“A mouse,” Charlotte answered. “That’s what saved our lives yesterday.”
Grave spared her a glance. “You had one of those in your pocket?”
She nodded. “It’s a magnet mouse. They’re explosive devices. Once they’re wound, they’ll chase the most metallic object in the vicinity. And for us that’s usually Rotpots.”
“The thing that was chasing us?” he asked.
“Yes,” Charlotte said. “We call them Rotpots, but they’re really called Imperial Labor Gatherers.”
“Labor Gatherers?”
As she spoke, Charlotte’s skin crawled. “Life in the lower levels of the coastal cities is hard—and that’s a kind way of putting it. Sometimes the workers try to escape. The Gatherers are sent out to catch runaways and return them to the Empire.”
Grave continued his methodic sorting of parts—for it being his first time, he caught on quickly. “Does anyone think the Empire is good?”
“The Brits.” she laughed coldly. “It’s working out beautifully for them.”
“They don’t have to work in the cities?” He picked up a brass gear, turning it over slowly in his hand.
Charlotte cast a sidelong glance at him. “You really don’t know?”
His shoulders hunched in embarrassment. “I’m sorry. I’ll stop asking questions.”
“No,” she said. “It’s just strange . . . and you must feel so lost.”
He didn’t look at her, but nodded.
“The resistance began in 1774,” she told him. “The Declaration of Independence was signed in 1776—Patriots who wanted independence for the colonies pitted against Loyalists who supported the British. The Patriots were sure that France would aid them, maybe the Spanish and Dutch as well. But American diplomats failed to convince any other countries to fight with us. Britain was there at every turn with a counteroffer. They made Canada into Indian territory to appease their native allies. They gave Florida back to Spain and promised to leave the southern Mississippi corridor and the French Caribbean untouched. Without naval assistance from the French, the Patriots couldn’t hold the ports. The British navy was too powerful. The colonists surrendered in 1781.”
“What happened to the Patriots?” Grave asked.
“All signers of the Declaration were hung as traitors to the Empire,” she said somberly. “Boston—where much of the Patriot support was concentrated—was razed. It’s a prison now. Whenever members of the Resistance are captured, they’re sent to Boston and are never heard from again.”
Charlotte’s hands paused from their methodical sorting. “British policy toward the colonies after the war was called ‘benevolent reform.’ The colonies were divided into three provinces: Amherst, from New Hampshire to New York; Cornwallis, from Pennsylvania to Virginia; and Arnold, the Carolinas and Georgia.”
“Why did they change the names?” Grave asked.
“The provinces are named after British war heroes,” she said. “But the names weren’t all they changed. The ‘benevolent reforms’ were meant to teach the Patriots a lesson.”
“How?” He was staring at her now, eyes wide.
“They claimed that the Revolution took place because the colonists had grown selfish and corrupt,” she said. “To prevent future dissent, the policy was put in place that all Patriots owed the Empire twenty years of indentured labor. It didn’t stop there. Any children born to Patriots were subject to fifteen years. And their children to ten. And so on.”
“They had to work for the Empire.” Grave resumed sorting. “But eventually it would stop.”
Charlotte laughed. “So they said. But once the Resistance formed and continued to fight in the borderlands along the Mississippi, the Empire changed the policy. Now it stands that as long as there is a Resistance, each child born to an American is indentured for twenty years.”
“But are they free after the twenty years?” he asked. When she frowned at him, he said, “Not that it sounds fair, but at least that’s something.”
“No one survives the twenty years,” she told him. “Unless they manage to curry favor with the right authorities and somehow regain Imperial Citizenship. That’s rare. The Empire needs laborers, especially since they abolished slavery.”
“What?” Grave asked, surprised. “Isn’t the term of indenture like slavery?”
“In practice, yes,” Charlotte said. “But until 1807, slavery of Africans was tied to their mother’s status. Anyone born to a slave became a slave. The Empire declared chattel slavery to be immoral because it wasn’t punishment for a crime, whereas the postwar indentures were. Pietas super omnia.”
He scratched his head, brow knit in confusion.
“It’s Latin.” She smiled thinly. “Loyalty above all—the policy of the Brits.”
He was still frowning, and Charlotte said, “Please don’t misunderstand. Slavery was appalling. A horror born of man’s cruelest tendencies. The Empire claimed benevolence by bringing about its end. But they forfeited that role by replacing slavery with punitive indentures. And the indenture system is much more beneficial to them, since they don’t need as many people to work the fields anymore.”
“Why is that?”
“Mr. Whitney’s Harvestman,” Charlotte said. “One of the Empire’s innovations. It looks a little like a Rotpot, but instead of a cage, it has a storage compartment and more arms. It can harvest five times as fast as a man and works for any crop—cotton, tobacco, indigo. It’s all picked by Harvestmen now, and each machine only needs one operator where the fields used to be full of slaves.”
Grave was quiet, sorting parts but not asking further questions. Charlotte returned to her task as well, mood soured by the conversation.
“Do you really think the Resistance has a chance?” Grave’s question was so quiet that Charlotte almost didn’t hear it.
“Maybe.” She shrugged. “Since the French and Spanish have started helping, it’s more likely.”
He dropped a cog. “But why would they help now? You said they wouldn’t help in the Revolution.”
“There were more wars after the Revolution,” she said. “Wars in Europe. France and Britain had tinkers creating more machines. Huge war machines. Napoleon sent up the first fleet of airships, but Britain’s built their own fleet. Each time, one side or the other unleashed some fearsome new invention that wreaked destruction across Europe. When Spain began building a Doomsday machine, they negotiated peace.”