I returned to myself with a start, my finger still brushing one of the rivets, now rusty with the passage of time. A sharp ache lanced through my chest, but I shrugged off the tears that wanted to spill. Instead, I fled to my room to hide.
Once I was safely ensconced inside, I pressed my fist to my mouth to keep from screaming in frustration at my fraying emotions. Every nerve was stretched so tight that they threatened to snap entirely. What was I even doing with my life, agreeing to be Lucas Scott’s contact? Was my sanity worth this? Could one spy really change the course of this war? Could I truly save Tekqua?
The longing for her friendly face ripped through my thoughts. Ihadto save her, but where to look? Where to start?
According to the deceptive propaganda, the NAO’s army continued to advance into Canada for the Security Restoration Campaign, and their godforsaken NSF had the domestic conflicts well in hand. In reality, most of the West was still embroiled in hostilities. Some parts of the country existed in normalcy, yes, but the Hunters hadn’t made as much headway against the Defiance as they touted.
Their true deception, however, was how they dealt with prisoners.
TheArticles of the Defiance—our constitution of sorts—stipulated humane and fair treatment of our POWs. The NAO held itself to no such standards. They claimed that captured Defiants werereassimilated, but in actuality, the NAO labeled them traitors to the Commander. Unable to deport those they no longer considered citizens, the NAO had built camps to detain us. The Stability bloc had been a migrant detention facility, but they filled it instead withtraitorssent to starve and work off their crimes like cattle. They labored in arms warehouses, building weapons and ammunition for the NAO’s war efforts. Worse, the younger women were imprisoned in the House ofthe Rising Sun, a genteel honorific for the correctional houses the NAO declared would reinstate a traditional family values system.
Slave brothels, Theo called them.
I hated the idea of it, but I assumed Tekqua had been sent to the House. She was in a brothel. I was certain of it.
The idea made me sick. Escapees from both the House and the Stability bloc seemed to have transformed into wraiths—starved, unsmiling, their mental health in tatters—and I didn’t want that for Tekqua. But prisoners unfit for either of these places were put to death, and the thought of her death was like fingers of ice gripping my throat.
Still, I knew what she would have chosen.
Death before slavery.
I had to get her back.
If Lucas’sinformation was to be believed, the Hunters planned to raid one of our larger safe houses—an apartment building off Yorktown Avenue packed full of refugees awaiting transport to Canada. The Hunters’ primary goal was neutralization of the opposition, but they also kept us from smuggling people out of the country. If the Hunters infiltrated that building, the people inside would face terrible fates.
Theo’s best squads spent days relocating the families inside that building and setting traps for the Hunters. On the night of the raid, I was called for field medic duty along with a handful of others, including my shift-mate, Liliana.
She and I weren’t the best of friends, but we served all our medic shifts together. She was a quiet, competent woman with black hair she always pinned in a topknot. It was enviable,really, how easily her hair submitted to her orders. Mine had no such inclinations. It wanted to be wild and free, much like the Defiance.
With our medic bags slung over our shoulders and our red cross bands tied tight around our arms, we set out under a blanket of stars for the building Lucas Scott claimed would be overrun by Hunters in just a few hours. Fuel had been practically nonexistent for the past couple of years, so we traveled on electric ATVs over time-roughened streets to the square that had once housed trendy shops and upscale restaurants.
Inside the apartments, soldiers lay in wait. A sniper lurked in the building across the street—not that he had many rounds to shoot. In the beginning, gunfire had been the soundtrack of our lives, but as time wore on and materials grew scarce, so did ammunition.
Then came the Comprehensive National Firearms Regulation Directive. It was established last year, when countrywide civil protests against the NAO had grown especially violent and deadly. The NAO peddled theradicalidea that escalating gun violence was a threat to national security and domestic tranquility. They instituted a moratorium on the possession, distribution, and use of firearms and explosives.
The Gunlock Law, they called it.
“Effective immediately,”Brandon Sikes from Unified News had read on air,“the right to possess, carry, transport or discharge firearms or other explosive weaponry is hereby limited to active-duty personnel of the Unified States Armed Forces. Unauthorized possession or use of firearms shall be considered an act of domestic terrorism and constitute a capital felony offense, subject to life imprisonment or death.”
Clips had followed of calm citizens handing over their weapons with smiles. Tranquil neighborhoods with childrenplaying scrolled over the screen. The golden sunlight streaming overhead bestowed a sense of peace.
If only…
What really happened in the weeks following that edict was not peaceful. The right to bear arms wasn’t a catchphrase or a passing fancy to the people of the US. It was a governing principle. A staple with which they were raised. A fundamental right.
Revoking it did not go well for Haynes.
Hunters marched into private homes on raids, and civilians revolted. Guns were pried from cold, dead hands as the citizens clung to one of the founding tenets of our country. It all made obtaining weapons infinitely harder, and for the Defiance, killing became a contact sport. We still made our own bullets and bombs, we pillaged NAO supplies when we could, but we’d learned to rely on blades and crossbows, and our soldiers tonight were as prepared as they could be.
We set up our medical space in the abandoned kitchen of a nearby restaurant. The metal tables would serve as beds, and I cleared the delivery door of obstacles. Once ready, all four of us spied through the small windows toward the apartment building, though we could see nothing in the moonless dark.
“I wonder where they got the information for this,” said Michael, one of our oldest medics. He’d been an ICU nurse before the war, and a damned good one, if you asked him.
“Me too,” said Shari, who fell into the medic game due to a desire to help and a lack of skill at anything else. “This is a large-scale operation they’ve got here.”
I kept my mouth shut tight, afraid they’d see through any lies I tried to tell.
Liliana set her hand on the glass, her gaze heavy. “I always hate this part.”
