“I command you again, Mr. Singh. Punch Mr. Coates in the face. Now.”

  Ravi shook his head. “I am sorry, sir. I cannot.”

  Tiberius raised his hand out, flicked his thumb up, and flipped his hand upside down. The guard behind Ravi and Howard fired. Ravi’s head disintegrated and he fell to the ground. More shrieking and crying erupted from the crowd, but many people stayed perfectly still, not wanting to raise the ire of the Supreme Leader.

  Tiberius turned back to his computer and typed again. “Glen Charlotte. Walk to the floor.”

  Another man made his way to the floor. He looked utterly petrified. Theo wondered how the man was moving when he was that scared. Then he saw the guards with guns at the man’s back, prodding him along. How had they known where to find them? Theo wondered if the computer was all part of the show. Maybe all of this was thought out in advance.

  “Let’s try this again,” said Tiberius. “Mr. Coates? If you would be so kind.”

  Again there was a period of silence. Theo wondered if Howard would sacrifice himself to make a point. Suddenly, Howard let out a primal scream of rage and attacked Glen Charlotte. He tackled Glen to the ground and unleashed wild swings at his face. He continued screaming like something not quite human as he mounted Glen and took the poor man’s head in his hands. Howard bashed Glen’s head into the concrete over, and over and over. Theo wanted more than anything to look away, but he couldn’t. He had to see this, had to know that what seemed to be happening was real. Finally, the guard who had shot Ravi ran over and pulled Howard off Glen’s mangled corpse.

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” Tiberius said with so much pride in his voice that it made Theo nauseous, “your winner is Howard Coates. Mr. Coates, you have the appreciation of your nation and your Supreme Leader.”

  Theo looked at Howard. The man didn’t look like he felt appreciated. He was practically foaming at the mouth while being restrained by the Security Force. As they forcibly moved him toward the entrance to the arena floor, Howard shook loose, looked up at the crowd and shouted. “Yaaaaaaaaaah!”

  Amazingly, many in the crowd began to cheer and applaud.

  “I’m going to be sick,” said Kylee.

  “Let’s get the hell out of here,” said Bill.

  “I’m not sure we can,” said Ryan, disgusted. “We haven’t been dismissed.”

  “Citizens of Atlantic Island,” said Tiberius, “I regret that we have to engage in this barbarism, but this is something we must do for the good of the island. No one person among you is more important than the group. The nation must survive. Tonight we will have two more battles, and we will meet every month for three additional battles until the population is at a reasonable level. Also… citizens are forbidden to conceive children until we have developed a system to handle births in a controlled, sustainable way. Now then…” he turned to his laptop again.

  The second battle was between two women, Jessica and Molly. Theo had expected Tiberius to make unfair pairings between men and women, but it seemed that the man was actually intrigued by close matches. The women circled each other and pulled each other to the ground, but their fight did not have the brutality of the previous encounter. Neither seemed strong enough or willing enough to seriously injure the other. After a few minutes of this, guards entered the arena floor with a variety of weapons. Before long, Molly had gained the upper hand and was standing over Jessica with a metal baseball bat raised above her head. Molly cried as she stood hesitant. The guards pointed their guns at her. That was all it took to push Molly over the edge. She brought the bat down with all her might and was declared the victor. At this the majority of the crowd actually stood and cheered. Theo saw faces full of false smiles, brimming with fear.

  “Time to go,” said Theo. “This is our chance.”

  Behind the rows of standing, jumping, applauding people, Theo and his friends made their exit. They had no desire to see anything more.

  Back outside, they moved quickly under the cover of night. Jamie was the first to speak. “How… how can this be happening?”

  “I don’t know,” said Theo. “But it is. We all saw it. We saw what Tiberius is capable of. We saw what he plans to do to this country. Worst of all, we saw how quickly fear can break people… make them do things they would never dream they could or would do. What we need to decide now is what we can do about it.”

  “What do you mean?” said Michelle. “There’s nothing to do.”

  “You’re wrong,” said Theo. “We can’t bury our heads in the sand and hope everything will be okay. This won’t get better unless we make it better.”

  “But we’re alone!” said Michelle. “What good are we?”

  “Excuse me,” called a voice in the shadows. A man was standing several yards away in the darkness hugging his crying wife to his chest. “I don’t know who you all are, but I want you to know that if you’re going to do something, anything to end this madness, we are on your side.”

  Chapter 19

  One week later Kylee and Theo welcomed five strangers into their home for the first meeting of something that had no name but one purpose: find some way to right the wrongs of Paul Tiberius.

  The husband and wife who had stepped out of the shadows after the disgraceful blood sport at the arena were named Brian and Liz Lambert. They had owned a condo in Ventnor and had been making their first weekend visit of the summer at the time of the Event. They had been evicted from their home by the lottery system and now lived in a smaller place in the city.

  Their friends Joseph and Andrew had been vacationing with them and stayed with them even now. Theo observed an unusual dynamic between Joseph and Andrew, who only introduced themselves with their first names. The two men seemed to be intentionally keeping distance between them as they sat in the apartment, as if to hide that they were a couple. Theo wondered if this wasn’t a little technique they had developed to stay under the radar of the government, which wasn’t proving to be exceptionally open-minded.

  The final member of the group was a young man named Dale Nester. Kylee recognized Dale from their brief time in the Atlantic Island School. He was a year or so younger than the other teens and, it appeared, exceptionally angry with the leadership. Theo wondered what Dale’s experience on the island had been like. The young man wasn’t forthcoming with details. They did know he was living with the adults in his party, a recent development.

  “We really appreciate you all coming such a distance in the night and taking such a risk,” said Kylee.

  “It’s no problem,” said Brian, “It’s amazing what you all are trying to do. Our apartment’s in the city. Walking through streets without cars isn’t such a huge deal anyway.”

  “We aren’t fooled into thinking that we will have that apartment for very long,” said Liz. “The government is giving the city to supporters little by little. I think we haven’t seen the last of the ‘transitions’ here.”

  The others nodded. “I think you’re right,” said Ryan. “The leadership wants to make it clear that supporters will be rewarded and any dissidence will not be tolerated.”

  “So let’s give them dissidence,” said Bill. “It’s what they deserve. They’re making people kill each other. Making a sport out of death!”

  “I’m not sure we can just go right at them,” said Theo. “We’re just a few people and we are facing a massive force. We have no weapons and they have all the weapons. If we rose up we’d be dead before we knew what happened.”

  “I agree with Theo,” said Michelle.

  Great, thought Theo, maybe I should try a different approach.

  “We all saw the same thing last week at the arena,” Michelle said, “Tiberius is in total, complete control. He holds all the power. You saw what happened when that guy tried to protest.”

  “Well,” said Jamie, “There are eleven of us here, not one. That has to count for something.”

  “It’s just ten additional bodies that the Security Force will dump in the ocean,” said Michelle. Ryan looked embarrassed.

  “Okay,” said Theo, “I get what you’re saying. A direct assault is bound to fail. Maybe even with twice our number. But that doesn’t mean there is nothing we can do to fight back. That’s the point of meeting here. This is what we need to think about.”

  “And on that note,” said Kylee, “I think we need to elect a leader.”

  “Forgive me, but don’t we already have enough to handle with our current leader?” asked Andrew.

  “That’s exactly my point,” said Kylee. “We didn’t pick our ‘Supreme Leader.’ We didn’t ask for any of this. If we are going to start something different, something better, it must start here and now, and it must start as a democracy. We pick someone to be our leader. Someone to run our meetings and to be the tiebreaker on important decisions, and maybe accept additional responsibilities in the future.”

  “I think you’re right,” said Liz. “Why don’t you do it, Kylee?”

  Kylee blushed. “I’m flattered, really, but no. I’m not the one for this job. You all have heard our story. We wouldn’t be here able to organize this meeting at all if it wasn’t for Theo. He’s the one who should lead.”

  “Whoa,” said Theo, “I don’t really think—”

  “Seconded,” said Ryan. “Theo, you’re the one.”

  “Guys, really,” stammered Theo, “I don’t know if I can…”

  “You can and you will, bro, “said Bill. “We believe in you. You’re the man.”

  “Okay,” said Kylee, “Let’s put this to a vote. All in favor of Theo being the leader of our band of rebels raise your hand.”

  Hands went up all around the room. All eyes went to Michelle, who was the only one with both hands firmly in her lap. “I’m sorry,” she said. “It’s nothing against you, Theo. I wouldn’t vote for anybody. This is all moving in the wrong direction. We can’t organize a rebellion!”

  “Michelle,” pleaded Ryan, “try to think in the here and now. Don’t worry about a rebellion. We still need someone to run these meetings. To help us organize our thinking so we can stay safe going forward. Doesn’t that make sense?”

  Michelle thought for a few seconds. She frowned and raised her hand. “Okay. I’m in.”

  “Okay, great!” said Kylee. “Theo is elected leader of our group. The meeting is yours!” She pulled Theo to his feet, gave him a kiss on the cheek and sat back down.

  “Alright,” said Theo, “I’d like to put it on the record that I think you guys are crazy to believe in me but… I’ll do everything I can. Everything.”

  He looked around. These faces looked at him with hope, faith and trust. He would do right by these people who had put their lives in his hands. He would see this through as far as it could go.

  “So,” he began. “We’ve got a few very obvious problems here. I want to talk about those before we speculate what else Tiberius and his people have up their sleeves. First thing is this ritual fighting to the death. Encouraging the people who are chosen to refuse to fight is impossible. Michelle is right about that. We all saw that man die at the hands of the Security Force. Even if there’s a limit to how long this ‘population control’ will go on, we know there will be more deaths. We need to figure something out, and fast. There will be another series of battles in the next couple weeks. It could be any of us on the ground there deciding whether to take a life or die for a hopeless cause.”

  “So how do we put a stop to it?” asked Kylee.

  “Well,” said Theo, “the biggest challenge is the involvement of the Security Force. Do you have any idea what’s going on there? The force at the arena seemed to be in sync with what Tiberius wanted.”

  “You don’t know that, man,” said Bill. “Who knows what the hell was going on behind those ‘death masks?’ They might not have thought they had a choice.”

  “That is a good point,” said Joseph.

  “It is a good point,” said Kylee, “I’ll give you that, but there’s more involved with this. I might not have much access to the Security Force anymore but I still have a few friends in there. Men and women like Officer Menendez are being pushed aside and those who are given the most important jobs are diehard Tiberius supporters. As frightening as it is to think about, I’m pretty sure most of those black helmet guys really believed they were doing the right thing.”

  “What about Menendez?” asked Ryan. “Couldn’t we try to get him involved here? Have him help us in some way?”

  “I doubt he’d go for that,” said Kylee. “It’s not that he wouldn’t want to help, but there’s obviously enormous risk for anyone who does anything against the regime.”

  “It’s probably the same thing for Dougherty,” said Theo. “He’s caught in the middle of all of this and I’m sure he knows how expendable he is to the leadership. Not that I’m entirely sure how to contact him anyway.”

  A moment passed while everyone gathered his or her thoughts. Theo realized he was going to have to be the one to break these silences and keep the meetings moving.

  “Okay,” he said, “so let’s put aside the notion of getting ourselves in the middle of this gladiator horror show at the arena.” He raised his hand as he saw the beginnings of protest. To his astonishment, everyone settled down. “I’m not saying we forget about it. We can’t. Even so, I want our time here to be productive. We don’t know how often we can meet or how long this can go on before we can’t meet anymore for one reason or another. There’s no apparent strategy for dealing with the arena problem so let’s look at some other ways we can make an impact.”

  “What did you have in mind, Theo?” asked Brian.

  “Well, the younger people on this island are having a major problem. The school system was horrible to begin with. Even Mayor Lucas knew that. Now it’s a complete joke. Even training for a career is not necessarily a good use of time because so far Tiberius has gone out of his way to limit job access to only be available to those over a certain age.”

  “Are you sure that’s such a bad thing?” asked Michelle. “I’m as upset as any of you that school has gone by the wayside, but that was the old world. Here all that matters is developing particular skills. Maybe Tiberius wants to be sure that people are trained properly before having access to the most important components of government.”

  “You sound like you agree with him,” said Jamie.

  “I’m not saying he’s not a horrible man,” said Michelle, “but he seems to know what it will take to keep the country going. These are the early years. What history will probably call primitive years. Maybe in a few generations things will make more sense. You all want that for yourselves and it’s understandable, but we are pioneers in a new world. We can’t have it all. Tiberius gets that.”

  “Fine,” said Theo. “Let’s keep the conversation tonight on what we can accomplish to make life bearable for everyone. Can we all agree on that?” It seemed they could.

  “Our problem…well, one of our problems, seems to be that we are just too small. It’s incredible having you all join us, but we need more manpower.” He looked at Kylee. “Or…woman power, you know.” Laughter circulated through the group. Theo was glad to be able to lighten the mood.

  “Every day when I walk to work, I pass by the communal housing. I guess many of you have seen it, or at least know what I’m talking about. These are people who have been pushed out of their place in the new society. In many cases we are talking about women and children, with the husbands in prison for things that should not be considered crimes. What I’m getting at is maybe we should start by seeing what we can do to help some of them. They are already on our side, in the sense that they are against what Tiberius is doing. We need to let them know that there’s a force for good out there. People willing to take a stand. We can start recruiting and building, and then maybe we can tackle the problems that will require some force. Does that make sense?”

  “Yeah,” said Dale. Everyone turned to him, surprised to hear him speak. “Winning hearts and minds. I like it, man. That’s…that’s really why I’m here, anyway.”

  “What do you mean, Dale?” asked Theo.

  “I’m supposed to be living in those broken down projects by the farms. Tiberius’s men took my dad away. I don’t even know if he’s alive or in jail or what. My mom and my little sister are suffering and I came to stay with Brian and Liz to see what could be done to help them. You guys are exactly what I was praying for.”

  “Dale, I’m really sorry to hear about your dad,” said Theo. “We will do everything we can for your family. I’m glad you’re here with us. What do you suggest we do to help them?”

  “They need food. Their rations are ridiculous.”

  “Okay,” said Bill, “let’s steal them some food.”

  “Are you serious?” said Michelle. The look on her face said she had never seen anything so incredibly stupid as the direction this conversation had turned. “You want to steal from the government? The food is distributed from a central facility in the heart of the city. You want to steal right under the nose of the leadership. You’re insane. All of you are insane if you’re even entertaining this nonsense.”

  “That’s enough!” Ryan had jumped to his feet and was staring at Michelle, furious. “You’re going on and on and on criticizing every move we want to make, while praising a homicidal maniac for having good managerial skills! I know you’re scared, I know you feel powerless, but guess what? We all feel that way and some of us are trying to do something about it! Theo helped many of us when we were completely and utterly lost. We’ve all tried to make sense of all of this and help people wherever we could, but you shut yourself up in records, whatever the hell that is, and tried to pretend that this was all a bad dream that would go away!”

  “You’re the ones who are dreaming!” Michelle was on her feet as well. “I’m sorry, Ry, but I’m the only one here who realizes that Tiberius may be wrong about many things but he’s going to make sure that the nation as a whole survives and flourishes. All these fanciful things you are talking about… stopping the fighting, feeding the hungry? You are going to get yourselves killed! I have known some of you a good amount of my life and I love and care about all of you and I am telling you the path you are choosing is absolute death for all of us. I won’t stand by and be a party to your suicides!”