Mirror's Edge

by Scott Westerfeld

  She hands me a pulse knife.

  I smile, a silent thank-you to the sovereign city of Paz. The knife’s charge is full, and it flits like a hummingbird when I test my gestures.

  My sister finally joins us, some last detail attended to, and I wonder for a moment when she learned how to run an army. It’s like Rafi became someone else when she stole my name.

  She’s carrying her own pulse knife, still pretending to be me.

  We all rise into the air together. Five hundred rebels—a swarm, a horde.

  Before she gives the signal, Rafi turns to me.

  “You okay, little sister? You don’t look as happy as you should.”

  I shake my head. She doesn’t need to know about my conversation with Col. Or my dose of radiation. She’d probably yell at me for not taking proper care of our DNA.

  “Just tired,” I say.

  “Maybe a battle will perk you up,” she says with a smile. “Be careful—these boards are shiny new free-city tech. They’re ridiculously fast.”

  We move out, the huge formation taking shape around us. It’s the first time my sister and I have ridden side by side since just before I left home for Victoria, all those months ago.

  That night, Rafi promised me that I’d never have to hide again, once she was in charge. Standing here beside her, I’m not sure why I ever let Diego’s lies betray that vision.

  She reaches out to take my hand.

  “Let’s go see Dad,” she says.

  On fast boards, our childhood home is less than an hour away.

  My father’s army doesn’t try to stop us. Skimming the treetops, we’re below radar, and what’s left of the dust can’t see us at this speed. I doubt even the citizens notice us—after a night of earth-shuddering explosions, the buzz of our stealthy boards is nothing.

  Below us, Shreve has transformed. The perfect surveillance state is now a sense-addled wreck, piles of smoking rubble everywhere, whole neighborhoods darkened by power outages. Over the city, the only presence in the air is firefighting and med drones.

  It gives me an awful, hollow feeling, seeing my city broken.

  I was only barely starting to know it.

  When we draw close to my father’s tower, what’s left of his fleet comes into view.

  It’s a mismatched collection—border defense ships bristling with plasma cannon, patrol craft for hunting down rebels, riot control cars, a few blockade runners.

  Rafi shouts a series of code words, and the bosses leave the vanguard, returning to their crews. The attack plan looks simple enough—no flanking maneuvers or skirmish formations. We stay in a single column, serpentine in the ragged wind, twisting at my father’s heart.

  Our anti-hovercraft weapons are up at the front, and soon the sky ignites with bolts from plasma rifles. My sister’s rebels ignore the battle wagons, focusing on sleek patrol craft and Security cars. Once we swarm past them, the big ships can’t turn their weapons around and fire back at the tower.

  The first few bolts go wild, untrained rebels firing at will. But then a patrol craft ignites into a ball of plasma. Boss X’s crew charges ahead. I spot Yandre among them, their buzzing pulse lance carving into metal hulls.

  No one gave me a rifle. My sister doesn’t want me shooting—my job is inside the tower, at the kill.

  One of the big ships gets off a broadside, but the shrieking bolts simply pass through our formation, like bullets wasted on a cloud of mosquitos. Col and I pass though the column of ionized air left behind, and our boards shudder, the heat sharp on my face.

  My sister is laughing. The Shreve navy is designed to fight another fleet, not rebels on hoverboards.

  She calls out, “Cut it open!”

  From around us in the vanguard, plasma rifles open up. These are better aimed, striking the tower square along its length. The walls blow open in six places, spilling out smoke and debris.

  I veer closer to my sister.

  “What are you doing? You’ll poison the whole city!”

  “Don’t worry,” she calls back, laughing. “We only hit Daddy’s favorites!”

  Adjusting my night vision, I see what she means. That smoking hole down on the eleventh floor, where a balcony should be—that’s our room lying open. Rafi’s and my beds, our clothes, all of it is spilling out into the night breeze.

  A few floors below it, the wreckage of our father’s trophy room is visible. All those paintings of his vanquished enemies, so lovingly mounted on those walls, must be in tatters. The image of Aribella Palafox, and that painting of me, the one he had ready for my death.

  Near the top of the tower—the control room, where the data from every speck of dust is gathered, analyzed, and stored. The wine cellars, the kitchens, the ballroom where Seanan died.

  Six places our father loves too much to sully with nuclear waste.

  Rafi has struck at his heart, as no one else could.

  If you spoil the planet, your own children will despise you.

  I wonder how much Rafi will worry about the planet when she’s in charge.

  The main body of our column makes contact with the fleet. The air sizzles around me, small arms fire from Shreve patrol and riot cars. Rebels start to fall now, shot from the boards, twisting in the air. Their crash bracelets jerk them upright, arms spread like prisoners in ancient dungeons as they waft toward the ground.

  I crouch low, yelling at Col and Zura.

  “Follow me!”

  I’m heading for my old bedroom. That has to be where Rafi’s going first.

  My father’s probably in his study, two floors above the control room. But it’ll be surrounded by elite troops in heavy armor.

  Rafi and I don’t need a frontal assault. Once inside the tower, we know every passageway, every hiding place.

  Rebels and hovercars envelop me, the air singing with bullets, lifting fans, bolts of plasma. A patrol craft falls past, guns still shrieking, smoke belching from its open wounds. It spins in a lopsided tumble, two of its fans clawing at the air.

  The wind of its passage sends me veering, my crash bracelets locking tight around my wrists. They keep me on the board, and Col swings in front of me, creating a slipstream of steady air.

  “Thanks!” I call, regaining control.

  He turns to face me, flashing a grin.

  Without my new grippy shoes from Riggs, I’d have fallen.

  The tower looms over us, the rebels spilling up its sides. The crews break apart, hitting every entryway at once.

  As they fly past the smoke-filled openings, rebels leap from their boards, with nothing but crash bracelets to halt their momentum. The abandoned hoverboards swing around on autopilot, clustering at the smoking gaps in the tower walls.

  My sister’s crew must have practiced this—my father’s soldiers waiting inside will be bowled over by incoming rebels.

  Col and I follow Rafi, who’s headed toward the eleventh floor.

  At last, I’m going home.

  I jump from the sleek black hoverboard into the wreckage of my old bedroom, wrists crossed in front of me.

  The magnetics in my crash bracelets grab the tower’s metal, jerking to life as I pass through the ragged gap. But I’m still moving fast as my feet hit the floor. My grippy shoes skid on dust and debris. I smash sideways into Rafi’s makeup table. Its wooden legs snap, the mirror shatters, pain shoots through my shins and left shoulder.

  Col and Zura fly through the hole after me, arms linked. Her Special reflexes guide them into a skidding, gentle halt against my sister’s closet doors.

  Col stands up, staring at his bracelets with the expression of someone who’s never crashed a hoverboard before.

  Even with one wall blown out, the room is familiar around me. My bed next to Rafi’s, our old photos scattered on the floor. Pictures of us together couldn’t be stored in the datasphere—we had to print them out and stick them on the walls.

  The images are irreplaceable, and now a rebel army is charging across them. I kneel and ta
ke one, slipping it into my pocket.

  The bedroom door is open, and rebel shouts come from the hallway. No gunfire.

  I wonder how many soldiers are stationed here in my father’s tower. An attack by five hundred rebels probably never crossed his mind.

  Col, Zura, and I move out into the hallway. It’s full of rebels, breathing masks on their faces. Half of them are waving around rad meters.

  No red lights … yet.

  Rafi was right—my father wouldn’t sully her old bedroom with nuclear waste. He hasn’t changed that much in the months since we escaped.

  “Islyn!” calls my sister’s voice from ahead. “Up here!”

  There are cams everywhere, of course, maybe some dust left in the air. Rafi doesn’t want Father figuring out who I really am.

  Which makes her the obvious target.

  Why is she protecting me?

  I run to take her side, my pulse knife buzzing.

  A small crew of us head into the servants’ stairwell. In these tight quarters, we climb two abreast, me and my sister shoulder to shoulder. The buzz of her pulse knife makes echoing harmonies with my own.

  Three floors up, a cloud of tiny drones flutters down at us, carried on translucent wings like butterflies. I remember these from when a team of Shreve Specials tried to grab me in Paz. They’re mounted with knockout needles.

  Our pulse knives shred the air, turning them to glitter.

  “Seriously?” Rafi mutters. “Is this all Dad has up his sleeve?”

  “He didn’t see a full-on ground assault coming,” I say. “You outsmarted him, Boss Frey.”

  She gives me a grin for calling her Frey—or maybe Boss.

  The way a shadow would do.

  A few floors up, a cloud of heavy gas tumbles down the stairs, and we snap our rebreathers on. Riggs sprays neutralizer, and the gas does nothing but make my skin itch. If these automated defenses are all my father can throw at us, his tower will be ours in half an hour.

  But the sound of shots rattles down from above.

  We climb until the gunfire is shaking the stairwell. Rafi chooses a spot and sticks a wad of thermal nanos against the wall.

  A roaring fire erupts from it, a wave of heat and brimstone smell.

  “Go!” my sister shouts.

  Through the eye-stinging smoke, we dive into a burning hole in the permacrete. A squad of Shreve troopers is in a firefight with rebels.

  We’ve surrounded them.

  Part of me watches my sister. Rafi fights hard and fast, her knife flowing through the air. I remember all those nights she made me teach her combat moves. It’s not her skill that surprises me—it’s the fury. She’s channeled all her childhood anger into blood and mayhem.

  Maybe I’m not the deadly sister anymore.

  But if she is, then who am I?

  After a quick and bloody struggle, the Shreve troopers surrender.

  Our fellow rebels join us. With numbers doubled, we head for the main staircase.

  In the hallway, Col looks down. “It’s still there.”

  I look at the red line on the floor. Growing up, I couldn’t cross it except when I was pretending to be Rafi.

  “The boundary of my world,” I say.

  “Of our world,” Rafi says, and spits on the floor. “He didn’t even paint it over.”

  A reminder that he once had us in a cage.

  We reach the main stairway. Rebels are already working here, slicing into the tower walls. As we climb, there are gouges everywhere. Exposed wires, data fiber, even the plumbing pipes—all torn out.

  “You’re cutting him off,” Zura says to Rafi.

  “In case he has a hard line to his dirty bomb.”

  My eyes widen. “What if you set it off by accident?”

  “He wouldn’t risk that,” Rafi says. “He doesn’t have a death wish, little sister. But he thinks you do.”

  Rafi’s expression makes me realize—her Boss Frey persona isn’t only to impress her rebels.

  She’s performing for our father. Ever since I killed Seanan, he’s been scared of me. Maybe I always made him nervous, like a dangerous pet.

  Maybe tonight is part of why she took my name …

  His deadly daughter storming this tower is his worst nightmare, and delivering our father nightmares is Rafi’s oldest desire.

  The stairs end at the control room—the nerve center into which all the dust’s data flowed. It’s a wreck now, an entire wall blown inward, the wallscreens blank or frizzing. The half-darkened city of Shreve is framed in the ragged hole.

  All that data, lost in the air.

  The staff has run away—but there are bodies everywhere.

  Dead rebels.

  Zura moves protectively closer to Col.

  The control room was always run by pensive, quiet people who saw the world only as data. So who killed these rebels?

  Then I hear it—the whine of servomotors.

  As I spin around, a squad of Shreve heavy troopers lumbers into view. Like broad-shouldered gorillas in their powered suits, they crowd the doorway. The rebels open fire, but their bullets bounce off the ceramic armor, flying wild around us.

  The first heavy trooper lets off a burst from their shockgun, sending a wave of energy through the room. It catches Riggs and two other rebels, throwing them out the breached wall into the night sky.

  “Fall back!” Rafi shouts, but she doesn’t run—she dives at the heavies, her knife shrieking.

  I follow her.

  We duck beneath the shockguns’ barrels just in time, my eardrums splitting as they fire again.

  I ignore the cries behind me, thrusting my pulse knife into a heavy’s ceramic knee joint, slicing at servomotors.

  The leg freezes, and the powered suit loses balance, falling back against the wall.

  Rafi’s done the same—her victim is twisting in the doorway, hamstrung by her shrieking blade. We roll out of the way as both heavies crash to the floor.

  But more of them are pushing through, peering down at us through faceless visors.

  Rafi springs up, embracing the nearest trooper—too close for a shockgun to come into play. Her knife slips into a seam beneath the rib plate … a spray of blood jets out, covering her.

  The scream, thin and muffled inside the armor, barely penetrates the din of battle. A servo-powered arm lashes out, flinging Rafi across the room.

  She crashes to the floor beside a control panel.

  As I scramble after her, the wounded heavy fires—too high. But the edge of a shock wave hits us both, sending us rolling. I cover my sister with my body.

  We’re exposed, about to be pulped by the next blast.

  She sighs in my arms. “He had a last, perfect line of defense. Like you were for me.”

  “I was never perfect,” I say, staring at my city one last time.

  Out in the dark sky is a silhouette, a person floating in midair, taking aim.

  The figure fires, a binding beam of light passing over me and my sister.

  It scalds the air around us, sucking the oxygen from my lungs, scorching my exposed skin. A shredding sound comes from the Shreve heavy troopers.

  Then more screams.

  The flash illuminates the figure out in the darkness—it’s one of the jump troopers we saw falling from the avatar’s craft.

  “Who’s saving us?” Rafi asks.

  “Dieg—” I start, but then the return fire hits.

  As the jump trooper crumples in midair, the shock wave’s edge catches me and Rafi, sends us skidding across the floor, through the hole …

  And out into the night.

  We’re falling, tumbling, with only the slightest tug from our crash bracelets. They’re battery-dead from when we jumped off our boards—you’re only expected to crash once a night, I guess.

  “Frey,” she says. “You’re magnificent.”

  I hold my sister.

  Flares of light surround us—three more Diego jump troopers falling faster than we are, their
retrojets inverted.

  They fly beneath us and form a triangle, linking arms to catch us. We come to a gradual halt in midair.

  “Are you injured?” one asks.

  “No,” my sister says. “Take us back to the fight.”

  We rise up again, wreathed in the white heat of the jets and the smell of burning fuel.

  More troopers are overhead, clinging to the walls, firing in at the Shreve heavies. By the time we reach the control room, our enemies have fallen silent.

  We glide up over the edge of the blasted wall, landing in the wrecked control room. Dead and wounded heavy troopers fill the doorway and the hall outside, like piles of armored parts.

  There’s still gunfire sounding from above, the ceiling rattling from shockgun blasts.

  Col is huddled on the floor, and Zura, both with bloody noses and black eyes from the shock waves.

  I run to hug him, and silence seems to fall around us two. All I feel is my heart beating against him.

  Then I pull away. “How are you not … ?”

  He points at an open floor panel, crowded with a tangle of exposed data fiber like glowing hair.

  “We hid down there.” His fingers gently touch my upper lip. They come away smeared red. “You okay?”

  I nod, tasting the iron at last. We’ve all got bloody noses from the shockguns.

  Except Rafi, somehow unhurt after being thrown across the room by that heavy. Or maybe she doesn’t feel the broken ribs yet.

  She’s gathering the surviving rebels, getting a situation report from a Diego jump trooper.

  My father’s study is only two floors above. The fighting must be at his doorstep by now.

  Col looks out the window. “Where’s Riggs?”

  My breath halts. She was thrown out by the first blast.

  I hold up a crash bracelet. “The batteries are spent, Col, from when we jumped off our boards.”

  “Oh.” He takes my hand. “Maybe she had some left.”

  “Maybe,” I say.

  Col clears his throat. “Frey, there’s good news. No one’s rad meters are pinging. Not even in the basement levels.”

  I shake my head. “The recon photos …”