49 pages • 1 hour read
Prodigy
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Chapters 12-19Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 12 Summary: “Day”
As Pascao, Day, and the other Runners prepare for their upcoming mission—a decoy assassination in which the Patriots will also be stealing supplies from a passing train and destroying a shipment of Republic grenades—Day watches footage of June in her bedroom with Anden, where he reluctantly bears witness to their intimacy and notices her signal. As they depart for the train, he combs through additional footage of June and wonders what part of the plan she wishes him to stop. He notes suspiciously that this footage includes no sound and wonders if the Patriots have something to hide.
During the mission, Day becomes distracted by an asterisk symbol on a railway car—the same symbol sprayed on his family’s door after Eden was diagnosed with a new strain of the plague. When he boards the car to inspect its contents, he finds a young boy inside a glass cylinder; he is almost entirely blind because of the plague. As Day attempts to save the boy, Sam, by opening the glass cylinder, Sam tells him that he is a plague survivor who carries a dormant virus, and that every time the train stops, a blood sample is taken from him. Day theorizes Eden, like Sam, is being used as a bioweapon against the Colonies. Day fails to get the cylinder open before Republic soldiers arrive, and he is forced to abandon Sam. In his shame, Day focuses his anger and hatred on the Anden and “actually find[s] [him]self excited for the assassination” (197), if only to prevent more harm coming to individuals like Eden.
Chapter 13 Summary: “June”
Less than two days before the planned assassination, June joins Anden, the Senators, and Anden’s guards on a train headed for the warfront city of Pierra. Secretly, she plots a way to derail the Patriots’ plans. As she attempts to subtly signal to Day once again, she is overcome with dizziness; she hopes it is a cold rather than something more serious like the plague, against which she’s vaccinated. Outside her private train car, June overhears Senator Kamion discussing the civil unrest in Los Angeles with Anden and pushing for severe punishment against any rebellion. Anden disagrees, believing military action will only antagonize the people further; he also expresses his dislike of the Republic’s experimentation on plague survivors. When Anden visits June afterward, he reveals the recent attack on the train he was originally scheduled to be on, decides to grant June a full pardon, and plans to reinstate her to her former rank.
June brings up his opinion on the Trials. Anden reveals the Trials were once voluntary and promoted the creation of stronger soldiers for their war against the Colonies, but eventually they became mandatory as a way to control overpopulation in the Republic. While the Trials work to produce stronger soldiers, Anden struggles with the immorality of the practice, especially now that children participate and since the system favors the wealthy to reinforce the Republic’s power. Anden’s progressive ideas inspire June, who briefly considers betraying the Patriots by informing Anden of their plans and working with him to change the Republic from the inside. The thought of betraying Day stops June. June hopes she can save Anden while not betraying the Patriots’ secrets and urges Anden to follow her every word once they reach Pierra.
Chapter 14 Summary: “Day”
Word spreads of Day’s survival after the train stunt and the citizens rejoice. As the Patriots pack up the bunker to leave for Pierra, Day crosses paths with Tess and Baxter, who have been growing closer. Baxter’s animosity toward Day causes Tess to stand up for her friend, but when Baxter lays hands on her, Day intervenes. In their physical altercation, Day’s chronic headaches resurface, but he blames their return on Baxter’s hits. When Tess treats Day’s injuries in private, she kisses Day. At his rejection, she once again tries to turn his loyalty away from June. She warns him that June will break his heart.
Chapter 15 Summary: “June”
Pierra’s Olan Court Hall. Around 0900 Hours. 29°F outside.
The night before the day of Anden’s assassination, a Patriot soldier visits June and details the plan. Leading up to the attack, June continues to feel sick despite the medicine Anden gives her. Her only option to save Anden’s life is to delay his departure time. June dramatizes her illness by collapsing to the ground—hoping the deviation from the Patriots’ plans comes off as unintentional—effectively prompting Anden to order transport to the nearest hospital. June hopes Day takes the opportunity to heed her past signals and desert the Patriots. June and Anden are loaded into separate cars, but when they continue heading for the base instead of the hospital, she becomes fearful her plan has failed.
Chapter 16 Summary: “Day”
Day and the Patriots lie in wait for Anden’s jeep, ready to attack once he is separated from his guards, according to plan. While Day anticipates the Elector’s death, he dwells over June’s signals, which warn him to stop the assassination. He wonders if the Patriots can be trusted or whether Tess is right and June’s betrayed them, or worse, fallen for Anden. Despite his doubts and his own hatred for Anden, Day decides to trust June by agreeing to stop the assassination attempt against Pascao’s orders. After betraying the Patriots, Day and June escape through the tunnels with Kaede’s help. Tess chooses to remain with the Patriots.
Chapter 17 Summary: “June”
Day and June seek shelter in one of the tunnels’ hidden bunkers. As they settle in, June theorizes that Razor is lying about his reasoning for wanting Anden dead. She reveals Anden’s desire to change the Republic, starting with discontinuing the Trials and bioweapon procedures, and that Anden released Eden days ago. Without proof, though, Day does not believe in Anden’s good intentions. The two argue; Day disparages Anden and June because of class distinctions, and June blames herself for everything Day has lost.
Chapter 18 Summary: “Day”
Before heading out, June instructs Day in proper fighting techniques to defend himself better against enemies, but her vertigo worsens due to illness. Throughout the night, her sickness weakens her; in the morning, they are forced to flee when forces approach the bunker. When they emerge from the tunnels, they find themselves in the Colonies.
Chapter 19 Summary: “June”
The Colonies are filled with glittering cities and consumerist ads rather than war propaganda, placing more emphasis on money than on the Republic. A young girl wearing a Street Proctor uniform approaches Day and June with a tablet that tracks all the citizens and investigates the reason they do not appear on the map. Though she lets them go with little suspicion, Day and June feel uneasy in the city. When June collapses, they are approached by Colonies’ soldiers who refuse to take her to a hospital without proper payment in Colonies’ currency. They eventually change their minds when they recognize Day. While lost in feverish delirium, June dreams of her brother Metias, and when she wakes to Day, she cries into his arms, grieving everything they have lost.
Chapters 12-19 Analysis
Throughout their separation, June and Day are unable to interact directly. June thinks about Day before every action she takes to further the assassination plan. During those times, “resentment floods through [her]” (135), demonstrating the complex feelings she has regarding Day. Meanwhile, Day watches June through hacked security cam feeds. Her treatment as a Republic prisoner is lavish compared to his own treatment, which leaves him feeling resentful; he is “a little bitter” because “even after betraying the Republic, people with June’s pedigree get to coast, while people like [him] suffer” (150). He becomes even more incensed when June stays in a luxurious room rather than a prison cell, as he did. The distance between them exacerbates their inability to reconcile their differences concerning wealth and class and causes their relationship to suffer. Once they finally reconnect in Chapter 17, June excitedly offers Anden’s deal to Day, but Day rejects it. Day views Anden as a “rich trot” who innately cannot be trusted and makes June feel foolish for even considering it. Once again, they are at odds because of their inability to see things from each other’s points of view, limited by their personal insecurities and way of thinking.
With her new knowledge of Anden’s true opinions and her increasing suspicions of Razor, June struggles with next steps in the agreed-upon plan; she is “consumed with the conflict of needing to make things right with Day, but hating to leave the Republic at the mercy of the Patriots” (168). As she considers this decision, she wonders who To Trust or Not To Trust, because while she believes Razor is hiding something, it is equally possible Anden is lying about releasing Eden, and bringing Day into a potential alliance could be a carefully orchestrated trap. At the outset of this section, June decides where her loyalties lie: with Day, which also allies her with the Republic. Stopping Anden’s assassination becomes a way for June to make up for her betrayal of Day (in Legend), over which she continues to feel extreme guilt. Anden is putting the same faith in her that Day had when she played the role of double agent in the slums of LA. Recognizing the weighty consequences of her actions, June sees how Death is “the price people seem to pay for crossing [her] path,” and she is determined to end the cycle (242).
Similarly, Day also questions his loyalties and struggles to determine his next best course of action. Leading up to the assassination plot, Day begins to have conflicting feelings. On one hand, he is desperate to save his brother Eden, which develops the theme of The Compromising Nature of Love. He compromises his morals by agreeing to be the person to assassinate Anden; this defies the moral code for which he is well known. On the other hand, June’s secret signal to the cameras warning him to stop the assassination opens his eyes to the suspicious goings-on around him. When he realizes June’s footage is muted when usually it has sound, he wonders if the Patriots are stripping the audio to hide something. This growing distrust of the Patriots prompts Day to compromise for love: He sets aside his desire for revenge against the Republic in exchange for trusting June, prioritizing his relationship with her over duty.
June increasingly questions the opulent appeal of the Republic’s elite as she becomes more aware of the gap between the wealthy and the poor in the nation. During the ride in a luxury train car, June “feel[s] a strange detachment from it all, like none of it is quite real—it’s as if [she] were exactly where [she] used to be” (199). Though she is surrounded by the comforts of her former lifestyle, June finds that they do not have the same appeal as before and that the person she has become doesn’t quite fit the mold left behind. This change in perspective highlights the character growth that she is experiencing not only in Prodigy, but throughout the series. Even so, June is a character of logic and facts; she is a natural leader. She is knowledgeable and certain and thrives in serving others. These core qualities prompt her engagement in selfish thinking as she entertains fantasies of staying in the Republic, leaving Day with the Patriots, and becoming a Senator to help Anden fix the corruption.
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