by Kyle Andrews
There were four men and two women waiting for Rose in the alley. She knew them and trusted them, but she still kept her hand on her gun as they approached her van.
Without speaking a word to her, the soldiers opened the back of the van and loaded three large trunks into it. They then climbed in and shut the doors.
Rose pulled out of the alley and drove toward the HAND hospital, where she would be one of several transports leading the charge. As she drove, she thought about Paul, making his way to the HAND building with even more soldiers.
For only the briefest of moments, Rose wondered if they had enough people to pull off what they were planning to do, but it really didn't matter. Win or lose, they would charge at their enemy with everything they had and they wouldn't look back until either the last member of HAND fell, or the last member of Freedom. One way or another, this ended for her on that night. No more dark alleys. No more hiding underground.
She took a deep breath as she pulled the van to the side of the road, several blocks away from the hospital. She turned off the headlights, but kept the van running while she waited for her cue.
Aside from the hum of the engine, the van was quiet. Not one of the soldiers in the back was making conversation. Not one of them was tapping their foot or breathing heavily. When Rose glanced in her mirror to take a look at her fellow soldiers, she saw them deep in thought, each preparing in their own way.
If they were like her, their legs were cramping with the anticipation of running and kicking. Their fingers would be itching with the feel of phantom triggers beneath them. They would be running through scenarios in their head, trying to plan for everything, but knowing that they couldn't really plan for anything. None of them knew what awaited them inside the hospital. All they could hope for was the ability to take the enemy by surprise, and take them down without many casualties.
Rose turned her attention back to the street, which was lit by the glow of giant monitors that were spewing propaganda messages. They disgusted her, with their constant assault on the minds of every citizen in town. The constant hammering of words and images into the brains of the people, until those people eventually believed that those words and images were their own thoughts and their own beliefs.
Keeping her eyes on those words and images helped Rose get angry, which would come in handy when the action started.
On a few of those monitors, different local stations were being displayed, with the same news stories being repeated over and over again by slightly different faces. Those messages were no different than the flashing of propaganda images. Rose looked forward to the day when the citizens of her city would be allowed to listen to the truth and make decisions for themselves.
An hour passed—maybe more. Rose wasn't really sure. She sat there, waiting. The closer they got to taking action, the more at peace she felt. It went against everything that she would have expected to feel, but there it was. This felt right.
She reached into one of the pockets on her jacket and pulled out the old diamond-like stud earring that had once belonged to her great-grandmother. As she put it into her left ear, Rose thought about the fact that the earring had once been worn by the last free woman in her family. Now it was being worn by the next free woman.
Even when the earring was safely secured in her ear, Rose kept her hand on it as she waited. She watched the TV broadcasts in front of her, wondering how those people could deliver lies to the people on a daily basis without feeling guilty or evil. She looked into the eyes of one of the reporters on the screen, looking for any hint of a soul.
And then the eyes were gone.
There was a moment of static on the screen.
Rose turned on the van's headlights.
29
Collin Powers' face filled the screen now. Not an image, or some piece of stock footage taken during his captivity. This was a live broadcast, and Collin was looking directly into the camera—into the eyes of every person in the city who was tuned into KCTY.
“We are Freedom,” Collin said, and then the screen went black. “They don't want you to see this. We do.”
Next, Mandi Hollinger was on the screen. She was standing in the stadium, nervously delivering the pledge.
“They told you that a generator blew,” Collin's voice said over the image of the little girl. “They lied to you.”
Mandi got the words wrong. The stadium went silent. Two gun shots. The screen went black.
“The power was still on,” Collin's voiceover continued.
Next, there was a brief clip of the crowd erupting into a violent mob before the screen went black again.
“It's the same old story. They slaughtered this girl's family because she spoke the wrong words. They attacked our people because they dared to think for themselves. Open your eyes and look at the world around you. Tell me how much of your life is lived in fear of thinking the wrong thought or speaking the wrong word.”
The screen flashed with images and video clips. People being dragged out of their homes. Uly Jacobs and others like him, being shot in the street. HAND officers marching in a parade to honor themselves. The burnt remains of the Garden. Drones hovering in the sky. It ended on the frozen image of Mandi Hollinger, capturing the precise moment that the world as she knew it came to an end. Mouth curled in terror. Eyes filled with tears.
Then Collin was on the screen again, looking out at the viewers at home and on the streets. Every TV and every monitor that was tuned into KCTY was seeing this. People all around the city were calling their friends and running to their neighbors to tell them what was happening.
Collin continued, “For decades, we have lived in fear because of the people who have seized control of this country. They have fed us supplements, telling us that we needed them to survive. But we don't. Those supplements are nothing but a cocktail of medications, meant to dull our minds and emotions. Hundreds—Thousands of Freedom members around the city have stopped taking the supplements. Not one has died because of it.
“They have told you that we are evil. That we are terrorists. That we murder and destroy. Look at that little girl. Look at the fear in her eyes and tell me, who was she afraid of? Who killed her parents and took her? Where is Mandi Hollinger now?
“Mandi's parents were members of Freedom. That girl grew up believing that she has the right to be free. She has the right to think for herself and to believe as she wishes to believe. Every person has that right. Even now, I would give my life for your right to disagree with me. To think that I am wrong. That I am evil. But I would also give my life so that you could truly see the world around you. To see the facts as they truly are, rather than the lies that the authorities have designed for your consumption.
“Deep down, you know the truth. You feel the fear. You know that they lie. You know what is happening to that poor little girl, just as well as I do.”
Collin rolled up his sleeves and showed his scars to the camera.
“I cannot allow that girl to be sliced open, as I was sliced open. To have her pain manipulated and controlled by faceless men and women.
“I have been where that girl is. I have seen what they will do to the individual. But you have seen what they will do the the many. You watched as the Garden burned, killing men, women and children by the dozens. You turn a blind eye to their actions because you fear for your own safety, but this is no way to live. We are better than this.”
Collin paused for a moment and looked off camera. It was as though he had a whole speech planned, but chose to ignore it. He looked back into the camera with tears in his eyes and more passion in his voice, fighting and begging for people to listen to what he was saying.
“There is a little girl being held right now. Drugged or tortured, like so many of our friends and neighbors. They have no right to take these people from us! They have no right to force you to eat garbage while they eat cake. They have no right to spill our blood. They have no right to force us into slave labor. This fight isn't about me, or about
Mandi Hollinger. This fight is about every single person and their basic human rights.
“Tonight, it ends. Tonight, we take this city from the people who have held us captive for too long. Tonight, we make them pay for the atrocities that they have committed against us. Tonight, we fight.
“At this moment, Freedom forces are storming the HAND building, as well as the HAND hospital where we believe they are holding Mandi Hollinger. We will fight this battle until we save that scared little girl. Until we make it safe to walk the streets without fear in our hearts. We will fight for your rights as well as our own, until we cannot fight anymore.
“Join us. Fight with us. Take down every HAND office, every HAND vehicle and every HAND officer that you see. Claim the rights that have been stolen from you, because if we don't do it, nobody will.
We are Freedom,” Collin said. He paused for just a moment before adding, “You will be free.”
The screen went black once again. Then it came alive, with the footage of Mandi at the stadium, just after she got the pledge wrong.
The angle changed. A reporter was standing on the sidelines. Behind her, burred in the background, were Mandi's parents. A HAND officer approached them and fired two shots, shooting them dead. The reporter turned in terror, covering her head.
The angle changed back to Mandi, in that moment of horror. But this wasn't a frozen image. It was the moment that a little girl witnessed the bloody murder of her parents, caught on video.
Her mouth twisted. Her eyes filled with tears as she started to scream the word 'Mommy!', but that word dissolved into a primal, stomach-churning, heart-breaking, shriek of absolute terror.
That sound echoed through every television screen that was tuned into Collin's message that night, in homes and on the streets.
A scream of sorrow and loss for one little girl.
For everyone else, a battle cry.
30
Marti dropped the syringe. Not because she didn't want to kill the man in the bed, but because her entire body went numb when she saw what was being shown on the TV.
She had always imagined that something like this would caused her to jump for joy, but she didn't. She just stared at the TV, wondering what was happening and what it meant for her. There must have been some way that she could have helped the cause, but she wasn't sure what to do.
Commissioner Lanstrom was hooked up to a heart monitor, which was beeping along with every beat of his heart. It was a sound that Marti had grown so accustomed to that she barely even noticed it when she walked into a room anymore, unless an alarm was going off. Now, the beeping became faster.
It took Marti a moment to acknowledge that beeping. She didn't process what it was or what it meant until she heard the Commissioner's voice whisper, “What was that?”
Marti looked down at the man and he met her eyes. In his look, she could see confusion and worry.
“I have to get up. I have to get out of here,” the Commissioner told her, trying to pull the sheets off of himself. He was far too medicated to get out of bed without falling over, but in that moment, Marti asked herself what would happen if that man did make it out of that bed. What would happen if he were allowed to get out of the hospital and to return to his normal life, reprogramming citizens into believing whatever the authorities wanted them to believe?
Marti didn't even know what that meant. She had never met anyone who had gone through reprogramming. As far as she knew, people were shipped off and never heard from again. Where they went was a complete mystery. If the lie was as horrific as reprogramming, what was the truth?
Lanstrom was pulling at his sheets and trying to kick his legs off of the side of the bed, saying “Help me get up. Help me get up,” as he struggled.
Marti stared at him, imagining all of the horrible things that this man and men like him did to people like her on a daily basis and it made her sick to her stomach.
“Help me,” the walking atrocity repeated, reaching out to her this time.
Marti could not allow him to leave the room. Collin had called everyone in the city to action. That included her. After this night, there would be no more pretending. This was the end of the HAND hospital, so she really didn't need to keep her job safe any longer.
Calmly, Marti bent down and picked up the syringe. She then went to the heart monitor and punched in a code that turned the machine off without sounding any alarms at the nurses station.
“What are you doing?” Lanstrom asked, slurring his every word.
“Helping you out of this place,” Marti replied coolly, sticking the syringe into the man's IV line and pressing the plunger until the syringe was empty.
Lanstrom reached for the IV, but Marti pushed him back. Ordinarily, he may have been able to put up more of a struggle, but he was weak from medication. She could hold him down with one hand, which allowed her to put the other one over his mouth before he could call for help.
Lanstrom kicked and struggled, trying to claw at her but failing. Outside the room, Marti could hear men yelling and people running, but none of them came into the room. If they did, she would be discovered. She might even be killed. But she didn't care, because this was the night it all ended, and if she died, she was more than happy to take one of those maggots out with her.
She could see the confusion and fear in his eyes. She wondered how many times he had been on the other end of this struggle, inflicting pain and suffering on people, and then going home to enjoy a fatty steak dinner. The thought of him shoveling food into his fat mouth made her sick. The thought of him torturing the people she cared about made her angry.
He gasped for air through his nose. Sweat started to form on his brow. He was dying.
Keeping her hand over his mouth, Marti leaned close to the man's ear. She wanted to say something powerful, which would send on last chill through this monster before he died, but she had never been one for making bold statements. The only thing she could think to say was, “We are Freedom.”
By the time he was finally dead, Marti was sweating. She pulled the blanket up to Lanstrom's chin and tried to make him look like he was sleeping, but if anyone took a good look at him, they would quickly know that he was dead. After that, they would probably know who had done it to him.
Under normal circumstances, Marti would be in trouble. There would be no escaping a grim fate. Stepping back, she brushed some of the wrinkles out of her scrubs and wiped the sweat from her brow. These weren't normal circumstances, and she couldn't waste time caring about what happened next.
Marti turned and walked out of the room, closing the door behind her. As she entered the hallway, another nurse approached. This nurse was a woman in her forties who looked as though the roof were about to collapse on top of her. She had panic in her eyes and was breathing heavily.
“I need to check on that patient,” the nurse told Marti. “We need to move anyone who can walk.”
Marti shook her head and said, “He's heavily medicated. He won't be conscious for another couple of hours at lest. Should we wheel him out?”
The nurse looked back down the hallway, which was starting to fill with HAND officers and men in suits, all scurrying to figure out what came next.
“No. Right now, we're just supposed to get the ones who can move. I'm sure they'll evacuate the others as soon as the higher priority patients are evacuated.”
Not the most critical. Not the most helpless. Not even the highest ranking patients, Marti noted. The nurse said that they were going for the priority patients. She had to wonder where Lanstrom would have fit on that list.
“I'm off duty. I was just checking on Commissioner Lanstrom because I was working on him downstairs and I wanted to follow up. If you need help...”
The other nurse nodded and said, “We have most of our nurses helping people to get ready to move.”
“I know Geo Garrison,” Marti explained.
The nurse hesitated, as though she wanted to ask Marti to elaborate on how she knew Geo G
arrison, but she decided not to press the matter.
Instead, she nodded and said, “Good. Make sure he's dressed and ready to move as soon as his security team gets here.”
Marti was a little thrown off by the mention of a security team for Geo. It probably shouldn't have surprised her to learn that the son of the highest ranking politician in the state would have his own security team, but Marti hadn't seen anyone like that since he came into the hospital. She started to wonder if those guards had been taken out at the stadium, considering the fact that Justin had to drag Geo out of the chaos.
“I'll get him ready,” Marti smiled at the nurse. She then took the nurse's hands and looked her in the eyes as she said, “Things will be okay. The good guys will win.”
The other nurse tried to look as though Marti's words were comforting, but she was still scared, and rightfully so. That woman and countless others would probably die in the crossfire. Maybe they should have thought twice before accepting these cushy jobs, caring for the authorities and their lackeys.
She walked away from the nurse and toward Geo's room. On her way there, she heard a voice coming from down the hall. It was the governor, yelling, “Then pull the damn plug! What is wrong with you people?”
Rather than walk right into Geo's room, Marti went toward the nurses station. Once there, she tried to look busy, occasionally glancing up at the Governor, who was now surrounded by a number of HAND officers and men in suits. He was holding a phone to his ear, and his face was so red with anger that Marti thought he might have a stroke right then and there. But that probably would have been too convenient.
“I want to know how this happened. I want to know who allowed it to happen,” The Governor yelled into the phone. Then, after a moment, he said, “Well, someone dropped the ball! I want that person's head on my desk.”
He might have been speaking metaphorically. He may not have been. Marti wasn't really sure.