“My parents,” he said. He didn’t offer anything more.
“Wyverns are a war profiteering business,” said Hakeem Bishop. “And the sightings on the Barricade walls are very much real. Cat is right about that much.”
“Not just any wyverns,” said Alex. “These were different.”
Bishop sighed. “Alexandre—”
“I know what I saw,” insisted Alex. He even talked like his uncle, soft-spoken, but with a conviction that somehow enveloped the entire room. “The design and flight patterns on the footage from the Barricade sentinels don’t match up with the wyverns being deployed during the Partition Wars. These are more aggressive. Sharper. Smarter.” His breath hitched, before he added, “This is Jellicoe’s work.”
Jellicoe. Pru shifted uneasily from one foot to the other. It was the same name Cat had mentioned back at the coffeehouse. The Incorporated engineer who’d put her to work in his wyvern factories.
“With the number of arms dealers vying for profits from the Executive General, we can’t know that for certain.”
Alex flashed a small, grim smile. “You got intel on a Jellicoe product demo, what, forty-eight hours before the first sightings? The timing all tracks.”
“I won’t ask how you mysteriously acquired intel you were never cleared for,” said the Head Representative in dry tones, “but I’m going to assume her surname rhymes with ‘lark.’”
That grim little smile gave way to an expression of pure innocence that would have done Anabel herself proud. “Are you denying its validity? Is Harold Jellicoe, prize arms dealer of the UCC, demo-ing a new product, or isn’t he?”
“I knew all that time you spend around the press corps would come to no good end,” said Gabriel Lamarque in slightly mournful tones. “Nonetheless, I agree that these wyverns are an evolved model, and I’m not pleased to see them nipping at Coalition territory. Nor am I exactly wild to be, for the moment, outnumbered. We only have one Rebelwing, after all. We need everything she has to give, and Rebelwing needs her pilot. Be glad she’s picked one.”
“This probably isn’t a good time to mention that I’ve failed my mech piloting license exams, like, five times, right,” said Pru desperately. “I’m telling you, Cat might have a stick up her ass, but she’s right about one thing. Robo Reptile’s made a mistake.”
Alex rounded on her. “Do you know how long Rebelwing went missing?”
“How the hell should I know? Not my dragons, not my fantasy circus!”
“Three days,” he continued, as if she hadn’t spoken. “The moment wyverns were sighted over the city walls, our best weapon vanished. And we had no idea where to begin looking. Until a girl from New Columbia Prep got caught peddling black market books on the wrong side of the Barricades. That was you. Rebelwing—sentient, intelligent Rebelwing—emerged from hiding because she chose to save you.”
Pru’s mouth went dry. She’d thought he was angry, but anger—fiery and straightforward—didn’t encompass the storm behind his expression. “What are you saying?”
His mouth curved. And just like that, the hurricane that was Alexandre Santiago Lamarque settled back into something boy-shaped and terribly young. “That maybe I was wrong.” His gaze tracked sideways, a minute little flick of the face that hid his expression beneath his lashes. “Rebelwing doesn’t need me. She needs you.”
“That’s absurd.”
Alex’s hands spread, his body language open and wry. “Very little about this situation isn’t, but there’s not much we can do about that right now, is there? Right now, we need you to bring your mech home.”
Pru, still staring at him, swallowed her terror. Licked dry lips. “How?” she croaked.
Alex looked at his uncle. “Is the mech landing pad open?”
Gabriel Lamarque’s handsome features split into a wide grin. “If I say so? Certainly.”
He stood, buttoning his suit jacket, looking for all the world like he was preparing to make a speech at a gala, not escorting a would-be teenage felon to an exclusive military base. Hakeem Bishop and Jay Park rose to flank the Head Representative on either side. “Right this way.”
Pru opened her mouth to say something, anything, and instead found herself falling in step behind them. She wasn’t sure how these blue-blooded Coalition families managed to turn ordinary people into unwitting ducklings, but she would have gladly forked over the whole of her smuggling earnings to learn that trick.
“I don’t know how to do it,” Pru managed, as they trailed down a hallway, her and Alex and these three horribly important government men. She wished, more than anything, that Anabel were with them. She even kind of wished Cat were with them. Anything to put a buffer between herself and these Coalition suits. Hell, anything to put a buffer between herself and Alex, whose inscrutable black gaze hung with the weight of expectations she didn’t understand. “Like, I have no idea how to summon the thing deliberately.”
“Willpower,” said Alex. “Piloting a war mech requires training and finesse, but getting a sentient machine to come when you call? You have to want it.”
They emerged at what appeared to be a miniature stadium. It could have passed for a university sports arena, save the high metal walls. Pru whistled. “Holy crap. So this is where Coalition taxpayer money goes, huh?”
“Lucky for you, at the moment,” muttered Bishop. Louder, he added, “Even without an active war on our hands, our military does, remarkably enough, require adequate training grounds for new war mech prototypes, Prudence.”
Pru rolled her eyes, which only brought the morning-bright rays of sunlight into over-sharp focus. “So, what, I stand here, click my heels together, and wish really hard for Robo Reptile to appear, and then you’ll let me go face the music at school for my no-good truant ways?” By her count, she’d have absences in all three of her morning classes by now, which meant at least three corresponding Saturday night detentions, unless her government representatives turned out to be in the habit of writing excuse notes on behalf of juvenile delinquents who accidentally bonded with sentient zillion-dollar war mechs.
“The heel clicking is optional,” said Gabriel Lamarque.
Pru swallowed something she’d probably regret saying to the leader of the Barricade Coalition. “How will I know if it’s working?” she asked instead.
“You’ll get inside Rebelwing’s head,” said Alex. “You’ll be able to catch sight of wherever she’s gone, and call her back. You remember how the world looked inside the cockpit, right?”
Unbidden, New Columbia sprawled across her mind’s eye again, panoramic high definition, like an interactive film ad. How could she forget? “Yeah.”