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.