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

by Kyle Andrews

  “Uly,” she whispered, just like she used to do when they were kids, sneaking around the building when they should have been asleep.

  He stopped walking and she saw his legs turn toward the rail. They were all that she could see of him.

  “Is everything okay?” he asked her, in a quiet tone.

  “Yeah. Mom's sleeping. I just wanted to know... Did Sim go to the game?”

  “The game was canceled. Most of the players were on the street, patrolling. He's fine though.”

  Libby nodded, but didn't say anything else. She wasn't sure what to say next.

  Uly turned just slightly, and Libby noticed that he was wearing different pants than before.

  “Anything else?” Uly asked.

  He sounded tired and eager to get to bed, but he wasn't the type of person who walked away from people who might need him.

  She wanted to ask him about the paint. Deep in her gut, she knew that he was involved with something that was dangerous and foolish. She wanted to yell at him about it, but something stopped her. She couldn't bring herself to speak, because she knew that whatever answer he gave her would only complicate things. She would either have to cover for him or turn him in, and she wasn't willing to do either of those things.

  “Goodnight,” she finally said.

  “See you tomorrow,” he replied, but he didn't walk away. He still sounded tired, but something was keeping him in that spot. Maybe he knew that she had more questions. Maybe he was just concerned for her.

  The idea that Uly would be worried about her pissed her off. Here she was, thinking all the worst things about him, and she knew that the only thing on his mind in that moment was how she was coping with everything that was going on in her life.

  Libby didn't even entertain the idea that he was waiting to see how much she knew, so that he could take care of the problem. She had suspected him of any number of things that day, ranging from vandalism to terrorism, but at the end of it all, she couldn't even bring herself to fear him. As wrong as he might be in so many ways, he wasn't bad.

  14

  On the second night that Collin spent in Sophia's apartment, he slept much better. His wounds were hurting less. His stomach was full.

  In the morning, he woke up with the sun shining on his face through the curtains. It was quiet as he lay there, staring up at the ceiling. There were water stains above him. The place was far from being the sort of mansion that a politician would live in, but he could easily get used to waking up there.

  He hadn't lived in a normal apartment since he left home. He had a bed to sleep in back in his base, and everything that he needed to get by. He had enough sunlight and as many comforts as anyone could expect while living as a wanted man. The thing that made Sophia's apartment different was that it was a home. As rundown as the building might be, and as limited as her resources were, Sophia had taken what she was given and she had made the best of it.

  It was warm and inviting. It smelled good. It was clean. If he closed his eyes tightly, he could imagine his mother opening his bedroom door and telling him to get up, or his sister singing the latest song put out by whichever under-aged boy band was popular at the moment. He remembered teasing her about her music and how she would scream at him. It was another life, and it felt like he'd put a million miles between himself and that place. The truth was, his family was only seventeen blocks south of him at that very moment.

  The bedroom door opened and Sophia walked into the room, looking down on Collin with her hands on her hips. She said, “I let you sleep in yesterday because you hadn't had a place to sleep or a thing to eat for a while. But if you think that I'm going to let it become a habit, you've got a few surprises coming.”

  He sat up in bed and looked at the clock. It was 8:15. Turning back to Sophia, he said, “It's barely morning.”

  “I've been up for three hours already. There's Coffite on the stove. It's my shopping day, which means that I'll finally be able to get a message back to Freedom and let them know where you are.”

  Collin perked up as soon as he heard the news. His mind immediately started racing through the list of things that he would have to do in order to plan his escape back to his base. It would be difficult. His face was plastered all over the city.

  Sophia was watching Collin's eyes as though she could see the gears turning in his head. She started to shake her head and told him, “You're going to stay put. I don't know how long you're going to be here, but it's a lot safer than the streets. There's no need to go ruining a good deal. Once the others know where you are, they will be the ones to dictate when you're pulled out. Not you. Not me. Understood?”

  “Yes, ma'am.”

  “Damn straight,” Sophia nodded. Then she said, “Get up. Pull yourself together. Are you handy?”

  “Handy?”

  “Tools. Pipes. Are you handy?”

  “I guess so. In theory.”

  Sophia started to laugh. She was amused by his phrasing. In truth, Collin hadn't spent much of his time fixing things. He could tinker a little bit, but he'd never been the go-to guy for repairs. There was always someone more qualified for that sort of thing.

  Collin got to his feet and looked at Sophia, waiting for her to stop laughing. He then asked, “What do you need done?”

  “I haven't had a good repair man in this place since the seventh term, and it doesn't look like I'm going to be inviting anyone in anytime soon. So you can fix the kitchen sink, which hasn't drained properly for the better part of three years. You can re-hang a curtain in my bedroom, which fell off the wall. And, let's see. What else?”

  “How about you make a list?”

  “And use my paper rations on this?” Sophia smirked, shaking her head. “I've been writing my memoir and I'm just up to the good parts, so I'm going to need all the paper that I can get.”

  As a book runner, Collin's interest was piqued at the mention of a memoir. It was quickly unpiqued once he started thinking about what 'the good parts' might mean.

  Collin went into the bathroom and started to clean himself up. As he splashed water on his face and brushed his teeth, that feeling came over him again. He felt almost like a normal person, living a normal life.

  By the time he walked into the kitchen, Sophia was pouring him a cup of Coffite and placing it near a plate of food that she'd prepared for him. There were eggs and some fresh berries, not from a can. Most people in the city never saw fresh berries on their shopping list. Sophia would probably be lucky to get dried fruit on hers. Older citizens usually got table scraps.

  Fortunately for Sophia, she didn't rely solely on her state-issued shopping list. As a result, she was still strong and capable, while most citizens her age were withering. It was like the government couldn't get rid of them fast enough, because with each generation that passed, the current system would become more normal and more accepted in the eyes of the people.

  As he ate, Sophia ran down the list of chores that she wanted him to do for her. Light bulbs that needed changing, floors that needed cleaning, and all sorts of other fun jobs. Most of them were things that she couldn't do for herself anymore, which would require someone to stand on a chair or kneel on the floor. But some of it, Collin suspected, was meant to keep him occupied and to keep his mind off of his situation. Sophia was a lot stronger than she was pretending to be as she listed some of those chores, standing there with her hands on her hips.

  “I have a neighbor downstairs, Mr. Geoffrey. I go with him to get his food sometimes, because he can't see all that well anymore,” Sophia told him. “He might hear you up here, moving around. Now, he knows I'll be out today, so don't be too surprised if he comes up here to see who you are and why you're here. If he does, don't get all nervous. Just tell him that you're my son, Eric.”

  “Does he know your son?”

  “Eric hasn't been home in twelve years. I'm lucky if I get a letter in the mail once a month. So Mr. Geoffrey shouldn't think too much about it. Just say that you've been
granted a travel pass. Eric's been trying to get one for a decade.”

  Collin nodded and asked, “Anything else?”

  “No loud music. No television. And if I find out that you had a party while I was out, you will be grounded for the rest of your life, young man.”

  That last part was a very dated joke. Collin only understood it because of the books he'd read and some of the bootlegged videos that managed to survive the years. Most were grainy, low-res copies of ancient television shows.

  When Collin was growing up, parents didn't go out of town very often, so most kids wouldn't get that joke.

  Sophia was about to leave the apartment when Collin remembered something urgent. His encounter with the police on the highway felt like something from his distant past, and he had been too focused on running to think about that encounter since, but one memory suddenly came rushing back to him. It was a comment that he'd only half-heard at the time and hadn't thought of since, but it now hit him like a slap to the face.

  'I'll be glad to move to the new system.'

  He turned to Sophia and said, “Wait. I need you to pass on a message for me.”

  “It has to be short enough to fit into a fish mouth,” Sophia replied. Passing messages at the market sometimes involved strange techniques.

  “Tell them that I lost the blank Civvies. I failed them. I know. I'm sorry. But something else is going on. The police who stopped me on the highway said something about a new system that they're moving to.”

  Sophia stepped toward Collin and asked, “What kind of new system?”

  Collin shook his head and told her, “Something about replacing Civvies, or how they scan the Civvies. I don't really know. But we have to be on top of this. Freedom needs to know. They have to be prepared for whatever it is.”

  Sophia nodded in agreement and said, “I'll take care of it. You... Do your chores.”

  That was it. As dire as that information was and as desperately as he felt he needed to act on it, it was out of his hands. Sophia left the apartment and now that information was her responsibility.

  Once Sophia was gone, Collin sat in the kitchen, listening to the silence around him. When he was on the street, running for his life, he had never felt alone. He felt cameras watching him at every turn, and eyes on the back of his head, even when there were no people watching him.

  In that kitchen, he felt alone. He was almost comfortable there. When he got to work, he felt like any other person.

  He turned on the TV, just to have some background noise as he did his chores. Daytime TV was never much to his liking. It was filled with boring soap operas and small claims court shows which Collin found depressing. People argued over jackets and broken windows as though their lives were on the line, yet the majority of the people didn't think twice about having the government dictate what they ate, what they read, or where they lived. The government dictated whether they lived at all.

  Even as background noise, he found the petty squabbling frustrating. He was going to turn the TV off, but stopped when he saw the news update that was airing during a commercial break.

  “Coming up tonight at seven o'clock, we'll have the latest news on the hunt for deranged terrorist, Collin Powers,” the female news anchor announced, bringing a smile to Collin's face.

  “'Oh no! He's changing light bulbs! Run!'” he joked to himself.

  “We'll also have an exclusive interview with Powers' mother and sister, who haven't heard from Collin in years...”

  Collin stopped smiling. He turned to face the TV screen and saw a video clip of his little sister. She'd grown so much since he last saw her. She was beautiful. He held his breath as he watched her.

  “He's a monster,” she said. Hatred and embarrassment filled her eyes. “Whatever that thing is, it's not my brother. I hope they kill it.”

  The clip was over quickly. He watched his little sister wish him dead, and next to her was his mother. She was sitting silently, staring at her hands and saying nothing. She didn't even look at her daughter as she wished for Collin to be killed.

  He shouldn't have been surprised. This was nothing that he didn't know. They weren't members of Freedom, and whether they believed what they were saying or not, they would have to at least pretend to believe in it. Who knew what the authorities would do to them if they refused to speak out against him?

  When they were little kids, he could always tell when his sister was lying. She would tuck her hair behind her ear, whether it needed tucking or not. Even if her hair was tied back, she would go through the movements anyway.

  She didn't tuck her hair behind her ear in the clip that he saw. That fact felt like a knife, twisting in Collin's gut.

  He could tell himself that it was only a small, edited portion of the whole interview, but he couldn't convince himself that she didn't believe every word that was coming out of her mouth.

  For years, Collin had been holding onto the hope that at some point, he would be able to go back to his family. The second he saw that video, he knew that there was no going home.

  15

  Libby was up before sunrise. She sat in her quiet bedroom, staring at the ceiling, wishing that she could stay there all day. The world was such an easier place to live in when she didn't have to be a part of it.

  She allowed Amanda to sleep for a little while as she took a shower and got ready to leave for the hospital. By the time Amanda woke up, Libby had breakfast waiting. Amanda's headache was gone and she was well rested, so getting ready didn't take her very long. They were out the door quickly, and managed to get to the hospital by 7:30.

  That was when the waiting began. Amanda was on the schedule for the day, but there was no set time for her to be seen. She would have to arrive as early as possible, sign in at the desk and wait to be called. It could take minutes, or it could take hours.

  Libby wasn't quite sure how they decided who was seen first. She watched people come in long after her mother and get taken back almost right away. Judging by the people who were sitting in the waiting room, it wasn't determined by urgency either. This wasn't the emergency room, where ambulances rushed people in and they saw doctors right away. Libby figured that by the time some people were seen in this part of the hospital, they would either already be well or they would be long past saving.

  Libby watched the other patients in the waiting room, wondering how many of them were contagious. Amanda was sick enough as it was. She didn't need to go through a horrible flu or infection on top of everything else.

  When she saw her mother pulling her sleeves down over her hands in an effort to avoid touching anything, Libby did the same. Better safe than sorry.

  They sat in the waiting room for hours, listening to the TV that was hung on a wall behind them. It was turned to a news network, so anyone who wasn't depressed enough already would probably be suicidal by the time they left that place. There didn't seem to be good news anymore. The only stories that got any amount of airtime were tragedies and crimes. Libby wished that she could tune the news out completely, but it was too loud.

  As they waited, Amanda would occasionally start coughing. The people around her would look her way as though she were a biological weapon in their midst. Libby couldn't blame them. She was doing the same thing to everyone else.

  As the morning passed, Amanda was falling asleep in her chair and Libby was counting the ceiling tiles. When she got to the tiles in the far corner of the room, she saw what looked like mold growing on the ceiling and spreading down the wall. She wondered if the mold was dangerous, and spent a few minutes imagining the horrible illness that could ensue. Those images turned into horror movie scenarios, where the mold was from another planet, attacking the hospital from the inside out, so that the alien invaders could conquer the world.

  Finally, when she was bored with the mold, she decided that it was harmless. If it posed a threat, surely someone would have taken care of it by now. After all, this was a hospital, and the people who worked in a hospital had to
be a lot smarter than she was.

  By 12:30, the waiting room was so crowded that Libby could barely find a position to sit in where she wasn't making physical contact with at least one other person. Sitting down no longer felt like the best position to be in, since she couldn't see beyond the crowd and people kept tripping over her. Eventually, she gave her chair to a little boy and opted to stand.

  “You don't have to wait with me,” Amanda told her, looking as annoyed by the crowd as Libby.

  “I want to,” Libby told her, trying to sound sympathetic.

  The truth was that she wanted to hear her mother's diagnosis first hand. She needed to hear the details of Amanda's treatment so that she could help manage medications. Amanda was so stressed that her mind could wander during conversations. She sometimes forgot details. Libby couldn't let that happen this time.

  “I can have them write things down for me,” Amanda said. “You can read it all at home.”

  “I'm fine,” Libby smiled.

  “You shouldn't have to put up with this.”

  “I said, I'm fine.”

  Amanda dropped the issue. Libby was used to Amanda telling her to go out and have fun, but that was easier said than done. It wasn't in Libby's nature to walk away.

  Just after 2:30, Amanda's name was finally called. As she helped Amanda to her feet and the two of them started to push their way through the crowd, Libby saw a smile form on Amanda's face. She turned to see what Amanda was looking at, and found Uly walking toward them. Justin was at his side.

  “What are you doing here?” Amanda asked him, as he leaned in and gave her a quick kiss on the cheek.

  “I just wanted to come and support my favorite aunt,” Uly told her with a smile.

  His eyes met Libby's, and she couldn't help but wonder if his whole personality was an act. Was he merely pretending to be as caring as he seemed? A day earlier, she might have believed that he couldn't be bad, but seeing him smiling and pretending to be normal made her doubt how much she could trust her own instincts about him.