Instead, she glanced dolefully up into his eyes and said, “My mother just punched your uncle in the face.”
Alex blinked several times at this proclamation. His silence lasted just long enough to highlight the indistinctly raised voices behind the office door. “Do you think it’s an assassination attempt?” he asked.
“Your uncle hasn’t called for a security detail yet.” Someone behind the door snarled an expletive. Pru winced. “And he’s plainly still alive, so if she’s in murder mode, Mama’s losing her touch. They kicked me out”—she paused to check her phone—“wow, almost fifteen minutes ago. Hell of a time to wait for a killing stroke.”
“The Barricade Coalition is grateful for Mama Wu’s mercy. What started the fight?”
“Me, presumably.” Pru hesitated, remembering how Mama had sounded on the phone while Pru babbled about an internship opportunity with the Coalition government, and how good it would look on university applications, and wouldn’t Mama like an opportunity to chat about her daughter’s work-study with Head Representative Lamarque himself? An honor, such an honor.
Mama had gone quiet, then said in a funny voice, “Sure, kiddo. Why not? I’ll talk to Gabriel. I’m glad he’s extended the invitation.”
“What,” said Pru, laughing nervously, “like you’re on a first-name basis with Gabriel Lamarque?”
“Last we met, we were.” Mama hadn’t offered anything beyond that. Then she’d turned up in the Head Representative’s office three days later, walked right up to his fine oak desk, and sucker punched him. Pru probably would have found the whole thing funny, in an absurd sort of way, if she weren’t so mortified.
Alex was frowning. “Your mum doesn’t want you working with us?”
Pru felt her mouth curl involuntarily at mum, the Northern twang to his odd hybrid accent, weirdly charmed. “I don’t know that I want me working with you. I’m not exactly an ace pilot, or the carefully groomed scion of an old revered Barricader family. Like, you do realize I’m way likelier to crash a zillion dollars’ worth of ragey robot reptile into a skyscraper than to successfully defend North American democracy in the event of a second Partition War, right?”
Pru had survived most of her prep school career by avoiding activities she was likeliest to fail at. Test-piloting a living weapon was probably one of them. And being single-handedly responsible for the downfall of the Barricade Coalition would look a lot worse on her résumé than almost flunking Intro to Robotics.
It was the wrong thing to say. Alex’s frown deepened, inscrutability layered into those inkwell eyes of his. Pru folded her arms and tucked her spine against the couch, bracing for anger or, worse, disappointment.
“Is Rebelwing’s imprint really so terrible?” he asked instead. “You’re not wrong to be afraid, but there’s so much more to Rebelwing than fear. You should know that better than anyone. You’ve been in the cockpit. You’ve flown. I saw your expression when you called the mech to the landing pad, that morning in the safehouse.”
“Yeah, well, then I fainted. But no,” Pru allowed after a moment. She thought of the city, spiraling, cinematic. “It wasn’t—it’s not— terrible. The imprint, I mean.”
Alex smiled. It was a shy, fleeting thing, not at all like his aggressively charismatic stage face, but more than enough to raise Pru’s pulse, which offended her on principle. Alex was hot, but hot was easy to pull off, if you were rich and confident and cared about clothes and grooming. Quit falling for that basic shit, Pru ordered her pulse.
Ba-bum-ba-bum-ba-bum, replied her pulse, willfully rebellious.
The door slid open with a slam that nearly gave Pru a heart attack. Out stalked Mama, Gabriel Lamarque on her heels. “Shove it up your pretty backside, Prometheus,” Pru’s mother said to the Head Representative of the Barricade Coalition, lipsticked mouth savoring all the consonants. “I’m not one of your fawning sycophants. I’ve given quite enough to your wars. I’ll thank you not to snatch up my daughter too, if you please.” To Pru, she snapped, “Come on, kiddo. We’re leaving.”
“Um,” said Pru, glancing between the two furious adults and Alex’s stricken expression. “Ma, this is probably a not-great time to tell you that I’ll probably get kicked out of school for illegal book smuggling if I don’t take the Head Representative’s work-study offer, right?”
“Believe me, I tried that line of argument,” said Gabriel Lamarque. Gingerly, he rubbed his jaw.
“Yeah, nice try, asshole,” said Mama. “Public schools exist for a reason. New Columbia Prep’s not the only decent university feeder in the Barricade cities.”
“Mama!” cried Pru, unsure whether to be more scandalized by Mama swearing at the hero of the Partition Wars, or the cavalier dismissal of a school whose tuition had eaten up most of Mama’s freelance money.
“Well, it’s not,” said Mama, her mouth a thin crimson line. “Nothing wrong with New Columbia High. Pru would do just fine there. Barricader prep schools don’t have a monopoly on smart kids, just on smart rich kids.”
The Head Representative sighed. “I’m not denying that, Sophie. But it’s not wrong for children to—”
“I’m not talking about children, plural,” said Mama bluntly. “I’m talking about my child. She’s not a soldier, she’s a student. And the Partition Wars are over, Incorporated weapons demos and wyvern rumors be damned. I realize this may be a new concept for you, but no one’s obligated to fight battles for your convenience these days.”
“I want to pilot Rebelwing,” Pru blurted out.
The entire room seemed to expand, then zoom in on Pru. “Not for anyone’s convenience,” she mumbled, hot-cheeked under the attention. “Except maybe mine.”
Mama was right. Pru would probably do just fine at New Columbia High. Plenty of friends and neighbors, with equal smarts but modest means, had done more with less. If she transferred now, she could quit worrying about how big everyone around her seemed: bigger brains, bigger bank accounts, bigger ambitions. She could quit feeling small. For one taut moment, she was tempted.
Then she remembered how dragon wings felt. In Rebelwing’s cockpit, she hadn’t been small at all. “I don’t want to leave New Columbia Prep, Mama, not when I’ve only got a year left before university.” Pru swallowed. “And, you know, if the UCC really is developing new wyverns, I’d rather not see the city go up in a blaze of plasma fire before I even graduate. I have the mech’s imprint. This will work.” Sometimes, when you said things aloud, even if you didn’t really have the confidence to back them up, you could fake certainty.