Prodigy (Legend 2)

Razor himself is decked out in a custom Republic officer uniform. Kaede wears a flawless flight outfit—a black jumpsuit with silver wing stripes wrapped around both sleeves, matching white condor gloves, and wing goggles. She’s not a Pilot in the Patriots for nothing—according to Razor, she can pull off a split-S in the air better than anyone he’s ever seen. Kaede should have no trouble posing as a Republic fighter pilot.

Tess is already gone, whisked away half an hour ago by a soldier who Razor says is another Patriot. Tess is too young to pass as a soldier of any level, so getting her onto the RS Dynasty means dressing her in a simple brown collar shirt and trousers, the outfit of workers who operate the airship’s hundreds of stoves.

And then there’s June.

June quietly watches my transformation from the couch. She hasn’t said much since our last conversation over my recovery bed. While the rest of us have our various getups, June is unchanged—no makeup, her eyes still dark and penetrating, her hair still pulled back in that shiny tail. She’s dressed in the plain cadet uniform Razor gave us last night. In fact, June doesn’t look all that different from the photo on her military ID. She’s the only one of us who isn’t equipped with a mike and earpiece, for obvious reasons. I try to catch her gaze a few times while Kaede works on my appearance.

Less than an hour later, we head down the main Vegas strip in Razor’s officer jeep. We pass several of the first pyramids—the Alexandria dock, the Luxor, the Cairo, the Sphinx. All named after some ancient pre-Republic civilization, or at least that’s what we were taught back when the Republic actually allowed me in school. They look different during the day, with their bright beacon lights off and edges unlit, looming like giant black tombs in the middle of the desert. Soldiers bustle in and out of their entrances. It’s good to see so much activity—all the better for us to blend in. I go over our own uniforms again. Polished and authentic. I can’t get used to it, even though June and I have technically been passing as soldiers for weeks. The collar scratches at my neck, and the sleeves feel way too stiff. I don’t know how June could stand wearing this stuff all the time. Does she at least like how it looks on me? My shoulders do seem a little broader.

“Stop tugging on your uniform,” June whispers when she sees me fiddling with the edges of my military jacket. “You’re messing up its alignment.”

It’s the most I’ve heard her say in an hour. “You’re just as nervous,” I reply.

June hesitates, then turns away again. Her jaw is clenched as if to keep herself from blurting something out. “Just trying to help,” she mutters.

After a while, I reach over to squeeze her hand once. She squeezes back.

Finally, we reach the Pharaoh, the landing dock where the RS Dynasty is resting. Razor ushers us out, then has us stand at attention. Only June falls out of line, stopping beside Razor and facing off to one side of the street. I watch her discreetly.

A second later, another soldier melts from the crowd and nods at Razor, then at June, who straightens her shoulders, joins up behind the soldier, and disappears back into the street crowd. Out of sight, just like that. I exhale, hollowed out by her sudden absence.

I won’t see her again until the whole thing’s over. If it all goes well. Don’t think like that. It will go well.

We head inside with the tides of other soldiers filing into and out of the Pharaoh. The interior is huge; beyond the main entrance, the ceiling stretches all the way up to the top of the pyramid and ends with the base of the RS Dynasty, where I can see tiny figures boarding through a maze of ramps and walkways. Rows of barrack doors line each level of the pyramid’s sides. Long marquees of text run across each wall with a never-ending onslaught of departure and arrival times. Diagonal elevators run along each of the pyramid’s four main edges.

Here, Razor leaves us behind. One second he’s walking ahead, and the next he takes an abrupt turn through the crowds and melts in with the sea of uniforms. Kaede continues walking without hesitation, but slows enough so we’re side by side. I can barely see her lips move, but her voice echoes with razor-sharp clarity from my earpiece.

“Razor will board the Dynasty with the other officers, but we can’t go in with the soldiers or we’ll get ID’d. So sneaking in is our next best option—”

My eyes go up to the airship’s base, skimming across the nooks and crannies lining its sides. I think back on the time when I broke into a grounded airship and stole two bags’ worth of canned food. Or the time I sank a smaller airship in Los Angeles’s lake by flooding its engines. For both cases, there was one easy way of getting in undetected. “The garbage chutes,” I murmur back through my own mike.

Kaede gives me a quick, approving grin. “Spoken like a true Runner.”

We make our way through the crowds until we reach an elevator terminal at one of the pyramid’s corners. Here we blend in with the small group clustered in front of the elevator door. Kaede clicks her mike off to make small talk with me, and I’m careful not to make eye contact with the other soldiers. So many of them are younger than I’d imagined, even close to my age, and several already have permanent injuries—metal limbs like my own, a missing ear, a hand covered with burn scars. I glance up again at the Dynasty, this time long enough to note all the garbage chute openings along the side of the hull. If we’re going to shimmy our way up into this airship, we’re going to have to do it fast.

Soon the elevator comes. We take the nauseating ride up the diagonal side of the pyramid, then wait at the top while everyone else files out. We exit last. As the others scatter to either side of the top hall leading toward the airship’s entrance ramps, Kaede turns to me.