The Always War

  Tessa’s body reacted as quickly as her mind. Before she was even conscious of moving, she was already on her feet and running toward Gideon. Her legs tangled in the blanket, but she kept going, diving for Gideon. She knocked him sideways onto the floor of the plane, so if any of the enemy were already trying to shoot him, the bullets would just whiz harmlessly past. But this wasn’t enough. It wasn’t enough to tackle him, to hold him down, the mud from her ragged clothes rubbing off on his spotless white uniform. Guns could be reloaded, re-aimed, fired again and again and again.

  Tessa rose up and slammed her hand against the control on the wall.

  —from The Always War

  FOR AS LONG AS TESSA CAN REMEMBER, her country has been at war. When local golden boy Gideon Thrall is awarded a medal for courage, it’s a rare bright spot for everyone in Tessa’s town—until Gideon refuses the award, claims he was a coward, and runs away. Tessa is bewildered, and can’t help but follow Gideon to find out the truth. But Tessa is in for more than she bargained for. Before she knows it, she has stowed away on a rogue airplane headed for enemy territory. But all that pales when she discovers a shocking truth that rocks the foundation of everything she’s ever believed—a truth that could change the world. Is Tessa brave enough to bring it into the light?

  New York Times bestselling author Margaret Peterson Haddix writes a thrilling novel about an all-too-recognizable future.

  MARGARET PETERSON

  HADDIX

  is the author of many critically and popularly acclaimed books for children and teens, including Claim to Fame, Palace of Mirrors, Uprising, The Missing series, and the Shadow Children series. A graduate of Miami University (of Ohio), Margaret Peterson Haddix worked for several years as a reporter for the Indianapolis News. She also taught at the Danville (Illinois) Area Community College. She lives with her husband and two children in Columbus, Ohio.

  Art direction by Krista Vossen

  Jacket photo-illustration © 2011 by

  Justin Metz

  Simon & Schuster • New York

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  ALSO BY MARGARET PETERSON

  HADDIX

  Claim to Fame

  Palace of Mirrors

  Uprising

  Double Identity

  The House on the Gulf

  Escape from Memory

  Takeoffs and Landings

  Turnabout

  Just Ella

  Leaving Fishers

  Don’t You Dare Read This, Mrs. Dunphrey

  THE MISSING SERIES

  Found

  Sent

  Sabotaged

  Torn

  THE SHADOW CHILDREN SERIES

  Among the Hidden

  Among the Impostors

  Among the Betrayed

  Among the Barons

  Among the Brave

  Among the Enemy

  Among the Free

  The Girl with 500 Middle Names

  Because of Anya

  Say What?

  Dexter the Tough

  Running Out of Time

  An imprint of Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing Division

  1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, New York 10020

  www.SimonandSchuster.com

  This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2011 by Margaret Peterson Haddix

  All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.

  is a trademark of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

  The Simon & Schuster Speakers Bureau can bring authors to your live event. For more information or to book an event, contact the Simon & Schuster Speakers Bureau at 1-866-248-3049 or visit our website at www.simonspeakers.com.

  Book design by Krista Vossen

  The text for this book is set in Palatino LT Std.

  Manufactured in the United States of America

  2 4 6 8 10 9 7 5 3 1

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Haddix, Margaret Peterson.

  The always war / Margaret Peterson Haddix.—1st ed.

  p. cm.

  Summary: In a war-torn future United States, fifteen-year-old Tessa, her childhood friend Gideon, now a traumatized military hero, and Dek, a streetwise orphan, enter enemy territory and discover the shocking truth about a war that began more than seventy-five years earlier.

  ISBN 978-1-4169-9526-5 (hardcover)

  ISBN 978-1-4424-3604-6 (eBook)

  [1. War—Fiction. 2. Heroes—Fiction. 3. Computers—Fiction.

  4. Post-traumatic stress disorder—Fiction. 5. Science fiction.] I. Title.

  PZ7.H1164Aiw 2011

  [Fic]—dc22

  2010033344

  For Rich and Mark and Doug, in memory of

  certain Iraq War debates

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  About the Author

  CHAPTER

  1

  Gideon Thrall stood offstage, waiting in the wings. The announcer hadn’t called his name yet, but people craned their necks and leaned sideways to see him. Whispers of excitement began to float through the crowd: “There he is!” “The hero …” “Doesn’t he just look like a hero?”

  Then the PA system boomed out, so loudly that the words seemed to be part of Tessa’s brain: “And now, our honoree, the young man we will be forever indebted to for our survival, for our very way of life—Lieutenant-Pilot Gideon Thrall!”

  The applause thundered through the crowd. Gideon took his first steps into the spotlight. His golden hair gleamed, every strand perfectly in place. His white uniform, perfectly creased, glowed against the darkness around him. He could have been an angel, a saint—some creature who stood above ordinary humans. Even the fact that he walked humbly, with his head bowed, was perfect. At a moment like this most people would have looked too proud, like they were gloating. But not Gideon. He wasn’t going to lord it over anyone that he, Gideon Thrall, had just won his nation’s highest honor, something nobody else from Waterford City had ever done.

  Standing at the back of the crowd with the other kids from the common school, Tessa felt her heart swell with pride.

  “I know him,” she whispered.

  The applause had just begun to taper off, so Tessa’s voice rang out louder than she’d intended. It was actually audible. Down the row Cordina Kurdle fixed Tessa with a hard stare.

  “What did you say, flea?” Cordina asked.

  Tessa knew better than to repeat her boast. The safe response wou
ld be a shrug, a cowed shake of the head, maybe a mumbled, “Nothing. Sorry for bothering you.” But sometimes something got into her, some bold recklessness she couldn’t explain.

  Maybe she wanted to brag more than she wanted to be safe?

  “I said, I know him.” She cleared her throat. “He was my neighbor. We grew up together.”

  Cordina snorted.

  “Hear that?” she said to the kids clustered around her.

  Her sycophants, Tessa thought. Cronies. Henchmen.

  The words she’d found in old books were fun to think about, but they wouldn’t provide much protection if Cordina decided that someone needed to beat up Tessa to teach her a lesson.

  “Hear what?” one of the sycophants asked, right on cue.

  “Gnat over there thinks she deserves some credit for living on the same planet as the hero,” Cordina mocked.

  “We were next-door neighbors,” Tessa said. She stopped herself from adding, We made mud pies together when we were little, though it was true. Possibly. Tessa didn’t remember it herself, but way back when Gideon was first chosen for the military academy, Tessa’s mother had started showing around a picture of Tessa, about age two, and Gideon, age five or six, playing together in the mud behind their apartment building.

  Gideon had looked like a golden child destined for great things even then, even sitting in mud.

  Tessa had looked … muddy.

  Tessa was saved from any further temptation to brag—or embarrass herself—because the general who’d come from the capital just for this occasion stepped to the podium. He held up a medallion on a chain, and the whole auditorium grew quiet. The general let the medallion swing back and forth, ever so slightly, and the spotlight glinted from it out into the crowd. For a moment Tessa forgot that the city auditorium was squalid and dirty and full of broken chairs and cracked flooring. For a moment she forgot that the people in the crowd had runny noses and blotchy skin and patched clothing. She forgot they could be so mean and low-down. For that one moment everyone shared in the light.

  “Courage,” the general said in a hushed voice, as if he too were in awe. “We give this medal of honor for courage far above the measure of ordinary citizens. Only eleven people have earned this medal in our nation’s history. And now Gideon Thrall, a proud son of Waterford City, will be the twelfth.” He turned. “Gideon?”

  The general lifted the chain even higher, ready to slip it over Gideon’s head. Gideon took a halting step forward, as if he wasn’t quite sure what he was supposed to do.

  No, Tessa thought. To her surprise she was suddenly furious with Gideon. Don’t hesitate now! Be bold! You’re getting an award for courage. Act like it!

  Gideon was staring at the medallion. Even from the back of the auditorium Tessa could see his face twist into an expression that looked nothing like boldness or bravery. How could he be acting so confused? Or … scared?

  “For your bravery in battle,” the general said, holding out the medallion like a beacon. He was trying to guide Gideon into place. Gideon just needed to put his head inside the chain. Then everyone could clap and cheer again, and all the awkwardness would be forgotten.

  Gideon made no move toward the chain.

  “No,” Gideon said, and in the silent auditorium his voice sounded weak and panicky. “I … can’t.”

  “Can’t?” the general repeated, clearly unable to believe his own ears.

  “I don’t deserve it,” Gideon said, and strangely, his voice was stronger now. “I wasn’t brave. I was a coward.”

  He looked at the general, looked at the medallion—and whirled around and ran from the auditorium.

  CHAPTER

  2

  It felt like Gideon had stolen all the air from the room. For a moment nobody moved; nobody even breathed. Then Cordina, with her finely tuned sense of cruelty, turned to Tessa.

  “So, slug,” she said. “If you and the hero are so close, why aren’t you running after him?”

  “Maybe I will,” Tessa said.

  She backed away from Cordina. Her retort was mostly just to keep Cordina from having the last word. But it felt good to move, to pull away from the crowd, which was beginning to unfreeze from the shock. Whispers were starting to ripple around Tessa: “What?” “Did he say ‘coward’?” “How could he—”

  Tessa couldn’t stand to hear any of it. She raced out the door. Nobody tried to stop her. Even the class monitors were just staring toward the stage, stunned and aghast.

  In the hallway outside there was more cracked tile, and broken windows, peeling paint, crumbling plaster. Repairs, of course, were on hold until the war ended. And it never ended.

  Tessa stumbled, righted herself, kept running down the hall. The cracked soles of her shoes flapped against the broken tiles. She didn’t expect to find Gideon, but the angry words she wanted to shout at him flocked in her mind.

  Don’t you know what it’s like for the rest of us, those of us who aren’t heroes? Don’t you know how dreary our lives are? Don’t you know this was going to be our one golden moment, our one afternoon of pride? Don’t you know you ruined it for everyone? You just gave us something else to be ashamed of—

  Then she saw Gideon.

  He had his golden head bent over an industrial-size trash can. The hero seemed to be vomiting.

  “You’re just sick,” Tessa said, the surprise and relief giving her the courage to actually speak.

  Gideon lifted his head and blinked at her. A clammy sheen of sweat spread across his face and clumped in his curls. Up close he looked so young—just a boy, not a man.

  “Someone should tell them—I’ll go tell them,” Tessa said, suddenly energized. The ceremony could be saved after all. Or—she glanced at his sweaty, wrinkled uniform—rescheduled, anyway. Set for another day. “You’re just sick, not cowardly.” The relief made her giddy. “Even a hero can get the stomach flu.”

  Gideon reached out and grabbed her wrist, stopping her.

  “No,” he said. “No. Didn’t you hear what I said in there? I was a coward. I am one. I don’t deserve any honors. All I did was kill people.”

  “We’re at war,” Tessa said. “That’s what war is.”

  But she wanted to pull her arm back. It was thrilling to think of a hero touching her wrist. A killer, though …

  It’s not the same thing, she told herself. He’s just being modest.

  That was the wrong word, and she knew it. She tried to think of something that would make Gideon—and her—see everything the right way again.

  “You had to kill the enemy to save your own people,” Tessa said.

  Gideon stared at her as if she were speaking a foreign language. Perhaps even the enemy’s language.

  And then others were streaming out of the auditorium—the officials who’d been standing on the stage. The mayor, the city council members, the military men who’d come from the capital …

  Gideon was still holding on to Tessa’s arm.

  “Hide,” he said. “You don’t want to be seen with me.”

  He jerked on her arm, propelling her toward a crumbling column. And then he let go.

  Tessa didn’t know if any of the officials had seen her. She didn’t know if it mattered. But she stayed behind the column while the officials surrounded Gideon, while they whisked him away.

  Her knees trembled so much she had to sit down on the broken floor.

  Nobody would ever give me a medal for bravery, she thought.

  CHAPTER

  3

  Rumors flew after the ceremony.

  Gideon had been taken to the finest hospital in the country, to be treated for battle fatigue.

  Gideon was almost recovered, almost ready to come back for another ceremony. The only problem was setting a date for the general to return to Waterford City. He had a busy schedule. It was hard fitting everything in.

  Or—Gideon had already been given his medallion, in a private ceremony. He was so humble; that was the problem. He certainly wante
d to share his honor with the entire community, with the entire country. But he didn’t feel that he needed to stand on a stage to do that.

  There was going to be an official announcement. Maybe next week. Maybe next month.

  Tessa slogged through her everyday life. Home. School. Her after-school job scrubbing floors at the hospital. Twice a day she passed the Thralls’ door down the hall in the apartment building, on her way to and from the stairs. Once, early on, she paused before it, her fist raised to knock.

  What would I say? she wondered.

  Back when Gideon had first been chosen to go to the military academy, years ago, Mrs. Thrall had made it clear that she thought she was better than all her neighbors. She didn’t mingle. She was the mother of a boy who had beaten the odds—he was one in a thousand, maybe one in a million. No one ever actually released the statistics about how many children were accepted. They were the best of the best of the best. Why break it down any further than that?

  Tessa wasn’t best at anything. She wasn’t even particularly good at scrubbing floors at the hospital. Robots could do a better job than her. But all the robotics companies were dedicated to building machines for the war. That left people like Tessa to scrub floors.

  I’m fifteen years old, Tessa thought. Will I still be scrubbing those floors when I’m thirty? When I’m forty-five? Sixty?

  She didn’t knock at the Thralls’ door.

  And then one day there was an ambulance out front when Tessa got home. She hurried up the stairs, a bad feeling in the pit of her stomach.

  It could be here for anyone, Tessa thought. Mrs. Evers on the third floor has a bad heart. Mr. Singleton never really recovered from that stroke last year. Maybe he died. Even my own parents look so frail sometimes, so beaten down….

  But somehow she couldn’t talk herself into worrying about anyone but Gideon.

  She reached the fifth-floor landing, her floor. She peeked out. The Thralls’ door was open just a crack.

  Tessa didn’t intend to stop outside it, listening. Or, rather, she didn’t intend to get caught outside it, listening. But she tiptoed past as slowly as she could.