We drive away on another glider. This one has fake seats that we have to hide under, so that it looks like the glider is empty. Even though we’re driving in the dead of night, we have to be extra cautious.
It’s hot and stuffy and awkward and annoying. It hurts, and I’m still hungry, folded like a fetus beside Finn and Elsa. I count down the seconds. The seconds until I have water. The seconds until I have food. The seconds until I can get out of this car. The seconds until I’m free, properly free, for the first time in my life.
Eventually I fall asleep, the hunger not being enough to ward off the exhaustion. And when I awake I find myself on a pile of blankets on a floor. This is softer than anything I’ve ever been on before. I get up, and I feel something strange in my arm. I look up to see that I’m attached to an IV. Wow. This is strange. I look around and see curtains all around me.
A man - I think - walks into the room. He has simple brown clothes and looks somewhat tired. He is carrying a tray of soup with a tall glass of milk.
“Are you awake?” He asks me.
“Yeah,” I answer.
“Drink this. You need fluids. You’re so dehydrated.”
“I feel better.”
“That’s probably because of the rest and the IV. You still need to get your fluids up though.”
“Am I in Veritas?” I sit up and take the tray from him. Then I sip on the milk. Veritas is the name for the part of the world controlled by the communists.
“Yes, you are. It’s great to have you here.”
“Thanks. Where are the others?”
“They’re in the other sections. If you want we could open the curtains and let you see them. But when they wake up. They’re still sleeping.”
“Oh. Thanks for the food.”
“You’re welcome. Eat up.”
“What’s your name?”
“My name is Mark. What’s your’s? Oh I’m he/him by the way.”
“Me too. I’m Luca. Nice to meet you Mark.”
“Nice to meet you too.”
“Are you a nurse?”
“I am, when I’m not a soldier.”
“That sounds amazing.”
“Thanks. What do you want to be when you grow up?”
“I guess I want to be a doctor. Though I’ve never had that choice.”
“That’s really tragic. Well you have the choice now.”
“Did you always want to be a nurse?”
“No. I used to not think about what I wanted to be. I was just a synth child destined to be a toy forever. But then I escaped and now I’m a nurse.”
“Wow. You’re a synth too?”
“I am.”
“That’s amazing. Is it true that the resistance is made up of mostly synths?”
“Yeah. We are mostly synths. And some freeborn people who realized that the current trajectory of things is bad. Though this neighbourhood is all synths.”
“Were you a personal synth?”
“I was.”
“Wow. That’s just like me.”
“Yeah. But now I’m a free person and so are you.”
I smile.
“The kitchen is just at the end of the hall and to the left. Refill your food once you’re done this tray.”
“Sure. Thanks for the food Mark. It’s really amazing.”
“You’re welcome. You deserve to be well-fed.”
“You do too.”
“Aww thank you. You’re so sweet.”
“You’re so sweet as well.”
“Aw well, I try to be.”
“Trying is what counts after all.”
“It is. Now finish your food.”
“Okay.”
He leaves, and I eat in silence for a while. Eventually the other three escapees wake up and they get food too. We don’t talk. Just focus on scarfing the glorious food down. We’re free now. We have all the time to talk in the world. But not right now. Right now we fill up our trays with soup and bread and milk and water and vegetables and meat. Until we are full and healthy.
After some time goes by a lady with her dark hair in many braids enters the room.
“Hi everyone. My name is Rachel. My pronouns are she/her. Are you all feeling better?”
“Yes,” we reply in a messy unison.
“That’s good. Do you want to take a tour of the compound?”
“Sure,” I say, and the others agree with me. But just as we’re about to get up, Mark comes rushing into the room.
“They still need to rest,” he asserts.
“Mark, they’ve been resting all day.”
“And before that they went five days without eating or drinking. Don’t get them out and about yet.”
“They’re recovered enough to take a tour of the compound.”
“Why don’t we ask them that?”
“Okay fine. Are you guys ready for a tour?”
We think about it for a little bit.
“I think I’m ready,” Finn says.
“Me too,” Elsa adds.
“Sure, let’s go,” I say.
“I’m excited for this,” Ari states.
“Okay fine,” Mark yields, “you guys can go. But I strongly recommend going to bed right after.”
“Sure thing, Mark,” I tell him.
We get up and unhook our IVs. We follow Rachel out of the room. She leads us down the hall to the kitchen.
“I’m sure you’ve been here before,” she states, “but let’s just start somewhere familiar.” She then leads us to another door which leads to a room with a bookshelf full of binders.
“This is the office room, where most of our records are kept.”
She takes us into two more rooms that mirror our rooms and tells us that they are extra medical rooms. She leads us into a medium sized supply room filled with shelves of medical equipment, including many bandages and many strange devices.
“This is where we keep our medical equipment,” she tells us.
Next we go down the stairs to a large, unfurnished open room with blankets all over half the room and the other half of the smooth floor uncovered. There are people sitting on the blankets and talking to each other. Many of them are bandaged. All of them have laser guns at their sides. They turn to look at us.
“Hi,” Finn waves. They all smile back, some of them waving and most of them echoing back a disunited chorus of hellos.
“This is the main room where the people in this compound sleep,” Rachel tells us. “It’s where we hang out before bed and also where we do some of our training.”
We keep following Rachel to a smaller room off of the main room. It is filled with microchips and bits of metal and scraps and tools and batteries. There are many half-finished gadgets lying around.
“This is our workshop, where we make a lot of our equipment. It’s where I work, when I’m not fighting.”
She takes us next to a room filled with makeshift dummies and punching bags, along with many sand bags. There are jets attached to everything.
“This is the room where specialized training happens. It’s also where a lot of us go to vent stress.”
We go to another dust-filled room that is large and crammed with all kinds of stuff, including many ornaments, toys, recreational equipment, robots, and technology of all kinds. And we are lead to about four more rooms that are the same thing.
“This is where we put the stuff that was cluttering up the house before. Though many things we destroyed and we used the parts for other things.”
We follow her into a room partitioned with many curtains to make a grid.
“These are the change rooms and also where people keep their private stuff.”
Finally, we follow her to a small supply closet that is filled with a couple of mops and brooms and cloths.
“And this is where we keep our cleaning supplies.”
After that we follow her outside. There is a space of concrete that she says is used for training. And the large yard of the house has been converted into a large field growing a few different types of plants. It is enclosed by a force field.
“This is where we grow food for the community. We have wheat, barley, beans, lentils, tomatoes, potatoes, carrots and squash. The people two conmpounds over from us have a chicken farm and that’s where we get our protein for the community. There’s also a field for a cow at the end of the street.”
“Wow,” Finn says. “You guys are sure organized well.”
“Thanks. We have to be. It’s the difference between life and death. Anyways, you see that house at the end of the road? That’s where we go to have our meetings.”
“Cool.” I say.
“And that’s the end of the tour. Mark says you should rest. But if you want we can make a spot for you all in the main room. Or you can even transfer to another compound if you want. They’re mostly all the same.”
“I think I’m okay with staying here for now,” Ari says. The other three of us agree with him. And we go to empty beds amid the twenty or so people sitting in the main room. It’s cozy there. With pillows and blankets strewn all over. People talking softly and sometimes laughing. It feels like a community. Feels like the kind of community I’ve never had before. The kind of community I’ve always wanted.
“So what are your names and pronouns?” A woman asks us. We all introduce ourselves and they introduce themselves as well and we keep talking until it’s time to sleep.
“What is life like in the resistance?” I ask.
“Oh it’s dangerous,” A man named Ryden says.
“And busy,” A person named Loven adds, “We train and work all day. And we plan hit-and-runs. And we go on them. And we defend our territory. Get new recruits. Train them. Train ourselves. Heal the injured. Make weapons and tools. We grow food. We make fake documents for the people who want to leave. It’s all very busy.”
“But it’s worth it,” a woman named Crystie declares. “So worth it. In every breath you breathe and every step you take, in every fear you push through, it feels like you’re standing up to the owners. It feels like you’re changing the world. It feels like you’re freeing future generations.”
“Would you guys want to join the resistance?” A man named Faye asks.
“I definitely want to!” Ari pipes up. “But only if my boyfriend wants to as well. More than anything I want to be with him.”
“I want to join the resistance,” I tell them. “I want to make my parents proud. I want to stand up for all the synths and the people who are held down by the system.”
“That’s amazing,” a woman responds.
“I think I want to be in the resistance too,” Finn states. “You guys are doing a lot of good work to help people and save people and free them and give them hope. I want to be a part of that.”
“That’s great,” A man named David exclaims. “We always love having new recruits.”
“I definitely want to be in the resistance,” Elsa asserts. “I need to make the owners pay for all the things that they’ve done to us. I need to know that all my hurt and my hope meant as much as it possibly could.”
“Good,” a woman named Ray states. “They should pay.” There is a chorus of cheers all around us, which we join in.
I miss my family. I still miss my family a lot. And I miss my friends. I miss them a lot. I mourn them. And I mourn how they’re forced to mourn me. The thought that they think I’m dead still sits heavy in my chest and my gut like a thousand stones.
But at the same time I feel lighter. Lighter than I’ve ever felt before. I feel like I’m free. Like I’m equal. And like I’m safe in my new community and my new life. Even if I die, I will die as a free person. And that’s beautiful.
We keep getting food and water from the kitchen. We need to get our health back to where it was before. We eat these tasteless protein bars. And we join the conversations.
I fall asleep next to Ari and Elsa. And it’s sweet and warm and safe and comfortable.
My dreams are beautiful that night. I am flying through the sky with Ari beside me. We look at each other and we hold hands. Suddenly hundreds of people rise up out of the clouds to fly with us. And the wind blows in all of our hair and the sun shines on all of our faces in the bright blue of the sky.
I wake up and I stretch myself out in the sun. The people around me start brushing their teeth and hair and talking as they get their beds in order. I join them.
“How did you sleep?” Ari asks me.
“Amazing. You?”
“Beautiful, since I had you beside me.”
“How did you sleep, Ryden?”
“Oh good. Thanks for asking. You?”
People stream into the kitchen and get breakfast. We go too and get food from the fridges. We all talk as we eat. It’s cheery. Relaxed. Anyone can talk if they want to. Anyone can say what they want to. It really feels like a real family. I can feel the love flowing through us.
Soon enough the meal is finished and the dishes are done. The older people all stream out to do their various tasks. And the four of us are left with nothing to do.
But soon Rachel meets us again, this time with an open notebook and a pen.
“I just have to do some documentation and bookkeeping with you guys,” she explains.
“Sure,” Elsa smiles.
“First of all I’ll need your names, pronouns, and ages.” We tell her. Elsa is sixteen. Finn is fifteen. Ari is thirteen, as I already know, and so am I.
“You guys are really young,” Rachel tells us. “Unfortunately you can’t be involved in any fighting until you’re seventeen. But in the meanwhile you can train. The others are just outside running laps right now. After stretching you can go join them if you want. You can also help out in one of the other tasks that are just needed to keep camp running. Or you can just hang out.”
We thank her and go about the compound. Ari, Elsa, and I join the group doing training. We train very hard, until our muscles are all sore. We run, stretch, and are introduced to hand-to-hand combat. We climb the pipes at the end of the garage and we do balancing tests on each other. There is target practice afterwards, with difficult, moving targets. Finally, breathing hard and flowing with energy, we disband to lunch.
Lunch is a brisk affair. Some people take longer but most finish their food and hurry back out to their jobs. This place is so very busy. But it’s a free sort of busy. I like it.
I go to find Mark. I find him climbing a rope in the training room. He sees me and he jumps down.
“Hi, Luca,” he chimes amicably.
“Hi Mark. How did you train to be a nurse?”
“There are a lot of textbooks in the medical equipment room. Do you want to check them out? Start with the basic chemistry and biology textbooks and then work your way up. We need a good doctor around these parts. People always get injured.”
“Thank you so much!” I almost shout. I am so ecstatic.
I run up to the medical equipment room and dig through the piles of textbooks stacked on top of each other, piled at the bottom of a counter. When I find a book that’s the right level for me I pull it out and sit down near a window.
It’s so interesting. So very interesting. I find myself immersed in it entirely. I’ve never gotten the chance to learn without the constant weight of fear heavy on me. It feels so good. So mesmerizing. I suppose that now that I’m in the resistance I can learn without pressure or fear. I can learn all that I can.
It feels beautiful.
We come together for dinner again and there are jokes and laughter. There is reminiscing on the sacrifices of previous fights. There is serious, solemn remembrance of fallen comrades. And there are plans for a future without differentiation and inequality.
The plans are so amazing. I’ve always dreamed and planned about a future free of the lines and confines society has created. But those dreams seemed like only dreams. Until now.
“So we’ll stop producing synths,” Rachel is explaining, “because no child deserves to grow up in one of those robotic horror stories that are training centres. Never again. Present-day synths will be able to get married and have children if they want.” I smile at Ari. “And we’ll all come together to make decisions. Like the resistance already does now. Except it will be more organized.” There are cheers all around.
After dinner we clean up the house. And we all do it together and it’s done in a flash. We all cook together to make some simple meals for tomorrow. The kitchen is so crowded and bustling.
We settle down to sleep. And I think of what a good day this was.
I’m still haunted by my past. It still seeps down into my soul like aggressive poison. I still carry the sorrow and the shame of years and years. And I believe that I will be carrying it for a while. Maybe forever. But I can feel myself start to heal already. And that’s an act of revenge. Healing is the best revenge. But real revenge is pretty beautiful too.
———
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