Oppressed Teenagers Fight Back: Variations

Inspired by a trailer for a terrible-looking movie

Eev filed out of the dormitory and sat down to eat with the others, rubbing both eyes in an unthinking attempt to wake up just a little more as the noise of the eating hall hammered at her skull. The damp, nutty scent of her mycobroth did little to aid the process. Miky settled down next to her.

“Eat up, or you’re going to be hangry by lunch again,” Miky chided. Eev lolled her head to the right, swept a dark, corkscrew ringlet from her eyes and regarded her younger brother. A few years younger than her, but just as scrawny, and with the same smooth, nut-brown complexion and fine features even though he wasn’t, biologically, “related” to her – so far as she or anyone knew, at least. She grunted acknowledgement but Miky had already turned his face down, intent on slurping his broth before the end of the eating period.

Eev herself only spooned down half of the thick broth before the bell sounded. She stood up from the bench and followed her dorm neighbor, Alc, out of the concrete eating hall. She saw the overcast sky through the high windows but paid no more attention than usual to the banners hanging below the national raven insignia, proclaiming Village 13’s past accomplishments in contests of sporting and intellect – both areas in which Eev excelled, although she wasn’t old enough for individual recognition.

“There’s a new one up there. I guess the team won last week,” Miky remarked casually.

Eev hissed in frustration and darted her eyes quickly between the monitor near the exit door and the other roving between the tables nearby. Both appeared relaxed, although she couldn’t help but nervously let her eye linger on the truncheon swinging at the side of the strolling monitor. Fortunately, the boy behind Miky gave him a quick cuff on the back so Eev didn’t have to risk saying anything. Miky had a serious problem with talking at inappropriate times – he never could sit still either. Eev knew some of the students took pills to fix such problems; maybe Miky should too. Somehow she didn’t quite like the idea, though.

After the morning hygiene and socialization period, Eev and Miky parted ways for morning education. The teacher, a thin, lively man with a goatee, lectured with a good deal of energy even though today’s lesson was only a review. “Security precedes freedom, and discipline precedes security. Without discipline, then, we can never experience true freedom. Unfortunately, some individuals always have an interest in taking advantage…” Eev scribbled notes; Ethics was a didactic rather than dialectic class, so question-asking wasn’t allowed. “…for one individual to possess that sort of power, physical power, unearned and unchecked by any objective test. Physical power translates all too easily into political power, and rather than fairly elected representatives and kritarchs of proven wisdom arriving at the correct decision on behalf of society by analysis and dialectic you would now have self-interested individuals threatening to destroy and kill – yes, kill, that’s what that sort of power really is, at the root of it – whoever they want, whenever they want, for whatever reason they want, to assert their own selfish needs. Imagine a young child who wants an extra syrup ration…”

After class ended, Eev detached herself from the line out of the buildings to pick up Miky and the other children of his grade. As usual, Alc went as her buddy – solitude spawns strife. The class buildings, long and low, were made of wood rather than concrete and evenly spaced in two rows along the gravel walkway. Miky’s class building sat all the way at the end of the road on the right, next to the metal-mesh fence beyond which loomed the forest. The young children filed out and turned left down the before crunching down the gravel way. Eev scanned their faces but didn’t see her brother; she turned back toward Alc and exchanged a worried look. Just as Eev reached the open door to the building, she heard a high-pitched shout off to her left, around the side of the class building closest to the fence. After a start, she turned from the door and rounded the corner at a run.

Miky stood with his back against the wooden wall of the class building. A stern-looking woman wearing a doctor’s coat and loose green trousers held his left arm, her face slightly upturned as she regarded the boy she held. A few paces beyond her was shriveled older woman whom Eev recognized as Miky’s teacher. But mostly Eev noticed the huge form of the compound monitor directly in front of her brother, his hand resting on the pommel of the baton hanging from his belt. She ground to a halt a few yards away.

“I don’t need the medicine, Eev! Tell them! I don’t need it.” Miky began at a shout but ended shrieking. The monitor drew his baton and brought it swung in one motion, striking the side of Miky’s head with an audible crack. He slumped down in the doctor’s grasp and the monitor turned towards Eev, replacing the club with practiced ease.

Eev stood in momentary shock at Miky’s treatment. Why hadn’t the monitor just helped to hold him down? She felt an urge to turn and run.

“Please stay calm, child,” intoned the monitor, his face relaxed but his eyes held steadily on Eev. He had lowered the truncheon but still held it in his right hand. Suddenly his form blocked Eev’s view of Miky’s limp for and Eev forgot about running away. The monitor’s calm demeanor and rolling gait as he approached her infuriated her; she remembered the fear she had felt in the eating hall that morning, and a dozen other times. What gave this man the right to be unafraid when she cowered? The monitor stopped a few paces from her and reached his left hand to his waist. Eev stared intently at his face, feeling hotter and hotter. The monitor’s lip twitched as pulled a black club from his belt and moved towards her.

Eev felt something change inside her. Something physical, inside her head, maybe two or three inches behind her eyes. She was rooted to the earth, her body heavy, and for an instant thought perhaps the monitor had used some sort of restraint on her. A rapid beeping issued from somewhere on the monitor and the monitor raised the club to hit her. Eev instinctively tried to reach out and swat his arm down but her body didn’t respond. Instead…she reached out, and out, and when she pushed down she seemed easily able to force not just his arm but his entire body down, like pushing a sugar ball down below the surface of her dinner broth.

The monitor “sat down” with a wet crunch as his spinal column compressed past its limit. He didn’t even have time to scream. The beeping from among the pouches on his belt turned into a long, high tone. The doctor stood back from Miky and faced Eev with her hands in the air.

“We were just trying to help him. Everything can still be OK.” The doctor kept her voice steady, but she had her hands raised and her eyes widened with fear. In a flash of insight only slightly less concrete than the change she had felt a few moments before, Eev realized that what she had just done had made the other woman, previously so calmly assured as she held Miky, very scared.

But where had the teacher gone? Eev turned and moved towards the fence – or tried to; her body didn’t budge. Seeing Miky stir, Eev felt herself change again and her body – her real flesh, her limbs and guts and heart and blood – suddenly felt astonishingly real, present, innervated. The tone had stopped. She heard shouts and heavy feet running up the gravel road and without even making a decision bolted in the opposite direction, running through a ragged vertical seam in the fence she hadn’t noticed before.

Eev reached the wall of vegetation in a few seconds and threw herself into it. Surprisingly, she punched through the thick sheet of leaves and branches to find the forest beyond not only dark but relatively open in between the trunks of thick trees. Wanting only to go deeper into the woods, she began to run again but something was wrong with her legs and she only stumbled a few steps. Actually, something was wrong with her arms, chest, hands, fingers, neck, face, and tongue as well. She went to her knees, then to her hands. Sweat dripped from her despite the chilly weather. Then she heard footsteps, not from behind but in front.

“Runner! She’s a runner!” hissed one of the footsteps. A pair of strong arms hauled her into the air and over someone’s shoulder. Her own arm arm dangled in front of her face; not sweat but blood seeped from her skin. The man couldn’t have run far, although Eev was too dazed to have any real idea. Abruptly her savior pitched her forward into a small motor transport.

“Go!” The vehicle lurched forward as the speaker’s partner jumped in after him. After less than a minute of rough driving through the forest, the van pulled out onto a paved road – only a few hundred feet in front of a patrol car. Eev, sitting with her back to the front seat, tasted blood pooling in the hollow beneath her tongue but could only let her jaw hang open to let it drain past her bottom teeth. The patrol car accelerated and closed quickly on the van, which obviously couldn’t outrun the vehicle. The larger of the two men in the back with Eev – the one who had carried her – sat upright on his knees, arms outstretched, and made a sweeping gesture. A tree crashed into the roadway between the two vehicles. The van swerved slightly and Eev fell over onto her side. She couldn’t get up; she couldn’t see.

Eev woke up in a dimly lit room. She first noticed how uncomfortable the cot she rested on made her; then that her head had cleared enough to notice her discomfort. She wore clean shorts and a shirt, with not trace of blood. Last of all she noticed the slightly disorganized state of the room, in contrast to the impeccably clean living compound dormitories. She easily swung her bare feet off of the bed onto a dirt floor. With only a slight sense of vertigo she stood up, pushed open the nearest door, and walked outside.

Outside here meant the forest, not the bright green barrier she had often seen beyond the fence but the brown pillars she had glimpsed after her escape. She had just emerged from a small wooden building – in some ways not so dissimilar to the class buildings on the compound, but of noticeably rougher finish. The roof appeared to be made of the forest floor, raised off the ground by the log structure. She saw a few others, of the same size or slightly larger, in the fading light. A few people who looked her age occupied themselves in stacking material inside a blackened ring.

“I hope you’re feeling better. You’re lucky Raymond and I were out doing our recon.” A handsome boy – man? – a few years older than her leaned against the wall near the corner. He wore loose-fitting clothes the same color as the forest.

“I’m Erik,” he stated, stepping forward to extend his hand. Eev took it.

“My name’s Eev.” The boy smiled.

“I saw your identification when we tabbed your belongings. Don’t worry, the medics didn’t let me look when they washed you up.” The smile became a grin. Erik’s relaxed postured prevented his height and lean muscularity from appearing threatening. Then his face took on a more serious cast.

“What you did to that monitor was incredible. We’ve never seen anyone who could generate that level of force without training.” Eev’s eyes widened and the fluid drained from her face as she remembered the crunch of the guard’s body under his uniform and armor.

“I killed him…”

Erik gave a low chuckle.

“Don’t worry. There’s nothing to be ashamed of. You’ve seen what they do, how they act. Soon you’ll see more. Eev, living in fear of men like that isn’t the only way to live. More people will have to die before that boy you were with,”

“His name w—is Miky,”

“Before Miky can live without being afraid of men like that monitor. Or of women like that doctor.”

“You don’t need to hurt her – she couldn’t do anything without that big man with a club there, I think,” Eev ventured.

“Exactly. She was afraid when she saw what happened to that guard, wasn’t she? I bet she wouldn’t try to do anything to Miky at all, if you were around.”

“Well…I don’t know. Maybe – well, actually, I guess I liked seeing her afraid of me, instead of…not being afraid of Miky and doing whatever she wanted to him. I don’t know. I did feel good when I saw her scared, though,” Eev admitted.

“That’s good. With an attitude like that, you could easily become one of us, with training. Soon all of the people like that doctor will be too afraid to hurt us. Probably most of the people like those guards, too.” Erik smiled at this last statement.

“Why don’t you just keep living out here?” Eev asked.

“Mostly because it’s not right for us to be free while others aren’t. But as a practical matter, the more boys and girls we free, the stronger we get. Once we get strong enough, they’ll have to give up the entire project of controlling us. They’ll have to let us live our lives how we choose, not how they think our abilities will best serve them.” Big words, Eev thought, but as the light dimmed she felt the forest, and the world, seem to grow larger and larger outside of the circle of cabins and the fire the other children had started.

“How strong are you really? There must be a hundred guards in my compound alone.”

“We stay very spread out. We don’t want to put all our eggs in one basket. But even here, most of the others are asleep.” Eev could no longer clearly see Erik’s face.

“Why? Have they been asleep all day?”

“Yes.” A burning strip of wood flew from the fire to Erik’s outstretched hand, startling Eev. Erik examined the brand, his face unmistakably exultant in the flame. It flared brightly for a moment as Erik looked at it.

“We have an operation tonight. Why don’t you come along? Just to watch.” Eev nodded assent.

A few hours later, Eev lay on her stomach atop a hill with two observers under a full moon, not a word passing between them. Through a pair of binoculars, she watched a government station from a few miles away. A fence similar to the one at her home compound surrounded the facility, which included a power substation along with several other buildings at whose functions Eev could only guess. A two-man patrol walked around a corner of the perimeter fence and spoke to someone at the gate.

“Rovers at the gate. No change in activity.” The observer whispered to her in explanation, but only for Eev’s own benefit; this pair specialized in communicating mind-to-mind over long distances.

Even knowing where to look, Eev wasn’t certain she saw movement as the assault team breached the fence. One of the buildings – presumably the headquarters — abruptly collapsed. Not long after, a great flash from the power station illuminated the entire compound as if by a miniature sun; Eev clearly saw men swarming from two of the still-standing buildings before dropping her binoculars as the boom of the substation explosion reached her. Before her eyes could adjust enough for her to attempt another look through her glasses, she saw another explosion in a courtyard. Distant screams mingled with the scent of burning plastic in a thunderstorm reached her a few seconds later.

“They’re out,” whispered the scout.

By the time Eev arrived back at the camp, Eric had already gotten a fire going. The other fighters relaxed, seemingly unfazed by whatever had happened during their mission. Eric, however, sat somewhat aloof on a log and stared into the fire, a billed cap sitting far back on his head. His pants were torn around the knees, and he had unbuttoned his now-filthy forest-colored jacket. He looked up when he saw her, smiled, and stood up. Eev couldn’t help but quicken her pace towards him.

After only a step or two she literally felt herself swept up off the feet and over the campfire, feeling the brief hot updraft as she passed a few feet directly over it. Eric’s smile broke into a huge grin as she landed lightly in front of him. He turned her around and left his arm on her shoulder as she spoke.

“Warriors…you saw again tonight how much we can accomplish with a little planning and a lot of courage. But most of all we have our power. I saw this woman,” Eev had never been called that before “kill one of the oppressors and break through a fence, unaided and untrained. How many of us could pick up a twig without instruction? With what she will be capable of, we won’t need to wait to gather more forces. We can attack the bigger camps, even the cities, by the end of the year. We will be free, not in our old age, but in the prime of our lives!”

The others around the fire murmured agreement – making noise didn’t seem to be popular around here – but Eev could feel the tension of their suppressed enthusiasm. Still…

“I don’t know,” said Eev, turning towards Eric. “I probably almost died when I escaped. Can one girl really make a difference?”

“Every one of us is already making a difference. So it’s not a question of whether, but of how much,” replied Eric. “I can show you how to use your power” — he extended his hand – “after that, it’s up to you.”

Weeks passed, then months. At first, Eev relied on Eric and a few others to help her understand and control her ability, but she rapidly progressed, quickly understanding principles only implied by the exercises she did. By the summer, the rebels readied for a major assault on a government education compound. While Eric still exceeded Eev in his knowledge of tactics and planning, her power made her the natural focus of the other fighters, and they rallied around her out of respect and admiration for her sheer ability to fight. Eev spoke to them, standing on a platform next to Eric and surrounded by rebel fighters. They wore camouflaged uniforms but had red paint smeared on their right hands and foreheads, indicating their willingness to use their own powers in the service of freedom.

“Friends and comrades! The state says that we must obey them in every aspect of our lives, that our powers might be used for good. But what good can be worked without freedom? We were never asked whether we wanted to obey, to be silent, to serve, to submit. They took us when we were helpless infants and fed us; for a few gallons of nutrient fluid and fungus broth, they told us, we owed them our very lives! We could vote for our rulers – some of them – when we were old enough. Well, here’s my vote,” a pine tree uprooted itself and rose into the air above the crowd; with a wailing creak it broke in two, then flew back into the forest. Eev didn’t break a sweat; despite being at this point mostly familiar with Eev’s abilities, exclamations of amazement rose from the crowd.

“They will let us live in peace, in our own homes, with our own families…or they will be broken.” Eev raised her own red hand into the air. The rest of the crowd did as well, howling with fervor. Eev jumped from the dais and let Eric wind down the crowd in preparation for their departure.

By the time Eev had gotten in sight of the town’s front gate, she had already received word of the diversion team reaching its assault position. Hardened observation towers flanked each side of the gate, although netting concealed the men with guns she knew must be inside them. Rather than waste effort knocking over the towers outright, two teams of three would exert their psychokinetic efforts to collapse the roof on each tower. Eev signaled the diversion team to begin action.

Within only a few seconds, a modulated alarm began to play in the distance. Reassuringly, nothing changed visibly at the gate area before the tops of the towers caved in. Eric walked calmly up to the gate itself, raised his arms, and the gate shuddered, then began to vibrate. Eev crouched just off the road with the assault team. The gate began to open inward, slowly at first, then quickly all the way, with a groan as the fastenings broke. Eric fell over, presumably from exhaustion, although a cracking noise continued despite the gate having been already broken open.

Eev’s team approached the open gate obliquely from both sides of the road, Eev herself on the left, although the right wing had started moving a little sooner and had a head start. The noise from the gate had ceased when the point of the right team, a spry younger girl, reached the open portal. She stopped, sat down, and laid on her back. Too late Eev realized the truth; several more fighters across the road rushed forward before being cut down by gunfire from beyond the gate. The rest of the assault team, seeing this happen, slackened and stopped short of the gate. Eev knew they would never get through if she didn’t act. From a distance she pulled one of the heavy, fallen halves of the gate out of the portal and towards her.

“Come on – we can take cover behind this!”

Motivated as much by their reminder of Eev’s power as by the safety afforded by the slab of metal, most of the other fighters followed behind Eev as she advanced towards the portal, the huge door moving in front of her. She heard what she now knew were bullets ping against the far side of the door as she moved forward. Holding and moving such a heavy object like this would all too quickly exhaust even her own power however; she had to get the team into action

“Scatter left and right. Get as far apart as possible, you should be able to see them. Go!”

Eev launched the door in the direction of the gunfire, dropped down and rolled left. Knowing she hadn’t moved out of the line of fire, she didn’t dare move for a few seconds. But the gunshots slackened and then stopped as the other fighters located the positions of the gunmen. Cautiously she came to her hands and knees, then stood up. Off to her right, another rebel lay dead. Grimly, she rallied the remaining team and they moved towards their objective.

The education center here was nearly three times as large the one Eev where Eev had lived with Miky. Eev knew the outlying buildings would be full as well; Eric had chosen this day because the children from outlying communities were visiting for a competition. With the other, Eev approached cautiously but soon realized something was wrong. Rather than the quiet and stillness of a lockdown, the outside of the buildings swarmed with shouting students.

Eev tore down a section of the chain-link fence easily. A bevy of younger kids jogged towards her after the gap opened. Miky shocked Eev by being among them. He wore a little kid’s grin on his face, but only for a moment.

“Eevy, you’ve got to help us get out of here! The government will send reinforcements, I don’t know long it will take.” The younger children around Miky seemed able to rally the swarming children, who started to move towards the breached section of fence. Eev and her team led the children back down a street, encountering little resistance as she moved back towards the gate. When they had just reached the wall, Eev heard the team on the far side of the city warn her that troop transports had arrived with hundreds more government soldiers. She knew then that she had to stop the new mass of soldiers, or Miky and his companions would never be able to reach safety. Through the open gate she saw the bodies of the fighters who had died attacking the entrance. Eric still laid where he had fallen, though by now the blood had pooled around him.

“Miky, I need you to move north for about three miles. There’s a large brown rock in a clearing next to a swamp; wait there and others will help you. I’ll see you tomorrow.” Miky looked worried and nodded. Eev swept him up in her arms and hugged him, then turned and ran back into the city without saying another word.

At first Eev relied on remote directions from the other teams, but after a few minutes she only had to follow the sound of gunfire. Alc surprised her by waving Eev down from behind a metal trash container.

“Alc! Why didn’t you go with Miky and the others?” asked Eev.

“I slipped out of the center right after the alarm. I was supposed to try to find a way out of the city, although I ran into these rebels instead so I’ve been helping to guide them since then. I figured you were the same Eev they talked about! Our teachers told us you had been killed by the wild animals outside the fence. They even showed some of the older kids ‘your’ bones. I did think you were dead, but I knew I couldn’t put up with having the adults treat us like I saw with Miky after that,” explained Alc. “Anyway, follow me.”

“Sure thing!”

In the alleyway were nine fighters. All of them visibly exhausted and bleeding, some from wounds and all from the depletion of their mental powers. Only two of them even moved their eyes to look at Eev as she walked past, one of whom rasped as blood ran from her mouth and nose. If all of the fighters were in this state, the reinforcing enemy would soon be able to pursue the freed children without resistance. Alc showed Eev how to climb a series of projecting fixtures and ledges to reach the flat roof of a three-story building. Alc motioned to stay low, and the two of them crawled to a ledge. Alc stayed silent but pointed ahead.

A column of eight-wheeled vehicles rolled slowly down the street. The lead vehicle listed to the right, teetered on four wheels, then rolled over. The vehicle behind, turned what looked like a large machine gun towards the residential building on the left, and fired. Louder and slower than a machine gun, at each impact the bullet exploded. The vehicle systematically shot several times through each window of the building. The firing vehicle, then, began tilting to the right. But it never lifted off its wheels; instead sinking back evenly onto its suspension. Eev realized these vehicles must be immensely heavy, and the rebels attacking them must be exhausted. Also, the sheer power of the vehicle cannons meant that they were probably hurting or killing some of the fighters. Eev remembered the device on the monitor in the camp – what if they had some way to detect when the rebels used their powers, and where? Eev knew she had to act.

Eev felt underneath the ground beneath the streets and buildings in front of her. Beneath the surface she felt the packed dirt and clay beneath the looser material on the surface, seeded with the rigid foundations of the building. Beneath that, solid rock. Eev lifted, and as she lifted realized that ever since that time by the fence all those months ago she had never actually exerted her full strength for anything. The sense of her own body faded away; the ground in front of her shook along with the buildings atop it but no more. Eev remembered the monitor raising his baton at Miky, and remembered seeing Eric lying on his back on the blood-soaked road. She remembered the young girl whose reward for bravery had been a bullet through the heart. The shaking intensified and dust filled the air; some of the buildings collapsed. Eev thought of Alc beside her risking her life. She thought of the young children waiting at the brown rock, thirsty and confused. She thought of Miky, and of how he must be telling the other children not to worry, Eev would be here soon. In a tremendous column, the ground rose up, as though a gigantic bowl had been carved from the earth. The bowl rose about ten meters in the air, to Eev’s eye level, and inverted. The buildings and vehicles tumbled together into the pit from which the bowl had been removed, followed by hundreds of tons of earth and rock. A wave of debris and choking dust roared outward from the settling material.

The monitor extended his arm to strike with the club. Eev ducked under the blow, moved to the side, and her eyes focused on the pistol carried on the monitor’s belt. She grabbed it, pointed the muzzle upwards at the monitor’s neck and pulled the trigger.

The man collapsed, still with a surprised look on his face. Eev didn’t hear the gun go off; in fact, she couldn’t hear anything. In a bubble of silence she looked down and saw what looked like a gallon of blood spread out around the man’s head and begin soaking into the gravel around hunks of brain matter blown out from the exit wound in the back of his skull. She heard a faint high-pitched ringing that got louder and louder until she remembered Miky. She turned, the pistol still raised.

“Don’t shoot! Everything can still be OK.” The doctor kept her voice steady, but she had her hands raised and her eyes widened with fear.

But where had the teacher gone? Eev froze. She saw Miky stir, and heard shouts and heavy feet running up the gravel road. Eev threw away the handgun and bolted towards the fence. Without thinking, she began to climb; razor wire coiled above but by rolling over the top of the fence she got her slender body underneath, though a few of the razors did rake her back. Unsure how to get down, she simply let got and fell the fifteen feet to the ground. Landing on her back knocked the wind out of her, but she got up and ran towards the forest as the first gunshots snapped at her from inside the fence.

Eev reached the wall of vegetation in seconds and threw herself into it, punching through into the forest interior. Wanting only to get away, she began to run but felt strangely tired. She crouched down to look but fell to the ground. Then she heard footsteps, not from behind but in front.

“She’s hit!” hissed one of the footsteps. A vise clamped down tighter, tighter, tighter on her left leg above the knee. Then a pair of strong arms hauled her into the air and over someone’s shoulder. Her own arm arm dangled in front of her face; blood she didn’t remember touching smeared her hand. The man couldn’t have run far, although Eev was too dazed to have any real idea. Abruptly her savior pitched her forward into a small motor transport.

“Go!” The vehicle lurched forward as the speaker’s partner jumped in after him. After less than a minute of rough driving through the forest, the van pulled out onto a paved road – only a few hundred feet in front of a patrol car. Eev sat listlessly against the front seat. The patrol car accelerated and closed quickly on the slower van. The man who had carried Eev to the van rose to his knees and leveled an assault rifle out of the back. He fired in bursts until the pursuing car veered off the road, crashing out of sight with a shriek of metal. Despite the noise; Eev felt tired. She nodded off to sleep.

Eev woke up in a dimly lit, cluttered room on an uncomfortable cot. With only a slight sense of vertigo she stood up, pushed open the nearest door, and walked outside.

Outside here meant the forest, not the bright green barrier she had often seen beyond the fence but the brown pillars she had glimpsed after her escape. She had just emerged from a small wooden building, roughly finished with a sod roof. She saw several other such huts in the fading light below the forest canopy. A few others her age were building a fire.

“I’m Erik,” he stated, stepping forward and extending his hand. Eev took it.

“My name’s Eev.” The boy laughed.

“I saw your identification when we tabbed your belongings. Don’t worry, the medics didn’t let me look when they washed you up.” The smile became a grin. His relaxed postured prevented his height and lean muscularity from appearing threatening. Then his face took on a more serious cast.

“You had nice moves back there. And nice shooting.” Eev’s eyes widened and the fluid drained from her face as she remembered pool of blood and brains under the guard’s dead face.

“I killed him…”

Erik gave a low chuckle.

“His name w—is Miky,”

“Before Miky can live without being afraid of men like that monitor. Or of women like that doctor.”

“You don’t need to hurt her – she couldn’t do anything without that big man with a club there, I think,” Eev ventured.

“Exactly. She was afraid when she saw what happened to that guard, wasn’t she? I bet she wouldn’t try to do anything to Miky at all, if you were around.”

“Why don’t you just keep living out here?” Eev asked.

“Well, mostly because it’s not right for us to be free while others aren’t. But as a practical matter, the more boys and girls we free, the stronger we get. Once we get strong enough, they’ll have to give up the entire project of controlling us. They’ll have to let us live our lives how we choose, not how they think our abilities will best serve them.” Big words, Eev thought, but as the light dimmed she felt the forest, and the world, seem to grow larger and larger outside of the circle of cabins and the fire the other children had started.

“How strong are you really? There must be a hundred guards in my compound alone.”

“Well, we stay very spread out. We don’t want to put all our eggs in one basket. But even here, most of the others are asleep.” Eev could no longer clearly see Erik’s face.

“Why? Have they been asleep all day?”

“Yes.” Erik absentmindedly drew a large, black-daubed combat knife and cleaned some grime from under his nails with it. Then he examined first his fingernails, then the knife. His face, lit on one side from the now-burning fire, showed unmistakable exultation.

“We have an operation tonight. Why don’t you come along? Just to watch.” Eev nodded assent.

A few hours later, Eev watched a government station through binoculars, prone on a hilltop observation post. One of the two scouts with her gave the signal over a radio once they’d confirmed the station’s security measures.

Even knowing where to look, Eev wasn’t certain she saw movement as the assault team breached the fence. Minutes passed with unbelievable sluggishness until a flash erupted from the power station and the larger building simultaneously. Eev clearly saw men swarming from two of the undamaged buildings before dropping her binoculars in surprise as the boom of the charges reached her. Long bursts of machine-gun fire reached her ears she recovered. Distant screams and shouts mingled with a series of smaller explosions, then silence.

“They’re out,” whispered the scout.

By the time Eev arrived back at the camp, Eric had already gotten a fire going. The other fighters relaxed, but Eric sat aloof on a log and stared into the fire. Eric made eye contact with Eev and put himself noticeably more at ease. He still hadn’t loosened or removed his body armor, festooned with pouches and a bandolier of 40mm grenade rounds, although his knee pads rested around his muddied ankles. He had one hand loosely around a rifle with its butt resting on the ground next to him. Eev couldn’t help but quicken her pace towards him.

Erik smiled and stood up to meet her as she moved past the campfire. Eric’s smile broke into a huge grin as she walked up to him.

“I don’t know,” said Eev, turning towards Eric. “I probably almost died when I escaped. Can one girl really make a difference?”

“Every one of us is already making a difference. So it’s not a question of whether, but of how much,” replied Eric. “I can show you how to use your skills” – he drew and proffered her a handgun – “after that, it’s up to you.”

Weeks passed, then months. Eev soon proved herself an outstanding marksman, athlete, and tactician. While Eric still exceeded Eev in his knowledge of logistics and planning, her preternatural skill made her the natural focus of the other fighters, and they rallied around her out of respect and admiration for her sheer ability to fight. Eev spoke to them, standing on a platform next to Eric and surrounded by rebel fighters. They carried rifles, mortars, rockets, and machine guns. They wore camouflaged uniforms but had red paint smeared on their right hands and foreheads, indicating their willingness to fight in the service of freedom.

“Friends and comrades! The state says that we must obey them in every aspect of our lives, that we might be used for good. But what good can be worked without freedom? We were never asked whether we wanted to obey, to be silent, to serve, to submit. They took us when we were helpless infants and fed us; for a few gallons of nutrient fluid and fungus broth, they told us, we owed them our very lives! We could vote for our rulers – some of them – when we were old enough. Well, here’s my vote.” In the branches of a nearby pine tree sat a raven, symbol of the government. Eev raised her rifle, clicked down the safety, and after only a fraction of a second’s aim sent a bullet straight through its body at 200 meters. Black feathers drifted to the ground. Despite being at this point mostly familiar with Eev’s abilities, exclamations of amazement rose from the crowd.

“They will let us live in peace, in our own homes, with our own families…or they will die.” Eev hoisted her rifle above her head in one hand. The rest of the crowd did as well, howling with fervor. Eev jumped from the dais and let Eric wind down the crowd in preparation for their departure.

By the time Eev had gotten in sight of the town’s front gate, the diversion team had reached its assault position. Hardened towers flanked each side of the gate, although netting concealed the men with guns she knew must be inside them. Eev signaled the diversion team to begin. “Fire target group one-alpha” she whispered into the radio.

Within only a few seconds, a modulated alarm began to play in the distance. Reassuringly, nothing changed visibly before the mortars started falling, the first four rounds direct-laid onto the towers from standoff before switching to smoke. Eric’s armored personnel carrier madly churned up to the gate as Eev crouched off the road with the assault team. As the carrier drove away, charges severing the gate’s fastenings blew and the gate fell back. From somewhere out of the smoke, an antiarmor rocket struck the carrier, which stopped in its tracks. Burning fuel spread underneath it.

Eev’s team approached the open gate obliquely from both sides of the road. The guards on the other side of the gate wildly fired into the smoke, striking the point girl across the road. Eev threw a grenade through the gate, took cover, and rushed in ahead of her own team immediately after it went off.

“Come on!”

Motivated by Eev’s example, most of the other fighters followed her. The gate had fallen onto a vehicle, and provided some cover. Eev peeked around the outside of the gate and squeezed off two rounds at the flash of a blind-firing automatic weapon. “I’ll lay down fire while you move. Get as far apart as possible, you should be able to see them. Go!”

Eev kept shooting, exposing herself as little as possible while the enemy gunmen continued engaging the obvious target of the gate. But the gunshots slackened and then stopped as the other rebels located the enemy positions. Cautiously, she emerged. Off to her right, another rebel lay dead. Grimly, she rallied the remaining team and they continued towards their objective after stopping to free Miky and direct him to the rally point. Alc was with Miky, and offered to guide Eev’s team towards an enemy staging area.

An hour later, Eev watched a column of eight-wheeled vehicles rolled slowly down the street from a quarter of a mile away. As the lead vehicle struck a mine, Eev fired a rocket at the carrier bringing up the rear. The remaining troop carriers began firing wildly into the surrounding buildings. Rebels replied with antiarmor weapons, coordinating volleys over the radio, but it wasn’t cutting it. The enemy autocannons were accurate and powerful enough to kill and frighten the rocketeers; too many rebel shots went wide of their marks or were never fired at all. Troops began dismounting from the vehicles. Eev herself fired round after round into them herself but realized they were too many. She had to act.

Eev collected herself and switched her radio to the fire support frequency. Fortunately, she had reported the position of the small minefield that had initially stopped the column.

“Thunder Thunder, this is Echo 6 immediate suppression checkpoint 4-alpha linear sheaf 300 meters attitude two-seven-zero degrees troops and light armor danger close over.”

Thunder read her transmission back to her, and for two agonizing minutes Eev and her team traded rockets, grenades, cannon rounds, rifle fire, and screams with the mechanized column. Her heart jumped as the radio came back to life.

“Echo 6 Thunder, target number bravo-romeo-four-niner battery-six HE-PD in effect shot over”

“Splash over”

The heavy howitzer rounds fell among the armored column, shattering the lightly-armored and immobile troop carriers and the soldiers around them with equal indifference. Point-detonating shells threw massive clouds of dust and broken concrete into the air. Not all of the artillery fell onto the enemy column, however; the high-angle mission allowed plenty of time for the shells to drift off course. The building where Eev hid collapsed before she could hear the sound of the explosion that destroyed it.

The monitor extended his arm to strike with the club. Eev ducked under the blow, moved to the side, and her eyes focused on a tear gas cartridge on the monitor’s belt. She grabbed it and slammed it into the monitor’s face.

The thin metal casing of the round collapsed with the force of Eev’s blow. Powdery white gas crystals spread densely without the dispersion charge triggering. The man gasped and dropped his truncheon as the caustic substance seared his eyes, inhaling a mouthful of the volatile powder. Eev avoided most of the powder, although her vision blurred as tried to shake the crystals free of her hand. She staggered coughing away from where the guard wheezed blood on his hands and knees towards Miky.

“I can get help. Everything can still be OK!” The doctor kept her voice steady, but she had her hands raised and her eyes widened with fear. Eev saw Miky stir, and heard shouts and heavy feet running up the gravel road. Without thinking, she bolted towards the fence, scaling it quickly and falling to the other size as razor wire tugged at her back. Gunshots snapped at her from inside the perimeter as she reached the wall of vegetation outside and punched through to the forest interior. Wanting only to go deeper into the woods, she began to run but felt strangely tired. She crouched down to look but fell to the ground. Then she heard footsteps, not from behind but in front.

“She’s hit!” hissed one of the footsteps. Someone applied a tourniquet and carried her a short distance to a vehicle.

“Go!” The vehicle lurched forward as the speaker’s partner jumped in after him. After less than a minute of rough driving through the forest, the van pulled out onto a paved road – only a few hundred feet in front of a patrol car. Eev sat listlessly against the front seat. The patrol car accelerated and closed quickly on the slower van. The man who had carried Eev was now wearing an intimidating mask; he reached over and forced something down over Eev’s head that made it hard to see or breathe. He hurled a grenade at the following vehicle, which detonating with a disappointing pop, but the vehicle still veered off the road. Eev lost consciousness, struggling to pull air into her lungs through the restricting mask.

She woke up in a dimly lit, cluttered room on an uncomfortable cot. With only a slight sense of vertigo she stood up, pushed open the nearest door, and walked outside, where a few others her age were building a fire.

The young man who had carried her earlier introduced himself as Erik.

“You did some nice work on that guard.” Eev’s eyes widened and the fluid drained from her face as she remembered pool of blood and brains under the guard’s dead face.

“I killed him…”

Erik gave a low chuckle.

“We have an operation tonight. Why don’t you come along? Just to watch.” Eev nodded assent.

A few hours later, Eev watched through binoculars from a hilltop as Eric’s team destroyed a power substation and other buildings after an aerosol neurotoxin released upwind had cleared out any resistance.

By the time Eev arrived back at the camp, Eric had already gotten a fire going. The other fighters relaxed, but Eric sat aloof on a log and stared into the fire. Eric made eye contact with Eev and put himself noticeably more at ease. He had removed his protective gear but still had his rifle across his lab; magazine pouches adorned his chest. Eev couldn’t help but quicken her pace towards him.

Erik smiled and stood up to meet her as she moved past the campfire. The smile broke into a huge grin as she walked up to him. He turned her around and left his arm on her shoulder as she spoke.

“I don’t know,” said Eev, turning towards Eric. “I probably almost died when I escaped. Can one girl really make a difference?”

“Every one of us is already making a difference. So it’s not a question of whether, but of how much,” replied Eric. “I can show you how to use your skills” – he produced a thick, worn manual entitled PRODUCTION AND STORAGE OF (RS)-PROPAN-2-YL-METHYLPHOSPHONOFLUORIDATE and handed it to Eev – “after that, it’s up to you.”

Weeks passed, then months. Years would pass before Eev could contribute new knowledge, but she soon proved herself an outstanding marksman, athlete, and tactician. Eric still exceeded Eev in his knowledge of logistics and planning, but her preternatural skill made her the natural focus of the other fighters, and they rallied around her out of respect and admiration for both her keen understanding of novel forms of warfare and her fighting spirit. Eev spoke to them, standing on a platform next to Eric and surrounded by rebel fighters. They wore protective suits and carried rifles, mortars, rockets, and machine guns. Red paint smears on their right hands and foreheads indicated their willingness to fight in the service of freedom.

“Friends and comrades! The state says that we must obey them in every aspect of our lives, that we might learn ‘restraint’ and conform to its ways. But what good can be worked without freedom? We were never asked whether we wanted to obey, to be silent, to serve, to submit. They took us when we were helpless infants and fed us; for a few gallons of nutrient fluid and fungus broth, they told us, we owed them our very lives! They stacked up guns and bombs while lecturing us on the ‘immorality’ of any weapon that could oppose them. We could vote for our rulers – some of them – when we were old enough. Well, here’s my vote.” Eev lifted a medium mortar shell from a crate at her feet, two green stripes clearly visible on the silver metal.

“They will let us live in peace, in our own homes, with our own families…or they will die.” Eev hoisted the shell above her head in one hand. The rest of the crowd raised their own weapons, howling with fervor. Eev jumped from the dais and let Eric wind down the crowd in preparation for their departure.

By the time Eev had gotten in sight of the town’s front gate, the diversion team had reached its assault position. Hardened towers flanked each side of the gate, although netting concealed the men with guns she knew must be inside them. Eev checked her protective gear one last time and signaled the diversion team to begin. “Fire target group one-alpha” she whispered into the radio.

Within only a few seconds, a modulated alarm began to play in the distance. Reassuringly, nothing changed visibly before the mortars started falling, blanketing the gate area with a fast-acting blood agent. Erik’s breach team forced the gate with the aid of a small armored vehicle, only to be greeted with gunfire. A round struck Eric and he fell to the ground, his suit seal broken.

Eev had to clear the area around the gate, and picked up her radio.

“Punisher, Echo Six, target group one-alpha add one hundred meters white phosphorus in effect over”

After an eternity of thirty seconds, the mortar radioman confirmed splash and Eev rushed forward.

“Come on!”

Motivated by Eev’s example, most of the other fighters followed her. Thick, burning smoke blanketed the area past the gate; Eev’s team quickly silenced the remaining mostly-ineffective resistance although a single, well-aimed shot killed one girl as she entered the gate.

Eev and her team located the education center, freed Miky and directed him to the rally point.

An hour later, Eev watched a column of eight-wheeled vehicles rolled slowly down the street from a quarter of a mile away. No less then four different lethal chemical agents now saturated the area, but the column kept moving slowly, the lead vehicle bearing a mine-clearing plow. Rebel teams managed to knock out a few of the troops carriers, but not enough and losses mounted. Eev knew she couldn’t let an enemy concentration of this size and capability fight another day. She ordered the rebels to withdraw and order the artillery into action.

Eev turned away from the flash, but it still turned the day into something that made noon like midnight. She turned around and saw the mushroom cloud rising well before she heard the boom and felt the hot wind and the ground rolling, rolling, rolling. The wind and the shock were much stronger than she expected; she saw dust and shattered rock as the wind reversed.

By the time Eev woke up, Miky was already helping to dig her out of the wreckage.

“We did it, Eev! We beat them! Eric already negotiated for the government to close the education camps and return all children to their families.”

“Eric?”

“Yeah, he’s not moving around much yet but he can still talk.”

“Tell him thanks. For everything. None of this would have happened without him.”

“I know. We won!”

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