Revolution in the Underground

by Michaels, S. J.

  Again the slaps came, this time two in succession, in one swift forward and backwards movement. “What is the meaning of all this?!” Bradbury, put up his hands to parry the next series of slaps, but when he discovered how feeble it made him look, he charged at Styles in uncontrollable anger. He swung at him violently, with long extended arms, missing each time. Styles moved swiftly but minimally, with a poise of confidence so great that it seemed to mock Bradbury’s fury. Perceiving laughter from the audience, Bradbury lunged towards Styles, evidently attempting to engage him in a wrestling match.

  Styles sprung his left foot forward, and using Bradbury’s own momentum against him, lifted him off the ground and held him over his head. The crowd gasped, seemingly all at once. Bradbury, paralyzed by shock, was not able to struggle free for the few seconds that Styles held him there. The entourage charged forward, but just at that very moment, Styles threw Bradbury down on his knee with backbreaking forcing. A sickening crackling resonated through the air.

  The entourage stopped dead in their tracks, considering the implications of his super-human strength. Prior to that moment the confrontation had been trivial, if not, a bit entertaining, to the crowd. After the backbreaking throw, all had changed. It was now apparent that this was no normal confrontation—this wasn’t a power struggle, it was a premeditated assault. Some from the crowd dispersed upon this realization, but far more lingered closer to watch the action.

  Bradbury keeled over to his side, wincing from unimaginable pain, and desperately trying to re-inflate his lungs. Styles, with the same calm, confident demeanor, grabbed him by the shirt collar and humiliatingly dragged him across the rocky dirt. The crowd shifted as he moved so as to remain at a more or less constant radius away. After dragging him to where the outskirts of the circle used to be, Styles turned around, and with a similar display of super human strength, flung the limp Bradbury with one hand towards the other end of the circle. The thud of his motionless body as he hit the dirt was painful to listen to.

  Some of his supporters came to his aid, but as Styles walked towards him again, the supporters cowered away. Styles kicked the man mercilessly and flipped him over to one side. Bradbury coughed up blood, his eyes rolling from disorientation. Styles pulled out his dagger and knelt before him.

  “Wait!” Sven cried out, lumbering towards him with a heavy gait. “Stop!” Styles eyed Sven curiously; suspicious of what sort of things he might be willing to do to stop him. “This isn’t how we do things here,” he panted. “Tell me, what is his crime?”

  “Why don’t we let him tell you himself?” Styles slapped the seething man on the face lightly, as if to wake him from his slumber. “Come on old man,” he said mockingly, “tell him… Tell him why I’m doing this to you.” Bradbury continued to rock gently from side-to-side. Styles slapped him again, this time with the intent to hurt. Bradbury cried out in pain.

  “Hold on! Give him a moment to breathe!” Sven urged, kneeling down before the disgraced man. “Bradbury? Bradbury, can you hear me? It’s Sven. Tell me why he’s doing this to you.”

  Bradbury’s lips quivered as he struggled to form words. “I… I… I… I don’t… know…” Styles plunged his dagger into Bradbury’s open palm, pinning it to the dirt below. He cried out in anguish and thrashed his head about convulsively, saliva and tears flowing down his face and onto the ground below.

  “Will you cut it out!” Sven snapped.

  “Tell him what you’ve been up to Bradbury,” Styles said sadistically.

  “Ok… Ok… I’ll talk! I made the bombs! I admit it! Just get this mutant freak away from me!”

  Sven, as well as half the crowd, fell backwards upon hearing the confession. “What?!” Sven said incredulously.

  “I planted the bombs! Just get me away from this monster!”

  “But why?!”

  “Please, just take me away!”

  “Tell him!” Styles commanded. “Tell him that you are the double agent working for Imperium! Tell him that you are the traitor!”

  “But… But… But… I’m not!” he screamed out, closing his eyes in anticipation for another blow.

  For the first time, Styles seemed confused. “What?! Then why did you do this?!” he asked.

  “I thought,” Bradbury said in-between whimpers, “that the only way to save the revolution was to dismantle it—to protect our cause through disorganization… I thought this… was… the only way… to incite mass action.”

  Sven looked up at Styles to see his reaction. After a few moments of silence, he stomped his boot viciously on Bradbury’s wrist and removed the dagger from his palm. Once more Bradbury cried out in pain, rolling again from side-to-side, holding his mutilated hand with his other.

  “He’s all your’s,” Styles said, addressing a cluster of revolutionaries. He turned, and walked away briskly. Sven knelt down in disbelief, looking at the other revolutionaries to share his feelings.

  “Who is that guy?” one of them asked. Sven shook his head, as much to convey incredulity as to feign ignorance.

  “We’ll hold a trial tomorrow at noon,” a judicious looking man proclaimed. “Seize him,” he said to a few of his henchman, motioning at Bradbury. “We will discuss things tomorrow. For now, someone please find out who that guy was!”

  As three men came to carry a bewildered Bradbury away, Sven stood up and ran towards Kara, Ember and Maggie.

  “What was that all about?” Kara asked.

  “Follow him!” Sven commanded.

  Chapter 19: Confrontation

  “What was that all about?” Sven asked indignantly, as he followed Styles down the basement steps.

  “You know, you’re really starting to get on my nerves.”

  “Oh, I’m starting to get on your nerves?!”

  “Yes, that’s right.”

  “You’re not supposed to come out in public! Remember, the police are after you… You compromised the whole mission.”

  “Hey guys, how’s it going?” Luna said with a contrasting glee as they made their way into the chamber.

  “Luna, we’re starting the extraction.”

  “They’re going to be looking for you,” Sven continued.

  “What? Right now? I thought you wanted to wait until—” Luna began.

  “Right now,” Styles confirmed.

  “But—” Luna protested

  “I said, ‘right now.’ Things have changed.”

  “It’s not safe here anymore… What about my Mom?! Did you stop to think about her?”

  “Then relocate! I don’t care! In less than twenty-four hours I will have the code in my possession. What you do between then and now doesn’t concern me anymore.”

  “What happened?” Luna inquired, trying to make sense of everything.

  “You don’t just go around stabbing people!” Sven declared, continuing his moral crusade.

  “He did admit to planting the bombs,” Kara interjected apologetically.

  “I don’t care, that’s not how we operate! There are procedures!” Sven shouted defensively, but in Styles direction.

  “I don’t care about your little procedures.”

  “I’m confused,” Maggie professed.

  “Ya, what’s going on?” Ember asked.

  “What happened?” Luna repeated.

  “He wasn’t the traitor. It was a mistake,” Styles admitted.

  “But then who—”

  “I don’t know! It doesn’t matter anymore, just start the extraction!”

  “How did you know that he planted the bombs?!” Sven questioned.

  “His motives were immediately apparent to me upon the first report. His large purchase of saltpeter and fertilizer from local stores confirmed my suspicions. A superficial questioning of the store clerks was all that was ever required. It doesn’t at all surprise me that you idiots were too dense to realize that.”

  “But why now? Why wait until eight revolutionaries were killed?!”

  “Who said I waited?”


  “Did you?!”

  “I think,” Ember suggested, “the better question is, ‘why didn’t he wait longer?’”

  “Ember!” Maggie, Kara, and Sven shouted together.

  “Hear me out… Why now? Why confront the potential traitor before the completion of the sequencing. Why not wait until afterwards? After the code had been safely obtained… And why in such a public manner…”

  “All of you, get out!” Styles shouted.

  “What are you hiding!” Sven screamed back.

  “I said, ‘get out of here!’”

  “This is my house, why don’t you get out of here?”

  “Why don’t you get out of my face?”

  “I’m not going anywhere, and neither is anyone else! None of us trust you!”

  “Is that right?”

  “Ya, that’s right! Why did Bradbury call you a mutant? Why are you capable of all those physical feats? Explain yourself!”

  “No.”

  “Well, I’m not about to leave you alone with the one hope that this place has had in five hundred years!”

  “You don’t have a choice.”

  “Oh, I don’t have a choice? Is that a threat?”

  “Absolutely,” Styles declared, walking slowly but confidently in Sven’s direction.

  “Everyone, just calm down,” Kara tried to mediate.

  “You’re threatening me, in my house?” Sven said advancing towards Styles in kind.

  “That’s right.” Though Sven towered over Styles, and though Sven was at least one hundred pounds heavier, it was Styles who came across as more menacing. There was a hesitancy in Sven’s advance that was absent in Styles.’

  “Cut it out you two! Act rationally!” Kara exclaimed exasperatedly.

  “You know, no one here likes you?”

  “You know, I don’t like anyone here?”

  “We all know about your little chamber… Your giant nativity tube… I think you owe us all an explanation!”

  “I told you not to tell anyone.”

  “You’re kidding me, right? Surely you knew that no one was following your stupid tasks. Your little secrets… Your mesh of alliances… What did you expect?!”

  “I’ve had about enough from you!”

  “Please, stop it you guys!” Kara shouted, but her words were masked by Sven’s simultaneous retort.

  “I’ve had about enough of you,” he said, pointing to Styles.

  In much the same manner that Styles slapped Bradbury moments earlier, he slapped Sven. Sven stumbled backwards, trying to trace out the escalations that led to the present predicament. Styles followed after him, slapping and hitting him in-between taunts.

  “Come on, you pathetic excuse for a human being!”

  “Stop it!” Kara shouted.

  “What are you going to do? Come on!”

  “Cut it out!” she shouted again, tenuously stepping between them.

  “You’re going to let your little schizophrenic girlfriend fight your battle? That’s right, I know all about it! You’re all nut-jobs! Every one of you!”

  “Stop it, please! Let’s just talk rationally!” Kara pleaded, as Styles advanced towards Sven despite her being in the middle.

  “Come on Styles, seriously, just calm down,” Ember begged in a more subdued tone.

  “You going to fight back or are you too much of a pacifist to do anything about it?” he taunted Sven.

  “Okay, that’s enough,” Ember said, rising to his feet and moving to join Kara in the middle.

  “Come on! All that muscle for nothing? Or is it just fat?” Sven’s face was red from all the slaps and his abdomen was sore from all the blows. He positioned his heavy arms and monstrous hands to alternatively protect his face or stomach, guessing wrong each time. Sven had never resorted to violence in the past, relying instead on implication and intimidation to resolve most quarrelsome disputes, and, as such, was greatly unprepared for the present conflict.

  “Stop it! Please! You’re hurting him!” Kara begged as he landed a winding knee in Sven’s stomach. Ember pushed up against Styles, but Styles trudged forward towards the breathless Sven unabated.

  “Are you going to just stand there? Huh? I thought you’d put up more of a fight than that!”

  Sven’s long, black hair, waved in the wind with each blow—starting in a slow, large amplitude sinusoidal motion, and terminating with a sharp, violent whip and shower of sweat. After each strike, his head snapped back into place, only to be jerked back again by another punch. Blood started to stream down from his nose, and his dazed expression slowly fell dumb and expressionless.

  “Please, stop! You’ve proved your point! Cut it out!”

  “Your little girlfriend is getting on my nerves, Sveny!”

  “Stop it!” Kara screamed, tears falling down her cheeks

  An unseen anger came to Sven’s lips. He clutched his fists bitterly, stepped backwards to give himself room for acceleration, and twisted his back for torque, and then, like a spring recoiling, leapt forward towards Styles. His whirling fist spun around with such speed that Luna could feel the wind it generated from several feet out. The impact sounded like a brick slamming against cement. So powerful was the blow that it lifted the body up off the ground, turning it one hundred and eighty degrees to its side as it fell.

  The thud of the body, as it landed flat on its face, was nearly as sickening as the sounds of Maggie’s ensuing cries, which, in turn, were almost as devastating as the collective realization that it was Ember’s body that lied motionless, and not Styles’.

  “What did you do?!” Maggie screamed, running up to her fallen brother.

  Sven stammered backwards with a horror stricken face. “It… it… was an accident… I didn’t mean to…” He looked down at his hands and for the first time, saw himself as a monster.

  “Ember?” Kara moaned, squatting down beside Maggie and rubbing his face.

  “See what you did?” Styles said with his typical sadistic grin.

  “Ember, are you okay,” Sven croaked, desperately.

  “Can you hear me?” Maggie cried.

  Blood poured from his nose. His right cheek, which was the place of impact, immediately began to swell. Finding it to painful to speak, he raised his hand and waved his fingers instead.

  “Ember, you’re okay!” Maggie screamed, burying her face on his chest, using his t-shirt to wipe her tears.

  “Ember, I’m so sorry,” Sven said, still looking down at his fists as though they were weapons so violent that their mere use was deserving of censure.

  “Why don’t you bring down some ice,” Kara suggested.

  “Okay,” he said eagerly.

  “And please, advise your mother to stay with your cousins in the north for a few weeks,” she added. Sven nodded, practically sprinting up the steps. “Are you okay, Ember?”

  Tears rolled from his eyes, combining with blood and mucous downstream. “It hurts…” he mumbled, motioning to the side of his head.

  “You’re okay now, Ember… you’re okay,” Maggie promised.

  “We should lay him on the couch,” Styles suggested seriously. Maggie and Kara stared at him in disbelief. Pretending not to notice, he continued, “He needs to rest. Here… grab his feet… and you… secure his head.” Styles grabbed him by the torso, and with the aid of Kara and Maggie, carried him, as if in a stretcher, to the couch.

  Maggie positioned a pillow under his head and stroked his cheek softly. “I thought I was going to lose you,” she said. “I don’t know what I would do without you.” He rubbed his head, as tears flowed from his eyes. He had no more awareness of his surroundings than he had control of his lachrymal secretions. Maggie wiped the blood from beneath his nose with her sleeve and combed his hair gently with her fingers.

  “Kara,” he said, still in a daze, “you are all I ever needed.” Maggie stood up and looked back at Kara, expressing a combination of disbelief and jealousy.

  “I got the ice!” Sven said
, running down the steps. “How you doing, Ember? How’s he doing, guys?!”

  “You can stay,” Styles relented, “but don’t go beyond that couch.” Sven, pretending not to listen, approached Ember with the bag of ice. Ember winced as the cold, wet, plastic kissed his tender face. “Luna, sterilize the mortar and pestle and prepare the incubator and centrifuge,” Styles continued.

  ***

  Emotions ran high for another half hour after, but eventually the inexorable prowl of ennui won out, as it always does. With Luna by his side, Styles carefully added various reagents, and subsequently mashed, incubated, and spun down the tissue samples.

  A few hours and many meandering thoughts later, Kara suggested that they make use of the remaining stem, from which the leaves had already been removed for tissue harvesting. She proposed that they wipe the stem against a concealed part of their skin, such as their abdomens, to test for a reaction. Her theory, as she presented it to Styles, was that it would: one, further ensure that the plant is poison ivy; and two, be useful in convincing others that they had the code.

  To everyone’s surprise, Styles agreed. They took turns wiping a small piece of the stem against their skin, but only Kara and Sven developed rashes. Maggie and Ember, both of whom had been effectively immunized to it by years of exposure, showed little more than a red flush. Luna and Styles showed no visible signs of a reaction. Styles seemed satisfied with the results but said nothing about it.

  Ember, still exhausted from physical trauma, spent the next few hours drifting in and out of sleep. Sven sat cross-legged on the ground, while Maggie and Kara sat on top of the arms of the sofa, near Ember’s head and feet, respectively, though Kara would, in intervals, sit on top of Ember’s feet instead.