Children of the Uprising by Trevor Shane
“Can I tell you a secret?” Christopher asked Maria. Though she’d had a chance to answer only one of his questions, he already felt that he could tell her things he couldn’t tell anyone else.
“Of course.”
“I hate everyone. I hate everyone involved in this stupid War. I even hate the people who are fighting against it. I hate them all.”
“No, you don’t,” Maria told him. “You want to, but you don’t. I was the same way. I wanted to hate all of them except your father. Then I met Michael. Then I met Dorothy and Reggie. Pretty soon, you only hate the ones that you don’t know, and that means that you don’t really hate any of them at all.”
“So, after everything you’ve been through, you don’t hate any of them?” Christopher asked.
“Only one,” she said. “But now’s not the time to talk about him.” I want to talk about you, Maria thought. I want to talk about you being done with all of this. Fighting the War is just another part of the War. But now wasn’t the time for that either. She needed to gain his trust first. She needed to be patient. She knew that she wasn’t to Christopher what he was to her. The problem was that she didn’t have a lot of time. So she had to make the most of the time she had. “You must have other questions for me,” she said. “You can ask me anything.” So Maria answered all of Christopher’s questions as best she could. Evan and Addy didn’t get to see him again for another five hours.
Fifty-six
Dave had never been up this high on the Brooklyn Bridge before. He’d crossed the bridge countless times, of course, and as a kid, he’d even snuck up onto the cables a couple of times, but he ran up only a few feet before getting scared and climbing down again. He’d never dreamt that one day he would be sitting on the top of one of the towers, strapping explosives to its side.
He wasn’t the only one. They were all over the city that night, scrambling up its bridges and towers. The George Washington Bridge. The Manhattan Bridge. The Williamsburg Bridge. The Verrazano-Narrows Bridge. The top of the Flatiron Building. The top of the Chrysler Building. The top of the Empire State Building. Even the top of the arch in Washington Square Park.
Dave looked down at the black water flowing far below him. He watched the reflection from the city’s lights glisten off the waves. It looked like there were stars twinkling deep beneath the water. Then Dave lifted his head and looked at the real thing, staring out over the city. To Dave, the city looked magical at night. He’d always felt that way. The utter impossibility of it all amazed him. He wasn’t going to pass up the one chance he’d probably ever have to see the city from his perch high above the East River. He felt like Spider-Man, for Christ’s sake.
“Dave?” Dave suddenly heard a shouted whisper drift up from beneath him. “Are you ready or what?” Hector called up from about twenty feet below Dave. Hector was sitting on one of the cables, strapped into a piece of nylon rope with a carabiner on its end. A forty-pound box of explosives dangled in the air beneath him.
“Yeah. Hook it up,” Dave called to Hector before throwing down one end of about thirty feet of rope. Hector held on to the cable he was sitting on with one hand and reached out into the dark, empty space with his other, catching the end of the rope. Cars drove over the bridge below them. Hector and Dave could hear their engines and see their lights. A few late-night couples and tourists—the true romantics—were still walking across the bridge. All of them were blissfully unaware of what was going on over their heads. Hector took the end of the rope that Dave had thrown down to him and tied it to the box of explosives.
“Here it goes,” Hector shouted up to Dave. Dave nodded and braced himself. Then Hector let go of the box. The box swung through the empty night air. Dave waited until it stopped swinging, until it hung loose below him, and then he started pulling on the rope. It took five minutes for him to pull the box out of the darkness and onto the ledge where he was sitting. By the time he had pulled the box to the top, Hector had managed to climb to the top as well. Dave and Hector had climbed up almost the entire way in these fits and starts, pulling the box of explosives behind them. They started out on the footpath, carrying the box up from Brooklyn. Then they waited for a moment free of strangers. It was late, well past midnight, so the foot traffic on the bridge was intermittent. Once they found the right moment, Dave jumped onto the base of one of the thick cables and, as quickly as he could, scrambled up high enough that nobody on the bridge would think he was anything other than a strangely shaped shadow. Then he dropped the rope for Hector to attach to the explosives and they were on their way. It took them more than an hour to get all the way to the top of the tower. They might have been able to go faster, but once they’d disappeared into the shadows, they’d taken their time. Neither of them was in a rush to finish their job.
“If I’d known it was this easy to get up here, I would have tagged the shit out of this thing when I was a kid,” Hector said to Dave as he sat down next to him. They dangled their legs over the tower’s edge and looked at the city together. They could see everything from their secret perch. Without saying anything, both of them began taking a mental inventory of the targets, imagining that the people assigned to each of the other targets were doing the same thing at that moment. They were close enough to the Manhattan Bridge that they thought they might be able to see their counterparts climbing through its cables. The Williamsburg Bridge wasn’t too far north of that. The East River was going to be a disaster area. The Verrazano-Narrows Bridge stood small in the distance to the south, but they could still see its lights towering over the water. They could even almost see the George Washington Bridge all the way on the other side of Manhattan. And then there was Manhattan, riddled with buildings being targeted. “You know P. T. Barnum once marched twenty-one elephants across this bridge just to prove that it wouldn’t collapse,” Hector said to Dave as they sat dangling their feet in the empty air.
“Yeah?” Dave answered.
“That was like a hundred years ago.”
“I guess it didn’t collapse?”
“Nope.”
“A hundred years is a long time,” Dave said to Hector.
“Do you think what we’re doing is crazy?” Hector asked Dave as he stared at the hundreds of thousands of lights on in the windows of tens of thousands of buildings.
“Yeah,” Dave said to Hector, “but sometimes you’ve got to fight crazy with crazy. You ready to hook this shit up?” Dave motioned towards the black box.
“Let’s do it,” Hector said.
The contents of the box had been prearranged. All Hector and Dave had to do was line it up properly and tie it down so that it wouldn’t shift in the wind. It was set to detonate via remote control. Somewhere in the city, somebody had a button. Dave looked out over the city one last time when they were almost done. “You think that there’s one button that sets everything off at once?”
Hector tightened the last knot holding the box in place. “That would be one serious fucking button,” he said, looking over their handiwork. “Let’s get out of here.”
The two of them climbed back down the bridge’s cables. When they were close to the bottom they pulled the hoods of their sweatshirts back up over their heads. Then they waited for a moment when no one was looking and they slipped off the cables and back into the flow of people walking over the bridge.
Fifty-seven
Brian and Jared didn’t meet in Battery Park this time. They had too much to discuss to do it out in the open. Brian wasn’t about to invite Jared back to the compound either, not with Christopher and Maria there. Brian and Reggie were all too aware of the powder keg they were building. It wasn’t only that, though. Reggie still wasn’t confident that they could trust Jared. They were doing their best to have people shadow Jared, to watch him. The problem was that none of those people had the access that Jared had. He was the only one who could get them where they needed to be. The people watching Jared d
“Does it have to be so messy?” Brian asked after Jared relayed the whole plan to him. Brian looked down at the papers that Jared had prepared. Jared had been careful not to give Brian anything too detailed. He had to make sure that they still needed him. If they wanted the plan, they were going to have to take him with it.
Jared took a swig from his beer. He wiped the foam off his lips with the back of his hand. “Did you guys really think that you were going to be able to end the War without getting your hands dirty?”
“But this is all over the city. These are innocent people.” Brian looked at the map Jared had given him with each of the targets marked.
Jared laughed. “You’re supposed to be rebels. You’re not bound by the rules. If you were, Christopher wouldn’t be a hero. He’d be shunned.”
“It’s not about the rules,” Brian said, shaking his head. “It’s about innocent people getting hurt.”
Jared’s frustration began to come through in his voice. “I think you and I have different definitions of what innocent means. You know as well as I do that the willful blindness of these ‘innocent people’ is the whole reason why the War has lasted as long as it has.” Jared waited for Brian to say something. When he didn’t, Jared lost his patience. “Fine,” he said in answer to Brian’s silence. “You guys can do what you want. But this plan”—Jared poked the papers on the table—“is the only way to be sure that this is going to work. If we don’t distract them with chaos, if we don’t light this city up, then all those innocent people that you’re worried about protecting are going to come down on us and they’re going to come down hard. Do you know what that means?” Jared asked Brian, rolling now like he hadn’t in years.
“What?” Brian deadpanned, knowing full well that he was being used as the straight man.
“It means that we don’t destroy the Intelligence Center because we don’t have time. It means that the War limps on and all the work that you guys have done will have been for nothing. Worse, after your little rebellion ends, the War will get stronger. If you fail this time, no one is going to follow you again because they’ll have lost faith in what Christopher represents and there’s never going to be another Christopher. The War won’t allow it. And all that to save a few people whose only saving grace is that they were born of parents lucky enough to not be part of the War. Is that what you want?”
Brian leaned back in his chair. He took a sip of his beer. It was dark and bitter. “No,” Brian answered.
“Who’s making the call here?” Jared asked, pulling the papers back from Brian, unwilling to let him keep even the generic stuff.
“Reggie,” Brian answered.
“What about the kid? What about Christopher?”
“He’s already done enough.”
Jared laughed. “Are you telling me that the kid doesn’t have any say in his own revolution?”
“He’s still just a kid.”
Jared paused, not sure if now was the right time to make his demand. He thought maybe he should wait for Brian to take the plan back to Reggie. Maybe then Jared would have more leverage. But he decided not to wait. He picked up his beer and knocked back the third of a glass that was left in two gulps. Then he set the glass on the table and stared at Brian. “Did you know that I was the one that fired you when you used to handle Joseph?”
“I had my suspicions,” Brian answered.
“I thought you were a bad influence on him. I thought you were making him soft.”
“I wasn’t making him anything.”
“Yeah, I know.” Jared motioned to the waitress for another beer. “It was Maria, but I didn’t know that then. And then the kid came along.”
“Where are you going with all of this, Jared?” Brian asked, beginning to lose his own patience. He didn’t have the type of time that Jared had.
Jared stared down at the table. “I want to meet Christopher,” he said.
“No way.” Brian shook his head.
“You don’t even have to tell him it’s me,” Jared bargained. “I just want to see what all the fuss is about.”
“Why would we let you anywhere near Christopher with your history? We’re not even sure if we can trust you yet.”
“You can trust me, Brian. Because you’re trying to erase history, and nobody has more reason to want history erased than I do.”
“I’ll talk to Reggie, but I wouldn’t get your hopes up.” Brian stood up. “I’ll be in touch,” he said. Then he walked away.
Jared remained in the booth. He finished his beer. When he was done, he ordered another one.
Fifty-eight
Everything was going fine until the lights went out. Christopher was talking to Alejandro when the room went dark. Alejandro reacted quickly to the darkness, pushing Christopher into a corner and putting his body in front of Christopher’s to shield him from whatever it was that might be attacking them. Christopher moved without knowing what was happening. He couldn’t see anything. His body hit the wall after Alejandro pushed him and he turned around. When he turned around, the only thing that he could make out in the darkness was Alejandro’s back.
It wasn’t supposed to be this way. This was supposed to be the easy one. “No inquisition this time,” Reggie had promised Christopher. The Americas was supposed to be a foregone conclusion. Reggie set up a room in the back of the warehouse that was large enough to fit everybody. It was dangerous putting everyone in a single room in the middle of Brooklyn, but sometimes you have to balance risk and reward. The risks were high, but the way Reggie saw it, the rewards would be worth it. It was a show of confidence. If this night went well, the whole world would be united.
Christopher walked into the already full makeshift banquet room with Addy on his arm. She’d found him half an hour earlier, still getting ready for the evening. Reggie had asked Christopher to dress for the event—no tie, but a shirt with a collar and a sports coat. The only other time Christopher could remember wearing a sports coat was when he’d had to go to the funeral of a great-aunt. She died in her home at the age of eighty-two. At the time, Christopher didn’t even know people could live that long. Christopher put the jacket on and stared at himself in the mirror. The jacket was a little bit broad in the shoulders but was otherwise a good fit. Brian had had it delivered earlier that morning. He had estimated Christopher’s size. Christopher was still staring at himself in the mirror when he heard a knock near the entrance to the room he was given. Christopher thought it would be Reggie or Brian or maybe Evan or Maria. “Come in,” Christopher called out, staring at the reflection of the entrance to his room in the mirror.
Addy walked in. Christopher saw her in the mirror. Their eyes met in the reflection. She saw that Christopher was still getting ready. “Is it okay if I come in?” she asked.
“Of course,” Christopher answered. He and Addy hadn’t exchanged more than a few words since he’d gotten back. She’d deferred to Evan and Maria, knowing her small role in Christopher’s life.
“Big night,” Addy said as she stepped closer to Christopher.
“How so?” Christopher asked, watching her reflection move toward him, looking to see if she got his joke.
“This is it,” Addy said. “After tonight, everything is official.”
“Then I guess it is a big night,” Christopher agreed as he turned to face the real Addy.
“You look good,” Addy said, looking Christopher up and down. She stepped in front of him and reached out to fix the crease on one of his lapels.
Christopher was glad Addy had come to see him. He wanted to get something off his chest. “Listen, Addy,” Christopher started, “I wanted to te
“Promises,” Addy echoed with a playful lift of her eyebrows.
“Well, at least I didn’t know,” Christopher said. “I wouldn’t have left you guys if I’d known.”
“And then none of us would be here.” Addy laughed. “You don’t need to apologize to me and Evan. We’re on your side no matter what.”
Addy’s words were a relief to Christopher. “So, you and Evan, huh?”
“Yeah,” Addy said, adding coyly, “but you knew that before you left.”
“I did, but I didn’t know it was going to last.”
“I was the opposite.” Addy smiled. “I didn’t know it was going to happen, but as soon as it happened, I knew it was going to last.” Christopher caught a slight blush on her cheeks. “We didn’t mean anything by it, Christopher. If that’s why you left, I mean.”
“You and Evan don’t need to apologize to me. I’m happy for the two of you. I didn’t leave because of you.”
“Then why did you leave?”
“I don’t know. I got scared. I saw how all those people looked at me. I saw how you looked at me, and I knew that I couldn’t be the person that you all saw.”
“But look at you now,” Addy said, barely able to hide the thrill in her voice.
“It’s not what you think,” Christopher said. Addy hadn’t been in Indonesia or in Istanbul. She didn’t know that all Christopher did was tell the truth to people who’d been waiting for a long time to hear it. He wasn’t a hero. He didn’t do anything. By a fluke of circumstances, he was the only person that they would all listen to. He was still only a cog in the machine. But he didn’t want to debate that. He didn’t want to talk about himself at all. It wasn’t only because he still didn’t feel like a hero or a prophet or a leader. It was also because he didn’t want to be any of those things. After everything that had happened to him, after being paranoid his entire life only to have that paranoia justified, Christopher still hadn’t figured out what he wanted—other than for all of this to be over so that he could have the simple life that other people had. So he changed the subject. “So what’s next after all of this for you and Evan?”