One. When making a drop-off during a campus lockdown, book your alibi in advance. New Columbia Prep’s faculty loved its stereotypes, and so far as Headmaster Goldschmidt was concerned, the anxious little grade grubbers who reserved three hours of library time five days early couldn’t possibly be using that time to smuggle black market media into Incorporated territory like common delinquents.
Two. Put in face time during your first hour in the library, and no one would bother checking to see if you ever returned from your “bathroom break” during the second.
Three. Don’t be fucking late to that first hour.
Like an answer to her prayers, or an eavesdropper on her inner monologue, came the telltale whoosh of sliding chrome.
Pru practically exploded toward the door. “Park! About damn time you showed up for the job, I was just about to—”
She paused. The boy at the door wasn’t Anabel Park. He was probably another student, judging from his uniform—either a student or some terrible, sleep-deprivation-induced fever dream—but not a student Pru had seen around campus before. At the very least, she’d have remembered the knife-edge silhouette of those cheekbones.
So why did he seem so familiar?
“My name’s not Park,” said Cheekbones McFever Dream.
“Clearly not,” said Pru faintly. She turned her chin up for a better look at him. Nonplussed, Cheekbones McFever Dream returned her scrutiny with dark eyes, deep-set beneath a wavy mop of equally dark hair. His white button-down, bright over olive skin, and schoolboy tie loosened at the collar made him look like a long-lost leading man from an old-fashioned film poster. Maybe he’d been summoned forth from the depths of history, newly arrived in their brave new world. Or maybe he’d escaped the pages of some teen romance comic Pru’s mother was penning. That would explain both his alarming familiarity and distressing amounts of sex appeal. Maybe Pru could call Mama later and ask. Say, Mama, she imagined drawling, funny thing, but you don’t happen to be missing one brooding romantic lead disguised as a prep school kid, about my age, perhaps yea high? Why? Oh, no reason, just an anxiety-induced case of creepy déjà vu! Love you.
“May I . . . help you?” asked the fever dream delicately.
“Sorry,” mumbled Pru. “I’m waiting for Anabel Park. I thought you were her.”
“I’m flattered.” The full mouth twitched with amusement. “Though sorry to disappoint. Afraid I’m nowhere near as charming as the youngest and cleverest of the Park clan.” He stuck his hands—what Mama liked to call artist’s hands, long-fingered and elegantly formed—into his trouser pockets. “I’m merely me.”
“Who?” asked Pru. “I’m, like, eighty percent sure we haven’t met.”
“Alex,” said the fever dream, then with an odd shift to his accent, “Alexandre Santiago, if you need to pull the school library records. Anabel Park and I are checking into this study, actually.”
“No, you’re not,” said Pru. Indignation temporarily overruled self-consciousness. “Anabel and I are checking into this study. I’m supposed to”—hurriedly, she slid the holo-drive into her stocking—“meet her for a . . . a project here. The study should be booked in her name.”
Alex’s expression cleared. “That’s the mix-up, then. She’s also my project partner, for Modern Politics II. She booked our study too. If she’s working with you for another class, she must have double-booked yours by mistake.”
Irritation jabbed at Pru. “And you’re so sure she double-booked me, and not you?”
Alex frowned. “That’s not what I meant. You probably just have the wrong time slot.”
“Look, my dude,” said Pru, fishing out her phone, “Anabel told me two P.M., in study number five thirty-two, I’ve got it right here in the automated calendar. How do you know you’re not the one who got the wrong time slot?”
“Fine,” snapped Alex, producing his own phone, “we can check the official school records.”
“Fine,” agreed Pru, jamming a finger against her screen with more force than strictly necessary. The brightly colored library records burst into reproachful, three-dimensional life over her outstretched palm. “See here?” Triumphantly, she swiped a finger through the hologram to pull up the study bookings. “It should say right here, ‘Anabel Park’ and ‘Prudence Wu.’”
“Maybe it should,” said Alex amiably enough. The hologram colors gleamed in the dark mirror of his eyes. “But you might want to look again.”
Pru, against her better judgment, looked. And groaned.
Anabel Park and Alexandre Santiago, read the entry for Study No. 532, West Library, 2:00 P.M.
“Clerical error, maybe,” offered Alex with a shrug.
Murder, thought Pru with hysterical, malevolent cheer. I’m going to murder Anabel. What’s a little homicide between friends?
“You’d have to ask Anabel,” said Alex. “But do me a solid, would you, and give her a chance to finish her share of the Modern Politics presentation first.”
“Did I say the homicide thing aloud?” Pru probably didn’t need another coffee, but she definitely wanted one now. Maybe with something stronger mixed in.
“Look,” said Alex, who was evidently inclined to take pity on would-be murderers, “wait until Anabel arrives. Once she’s here, you two can sort out your scheduling mix-up—”
“No, no.” Pru flapped a hand. “Don’t take time out of your study date on my behalf. The mix-up is my fault, anyway.” Which was a blatant lie. Pru wasn’t the one who’d double-booked their alibi like some overworked secretary. Then again, if Pru hadn’t procrastinated on the damn drop-off in the first place, she wouldn’t be stuck here playing chicken with this obnoxious, tight-assed pretty boy.
She grabbed her knapsack with a grimace. The metal cylinder dug cold against her thigh beneath the stocking. There was no help for that. It wasn’t like she could text Anabel to reschedule, when they’d already delayed the job this long. Besides, Pru had been smuggling longer than she’d been friends with Anabel. Even on lockdown hours, what was one solo drop-off in Incorporated territory? Cake.
Alex’s sharp black gaze tracked the staccato efficiency of Pru’s movements. “Wyverns got you nervous?”
“What, those flying mechanical boogeymen?” scoffed Pru. “Rumors, that’s all. Some caffeine-deprived guard manning the Barricade gates probably just saw a flock of really big-ass birds or something, and freaked the fuck out.”
“Birds,” repeated Alex, utterly deadpan.
“Fine, maybe not birds,” Pru allowed, with a roll of her eyes, “but don’t tell me you really believe in this bullshit about a revival of the war wyverns. You’d think the Incorporated would have thought of better scare tactics since the Partition Wars, with the amount of money the Executive General throws at their Propagandist. I mean, airborne stealth mechs that shoot top-grade plasma fire and kill on sight? In peacetime? They’re not real.”