This Shattered World
Page 25

Now what, Romeo?
I make my way down a set of stairs, into the darker, quieter parts of the cave complex. Somewhere I can think.
Here, the rough surfaces of the rocks aren’t smoothed back, and stretches of plastene cover holes to other caverns that would let in drafts. It’s only when I round a corner that I figure out where my feet are taking me—toward the munitions storeroom, where thick metal doors still stand between McBride and outright war. To look at a solid, physical reminder that he hasn’t won yet.
The fear Sean was right thumps hard in my chest. If he worked out I helped Jubilee, how much longer can it be until McBride does? Still, he lacks the proof, and while I have breath, I can keep fighting.
I just wish I knew what I was fighting for. What the world I want would look like. The fear and anger in the air tonight make clearer than ever that any chance of peace is vanishing right before our eyes. McBride’s gaining followers, and soon the tide will turn.
I pull a lantern from its hook on the wall, turning the last corner.
There’s a twisted hole where the lock used to be on the munitions storeroom doors, jagged edges burned and blackened by a blowtorch. All I can hear is my pulse pounding.
My hand flies up to my neck, scrabbling there for the chain that holds the key. It catches against my fingers and I haul it out, the edge pressing into my skin as I grip it. But now my brain’s translating what it sees, and I realize nobody needed the key to do this.
McBride isn’t waiting for the tide to turn, not anymore. He’s not waiting to win over the hearts and minds of all our people.
I acted alone, and now he’s done the same. The cabinet is empty. All our guns, our explosives, everything he needs to provoke the trodairí into all-out war—they’re gone.
She’s hiding under the counter again, and the green-eyed boy is there too. They’re listening to the girl’s parents fight.
“If we just give them what they want, they’ll leave us alone.” The girl’s father speaks in a tight, sharp voice. His fear calls to the girl’s fear, and she swallows, her palms sweaty.
“Let them win?” Her mother is afraid too, but her anger is stronger. “Let them use our shop, our home, to stage their rebellion? What about our daughter? Do you think she should help them with their plans?”
“We could go to Babel, visit your father. He hasn’t seen Jubilee since she was a baby, I’m sure he’d take us in for a few weeks.”
“I’m not letting them turn our home into a war zone.”
The girl shuts her eyes tight, trying to block out the voices. The boy reaches out and grabs her hand, making the girl stare at him in confusion.
“You’re not supposed to be here,” she whispers. “You were never in November.”
“I’m not your enemy,” the boy whispers back. “And you don’t have to do this alone.”
THE PRIVATE ON PATROL WHO finds me a few klicks out from the base isn’t one of mine, and I don’t know his name. With soldiers coming and going every few weeks, there’s no way to know them all. We try to study photo rosters, to keep rebels from taking advantage of the base’s high turnover rate, but we still can’t really keep up.
I’m bustled onto the base, greeted by a blur of shocked and relieved faces, shoved into the hospital. I hear words like exposure and fractures and signs of internal bleeding. I’m surrounded by concern over my ribs, the gash in my side dressed with mud, the knot on the back of my head. I want to protest that if I wasn’t dead after spending the better part of a day struggling through those damn swamps, a few more minutes probably isn’t going to kill me. But I’m too tired.
I get about five minutes of silence when the medics retreat before a horde of my soldiers come through, all shouting and saluting and reaching for my hand. They don’t know whether to be relieved I’m alive or furious that I’m so damaged. If I had the energy, I’d tear them a new one for letting their commanding officer get abducted right under their noses, but I can barely even follow the conversation going on around me.
You get to know one another pretty quickly out here on the edge. As my old captain used to tell me, “Learn fast, or don’t.” For a moment I miss him, his practicality; I miss having someone I trust blindly to tell me what to do. As officers, we’re tasked with tracking our soldiers—with monitoring them psychologically as well as physically, to make sure we catch them before the Fury kicks in. It’s only our vigilance that keeps this base operational.
But as well as I know my guys, it goes both ways. They know me too, and they can tell that I’m not okay. They can tell I’m barely staying afloat.
It’s Mori who realizes I’m falling apart, and she starts pulling the others out of my room. A few seconds later Alexi comes through, his shock of neon hair jerking me from my daze. He finishes clearing the room and then shuts the door on the crowd outside.
“Thanks, Lieutenant.” My voice sounds weak, and I’m relieved it’s only Alexi there to hear it.
“No problem, sir. Commander’s orders, though. You’re not to be disturbed until she can debrief.”
That makes me pause—Alexi’s rarely so formal. Avon’s particular corner of the military has an odd assortment of rules, and one is that not all the same formalities observed in the populated planets apply. Another has to do with the dress code, though even Alexi strains the boundaries of that one. His hair—hot pink this week—would be enough to make even the laxest commander look twice.
So if Alexi’s talking like a desk colonel—with me of all people—something’s up.
“Should I have stayed lost?” I try to make it sound like a joke, but there’s a ripple of fear through my gut that I hope doesn’t come out in my voice. Could Commander Towers somehow have found out I had Orla Cormac’s brother in my grasp and let him slip?
But Alexi just grins at me. “You know the commander. Wants to make sure no one messes up your memories, that we get an official story first.”
“Someone’s been giving her psych textbooks again.” I swallow. “Where are the shrinks, then?”
Alexi shrugs. “She’s insisted on doing it herself. I guess it’s a delicate situation.”
I try not to show my sudden stab of anxiety; I hadn’t anticipated being interrogated by the commander herself. That’s not standard procedure by any stretch, and Towers is not one to break protocol.