Legend

Sometimes I’m black, sometimes white, sometimes olive or brown or yellow or red or whatever else they can think of.

In other words, the Republic has no idea what I look like. They don’t seem to know much of anything about me, except that I’m young and that when they run my fingerprints they don’t find a match in their databases. That’s why they hate me, why I’m not the most dangerous criminal in the country, but the most wanted. I make them look bad.

It’s almost always the slum-sector kids who fail. If you’re in this unlucky category, the Republic sends officials to your family’s home. They make your parents sign a contract giving the government full custody over you. They say that you’ve been sent away to the Republic’s labor camps and that your family will not see you again. Your parents have to nod and agree. A few even celebrate, because the Republic gives them one thousand Notes as a condolence gift. Money and one less mouth to feed? What a thoughtful government.

Except this is all a lie. An inferior child with bad genes is no use to the country. If you’re lucky, Congress will let you die without first sending you to the labs to be examined for imperfections.

I have what the Republic considers good genes—and better genes make for better soldiers make for better chance of victory against the Colonies, my professors always say. And if I feel like my afternoon drills aren’t teaching me enough about how to climb walls while carrying weapons, then...well, it wasn’t my fault I had to scale the side of a nineteen-story building with a XM-621 gun strapped to my back. It was self-improvement, for the sake of my country.

Day broke into the laboratory for medicine as part of a desperate, last-minute, poorly thought-out plan. He must have stolen plague suppressants and painkillers because he couldn’t find anything stronger. He himself certainly doesn’t have the plague, not with the way he was able to escape. But someone else he knows must, someone he cares enough about to risk his life for. Someone living in Blueridge or Lake or Winter or Alta, sectors all recently affected by the plague. If this is true, Day won’t be leaving the city anytime soon. He’s bound here by this connection, motivated by emotions.

Several men grin at me as I pass by. One even calls out to me. I ignore them and keep going. What a bunch of cons, men who had barely passed their Trials. I wonder if I can catch the plague from these people, even though I’m vaccinated. Who knows where they’ve been.

Then I stop myself. Metias had told me never to judge the poor like that. Well, he’s a better person than I am, I think bitterly.

I still can’t get used to the crumbling walls, the lines of worn clothing hanging from balconies, the clusters of young beggars hoping for a bite to eat from passersby... but at the very least, my disdain has faded. I think back with some shame on the night of Metias’s funeral, when I’d left a giant steak untouched on my plate, without a second thought. Tess walks ahead of us, completely unperturbed by her surroundings, her stride cheerful and free. I can hear her humming some faint tune.

“Elector’s Waltz,” I murmur, recognizing the song.

The boy glances at me from where he’s walking by my side. He grins. “Sounds like you’re a fan of Lincoln, yeah?”

“Don’t question it. You don’t have time for that.” I hesitate. Day’s look so terrified—so vulnerable—that suddenly it takes all my strength to lie to him. I try to draw on the anger I felt last night. [...]

I’ve taken advantage of Day’s greatest weakness. He doesn’t hesitate, doesn’t stop to question what I say, doesn’t even wonder why I didn’t tell him right away. Instead he leaps to his feet, pinpoints the direction that the sirens are coming from, and darts out of the alley. I feel a surprising pang of guilt. He trusts me—truly, stupidly, wholeheartedly trusts me. In fact, I don’t know if anyone has ever taken my word so readily before. Maybe not even Metias.

“According to the Republic’s databases,” she goes on, “Daniel Altan Wing died five years ago from smallpox, in one of our labor camps.”

I snort at that. Labor camps. Yeah, right, and the Elector is fairly elected every term, too. This girl either actually believes all that made-up crap or she’s taunting me. An old memory struggles to resurface—a needle injected into one of my eyes, a cold metal gurney and an overhead light—but it vanishes as soon as it comes.

I even tell Thomas, as we wander the lavish ballroom with its endless banquet tables and chandeliers, that arresting Day has filled the gaping hole Metias’s death left in my life. But even as I say it, I don’t believe it. Everything here feels wrong somehow, everything about this room—as if it’s all an illusion that will shatter if I reach out and touch it.

I feel wrong... like I did a terrible thing by betraying a boy who trusted me.

“But I do know that several generals from the warfront have come to see [Eden].”

I frown. “They came just for him?”

“Well, many of them are here for a meeting of some sort. But they did make a point of stopping by the lab.”

“Why would the warfront be interested in Day’s little brother?”

Thomas shrugs. “If there’s something we need to hear about, the generals will tell us.”

Day didn’t fail his Trial. Not even close. In fact, he got the same score I did: 1500 / 1500. I am no longer the Republic’s only prodigy with a perfect score.

After I’d escaped from the lab and developed the habit of watching my family from a distance, I occasionally saw John sitting at our dining room table with his head in his hands, sobbing. He’s never said it aloud, but I think he blames himself for what happened to me. He thinks he should have protected me more. Helped me study more. Something, anything.

If I can escape. I still have time to save them. I can still use my arms. And I have one good leg. I could still do it... if only I knew where they were...

“June, I’m sorry about your brother. I didn’t know anything would happen to him.”

I’m trained not take the word of a prisoner—I know that they’ll lie, that they’ll say anything they can to make you vulnerable. But this feels different. Somehow... he sounds so genuine, so serious. What if he is telling me the truth? What if something else happened to Metias that night? I take a deep breath and force myself to look down. Logic above all else, I tell myself. Logic will save you when nothing else will.

All this flies through my head in a second before I can stop it. No way. This isn’t in line with Republic values. Why waste a prodigy in this way?

“Think about it this way. How do they know what vaccines to give you every year? They always work. Don’t you find it strange that they can make vaccines that match the new plague that’s popped up? How can they predict which vaccines they’ll need?”

I sit back on my heels. I’ve never questioned the annual vaccinations we’re required to have—never had any reason to doubt them. And why should I? My father used to work behind those double doors, working hard to find new ways to combat the plague.

The Thomas that follows Commander Jameson’s orders without question is a different Thomas from the one who worried about my safety in the Lake sector. Growing up, Thomas was awkward but always polite, especially to me. Or maybe it’s me who’s changed. When I tracked Day’s family down and watched Thomas shoot his mother, when I looked out as the crowd in the square was gunned down... I stood by both times and did nothing. Does that make me the same as Thomas? Are we doing the right thing by following our orders? Surely the Republic knows best?

A bird on one side, a man’s profile on the other. UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, IN GOD WE TRUST, QUARTER DOLLAR embossed on one side, and LIBERTY and 1990 on the other. “See? Evidence.” He pressed it into her palm.

[...]

“See the name? United States. It was real.”

My mother’s eyes gleamed with excitement, but she still gave Dad a grave look. “This is a dangerous thing to own,” she whispered. “We’re not keeping this in our house.”

My father nodded. “But we can’t destroy it. We have to safeguard it—for all we know, this might be the last coin of its kind in the world.” He folded my mother’s fingers over the coin. “I’ll make a metal casing for it, something that covers both sides. I’ll weld it shut so the coin’s secure inside.”

Do you see where I’m going with this? They use the plagues to cull the population of weak genes, the same way the Trials pick out the strongest. But they’re also creating viruses to use against the Colonies. They’ve been using biological weapons against them for years. I don’t give a damn what happens to the Colonies or exactly what our Republic wants to inflict on them—but June, our own people are lab rats. Dad worked in those labs, and when he tried to quit, they killed him. And Mom. They thought they would tell everybody. Who wants a mass riot? Certainly not Congress.

We’re all going to die like this, June, if someone doesn’t step in. One of these days, a virus will get out of hand, and no vaccine or cure will be able to stop it.