by K. C. Finn
Goddie nods. Yolanda makes a scoffing sound, looking me up and down.
“Can’t believe I was taken out by a little boy like ya. Are all ya rebels dis tiny?”
She’s tall, all right. She’s sleek and pretty and confident, even in shackles. And though I know I have so much more power than her, in this situation and countless others, the way she looks me over makes me feel like I’m less than her. I hate the shiver it gives me, and the crawling sensation on my skin. It makes me take my gun, gripping hard. Goddie puts his hands over mine, turning me away to speak quietly into my ear.
“Yolanda used to be my babysitter,” he explains. “She knew my mother, and she likes to think she knows everything else too.”
I’ve met so many people within the System that hate it, that it’s strange to see someone loyal to the core. Even when Goddie and I take Yolanda up to be held captive with the small group of staff that Andrew apprehended at the facility, she’s railing about treason and terrorism, how the military isn’t the way forward.
“Don’t ya know dat Prudell is lying to ya?” Goddie tries to reason as we guide her struggling form to the other captives. “Don’t ya realise that she kills and threatens to get what she wants?”
“Does it matter?” Yolanda shoots back. “If she keeps us safe, I say all de more force is needed.”
It takes me aback, weighing my gut down and lacing my throat with a sour taste.
“You don’t care that Prudell kills children?” I ask. “That she bombs prisons and legions full of her own people, just to neutralise a few rebels here and there?”
We’re finally at the door to the place where the other captives are held. I cover it with my gun as Goddie opens it up, and to my surprise I find it’s only a supply closet. The other staff members are sitting against a back wall, their hands still bound. Someone has brought them food, but left it in a bowl on the floor. It makes me think they must have been eating like dogs for the two days we’ve been here. Yolanda just laughs.
“Ya. Because ya crew here is dat much better dan her. You’re de same shit on a different day. We don’t need ya freedom and ya overthrow, because all it’s gonna do is end up like dis again in a few years’ time.”
As I get Yolanda seated, she tries to rush me with a sharp kick to my leg. It’s the bruised one that Briggs tried to crush, and it crumbles enough for her to come level and try and headbutt me. Goddie is there to push her back, but once he’s stepped out of the door one of the other captives tries to make a break for it. I swivel just in time to smash my gun into his legs and take the man down. As we pull him back into place, I see the pleading look in his eyes. He’s quite elderly. Probably someone’s grandfather.
“I’m sorry,” I say, my chest tight. “I’m sorry you think we’re no better than her, but I hope you’ll change your minds when you see those people outside of these walls.” I swallow hard, straightening up as Goddie and I get back to the doors. “Maybe when you see how grateful they are for clean clothes, good food and a safe future, like you have, then you’ll understand why your old ways have to change for the good of everyone.”
We shut the door, securing it even as Yolanda gets back up to smash her shoulder on it. I hear a few hits before she curses, then there’s the dull thud of her sitting back down. I check the door again, just to be sure it won’t budge. The radio crackles to life and I clutch my leg whilst Goddie answers it.
“Next train is coming in on the horizon, folks. Get back up here ASAP.”
We break a jog at once, despite the pounding in my head and the burning in my shin.
“Let’s hope the next one’s not as active as your babysitter,” I say between pants.
Goddie shakes his head as we take the stairs down to track level. “She was always a hard-ass, but I didn’t think she’d turn on her own people like dat. I suppose if ya think it’s de only way to survive.”
I guess some people don’t believe that real change is possible. Maybe it’s because I’m young, because so much change has happened to me for the worse in less than a year, that I do believe in it. It helps me understand Prudell’s influence and success despite her obvious shortcomings and violent tendencies. If most of her people are safe and relatively happy, then what do they care for the poor, the crippled and the different? The Unfortunate Few is a sympathetic name, meant to keep those people under the false assumption that they’re unlucky in life. Yolanda clearly thinks she’s one of the lucky ones.
We swerve down onto the platform in time to see our crew apprehending the next driver. Another struggling figure who calls us terrorists, and worse, as he is carted away.
“This doesn’t end today,” I say.
Goddie looks at me, brows high on his forehead. Even if we take Prudell out of power, there’s so much more to do. We’ll be the ones holding the nation hostage, defending threats from rebels like us who oppose our goals. In some ways, Yolanda’s right about us replacing Prudell, but in others I hope she isn’t. I have to hope that all this death and violence is worth something on our side, and that we can show the country a better way forward. A way that involves choice, for a start.
“How long did Apryl say we can hold these trains before the System expects them running again?” I ask.
Goddie licks his lower lip, eyes flickering. “About three hours for a software fix. De first train was just a repaint so dat’s no bother to us.”
“I need to change the script of the broadcast,” I tell him. “Cover me here. I think I finally know what we need to say.”
On our way to Tania, the TOH and Apryl will work together to hijack every screen and broadcasting system that the nation has. Wherever people are that they can be spoken to, we intend to speak. What we had planned was just a message for Prudell: a war cry filled with all our hate and pain transformed into the glorious might of an invading force. But now I realise that Prudell’s not the important one in all of this. She’s just that bitch that Boy wanted to take down, simple as that.
The power is in the people. Not just our people, but all the people. And it’s them we should be speaking to.
Twenty-Two
We board the second train out of the three. I wanted to be on the first one, but Kip says we can’t take the risk. Those at the centre of the operation are safer as part of the second wave of the attack, whilst the first trainload of rebels and converted legionnaires fights the initial resistance, once Prudell’s forces realise that we have arrived in the capital. At the door of the monorail, Mumma stands on the platform reaching for my hand. I let her have it, let her squeeze it, and I can’t help the shaking in my lungs and the thrum of my heart.
“There’s no point in me demanding that you don’t go, is there?”
I shake my head at her. I put both my hands over hers and lean back out of the doors to be close to her face.
“Spread the word in the last train, Mumma. If you get into trouble, with a Reborn or anything automated, speak my name. My true name. The machines are in our control now, and they will listen and help you.”
“I don’t understand how it knows your real name, child.” Mumma shakes her head. “Who could possibly know it? Who would want to help us after all these months?”
I have no answer. All I can do is kiss her hands, and let her go.
“I love you. All of you.”
She nods. There’s a series of beeps that mean our train doors are closing. I don’t have time to stop and see Mumma watching me from the platform. It could be the last time ever. But I rush to the driver’s cab all the same, letting myself in as Andrew sits at the controls. The first train is ahead of us on the tracks, making distance between us and it at an alarming pace.
“Let’s catch that bugger up,” Andrew says, pressing buttons and pulling on a stick like the ones people use to drive jet planes.
I have to watch and listen, following everything that Andrew does. When we arrive at the main station, only Andrew and his attack force will get off at the platform. Then it’s my turn to
drive, following the maps that Apryl has coded into our gear from the drawings made by Briggs’s phantom hand. I have a different destination, a little way further down the track. I can only hope I’ve got the controls memorised, with everything else that’s going on.
After start-up, we begin to gain speed, and Andrew can relax a little on the furious button pushing. I come back from the cab into the first carriage of the train, where my small band of familiar faces all look to me at once. There are nerves, but no excitement, none of the raging joy they had on Sunday at the news of Malcolm’s return. We’re in it now. On our way to the centre of the world we intend to destroy.
I walk to Stirling first and he rises in his seat. The two of us rock a little at the speeding, gliding motion of the train, but I take his face in my hands to steady him. I look deep into his oceanic eyes and he stares back, waiting in silence.
“Do you hear me?” I ask. “It’s Mari.”
Something changes in his gaze. Stirling looks conflicted a moment, then his eyes grow just a little wider than before. His pupils dilate, his mouth moving and his head nodding in my hands.
“He’s here,” he tells me. “He can hear you.”
“We’re on our way. Get the rest of the System’s trains off our tracks. We’ll be passing through Fordhere and turning straight onto the direct route to Tania. Anyone who speaks my name, you listen, right?”
Stirling’s arm rises with a shaking thumbs up. He blinks suddenly, snapping his fingers.
“Paper,” he says. “Give me pen and paper.”
He hisses and struggles as Kip uncovers a notebook. We force it into Stirling’s hands along with a pen, and the boy scrawls with that same white-knuckle urgency of before. It takes so much out of him to be connected to the One this way, so much to get the message through.
Keep this young man with you. I need him.
I nod, letting go of Stirling’s face. The monorail hits a bend and the Highlander falls towards me. I just about manage to catch him and force him back, safely into his seat. Stirling shakes out his shaggy mop of hair, the copper curls that never did get cut. I sit beside him, holding the notebook, and when he looks up there are tears in his eyes.
“What?” I ask.
“Your name.” Stirling breaks a tiny smile. “Your name is Mari.”
There’s a lump lodged deep in my throat. I nod, flexing my mouth in the hope that I can speak without crying.
“It used to be. Before I set foot in the Legion. It’s the safe word now for the crew. Train One has it already, and I told Mumma to pass it around Train Three. We can spread it here too now, Stirling. If you’d like to do it?”
He takes the notebook from me, writing my simple little name on one of its pages. My own name in his loopy, untidy script. Four letters, just like Raja, but four letters that mean a whole different person to who I am today. Stirling rises again, my name in his hand, and kisses my cheek before he bounds off. I watch him weave down the carriage until he’s gone from view, then a hand on my back shakes me into the moment.
“It’s taking a lot outta him, to connect with de Heart,” Goddie observes.
I nod slowly. “That’s the last time I’ll make him do it. The next time, I’ll be speaking to the Heart in person. The monkey’s about to visit the king.”
Our train hurtles on and I check my watch. There’s a bing sound, and Andrew’s voice comes over the train intercom after the melody ends.
“We’ll be in Fordhere in ten minutes, crew. We’re going to hurtle right through the station, which is bound to sound the alarm, so I need you ready with the broadcast immediately after we pass through it. Give them something to watch whilst we’re turning towards Tania.”
Apryl’s computerised backpack is already unpacked and raring to go. Nema kneels on one side of it, keeping her end of the bargain and tapping away at keys and screens. Apryl is settled on a seat, just watching the data go by. When Nema stops tapping, the girls give one another a nod.
“We’re set,” she says. “The revolution will be televised at the touch of a button.”
Kip paces up to the spot where we’re gathered. He’s been walking around like a caged animal from the moment we got on the train, but now he plants his feet firm amongst us and clears his throat. The Westie looks even paler than usual, and I fancy he’s even bothered to trim his beard and wash his hair for the occasion.
“I want to say something.”
Stirling is coming back along the ranks, approaching our small gathering as Kip clears his throat again. He reaches for Apryl’s hand, making her get out of her seat and stumble against the motion of the train. She steadies herself on a pole in the middle of the seats, watching as Kip fumbles in his pocket. The Westie’s eyes are a little wet, and for some odd reason he’s getting down onto the floor. Onto one knee.
Apryl gasps. It takes me a moment. It takes me all the way up until Kip is holding a little matchbox in his grip, opening it to reveal a crude ring shaped from a piece of scrap metal.
“Marry me tomorrow.”
Floods of tears don’t stop Apryl’s trademark attitude.
“You’re crazy, Kip. Here and now? We’re hurtling at top speed towards the most dangerous mission of our lives, and-”
“And if I survive it, I want to know that you’re with me.” He gets up, handing the ring box to Apryl and encircling her in his arms. “In any other world, war or no war, if I had found you, this is what I’d want. This isn’t convenience or comfort. I love you, Apryl. I don’t see my tomorrow without you in it.”
There isn’t a dry eye around us. Even Stirling, who tries so hard so often to hide his tears, is just letting them flow. I lean back into Goddie and he holds onto me just as Apryl clings to Kip. She nods then, huge tears making triangles of her lashes.
“I will. I’ll marry you tomorrow.”
Cheers and whoops explode from those other soldiers in our carriage as Kip pulls Apryl in for a kiss. I turn to grin at Goddie, but it’s Stirling whose eyes I catch. He’s looking at us, Goddie and me, and still smiling among his tears. And in that moment my heart is so heavy that even Apryl’s joy can’t lift it. Because I don’t picture my tomorrow without either of these two boys in it. I don’t know how to choose.
The remaining minutes are filled with chatter, the train livening as the news spreads down through the squad. It’s only when the tall, pale spires of Fordhere come into immediate view that the world becomes quiet again. We rush towards the station and Apryl is back at her controls. Kip stands with his hand on her shoulder, squeezing tightly. Then there’s a bing on the intercom again.
“First train is passing the station right now. Put a minute on the clock.”
Kip keeps time, Apryl watching his watch and her screens with barely a breath passing between them. Nema sits on the floor in front of the pair, watching the data go by as Apryl was before. My dear friend’s manicured finger rests on the button that will send our message to the nation. I look up beyond them as the foreign city approaches. Goddie guides my elbow, pointing beyond Fordhere into the countryside.
“De Westlands,” he says. “Dat’s my homeland. Kip’s homeland, once, too. And no matter what dem fools like Yolanda say, I know der’s people in dat land who are gonna listen to ya, boss. Dey’re gonna praise de day dat dey heard ya speech.”
“No. They won’t.” I reply. “Because I’m not the one who’s speaking to them.”
Before Goddie can question anything, Apryl gives us a shout.
“Broadcast overtake in progress!” She rubs her hands together as Kip kneads her shoulders. “Now if the TOH are true to their word, we should be-”
The television screens built into the monorail’s carriages erupt into life. Apryl says no more, just pointing and grinning with a huge sigh. Nema punches the air with her fist, flashing me such a smile that I can’t help but think she might have changed her mind about her allegiance too. If a kid like her can understand the possibility of real change, then there’s hope still.
The figure on the television was going to be me, delivering our warning to Prudell and her forces. But the changes I’ve made in these last few hours give me a quiet, settled feeling in my gut at last. The screen is pulled back on a young girl of only thirteen, her fatigues traded for a simple vest and skirt. One arm hangs by her side, limp and thin, and on the other there is only a stump below her shoulder.
“My name is Reagan,” the girl says, “and I need to talk to you all about change.”
“Brilliant,” Stirling says. His voice is right behind me. He flanks me, resting an elbow on my shoulder whilst Goddie holds my other side. “You are absolutely brilliant. And so is she.”
“I don’t look like a rebel. I don’t look like a terrorist. I don’t look like much of anything, I guess. I was told that I was useless on the farm, so I had to be sent to the Legion, where the useless kids go to learn something new. What I learned there wasn’t what you think your kids are learning. It isn’t some boarding school where we come back at nineteen as respectable members of society. It’s the place where we learn that we don’t matter anymore. All that matters is the System, and the cause.
We fight for it. We die for it.
And we don’t die just because Prudell thinks that we should. She doesn’t put us against a wall and shoot us, like she does to captives on Execution Day. Most of us don’t resist or run away. We die willingly. We believe that we are nothing, and that we ought to die so that you, inside the System, can be protected and safe.
We are the cost of your happy lives.
And change is hard if you’re happy. Change is almost impossible if you can’t see what’s outside of your safe little cities and your big, white walls. But if you knew that you could fall from grace this easily. If you knew that your child might end up like me someday. If you knew that small changes in your life would result in massive changes for the lives of so many others. If you knew all that, would you be so afraid of change?