Mirror's Edge: Impostors 3 by Scott Westerfeld

Author:Scott Westerfeld [Scott Westerfeld]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Allen & Unwin
Published: 2021-02-12T00:00:00+00:00

30. LOVE OF DUST

The old words from Tally Youngblood have ignited something in the Futures.

It’s not just the girl. Lots of them are worried about their lives being lost in the air.

‘You don’t need the dust,’ I say. ‘No one has to be watching your life for it to mean something. In a free city, you can be yourselves.’

‘This is ourselves,’ she says, growing in confidence. ‘Being historic is who we are, and you want to take that away.’

She’s right—we want to change everything here. Their dreams will fall apart once freedom comes.

I have to switch gears.

‘You can still record yourselves, of course.’

‘That isn’t the same,’ a boy speaks up. ‘If you’re just another kid with a cam, the historians know you’re meta-Heisenberging. The dust makes us real.’

That’s not something I can argue with, because it doesn’t make sense to me.

I scan the crowd for Chulhee, hoping he can help. But he’s way in the back, his arms around Ran and Sara. All three of them gaze at me smugly, as if pleased with how things are going.

That’s when I realize—the founders of Future must also love the dust.

Did they invite us here to set us up? If just one person reports us, the mission will fail spectacularly, leaving my father’s regime stronger. The founders of Future get what they want, without going down in history as snitches for a dictator.

I glance at Col again. He makes a fist—stay strong.

It’s not that easy. I don’t know how to win this argument, and my feet are itching to leave this poisoned stage.

Rafi could do this, but I’m not her.

It’s a nightmare I had a hundred times as a littlie—pretending to be my sister, and the crowd seeing through me. Turning on me.

Then Riggs steps forward.

‘So what does that mean, anyway?’ she asks the girl. ‘Being historic?’

‘It means being remembered,’ the girl says carefully, as if reciting from a textbook. ‘So that even a thousand years from now, you’re alive somehow.’

Riggs jumps onto the stage next to me, wearing a grin.

‘Sure, I get it,’ she says to the crowd. ‘Us rebels want to be remembered too. We get killed in battle all the time. And nobody wants to die and be forgotten, right?’

The eyes of the crowd lock onto Riggs. Suddenly, her rebel swagger is showing, and I realize how she’s been hiding her charisma, her bluster. She was a boss, after all, until my sister came along.

And she’s not talking about mere drama, but the reality of war and revolution.

Historic stuff, compared to love triangles.

Riggs gives me a pat on the back.

I leave the stage to her and stand next to Col. He puts a comforting arm around me.

‘When we rebels die,’ she says, ‘our friends remember us. People we fought beside to save the planet, closer than blood or marriage. That’s how rebels pass into history. We don’t need dust—we have crew.’

She gives them a long look, weighing the Futures with her eyes. I can feel them cringing a little under her judgment.

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