* * *
IN LATER DAYS, PRU would more easily remember the aftermath of the wyvern attack in news reels and scrolling fragments of status updates to social media networks, punctuated by the frantic exchanges of message board posts. The chorus of New Columbia’s people, old and young, called out for a culprit for the terror on the beach, the victims shell-shocked and weeping in blurry photos splashed across phone feeds.
Harold Jellicoe’s name trended at the top of every social media network on the wireless. He’d reportedly disappeared halfway through the seafood course at the party, and the only sign of him since had been the wyverns raining plasma fire on the beach. Pru hadn’t known any of the Barricaders who’d died, but Masterson aside, she recognized two faces among the Incorporated casualties: the elderly couple who’d watched her argue with Alex over dinner. Their bios on the news reels identified them as Zachary and Paulina Aberdeen, major executives in the Incorporated power structure: lifelong, trusted confidantes of the Executive General himself.
They’d also owned the only war mech manufacturing subsidiary in UCC Inc.’s sprawling empire that came close to rivaling Harold Jellicoe’s.
UCC Inc. law boasted a wide margin of allowance for competition between arms dealers, but even the Incorporated drew the line at murder, at least when it came to their own. The Executive General himself, furious at the deaths of his closest lieutenants, had vowed to have Jellicoe “handled.” Everyone knew what “handled” meant, on an official statement from the Executive General’s office. UCC Inc. had no concept of trials or due process. Once found, Harold Jellicoe would disappear down a dark hole somewhere, and if he wasn’t dead, he’d very quickly wish he was.
Something about the whole thing felt off to Pru. She didn’t doubt that a man like Jellicoe—both clever and cold-blooded enough to climb so close to the top of the Incorporated ladder—would slaughter his enemies without blinking twice. Etienne and Julia had learned that the hard way. But why would he do it so publicly? The Aberdeens’ relationship with the Executive General should have made them untouchable, even to Jellicoe. After all, what was the point of killing your enemies at the cost of your own life?
The tiny part of Pru that wasn’t replete with bone-deep exhaustion wondered, with a brief pang, what Alex thought of such an anticlimactic fate for his parents’ murderer.
The rest of Pru, however, had hunched her shoulders, tucked herself into her childhood bed, and swiped the news aside for e-mails about homework and deadlines. Jay Park had written a formal note indefinitely postponing her combat assessment “in light of the present situation,” and reassuring Pru that “grading for this internship will instead hinge on conduct exhibited thus far in extraordinary circumstances,” which seemed to be government-ese for “you get an A for kinda sorta piloting Rebelwing in the midst of a surprise terrorist attack, and not immediately getting you or any of your friends blown up.”
Jay Park’s opinions on Pru’s valor under fire, however, did not apparently excuse her from calculus p-sets, bio readings, or an upcoming European History exam. Mama, who’d decided the whole near-fatal espionage thing more than called for Pru’s long overdue grounding, demanded permission for her to take school assignments remotely for the week. School acquiesced with a nudge from its staff of therapists.
Which left Pru wrapped in an old quilt, screening messages from her friends, and staring at her ceiling, as she tried to wrap her brain around some European historians’ arguments on the causes of the French Revolution. One of the revolutions, at any rate. Pru had lost track. Their stupid, war-loving continent had that much in common with their European cousins across the sea.
On the fourth day of Mama-mandated house arrest, Mama herself appeared at Pru’s bedroom door and announced in conversational tones, “Okay, tell me if I’m wrong, but I think my attempt to discipline you for foolhardy beach partying in politically dangerous locales has backfired on me. The way you mope about under that blanket, I’d think you actually want to isolate yourself from your friends. Even the foolhardy beach-partying variety. Maybe especially the foolhardy beach-partying variety,” Mama added, looking thoughtful. “Now, there’s a wrench in my responsible parenting scheme. Figuring out the most effective ways to be tough yet fair on a teenager is its own battlefield. Remarkably, no one bothers to warn you about that when you’re a seventeen-year-old dragged into a massive continental war.”
“We’re not at war,” Pru informed the ceiling.
“Not yet, obviously. And I was referring to myself, you self-centered little ingrate.” Mama’s weight dipped the mattress. “I think we ought to talk.”
“Why?” A thin crack ran from the age-stained linoleum ceiling tiles down toward the flickering white glow of her fairy-shaped bedside lamp. Pru had grown up in this apartment, but she’d never counted on feeling as if she’d grown out of it. “You’ve never wanted to talk about wars before.”
“The Partition Wars?” Mama sighed. “No, I suppose I haven’t.”
“We always talked about other stuff,” Pru continued, staring at that crack. “The stories you write. The special sales at the bodega downstairs. Your opinions about continental languages. The things Grandma and Grandpa told you about their life back in Old Shanghai, before they made the arguably terrible life choice of moving across the ocean to a mismanaged chunk of land, doomed to lose all its countries and governments within a century. Great call on their part.”
“Yes, how tremendously short-sighted of my parents not to be psychic fortunetellers,” said Mama dryly. “New Columbia was once the seat of democracy for the most powerful country in the world. It seemed a promising prospect, back in the day.”
“And now it’s the seat of democracy for a ragtag pack of rebel cities left over from three countries whose governments were handily bulldozed by a megacorporation with a chip on its shoulder.”
“No one saw the Partition Wars coming, kiddo. Not the true scope and scale of them.”
“Maybe someone should have.”
“‘Should have’ is a very easy state of being when hindsight’s twenty-twenty, wouldn’t you say? Besides, who knows if it would have helped at all, or only made things worse. Maybe we’d all have been Cassandra, waiting for the fall of Troy, knowing what would become of our home, and helpless to prevent it.”
“Is that what Gabriel Lamarque thinks?”
Her mother’s pause was a tangible thing, lingering heavy in the air. “Who’s to say?”
“Why were you arguing with him when Alex and I came home?” Pru blurted out.
“Because I take comfort in hobbies, and that one is an old favorite. You and your Lamarque boy took your sweet time finding your way from No Man’s Land back to New Columbia. Forgive your elders for finding their own means to pass the time, not to mention the utter heart-numbing fear.” Mama’s voice went high on that last word, cracking into nothing. She inhaled once, gathering herself, and said, “I have never known a moment I wasn’t afraid, from the end of the Partition Wars to the first time I saw you toddle on your own two ridiculous little feet. That, kiddo, is why I don’t like talking about wartime.”