“But doing a Barricade Coalition internship together would be pretty sweet too. It would look great on your university applications!”
“Don’t push your luck, asshole.”
Anabel laughed. Almost against her will, Pru’s mouth twitched in response. Their friendship wasn’t exactly what it had been yesterday morning, before disastrously miscommunicated meetings and rogue robot lizards and secrets laid inelegantly bare between them. But they weren’t broken, either. Pru could trust that much.
5
WAR HEROES
Marching toward something other than first-period calculus at eight A.M. on a Thursday morning felt weird and tawdry and a little daring, even for Pru. Marching toward the tourist-beloved home of the elected leader of the last free cities on the North American continent felt downright surreal.
Pru pictured filling out her truancy slip for Headmaster Goldschmidt’s office. REASON FOR ABSENCE: forgot to turn in problem sets because secret government-sponsored robot lizard kidnapped me off roof of school building; negotiations with the hero of the Partition Wars still pending.
The Head Representative’s Mansion sat on a well-cut lawn near the center of New Columbia proper. When Alex led their group straight past the manicured gardens and iron-wrought gates, Pru glanced his way in surprise. “I thought you made an appointment to see your, uh, uncle.” Referring to Head Representative Gabriel Lamarque as anybody’s uncle still felt weird to Pru, but admittedly, her barometer for weird was a little skewed at the moment. Sentient dragon mechs had a tendency to do that, it seemed.
“We did,” said Alex.
“You might want to make a turn, then.”
“The Head Representative will not be taking an off-the-books meeting with a band of miscreant teenagers at the Mansion,” snapped Cat, twisting her head around to glare at them both. “We’re going to—”
“Please don’t say a secret underground bunker,” said Pru. “My heart can’t take the cliché.”
“A safehouse,” said Alex in bracing tones. “Here.” He paused at a nondescript door, crammed among the newly built townhouses around the city corner, and whistled, a quick, minor-key succession of notes.
An intercom clicked on. “Eyes,” instructed the auto-tuned voice.
Alex lifted his chin, unblinking, as the camera perched atop the door scanned one retina, then the other. Evidently satisfied, the door hummed, sliding aside in one smooth motion. “Thank you for cooperation,” chirped the intercom.
What followed was a series of steps—not even an escalator, but actual stone steps. “Aha,” whispered Pru, triumphant. “I knew it. A secret underground bunker!”
“Please stop talking,” said Anabel.
The winding staircase ended in a door that Cat proceeded to kick open. “We have come to restore my dragon mech to Alexandre’s imprinting coordinates,” she announced tonelessly.
“Oh my god,” said Anabel. With one hand, she hauled Cat backward by the elbow—bold move, by Pru’s estimation, but one that Cat took with surprising calm. With the other hand, Anabel covered her eyes, fingers stretching to massage her temples.
As one, the occupants behind the kicked-open door looked up from the conference table. Pru recognized the man at the center immediately, his blue eyes bright beneath a thick crown of well-coiffed hair. Gabriel Lamarque’s face, still boyishly handsome even fifteen years after the heyday of the Partition Wars, represented different things to different people. A folk hero to some, a twinkling-eyed traitor to others, and everything in between, he was utterly jarring in the flesh, an airbrushed magazine cover made real.
“Why, if it isn’t the young Cat herself!” called Head Representative Lamarque, in alarmingly jovial tones. Those famous eyes crinkled at the corners, giving his smile away before it fully formed. He nudged one of the other suits at the table with one elbow. “Don’t look so scandalized, Hakeem. I did warn you that my nephew’s friends have a habit of dramatic entrances.”
The man he’d nudged, a lean whip of a man with skin as dark as his graying hair was pale, snorted. Pru knew this one: Hakeem Bishop, the Head Representative’s Chief of Staff. He’d been a friend and contemporary to Anabel’s grandfather. “Don’t think I’ve forgotten your own misspent youth, Gabriel,” drawled Bishop. “Teenagers are dramatic by definition.”
“Yes, well, at least these teens report rogue mechs to the correct authorities. I’m quite certain the rules of responsible guardianship dictate that I’m supposed to ground Alexandre otherwise.”
“You ought to ground him anyway, the way the press is going on about this secret rock show he threw after curfew at New Columbia Prep. The Park girl too!” he added, pitching his voice for the benefit of the man on Lamarque’s opposite side.
The third man, visibly the youngest of the trio, offered a slow, enigmatic smile. “I find Anabel tends to do as she pleases, regard less of the family’s input,” he drawled, draping himself backward in his seat. The motion made the fine blue wool of his suit sigh over his shoulders. Pru, watching, half expected him to prop his feet up on the conference table. As his head lifted, a fancifully white-dyed streak of otherwise pitch-dark hair dipped over his eyes. He winked. “Well met, Cousin.”
“Screw you too, Jay,” returned Anabel cheerfully. “And for the record, our secret rock show did a fine job of distracting Barricader press and Incorporated authorities alike from our little runaway lizard problem, so you’re quite frankly welcome.”
“Ah, the lizard problem,” mused her cousin—Jay, apparently. “And so we return to the matter of Cat and Alexandre’s curious little creation.” Pru tried not to fidget as he gave their ragtag band a vaguely unimpressed once-over. New Columbia Prep had boasted a Jay Park in one of those hokey notable alumni displays at the school library. He’d graduated shortly after the Partition Wars, and was one of the youngest advisors tapped to serve the Coalition government. Noticing Pru’s stare, he flashed another white-toothed grin. Handsome too. Maybe that was some kind of secret law: you couldn’t work for the Coalition government unless you were also infuriatingly hot.
Alex stepped forward, then, features schooled. “I take full responsibility for the events that have transpired for the past two days,” he said, voice full and unwavering, like he was back on that auditorium stage again. “For what it’s worth, Cat and I think it’s a pretty simple fix. If Rebelwing has imprinted on Pru, she’ll be able to summon her here, where we can go about deleting the imprint.”
“So you told me in your message,” said Gabriel Lamarque, chin in his hands. “I admire your sense of responsibility, Alexandre. But why so eager to delete the imprint?”