Prodigy (Legend 2)

“I don’t know.” I run a hand through my hair, unable to figure out why I can’t take control of this conversation. “Because June wouldn’t need my help.”

Stupid, so stupid. I almost couldn’t have said anything worse. The words spilled out before I could stop myself, and now it’s too late to take them back. That’s not even the right reason. I would’ve saved Tess because she’s Tess, because I can’t bear to imagine something happening to her. But I don’t have time to explain that. Tess turns and starts walking away from me. “Thanks for your pity,” she says.

I hurry over to her, but when I take her hand, she jerks away. “I’m sorry. That’s not what I meant. I don’t pity you. Tess, I—”

“It’s fine,” she snaps. “It’s just the truth, yeah? Well, you’ll be reunited with June soon enough. If she decides not to go back to the Republic.” She knows how cold her words are, but she doesn’t try to sugarcoat them. “Baxter thinks you’re going to betray us, you know. That’s why he doesn’t like you. He’s been trying to convince me of that ever since I first joined. I dunno . . . maybe he’s right.”

She leaves me standing alone in the hall. Guilt slices through my skin, opening veins as it goes. A part of me is angry—I want to defend June, and tell Tess all the things June had given up for my sake. But . . . is Tess right? Am I just deluding myself?

I HAD A NIGHTMARE LAST NIGHT. I DREAMT THAT ANDEN pardoned Day for all his crimes. Then I saw the Patriots dragging Day onto a dark street and putting a bullet in his chest. Razor turned to me and said, “Your punishment, Ms. Iparis, for working with the Elector.” I jerked awake in a sweat, trembling uncontrollably.

A day and night (more specifically, twenty-three hours) pass before I see the Elector again. This time I meet him in a lie detection room.

As guards lead me down the hall to an ensemble of waiting jeeps outside, I go over all the things I’ve learned at Drake about how lie detectors work. The examiner’s going to try to intimidate me; they’re going to use my weaknesses against me. They’ll use Metias’s death, or my parents, or maybe even Ollie. They’ll certainly use Day. So I concentrate on the hall we’re walking down, think about each of my weaknesses in turn, and then press each one deep into the back of my mind. I silence them.

We drive through the capital for several blocks. This time I see the city smothered in the gray half glow of a snowy morning, soldiers and workers hurrying along the sidewalks through the spots of light that streetlamps cast on the slick pavement. The JumboTrons here are enormous, some towering fifteen stories, and the speakers lining the buildings are newer than those in LA—they don’t make the announcer’s voice crackle. We pass the Capitol Tower. I study its slick walls, how sheets of glass protect each balcony so anyone giving a speech will be properly shielded. The old Elector had once been attacked that way, back before the glass went up—someone had tried to shoot at him all the way up on the fortieth floor. The Republic had been quick to put up the barriers after that. The Tower’s JumboTrons have wet streaks distorting the images on their screens, but I can still read some of the headlines as we pass them.

A familiar one catches my attention.

DANIEL ALTAN WING EXECUTED DEC. 26 BY FIRING SQUAD

Why are they still broadcasting that, when all the other headlines from the same time have long since made way for more recent news? Maybe they’re trying to convince people that it’s true.

Another one flashes by.

ELECTOR TO ANNOUNCE FIRST LAW OF NEW YEAR TODAY AT DENVER CAPITOL TOWER

I want to pause and read this headline again—but the car speeds past and then the ride’s over. My car door opens. Soldiers grab my arms and pull me out. I’m instantly deafened by shouts from the crowd of onlookers and dozens of federal press reporters clicking their little square camera screens at me. When I take in the people surrounding us, I notice that in addition to those who are here just to see me, there are others. A lot of others. They’re protesting in the streets, shouting slurs about the Elector, and being dragged off by police. Several wave homemade signs over their heads even as guards take them away.

June Iparis Is Innocent! says one.

Where Is Day? says another.

One of the guards nudges me forward. “Nothing for you to see,” he snaps, hurrying me up a long series of steps and into the giant corridor of some government building. Behind us, the noise from outside fades away into the echoes of our footsteps. Ninety-two seconds later, we stop before a set of wide glass doors. Then someone scans a thin card (about three by five inches large, black, with a reflective sheen and a gold Republic seal logo in one corner) across the entry screen, and we step in.

The lie detection room is cylindrical, with a low domed roof and twelve silver columns lining the rounded wall. Guards strap me standing into a machine that encircles my arms and wrists with metal bands, and press cold metal nodes (fourteen of them) onto my neck and cheeks and forehead, my palms and ankles and feet. There are so many soldiers in here—twenty in total. Six of them are the examination team, with white armbands and transparent green shades. The doors are made of flawlessly clear glass (it’s imprinted with a faint symbol of a circle cut in half, which means it’s one-way bulletproof glass, so if I somehow broke free, soldiers outside the room could shoot me through the glass but I wouldn’t be able to shoot back at them or break out). Outside the room, I see Anden standing with two Senators and twenty-four more guards. He looks unhappy, and is deep in conversation with the Senators, who try to cloak their displeasure with fake, obedient smiles.