Chương 30

The aircraft descended over the runway. A moment later, the wheels hit the ground. Louis glanced once across the aisle. Gladice had already pushed her sunglasses up into her hair. When the aircraft turned toward the private receiving apron, the protest line came into view. It had been kept well back from the tarmac, behind layered barriers and two lines of local security. The crowd was dense. Handmade signs rose above their heads, jerking as people shouted and shifted.

Some were professionally printed, the kind produced by organizations with money behind them. Others were painted on cheap board with uneven letters. TYRANT OF THE PACIFIC LET THE CITY PRAY FAITH IS NOT YOURS TO LICENSE NEW ORLEANS IS NOT SACRAMENTO The airport security corridor had been built to keep moments like this contained. Municipal police stood closest to the barrier in dark summer uniforms.

Behind them, New Orleans Defense personnel waited in lighter tactical gear, with a quieter layer of Collective Military Committee agents farther out.

"Well," Gladice said lightly, "there's the welcome party." Maria did not lift her head from the folder on her lap.

"They're entitled to their display." Judith put on her sunglasses.

"Entitlement does not improve the aesthetics." One corner of Gladice's mouth moved. The cabin door opened. Constantine let David go first off the aircraft. It was a small courtesy and therefore a serious one. The reception line below was already assembled. When Louis stepped into the doorway behind his parents, the noise from the protest pen rose clear for a moment. He could not separate every word, but he caught fragments.

"—not your believers—""—Pacific degenerates—""—let us worship—" Then the wind shifted, and the words blurred back into noise. David went down first with his family, and the local officials moved in to greet him. Constantine followed. He nodded to the officials and never looked toward the protest line. The cameras stayed on him. Louis followed his mother and kept his eyes forward. Another chant rose from the protest pen beyond the barriers. This time it carried clearly enough to reach the canopy.

"SACRAMENTO—GO HOME! SACRAMENTO—GO HOME!" Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. Gladice murmured loudly enough for only Louis and Angelique to hear, "How sweet. They think we want to stay." Angelique did not look at her.

"I thought you liked home." Gladice smiled.

"I like leaving it." Louis kept his face straight. When the cars were called, the protest noise rose again. People always shouted harder when engines started. Louis glanced once across the barrier before he entered the car. A woman held a sign with a crude painted face on it. He could not tell if it was supposed to be his father or just a generic image of Pacific decadence. The eyes had been hollowed out and inked black. He looked away. Then the door shut, and the noise was gone.

The convoy moved, with armored SUVs riding ahead in pairs. At several overpasses Louis saw more police than cameras. Gladice leaned her head against the window and said, "You know what I like about New Orleans?" Louis did not answer. He had already learned that silence only encouraged her. She continued anyway.

"Everyone here knows they're living on borrowed time. So they don't waste it being polite." Angelique kept looking at the passing streets.

"They don't strike me as especially impolite."

"Then you're not paying attention. They're just subtle about it." She turned her head toward Angelique.

"It's a city of people who would very much like to be left alone, but they've learned that they can't be, so they've become very good at making you feel like an intruder without ever having to say it directly." She smiled.

"It's like you, actually. Only more humid." Angelique gave her a look.

"I don't try to make people feel like intruders."

"No," Gladice agreed.

"You just make them feel inadequate, which is much more efficient." She glanced at Louis.

"You, on the other hand, make people feel like they're doing you a favor just by being near you. I'm still deciding whether that's clever or just lazy." Louis said nothing. The convoy moved on. Along one stretch of avenue, protest signs had spread onto the city itself, taped to poles, zip-tied to railings, and painted on sheets hung from balconies before local crews could remove them. Louis watched it until the convoy turned.

They approached the inner districts, where Creole townhouses lined the road and balconies hung over the street. Somewhere beyond the traffic screens and barricades, he heard music for a moment, maybe from a club or a street corner. Then the convoy turned again, and the sound was gone. Angelique spoke.

"It feels different here." Gladice raised her eyebrows.

"Is that a compliment?"

"It's not a judgment," Angelique said.

"It's an observation."

"Well observed." Gladice looked out the window again.

"The difference is that Houston wants you to feel the weight of what it lost. New Orleans wants you to understand how much it still has to lose. It's not the same thing." Louis thought of the locket in his pocket and did not answer. The motorcade slowed as they approached the security perimeter around the hotel. The streets around it had been cleared before they arrived. The approach lane had been kept open.

Barricades, cordons, and a water-cannon truck were already in place by the time the convoy turned in under the porte-cochère. The hotel had been prepared for the Supreme President of the Dominion and its own mayor as if arrivals like this were its real purpose. They moved toward the elevators in a tight group. Guards walked ahead, behind, and on both sides. Angelique walked a few paces ahead of Louis. When the elevator doors opened, she stepped in without looking back.

Louis followed and saw himself, Angelique, and Gladice reflected in the polished metal wall opposite. Himself, Angelique, and Gladice. He had the sudden strange thought that they made a certain kind of sense together, not harmonious and not easy, but balanced in a way that felt almost inevitable: Angelique's contained discipline, Gladice's restless ambition, and his own attempt to find space between the two. He blinked the reflection away before it could fix itself into memory. Gladice saw him seeing it.

"We look good together," she said. Angelique did not turn around.

"We look like a diplomatic incident waiting to happen." Gladice grinned.

"Yes. That too." The elevator climbed.