Children of the Uprising by Trevor Shane
Christopher didn’t waste any time. He knew that any hesitation could lead to paralysis. “I’m leaving,” he said to Addy.
“What?” That was the only word Addy could find to respond. It was like Christopher had sucker-punched her.
“I’m leaving,” Christopher repeated, “tonight. I wanted you to know. I want you to take care of Evan.”
“I don’t understand,” Addy said.
“I don’t understand either, but you want me to be a leader so I need to start making my own decisions sometime, right?”
“So leaving is your own decision?” Addy asked, hinting that she understood more than she possibly could.
“I don’t know,” Christopher said. “I think it is—more than staying would be anyway.”
Addy stood there, silently, swaying on her feet as if she might topple over. Christopher had never seen her like that before. He’d done more damage to her than if he had punched her in the stomach. She looked dazed. She looked at him, her eyes shiny with tears. “You can’t go. You can’t leave us. You can’t leave me.”
“Promise me that you’ll take care of Evan.”
Addy pursed her lips. She felt vulnerable, like a child. She thought that maybe if she didn’t promise him, he wouldn’t leave.
“Promise me, Addy,” Christopher begged, though they both knew that he was asking for more than what his words implied. He was asking for her forgiveness too.
“You know that I’ll watch over him,” Addy said, finally promising. “Is that why you’re leaving?”
“No.” Christopher managed to force out a smile. “I’m happy for the two of you. I’m just sorry that I’m not the person you thought I was.”
“You don’t need to give up yet,” Addy whispered, her voice cracking as she spoke. “None of us are who we will become.”
Christopher wondered why Addy never asked him where he was going. He didn’t understand that it was not something you asked people in Addy’s world. Where you were going was never anyone’s business but your own, even if you were the Child. “Please try to wait as long as you can before you tell anyone I’ve gone.” That was Christopher’s one last request of Addy. “You’re the only one who knows.” Then he turned and began walking away. When he’d made it all the way to the door leading outside, he took one look back at Addy. She hadn’t moved. “I hope we will see each other again,” he said to her. Addy only nodded in response, not believing that it was possible. Then he was gone.
It’s possible that Brian and Christopher passed the SWAT cars on the road as their car raced away from the compound and the SWAT cars raced toward it. If they did, neither Brian nor Christopher noticed. They were already out of California when the first of the rebels hit the ground, struck down by a well-aimed bullet while trying to escape a burning building.
Donald and the others waited silently until they couldn’t see any more movement inside the dilapidated old building. The place didn’t look like much. It was one story, spread out over a barren stretch of brown dirt. Most the windows were still in place, but they were caked with mud. If Donald had known his assignment, he would have guessed that the building was just a way station for squatters. Hell, for all he knew, it was. For all he knew, the whole story about the domestic terrorists was one big lie meant to get them there, meant to give them cover to have the innocents help them find the Child as he hid himself among a bunch of L.A. street kids. Seeing the clearly defenseless, dirty building, Donald began to wonder what the other cops and agents were thinking, the ones who didn’t know the real reason why they were there, the ones who saw the picture of the Child and figured he was some punk that needed to be taught a lesson. Donald wondered if he would be gullible enough to believe that they were amassing this much firepower to nab some punk kid if he were in their shoes.
They camped out on the other side of the highway until the building fell quiet, staking the place out with long-range binoculars, making sure that they were far enough away that nobody in the building would be able to see them through the darkness. It was late by the time things settled down. By the time they were given their orders to move, they’d already been waiting by the side of the road for more than two hours. The tension had been rising since they’d pulled off the highway, gotten out of their SWAT cars, and begun to check their weapons. Now they were chomping at the bit, ready to move, ready to attack. If any of them had had any hesitation before, it died a quiet death on the side of the highway. “Time to roll, boys,” the team leader said, motioning for the first wave to get in place.
Donald was in the first wave with the other two pyros. Four sharpshooters and two grunts accompanied them. Initially, the sharpshooters and the grunts were only there for cover. They had the place pretty well mapped out. They knew where the entry points and exit points were. They knew where three pyros needed to be to make their equipment count. The two grunts took the first spots in the line. They moved up quickly, like lead blockers, getting into position so that they could defend against any ground-based counterattacks. Then the sharpshooters moved into place, each one roughly equidistant from the next so that they could cover the entire front of the building. The pyros moved into place last, taking their positions between the sharpshooters and the grunts.
Donald took his spot on the far right-hand side. Once in position, he knelt down and removed four canisters from his backpack. One was already loaded into his launcher. Each of the pyros had five canisters. With that equipment, each one of them could have burned down the whole building by themselves. Together, they could have burned down half a town. It wasn’t merely about burning the place down, though. It was about speed. It was about generating heat and fear and panic.
Donald rechecked the preloaded canister to make sure there were no issues. He would have to manually reload after each shot, but he could do that in under a minute. He was supposed to hit two rooms with two shots each. The fifth canister was in case he missed with one of the first four, but he never missed. If he landed the first two shots, he was supposed to shoot the fifth canister onto the roof. The canisters weren’t meant to explode. They were meant to start fires. Shortly after being shot, they sprayed out a potent liquid in all directions, some mixture of diethyl ether and gasoline that was meant to catch fire easily and then burn hot and long. Once the canister sprayed out its contents, it would combust. The explosion wouldn’t be enough to do any damage on its own. It was merely enough to ignite the fire, but once the fire started, it would be almost impossible to stop. Anything the liquid touched would burn to a cinder.
Donald aimed his weapon at the first window and waited for the signal.
Everyone but Addy was asleep. She was in bed, but she couldn’t fall asleep. Her head was too full of questions. What were they going to do now that Christopher was gone? How would they keep everybody going? What would they say? What was she going to tell Evan? She lay still, forcing herself not to toss and turn. She didn’t want to risk waking up the other women in the room. She didn’t want to have to talk to them. So she kept her body still but her mind was running. She couldn’t stop that. She saw Christopher’s face over and over, all different versions of it—his face when Max first led him into Reggie’s compound, his face when he first saw Addy walk out of the bathroom with her red hair, his face after Max was killed, his face right before he walked out the door. She wondered if she should have learned more from all those faces.
Addy was still awake when the window in their room shattered, spraying glass everywhere. The other three women were asleep when it happened. They woke up to the sounds of shattering glass and the feel of shards cutting their skin. Nobody, not even Addy, knew what it was that had broken the glass. Then the spray came.
The spray was clear and almost odorless, but they still all knew to try to avoid it. They moved quickly, ducking behind furniture or blocking the spray with blankets, but everything was happening so quickly. Not all of them moved fast enoug
Addy was still staring at Ruth when the fire started. None of them had moved. They were still too surprised and shocked to realize what was happening. They heard noises from the other rooms, feet rustling and mumbled voices. Their room didn’t ignite first. Addy heard it happen in one of the other rooms first. She heard the whooshing sound of air being sucked out of the room as the fire lit and began devouring the room’s oxygen. That’s when she realized what the liquid was. She watched as Ruth lifted up her hand to wipe a few more drops of the liquid away from her eyes. Everything appeared to be happening slowly. Then Addy saw the shimmering light of the four small flames that jumped from the canister. Then she felt the heat. Then she heard the whoosh in their room. Then she heard the screaming. Addy looked away from Ruth as Ruth clutched at her own skin, peeling away from her body. It was quick. It was far from painless, but it was quick. Once the screaming stopped, all that was left was the smell.
The woman who had gotten some of the spray on her pants had managed to get her pants off but not before her leg had been badly burned and when she pulled off her pants, some of the liquid got on her hands. Addy felt sick. She wanted to help but knew there was nothing she could do. Instead, she ran out of the room. The whole building was already quickly filling with smoke. When she got into the hallway, she dropped down to her hands and knees. Then she heard the first of the gunshots.
Donald watched as the flames grew. He’d gotten all four of his canisters into the building and landed his fifth on the roof. Another canister landed on the roof shortly after his. Then the third. All three of the pyros had been perfect. Twelve canisters had made it into the building. It was overkill. Donald knew it. He didn’t worry about that, though. What he worried about was that the body of the Child would be unrecognizable if he got caught in the fire. He wondered if the leadership had thought about that, if they had the Child’s dental records or something else they could identify his body with. He guessed it wasn’t his problem, though. He knew that he was merely a tool. And rules were rules. And orders were orders. And he wasn’t the type to rock the boat.
Donald was watching when the first of them tried to run out the door. The irony was that it was the fire that gave the sharpshooters the light they needed. Even those that escaped the flames couldn’t escape the light. The first one came running out. He stood out, a black shadow against the brightness. He made it three steps before he was gunned down. The bullets came from all over, from at least three different directions. The first one was always that way. Everyone was so eager. A pattern would develop soon, though, with the sharpshooters taking turns so that no one escaped through the gaps. If someone did get through the gaps, that’s what the grunts were for. They had guns too. Some carried handguns, some rifles, but their job was to catch the overflow. The second runner came and only two guns went off this time, cutting him down nearly on top of the first.
Donald put his equipment down and scurried back to the highway. While he wasn’t planning on doing any shooting, he did want to pick up a rifle so he could be useful if they needed him. Besides, he wondered what type of rewards could be in store for the man who shot the Child. The gunfire continued to echo around him as he scrambled back up the hill. It sounded eerily like a fireworks display, one with all the noise and none of the beauty.
The only thing Addy could think about when she hit the floor, dodging the billowing smoke, was finding Evan. She tried to tell herself that it was all because of the promise she’d made to Christopher. She tried to tell herself that her actions, ignoring the screaming and pandemonium around her to search for Evan, were still being done for the sake of the cause. She knew where Evan’s room was and she made her way toward it, hoping that she would find more than a charred body. She was confused when she first heard the gunshots, but she had to crawl past the front door to get to Evan’s room. People were already standing inside the door waiting. It quickly became clear to Addy what was going on. They were trying to time their runs out the door so that at least a few of them might escape the gunfire. Addy didn’t know the odds of escaping, but she knew that they couldn’t be good. She heard another volley of gunfire as she crawled down the hallway. She turned away from the front door and, with each sound of gunfire, knew that another one of her friends was being cut down. She wanted to care about each one of them. She did care about each one of them; she just didn’t have time to care about them then.
When Addy finally found Evan, he was lying on the floor beneath the smoke, calling out Christopher’s name. Of course, nobody answered him because no one was there to answer. Christopher was gone. But only Addy knew that, and now wasn’t the time to be telling secrets. Now was the time to run.
The building had three doors. Two faced the highway and one was on the building’s southern side. All three of the doors were covered. No one could get out of one of those doors without facing the gunfire of trained professionals. Donald found a spot high on the hill. He took out a pair of binoculars so that he could try to catch glimpses of the faces of the people as they ran out of the building. He checked every face, trying to spot the Child. The sharpshooters were working quickly and efficiently. Every single person that Donald saw run out a door was cut down before escaping the red glow of the building. Donald saw a lot of them, but he didn’t see the one that he was looking for. The flames grew higher and soon the whole hillside was glowing orange except for the dark spaces that were filled with shadows. Donald remained diligent even though he didn’t really expect to see Christopher. He didn’t expect to have to be a hero. He didn’t expect that he’d be the first one to spot the new plume of smoke pouring out one of the side windows.
Donald knew enough about fire to know what that meant. He knew that somebody had broken through the window. “The side,” he shouted to the sharpshooters. “Watch the side.” Those who were the closest peppered the wall near the window with gunfire, but their angle was poor and because of that, their accuracy was lacking. Donald began to run so that he could get a clear view of the window. One of the grunts followed him but was slow. The plans they had didn’t show any windows on that side of the building, but there was a window and somebody had broken through it and Donald was the first one to spot them.
They threw something out of the window first. It was darker on this side of the building so Donald couldn’t tell exactly what it was, but it looked like a small piece of furniture. The falling piece of furniture was met with another rip of gunfire, but the sharpshooters still didn’t have the angle necessary to connect with their target. Donald lifted the binoculars in time to see a person with shoulder-length, unnaturally red hair jump out the window. A second later, another person jumped out. Donald got a good look at this one’s face. It was a boy. It wasn’t the Child, but it was a boy of about the same age. The two jumpers hit the ground. The first one pulled the second one to his feet and they stood up and ran.
Donald moved his binoculars back to the one with the red hair. Maybe if he could get a good look at the redhead’s face, he could rule out the idea that the red hair was part of a disguise. Then, knowing that neither of the runners was
Evan and Addy ran up the hill toward the highway, veering away from their attackers. Addy chose the direction. She knew that they would have been sitting ducks if they had run the other way. They would have been right in the snipers’ sights, glowing beneath the light from the fire. Since they were going this way, the men with the guns would have to turn away from the burning building to see them. She tried to ignore the periodic snare drum of the gunfire. She only concentrated on running. None of the snipers shot at them, but they weren’t in the clear yet. Addy spotted two men who had broken off from the rest—two men chasing them. One was far in front of the other. They both wore LAPD SWAT uniforms and the one in the front was quickly gaining on them.
Donald ran. He ran as fast as he could. He was gaining on them. He looked back to see that the grunt who had been following him was falling farther and farther behind. Donald could hardly blame him. The odds were that all the glory was back at the fire, not chasing these two kids into the night. But the possibility was still there. Donald knew that the possibility was there.
Donald looked up. He was close now. He might have been able to stop and aim his rifle, but he wasn’t a trained sharpshooter. If he tried it and missed, they’d escape for sure. Besides, he hadn’t come all this way to shoot a couple of random kids. He wanted to be sure first. So he kept running up the hill. The one with the dark hair was running in front. The redhead, the one that Donald really wanted, was trailing behind him. Donald knew that he had to reach them before they got to the top of the hill because once they crested the hill, they’d be able to disappear. Donald drew some air into his lungs, preparing to shout out, ordering them to stop. He didn’t know if it would work. He didn’t know if the sound of his voice would scare them enough to make them hesitate or if it would make them run faster. Whatever the consequences, Donald was prepared to try. Before he could, it happened. The redhead tripped on a dead root and fell to the ground right in front of him. That gave him the boost that he needed. He found it in himself to speed up and cleared the distance between him and the redhead in seconds.