The Secret Citizen (Freedom/Hate Series, Book 3)

by Kyle Andrews

  “What are we going to call them?”

  With a grin, Collin replied, “Newspapers.”

  Tracy matched his smile and said, “People have thought of this before.”

  “People who weren't me.”

  “What makes you any better?”

  “I'm a celebrity.”

  As Collin spoke those words, he could hear the confidence in his voice and he was looking Tracy directly in the eyes. But secretly, he had no idea what he was doing or how it was supposed to make a difference. All he knew was that if the people of Freedom wanted him to pitch in and help their cause, this was how he could do it.

  Or, there was always the chance that he was insane.

  “I knew you were worth the investment,” Tracy told him as she resumed walking into the office. Collin stayed close behind her.

  Tracy walked directly to one of the men sitting at a computer, monitoring the TV broadcasts and asked him, “Where's Mig?”

  The man turned around and shrugged. He looked around the room and then said, “Check with Sonja. She was here a second ago.”

  Tracy started to walk away from the man, saying “Thanks,” as she moved.

  The man shifted his eyes to Collin, giving him a hint of that same look that people all over the Campus had given him earlier. The look that people give to a celebrity, as though Collin was going to break into a song and dance number right there.

  “Thank you,” Collin said and started to follow Tracy.

  But as he moved, something caught Collin's attention. On one of the other desks, a young woman was monitoring another news broadcast, and as Collin passed by that desk he heard the news anchor say, “The second victim of last night's Hate rampage has been officially identified by HAND.”

  Why that voice stood out above all of the others, Collin didn't know. Why he felt compelled to stop and turn to face the TV when he heard it, he couldn't tell you. But he did turn, just in time to see a familiar face appear on the screen.

  “Sophia Talbot, known throughout the community as a kind and quiet old woman, was found slain this morning inside her own apartment—the apparent victim of a Hate attack.”

  The world seemed to slow.

  As Collin released his breath, he wasn't entirely certain that another would replace it. He froze and stared at Sophia's face on that screen, with tears forming in his eyes and a pain in his heart unlike any torture that HAND could have inflicted upon him.

  The woman who had given him shelter in his time of need and who helped him to become the man he now was had been murdered. She was dead, and Collin knew that this was no coincidence. This was a message from the authorities, directed at him. And he intended to reply.

  16

  “Sophia Talbot, an elderly woman who lived alone in the same apartment she'd been living in for decades, was brutally murdered,” said one of the pundits on a Sunday morning news program, discussing the week's events with several other pundits who all frowned and shook their heads. “This is not a political organization. This is not a difference of opinion. This is murder. It's terrorism.”

  A woman wearing a necklace of giant multi-colored beads nodded in agreement and said, “For once, we're on the same page. I think it would be hard to disagree with that fact. Sophia Talbot, Croy Fisker... Two different ends of the spectrum when it comes to their age or way of living, but both were murdered for the same reason. They were murdered by hateful, evil people.”

  The host of the program, an extremely old man with large glasses and floppy jowls, chimed in and said, “Which brings us to our next topic. The medicine cabinet in Ms. Talbot's apartment had no supplements in it when police arrived on the scene. Both she and Croy Fisker's murders were obviously racially motivated, with Fisker being of African descent and Talbot being of a mixed background. We have no doubt about that. The hospital where the now-deceased terrorist icon, Libby Jacobs was seen attempting to steal flu medication was in a largely minority-populated area. Why now? Why are these racially motivated crimes being committed now, and why hasn't HAND done more to stop them?”

  The host used his pen to point to a skinny man with a bow-tie and sunken eyes, who answered, “I don't think this is a new thing. Hate has been targeting victims based on race, gender and orientation for years. We've seen some actions lately that are, perhaps, a bit more bold than we're used to. I think that's largely because the authorities haven't done enough to stop them before. They haven't put their foot down and really tried to put an end to Hate once and for all—

  “And look... I'm not a violent person. I'm not a person who condones war and bloodshed, but these people are evil. These people are a threat to all of us peace-loving, equality-loving citizens. If we don't stop them, they will keep growing more bold. They will keep killing.”

  “Governor Garrison issued a press release late last night,” the host said. “I don't know if you've all had a chance to read it, but to summarize, the authorities are calling on all citizens to keep an eye on their neighbors. To keep an eye on the stranger passing on the street. They're asking the citizens to call in and report anyone who might be affiliated with Hate. Now, my question for all of you is... Is it enough? Or is this too little, too late?”

  “It's obviously too little,” a large man with tiny glasses replied. “And you know, it's not supposed to be our job to police the streets. HAND is supposed to protect us, and now they're asking us to essentially do their job for them.”

  “That's not really an accurate view of the situation,” the woman with the beads replied, rolling her eyes and smiling with disbelief. “Look, if we want to clean up the streets then yeah, we all need to do our parts. We do need to call in those neighbors who don't seem quite right. We do need to—Even if someone in our own family is acting strange or hiding hostile content, we need to let the authorities know. We need to root out this problem and put an end to it once and for all.”

  Collin was staring at the TV screen, watching the debate going back and forth. He could practically hear Sophia's voice in his head, commenting on how this apparent diversity in their opinions was not diversity at all. They were all on the same end of the spectrum, normalizing the concept of neighbor turning on neighbor, and making it seem as though the only outrage anyone could feel about it was over the fact that it hadn't happened sooner.

  Five days had passed since he first stepped foot inside the Campus. Five days that he had spent sitting in front of those news feeds, watching the spin and listening to the voices of authority telling the people what to think.

  Sophia's name was being dragged through the mud, associated with a security crackdown. HAND officers weren't just responding to calls from concerned citizens, they were randomly searching apartments and dragging people away in the night. The citizens had no choice but to support the authorities. If an arrest was made and someone in the crowd didn't cheer, that person might be the next to be locked up.

  As bad as things were before Collin got locked away in the HAND building, they were even worse now. The authorities were scrambling to maintain control over the system while Freedom had landed a couple of punches right across their jaw. Desperation made the authorities more dangerous than ever, but what could Freedom do about that? Could they close their mouths and go back to the way things were before?

  No. They had to keep pushing forward. They had to stand their ground and suffer their losses, because the only way to salvage the future was to sacrifice the present.

  When Collin first thought up the idea of distributing a Freedom newspaper around the city, it seemed so simple. He thought they could throw something together and have it out on the street the next day. But there were things that he hadn't considered. In order to maintain a newspaper, they would need resources. Ink. Paper. They would need to fill the pages of those newspapers with stories and facts, and they would need to keep it moving, day after day.

  Five days. It was almost impossibly fast when he stopped to really think about it. They were building something from nothing
after all, but he was growing impatient. He wanted to speak to the people of the city and tell them the truth, whether they wanted to hear it or not.

  At first, Mig was reluctant to put Freedom in a position like this. To expose them to the world felt like shining a flashlight into the dark little corner that they'd managed to hide in for so long. But Collin pushed the issue, explaining to her that the safe little corner that they were hiding in wasn't really safe. It was growing smaller and smaller by the day, and they just didn't notice it because their numbers were shrinking as well. If they didn't do something big, they would lose everything. The Campus was supposed to be a hub of information, passing intel from one base to another. In a way, they'd always done what Collin was looking to do now. They just needed to take their show public. They needed to look the authorities in the eyes and show them that they wouldn't back down.

  The first issue was being put together under Collin's supervision. Mig wanted to look it over and hold it in her hands before she gave the final go-ahead for distribution, but the longer they worked on it, the more interested she seemed to become. By day five, everyone in the Campus was pitching in where they could, developing ideas not just for articles that could be written, but ways to get those articles in front of the common citizens of the city. They wanted to be bold. They wanted to fight. And with each passing day, Collin became more and more confident that he was doing the right thing. This is what the people needed. This was what Sophia would have wanted.

  She never left his mind. Everything she'd ever told him about her life was playing on a constant loop, and he decided to use that story as the first article put out by their newspaper. He would not sit by and allow the government's media to turn her into an icon for their actions. He would not allow her to become the face of oppression. When the first issue of their newspaper hit the streets, he wanted it to be known in no uncertain terms that Sophia Talbot was not just a supporter of Freedom, she had been a champion of their cause for decades.

  His first draft of her story came in at sixteen pages. Perhaps they could have reduced that number by changing the font size or spacing, but at the end of the day, it was just too much. He wanted the world to know who she was and so he had included segments about her kindness and her dreams of a better tomorrow. He rambled far too much in that first draft.

  When he showed it to Tracy, her initial reaction was, “When I woke up, I thought it was really nice.”

  She was trying to sound positive, but she was telling him that it was boring. It lost her attention, and he couldn't allow that to happen. So he rewrote it and rewrote it, cutting out chunks about Sophia's personality and playing up the reason why she had become a supporter of Freedom so many years ago. The myth of that great plague, for which people still took supplements.

  Tracy read the story of Sophia's baby being sacrificed for this imaginary outbreak and Collin watched her wipe tears away from her eyes as they moved from line to line.

  By the time he was done with the story, it had been reduced to three pages of solid, gripping story that would draw even the coldest heart in and force them to entertain Freedom's words, if only until they were done reading.

  He wanted this newspaper to look and feel like one of the old newspapers. The kind people used to read and pass around, before they had been put out of business by the digital press, which itself had crumbled after citizens could simply not afford to buy personal electronics the way they once had. He wanted to draw people into his paper and make it an experience to read—something that people looked forward to. He wanted them to be able to hold Freedom's words in their hands and stare at them until the meaning of those words truly sunk in.

  But that was easier said than done. In order to produce that type of newspaper, Freedom would need to acquire specialized equipment. It was possible, but it would probably take them several weeks or months before they would be able to produce anything, and that defeated the purpose of the paper in the first place. They needed to work fast, while Collin's name was still on the minds of the people and they would be curious to hear what he had to say.

  Eventually, Collin had to give up on the look and feel that he wanted. This wasn't about style, it was about facts and ideas. So the first issues would look more like a newsletter than a newspaper, but he could live with that. As long as the content was what it needed to be, it didn't really matter.

  Paper was a controlled resource. The authorities didn't want the people to have access to publishing supplies for this very reason, but Freedom's reach extended far. Collin had learned to stop asking questions years earlier, but the resourcefulness of his people never stopped amazing him. He was betting on that resourcefulness to get his newspaper into the hands of the citizens.

  In one of the offices, there was a young man named Kenny. Collin and Tracy worked with Kenny on putting together the layout of the paper. He designed something that would feel comfortable for the readers, but had a level of flash that would be needed to draw their attention in the first place. What he didn't have was a name for their paper.

  After five days of working feverishly to put together a story that could go to press, and developing ideas for future issues, Collin had hit a brick wall when it came to the name of his paper. His first instinct was to name it after Freedom somehow, but the more he thought about it, the more he was convinced that this wasn't the way to go. He wanted people to come at this paper without any preconceptions about what they could find in it. He wanted to invite them to read his words without being on the defensive before they saw the first word.

  “So what should we call it?” Kenny asked, looking up from his computer and staring at Collin.

  Collin didn't have an answer. He had no clue what to call this thing that he had put so much thought into. He just stared at the computer screen, watching the cursor blink on the empty space where the name of the paper should go.

  “Something bold, maybe?” Tracy offered. “Something like... 'The Daily Rebel.'”

  “Too confrontational,” Collin told her, shaking his head.

  “Okay...” Tracy said. “'Truth.'”

  Collin cringed and shook his head. He couldn't believe that this could be the issue that would stop him cold before the paper even went to print.

  “'The American Way?'” Kenny offered.

  “Now you two are just quoting old comic books.”

  “If you have a better idea...” Tracy replied.

  “We'll think of something,” Collin assured her. He then turned to Kenny and said, “Let me see the full layout, with the article and everything.”

  Kenny hit a few buttons on his keyboard and the image on the screen zoomed out, showing the full layout of the newspaper, with Collin's story taking up most of the page. Above the story was the headline: 'THE TRUTH ABOUT SOPHIA TALBOT'

  Collin stared at that headline until the letters looked like they were pulsing and growing larger. Without realizing it, he started to bite on his thumbnail.

  “What?” Tracy asked.

  Collin looked up at her and replied, “Hmm?”

  “You don't like something else. What is it?”

  “The headline.”

  “I came up with the headline.”

  “And it's very good. It's just... not good.”

  “Thanks for softening that blow.”

  “No, I mean that it needs to catch the eye more. It needs to make people want to read the article. It needs to be flashy.”

  “I thought you wanted to be non-confrontational.”

  “For the newspaper's name. For the headline, I want to show the authorities that we aren't going to back down. I want to be bold.”

  Collin leaned in and pulled the keyboard closer to himself. He then typed a new headline: 'MEDIA LIES EXPOSED – SOPHIA TALBOT MURDERED BY HAND'

  He stood back to look at what he'd typed. He crossed his arms over his chest as he stared at those words, allowing them to sink in.

  “Blunt,” Tracy noted.

  “Blunt is good,”
Collin told her. “We don't need fluff.”

  Nodding, Tracy said, “It sounds like you're telling people that she was killed by hand. Like, with someone's bare hands.”

  Collin looked over to Tracy, thinking that she was crazy and that nobody else in the world would possibly think the same way that she did. He shook his head at her irrational way of thinking and turned back to the screen.

  After a moment of consideration, he changed the headline to read: 'MEDIA LIES EXPOSED – SOPHIA TALBOT MURDERED BY THE AUTHORITIES'

  Tracy smiled.

  17

  Justin had been back at school for days. It was the same school that he had been attending for more years than he could remember. He passed the same people in the hallway that he had been passing for just as long. Yet, the place felt different. It felt unfamiliar. Colder than ever before.

  He could feel eyes on his back as he made his way down the hall. It was no secret that he and Uly had been friends, and those who knew him for a long time knew that he and Libby were once close as well. There was no escaping the idea that people suspected him of being a member of Hate. The question was, how many people in those hallways sympathized with him?

  If you'd asked him only a couple of months earlier, he would have said that there weren't many at all. Not counting Uly and Marti, there were maybe two or three others that he could name. Beyond that, he honestly believed that the rest of the schoolkids were loyalists, following the system blindly.

  Then Collin Powers happened, and people started to whisper. Messages were spray painted onto walls, which Justin could be pretty sure weren't painted by Freedom members. Uly liked to tag a wall here and there, but those were alleys, when he knew that nobody was watching. To paint a school hallway wasn't just stupid and sloppy, it was suicide. Freedom members were encouraged to have a little bit more restraint than that. So who was it? Who were his secret allies inside that building? If war broke out right then and there, which of those people would have his back?