Dissidence (22 page)

“They already have. Somehow
,
word of what we did reached colony K. They overtook a soybean farm maybe twenty miles from here.”

“They did
what
?
” I don’t even know where to begin. All I did was
try
and stop some girl from getting beaten to death by some jackass guard. How did all of this get so out of hand so fast?

“Yeah, and a bunch of them are headed this way to join us. They sent someone ahead to let us know. He got here this morning and told us to expect the rest of them sometime tonight.”

“Jeez, Connor, if word is already spreading
,
then
now more than ever
,
we need to get everyone out of here.”

“Not if we can defend ourselves right here. We found caches of extra weapons and ammo in each of the towers. Almost three quarters of the workers are armed now
.
”

“Connor, can I just ask you a question?”

“Sure, Girlie, anything.”

“Have you lost your damn mind?”

He’s laughing.
Really?
Well
,
that answers that.

“Good to know you’re concerned about my mental health, but I assure you
,
my mind is one hundred percent accounted for.”

“In that case, can we start this conversation over again
?
B
ecause I must have misheard you
.
”

“No, you heard me right. I want to fight . . . we all do.”

“Fight who?
With what?
Connor, what are you talking about? We need
to get these people out of here,
find a place to hide, or disappear, or something.”

“That was plan A, but it doesn’t sound like its working out so well.” He sounds a little too
enthusiastic
about our failure
. “Just hear me out, okay?”

For crying out loud . . . “Fine.”

Just add one more terrible idea to the long list of terrible ideas that seems to be making up the pattern of my life. Why not?

“Think about it, Girlie. We struck the match, now all we have to do is pour a little gasoline on the fire and watch it burn.”

“What exactly would this ‘gasoline’ be?”

“Rumors.
We spread word of what we did and what we’re planning to do, and wait for others to join us.”

“And, how exactly do you plan on doing that?”

“Easy.” He’s grinning at me—this can’t be good. “W
e break into a few more camps. According to the schedule I found in the office, there’s a supply train scheduled to arrive here in the morning. If we can take it, then we’ll be able to travel to even the furthest camps.”

Hold on . . .

“You want to
take
over
the train?”
Nice of Peter to finally join the conversation.
At least
he
sounds as skeptical as I am.

“Yeah!”
Apparently our skepticism isn’t going to discourage Connor
,
though.

Peter thinks about it for a minute
,
and then his entire demeanor shifts. “It would be nice not to have to walk everywhere.”

When did I become the only sane person here? A few days ago
,
I was an idiot for wanting to break into a camp to rescue my friend, but now it’s a perfectly viable option? For what, to build some sort of army?
To start some kind of revolution?
This is not what I signed up for.

“Let’s say we did do this . . . and this is completely hypothetical because I still think you’re insane, but if we did, then who exactly would we be fighting?”

“Drew Reynolds. I’ve been through the rest of the paper work in the guard’s office while you gu
ys were gone, and I think this
Drew Reynolds guy is the key to all of this. As far as I can tell, he seems to be in charge of pretty much everything. If we can get to him, then maybe we’ll be able to bargain our way out of this situation.”

“Bargain with what, Connor? We don’t have anything he wants . . . except us.”

“We will.”

“And
what is that?” Why does everything feel like a guessing game with him?

“His life.
If we can capture him, we can coerce him into letting us all go free and clear.
His life for our freedom.
Sounds like a good trade to me.”

Why do I feel like I just stepped into some bad action film? This is a horrible plan, and I mean
horrible
in the worst possible sense of the word. Only problem is, I don’t have anything better to offer.

“Here, these are for you.” Connor hands shiny black guns to both me and Peter.
             

I’m pretty sure that if the best description of the weapon I can come up with is black and shiny, then I probably shouldn’t be handling it. “Connor, I couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn with that thing. Give it to someone else.”

“That’s
why we set up a shooting range,
to get everyone comfortable with firing their weapons. Check it out.” The long tables from the eating area have been lined up, and different sized tin cans are scattered across them. About twenty feet away
,
a line is clearly marked by broken stalks lying end to end.

“We were gone for like . . . three days.” I don’t bother concealing my disbelief.

“I work fast.”

Apparently.

“Shall we?” Peter looks like a kid in a candy shop heading for the shooting range. Yeah, I’ve definitely lost him.

At
least the guns we have now aren’
t like that monstrosity Peter was firing a couple days ago. They’re just regular handguns, like the kind you see in old movies. Within ten minutes
, Peter’
s hitting everything in sight. I kee
p at it for almost an hour, and
manage to
hit a grand total of two cans,
two
, and I’m honestly not sure I was actually aiming at either one of them. I am beyond awful at this. Yeah, fighting sounds like a
great
idea.

***

Sometime around four in the morning
,
Connor wakes me to let me know that the refugees from colony K have arrived. I shuffle, bleary eyed, out of the dorms to find nearly five hundred more workers pouring into the camp. The first to arrive are a man and a woman. The others congregate around them while we make introductions.

“Are you the one?” The woman, Julie, bombards me with way too much exuberance
for the G
od
-
awful hour.

“The one what?”

“The one who stood up to that guard?
The one who started all of this?”

How the hell do they know so damn much? And, for sanity’s sake, why do I keep getting blamed for this?

“Yeah, I guess so.”

“Hey, Jacob, it’s her,” she calls to her friend, practically bouncing on her toes.

Great.
What’s he
gonna
want, an autograph?

“
You
started all of this?” As much as I’d like to deny it, his disbelief is a little insulting.

“No, I just like to say I did for all of the fantastic benefits. You know, fame, fortune, a target on my back . . .” Okay, so I’m not exactly a morning person, but first impressions should never have to be made before dawn.

Julie and Jacob stick with us after we’ve found places for the others to get some rest, and Connor fills them in about our plan to confiscate the train
later
in the morning.

A few hours later
,
a large group of us are all armed and in position at the station when the
supply train
pulls in. Between our numbers, our weapons, and the element of surprise
,
it is hardly a fair fight. We take over the train with barely an argument. The whopping four guards that were actually on board are rounded up and escorted into the camp.

“What are we going to do with them?” Peter gives voice to the exact thing I’ve been wondering myself.

“Let them go,” I suggest. “It’s not like this is much of a secret anymore, so why not?
We don’t need them for anything.
”

“Not yet,” Connor jump
s in. “I
wanna
talk to
‘
em
first. T
hey might know about Reynolds.”

“Fine, ask them, but then we’re letting them go.”

“Who’s Reynolds?” Jacob doesn’t sound pleased to be out of the loop.

“We’re not sure, but his n
ame keeps popping up
.” Connor volunteers to catch him up to speed. “We think he may have enough power to get us out of this mess if we can find him.”

“Well then, what are we waiting for?” Jacob pushes past us and into the small bunk where the guards are being confined. 

“All right, you’re
gonna
answer a few of my questions, and then we’ll send you on your merry way. Trust me, you want to answer them,” Connor explains amiably, following Jacob into
the room. “So, who’s Drew Reynolds?”

I position myself in the doorway where I can see everyone. The guards cautiously eye one another, but no one says a word. Yeah
,
sure, this is
gonna
work.

“He asked you a question,” Jacob roars, and just to solidify the point
,
he punctuates it with a fist to one of the men’s faces.

What does he think he’s doing? I draw myself up to confront him, but Connor waves me back. He can’t possibly tolerate this.

“Who is Drew Reynolds?” Connor repeats the question, emphasizing each word slowly.

This time
,
one of the other men sitting near Jacob answers. “He runs the camps.”

“Where can we find him?”

“Don’t say anything else,”
orders the guard
with what looks like may be a broke
n nose
,
courtesy of Jacob
.

“Shut up,” Jacob bellows, landing another blow to the man’s face
,
followed by a swift kick to his stomach.

I’ve seen enough. 

“Colony O. He’s in colony O.” One of the other guards tries to come to his friend
’
s rescue.

Pushing past Connor, I grab Jacob’s arm and yank him away from the man who’s now just a heap on the floor.

“Get off me!” He has nearly a foot on me and is built almost as solidly as Connor. Maybe I didn’t think this through.

Chapter 21

“What the hell is wrong with you? I’m not going to let you beat that man to death.”

“Oh yeah?
Who’s going to stop me?
You?”

Before I can form a witty retort likely to get
me
my butt handed to me, Peter draws up beside me. Then Connor, who’s probably more threatening than Peter and I combined.

“Jacob, come on.
We got the information we need
.” Julie seems to be the only one capable of getting through his thick head. 

The way he glares at her makes my pulse spike, but then his anger cools.
When he follows her back out of the building
,
the entire room breathes a collective sigh of relief. 

“Let them go,” I
waved a hand at the four guards
before leaving, completely disgusted with the entire situation.

***

I assume they did
,
because a few hours later
,
the bunk is vacant.

“They’re gone?”

“Watched them walk out the front gate myself, all four of them,” Peter assures me. “What’s next?”

Good question. We have a train, but the question remains, what are we going to do with it? A small group
,
including Connor, Peter, Julie, Jacob and myself
,
converge
s
on the bunks to discuss our options. There aren’t many. Connor has a new recruit to his ‘guns-a-blazing’ strategy in Jacob, and Julie just seems to be on board with whatever Jacob decides. That leaves Peter and me as the only two not entirely sold on this idea, but when Peter leans towards acceptance as well, I’m willing to concede to the majority.

After an hour and a half of talking over one another, we’ve finally produced something that vaguely resembles a plan. We’re going to use the train to take a few volunteers to some of the other work camps with word of the rebellion and a decent supply of weapons. Connor and I have already proven that getting inside the camps isn’t all that difficult and once inside, if everything goes according to plan, they should be able to walk right back out the front gate along with hundreds of new recruits. I’m not exactly comfortable with the idea, or the million and one things that could go wrong with it, but I agree on the condition that they drop me off near colony D on the way. Not much of a concession since the planned route travels right past there anyway.