“Please, stop this game you’re playing and come home to us. We don’t want you to get hurt, sweetheart.”
Eve sat looking at the screen in total disbelief.
“My Mother died four years ago. I don’t even know that woman.”
“I know,” said Callen with an air of defeat in his voice. “But, I’m the only one who does anymore.”
Callen flicked the viewer over to another screen. They too were breaking the sensational discovery of Eve’s parents and declaring it the final missing piece to one of the greatest hoaxes of all time. Callen turned the viewer off.
“Now you know why I can’t just stop this,” he said.
Eve wished she didn’t, but she understood completely.
Jenny and Simone sat on the grass of the quadrangle, under the high UV cover, waiting for their first class. They’d been talking for almost five minutes and never even noticed the young man with his shirt off, stretched out on his belly, slowly inching his way towards them. His shirt was draped over his head, like a hat to protect from the dampened heat from above. When he arrived within inches of the girls, he lay still, his chin resting on his hands. He watched Jenny and Simone with all the patience of a man at leisure. Jenny had seen him a number of times, but failed to register his mostly hidden face. Finally mid sentence she glanced at him and her glance stuck. Her words dried up. Callen flicked his eyebrows at her and smiled a very cheeky smile.
“What’s wrong?” Simone asked, having noticed Jenny’s expression and her abandoned conversation. Jenny looked to her and then back at Callen. Simone’s face almost gave them away when she realised who was next to them on the grass.
Jenny and Simone wanted to ask a thousand questions, but knew, so close to others, they couldn’t ask any. Besides, Callen had more important things on his mind than to be interviewed by friends. He needed information and asked if they’d seen the media’s latest bulletins. They had. They also knew him well enough to know the things they were saying weren’t true. He asked how the other students had reacted to what he’d said. Jenny wasn’t sure she could know for sure. Some thought he was a hero, whether it was a prank or not. Others were against him publicly, but she wasn’t sure if this was because they were too scared to say otherwise or they honestly felt he’d done the wrong thing. Callen nodded, he knew what he was asking people to believe was extreme and in the face of the media’s appraisal of him, he wasn’t surprised to find they’d need more convincing.
“Do any of them believe what I said about the Outlocked?” he asked.
“We do,” Jenny answered.
Callen smiled at her. This was a good start as far as he was concerned.
“I’m in the old Humanities building. Rattle the door and I’ll come and meet you. We need food, and maybe some hats and coats. Anything to help us hide.”
Jenny and Simone nodded. They knew what they were doing was risky, but it was being asked by their friend and they weren’t about to turn their backs on him.
“Jay believes you too,” Simone said, unwittingly nominating him to be included in whatever dangers lay ahead. Callen was pleased for any extra support and he asked about lectures and classes. There were security personnel attending lectures and while the search for Callen had moved away from the university, the authorities were still watching carefully.
Callen took the information in and considered his options. He knew what he should do next and asked the girls to meet him after the university day had ended.
“And bring Jay along, too,” he added.
As well as planning his next move, he promised to answer all their questions and ask some more of his own when they arrived. With that, Callen stood and walked calmly into the sea of students milling for a day’s education. No-one noticed him, as he became one of many going about their business.
When he arrived back to the storeroom to rejoin Eve, he had with him a compupressure pad that he’d borrowed from a room not being used. Klim’s Crystal key was proving to be Callen’s saving grace and the equipment left in locked rooms around the university would allow Callen to write and publish a statement that would once more sing out his claims of what lay beyond the city walls. Eve was pleased with the plan, but thrilled with the news that Callen had reached his friends and had their support. It managed to restore some of her faith in the people who shared Callen’s world.
Callen sat and tried to write what he wanted to say. Eve made suggestions as he went. They were searching for something they could use to prove their story and discredit the official line that had been spewed into the communication fibres by the media. They’d agreed on an introductory paragraph and a passage restating their claims, but that one vital point, the key to their persuasion of others, was still missing. Eve was the one who found it. She took her top off, raised her right arm high and revealed her scar, a scar with obvious stitch wounds that ran from the pit of her underarm, snaking around to her back.
“Ask my mother to explain how I got this, and ask her to say where it is while she’s at it.”
Callen smiled and bowed his head to continue writing. It was exactly what they’d been after. A key they alone had access to, a key that would find the believers amongst those who had heard their story and force questions to be asked and answers to be sort.
Late that night, well after all the students had headed home, the door to the humanities building rattled to life. After some initial concern, Callen calmed Eve, reminding her of the guests they had arriving. Together they slowly navigated the halls, peering towards the landing in front of the door from a second story window, before climbing down the stairs to the ground floor. Outside the glass doors stood Jenny, Simone and Jay. Callen ushered them inside and the three hugged and smiled, even managing a laugh, as they swapped greetings. Eve was included in these greetings and she instantly felt like she belonged again. It was a feeling she’d been missing from the very first moment they crossed over the boundaries from the world she called home.
The gathering used an adjacent room to the one Callen and Eve had come to know as their own. While the storeroom managed to house two, five was asking too much. Together they sat and talked, the new arrivals listening in awe as Callen and Eve detailed all they’d been through. Callen was brought up to speed with the events outside including a more accurate answer regarding student support. Jenny had taken it on herself to conduct a very discreet poll and while many students weren’t ready to believe his story, they all loved his fight. Anything that thumbed its nose at authority was a popular stance. Callen had become an overnight celebrity and his friends were keen to discover what his next move would be. He told them of his decision to release a written statement. A declaration that he hoped would dispel people’s doubts about his story. A declaration they would be the very first to read.
“Days ago I spoke in Professor Klim’s class of visiting the Outlocked world and experiencing the sort of life that our modern society should provide us with. Included in this are the rights to have children, freedoms of space and natural resources.
The authorities are using the media to mislead you - they lie. They are lying when they say the things I told you about the Outlocked land are false. Every word I spoke happened and I’ve been hunted since speaking, not because I’m a public menace or the perpetrator of a hoax, but because the authorities are scared I may actually reveal the secrets that lie beyond this City’s walls, secrets that would force great changes to all our lives, changes for the better.
If you still don’t believe what I’ve told you, then I issue this challenge to the City to put an end to any doubt over what I’ve said. My partner, Eve, herself an Outlocked and not a city born resident as reported, has a large scar from an injury sustained when young. The city has shown you Eve’s mother and father. These people are imposters. Eve has never seen them before in her life. If she was from the city these people would know exactly how she got this scar and where it is on her body. If they don’t - it proves they’re not who they say they are and the
hoax is not being perpetrated by me, but by the City alone in an attempt to mislead you.”
Callen had added his name to the statement and as each read they reacted with admiration for its simplicity. They all believed enough in Callen to be sure Eve’s ‘city parents’, would fall short of the challenge being set. And they were sure it would force people to believe what he’d been preaching.
Callen asked one last time if anyone had anything to say before he loaded and sent the drop mail. He was met with silence. Together the five moved out of the building and across the campus like an elite group of advanced scouts. They managed to evade the strengthened number of university guards and, with the aid of Klim’s key, Callen entered a building at the very centre of the university. They quickly found a room with public cable access. Compupads where aligned in private booths to facilitate public transfers and E-mail access. More importantly, the main console had drop facilities. A directory of every student enrolled and the ability to send a universal message to them all at the press of a single button.
Callen placed his compupressurepad near the exchange terminal that handled such drops and loaded his page. He paused, almost for effect, before pressing the send button, a flash later it was complete. Three hundred and ninety five thousand, six hundred and forty two active student files were touched by Callen’s message. Those engaged would receive the mail immediately, others would have to wait until logging on to find a copy of the challenge issued. But no-one could stop the message from reaching its intended recipients.
After a restless night Callen and Eve sat crouched around the small viewer in their makeshift new home. The morning bulletins were all leading with the story of Callen’s message. It had been received by too many students not to be reported. There was no way to hush up so many inquiring minds and therefore, the city had gone public with the story. Together they flicked through different screens, ending on the most watched of the morning broadcasts. The anchor woman had shifted from her host’s position and was now mobile. She was outside the building of the people the city had earlier claimed to be Eve’s parents. In a bold move, she travelled inside and to the door in question and knocked as other reporters arrived to follow her. There was a scoop in progress and the live climax to the week-long drama was about to be played out for everyone to see. Callen and Eve squeezed each other’s hands tightly, their plan was unfolding perfectly. The reporter was now inside the flat with the flustered looking couple, supposedly Eve’s parents. They gave the appearance of being woken and shocked by the intrusion and unwanted attention.
“You’ve found Eve?” the woman asked with seemingly genuine concern.
The reporter explained they hadn’t and thrust a screen containing Callen’s message into their hands. Together they read its contents in front of the watching world. They collectively slumped, having hoped the matter would be coming to an end, not taking another turn, complicating the saga further.
“This is so far out of control, it’s not funny,” said the man playing the role of Eve’s father to perfection. He looked to his wife for conformation as he continued.
“There was a rod, a plastic, you know, one of those rods you adjust a blind with. A young boy, ” he continued.
“A neighbour,” the woman chimed in, adding to her husband’s sentence in a way that only long time couples can do.
“That’s right, and he sharpened it up. Like he was hunting. Like it was an arrow. It was a game and Eve fell on it. It stabbed her. Here,” he indicated his right side just below his arm pit. “She needed to be stitched. How old was she?” He asked of his partner who was quick to reply.
“Eight years old,” the women said with absolute certainty.
Callen flicked the viewer off. Both he and Eve were in shock.
“There’s no way they could know that,” Eve said, as if she had unwittingly let the information slip.
“How did you get that scar?” Callen asked.
“I was eight. Ky sharpened up a stick, it was meant to be an arrow. We wrestled over it and I fell. Just like they said.”
The two sat in silence. Callen was out of ideas.
Around lunchtime, Jenny, Simone and Jay arrived to find two defeated and depressed revolutionaries without any fight left in them. The three could hardly stop themselves from bursting into broad smiles, a fact that didn’t escape Callen, who asked if he’d lost even their support. He hadn’t. In the midst of such irrefutable evidence so quickly assembled and played out through the cables, a ground swell of support had sprung up in favour of Callen. He was being reported everywhere. The authorities had no idea which of the reported actions were his and which were the hundreds of copy-cat supporters that had painted the slogan, “They Lie”, anywhere they could reach. Other equally bold signs indicated Callen’s message had spread and taken hold amongst those discontented with a life that had been so long tolerated. Rumours of Callen’s presence were rife. If all were to be believed, he was in many different places at once. It seemed he was a man capable of anything, even miracles of time and space.
“They’ve made it look like it’s me who’s lying. Didn’t you see the thing this morning?!” Callen asked.
The three had seen it, along with everyone else. But Jenny was quick to explain that inconsistencies were tripping the story up. Small things, but enough to be noticed. The neatness of the city’s story refuting Callen’s claims had been the first thing to raise suspicions. It fell into place so quickly it almost seemed staged and the students, keen to find conspiracies, had decided this was one to be found.
With over thirty thousand students from the northern districts, the area where Callen and more importantly Eve supposedly grew up, it wasn’t surprising the city had left a few doors open. The story being pushed through the cables was leaking like a sieve. The people being put forward as Eve’s parents were meant to live in the same building as a student who had moved out less than six months earlier. She knew all the families in her building that had children her age and Eve’s wasn’t one of them. This on top of other, smaller, but equally convincing loose ends had helped rally the support that Callen now enjoyed. The students were behind him, even if the city wasn’t.
Callen was stunned. In the face of evidence that made him and Eve feel they’d been defeated, the students had found a way to believe. Perhaps they were simply ready for revolution.
Callen and Eve hugged each other and for a brief moment there were celebrations in the small room as the group came together as one. They celebrated having won nothing in a battle long from over, but it was a moment of release needed to revive them for their next effort. Callen wondered what that next effort would be.
“I had an idea,” Jay said. Jenny and Simone had heard Jay’s idea before and felt he shouldn’t raise it with Callen.
“What is it?” Callen asked, feeling they should listen to every possible suggestion. Jay smiled smugly at the girls, knowing it would now be Callen who’d play judge to his proposal.
The girl’s reticence towards Jay’s suggestion was more because it wasn’t theirs than anything else. Jay outlined the idea. If Callen chose to put it into action, he’d be able to appear in front of the students one last time. Perhaps he’d have enough time to speak for twenty or thirty seconds, one more hard hitting statement to show everyone he wasn’t giving up. If he did this, Jay was certain, the students, already primed to carry his fight, would continue. Callen considered the suggestion. He thought it was a good one and Jay almost swelled with pride. The fact that Callen had no plan of his own made the decision to put Jay’s idea into effect an easy one.
Callen began to think of what he should say and he fielded suggestions from everyone. They all had their own ideas, but in the end it was Eve who settled the argument.
“Say what you came to say,” she said. “But say it quickly.”
Callen smiled at her and nodded, that’s exactly what he’d do. Callen made a move to find some peace and quiet to draft the most important words he would ever speak.
“Do you think three of us are enough?” Jenny asked.
Callen hadn’t given this any thought and together they briefly ran through what was needed to allow Callen and Eve to make one final appearance. Three people weren’t nearly enough. Jenny and Simone worked hard not to break out in smiles. They’d found it hard to keep the secret of Callen from their other friends and Jenny thought they should bring them into their confidence. She knew all those they had in mind were on their side and would be willing to help. Callen and Eve looked to each other. They had little choice but to take the risk. Hiding in a storeroom and allowing the city to spread lies about them wasn’t helping their cause any. If they had to fight back, and this seemed their only viable option, they should be willing to trust those closest to them. They gave Jenny their consent and she quickly gathered Simone and Jay to go with her. They’d assemble back with Callen in half an hour. Then they could put their plan into action and hopefully give him one more chance to speak to the entire city.
Chapter 19.
The small group of students waited in the disused building as Jenny knocked on the storeroom door. Some of those gathered were still dubious of the grand claims being made and when there was no answer, it seemed their suspicions were justified. Simone opened the door to the storeroom and found it empty. For a moment she looked worried alongside Jenny and Jay, their eyes pleading for those they’d brought with them to believe their story about helping Callen. Before they could even try to reassure the newly arrived members of this growing firm, a door further down the corridor opened. The group in the hallway went quiet. Callen, with Eve in tow, stepped out. There was an audible exhalation. Callen knew everyone gathered. Some of them he knew well, some he knew only as passing acquaintances. He greeted them and asked if they’d been told of the plan. All he received were nods from the group, now in awe of the man before them. They had questions they wanted to ask, but all knew it wasn’t the time. Together, including Callen, they numbered thirteen, but they’d still need a great deal of luck if they were going to be successful and give Callen the time he needed to speak.
Inner City Page 18
