She lingered for a while in the place she didn’t mind finding Sophie’s name, or rather her username; Sophie didn’t know Julie was a card-carrying member of her FreerMind movement’s action chat. A Judas? More of a Trojan horse.
Julie’s user name was Godnotmod, and she posted frequently. The character she’d invented was an elderly Canadian Christian who believed—and frequently posted—that humans were made in God’s image and should not be altered. Julie got a kick out of playing an exasperated shut-in, connected to the world via her computer. The others had shortened her handle to God at first, and she had thrown a very in-character fit until they called her GNM instead. The ones who liked her sometimes called her Grandma. That included Sophie, who was far more patient with GNM/Grandma than with her mother.
Julie routed her little deception through an e-mail she’d created for the purpose, on a VPN she’d set up to give her a Canadian IP address, since Sophie had once said that FreerMind occasionally investigated new online members. GNM had been there long enough now to move beyond their skepticism; a valued member of the anti-Pilot community.
Sophie hadn’t posted anything yet tonight, which in itself was enough to ratchet up Julie’s anxiety. Shouldn’t she be at her meeting already? Shouldn’t they be planning actions and broadcasting to their waiting public? The possibilities began to swim through her head: Sophie had seized on the way to the meeting. She’d been robbed, taken to the hospital. Seized and robbed and injured, no ID, unable to provide their phone numbers as emergency contacts.
“Turn it off, Jules,” said Val. Julie looked up. “Turn it all off. You’re getting that frantic look. Put down the tablet. Read a book, or watch a movie with me.”
“A movie,” Julie agreed, drawing out the movement of turning off her tablet to glance at one more headline. Val scrolled through movie options and picked something they’d both seen before, an old comedy, the compromise between her own preference for horror and Julie’s preference for romcom.
Julie leaned into her wife’s shoulder, taking comfort in contact. If something had happened, the universe couldn’t be cruel enough to let it happen while they were watching Young Frankenstein. Julie’s Pilot awareness agitated for stimulation for a few minutes before fully latching on to the movie. She let it focus on hyperdetail, let herself watch, let herself feel Val’s arm and Val’s shoulder and Val’s steady heartbeat. Their kids had been in this room watching this movie with them a thousand times. They still were. She focused her gaze on the screen, so the phantom Davids and Sophies could fill the rest of the room.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
SOPHIE
Given the bus ride from hell and the walk, Sophie was pleased to arrive only fifteen minutes late at the decrepit former Moose Lodge they called headquarters. They were co-leaders, and Gabe wouldn’t normally start without her on one of her nights to run the meeting, but since she’d left home without her phone, she’d had no way of conveying she was still en route; she understood why the group had already gathered in a circle at the far end. Gabe had the floor and was gesturing, fist to palm, his short locs bouncing as he spoke.
Whatever he was saying had to be interesting; nobody turned when she opened the door. Gabe’s back was to her, a breach of protocol; the meeting host always picked the far side, the twelve o’clock seat, to acknowledge any new members coming through the door, and be alert for potential attacks. It was a responsibility they both took seriously.
She touched his shoulder as she walked past him, and he smiled and gestured to the empty chair at twelve o’clock. He had left the host’s chair for her; her ruffled feathers smoothed themselves back into place. She dropped her backpack and sat. There were about twenty attendees tonight, not their best or their worst turnout. A few regulars were currently in lockup, awaiting arraignment after that morning’s civil disobedience. The turnaround time at Central Booking these days was obscene.
She scanned the group for new faces, finding a few interspersed around the circle: a middle-aged Black couple; a fortyish white woman in a wheelchair; a wiry, nervous-looking white teenager, maybe fourteen or fifteen. She knew his type: he was at the age when the pressure to get a Pilot started to build, but he was too smart or too idealistic or too scared to fall for it.
“Have you done names already, Gabe?” she asked.
He nodded. “Names and not much else. We waited for you. I was just telling them about this morning.”
“Damn zombies,” someone said, then made a spitting sound Sophie hoped didn’t contain actual saliva. Officers didn’t want their soldiers losing discipline, either.
“Agreed on the sentiment, but no spitting in our meeting space,” she said. “I don’t want to have to wash the floor before I sleep on it.”
“Can we sleep here?” asked the new boy.
Sophie gestured toward the mountain range of yoga mats and spare sleeping bags along the back wall. “Any of you that don’t feel safe elsewhere, you’re welcome to crash here as long as Gabe or I are here, which is most nights.”
She realized she should take back control, now that Gabe had ceded it to her. “Anyway, I haven’t had a chance to introduce myself yet. I’m Sophie. She/her. Feel free to introduce yourselves later if I haven’t met you yet. When you speak, start whatever you’re saying with your name and pronouns, so others can start to get to
