“Project Rebelwing. One of my earliest designs, with Alexandre’s input, of course. He has been crucial to my work.” Cat’s pale, cybernetic eye flicked toward Pru. “I am only a barista on Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday mornings. Or did you think all the mechanical wonders of the Barricade Coalition—the vehicles, the high-speed rail between the cities, et cetera—simply sprang to life by magic?”
Pru swallowed, gazing around at the coffeehouse’s three occupants. Cat, golden lips pulled thin, artificial hand clenched into a fist at her side. Alex, his expression opaque, inky brows curved over those soft, steady eyes, plasma gun still gleaming inches from his fingertips. And Anabel, hovering between them, pink-cheeked but immaculate, looking utterly miserable.
She’d been Pru’s best friend.
“What are you guys, exactly?” asked Pru, very quietly.
Cat’s chin lifted. “Engineering student at Lamarque U. Double concentration in contemporary cyborg modding and war mech programming.”
“Part-time, fourth-year student at New Columbia Prep,” said Alex.
Anabel wouldn’t lift her eyes. “Pru, listen—”
“No, Anabel, go on,” said Pru, words still dropping from her mouth in that odd, quiet voice that didn’t feel fully her own. “What are you, really? Because I thought you were a schoolmate. A friend. Not someone who runs around behind my back, unleashing mechanical monsters on the continent.”
“I’m not unleashing mechanical monsters on the continent.”
“Wow,” drawled Pru. “High bar, Park! I know you always aim to overachieve. Still, never thought you’d lie to me, making up some bullshit about Modern Politics II—”
“I never lied to you!” snapped Anabel, eyes lifting at last. “Every word I’ve said is true. I really do take the Modern Politics sequence at school, and so does Alex. You know Modern Politics II includes a work-study component. Some of our classmates do assistantships or fellowships with media companies or inter– Barricade City communications and transport departments. Me and Alex, we’re enrolled with Cat in the same internship at Coalition headquarters.”
“What the hell kind of internship? Robot Reptiles 101?”
“Of course not! We do projects for the benefit of the Barricade Coalition government. It’s . . . look, government projects on our level are sensitive, okay? I wanted to read you in, Pru. I’ve been trying to convince Alex to recruit you for the internship all semester long. I thought maybe, if you guys just met face-to-face—”
Pru’s stomach dropped to her toes. “The meeting at the library. You deliberately double-booked me, didn’t you? It was never about the alibi. It was about this stupid government project, or whatever it is you’re up to.” She barked out an incredulous little laugh. “Holy shit. You Anabel Park’d me. I’ve seen you do it to customers on the other side of the Barricades, and I’ve seen you do it to bitchy classmates, but I never thought you’d do it to me.”
“Don’t be absurd,” snapped Anabel. “We had a drop to make, and I wanted Alex to see what you were capable of. I was going to make proper introductions between the two of you, and I would have succeeded, if you hadn’t hared off on your own just because I ran a couple minutes late. Two goals, one meeting. What’s so wrong with that?”
“What’s wrong with that?” Pru strode into her friend’s space, heedless of the dangerous look in her eyes. “You handled me. Like I was some . . . some game piece, to be moved around at your convenience. Like I was too stupid to have a say in the grand plans of the illustrious Anabel Park.”
“Don’t be an asshole.” Anabel’s expression had taken on a cold, clinical cast that made the insides of Pru’s skin twinge. She’d seen Anabel whip out that ice queen stare before. She’d just never been on its receiving end. “Pru, you skipped out on, like, ten classes in our first semester alone. Be honest—how likely were you to show up to a meeting about an internship opportunity, versus book smuggling work? At least for the second one, you’d feel obligated to turn up for the money.”
Every inch of Pru went still. The coffeehouse had gone utterly silent. Before her, three faces blurred, as if viewed through a faulty camera lens. “Well,” said Pru at last. Her voice felt like a splinter, lodged inside her too-tight throat. “Glad you’re finally willing to admit how you really feel.”
Without another word, she stood up, crossed the room, and shoved her way out the coffeehouse door, the auto-tuned welcome jingle a mocking echo in her ears.
4
IMPRINTED
Dramatic exits worked a lot better when you actually had some idea where you were going. Pru got about as far as the patch of grass where the mech—the dragon—had dumped her off. Pru stared dumbly at the ground for a moment. Then she sat down, grass-stained skirt and all, and, to her mortification, burst into tears.
Footsteps padded out to join her a few minutes later. “Hey,” said Alex Lamarque, “mind if I sit for a minute?” He sounded more awkward than any Lamarque Pru had ever heard. Then again, Alex was the only Lamarque she’d ever met in person. It was probably easy not to sound awkward on pretaped news broadcasts, or old political documentaries.
She wiped at her nose with an elbow, wanting vaguely to die. “You’ll get grass stains on your trousers,” she informed him thickly, but scooted over to make room.
“My trousers have seen worse.” Alex stretched out beside her, long legs crossed at the ankles. “Are you okay?”
“Fine, now that I’m not staring down the business end of a plasma gun.” Pru scrubbed at her wet cheeks. “I just have something in my eye.”
“I believe they’re called tears.”
“Shut up.”
“Here.” He produced a handkerchief from seemingly nowhere, a soft square of ivory starting to go a bit threadbare, but clearly well made.
Pru snorted. “My god, you really are a bourgeois boy.” But she accepted it all the same, the linen still warm from his hands.
“I embrace some stereotypes.” Even burying her face in the handkerchief, half-blinded, she could feel Alex’s regard resting on her, heavy and inscrutable. What did you do, pinned under eyes like those? His was a gaze that melted the hearts of a rock concert audience one minute, then squinted through a pair of pistol sights the next. Pru shivered.
“I’m sorry about the plasma gun,” Alex said at last. His weight shifted beside her. “I work for the military division of Barricade Coalition. That mobile suit, the dragon—Rebelwing—she went missing a couple weeks ago. Thanks to Cat’s genius, Rebelwing’s the closest the Coalition’s army engineers have gotten to creating a mech that could take down wyvern flocks, but the dragon’s behavior is still unpredictable. That makes her dangerous, in more ways than one. And when you just molded to those scales and wings, like you were made for them, I thought . . . well, I didn’t know what to think. But I shouldn’t have scared you like that.”