Revolution in the Underground (15 page)

             
“We did it!”

             
“It’s all over!  We’re saved!”

             
“You have done a great thing Ember and Maggie!  You will go down in history!”

             
“We all will!”

             
“We did it!”

             
“You know what?” Sven said with a crooked smile of one who was about to propose something reckless.  “I think this calls for a celebration!”

             
“Shouldn’t they change their clothes first?” Kara asked, still jumping up and down.

             
“It’ll be fine!  The revolutionaries will love it!  You’re not worried are you Maggie?  Ember?”

             
“Worried about what?” Maggie asked.  “Uhh… no… we’re not worried, are we Ember?”

             
“Nope!”

             
“You can’t tell anyone about the seeds, though.  Got it?” Kara warned, seeming to speak more to Sven than either Ember or Maggie.  Luna, who had mostly been forgotten, was smiling contentedly in the background.

***

              The mess hall was stationed a few blocks from the seminar room and was also ‘under the Underground’—which just meant that it was buried beneath the soil and was only accessible through a few hidden doors.  The room was large and filled with hearty revolutionaries who promptly prepared a giant feast upon learning of Maggie and Ember’s travels.  They sat around a long, massive wooden table with bench seats and were, as Sven expected, pleased with Maggie and Embers’ attire.

             
“So, is that what they wear where you’re from?” a woman near Maggie asked, speaking slowly in order to distinguish the homophones.

             
“Yes.  These low-cuts are particularly fashionable,” she said, standing up on the bench for everyone to see.  The crowd roared with excitement as she spun around.  Maggie loved the attention and did not tire of telling detailed stories about her home life.  They didn’t seem too interested with the particulars about Erosa’s technology—or lack thereof—nor did they seem to care about its politics or living arrangements.  They were, however, infatuated with her discussions about the sky, forest, and waterfalls, which she, upon discovering their curiosity, spoke about with excruciating detail and exaggerated veneration.

             
Ember sat by Sven and was eating with a gluttony that only Sven seemed to rival.  Sven pointed Ember one at a time to each food item—describing in intricate details its varied salty or sugary flavors in a way so elaborate and in a manner so eloquent that a poet would have been jealous.  After each description Ember would devour the food and look at Sven to begin again.  They laughed loudly and knocked each other around playfully, admiring each other’s inhuman appetite.  On occasion Ember would stop to share a story about his home, or correct a facet of Maggie’s stories.

             
Kara, who was sitting across from Ember and adjacent to Luna and Maggie, told Ember about nuanced aspects of life in the Underground and occasionally engaged Luna in conversation.  Kara laughed at Ember and Sven’s ostensibly insatiable hunger, and from time to time, issued some sort of challenge or suggested that they try one of an assortment of sweet desserts.

             
Luna did not eat or drink anything but was very talkative.  She had come prepared with a seemingly endless barrage of jokes and had overtime accrued a small crowd.  In general, the revolutionaries went back and forth between Maggie’s encapsulating stories and Luna’s surprisingly raunchy jokes.

             
Merriment continued for the next three hours in more or less the same fashion.  Over time Ember and Sven’s interest shifted away from food and towards Maggie, who was still relating details about the outside world.  Now that Luna had stopped telling jokes, Maggie was the complete center of attention, and she stood on top of the table as if to prove it.  Ember, who was practically on the verge of a food coma, was far too tired to share any more stories himself, and only half listened to what his sister had to say.  Besides for the occasional question or call for clarification, only Maggie spoke. 

Not a single person had left the hall and not a single person showed even the slightest signs of boredom.  Maggie was feeling an extreme social high.  With no one else to share the spotlight, she was free to get as silly as she wanted.  Though her increasingly wild antics and growing embellishments might have been perceived as annoying in another context, it made a fantastic reception amongst this audience.  The mess hall, being removed from the rest of the world, seemed to permit this sort of obnoxious behavior. 

Indeed, it wasn’t only Maggie who acted increasingly rambunctious.  Though no alcohol had been served at the meal, the crowd was in many respects drunk.  Towards the outer edges of the gathering were people, like Ember and Sven, that had been so sated with food that they were perfectly content to fall asleep.  To these people, Maggie’s words possessed a peculiar distorted quality—one that seemed to grant sensibility to her words only a few at a time.  Though these people were cognizant that what she said should have made sense, they could not manage to synthesize meaning from her meandering sentences—but nonetheless laughed and smiled when everyone else did. 

Towards the inner rings around Maggie was a different type of intoxication—one characterized with an over-readiness to laugh.  At even the slightest provocation they would roar with a laughter so great and so infectious that it created a positive feedback loop—a cycle which was only broken when Maggie began a new story.

The laughter came to a sudden stop when Bradbury and his entourage entered from one of the secret doors.  His face was excruciatingly pale and forlorn.  He plopped down at the edge of the table and propped his head up in his arms with a despondent abandonment.  The crowd, caught somewhere between intoxicated gaiety and perplexed curiosity, stared at Bradbury with misleading smiles and contrasting eyes.

“What are you looking at?!” Bradbury shouted angrily.

The crowd remained dumbfounded for a few seconds.  At last, a wry younger revolutionary from the back bellowed, “How’s this for leaderless resistance!”  There was an uproar from the crowd.

One of the more gregarious women mocked further, “Uh-oh guys!  We’re all hanging about in the same place…  we’re displaying camaraderie… we’d better be careful… don’t want the Police to come and ruin our fun.”

“What’s so funny?!” Bradbury snapped, instantly killing the gleeful mood.  Sven, as tired as he was, joined Kara in full attention.  “Haven’t any of you heard about the bomb blasts at the rave?!”  The crowd was silent.  Kara and Sven had largely forgotten about the incident.  Even Maggie, who had a wound from the event, scarcely remembered it.

“They were blanks,” someone said at last.  “There were no explosions…  No deaths either…”

“A few people were trampled but none of the injuries were fatal,” another explained.

“You’re missing the point,” Bradbury said, rising to his feet and slowly walking over to the crowd with his posse.  “Someone or some group was trying to make a point.”

“It was probably some immature prank.”

“An immature prank?!” he repeated mockingly.  “I don’t think so.  The second detonation was timed too perfectly.  They were trying to make a point.”

“Well, it wasn’t The Tyrant or The Despot,” a woman said knowledgably.  “That’s not their style.”
              “I don’t know who did it?!” Bradbury said, slamming his fist down on the table in his typical fashion.  “I’m suspending all raves until we learn more.  Effective immediately.”  He turned his back to the clamorous crowd and made his way to the exit.

“Bradbury!” Kara shouted.  “We found two more!”  Bradbury looked over his shoulders at Maggie and Ember and grumbled gruffly.  “You were wrong!  I told you I wasn’t lying!”  Bradbury did not so much as look at Kara.

Some attempts were made to resume the merriment after his departure but it just wasn’t the same.  Soon the five of them—Maggie, Ember, Kara, Sven, and Luna—got up to leave.  Conversation on the way to Sven’s house was brief and to the point.  Kara and Sven spent some time speculating about the incident at the rave, and Maggie quietly conversed with Luna about nothing in particular.  After Luna, much to Maggie’s delight, agreed to spend the night with them, there really wasn’t anything more to talk about.

The two-story house was small, but cozy.  The exterior was, in sharp contrast to its surrounding buildings, well kept, though clearly yellowed with dirt and age.  The two windows on the upper floor were adorned with bright red shutters on each side, and a flower box, which was filled with wilting weeds, underneath.

Sven pulled a set of keys from his pocket and unlocked the door.  “Mom, I’m home.”

Ember shot Kara a perplexed glance and then said aloud, “Where we’re from, you’re kind of a loser if you still live with your parents at this age.” 

Kara laughed in a not-so discreet fashion, “Here too.”

“Oh, I see…  Sorry big guy, I didn’t mean any offense,” Ember said, patting Sven on his shoulder.  Sven lowered his eyelids to express an annoyed acceptance.

“Oh Sven dearest,” a surprisingly short and feeble, middle-aged woman said, running to the corridor.  “How was your day?” Though she was not fat, per se, she did have that typical plump body of a woman who had taken to more sedentary pursuits in her old age.  Her face was creased from years of gratuitous smiling, and, on the whole of it, gave her a very agreeable, nonthreatening, and jolly presence.

“Fine.  Some of my friends are going to stay the night,” Sven said in the annoyed tone of one who didn’t feel like explaining things to his mother.

“Oh dear.  Oh my,” she said upon seeing the group come in through the door.  “That’s fine dear.  Take off your shoes everybody… I don’t want mud all around the house.”  Sven took off his shoes and placed them next to a pair of worn boots, which he eyed with some suspicion.  “Oh, Kara, dearest.  How do you do?”

“Great, Mrs. Helsinki.  How are you?”

“Oh, I can’t complain.  Back’s acting up again, but nothing too bad.  Oh Sven dear, your other friend is already in the basement, maybe you should go down to see him.”  Sven walked up to his mother and bent down to give her a kiss on the cheek.  “He’s kind of cute and very nice,” she said as if admitting something, “but he did seem to have some awfully strange requests.  You sure everything’s okay?”

“Yes, Mom, everything is fine.  I’ll tell you more in the morning,” Sven gave his mother one more kiss and then squeezed by her and opened the basement door, motioning for the others to follow.

“Ooo, I like your outfit, sweetie,” she said to Maggie as she passed.

“Thank you!” Maggie said, still not tired of the compliments.

“Nice seeing you again Mrs. Helsinki!” Kara said as she began walking down the basement.

“You too dear!”

Though the basement was dark and somewhat cold, it was furnished with various trinkets that seemed to succeed in brightening and warming the atmosphere.  Styles was hunched over a pot near one of the cement walls.  He spoke without turning around, “You’re mom’s nice.”

“I’m glad you like her,” Sven said sarcastically.

By Style’s side was a large lamp whose light was focused on a small and unsuspecting pot.  Light spilled over the pot and illuminated parts of the adjacent walls.  The group followed with their eyes, as far as the light would allow, around a series of elaborate apparatuses and channels constructed from makeshift materials—angled pans, bent utensils and pots with holes strewn through them.  There was a slow drip from one of the contraptions that fell evenly on the pot beneath it.  Presently Style’s was tightening some knob to adjust its flow.

“What… What are you doing?” Kara asked in sheer astonishment.  Maggie and Ember watched on with equal amazement.

Styles regarded a thermometer from within the pot and subsequently scribbled some figure on a notepad.  He took some of its dirt and rubbed it carefully between his figures before electing to add some more liquid to it.  “You may sleep here tonight only, but you will have stay over on that side,” Styles said, pointing to the wall directly opposite the pot.  “Tomorrow we will need to work on procuring further lights and securing this room.”

“What?” Sven exclaimed, practically muted by Styles’ audacity.

“For this, I will need to enlist your help.  The Imperial Police know my face, and I do not want to jeopardize this mission by attracting any further attention.  From now until the leaves bud, I will not leave this plant.  You will have to bring me all the supplies.  I will require two meals a day for myself.”

“How long until it buds?” Kara asked.

“At least two weeks, but I will want to wait until four in order to ensure good extractions.”

“Is there anything else?” Sven said sarcastically, confrontation not being in his nature.

“Tomorrow I’ll assign you roles.  I trust this isn’t too imposing,” he said wryly.

“Imposing?  You?  Never?” Sven said, seemingly stuck in his sarcastic manner.

“Roles?  We have roles?” Luna inquired.

“Yes.”

“Even me?” Maggie asked.