The New London Divide

Ace gave a curt nod, rising to her feet.Right away she joined the crowd, letting her hood fall to her shoulders, so as not to draw attention by looking like the grim reaper. Her hair was a normal, muddy red, held in a bun with a chopstick. Messy flyaway pieces framed her dirt-and-soot stained skin, but despite the grunginess, there was a definite beauty to her defined bone structure and haunting dark-butterscotch eyes. Even for an individual who had grown up on the back streets with criminals and the poverty-stricken, her walk was of the graceful variety, with a gentle forward movement, almost like she was a Queen parting through her subjects.

A little ways down the road, the cracked pavement gave way to dirt footpath, and several side alleys branched off from the main road. Dune's signal was a sign that all was clear, that the NLPD was far away from the entrance to the Rebel Hideout. In this section of Lower London buildings rose taller, majestic, but ultimately unused. The buildings' structures were so unstable, Ace was surprised the wind hadn't toppled them a long time ago.

Then again, she was also glad. These buildings- like so many other aspects of Lower London- played a major role in her childhood, and she was willing to do anything to save them.

Dune had been right. The patrols were gone, if at least temporarily. She was able to slip unnoticed down a particular side street between two buildings, one marked by a clothes line with an old, ruddy pair of boots dangling from it. As soon as she'd passed into the alley, up her hood went again, shadowing her face from unseen observers. And no, she had no proof that those observers were there, but as Weslin had once told her... better safe than sorry.

Echo approached an old door and slipped a skeleton-looking key from her pocket. It slid easily into its metal chamber, clicking as she unlocked the entrance to the secret hideout.

Or at least what appeared to be the entrance.

Again, Echo wasn't stupid. She was practically out in the open, and there could be observers anytime, anywhere. It was another twenty minutes before she'd reached the real entrance.

Down the sewer, into the passages, under the magic clock
Find the switch that sings the right pitch and don't forget the old lock

She smiled in remembrance of the nursery rhyme. Ah, such days of innocence.

"God, finally you show!" Anika glowered when Ace appeared through the top of a unknown stairway, into one of two rooms belonging to the Rebel Hideout. The back room was marked off for the Rebel Command group which included everyone who lived in Ace's Rat Nest. It wasn't lavish by any means, but served as adequate head quarters. The room was of medium size, windowless except for a couple of barred-off openings up high on the ceiling. There were empty barrels stacked against the west wall, and an old-fashioned green board hung on the East where Anika was now standing, chalk in hand, drawing a blue print of the capitol building. The rest of the Rebel command included a group of misfits scattered about the room in various positions.

There was Dellick and Zyrdra, the senior veterans with gray hair and big smiles. Sydney- the man with a name far too feminine for his gruff nature. Pip- his daughter- was nine, and had the craftiness of someone three times her age. Finally there was good old Dune- Ace's friend from childhood and closest confidant. He was backed against the barrel wall with his trademark, easygoing smile splayed across his face.

And then there was Anika- Ace's step sister. She clutched the stick of chalk in her hand, looking like she was ready to explode. "What took you so long?! As if we're running on your time schedule?"

"My apologies," Ace murmured, shrugging off her cloak and tossing it aside. Pip rescued it from the floor, folding the garment and placing it neatly in an alcove near the stairwell. Anika kept her eyes trained on Echo.

"Our entire rebel force is in the process of gathering in the other room, waiting for your speech on the events from yesterday! I should hope you're ready!"

Zyrdra, kind-faced and with the leathery skin, raised her voice. "Would you relax, Nika? She has never let us down before."

Ace felt like smiling, but held a straight face when looking at her co-leader. "Thanks, Zyr, I got this."

"You'd better," Anika grumbled, moving away from the board. Ace followed the woman with her eyes. She was small and fair-skinned and pretty- the spitting image of her father. And sometimes this hurt Ace. But, she had to reason, being pretty wasn't exactly top priority when you were trying to run an underground rebellion.

She recounted yesterday's events- a small group of her people had open fired at the bridge guards and five were in jail. Five. Though she kept her face in non-panicked lines, Ace couldn't escape the desperation niggling its way into her heart. She couldn't afford any of her rebels to be lost. Not five. Not four. Not one.

"So what are we telling the others?" Sydney asked, from where he was, sharpening a knife. He paused to examine the glint of steel with a self-satisfied smirk.

Ace ran her fingers through her tangled tresses and sighed. "All we can really suggest is taking more caution? We still aren't sure how the government is reacting to all this."

The group said nothing; Ace was starting to sweat when Zyrdra suddenly nodded her head and pushed to her feet. "That's the best we can do, I guess. At any rate... they're waiting." She nodded at the doorway into the speaking hall.

Heart pounding, Echo nodded back and headed for the entrance onto the platform. She was the first to see the crowd numbering somewhere in the hundreds, the others filing out behind her one by one. The crowd was a mixture of all ages and races- some six, some sixty. A murmur had fallen across the crowd. It was low and constant.

Ace cleared her throat and launched into a familiar speech- the one she gave every time. Every time they were down-spirited, every time they were defeated... she fired them up with the same spiel and even she could hear herself sounding like a broken record. She saw the unconvinced unease ripple across the crowd and stopped mid-sentence, her words cutting off. Dellick looked at her, concerned.

Ace was frozen, facing the crowd. She couldn't stand herself any longer. She couldn't lie to these people.

"Look, I know none of you are buying this," she heard herself say. Anika turned so fast Ace was sure she got whiplash, but she kept going anyway. "I can't guarantee our ability to secure the place of the captives, and I definitely can't promise their salvation."

This time the murmur was more like a wave of panic settling over the crowd. Let them be scared she thought. They need to be scared.

"Right now, our best priority is to wait to see the Platinum's response to this." Echo told them. She felt her voice raise in pitch. "The government won't kill our people; we're their charity case. But we aren't going to let this stand."

She saw nodding heads, straightened stances. A chorus of approval.

She glanced back at her closest friends' satisfied expressions. She'd done it again- revived them from dead. She smiled, confident.

"From what I know, there's nothing they can do."

With that, the crowd went crazy.