by Kyle Andrews
He wanted to stay put and hope that it would all go away. Maybe a celebrity would do something embarrassing and take the attention off of him. But such hope wasn't realistic. For as long as the government needed to put a face on their enemy, he would be plastered across every TV screens in the city. He needed to go. He needed to get back to his home, where he could at least hide in relative safety.
As soon as darkness fell, Collin moved off of the fire escape, into the building. His legs were stiff. His fingers were numb. He was so hungry that one or two homeless addicts looked at him with sympathy in their eyes. Unfortunately, they didn't offer him food. Nobody would offer food, because nobody could afford to.
He moved through the building keeping his head down and trying not to be recognized. There would undoubtedly be a reward for any information that led to his capture. It would be an even larger reward than they were offering when he was just a faceless citizen who ran out on his assignment meeting. He was a public enemy now—possibly even on a national level.
The idea of his face being known to the entire country made him feel sick. For the first time since his encounter with the police, Collin was glad that there was no food in his stomach.
On his way down a flight of stairs, Collin grabbed an old, dirty blanket and wrapped it around his head like a scarf. It smelled horrible, but once he reached the streets, there would be cameras capable of identifying him and passing his location on to the nearest HAND station within minutes. He needed to conceal his facial features and throw off their software if he had any hope of escaping. Even a quarter-face match could have a patrol car dispatched.
When he reached the street, Collin kept his head down and put his hands in his pockets. He walked as though he had someplace to be. He tried to give people on the street the impression that he had a lot on his mind and didn't want to be bothered, so they wouldn't look at him.
Mostly, this motivation was for his own benefit. He had to keep reminding himself not to look around for HAND officers or to see where the cameras were. He needed to give himself a role to play so that he could avoid acting like himself.
As he passed a computer repair shop, Collin once again spotted himself on TV. He probably shouldn't have stopped to watch the broadcast through the shop's window, but he wanted to know what they were saying about him. He needed to know how bad it was.
Most of the report didn't surprise him. They claimed that he was dangerous. He was a terrorist, wanted for all sorts of crimes that would leave people scratching their heads if they ever stopped to think about what the words meant.
Hostile content? What was hostile content? Words on a page? He wasn't transporting instructions on how to make bombs, or the manifesto of some charismatic cult leader. Most of the time, he was passing along scribbled, half-forgotten fairy tales that had once been as common as water.
Over the decades, just about every basic commodity had been in low supply at one point or another, including paper. So much so that there was a national paper drive at one point. Citizens were called upon to donate their books to their local library system, rather than hold onto those books for themselves. Any extra books were recycled, and people turned to digital platforms for their personal collections.
The technology to print new books was simple, but the paper supply was carefully monitored by the government. Home printers were a thing of the past.
Only a couple of years later, the massive April 4th cyber attacks happened. Digital content vanished from computers, tablets and e-readers . Just like that, it was all gone. It became nearly impossible to get your hands on any literature that wasn't on the government's approved reading list.
To think of it in hindsight made it seem obvious. How could the people have tolerated such a blatant filtering of their thoughts and ideas? But it didn't happen overnight. It happened so slowly that most people didn't think twice about it. Those who did have concerns eventually died off, giving way to new generations of citizens for whom book shortages were the norm.
How long does it take to strip a culture of free thought? That was the question. Freedom was holding on for dear life, but for how long? How many more generations could hold out before there simply was no other way?
Hostile content. The crime of thinking. Punishable by death.
As a chill ran through Collin, he pulled the blanket tighter around his head and turned away from the TV. He walked down the sidewalk and into the night.
5
As soon as Libby returned home to the small, drafty apartment that she shared with her mother, she put the groceries away and started making dinner. That is to say, she opened a can of beans and cut some hot dogs into the pot as she heated them. She would have preferred something more substantial, but she didn't have much say in the matter.
Her mother, Amanda, arrived home about an hour after Libby, and she looked horrible. Her hair was a mess. Her skin was pale. She seemed to be losing weight by the day.
Amanda didn't waste time taking off her coat or greeting her daughter before she collapsed into a chair and closed her eyes. She started coughing just as Libby entered the room, and didn't stop until after Libby had her mother's coat off and a blanket thrown over her.
“You need more rest,” Libby told her mother.
“If I take off of work, we'll get even less food than we have now.”
“If you don't take off of work, you could die before there's a chance for it to matter.”
“Don't be so dramatic,” Amanda replied, waving a hand in the air as if the situation were all in Libby's head. “I have an appointment with a doctor. We'll see what they say. If they don't think I can work, they'll submit me for sick status.”
“Couldn't your boss at least give you an easier job? One that doesn't require you to be on your feet all day?”
“My job is plenty easy.”
Libby couldn't stand it. Her mother was constantly downplaying the severity of the situation. She would come home looking like death every day, and she'd smile about it as though nothing were wrong.
“I saw Uly on my way in,” Amanda told her. “He says you two had a conversation. That's nice.”
“It wasn't so much a conversation as it was me yelling at him.”
“Why?”
Libby wanted to answer, but she couldn't think of anything to say. So instead, she walked back to the kitchen to dish out their dinner.
When she returned to the living room with their dinner, Amanda was watching the TV. Between segments of Amanda's favorite new show, The Loyalist, there were news updates about the search for Collin Powers. The updates were just as thrilling as the TV show, with civilian interviews and footage of HAND patrol cars searching the streets for the fugitive.
“Can you imagine what his mother must be thinking right now?” Amanda asked, shaking her head.
Libby didn't really care about the extremist's mother. When she looked at the TV screen, she saw someone who had dedicated his life to hating people. To hurting people. She couldn't imagine what sense of twisted logic could have brought him to the conclusion that this was a good decision.
She looked into the eyes of the man on the screen, and he appeared normal. He was even attractive, which was uncomfortable for her to think about, given what he was. He was just like every other person that she passed on the street every day, and yet something was horribly broken inside of him.
“Constitutional extremists never made sense to me,” Amanda told her. “They're clinging to the past, as though it was a better place to live. Racism. Bigotry. Who would want that?”
Amanda's words were followed by another fit of coughing, which continued for minutes.
Libby sat, listening to her mother hacking up a lung, while people on the screen told stories of Hate terrorizing their neighborhoods and burning down their homes. Images on the TV showed charred walls, spray painted with the phrase HATE PREVAILS, written in bright green.
It was a cruel world out there. Evil truly did exist, and there was nothing that any
one could do to stop it.
Libby was beginning to feel cold and lonely as she sat in that room with her mother. If the world wanted to crash down around her, there would be nothing that she could do to save herself. It was a harsh realization. She could fight until she was blue in the face, but the world would always win. Hate prevails.
Amanda fell asleep before the end of her show, and Libby allowed her to remain in the chair for the night. Moving her would have only caused more coughing, which would have resulted in even less rest.
As she turned off the TV and the lights, Libby stopped to watch Amanda sleep. Her breathing was strained. Her lips were chapped. The woman was withering away right before Libby's eyes. Most people probably would have shrugged it off. Maybe Libby's life would even get easier if Amanda died. There would be less stress. Her food would be covered by her student rights, rather than her mother's worker credits. Justin's parents were both dead after all, and he never went hungry.
But Libby had never been one for common sense. She couldn't turn her back on Amanda when there was still hope. And there was hope. Amanda would be going to see a doctor soon. She would be taken care of. Things would get better. No matter how desperate times may get, there was always hope.
6
Collin tried his best to stick to shadows and alleyways as he walked through the city, but he knew that he couldn't remain completely hidden. It was only a matter of time before someone recognized him, or a street camera captured just enough of his face to identify him.
He still had a long way to travel before he reached the safe house. What would happen if he was being followed already? Sure, he didn't think that anyone had seen him, but what if someone was tracking him with cameras and satellites? He could lead them right to other members of Freedom.
There was a chance that paranoia was setting in. Every shadow that he saw out of the corner of his eye felt like a HAND officer to him. Every noise sounded like someone raising their gun—whatever that would sound like.
But then he saw an officer standing at the end of the alley. He couldn't quite make out the uniform, but he could tell that it was an officer. All his fears had come true. HAND—or the police—had found him.
Collin stopped short, as though he'd hit an invisible wall. The officer wasn't looking right at him, so there was a chance that he could escape.
He turned around, just in time to see a patrol car stop at the other end of the alley. Now he was sure that it was the police. This was bad, but it could be worse.
Collin put his back to one of the walls and stood still, waiting to see if the danger would pass. He looked back and forth between the car and the officer at the other end of the alley, hoping to see one of them move off.
The only word that Collin could think to himself was, “Please.” It seemed to encompass everything that he was feeling at that moment, as his heart pounded and his limbs tingled with the anticipation of what could potentially happen.
He tried to picture it all in his head and make a plan for how he wanted to handle the situation, but he couldn't know anything for sure. While he only saw two enemies, the streets could have been swarming with HAND officers, just out of view.
The police officer started to make his way down the alley. He was carrying a flashlight in one hand and a weapon in the other. The car at the other end of the alley remained where it was. No other officers stepped out, giving Collin the hope that maybe he hadn't been spotted after all. Maybe this was just a normal search of the alley. The authorities had probably been searching every alley in city since they started looking for him.
As the officer got closer, Collin stepped deeper into the shadow that was hiding him from view. It wouldn't do much good once the flashlight hit him, but it could buy him another second or two. Not that it would make a difference.
Collin had heard stories about what happened to Freedom members when they were captured. He wasn't sure where those stories came from exactly. He had never heard of any Freedom members who had escaped captivity. For all he knew, the rumors were completely fabricated. They could have been propaganda, released by the government. But then, nobody had ever escaped to tell their tale. So if the stories were false, he doubted that reality would be any better.
He wondered how much pain he could tolerate before breaking. He wondered if they would be able to get information out of him. No matter how much he wanted to believe that he would keep his mouth shut, how could he know for sure? How could anyone know what they would do in a situation like that?
The officer was getting closer still. His head was turned toward the other side of the alley, studying a stack of trash bags that looked vaguely like a person lying on the ground.
Once he was done looking at those bags, the officer began to turn toward him. There was no escape. The best Collin could hope for was to get it over with quickly, so he prepared himself to charge at the officer. He clenched his jaw and balled his fists.
Deep breaths. Remain calm. Remember the training. He repeated those words to himself over and over again in his head.
The car's passenger-side door opened and another officer stepped out. He looked down the alley and yelled, “Should we clear the sector?”
“I haven't finished looking yet,” the officer closest to Collin replied.
“Well, hurry up!”
The officer near Collin sighed and shined his flashlight across the alley, taking a quick look around the place. Collin watched as the light rode the wall that he was standing against, starting at the end of the alley and working its way back. The officer was moving fast, just trying to get the job done so that they could move on. His search was sloppy, but dangerous nonetheless.
As the light neared Collin, the officer started to turn his head, preparing to sweep the other side of the alley with the light. Collin took a deep breath and held it as the light hit his shoulder.
The officer wasn't looking. He didn't see.
“There!” called the other officer, running toward Collin and reaching for his weapon.
The officer who was standing only feet away from Collin didn't know how to react at first. His initial instinct was to look toward the officer near the car. Then he turned back to the other side of the alley. It took him precious seconds to turn his head in the right direction, and by that time, Collin was tackling him to the ground.
Collin didn't expect to live. These may not have been HAND officers, but they still had training and skill. More importantly, they had weapons. They carried tasers and batons, while Collin only had his bare hands. Fortunately, Collin managed to take that officer down before the officer ever knew what hit him.
Collin pressed his knee against the officer's hand, pinning what he assumed was a taser to the ground. He reached toward the baton on the officer's belt, trying to pry it out of its holster. But before he could get the weapon free, a shot rang out from behind him.
A gunshot. The police normally didn't carry guns. The search for Collin must have been a special occasion for them.
As the wind was knocked out of him, Collin hit the ground. He knew he'd been shot, but in the frenzy of the moment, he couldn't immediately tell where he was shot or how bad it was. The alley was dark. His body was tangled with the officer. Time stood still as his mind struggled to catch up to what was happening. That moment felt like an eternity, and then it came to an end as he was smashed back to reality. He felt a surge of pain rushing through his arm and he realized that he wasn't mortally wounded—not yet.
Collin twisted himself on the ground, getting as close to the officer next to him as he possibly could. He pulled the blanket off of his own head and threw it over the head of the officer, who was trying to get to his feet. With a quick yank, the officer was pulled on top of Collin, kicking and trying to get free. Collin held onto the blanket tightly, wrapping it around his left hand. With his right, he reached for the weapon that he had just assumed was a taser. It was only in that moment that he realized that he was reaching for a gun.
“Don
't move!” the second officer yelled at him, taking aim. Another police officer was getting out of the car and racing to aid the others. “Release the officer and put your hands in the air, or I will shoot you!”
Collin didn't respond. He didn't imagine that the officers were planning to let him go if he did what they wanted, so he felt no need to listen to them. What he did need to do was get that gun. It would hardly count as going out in a blaze of glory if he wasn't even armed.
He put his hand on the gun, and the officer yelled, “Stop!”
“You shoot me, you shoot him,” Collin replied.
The second officer shot. Luckily, the officer on top of Collin was wearing a bulletproof vest, which caught the bullet. Though he wasn't dead, the officer still went limp on top of Collin.
In his mind, Collin could hear his Freedom trainers telling him to remain calm and take deep breaths. Somewhere much deeper in his head, he also heard his high school paintball coach, telling him, “Don't think, just pull.”
Before he knew it, the gun in his hand was firing. The officer in front of him jolted backward. The third officer fired two shots, aiming for Collin's head. He hit the officer on top of Collin in the shoulder instead.
Collin fired two shots at that officer, and a third at the other, who was just beginning to recover. He was aiming for center mass when he fired, but he caught the officer closest to him just above the vest, near the collar bone. The officer fell backward, raising a hand to his wound. Collin could see blood pouring through his fingers.
The third officer stepped out of the way of his falling comrade, raising his own weapon once again. Collin fired off one last round and closed his eyes, expecting to be hit in the head by a bullet at any moment. But he wasn't. The third officer had taken another bullet to the vest, this time stumbling backward and falling to one knee. He was going to get back up. Collin knew that. He wished that it wasn't true. He wished that the fight would be over. He wished that he could go back to his books, but there would be no going back.