Prodigy

giant metal support beams. Between buildings, I catch glimpses of the Capitol Tower. Now and then I see spotlights sweeping through the air and helicopters circling the skyscrapers. At one point, four fighter jets streak by above us. I pause to admire them for a moment (they’re X-92 Reapers, experimental aircrafts that haven’t gone into production outside the capital yet; but they must have passed their test runs if the engineers trust them to soar right over the center of downtown Denver). The capital is every bit the military city Vegas is, and is even more intimidating than I’d imagined.
    Thomas’s voice snaps me back to reality. “We’re taking you to Colburn Hall,” he says from the jeep’s front passenger seat. “It’s a dining hall in the Capital Plaza where the Senators sometimes convene for banquets. The Elector dines there frequently.”
    Colburn? From what I’ve heard, that’s a
very
fancy meeting spot, especially considering how I was originally meant to stay at the Denver penitentiary. This must all be new info for Thomas, too. I don’t think he’s ever been inside the capital, but like a good soldier, he doesn’t waste any time gawking at the scenery. I find myself anxious to see what the Capital Plaza’s like—if it’s as large as I’ve imagined. “From there my patrol will leave you behind, and you’ll be passed along to one of Commander DeSoto’s patrols.”
Razor’s patrols,
I add to myself. “The Elector will meet you in the Hall’s royal chamber. I suggest you behave appropriately.”
    “Thanks for the tip,” I reply, smiling coldly at Thomas’s reflection in the rearview mirror. “I’ll be sure to give him my best curtsy.” In reality, though, I’m starting to feel nervous. The Elector is someone I’ve been taught to revere since birth, someone I thought I’d never hesitate to give my life for. Even now, even after everything I know about the Republic, I still feel that deep-rooted commitment trying to resurface, a familiar blanket I want to wrap myself with. Strange. I didn’t feel this when I heard about the Elector’s death, or when I saw Anden’s first televised speech. It’s been hidden until now, when I’m only a few hours from seeing him in person.
    I’m not the prized prodigy I was when we first met. What will he think of me?
    * * *
    C OLBURN H ALL, R OYAL D INING C HAMBER.
    It echoes in here. I sit alone at one end of a long table (twelve feet of dark cherrywood, hand-carved legs, ornate gold trim probably painted on with a fine-detail millimeter brush), my back straight against the chair’s red velvet cushioning. Far against the opposite wall, a fireplace crackles and pops, with a giant portrait of the new Elector hanging above it, and eight gold lamps light the sides of the chamber. Capital patrol soldiers are
everywhere
—fifty-two line the walls, shoulder to shoulder, and six stand at attention to either side of me. It’s still bitterly cold outside, but in here it’s warm enough for the servants to have clothed me in a light dress and thin leather boots. My hair has been washed, dried, and brushed, and it falls straight and shining down to the middle of my back. It’s been adorned with strands of tiny cultivated pearls (easily worth two thousand Notes apiece). At first I admire them with ginger touches—but then I recall the poor people gathered at the train station in their threadbare clothes, and I pull my fingers away from my hair, disgusted with myself. Another servant had dabbed translucent powder across my eyelids so they gleam in the low firelight. My dress, a creamy white accented by stormy grays, flows down to my feet in layers of chiffon. The inner corset makes me short of breath. An expensive dress, no doubt; fifty thousand Notes? Sixty?
    The only things that seem out of place in this picture are the heavy metal shackles that bind my ankles and wrists, chaining me down to my chair.
    A half hour passes before another soldier (wearing the distinctive black-and-red coat of the capital’s patrols) enters the chamber. This one holds the door open, stands at attention, and lifts his chin. “Our glorious Elector Primo is in the building,” he announces. “Please rise.”
    He tries to look like he’s talking to no one in particular, but I’m the only one sitting. I push up from my chair and stand with a clink of my chains.
    Five more minutes pass. Then, just as I’m starting to wonder whether anyone’s going to come at all,