The Rebel

by Gerald Brandt

  The driver finally made a decision and slammed on the brakes, stopping in the middle of the ramp. I stayed well back, the bike angled in case I needed to take off.

  The two boarders on the hood rolled off onto the fibercrete, their armor taking the brunt of the impact. They’d done this before. They were back on their feet before the driver could figure out what to do next.

  Boarders swarmed the car. A half dozen of them reached under the molded front bumper to the frame behind it and lifted, jamming their boards under it before letting go. It didn’t matter what the driver did now, the drive wheels were off the ground. The car wasn’t going anywhere.

  In the sudden silence, I heard the thunk of the car doors locking. It didn’t really matter. The boarders smashed at every window until the glass crystallized in a latticework of confusion. They all exploded inwards. A total of twenty seconds had passed, and they were grabbing the driver and pulling her out through the shattered glass.

  I couldn’t let this happen. I dropped the bike into gear.

  Before I could move, a huge truck rounded the corner below the attack. Gray on gray. There was only one type of vehicle that color, only one that would drive up a down-ramp. SoCal military. I popped the clutch, racing up the ramp and leaving the boarders and their victim in a frozen tableau as they watched the truck approach them.

  I rushed past the stopped traffic, my breath coming in short bursts. Horns honked as I fought to fit through cars that had almost collided while trying to pass everyone else. Squeezing against the wall, I weaved between chunks of fibercrete, the knobby edge of my tires gripping in the loose grit. The top of the ramp came into view.

  The boarders at the entrance weren’t there anymore. In their place sat another truck. Gray on gray, its matte black logo of the California coastline barely visible. Soldiers with guns stood in front of it. No traffic entered the ramp behind the last car. I let go of the throttle, my hand numb and fingers tingling from gripping so tight. Deep in my chest, I felt the too-familiar sensation of fear reaching for my thumping heart, squeezing the life out to silence the steady beat.

  I turned around and sped back down, leaving a black streak of rubber behind me. As I weaved through the standstill traffic, drivers got out of their cars, wondering what had happened below to stall the flow. I could use them. It might be my only chance.

  I eased back on the throttle and the bike slowed. At every quizzical look, every open window or door, I yelled as loud as possible. Draft! Fear spread like a ripple in a scummy pond, racing ahead of me as I continued my descent. More people stepped out, hesitant until my momentum caused them to move in the same direction—a mass of humanity pouring down the ramp, the pace picking up, until they ran full speed. My message reached ahead like the hand of death.

  People stumbled and fell. Some were picked up. Some were trampled. Some managed to roll under a car. No one seemed to care. The moving mass was no longer human, no longer sane and rational creatures that helped one another. They were animals with no sense of herd. Human self-preservation at its worst.

  They surged past the busted-up car, pushing the boarders ahead of them. The people in front finally realized their way was blocked and tried to slow down. The horde behind them kept on moving. People screamed. There was no stopping the momentum. In only a few more steps, bodies would be crushed against the SoCal truck and the row of soldiers stretched across the ramp. A siren blared in the enclosed space, the echo louder than original, bouncing along the walls in an attempt to escape. Another blast and the panicked crowd faltered.

  A gap opened and I swerved left, racing beside the wall, dodging people and accelerating as the siren screamed again. A body slammed into the back of the bike, sending me into a slide. I hit the ground hard, my helmet cracking against the road as the bike skidded below me. My eyes lost focus. I rotated onto my back, keeping my feet pointing downward. The bike smashed through the soldiers, taking a couple of them out. Their linked line of armor and weapons broke. I slid through the crack, followed by anyone close enough to see what I had done and alert enough to take advantage of it.

  The bike collided with the wall and spun before coming to a stop. I pushed off the still-rotating rear tire, moving farther into the road. People ran past me, over me. I rolled onto my feet and stumbled away. I had to lose myself in the chaos. Gunshots echoed off the ceiling and the crowd wavered again. The confusion helped me. I was going to make it.

  I had to make it.

  SOCAL SAT CITY 2—TUESDAY, JULY 4, 2141 3:06 P.M.

  Janice had been on shuttles before, even visited a Sat City back when she was still working for Jeremy, so it was nothing new. It was rare enough for her that normally she would have felt a little excited, but not knowing what her future was going to be squashed that. They’d landed on some sort of military deck of SoCal 2 instead of the main terminal. That was new.

  She’d been hauled down plain composite hallways by military police until they had gotten here.

  Now she sat in what she could only call a prison cell. Sure, it was a higher-class one than she had ever seen before—and she’d seen quite a few—but it was still a cell. Four walls, a table bolted to the wall with two chairs, and a locked door. She double-checked the lock, thinking it looked like a simple push-button mechanism. She was right. With a lock that simple, she could be out of the room in less than five seconds. The problem was, where would she go after that?

  SoCal Sat City 2 was huge, but it didn’t matter. When you were floating in space in a fucking tin can, there weren’t too many places to hide. Correction, there were a lot of places you could hide, just not for long. So she sat in her tiny, weak prison cell and waited until someone came to get her. That had lasted long enough for her to have to pee so bad, she had considered going in the corner. Instead, she finally decided to pop the lock.

  There wasn’t much to see on the other side of the door. Just a hallway with a few more doors like hers along one side. There was a single door at the end—the one they had brought her through on the way in—and she headed for that. No lock. No guard. No bathroom. She was jogging through the interconnected rooms, trying to keep her steps smooth so she wouldn’t jostle her bladder and hoping she would find someone who could point her in the right direction. Her need pushed aside the discomfort in her leg.

  Were they trying to test her? That didn’t make sense. Were they so sure of themselves that they didn’t care? Again, that didn’t make sense either. So what the fuck was going on? She dashed around for ten minutes before she found a bathroom, sprinting to the door and barely making it. When she walked out, a woman with a stun gun waited for her. Where the hell was she when Janice had almost peed herself?

  SoCal implemented the same rules in their Sat cities as they did in San Angeles. No guns. Janice found it interesting that they also applied the rule to their security forces up here. The woman didn’t say anything, instead simply pointing back in the direction Janice had come.

  It was only when they got to the room outside the prison hallway that Janice noticed the floor change from carpet to plain white tile. John Smith sat waiting for them. He stood and smiled, as though her getting out of the locked room and being led back by a guard was an everyday occurrence and nothing to be concerned over.

  “Ah, there you are! Time to meet your new best friend. Follow me.” He beckoned with his hand and the guard fell in behind them.

  The elevator they got on went up several floors before it came to a stop, the doors opening into a hallway with a security desk. They were let through and took another elevator up. This time when the doors opened, the view left Janice breathless and a bit giddy. It took everything she had not to gape at what she saw. The far wall was covered in mossy green plants, and in the center was a waterfall splashing into a small pool at the base. Brilliantly colored flowers punctuated the space.

  The floor was plush, covered in a carpet that matched the greenery without
taking away from it. Wood grain covering wrapped the other three walls, and a reception desk blended in, almost hidden from view. A man stood from behind the desk and smiled.

  “Go right in. She’s expecting you.”

  John led Janice to the living wall. As they got closer, she noticed it was overlapped in one place, creating an almost hidden passage. If you didn’t know it was there, you’d have to be at the right angle to see it. Security through obscurity? She let her fingers touch the moss as she walked past, and the guard slapped her hand away.

  John walked beside her now, waving at the guard to stay behind them. The hallway was lined with the same wood grain material as the reception area. Just to show the guard what she thought, Janice slid her fingers along it.

  “Mahogany and cherry wood. I believe it’s real,” John said.

  She jerked her hand back.

  He laughed. “A common reaction. Your fingers won’t hurt it though.”

  A waterfall, real wood. Enough of it to fill a forest, Janice thought. She’d never really seen a forest, besides the scrappy pine outside the compound, but she had a pretty good idea of how many trees were in one. If this was all designed to put visitors at ease, it wasn’t working on her. The unimaginable amount of money on display was too much. Still, she wanted this kind of life for herself—although maybe not this extravagant—and would do whatever it took to get it.

  John stopped at a door and knocked, only opening it when Janice heard a faint “Come in.”

  In stark contrast to the richness of the reception area and the hallway, this room was white and gray. Simple furniture made the room seem bigger than it was. One entire wall was covered in bookcases, filled to almost overflowing but never getting to the point where it looked messy or out of control. It was the only thing in the room that spoke of money, and the understated aspect of it made it even more apparent.

  A man, dressed simply in a black dress shirt and pants with creases so sharp Janice was sure she could use them as a weapon, turned from the bookcase. He didn’t acknowledge them or even look in their direction. Instead, he moved to a small table that contained a sweating carafe of water. Without asking, he poured three large glasses, handing two of them to John and Janice.

  John nodded his head in thanks while Janice took a sip of the cold liquid.

  “Ms. Peters will be with you soon.” The man glanced at Janice in distaste.

  John nodded again, still not drinking. When the man left the room, leaving the third glass on the table with the carafe, John visibly relaxed. Janice tried for another sip and he touched her arm, shaking his head.

  She still wasn’t sure why she’d been brought up here.

  A door opened in the side wall and John stood straighter, his movements became more formal.

  The woman walking in went straight for the water glass and took a sip before turning back to them. She walked to her desk and sat, motioning toward the two empty chairs in front of her. “Please, sit. Enjoy your water.”

  Only after John was in the chair did he drink from his glass, cradling it in his other hand when he was done. Janice copied him. Normally, she was pretty relaxed. Wherever she was, whoever she was with, they could take her or leave her. Even in front of Jeremy, she had always been relaxed. Vigilant, but relaxed. But this whole environment made her feel uncomfortable and out of her depth. She shifted in her chair, earning a quick glance from John.

  Ms. Peters put her glass on a small coaster on the desk. “Tell me what you told John. Leave nothing out.”

  The glass Janice held was suddenly heavy and slippery, but she didn’t have any place to put it down. Instead, she gripped it with both hands and for the second time told a complete stranger everything she knew about Jeremy, ACE, and Kris.

  LOS ANGELES LEVEL 2—TUESDAY, JULY 4, 2141 3:15 P.M.

  Pat walked out of what she called the cold storage room in the sub-basement, a pad in her hand and a frown on her face. They were still low on food, and what they had was already beginning to go bad. This room was originally designed to store what the tenants of the building above couldn’t put in their apartments. When Pat had first seen the room, it was separated into small areas with chain-link fencing that reached from the ceiling to the floor. She had turned it into food storage, and it wasn’t cold enough to keep things fresh for long. Not even with the cooler Level 2 temperatures.

  Today, the people would be able to eat more than their normal share. It was better to use all the food than let it sit and go to rot. She passed her pad to one of the other people in the hallway. Her orders were already written on it.

  “Use anything that is starting to go bad. Give the street kitchens as much as they can take.”

  The man nodded, walking away as her comm unit beeped. She pulled it from her pocket and read the display. It was Jack. Either he was fast, or something new had come up. She wished it was something new, but knowing Jack, he was already getting ready to countermand her food orders.

  Someone had already told him what she was doing.

  When Jack had been moved into his position, he’d filled his staff with people he knew, people he’d worked with, surrounding himself with people he trusted, no matter what their skill set. He’d ended up with a bunch of lackeys and yes men. She answered the comm unit.

  “What?”

  “You’re using twice as much food today as yesterday.”

  “Yeah, it’s starting to go bad.” Jackass. It figured he was already trying to second-guess her.

  “We’re running low,” Jack said.

  “It’s going bad. By tomorrow, the lettuce and tomatoes will be brown goo. I need food that can hold better, or a proper refrigerator to store them in.”

  There was silence on the link before Jack spoke again. “Exchange what is going bad with something less perishable from the Chinatown and the Skid Row kitchens. Make sure our people are fed.”

  Pat frowned. “That will work for today and maybe tomorrow. What about after that?”

  “Your orders are to keep our people fed. We need our strength for what’s coming up.”

  “So you’re willing to hurt the people we’re trying to protect? And what is coming up? You’ve kept me out of the loop ever since Kris and I went out the hole in the wall.”

  “That cost us a lot of resources with no return.”

  “So I’m being punished? Is that why you put me on food? You told us the only thing you wanted was to get your people back. We did that.”

  There was another pause. “Come up to my office.”

  The link went dead.

  Pat jammed the comm unit into her pocket. Food was running out. The people they were supposed to be helping were starving. Water was at a premium. Between SoCal rationing the water and Jack rationing the food, people were going to start dying. That wasn’t how this was supposed to go.

  The last run on the greenhouses had been great, and they had some vegetables that would last, even if they weren’t properly refrigerated. Everyone would be eating potatoes and carrots for quite a while. But what they really needed were nonperishables. And a lot of them. SoCal still used trucks to get food from the Level 1 docks to Level 7. If they could get a couple of those . . . There was no point. It was too well protected. Pat left the sub-basement and crossed the lobby.

  The two guards were still standing at the double doors. They let her in without a word. Jack’s office door was open, and she could smell food in the hallway. She walked in without knocking. Jack and one of his cronies sat at the meeting table, with two plates of food and a pitcher of water on it. Her blood began to boil.

  Enough was enough.

  Pat grabbed the crony by his shirt and hauled him out of his chair. She had him out the door before he even knew what was happening, slamming it in his face and locking it before turning back to Jack. His face was bright red.

  “What the—”

&
nbsp; “Shut up and sit down.” Pat yanked his plate away and turned it over on top of the other one. Mashed potatoes with gravy squished out from between the plates and plopped onto the table, followed by small chunks of meatloaf and pieces of carrot. Pat sat and stared at the still standing Jack until he finally sat down as well. “People are starving.”

  “I was talking to the cooks today. Everyone is getting more than enough.”

  “I’m talking about out there.” She pointed to the wall facing the street. “When was the last time you left this building?”

  Jack examined his fingernails. “I’ve been busy. We’re planning an offensive to take back portions of Level 3 and 4. Places where we can control more of the water and gain access to the food warehouses. Winning that will help everyone.”

  “In the meantime, you eat meat and potatoes while the people out there have vegetable flavored water and soft tofu?”

  Someone pounded on the door. Pat didn’t move. She was so angry every muscle twitched. They pounded again.

  “I’m fine,” Jack yelled, exasperated. The pounding stopped. “We need our strength,” he said in a softer voice. “The people inside this building and others like it are the ones who will be on the front lines next week.”

  “I agree, we need our strength, but if the people we are supposedly doing this for are dead, what’s the point? You have to see how the food distribution isn’t fair, never mind the water. What did you do with the spaghetti water from last week’s dinner? Did you dump it? Recycle it? Or maybe, just maybe, you gave it to the street kitchens to add a bit more flavor to their meals. I’m sure they’ll be forever grateful.” She couldn’t keep the sarcasm out of her voice.

  “I’ll ask the cook.”

  “I don’t expect you to know everything that goes on around here, but food and water are the big topics, and not just inside this building. You need to keep on top of that.”

  Jack stopped cleaning under his fingernails. “That’s why I gave you the job.”