by K A Riley
“Thirty, tops,” Card adds, and Brohn nods his reluctant agreement.
Wisp looks from Brohn to Card and then gestures all of us over to seats around the oval table where we sit down. Dropping into my chair, I catch a glimpse of my reflection in the polished, black glass tabletop. I’ve got a strange expression of determination and confidence in my eyes. I also look worn-out and battle-weary, far too rough and weathered for a seventeen-year-old girl. Brohn glances over and catches me staring at my reflection. Somehow reading my mind, he puts his hand on my forearm and whispers a reassuring, “You look beautiful” as he sits down next to me.
With Olivia, as always, in her seat at the head of the table and surrounded by her tech, Brohn and Cardyn inform Wisp and Granden that they’ll definitely need more troops and more time.
Wisp says she can help with the first but not with the second. “We don’t have control over the timetable. But there are more Insubordinates scattered throughout the city.”
“I was able to get confirmation on Krug’s travel plans,” Olivia adds, her voice sounding like wind chimes. “He’s definitely on his way.”
“All the more reason to gather as much help as we can.”
Pointing one at a time at highlighted portions of Olivia’s projected images of the city, Granden tells us about places on the San Francisco map where smaller Insubordinate cells are hiding out. In his proper military cadence, he counts them off one at a time. “There is a small group here at Fisherman’s Wharf. Another here at an arts plaza in West Portal. There is another underground stationed here at Pier 50. The more freedoms the Patriot Army takes away, the more we hear about people wanting to join the cause. But they can’t be too vocal about that, and we don’t have time to chase down rumors. We need to stick with what we know and leave the speculation for another time when the stakes aren’t quite so high.”
“Since you’ve already found them,” Rain offers, “it sounds like the rest is just a matter of unifying and incorporating them into our existing plans.”
“Agreed,” Granden says. “Part of today’s mission is exactly that. There are potential fellow rebels out there, but they won’t do us or themselves any good sitting on the sidelines. They need us as much as we need them.”
“So what’s the plan, Boss?” Cardyn asks Wisp.
Wisp stands and paces. She doesn’t seem nervous or anxious or anything. It’s more like she feels the need to be on the move. It’s a feeling I can relate to. We finally stumbled upon a city where the air is clean, the people aren’t starving and killing each other, and the buildings are all intact—for now, at least—but I still have to be cooped up in this Intel Room for eighteen hours a day. It’s one of the things no one ever tells you about rebellions: it’s not all battles and glory. Behind the scenes, there’s a lot of planning, waiting, and a whole lot of worried pacing.
Still walking around the table, Wisp pushes up the sleeves of her hoodie. “Cardyn, you and Granden will take over training for today. It’s got to be serious and intense.”
“It always is,” Cardyn mumbles with what sounds like slightly hurt feelings.
Wisp stops her pacing and apologizes to Cardyn. “You’re right. From what I’ve heard from the Insubordinates and from what I’ve seen with my own eyes, you’ve done more for them in a few days than most military training programs could accomplish in a month.” After Cardyn has finished blushing, Wisp continues with her instructions. “Make sure we save enough ammo for Friday. Kress and Render have gotten us some excellent intel. Manthy, I need for you and Olivia to see what you can do about hacking the Patriots’ system to get us the rest of the way inside.”
“I’ve tried,” Olivia says. “I don’t think I can do it.”
“I don’t think you can either. Not alone. The two of you together, though…I don’t think there’s much you can’t accomplish. Rain, you’ll stay here with me. I’m okay setting things up and directing traffic, but I don’t have your gift for strategy. I’m not sure if anyone in the world does, actually. I need you to help me arrange the timing, initiate the waves of initial attacks, anticipate counter-attacks, and teach me how to expect the unexpected. Thanks to Kress and Render, we’ve got great structural and logistical details and a good start on a battle plan. Unfortunately, good isn’t good enough. For this little rebellion of ours, we’ll either be perfect or dead.”
Rain sits up tall in her seat, clearly proud to have her gifts publicly recognized even if the implication is nearly certain death in less than four days.
“What about us,” I ask, flicking a thumb between me and Brohn. “You said something about us taking a field trip?”
“Yes. The other day, I mentioned I’d need you outside of the Style at some point. Today just became ‘some point.’ Those little pockets of Insubordinates and Insubordinate wannabees scattered throughout the city Granden was pointing out? We’ve discovered that one of those pockets is actually pretty well-organized, partially-trained, and is chomping at the bit for something to do. Your job is to track them down, find out if they’re serious about helping, and determine if they’re actually able to contribute, or if they’re just going to get in the way.”
“How will we know where to find them?”
Wisp says, “Light it up” to Olivia.
Olivia swivels in her floating chair and wriggles her tendrils in front of us. She says, “Initiated,” and the floating hologram of the city zooms in on a church. “Grace Cathedral,” Olivia says. It’s one of the major hubs of potential rebels we showed you on your first day here.”
“Start there,” Wisp says. “See where that leads you.”
Cardyn claps his hands together and then pats Granden hard on the shoulder. “Well, by now there are a few dozen Insubordinates milling around up on the fifth floor just waiting to get some more intensive training. I guess I better head upstairs and show Granden here how it’s done. What do you say, Granden? Up for tagging along?”
“Of course, Cardyn. How else will I learn?” Granden jokes, and we all have a unanimous chuckle at this stern soldier’s rare moment of humor.
Together, Cardyn and Granden head out of the room to make their way up the two flights to the fifth-floor where Brohn and I were hanging out not more than a couple of hours ago.
“You should get going, too,” Wisp instructs me and Brohn.
Standing up, Brohn and I say goodbye to Wisp, Manthy, Rain, and Olivia. We’re just stepping out the door and into the corridor when Manthy rushes up to me and puts a hand on my shoulder. “Please be careful.”
I assure her I will and turn to go, but she pulls me back toward her and leans in to whisper in my ear. “I can’t be me without you.” Her voice is so soft. She’s practically crying, and I don’t know where this sudden bout of raw emotion is coming from, but I know Manthy well enough now not to question it. She doesn’t talk much, but when she does talk, it’s to say what she means.
After giving Manthy my full reassurance and a peck of appreciation on the cheek, I head down the hall with Brohn. He and I practically skip over to the stairs and jog down the three flights to the basement level where we navigate our way down the long twisting corridor leading to the rear door of the building. We push the door open, walk up the short flight of outdoor basement steps up to street level, and step into the cluttered alley out back. Hand in hand, we walk down the cool, shaded space between the Style and the tall brick building next door and out into the bright light of the bustling city.
Brohn cranes his neck up to take in the tall buildings and then turns slowly in place to marvel at the colors, sounds, and at the hundreds of people already up and about and getting into their daily routines.
“Amazing,” he gushes.
“The people?”
“Yes.”
“And the buildings?”
“All of it,” Brohn sighs. “The roads. The mag-cars. The shops. The houses and trees. All of it intact.”
“Do you think they know how close they are to having it taken
over or else taken down?”
Brohn points to the two Patriot Army soldiers, machine guns as big as canons on their shoulders, standing ominously on the corner. “I think they have some idea. It’s a nice city, but like Wisp and Granden pointed out, they’re being slowly enslaved right under their own noses.”
I have to agree. There is something shocking about places like Oakland where pointless poverty and a sense of resigned helplessness have been woven into the fabric of daily life. Or places like Reno where violence is the default setting. There is something nearly as shocking and, in some ways, even more upsetting, about a place like this where the violence, divisiveness, and discord Krug cherishes so much are lurking under its lively, clean, and colorful surface. I want to shout to these people: “Wake up! You’re about to be the next victims of Krug’s wrecking ball!” But even though I’ve been out here in this world for only a short time, I still know how hard it is sometimes for good people to see bad things percolating right in front of them.
I hook my arm into Brohn’s and sigh. “We haven’t had a lot of ‘intact’ in our lives, have we?”
“No. We’ve had plenty of ‘broken,’ though.”
“Too bad everyone can’t live here,” I say, my thoughts on the wrecked mess of extreme wealth and poverty the rest of our country has turned into over the years.
Brohn points down the road to where three more Patriot soldiers, dressed in their red, white, and blue camo, are pointing guns at a mother and her two little kids and laughing as the poor woman tries to lead her children on their way. “It’s not exactly heaven.”
“No,” I reply. “But it’s not exactly hell either. For now, at least.”
I’m tempted to dash over and intervene on the woman’s behalf, but the laughing soldiers seem to have had their fun, and they send the woman scurrying off down the steeply slanted street.
“How about if we start by getting our bearings?” Brohn suggests.
“Render?”
“Render.”
I swipe my tattoos and enter Render’s mind. I melt into his senses and consciousness. Between Olivia’s detailed schematics, Render’s multiple flights through the city, and my oddly-great memory, I’m confident I can get us exactly where we need to go. With the detailed road map firmly in mind, I disconnect from Render, who sends out a series of kraas! from where he’s circling just overhead before banking off and disappearing behind a cylindrical silver and glass apartment complex.
“We’ll head down Bush Street, then over to Taylor. From there, we should see Grace Cathedral. As long as we follow Render’s suggested path, we should be able to avoid running into Patriots.”
“You realize what’s happening here, right?” Brohn asks with a wry smile as we set out.
“No. What?”
“We’ve become Recruiters.”
The weirdness of that should send a shudder through my body, but all I can do is laugh at the irony. “All we need now is a transport truck and a few big machine guns, and we can just scoop up the straggling Insubordinates and drag them away to our very own makeshift Processor for training.”
Laughing together, Brohn and I start out on our mission.
The city we walk through is strange, beautiful, and terrifying.
Not counting the nice house I lived in back east when I was little, a time I remember only in dream-like abstractions, I’ve lived my life from six-years-old on in the cratered ruins of the Valta and trapped in the horrifying lie of the Processor. The rest of the time, I’ve been on the run in the woods or passing through the bleak remoteness of the deserts and mountains, the sterility of Salt Lake City, the violence of Reno, the poverty of Oakland, and the apocalyptic hellscape of all the rest of the bombed-out towns and highways in between. It’s hard to recall a time when I wasn’t walking over rubble, averting my eyes from the fragments of bodies scattered on the sides of the roads, struggling to breathe in the oppressive and radioactive heat, or navigating my way around craters of fused earth from one of the countless drone strikes or incursions by the Patriot Army in their so-called battle against the imaginary Eastern Order.
San Francisco is different. The roads are wide, winding, steep, and clean. The people look like people instead of like scavengers or shoot-from-the-hip gun-slingers. They walk, talk, laugh, shop.
This is more like what I imagined a city was before the fabricated war—minus the occasional Patriot Army squadron that zips by on mag-jeeps or patrols the streets with the scowling disdain of a bunch of constipated prison-guards.
As we walk, I put my arm around Brohn’s waist, and he rests his arm across my shoulders. “Do you think there are other cities out there like this one?” I ask.
“I hope so. But even if there aren’t, even if this the last of them, we need to do our best to save it. This is what life should be like. Minus the Patriot Army, of course.”
“Ha! I was just thinking the same thing.”
Brohn gives my shoulders a squeeze. “Nice to be in synch, isn’t it?”
“Definitely. And, who knows? Maybe when this is all over, and we come out victorious, Krug and his Patriots will see the error of their ways. They’ll put down all their guns and learn how to enjoy a sunny day in a place where all the buildings are still standing, and the people aren’t scared, divided, and trying to kill each other all the time.”
“Kress, that would be wonderful.”
“And impossible.”
Brohn grunts an enigmatic, “Hm,” and we continue on our way.
Trying not to draw attention to ourselves, we look up at the tall buildings and at the mag-trams running between them. Navigating through a park, around groups of pedestrians, and slipping in and out of alleys and small laneways, we step through holo-ads projected from many of the businesses onto the sidewalks. There are even places where the sidewalks move on their own, and we don’t have to walk at all. Occasionally, I spot Render flying overhead. I’m not connected to him at the moment, but I don’t need to be to feel his joy at having a morning fly-around.
Brohn and I continue on our way, and I feel more like a sightseeing tourist than a seasoned warrior about to assemble an army and engage a deadly enemy.
At one point, we arrive at an outdoor café where people are reading scrolling texts from news feeds projected in front of their spec-displays. One woman at a small round table in the corner is actually reading from an old-style paper book like the ones I grew up on. When she licks her thumb and turns a page, I’m flooded with wonderful memories of reading, teaching, and being taught in the Valta.
Brohn must be thinking something similar because he gestures with his chin toward the woman and smiles at me as he takes my hand.
There are all kinds of people coming in and out of the café. Through the huge crystal-clear windows, we watch for a second as people inside place their orders with eye-scans at a bank of small self-service kiosks.
We’re just about to move on when we hear someone call out, “Sir!”
We turn to see four teenagers sitting together at a larger round table in a shaded corner under the café awning.
Jerald, the boy we met in the hallway back in the Style, raises his hand and waves it frantically in our direction. Brohn gives him an “Us?” look, which Jerald responds to with a vigorous nod.
We wind our way through other tables of people and slide into two empty seats with the four teens.
One of them is Ethan, another boy we met before. The two girls with them look familiar, but I don’t know their names. The taller one, her long blond hair tied back in a thick French braid, introduces herself as Sabine. “And this,” she adds, pointing to her heavily pierced and tattooed female friend, “is Orion.”
“These are some of the ones we’ve been working with upstairs these past few days,” Brohn explains to me. “Wait,” he says, turning to face the group. “Aren’t you supposed to be in training back at the Style?”
They laugh in unison and tell us that the Major gave them permission to be out toda
y. “We’re technically supposed to be on a supply run,” they explain. “This little detour was Sabine’s idea,” Ethan adds.
“Not that I heard you objecting too much,” Orion teases.
Ethan smiles and asks us if we want coffee. Before we can answer one way or another, he calls up a red holo-menu and starts scrolling through its selections. “Roasted Cinnamon Ginger? Basil Green Tea? Sweet Rose Chai? Maybe a morning Mai Tai?”
“How does all this work?” I ask. I look around at the tables of people, some talking, others reading or quietly sipping various beverages and staring out at the pedestrians and the couriers on mag-bikes passing by. “Other than a few experiences with tap-coins, we don’t really know how commerce works here.”
The tattooed girl named Orion tilts her head back and laughs at this. “Tap-coins are so old-world,” she says pleasantly but with a hint of dismissive condescension. “It’s what they use out there. In here, in the city, each person has to have their retinal scan done before they turn three. Then, that info follows you throughout your life. It’s attached to your bank account, the Civil Bureau, the Law Society, Department of Transportation, Judiciary Council, everything.”
“Don’t worry,” Ethan says, poking his finger at the icons on the holo-menu to input a drink order. “I’ll surprise you.”
Sabine sets down her steaming cup of what she says is Ethiopian Jasmine Coffee. “You really don’t know about all this? I mean, you told us about the Valta and getting here and everything, but did you know there were still cities like this left?”
Brohn shrugs, and I blush and look away.
“Like we said, we were raised…differently,” Brohn says. “We knew what we taught ourselves and what we were fed on the viz-screens.”
“Which was lies.”
“Not the best foundation for an education,” Brohn points out as our drinks appear like magic in a small dispenser in the middle of the table. Tentatively, like we’re afraid we might get bitten or something, we reach out and take the warm cups.
