“So why do it at all?”
“Kids used to write me letters, you know,” said Mama. “About how they figured out how to mend broken relationships by listening to my wireless dramas. Or how one line from a novel made an impossible obstacle feel surmountable, an intolerable life worth living. Kids, some of them younger than Prudence. That’s—it’s not going to bring the UCC to its knees. It never was.” She drank from the glass, one long swallow of red. “But for me, it was enough. One life, one bright moment in the dark, will always be enough.”
The silence in the air felt heavy. Lamarque had turned his back toward Pru, obscuring his face. For pregnant seconds, the expression on Mama’s, holo-smooth and unreadable, didn’t shift so much as a millimeter.
Then the side of Mama’s mouth curled. “Also, I think writing poetically raunchy missives to Prudence’s father over the wireless helped get him into bed with me. Hello, Pru.” She hit a buzzer on the table.
The door slid aside, perfunctorily traitorous. Pru practically tumbled over the threshold. Alex’s hand snagged out to grab her arm.
“And . . . ah, Alexandre, is it?” Mama’s eyes were dark and merry. “Pru’s told me so much about you.”
Pru clapped a hand over an undignified shriek. “I have not!”
“Sure,” replied Mama, with a completely mortifying wink at Alex.
Cheeks burning, Pru’s gaze darted between her mother and the Head Representative, who was drinking Mama’s wine without comment. “What are you both doing up here, anyway?”
“Waiting up for you two,” said Lamarque, setting the glass aside. “It’s good to see you both alive, by the way.”
“You’ve been watching the news reels,” said Alex.
“We’ve been getting status updates from Hakeem Bishop and Jay Park,” corrected his uncle. “Mostly concerning how utterly foolhardy you’ve both been.”
Alex’s jaw set, the sharp line of it cast in hard relief against the apartment’s low lights. “I don’t regret following Anabel’s lead, if that’s what you’re getting at. We knew Jellicoe was cooking up something in his weapons factories. We had to find out what. You can’t fight a boogeyman, Uncle.”
“And you didn’t think to ask anyone before waltzing off to an event full of intoxicated Incorporated who’s-who types?”
“You’ve never had a problem with my social life before,” said Alex.
His uncle’s eyebrows climbed into an expression reminiscent of some in Alex’s more lighthearted arsenal. “What social life?”
Mama made a sound suspiciously like a laugh. “Face it, Prometheus. You’re about to lose any and all Cool Uncle points.”
Pru turned toward her mother. “What, like you’re not mad too?”
“Oh, I’m furious,” said Mama, stretched out languidly on the couch, stirring the wine glass. “The only reason no one’s gotten punched yet is because I’ve been receiving to-the-minute updates on your whereabouts from that paranoid Chief of Staff fellow who works for Prometheus, and hence have had the assurance for the past three hours that my only child has not been shot full of plasma fire.” The glass trembled briefly, almost spilling, but her voice was smooth when she added, “Also, because this particular stunt isn’t actually Prometheus’s fault for once.”
“Thanks,” said Lamarque.
Alex strode toward his uncle. “Punish me however you like. But what are you going to do about the wyverns? They’re different from the ones my parents went after when I was a kid. These are bona fide, human-grown cyborgs. The only reason we won at all tonight was because Rebelwing held them off until the Coalition fleet showed up in bigger numbers. What happens in a fight where the Executive General matches wyverns against fleet mechs one-to-one? It’ll be a massacre. One-on-one, they’ll make any war mech that’s not Rebelwing look like something out of a bargain bin at a toy shop—”
“Yes, I’m aware, thank you,” said the Head Representative, in startlingly icy tones. “As it is my actual job to know these things, Alexandre, not yours.”
“I work for the Coalition too.”
“On work-study. That doesn’t make you any less a kid.”
Alex’s chin went up. “You can’t have it both ways, Uncle. You can’t give me and Cat the go-ahead on engineering the latest in war mech technology, sign Pru up to test-pilot, and then just shut us out of the loop like this.”
“I gave you all the go-ahead on those things in controlled environments,” snapped the Head Representative. “I wouldn’t have allowed you to do any of it if I hadn’t been assured of your safety.”
“None of us are safe!” Alex’s voice rose. “Not now that Jellicoe’s new wyverns have gone live! If you’d seen the kind of violence we saw on No Man’s Land tonight—”
“I have!” thundered Lamarque. Alex’s mouth hinged shut, as his uncle continued, deadly quiet, “Do you think I’ve forgotten the Partition Wars, or our family’s part in it? Do you think I’ve forgotten Etienne? Or Julia? I haven’t. I can’t. I relive every moment spent with them every time I walk into the Head Representative’s office. Don’t you dare imply that I don’t know the price we paid for the existence of that office.”
“I’m not implying—”
“But you are,” said his uncle, grim toned. Lamarque set aside the wine glass. He ran a hand through his hair, pinching the bridge of his nose with the other. “Alexandre. Alex. I want you to grow up strong. I want you to grow up kind. I want you to grow up aware of your ability to change the world. But I don’t want you to sacrifice your childhood to have those things.”
“And how much of my childhood will be left once Jellicoe sells his new and improved wyverns to the Executive General? How much when the UCC reignites the Partition Wars?”
His uncle’s mouth set. “I’ll handle it.”
“How?”
“Alexandre—”
“I’ll tell you how,” said Alex. “Let me take Pru’s place in Rebelwing’s cockpit.”
Pru’s head jerked toward him. Alex had gone still, hands folded in front of him, utterly calm and as coldly distant as a statue in a museum of someone long dead.
“It’s the most obvious solution to the wyvern problem,” he continued, each word carefully measured out, bargaining chips for the taking. He sounded so reasonable. “You need to take out the wyvern alpha, and for that, you need Rebelwing. You know you do, Uncle. That was the entire point of Rebelwing.”