by Otter Lieffe
God, she'd thought to herself then. They look so much like me. They are so much like me. But we don't understand each other at all.
Suddenly Ash realised what her teacher had been telling her.
For centuries, white people had been coming to these places and taking what they wanted giving nothing back in return. The waves after waves of plastic shamans from the west making money selling ayuhuasca and cocoa ceremonies and Thai massage and power-ballad-sauna yoga were just the latest incarnation of a process of colonisation that had been happening for as long as anyone could remember.
Colonisation. Ash had thought to herself. It's just another word for theft.
Ash had always remembered that lesson and decades later when she and Pinar had been forced out of the City and come to the forest, they had begun to develop their own culture together, their own traditions, deeply rooted in this place and its living communities. Ash still gave thanks every day to her teacher—now long dead—and the plants and animals of this land that she now learned from. Traumatised, exhausted, and driven from their home, ritual cleansing with local herbs had developed for them here as naturally as their love for each other and the land.
“I have a feeling it's not just his body that will need healing,” said Ash, coming back to the moment and looking down at her bruised and bloody patient. “He might be with us for a while.”
Pinar put a pillow under Jason's head and carefully lay a blanket over him.
“That's all we can do for now,” she said and peeked out of the window. “The sun's coming up already. Let's go to bed, hon. I'm sure he'll wake us up soon enough.”
Chapter seven
Danny's alarm went off and he woke up with a jump. He was covered in sweat and his throat was sore.
I've been shouting in my sleep again.
Every morning this week he'd woken up from the same paranoid nightmare. He'd been running through the City, rain falling around him so heavily he could barely see, and he was being chased by someone. Always the same person, who no matter how hard Danny tried, was always smarter, always one step ahead. Someone with a handsome face, a terrible face, and wearing a pristine State uniform.
Danny rubbed his eyes and tried to clear the memories from his mind. He pulled the blanket aside and got out of bed. The alarm clock said 06.30. For Danny, who liked to wake up at about eleven, it felt like the middle of the night.
He walked across the three metres to the other side of his tiny flat and just where he expected it to be, he found a small blank envelope pushed under the door. He carefully opened it and there was a single sheet of paper inside covered in a mess of notes and printed words. Since the crash, paper was at a premium and every sheet was used and reused as many times as possible. Danny ran his fingers over the page and felt the Braille print.
Without electricity or computers, most messages sent by the resistance were punched out on a hand-held Braille printer which covered the page in a series of tiny dots raised from the surface of the paper. As the City had been a hub of blind and deaf culture, the resistance had always had a strong representation of blind people and for a while Braille had been enough of a code to keep messages secret. The State had soon worked out that the resistance was using Braille code itself so now the message was also encoded with a transposition cipher—the letters were changed according to a pre-set key which was changed regularly and given out at weekly meetings.
It wasn't fool-proof, and a number of messages had been hacked by the State, but since the last of their computers were dedicated to keeping the Life Accounts financial system up and running, they had to decode by hand and by the time they did, the key was usually changed.
I can never remember these damn things.
Danny dug into his dirty laundry basket and fished out a sock with a tiny piece of card covered in numbers inside it. This week's key.
Officially, it was never supposed to be written down and meeting members had to memorise the new key each week. Danny had tried and after the third time of forgetting and having to knock on his friend's door for the key, he'd taken to noting it down and hiding it.
Well, he reasoned, once the State's desperate enough to be digging around my socks and sweaty jockstraps, things will already be as bad as they're going to get.
Danny sat at his desk, picked up a pen and, letter by letter, read the message with his left index finger, noted it down and then decoded it.
THE OLD WAREHOUSE. VICTORY AVENUE.
The new meeting place.
Danny looked again at the clock. If he hurried, he'd still make it on time. He threw on some fresh clothes, screwed the message up in his pocket and opened the door.
He was too tired for all this really, but he'd been resistance for as long as he could remember. There was no other way of life for him, not anymore.
* * *
Danny arrived a few minutes late to the meeting. This was one of the inner circles, and he knew that everyone here had been through years of screening to keep out the infiltrators and informers.
He saw his friend Kit from the sex work collective already sitting down and she waved him over. As usual her perfectly straight hair was up in an elegant bun, her make-up was faultless and she was wearing something short, tight and black. To Danny, who had been wearing the same comfortable sneakers for over three years, Kit's four-inch heels looked both dangerous and painful. How can she even stand up in those things?
He sat down and took the bottle of water his friend offered him, drank his fill, and gave her a grateful smile. He was always happy to see Kit even if it was ridiculously early in the morning.
The meeting had already started without him and a speaker from the prison group was delivering an update. Danny and Kit hadn't seen each other for a few weeks so they caught up discretely in the so called 'Universal Sign Language' that they both knew well.
USL was not a true sign language, but a kind of English encoded into sign that had developed its own grammatical features over time. It had a politically difficult history and was as commonly used by the State these days as those groups fighting it, but still, it came in useful. It was particularly good for gossiping during meetings.
“Good to see you, Kit. How's things?”
“I'm good; this guy's super boring. You were late again, lazy ass.” She always talked to Danny like a little brother, always teased him, never gave him a chance to defend himself.
There's a reason that she's a professional Domme, he thought to himself.
“Well that's what happens when we have meetings in the middle of the—”
“The resistance never sleeps, you know, honey.”
“Well, I need more—”
“Anyway, I met someone.” Kit smiled and paused for dramatic effect. “At the park. Well I kind of met her. I sort of watched her really…”
“Really? Tell me more!”
“Well—”
The speaker saw them signing and coughed loudly into his fist looking directly at them.
“If you're quite ready, I'd love to continue with my report.”
“Sorry,” mumbled Danny.
Kit crossed her arms and pouted in silence. She apologised to no-one.
“Thank you for your kind attention,” said the speaker pointedly. “Anyway, as I was saying…”
Careful mate, thought Danny. Kit eats guys like you for breakfast.
The meeting room was packed as usual. There were few spaces left to meet in the City that were central enough for everyone to get to. They'd tried meeting out in the suburbs which was safer, but it took people too long to get there without transport. This week all the meetings would take place in this warehouse basement barely a kilometre from one of the State's main bases.
The meeting was known as the mesa, the Spanish word for table, because it used to be small enough to fit everyone around a long table. It was a central meeting point for the many collectives and groups around the city to represent themselves and th
eir needs and to take information back to their groups. As the resistance had grown, so had the mesa until finally there were upwards of fifty people in each meeting and they had to sit on the floor in concentric circles just to fit everyone in.
Most of today's meeting was filled with a revision of safety protocols in light of recent raids and the sex work collective sharing intel that they had gathered since the last meeting.
“Hey, wake up.” whispered Kit, with just the hint of a Thai accent as she poked Danny hard in the ribs. “You fell asleep again.”
“Yeah, err, thanks, Kit. Is it over yet?”
“We finished five minutes ago. You were so cute. Your head was nodding through half the meeting. Tea?”
She offered him a cup that she'd brought over from the little stove.
“Thanks.” Danny sipped it. It was bitter and she always made it way too strong, but he kept his opinions to himself. Kit was well known for her fits of rage. “I should get going actually. I need to be at work at two, maybe I can get a quick nap before.”
“Not so fast!” said his friend, standing up onto her heels. “I'm going dancing after work tonight. You're coming, aren't you?” It wasn't really a question.
“Dance?” Danny protested as she pulled him to his feet. “All I do is dance!”
“No. We're dancing tonight. I'll come find you at work. When do you finish?”
“Nine…”
“Perfect!”
Danny knew there was no point arguing with her.
“Sure, I guess…”
“Good boy. See you there.”
Danny sneaked out of the meeting through the back door to avoid all the polite conversations he'd be obligated to have, collected his bike and cycled home for a quick siesta before work. He curled up on the uncomfortable sofa without even taking his sneakers off and within minutes he was sound asleep.
* * *
Ash woke up with a start. She heard moaning and Pinar's soft voice comforting someone. Then she remembered.
There's a man in the house.
“How is he?” she asked, pulling herself out of bed and slipping on a pair of Pinar's jeans.
“He's okay. I think he has a fever though. He's been mumbling and trying to sign, but none of it makes any sense. The only thing I understood was 'horses' and—” she signed the USL word for 'danger'.
“Well, that doesn't sound ominous at all.”
“I'll make up something for his fever. Could you have a look at setting his jaw? It's totally swollen.”
“Coffee first,” said Ash. “Then I'll take care of our handsome freedom fighter.”
Chapter eight
Immaculately dressed and increasingly drunk, the General was in charge of training today and he was loving every second of it.
“Another round!” he shouted at his men. “Go on, get moving.”
Just as he ordered, his men were running laps around the square, stopping every few metres to do five military presses and ten crunches. The lieutenants under his command ran after the recruits, shouting at them and making them work harder. As General, he didn't even need to shout at his men anymore. Just if he wanted to. And sometimes he really wanted to.
I'm a king and these are my subjects.
These new soldiers, 'grunts' as they were often known, had only joined this week and the General was already getting them trained up and getting their bodies hardened for battle. They weren't the worst group he'd had, but still when they couldn't keep up with his gruelling regimen, he'd enjoyed punishing them in all the ways his creative mind could think of.
“You run like a bunch of girls!” he shouted as he leaned back in his canvas chair and ran a hand over his blond hair, the military buzz cut that he’d always found so powerful. He took the bottle of State vodka from the table and emptied it into his glass. The sun was hot on his uniform and watching the soldiers running was making him horny. I'll need to visit the station bathrooms today—and pick up a toilet rat to use.
It was all an act of course. Not the dominating, sadistic tendencies—that part was true enough—but his straightness, his alpha male, hyper-masculinity. No-one here could guess the secrets the General kept. No-one here even knew his real name. The new soldiers were passing by, closely followed by his corporals.
“Keep them going until I tell you to stop!” he shouted.
“Yes, General!” shouted the lieutenants, barely able to breathe.
The General stood up to get some more vodka from the kitchen, but his head spun a little standing up and he thought better of it. He headed to his private room instead.
Just a quick wank and then back to the training, he thought as he opened his door. I fucking love my job.
* * *
Nathalie was on her way to the State office where she worked and she felt sick to the stomach. Sometimes it felt like she was always on the way to work. Or at work, or on the way home from work. The mindless routine was making her ill, she woke up tired every morning and six days out of seven she felt numb inside. All she could think about was the next time she'd get over to the park.
And maybe meet that girl again.
Every morning, except Sundays, Nathalie took the solar train from her apartment over to the State office down-town where she had her placement. The train was ancient and the solar panels, old now by anyone's standards, were showing signs of reaching the end of their life.
They stopped several times on the way, waiting for the batteries to recharge. Kids cycled by, laughing. It would actually be faster to walk at this rate.
But while the trains still ran and the State still gave her a free ticket, Nathalie was happy to take it slow.
God knows I'm not in any great rush to get there.
She arrived at the station, entered the building and, sweating and puffing as she went, she climbed the twelve floors to the office. In eight years, I've never seen these bloody elevators work.
Finally, she reached her floor, and looking in a mirror in the corridor, she vaguely brushed off her shirt and fixed her hair. She had always been called pretty, beautiful even, her pale skin was flawless and even without make-up, her sparkling blue eyes often caught people’s attention. But she didn’t like what she saw reflected back at her.
I look as tired as I feel, she noticed and pushed out her chest a little towards the mirror. With a sigh, Nathalie walked into the office.
“Hey guys—pretty hot today!” she announced to her workmates as cheerfully as she could, putting her bag down at her desk.
“You're late, N,” grumbled her colleague, the guy from the next desk over. His name was G or B or something. Nathalie could never remember people's names even before the State reduced everyone to a single letter.
“Yeah, the trains, you know. You'd think there was enough sun to at least keep them running on time.”
“I ran here and got changed in the bathroom,” said the colleague. “I like sweating. Sweat is good for you.”
“Err...great,” said Nathalie, moving towards the office kitchen.
He's always saying weird things like that.
Her work mates weren't too bad really. At least their oddness distracted her from her work. And I really need the distraction.
Her job was all just so dull. Officially her placement was 'State redactor': every day she received a list of terms to be removed from official papers and a pile of already partially redacted documents to remove them from. Most of the papers were transcripts of military and trade discussions which Nathalie would barely understand even if they weren't already covered in text blocked out by some other underpaid functionary.
Nathalie had to remind herself that this was actually considered a good placement and she had had to pull some strings and use her family's name just to get it. She wished she could do something more meaningful, but between this and working at the Nutrition factories, she'd choose the office any day.
And, thought Nathalie as she went to the kitchen and
poured herself a hot coffee from the pot, at least we get this stuff.
“Drinking coffee again, N?” asked Nathalie's work mate. His name was B, she remembered now.
Always stating the obvious. He was probably called Boris before. Or Brian or something. Maybe Bob…
“You shouldn't drink too much you know,” said B. “It's bad for your heart.”
“Okay,” Nathalie replied as noncommittally as she could. Coffee was incredibly rare these days and as long as the office kept giving it to her for free, she was never going to quit.
“It's extinct, you know?” said B, pointing at her cup.
“Say again?”
“Coffee. For about thirty years already,” said B, puffing himself up a little at this chance to impress her. “That's why it's so hard to get. The warmer temperatures started killing the fruit and flowers on the bushes and the farmers were driven up into cooler mountains. Each year they went higher until there was nowhere else to go.”
“Is that why the 'Coffee Wars' happened then?” asked Nathalie. She didn't really care about history, but everyone had heard of the Coffee Wars.
“Obviously. Suddenly one morning, caffeine-addicted Western Civilisation woke up and realised that arabica had gone the way of the tiger.”
Bob, you sound like a documentary.
“The Coffee Wars began when global supplies ran short and of course, it was a useful distraction from the economic crash that was just in its early stages then. Politicians have always used wars as a distraction from the real issue. That and as a way of boosting the economy—”