by Melissa Faye
I didn’t like being told no, but Alexis had a point. We needed a lot more help. And after all the injuries, deaths, and destruction that happened in the past twenty-four hours, we’d have to be very careful about how we asked for it.
I looked down at my ankle. The Gray Suit’s attack had done nothing to help it heal any faster. I had new crutches from the Med, and a restocked collection of pain patches to use, but it would still take time for it to heal.
We agreed to wait for Javi to see what we could do. I wanted nothing more than to take a nap, but Alexis urged me on. There were many more patients to help.
EVERYONE’S EYELIDS were drooping by the time the four of us met at Alexis and Javi’s house. It was past sundown. There was still no word from Charlie or Etta, and Breck was driving me crazy checking his TekCast every thirty seconds. He played with it mindlessly in between checking, clicking it open and closing it shut.
“Up until now, the consensus from the community has been that we need to work on finding a cure,” said Javi. He gave Breck a stern look until he stopped making that clicking noise. “That was the general belief. Find a cure, and use it to incentivize other communities to join us. We have plenty of contacts in communities where the Underground movement is strong, like Young Woods, but it’s not enough. Everyone agrees we need a new direction now.”
Javi spoke more slowly than usual. He laid back on the couch while he talked, tapping his foot on the ground and picking at the hem of his shirt. I looked at his shoes; they were the ones I saw near Alexis’s bed. Javi continued.
“The council wants the people’s input as to what we should do next, but with all the damage that’s been done, it’s unlikely that a vote can happen for at least a few days. We need to make a move sooner than that.”
“What kind of move?” I asked with raised eyebrows.
“There are two things we need to do as soon as possible,” Javi replied. “First, we need to better understand the mutations Chancellor Lorenzo mentioned. To do that, we need to tap into our network and see what other communities have discovered. We also need to find more children and parents. That’s tough; everyone is hiding.
“The second step is to use more resources to support the Underground’s efforts across the country. Ann’s adamant about it. There’s no time to wait for groups to get themselves organized. We need to motivate people and do it fast.”
“What does that mean?” I said. “How do we motivate people all over the country?”
“Gentle Acres had a well funded technology sector before the Underground took over. There are still plenty of programmers and technicians around. We can access video footage of last night’s attack – there are enough cameras around to get us some good shots – and get the programmers working to hack into other communities’ communication systems.”
“We saw that recently,” I said. “When we were hiding in a new community, they sent out a message to every TekCast to be on the lookout for us. There’s never been communication like that across a region though, has there? Or across the country?”
“Nothing that we’ve ever heard of,” said Javi. “But it’s doable. It must be, since communities are networked together to allow leaders to communicate with one another at least across each region. If we can tap into that, we can share video footage broadly.”
“Charlie would be able to help with that,” said Breck. He looked at me briefly. All of this would be different if our friends weren’t missing.
“If Ann wants access to more children and parents, maybe we can use that to convince her to send people to the school to break out those kids,” Alexis said. “Meanwhile, she can reach out to other camps and communities to find the kids’ parents. The kids at the school should all have mutations, so it’ll be a good start. And we can find the others while we’re there.”
It would have to work. We needed to help on every front, but we couldn’t be everywhere at once. Not like the Chancellor seemed to be, at least.
Javi and Alexis talked to each other about how to plead our case to Ann. Breck messaged Omer about what had happened. I messaged Vonna.
“Is everyone ok? Are you ok?”
“I’m ok. I couldn’t do much with my injury. But a few people died.”
Vonna took a little longer to respond.
“I’m sorry. It sounds terrible. I wish I was there to help.”
“I’m glad you’re not, but you knew that already.” I did miss Vonna. I kept thinking about how brave she had been to break into the Chancellor’s safe, and how alone she must have felt when she was banished. Banishment meant her clone line would be retired. No more Vonnas. That was a loss for everyone.
“Your turn. Tell me about where you are. Who’s in charge of the camp?”
“I don’t talk to a lot of people. I think his name is Lenny. I mostly just work in the kitchen.”
“Good. Does anyone there know about any parents and bio kids?”
“I’ll ask around. Why?”
“I told you about the mutations. We have to build a list of the mutations that cause fertility. The Chancellor is ahead of us on this one.”
There was another long pause before Vonna responded. “Are you going to follow Charlie and Etta to the school?”
“Probably,” I said. “I don’t know when.”
“Tell me first, ok? Promise.”
“I will.”
Breck finished messaging with Omer a while later. He shared what he found out.
“Omer is ready to share any information Ann has with Young Woods,” he said. “Their numbers keep growing, but no one thinks it’s enough yet. Plus, now that he knows more about the armory here, he wants more weaponry.”
“That’s not a great idea,” I said. “If there’s enough people, no one needs to get hurt.”
“That’s what I told him,” Breck said. “He’s being stubborn. But he knows some people in other communities and is going to send a list of contacts to us. We can find more parents and kids that way.”
“It’ll also make Ann more appreciative of us. And more willing to give us what we need to go after Etta and Charlie.”
“Exactly.”
Chapter 18 – Yami
The next morning we learned that several community members had organized a funeral service for those we had lost in the attack. Gentle Acres could be hard to read. There was that constant tension in the air about job and color assignments and how to keep everything fair. Yet when Gray Suits attacked, all that talk disappeared. The community members knew what had to be done and got to it. Alexis and I weren’t the only ones circulating to help the wounded. There were also current and former construction workers helping fertility researchers salvage materials from the F-Lab.
I wasn’t sure if people from Young Woods would have done the same. When our F-Lab was bombed, there was an instant panic. Doctors came to help. But there was no community effort to rebuild. It was just managed by the construction sector workers.
For the memorial, everyone gathered on the lawn where just one day earlier the Chancellor had held us hostage, threatening to sample our genetic materials for mutations that caused fertility. I expected a cynical reaction – how could we mourn the dead in this exact spot? But I understood once we arrived. People were teary-eyed, holding each other tightly, but they were standing their ground in a way. They were resolved to see the memorial through. They were reclaiming the community for themselves. The people of Gentle Acres would not be afraid in their own homes.
Someone had driven in carts of folding chairs, and people immediately unloaded them into rows facing the front of the mansion. Someone else had arranged for the names and pictures of the dead to be projected on the building’s façade. I was relieved to see the UCA motto covered; it had no place here in this moment. My ankle was feeling good, so I joined Breck in helping set up the chairs.
Once people were seated and the whispering ended, Ann addressed the crowd.
“We suffered a great loss yesterday,” she said over the
loudspeakers. “In a few moments, I will invite friends of the deceased to speak about those they’ve lost. Before I do that, I would like to share one thing.
“It’s hard to fathom how the Chancellor and his army could have done something like this. This violence is in direct conflict with the UCA motto. This wasn’t best for any community, or any community member. We lost too many lives yesterday, and it will take months to undo the damage to our infrastructure and supplies. The leadership team will continue to work together to come up with action steps we can take immediately to fight back against the government that would see our town destroyed and our citizens used for scientific research. We will keep you posted on any decisions that are made and invite you to talk to any of us with concerns or ideas. All voices are welcome.”
People stirred in their seats. It was like Ann was talking about starting a war – and maybe that’s exactly what she was doing. The only way to “fight back” would be with more violence and more losses. We wouldn’t stand a chance against an army unless we had one of our own. I squeezed my eyes shut tightly and covered my face with my hands. This was all too much. The fighting, the abductions, the scientific research. Were we prepared to do it all?
Ann invited people to speak, and the rest of us sat in silence listening to their eulogies. Tissues were passed around, and I heard sniffles and soft sobs from all around me. I felt swept up in the town’s sadness. I didn’t know anyone who was killed in the attack, but these people took us in and let us be a part of their movement. Their deaths impacted all of us, whether we knew them or not.
I left the memorial service with a renewed energy. There was work to be done. It was more than I could do, or more than I could do with my friends, but the people here would help. Change was coming.
BECAUSE OF OUR CONNECTION with Omer and our constant pestering about Etta and the school of bio kids, Ann and the council invited us to attend meetings with them the next day. They met in the Chancellor’s mansion. Ann didn’t use it as her house because she didn’t believe an elected leader should stay in a mansion like that. Not to mention that it would make her look like their former Chancellor. Still, they used the mansion for meetings and events. For now, it was headquarters for the Save Everyone Committee. At least, that’s what Breck and I were calling it.
The meeting room looked like it must have been a formal dining room at some point. The wallpaper had an ornate, colorful floral design and the walls featured paintings of landscapes and bowls of fruit. The windows on one wall looked out into a courtyard with a small pond of fish crisscrossed by a wooden bridge. The windows were open, and a breeze drafted in through the drapes.
The council members sat around the main table, which could have sat at least thirty people. Everyone’s chair was squeezed towards one end of the table, though, to facilitate group discussions. Other members of the leadership sector milled about. Breck, Alexis, and I were told to sit on some chairs set up around the edges of the room, but over time we snuck up to the table with everyone else.
Someone had printed a map of the UCA with each region outlined in bold black lines. The regions were numbered from east to west. We were currently in 82. Young Woods was in the region just to the east of us, 73. There was also a map of Region 82 with all the communities and ACer camps labeled and color-coded. Green for communities that had been overthrown (3 out of the 26), yellow for communities with active Underground populations (12 out of 26), and red where a rebellion would require a lot more work (11 out of 26).
One participant, a man around my age, sat in a corner on his TekCast. He color coded other regions based on the information we had so far. Breck slid his chair over to work with the guy for a while, messaging back and forth with Omer to make sure they were getting the information exactly right. If Sven or Matana were there, we’d have even more information. Breck called me over to help after a bit, and then a few more people followed. Omer’s contacts had other contacts, and we needed to reach out to everyone. Someone created a web on the map of who we were connecting with and who they in turn knew.
Alexis came to talk with me during one of the group’s breaks.
“Javi and I don’t think it’s time yet to bring up the school,” she said. “Everyone is focused on community rebellions right now. We don’t want to bring this up too early and be turned down.” She leaned on the edge of the table next to me, hunching over like she was showing me something on her TekCast. “But I know this has to happen fast. We’ll talk to her today.”
Alexis whispered something to Breck. He listened carefully, then deftly switched the contact group over to focus on finding bio parents using the charisma and charm I hadn’t seen him use since Hope was taken. Someone added a color to the map and someone else started a list of where parents were, where their kids were if the kids were still with the parents, and how many kids they had.
The new list grew slowly. Everyone was in hiding. But Alexis’s idea was a good one – it would make everyone that much more interested in saving the school kids.
In mid-afternoon, two of the technicians joined us to present their progress.
“We’ve put together a few different versions of the video footage to share with other communities,” said the woman who introduced herself as Meg. She was tall and fair, and her face was covered in freckles. Charlie would have probably liked meeting her. She seemed almost as friendly as him.
“There’s plenty of footage to pick from,” said the man who went by Savinay. “But we’ve been talking about the best way to demonstrate what the Gray Suits did. We made a few different cuts of different lengths.”
They sent the video to the screen on the wall and we gathered in a large semi-circle to watch.
The videos were gut-wrenching to watch. They showed guns fired at civilians. Trucks driving past crowds of people yelling and crying. The people stuck on the lawn surrounded by Gray Suits. The Chancellor’s menacing speech. There were close-ups of some of the injured, including videos of doctors treating the wounded. Finally, there were images of the dead, who had been laid out on the lawn for the day until the memorial scheduled for that evening.
I couldn’t help tearing up. I looked around the room and saw others crying silently, tears running down their cheeks. What would it be like, I thought, if I knew all of those faces? If they were the people I grew up with at Young Woods?
The room was silent while Savinay turned off the screen on the wall. Ann cleared her throat and led a conversation about which videos to use when. Someone came up with the idea to include information about the bio kids’ abductions. They would film Breck for that piece.
Meg and Savinay next shared about hacking into community alert systems.
“There’s a simple program we can send to Underground leaders to show the video to their whole community,” said Savinay. “It will be more complicated to get into communities where we don’t have connections.”
“What will it take?” asked Ann.
“If we can send people out to individual communities, using the program from within the communities’ actual networks is simple,” said Meg. Eyes darted around the room – there were thousands of communities. That would take far too long.
“Is there another option?” Javi asked.
“We’re working on it,” said Meg. “Some of our coworkers have been trying to hack into the regional and national servers. It could take time. We might not be able to do it.”
Ann thanked the technicians. Javi worked with Breck to start sending the app and video to the full network of contacts. It was slow going at first, but people worked more quickly as they found their rhythm. I excused myself from the group to join Alexis; we needed to plan for our conversation with Ann.
When the day ended, Ann thanked everyone for the work and people began catching up. I nodded to Alexis, and she grabbed Javi to plead our case to Ann. I listened from the side, pretending to organize a pile of contact lists.
“Ann, can we talk to you more about the school? We haven’t hea
rd from the people who left in days.” Alexis spoke quietly and kept her head down politely.
“I’m not sure that –“
Javi jumped in. “The kids would help us identify a broader list of mutations. And once we’re within range, we can share the videos about community violence with any adult in the area.”
“Still, let’s remember that –“
I stepped forward, ignoring Alexis’s warning glare. “We have found a few parents around the country,” I said. “And if we can reunite parents and children, we’ll foster more supporters. We can record reunions and air those around the country as well. According to our friends, there are a lot more kids there than we thought. And the complex is large. We need help getting the kids out.”
Ann smiled, though her stiff face gave away her annoyance. “I’m not sure that we have the weapons and vehicles needed to take the children out of the school. We need to remember that we’ve just lost people and buildings in the last attack.” She raised her eyebrows when I opened my mouth to speak. I shut my mouth tightly. “But, if we can take over the school rather than moving the kids, we would have a new location to house citizens and refugees. We wouldn’t have to move children away from their current homes before we find their parents.”
I sighed a breath of relief. Breck looked at me, his eyes sparkling. We were going to save our friends.
“Do we have any idea how many people we’ll need to stage a takeover?” Ann asked. “Is there anything your friends said?”
I pulled out my TekCast and projected the picture Charlie had sent me of the school onto the large screen on the wall. Councilmen were still packing up, but they paused and sucked in their breath at the sight of the complex. It was much larger than just a school, like I had said. I could see how many buildings there were, and we could make a better guess at how many adults might be there.
