Life in a repressive society is dangerous, and you must be extraordinarily careful. Teachers try to stay neutral, but some find it the perfect camouflage for social rebellion. And then, there are families…
I stand at the kitchen window. The night outside is dark; the kind of dark where the shadows move if you stare long enough. The moon is covered by clouds. The streetlight is out. The street is empty. Maybe. That’s what they’d want me to think. The light from the clocks on the oven and microwave are the only illumination. I can see a reflection of myself in the glass. My hair is a mess. No makeup. Even in the ghostly image, I can see that I look tired.
I step back from the window. No sense offering a silhouette.
3:47 AM. My night’s work is nearly over. Five more hours of freedom before I report for duty to the State again. I should sleep – indoctrinating children is easier when I do. I hate my day job, but it is the perfect cover for my Resistance activities. Who would suspect a propagandist of being an enemy of the State? To assuage my guilt, I occasionally slip some doubt into a child’s head – a small contradiction, something that might stick with them and make them wonder as they grow up. I tell myself it’s better than nothing, but I don’t really believe it.
Turning away, I catch a splash of light through the glass patio door. My heart skips a beat. No. It’s only old Mrs. Crowe’s porch light. Three houses away, it’s dim, refracted through the beveled glass. It’s not on every night. Maybe she forgets to turn it off. Maybe it’s a signal. Was it on when I got home? I can’t remember.
Witnessing two murders has put me on edge.
I was headed home after collecting tonight’s message from a dead drop when I saw two people running, CommSafe, the Community Safety Corps, goons in pursuit. It happened fast – yelling, the crack of gunfire, bodies falling, and two dark pools slowly merging and staining the pavement. I stepped back into the shadows and took the long way home.
Now, sitting at my makeshift desk, I focus on the messages I had decoded before heading out. The last group of escapees made it through. Good news. Scientists, too. Even better news. Dangerous people to help escape, more dangerous not to. I had a million questions about so many topics when they were here – but questions get people killed. The less everyone knows, the better.
I set the last part of tonight’s message on the key book, The Premier’s Reflections on History, and try again to work the Ottendorf string: 148/4/7; page 148, 4th line down, 7th word on the line – new. All that for one word. The Resistance stays low-tech for safety, but it makes things slow. The State thrives on technology, hoards surveillance and data; it gives them some advantages, but it’s also their blind spot. We exploit it often.
I move on to the next part of the message, but the two bodies crowd my thoughts. Deciphering the message will have to wait. Giving up, I hide the papers away and step out into the kitchen. The small office used to be a pantry, but who needs a pantry when food is scarce? The space is cramped, but I make it work; no one can see when I’m in there, and there are plenty of hiding places amongst the recipe books and stacks of other papers and such that have collected over the years.
Five minutes later, I lie my head back on the couch and try to sleep, but sleep is elusive. I’ve survived on naps since taking the station-master role. I doze on and off until I hear the stairs creaking. Soft steps on the hall floor let me know I have nothing to fear. The goons aren’t that quiet.
Sarah sticks her head around the corner. Sarah, my dead son’s almost fiancée – Robbie had confided in me that he was going to propose. But that was before. Before so many got sick. Before he died.
I don’t know why the pandemic took my son and not me. He’d had asthma as a child, maybe that was enough to weaken him, enough for the virus to win. He was one of hundreds of thousands who lost that battle.
The State didn’t provide vaccines or medicine, didn’t believe the science. By the time I was able to use my Resistance connections to get medication from the Free States, it was too late. He died the day it arrived. Sarah recovered. It was touch and go for over a month. I nursed her back to health and mourned my son at the same time.
I think about Robbie often. Two years on, the wound is still raw. No parent should ever outlive their child. His favorite mug, a small chip on the rim, still sits on the windowsill above the kitchen sink, right where he left it. Coffee was rationed to just a rumor, so he’d scrape curls of hickory from the backyard tree and steep them till the water turned a vaguely reddish brown. Breathing in the steam like it was a gourmet latte from the before-days he’d say, “Not bad,” even though we both knew it was awful. After he died, I couldn’t bring myself to wash it. People do crazy things in their grief. That mug was mine. Every so often, I pick it up. The porcelain is cool, the tannin ring faded, the smell thinned to a ghost – bark, metallic water, a whisper of smoke.
I miss my son.
Sarah and I are now partners in crime. Treason. Thrown together by the death of someone we both loved, we work well together despite being near total opposites. I’m outgoing and gregarious – able to work sources without them realizing they are revealing secrets; Sarah is quiet and introverted, but brilliantly methodical, and a whiz with technology. No secret is safe from her once she puts her mind to uncovering it.
“Sorry to wake you.” Sarah smiles as she crosses the room and sits at the foot of the couch. Her long dark hair is disheveled, neither of us keeps up appearances. Why bother?
I bend my knees to give her room. “It’s fine. I wasn’t really sleeping.”
“Did you hear-” she starts to ask, but I know where she’s going.
“I saw it,” is all I say.
She looks at me and nods. I don’t need to go into any more detail.
After a moment of silence, I sit up. “I need to get ready for work.”
Sarah stands as I do and gives me a brief hug.
As I head upstairs, Sarah heads to the basement. She’d made a successful incursion into a CommSafe lieutenant’s home computer yesterday and says she hopes to pull some intelligence and plant a beacon – whatever that means.
Before leaving for school, I check in with Sarah in her basement workroom. There isn’t enough room for me to stand fully in the small space. Like my converted pantry, Sarah’s space is a reclaimed part of the old coal cellar. It’s dark and a little damp, but it serves its purpose.
As I enter, I notice her twisting her hair around her finger – a sure sign of worry.
“Everything OK?” I ask.
“I’m not sure. The lieutenant’s computer seems like it was too easy.”
“Too easy? Is that a problem?”
“I don’t think so. I’ll poke around a bit more today, but I’m sure it will be fine. You know me, I’ll be careful. I’m still better than they are, anyway.”
She smiles, though it seems a bit forced.
I look at her for a moment, then nod.
“OK. We’ll talk tonight.”
As I leave the house and walk down the driveway, Sarah’s words rattle around in my head. I trust her, but I’m the worrier between us. It’s just in my nature.
School is on the other side of town, a thirty-minute walk. Almost no one drives anymore. With the taxes on what little gas is available, it’s just too expensive. It’s a sunny, early spring day, though, so I don’t mind the walk. The weather helps to lift my spirits and forget my worries – until I notice him. A stranger.
We don’t get many strangers in town; there’s little reason for them to be here. I notice him initially because he’s tall – easily over six feet. There are only a handful of men that tall in town, and he isn’t one of them. A second quick glance makes me realize that his clothes are new and look tailored. They don’t look second hand or homemade, a clear giveaway. His boots alone cost enough to feed Sarah and me for at least two weeks.
Leaning against a pole outside the bank building, he doesn’t look my way. He’s looking at a book, but I know that he can see me coming in the reflection of the big windows. I think I catch a slight lift of his head to glance at the glass as I approach on the other side of the street.
I keep walking, not looking in his direction. When I am about a block past him, I drop one of the books I’m carrying so I can steal a quick glance back. He’s turned, now leaning against the pole with his left shoulder instead of his right. He can still see my reflection in the bank windows as I walk away. I force myself to keep my pace normal. This is the first thing the Resistance taught us – how to detect surveillance and how to act while you are being watched.
Another block and I turn a corner. I slow my pace just a little. I need to think. Do I turn back or continue to school? Turning back would make me feel better, but would lead to questions I don’t want. Continuing gives me time to think and watch. I decide to keep going – panicking at every imagined danger is the first step to paranoia.
For the rest of my walk, no one stands out. Maybe I am overreacting to the tall man. My nerves are on edge after everything that has happened recently. Maybe I’m seeing danger where it doesn’t exist. Maybe he was watching me for the oldest reason a man ever took note of a woman.
As I walk into school, I’ve mostly relaxed. One incident does not make a pattern. Putting my bag and books on the conveyor belt and stepping through the metal detector, I smile at Henry, the school’s security guard. He smiles back, accompanied by a short, “Good morning, ma’am.” I hate that he calls me ma’am.
In my classroom, I have time before the students arrive. I look around carefully. Nothing looks out of place. Everything seems normal; no one is watching me. I’m just paranoid. That makes me think of Michael, the station master before me. He cracked under the pressure after just 18 months. Is it my turn to fall apart?
My morning is uneventful. Nothing untoward, nothing odd or suspicious. I settle into my routine, and my worries disappear. It is hard to focus on anything else when forty-five children are all expecting your attention. My class is second and third graders. In the before-times, I had loved teaching this age group. Their personalities are beginning to show, their curiosities blossoming.
While the students are at lunch, I eat my meager sandwich at the picnic table outside the front door. Mrs. Iserman, the kindergarten teacher, is already at the table when I arrive, and we chat briefly.
“Hi, Mary,” she says.
“Hello, Lily. Beautiful day to have a picnic.”
She smiles. Lily Iserman is young, only a year out of the State Teaching College. I’m fairly sure that her sympathies about the State align with mine, but I haven’t acted on my suspicions. Yet.
Finishing a mouthful of food, she asks, “Did you hear about the incident last night?”
I know exactly what she is talking about, of course, but pretend that I haven’t heard.
“No, what happened?”
“Two people were killed by CommSafe.”
“No. Here? They must have been doing something wrong.” It’s always safest to lead with the State point of view.
“I heard they were just out after curfew and got scared when CommSafe approached them. They ran and CommSafe shot them.”
Another comment that makes me think she isn’t buying what CommSafe is selling. One more point in her favor as far as I am concerned, but still not enough to let my real feelings be known.
“Well, if they ran, they must have been guilty of something,” I counter, though it’s hard to get the words out.
She must sense something because she just looks at me for a moment.
“I suppose,” is all she says.
We finish our lunch in silence. As soon as she is done, she stands and looks down at me.
“I need to go prepare some material for this afternoon.”
“Good luck,” is all I say in reply.
After finishing my lunch, I go back into school and through security again. Henry must be at lunch himself, because a guard I don’t know is manning the entrance. I don’t like her looks, or the attitude she gives off. She’s a true believer.
As I walk through the office, I see the principal’s door open about halfway. I can only see Mr. Jenkins, the school principal. He is in an earnest conversation with someone, but I can’t see who it is. He glances my way, and his eyes linger longer than usual. This strikes me as odd; normally, the teachers aren’t worth even a moment of his time. Marcus Jenkins is a political appointee, not an educator, and he takes every opportunity to remind us of his importance and our lack thereof. We’re all replaceable and interchangeable to him – just steppingstones to his higher aspirations.
I step over to the teachers’ mailboxes and pull out the single piece of paper in mine and glance at it – something about the spring picnic. Not something the Resistance cares about, but perhaps a chance for me to talk to Lily in a more open environment.
As I turn to leave, I realize that my angle on Jenkins’s doorway has changed. I can see the feet of the other person in the room, sitting in the chair opposite the big desk. I recognize the boots. Two or three steps to the right and I’ll be able to see their face. I’m afraid of what I’ll see, but I have to know. I step to the side as I slowly walk out.
I gasp. It’s him. The tall man from this morning is talking to Jenkins. He’s sitting right in the office, twenty feet away from me. My blood pounds in my ears. I have to fight for breath.
Agnes Brown, the secretary, looks up, a confused look on her face.
“Can I help you, Mary?”
I can’t speak. I just shake my head and quickly leave the office, a confused Agnes Brown staring at my back. I practically run back to my classroom and sit at the table in the back. I can’t be seen from the hall back here. The tall man hadn’t looked up, hadn’t seen me. I try to convince myself that this is the truth. But what if he had? I look up at the door to the classroom. Is he going to come bursting in at any moment, a goon squad in tow? He must be here about me, but what? I’ve been careful.
I need to leave, to get back to the house and warn Sarah. We need to run. But how can I leave in the middle of the day without attracting more attention? If I go now, they’ll know that I’m on to them. Maybe they haven’t put it all together yet. Maybe they’re still building a case. Maybe they’re watching us to see if I lead them to more of the Resistance. Maybe we have a little time. Thoughts careen through my head like a buzz saw – loud, impossible to ignore, and destructive.
When the classroom door opens, I almost scream. It’s only the children, back from lunch. I watch them as they file into the room and take their seats. None of them speak; none of them goof around or giggle. That’s always the hardest part of my job – realizing that these aren’t really children. They’re tiny adults. There is little joy in their lives. Little time for the normal activities of childhood. I doubt any of them have ever been to the stream at the edge of town, catching tadpoles during the day and fireflies in the evening. That had been such a part of my childhood growing up.
I don’t know how I make it through the rest of the afternoon. I think the children can tell something is wrong, but like good little automatons, they don’t ask. We do lessons about the Premier saving our country. I listen, inwardly cringing, as the children recite the familiar lies: criminals had roamed free before his leadership, he alone knew how to handle the water riots, we are the beacon of peace and prosperity that makes other countries jealous. Most days, it makes me sick. All I can think about now, though, is getting home, warning Sarah, escaping.
The house is dark as I open the front door. The single streetlight nearby hasn’t come on yet, and dusk is falling. Everything is quiet. I hear footsteps in the kitchen and hold my breath as they get closer.
It’s only Sarah. I almost collapse as the tension I don’t even know I’m holding in releases. Somehow, we both seem to know that the other is upset. Neither of us speak; we close the distance between us and hold each other tight.
“Mary, thank God. I was wrong this morning.”
“They were at school,” I say.
“What, who?”
“The tall man, I don’t-”
Sarah steps back and looks at me, real fear in her eyes. Fear I’ve never seen in our years of working together. I take a breath and tell her about my day.
“I saw someone this morning. He was watching me as I walked to work.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes. It was subtle, but I’m sure he was watching me. After lunch, I saw him in the office talking to Jenkins.”
“This is bad.”
“What were you saying about this morning?”
“I was wrong. The lieutenant’s computer was a honeypot – they put it out there to be found. They traced me as soon as I connected.”
“Shit. That’s not-”
“I can’t believe I fell for it. They must have brought in someone new, someone better. The regular yahoos they had were clueless. I was running circles around them for years. But this was different, and I didn’t see it coming.”
“Do you think they-”
“I think they’re watching us. Mary, I’m so sorry.” Tears well up in her eyes.
“Stop. We knew this day could come.”
“But I-”
I shake my head. “No. It’s no one’s fault. Shit happens.”
“How much time do we have?”
“I don’t know, not much.”
“I’ll-”
I interrupt. “Send the emergency code, then destroy everything.”
I see her training start to kick back in. She nods and turns, but I grab her arm.
“Sarah, take a breath. We have plans for this. It’s going to be OK, but we have no time to waste. We leave as soon as we’re done.”
We go our separate ways – Sarah to the basement and her workroom, and me to my office in the pantry. We each have our responsibilities. We’ve practiced this. We know what we need to do.
I pull out all my papers. Resistance-related or not – codes, messages, recipes, letters, schoolwork – it doesn’t matter. I don’t have time to sort it; everything goes into a bag. I run down the stairs to the basement. Sarah is busy taking apart her computers.
“I sent the emergency code and got an acknowledgment. The network knows we’re compromised,” she says as I begin stuffing my papers into the shredder.
I nod, but don’t respond. None of the other underground stations will trust anything we send now. At least we’ve protected the network.
The noise of Sarah hitting the equipment with a hammer startles me.
“Everything is encrypted,” she says between swings. “But I’m not taking any chances.”
“Good. Everything still gets burned when you’re done.”
That’s the only conversation. No further discussion is necessary. We each do our part. This is why we have practiced – no wasted effort, nothing overlooked. Quick, efficient, clean.
Three minutes later, I sit on the basement stairs. Sarah is finishing tossing electronic components into the furnace. The acrid smell of heating metal and burning plastic fills the basement. She coughs and covers her mouth and nose as the last pieces go in.
“That’s making a lot of smoke,” Sarah says as she walks back to me.
“I know. But there’s nothing we can do about it. In ten minutes, it won’t matter anyway.”
We go upstairs to grab our go-bags – one for each of us, holding just a change of clothes, some food and water, and our fake IDs. That’s all we can take with us. We must travel light.
Standing in the dim light in the front hall, we each look around. This house has become our home. We’ve lived here for three years; the old place is our refuge from the outside world. A little bit of sanity in an otherwise crazy world.
“Mary.”
“Shh,” I say. “We knew this would-”
“No, Mary. We stink. The smoke.”
I hadn’t noticed it until she brought it up, but then it hit me. The smell will be noticeable. Anyone we encounter will remember us, and our escape depends upon being unremarkable.
“Shit.”
Sarah drops her bag and sprints up the stairs.
“Sixty seconds and I’ll be out of the shower. You’re next.”
I follow her up the stairs, not as quickly as she can move, but quick enough. I strip down in the hallway next to her pile of clothes and walk into the bathroom just as she steps out of the shower stall.
“The water is freezing.”
“I don’t care.”
It still takes my breath away. I am just rinsing when Sarah bursts back into the bathroom, still pulling her pants on.
“Mary, they’re coming!”
My body is still soapy, but I shut off the water, step out, and grab her still-damp towel from the counter where she left it.
“What?” I ask as she throws me new clothes from the hamper in the hall. They aren’t clean, but they are cleaner and smell better than the smoke-filled clothes on the floor.
“Two cars. Coming down the road from town.”
Cars never come down our dead-end road. There’s nothing here worth the gas. They must have seen the smoke.
They’re coming for us.
I slip my feet into my shoes, try to adjust the shirt sticking to my still-wet body, and then we run down the stairs. The cars have stopped up the road, and we can’t see any activity outside. That will change.
“Out the back,” I say, and we run through the kitchen, each grabbing a jacket from the hooks by the door. It’s still cold at night, and neither of us had time to dry off fully. As Sarah yanks open the door and starts out, I stop. Turning, I run back into the living room. Twenty seconds later, I join a confused Sarah in the backyard.
“What did you-”
“Shh. Let’s go,” I whisper.
Without another word, we walk through the yard and across the small field behind the house. Mrs. Crowe’s light is off, so the yard is dark. Maybe it’s not a signal after all. I want to run, but running might attract someone’s eye. Moving slowly may make us less noticeable. It might give us a few extra minutes.
Entering the woods, we stop and look back. We still aren’t safe, but at least the trees hide us from view. It’s a small comfort.
A loud crash startles us both.
“What was that?” Sarah asks quietly.
“The front door. They just broke it down.”
We move deeper into the woods, running now – stealth less important than distance. We are both comfortable in these woods, have walked them often enough that we know them, even in the dim moonlight. No sounds or flickering flashlights follow us yet; that will change. I hope that they won’t have dogs with them. Hope that we aren’t important enough for that, or that they don’t think it will be necessary for two women. Sometimes, you take what you can get.
Five minutes later, we reach the trailhead and stop. This is where we separate. My face is known to far too many people – years of teaching have made me visible in ways that will make a new identity impossible. I’ll go to the free states. Sarah has always worked in the shadows, and her skills are exactly what the Resistance needs in occupied territory, so she’ll stay.
“Mary,” she starts to whisper, but the look on my face makes her stop. “What?”
I look at her for another few seconds, then reach into my pocket and pull out the picture I had gone back into the house to grab. I hesitate; it’s the only picture of Robbie I have left – Robbie and Sarah the summer before he died. I can’t say they were always good times, but mostly they were, even as the world collapsed around us. The two of them being happy together was a welcome distraction from the rest of the madness. Giving it to Sarah and then saying goodbye will leave me with nothing but my memories. It will have to be enough.
“Sarah, honey. I need to tell you something.” She catches my use of “honey” and draws a sharp breath. I haven’t called her that since Robbie died.
I hand her the picture. Tears well in her eyes, and she sobs quietly.
“I never told you this, Sarah, and probably shouldn’t now, but I think Robbie would want you to know.”
I pause as her eyes flick between the picture and my face.
“Before he got sick, Robbie told me that he was going to propose to you.”
The tears flow freely now, and the quiet sobs grow louder. I step in and hug her tightly.
“Shh. It’s OK, it’s OK. Honey, he loved you more than life itself. You were his world.”
Her body shakes as she tries to hold in the anguish. Now I am not sure if I was right to tell her.
“Sarah, honey. I’m sorry, maybe I shouldn’t have-”
“No, no, I’m glad you did. It’s just – I loved him too, still love him. We had talked about marriage, but I never thought he was ready”
She leans into me again and continues to cry. I hold her tight and rub her back. When her breathing starts to calm down, I step back.
“Honey, here’s the thing, though. And I know this is strange coming from his mother, but you need to forget him.”
“I’ll never-”
“No, hear me out. I didn’t give you the picture to make you remember him. I gave you the picture to remind you of what we’ve all lost. Keep that fire in your belly. Remember why we fight. That’s why I gave you the picture.”
“But Robbie-”
“He’d understand, and he’d want this, too. Trust me. A mother knows her child.”
“I’ll never-”
I put my hand over her mouth to stop her.
“You will. Someday you’ll meet another man who makes you feel like Robbie did. When it happens, don’t fight it. More than most, you’ve earned the right to be happy.”
She pulls back a little and looks at me, not crying any longer, but on the cusp. Slowly, her face hardens ever so slightly.
“Thank you.”
We stand there hugging each other tightly. Neither of us want to let go, until we hear a noise and someone cursing. It’s faint, but clear. Our hunters have made it to the woods. I look at Sarah and kiss her on the forehead.
“Go,” I whisper. “Remember, count to ten before anything risky. If your gut isn’t comfortable at six, stop. Your subconscious noticed something – figure out what it was.”
She nods and gives me one last hug. Then we part and each head in our own direction. I fight the urge to look back until I hear a twig snap behind me. I turn just in time for Sarah to wrap her arms around me in a fierce hug.
“Thank you, for everything,” she whispers in my ear. “Mom.”
She turns and runs off, headed for her next chapter in the Resistance. I watch until she disappears in the dark then make my way towards the river, towards safety.
END
