Excerpt: Lightbringers

Drew picked a room and, carrying the cloaking device with her, confidently approached the man inside. Gaylen realized that certain of the cells were now open, though no one had yet noticed.

An instant before she would have become visible to the prisoner, she rolled and dove into him, dropping him to the floor, and pressing her hand against his mouth. Gaylen sympathized; he’d been there before. The man, a short fellow of Asian descent, struggled only momentarily, then listened to Drew’s whispers, wide-eyed, until he understood. And then they stood up and joined the others.

Drew waved at Sam and Kevin, who now went separately to other cells for other prisoners. They repeated the process with a couple dozen other men, moving quickly and capturing each within a matter of a few seconds. Some were black, some Asian, some Hispanic, and some white; they were short and tall, long-haired and short-haired. Some had tattoos, some scars. Others looked as normal as anyone else above-ground. All of them were handed weapons; most of them grinned broadly; some kissed their new symbol of salvation.

The most striking of all the prisoners was a very tall, very black man with tattoos curling along both sides of his face, which was broad and fierce. Of them all, he was the only one who briefly defeated Drew, pressing her against the ground with a forearm to her throat, before the other Lightbringers and rebels alike leaped, still silent, into the cell, revealing themselves. When he saw that he was outnumbered, he lightened his grip on Drew, a warning to the others apparent on his face. They all pressed their fingers to their lips, looking at him urgently. He sat back on his haunches, obviously too bemused to bother continuing to fight. Drew sat up with a brilliant grin on her face and whispered into his ear, putting her arms around the hulking man as she did so, as if he were a gentle kitten and not a massive, wild tiger. He eyed her with suspicion. After hearing her out, he shrugged and leaped to his feet as gracefully as a cat and followed the rest, a deeply distrusting look on his face.

Drew kept the man close to her as they walked out of the cells, looking very happy, and Gaylen felt a certain prickling of jealousy. Perhaps this was an old lover, he thought, someone from before she became the leader of a revolutionary cell. Yet the black man wore no expression of recognition or welcome. Gaylen was dying to ask Chloe, but silence was still a requirement.

Moving out of the compound was done much more quickly than moving into it had been done, and yet it was much more difficult with so many people. There was urgency in Drew’s movements. Gaylen guessed that someone would soon notice the down cell walls, the missing men.

He wondered how many feds might be stationed at a Bureau of Provision arkology. He bet there would be a lot. He bet they wouldn’t make it out if it came to a fight.

All went well as they passed down the corridors with the racks of crops on either side. But at the elevator banks, there were too many people. Drew held the group back as they waited as crucial moments ticked by. She wore the expression of someone who was keeping count in her mind.

Several people boarded elevators and went up or down. Four people remained, chatting idly in the lobby.

All of the revolutionaries and rebels stayed perfectly still, everyone’s eyes fixed on their leader, waiting for any signal from her.

Drew reached a certain number in her mind, and her lips pursed and she shook her head in agitation. Everyone tensed to move. She signaled four of the larger, stronger rebels towards to the remaining civilians. Quickly and with little noise, they moved forward to bring their victims into cloaking range and brought them down with their weapons or hand-to-hand. The rest of the group lunged forward, pushing them into elevators along with the revolutionaries and their allies to keep them concealed. The strain showed on everyone’s faces as they descended, waiting for something worse to go wrong.

They were not disappointed. Alarms sounded as they reached the ground floor and the elevator doors opened to people starting to rush around in confusion. Time had run out, and it was impossible for two dozen men to snake through the civilians without touching anyone. Drew said as quietly as she could and still reach everyone’s ears, “We bowl them over and we keep going. Go for the doors! Now!”

Everyone broke into a run, the tougher and stronger men at the front, Gaylen towards the back. Gaylen strained to keep up and ensure that he did not get out of range of the nearest shield. He could not risk being seen now; not after everything else that had happened. He tried his hardest not to be tripped up by the people the others were trampling underfoot or shoving aside; several careened into him and he pushed them off. There were startled shouts among the civilians, but no one could tell what was happening in all the confusion.

The men in front were pouring through the doors just as the building shields activated. One of the rebels did not get through before the doors slammed and locked. He clawed at the doors, screaming. Gaylen turned away as feds came up behind the lost man; he didn’t want to watch.

On the streets, a change was just rippling across all the wallscreens mounted to the front of buildings; those facing out from the Bureau of Provision darkened, while those on the other side of the street all turned to the face of a clown, who cheerfully announced, “It’s time for a happiness break! Come on, everyone, let’s play some games!”

A shout went up from the people on the streets, and they stopped and dropped their shopping bags or purses to prepare to join in.

Gaylen had seen happiness breaks many times, but this was the first time he realized they had a purpose. With everyone’s faces turned in the other direction, no one was watching the building where the emergency was happening.

'See no evil', he remembered.

The revolutionaries and rebels followed Drew to a wall not far away, behind the crowds facing the wallscreens, where no one was standing. They took a moment to catch their breaths.

Drew was grinning widely. In all the noise, she was able to call out where most of them could hear her, “Don’t attract any more attention. We can take our time going back out, so don’t touch anything, and don’t make a sound.”

The group made the trip back into the abandoned area of the city quietly and slowly. It took about fifteen minutes.

And then the big black man, the massive tiger, had enough.

He reached over casually to Drew as if he was going to take her by the shoulder, and wrenched her into a wall, slamming her head against the bricks. He pulled her around and into a headlock in front of him as he turned to face the rest of the group, and pointed his weapon towards the others. Her feet off the ground, Drew hung onto his arm for support, shock on her face, trying to pull far back enough from his arm to still breathe. The others stopped in their tracks. Rebels and revolutionaries alike pulled weapons; some rebels pointed their weapons at the revolutionaries, some at the black man. Some revolutionaries targeted the black man, others chose the other rebels. Gaylen’s heart leaped into his throat. They were far outnumbered. He didn’t pull a weapon; he had no idea what to do. Each side eyed the other warily. The revolutionaries stayed stock still, waiting for orders.

The black man spoke in a low, rumbling voice, his face impassive. “I call myself Mercy, because I’m so used to hearing people beg for it. Consider that a warning.”