“You are soldiers, Jane. As much as anybody else here. You think the Security Force is full of US military veterans? Some police, maybe, but for the most part they were just average people who got some training and now find themselves on the wrong side of history. You are ready for this.”

  “Hmm. Maybe you’ve got a point. That’s kinda what I wanted to talk to you about.”

  “Go on.”

  “When all this is finished, if we win—”

  “When we win.”

  Jane laughed. “Right. When we win, well, the girls and I were talking. There’s more than a few people who would like to see you and Theo officially in charge. Supreme Leaders or something like that.”

  Kylee smiled and shook her head. “No. That’s what we are trying to do away with here. That kind of power shouldn’t belong to any one or two people. It belongs to all the people. Sam Lucas wanted there to be elections, even if it meant he might lose. I think that’s how we have to handle things. Between you and me, Theo can probably be convinced to run.”

  “That might be a good idea,” Jane said. “Alright. I’ll leave you to your thoughts. We’re gonna be partying all night long, after all.”

  She got up and walked away. Just before she turned toward the house, Jane looked back over her shoulder. “Hey, Kylee?” she called.

  Kylee looked up. “Yes?”

  “I’m proud to be fighting for you. With you. I want you to know that.”

  Kylee felt tears in the corners of her eyes. She nodded.

  Sundown arrived faster than Kylee had anticipated. She had expected to feel a sense of foreboding. Perhaps she would become paralyzed by fear and responsibility. Instead, she felt nothing but a sense of purpose. This was the single most important day of her life. She was sure of it.

  She stepped outside of the safe house. When her feet hit the sandy, broken asphalt, she turned and looked back. This place had been home, one of several homes she had known and lost since the Event. She couldn’t say whether she would be back here again. What was certain was she would never live here again. When the war was over, she would either be dead, imprisoned, or free to pursue life with Theo somewhere else on the island. In her mind, she thanked the safe house for the shelter it had provided from storms both natural and manmade. She turned back around and marched onward to an uncertain future.

  The rebel army was spread down the length of the small side street. Everyone was armed. Several of the women surrounded the rusty shell of a large SUV. One of the few blessings the army had been granted, the vehicle had been trapped in a garage under tons of debris in a house two blocks down. The leadership had missed it. It wouldn’t have run, even if there had been fuel available on the island. Instead, Ryan and Bill had stripped it down, removing as much weight as possible. Now, it was a giant push cart for transporting supplies. Kylee thought a tank might have been more useful, but she knew they were lucky to have anything.

  The inner circle waited near the front of the line. She smiled at them as she approached. She wished Theo could be here with her, but then this was all part of the plan. She just hoped he was safe and would be in good health by the time she was able to meet up with him.

  “General Kylee, looks like a beautiful night for fighting. What do you think?” Bill greeted her with a big smile of his own.

  “I think you’re right,” she said. “Don’t forget, our goal here is to avoid conflict wherever possible. Many of the Tiberius loyalists are only that way because of fear. I think when we show them that we are willing to take the fight to the leadership, many of them will throw down their guns.”

  “I hope you’re right,” said Joseph. “I don’t want to have to kill too many people.”

  Bill laughed and slapped Joseph on the back. “Man, am I glad to be on your side, Joey!”

  Joseph gave him a look of exasperation.

  “Does anybody have any idea where Michelle is?” asked Ryan.

  “Brian? Liz? Any idea?” Kylee asked.

  “No, sorry,” said Liz. “We know she’s somewhere in the city. She knows she’s supposed to fall in with us once the fighting gets close, if only for her own safety.”

  “You hear that, Ry?” asked Kylee. “She knows what she’s supposed to be doing. Don’t worry, we’ll get to her soon enough.”

  She addressed the gathered rebels. “Okay, everybody, this is it. We are going to progress down Atlantic Avenue one block at a time. We stop each block until I give the signal that everything is clear. Remember your assignments. We are relying on those of you assigned to guard our sides and rear as we go. I don’t suspect the Security Force will attempt to flank us, especially in the early going, but we don’t have enough soldiers to cover Ventnor Avenue too. We have to keep to Atlantic and prevent incursions from the side streets. Everyone clear on that?”

  Plenty of nodding and “Yes Ma’am,” and “We got it!”

  Good, Kylee thought. Time to make an impact. “Move out!” she called. She heard the sounds of feet falling into step behind her. Light grunting followed by the rusty creak of the SUV’s wheels told her the wagon was in motion, beginning its slow trip to arm the prisoners and resupply ammo, should that be necessary.

  Kylee had debated whether she and the inner circle should be on the front line. There was a risk to the morale of the troops, should any or all of them be injured or killed. Still, she and Theo’s other chosen few felt it necessary to lead by example. Kylee compromised. Should one of them get hit, the others would fall back to provide continued support until that particular skirmish was over. Of course, she secretly planned to stay up front no matter what. She wasn’t about to back away from the fight.

  The procession turned onto Atlantic Avenue. Slowly, carefully, they walked to the end of the first block. Kylee raised her hand and heard the footsteps behind her cease followed by a squeal as the SUV came to a stop.

  “All clear on the bayside?” They had decided to use the term, even though the bay no longer existed.

  “Yes, Ma’am,” came the reply.

  “All clear on the oceanside?”

  “Yes, Ma’am.”

  “Are we clear from the rear?”

  “Yes, Ma’am.”

  “Okay. All clear. Let’s keep moving.”

  Chapter 27

  Theo awoke as the sun came pouring through the curtainless window. He rubbed his eyes and looked around, momentarily confused by his surroundings and his vantage point looking up from the mattress on the floor. He saw the other men sleeping around the room and realization set in. He was imprisoned in an old hotel, a high-profile grab for the leadership to brag about.

  He rolled up to a sitting position and pulled his knees in to his chest. The three men he was trapped with were all older than him. He judged them to be in their later twenties or early thirties, though he had never been good at guessing ages.

  These were likely husbands or maybe boyfriends of some of the women he had come to know during the course of his hiding at the safe house. If he was going to unite the prisoners and instigate an uprising, he had to start his effort with these men.

  He sat silently for a while, thinking about Kylee and his friends. They would undoubtedly be putting plans in motion to start the assault that very evening. That didn’t give him a tremendous amount of time to act, but he wasn’t about to begin by waking up the other prisoners. There were few ways more guaranteed to get you on a man’s bad side than by waking him up earlier than he planned.

  Finally, one of the men turned and grunted. Theo watched him carefully. This was the man who had slept through Theo’s arrival. He was the largest of the men and he was black. The other two were white, or maybe Hispanic. Theo couldn’t really tell. The man slowly rose from his deep slumber. His eyes grew wide when he saw Theo sitting across the room from him. “Whuzzat… who… who are you?”

  “I’m Theo Essex… I was thrown in here with you last night.”

  The man laughed. “Essex, huh? You and everybody else in this place.”

  “I don’t follow,” Theo said.

  The man studied him as if he was examining a curious slide under a microscope.

  “Wait a minute,” he said, “you’re really him, aren’t you? Theo Essex. Damn.”

  “You’ve heard of me?”

  The man laughed. It was a warm sound, welcoming in the chilly room. “Of course. You’re the guy the Supreme Leader wants dead. Every guy in this place has claimed to be you or to be friends with you, just to piss off the guards. Man, never thought I’d be the one to be talking to the real deal. Name’s Tony.”

  Theo was struck by recognition. “Tony? Is your wife’s name Jane?”

  The man’s jaw dropped. “You know Janie? You’ve seen her? Is she okay?”

  “She’s fine. My friends and I would all be dead by now if it hadn’t been for Jane. She kept us all safe in the house where she was sent when you were arrested. It never occurred to me that you might be her husband.”

  Tony laughed. “Why? Because I’m black and she’s white? All kinds of crazy things happening on this island.”

  Theo smiled. “No, not that at all. I just never expected to meet you. To me you’re a pretty mythical name too.”

  “That’s great,” said Tony. Suddenly, he frowned as a thought dawned on him. “Wait… if you’re here, we’re all in big trouble, aren’t we?”

  “Well, that’s what I was hoping to talk to you about. And those other guys. I just didn’t want to wake them.”

  “Hell with that, man. Hey, Wes, Jason, get your lazy butts up! We’ve got a visitor.”

  The men Tony called Wes and Jason cursed him off, but got up just the same. They had seen Theo’s arrival last night, and curiosity was motivating them to find out just what was so exciting.

  “Boys,” said Tony, “This here, believe it or not, is Theo Essex. The one and only.”

  “Really?” asked the man to Theo’s left. “I expected more.”

  Theo felt a pang of concern. How was he going to inspire these men to listen to him? Then the man smiled. “I’m just joking. I’m Wes. That over there is Jason. I take it you already know Tony.”

  “Yes,” said Theo. He stood up, hoping that raising himself above the others would subconsciously convey a sense of authority. “I know why you are all here, and it’s really no different than why I’m here. We all made the mistake of upsetting Tiberius. What I don’t have is the luxury of time. Tiberius wants to publicly execute me, to keep others from following in your footsteps.”

  “Jeez, you sure?” asked Jason.

  “Pretty sure, yes. But here’s the thing: I have it on good authority that there’s a force coming to free all of us and to move against Tiberius. There’s a war starting tonight, but it will take all of us to make a difference, and they won’t be able to get us out if we don’t do our part from the inside.”

  The men looked skeptical. “Pretty much every man who said he didn’t like Tiberius’s hair color is locked up in here,” said Wes. “What kind of an army could there possibly be?”

  Theo had to smile. “You all have wives or girlfriends?” Wes and Jason nodded. “That’s my army. All the women you were forced to leave behind. Oh, and they are being led by my girlfriend.”

  There was an incredibly awkward silence. Then the men burst into laughter. Tony looked like he was going to have a heart attack, he was laughing so hard.

  “Our…wives!” he managed, “Our wives and your girlfriend…gonna lead a war!” Theo remained calm. Gradually, the men saw how serious his face was and the truth hit them. “Oh, hell,” said Tony. “You’re serious.”

  “I wish I wasn’t,” said Theo. “I know how much that scares you. I’m scared every second that I stop and think of what Kylee is going to be getting herself into. But they are coming, whether we want to protect them or not. The best we can do for them is help them from our end.”

  “But we have no weapons!” said Jason. “How are we supposed to fight?”

  “As best we can,” said Theo. “The rebels are bringing plenty of firepower, enough for every prisoner. But they won’t be able to get to us without our help. There’s too much of the Security Force consolidated in the prison.”

  “So what do you want us to do?” asked Wes.

  “We are going to create a distraction. A riot. Disarm and defeat as many soldiers as we can, but mainly keep them so focused on us that they can’t organize a defense against the rebels.”

  “And you think that four of us can make that kind of a distraction?” asked Tony. “How do you know they won’t just kill us and go to dinner?”

  “I don’t think they’d be so quick to kill me or anyone involved with me, if they can help it,” Theo said. “That wouldn’t give Tiberius the show he’s craving. But more important than that, I wasn’t planning on it being just the four of us. We need to get everybody here involved. Do you have any ideas?”

  Jason stood up. Theo could tell the man’s mind was working and his enthusiasm was growing. “The only time we see everybody is at lunch downstairs. There’s going to be a ton of guards in the place. We’ll have to rely on whisper-down-the-lane and hope that when you give a signal everybody will jump up.”

  “That could work,” Theo said. “It’s a little more of a risk than I’d like to take, but we really are working with very limiting constraints. This has to happen tonight. So we will spread word around at lunch.”

  “What do you want to tell people to do?” asked Wes.

  “How do you get the guards to come to your room?” Theo asked.

  “Sit right there and I’ll learn you a couple things, new guy.”

  Jason walked over to the entrance to the room. A little button that resembled a doorbell was next to the heavy metal door. He pushed the button and stepped back, waiting. A minute later, the locks turned in the door, and it opened to reveal a masked Security Force agent, gun in hand.

  “What?” asked the agent. “You know it’s not time for breakfast. This better be good.”

  “I just wanted to see if you’d been washing yourself properly,” Jason said. He made a show of sniffing the air. “Nope, you still stink.”

  The guard stepped forward and in one smooth motion jabbed the butt of his gun into Jason’s stomach. Jason fell to his knees gasping for air.

  “That’s what you get, funny man. Leave me alone unless it’s something important. You got me?”

  He slammed the door and Theo heard the locks turn back into place. He ran over to Jason who was still holding his stomach. Jason looked up at him and smiled. “And that’s the way it’s done.”

  Theo was shocked and impressed by the man’s enthusiasm and lack of fear. He supposed that a little time spent locked up with all of one’s rights stripped away could harden a person. “Okay,” he said, “are all the prisoners in shared rooms like this?”

  “Absolutely,” said Wes. “The leadership wasn’t about to treat us to our own private spaces. It’s three or four to a room all around, from what I’ve heard.”

  “That works. Here’s what we have to do: Spread the word at lunch that one minute after dinner is served to the rooms, each room hits the button to bring a guard. Now of course, they don’t have enough guards for each room, but that’s fine. The important thing is every single guard on the floors for “political prisoners” will go to a room. It’s the job of the prisoners in that room to grab the guard and disable him. I know that’s a big risk, but it’s the way we have to do this. Those prisoners have to let the others out.”

  “I think this might be crazy enough to work,” said Tony. “What do we do then?”

  “Then we head to the stairs and fight any remaining Security Force guards on our way to the entrance. By then they will know that Kylee and the rebels are nearby, even if they haven’t quite arrived yet. We have to hold off guards until the rebels arrive. At that point, the responsibility to get us out of there falls to our army, and your next orders should come from Kylee.”

  Theo walked into the prison cafeteria. It had once been some kind of restaurant in the building’s former existence as a hotel. What fascinated Theo about everything he had seen so far in the prison was how quickly the Security Force had been able to get the building secure. With limited resources and a very small talent pool, Tiberius had been able to create a very tightly controlled facility. The halls were all lined with concrete, and special, massive doors separated segments of the building. Guards patrolled every nook and cranny of the place. The restaurant had been stripped bare. In place of the booths and tables that had once filled the room, a series of metal picnic tables has been erected.

  Men sat quietly at the various tables or waited in line for food. Theo saw to his surprise that the prison rations were not very different from those provided to everybody on the island, or at least the people outside the city. Baked rolls and simple vegetables were on offer. Theo thought again about the suspicions he and his friends shared about Tiberius’s advanced knowledge of the hurricane. If the leadership hadn’t known it was coming, how did they know to make sure to harvest crops from the farms before they were destroyed in the flooding?

  Too late to worry about that now, he thought. Theo waited in line with the other men from his room. The four of them knew what they had to do: get every man in the room on board with the plan for the evening. The plan itself was full of potential risk and room for slipups. Theo had to convince people that the risks were worth taking, and he had to hope that Tony, Wes and Jason could do the same.

  He kept an eye on the other men throughout the meal, as he talked to the five at his table. He could feel the guards who surrounded the room watching him, though it was impossible to tell under what Bill called the “death masks,” black glass and carbon fiber helmets shaped like a cross between the head of a robot and a skeleton. Theo tried to concentrate on the conversation. He had not been sure he would be given an opportunity to speak, but that proved not to be a problem. Somehow, word had spread about the arrival of the mysterious Theo Essex, the teenager who had resisted Tiberius. The men at his table looked at him in a way he imagined celebrities would recognize immediately.