This isn’t much of an escape plan.
A flash illuminates the smoke behind us, lightning trapped in a cloud. My arms wrap around Col just in time—the shock wave sends us slewing across the fields. We lose the track’s magnetics, decelerate into a spin.
Zura’s barely visible, back there in the haze. She tosses the expended rail gun aside.
Col hesitates. “Should we wait for—”
“Just fly,” I say.
We angle back over the tracks, heading straight for the tunnel.
I see the entrance now, the Baja Sea red and silver beyond it. On the other side is Paz, where we’ll be safe from the forces of Shreve.
Until my father invades.
The battle still rages behind us. Above the running lights of the train, the sky is starred with projectile fire, streaked with rail gun bolts. I glimpse the shimmer of a pulse lance—Boss X carving up a combat drone.
Our hoverboard reaches the tunnel after a minute of hard flying. The narrow entrance glows with red caution lights.
As we enter, a booming voice calls to us. But it’s in Spanish, and we’re moving too fast for me to catch it. I assume it’s warning that mag-lev trains will turn us into sticky paste. The tunnel is only one track wide.
Col slows down, just a little.
“The Cobra would stop before it hit us, right?” he says.
“Unless it’s going too fast.” Over my shoulder, the tunnel’s entrance is filled with flashing sky. “But our train was supposed be going through right now. They wouldn’t schedule two mag-levs that close to each other, would they?”
“Right. Of course not.” Col’s muscles tighten. “So what’s that?”
I turn and peer into the darkness ahead.
A light is coming toward us.
Col banks to a halt, cutting our lifting fans.
We stand there and listen.
There’s no roar of a mag-lev train hurtling at us. No clanging of alarms. Nothing but the hum of a cool wind from the tunnel’s depths.
Whatever’s headed toward us, it’s on magnetics.
“Wardens?” Col asks.
“One sec.” My night vision kicks in, and an outline takes form around the approaching light—smaller than a hovercar, spindly with lights and cams. “It’s some kind of drone.”
“Col!” a shout comes from behind us.
We spin around. It’s Zura, her armor pitted with projectile scars. Her camo obscures her silhouette in the dark.
“Are you okay?” Col angles us back toward her. She’s covered with sand, armed only with a shock wand.
“Standing, sir. You?”
“Not a scratch.” He points back into the tunnel. “But something’s coming.”
Zura narrows her eyes—her implants are better than mine. “Looks like a maintenance drone.”
“Let’s get moving, then,” Col says. “Don’t want to get trapped in here.”
Zura glances back at the entrance. “We’ve technically entered the city, sir. They won’t follow, unless Shreve wants a war.”
“Don’t count on that,” I say. “My father has plans for Paz. He can always move them up.”
She looks unconvinced, but Col and I lean hard on our board, carrying us deeper into the tunnel.
As we fly, the headwind turns damp. It smells of salt and fish, and the ground angles down beneath us.
I imagine the cold weight of the Baja Sea overhead.
The drone takes form slowly in my night vision. Something’s mounted to its undercarriage—a fine mesh of wires. Its running lights point in all directions, like it’s checking the walls of the tunnel.
It moves slowly, ignoring us. I crouch behind Col and his baffle camo.
Zura drifts out ahead, her shock wand drawn.
She passes the drone unnoticed, and waves for us to follow.
As we drift by, I hear a scurrying sound. Squinting at the wire mesh beneath the drone, I see tiny creatures trapped inside.
What—
A tendril lashes out at us, fast as a snake.
It strikes Col’s arm with a zap. He cries out, sags into my arms.
Zura tips her hoverboard at the drone. But another tendril whips out at her. A flash lights the tunnel for an instant—she reels backward.
The drone comes at me and Col, looming over us. Three metal tentacles extrude from it, reaching for him.
I cover his body with mine and draw my knife, bringing it full pulse. The tunnel fills with the hum of danger.
The tentacles freeze.
“Disculpe,” the drone says. “¿Ustedes son humanos?”
“What?” I slash at the nearest tentacle, but it slips out of reach. “Yes, we’re human!”
“Apologies.” The tentacles retract. “But this is a dangerous area.”
I stare at the drone. Then an agitated squeak comes from the wire mesh slung beneath it. From this range I can see them—rats.
It’s a wildlife control drone. It was trying to catch us.
“Did you think we were rats?” I yell.
The drone hesitates, its spindly arms moving cams and lights across us.
“Two of you are wearing baffle camo, specifically designed to confuse AI.” The drone sounds disappointed in us. “Very unsafe.”
Right—the camo reduced Zura’s and Col’s heat signatures, disrupted their silhouettes. I was hidden behind him, and our comms were switched off.
To the machine, they were just animals, wandering through the tunnel. The scarlet dress is what saved me.
“You are trespassing on a mag-lev track,” the drone says. “In addition, military-grade sneak suits are illegal in the sovereign city of Paz. I shall have to inform—”
A zap comes from behind it, followed by a shower of sparks. The smell of ozone fills the air.
The drone wobbles, then falls. Zura rides it down, her shock wand smoking in her hand. The machine strikes the tracks, cracking open the cages below. Rats skitter in all directions.
Col groans, his eyes fluttering open.
“You’re okay,” I say. “It was just pest control.”
“Oh.” He looks down at the drone. “Somehow this welcome feels undignified.”
I point at the rats scurrying away. “We bring freedom wherever we go.”
“Did you have to destroy it?” Col asks Zura. “Paz is an ally.”
She shrugs. “One that prefers not to know we’re here. Saves them from making excuses for us.”
“I guess,” Col sighs. “But we should get this wreck out of the way before the Cobra crushes us all.”
An hour later, we emerge from the other end of the tunnel.
We’re still in the outskirts of the city. No buildings, just rolling parklands dotted with trees, wildflowers, and solar cells. I glance warily at the sky—nothing but stars against the darkness.
My father has decided that following us isn’t worth another war. Not yet, anyway.
A cluster of spires rises in the distance—Paz, the city where everyone’s happy. No dust. No dictator. No standing army.
Zura is staring at a clump of trees nearby. She presses a finger to her ear.
“Hindenburg is ready for pickup,” she says.
Instantly, the running lights of a large hovercar light up in the trees.
“Is that my code name?” Col asks.
“Had to change it, sir. Too many people who knew the old one were in enemy hands.”
“Right, but Hindenburg?”
“The purpose of a code name is to deceive, sir.” Zura extends an arm toward the hovercar. “We’ll be in the Amazon by morning.”
“Can’t wait to see Teo,” Col says with a smile.
He reaches for my hand.
And that’s when I know.
“I’m not going.” The words come out broken, but in my own voice.
Col turns to me. “What?”
“I can’t go with you.”
Zura looks half-disgusted, half-smug. “She’s joining the rebels, sir. That
was their intention, from the moment they signed up to help with—”
“No,” I cut her off. “I’m staying in Paz.”
“Frey.” Col turns to me, taking both my hands. “It isn’t safe here. Your father’s coming.”
“That’s why I have to stay. To find Rafi.”
“But she could be anywhere by now! If your father hasn’t found her yet, how are you going to?”
“Because I know her better than he does.”
“Sir,” Zura says. “Would you like me to—”
“Stay out of this!” Col snaps, then turns back to me. “We can’t win without you, Frey. We need you!”
“You need Rafi.” I pull away from him, fingers calling subtly for my knife. “She can win you allies. Give you a fairy tale. The most useful thing I can do is bring her back.”
His eyes are desperate. “No, Frey. I need you.”
“I’m not running away, Col—I love you.” My heart twists with my next words. “But Rafi comes first.”
“You’re not her bodyguard anymore!”
“No. I’m her sister.”
“Sir,” Zura says, the shock wand in her hand. “I can always—”
“Turn to your left,” I tell her. “Slowly.”
She narrows her eyes, glancing to the side.
My pulse knife hovers there, two meters away, shuddering with eagerness.
Pointed at her head.
“Who gave you that?” she asks softly.
“A friend.”
“Walk away, Zura,” Col commands.
“Sir, you can’t trust—”
“Walk away!” he shouts.
Zura obeys at last, storming off toward the hovercar in the trees. I’ve got maybe a minute before she has a sniper rifle trained on my head.
“I’m sorry, Col. But Rafi needs me more than you do. She’s never been alone before!”
“Neither have you,” he says softly, and he’s right. “I’ll stay too. We’ll find her together.”
Something stabs through me, and my fists clench.
Saying no to this is worse than leaving him.
“Col, I already messed up by helping my father stay in power. Taking you out of the war would be just as bad. This resistance needs your face. You have to stay with your people, or the rest of them will desert you!”
“But I can’t fight without you, Frey.” His voice breaks on my name. “From the first seconds of the war, you were there. When they destroyed my home, killed my …”
Col falters, lost for a moment.
Then his face changes, a certainty entering his eyes.
“I talk a lot about Victoria,” he says softly. “But I also fight for you. You know that, right?”
There’s no answering him. I never asked myself that question.
No one fights for me.
So I shut it out and say, “Let me find Rafi. Then we’ll fight together again.”
“Why not let me help?”
“Because it’ll be easier to find her with you keeping my father busy!” I take hold of his hand. “It won’t take me long. I was born to follow her every move.”
“You’re more than just her protector,” he says. “You’re Frey.”
Uncertain what he means, I shake my head. “This is what I was born to do.”
He wants to keep arguing, but in the end he has to swallow the words.
Because I’m right—for the moment, the two of us are stronger apart.
“I’ll ping you every day,” he says.
“How? I don’t have a legal identity. The city interface won’t know me.”
“Right. Well, I’ll send you a carrier pigeon or something.” He sighs, gesturing at our hoverboard. “Take it. Is there anything else you need?”
“Just this.” I call my pulse knife from where it hangs in the air.
Col stares at it. “Did you really think I’d let Zura jump you?”
“I trust you. But not your people.” I glance at the hovercar. “So, just in case she’s got a rifle aimed at me, we should probably do this without any sudden movements.”
He frowns. “Do what?”
“This.” I step closer, taking him in my arms.
We kiss for a long time, breathing hard around the thrum of our hearts. I shiver with worry that I’m losing him and with sheer pleasure that we’re together now. I am myself in this kiss, and in the middle of it he murmurs, “I love you too.” And that’s when I know we’ll be together again soon, even if this war lasts a hundred years.
It’s our first good-bye kiss, and after it there’s nothing left to say.
Col walks away. A car in Victorian robin’s-egg blue rises up from the trees. The roar of lifting fans sends forth a shrieking, billowing flock of crows.
I watch the birds scatter and disappear.
Then I head toward the skyline of Paz, ready to find my sister.
Before I reach the city, the night starts to turn cold. A trickle of rain begins.
I have nowhere to sleep.
Maybe that’s what Col was talking about when he asked if I needed anything. A sleeping bag. Some food. A bottle of water.
“Had to be dramatic,” I mutter to myself.
Set to its ready state, X’s pulse knife is keeping me warm. It trembles against my chest like an uncertain heart. But the wind cuts through the too-short scarlet dress. The hoverboard is running low, and I don’t know where to recharge it.
Where am I going, anyway—a hotel? A rooftop? An alley?
“Does Paz even have alleys?” I ask aloud.
Col was right—I’ve never actually been this alone before. My father’s tower was full of servants, staff, and his baleful presence. House Palafox was a hive of gardens, birds, butterflies, and people. And in those lonely first days of the war, it was me and Col together in the wild.
Even when I was alone, I was alone with him.
“This sucks,” I say.
No one answers.
Passing below are rows of long, low buildings. Factories and greenhouses. The neighborhood is dark, nothing moving but a few self-driving ground trucks. But in the distance, the rain glimmers with light coming up from the street.
A little closer, and the sound of a crowd lifts my heart. Apparently when you’re lonely enough, even strangers will do.
I fly to the edge of a rooftop, peer over at the noise.
It’s a night market. Smells of food drift up through the rain, along with the chatter of people talking, bargaining, hawking wares. Everyone sounds happy, just like Paz is famous for.
It’s brain-missing, gathering in the rain to eat and drink and buy. They could be home with their holes in the wall, fabricating whatever they want. But Pazx love to cluster, to make noisy, collective theater out of every exchange.
My father used to rant about the waste of it all. But it’s fine with me. I need warmer clothes, and something to hide my face.
Leaving my board on the roof, I climb down an exhaust duct to the street. Sneak around the corner and skulk at the dark edges of the market, watching and listening.
After fighting alongside the ’Foxes, I can pick out some of the Spanish. The shopkeepers are discussing the fine points of knitting, cooking, and hammering together pieces of wood—turns out this is a market for handmade items. Like they’re all pretending to be pre-Rusties, with no factories or holes in the wall.
I don’t have trade credits, or merits, or whatever they use for money here. But stealing should be easy with no dust in the air. I remember my first argument with Col—without surveillance, there’s no way to prevent crime. Why do people pay for anything in Paz?
Even so, it sends a nervous trickle down my spine to sneak up behind a rack of coats and take one. But the owner never looks at me, too busy telling a customer about the farm that produces his wool.
I grab a floppy winter hat as well. Nothing to it.
No wonder my sister chose to disappear here.
I slink back into the darkness, gratefully wrapping the c
oat around my damp, chilled body. The wool isn’t really waterproof, and it’s heavy compared to disposable fabric, but warm. When I pull the hat down as far down as it will go, my shivering finally stops.
Food next.
This is trickier. It looks like everything’s cooked to order, while gossip and pleasantries are exchanged. My first-daughter-of-Shreve face is still mostly visible, and I’m terrible at small talk even in English. They talk with their hands, a gesture for every syllable, conductors guiding their conversation like an orchestra.
Rafi must hate it here. From what Spanish I can glean, everyone’s babbling about their dogs, their kids, the best way to make fry bread. No snark. No sarcasm.
Of course. Their feels are keeping them all cheery and content.
I can see them on everyone’s wrists—little rows of faces. Buttons you press to feel whatever emotion you want. I keep my hands plunged into my pockets, so no one spots me as an outsider.
I wonder if Rafi’s had a set put in. What if she came here to take control of—
“Disculpe, señorita,” someone calls.
I recognize the voice—the man who made this coat. His stall’s only twenty meters away. Hunger has left me brain-missing, staying so close. Or maybe theft isn’t as easy as I thought.
I yank the stolen hat down farther and start speed-walking, heading back toward the building where my hoverboard waits.
“¡Señorita!” the shop owner calls after me again. He still doesn’t sound angry. Maybe he thinks it’s all a happy misunderstanding. But he isn’t falling behind.
I break into a run, dodging through the crowd. Out of the market and back into the darkness, down an alley toward the exhaust duct.
“¡Deténganla!” he cries, anger in his voice now.
I leap up onto the duct and climb fast, my arm muscles burning. Down below, my pursuer is yelling for la interfaz de la ciudad.
The city interface.
Wardens will be here soon.
I reach the roof and jump onto my board. It’s only got an inkling of charge, but it leaps into the air at the snap of my fingers.
And then I’m off, arms wide, flying hard toward the denser buildings of the city center. The stolen coat trails behind me like a cape, and for a moment, I feel the rush of battle as wildfire in my veins, my hunger erased.
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