Freedom/Hate (Freedom/Hate Series, Book 1)

by Kyle Andrews

  The man was little more than a vague figure, featureless in the darkness, except for his eyes. They managed to capture some hint of a nearby fire and sparkled at Collin as the man tilted his head, looking at him with interest.

  “Terrorist,” the man said, nodding to himself and leaning around Collin to get a better look. “Savage.”

  The first thought that came into Collin's mind was, “Takes one to know one,” but he said nothing. It would be pointless to provoke this man, who undoubtedly needed no provocation. Clenching his jaw, Collin stood straight and looked the man in the eye. If he was a terrorist, he might as well act like one.

  The man grinned, as though amused with Collin. He then shoved Collin backward.

  As Collin struggled to remain standing, the man stepped toward him and said, “What right do you have to come into our home when you have HAND on your ass?”

  “I didn't—” Collin started.

  Since his voice was failing him and he had no idea what he was going to say next, he stopped talking. His eyes went to his feet, and he knew that he looked weak in that moment. That wasn't going to help his cause.

  “What was that?” the man asked, still speaking with that cool, soft voice. “You didn't think? You didn't care? You didn't what?”

  Collin's eyes met the man's once again. He shook his head and said, “I didn't know.”

  The man put up his hands and looked around the area, addressing the others without raising his voice at all. He said, “He didn't know.”

  Two hands gripped Collin's shoulders and held him in place. As soon as he felt them, Collin looked around and saw that there were people watching him now. He might as well have the drones and satellites tracking him again.

  “If ignorance were a crime, every person in this world would be locked up,” the man told Collin. “But it's not. Ignorance is bliss.”

  The man punched Collin in the gut as hard as he could, causing Collin to double over. He was trying to think of a way out of this. There had to be some way to make those people back off, or to take them down by force. He had stood up to police officers and won. Surely, a few street urchins shouldn't have been a problem, but they were.

  Recovering from the punch, Collin saw many of the other people in the station still looking toward him, watching the show. They didn't look like an angry mob, waiting for their chance to take a shot at him. They seemed more curious about him than anything else.

  “I just want to leave,” Collin told the man who had punched him. “I didn't mean to cause trouble.”

  The man laughed, and one or two others in the area joined him. The idea of a terrorist who didn't want to cause any trouble probably would have sounded funny to most people. But Collin wasn't a terrorist. He wasn't a killer—at least, he didn't want to be.

  The man who had struck Collin grabbed his face and held it firmly, looking into his eyes as though he could see every thought that was running through Collin's mind.

  “You're nothing,” the man said, in a tone that sounded almost surprised. He then shoved Collin backwards.

  The man who was holding onto Collin's shoulders let go and Collin fell back, onto the ground. As he began to pull himself up, the men who had shown so much interest in him were turning to walk away. Just like that, he was free to go about his business.

  Once Collin was on his knees and he was turning toward the tracks, he heard a gasp behind him. This was followed by a deep voice yelling, “HAND! Everybody remain where you are!”

  As the voice gave this order, everyone in the station began to scream and scurry in every direction. None of them wanted to face the authorities any more than Collin did.

  The place turned into a madhouse within seconds. HAND officers were shining flashlights at people, trying to find Collin in the swarm of faces. People were throwing things at the officers. Others were knocking over the trash can fires as they tried to escape. Embers rose into the air. Men and women were pistol whipped as they ran toward the exit.

  Collin watched from the ground, catching brief glimpses of the HAND officers who were pouring into the station from the same stairs that he had used to get down there. He couldn't see them well, with so many other bodies crowding the area, but he could feel them. They were close, and the chance of escaping from HAND officers once he was in their sights would be slim.

  More flashlights were lighting the station now. Each new officer that came down the stairs meant two more eyes that could spot Collin.

  He pulled himself behind a pillar, but this cover wouldn't buy him much time. The place was lighting up with more and more flashlights. Soon, it would be easy for him to be spotted. He needed to make his escape quickly or there would be no escape at all.

  When he looked out from behind the pillar, he saw bodies slamming onto the ground. HAND officers were standing over them, shining their lights into the faces of those people and shaking their heads as they realized that they hadn't found their prey. He wanted to wait for just the right moment to run, when he was sure that nobody would see him, but there was no such moment. The only option available to him was to run as fast as possible, and hope that he could blend in with all of the people who were getting away.

  He counted to three in his head, and then forced himself to move. He pushed his legs to run faster than he had ever run before, but this didn't make him feel safer. With each step he took, he expected to feel bullets ripping into his back. He heard gunshots going off, and heard tiles blowing off of the walls around him. He heard one or two grunts as people were thrown to the ground or shot. He ran between other people, pushing them out of his way as he kept his eyes on the edge of the subway platform.

  When he reached the edge of the platform, he jumped. He couldn't see anything beneath him as he moved through the air. When he struck ground, it came as a surprise to him. He was off balance and spent valuable time trying to regain is bearings.

  There were other people on the tracks. He could hear them running, and water splashing beneath their feet. The line had been closed for repairs years earlier, so no train would be coming. While that provided some amount of comfort, there were other dangers to keep in mind—not the least of which were those other people, rushing through the pitch-blackness of the subway tunnel in front of him.

  He started to move again. At first, he ran. Then he slowed to a walk as he lost the ability to see in front of him. He was completely blind in that tunnel, with only the sounds of other footsteps in front of him to guide him.

  When he looked back, he could see beams of light from the HAND officers' flashlights, still moving back and forth through the subway station. There were a lot of people back there. With luck, they would distract HAND long enough for Collin to get away.

  As time went on, the sounds of other footsteps began to fade. Either they stopped running or they had moved far beyond him. Collin was alone. The sounds of the chaos behind him were faint. He saw no flashlights moving his way.

  With nothing but blackness surrounding him, Collin's mind began to fill the empty space, projecting images before his eyes that were so vivid that he could almost touch them.

  He saw the faces of the people in the subway station as they tried to escape from the HAND officers that Collin had brought down on them. He didn't know those people. He didn't know if they deserved to be arrested. All he knew for certain was that they would have been left alone had it not been for him.

  Then he saw the police officers from the alley. He saw the blood pouring through the fingers of one of the officers that he had shot. There was so much blood.

  How had this become his life?

  8

  “Officials say that the fugitive entered the alley, where he had stored equipment to aid in his escape through the subway tunnels,” the female reporter on the radio said, in a flat and lifeless tone.

  A man's voice took over from there, “The suspect led us into the subway station, where he had backup waiting for him. Two HAND officers and four police officers were killed in the shooto
ut that followed, and six of his accomplices were taken into custody.”

  “That was Captain Royce DelHark of HAND, explaining the chilling attack on officials earlier tonight. The fugitive, Collin Powers, is said to be a high ranking member of the extremist group, Hate. Since going off the grid at the age of eighteen, Powers has reportedly undergone intensive militia training. He is reported to have studied under constitutional extremists such as Melvin Stark and Connie Lowe, whose rambling manifestos were leaked to the public eight years ago, revealing a program of hatred and a thirst for bloodshed that runs to the very core of the Hate organization...”

  Libby turned down the radio. She had been trying to do her homework for hours, without much luck. Instead, she had been listening to news reports about the shootout in the subway, ever since Sim called to tell her about it. He lived three blocks away from where it happened. Everyone in his building was worried that Collin Powers would break into their homes and slaughter them as they slept. But not Sim. He had no doubt that he could take on the violent extremist by hand if he had to. He even proceeded to explain in detail how he would overpower the terrorist, if he ever got the chance.

  “First, I wouldn't charge at him with a hundred men, all carrying guns. This guy is a cockroach who lives in the darkness. You turn on a light, he scatters,” Sim explained. “If they want to catch him, they need to be more subtle. Follow him back to wherever his nest is, and then bomb the hell out of that place.”

  “Do cockroaches have nests?” Libby smiled. She was always amused when Sim pretended to know more about a HAND officer's job than the actual HAND officers did.

  “Hive?” Sim asked. “Or... Burrow?”

  “I think we should leave the bug analogies to smarter people.”

  “You don't think I'm smart?”

  “Umm...” Libby replied, with just enough humor to let him know that she was joking. “I think you're smart in your own way.”

  “Which is a nice way of saying that I'm stupid.”

  “But hot.”

  “That's sexist. I'm offended by you calling me hot.”

  “You'll get over it.”

  “I'm sure,” Sim said, using the topic as a segue for his next question: “What are you wearing?”

  Libby looked down at herself and replied, “My comfortable sweat pants. A ratty old sweater. Ponytail.”

  “You suck at this game.”

  “Sorry. Let me guess. You're sitting in the dark, in your underwear. No shirt. And you just did a bunch of pushups.”

  “I'm not even kidding when I say that you got it ninety percent right.”

  “Only ninety?”

  “You figure out the ten percent you got wrong.”

  “I'm hanging up now.”

  “Tease.”

  “How do you figure?”

  “Sexy voice.”

  “Goodnight, Sim.”

  “See you tomorrow.”

  Libby adopted her most seductive voice as she replied, “See you in your dreams.”

  “You're killing me.”

  She turned off her phone and turned the radio up. She had a lingering smile on her face, but the smile faded as soon as the reality of the world began to set in once again.

  In the corner of Libby's room, there was a crack in the wall. At first, the crack was barely noticeable at all. She found it one day, when she was eleven years old. Over the years, that crack grew. What was once only as thick as a hair now looked as though an entire corner of her room were about to fall into the street.

  She found herself staring at that crack while the radio continued to report the latest news on the search for the fugitive. The more she heard, the worst she felt. There were children out there, whose lives were being threatened by this man. There were people who would never be going home again because of him. Families destroyed.

  It took an evil person to cause that sort of chaos, and to go on with their life as though none of it meant anything. Witnesses were calling into the radio station, sharing stories about the brutality of the man who had shot officers dead in the street. A lesser person might have wanted to cry, listening to those stories. But Libby wasn't one to cry and whimper. She got angry. When Collin Powers was finally put to death, she would celebrate.

  Eventually, the radio broadcast turned back to general news of the day. The elections were coming up in less than two years, and that meant that both parties were bickering about each other. One side was fighting for loosening the food regulations. The other side worried about exposing the public to potential contamination.

  One side wanted to increase pay for civilian workers. The other side argued that increased pay would require longer workdays, to generate enough revenue to cover the increased pay.

  Overseas, war had been declared once again. The military was being sent to aid allies, though resources were limited. Everyone expected pay to be cut, for the sake of national security. One less issue for the politicians to bicker over.

  War didn't scare Libby. Politicians and elections didn't seem important to her either. Not when the real enemy could be standing right outside her building at that very moment. He was the threat that needed to be dealt with. Everything else was just background noise.

  9

  Collin climbed a ladder, which led to a grate on the sidewalk outside. He was expecting to hear panicked screams as soon as he poked his head out, but that didn't happen. It was after curfew. The only people on the street now were the police and HAND officers who were looking for him.

  The grate squeaked and clanked as he climbed out of the subway tunnel. The sound was deafening to him. Once again, he was sure that someone would be looking out their window. They would easily see him out there. but there was nothing he could do about that.

  Fortunately, he found himself surrounded by storefronts and rundown office buildings. There might have been some apartments above the shops, but the threat of being seen was far smaller than it would have been if he were surrounded by apartment buildings.

  He tried to stick to the shadows as he made his way down the street. This was made easier by having power to the street lights turned off for the night. At this late hour, there were only some antique neon signs in a few of the stores along the street, just barely casting their red and blue light across the sidewalk, giving the area an eerie glow.

  The street at night was a strange place to be. What should have been full of people, going about their lives—talking, eating, laughing—became a ghost town after curfew.

  In the distance, there were sirens. He could see the flashing lights from the police and HAND cars as they raced toward the next subway station, or wherever they expected to find him.

  He knew that they could follow him out of the tunnel at any moment, so he hurried to put distance between himself and the subway tracks.

  Glancing at the street signs helped him to find his bearings and plot his course. He wasn't as close to his safe house as he would have liked. He didn't even know if it was possible for him to make it there. It would take him a while to get across town. That was assuming that all went well, which wasn't likely. Every minute that he spent on the street brought him that much closer to being caught. He needed to find cover. He needed help.

  He began to weave through alleys and up streets. He crouched in corners whenever he heard a noise, and waited until he was sure that there were no officers walking up the street. If he exposed a safe house, it would be more than his own life that he put in danger.

  As he moved up the more residential streets, Collin glanced down at the front steps of each building along his way. He was looking for the dog's-head symbol, which was that week's code to let Freedom members know where their allies were located.

  Ordinarily, there would be only one safe house that had the symbol drawn in chalk on its front steps. It would be the place where a member of Freedom was expected to stay for a night, and the symbol would be erased as soon as that member arrived.

  Since he was on the run, with his face on
every TV screen in the city, the emergency protocol was in place. Now, any member of Freedom who could spare a bed would be urged to draw the symbol on their front steps, mixed in with doodles and games of tic-tac-toe.

  He passed building after building without spotting that symbol. He was beginning to lose all hope when finally he saw it. It was crudely drawn on an empty flower pot, and surrounded by images of farm animals and fish, but it was unmistakeable.

  His heart skipped a beat as soon as he saw the simple image of a dog's head with pointed ears and sharp fangs. Rest was within his reach at last. It wasn't where he was supposed to be, but it would be good enough.

  Collin turned the pot around, hiding the symbol from anyone else who happened to walk up the street. He then looked up, at the windows of the building.

  Several of the apartments in the building had lights on, but none of them were his sanctuary. It was only when he walked around to the alley that he saw a window with a shoe sitting on the sill. That was his sign.

  After making a note of which apartment he was headed for, Collin looked for a way into the building. Since it was after curfew, the front door would probably be locked. It would have been too risky to walk right through the front door anyway. Still in the alley, Collin found a window near the ground, leading to a basement. It only took him a minute to get the window open and crawl inside.

  Just being off of the streets made Collin feel as though a hundred pounds had been lifted from his chest.

  The basement had storage areas for the residents of the building, each fenced off and secured. Luckily, the window that Collin had come through was located between storage areas. Collin was free to walk through the basement and up the stairs.

  As he quietly made his way upstairs, the voices of the people that he had encountered on the street that night were echoing through his head, calling for the authorities. He expected to hear the same calls in this building, but his entrance had been much more subtle than his exit from that alley. No gunshots. No violence.