She responded, slightly offended, “Unlike many in this family, I’m happy to do some things for myself. Here.” She handed a water to me and then placed her glass on the table before sitting back down. “Do you have any questions about who works with who?”
“It is a lot to take in, but for now I think I’m keeping up.”
“Good.” She took a sip of water and then shifted uncomfortably, fidgeting with her ring. “There is one more sensitive thing that you need to know in order to fulfill your duties.”
I nodded, trying to look understanding.
Her brow furrowed. “Nothing I have said can leave this room but everything from now on is top secret.”
“You have my word.”
“Okay.” She stood and then hesitantly sat on the couch next to me instead. She pursed her lips and took a deep breath. “Well, a few days ago, my parents told me they are planning an arranged marriage for me with the Preus’ oldest son, Isaac, in order to ensure an alliance between our families and put old feuds behind us. Isaac is a renowned socialist and has been placed among the elites in the UPF’s air force production division, so he is a big deal to them. He is also creepy, and I don’t want to marry him. My parents see it as an opportunity to consolidate power, but I can’t do it.”
I shook my head sharply. “An arranged marriage. What is this, medieval Europe?”
Her ice-blue eyes began to fill with tears and she fought to retain her poise. “It feels like it sometimes.” What do I do, what do I do, what do I do?
“I… I’m so sorry, Julia. Is there anything we can do to stop it?” I noticed a tissue box on the table and grabbed it for her.
She sniffled and grabbed a tissue. “No. I’ve already fought with my parents over it. When they want something like this, they get it.”
I just sat, looking at her sadly. We both said nothing for a few moments, she sobbed, justifiably. Life is unfair for everyone it seems. Eventually I spoke with a bit of anger. “Each of us has our struggles. My chains are wrapped around my ear, yours around your finger.” I gestured to my tag and then to her ring. “We are not free without choice, and your parents have taken one of the most important choices away from you.”
She nodded and put her head in her hands, sobbing.
“I… I can go if you’d like to be alone.”
She took her head from her hands and grabbed one of mine before quickly recoiling and letting go. After a moment, she leaned forward, thinking hard. “Please stay. This might sound stupid, but you’re one of the only people I can talk about this with.”
“Why? I mean, why me?”
She sighed, still not looking at me. “My friends would love to be in this situation, getting betrothed to a successful man from an influential family. It’s the mentality of this place. You’re one of the only people I trust that still has a foot in the real world.”
I nodded. “Okay, then. I’m here for whatever you need.”
She sniffled and took another tissue. “Thank you, Ivan.”
In that moment she was a girl, not a princess. I was starting to understand the split in her life, not all that different than mine. She seemed willing to trust me with both sides of her. That meant a lot, but it also meant I had to decide if I could trust her with all of me.
In an effort to lighten the mood, I stood up and got her more water, joking softly, “See, I can do my job. Learning already.” The least I can do is make her laugh.
She giggled through the tears, her emotion opening up her cute authentic side. “Thank you. What are the odds the random Red boy that saved me would also know how to listen?”
I handed her the glass and sat back down, trying not to blush. “I don’t really know how to take a compliment like that.”
She laughed a bit and retook my hand tentatively for support. “I bet not, especially with the elitists around here. I’ve seen how they treat you, Ivan. I’m sorry.”
I squeezed her hand for reassurance. “Don’t worry, I’m used to it, and hey, now I have some palace friends, like you.”
She smiled softly and cleared some of the final tears from her face. As she shifted back across the couch, she put her hair into a ponytail. An idea must have popped into her mind, because her eyes lit up with a bit of excitement. “Phew. Okay, I gave up one of my secrets, your turn.”
I shook my head sharply, surprised. “Wait, what?”
“We’re a team now, Ivan. I need to know if there’s anything that could impact how you do things here.” She thought for a moment and looked at me with a smirk. “Besides, I need a distraction.”
I slouched back in the couch uncomfortably. I don’t like where this is going.
She flicked a hair from her face. “Tell me something about you. You haven’t told me much about your past besides where you worked and kind of where you lived.” Like being a lieutenant in the Militia?
“And nothing leaves this room?”
“Promise.”
“And you promise to let me explain?”
She cocked her head to the side. “Should I be worried?”
“Is that a yes?”
She shook her head. “Fine.”
Don’t you do it. Don’t you… “I am a member of the Militia.”
She tensed up and remained deathly still for a moment, processing it. When she spoke, her voice was inquisitive and careful. “I had always suspected it with the knives, the radio, the red tag, the sneaking around at night…”
“And you don’t want to kill me?”
She met my gaze, her narrow eyes studying me carefully. “I mean. Do you actually do the things that the UPF claims?”
“No, we don’t kill innocent people. Most of our missions are done with no casualties, and always done to avoid civilian casualties. We aren’t terrorists. We just want freedom from the Prism.”
She considered that for a second, looking at her hands nervously. “And can I trust you to be honest even now?”
“Have I given you a reason not to be?”
She stood quickly and paced around the room. I could almost see the gears working in her head. When she spoke, her voice was stern, “No you haven’t, but you do realize how serious this is, right? You just told me you’re part of a violent rebel group, Ivan! I’ve talked about reforms, but a terrorist group trying to destroy the Prism?”
I looked down and then back at her. “Ask me anything. If I lie you can throw me into the Mississippi.”
She crossed her arms and bit her cheek, thinking. “What’s your codename?”
I smiled with just the right side of my mouth. “How did you know…”
She rolled her eyes. “Oh, come on. Everyone knows you have codenames.”
“Fair enough. Coyote.”
She scoffed, and sarcasm flooded into her voice. “Oh, so you’re not just a member of a rebel group, you’re a leader.”
I shrugged. “Kind of.”
She groaned and paced a bit more before looking back towards me with her arms crossed. “What does it mean? Why ‘Coyote’?”
I smiled and looked at my feet. “When you’re recruited into the Militia, your officer gives you a codename that they think fits you in some way. It replaces any real name you have when it comes to Militia operations. Poseidon was my officer because he pulled me out of a tough spot when I was little and brought me in. He named me ‘Coyote’ because apparently it is a spirit animal for those that can see humor in the worst times, are tricksters, and are also teachers.”
“Huh. That is deeper than I expected. It suits you.” A small smile broke through her seriousness, though it faded as she thought for a second and cocked her head. “Aren’t you on the most wanted list?”
“Yes, I believe I was moved up to number six on the rankings.”
She scoffed again, her brow furrowed. “You keep track?”
“Yeah, it’s kind of like a leaderboard.” I noticed her concerned look. “You see, if someone in the Militia kills a civilian or commits some nasty crime, we kick them ou
t, and they’re caught quickly without our protection. Those of us that are high on the rankings have pissed off the UPF, but we haven’t done anything really bad.”
She shook her head. “So, you’re a bunch of guys comparing your missions via the most wanted list? That’s ridiculous. Don’t you want to live?”
“Most of us don’t have much to live for.” That hurt to admit.
That hit her, and she waited before taking a seat at the other end of the couch, pulling her legs in close and holding onto them defensively. She looked down before making eye contact, her eyes sharp. “So, everything you’ve been doing here, it’s not some type of mission, right? You weren’t following me that night?”
I raised my hands in defense and responded emphatically. “No! Not at all. I… dang that was a long night. I was coming back from visiting my friend who runs the St. Paul Free Press, after running a mission. I had no idea who you were until they told me in the hospital the next day. I swear.”
She looked relieved. Then, a slight smile crept across her face and she looked around, like for some reason this was the first time she was worried someone was listening. “You know the guy who runs the Free Press? I love it. I always have it smuggled in. It’s the only real glimpse I get into the real world now that I’m out of college.” Aw. Cute. She thinks she is rebellious. She thought for a second. “Coyote, so you’re the one who wrote the op-eds about how reforms can be done peacefully still.”
I smiled softly. “Yes.”
She cocked her head to the side. “Do you believe that?”
“With the monarchy’s help I do.”
Her eyes narrowed skeptically. “So, what you said on the pier…”
“I meant what I said. You have a lot of influence.”
Julia considered everything for a bit longer, her eyebrows furrowed in concentration. “How many people have you killed besides the one that night?”
I sighed and looked at my feet, thinking for a moment. “More than I’m proud of. Unlike some, I don’t take pride in killing someone’s dad, husband, or brother. I picture their faces sometimes…” I trailed off for a second. I’d never told anyone how it felt to have killed before, and I didn’t know how to finish, so I deflected. “Like I said, I want a peaceful solution, and a lot of my strategies have been working for that.”
She pondered that. Obviously, she knew I had killed people since she had seen one of them but having me admit that it was more often seemed to take a hit. Shifting uncomfortably, she avoided eye contact. “How does it feel?”
“What?”
She hesitated. “Killing someone… how does it feel?”
I sighed. “I try to avoid killing unless necessary, so it is normally in defense, which means I’m relieved to be alive myself at first, but later… it’s awful. Like I said, they’re all someone’s dad, husband, or son. You don’t just kill a person, you kill that part of everyone they’re connected to, and that… that is the worst feeling in the world. I pray you never feel it.”
She looked at me with pity before looking at her legs. I could tell that she was reflecting on everything as she fidgeted with her ring before changing topics. “You said you had peaceful strategies. Like what?”
“Confidential.”
She seemed annoyed. “Oh, come on, Coyote. If I was going to turn you in, then I already have enough information to do it.”
I thought back to the few conversations that I’d had with Delaware via radio since our last meetup. Things were coming along well, and if I could trust Julia with me being Coyote, I could probably trust her with this. “Fine, but don’t mock my codename.” She rolled her eyes. “We’ve been working for the past year on this. It’s called Operation Blackout.”
“Do you name all of your missions after some spy movie?”
“No, just this one, because it’s important. Can I continue?”
She rolled her eyed again. “Go ahead, spy boy.”
“On the night that we met, I was running the last setup mission that we needed before the big one. We had to get the locations for the UPF’s security cameras in the cities and the coding information for their systems used to spy on people’s computers and phones. Someone must have tipped off the police about the transfer we had arranged. We escaped, but somehow they found us at our safehouse.” I hesitated. Damn it. I took a deep breath and continued, “Southpaw and Bobcat were downstairs when they came through the front door. They never had a chance…” Tears filled my eyes a bit. Why now? “Three of us barely survived hiding upstairs before they torched the place. Delaware was helping Razor up the stairs and needed help, but when I forced them out onto the roof, I fell back down into the flames. That’s how I did this to my arm.”
She looked at me with concern and hesitated. “That’s awful, Ivan.” After a moment, she looked at my arm. “Can… can I see it?”
“If you want. It isn’t pretty.”
She let her legs back down before cautiously and slowly beginning to unwrap the gauze from my arm. Her face was a mix of curiosity and caution. As I watched her expose the burn, she became more worried and hesitated. Is she actually worried about me? “Does it hurt?”
“Not anymore really. I doubt it’ll heal much more than that. I’m lucky it was just that forearm.”
She held my wrist with one hand and reached out to tenderly touch the burn marks with the other. Her hand shook. It felt weird to have her doing it, but it also felt good being open with her. “So, you helped save three people in one night.”
I looked away from her, my eyes tearing up again. “I’m glad I was able to save you, but they were my team. It was my job to keep them alive. Two out of four is not a success in my book.”
She tenderly held my arm for reassurance. “There was no way for you to know they were coming, was there?”
“No, but…”
She cut me off. “You can’t blame yourself then.”
I just looked at my feet.
Her eyes studied my face. “Is it really that bad where living your life in fear of death is worth the risk?”
I bit my lip to prevent any more emotion from showing. “It’s awful. People die every day without enough food, medicine, or clean water. If you’re going to die anyway, might as well die fighting for something, right?”
Her voice was shaky, and she looked away before returning her eyes to mine. “So, the articles, the rumors, it’s all true?”
I replied, deathly serious, “All of it.”
That hit her, and she broke our eye contact. We sat there in silence for at least a minute as she tried to process things, obviously uncomfortable with all the information being thrown at her. Eventually, she looked at my arm again, analyzing it before changing topics. “I think I need to get you a new jacket, and some better clothes, if you’re going to be around me all the time.”
I hesitated. “You don’t have to…”
She cut me off sharply. “Ivan, perception is important, and how you look is a reflection on me.” Her stern look was replaced by a smile and a softer tone. “Besides, it’s my turn to help you, and this I have experience with.”
I bit my cheek and looked at her, giving in reluctantly. “Fine.”
A small smile of victory crept over her face. “Good.” She thought for a second before returning to the topic of Coyote. “You said the mission that night was for this big plan. What did the camera information get you?”
I sighed and looked back at her holding my arm and looking at me with care. “That information allows us work our virus into their system, eliminating their cameras. We will insert the virus during Operation Blackout, which is a series of targeted strikes against their four operation centers: Minneapolis, St. Paul, Milwaukee, and Des Moines. If we can take them down, then they are blind to our movements throughout the whole country. Plus, they can’t use the surveillance to spy on people for the Prism. We will have destroyed their strongest weapon against the people and weakened their legitimacy.”
“But can’t they j
ust turn the cameras back on and reactivate the systems?”
“No, the virus will overheat any cameras, new or old, on the system. They would have to rebuild the entire program and reinstall thousands of cameras, which they won’t do easily with us stopping them at every turn.”
“That is fascinating, but how does that bring a peaceful resolution to the situation?”
I smiled. “That’s where you step in…”
Chapter 20
“You want me to do what?” Julia was on her feet and pacing around the room.
“It’ll work.” I stood.
She looked at me sharply, sending a shiver down my spine. “You think that somehow I can convince my dad to force the UPF into ending the Prism and reforming the government just because they lost their ability to spy on people?”
I hope. “Yes.”
She ran her hands through her hair, letting her ponytail down in frustration. “What have I gotten myself into? You’re asking me to risk everything to help you further fracture the Prism. This is insane!”
“I won’t force you to do anything, Julia, but with you and your father’s popularity, the mere potential of using your army will be enough when we take out their cameras. Together, we can actually change things.” I stepped closer to her to try to calm her down. “And like I said, this plan is long term. This isn’t something you need to do tomorrow.”
She was hesitant and crossed her arms defensively. “You said I wasn’t part of some mission.”
“You’re not. I just thought this was a way to advance your family’s interests and our interests. It is separate from Operation Blackout, which we will be doing either way.”
She sighed, letting down her guard slightly. “Fine, I will consider it, especially if everything you’ve said about the conditions out there are true, and you think I can actually make a difference. My dad will be a whole different problem, though. He is very passive in these types of political matters.”
“I’m aware, but the goal is for him to see the personal advantages he will gain. His passiveness is actually an advantage here, because any alternative king would be solidly against us.”
The Fractured Prism (The Prism Files Book 1) Page 9