Martyr's Run

Jake

As the sun grew low in the sky, we arrived by a large sign saying Welcome to Rancho San Diego. Despite having remained in the shadows all day, we were currently on the edge of a reasonably busy road, desperately trying to keep within the protection of the trees that lined it.

All three of us glanced to Simeon; apparently the only native Californian among us; for direction. Unfortunately, he was not an awful lot of help.

‘Well...I guess this was the type of town we were looking for, right?’ he asked.

‘Yeah but where are we?’ I persisted, a little impatient. The afternoon heat that had drifted in without warning after the morning’s rain had sprinkled my skin with a thin layer of sweat, making my hair and clothes cling to my body. Combined with a good eight hours of walking and being wary of every passing car or sudden noise, none of us had ended up in a particularly good mood.

‘Come on,’ said Tim, trying to keep the mood light, ‘we just need some clothes and food and shit, and then we can find a place to stay.’

‘What, a place where the authorities can creep up on us as we sleep and snatch us away?’ Simeon challenged. ‘No way.’ He looked away from the rest of us and, although he was still speaking, I wondered if it was something he never intended for us to hear. ‘No...’ he continued in little more than a murmur, ‘no...there’s no way I’m ever going back to that place. I’ll shoot myself before I set foot in another Institution.’

We all agreed essentially, but the rest of us also realised that we needed somewhere to stay and where we could think things through; plan things out; organise a proper strategy.

‘We ain’t gonna be the only ones who escaped today,’ Tim continued. ‘If we get some clothes and a fake ID, we’ll be fine for as long as we need.’

‘And where does the fake ID come from?’ Rina asked, half-smiling, knowing that she had caught Tim out.

‘Well, my friend back in Salt Lake City was an expert in them,’ Tim said.

‘And how do we get to Salt Lake City without an ID?’ she continued.

‘I...’ Tim trailed off and Rina laughed. She had got him.

‘Let’s face it, we’re fucked,’ Simeon mumbled. ‘And I don’t say that lightly.’

‘I thought it was Jake’s job to be pessimistic,’ said Rina. She was trying to hold everyone together, but right now it just wasn’t working.

‘Geez, thanks,’ I muttered. It came out more resentful than I’d intended.

‘Sorry,’ she muttered, turning away and sharing a private glance with Tim.

‘Clothes,’ Simeon murmured. Once again, I wasn’t sure whether he expected us to listen to what he was saying, but then he spoke louder. ‘Where do we get clothes from?’ He glanced down at what he was wearing; grey top, grey trousers, grey sneakers. I wasn’t entirely sure what the new summer fashions were—I’d been put in the Institution when we were still technically meant to be wearing winter clothing—but I guessed it wouldn’t be entirely grey.

‘If anyone sees us in this stuff, we’ll be arrested in an instant,’ I pointed out.

‘I know,’ said Simeon bluntly.

Tim glanced around at all our faces. ‘Ideas?’ No one gave him anything. Sure, when it was the sort of problem that could be worked out by logic and science and maths, I was brilliant, but when it was just a simple task that needed completing one way or another, I was no better than the next person.

‘Let’s go into the town and see what we can find,’ Rina suggested. ‘You never know, we might get lucky; we might see...I don’t know...something.’ Her smile faded. We were all finding this pretty hopeless.

‘We need a washing line,’ Tim mumbled, and everyone laughed. The way he said it with such sincerity made the suggestion even funnier.

‘I’m serious!’ he said, slightly incredulous. ‘Have you never stolen clothes from a washing line before?’

We all stopped laughing. He actually was serious.

Surprisingly, as we walked into the centre of town, keeping to alleyways and back streets as much as possible, we actually were in luck. Sort of. Apparently, it was a Saturday—something which I previously had no idea about—and that meant the shops were open an hour later than usual. So, even though by the time we reached the town’s high street it was well into twilight, all the main shops were still open.

Tim made to step out onto the high street, but I shot out a warning hand.

‘Not yet,’ I said, ‘we need some kind of plan. Once we go out there, they’ll all be after us.’

Although the streets weren’t exactly busy at this time of night, there were still a fair few shoppers around, plus all the ones who were going out for their Saturday nights to restaurants or bars or sport matches. Most states had curfews now, but at weekends they often didn’t start until around midnight. We certainly weren’t about to get in and out of a shop, especially with handfuls of stolen clothes, undetected.

‘There’s a place over there,’ Simeon said, pointing directly across from the little back street. It was just another ordinary clothes shop. From what I could see in the dim evening light, everything was various shades of brown, and also there was a little bit of pink and white. It was a reasonably big place which, whilst it meant that CCTV would probably be tighter—not that many people dared steal anything these days—there would also be less of a chance of anyone noticing us until we were already outside.

We all glanced around, waiting for someone to say something.

‘Who’s going?’ I eventually asked. It was a bit of an anti-climax, but someone had to say it.

Once again, we all glanced around. At the end of the day, none of us really knew anyone else that well. Sure, I knew Rina a bit, but only from what I’d learnt about her in the Institution. I didn’t know anything about how she had been for the rest of her life. And I didn’t know the other two at all. From what I’d gathered, they didn’t know each other much better either.

‘I’ll go,’ Rina said, her voice soft and sincere, but powerful.

‘No,’ Tim said, almost automatically.

‘Why?’ she challenged, raising an eyebrow. ‘Who do you think should do it?’

‘I...don’t mind,’ Tim admitted, a little distracted by her feistiness—if he thought she was a pretty little giggling girl, friendly yet weak, then he was very much mistaken. ‘But...’

‘But I’m a girl,’ she finished for him. She smiled sweetly to show that she didn’t resent his comment, but continued to argue. ‘Why should that make a difference? I’m also the smallest. I’m the best at becoming invisible.’

‘True...’ Tim mused reluctantly, still not willing to agree to the idea of letting a girl do our dirty work. I wondered in the back of my mind when the Dreamers had become such a sexist organisation.

‘I’ll go,’ Simeon offered, leaning back casually against the wall.

‘But they’ll see you,’ Rina protested.

‘But I’m also a fast runner,’ he pointed out. I didn’t know what Rina was like at running, but the way she fell silent and ran a hand almost shyly through her hair suggested that it wasn’t one of her strong points.

‘I’m awful at running,’ she mumbled.

‘Then it’s settled,’ Simeon announced. ‘I’ll go. Unless either of you two are about to put yourselves forward?’ He gave both Tim and I a purposeful look. Although he was being light-hearted and joking about it, his words were still like a little dig. I knew I should be a big man and volunteer myself, but I was simply no good at these sorts of things. Rina was small and secretive and agile; Simeon was strong and fast and powerful. And chances were, Tim would be able to complete the task too. It was only me that couldn’t.

‘I’ll go if you want me to,’ I said, realising that it was better to offer than just flatly refuse.

‘Nah, I’ll do it,’ Simeon said. I opened my mouth again, about to organise some kind of meeting place if we had to run away, but before I even had a chance to speak, he was off, striding proudly out of the alleyway and into the quiet but not deserted high street.

‘Sim!’ Rina hissed after him, trying to keep quiet but also get his attention. He didn’t hear her, so she looked desperately at me and Tim. ‘What’s he doing?’ she asked, her voice raising at least a whole octave. ‘He’s going to get caught going out like that!’

‘Relax,’ Tim said casually. ‘He ain’t about to do anything stupid...I hope. And failing that, we run.’

I shook my head, not quite able to suppress a chuckle. ‘How are you always so carefree about stuff?’ I knew I was particularly highly strung, and I definitely had a tendency to stress, but both Tim and Simeon’s behaviour was definitely abnormal.

Tim shrugged. ‘I’ve been a Dreamer for, what, four years now? You learn eventually that you’ve got to live in a world with no fear. If you let the fear in every time it comes round, it destroys you.’

It was without a doubt the most intelligent and sincere thing I’d heard him say all day, and it stunned me into silence.

Rina was standing right at the mouth of the little road, peering out into the high street whilst still staying mostly concealed by the shadows.

‘Where is he?’ she asked in a loud whisper, leaning out a little further. ‘I can’t see him.’

‘You should come back from there,’ I warned her. ‘Otherwise people will see a head peering out of the darkness—it might make them suspicious.’

‘He’s probably in the shop,’ Tim said casually, the first of us to actually answer the question.

‘What do we do if he’s caught?’ I asked. I didn’t want to have to mention the dreaded situation, and my heart lurched in fear even as I thought about it, but it was a possibility we could never rule out. Simeon was in the shop, wearing prison clothes, about to run out without paying for his goods, less than twelve hours after the Institution break-out. The story was most likely all over the news by now. And how long would it be before they released pictures of those who had escaped? How long were we going to have before the entire country knew who we were?

‘Let’s hope he isn’t,’ said Tim. Again, he was so relaxed and laid-back about the possibility, as though I’d just asked him what the weather was supposed to be like this week.

‘But what if he is?’ I persisted, growing worried. ‘It goes without saying that I don’t want it to happen, but we all know it’s a very real possibility. What do we do if he doesn’t come back? What do we do if the police arrive and start patrolling the entire area?’

‘We run,’ Tim said, a grin spreading across his face as though he loved the idea.

‘Is that it?’ I asked in bitter despair.

For the first time ever, I saw the smile completely wiped from his expression and his eyes darken. ‘What else do you suggest? Haven’t you ever run from the police before, Jake?’

‘Kinda,’ I said, trying the casual shrug that both Tim and Simeon seemed to make a part of their general vocabulary. I could tell that it didn’t suit me.

The darkness washed from Tim’s expression, leaving him looking as carefree and relaxed as ever. ‘I do it all the time. It’s fun.’

‘I was more of a behind the scenes worker,’ I admitted. ‘I didn’t do much front-line stuff; I wasn’t really suited to it. I was a doctor.’

Rina looked round from where she peered despairingly into the streetlamp-lit road. ‘You were a doctor?’

‘Well, a doctor in training,’ I admitted. ‘I got taken in by the rebels whilst I was still at med school—six months from graduating, and I disappeared. But as far as the Dreamers are concerned, I’m the best doctor they’ve got.’

‘Fair enough,’ said Tim. ‘That’s pretty cool actually. You might be useful.’

I decided to ignore the ‘might’ and just take his comment as a compliment.

‘You never told me you were a doctor,’ Rina said, accusing but for the gentle smile on her face. Chances were, the four of us were going to be travelling together for a while, and she realised better than any of us that now was as good a time as ever to make friends.

‘I never felt the need to mention it,’ I said. All day, I had been secretly wishing for a bit of attention and recognition. Now that I was getting it, I was only too eager to be out of the limelight again.

‘Anyway, what about you?’ I asked Tim. ‘I’m guessing you were front-line.’

‘Naturally,’ he said with a devious smile.

That was when the sirens went off.

Security alarms blared from the shop over the road, their screaming noise chillingly similar to that of police cars. All three of us jumped near enough out of our skin, and I grabbed Rina, pulling her deeper into the alley against her will.

‘What do we do?’ Tim asked, suddenly looking to me for inspiration.

‘How should I know?’ I cried, the volume of my voice rising. ‘That was what I tried to ask you!’

‘Alright,’ Tim snapped, ‘save your accusations for later. Like, when we ain’t running for our lives!’

‘Where’s Simeon?’ Rina asked, caught up in amongst our sudden frenzy, craning her neck in all directions to catch sight of the big, blonde-ish man running for his life in whatever direction.

Men in black exited the shop; three of them, striding powerfully, one going left, one going right and one staying put. Despite the fact that it was dark and he was far away, I could have sworn that he looked right into the alleyway we were hiding in, making direct eye contact with me. Maybe I was just being paranoid, but fear leapt up in my stomach all the same.

‘Run,’ I heard Tim say.

‘What about Sim though?’ I protested.

‘How’s he going to find us?’ Rina asked, echoing my fear.

‘Well we can’t stay here!’ snapped Tim, grabbing her and pulling her backwards as she fought against him. Unwilling, we turned and meandered down the back road, pitch black by this time of night, feeling our way blindly. Before long we were lost in the labyrinth of the concrete jungle that ran round behind the high street.

Eventually, I slammed into something head-first and I cried out in shock. The thing gave a grunt, and I realised that it was Tim—he had stopped, but I had no idea why or where, and then he was grabbing me by the arm and pulling me somewhere. Rina was calling out my name and Tim’s, and I called back to her. From out of the darkness came a pale white hand, flailing for mine. I grabbed it and pulled it closer, and only when she was inches away from me was I able to see her face, wide-eyed and afraid.

‘I knew this was a bad idea!’ I was saying.

‘Great timing, Jake,’ said Tim sarcastically. ‘Can’t this wait?’

‘How the hell are we meant to find him?’ Rina practically screamed, terrified that we’d already lost one of our company before even the first day had ended.

‘I think you’ll find he’s here,’ a pleasingly familiar voice said.

‘Sim?’ Tim called out. Moving a few steps forward, a shaft of light from the rising moon illuminated the tiny street just enough for us all to make out the silhouette standing ahead of us.

Simeon stepped forward until his face was visible to all of us.

‘I did it,’ he announced, so casual and laid-back, as though he did this every day, but also ever so slightly proud.