In the desert there is a compound with high fences topped with razor wire. Guarded towers stand in every corner, and the only gate is locked and guarded night and day. This is where They keep the ones considered to be the biggest threat. This is where you live. You are allowed to roam the grounds, though armed guards watch your every move. A special designed rectangular mobile living unit is what you’d call your house. A windowless building stands watching over all.
You are walking up the three steps to your door when you get the signal; the escape plan begins. Covert operatives of the resistance have infiltrated a delivery services that brings supplies to the compound, it’s time to go, NOW! You have a jump bag ready for just this moment, however, not everything you need is in the bag. You’ve been using some of the items and haven’t put them away. You frantically run around gathering the things you need and stuffing them into your large red jump bag. You need to be out the door NOW but you need one more thing, your backpack, the one in your hand isn’t the right one, it has a broken zipper, you’re going to need a backpack with a working zipper. There it is! Right by the door. You grab it and fly out the door, stuffing the empty backpack into your jump bag in the process.
“no, no, No NO NOOOO!” The bus you’re supposed to be getting on has already passed through the gates and is driving away. You’re already sprinting towards the gates, if you haven’t been noticed yet you’re about to. This might be you’re only chance to escape. Two armed guards operate the gate, one is well outside the gate waving at the delivery truck as it disappears, the other is standing by the gate, ready to close it as soon as he gets the signal.
Before either guard turns around you swing your heavy bag at the back of the knees of the guard who is about to close the gate. As he’s knocked to his knees just as he turns towards you. You grab the knife strapped to his hip and in the same motion ram the knife through his chest. Using his body to shield yourself you fire a burst from the powerful automatic weapon still slung on the soldiers shoulder. The volley tears through the lower legs of the other guard, ripping them from his body. Sprinting past the crippled guard, writhing in pain, you disappear into the desert without a moments pause to look back.
You are in a car full of resistance members, they are bringing you to where you will hide out for the time being. You are sitting with a good friend in the rear-facing seats in the very back of the station wagon. You are turned so you are looking toward the front of the car. Your brother is one of the people sitting in the middle seat. He is reading George Orwell’s 1984, you are reading along with him without looking at the page. You tell your friend, “I’ve read 1984 so many times I know exactly where my brother is in the story.” You feel the ominous understanding that events are unfolding as they unfold in the book, as your brother reads the events of this story will unfold.
You are dropped off near a motel just off the highway, you are well out of town and close to escape routes. There in the parking lot you are reunited with the place you called home before your imprisonment, a spherical sailing vessel. Mostly concealed from those without the eyes to see it, it should be safe to leave the sphere stationary, here in this parking lot. You will use this place as your home base, you will sleep here, but in the morning the carpool will return to take you somewhere for the day. During the day you must try to blend in.
Your sailing sphere is a beautiful place, it’s soft and cozy, comfortable and safe. The sphere can hurdle along highways at great speeds, powered by the wind. Piloting the craft is a chaotic operation, it requires constantly ruining from side to side, pulling on various ropes, tightening some while loosening others. All this leaves little time to watch where you’re going. Your brother doesn’t seem to mind, but you have always found the in control/out of control sensation to be nerve raking. You’re are content to leave the sphere stationary for now. You crawl in bed and sleep free for the first time in as long as you can remember.
In the morning the carpool arrives as expected and you are taken into town. It has been decided that the best place to hide you might just be in the Education center. It’s one of the few acceptable places for young people to gather and you’ll need a group to blend in. It’s also thought They wont think to look for you inside Their own institution. What’s more, the resistance has plenty of operatives embedded in the administration side of the education institution to assist with your concealment. Furthermore, the media students in the education center have access to is strictly controlled, the only ones who will recognize you are members of the resistance. It’s advised you avoid participating in any classes, the teachers are only exposed to controlled media as well, but if the search intensifies, or begins to close in, teachers may be briefed on the situation. You should try to bled in with the crowds between classes, use this time to change location, then find a quiet spot and wait out the next hour or two. You’re going to have to keep moving, you’ll be found if you stay in one place all day.
You are dropped off outside the education center. The carpool will signal you when they return for you later today. You join the swarm of people milling about the institution, disappearing into the crowd. You head for the change rooms thinking this might be a good place to start. In a pinch you could hide in a toilet stall until the danger passes. You make your way to the change rooms where you find numerous students, some are changing into workout clothes other are standing in groups chatting, so far so good. You notice resistance members mixed in amongst the rest of the crowd of students. You acknowledge each of them and they acknowledge you in your subtle form of communication.
A resistance member signals you from stairwell just beyond the door at the far end of the change room, she is waiting to escort you to a spot you can lay low for awhile. You begin to make your way across the change room, you try to move naturally, not too quick, not too eager. You are about half way across the change room then your heart jumps. A hulking man who must be the P.E. teaches bursts through the door you are trying to get to. He quickly makes his way to the center of the change room addressing the group with a a typically demeaning phrase. A group of students is between you and him, he hasn’t taken particular notice of you. Your escort can’t wait much longer. You resist the urge to sprint for the door You continue moving methodically towards the door. You are only a few meters from the door when you feel his focus fall on you,
“where you going?!” he snaps.
“Oh… I don’t have P.E. strip today, so I was going to report to the office for discipline. “ you answer with a quick smart answer, but you are unsure he will buy it.
“well if you don’t have strip, you can deep clean the locker room while the rest of these maggots enjoy some physical exercise.” he snarls. As if anyone actually enjoys what tortuous exercises routines this beast of a man must put these students through.
You can’t afford to argue, you want the focus off of you as quickly as possible, you don’t want him creating a memory imprint of you. You quickly go about gathering cleaning products and supplies, although you have no intention of staying here once the teacher leaves. You can’t risk him coming back to check on you and seeing you one on one, you can’t risk one on one contact with anyone who isn’t a resistance member. Luckily, before long, the teacher leads the group out of the change room, towards the recreation facilities. As soon as the last student has left the room and you are alone, you drop the mop you’ve been holding and bolt for the door that leads to the stairwell. You know your escort is long gone, none of you can risk detection. You must find your way to a safe place to lay low, but you have no contact with any guides, you must move quietly and carefully, be sure not to be seen.
The hallways are empty, but monitors are known to move between observation rooms from time to time, so you must be alert. Skirting the walls, staying low, and carefully checking around each corner, you move through a labyrinth of hallways searching for an empty room to hide in. You can feel the busy minds behind the doors, filling the classrooms… and the watchful eyes taking notes. Peeking around a corner the hallway is empty, but you sense movement around the next bend, you aren’t taking any chances, you change direction heading down a different hallway, towards the same goal.
Wondering the hallways is too risky, eventually someone is going to emerge from behind a door and you wont have time to hide. There are operatives embedded on the administration side of the building, if you can get there maybe someone can find you an empty office where you can lay low for a couple hours.
You finally reach the hallway that divides the complex, it is the one common area used by both students and administrators. The hallways that lead here from the students side are all wide and open, the opposite wall of the hallway is lined with single doors leading to the corridors of the administration side. All of those doors are operated by key cards, you’re going to need help getting in there. The common hallway is frequented often by administrators moving between departments, you are in a risky spot, but it’s what you have to do. You find an alcove to hide in, you are not very well hidden, but it will have to do until an embedded operative passes by. As you wait you see administrators enter the hallway briefly before disappearing behind a nearby door, fortunately they are always a ways down the hallway one direction or the other.
The first person to directly pass through the section of hallway your are hiding in is an operative. You convey the intentions and your request, you need to get through a door into the administration side to find somewhere to lay low.
Her impression is it will be risky and dangerous, but it is possible. She can let you through a door, but you’ll have to go on your own for the first bit. She opens the door with her key card and walks away, disappearing behind a neighbouring door. You dart across the hall and slip behind the door, quietly closing it behind you. Directly in front of you is a block of offices, you turn to your right and proceed to the corner. You are going to have to proceed through a series of temporarily vacated offices at precise intervals to get deep enough into the facility that an operative can meet you and escort you to an empty office.
As you peek around the corner, you see an administrator walking away from you down the hallway before turning down a hallway to their right and disappear behind the corner. That was the administrator vacating the office of the left side of the hall, your first stop. You quickly duck in the door and hide beneath the desk that is under the window looking out on the hallway. After a time, you poke your head up and check out the window, just in time to see someone approach the corner office on the far side of the hall. Someone emerges from the office and the pair walk down the hallway and around a corner. It’s time to move. You slip out the door, dart across the hall and into the recently vacated office. No sooner are you in the door than you see an administrator pass by the far door of the office, returning to the office you were just hiding in. Once he is inside his office you exit through the far door and proceed down the hall to the empty reception area where your escort will meet you. You hide under a desk in the open reception area as a small group of administrators pass through on their way to lunch. Your escort arrives shortly after and leads you to a narrow hallway which ends at a number office doors. The office in the middle is unoccupied today.
You quickly make your way to the end of the hall and enter the small room. The only window is on the door, a desk fills most of the room. You figure on curling up under the desk, but just as you start to move towards it, an administrator turns and rushes down the narrow hallway towards you. Maybe they saw your shadow through the window. You pin yourself against the door, hoping to not to be seen through the window. “please don’t try to open the door, please.” The menacing face peers through the window, but gives up and moves on before trying the handle. You crawl under the desk and huddle there for over an hour.
Before you know it you get the signal, it’s time to move again. An operative is on her way to escort you back out of the administration area. You meet in the hallway and quickly proceed to a stairwell. As you reach the top of the flight of stairs where many stair cases converge on a hallway, you spot two administrators headed your way. You quickly roll behind the door at the top of the stairwell as the operative holds the door open for the administrators, hiding you behind the door as they pass. A close call, you are fortunate the administration isn’t more alert. The operative points you down a hallway that leads back to the student side of the institution. The door at the end of the hall will open from this without a key card.
You burst through the doors and are immediately engulfed by the swarm of students moving between classes. You find yourself surrounded by many of the students from the P.E. it was presumed you were in. finally, within the anonymity of the crowd, you and the other resistance members can converse outwardly. You speak in segments and intervals, divided by periods of dispersion amongst the crowd. It is determined something must be done to clean the change room before the teacher notices, need not arouse unnecessary suspicion. As you speak with fellow members of the resistance, you feel curious minds drawn to you. The resistance adopts new members all the time, those previously undiscovered, those whose minds begin to break through. It is always a risk to let a new one in, but the ones who have it are worth it. Mustn’t give all the information at once, just pieces, just what they need to discover for themselves, once it’s deepened within them, the sharing can become deeper between you.
Members of the resistance step forward to help clean the locker room, other uninitiated minds volunteer as well, sensing the importance, yet not knowing why. Together you clean the locker room from top to bottom, many hands make quick work. The place is filled with foamy soap then it’s rinsed away, leaving a sparkling shine.
The day’s not half done, but you get the signal the carpool is here to get you. The situation has intensified, the search is narrowing. Scattered reports of sailing sphere sightings are being reported by local media. You run from the complex, no time for discretion now, teachers are the least of your concern, the authorities are closing in. the car pulls away the second you are in the door. Major routes are road blocked and patrols have been dramatically increased, getting out of the city is going to take awhile. Slowly winding through residential districts, carefully avoiding roadblocks and narrowly dodging patrols, you listen intently to the radio reports, you need to know what message the people are being given.
You tell your brother, “I think we need to get off the island, let’s head to the ferries and get out of here.”
He’s unconvinced. “But, how are we going to get through the identity checks at the tool booth?” he replies.
“I don’t know,” you say desperately, “we could give fake names, we could pretend you’re that other comedian.” however you realize the idea is ridiculous, you imagine being unable to control your laughter as you give the fake names at the toll booth.
Your brother is unwavering. He has been doing stand up comedy routines across the highway from the motel, and he has a show tonight that he is determined to follow through with. Comedy acts are the only permitted method of uncensored public address. Comedians are permitted to poke fun at the institutions, it lulls the population into thinking they themselves are allowed to criticize the institutions. Unbeknownst to Them, Your brother uses comedy routines to recruit new members to the resistance. Those whose minds are at the threshold, ready to break through, hear the message between the words, their curiously drives them to discover and join the resistance. Those who aren‘t ready to hear, simply witness a comedy act. Your brother has committed to doing the show tonight and he is unwilling to break his word.
So, you return to the motel where you nervously wait in the sailing sphere while your brother does his act across the highway. The search narrows and the grip tightens, the authorities are closing in. With the heightened vigilance and public anxiety the media is provoking, keeping the sailing sphere concealed is challenging. It is one thing to conceal something the public don’t expect to see, it is quite another to keep them from seeing something they are looking for, especially when they believe it to be a threat.
The second your brother finishes his show he runs from the stage to meet you in the parking lot. You time it perfectly, sailing the sphere across the highway, you reach the parking lot just as your brother bursts through the door. He jumps aboard and you are off, hurdling down the highway. It’s very likely someone will notice you, it’s difficult to conceal the sphere while it’s in motion under ideal circumstances, and it’s currently a struggle to keep it hidden while stationary, but there is no choice at this point, the authorities are too close, your only chance is to run. You and your brother frantically run to and froe within the sphere, pulling on a ropes and tightening lines. The sailing sphere careens widely down the highway, with barely a chance to look where you’re going, you have just enough control of the craft to keep from loosing all control. You never will get used to this.
The End
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