“No,” Sam said. “Well, yes, they have masks. Don’t you see? The raccoon has every right to get mad at the squirrel. It’s the other way around where it’s hypocritical!”
“What?” Axel said.
“If you don’t both shut up in the next five seconds, I’m going to punch you both in the throat,” Lulu said.
Thankfully, Rosita walked into the room with Miguel 1 and Ariceli a moment later, and of course Sam shut up the second he saw Ariceli walk in.
The newcomers had heard the news, but they hadn’t yet seen the reports.
Without a word, Lulu clicked a few buttons, and a news report replayed on the screen, explaining once again everything that had happened last night, including the censored recording of myconversation with Droog. This particular interviewer was speaking with Droog’s mother, Giovana Campos. She wasn’t crying, and frankly, she didn’t appear very upset at all as she held on to Pepita the Chihuahua, who was very much alive and well and wearing a pink coat. If the dog was still suffering from a skin condition, I couldn’t tell.
“I can’t believe dogs that small are real,” Ariceli said. “She is pretty cute, though.”
As we watched, Tito also returned from outside. Ariceli moved to stand next to him, and she repeated her dog comment. Tito smiled big at her.
Roger entered the room as more news reports aired. We all watched in silence as the news revealed scene after scene of worried chaos, all because I had talked a guy into shooting someone. And I had done it because I’d used an illegal image.
On-screen, an expert was warning that the very existence of the generated image passing through the heavy filters was a warning sign that the enemy “has more resources than we realized.”
That didn’t make sense to me. Wasn’t that stuff easy to do despite the ban? If people could literally print guns at home, how difficult would it have been to use a graphics program to fake an image?
“Roger,” Lulu said as we watched. She apparently had the same question I did. She sounded oddly suspicious. “Howdidyou generate that image?”
“Hold on to that question, Lulu. We will begin a lesson in ten minutes. I have some important information to relate, but it must be framed properly with a short history lesson. If you wish to remain in the room after this news report is complete, you must agree to be part of today’s lesson.”
We all groaned.
After the news finished, Rosita turned to look at me. She was completely covered in dirt.
“Stand up,” she said. She gently pushed a chicken away with her foot, and she held her hand out. I grabbed it and stood before her.
She wrapped her arms around my neck, and she kissed me on the mouth.
“There is no kissing during perimeter defense,” Roger said.
“Fuck off, Roger,” Rosita said. “I declare that kissing is perfectly acceptable during perimeter defense.”
Shing!
…
“Totally worth it,” she said a minute later.
Chapter 31
Adrone clomped into the room and pulled up the lesson board from where it had fallen during last night’s chaos. I hadn’t noticed. The honeybee attached it to the wall with a click and walked out. I watched it amble away. It was one of ours. Number 87. It had multiple scorch marks down the side from last night’s attack.
“You may speak amongst yourselves as I prepare today’s special lesson,” Roger said.
It was me, Lulu, Sam, Rosita, the Serrano twins, and Ariceli. Miguel 1 had left, opting to go check on Miguel Mustache, who was sitting up on his own now. We’d shooed most of the chickens out, but Betty Sue remained in Sam’s arms. Only Axel and Lulu were sitting in chairs. The rest of us had been sitting on the floor, but that wasn’t allowed during lessons, so we stood.
“How’d the project go?” I asked Rosita as we waited. Per Roger, we weren’t saying “escape tunnel and secondary shelter” out loud just in case there were listening devices in the barn that weren’t properly shielded. Rosita clutched tightly onto my arm. She smelled like dirt but different from usual. Her hair was tied back, but several strands were loose. She had her camera out floating by her head.
“It’s not big enough,” she said. “Mrs.Xalos is in a medical podbecause she was in danger of having a stroke. She can’t leave for twelve hours.”
I nodded. If people had to flee, they’d have to go single file. It was dangerous, but that was all the time we had to build something. Before we’d found the civil defense bunker, our drones had been shit at digging. But we’d found a crate of attachments that allowed them to dig with amazing speed. The tunnel they were building led southwest into the thick trees that led to the hills. It was a surprisingly far distance for just three days’ worth of digging. Many of these folks would need help going down the tunnel. If they had to flee quickly, it was going to be a nightmare.
Roger had suggested making a secondary, armored subterranean shelter near the end of the escape tunnel. We could slowly start transferring people there. If it was buried deep enough, the enemy wouldn’t know about it. So that was what we were working on now.
