Chains of Freedom

by Selina Rosen

  David didn't understand why they were leaving so early, but he could tell there was something bothering RJ. There was silence, and silence bothered David. He waited for her to say what was on her mind. Finally he realized that she wasn't going to volunteer the information. "What's wrong?"

  RJ didn't answer. She just stared out at the ocean as if it would disappear if she looked away, stranding the boat on dry land. Her voice didn't want to work.

  "What's wrong?" David asked again. There was still no answer. "Damn it, RJ, what the hell's wrong with you?"

  "My father is dead!" she screamed back at him. She was mad at him because he had made her say it. The madder she got, the faster she drove the boat.

  "I'm very sorry, RJ." David didn't dare get up and move towards her. Not at this speed.

  Her eyes hurt, and her chest was tight. "I feel so . . . empty. I . . . I . . . like part of me is missing."

  "I know how you feel. I felt that way when my father died." She wasn't listening to him, and he understood that, too.

  David, under Topaz' guidance, had studied all the great orators at length. Hitler, the Kennedys, Franklin Roosevelt, Ayatollah Khomeini, Martin Luther King, several popes, and a host of celebrities and politicians from several different ages. In short, anyone who had been capable of moving the masses by the use of the spoken word, and that Topaz had on disk. But even with all that preparation, David looked at the growing crowd and felt unprepared.

  The crowd was getting restless. They had been lured here by flyers promising great and wonderful things. So far, they weren't impressed. Where were the booze and the naked dancers?

  David looked at RJ and gave her a panicked look.

  She smiled reassuringly back. She had no doubt that he could pull this off.

  Topaz actually left the island for the event, and he stood at RJ's side. The rest of them were scattered through the crowd. Topaz looked at David and nodded. It was time.

  David swallowed hard and jumped onto the hood of a nearby wreck. The crowd was so loud you couldn't hear yourself think.

  "Shut the fuck up!" Whitey bellowed from somewhere in the bowels of the crowd.

  They grew quiet.

  David searched for his voice and found it missing. He searched for RJ and found her looking at him expectantly. He couldn't let her down. "Citizens of Alsterase. Let me start by saying that we have disposed of all the Reliance spies, and that no one need fear reprisals for being here." A mumble moved like a wave through the crowd. They were no doubt debating whether or not they believed him. Several obviously didn't, and they left. But the bulk remained.

  "We, the citizens of Alsterase are the spurned and the outcast. We are the prisoners and the deformed of a repressive society. For our beliefs or what the Reliance chooses to call our crimes, we are forced to hide in the ruins of a forgotten city. Like lizards hiding in the rocks to escape the noonday sun, so do we hide here from the tyranny of the Reliance. But why should we hide? Are we not more righteous than our chained brothers? Are we not better than those who would willingly serve an oppressive and cruel system of government? A government that serves only itself!"

  The murmur that went through the crowd now was one of agreement.

  "When the Reliance took power centuries ago, they promised peace and prosperity, happiness, and good health. As each of us knows, the only peace, prosperity, happiness, and health are hoarded by a few. All at the top of the Reliance ladder. I ask you, is it peace to kill those who have a defect?"

  "No!" RJ prompted, and the crowd followed.

  "Is it wealth when you know if your crop doesn't come in, you'll starve? Or worse, be exterminated because you aren't earning your quota?"

  "No!" This time, they didn't have to be prompted.

  "Is it good health when the Reliance saves only those they find deserving? To hide from the masses the technology to save lives?"

  "NO!"

  "As for happiness. Find it for me. Can it be found in the face of a class-one farm worker who works the fields every day of his life and goes to bed every night hungry? Is it to be found in the life of a class-three cloth worker who sits at a loom all day with holes in his clothes? How about the class-two lumber worker whose roof leaks when it rains and whose walls let the winter winds blow through. Are they happy?"

  "NO!"

  "What of the Reliance soldier? The one who is expected to go to other worlds and fight for Reliance glory, yet will be imprisoned for any act of decency towards his fellow man—Is he happy?"

  "No!"

  "But the Reliance is happy."

  The crowd roared with enthusiasm, and he had to wait for the noise to die down before he could go on. "They sit in their fine homes with their uncalloused hands, eating their fill like fat ticks. All at our expense. As a people, we have become weak and afraid." Before they could turn on him, he added quickly. "But you, my brothers and sisters, are neither weak nor afraid. If you were either weak or afraid, you would not have lived to reach Alsterase. But, if we are not weak and afraid, why do we hide here? Why do we not take up arms and fight the Reliance? I'll tell you why! Until now we have been without leadership, without supplies, and without arms. To take on an empire without these things would be pure lunacy."

  From the mumbling which took place, it was obvious that they thought trying to fight with these things was none too smart, either. He was losing the crowd.

  "No one can defeat the Reliance!" someone yelled.

  "No one can do anything if they don't try," David answered. "The Reliance exists because of man's cowardice, and it will continue to thrive as long as we all run in fear. We can win; I have no doubt of that. But we will never win as long as we hide here in our safe little places. You say no one can beat the Reliance. What about RJ?"

  "So? You're not RJ!" someone screamed out.

  "No," RJ stepped forward through the crowd. "But I am."

  The crowd went wild for a moment, and then there was absolute silence.

  In that silence, David continued. "We have supplies. We have weapons. We have leadership. We have a cause, and we know our enemies. The Reliance tells us we are free . . ." Damn it, he had nothing to follow that up with. He looked around in a panic, and his eyes rested on RJ's chain. He smiled. "If we are free, then I say that it is time that we break these chains of freedom." In that moment, David won them heart and soul. "Who is our enemy?"

  "The Reliance!"

  "Who will we destroy?" He took a deep breath and waited.

  "The Reliance!"

  "Zone by zone. Planet by planet. We will trample our oppressors till all that remains of them is a black mark on the pages of history. Down with the Reliance!"

  "DOWN WITH THE RELIANCE!"

  "Long live the New Alliance! Strength to the Rebellion!"

  "LONG LIVE THE NEW ALLIANCE! STRENGTH TO THE REBELLION!"

  David's face was hot and sweaty. He looked out at the enthusiastic crowd. He drank in the power and began to change.

  Chapter Fifteen

  At RJ's command they began to fortify the city. Rubble was stacked into barricades in strategic areas all over the city, and the people were armed. In what was left of the foundation of an ancient building, using rubble and whatever could be stolen or scrounged, they constructed a training area. One of RJ's design.

  Then the training began.

  The training ground was a maze of sorts. Traps were built into it. None, of course, were deadly. But to fall prey to one was to admit to simulated death.

  RJ changed the configuration of the maze and the traps on a daily basis, so that there was no way to benefit from knowledge gained the day before.

  She split each group into three groups of ten. Each group was given the same goal, but began at a different door. If you ran into another group, you had to fight them to the "death." Death was indicated by a mark on the head or torso with a marking pen. The group that made it to their final goal with the most party members alive won free dinner and drinks for the evening. This not only gav
e them incentive, but promoted teamwork.

  Part of the maze had once been an Olympic-sized swimming pool, and RJ watched the goings on from her perch on the high-diving tower. Every once in awhile, if she thought a group was taking too long at a particular spot, she would throw a rubber ball into their area. If they didn't move on in sixty seconds, she counted them all dead.

  RJ called it a training center.

  The people called it "The Maze Of Death."

  The maze was not their only form of training. Recruits were also given classes on the use, care and repair of their weapons, and they were trained in hand-to-hand combat. Those training as soldiers got up with the sun, and their day started with a brisk, three-mile run. It always ended with a speech from David.

  It had been two months since David gave his first speech. Now there was not a man, woman or child that was not in some way contributing to the cause. Those who weren't training to become the fighting force were helping to build barricades and scrounge materials. Those unable to contribute in any other way were given the job of cleaning up.

  RJ never quite got over her military training. She believed in order and cleanliness. She believed that pride in community would strengthen their spirit. She believed that working together towards a common goal would help them fight together in the future. Watching them working together also gave her an idea of who would make leaders, and who would not; who could work together and who couldn't. This was as important in civilians as it was in troops. After all, when she took her troops off to fight, the others would be left to hold down the fort should it prove to be necessary.

  It was midsummer and hotter than blue blazes. If it were possible, tempers were hotter still. The troops were tired of training. They thought they were ready to fight.

  RJ looked down on the streets below. It would be dark soon. Already the streets were teeming with the night time crowd. These people were ready to go. They were ready to fight. The problem being that she wasn't.

  She looked at Whitey and smiled. He slept soundly, no problems and no worries. He was with her, and that was all he needed to be happy.

  She wished it were that easy for her.

  RJ walked over and sat on the edge of the bed. Whitey stirred and all but uncovered himself, but he didn't wake up. She looked at him and smiled wickedly. He deserved the rest.

  She frowned then, and pulled her robe tighter around her although it was far from cold.

  Her feelings for Whitey confused her more than anything else. She liked being with him. He made her feel good. She enjoyed making him happy. But in a way she resented his love, because it made her feel obliged to return it. She did love him, but she wasn't sure it was the way he wanted to be loved. She knew he wanted her to tell him she loved him, but for some reason she just couldn't. Like it would hurt her to do it, put her in a position of vulnerability. To love someone was to give them power to control your emotions. To tell them that you loved them put that power into their hands, and she had never been big on giving anyone power over her.

  Love caused pain. She tried not to, but as it had so often in the past few weeks, her thoughts turned towards her father. She hadn't felt quite right since she had learned of Stewart's death. David was the only one besides Topaz who even knew, and she had successfully avoided David's attempts to talk to her about it. She didn't want to think about it. She sure didn't want to talk about it, at least not with David, who, of late, couldn't order breakfast without giving a sermonette.

  She had told Whitey things she never thought she would tell anyone, and yet she hadn't tried to talk to him about this. There was something about saying it that made it feel so final. It was as illogical as her reasons for not saying 'I love you.'

  It was all so stupid. Stewart had been an old man, and he'd led a more than full life. Hell, it had been three years since she'd last seen him, and the way things were going now, she probably wouldn't have been able to see him again anyway.

  None of that mattered. It had somehow been comforting just to know that he was around, and now he wasn't. She was never going to see him again, and her only family now consisted of a selfish bitch who wanted her dead and a robot.

  Her troops were ready, but she just couldn't work herself into a good killing mood. She couldn't seem to erase from her mind the picture of her father putting a gun in his mouth and blowing the top of his head off. She was reluctant to leave Alsterase. This apartment was the first home she'd had since leaving her father's laboratory, and that hadn't exactly been homey.

  If the experiment had gone as planned, she wouldn't have had a childhood or a father. She probably would have grown up and been just like J-6. Having a father had made her different, and now her father was dead.

  Stewart hadn't deserved to die like that. He should have died quietly in his bed in his sleep one night. Kirk would pay for his death, but it wouldn't bring her father back.

  RJ put a hand to her forehead. Her chest felt tight. Her eyes filled with water until they overflowed and ran down her face. She touched her damp cheeks in disbelief. She was crying! Never before, in all her long years, had this happened. She buried her face in her hands and tried to breathe calmly, to stop this nonsense, but she couldn't.

  Her sobs woke Whitey. For a moment he thought he was still asleep, dreaming.

  "RJ?" He sat up and put a hand on her shoulder. "My God, RJ, what is it?" To his amazement, he found a sobbing woman in his arms. He held her tightly. He was scared; he couldn't imagine what could make her cry like this. "What's wrong?" he asked again.

  "My father's dead!" she choked out. She buried her face in his shoulder and cried even louder.

  "Oh, babe, I'm so sorry." He held her tighter and rocked her back and forth. RJ was crying, and not just a little bit, either. He didn't know what to do, what to say to make her stop. He felt his own chest tighten.

  "It's my fault," she said in a gasp. "Because I'm a freak!"

  "Come on, baby. If you're a freak, whose fault is that?" Whitey said gently.

  She lifted her head up off his shoulder and looked at him. He was right of course. She felt a wave of relief begin to wash over her, but her grief and guilt pushed it back.

  "It's still my fault." She buried her face in his shoulder again. "He's dead because I had to take on the Reliance." A fresh assault of choking sobs shook her. "He's dead. He's dead, I'm never going to see him again, and it's all my fault."

  "It's not your fault. Don't blame yourself." His own voice sounded choked. He held her tightly enough to have broken a normal person's ribs. He had never had any desire to see that RJ had a vulnerable side. He didn't want her to hurt. He didn't want her to cry. She was in pain, and there was nothing he could do but watch. He felt useless. He rested his head on top of hers. "Please don't cry, RJ. Please don't." His own tears started to flow. "I can't stand it if you do."

  RJ couldn't stop. She didn't even try. Nothing that had gone before had prepared her for this. She'd seen death and misery, often wading through countless bodies of the dead and dying. But she had never lost anyone she cared about before.

  There were things she supposed she should have cried about in the past. It was going to be a long time before she did this again, so she might as well get it all over with at once. She didn't really understand it, but crying like this made her feel better. It felt good to purge herself of her grief and frustration. It felt good to know that Whitey was there. That he cared for her, and that he would not leave her side until she'd made it through this. Slowly, she began to realize that she was not the only one crying. She pulled back and looked at Whitey. He was crying, too.

  "Whitey, you didn't even know him. Why are you crying?" She dried the tears from her face, then started to dry them carefully from his.

  "I don't know. I think because you're crying and you hurt, and I can't fix it." He shrugged.

  RJ looked into his eyes. Eyes almost as blue as hers, but devoid of the hardness hers had acquired over the years. He was a good man, a beautiful man, a ge
ntle man who deserved a good and gentle woman. Unfortunately, he loved her.

  She kissed him gently on the lips. "You're wonderful." She ran her hand over his stomach. She liked the way he felt, all warm and hairy. She kissed him again. "Make love to me?"

  He didn't have to be asked twice.

  It was different this time. All the passion was there, all the intensity, but it was more emotional, more intimate. Unbelievably, it was better.

  Afterwards, she lay curled up against him, her face lying on his chest. He ran his hand down her back, and watched her body rise and fall with the rhythm of her breathing. "I love you," he whispered. Then wished he hadn't, as the silence roared in his ears.