We sleep in—all of us. No one’s anxious to be awake, I guess. The first thing I hear is the kid groaning and whimpering. He sounds like a baby trying to get attention, but then again, I guess he did get shot yesterday. Because I shot him.
Repress, repress . . . God, it’s hard to repress shit when it’s whining across the room.
I peek from under Wyatt’s arm as Chance yawns, stretches, tucks the gun in his waistband, and rummages in his bag to get the kid some more pills. He looks concerned and worn down, not at all the cool-guy drug dealer I saw last night. The weak daylight filtering in through the dirty windows reveals the purple circles under his red eyes. He’s wearing a shirt with the Joker on it. After glancing around to make sure no one is looking, he spreads a sweatshirt more carefully over Gabriela.
My got-to-pee squirming is probably what wakes Wyatt up, and then we’re all up and moving around the room as if there were something to do. But there’s not. Matty runs from person to person, sniffing hands hopefully for food that isn’t there. I really do need to pee, but I’m not chancing whatever’s left of the bathroom, and I forgot to bring any toilet paper while I was fleeing for my life. With a heavy sigh, I head for the door. Gabriela joins me, and Matty pushes past us into the kind of crappy day that has a white sky, an unfriendly chill, and the promise of a cold butt after peeing in the forest.
“Bushes?” She points at a patch of laurels, and I shake my head.
“Car graveyard. You can’t see through a car, plus no surprise raccoons.”
“Good point. Car graveyard it is.”
There are at least twenty cars, a camper, and a few small boats out here, all rusted through on flat tires. I head between two tall trucks and hate every moment of it. Finding new undies and toilet paper is now a top priority. Poor as my mom and I were, I never considered the frustrations of being homeless. I own literally nothing, outside of the clothes on my back and a couple of guns. Even my knitting bag got left behind in my old Valor truck. If I had it, I would be wiping with a ball of yarn, because that’s where I am in life.
“So that sucked,” Gabriela says with a friendly smile as she emerges from beside an old camper.
I nod. “All hail Valor.”
“Y’all got anything to eat?”
I shake my head. “We’ve been living on fast food, but we’re almost out of cash.”
“Us too. You got a car?”
“Yeah, that we’ve got.” She perks up, so I add, “But you’ll have a snake in your lap.”
We use the last of our cash to buy crap off the discount bread shelf at Shop N Save. Turns out that eight dollars can buy a lot of messed-up cake. As Wyatt checks out, we fill our water bottles at the fountain and use the bathroom. I shove two rolls of toilet paper in the waistband of my jeans, under one of Wyatt’s hoodies. Walking out between the security scanners, I wait for someone to tackle me, to call the cops. I expect to see Valor suits blocking the doors.
But very little has changed in the capital of capitalism. Business as usual. There are definitely more men than women around, and I don’t see a single kid or baby. Everyone at this Shop N Save always looks desperate, but now they look desperate and wary. How many of them have seen neighbors gunned down? How many have heard the Valor voice mail after calling 911? Whatever they know, they need food as much as we do, so they’re here, selling and buying. Just like Valor wants them to be.
We drive back to the house in the woods and eat a ton of stale cake with our hands, since nobody thought about forks and the kitchen was ransacked long ago. I take a walk with Matty deep into the woods and crap behind a log, expecting something horrible to happen all the while. It’s like The Walking Dead, basically. Thank heavens for Shop N Save’s single-ply toilet paper.
Most of the day, honestly, is spent fidgeting. No one knows what to do, but no one wants to talk about it. Every time someone tries to start a conversation, it just tapers off like we’re all waiting for a phone to ring, listening for some far-off sound. By the time we need to leave for the Citizens for Freedom meeting, I’ve learned that the kid I shot is named Kevin and that Chance and Gabriela are the closest things I have to friends now. Chance is kind of a dick to everyone but cool to Gabriela, and Gabriela is cool to everyone and hates to be called Gabby. Wyatt and Matty, of course, are family now.
Sometime in the afternoon I realize that I left my gun sitting out by the sleeping bag and no one took it. Maybe trusting them is actually the right choice and not just me buying off my guilt.
There are five of us in Wyatt’s Lexus, all silent and tense on the way to the meeting. I guess I lied about the snake. Wyatt left the aquarium at the old house and brought Monty along, tied up in a pillowcase in his backpack so he won’t get cold and die in an empty house with no electricity for his lamps or whatever. Here is my advice: If you’re ever on the run from the government, don’t bring your pets. Especially not the creepy ones.
Matty is in back, wedged between Chance’s knees and the front seats, her tail beating my elbow. Kevin is strained and pale, and we all know he needs medical help, and soon. We didn’t have enough money to buy spare shorts or Bactine at the store, so it’s just water and pills, water and pills. Maybe the Citizens for Freedom will have a doctor. Or some antibiotic ointment, at least. We tried stopping by the vet who helped Matty, but a sign on the door said CASH ONLY, AND ABSOLUTELY NO HUMANS, so we kept driving.
The meeting is supposed to be at Bear Creek High School, which is down a road that hasn’t seen much action since the school closed when I was little. The asphalt is falling apart, and the streetlights are spotty. Red brake lights ahead tell us we’re not the only ones here. A guy in a reflective yellow vest points us to the side, like at a concert, and we turn off the road and park the Lexus in an overgrown parking lot. Figures hurry toward the school, and I can feel my heart beating in my ears as we get out of the car and slam the doors. I have Matty tied up with a chunk of rope from one of the boats at the old house—I couldn’t leave her there alone, so I can only hope we can pass her off as a service dog, if service dog laws still exist. She’s way too excited to be of any actual service.
Kevin grunts with every painfully slow step, and Chance finally sighs in annoyance and picks the smaller kid up, carrying him like a baby. Wyatt is suddenly at my side, tall and solid, his backpack over his shoulder. My gun is flat against my back—Chance was okay with trading, once his had bullets too. There’d better not be a metal detector, because I’ll turn around and walk right back out. Everything I saw in Alistair Meade’s trailer tells me that this group, the Citizens for Freedom, or whatever they call themselves, is legit, but up until a few days ago, I thought that Valor Savings Bank and the police were legit. When you don’t know what’s real anymore, it’s always better to have a loaded gun.
Whatever history they have, Wyatt and Chance seem like they’re on the same team right now. Wyatt’s in front, Chance is in back, both in gorilla mode with Gabriela and me between them. Everyone’s twitchy. I subtly move my gun around to my hip in case I need to draw it. Carrying my Valor gun feels right tonight, but everything feels so wrong. Now that we’re around people, I’m twitchy and raw, an exposed nerve. My skinny jeans feel like a layer of hardened sweat, and I know I look and smell as bad as I feel.
Another guy in a yellow vest is guiding people to an open set of double doors, and it’s fucking terrifying. There are no outside lights, but an extension cord shows a chain of lanterns going in, almost like we’re descending into a cave. It doesn’t even look like a high school; it looks like the pit to hell. I would’ve gone to Bear Creek, but they closed it and built Big Creek when I was a kid. It was a big deal—what to do with this land. For whatever reason, no one was allowed to get rid of it and build parks or houses, so here it is, a broke-down school that’s been empty for ten years. The guy by the doors has an assault rifle, which sets my blood cold.
“G’won in,” he says with a thick Southern accent.
Wyatt turns to meet Chance’s eyes, and I can almost read the conversation.
What the hell are we going in to?
Can it possibly be worse than where we’re coming from?
Too late. More people are behind us with more headlights turning in all the time, and we don’t have a lot of choice. It reminds me of being in line for a roller coaster. By the time you decide you don’t want to ride it, they’re already snapping down the harness.
We step into the hallway, and the scent is what hits me first—mildew and animal piss overlying that same weird smell that every school has that tells you you’re in trouble, or at least that you’re going to be miserable for a while. The classroom doors are closed, their glass windows pitch-black. All we have to guide us is the string of lanterns, one every twelve feet or so.
The lights lead us around a corner toward the sound of a crowd trying to be quiet. A line of people waits at a set of double doors, and at first I can’t place the swoopy robot sound.
“Metal detectors? You’ve got to be kidding me,” Wyatt murmurs, and my gun feels red-hot against my skin. I’ll run before I let them take it from me.
“You’re clean. Find a seat,” says the woman holding the wand, and then it’s our turn.
“We’re not giving up our guns,” Wyatt says quietly, and the woman barks a smoker’s laugh.
“Then maybe y’all deserve to live,” she says. “You can keep your guns. We’re checking for wires and tech. Gotta make sure Valor ain’t listening in. Arms out, please.”
Wyatt holds his arms out, and the woman swoops the loop over him. It bings loudly when it hits his backpack, and she gives him a sharp look.
“What are you carrying, son?”
Wyatt shakes his head, furious. “Nothing from Valor.”
A bearded guy in his forties who looks a little like a bear yanks the pack off Wyatt’s arm. “You’d better hope that’s not what it sounds like, kid,” he says, all gruff menace. I take a step toward Wyatt, wanting to comfort him or defend him, and the guy with the beard stops me with a hand. He looks at me closely, eyebrows drawn down. “Stand back, honey. You don’t want to get hurt.”
Another guy shows up and points to his eyes, then his gun. I’m watching you. Kevin starts to quietly cry, and Gabriela mutters, “Goddammit.”
As the first guy opens the backpack, the second guy points his gun on Wyatt, who reflexively puts up his hands. “That’s not necessary, man. We’re on your side,” he says, as if that’s not exactly what you would say if you weren’t on their side.
“Oh, shit. Where’d you get these?”
The bearish guy holds up Alistair’s laptops, and I glare daggers at Wyatt. We never talked about them, but I assumed the laptops were in the trunk of the car or maybe back at the house. We couldn’t figure out the code, and then we got too busy putting up with our new friends and trying to stay alive on eight dollars to worry about a bunch of green numbers on a black screen.
But we’re busted. There’s no point in lying to someone who has a bigger gun.
“From a guy who went by the name Alistair Meade,” I say. “Same place we got this flyer.” I reach for my pocket, and the gun swings to face me.
“Slowly, girl.” The guy with the gun is a big country boy with crazy eyes.
I nod and—slowly—hand the bearded guy a poorly folded piece of paper, one from the stack of hundreds I found in Alistair’s trailer, along with a ton of maps, notes, and a list of the names of local kids who would make good Valor assassins. He reads it and looks at me carefully from a nest of black hair and mustache and beard streaked with gray.
“What’s the story?” he asks. But not Wyatt—he asks me.
“Valor showed up at my house. Alistair was on my list. He told me to look in his trailer. I—we—didn’t mean to shoot him. It was an accident. He told me the password before he—” I gulp down a cold stone of fear and regret, remembering that moment. “We just want to help. I swear.”
After considering me for a few moments, he nods and says, “Get Leon,” to the smoker. He tosses the pack back to Wyatt but holds on to all three laptops. “You got anything else we need to know about?”
Wyatt groans. “I’ve still got a Valor credit card. Does that count?”
“It very much counts, if you want to stay alive. Hand it over. Again, slowly.”
I look back at Chance and Gabriela and join them in giving Wyatt the Death Glare. This is not the way I wanted to start out with the group that might be our only allies. Wyatt pulls out his beat-up chain wallet and holds out his card, and the guy pulls something out of his own pocket—looks like a battery pack. He runs it over the card both ways, throws the card in a box with dozens of others, and nods at the woman with the wand, who runs it over Wyatt again. No beep.
“You’re in. But sit up front. We’ll have questions for you after,” the guy says. I must look as terrified and trapped as I feel, because he gives me a small, quick smile and adds, “Don’t worry. You’re going to be fine.”
Wyatt waits as the rest of us pass the boop test, and we all sit where the guy told us to, because what else are we going to do? It’s weird to sit on gym bleachers again, and the wood creaks with every movement. Nobody said anything about Matty, although they did scan her with the wand. A couple other people in the crowd have dogs, and one lady has a beaver-sized cat on a leash. Our area is mostly kids, ranging from country boys in overalls to prep kids to this tiny little blond girl who looks like she’s ten. I’m between Wyatt and Gabriela, and although I didn’t want these three jerks to show up at our hideout last night, I’m glad I’m not one of the confused loners. It feels safer to be in the middle of my herd. Wyatt reaches into his backpack and pulls out Monty, rolling the pillowcase between his hands without actually releasing the snake.
“Sorry,” he mutters under his breath. “I forgot. I just wanted to keep the laptops safe.”
“It’s fine. We weren’t getting anything out of them anyway.”
But I’m pretty pissed, and I know he can feel it.
As I look around, I decide we’re probably going to get ax murdered. The old gym is lit up with bright, cold lights like the kind they use to work on the roads at night. The corners are strung with cobwebs, and old decorations hang dejectedly from the walls, hearts and graying doilies, like there was a massacre at the Valentine’s Day dance and they just locked up the building forever. The stage has glittery red bunting around it, the curtain halfway pulled and black beyond. I can detect movement on the stage, but not clearly.
There must be at least a hundred people in here with even more entering after the wand does its work. I look over every time it beeps, and I mostly just see confiscated credit cards getting deactivated and chucked in the box. Does that mean Valor can track a body with a credit card even if they’re not using it? Jesus. Nobody ever mentions that in the TV ads.
A spotlight blasts on, bathing the stage in light. A thin man stands there alone before a podium, but it’s clear that he’s no high school principal or teacher. The dude is utterly self-possessed, oozing confidence. He’s thin, wearing an overcoat and rolled jeans over boots, with the Southern version of a lumbersexual look, faded hair that’s long on top but shaved on the sides and a well-kept beard; he’s in his forties, probably. And he looks like he’d smile at you, so sweetly, and put ten rounds in your chest. I’m terrified of him—and fascinated by him. This must be how cobras die when they’re staring at mongooses. Mongeese? Shit.
He clears his throat, and the room goes silent.
Just in time to hear the wand beep again.
“What you got, boy?” the smoky-voiced woman says tiredly.
“Nothing.”
The guy at the podium sighs as if sorely aggrieved and turns to watch the proceedings, and the entire gym full of spectators does too. The kid looks to be in his twenties, beefy and utterly normal. Country-club type in yacht shoes that have never seen a yacht. He looks nervous as the guy with the gun pats him down and yanks something out of his front pocket.
“What the hell is this?”
“Looks like a phone, genius,” Gabriela whispers under her breath.
“My phone,” the kid says, like he’s trying to act brave.
“And what brand is it, dumbass?”
“I—I don’t know. My dad gave it to me. It’s just a phone. Like, a normal phone.”
The man at the podium leaps nimbly off the stage and stalks toward the door, his hands in his overcoat pockets. The guy with the gun throws the phone to the guy with the overcoat, who flips it open—a flip phone, really?
“Well, son, congratulations. You’re the first malcontent to try to blow up our little tea party.” He turns, holds the open phone toward us. “Friends, here’s a little tip to ensure your longevity. Recall that Valor Savings Bank bought out Linkstream in 2009. So if you’re carrying a Linkstream-branded phone, you’re carrying a Valor company phone. And if you’re carrying a Linkstream burner phone like this one? Well, we’re going to have to assume you’re either working for the enemy or too stupid to live.”
The country-club kid’s face is sweating like crazy, his hands up in front of him. “I didn’t know, okay? It’s just a phone. I’m sure my dad will—”
Overcoat guy snaps the phone in half, crushes it under his boot, whips out a gun, and shoots the kid in the chest. The pop echoes around the gym, and half the people stand up, and the other half must feel like me, cold and mesmerized and full of outrage with what the world has become. We came here for help, for community, and they’re just randomly shooting kids with no warning? My face goes red-hot, and I want to scream and yell at the injustice of it. The country-club kid is on the floor now, facedown in a puddle that’s become all too normal. Overcoat guy squats, pulls something out of the mess of phone guts, and holds it up.
“Oh, what do we have here? Why, it’s a Valor company SD card. That means they know where this phone is, who it calls and texts, and who ends up on the camera. Now, let’s see if the plot thickens.” He rummages around the kid’s body, and I have to look away. “Here we go! This fine young man was indeed carrying a Valor recording device.” I dare to look up, and sure enough, he’s holding a small black recorder. He stands and stomps it under a boot, again and again, until it’s a pile of plastic. “Anybody else got a Linkstream phone or an old SD card?” The crowd whispers and rustles, folks whipping out their phones just to make sure, just in case the wand somehow missed them. No one says anything. “Well, then, I guess you all get to keep breathing tonight.” As he turns and stalks back to the stage, he calls over his shoulder, “Clean that up, please.”
Every eye stays with him as he hops onto the stage to stand again behind the podium as if nothing unusual has happened. My rage dissipates, and I go cold again. That kid wasn’t an innocent victim at all—he worked for them. For Valor. Maybe they made him do this like they made me do worse, but I stand with the guy in the overcoat. This is the world now. You bring danger to the group, you die.
The crowd is as terrified as a flock of sheep with nowhere to run, and you could cut the tension with shears. Old women are fanning themselves, and little kids are crying. Whatever they’ve seen, they’re still not accustomed to this kind of violence, not like I am. The man—Leon, the smoker called him—takes a long moment, watching us. Judging us. His hands finally leave his overcoat. His gun has disappeared. Tattooed knuckles wrap around the lectern.
“I’m so sorry we had to meet that way, but I’m Leon Crane. I hope you’ll take care to remember this about me.” He looks around the gym, meets every eye, and the moment his eyes lock on mine, it’s like walking into a wall of steel. “I will kill whoever I must to keep you safe. Once you’re on my side, you’re my family, and I protect my family, even when it pains me to do so. I stand, now and forever, against Valor Savings and anyone who joins them in their crusade to remove the God-given freedoms of good Americans. Now tell me, friends, who here has lost a loved one to Valor’s first wave of terror and anarchy?”
Every hand goes up. Every single one. All shaking. Leon nods like a preacher who feels our pain.
“So have I, friends. So have I. My cousin Lester was gunned down at his front door just a few short days ago, right in front of his young children. Now, as a veteran of the Iraq War, I know what it’s like to lose a comrade in a fair fight, and I know that what we have now, with Valor Savings, is not a fair fight. Fortunately, I also know how to find the enemy. As it turns out, a certain anonymous hacking group called Incog has been on to the Valor takeover for quite some time, and when you add their technological wizardry to my talent for guerrilla warfare and blowing shit up, that means that we’re one of the finest cells of the Citizens for Freedom in what’s left of the United States. And I assure you, there are hundreds of other cells, like us, secretly fighting Valor together.”
The bleachers creak, and an old man stands. He’s wearing holsters like a damn cowboy, his thumbs tucked into his belt loops. His hand goes up, nice and slow.
Leon smiles, showing straight white teeth. “Yes, sir. How can I be of service?”
“That’s all well and good, son. And thank you for your service to our country.” Leon bows his head. “But I don’t understand what you-all expect to gain here. Computers didn’t make this land of ours free. I think we should take to the hills and wait it out.”
Leon nods. “Yes, sir. Yes, sir, I can see your point there. But we do not all possess your gifts of survival. Looking at this crowd, I see widow women, old folks, and young children who’ve seen their parents shot in cold blood on the doorstep. Unless you’re willing to support these folks in their time of need and you feel capable enough to feed, clothe, and shelter them through a brutal winter, leaving for the hills is likely to kill them, or at the very least, leave them at the mercy of Valor.” Again, that grin. “And as I’m sure you’ll all agree, Valor is not known for mercy.”
“What exactly is it you want us to do, then?”
Leon steps around the lectern, hands in his pockets, and grins like Christmas. “I’m so very glad you asked. As it turns out, we’re in contact with hundreds of other cells of the Citizens for Freedom. All across the country, Americans of every age and breed are meeting, just like we are. The fine scholars of technology are joining forces with those of us who, for all our ignorance, are pretty handy with weapons and explosives. And we’re making plans.” He rocks back on his heels and laughs to himself. “Oh, yes. We do have plans. And for those willing to abandon their former life and join our fight, we can promise you one thing: the chance to strike back at the company that has taken so much from you.”
“And what are your qualifications, Mr. Crane?”
For just a second, Leon’s smile breaks into a sneer, but he catches it quick. “That’s an understandable question. No one wants to follow an unfit leader. I’ve lived in Candlewood all my life, as did my father and his father before him, all the way back to the War of Northern Aggression. I graduated from this very school and served my country during two tours in Iraq.” He rubs his hands together, looks down, and chuckles. “Now, normally I wouldn’t mention this part, but I want to be straight with y’all. After the war, I didn’t much know what to do with myself, and I put some of my knowledge of explosives to use in some shady-type operations. And I got caught. But my time in prison taught me several things: how to preach the good Lord’s word, how to lead men to the light, how to help the less fortunate, and how to control my anger issues. I style myself a gentleman now. A gentleman with a mission. And that mission is fighting to save the people Valor wants to enslave.” He grins beatifically. “Now, does that answer your question?”
The old man nods thoughtfully and sits back down.
Leon eyes the crowd. “Anything else?”
“What if we’re too old to fight?” This from an ancient woman, fat and wobbling.
Leon holds out a hand to her, as if she could take it from fifty feet away. “Every rebellion needs their Betsy Ross, my friend. We need Florence Nightingales and Harriet Tubmans. There are children without families, wounded without doctors. Helping those who can’t help themselves is as true a calling as striking back at those who strike at us.”
Another person stands, this one a guy in his thirties, maybe. He’s disheveled and looks like he’s been drinking.
“So what do we do?”
Leon smiles and throws out his arms. “All you have to do is meet us at these tables over here and help us find the best way to use your unique skills. Just like the Declaration of Independence, you sign your name and become a member of the Citizens for Freedom. Easy as that.”
“And what if we don’t want to join you?”
Whoever said that did not stand up. The crowd stills. Leon’s eyebrows draw down, and he looks like he wishes he could call down lightning into the bleachers. His dark eyes go darker.
“If you’re an unpatriotic coward who’s too scared to fight Valor or support those who do, you’re free to walk right out that door.” He points to the open double doors where we entered. “And try not to slip on that traitor’s blood on your way out.” Because they took country-club kid’s body away like Leon asked, but they left a big puddle of blood, which trails away into the darkness. The lantern light is gone. It’s a yawning mouth into hell.
In this moment, there is no amount of money you could pay me to walk out that door, and I’m pretty sure Leon knows it.
“But I will tell you this.” He’s in front of the lectern now, his arms crossed and his smile wide and welcoming. “We have land. We have money. We have medicine. We have food. We have fellowship. We have weapons. And, most important, we have the fair rules and order that a free country requires to flourish. No one deserves to be murdered because they took out a loan. We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal. And a bank, ladies and gentlemen, is not a man.”
The gym erupts in applause and whistles as everyone stands. I feel it, too—a swell of pride, of fellow feeling, of belonging. Of fighting for what’s right. But I’m smart enough and hardened enough to know that Leon Crane is an actor. This speech was planned. Hell, maybe that kid who died with a Valor recorder in his pocket was a plant. But everything that’s happened since we walked into the school was staged to serve Leon’s purpose. Whether he’s good or bad or right or wrong, we have only one choice: to join him.