by Kyle Andrews
When he settled down at the table for dinner, he stared at the food that the other members of Freedom had sent him. Though those people had no means of fighting back against the system, they rebelled in their own ways. This food was the only victory that many of those people could ever claim over an oppressive government, and they gave it to him. A young girl gave him her birthday cake. Families gave food off of their table.
He felt like he should take a moment to honor their sacrifice, or thank someone for the food, but he couldn't think of anything proper to do or say.
“Are you waiting for your salad to grow roots?” Sophia asked, well into her own meal.
When Collin looked to her plate, he noticed that Sophia hadn't taken any of the better food for herself. He asked, “Why aren't you eating any of it?”
“It's not poisoned, I promise.”
“I'm serious.”
Sophia took a forkful of her own food. Once she had chewed and swallowed, she said, “It wasn't intended for me.”
“Come on. Have some. Please.”
“You should worry about yourself.”
“I'm worried about you. They're feeding you crap, and you're ignoring the good food that's sitting in the kitchen.”
Sophia didn't answer. She simply continued to eat her own food. After a moment of waiting for a response, Collin stood, grabbed her plate and walked into the kitchen.
He scooped the disgusting canned vegetables off of her plate and into the garbage. He grabbed two slices of bread and started making Sophia a sandwich, with fresh lettuce, tomato and cucumber. He put a brownie on the side and walked back to the table and put the plate in front of her.
“Now, eat your damn sandwich,” he said, with a slight grin.
Sophia smiled and said, “You did not just say that to me.”
“You said it to me.”
“I am your elder. Respect me, boy.”
His smile faded and he looked to the food on his plate as he said, “I respect you.”
Once Sophia gave in and started to eat the food on her plate, Collin began to eat his. The vegetables were fresh and crisp. The taste of them brought him back to his base, and to the days spent amongst his friends and loved ones. If he closed his eyes, he felt like he was back home. His real home. With the family that would never call him a monster, even with a gun aimed at their heads. It was easy for him to lose track of that feeling. Sophia was a great woman, but she was a stranger up until all of this happened. Collin was isolated from the people he knew and the place he lived. He was cut off from his entire life, and had been living in a strange, surreal nightmare ever since that night on the highway.
After he ate all but the brownie on the plate, Collin asked Sophia, “How long do you think it will take them to get me out of here?”
“Hard to say. It's tricky with the cameras and all that, but I'm sure they're working on a plan.”
“What happens if they can't?”
“Then you stay here.”
“That's not fair to you. I can't put you in danger.”
“I'm in danger every time I carry an apple that isn't on my shopping list.”
“It's not the same thing.”
“I knew what I was doing when I put that dog on the front steps. I will never be able to carry a gun into war against those people. I will never plant the flag and dance in the streets. This is how I fight back.”
Collin didn't want to push the subject. He knew how annoying he must sound, beating himself down and playing the wounded animal. He was stronger than that, usually. But there was something inside of him that felt off somehow. He couldn't put his finger on it, but it made him feel like he wasn't supposed to be there, or back at his base, or at home, or anywhere else. He felt... defective. Like a broken piece of the machine that should be discarded without a second thought.
After dinner, he turned on the TV. Sophia protested, telling Collin that nothing good would come from his watching the interview with his mother and sister. She told him that he would be better off cleaning the floors or learning how to knit. According to Sophia, knitting was very calming. But he insisted on watching, and waited for the news to come on.
That night, instead of playing the interview with his family, the news was dominated by another breaking story. Apparently, a Collin Powers sympathizer named Uly Jacobs had threatened to blow up a hospital earlier that evening.
Collin and Sophia sat in silence as they watched the news spin another poor soul into the hateful hearts and minds of the following masses.
“Not much is yet known about Jacobs,” the reporter explained. “Sources tell us that he was a high school senior, awaiting assignment. An athlete whose strong exterior hid the weak, broken mind of a madman.
“As we await details on Jacobs' life, witnesses at the hospital tell us of the harrowing events which took place earlier in the evening, when a relative of Jacobs' was brought into the hospital for treatment, apparently sending Jacobs off the deep end. After arriving at the hospital, Jacobs attempted to cause an explosion in the hospital's maternity ward. If successful, he would have undoubtedly killed dozens of innocent newborns and their parents. Fortunately, one hospital worker noticed Jacobs' odd behavior and took action.”
The screen changed to the image of a janitor, with a microphone being held in front of his face. He was an older man, who looked far too frail to ever overpower a healthy seventeen-year-old boy—an athlete, no less—but Collin didn't expect many of the loyalists to pick up on that fact.
“Well, I just saw him in there and he was looking around, kinda strange, you know?” the man said to the reporter who stood off-camera.
The way his eyes were moving back and forth made Collin wonder if he was reading this story from a teleprompter.
“So I called the authorities and then I struggled with the boy—with the terrorist—to get him away from the oxygen tanks.”
The janitor was replaced on the screen by an image of the hospital's exterior. A crowd was gathered outside.
The reporter continued to narrate, “What happened next was like a scene from a Hollywood movie. Jacobs' attempt was thwarted and he tried to make a run for it. He ran through the hospital, looking for other victims. Perhaps the elderly. Perhaps children with horrible diseases, or women suffering from breast cancer.
“When the police and HAND officers arrived on the scene, the fight was quickly over. Jacobs was subdued and authorities attempted to transport him to the state psychiatric facility, where he would receive proper caring treatment for his mental disease. But then, things took another shocking twist...”
The image on the screen switched to footage from a traffic camera, just outside of the hospital. It showed everything that happened next. Uly Jacobs being hauled out of the hospital. Struggling to get free after realizing where he would be taken next.
Collin watched, and it was as though he were seeing everything that could have happened to him not too long ago. If he hadn't won the fight and gotten away, he would have been on a video just like this.
The reporter went on, “As officers attempted to ease Jacobs into their vehicle, the Hate member apparently snapped, and attempted to lunge toward a small boy, not quite visible from the angle that we're seeing now. As he tried to harm the child, he screamed, 'Hate's in our blood.' Then, just as he was about to murder the boy, a HAND officer took Uly Jacobs out, ending this nightmare in the hospital once and for all. We warn you, this next piece of footage may be difficult for some of our more sensitive viewers.”
Sophia shook her head an put a hand over her mouth as she watched the brutal video of Uly Jacobs' murder. She didn't turn away. She watched every second of it.
They replayed the footage over and over again on the news that night. They had experts discussing the matter, and doctors debating whether Uly Jacobs was in need of caring medical attention, or if he should have been locked up in the most secure prison they could find.
In the end, both doctors agreed that sometimes a crazed anima
l just needs to be put down.
Collin wanted to throw something at the TV. He wanted to scream and fight. He wanted to run into the street and dare them to come for him, because in that moment, he had the overwhelming urge to rip people apart. There was no more guilt over the men he killed. They deserved to die. They were the enemy.
21
As Libby walked away from the hospital, she didn't know where she was going. Amanda was still in there, sick and probably scared. She would be wondering where Libby was and nobody had the answer.
The longer she stayed away from the hospital, the more she risked people thinking that she was a member of Freedom, or Hate, or whatever they were called. She couldn't even keep it straight in her own head anymore. All she knew was that she wasn't a part of anything. She was just trying to get through life, the same as everyone else. She didn't stand for anything.
If she could explain that to people, maybe they would understand. Then again, they might not give her the chance to explain herself. If she showed up at the hospital, maybe they would shoot her in the head, the same way that they shot Uly. After that it would be difficult to set the record straight.
As she walked down the street, Libby came to a public TV that was hanging on a post near the sidewalk. It displayed all of the national news and events, similar to the TV screens in her school. Normally, people would walk past those monitors without a second thought, but on that night there was a crowd.
At first, Libby thought that there might be some big break in the Collin Powers situation. She'd heard something about an interview with the people who knew him the best, and that was sure to get some attention from people on the street. At the very least, it would take her mind and their attention off of Uly, if only for a little while.
It was almost funny how the story of a fugitive which had made her feel so scared and uncertain only a day before was now where she was looking for comfort and reassurance. In a weird way, it felt like the world she knew still existed, as long as Collin Powers was out there and the hunt for him continued.
It sounded stupid in her head, even as she thought it. Collin Powers was part of the problem. He was a part of the chaos that was starting to close in around her. Looking to that story for a sense of normalcy was crazy, but she didn't care. She needed something to replace the images in her mind, of Uly's head exploding, over and over again.
When she got close enough to the TV, she could hear the female reporter. The story on the news wasn't about Collin Powers, it was about Uly. Libby's stomach churned as soon as she realized what those people were gathered around the TV to see. It was an ugly story, about how Uly had tried to kill babies and then strangle a kid in the crowd outside of the hospital.
Lies. Libby knew they were lies.
'Hate's in our blood' wasn't what Uly really said, she told herself. He said, 'It's in our blood.' She heard him. Didn't she?
She was starting to doubt her own memory. She wondered if maybe the shock of the moment distorted the words that came from his mouth. Was the TV report right?
No. It couldn't be. The memory was so vivid in her mind that she could practically reach out and touch Uly in the seconds before he died. She could smell the air from that moment; the exhaust fumes that lingered behind a delivery truck that drove by moments earlier. She could feel the ground beneath her feet, cracked and uneven. She knew what happened, beyond a doubt. They were wrong about what he had said.
Maybe witnesses were trying to make themselves sound heroic after the dramatic killing of a Hate member. Or maybe the reporters were making up stories to fill time until they knew the truth. Either way, Libby knew that the person they were describing was not her cousin. He wouldn't hurt one baby, much less an entire maternity ward. He wouldn't attack random kids on the street. He wouldn't even attack an adult.
There were a lot of things about Uly that Libby didn't know for certain anymore, but what she did know was that if he was a member of Freedom, it was because he believed in their cause. He believed them to be the good guys, which meant that there had to be some angle from which their ideas made sense. Uly wasn't stupid. He wasn't evil. He might have been wrong, but he was not so wrong that he deserved to die. He was still the person that she had known her entire life. Even if she hated him at times, he didn't deserve to be remembered as a lunatic baby killer.
Libby didn't need the memory of his death playing in her head as she watched the TV, because they played the video of it over and over again, slowing down the footage a little bit more each time and narrating the sequence of events. Libby couldn't stand to watch it, so she looked to the faces of the people who surrounded the TV. She saw one mother, covering the eyes of her little boy while her own remained glued to the screen. She saw a bearded man laugh each time Uly's head exploded.
“Oooh,” the man laughed. “That's gotta hurt.”
“Hey, if you're head's gonna explode someplace, the hospital's a good place for it to explode!” another man in the crowd chuckled.
The first man added, “Pop goes the weasel.”
“Stop it! Both of you!” an older woman shouted, turning toward the men with a hurt, angry expression in her eyes.
Finally, someone was going to stand up for Uly. At the very least, they could mourn the loss of a human life. Every life had some value, right? Even the death of a murderer—which Uly was not—should not be joked about and celebrated as though it were the winning score of some sporting event.
Finally, someone was going to yell at those men and say some of the things that Libby herself wanted to say. Because she couldn't say them herself. She couldn't risk exposing the truth about who she was.
“You should be ashamed of yourselves,” the woman scolded. “That young boy could have been hurt, and babies before him. This isn't a joke. This is a plague that's infecting our entire culture. That terrorist and people like him are trying to destroy us.”
Libby's heart sank. Even if she didn't agree with Uly's cause, she knew that he wasn't trying to destroy anyone. He was trying to save people the only way that he knew how.
An elderly man in the crowd shook his head and asked, “What's that he yelled? About the blood?”
“'Hate's in our blood,'” the bearded man answered, suddenly sounding less sarcastic. “He said, 'Hate's in our blood.'”
Libby wanted to correct them. She wanted to scream the truth as she knew it to be, but she also didn't want draw attention to herself. She kept quiet, listening to them go on.
“Maybe it's the contamination,” another woman proposed. “Maybe they went off their supplements and it changed them. Maybe they're not even human anymore.”
“I think it's safe to say that they're not human,” replied the woman who had scolded the crowd moments earlier.
Libby's eyes were filling with tears. Uly was a human being. He meant something. His life mattered to people. To her. To Justin. To Marti and Amanda.
As she thought of her mother's name, Libby once again thought about what Amanda must be going through. Hospitals were bad enough on a normal day, but to see what the news was showing, and to be alone would be horrific. On top of the cancer, she would probably have to deal with HAND. They would ask her all about Uly, and what would she say? Would she lie to protect herself? Or would she demand that he wasn't the monster that everyone believed him to be?
As Libby played out that scene in her mind, it took an ugly turn. She could imagine Amanda insisting that Uly was a good person, and the people asking questions would see this as sympathy toward Hate. They might mistake Amanda for a member herself and take her to prison—assuming they didn't shoot her in the head right there.
Amanda would die in prison. She would receive no treatment for her cancer. She would die a slow, agonizing death. All because Uly was a member of Hate.
She was growing angry at Uly again. She hated him for a moment, until the TV replayed his death again in gory, horrifying detail. Then, she couldn't hate him. All she could do was hate her situation. Hate her life.
Hate the system. Hate the world. Things were hard enough when all she had to deal with was a sick mother and the loss of whatever youth she had left. Now her life was insufferable. Maybe Uly was the lucky one. At least he got out early.
The longer Libby stayed with that crowd and watched the news, the more she expected to see her own face flashed across the screen. Zuxu knew that she was there that day and that she went to find her cousin. She was tied to this situation and HAND would be looking for her. She didn't know what to do about that. She didn't know whether she should run for her life or turn herself in. Surely, there had to be a system in place for people like her. The government wouldn't just wipe out anyone who happened to be related to a member of Hate. After all, Collin Power's family was going to be on the news that night, until a bigger story broke. They were still alive.
Her home would be the safest place for her. If someone wanted to find her, they could find her. It wouldn't look like she was running or hiding if she went home. She could tell the authorities the truth about the argument that she had with Uly, and how she left him behind at the hospital.
They'd ask what the fight was about. If she told them, they might think that she was a sympathizer. What would she say if they asked her if she ever planned to turn him in? That she couldn't? Because she didn't want to see her cousin put in prison? That sounded an awful lot like sympathy.
She walked away from the TV and the crowd, and toward her home. If Amanda had been released from the hospital, she could be there already.
On her way home, she walked through the questions that HAND might ask her. She practiced her response, telling them that Uly never approved of her boyfriend and she was tired of his trying to rule her life. It was true enough to not be a lie.
And then there was the conversation that she would have to have with Amanda in private. How that discussion would go was anybody's guess. Would Amanda be sad about Uly's death? Would she believe what was being said about him on TV? Would she be angry about what he was, and glad that he was dead?
