wanted to get shame-cammed?”

  “Didn’t take much convincing.” Riggs finally meets my eyes, chuckling a little. “I don’t think Terra likes you.”

  “You risked the whole mission, just because you were mad at Rafi? What went wrong between you and her?”

  “Everything.” She gives me an embarrassed half smile. “But I was just following orders.”

  “Whose?” I ask.

  She laughs. “How do you still not know, Frey?”

  Then she walks away, ignoring me when I call after her.

  It doesn’t make sense. Who cares if a made-up girl named Islyn gets shame-cammed?

  My dizziness hits again, and I sit down on the crater’s edge. The leftover heat from the bombardment rises up from the glowing depths, like the embers from a waning campfire.

  My feet burn in their new shoes.

  If Riggs wants to be mysterious, fine. After my conversations with Noriko, Boss X, and Rafi, the last thing I need tonight is another revelation.

  As I sit there, the vanguard take their places on the hoverboards around me, all the rebels who’ll ride into battle at my sister’s side. The bosses of her assembled crews.

  No one talks. We can all see Shreve in the distance, a wounded city under a sky of ash and smoke.

  When Col arrives, he sits beside me.

  “This is it, Frey. Shreve is free tonight.”

  “Victoria too,” I say.

  He kisses me, his heartbeat fast and nervous in his lips. I wonder if this is the last time we’ll kiss like this—before a battle. Maybe this war will be over tonight.

  What kind of world will that be?

  “Shreve is lucky,” he says. “You’re going to make a good leader.”

  “I’m afraid not. It was never going to be me.”

  “They want to put an AI in charge first?” He shakes his head. “I should’ve known Diego would change the deal.”

  “No, Rafi did.”

  “Ah.” Col faces me again. “But it isn’t her choice, is it? The free cities want you.”

  “They want us fighting each other. It was all a setup, a way to weaken us.”

  He’s silent for a moment, but he doesn’t seem surprised.

  Col, of course, has seen the free cities break a hundred promises. If Victoria is liberated tomorrow, it’s only because my father overreached one too many times.

  “What do you want, Frey?” Col asks. “That’s the question.”

  Maybe it is. But it’s one I’ve never been much good at answering.

  “All those detours on the mission,” I say. “Trying to read the palimpsest, allying with the cliques—for me, it was to understand Shreve.”

  “So you’d be ready. So you’d know your people.”

  “It was to know myself, Col. I want to be someone who understands the world beyond tower politics and fighting a war—the way real people do.”

  Col takes my hand. “Real is all you’ve ever been, Frey.”

  “Then how come I can’t tell where I begin and my sister ends?”

  “Because that’s how Rafia wants it,” he says, anger in his voice now.

  “What do you mean?”

  “The more confused you are, the more y
ou stay a part of her. You were created for her, Frey—a playmate, a protector, an extension, a spare. With you there, she can never be anything but important, beloved, magnificent.”

  A laugh comes out of me. “She’s all those things already.”

  “You are all those things!” Col cries. “That’s why she needs you as a mirror. That’s why she stole your name.”

  I turn away and regard my sister’s army.

  Crews who were with us at the Iron Mountain. New ones I’ve never seen before. Yandre and Boss Charles meeting up with their old raiders, and X resplendent in battle armor and freshly oiled fur.

  Everyone’s here to see the end of my father.

  “She did all this,” I say. “Not me.”

  “You rescued her from the tower,” he says. “You found the rebels first, and your name made them follow her. You allied with the free cities who opened the door to Shreve tonight.”

  I shake my head.

  Col sees a strength in me that isn’t there.

  “I don’t care if you lead Shreve or not,” he says. “But you can’t be your sister’s shadow anymore.”

  A trickle of wariness travels through me. “Are you also trying to split us up?”

  “I’m trying to fight for you,” Col says, and rises up to one knee.

  He takes out his sidearm and lays it on the ground between us.

  “I always fight for you, Frey.”

  His wrong-colored eyes shine through the split in my heart.

  “You have a city to save, Col.”

  “Victoria has known freedom since the mind-rain, except these last six months.” He reaches for my hand. “Tonight you will too.”

  I can’t speak.

  Even if it’s only him looking at me in this vast swirl of preparation, it’s hard to be the center of attention like this.

  Not as Rafi, but as Frey.

  Maybe tomorrow—after I do this one last thing for her—I can tear myself away.

  But tonight I fight for Rafia.

  Zura comes over to break the moment, brusque, efficient. She ignores Col on his knee and starts handing us gear.

  “Rebreathers, crash bracelets, rad meters.”

  I frown. “How did the rebels know to bring radiation gear?”

  “They didn’t,” she says. “The cities air-dropped us supplies an hour ago. Paz sent this for you.”