Prodigy

into the street.
    We’re quiet. Finally, Kaede says, “The working class gets shafted everywhere, don’t they? My point is this: The Colonies are better than the Republic in some ways. But believe it or not, the reverse is also true. No such thing as the stupid utopia you’ve been fantasizing about, Day. Doesn’t exist. There was no point trying to tell you that before. It’s just something you had to see for yourself.”
    We start heading back to the hospital. Two more Colonies soldiers hurry past us, neither of them bothering to take us in. A million thoughts whirl through my head. My father must never have set foot inside the Colonies—or if he did, he only skimmed the surface of it, the way June and I had when we first arrived. A lump rises in my throat.
    “Do you trust Anden?” I say after a moment. “Is he worth saving? Is the
Republic
worth saving?”
    Kaede makes several more turns. Finally, she stops next to a shop with miniature screens in its window, each one broadcasting different Colonies programming. Kaede guides us into the store’s tiny side street, where the darkness of the night swallows us. She pauses to motion at the broadcasting screens inside the store. I remember passing a shop like this on our way into the city. “The Colonies always show news snatched from Republic airwaves,” she says. “They have a whole channel for it. This news bite has been on repeat ever since the failed assassination.”
    My eyes wander over to the headlines on the monitor. At first I just stare blankly, lost in my churning thoughts about the Patriots, but a moment later I realize that the broadcast isn’t about warfront skirmishes or Colonies news, but about the Republic’s Elector. A surge of dislike instinctively courses through me at the sight of Anden on the screen. I strain to hear the newscast, wondering how differently the Colonies would interpret the same events.
    A caption runs under Anden’s recorded address. I read it in disbelief.
    E LECTOR F REES Y OUNGER B ROTHER OF N OTORIOUS R EBEL “ D AY”; T O A DDRESS P UBLIC T OMORROW F ROM C APITOL T OWER.
    “As of today,” the Elector says in a prerecorded video, “Eden Bataar Wing is officially freed from military service and, as thanks for his contributions, exempt from the Trials. All others being transported along the warfront have been released to their families as well.”
    I have to rub my eyes and read the captions again.
    They’re still there. The Elector has freed Eden.
    Suddenly I can’t feel the cold air anymore. I can’t feel
anything.
My legs feel weak. My breath keeps time with the hammering of my heart. This can’t be right. The Elector is probably announcing this publicly so he can lure me back into the Republic and into his service. He’s trying to trick me and make himself look good. There’s no way he would’ve released Eden—and all the others, the boy I’d seen on the train—of his own accord. No possible way.
    No possible way? Even after everything June had told me, even after what Kaede just said? Even now, I don’t trust Anden? What’s wrong with me?
    Then, as I continue watching, the Elector’s recorded address makes way for a video showing Eden being escorted out of a courthouse, shackle-free and dressed in clothes that usually belong on the child of an elite family.
    His blond curls are neatly brushed. He searches the streets with blind eyes, but he’s
smiling.
I push my hand deeper into the snow in an attempt to steady myself. Eden looks healthy, well taken care of. When was this filmed?
    Anden’s newscast finally ends, and now the video shows footage of the failed assassination attempt followed by a reel of warfront battles. The captions are wildly different from what I’d see in the Republic.
    F AILED A SSASSINATION A TTEMPT ON R EPUBLIC’S N EW E LECTOR P RIMO, THE L ATEST S IGN OF U NREST IN R EPUBLIC
    The caption is wrapped up by a smaller line in the corner of the screen that says T HIS BROADCAST BROUGHT TO YOU BY E VERGREEN E NT . The now-familiar circular symbol is beside it.
    “Make up your own mind about Anden,” Kaede mutters. She stops to wipe snowflakes off her eyelashes.
    I was wrong.
The certainty of this sits in my stomach like a dead weight, a rock of guilt for turning so viciously on June when she’d tried to explain all of it to me in the underground shelter. The awful things I’d said to her. I think of the strange, unsettling ads I’ve seen here, the crumbling living