Fear Itself

The gang and I were still reeling with excitement from our recent feat. No longer when we gazed across the city did we see the daunting, golden pyramid looming over. We were free to walk around the town without fear of being caught on the giant camera, though we still needed to be wary of the stationed militia men, who tended to frequent more populous areas than my friends and I did. We still hadn’t seen Dean, but he told Sam that Kennedy was livid about the Eye being destroyed because it’s supposed to take some three months to make a new one. Obviously, we were still feeling victorious.

Tonight, it was just Alex, Sam and I. It had been a few days since I got kicked out of the hospital, and nobody had seen Avery. I hoped he was staying in the hospital as long as he needed to, staying safe. The thought was foolish but comforting.

My friends and I were gathered around our table playing our favorite board game, Monopoly, and I was winning once again. Not by much, though. Turned out that Sam proved to be a bit of a real estate whiz, and he was on my tail. It was nice to not have to worry about Dean flipping the table (and thus, the board), but I missed him dearly.

“Ha!” I laughed as Alex landed on my blue space, clad with a hotel. “You owe me rent, sucker,” I jested, leaning toward him. He rolled his eyes.

“Why do you always end up with both Boardwalk and Park Place? This really isn’t fair,” he groaned. Sam laughed quietly under his breath, and Alex just looked at him. “You’re no better! You’ve got Pacific Avenue and all the other green, and both of you have managed to make sure that I haven’t got a single monopoly to my name. It’s really not fair.”

“Sam and I have a mutual respect,” I explained, nodding. “Right, Sam?” Sam nodded.

“If by mutual respect, you mean you let Sam skip by on your rent three times, then yeah,” Alex huffed.

“Right,” Sam chimed in. “Mutual respect.” Alex crossed his arms, and I couldn’t help but grin.

“I think Eyebrows is gettin’ a little mad,” I giggled. “How ‘bout we take a walk?” Sam and Alex looked at each other and nodded. “Welly welly well, then, mates,” I chirped, rising from my seat. “To the tunnels we go!”

And we went. We went, and we walked, feet thudding soft against the cement and the iron tracks beneath us. “Someday, I’m going to miss this place,” I mused, smiling softly, trying to walk in a straight line across on of the tracks.

“What do you mean someday?” Alex laughed under his breath.

“Well, we’re gonna get out of here, you know,” I told him, looking over my shoulder at him.

“Wishful thinking,” Sam muttered.

“What’s wrong with that?” I asked. “A little hope never did anyone wrong.”

“Hope has killed quite a few people,” Alex retorted. “Like all of the last resistance movement in it’s entirety.”

I shot him a narrowed gaze. “There’s a difference between being hopeful and being foolish, Alex. You need hope to survive. You’re trying to tell me you don’t have a dream?”

“No,” he replied bluntly.

“Well, I do,” I said.

“Please, spare us the details,” Alex laughing mockingly. “I’d rather not hear about your fairytale where you live in a castle with unicorns and little singing animals that help you clean house every Sunday.”

“That’s not my dream,” I snapped, huffing. “I just want everyone to be happy.” I shrugged my shoulders and did a little twirl along the tracks, smiling. “I just want them to be happy because seeing others happy makes me happy.”

“You’re not happy now?” Alex asked, and I looked at him over my shoulder for just a moment, then turned away. Things were quiet for a moment. “But you have Dean,” he added.

“Yes, I do, and I’m very happy when I’m with him,” I affirmed. “But that’s not the kind of happiness I’m talking about, Alex.” I paused. “I’m talking about not having to live in fear anymore.” I sighed quietly. “I’m talking about not having to scrape money together for meals or commit crimes just to scrape by… I hope that one day we can live above ground and have the same opportunities as everybody else, regardless of whether or not we’re poor. And nobody would be persecuted for simply disagreeing.”

“That would be nice,” Sam piped up.

“Yeah, I think so too,” I told him, smiling. I turned to face them, laughing. “And we would all have books!” I exclaimed, gesturing wildly with my arms. “And we could read as much as we want whenever we want! And nobody would tell us that we couldn’t.”

Alex laughed softly. “Well, I do like books,” he chuckled.

“See?” I contended. “You do have a dream. It’s not a very good or developed dream, but it’s there nonetheless.” I playfully grabbed Alex’s hand, tugging him along for a moment. A small smile crept onto Alex’s face, and suddenly, both Alex and Sam’s pockets began to vibrate. They reached for their phones.

“From Dean,” Alex thought aloud, furrowing his eyebrows as he read it. “All it says is ‘get out.’”

“In caps lock,” Sam added. I blinked, glancing between the two of them.

“Well, mates,” I said slowly. “Don’t you think that means we should be getting out?” The text had me wary. Why would they both be receiving a text like that if it wasn’t important? It was hard to feel bothered, though, since they weren’t.

“We’re headed toward the exit anyway,” Alex said. “We’ll just keep going.” I nodded and turned around, sinking back between them. We walked quietly now, and I was having a hard time believing that I was the only one who found that text nerve-wracking. We walked through the dim-lighting still, but the normal stench was quickly replaced by the staunch odor of gasoline.

“What’s with the kerosene breeze?” Sam asked quietly, laughing, joking, but I stopped dead in my tracks. Alex stopped and put an arm in front of Sam to halt him. I dropped Alex’s hand and stepped forward.

“Sh,” I hushed him, shaking my head as my eyes traveled upward toward the ceiling. Alex and Sam both did the same. The sound of engines piercing through the air rang and echoed down to us, shaking the supports. Bits of debris fell from above, and I quickly dropped my head and shut my eyes. The ground began to rumble. A soft thud sounded, but it seemed like it was from miles and miles away. It sounded like nothing more than a bowling ball being dropped. There was a moment of silence, then everything shook and rumbled. I nearly fell over, but Alex caught me. We pressed ourselves against the nearby wall for stability.

“Guys, what was that?” Sam asked hurriedly, quiet frightened once the shaking subsided. “An earthquake?”

“No,” I murmured, shaking my head. “Couldn’t be.”

“She’s right,” Alex agreed, nodding. “C’mon. Seriously, time to move.”

Alex took my arm and dragged both Sam and I further down the tunnels at a faster pace. Another bang sounded being us, but it was louder now, and just as I turned my head around, an explosion of flames burst down the tunnel, replacing the darkness with a bright orange and red glow. Heat rushed by it, licking at my spine. Debris began to fly and fall; I didn’t know which way it was coming from. All I knew was that it was there, and it was hitting me, falling on me, tearing the fabric of my jacket, and all we could do was run.

When the blast subsided, I wanted stop, wanted to ask what in the world that was, but we couldn’t stop. If we stopped, there was a good chance another explosion would happen, and we couldn’t risk that, so we kept running, darting around fallen debris and dodging the bits that came crumbling down over us. I wanted to stop so I could think, but there wasn’t time, but I couldn’t think when I was trying to run. Focus. I had to focus. I had to run, and I had to focus. The blasts continue, louder and louder and louder.

I was sweating. My hair and face were dripping with sweat from my own exertion and the growing heat. The tunnels had quickly become a sauna. Fear is coursing through my veins in place of blood, propelling me down the tunnels. I tried to think of what I had learned, what I had been taught. Right now, all that was coming to mind was to run, run and never look back. The pain in my joints and in my chest seared, but I pressed on. Alex and Sam ran nearly parallel on my sides. The sound of explosions continued. Debris began to catch fire around us, and ash spilled from the ceiling across my face and my skin. I threw my arm over my mouth and began breathing into the crook of my elbow, since the oxygen was no longer clean.

My eyes darted around, searching for a way out, but there was no path connecting to another tunnel, no platform to climb on, and everything began to fill with smoke. My eyes stung with tears as the fear of imminent death began to set in: we knew there was no way out. A bang sounded, sending the ceiling crashing down behind us, knocking the three of us forward a few feet. Our bodies slid against the ground; rocks scraped our skin. We scrambled to our feet in a frenzy and tried to run back the way we came but another bang sent the ceiling crashing down.

The sky was now exposed above us, and I gasped clean air into my lungs, but we were stuck. We could try to climb over the wall, but it was steep, and it was cement: there was no footing, no grip, nothing to grab onto. Planes soared overhead, and things were beginning to make sense.

“They bombed us,” I whimpered. “They… they bombed us.”

“Tali,” Alex called. “Come on.” He tugged me to feet and nodded toward the flaming pile of rubble blocking us. “Taking a running start, and I’ll push you over.” We did. I dashed, ran as fast as I could, jumped we told me, and his force helped hurl me over the rocks, but the flames caught the sleeve of my jacket. Frantically, I stumbled and fell against the ground, banging my sleeve against the cement, trying to put it out. The flames vanished, and Sam came hurling after me, landing with a thud. Alex followed and grabbed both of us by the arm, practically dragging us until we ran with him. Crashes continued. We ran through, under ceilings, and under exposed skies as the planes continued rushing by and dropping chaos in their wake.

I could see the nearest exit by us, and we sprinted as fast and as hard as we could with ceiling giving out all around us. My feet were numb, and strands of hair were matted to my dirt-smeared face. Alex’s hair was frosted with soot, and Sam was scraped up; there were slices in his jacket, lagging behind. I tugged him forward and into the connecting path with us as the ceiling fell where he just stood. Light approached us, and Alex’s figure became a silhouette against the light until we came spilling out onto the cobblestone at the base of the canal. I doubled over, trying to catch my breath, and I laughed a little. “Alex,” I chuckled with a tiny gasp. “That was close,” I joked as I stood straight, but I noticed Alex wasn’t laughing. He wasn’t even looking at me. He was staring straight ahead.

“Yeah, it was close, wasn’t it?” laughed a slick, American voice from nearby. Footsteps came closer, and my eyes fell upon none other than Commander Kennedy himself, accompanied by Dean and three men in black combat gear with huge guns. “Not close enough if you ask me,” the Commander sneered at us. “Hands in the air,” he told us. The first thing Sam and Alex did was remove their phones from the pockets and smash them on the ground, even though the guns of three armed League Security guards were pointed right at them. “Clever,” the Commander chuckled condescendingly. “Now, hands up.” I was stock still, frozen stiff. “Hands up,” Kennedy repeated. My eyes were watering, and words weren’t processing quite right in my mind. I could hear him, but I couldn’t move. “What do you think you’re doing?” he asked, coming closer to me. He took my chin in his right hand in a crushing grip and made me look at him. “I said, hands up,” he scowled.

I blinked out a few tears and raised my arms, trembling all the while. Kennedy dropped my face and scoffed, walking away. “Sniveling little brat,” he murmured. He walked up to the one of the guards. “Give me the scanner,” Kennedy demanded, holding a gloved hand out. One of his armed guns handed him something rectangular that looked like a cell phone, but I assumed it wasn’t. It was then that I found it in myself to Dean. He was blank, expressionless. Shell-shocked. I couldn’t blame him; I felt the same. Tears spilled down my cheeks, and I glanced away when Kennedy returned. He first held the thing up in front of Sam. The screen flashed three times, and it beeped. “Samuel Cassidy identified,” the machine replied in a computerized voice. He moved on to Alex, and it did the same. “Alexander Devlin identified,” it told him.

“Well, then,” Kennedy laughed. “It appears we’ve got the infamous rebel son and street rat so far. What about you, Goldie?” he jested, approaching me. He held the thing up to my face, but I didn’t look at him. The machine whirred.

“No face detected,” it said. Kennedy scowled.

“You will look at me when I address you,” he fumed. “Do you understand?” But I didn’t move. Once more, he forced my head up. The machine began to scan my face, and I stared into it, gaze unwavering and jaw clenched. It whirred and searched for much longer than it did on Sam and Alex.

“Error: no subject identified,” it said.

“What?” Kennedy asked in genuine shock and disbelief, but there was anger in his voice and in his face. “Tell me your name, rebel,” he demanded. I just stared him right in the eye and remained silent. He tightened his grip on my chin and extended fingers to my throat, gripping tighter. “You will speak when spoken to,” he chided. “Now, tell me your name.”

I sputtered a laugh through my tears and looked at the black cord bracelet around my left wrist. “Can’t you read?” I chuckled. “Says ‘Princess.’ And I would prefer you address me by my royal title, anyway.”

Kennedy scowled and gripped my neck tighter. “You listen here, plebeian—“

“Princess,” I corrected through a choke. He scowled even deeper. His face was turning beet read. Sam and Alex were staring at me incredulously.

“You listen to me—“ he began, but I stopped him again.

“No, no,” I choked. “You listen to me. Royals have always ruled in the United Kingdom, thus I have superiority over you, dear sir. So with all due respect, I would appreciate it if you would kindly remove your hand from my throat, please.”

The Commander’s teeth were grinding when he let go of my throat. “Take this piece of shit back,” he huffed, throwing the scanner back at one of his men. “And cuff these morons. Cassidy, cuff your brother. And the rest of you can make sure Princess and her friend get the royal treatment.”

I didn’t find that very funny because the ‘royal treatment’ consisted of being cuffed, prodded with the barrel of a gun, and shoved into the back of a cold, shiny, silver truck. We sat on the ground, like prisoners, while Kennedy, Dean, and the three men took the front seat, separated by a barrier half-steel, half-plexiglass. I looked at Alex, saw the hopeless expression in his eyes. I wanted to reach forward and grab his arm, but I couldn’t. “It’s going to be alright, you know,” I whispered to him. I didn’t know if the men upfront could hear me, didn’t really care.

He lifted his eyes to me for a moment and shook his head, dropping his face against his knees. I glanced over to Sam. He was silent, eyes fixed on the floor. He was thinking, thinking desperately. This was more concentrated than I had ever seen him before. My eyes lifted to the window, and I thought I saw a figure standing at the edge of the canal in the distance, but perhaps the light was playing tricks on me. Huffing out a sigh, I laid against the floor. If I was going to be carted off to my death, I thought I might as well enjoy my ride.