“She has a bit of a crush on Elysian’s son. Can’t remember his name. The guy’s never in the spotlight, not like his dad. Well, my girl is going to change that. They’ll be a power couple. The Elysian kid with the Registration and my girl in the government. Think of what they’ll do together!”

Lynell never gets a word in, much less to tell the guy that the current leaders have already done quite a lot together.

Price keeps his face down and eyes staring at the phone in his lap, as if unwilling to even look at the man, much less speak to him.

“Traffic ahead,” the driver calls back. “Might be an extra few minutes.”

Lynell looks out the window as they turn onto what looks to be the main road downtown. She cranes her neck to try and get a better look at the Gateway Arch that dominates the skyline. A few minutes later, they drive past the cause of traffic.

The open space and green lawns under the arch are crawling with people sitting, standing, walking, and chanting. Many are holding signs that all say a variation of the same thing: “End the Registration.”

“REGISTER THE ELYSIANS” “MURDER IS MURDER LEGAL OR NOT” “LEGAL ≠ MORAL” “ERIC ELYSIAN IS A BASTARD” “REGISTRATION IS NOT CHOICE”

“I didn’t realize there were still so many rebels,” she says, almost to herself.

“There’s always more during the two-week Registration period. After, people seem to go about their lives and forget,” Price replies.

She can’t go about her life. Can’t forget. Only eleven days left. “If they only care when it’s relevant, do they really care?”

Price scoffs. “That is the question, isn’t it?”

Lynell turns away from the window and frowns at him.

“Maybe they have a point,” Lynell says, but she doesn't believe her own words. She sympathizes with the rebels, more so after meeting Daniel, but if she had to pick a side, she’d never turn against the Registration. It’s the only thing offering a shred of freedom from people like Alan.

“They’re fanatics. Radicals. Rebels,” Price says, his voice laced with disdain. He looks up, focusing on Lynell. “They forget that there is no perfect world. Overturning the Registration, or this government, would leave a huge empty space anything could fill. What comes next could be worse.”

“Wouldn’t the revolutionists be prepared to fill that empty space?” Lynell asks. Daniel explained once how the rebels planned to overthrow the government right after succeeding in their main goal of ending the Registration. He said they wanted to get rid of the oligarchy and replace it with a system that gives individuals more of a say.

“Destabilizing the current system would leave us vulnerable to foreign powers,” Price says, looking through the back window where the protest is now growing small as they drive away. “The West Mediterranean Federation may try to conquer us, and they’re a dictatorship governed by brutal force.”

Brutal force? Wasn’t that also an accurate description of the Registration? Lynell doesn’t have the energy to argue.