Rebel (Legend, #4)(67)
She doesn’t try going up to June, who’s technically still in formation and guarding the Elector, but I do see the two exchange a grin and wink. Then Tess darts away from the Elector’s entourage and makes a beeline for us.
I’d first seen her again a month ago, when we’d returned to the Republic for my interview. I hadn’t recognized much in her then of the little girl I remembered—small, uncertain, with hunched shoulders and wide eyes, always wringing her hands. She’d grown tall and straight-backed, her hair cut into a short brown bob, her movements confident and precise to match her surgeon demeanor. But the glint in her eyes, the bright echo in her voice … that stayed. And it’s still here now.
She waits until we’ve emerged and the guards allow her through, then steps toward us and throws her arms around Daniel’s neck.
My brother doesn’t hesitate. He wraps his arms around her and hugs her so tightly that he lifts her slightly off the ground. Cameras around us click wildly. As he puts her back down, he tweaks her nose the same way he used to do to me as a child. She protests, shoving him in the shoulder. Like his second sibling. He just laughs.
It makes me realize how long it’s been since I’ve heard such a lighthearted sound come from him.
“Welcome back,” she exclaims, beaming at him, then looking over to Pressa and me. Her hand comes up to pat my cheek. “You haven’t been sleeping well since the last time I saw you.”
“I’m fine now,” I say, trying not to let my embarrassment show. Nearby, Pressa watches with an uncertain look on her face.
Tess smiles shyly at her before she holds out her hand. Pressa takes it, and Tess shakes it once.
“This is Pressa,” I tell her. “A friend of mine.”
What I want to say is my best friend, my confidante, the girl who makes me bolder than I think I can be. But a friend of mine just comes out. It sounds careless, even cold.
“Nice to meet you,” Tess says to her, and she manages a smile back.
“Likewise,” Pressa answers. But I can see a slight tension in the way she steps away from me.
Several cars are waiting for us at the airport’s loading zone. Pressa and I follow Daniel into a second car. June and Tess climb into the seats in front of us. The doors shut, and the din from outside fades to a hum of noise. Here, Daniel’s shoulders relax and he leans back against the leather headrests. The Republic may not have the high tech of Antarctica—there aren’t auto-cars or rails running everywhere here—but it’s kind of comforting. Our driver, a Republic soldier, gives us all a terse nod before he follows the Elector’s train of cars as they pull onto the road ahead.
“News about Antarctica has been all over the news here,” Tess says as she swivels around in her seat to look back at us. “Is it true, what happened to their Level system? I thought that was supposed to be completely secure.”
“Nothing’s completely secure,” Daniel says in the silence afterward. “We didn’t know how fast it could go down, though. Everything works until it doesn’t.”
“Now what?” June looks from Daniel to me, her eyes quicksilver as bars of sunlight and shadow slide through the car’s interior. “What is this man’s plan?”
Daniel shakes his head. “You crumble a place’s foundation, crack its walls, and anything can get in. There are fires in the streets—everything’s chaos. And chaos is exactly what someone like Dominic Hann likes best.”
There’s real anger in his voice. With this blow, Hann is going to take advantage of this mask of liberation to seize power for himself. In chaos, monsters rise quickly.
Whether or not Hann actually is a monster … I’m still not sure.
Tess frowns at us, then shakes her head. “We all know what chaos can do,” she says impatiently, waving a hand at us. “But I think what June’s asking is what he wants to do with that chaos. Specifically.”
At that, Pressa straightens beside me, shaken out of her daze at the overwhelming introduction to the Republic. She tilts her head at Tess. “I hadn’t thought about that,” she says. “Hann’s taken down the entire system. What if he knows enough about it to bring it back up? Put it back in place and change it to suit him?”
Tess nods back at her. “It’s what a dictator would do,” she replies. “Pure anarchy is never what they’re going for.”
A thought snaps into place. Sometimes I forget that Tess is a girl who had scraped by on the streets and barely survived the same revolution we had. She’s no stranger to understanding how a society falls apart.
It seems like an obvious next step. Why would Hann go as far as taking down a system of control just to throw it away?
And suddenly, I find myself thinking about my schematic doodles in a different light. I dig into my pocket and bring all the papers out in a crinkly mess. Then I straighten them in my lap. Pressa looks over my shoulder as I do.
No wonder there were so many parts of the machine that felt to me like they didn’t need to exist. Maybe it’s because the machine was never meant to just take down the Level system. Maybe Hann’s invention is also designed to bring it back up.
When I glance up, I see Daniel’s eyes locked on mine. This, at least, is something he recognizes in me—when he sees the flash of an idea on my face.
“What are you thinking, Eden?” he asks.