But that was hours ago, and now there is nothing to do but wait for the signal.
The main force will breach the wall at once. Most of Portland’s security will be busy at the labs; I’ve gathered that there is a large event there today. There should only be a limited number of officers to hold us off, although Colin is worried that last night’s breach didn’t go as smoothly as planned. It’s possible that inside the wall, there are more regulators, more guns than we think.
We’ll just have to see.
From where I am crouching in the underbrush, I can occasionally see Pippa, fifty yards off, when she shifts behind the juniper bush she has chosen to conceal her. I wonder if she’s nervous. Pippa has one of the most important roles of all.
She is in charge of one of the bombs. The main force—the chaos at the wall—is meant mostly to enable the bombers, four in total, to slip unnoticed into Portland. Pippa’s end goal is 88 Essex Street, an address I don’t recognize, probably a government building, like the rest of the targets.
The sun inches up into the sky. Ten a.m. Ten thirty a.m. Noon.
Any minute now.
We wait.
Hana
The car’s here.” My mother rests a hand on my shoulder. “Are you ready to go?”
I don’t trust myself to speak, so I nod. The girl in the mirror—blond tendrils of hair pinned and pulled back, eyelashes dark with mascara, skin flawless, lips penciled in—nods as well.
“I’m very proud of you,” my mother says in an undertone. People are bustling in and out of the room—photographers and makeup artists and Debbie, the hairdresser—and I imagine she is embarrassed. My mother has never in her whole life admitted to being proud of me.
“Here.” My mother helps me slip into a soft cotton robe, so my dress—sweeping, long, and fastened at the shoulder with a gold clip in the shape of an eagle, the animal to which Fred is most often compared—will remain spotless during the short drive down to the labs.
A group of journalists is clustered outside the gates, and as I emerge onto the porch, I am startled by the glare from so many lenses turned in my direction, the rapid-fire click-click-click of the shutters. The sun floats in the cloudless sky, a single white eye. It must be just before noon. I’m glad as soon as we make it to the car. The interior is dark, and cool, and I know that no one can see me behind the tinted windows.
“I really don’t believe it.” My mother plays with her bracelets. She’s more excited than I’ve ever seen her. “I really thought this day would never come. Isn’t that silly?”
“Silly,” I echo. As we pull out of the subdivision, I see that the police presence has been redoubled. Half the streets leading downtown have been barricaded, patrolled by regulators, police, and even some men wearing the silver badges of the military guard. By the time I can see the sloped white roofs of the laboratory complex—where Fred and I will be married in one of the largest medical conference rooms, big enough to accommodate a thousand witnesses—the crowd in the streets is so dense, Tony can hardly inch the car along through it.
It seems as though all of Portland has turned out to watch me get married. People reach out and knuckle the hood of the car for good luck. Hands thump against the roof and the windows, making me jump. And police wade through the crowd, moving people aside, trying to clear a space for the car, intoning, “Let ’em through, let ’em through.”
A series of police barricades has been erected just outside the laboratory gates. Several regulators move them aside so we can pass into the small paved parking lot just in front of the lab’s main entrance. I recognize Fred’s family’s car. He must be here already.
My stomach gives a weird twist. I haven’t been to the labs since my procedure was completed, since I entered a miserable, chewed-up girl, full of guilt and hurt and anger, and emerged something different, cleaner and less confused. That was the day they cut Lena away from me, and Steve Hilt, too, and all those sweaty, dark nights, when I wasn’t sure of anything.
But that was really only the beginning of the cure. This—the pairing, the wedding, and Fred—is its conclusion.
The gates have been locked behind us again, and the barricades restored. Still, as I climb out of the car, I can feel the crowd pressing closer, closer—itching to come in, to watch, to see me pledge my life and future to the path that has been chosen for me. But the ceremony will not begin for another fifteen minutes, and the gates will remain closed until then.
Behind the revolving glass doors, I can see Fred waiting for me, unsmiling, arms folded. His face is distorted by the glare and the glass. From this distance, it looks as though his skin is full of holes.
“It’s time,” my mother says.
“I know,” I say, and I pass in front of her, into the building.
Lena