The Rebel

by Gerald Brandt

  I drifted into the bathroom, forgetting I’d used all my water that morning. The empty bucket sat in the tub, waiting to catch a stray drip from the tap. I kept the place as clean as I could, but the dark gray ring around the tub from the room’s previous occupants refused to come off. I tended to prefer showers anyway, but with the lack of water, all I got was the bucket. The mirror over the sink was cracked but still usable, the reflective coating peeling away from the back of the glass.

  The water wouldn’t turn on again until after dinner. Everybody would rush to their rooms when they finished eating and wait, their taps already open and maybe an extra bucket available, just in case the flow stayed on longer. It never happened. If we wanted to drink something, we’d have to head down to the kitchen and they’d give us a glass of tepid water or weak tea. Or send us back to our rooms with nothing. The only toilets that worked were on the first floor. Ours had no water, except what we were willing to spare from our buckets. I always tried to save a bit.

  The bathroom still held onto the faint smell of vomit—my morning ritual since Ian had died. Maybe it had started before that, I couldn’t really remember. It was difficult to remember anything from before. Some of the good times at boot camp shone through, like when he’d come to visit and we’d take off into the surrounding mountains. We’d bring climbing gear, but almost never used it. Every time those memories surfaced, I pushed them back down, deep inside the locked box in my head, where they couldn’t hurt me anymore.

  I missed the mountains and the freedom I’d had there. The greenhouses had given me a small hint of that, but I wasn’t sure when or even if I’d be able to get back there . . .

  I stripped down, leaving my blood-encrusted clothes on the floor, and trudged naked to my bed. The sheets were still crumpled into a ball from this morning, the bed-making part of boot camp training disappearing faster than it had come. The sheets matched the walls and the ring on the tub. Gray on top of gray on top of more gray. I figured they must have been white at one point in their lives, but too many bodies and too many washings had taken that away. I pulled a couple of bobby pins from my hair and put them on the small bedside table.

  Lying down, I untangled the sheets and pulled them up to my neck, shivering in the sudden chill, waiting for them to warm up. The mattress was soft. Maybe too soft, but at least it wasn’t as lumpy as the compound ones. I sunk in and closed my eyes, resting my hands on my belly. The day’s events rolled through my mind and I started tearing them apart. Security would be high after what we did today. We wouldn’t be able to get another food truck until SoCal relaxed, which could be never.

  There had been three of us on the original recon, each person strolling by the loading dock at different times and from different angles. I don’t know if the other two had seen the addition of the passenger, or the guns. We hadn’t been allowed to communicate with each other, only the hijack team. The woman touching me to get me back on track was a breach of mission protocol. If no one else saw it, she would be okay. If they had, she would probably be pulled from future missions for a short while. I didn’t even know if I was the only one to follow the truck when it drove away. We really weren’t much of a team.

  I’d told the hijack group about the extra man and the possibility of guns. At least they’d been ready for that, or they were supposed to have been. Doubling back to watch everything go down had been my idea—I expected to be yelled at for that. In the end, everything had gone wrong. Three, maybe four dead. Two of ours and two of theirs. A backup team so far away they were useless.

  The man I’d yanked from the truck had been alive, though I didn’t know if he’d stayed that way. I’d have to remember to ask about him. Pat might know, especially if she had been in charge of this op. I don’t think she was, though. She would have run a tighter operation, and chances were no one would have died. I didn’t really know what she did here.

  The picture of the two kids swam into my tired brain. I still had it in my jacket pocket. My guess was they were the driver’s. Why else would the picture be there? I tried to recall his face, tried to remember how old he was, but once I left my bike, it was all a blur. I hoped he made it, for their sake.

  Even though I hadn’t pulled the trigger that killed those men, I felt responsible. I told myself this was war. The soldiers on all sides were pawns in the game created by their corporate masters. I was the same, just a pawn. We’d picked or been drafted onto our sides, forced to play by their rules.

  The true fault really lay with them. The corporations. Even the insurgent leaders. They were all alike, really. Right now, today, the insurgents were where I wanted—where I needed—to be. The corporations were using and killing the people for their own purposes, and I couldn’t stand by and let that happen.

  Ian wouldn’t have been able to either.

  LOS ANGELES LEVEL 2—MONDAY, JULY 3, 2141 2:59 P.M.

  Janice Robertson stood in the shadowed alley, hiding behind the heaps of garbage that hadn’t been picked up for weeks. She’d almost gotten used to the overpowering smell that felt strong enough to burn holes into her lungs. She’d been here long enough to get a sore throat from it already.

  The Ambient overhead had been flickering for days and had finally gone out this morning. Janice didn’t care either way, except for the mild headaches she always got from being under the faltering light for so long.

  The building across the street from her was a grime-covered dark gray. The thin vertical windows, each one with black stains under it from decades of neglect, gave it a shrouded, secure look. It was a mirror of the buildings to either side of it, and pretty much the rest of the block. The place gave her the creeps.

  Despite the similarities, this building was different. Not in its structure or shape, but in the people that went in and out of it. Groups left looking as though they had a purpose or a goal, while most people in the lower levels appeared lost. This wasn’t just another tenement on Level 2.

  What had attracted Janice here in the first place was simple.

  Kris.

  Janice had heard about the food lines being set up throughout the lower levels of San Angeles. The closest one for her was in Level 2 Chinatown. They didn’t ask questions, and they didn’t care where you came from. If you were hungry, they would feed you. That was where she had first seen Kris.

  The time between her failed attempt to kill Kris two weeks ago and seeing her at the Chinatown kitchen hadn’t been good. Food had been scarce, to the point where she’d fought to eat out of garbage cans. She’d even robbed people on Level 5, looking for anything she could trade for food. She had considered getting caught in SoCal’s draft sweeps just so she could get a meal and a bed to sleep in. She didn’t know what stopped her from doing exactly that. She had nothing against killing for a living. It’s what she had done for Jeremy for the last few years.

  She’d succeeded in every mission he’d given her except one.

  Kris was the reason she was here instead of on Level 6. Monitoring Kris at the ACE training camp would have finally given her enough money to live more than comfortably up there. She could have quit doing missions. She’d already picked out a nice apartment. It was on the top floor, but that didn’t matter as much up there. Now she was stuck down here with no way to get past security, no way to get to the money she had saved. She was fucked.

  ACE and Jeremy were gone. Both destroyed by Kris. Janice had found that out early enough. So there was no way to get more work, more money. Getting rid of Kris wasn’t an ACE job anymore; it wasn’t a Jeremy job anymore. It had become personal.

  She’d been following Kris since the sighting in the food lines, mapping her movements and habits. Waiting for the right time.

  Kris had ridden her motorcycle into the inter-level parking only moments before. Janice continued to hide behind the garbage, watching the dark windows for any sign of new activity. A light flipped on in one of the thin strips
. The timing was late, but it was the first one on. The good thing was it was a window Janice had picked as Kris’s, and on the fourth floor. The only other possibility was a room on the second floor, and Kris was too low-level a person to get a premium space like that.

  Janice stayed in the shadows for another ten minutes before heading off to Chinatown. She crept deeper in the alley, sliding along the edge of the building, staying between the piles of moldy trash and the fibercrete until she was sure she was out of sight from the main strip. She moved a filthy mattress leaning against the wall to reveal a beat up old motorcycle. She had acquired it only a few days ago, knowing she would need something to follow Kris. Trying to chase a bike on foot was stupid with a capital S. The person who used to own it wouldn’t need it anymore. They’d been beaten and robbed for whatever they had before she’d gotten there. She watched him die after she’d taken out two of his attackers. She let the third one get away, dragging a broken ankle. He’d never walk the same again.

  She got on the machine and rode the side streets toward Chinatown.

  Whatever was in the building she’d been watching, it couldn’t have been too big. Janice had easily spotted a couple of guards, but nothing else. A corporation or ACE would have had lookouts in the alley and on the rooftops of the surrounding buildings. These guys had essentially nothing: a lone patrol on the roof that kept a predictable schedule. Amateurs.

  Janice parked in a dark corner and walked into the glare of Chinatown. The neon was a constant, no matter what was going on. She pushed past the slow walkers, wanting to be near the front of the food line. It was always good to get into the lines early. The chance of getting more solids in the soup was higher. There weren’t many people yet so she could pick her own line. That meant she could flirt with Jason again. Flirting got her more food.

  KADOKAWA SAT CITY 2—MONDAY, JULY 3, 2141 3:00 P.M.

  Andrew Ito strode into his war room with a confidence he didn’t feel. It wouldn’t do to show the men what he thought about the war Kadokawa had entered. He had been assigned to his role only a few short weeks ago.

  His predecessor had been “let go” in a most unceremonious manner. He had been stripped of his rank and dishonorably discharged. Andrew didn’t want to make the same mistake. He didn’t want to end his career the same way. Yet what he was being asked to do wasn’t what he had signed up for. It wasn’t the Kadokawa way.

  The loss of the quantum scientist had been a huge blow to Kadokawa. Even though they still had his data and his team, no progress was being made. They remained at a deadlock where, no matter what they did, the outcome on living brain tissue was the same. Whoever they sent through a quantum jump would end up dead.

  He knew they had a working jump drive, as long as they didn’t transport anything they wanted alive on the other side. That had been proven by Meridian before Kadokawa’s hostile takeover. So, instead of trying to fix the jump drive, he switched the team to work on shielding technology. If he could protect the passengers during a jump, it would be a big win to the corporation.

  His changes to the Sat City’s security had turned the orbiting station into an operational military base. It hadn’t taken much. Most of the nonessential personal had been shipped off-site and replaced with military staff, though a few family members had stayed behind. He was working to get them off the satellite as soon as possible. Anyone associated with the jump drive was monitored and escorted by two armed soldiers whenever they weren’t in the lab.

  At least Andrew had inherited a worthy Sat City. Before Meridian’s demise, they had spent huge sums of money on building a larger fleet and adding tremendous amounts of shielding to the city itself. Shielding they hadn’t had to use since he’d been here. His teams had tried to pin the single vessel attack on SoCal, but no proof had been found.

  Acquiring Meridian and its assets had immediately brought Kadokawa into the war as an aggressor. A massive leap from their usual role as protectors and humanitarians. Since he had taken over, things had escalated from occasional skirmishes with SoCal to prolonged attacks. None of them affecting the city.

  Yet.

  Lines had been drawn in the proverbial sand and all-out war was only days away. SoCal had attacked Kadokawa’s mines on Mars, and Kadokawa had responded in kind. It would take years to bring the mines back up to capacity. But the damage to Kadokawa’s reputation could take decades to repair.

  Every schoolchild was taught what happened in the last war they’d fought. It had led to the 1947 constitution, in which Japan renounced war as a tool. It was that constitution that had helped form the Japanese military that Andrew had joined. One that was known for its humanitarian goals, for its willingness and ability to help others, no matter what the issue.

  Their attack on Meridian had changed all that.

  IBC had remained strangely silent. Early on they’d sided with SoCal, going so far as to have the president of the United States stand beside SoCal and declare his dismay at the attacks on the San Angeles water stations. Since the president was owned by IBC, that was a clear signal as to whose side they were on, but they had made no move after that.

  Someone in Operations had finally noticed his presence and announced him.

  “Kaishō-ho in the room.”

  The men and women not involved in any immediate tasks stood and saluted.

  “At ease,” Andrew said. “Kaisa Mori, what is our current status?”

  “We remain at full alert, Kaishō-ho. SoCal is maintaining the same number of spacecraft at the front line. They continue to observe us from a distance, but do not dare approach.”

  “Have we monitored any quantum jumps?”

  “None, sir. All vessels portray standard characteristics.”

  “Good. Expand our perimeter by another thousand kilometers. Our leaders have asked us to show these gaijin that we only tolerate them. Barely.” Andrew did his best to hide the revulsion he felt at repeating the order, the choice of words used.

  The captain bowed. “Yes, Kaishō-ho.”

  Andrew watched a screen as the orders were carried out. Expanding the Sat City’s borders was completely unnecessary, but he’d ordered it for two reasons. The first and most obvious was to keep poking at SoCal. He’d been ordered to keep them concentrating on what happened here. The more they focused on his station and not on the troops heading out to reinforce the Martian mines, the better the potential outcome. The second reason was to test his captain. He was new at his position and Andrew wanted to find out what kind of soldier he was.

  The existing ships expanded their circle, pushing the SoCal forces farther away. When new Kadokawa ships appeared on the display, sent from the Sat City to fill the holes created by the expanding sphere, he allowed himself a tight smile. Kaisa Mori knew how to do his job.

  Andrew stayed in the room for a few more minutes, observing how Mori handled his team. He didn’t need to be there. Meridian had installed surveillance in every corner so that he could watch from his office, but experience had taught him that the people under him reacted differently when he was in Operations than when he was out. Frankly, he was surprised his predecessor hadn’t removed the cameras.

  When he was away, Kaisa Mori ran a more casual room. Talking and moving around was limited, but the people at their stations were relaxed. They still responded to orders quickly. Andrew needed to know if they would react even better under pressure, and with the standoff between the two forces, the only pressure he could provide was his presence.

  He turned back to the exit, and as the door opened for him, he sensed the atmosphere in the room change.

  This city was ready for war, and his confidence in Kaisa Mori had gone up a notch.

  Now it was time to check up on the new shielding for the quantum drive.

  LOS ANGELES LEVEL 6—MONDAY, JULY 3, 2141 4:02 P.M.

  Kai breathed a sigh of relief. He was finally getting somewhere
. All it took was to push Kris from his thoughts for half a day so he could concentrate on the task at hand. He felt guilty as hell about it.

  Still, it had worked. Doc Searls had finally agreed to help them. He was a great first acquisition. The number of people he had seen in his role as one of ACE’s doctors would be a boon to the insurgents. A decade ago, they would not have needed him. Kai’s ACE contacts would have been better. But years away from the organization had lowered his value in the area.

  Getting Doc Searls still felt like a hollow victory.

  Leaving Kris behind was one of the hardest things he had ever done, and he couldn’t get the thought out of his head that it was probably the stupidest. She was still in shock and in pain from the failed attempt to get Miller. She probably believed it was all her fault as well. It was easy to forget how young she was sometimes. How she did not have the life experiences to enable her to cope with the kind of pain she was dealing with. Then again, maybe age did not matter.

  He should have stayed, no matter what she had said. Even though she did not know it, what she really needed was a friend, not someone who would abandon her when times got tough.

  You would figure someone as old as he was would know that.

  Now that the first stage of his job was done, he could go back. This time he would not leave until he knew she was ready to deal with the loss.

  At least she still had Pat. He sighed again. Kris and Pat had become close during their time together at the ACE training compound, but he was not sure it would be enough. What Kris needed was a shoulder, a helping hand. He saw Pat as more of a take-command type of person. She would probably try to get Kris to talk to a counselor or therapist, try to tell her how to move on. Get past it all.

  That was all fine, but it was not what Kris needed. It was not how she dealt with pain and loss and suffering. There would be plenty of time for that later, after she had come to terms with what had happened. She needed time.