Breaking Point

Several of the others had surfaced by that time and were making their way toward the stairs to help unload. I approached the surveillance room, noting the familiar stack of handheld radios and batteries strewn across the center table. Against the back wall were Billy’s patchwork computer and a black receiver board, yanked from the incinerator pile outside the base. Cara and Wallace stood beside them, speaking in hushed tones.

As her cool gaze found mine, I was reminded of our first moments within the resistance headquarters, when she’d recognized Chase and me by name. I knew it was because she listened to hacked MM radio signals religiously—at that point the MM had been tracking us for days already—but I couldn’t shake the feeling that she, and maybe Wallace, too, had somehow been waiting for us.

I hustled toward the supply room to inventory the new provisions.

* * *

SIXTEEN boxes of canned food. Two boxes of liquid soap. Washrags. Clean Towels. Flats of bottled water. Matches. All in all, it was a jackpot. Of course, Wallace would review what I’d inventoried, and determine what we would siphon back into the community, but for now the mood was celebratory.

I worked alone, comforted by the sounds of the others playing poker in the hall. It distracted me from the fact that Chase and Sean had yet to return.

“Did you see the present I brought you?” Cara swung into the room, an enormous bleached sweater hanging carelessly off one shoulder. Somehow, she even looked pretty in that.

“Not unless it was soap.” I smiled, trying not to sound as guarded as I felt. For weeks I’d been playing nice, attempting to make an ally of the only other girl here, but her mood swings didn’t make it easy. She rolled her eyes and tipped a stack of smaller boxes so that they spilled out over the floor.

“Hey!” I jumped forward to right them.

Beneath those she’d overturned was another box that I had yet to sort. She peeled back the cardboard and lifted a pleated navy skirt.

A punch of memories: the reformatory, the last time I’d seen Ms. Brock, the headmistress, preparing to punish me after she’d ordered soldiers to beat Rebecca. The sound of the baton striking my roommate’s back as she demanded to know what had become of Sean.

I fixed the fallen boxes, lining up the corners perfectly.

Like everywhere else, the Sisters of Salvation had gradually infiltrated the city’s charity scene. They were what another Article violator had once called the MM’s answer to women’s liberation, and ran the soup kitchens here, the orphanages, even the school system.

An unexpected tremor of excitement passed through me. Cara could wear this out into the community on assignment. I could wear it out. Sisters could go places civilians couldn’t, just like the guys in the resistance who wore stolen soldier and Horizons uniforms. It was the first time I’d seriously considered leaving the Wayland Inn, and it felt liberating. Empowering.

But mostly impossible. I couldn’t do the kinds of missions Cara did. I’d already been caught. The next time I wouldn’t get the luxury of a needle full of strychnine like the condemned soldiers in the holding cells at the base. I’d get a bullet in the head.

“See, now you can play dress up with your boy toy,” Cara said with a plastic smile.

Her words brought on a sudden surge of humiliation. I was about to say something I’d probably regret later when Billy’s shouts from the radio room intervened.

“Sniper! Sniper!”

We were both out of the room in a shot, bolting two doors down to where the guys playing cards had gathered. Everyone shoved at one another, trying to get closer to the confiscated switchboard Wallace was manning.

“Shut up!” Wallace roared. As the chatter died, the serious voice of Janice Barlow, a local reporter for an MM-run news station, filled the room.

“…indicate that the four soldiers were shot several hours after curfew, from a distance of at least one hundred yards. FBR sources revealed early this morning that they are very close to finding the Virginia Sniper, whom they believe to be responsible for a running tally of seven soldiers.”

“Yeah, right!” called one of the guys who’d returned with Cara a few hours ago. He was immediately shushed by the two brothers who’d rationed out breakfast.

“…is the second shooting in the state of Tennessee, the first being fifty miles south, in Nashville. In response to the crisis, the Federal Bureau of Reformation has lowered the local curfew to five P.M. until the culprit can be apprehended. Citizens are reminded to observe curfew hours and report any violations of the Statutes to the crisis line or a nearby FBR officer.”

At her pause, the hall erupted in cheers. A twitchy guy not much taller than me spun Cara around in an impromptu dance. Four, people kept saying. Four, when the sniper had only hit one at a time previously. I tried to grin, but my insides were stretched taut.

“Quiet! Quiet, there’s more!” Billy hollered. He leaned down while Wallace adjusted the volume.

“…determined that the bomb, made of household appliances, was a direct attempt on the Chief of Reformation’s life. Chancellor Reinhardt’s condition is stable, and he is recovering at an undisclosed location. Of the attack, the president made this statement late yesterday afternoon.”

There was another pause, but this time no one spoke. No one dared to breathe. An attack on the president’s right-hand man made the work of the sniper seem suddenly insignificant.

The reception grew fuzzy as a man’s voice filled the room.

“The work of radicals does not, and will not, represent the majority. What happened yesterday to Chancellor Reinhardt is a test. Of our faith. Of our morality. And of our freedom. It is a chance for us to prove our unity and bind together as one country. To finally purge the hedonism that led to our fall, to dispel the chaos that gripped us during the War, and to remove every terrorist that stands between us and a safe, peaceful future. No one said reformation would be easy, but have faith when I say that it is possible, and it is right.”

It had been a long time since I’d heard him speak. My mother and I had watched him on TV during the early years of the War when he’d been a state senator. I could picture him now, a tuft of silver hair atop an enormous forehead, jaw drawn tight with concern, and a gaze so piercing, it seemed to reach straight through the television into our living room. My mom used to say you could never trust someone who talked to a camera like it was a real person.

Later, I’d learn in school that Scarboro’s movement, Restart America, had been around for years, preaching strong traditional morals, censorship, and a removal of the separation between church and state. One Faith, One Family, One Country, had been their motto, one that would later change to One Whole Country, One Whole Family when he was elected president. In his campaign, he’d cited the existing administration’s moral weakness for the attack on our nation, and the citizens, desperate for change, had believed him.

He’d always had a cadence to his words. It was almost mesmerizing until you listened to what he was actually saying.

Bind together. Remove every terrorist.

Well, I knew what he meant by terrorist. He meant people like my mother. People like me. Anyone that stood between him and his perfect, compliant world. He’d reduced our country to obedient house pets and unwanted strays, and I had a bad feeling things were about to get a lot worse for us.

Ms. Barlow signed off with the FBR motto: One Whole Country, One Whole Family.

“Someone tried to take out Reinhardt?” Cara finally said. She looked shocked, just like everyone else. I tried to picture the man, but couldn’t. He’d come into power post-TV, during President Scarboro’s formation of the FBR, to oversee the functions of the soldiers.

“Wonder how he got close enough.” There was a definite edge of scheming to Wallace’s tone, but he did make a point. The president and his advisors traveled in secrecy, never taking up a permanent residence, never staying anywhere too long. As far as I’d known, they’d done this since the War, when the threat of attack on any politician had been high.

“Who cares, someone did it, that’s all that matters!” yelled the guy behind me. The others agreed.

“Next is our move,” said Cara. “Now’s the time for something big. We’ve got to hit them while they’re limping.”