Legend (Legend, #1)

by Marie Lu

Gate Ruins, Republic commercials in neon colors. There’s also anti-Colonies propaganda. “The Colonies want our land,” the ads declare. “They want what they don’t have. Don’t let them conquer your homes! Support the cause!”

Sometimes I’m black, sometimes white, sometimes olive or brown or yellow or red or whatever else they can think of. In other words, the Republic has no idea what I look like. They don’t seem to know much of anything about me, except that I’m young and that when they run my fingerprints they don’t find a match in their databases. That’s why they hate me, why I’m not the most dangerous criminal in the country, but the most wanted. I make them look bad.

Each of them wears a gas mask. Sometimes when they emerge, they mark a house by painting a big red X on the front door. No one enters or leaves the home after that—at least, not when anyone’s looking.

Tess moves closer. “We should leave the city for a couple weeks, yeah?” She tries to keep her voice calm, but the fear is there. “Soon the plague will have blown through, and you can come back to visit. We have more than enough money for two train tickets.” I shake my head. “One night a week, remember? Just let me check up on them one night a week.”

We look on in silence as the soldiers draw closer to my family’s house. Every time they stop at a home, one soldier pounds on the door while a second stands next to him with his gun drawn. If no one opens the door within ten seconds, the first soldier kicks it in. I can’t see them once they rush inside, but I know the drill: a soldier will draw a blood sample from each family member, then plug it into a handheld reader and check for the plague. The whole process takes ten minutes.

It’s a plague victim. She must’ve been deteriorating for months, because her skin is cracked and bleeding everywhere, and I find myself wondering how the soldiers could have missed this one during previous inspections. She stumbles around for a while, disoriented, then charges forward, only to trip and fall to her knees. I glance back toward the soldiers. They see her now. The soldier with the drawn weapon approaches, while the eleven others stay where they are and look on. One plague victim isn’t much of a threat. The soldier lifts his gun and aims. A volley of sparks engulfs the infected woman.

I wish we could get our hands on one of the soldiers’ guns. A pretty weapon like that doesn’t cost much on the market—480 Notes, less than a stove. Like all guns, it has precision, guided by magnets and electric currents, and can accurately shoot a target three blocks away. It’s tech stolen from the Colonies, Dad once said, although of course the Republic would never tell you that. Tess and I could buy five of them if we wanted. . . . Over the years we’ve learned to stockpile the extra money we steal and stash it away for emergencies. But the real problem with having a gun isn’t the expense. It’s that it’s so easy to trace back to you. Each gun has a sensor on it that reports its user’s hand shape, thumbprints, and location. If that didn’t give me away, nothing would. So I’m left with my homemade weapons, PVC pipe slingshots, and other trinkets.

Eden turns ten in two months, which means that in two months he’ll have to take the Trial. I failed my own Trial when I was ten. That’s why I worry about Eden, because even though he’s easily the smartest of us three boys, he thinks a lot like I do. When I finished my Trial, I felt so sure of my answers that I didn’t even bother to watch them grade it. But then the admins ushered me into a corner of the Trial stadium with a bunch of other kids. They stamped something on my test and stuffed me onto a train headed downtown. I didn’t get to take anything except the pendant I wore around my neck. I didn’t even get to say good-bye.

Several different things could happen after you take the Trial.

You get a perfect score—1500 points. No one’s ever gotten this—well, except for some kid a few years ago who the military made a goddy fuss over. Who knows what happens to someone with a score that high? Probably lots of money and power, yeah? You score between a 1450 and a 1499. Pat yourself on the back because you’ll get instant access to six years of high school and then four at the top universities in the Republic: Drake, Stanford, and Brenan. Then Congress hires you and you make lots of money. Joy and happiness follow. At least according to the Republic. You get a good score, somewhere between 1250 and 1449 points. You get to continue on to high school, and then you’re assigned to a college. Not bad. You squeak by with a score between 1000 and 1249. Congress bars you from high school. You join the poor, like my family. You’ll probably either drown while working the water turbines or get steamed to death in the power plants. You fail. It’s almost always the slum-sector kids who fail. If you’re in this unlucky category, the Republic sends officials to your family’s home. They make your parents sign a contract giving the government full custody over you. They s...

Except this is all a lie. An inferior child with bad genes is no use to the country. If you’re lucky, Congress will let you die without first sending you to...

smart. I’m the only person in the entire Republic with a perfect 1500 score on her Trial. I was assigned here, to the country’s top university, at twelve, four years ahead of schedule. Then I skipped my sophomore year. I’ve earned perfect grades at Drake for three years. I am smart. I have what the Republic considers good genes—and better genes make for better soldiers make for better chance of victory against the Colonies, my professors always say. And if I feel like my afternoon drills aren’t teaching me enough about how to climb walls while carrying weapons, then . . . well, it wasn’t my fault I had to scale the side of a nineteen-story building with a XM-621 gun strapped to my back. It was self-improvement, for the sake of my country.

Drake is the Republic’s best university, and seeing as how the best are always assigned into the military, our drill room is packed with students.

My heart sinks. I wish the Republic would hurry up and win this war already so that for once we might actually get a whole month of nonstop electricity. “Where are you going? Can I come with you?” “I’m overseeing the lab at Los Angeles Central. They’re delivering vials of some mutated virus there—it shouldn’t take all night. And I already told you no. No missions.” Metias hesitates. “I’ll be home as early as I can. We have a lot to talk about.” He puts his hands on my shoulders, ignores my puzzled look, and gives me a quick kiss on my forehead. “Love you, Junebug,” he says, his trademark good-bye. He turns to climb back into the jeep.

“You should have taken me with you,” I whisper to him. Then I lean my head against his and begin to cry. In my mind, I make a silent promise to my brother’s killer. I will hunt you down. I will scour the streets of Los Angeles for you. Search every street in the Republic if I have to. I will trick you and deceive you, lie, cheat and steal to find you, tempt you out of your hiding place, and chase you until you have nowhere else to run. I make you this promise: your life is mine. Too soon, soldiers come to take Metias to the morgue.

But you’re a set of fresh young eyes, and if you impress me, I’ll promote you to be a full agent on this patrol. I’ll make you famous—the youngest agent out there.”

Which makes me wonder. Day broke into the laboratory for medicine as part of a desperate, last-minute, poorly thought-out plan. He must have stolen plague suppressants and painkillers because he couldn’t find anything stronger. He himself certainly doesn’t have the plague, not with the way he was able to escape. But someone else he knows must, someone he cares enough about to risk his life for. Someone living in Blueridge or Lake or Winter or Alta, sectors all recently affected by the plague. If this is true, Day won’t be leaving the city anytime soon. He’s bound here by this connection, motivated by emotions.

But the biggest thing that doesn’t compute for me is this: Day has never killed anyone before. That’s another reason why I don’t think he’s connected to the Patriots. In one of his past crimes, he crept into a quarantine zone by tying up a street policeman. The policeman didn’t have a scratch on him (except a black eye). Another time, he broke into a bank vault but left the four security guards at its back entrance untouched—although a bit stupefied. He once torched a whole squadron of fighter jets on an empty airfield in the middle of the night and has on two occasions grounded airships by crippling their engines. He once vandalized the side of a military building. He’s stolen money, food, and goods. But he doesn’t set roadside bombs. He doesn’t shoot soldiers. He doesn’t attempt assassinations. He doesn’t kill.

Day’s exploits used to fascinate me. But now he is my matched enemy—my target. My first mission. I gather my thoughts for two days. On the third day, I call Commander Jameson. I have a plan.

Then there’s a voice telling me to get up. When I look to my side, I see a boy holding out his hand to me. He has bright blue eyes, dirt on his face, and a beat-up old cap on, and at this moment, I think he might be the most beautiful boy I’ve ever seen.

Day didn’t fail his Trial. Not even close. In fact, he got the same score I did: 1500 / 1500. I am no longer the Republic’s only prodigy with a perfect score.

“You think we go to labor camps if we fail? June, the only labor camps are the morgues in hospital basements.”

Today was not different. He didn’t hesitate—not for a second—to obey our commander. He’d carried out the extermination as if he were preparing for a routine plague sweep or for a night guarding an airfield. Is it worse that he followed the orders so faithfully or that he doesn’t even know that this is what I want him to apologize for?

These black marks look like rifle grease. Almost like the streak of grease that was on Thomas’s forehead when I first saw him that night.

I’d once been fascinated by his legend—all the stories I’d heard before I met him. Now I can feel that same sense of fascination returning. I picture his face, so beautiful even after pain and torture and grief, his blue eyes bright and sincere. I’m ashamed to admit that I enjoyed my brief time with him in his prison cell. His voice can make me forget about all the details running through my mind, bringing with it emotions of desire or fear instead, sometimes even anger, but always triggering something. Something that wasn’t there before.

“Few people ever kill for the right reasons, June,” he said after a long silence. “Most do it for the wrong reasons. I just hope you never have to be in either category.”