“We’re not sure,” Mikhael admits as we enter a long hall. “But our simulations are solid, and we ran several lab cultures with infected cells. We should start seeing Tess’s health improve very soon.”
We stop at the long glass windows of Tess’s room. She lies in a delirious half sleep on her bed, and all around her are lab techs rushing about in full suits, monitors dictating her vital signs, charts and graphs beamed against the walls. An IV’s injected into one of her arms. I study her face, searching for some sign of consciousness, and fail to find it.
Static in my earpiece. An incoming call. I frown, press a hand to my ear, and then click my mike on. A second later, I hear Day’s voice. “Are you okay?” His first thought. Of course it is. The static is so severe that I can hardly understand what he’s saying.
“I’m fine,” I reply, hoping he can hear me. “Day, listen to me—we’ve found a cure.”
No reply, just static, loud and unrelenting. “Day?” I say again, and on the other side I hear some crackling, something like the desperation to communicate with me. But I can’t get us hooked up. Unusual. The reception on these military bands is usually crystal clear. It’s as if something else is blocking all of our frequencies. “Day?” I try again.
I finally catch his voice again. It holds a tension that reminds me of when he’d chosen to walk away from me so many months ago. It sends a river of dread through my veins. “I’m giving—announcement on board a Colonies airship—ellor won’t have it any other way—”
On board a Colonies airship. The Chancellor would hold all the cards in that case—if Day were to make a sudden move, or make an announcement that went against what they agreed to, the Chancellor could have him arrested or murdered right on the spot. “Don’t do it,” I whisper automatically. “You don’t have to go. We’ve found the cure, I was the missing piece of the puzzle.”
“—June?—”
Then no answer, just more static. I try again twice more before I click my mike off in frustration. Beside me, I can see the lab tech also trying in vain to make a call.
And then I remember the shadow cast across the building we’re in. My frustration fades immediately, followed by waves of terror and comprehension. Oh no. The Colonies. They’re blocking our frequencies—they’ve taken them over. I had not thought that they would make their move so quickly. I rush over to the window looking out at Los Angeles’s cityscape, then turn my eyes skyward. I can see the enormous Colonies airship that hovers overhead—and when I look more closely, I notice that smaller planes are leaving its deck and circling lower.
Mikhael joins me. “We can’t reach the Elector,” he says. “It seems all the frequencies are jammed.”
Is this in preparation for Day’s announcement? He’s in trouble. I know it.
Just as this thought crosses my mind, the doors at the end of the hall swing open. Five soldiers come marching in, their guns hoisted, and in a flash I can see that these are not Republic soldiers at all—but Colonies troops, with their navy blue coats and gold stars. Panic rushes through me from head to toe. Instinctively I move toward Eden’s room, but the soldiers see me. Their leader waves his gun at me. My hand flies to my gun strapped to my waist—and then I remember that all of my weapons (save for one ankle knife) are lying useless back in Eden’s room.
“With the Republic’s surrender,” he says in a grandiose voice, “all reins of power have been transferred to Colonies’ officials. This is your commander telling you to stand aside and let us pass, so that we can run a thorough search.”
Mikhael throws up his hands and does as the official says. They draw closer. Memories whirl in my mind—they’re all lessons from my days at Drake, a stream of maneuvers that run through my head at the speed of light. I gauge them carefully. A small team sent up here to accomplish some specific task. Other teams must be swarming each of the floors, but I know these soldiers must have been sent up to us for something in particular. I brace myself, ready for a fight. It’s me they’re after.
As if he read my mind, Mikhael nods once at the soldiers. His arms stay up high in the air. “What do you want?”
The soldier answers, “A boy named Eden Bataar Wing.”
I know better than to suck in my breath and thus give away that Eden’s on this floor—but a tidal wave of fear washes over me. I was wrong. They’re not after me. They want Day’s brother. If Day’s forced to give his announcement on board the Chancellor’s airship, alone, he’ll be helpless if the Chancellor decides to take him hostage—and if he gets his hands on Eden, he’ll be able to control Day at his every whim. My thoughts rush even further. If the Colonies truly succeed in taking over the Republic today, then the Chancellor could use Day indefinitely as his own weapon, as a manipulator of the Republic’s people, for as long as the people continue to believe in Day as their hero.
I open my mouth before Mikhael can. “This floor just houses plague victims,” I say to the soldier. “If you’re looking for Day’s brother, he’ll be on a higher floor.”
The soldier’s gun swivels to me. He narrows his eyes in recognition. “You’re the Princeps-Elect,” he says. “Aren’t you? June Iparis.”
I lift my chin. “One of the Princeps-Elects, yes.”
For a moment, I think he might believe what I said about Eden. Some of his men even start shifting back toward the stairs. The soldier watches me for a long time, studying my eyes, and then looks down the hallway behind me, where Eden’s room lies. I don’t dare flinch.
He frowns at me. “I know your reputation.” Before I can think of anything else to say in order to throw him off, he tilts his head at his troops and uses his gun to gesture at the hall. “Do a thorough search. The boy should be on this floor.”
Too late to lie now. If I owe Day anything, I owe him this. I shift into the space between the soldiers and the hallway. Calculations rush through my head. (The hallway is a little over four feet wide—if I move into it, I can prevent the soldiers from attacking me all at once and break up my opponents into two smaller waves instead of one large one.) “Your Chancellor won’t want me dead,” I lie. My heart pounds furiously. Beside me, the lab tech looks on with stricken eyes, unsure of what to do. “He’ll want me alive, and tried. You know this.”
“Such big lies out of such a small mouth.” The soldier hoists his gun. I hold my breath. “Move out of the way, or I shoot.”
If I didn’t see the hint of hesitation on his face, I would’ve done as he asked. No use to Day or Eden if I’m just dead and gunned down. But the soldier’s flash of uncertainty is all I need. I hold my arms up slowly and carefully. My eyes stay fixed on him. “You don’t want to shoot me,” I say. I’m shocked at how firm my voice sounds—not a ripple of fear in it, despite the adrenaline rushing through my veins. My legs sway a little, still a touch unsteady from the experiments. “Your Chancellor doesn’t sound like a forgiving man.”
The soldier hesitates again. He doesn’t know what the Chancellor has in mind for me. He has to give me the benefit of the doubt.
We hold our standoff for several long seconds.
Finally he spits out a curse and lowers his gun. “Get her,” he snaps at his soldiers. “Don’t shoot.”
The world zooms in at me—everything fades, except for the enemy. My instincts kick into overdrive.
Let’s play. You have no idea who you’re dealing with.
I crouch into a fighting stance as the soldiers rush at me all at once. The narrowness of the hallway works instantly to my advantage—instead of dealing with five soldiers at the same time, I only deal with two. I duck the first soldier’s swing, rip my knife out from my boot, and slash his calf as viciously as I can. The blade tears effortlessly through both his pant leg and his tendon. He shrieks. Instantly his leg buckles, taking him to the floor in a thrashing heap. The second soldier rushing at me trips right over his falling comrade. I kick out at the second soldier’s face, knocking him out, and step off from his back to lunge at the third soldier. He tries to punch me. I block his blow with one arm—my other hand shoots up toward his face and smashes into his nose so hard that I feel the crunch of breaking bone. The soldier staggers backward once and falls, clutching his face in agony.
Three down.
My advantage of surprise vanishes—the last two soldiers take me on more warily. One of them shouts into his mike for backup. Behind them, Mikhael starts sneaking away. Even though I don’t dare glance in his direction, I know that he must be moving to lock down the corridors in the stairwell, making it impossible for more Colonies soldiers to come swarming up. One of the remaining soldiers lifts his gun and points it at my legs. I kick out at him. My boot hits the barrel of his gun right as he fires it, sending a bullet ricocheting wildly over my shoulder. An alarm blares across the entire building’s intercoms—the stairwells are locked down, an alert’s been sent out. I kick the gun again so that it arcs backward, hitting the soldier hard in the face. It stuns him momentarily. I spin and strike him hard in the jaw with my elbow—
—but then something hits me hard in the back of my head. Stars explode across my vision. I stumble, falling to one knee, and struggle to swim up through my blindness. The second soldier must’ve struck me from behind. I swing out again, trying my best to guess at where the soldier is, but I miss and fall again. Through my hazy vision, I see the soldier raise the butt of his gun to strike me again in the face. The blow will knock me unconscious. I try in vain to roll away.
The strike doesn’t come. I blink, struggling to my feet. What happened? When my vision clears a bit, I notice the last soldier lying on the ground and lab techs rushing over to tie their hands and feet. Suddenly there are people everywhere. Standing over me is Tess, pale and sickly and breathing hard, clutching a rifle from one of the other fallen soldiers. I had not noticed her leaving her room.
She manages a weak smile. “You’re welcome,” she says, extending a hand to help me up.
I smile back. She pulls me, trembling, to my feet. When I sway on uncertain legs, she offers me her shoulder to lean on. Neither of us is very steady, but we don’t fall.
“Ms. Iparis,” Mikhael gasps out as he hurries over to us. “We’ve managed to reach the Elector—we’ve told him about the cure. But we also just received a warning to evacuate the Bank Tower. They say the fake surrender will end very soon and that one of the Colonies’ first targets of retaliation will be—”
A shudder shakes the hospital. We all freeze where we are. I glance at the horizon—at first the shudder felt a bit like an earthquake, or the rumble of a passing airship, but the shaking is set off in short, regular intervals instead of the sharp roll of a seismic wave or the low, steady hum of airships—and an instant later, I realize that the airship bases’ bombs must have begun going off. I run to the window with Tess, where we look on as bright plumes of orange and gray billow up from the bases lining the horizon. Panic takes hold of me. Day must have made his announcement. Whether or not he survived it, I have no idea.
