Gloria sat on the porch outside one of the many identical homes. She was staring intently at the large building directly across the street from her. They called it school. She preferred the term prison. Or brain-washing facility, either way.

If she squinted she could almost see where she had scribbled the word "Jail" back in kindergarten. Ah...my first crime against society... She remembered how she had leaned out the second story window as her teacher taught the other children to spell and whatnot. She had taken a red crayon from somebody sitting next to her, a real tattle-tale, what was his name again? Christopher? She couldn't remember the details very clearly. She had taken the crayon and marked the wall, J-A-L-E. Jale. Of course, she had wrote it facing herself so from this point it would be upside down.

It was too high up for them to paint over, or even notice. People kept their eyes to the ground around here.

But she was here on a mission, not to reminise. She peeled her eyes off the building and tried to focus on the task at hand. She had to get one of those students to come back with her, for the sake of The Undergrounders. She had to show them what the peacemaker could do. Had to demonstrate that The Underground was the only way if they wanted to lead a free life.

Most of them had been born in out there, blissfully unaware of the blissfully unaware. Gloria intended to change that. After all, you have to know your enemy. Especially if you intend to fight.

She remembered the conversation that lead her here in the first place....

"Gloriaaaaa!!! Is there anything over theeeeere???" a bouncy 7 year old asked, pointing with chubby fingers to the horizon.

:Trees, rocks, bugs, oh and.....BOOGEYMEN!" Gloria made a face in imitation of the monster and proceded to tickle the little girl.

"Ah! Glo! Cut it out!" the girl laughed, "No! I meant over theeere! After the forest! Over there, see??" She took Gloria's hand in hers and pointed it at some buildings off in the distance. "See?? What's there??"

Gloria looked out and saw it. Suburbia.

Full of heartless buildings and their mindless residents. Where those who succumbed to the peacemaker lived. Sparkling clean streets and neatly manicured lawns hallmarked it a "utopia". If that was your sense of the word. Controlled, indifferent, uncaring, just on the edge of comunistic. Pshh...utopia my ass!

"That's where They live." Gloria said coldly, trying to keep the hateful words from slipping.

"They?" the little girl quizzed.

"The peacemaker, the ones we're fighting against....and their hostages." She added the last bit dramatically.

"Hostages? What's that?"

An older boy, about 11 or so, walked up. He flicked blonde hair out of his face and then addressed the little girl. "It means they have people there. Innocent people."

The girl looked confused, "That's silly! People live here! Not there!"

Gloria and the boy exchanged a look of worry.

"Girlie...how many people think thats true?" Gloria asked tentavily.

The answer was shocking. Nearly every undergrounder thought there was no life but their own. It would make sense, since over half the residents were children, born and raised there. But why hadn't the adults told their kids? What good was it? Without knowledge, they were powerless.

"Meeting. Now." Gloria had commanded.

She called herself out from her memories and sighed. "Now here i am, loitering around the 'burbs, waiting to essentially kidnap one of their sheep."

She stood up and walked down a couple side streets, looking for a way to distract herself while she waited for the school bell to ring. Loose change jingled in her pockets with her step, as did the various tools she had brought to assist her kidnapping. She sounded like a one-man band as she walked past the hospital.

Ahh...no where to go...wait...an alley? Cool.

She gingerly crossed the street, careful to make sure she hadn't attracted an audience with her noise. No...guess they're all at work...

Checking both ways for officers, she pulled a can of black spray paint from uinder her worn jacket. She sprayed a little in the air and smelled it, "mmm..." she mumbled, barely audible. She then took to the nearest wall and graffitti'd aimlessly, wasting time untill she could complete her mission.