Kaede opens her mouth in mock surprise. “Wow. You’re a cracked genius, you know that?”
“I don’t get it.” I study the crumbling buildings that dot the horizon. “What’s with the shell-shocked look here? Isn’t the actual fighting happening farther away?”
Kaede leans in so the other soldiers on the street don’t hear us. “The Colonies have been pushing in along this part of the border since I was, what, seventeen? Anyway, for years. They’ve probably gotten a good hundred miles in from where the Republic claims the Colorado line is.”
After so many years of listening to the constant bombardment of Republic propaganda, it’s jarring to hear someone tell me the truth. “What—so are you saying the Colonies are winning the war, then?” I ask in a low voice.
“They’ve been winning for a while now. You heard it from me first. Give it a few more years, kid, and the Colonies will be right in your backyard.” She sounds kinda disgusted. Maybe there’s some lingering resentment she has against the Colonies. “Make of that what you will,” she mutters. “I’m just here for the money.”
I fall silent. The Colonies will be the new United States. Can it really be possible that after all these years of war, it might finally come to an end? I try to imagine a world without the Republic—without the Elector, the Trials, the plagues. The Colonies as the victor. Man, too good to be true. And with the Elector’s potential assassination, this might all come true even sooner. I’m tempted to press her more on it, but Kaede shushes me before I can start, and we end up walking in silence.
We make a turn several blocks down and follow a double row of railroad tracks for what feels like several miles. Finally, we stop when we reach a street corner far from the barracks, darkened by the shadows of ruined buildings alongside it. Lone soldiers walk by here and there. “There’s a lull in the fighting right now,” Kaede murmurs as she squints down the track. “Has been for a few days. But it’ll pick up soon. You’re gonna be so grateful to be hanging with us; none of these Republic soldiers will have the luxury of hiding underground when the bombs come raining down.”
“Underground?”
But Kaede’s attention is fixed on a soldier walking straight toward us along one side of the tracks. I blink water out of my eyes and try to get a better look at him. He’s dressed no differently from us, in a soaked cadet jacket with a diagonal flap of cloth covering part of the buttons, and single silver stripes along each shoulder. His dark skin is slick behind the sheets of pouring rain, and his short curls are plastered to his head. His breath comes out in white clouds. When he gets closer, I can see that his eyes are a startling, pale gray.
He walks by without acknowledging us, and gives Kaede the subtlest gesture: two fingers of his right hand held out in a V.
We cross the tracks and continue for several more blocks. Here the buildings are crowded close together and the streets are so narrow that only two people can fit down an alley at a time. This must have once been an area where civilians lived. Many of the windows are blown out and others are covered with tattered cloth. I see a couple of people’s shadows inside them, lit by flickering candles. Whoever isn’t a soldier in this town must be doing what my father used to do—cooking, cleaning, and caring for the troops. Dad must’ve lived in squalor like this too whenever he headed out to the warfront for his tours of duty.
Kaede shakes me out of my thoughts by pulling us abruptly into one of the dark, narrow alleys. “Move fast,” she whispers.
“You know who you’re talking to, right?”
She ignores me, kneels down along the edge of one wall where there’s a metal grating lining the ground, then takes out a tiny black device with her good arm. She runs it quickly along an edge of the grating. A second passes. Then the grating lifts off the ground on two hinges and silently slides open, revealing a black hole. It’s purposely designed to be worn and dirty, I realize, but this thing’s been modified into a secret entrance. Kaede stoops down and jumps into the hole. I follow suit. My boots splash into shallow water, and the grating above us slides shut again.
Kaede grabs my hand and leads me through a tunnel. It smells stale here, like old stone and rain and rusted metal. Ice-cold water drips from the ceiling and through my wet hair. We travel only a few feet in before taking a sharp right turn, letting the darkness swallow us whole.
“There used to be miles of tunnels like this in almost every warfront city,” Kaede whispers into the silence.
“Yeah? What were they for?”
“Rumor’s that all these old tunnels used to be for eastern Americans trying to sneak west to get away from the floods. Even back before the war began. So each of these tunnels goes right under the warfront barricades between the Republic and the Colonies.” Kaede makes a sliding motion with her hand that I can barely make out in the gloom. “After the war started, both countries started using them offensively, so the Republic destroyed all the entrances within their borders and the Colonies did the same on the other end. The Patriots managed to dig out and rebuild five tunnels in secret. We’ll be using this Lamar one”—she pauses to gesture at the dripping ceiling—“and one in Pierra. A nearby city.”
I try to imagine what it must’ve once been like, a time when there wasn’t a Republic or Colonies and a single country covered the middle of North America. “And no one knows these are here?”
Kaede snorts. “You think we’d be using these if the Republic knew about them? Not even the Colonies know. But they’re great for Patriot missions.”
“Do the Colonies sponsor you guys, then?”
Kaede smiles a little at that. “Who else would give us enough money to maintain tunnels like this? I haven’t met our sponsors over there yet—Razor handles those relationships. But the money keeps coming, so they must be satisfied with the job we’re doing.”
We walk for a while without talking. My eyes have adjusted enough to the darkness so that I can see rust crusting the tunnel’s sides. Rivulets of water drip patterns across the metal walls. “Are you happy that they’re winning the war?” I say after a few minutes. Hopefully she’s willing to talk about the Colonies again. “I mean, since they practically kicked you out of their country? Why’d you leave in the first place?”
Kaede laughs bitterly. The sound of our boots sloshing through water echoes down the tunnel. “Yeah, I guess I’m happy,” she says. “What’s the alternative? Watching the Republic win? You tell me what’s better. But you grew up in the Republic. Who knows what you’d think of the Colonies. You might think it’s a paradise.”
“Is there a reason I shouldn’t?” I reply. “My father used to tell me stories about the Colonies. He said there were cities completely lit up by electricity.”
“Your dad worked for a resistance or something?”
“I’m not sure. He never said it out loud. We all assumed he must’ve been doing something behind the Republic’s back, though. He’d bring back these . . . trinkets related to the United States. Just odd things for a normal person to have. He would talk about getting us all out of the Republic someday.” I pause there, lost for a moment in an old memory. My pendant feels heavy around my neck. “Don’t think I’ll ever really know what he was up to.”
Kaede nods. “Well, I grew up along one of the Colonies’ eastern coastlines, where it borders the South Atlantic. I haven’t been back in years—I’m sure the water’s gone at least a dozen more feet inland by now. Anyway, I got into one of their Airship Academies and became one of their top pilots in training.”
If the Colonies don’t have the Trials, I wonder how they choose who to admit into their schools. “So, what happened?”
“Killed a guy,” Kaede replies. She says it like it’s the most natural thing in the world. In the darkness, she draws closer to me and peers boldly at my face. “What? Hey, don’t give me that—it was an accident. He was jealous that our flight commanders liked me so much, so he tried to push me over the edge of our airship. I damaged one of my eyes good during that scuffle. I found him in his locker room later and knocked him out.” She makes a disgusted sound. “Turned out I’d hit his head too hard, and he never woke up. My sponsor pulled out after that little incident tainted my reputation with the corps—and not because I killed him, either. Who wants an employee—a fighter pilot—with a bad eye, even after surgery?” She stops walking and points at her right eye. “I was damaged goods. My price went way down. Anyway, the Academy booted me out after my sponsor dropped me. It’s a shame, honestly. I missed out on my last year of training because of that damn con.”
I don’t understand some of the terms Kaede uses—corps, employees—but I decide to ask her about them some other time. I’m sure I’ll gradually get more info about the Colonies out of her. For now, I still want to know more about the people I’m working for. “And then you joined the Patriots?”
She flips her hand in a nonchalant gesture and stretches her arms out in front of her. I’m reminded of how tall Kaede is, how her shoulders line up with mine. “Fact of the matter is, Razor pays me. Sometimes I even get to fly. But I’m here for the money, kid, and as long as I keep getting my cash, I’ll do whatever I can to help stitch the United States back together. If that means letting the Republic collapse, fine. If it means the goddy Colonies taking over, fine. Get this war over and the US thing going. Get people living normal lives again. That’s what I care about.”
I can’t help feeling a little amused. Even though Kaede tries to seem uncommitted, I can tell that she’s proud to be a Patriot. “Well, Tess seems to like you well enough,” I reply. “So I guess you must be all right.”
Kaede laughs in earnest. “Gotta admit, she’s a sweet one. I’m glad I didn’t kill her in that Skiz duel. You’ll see—there’s not a single Patriot who doesn’t like her. Don’t forget to show some love to your little friend now and then, okay? I know you’ve got the hots for June, but Tess is head over heels mad for you. In case you couldn’t tell.”
That makes my smile fade a little. “I guess I just never really thought about her like that,” I murmur.
“With her past, she deserves some love, yeah?”
I put my hand out and stop Kaede. “She told you about her past?”
Kaede glances back at me. “She’s never told you her stories, has she?” she says, genuinely bewildered.
“I could never get them out of her. She always sidestepped it, and after a while I just gave up trying.”
Kaede sobers. “She probably doesn’t want you to feel sorry for her,” she finally says. “She was the youngest of five. She was nine at the time, I think. Parents couldn’t afford to feed all of them, so one night they locked her out of the house and never let her back in. She said she pounded on the door for days.”
