A shiver ran down Pru’s spine at the weight of his regard. “Not really,” she said at last, trying to shrug it off, the same way she always shrugged off people’s overblown expectations. “Unless by ‘why it matters,’ you mean getting some pain-in-the-ass midterm project done so you can save your GPA and get into university, and not, like, wind up working some horrifying dead-end UCC job on the other side of Barricade walls. Sometimes, good music can just be good music.”
“Can it?” The gentle eyes snapped razorlike toward Pru. What was she supposed to make of a boy like this? Sharp and soft-spoken, he was a contradiction, like some Greek god’s bastard kid, born half hurricane instead of half minotaur. “People on the other side of the Barricade walls might disagree. When’s the last time an Incorporated citizen listened to a song that wasn’t UCC-sponsored propaganda, or read a real novel, or spoke any language besides standard continental English?”
“C’est pas mon problème,” snapped Pru.
The Lamarque boy blinked at her, comically surprised. “Tu parles français?”
“Oui.”
“But you’re—”
“Chinese?”
The side of his mouth quirked. “I was going to say American.”
“You mean Midlander.”
“Same difference.” The smile broadened. “But I definitely meant ‘American’ in the old sense of the word.”
“Hey, we’re not all monolingual hicks, you supercilious Canadian,” said Pru indignantly. “Plenty of New Columbia natives have some secret bilingualism or trilingualism the Partition Wars never quite stamped out, even back when we called it Washington, D.C. Dirty little immigrant inheritance, I guess.”
“How’s yours?”
“Hah! Borderline nonexistent. My venerable ancestors spoke Chinese, or so I’m told. My mama, the show-off, writes in English, Chinese, French, and Spanish, but I don’t have her brains, or enough hours in the day. Mama recommended prioritizing a continental language, and since, like, half the major Barricade cities are all on the Northern Front—or, excuse me, Canada—French it was.” Pru shrugged. “Kind of wish I’d picked the Chinese now, to be honest.” She jabbed a finger at herself. “Check out this face. If another Partition War breaks out, I could leave the rotting remnants of our old countries behind, and join up with the rest of the diaspora out in the Asian homeland.”
“You think other continents are faring better than we are?” Alex’s inky brows knit. “The Executive General’s only getting more ambitious. Incorporated types have already started circling some of the South American and European governments, like sharks in bloody water. What’s to say UCC expansion into Asia and Africa won’t come next?”
“Bureaucracy, probably,” suggested Pru, cheerfully nonchalant. “Lord, can you imagine all the paperwork it’s gonna take to try and rule three or four continents instead of one? By the time all the right board members sign off, I’ll be fluent in Chinese, living off those fancy soup dumplings in Neo-Shanghai, and probably, like, eighty years old and ready to kick the bucket anyway.”
“You don’t really mean that.”
“Oh, maybe not,” Pru allowed, with a magnanimous sigh. “Mama says learning Chinese is really hard.” In the distance, Pru heard the grumblings of another mechanical roar. Traffic really was a beast tonight.
“And you wouldn’t just leave North America behind to descend into some kind of horrible dystopia.” His dimple flashed. “Because you’ll always be American, you know. No matter what your face looks like.” Dryly, he added, “Monolingual hick or not.”
“Wow, preserve me from the charm of Lamarque men,” said Pru, equally dry. Her gaze drifted toward the Barricade sentinel lights, the unseen shadow of the city walls. “You want some real talk? We already basically live in a grim dystopian present. I mean, come on. Three major nations reduced to a handful of walled cities defending democracy’s last gasp, while dick-ass corporate authoritarians piss all over the rest of the continent? Check, and check. And honestly? It’s not torture. Mostly, it’s pretty tolerable. Boring as death, but tolerable.”
Alex’s jaw tensed. “It’s easy to say that when you’re protected by Barricade walls. You really think life in UCC territory is tolerable? Their citizens can’t even watch a telenovela without facing Incorporated police charges.”
“Sure they can,” answered Pru easily, “if they buy the copies off a smuggler, and keep their mouths shut.”
“So if they pay you off. You and Anabel.”
Pru pursed her mouth around the expletive that nearly fell off her tongue. Smuggling media across the Barricades was pretty much an open secret, but something about the way he said it—so dismissive, like he’d already judged Pru and found her wanting—made her blood pound. “So Anabel told you about our side hustle, huh.”
Alex leaned toward her, which, to Pru’s embarrassment, kicked her pulse higher still. “Are you actually happy to be profiting off censorship and authoritarianism?”
“You do realize how weirdly ironic it is to shame someone poorer than you for politically difficult bookselling when your family surname came right out of a Victor Hugo novel, right?”
“Hey now, Jean Maximilien Lamarque wasn’t just a few lines in a book—he was a real member of the French Parliament who served in the actual Napoleonic Wars and everything. Though whether he had Canadian descendants, I couldn’t say,” Alex added thoughtfully. “Also, you’re dodging my question.”
“Dude, don’t start with me,” snapped Pru, glad the night concealed the color rising in her face. “First, black markets are always going to be a thing. They existed before the Partition Wars, and they’re going to exist well after, and if you think otherwise, you’re naive as hell. Second, sorry if my side hustle offends your delicate bourgeois boy sensibilities, but some of us are hurting for cash, since the Office of Financial Aid, surprise of surprises, doesn’t actually cover all the shit scholarship kids need. You think I’m using black market book money to, what, go rent a vacation home on the beaches of No Man’s Land, like all you old monied Coalition families do when you need to make nice with Incorporated executives and talk about how pretty our newfound peace is? Think again, asshole. And third, if you really think invading a Barricaders’ prep school auditorium to sing a few UCC-censored ditties is somehow nobler or better for those poor, downtrodden Incorporated citizens than the shit I smuggle, then you’re no better than any other rich Barricader douchebag who wants to pat himself on the back for all his charity work. Hell, you’re worse! Unless you hacked a firewall, it’s not like the Incorporated could even hear your stupid performance—”