Mare gets ready for her stealing spree, but she takes her time scoping the place out first, since the stakes are so much higher her and she can’t just grab willy-nilly like she does at home. (Why does she get away with that at home, again? Oh, broken record.)

While watching, she notices that the Silvers are all cold, unsmiling, and generally don’t socialize, in contrast to the lively and quick Reds.

Only the Reds look alive, darting around the slow-moving men and women of a better life.

Seems kind of disingenuous, since those Reds are (presumably) all on errands and will be punished for being tardy, while leisuring around is a fucking luxury. I’m not sure why it’s being presented as one being good and the other being bad.

While she’s out and about, all the TV screens at a local bar/café go emergency broadcast mode and report on a terrorist attack at the capital, where a bunch of buildings were bombed.

As more damage footage rolls […] part of me feels happy. The Silvers are not invincible. They have enemies, enemies who can hurt them

Yeah, I’m not really sure how you thought otherwise since you see them tear each other apart once a month?

Then the news reports that the Scarlet Guard has taken responsibility, and Farley (though in a mask) comes on screen to deliver a manifesto about how they’re all fighting for equality. (It’s a pre-recorded thing that got delivered to the media.)

But still, why Farley? What are the chances that this person who is important enough to be spokeswoman for the whole group is also just sort of hanging around in Podunk-Sticks right when Mare needs her? Why was it really necessary to have the same person in both locations? Mare already knew the name “Scarlet Guard,” so why can’t you just leave it at that?

This is the problem when you stare recycling characters for bit roles; suddenly you have to justify why the same person is in all these different locations and roles. Quite often it’s hard or impossible to do. Also quite often, it’s completely unnecessary. This could be a random stranger in a face mask delivering this news, and the scene would play out the same. There’s no reason for Farley to be in both places, except for some strange reluctance authors have to just use nameless bit people.

Anyway, chaos follows as all the Silvers get up in arms and all the Reds try to stay out of their way and avoid spontaneous ire, but a few are caught anyway. Mare runs away trying to get to Gisa so they can get out of dodge. She ends up falling in a fountain where the water keeps her down (water-controlling Silver), but then suddenly is stops. There’s something about feeling electrical sparks, and knowing the spoilers that I do I’m sure it’s a hint about her having a power, which is only supported by the dead guy she finds floating in the fountain with her. Whoops, oh well, shouldn’t have been trying to murder scared people, Mr Nymph Guy.

(Thank god, I finally hate a dystopian gov’t the way I’m supposed to, instead of siding with them or laughing at their incompetence.)

Gisa finds her, and they hurry towards the gate so they can leave. Mare has to admit that she didn’t have time to steal anything. Gisa tries to steal something for her in the press at the gate, but she picks the worst possible mark and gets caught instead. (Why couldn’t Mare, oh she of the expert picking, do that instead? Why did she give up right in the situation tailor-made for thievery?) The mark catches her, and the nearest guard comes over to casually smash her hand, because apparently that’s standard practice for thieves.

Which, really, I’m okay with, but what happened to the riotous mob trying to get out the gate? Did they all stop to watch the would-be victim yell about being picked? Did they make a little bubble space for this to go on? Was this happening while everyone was being jostled by the crowd? It’s really a pretty random tableau in what’s supposed to be a completely inappropriate context.

Protagonist centered storytelling strikes again. People forget what their setting is doing in favor of what their characters need at the moment, because their characters are all they care about. But you can’t just turn a mob on and off like that.