The Rebel

by Gerald Brandt

  “Yes,” said Kai. “And every port is also a SoCal military base. We would never get close enough to get anything.”

  “We wouldn’t attack near the base.”

  Jack studied the back of his hands before replying. “Okay. You have two days to come up with a plan. I’ll try to get you a list of contacts near the other ports. Coordinate with them and give me something I can bring to the other cells.”

  Pat nodded. Two days wasn’t a lot of time, but it might be all they had anyway . . . even less if they dumped the trucks for air transport.

  “If that’s it, I think we’ll call it a night.”

  “Umm, no. I have one more thing.” Here it was. The part Pat didn’t want to talk about. Unfortunately, she didn’t have a choice. As long as she kept Kris’s pregnancy a secret, it should be okay. Though even that felt wrong. “Kris came back today,” Pat said.

  “Kris? The same Kris who got drafted yesterday?”

  “Yes.”

  “How did she escape?”

  “She didn’t. They let her go because of her age.” Pat swallowed the half-truth. It was easier than she’d thought it would be.

  “How old is she?” Jack asked.

  “Seventeen.”

  “How close to eighteen?”

  “A couple of months.”

  He shook his head. “I can’t see that happening. I’ve heard of kids being drafted and trained if they were close enough to their birthday. What’s so special about her?”

  “She was exhausted when she came in, I didn’t want to ask too many questions. I brought her up to her room and let her sleep.”

  “You left her alone?”

  “Yes.”

  Jack got up and opened the hallway door. “Have a guard put on Kris Merrill’s room immediately. Make sure they verify that she is still in there. They are not to let her out.”

  Pat heard a mumbled reply.

  “You do not have to do that,” Kai said. “Kris would never do anything that would harm us.”

  Somehow, Pat knew he was referring to her and himself.

  “It’s too odd to leave alone,” Jack said. “A lot of people depend on me for their safety. I can’t let it slip because you know her. SoCal never lets people go.”

  “I know, but—”

  “There’s no discussion, Kai. Until we can figure out what’s going on, she’s under house arrest.”

  Kai just nodded.

  “Good. Get in touch with Doc Searls, and Pat, get me a working plan in two days.”

  He held the door open for them and they left.

  Kai stopped Pat partway down the hall. “Why did they let her go?”

  She pressed her lips together.

  “Tell me.”

  “No.”

  “No? Why not?”

  “I can’t. It’s not my place.”

  “Is she in trouble? Did she make some sort of deal with SoCal?”

  Pat gave him a disgusted look. “You know better than that.” She slipped her arm from his grasp and walked through the double doors, relieved to be left alone.

  LOS ANGELES LEVEL 2—THURSDAY, JULY 6, 2141 2:27 A.M.

  I woke up to a dark room, shadows chasing demons into the black corners. My heart hammered in my chest and a silent scream fell from my lips. At least I hoped it was silent. My eyes slowly focused, and the light from the dimmed Ambients filtering through the window helped push the demons away, helped me remember where I was. It was still night. The long walk from where SoCal had let me go to my room on Level 2 came back in dribbles, and my heart settled down, my body eventually relaxing back into the warm bed.

  We’d all heard the horror stories of how SoCal got the draftees to fight, whispered over meals in the mess hall. Some of it was straightforward. Give them basic training and throw them in the field against the enemy. They either fight or die. Or both. Some of it included brainwashing, sleep deprivation, drugs. The list went on. I knew I was lucky to get out.

  It dawned on me as I lay in bed that I hadn’t felt sick the last few mornings. Maybe that was finally done with and I could get back to being a bit more normal. I had no idea how long morning sickness was supposed to last. I should have asked Doc Searls.

  I had told Pat about the baby last night. Even as I thought the words, a massive weight lifted off my shoulders. I was finally able to share and talk about it with someone. Sure, Doc Searls had always known, but telling Pat was different. More personal. More of a relief.

  Now, though, things would change. Pat would keep her promise about not telling anyone, at least I hoped so, but that didn’t mean she wouldn’t do anything she could to keep me out of the field. She’d been trying her best since Ian had died, and I knew she would triple her efforts.

  Maybe it was for the best.

  No! I couldn’t let myself think that way. If I did, there was a chance I would never get back out there, and that was where I wanted—needed—to be. Sitting back and letting others do the work wasn’t who I was.

  There were so many unanswered questions and so many decisions to make. I pushed them away. One thing living on Levels 1 and 2 had taught me was to take life one day at a time. Long-term plans were good to have, but the day-to-day was what kept you alive, kept you moving.

  I rolled onto my side and closed my eyes. Tonight I would sleep. Tomorrow would be a new day.

  Fifteen minutes later I turned over, trying to get comfortable. Ten minutes after that I did it again. After tossing and turning for an hour or more, I finally got up. I wasn’t going to sleep. It was too fucking early in the morning to be awake, that was for sure. Maybe I could get a bite to eat from the kitchen. I hadn’t had anything during my walk yesterday, and I was famished. I tried to straighten out my crumpled clothes, still from SoCal, and opened the door.

  “I’m sorry, you’ll have to stay in the room.”

  I gasped and jumped back about three feet, ready to fight.

  “Close the door and wait till someone comes to get you in the morning.”

  A guard! They had placed a guard by my door. Why the hell would they . . . Because SoCal had let me go and the only person who really knew why was Pat. I closed the door and went into panic mode. My breathing was shallow and quick. I wasn’t ready to let everyone know. It was too soon. How was I supposed to get out of this mess?

  For the second time tonight, I felt lightheaded. This time it wasn’t from relief. I was scared, truly scared of what the insurgents would do to me. Would they kick me out? Move me to the sidelines where I would be more useless than I already was? I’d thought of leaving them many times, but it was different when the choice was out of my control.

  I stood behind the closed door for few minutes before crawling back into bed.

  Sleep finally came, but with it came the dreams of Ian and me, and then the nightmares that had kept me segregated at boot camp. I hadn’t had them since I found out I was pregnant. Maybe their brief absence made them feel worse. Maybe the turmoil I felt amplified the emotions. The panic of the closed box, of the bullets entering my body, were the worst they had ever been.

  I woke up screaming, my throat raw and Pat leaning over me, holding me down, trying to let me know everything was all right. Faces peeked in through the open door until the guard shoved everyone back and closed it. He’d been gawking as much as everyone else. I cried in Pat’s arms until there was no strength left in me, no more tears to release into the world. I must have fallen asleep again, waking up alone in a brightly lit room to the sound of tapping at the door.

  I sat up groggily, rubbing the sleep from my eyes. Every part of me ached and protested at the sudden movement. “Come in.”

  The door opened and a head stuck through. “Hey.” It was Selma. “I’ve been asked to bring you to Jack’s office, if you were awake.”

  I stared at her.

 
“I can tell them you were still sleeping, if you want.” I could almost feel the concern emanating from her. Was she one of the people who had stuck their head in the door last night? It didn’t matter. The story would have gotten around by now.

  “No,” I sighed. “Just give me a couple of minutes to change and clean up.” I had forgotten to check if my buckets were full yesterday.

  “Take as much time as you need.”

  “Thanks.”

  She left me alone. I crawled out of bed, looking for clean clothes in the dresser. I would stick out like a sore thumb wearing the clothes SoCal had given me. They looked too much like what the military wore. Someone must have come in and put my clothes away. The dresser had two of my pants and shirts in it, plus some clean underwear. I stripped down and got dressed, leaving the SoCal clothes in a pile in the middle of the room. They could burn them as far as I was concerned.

  One bucket had a bit of water in it, enough to wash the crud from my eyes and rinse out my mouth. When I was done, I opened the door. Selma was waiting for me.

  “You ready?”

  “I guess.”

  “Okay, come on.”

  I followed her down to Jack’s office, and the guard followed me.

  LOS ANGELES LEVEL 2—THURSDAY, JULY 6, 2141 12:17 P.M.

  By the time the interview was done, I was more tired than the night before. My eyelids were heavy and I slouched in the chair Jack had offered me. I don’t know if he simply didn’t believe I was pregnant, or if he thought it was something SoCal and I had dreamed up in order to reinsert myself as a mole into his organization. At least he’d brought in food so I could eat.

  At some point, I gave up and walked out, telling him to get his own damn doctor to check me out if he wanted. Fuck him. I didn’t need that shit in my life. The insurgent guards left me alone once I walked out of the building.

  I left, not knowing where to go. I just knew I didn’t want to be there right now. It was tiring being treated like I was the bad guy, and I already missed my bike. By the time the insurgents had gotten back to the scene of the draft, it was gone. Probably stripped for parts and sold off to put food on someone’s table. I couldn’t blame them. But without it, I felt exposed and vulnerable. I didn’t like it.

  I turned toward Chinatown, staying by the buildings that lined the streets, my old haunts pulling at me like I was a puppet. I didn’t know what I was going to do until I got there. The street kitchen was still setting up. From what I had heard, they had cut the meals down to one a day. Even though the food was supplied by the insurgents, it wasn’t run or staffed by them. I would come back when the food was ready and at least help serve it. I still had to get my mind off of the distrust that had oozed from Jack, so I walked into the Lee’s fish market, wanting a reminder of where I had come from. It worked. The second I walked through the door, I was transported back to last year, when I had lived here. Though the shelves were almost empty, the smell of raw fish filled my nose and the oils soaked into my skin.

  It lasted no more than a minute before I realized I could never—would never—go back to the person I had been. Too much had happened since I was a courier. I had gained and lost so much. I walked out, uncomfortable and feeling like I needed to shower for a week. It had reminded me of a life I wasn’t part of anymore. Though I had enjoyed it at the time, I had been forced to move on, had lived a lifetime since I’d left.

  I walked down to Kai’s old restaurant, faded menus still covering the windows. He had put them up only a couple of weeks ago to stop people from looking in, from seeing us in there. I cupped my hands to peer through the gaps. The inside was dark. I barely made out the counter separating the kitchen from the public area. Despite the covered windows, the restaurant still looked ready to open, ready to serve lunch to hungry people. The chances of it happening were pretty much zero.

  As I pulled away from the window, a reflection in the glass grabbed my attention. I leaned back in, pretending to take another look inside.

  Though the glass rippled the image, I was fairly certain of what I had seen. It was Janice, pulling on the arm of a man I didn’t know. He was tall and thin, and for the briefest moment I thought it was Quincy. My insides loosened in fear, turning into a blob of jelly. I knew it couldn’t be him. Even if they’d gotten him to a hospital, there wasn’t a chance of bringing life back into his body. Not after what I had done. I watched Janice and the man for a few seconds before casually turning around and staring right at them.

  I had to be one hundred percent sure it was her. I’d seen her fly over the handlebars of her bike, which meant if she was here, she wasn’t working alone. Someone had gotten her to a hospital and fixed her up. The image in the glass was too wavy to be certain. Turning may not have been the smartest move though. On one hand, if they knew I had seen them, they might give up and go away. Though I didn’t think that would happen. She had been too persistent for too long. It was more likely that they’d be extra careful, making it even more difficult to see them.

  But I had to be sure.

  The moment I made eye contact, a voice called out to me. I recognized it immediately. My aunt. I caught Janice staring at her, memorizing her face, her walk, her posture, and my heart fell. Suddenly, I wished I’d never met my aunt again. Knowing Janice had seen her ripped away the certainty that if anything happened, it would happen to me. That no one else would be dragged into what was coming.

  Before I could turn away, before I could warn my aunt, she came up to me and gave me a hug. If Janice had paid attention to half the training she’d gotten at the ACE compound, she would have spotted the weakness. I didn’t think she was stupid enough to have missed it. If she did, her partner would have caught it instead. Even dressed in clothes worse than most people on Level 2, he gave off an aura of danger.

  Suddenly, it wasn’t just me in trouble. I raised an involuntary hand to my abdomen. I guess it never really had been.

  LOS ANGELES LEVEL 2—THURSDAY, JULY 6, 2141 12:10 P.M.

  Despite her initial misgivings, Janice’s new partner seemed good. Very good. When she had first met him, when John had introduced them, she was worried. Manfred was dressed in a crisp steel blue three-piece suit with the thin lapel and high vest that was all the rage. He looked more like a fashion model than an operative of any sort.

  She still wasn’t sure why they had sent her back down. They’d barely questioned her. Maybe there was something in her records that had helped. More likely, they were testing her. Trying to figure out whose side she was on, and whether her skill set matched what they had read. She figured she wasn’t hanging on by more than a thread. One mistake and Manfred’s orders were probably to kill her and dump the body.

  The whole shuttle ride down, she tried to figure Manfred out. He was quiet, not responding to her questions. At one point, he told her to shut up. She’d stopped trying then.

  They hadn’t given her the gun back. Instead they’d given her a stun gun. It could only be used to incapacitate, not kill. SoCal wasn’t taking any chances.

  By the time the shuttle landed, Manfred had already changed into something more casual. The same button-up shirt, but with a more relaxed pair of pants and comfortable-looking shoes. He’d blend in on Levels 6 and 7 with that, but stick out like an intruder on the lower levels.

  They got a car to drive from long-term parking. Another thing that made them stand out. It was too new and too clean to be of any real use. It reeked of money and wealth beyond what anyone, even on Level 5, could afford. Even an amateur would be able to recognize the car and realize they were being followed, that it didn’t belong.

  When they reached Level 5, he locked her into the car and left. She tried to unlock the doors, even groping under the dash for any wires. She struggled to remove the front seat headrest, hoping to use it to break the glass, or at the very least pry off the inside of the door so she could fiddle with the locks. They didn�
��t budge, and she gave up. Twenty minutes later, a beat-up old thing pulled in beside her. The driver looked worn out, tired, but not too badly off. His clothes, though somewhat clean, were frayed and patched. It took her a few seconds to realize it was Manfred. He unlocked the car she was in and pulled her out, shoving her into the front seat of the one he had driven up in. They still hadn’t spoken more than a few words.

  On Level 3 he made another switch, dressing more like the homeless and destitute on Level 2 than she did. It was ridiculous how often he changed. It would have been easier to do one switch on Level 5 and stay with it.

  They left the car in a parking garage in the Italian sector and walked down the ramp to Level 2, blending in with everyone else heading to the food in Chinatown.

  Manfred shuffled his feet, as though he barely had the energy to move them, to get to the only thing that might keep him alive for another day. It was all a bit much, the costume and posture changes. Even his skin was dirtier than when they had left orbit. She wasn’t sure if the effort was for her benefit, or if this was something he always did.

  They walked into Chinatown side-by-side, his hand on her shoulder, as though he needed her support to walk. The tightness of his grip told her otherwise.

  “I can’t be seen here. We need to move off the main strip,” she said.

  “Try to blend in.”

  “If Kris is here, she’ll recognize me.”

  He stopped across from a shut-down Chinese restaurant and looked her up and down, as if really seeing her for the first time. “We don’t need to get you different clothes. These ones look like shit already. Not much we can do about the hair. I can hack it off a bit, make it shorter and rougher. Maybe rub some dirt in it. It looks too clean.”

  Janice bit back a sharp retort. She balked at the idea of chopping off her hair, but knew he was right. “We could stay in the alleys,” she offered instead.

  “No. If the insurgents have people on guard here, and they should, they’ll be on the lookout for anybody who doesn’t fit, and skulking in alleys will trigger them. Not good.”