They exchange casual salutes. Then Commander Jameson begins walking toward the door. I force myself to remain still, but every muscle is screaming at me to escape.
Commander Jameson passes me, and I wait quietly as she scans me from head to toe. From the corner of my eyes, I can see the hard lines of her face and the thin, scarlet slash of her lips. Behind her expression is an icy nothingness—a complete lack of emotion that injects both fear and hate into my blood. Then I notice that her hand is bandaged. Still injured from when she’d held me captive at Batalla Hall, when I’d bitten it almost down to the bone.
She knows who I am, I think. A bead of sweat trickles down my back. She must know. Even with this brief glance, she can see right through my disguise, this dark cropped hair and synthetic scar and brown contact lenses. I wait for her to raise the alarm. My boots tilt against the ground, ready to run. My healing leg pulses.
But the split second passes, and Commander Jameson’s gaze swivels away as she reaches the door. I step back from the cliff. “Your uniform is rumpled, soldier,” she calls back to me with distaste. “If I were Commander DeSoto, I’d give you a dozen laps as punishment.”
She steps away, walks through the door, and disappears. Kaede locks the door again—her shoulders slouch, and I hear her let out a breath. “Nice one,” she says to Razor as she plops down on the office’s couch. Her voice drips sarcasm.
Razor motions for me to sit as well. “We have you to thank, Kaede,” he says. “For our young friend’s first-rate disguise.” Kaede beams at his compliment. “I apologize for the unexpected surprise. Commander Jameson has gotten wind of June’s arrest. She wanted to board the ship to see if anything else turned up.” He sits down behind his desk. “She’s taking a plane back to Vegas now.”
I feel weak. As I rest on the couch beside Kaede, I can’t help keeping an eye on the windows in case Commander Jameson comes back for something. The windows are made of frosted glass. Can anyone from below see us up here?
Kaede’s already relaxed again, chatting up a storm with Razor about our next steps. What time we’ll land, when we should regroup in Lamar, whether decoy soldiers at the capital are in place. But I just sit and think about Commander Jameson’s expression. Of all the Republic officers I’ve come across, except maybe for Chian, only Commander Jameson’s eyes can freeze me to my core. I fight down the memory of how she’d ordered my mother’s death—and John’s execution. If Thomas has June under arrest, what will Commander Jameson do to her? Can Razor actually keep her protected? I close my eyes and try to send a silent thought to June.
Stay safe. I want to see you again when all this is done.
I CAN’T BRING MYSELF TO LOOK AT DAY AGAIN BEFORE leaving him behind. As Razor’s Patriot walks me away from the front entrance of the Pharaoh pyramid, I keep my face pointed firmly away from him. It’s for the best, I tell myself. If the mission goes well, it’ll only be a short separation.
Day’s concerns about my well-being really hit home now. Razor’s plan for me sounds good, but something could go wrong. What if, instead of taking me to see the Elector, I’m shot the instant I’m found? Or they could strap me upside down in an interrogation room and beat me senseless. I’ve seen it happen plenty of times. I could be dead before this day is over, long before the Elector learns I’ve been found. A million things could go wrong.
That’s why I have to focus, I remind myself. And I can’t do that if I stare into Day’s eyes.
Now the Patriot guides me inside the pyramid and down a narrow walkway running along one side of a wall. It’s loud and chaotic in here. Hundreds of soldiers are milling around on the ground level. Razor had told me they would put me in one of the empty barrack rooms on the first floor, where I would pretend to be hiding before trying to sneak on board the RS Dynasty. When Republic soldiers knock down the door and come for me, I’m supposed to make a run for it. To give it all I’ve got.
My steps quicken to match my guide’s. Now we reach the end of the walkway, where a secure door (five feet six wide, ten feet high) leads away from the main floor and into the hallways of the first floor barracks. The guide swipes a card across the door. It beeps, then blinks green and slides open.
“Put up a fight when they come for you,” the Patriot tells me in a voice I can barely hear. His appearance is no different from any of the other soldiers here, with slicked-back hair and a black uniform. “Make sure they believe you don’t want to be caught. You were trying to turn yourself in near Denver. Okay?”
I nod.
His attention shifts away from me. He studies the hall, tilting his head up to inspect the ceiling. A row of security cams lines this corridor, eight in total, one facing the front of each barrack door. Before we step all the way into the hall, the guide pulls out a pocketknife and uses it to clip off one of the shiny buttons lining his jacket. Then he braces himself against the doorway, presses one foot against each side of the door frame, and leaps up.
I glance back down the hall. There are no other soldiers here at the moment, but what if one suddenly turns the corner? It’s no surprise if they capture me here (that’s our goal, after all), but what about my guide?
He reaches up toward the first security cam, then uses the knife to scrape away some of the rubber coating protecting the cam’s wires. When a bit of the rubber comes off and exposes the wires underneath, he wraps his fingers in the length of his sleeve and presses the metal button against the wires.
A quiet burst of sparks. To my surprise, every security cam along the hall blinks off.
“How’d you break all of them with just one—?” I start to whisper.
The guide jumps back down to the ground and motions for me to hurry up. “I’m a Hacker,” he whispers back as we run. “I’ve worked the command centers here before. I rewired things a little to suit us.” He smiles proudly, showing even white teeth. “But this is nothing. Just wait till you hear about what we’ve done to Denver’s Capitol Tower.”
Impressive. If Metias joined the Patriots, he’d be a Hacker too. If he were alive.
We sprint down the hall until he stops us at one of the doors. Barrack 4A. Here he pulls out a key card and swipes the door’s access panel. It clicks and swings open a little—inside, eight rows of bunks and lockers sit in the dark.
The Hacker turns to face me. “Razor wants you waiting here to ensure that the right soldiers capture you. He has a specific patrol in mind.”
Of course, makes perfect sense. It confirms that Razor doesn’t want me beaten to a pulp by letting just any Republic patrol arrest me. “Who—?” I start to ask.
But he taps the edge of his military cap before I can finish. “We’ll all be watching your mission from the cams. Good luck,” he whispers. Then he’s gone, hurrying down the hall until he rounds a corner and I can’t see him anymore.
I take a deep breath. I’m alone. Time to wait for soldiers to arrest me.
I quickly step inside the room and shut the barrack door. It’s pitch-black in here—no windows, not even a slit of light from under the door. Certainly a believable enough place for me to be hiding. I don’t bother moving farther into the room; I already know what the layout is, rows of bunk beds and a communal bathroom. I just flatten myself against the wall right next to the door. Better to stay here.
I reach out in the darkness and find the doorknob. Using my hands to measure, I gauge how far the knob is from the ground (three feet six). That’s probably how much space is between the doorknob and the top of the door frame too. I think back to when we were still standing out in the corridor, picturing how much space is between the door frame’s top edge and the ceiling. It must’ve been a little less than two feet.
Okay. Now all my details are in place. I settle back against the wall, close my eyes, and wait.
Twelve minutes drag by.
Then, farther down the hall outside, I hear a dog’s bark.
My eyes pop open. Ollie. I’d recognize that bark anywhere—my dog is still alive. Alive, by some miracle. Joy and confusion wash over me. What the hell is he doing here? I press an ear against the door and listen. Several more seconds of silence. Then, I hear the bark again.
My white shepherd is here.
Now thoughts are racing through my mind. The only reason why Ollie would be here is because he’s with a patrol—the patrol that’s hunting me down. And there’s only one soldier who’d think to use my own dog to sniff me out: Thomas. The Hacker’s words come back to me. Razor wanted “the right soldiers” to capture me. He had a specific patrol in mind.
Of course the patrol—the person—Razor had in mind would be Thomas.
Thomas must’ve been assigned by Commander Jameson to track me down. He’s using Ollie to help. But of all the patrols I’d prefer to be arrested by, Thomas’s ranks last on the list. My hands start to shake. I don’t want to see my brother’s murderer again.
Ollie’s barking grows steadily louder. With it come the first sounds of footsteps and voices. I hear Thomas’s voice out in the corridor, shouting to his soldiers. I hold my breath and remind myself of the numbers I’d calculated.
They’re right outside the door. Their voices have gone quiet, replaced by clicks (safety on loaded guns, sounds like some M-series, some standard-issue rifles).
The following seems to happen in slow motion. The door creaks open and light spills in. Immediately I make a small jump and step one leg up—my foot lands silently on the doorknob as the door swings toward me. As the soldiers enter the room with their guns drawn, I reach up and grab the top of the door frame by using the doorknob as a step. I pull myself up. Without a sound, I perch on top of the open door like a cat.
They don’t see me. They probably can’t see anything except the darkness in here. I count them all in a flash. Thomas leads the group with Ollie at his side (to my surprise, Thomas doesn’t have his gun drawn), and behind him are a cluster of four soldiers. There are more soldiers outside the room, but I can’t tell how many.
“She’s in here,” one of them says, with a hand pressed to his ear. “She hasn’t had a chance to board any airships yet. Commander DeSoto just confirmed one of his men saw her enter.”
Thomas says nothing. I watch him turn to observe the dark room. Then his gaze wanders up the door.
We lock eyes.
I leap down and knock him to the ground. In a moment of blind rage, I actually want to break his neck with my bare hands. It’d be so easy.
The other soldiers clamor for their guns, but in the chaos I hear Thomas choke out an order. “Don’t fire! Don’t fire!” He grabs my arm. I almost manage to break free and dart through the soldiers and out the doorway, but a second soldier shoves me down. They’re all on me now, a whirlwind of uniforms seizing my arms and dragging me to my feet. Thomas keeps shouting at his men to be careful.
Razor was right about Thomas. He’ll want to keep me alive for Commander Jameson.
Finally, they cuff my hands and push me so hard against the floor that I can’t move. I hear Thomas’s voice overhead. “Good to see you again, Ms. Iparis.” His voice shakes. “You’re under arrest for assaulting Republic soldiers, for creating a disturbance in Batalla Hall, and for abandoning your post. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law.” I notice he doesn’t say anything about assisting a criminal. He still has to pretend the Republic executed Day.
