I shrug, uncomfortable.
“The Mountain isn’t foreign, or even set on killing anyone. It’s made up of people who have left the City and people who were surviving Outside. They’ll take anyone who wants to be there, and give them something more to live for than fear. And they are organized and successful enough that the City is taking them seriously. If people inside the City knew that, they would leave.”
I look down at my hands, twirling the rusty red ring on my pinkie.
“You see why the war with Kamar is so important to the First Circle? And the lies about conditions Outside? Stringing prisoners up where everyone can see the enemy’s light hair and worry about how close a fictional army is to invading their homes, infecting their children? It’s all a propaganda campaign to convince Thirds to work for almost nothing with no way to complain. The forces that the Seconds fight are from the Mountain. They want to help Thirds.”
“Where . . .” I fumble with the question, not sure how it will sound. “Where do they come from, then? People . . . like June?”
Howl shrugs. “When Yuan Zhiwei locked the City gates, only certain people were welcome inside. I don’t know if that has to do with alliances during the Influenza War, or the invasion they teach us about in school. There are people of all kinds out past where City patrols range, lots of people like June in work camps and farms that belong to the City, but they’re kept out of sight. You must know the City hasn’t always been fighting Outsiders. How else could a First like you end up with a name like . . .”
I flinch and shake my head, not willing to talk about it. Yes, my mother gave me a funny, foreign-sounding name, but that doesn’t mean my family is somehow from Outside. “How did you go from hostage to sympathizer? It’s not as if you had anything to complain about up in the First Quarter.”
“A former First started visiting me every day in confinement.” Howl recites the story as if he’s reading it from a book, still looking at the ground. “She did SS research before she turned rebel. The First Circle had ordered her to start testing on humans, to purposely infect citizens and set them loose in the City. When she refused, they threw her in the Hole. The rebels caught wind of it and broke her out.”
“First-inflicted SS cases?”
Howl’s teeth flash in a half smile. “To keep the threat in Thirds’ minds. Seconds’, too. And you can turn off that respectful voice. I . . . I didn’t believe either, at first. The woman who talked to me introduced me to victims. People from the Sanatorium. They don’t just do SS experiments in there.”
“I know people in there.” My voice comes out too low as I think of Peishan, how frightened she was that day in Captain Chen’s classroom. How empty my room was after they took her away.
“What could be worse than infected all locked up together?” he asks. “Completely out of control, hurting themselves and anyone else they can get their hands on with no hope of recovery. . . .”
The dark expression in his face stops me cold. The thought of thousands of Parhats, confused and without conscience, left to cut crosses in their arms and hands . . . The City wouldn’t do that to people on purpose, would it? I sit back against the tree, tracing lines in the dirt. “So you turned. You started working for them.”
He sits forward, the intensity of his voice catching me by surprise. “All Firsts care about is keeping the cheap labor from realizing the Third Quarter isn’t much better than a slave camp. ‘Shoulder to shoulder we stand, comrades building a society strong enough to find the cure to SS.’ City principles are a load of garbage.”
I recognize the quote from our pledge, the one I used to recite for every Remedial Reform class, every shift at the cannery. The City was meant to be a place where everyone was equal, each pulling our weight, each taking our fair share. Thinking back to the gargantuan houses up on the Steppe, it’s easy to wonder how equal Firsts are compared to the rest of us. Especially when the First right in front of me is calling the City a prison.
I catch myself looking at Howl’s First mark, wanting to believe him just because it’s there. Even on a traitor’s hand, I want that single white line to mean safety. He looks at it too, one finger brushing the scar as if it’s graffiti that can be wiped away.
“I call Seconds ‘Reds’ because that’s what they call them out here. Not just because of the pins and the uniforms, but because of the people they’ve killed. They’re all covered with blood.”
Howl sits back against the tree. “I’ve been helping smuggle Mantis out for about two years now.” He gestures to my pack. “Dr. Yang gave us more than enough to get you to the Mountain, and the rest will go to the Mountain’s Mantis stockpile.”
A glow of hope washes over me as he says it. A whole stockpile of Mantis outside the City. A safe place to hide from whatever monster SS grew inside of me. But something here doesn’t quite fit. “So the bomb at Aihu Bridge . . . That was the rebels?”
“That bomb was air-launched, right?”
I nod.
“Then no. The City has the only aircraft in the area. Rebels don’t have access to that kind of power.” Howl yawns again, eyes crinkling shut. “That must have been a busy night for the propaganda department, trying to explain how you managed to blast yourself off that bridge. I think it ended up being something about you marking a target point for a ‘Kamari’ heli-plane.”
So, if I’m going to believe Howl, even the SS bombs in the City are self-inflicted, keeping the threat of an army waiting just on the other side of the wall fresh in everyone’s mind. It must have just been an added bonus that I was there that night with Tai-ge. Through this new lens, it’s easy to see why the First Circle would have used the situation to send me to the Arch. A story about a Kamari spy caught in the act of bringing SS down to where it would hurt the most people would pull Thirds closer to the City than a distant chemical bomb and a burning bridge ever could. Almost like the propaganda department wrote my part. But that still doesn’t explain what Howl said while he thought I was unconscious the night the Watch came after me. She’s the only one like me.
“What does any of this have to do with me?” I ask, cautiously fishing for an answer, wanting to trust him. “Why did Dr. Yang bend so far to get me out of the City? Why did you leave with me if you were doing so much good, ferrying Mantis over the wall?”
“I left because . . . it’s just too hard. Being there. Watching people bend until they break. I want to do more. I can do more out here.” Howl’s breath blurs the air between us, his eyes suddenly directed anywhere but at me. “And as for why Dr. Yang wanted you out, you’ll have to ask him yourself.” He glances toward June. “You should probably get back up there. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you where we were going before. Dr. Yang was worried that if you knew, you wouldn’t come. That you’d try to run away from us and end up dead along with whoever else they are pinning to that bomb.”
My heart starts to pound, Tai-ge’s dimpled smile clear in my head. And another, but much blurrier: my father, caught in the tangle of my mother’s deception. I can’t believe it didn’t occur to me before that blame for that bomb might have attached to someone else after I was smuggled out of the City. “Whose life did I trade for mine?” My voice is low, a slow vibration that almost doesn’t make it out. “Who is dead because you helped me escape?”