XY Revolution

Bile is clogging up my throat, threatening to spill out over my Ideal outfit. I’m glad my stomach doesn’t have anything in it anymore, but at the same time, a cracker might be good to calm it. Or I’d just throw it up. I don’t know.

“Breathe,” Travis whispers to me, strapped into the seat next to me of the helicopter.

There are sunglasses covering his eyes and a headphone in his ear, attached to a radio, which is recording everything said and being sent directly back to Intelligence at Home Base.

“You’ll be fine,” he assures me. “It’s just a security checkpoint and then we’re going to the room. It’s nothing major. Baby-steps.”

I mumble a response, but in actuality, I’m more focused on the sprawl of Los Angeles below us. It’s easy enough to identify the slums; there are parts that are burning even on such a rarely beautiful day. Not to mention, the buildings are so tiny, and decrepit in comparison to the CBD, it’s disgraceful.

The UN tower itself sticks out like a sore thumb. Its logo makes my eyes burn, like looking at the sun. It’s the same garish, blinding white light too on that obnoxious skyscraper.

“Ready guys?” Travis asks.

Derek and Xander give him the thumbs up and before I know it, we’re descending.

The UN building is so much larger than I expected, more uninviting than it looked from the air. As we steadily drop lower and lower, closer and closer to the landing pad, the bigger my dread becomes.

“Characters on,” Travis orders, and then we touch down.

Travis and Derek get off first, waiting by the door. Xander is next, holding my hand, and leading me down carefully with my heels. Travis grabs my other hand when I emerge, quick to steady me on the solid concrete. The helicopter is then gone, and I survey the surroundings.

Security building A is expansive, and connects directly to the UN Headquarters foyer and reception, as you could see if you had the guts to lean over the gap for a look. It’s surrounded with high fences, trimmed with barbed wire, though how anyone would manage to scale the side of the building without being noticed by the two hundred sentries posted on the four security buildings is outrageous.

There’s a small concrete room in the far corner of the roof here, with two guards stationed outside the door. One of said guards walks over to us, gun slung across his back for the time being.

“Mr Michaels, we’ve been expecting you and your party,” he states robotically.

I can feel his eyes roaming my body up and down, and I’m grateful that I have Xander to cling to. It does make this whole charade more believable.

“Excellent. Where’s my dad? It’s time to get this party started!” Xander shouts, slurring his words slightly.

I can’t deny I’m impressed with how quickly the Irishman has gotten into this character. Clearly, this isn’t a new thing for him though. The guard actually has the nerve to roll his eyes. I giggle obnoxiously, as Kevin instructed me last night, and run my hand down Xander’s arm.

“This way, Mr Michaels,” the guard says with a sigh and leads us into the room, and down three flights of stairs.

When we emerge, we’re greeted by several officers in UN uniform, with metal detectors and body scanners.

“Welcome back, Mr Michaels,” one of the officers greets.

Xander stumbles forward and hugs the poor man.

“Jeff! It’s been too long!”

The man’s name-tag reads Greg.

“I see you’re maintaining your passion for fine liquor, Mr Michaels,” Greg notes.

There’s a slight furrow in the middle aged man’s brow now, but Xander has finally released him and attached himself to my waist again.

“And ladies,” Xander adds and I giggle again.

“And who might this be, sir?”

“Chastity Jones,” I tell him with a coy smile.

He gives me a smirk that makes my skin crawl.

“It’s lovely to meet you, Miss Jones. We hope you enjoy your stay here.”

“Not sure she’ll be enjoying the UN much, if you know what I mean, Jeff,” Xander says with a wink and I giggle again.

I swear, by the end of this trip, I’m going to give up laughing for the rest of my life.

“Alright, well you know the drill, sir. Your guards will go through the screening on the right. You and Miss Jones, come with me.”

The officer leads us past a counter with a conveyer belt and through a gate in turns. Xander is first, and the red lights run over his body, moving smoothly and clockwise over his skin. The red lights then turn green, and Xander steps through without a further question.

I take a deep breath, hoping like hell that these damn razor-shoes are undetectable. If they aren’t, I’m going to wring someone’s neck when I get back, or do some serious haunting.

I step under the gate and hold my breath. I can actually feel the warmth of the lights as they kiss my bare skin, and there’s so much bare skin. And just when I think the lights are about to go green, they go blue.

“Step to the side please, Miss Jones,” the officer tells me, eyes suddenly hawk-like.

He takes out a white stick with a light on the end of it, and starts waving it over my body, getting too close for comfort with certain areas. I feel ready to throw up again when the stick lights up on the shoes.

I take Travis’ advice though. I breathe. Deep, and controlled. My mask stays intact, and I ask, “What does that mean? Did I forget to take my toe-ring off?”

Fortunately, these are close-toed shoes, but he could always make me take them off.

“No, there seems to be something in the shoe itself. Right underneath here,” the officer says, pointing to the front of the platform on the shoe.

Relief floods through me.

“Can you please lift up your right foot?”

I lift up my left one and the man looks ready to slap me.

“Oh, that’s not right!” I exclaim with a giggle and lift the other one for him.

“There’s a screw here, attached with some bubble gum.”

“I thought I was walking funny.”

“Well, there you go. Now, you and Mr Michaels, you run along now.”



I’m ready to kiss the floor of our bedroom suite when we arrive. The foyer made me feel naked. There were just so many grown men, all eyeing me off like a piece of meat. Xander seemed to do a pretty good job of scaring them off with his ‘drunken’ antics, but it did nothing to stop the stares, and nothing to stop the chills running down my spine.

Travis and Derek remained silent all the way up to the room, and the moment we got in, they started searching for listening devices and cameras. They found one bug in the kitchen, but other than that, the apartment was clean.

“How’s everyone holding up?” Travis asks – our oh-so-caring mission leader.

We all nod but I’m shaking at the same time, reaching down to remove the screw and gum from my shoe.

“That was a good trick with the shoe. Kevin must’ve done that,” Travis states.

“You were watching?” I ask.

“We finished a lot quicker than you. It’s expected that we carry weapons after all,” Travis explains.

“Why is that? Wouldn’t they be worried if an outsider has guns?” I inquire.

Derek shakes his head and says, “They have so many guards here, they figure it near impossible for it to be a problem. Not to mention, they don’t invite just anyone to stay in a UN facility. Xander is the son of a known member of the UN, it’s expected that he’s to have bodyguards, and assumed that they have been screened upon employment.”

“Oh, we’ve been screened alright,” Travis interjects with a smirk.

“Yeah, big screw-up on that one, Xander. You accidentally hired Resistance agents,” Derek jokes.

“Well it’s a good job I’m a Resistant myself, isn’t it?” Xander says before going to the minibar and pouring himself a drink.

“They get suspicious if they don’t have to restock my booze every day,” he explains to me.

“Alright, Freya,” Travis starts, all business again, “There are clothes in the bedroom to the right for you to change into for this meeting with Xander’s father.”

He checks his watch and curses.

“What’s wrong?” I ask

“I didn’t think that the security screening would take this long. We’ve only got three hours to eat and set-up.”

“Isn’t that plenty? We’re only a little late,” I try but I’m just rewarded with a scowl.

What a control freak.

“I’m sorry, Freya, but we’re running on a rather tight schedule here,” Travis informs me with venom.

He then barks at Xander, “Order us some room service.”

“Yes sir,” the Irishman says obediently.

“Derek, set up the cameras and trip wires.”

The handsome man nods and goes into the left bedroom where the luggage has been stowed (Travis said that it was all transferred the night before and snuck in with the cleaning service). I look at Travis expectantly.

“Go get me a glass of water.”

“Yes sir, would you like a kick in the head with that?”

He’s not amused.

“That was an order, Freya. You don’t choose what you get to do here.”

“So I’m basically your servant girl?”

“Just go do it,” he commands, waving me off.

I mutter something unpleasant then go fill a glass with hot water, because I’m not vindictive in the slightest.



I’m lounging on the sofa, in a small, tight black dress, stomach full with mouth-watering smoked salmon. Derek’s sitting with a laptop and a headset on. The tapping of his fingers on the keys and the murmur of voices from the tiny speakers resonates in this room, despite the fact that with four people in a room like this, it should be anything but quiet.

Travis is pacing with a small device, going around each of the walls and watching intently how the light on the machine changes at certain points. I don’t even bother asking what the thing is measuring, because I really am just the entertainment here. I’m just a silly little girl, good for one thing and one thing only. I swear I’ve been treated more like crap since transforming into this Ideal.

Being a female has never been so degrading. I’m supposed to be surrounded by ‘equals’ in the Resistance, and here I am, doing nothing while everyone else is productive. Even Xander is busy playing his part; phoning sex-lines (run by the UN of courses, because that’s all orphan girls under sixteen are good for) and emptying alcohol bottles, even if that means just tipping whisky down the sink. I watched him do that for a while; watching the money just pour out of that bottle.

A good whisky could feed my family for several weeks, and the UN only stocks the best. It makes even the prime salmon turn sour in my belly. I don’t even want to think about how much money even a bad salmon would fetch on the market.

I stood at the window for a while; first taking in the expanse of the city. Los Angeles looks very different to the pictures I’ve seen, and the news reports. Gran always said that’s what it looked like prior to the Downfall. It did look too good to be true after all.

The city is a zoo. The citizens run rampant in the streets. The Authorities are overrun somewhere every hour, and people die, and the Authorities are given reinforcements to fill the gaps. The citizens I could see through Derek’s looking glass, were so malnourished their stomachs were protruding. Their eyes were sunken in, their hair was brittle, and their skin hung off their bones. Some people didn’t even have skin in places – just green-tinged flesh around a wound which didn’t bleed, and showed bone. Xander said that those wounds are caused by an old drug, much cheaper than what the UN use for recreational purposes of course, and twenty times more deadly.

I then turned my eyes to the security buildings on each of the corners of headquarters. The sentries were rotated every fifteen minutes, one place, with forty-nine stationed on each roof at one time. The fiftieth sentry was changing buildings. It would be best to hit them at the start of each fifteen-minute slot. That way, the sentry leaving would run back at the start of the noise and not burst out onto a new building with warnings.

In daylight, it would be harder for them to glimpse me as their sniper. Daylight hurts the visual sense far more than darkness. In darkness, you merely turn on the lights; you can search. In the daylight, the UN headquarters works as a wonderful reflector for the sun.

How the hell I’m going to take out so many men in such quick succession without signalling someone is too difficult to answer.

“Freya,” Xander calls, emerging in a dark suit, without a tie and the top buttons of his shirt underneath undone.

His hair is tousled, looking like he did indeed just roll out of bed. I can smell the alcohol mixed with cologne from across the room.

“You didn’t drink too much did you?” I ask, concerned.

“Just one. The lab in the Australian Base developed a special cologne for me, just for my dear old dad.”

“Impressive.”

“Not nearly as impressive as my-”

“Xander, Freya, it’s time to go,” Travis orders, cutting off whatever Xander was about to finish that sentence with.

I get off the couch and straighten out the dress like Kevin told me I’d need to do. I can’t even tell where my underwear is anymore. These new heels have only the slightest decline in comparison to the steepness of the ones I wore in. My feet are already killing me. When the Australian lab develops heels which don’t kill their agents’ feet, I will kill for them. At least I have the constant security of the blades in there.

Travis decided it was okay for me to have a thin blade strapped to my inner thigh, but this dress is so revealing it would be suicide to try and conceal any other weapons. This was not well-planned, and I’m going to have some choice words for Kevin when I get back. Derek was not too appreciative when I was cursing over it earlier – it’s not Kevin’s fault he chooses style over practicality. When I told Derek it could mean my life he shut up.

I seem to be snapping at everyone lately.

“Ladies first,” Xander says, holding the front door to our apartment open.

I step over the trip-wire and take his hand.

“And they say chivalry is dead,” I mock.

“It’s only endangered,” he maintains.

We’re soon stalking the plush corridor carpets, heading towards the ornate elevator door. Despite the modernity of this building, it is decorated in a fashion well before my time, and probably Gran’s too. The walls are a rich wood, carved and adorned with paintings at regular intervals (much like everything else seems to be positioned here). The carpet is patterned gold on ruby-red background. I could live a thousand lifetimes and never be able to afford one room like this. Then again, I’m a woman and there are very few money-making options available. It all goes to the husband too, of course.

Once we’re all inside, Travis and Derek with their sunglasses on again despite the fact that we’re indoors and there’s no need, Xander presses a card into a slot in the metal panel underneath the buttons. He then pushes button forty-one – second from the top floor.

And up we go.