by Kyle Andrews
Libby was tired. It had been a long day. She didn't want to think about any of these things. She just wanted to sleep.
As she got closer to her apartment building, she could see the crowd on the sidewalk beginning to thicken. She hadn't even thought about the people who would just love to get a glimpse of the notorious Uly Jacobs' home. Undoubtedly, they would want to get inside. Kids from school would see her and either try to become her new best friend, or accuse her of being a terrorist herself. And how would she react to those people? Anything she said would be ignored and their minds would create their own narrative. She would become nothing more than a character in whatever story they concocted.
She stopped walking and tried to figure out what she wanted to do next. If she went to that building, there would be a ton of people. Reporters. HAND. There would be no avoiding them. There would be no turning back. She needed to decide where she stood on the matter of Uly's membership in Freedo—Hate. Hate. If she uttered the word 'Freedom' in front of anyone else, she would be shot in the head, just like Uly.
How strange. That morning Libby had woken up, planning to go to the hospital and receive horrible news about Amanda. She wouldn't be happy about it, but she was expecting it. She knew it was coming and she was okay with it, as much as she could be.
How had the day taken such a sharp turn? How had this become her life? Since when was she worried about the government taking her into custody for acts of terrorism?
There were lights flashing across the buildings and people in front of her, coming from the direction of her apartment building. Red and white flashes, which she hadn't noticed at first, but which suddenly became the only thing that she could focus her attention on.
She heard a siren in the distance. A horn sounding just a short burst, but echoing through the streets. There was a dark cloud lingering in the air above her. She watched it hanging there for a moment, mesmerized by the way its shape was constantly shifting and swirling. It took her far too long to realize that it wasn't a cloud that she was looking at. It was smoke, drifting in the breeze.
There was a dusty, smoky smell in the air. Once Libby's mind began to put together the pieces of this puzzle, she started to walk again. She was hoping that she was wrong, because she didn't need any other disasters that day. All she needed was to curl up in her own bed and sleep under her own water stains. She needed a shower. She needed to call Sim and figure out what she was supposed to do about any of this mess.
She rounded the corner and looked at the street in front of her. In that moment, everything that she had feared became reality.
Her apartment building was a torn apart. The upper floors had a hole blown out of them. Lights inside were flickering, revealing glimpses of the charred remains of her apartment. Uly's wall was blown out, taking most of hers with it. His floor had collapsed into her apartment. Everything she owned was either blown apart, burned to a crisp, dripping with water from the fire trucks, or shattered on the street below.
A bomb had gone off. From the looks of it, it had gone off in Uly's apartment.
Libby tried to keep a distance, hoping that nobody would see her standing there, eyes wide with disbelief as she stared at the wreckage of her life.
The only thing that she could clearly make out from inside Uly's apartment was one wall, with red spray painted words written across it: HATE PREVAILS.
22
“If you look at the video, you can see that there's a look in his eyes. It's almost animal-like. Wild. Vicious. We see that a lot when it comes to members of this sort of fanatical, extreme cult society,” said a plump woman, with gray hair and thick-rimmed glasses. She wore a pantsuit with an ugly floral pattern running across it.
The news had ended. Now the network that Collin and Sophia were watching was showing a roundtable discussion show. Normally, they would discuss several topics in one night but this was a special occasion. The night was dedicated entirely to Uly Jacobs' attack on small children and disabled elderly people.
The woman speaking was a psychologist of some sort, who had authored several books on the subject of Hate and similar organizations around the country. Her name was Dr. Elsa Forge.
“They're completely irrational,” she continued. “They have a genuine belief that the world is out to get them. That they're avenging some cultural wrong. But as we can see here, there is something more going on.”
“What do you mean?” asked the show's host, Tadd Donovan, whose smile was distractingly white, matching his hair.
“What I mean is, I don't believe that this is just a matter of wrong ideas running amok. I think that this is a severe, clinical illness. I believe it's diagnosable. Possibly even on a genetic level, before a child is born.”
Tadd was nodding along, showing how well he was following her words, while one or two of the other guests huffed and shook their heads.
One man, Professor Desmond Smith took off his glasses and placed them in his lap. He wiped his eyes with his fingers and said, “Absurd.”
“You disagree with Dr. Forge?” Tadd asked the Professor.
“I believe that the doctor is trying to rationalize irrational behavior. I believe that by classifying such social disorders as an illness, you are essentially turning murderers into victims.”
“I'm doing no such thing,” Dr. Forge laughed. “This is a severe defect. Those who are diagnosed would have to be terminated or locked up, in order to prevent the sort of ruthless attack that we saw today. I am not sympathizing with the infected. I'm saying that they should be discovered early and weeded out of our society.”
“And treated?” the Professor asked.
“I don't know if there is a treatment. If you look at the video of Ulysses Jacobs, you'll notice physical elements that are characteristic of this sort of genetic malfunction. His eyes have an odd placement to them. His movements are almost robotic. This is not a case of depression or bi-polar disorder where we can prescribe medication. This is a problem with the core of their physical construction. Their genes. Their DNA.”
“'Hate's in our blood.'” Tadd smiled, proud at himself for contributing to the conversation.
“Exactly. Though, I doubt that he was speaking from a place of rationality or medical concern. I think he was projecting his anger, trying to differentiate himself and those like him from the rest of humanity. In essence, he was dehumanizing the people that he was trying to kill, so that there wouldn't be any guilt afterward.”
One of the other female panelists, Kharma Rhude chimed in. She was a younger woman, known more for her standup comedy routines than for her political insight. She said, “I've met people like that. They're called men!”
The audience laughed. Her fellow panelists chuckled politely, though they didn't seem genuinely amused.
“Yeah, that explains a lot of my past boyfriends,” Kharma went on. “Genetic duds. That's why I'm always forced to have abortions. See, Ma? I'm saving lives and helping humanity! I'm not just a whore like you're always telling me... Well, I mean, I'm a whore too. But I'm not just a whore.”
Again, the audience laughed.
Tadd turned his attention back to the more serious guests. He looked to a young journalist, Malcolm Liss and said, “Malcolm, you're out there on the streets. You see the chaos and destruction on a daily basis.”
Malcolm nodded.
“So?” Tadd pressed. “What do you think of it all?”
“I think it's a terrible condition. Obviously, people shouldn't have to live in fear, which is exactly what this sort of story is all about.”
“So true,” Professor Smith agreed. “It's about fear. Taking power from people.”
“It's about anomalies,” Dr. Forge sighed, shaking her head. “Putting it in such human terms like that is exactly what you were just accusing me of. If these are just mean guys who want power, they can be locked up and reformed to be useful members of society. Sadly, I don't think that's the case. The anomalies are genetically different.”
“Is there a way to identify those differences today?” Tadd asked her.
“Of course, once we pinpoint the exact deformity in their genetic structure, we'll be able to scan for them fairly easily. The technology has been in the works for decades, but we're just now seeing those devices on a small enough, and affordable enough scale, to be put to everyday use.”
Tadd turned toward the camera and smiled to the audience at home as he said, “There you have it. Perhaps Ulysses Jacobs was onto something when he proclaimed that Hate is in their blood. Whether it's the result of citizens not taking their supplements, or some other genetic defect, perhaps the war we face is not about ideals, but about mutation. For this war to be won, perhaps we need to find these anomalies and make sure that they're no longer capable of harming others.
“I'd like to thank my panelists for joining me tonight. Tomorrow, we'll discuss the continuing effort to track down another anomaly, Collin Powers. Goodnight, fellow humans.”
As Tadd's smile grew, Sophia muted the TV and looked toward the ceiling.
“Wow,” she said.
Collin didn't say anything. He was still watching the muted TV, which was once again playing the death of Uly Jacobs, in a preview for the next scheduled news hour.
'Hate's in our blood!'
The line lingered in Collin's head. He didn't know whether he was trying to make sense of that line, or figure out what Uly Jacobs really said. It made no sense to him. What was in his blood? There was no audio in the traffic camera footage that was airing all over the different stations, so there was no way of knowing what really happened in that moment. Whatever Uly actually said, people would remember the quote that was being fed to them. After all, how many citizens would ever question what the news reporters told them?
“Notice what they did there? The side stepping and fast-footed little dance? 'Uly' became 'Ulysses Jacobs' in a matter of hours... He doesn't have a nickname anymore, because nicknames humanize people. Hell, we're not even people anymore. We're mutants. Anomalies. Over the course of five minutes, they slapped a label onto us and drew a divide between human beings and members of Freedom. Normal people at home are going to see that, and whatever sympathy they might have had for people like us will turn to repulsion. Hating us is all about their survival now.”
“Wasn't it always?” Collin asked.
“Yes. But now they're actually calling us inhuman. We're not figurative monsters anymore, we're literally monsters,” Sophia said, with a smile. It was as though she thought the whole thing were funny somehow. She added, “They even threw in a celebrity to crack jokes. The concept of the anomalies is part of pop culture now. It's cool. It's hip. Man, if we had their sort of media spinning capabilities, we'd be able to win this fight in a heartbeat.”
“They used to do the same thing in school. Only before you know what to look for, it doesn't look like anything at all. It seems like a rational conversation, right up until you're the monster that they're talking about,” Collin told her, still watching the TV.
The video of Uly was gone, but Collin was replaying it in his head. He wasn't focusing on the death, but something else that he noticed in the video.
Sophia turned off the TV and went into the kitchen to get herself a drink of water. Collin lingered on the couch for a second or two before following her. He leaned his elbows on the counter as he said, “In Freedom, I'm not really much of anything.”
“Oh, fun. Wallowing,” Sophia replied, dryly.
“No. I mean, I'm a low-level guy. I don't strategize. I don't plan. I do my job. I listen to what people tell me. I earn my keep, but I'm not remarkable, and I like it that way. But when I was out there...”
He drifted off at the end of his thought, leaving Sophia hanging. She stared at him for a few moments, waiting for him to finish whatever it was that he was trying to say, but his mind was already someplace else.
“When you were out there?” Sophia pushed.
“Back in high school...”
“You're all over the place, aren't you?”
“No, seriously. Back in high school, they kept assigning me to these extracurriculars that I had absolutely no interest in. Football. Hockey. Boxing. Climbing. Tumbling. For years, I was just going from one to another, and I did pretty well. I won some games. I got some trophies. I never loved it, but I did it.”
He waited, expecting Sophia to come back with another quip. He gave her the chance to jump in, but rather than make fun of him, Sophia put her glass down on the counter and waited for him to go on.
“The video they just played was strange. I knew him.”
“Was he part of your group?”
“Not Uly Jacobs. A HAND officer who was standing behind him. We went to school together. We were always getting assigned to the same extracurriculars. I thought it was funny back then. Strange, but nothing too crazy. Just something we joked around about.
“Then I joined Freedom and I realized how much of what they taught us in school was just programming. They wanted us to obey. They wanted to mold us into whatever they needed us to be. I know it, but seeing him on the video...”
Sophia nodded, “You really understood it.”
“Out on the street, I was shooting people and running and fighting. It was everything that they taught me in school, just redirected.”
“You were going to be police, maybe.”
“No. They weren't trained like I was. Not from a young age, and not as relentlessly. I was supposed to be a HAND officer. And it makes sense. I kept my head down and went with the flow. I knew enough to not ask too many questions in school.... Well, for the most part. I knew the answers they wanted me to give on all of the tests. On paper, I was the perfect candidate.”
Collin pushed off of the counter and walked around the room, trying his best to avoid the windows. He needed to move, but there wasn't anywhere for him to go.
“Their methods are all the same,” he said. “They build your instincts. They decide what you're repulsed by and what you like. They decide how you react to situations. They create us. Even after I left them behind, they're still inside my head. My body still moves the way they told it to move.”
“I don't think they wanted you to use that body against them,” Sophia reminded him. “You are not their creation.”
“I know that. I'm... an anomaly.” He smiled when he said that.
To Sophia, it probably seemed like Collin was brooding about his life and what he'd been through. He'd done enough of that, so her assumption was valid. But this was different.
Ever since killing those people, he'd felt their blood on his hands. He was defending himself; he knew that. He knew that if he hadn't killed them, they would have killed him, or subjected him to unthinkable torture. Despite what he knew, he couldn't get the memories out of his head. He couldn't stop feeling like the monster that his sister believed him to be. Now he could finally put his finger on why.
Those officers were just like him. They were raised in the same system that he was raised in. They were exposed to the same lessons. They were taught to hate the same things and to feel a duty to their country.
He could remember being in class as a young child, with his teacher singing a song to the students about putting faith in the hands of the leaders of our nation; putting faith in the hands of the people who know best. She sang the praises of the politicians, with lyrics that were full of fluff and rhyme. Horrible songs, but the type of songs that he still found himself humming at times, because they got caught in his head and became a piece of his childhood.
The police officers and HAND officers were the kids that he went to school with. They were him, if only he'd never stopped to ask the question: Why?
Did that make them blameless? Not really. They were adults. It was the responsibility of an adult to question the world around them and to think for themselves. It was the duty of an adult to demand freedom. There was no excuse for turning a blind eye. But at the same time, they weren't entirely at fault either.
Collin lived in a country full of victims; willing or not. How long would they abide? How long would they allow kids like Uly Jacobs to have their heads blown off in the streets without asking a question about it?
Guilt was giving way to anger. In that moment, even Freedom seemed to be sitting by. What use was an underground rebellion? Who cared if people disagreed with the system while hiding in the shadows, passing cryptic notes to each other?
It wasn't enough. They needed to do more. Collin needed to do more. As he thought and paced, he came too close to a window. He quickly caught himself and backed away. Instinct told him to remain hidden.
23
The sight of those words painted on Uly's wall sent a chill up Libby's spine. The message was wrong. The color of the paint was wrong. Those words went against everything that she knew about Uly.
Then again, what did she know about Uly? She knew that he had been keeping secrets from her. She knew that he belonged to a group of people who were working against the government. What did she know about those people, aside from what Uly and Justin had told her? Maybe they were liars. Maybe they were terrorists.
She pulled up the collar on her jacket and tried to hide her face from the crowd as she walked away from her apartment building, putting the scene behind her as quickly as possible without drawing any attention to herself. She had to force herself to keep her head down, though she suspected that she'd already been seen on several street cameras by that point.
Why was she hiding? She wasn't guilty of anything, but the authorities didn't know that.
She looked down at her watch and saw that she only had twenty-eight minutes before curfew. She needed to use those minutes wisely, but where could she go and who could she trust?
The sad truth of it was, there weren't a lot of people for her to choose from. Most girls her age would have a list of guys willing to spare a bit of mattress space in a pinch, but Libby wasn't most girls. She had one guy, and she wasn't sure that she would be able to make it to his apartment before curfew.
