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rest stop.”
    “Remember, two fingers against your brow if you need to stop.”
    “Yeah, yeah. I’ll let you know if I’m in trouble.”
    Another pair of soldiers pushes past us with their own escorts, grinning girls decked
     out in sparkling eye shadow and elegantly painted face tattoos, their bodies covered
     thinly by dancer costumes and fake red feathers. One of the soldiers catches sight
     of me, laughs, and widens his glazed eyes.
    “What club you from, gorgeous?” he slurs. “Don’t remember your face around here.”
     His hand goes for my exposed waist, hungering for skin. Before he can reach me, Day’s
     arm whips out and shoves the soldier roughly away.
    “Don’t touch her.”
Day grins and winks at the soldier, keeping up his carefree demeanor, but the warning
     in his eyes and voice makes the other man back off. He blinks at both of us, mumbles
     something under his breath, and staggers away with his friends.
    I try to imitate the way those escorts giggle, then give my hair a toss. “Next time,
     just go with it,” I hiss in Day’s ear even as I kiss him on the cheek, as if he were
     the best customer ever. “Last thing we need is a fight.”
    “What?” Day shrugs and returns to his painful walk. “It’d be a pretty pathetic fight.
     He could barely stand.”
    I shake my head and decide not to point out the irony.
    A third group of soldiers stumbles past us in a loud, drunken daze. (Seven cadets,
     two lieutenants, gold armbands with Dakota insignias, which means they just arrived
     here from the north and haven’t yet exchanged their armbands for new ones with their
     warfront battalions.) They have their arms wrapped around escorts from the Bellagio
     clubs—glittering girls with scarlet chokers and
B
arm tattoos. These soldiers are probably stationed in the barracks above the clubs.
    I check my own costume again. Stolen from the dressing rooms of the Sun Palace. On
     the surface, I seem like any other escort. Gold chains and trinkets around my waist
     and ankles. Feathers and gold ribbons pinned into my scarlet (spray-painted), braided
     hair. Smoky eye shadow coated with glitter. A ferocious phoenix tattoo painted across
     my upper cheek and eyelid. Red silks leave my arms and waist exposed, and dark laces
     line my boots.
    But there’s one thing on my costume that the other girls don’t wear.
    A chain of thirteen little glittering mirrors. They’re partially hidden amongst the
     other ornaments wrapped around my ankle, and from a distance it would seem like another
     decoration. Completely forgettable. But every now and then, when streetlights catch
     it, it becomes a row of brilliant, sparkling lights. Thirteen, the Patriots’ unofficial
     number. This is our signal to them. They must be watching the main Vegas strip all
     the time, so I know they’ll at least notice a row of flashing lights on me. And when
     they do, they’ll recognize us as the same pair they helped rescue in Los Angeles.
    The JumboTrons lining the street crackle for a second. The pledge should start again
     any minute now. Unlike Los Angeles, Vegas runs the national pledge five times a day—all
     the JumboTrons will pause in whatever ads or news they’re showing, replace them with
     enormous images of the Elector Primo, and then play the following on the city’s speaker
     system:
I pledge allegiance to the flag of the great Republic of America, to our Elector Primo,
     to our glorious states, to unity against the Colonies, to our impending victory!
    Not long ago, I used to recite that pledge every morning and afternoon with the same
     enthusiasm as anyone else, determined to keep the east coast Colonies from taking
     control of our precious west coast land. That was before I knew about the Republic’s
     role in my family’s deaths. I’m not sure what I think now. Let the Colonies win?
    The JumboTrons start broadcasting a newsreel. Weekly recap. Day and I watch the headlines
     zip by on the