“There’s the Republic we all know and love. And that’s the Colonies.” She po

“There’s the Republic we all know and love. And that’s the Colonies.” She points to a smaller, more broken-up spread of land sharing the Republic’s eastern border. I study the red circles denoting cities in the Colonies. New York, Pittsburgh, St. Louis, Nashville. Do they glow like my father said?Kaede goes on, sweeping her hand up north and down south. “Canada and Mexico each keep a strict demilitarized zone between themselves and both the Republic and Colonies. Mexico’s got her own share of Patriots. Then here’s whatever’s left of South America. This all used to be a huge continent too, y'know. Now it’s Brazil” - she points to a large, triangular island far south of the Republic - “Chile, and Argentina.”Kaede cheerily points out what the continents are and what they used to be. What I see as Norway, France, Spain, Germany, and the British Isles used to be part of a larger place called Europe. The rest of Europe’s people, she says, fled to Africa. Mongolia and Russia aren’t extinct nations, contrary to Republic teachings. Australia used to be one solid landmass. Then there are the superpowers. China’s enormous, floating metropolises are built entirely over the water and have permanently black skies. “Hai Cheng,” Kaede interjects. “Sea cities.” I learn that Africa wasn’t always the flourishing, technologically advanced continent it is today, gradually filling up with universities, skyscrapers, and international refugees. And Antarctica, believe it or not, was once uninhabited and completely covered in ice. Now, like China and Africa, it houses the world’s tech capitals and attracts a fair share of tourists. “The Republic and the Colonies have such pathetic tech in comparison,” Kaede adds. “I’d like to visit Antarctica someday. Supposed to be gorgeous.”She tells me the United States used to be one of those superpowers. “Then came the war,” Kaede adds, “and all their top thinkers literally fled for higher ground. Antarctica caused the flooding, y’know. Things were already going downhill, but then the sun went haywire and melted all the Antarctic ice. Flooding like you and I couldn’t even imagine. Millions dropped dead from the temperature changes. Now that must’ve been a spectacle, yeah? The sun reset itself eventually, but the climate never did. All that freshwater mixed up with seawater and nothing’s been the same since.”Prodigy, by Marie Lu, p. 117-18Image: Peter Bollinger -- source link

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