Impostors

by Scott Westerfeld

  Maybe it’s transmitting home for orders …

  I spot an antenna dish on the car’s rear hatch and send my knife to turn it into a shower of metal flakes.

  Teo kneels next to Zura. Col jumps into the car. A moment later, sparks fly from the cockpit doors. So much for the car’s AI.

  Teo’s running back toward me, a grenade from Zura’s belt in his hand.

  “What’s that for?”

  “Limo!” he orders, twisting the grenade to its longest setting. “Turn off fire suppression for safety check. Secure doors, please.”

  “Yes, sir,” the car says.

  As the doors begin to fold closed, Teo tosses the grenade inside.

  “What are you—”

  “It knows I’m the proxy, here of my own free will. And the rally point’s in the destination log.” Teo swallows. “Limo, go for a spin over the water. Head for the middle of the Baja Sea.”

  “With no one aboard, sir?”

  “Just go!”

  Teo and I watch as the machine rises into the air. As it banks over the ocean, he takes my hand.

  “Five, four, three …”

  The limo jerks in midair, jets of fire gushing from its windows. It veers into a spin, falling like a leaf, trailing a spiral of smoke and flame.

  I barely hear the splash over the roar of waves against the cliff.

  “Poor limo,” Teo says sadly.

  “Come on!” Col yells.

  We turn and run.

  He’s dragged Zura into the back of the warden car. She’s unconscious, and her sneak suit’s camo is blinking random colors.

  “Is she breathing?” I ask, jumping into the back.

  “Paz wardens are strictly nonlethal,” Col says. “But check the vitals on the wrist of her suit!”

  “All green,” Teo says. “But is there a medkit, just in case?”

  “Let her sleep,” I say. “That’s the safest way to get over a stun-blast.”

  I look back toward Paz to see if anything’s coming our way. Nothing yet.

  Col pulls himself forward into the cockpit, where the remains of the AI module are still smoking. He starts throwing switches, and the lifting fans begin to whine.

  “You better strap in back there,” Col says. “I don’t really know how to fly without an AI, and this car’s going to take off like a volcano rabbit.”

  The warden car jumps into the air, pressing me down into my seat.

  After the smooth ride of the limo, it’s like being on a hoverboard. We lurch into a sickening turn, veering southward down the coast.

  “My radar’s out!” Col yells.

  “That’s what that was?” I look back at the smoking antenna on the rear hatch. “My mistake.”

  “Anyone following us?” Col asks.

  “Not yet,” Teo says from the back, strapping Zura into her seat. “Since when can you fly a hovercar, Col?”

  “I’ve been practicing.” Col’s voice drops a little. “On a simulator.”

  “On a what?” Teo cries.

  “I can take off and fly pretty well. Landing’s the tricky part. As long as Zura wakes up before we run out of juice, we’ll be fine.”

  The car jolts to the left, slewing inland for long seconds before Col gets it under control.

  “We’re going to die!” Teo yells.

  “Just a wind sheer off the ocean,” Col says grimly. His right hand is white-knuckled on the flight stick.

  I reach out, brushing my fingertips across the clenched muscles on his arm. “You’re doing great.”

  “This feels just like the simulator …” He spares me a glance and a smile. “Except more dizzy-making.”

  The car bucks again beneath us, then dives for an awful moment toward the cliffs. Col wrestles with the flight stick until we’re straight and level again.

  “Maybe get out of this ocean wind?” I say.

  “I have to stay on the coast. I don’t know how else to navigate.”

  “So we don’t know where we’re going?” Teo yells.

  “The codebook’s got a map,” I say. “I’ll navigate.”

  “Right,” Col says, and pushes the stick left. “Thanks.”

  We slip across the coastal cliffs, over rain forest, and finally onto a desert spotted with encroachments of white weed. The air steadies around us.

  I pull my hand from Col’s arm, take a deep breath.

  At last I can think about what I did back there.

  I’ve shown my face—Rafi’s face—to wardens looking for kidnappers. And right before we attacked, they saw Teo emerging from my limo. There’s no way this doesn’t make the feeds, even in Shreve.

  I’ve told my sister I’m alive.

  Tonight, she won’t go to sleep thinking that she’ll always be alone. She’ll know I’m okay. She’ll know I’m coming for her.

  My father will also figure out it was me, of course. And that I’m working with the Palafoxes. But that’s fine with me.

  I’m coming for him too.

  The other Paz wardens don’t follow us.

  It’s hard to blame them. We overwhelmed three of their officers, using a pulse knife and a Special—a military-grade attack.

  And maybe Paz doesn’t want to shoot down a car carrying the first daughter of Shreve. They remember what happened to the last city that made my father angry.

  An hour into the flight, Teo says, “I miss the limo. There was food and way better coffee. And we could watch the feeds when flying got boring.”

  “You call this boring?” Col mutters. His fist is still tight around the flight stick.

  My eyes are glued to the codebook. Our glowing blue dot is making its way south toward the rally point. By now, what’s left of the Victorian army is there waiting for us.

  Instead of running, being hunted, soon we’ll do some hunting of our own.

  “The scenery’s okay,” Teo says. “But I’d rather watch the feeds going after Frey’s dad. He’s gone from war criminal to kidnapper to car thief!”

  “Paz doesn’t have a real army,” I say. “He doesn’t care about them. But this is the first time Rafi’s been part of anything like a kidnapping. It’ll look like he’s turning her into a war criminal. That’s bad for him at home.”

  Col glances over at me. “Won’t it be bad for her too?”

  “In the long run. But at least she knows I’m alive.”

  Our underbelly brushes the canopy of the jungle, making us all jump. We’re trying to stay low and out of sight. Warden cars don’t have camo skin.

  I wonder if the Shreve army is searching for us. My father knows I’m a danger to him. But does he want his entire military learning his oldest secret?

  A groan comes from the backseat.

  “Zura!” Teo says. “Good to have you back.”

  I turn to look. Her head is in her hands, and her beautiful face is pale.

  “What happened?”

  “Stun cannon,” I say. “The car shot you after you took out the wardens.”

  “I’m sick of cars with brains.” She looks out the window at the trees flashing past. “We got away, I see.”

  “We’re not completely helpless without you,” Col says.

  “I guess not, sir.” A wan smile crosses Zura’s face. “How far are we from the rally point?”

  “Eight hours, plus recharging time.” Col turns back to face her. “Do you suppose you could, um, take over? I haven’t learned how to land yet.”

  Zura takes a slow breath.

  “Lucky I woke up, then.”

  It’s early evening when we finally approach the rally point.

  We’re deep in the south of the continent by now, flying through cloud-wreathed mountaintops. The unpressurized cabin is cold, and Zura gives us pills for altitude sickness.

  Col and his brother are in the backseat. I’m up front with Zura, bored and butt-numb from sitting all day.

  The clouds part, revealing a huge mountain in our path. Its peak rises another thousand meters over us, fla
t-topped and girdled with shining snow.

  “The White Mountain,” Zura says.

  Col leans forward. “You never saw a volcano rabbit, Frey. So I got you a volcano.”

  “Thanks. It’s … impressive.”

  As we approach, the sunset glints across the peak. I’ve never seen snow this far south. Or a mountain this tall.

  The hovercar keeps climbing.

  “Wait, are we going inside that thing?” I ask.

  “Into the caldera, yes,” Col says. “It’s too high for recon drones to fly. We can use the codebook without getting traced—the sides of the crater will dampen the signal spill. And there’s a whole glacier full of fresh water!”

  “It’s super cold and hard to get to.” Teo snorts. “Face it. You just wanted a secret base inside a volcano.”

  “Since I was a littlie,” Col says. “But it’s warm in the caldera, and half a klick across. We could fit a hundred hovercars inside!”

  “Hopefully that’s what we’ll find,” Zura says.

  Col reaches forward and takes my hand. His gaze is sharp with excitement.

  Then I see the mist rising up out of the caldera, like a pot of water about to boil.

  “Wait. It’s hot in there? This volcano’s dead, right?”

  “Not extinct,” Col says. “But it hasn’t blown in ninety years.”

  “Well, that makes me feel better.”

  We crest the lip of the caldera, and a huge crater opens up below us. Roiling steam hides everything inside. The inner cliffs are bare stone, too warm for snow to stick.

  The rising air hits us as we descend, and the car shudders a little. I can see signs of an encampment through the mist—hovercars, tents, solar panels on a high shelf of rock. Soldiers scurry into position at our approach.

  Col really has an army.

  Seeing those faces gazing up at us, fingers seem to close around my chest. Soon everyone in that army will know my secret.

  It recalls an old nightmare of mine—walking out onstage to give a speech for Rafi, certain that the whole audience will see through me.

  “Frey,” Zura says gently. “You might want to wear that.”

  She gestures down at the compartment in front of my seat. It’s full of warden stuff—wrist ties, safety flares, a medkit … and a breather mask for fire rescues. Just big enough to cover my mouth and chin, so Col’s army won’t be gawking at me from the moment we land.

  “Thanks.”

  She shrugs. “I don’t want to get shot for driving around a kidnapper.”

  That’s right—my encounter with the Paz wardens has probably been on the feeds all day. The world thinks that Rafi kidnapped the Palafoxes’ second son.

  Fantastic.

  I set my sneak suit to Victorian livery, just so it’s clear whose side I’m on.

  In the turbulent winds of the caldera, the landing is tricky, our skids scraping the stone. Mist boils around our lifting fans, and I can feel the heat of the volcano even here inside the car.

  But that’s not why I’m sweating.

  A squad of soldiers in Victorian uniforms approaches, rifles leveled. They look more confused than hostile—maybe because we’re in a warden car from a city two thousand klicks away.

  But when Col emerges from the back door, they break into cheers.

  “Sir!” A soldier steps forward, saluting sharply. He looks barely older than Col. “Good to see you!”

  “You too.” Col claps him on the shoulder.

  The shouts of astonishment redouble as Teo steps from the car.

  While they’re distracted, I swing down onto the stone, my face covered by the mask. More soldiers are gathering around us, maybe thirty altogether.

  A few give me curious looks, but most of them are crowding around the brothers Palafox.

  Then one of the soldiers looks straight at me.

  “You’re her, aren’t you?” she asks.

  “Um …” It’s hard to answer, when half the time I don’t know who I am. “Depends?”

  She nods slowly. “Secret ops, I get it. But just so you know, there’ve been rumors since I got here. About one of our units. They responded to an emergency beacon, first day of the war.”

  I frown. “A beacon?”

  “Turned out to be a crashed Shreve scout car. Weird thing was, there were two troopers tied up outside.”

  “I heard this one too,” says another soldier, crowding closer to me. “Hostiles were incoming, so they had to run. But they grabbed the tied-up soldiers for transport to a neutral city. That’s when it got brain-missing. The whole way there, these two prisoners wouldn’t shut up about who knocked out their car. Someone with a knife, who looked just like … well, kind of like you, ma’am.”

  “And that story from Paz today,” the first soldier says. “Teo getting kidnapped by a certain first daughter. But here he is, safe and sound, with you.”

  She smiles at me, takes my hand, and pumps it once. “So whatever it is you do, thanks for doing it.”

  The other soldier winks. “Making that bubblehead look like a kidnapper? Legendary!”

  Others have overheard them, and the crowd is turning its attention to me. I see Col watching.

  Waiting for me to say something.

  This is my chance to get it over with. I grab the seal of the mask and tear it off, all at once.

  The soldiers’ eyes light up, and one lets out a low whistle.

  “Spitting image,” he says.

  Others are gathering around me now, and I hear the story repeated—the scout car, Teo, my sister. This small army has been here most of the day, with nothing to do but swap war stories. By now they’ve all heard versions of this outlandish tale.

  Col hoists himself up on the warden car’s landing skid.

  He waves for silence.

  “Everyone! Just so you know, this is Frey. She might look like one of them, but she’s on our side. She saved my life!”

  All those eyes turn to me, and for a moment it’s like stepping into blinding sun. I’m certain they can see all my secrets, everything I’ve ever thought or felt.

  Of course, these soldiers have no idea what I really am. They must think I’m some kind of spy surged to look like Rafi. They’re all in need of a good story about their side winning, and that’s what I mean to them.

  Then the strangest thing happens—they start clapping.

  I’ve had a lifetime of applause. People clapping for my father when I stand dutifully next to him onstage. For Rafi when I deliver her speeches in front of crowds of randoms.

  But this is for me, Frey.

  Suddenly dozens of people know my name. And somehow all that attention isn’t a pulse knife shredding me to mist.

  I stand there, real and solid.

  Seen.

  There must have been a part of me that was always hungry for this. Because now I want everyone to know my name, my story. At last I’m not afraid they’ll all disappear tomorrow for knowing too much.

  Because they’re an army, not one unlucky tutor.

  Col steps down from the landing skid. He pulls me into a hug.

  “Thanks for the introduction,” I whisper.

  “Didn’t want anyone starting trouble.” He pulls back, shrugs. “And they need a hero right now.”

  That word sends a mad giggle through me. Just being able to say my own name is enough.

  “Flattery. You’re going to be a good leader, Col.”

  “I have to be.” His smile stays firm on his face. “Just talked to the ranking officer here. Three troopships, two scout cars, and six light attack craft.”

  I stare at him. “That’s everything?”

  He nods. “Eleven surviving hovercars. Counting you, me, and my little brother, the Victorian army is sixty-seven people.”

  “The good news is, we have a glacier,” Dr. Leyva says. “My math: It contains enough water to last us three million years.”

  A grim laugh travels around the table.

  The Victorian High C
ommand is meeting in a warm, steamy tent the size of my sister’s dressing room. Our table is made from a jump deck borrowed from one of the troopships. It’s big enough for the seven of us, but we’ve got nothing to put on it except an airscreen projector and a coffeemaker.

  Col and I have been here at the White Mountain for two days, and we’re still trying to figure out how to fight my father with next to no army.

  “Food is another matter,” Leyva says. “We have six days’ worth, if we ration. Which some of us would prefer not to do.”

  He gestures to his own belly, and smiles go around the table.

  Everyone here adores Dr. Leyva. He was a top scientist in Victoria, and the host of a science-and-cooking feed that the whole city followed. He wasn’t in the military, but in the chaotic hours after the war began, he grabbed his medkit, flagged down a Victorian unit, and came here ready to serve his city.

  Col shares an unhappy glance with his little brother. Teo has been anti-volcano from the start.

  “One of the neutral cities will help,” Col says. “Six days is long enough to figure out something.”

  “Also long enough for the dust to take hold in our city,” Dr. Leyva says. “Our fellow citizens can already see it in the air. That means they’re starting to watch what they say, what they read, even what they think. A change is coming over our citizens.”

  “What can we do to stop it?” Col asks.

  Leyva shrugs. “Show me a room and I can clear the dust from it—for an hour or so. But once it’s in the air, it replicates itself. It comes back, like mold.”

  “We can’t defend every breath of air in Victoria,” Zura says. “We’re a guerrilla force—we have to attack. Disrupt Shreve’s power grid. Hit their factories. Make the war so painful that it’s not worth occupying us.”

  Zura is at this meeting as the commander of the House Guard. Because all the other Guard officers are dead, captured, or missing. She’s been in a grim mood since her promotion.

  But she’s wrong about my father.

  “Shreve doesn’t use much power,” Dr. Leyva says. “Their buildings don’t hover. And their factories are deep underground—even a plasma gun can’t get through five hundred meters of dirt.”

  “We’ll hit their transport, then,” Zura says.