Rathbone:But... well, I think we can all agree their immigration policy leaves something to be desired. It’s all well and good providing affordable housing for Carolinian citizens, but there were neighborhoods you didn’t go to at night. Atlantian refugees were left to cobble together shared housing in tenements and slums, with no government health care, no education ... even the strictest quarantine laws in the world can’t stop magic from spreading once it’s taken root in one of the refugee communities. And of course that only created more xenophobia, more violence.
Ariel:We’ve all heard rumors, too, of the ironclad strength of the Carolinian propaganda machine.
Rathbone:Ah, yes. Well. All you have to do is look at historical records to uncover the truth. In Carolinia, children are taught that Calix and Adalwolf Lehrer almost single-handedly destroyed the former United States with the efforts of their Avenging Angels. However, outside of Carolinia, it is common knowledge that—although the Avenging Angels were responsible for the establishment of the nation of Carolinia and the destruction of Washington, DC—there were multiple revolutionary organizations working in concert to help bring down the United States.
Ariel:How aware, would you say, is the average Carolinian about how the present nations of North America were formed?
Rathbone:Reasonably aware, but with some caveats. It is widely known in Carolinia that the nations as they exist today were formed from the only land remaining on the continent that had not yet been infected with magic. What is less known, of course, is that in the early days after the US government fell, Calix Lehrer and the early Carolinian government detonated a number of biological weapons containing the magic virus throughout the continent. We could have had Chicago, Toronto, a great deal of California ... instead, Lehrer infected as much of the continent with magic as he possibly could.
Ariel:Why did he stop? Why not infect the entire continent—the entire world?
Rathbone:It was a political ploy. He had the means to infect the entire planet. But Lehrer stopped the bombings as soon as he was granted the full extent of the demands he made from the rest of the world during the establishment of Carolinia. It would be one thing if Lehrer had died at a normal old age and been succeeded by someone else. But with Lehrer still alive, holding power in Carolinia, that same threat has sustained Carolinia into the modern day. No nation dares undermine Carolinian autonomy. It’s why we have relatively open trade with the Carolinians despite limited diplomacy and sustained Carolinian isolationism. Lehrer has already established what he is capable of, how far he’s willing to go to get what he wants. He only needed to make an example of us once. Now the world will never forget.
That is Calix Lehrer’s legacy.
CHAPTERTWENTY-THREE
NOAM
A car waited on the tarmac when they landed in Dallas, black with tinted windows.
“I need to return to base,” Major General García told Noam before he disembarked, leaning with one elbow braced against a seat back and her hand curled in a loose fist. “That car will take you to the hotel.”
“Okay,” Noam said, but she still didn’t move—kept her arm where it was, blocking the aisle.
“Listen,” she said after a moment, tone softening, and all at once Noam felt like he’d swallowed ice, because he’d never heard García use that tone. Not ever. “What happened in Houston ... you did the right thing.”
Those words curdled in Noam’s gut like sour milk.
“Oh,” he said awkwardly. “Thanks.”
A small smile tugged at one corner of her lips, and after a beat she reached out and squeezed his upper arm. “We’ll talk more, later. When we’re both safely back in Carolinia.”
She let him go, then, down the gangway and across the airfield toward the waiting car. For a moment, sitting there in the back seat with the doors shut and fresh air-conditioning blowing through his hair, Noam wondered if he was supposed to say something, tell the AI their destination maybe. But then, slowly, they rolled forward, and the front console navigation display switched to show a map into the city center.
Noam leaned back against the black leather seat and shut his eyes.
He must have been more tired than he thought; he dozed off somewhere between the airport and Dallas’s downtown, lurching awake only when the car rolled to a stop outside the Wilshire Hotel.
And the Wilshire Hotel was ... well, it was a goddamnhotelall right. The façade was all limestone and tall windows, and when Noam stepped through the old-fashioned swinging doors into the lobby, he felt like this whole damn place was designed to make it obvious people like Noam Álvaro didn’t belong here.
So he took his time crossing that marble floor, trailing dust and dirt and soot in his wake.
The man at the front desk eyed him dubiously as he approached. It was only after he was in speaking distance that the man’s gaze fixed on the surname patch on Noam’s uniform.
“Mr. Álvaro,” he said, with a lilted note of surprise. “We weren’t expecting you so ...”
“So dirty?”
“Sosoon,” the man revised. “You’re in room 904. And—Chancellor Lehrer wanted me to inform you he expects your presence as soon as you arrive. Suite 1200.”
Of course he did.
“Thank you,” Noam said, and he followed the man’s directions toward the bank of elevators that stood past the desk on the other side of the lobby.
As soon as the golden elevator doors slid shut behind him, Noam exhaled a heavy breath. What would Lehrer do if Noam just ... didn’t show up? If he went to his own room and crawled in bed and refused to emerge for three days?
Only that was a dumb question. Lehrer would use electromagnetism to open the door and come in and drag him out. And he wouldn’t be angry. Justdisappointed.
