Legend (8 page)

I nod. Chian made me take the Trial twice because I got a perfect score in record time (one hour ten minutes). He thought I had cheated. Not only do I have the only perfect score in the nation—I’m probably also the only kid who has ever taken the Trial
twice
. “You’re very kind,” I reply. “My brother was a better leader than I’ll ever be.”

Chian shushes me with a wave of his hand. “Nonsense, my dear,” he says. Then he leans uncomfortably close. There’s something oily and unpleasant about him. “I’m personally devastated by the way he died,” he says. “At the hands of that nasty boy. What a shame!” Chian narrows his eyes, making his eyebrows look even bushier. “I was so pleased when Commander Jameson told me that you’d be tracking him. His case needs a pair of fresh eyes, and you’re just the doll to do it. What a gem of a test mission, eh?”

I hate him with all my being. Thomas must notice my stiffness, because I feel his hand cover mine under the table.
Just go with it,
he’s trying to tell me. When Chian finally turns away from me to answer a question from the man on his other side, Thomas leans toward me.

“Chian has a personal grudge against Day,” he whispers.

“Is that so?” I whisper back.

He nods. “Who do you think gave him that scar?”

Day did?
I can’t keep the surprise from my face. Chian is a rather large man and has worked for the Trial’s administration for as long as I can remember. He’s a skilled official. Could a teenage boy really wound him like that? And get away with it? I glance over at Chian and study the scar. It’s a clean cut made with a smooth-edged blade. Must’ve happened quickly too, to be such a straight line—I can’t imagine Chian holding still while someone sliced him like that. For a moment, just a split second, I’m on Day’s side. I glance up at Commander Jameson, who stares at me as if she’s reading my thoughts. It makes me uneasy.

Thomas’s hand touches mine again. “Hey,” he says. “Day can’t hide from the government forever—sooner or later we’ll dig that street brat out and make an example out of him. He’s no match for you, especially when you put your mind to something.”

Thomas’s kind smile makes me weak, and suddenly I feel like Metias is the one sitting next to me and telling me everything is going to be okay, reassuring me that the Republic won’t fail me. My brother had once promised to stay at my side forever. I look away from Thomas and toward the altar, so he doesn’t see the tears in my eyes. I can’t smile back. I don’t think I’ll ever smile again.

“Let’s get this over with,” I whisper.

 

THE LIGHTS IN BATALLA HALL ARE COLD AND FLUORESCENT.
I dress in a bathroom on the observation and analysis floor. I’m wearing long black sleeves inside a striped black vest, slender black pants tucked into boots, and a long black robe that wraps around my shoulders and covers me like a blanket. A white stripe runs down the center of it, all the way to the floor. A black mask covers my face and infrared goggles shield my eyes. Other than that, all I have is a tiny microphone and an even tinier earpiece. And a gun. Just in case.

I need to look genderless, generic, unidentifiable. I need to look like a black-market dealer, someone rich enough to afford plague cures.

Metias would’ve shaken his head at me.
You can’t go alone on a classified mission, June,
he would say.
You might get hurt.
How ironic.

I tighten the clasp that holds my cloak in place (steel sprayed with bronze, probably imported from West Texas), then head off toward the stairs that will take me outside Batalla Hall and down toward the Arcadia bank where I’m supposed to meet Day.

My brother has been dead for 120 hours. It already feels like forever. Seventy hours ago, I gained clearance to search the Internet and found out as much about Day as I could. Forty hours ago, I laid out a plan for tracking Day to Commander Jameson. Thirty-two hours ago she approved it. I doubt she even remembers what it is. Thirty hours ago, I sent one scout to every plague-infected sector in Los Angeles—Winter, Blueridge, Lake, and Alta. They spread the word: someone has plague medicine for you, come to the ten-second place. Twenty-nine hours ago, I attended my brother’s funeral.

I do not plan on catching Day tonight. I don’t even plan on seeing him. He’ll know exactly where the ten-second place is, and that I’m either an agent sent by the government or by the black-market dealers that pay taxes to the government. He’s not going to show his face. Even Commander Jameson, who’s testing me with this first task, knows we won’t get a glimpse of him.

But I know he’s going to be there. He needs plague meds desperately enough. And him showing up is all I hope for tonight—a clue, a starting point, a narrower direction, something personal about this boy criminal.

I’m careful not to walk under the streetlamps. In fact, I would have traveled by rooftop if I weren’t going to the financial sector, where guards line the roofs. All around me the JumboTrons blare their colorful campaigns, the sound of their ads distorted and jolty from the city speakers. One of them shows an updated profile of Day—this time featuring a boy with long, black hair. Next to the JumboTrons are flickering streetlights, and under those walk crowds of night-shift workers, police, and merchants. Every now and then, a tank rolls through, followed by several platoons of troops. (They have blue stripes on their sleeves—soldiers back from the warfront, or soldiers rotating out to the warfront. They keep their guns by their sides, with both hands on the weapon.) They all look like Metias to me, and I have to breathe a little harder, walk a little faster, anything to stay focused.

I take the long way through Batalla, through the sector’s side roads and abandoned buildings, not stopping until I’m a good distance outside of military grounds.

The street police won’t know I’m on a mission. If they see me dressed like this, equipped with infrared goggles, they’ll question me for sure.