Justin glanced over at Tessa and saw that the raven wasn’t that far off from the truth. She was still pale and anxious. He squeezed her hand.
“You’re okay. Stay with me here.”
She was having a hard time, but Justin stood by his decision to bring Tessa here. She was capable, and she deserved this. Sergio had taken Justin in without question when he’d shown up penniless in Panama. Marta Cruz had always believed Justin was a freeloader, but he had strong convictions about paying his debts. Choosing where to go in exile had been the biggest gamble Justin had ever made, with his life as the wager. Gemman authorities had escorted him from his office straight to the nearest airport, telling him he could go “anywhere but here.” He’d had only minutes to make a decision. Central and South America were the obvious options. Their populations had been diverse enough to help them weather the Decline better than other places, and they were more stable than most provinces.
And you see yourself in her, Horatio said.
Justin didn’t deny it because it was true. For a moment, Tessa’s face dissolved, and he saw another one in his mind, an older face that had seemed beautiful to his ten-year-old self. The noise and smells of the Anchorage market had surrounded them, and his boss had been yelling for him to return. How did you do that? the beautiful woman had asked. It’s easy, Justin had replied. You just have to look at their faces. And with those words, his life had changed.
Studying Tessa now, he was struck by how painfully out of place she looked. With her ankle-length skirt and thick hair, she could’ve been a time traveler from another century. She attracted a lot of stares, so it was probably just as well that her eyes were kind of glazed over. Walking next to Mae, so perfect and polished in her tailored outfit, didn’t help Tessa’s appearance, though it occasionally allowed Justin to see flashes of compassion on Mae’s face when she didn’t think anyone was looking. Killer soldier, haughty castal, bitter one-night stand…whatever she was, Mae had a soft spot for frightened provincial girls.
“Can’t we take a car?” he asked her when he realized they were headed toward the airport’s entrance to the subway.
Mae shook her head. “We need her chipped, and this way’s faster to the Citizens’ Ministry.”
“I don’t want a chip,” Tessa repeated, abandoning one fear for another.
“It’s easy,” he said. “And it’ll make your life a lot easier.”
She looked skeptical, probably because her crackpot mother had filled her with all sorts of idiocy about chips sealing Gemmans to the devil.
Proving his point, Tessa triggered an alarm when she passed through the transit entrance. The guard waved them on once Mae stopped to show him Tessa’s documentation and card, though Justin was pretty sure Mae could’ve achieved the same effect by flashing a gun, that ridiculous knife, or the look she’d given Justin last night upon learning he wasn’t Huan Korokov.
“That’ll happen every time you go through a checkpoint if you don’t have a chip,” Justin told Tessa. “Sensors like this are scattered around the city.”
“Tracking us,” she said darkly.
“It’s not recorded. Most are just scanning to make sure everyone’s got an authentic chip—or the paperwork to explain why they don’t. The chip will send its person’s name to the scanner, but that’s only to match it against outstanding warrants. Most of the time, the names are dumped after that.”
“Most?” Tessa asked. Smart girl, picking up on the one-word nuances he loved.
“Most,” he affirmed. They came to a halt near the yellow-line train’s platform. “High-security spots—like this airport—will have scanners synched to the National Registry. All the people going through are checked against that to make sure they have a matching official record.”
“Still sounds like tracking to me. No one can go anywhere unnoticed.” At least ruminating over conspiracy theories distracted Tessa from the tightly packed subway tunnel. “And doesn’t the registry control names?”
He thought about it. “‘Control’ isn’t the right word. It’s just a way to strengthen national unity.” Per RUNA policy, all citizens had to have a name of Greek or Latin origin to be in the National Registry database. Castals could call each other whatever ethnic names they wanted on their grants, but in the eyes of their country, their names had to meet the same criteria as those of plebeians. “Besides, there are thousands of choices.”
“It’s still a limitation.”