Liberte et Egalite, Republic of San Magnolia
April 27th, Stellar Year 2142
It was two weeks before Lena could stand the sight of meat again.
Whenever she saw it, cooked or raw or carcass, she would be reminded of flames shining on unbroken snow. Even seeing a steak on someone else's plate was enough to send her there again, images flashing behind her eyes as clearly as she'd seen them the first time, red geyser and the raw wetness of a ragged stump and dead eyes once silver, shining orange. It was a comfort, at first, that meat was a rarity behind the Gran Mur. She could avoid it if she wanted to. And then she remembered Alice's words, and comfort became weakness.
Be the daughter he'd have been proud to raise.
Nobody would be proud of a daughter who got sick at something as trivial as meat.
It took two weeks before Lena could stand the sight of meat again. Tolerance did not come to her on its own. It took work.
She forced herself on walks past the fanciest restaurants in the 1st district, the only places luxurious enough to serve meat, and she would look in through the windows, and when she saw a steak being cut, or worse, being eaten, her stomach would churn with bitter acid. Her hands would shake and her breathing would quicken, vision blackening at the edges.
She would sit on the bench outside the only butcher shop in the Republic and stare pointedly at the butcher's blade as it cleaved through slabs of flesh. At every chop her eyes would water and the phantom ring of tinnitus would echo in her ears, the voice taunting her in her mind, it's so pretty! And she'd feel the scream build in her lungs, the electricity rocket through her nerves and before she knew it she was overwhelmed with the need to jump and run as fast as she could. To run, because she would never forget how much she hated herself for not being able to flee that night, as the Grauwolf came down upon her.
For the first two days the little girl made quite a sight to the Republic citizens enjoying their days out. To them, it would seem like Lena was biting back screams of terror at nothing at all, hyperventilating, then sprinting full-bore down the street. In the days after, Lena would will herself to walk instead of run, in order to maintain at least a semblance of control. Eventually, she could make herself sit still, only averting her eyes at the moment of the cut itself.
But that still wasn't enough.
She always came at the same time, in the early afternoon just after school let out. The shop was an easy detour from her walk home. On the fourteenth day she sat on the bench as she always did. The butcher was sluggish on Fridays, getting to work later and finishing it slower, so while she waited for him to come out of the backroom she let her eyes wander over the refrigerated display shelves. At the rows and rows of cut meat laid out there. Her lungs tightened. Her pulse grew louder, but she held one breath, forced herself to wait one-one thousand, two-one thousand, three-one thousand before she let it go.
And then she was okay again. Just seeing meat, if it was sitting still and untouched like that, was alright now. The memories came on strong, but there were no images anymore. Now she only got those at the moment of the cut itself.
As if the thought had summoned him, the butcher appeared. He pushed through a backroom door that had no handle. It swished on its hinges behind him as he slapped a slab of pork on his cutting board. Lena's hands tightened on her knees. She caught herself leaning back, inching away from the window, and stopped herself. She forced herself to lean forward instead. The butcher retrieved his largest knife. A bead of sweat formed on the little girl's forehead and stung its way down her pale skin.
He swept the blade down through the pork, separated fat and muscle. A sliced pad of meat sloughed down from the rest and Lena's eyes widened. Her vision narrowed, blurred at the edges. But of the meat itself, she could see all the details she never wanted to; the grainy texture, the lard marbling, the deeper red of the insides compared to the pink of the out. Her stomach trembled and her hands shook. She blinked and saw red behind her eyelids. Red lit with gold. Red shining in the fire.
The moment passed.
Lena breathed in, breathed out, and she was okay. She watched him cut the pork again, and another wave of revulsion shivered over her. But it was less than the last. He cut through again. And again. And again, until he was left with six neat steaks in a pile, nodding with satisfaction before he ambled back through the swishing backroom door for another piece to chop. Lena watched him butcher that as well. And the next after, until he noticed her watching and gave her an odd look. Only then did she decide to leave.
She hadn't looked away even once. That was a victory.
She felt… not good. Not even close to good. But she was okay, at least. And more importantly, she felt stronger.
She went home.
Mama greeted her at the door. She was always waiting there. Sometimes people came, visitors offering condolences or food or invitations to kinder places outside the house. The last, Mama would always receive with a warm smile that never touched her eyes, profuse thanks invariably giving way to polite refusal.
Years from now, this was the first image Lena would always see when she thought of her mother: the woman at the doorway, sitting on a chair perpetually faced toward the entrance, dressed in mourning-black silk and spiderweb lace, a book sometimes in her lap but often not, silver-blue eyes flitting up at Lena's arrival, a hollow smile slashed beneath them, before they looked back down at the door and stayed there, hanging, waiting forever for a husband who would not come home.
Lena passed by the ghost that would haunt her future with a token greeting. Her mind was preoccupied at the time.
—
May 2nd
".:So, Lena, how was school?:." Alice asked.
Her voice echoed inside Lena's head. She'd never felt anything else like it. It was almost scary the first time she turned on the Para-RAID and felt it connect to Rei on the other end, the way her skin prickled and grew sensitive, her ears resonating with sounds that seemed so close to her (crickets, when the city had none; strong wind, when the Gran Mur blocked all currents) that she could close her eyes and believe she was standing right beside her friends outside the wall.
".:School was fun! In science class we watched a movie about how the Earth formed. Did you know the planet was actually a big meteor once?:."
".:No, I didn't, actually:."
".:Well guess what, a super long time ago, there was ANOTHER big meteor that came, and it crashed into Meteor-Earth and bounced off and starting floating around it. And guess what, that other meteor became the moon!:."
".:Wow!:."
".:Yeah! Super cool, huh?:."
Any day the sky was clear, Lena would turn on the Para-RAID and wait for someone to connect. Someone always did. Sometimes it was Alice, sometimes it was Kaie, sometimes it was Rei or even some of his soldier-friends, like Sergeant Bernholdt. It was the Sergeant's Para-RAID they used to talk to her in the first place, swapping it around depending on whoever was in the base at the time.
Sometimes they talked about fun stuff, and sometimes they talked about boring stuff. Every now and then they talked about serious stuff. They did that a lot at first, when Lena's nightmares were strongest and it felt like she would never stop crying. To her, the important part was simply that they talked at all.
Rei was right; as long as she had the Para-RAID, she would never be alone.
Not for too long, anyway. On days where it was too cloudy or rainy, the Para-RAID would be unable to connect. Those were always the days that dragged the longest. Rei explained that there were 'hub' units that were larger, fitting around the neck instead of the cheek, and that those had a longer range and a steadier connection, meant for commanders and team leaders. But he hadn't brought any of them with him from the Empire.
That was another thing: Rei was from the Empire. When he told her that, Lena felt so giddy with excitement and wonder she was bouncing on her feet the whole day. She knew someone from the Empire! And he was her friend, too! School always told her the Empire was full of evil people who created the Legion to destroy the Republic - but Rei wasn't evil, and he helped fight the Legion. Having a friend like Rei was like knowing a secret no one else did, and of course it went without saying that she didn't tell anyone else about him.
Alice remained as unbelievably kind as she had been on that night, always listening when Lena needed to be listened to, making jokes when Lena needed to laugh. Sometimes it was like Alice knew her better than even she did.
Kaie was like the sister Lena never had. Some days she was quiet, and some days she was talkative. Lena looked forward to both, because when Kaie was quiet, sometimes Lena could just wear the Para-RAID while she was studying or reading or watching TV, and it would feel like they were in the same room, doing their respective things in comfortable silence. On her more talkative days Kaie would share stories from the 86th district, which Lena always found fun and exciting, sometimes deeply sad and sometimes ugly, but never, ever boring.
It hurt, not seeing Papa come home from work every day.
She missed the tired look on his face, long hair frayed at the edges, mouth curled in a tense frown but always turning up into a smile when he saw her. It was like a piece of ice shooting through her chest every day when she came home and saw Mama sitting in the same chair facing the doorway, wearing that sad, empty smile like a pale imitation of Papa's.
It hurt. She felt like it would always hurt. But having her friends helped.
—
May 13th
A month passed since that night.
Some things changed. A lot of others stayed the same. Mama stopped sitting in the chair, which made Lena found a relief. Her smile was still hollow, her eyes still faraway whenever she looked at her. Papa really was like the sun in their family. Now that he was gone, it was like their house had frozen over, and Mama's heart most of all.
Lena knew that Mama still loved her, but somewhere between feeling it and showing it, something was broken, and Lena wasn't sure if it could ever be fixed.
In the frozen-still world of her house, it was comforting to know that things outside were changing. Her 86 friends were doing something big. Lena wasn't told any of the really fun details (".:-you're too young, Lena, you wouldn't get it anyway:." Kaie said one day, to which Lena pouted, pointing out that Kaie, per her own words, was only two years older than her), but she knew that what they were doing could change all of the 86th district. Maybe even the whole world.
".:I've been doing a lot of traveling, a lot of training, and whole lot of nothing else:." Rei complained one day, stretching out his shoulder in languid circles. Lena found herself mimicking the gesture on her end. The shared senses created a kind of… phantom-weirdness, like a sense that her arm was moving when it wasn't. Mimicking helped.
".:Alice says there's only three more bases left, then I'll have visited every squadron in the Eastern Ward:."
".:Really? What're you doing that for?:."
A pause on the other end. Rei was probably considering if he should answer or not, which made Lena feel just a little bit lonely. They were friends, weren't they? Why shouldn't she be allowed to know what they were doing?
".:I'm getting to know some of the other 86:." Rei said cautiously. ".:And I guess you could say they're getting to know me:." Another pause. Change of subject. ".:And after that I get to go north, where all the swamps are. Doesn't that sound like fun, Lena?:."
".:Kinda, actually:."
The night Papa died was the only time Lena had ever been beyond the Gran Mur. There had always been a part of her that wanted to explore and see the world outside her narrow sphere, and in some ways it had been murdered by what happened that night. But in others it lived on, changed irrevocably, but still no less alive.
Rei laughed. It was a rich, warm sound. ".:You wouldn't be saying that if you knew what it was like to drive a Juggernaut. Imagine stuffing yourself in a closet with a metal folding chair and three fuzzy screens, and then imagine an earthquake at the same time, and you've just about got it:."
".:That sounds scary!:."
".:It is, at first. After awhile it just gets annoying:." He sighed. There was a pause. A longer one than normal, giving Lena the sense that he was hesitating over something.
".:What's wrong, Rei?:."
She felt Rei's surprise through the Para-RAID.
".:Seen through by you of all people, huh? Am I really that transparent?:." He laughed. It sounded like he was laughing at himself. ".:It was just a question that came to me. But I don't even think I should ask it, you're just a kid:."
Lena frowned severely. She was getting pretty tired of being called a kid. Maybe she was young, but she still knew things.
".:Just ask me anyway, I might know. I get pretty good grades!:."
She felt Rei smiling gently on the other end.
".:Well alright then, smarty-pants, tell me, how does the Republic communicate with the 86?:.
".:Alice says the Republic has Handlers that coordinate with each squadron. But she didn't have an answer when I asked how they could talk to each other when all the radio waves are jammed more often than not. Just shrugged and said nobody really knew:."
Lena frowned. She frowned harder when she sensed Rei giving a grin on the other end - a kind of, 'ha, told you so' grin that she found very annoying.
".:Okay, I don't know. But I bet my teacher does. I'll ask him in class tomorrow, and then I can tell you. How about that?:."
".:Oh that's alright. Don't worry about it, I didn't expect you would know anyway-:."
".:I'm gonna!:." she declared, voice inflecting an octave higher. ".:And that's that. I can be useful too, you know!:."
Rei gave another gentle smile. Lena relaxed a bit when she sensed it, her voice smoothing out again as she continued. ".:You guys are doing something important. I know it. Nobody tells me any details, but I can still tell. I wanna help too. Even if it's just answering random questions:."
".:You're still young, Lena. You shouldn't have to worry about being 'useful':."
".:But I want to:." she protested.
Rei paused again. More hesitation on the other end.
".:Alright. That question has been bothering me a little bit, lately. It would be nice to know. But don't get yourself in trouble, okay?:."
Lena beamed.
".:I won't let you down, Rei!:."
—
May 14th
Lena did manage to find the answer to that question for him, though it ended up being a lot more trouble than just asking her teacher. Because her teacher didn't know. He said some nonsense about there being no need for communication, because the Processors in each Juggernaut were just that - processing computers that acted entirely on their own, and could not be communicated with in the way she had implied.
Obviously that was wrong, but when Lena tried to argue with him about it, the teacher gave her a stern look that warned her of detention or worse if she kept at it. She wanted to keep arguing anyway - because it wasn't just factually wrong to call the Processors non-human, it was cruel. But she couldn't afford a detention. Rei had asked her for help. He needed the answer to that question, and she couldn't find it if she wasted the last couple school-hours in detention. Today would be the only clear-weather day in at least a week! She couldn't make him wait that long.
Besides, he told her not to get in trouble.
So Lena bit her tongue, and the teacher seemed pleased with that. He sent her off to her own devices, and she promptly hurried to the library. She told the volunteer on duty that she could take over for her, and once the girl was gone, Lena used her newfound privacy to hunt through every inch of the library.
She sifted through technical books and war manuals (these, she found buried in the darker, dustier corners. They likely weren't meant to be in a children's library, but had probably brought there for storage and then forgot about) until she found what she was looking for.
The answer to Rei's question was fiber-optic cables. There was a whole underground relay of them that started in the 1st District's War-Command Center, where all the Handlers went to work. The cables then stretched out to the north, east, south, and west to four centralized bunkers in the Gran Mur, one for each of the defensive Wards, and then spanned out again to all the Processors' bases in the 86th district.
Radio-waves could be jammed, but transmissions sent through solid fiber-optics could not. Or so Lena was told by the Handler's guidebook she found buried at the bottom of a box of archived magazines. This allowed Handlers to give general orders to their drones from afar, so long as the drones were at their base to receive them. Orders such as what points to deploy to, what weapons to equip, how many units to field. But once they left the base's communication lines, the autonomous drones acted on their own initiative to assure victory.
Lena was confused as she read through. Her teacher being wrong was one thing, but even all the books about the war were calling the 86 'drones' instead of people. She began to wonder, perhaps for the first time, why everyone in the Republic had silver eyes when Alice and Kaie and Rei had black. So she tried to get history books from before the Legion War, but every one she found only went on about how the Colorata were pigs that had failed to evolve into people, how they weren't even human. There was no mention whatever that the Colorata and the 'Processors' that piloted the Juggernauts were one and the same, but also no denial of it.
How could everything be so wrong? Hadn't anyone ever seen the 86 outside of their Juggernauts? Seen that they were just as human as anyone else?
Maybe not. Maybe she really was the only living citizen of the Republic to have seen an 86. Maybe if others learned the truth they could band together to stop all the cruelty. They could try to make up for what had already been done, win back the forgiveness of the 86. Maybe the Alba could even join the fight themselves.
Then everyone could stand united to defeat the Legion.
That day, when Lena found an answer to Rei's question, she also found an answer for herself. From then on, she had a purpose to fight for. She grabbed a tote bag from behind the volunteer's counter and began to fill it with all the Handler's guides, war books, technical manuals and historical accounts she could find.
There was a summer program that would start next month, meant for children with aspirations of joining the military as officers. Anyone who managed to pass the entire program would be automatically admitted into the Academy's accelerated class regimen once they entered. They would be considered for early enrollment as well. The program didn't have an age requirement, but it was rumored to be gruelingly difficult, and was recommended for kids half again older than she was.
But Lena didn't have five years to wait. She wanted to make a difference as soon as possible. So she grabbed all the books she could think of without a second thought and hurried her way out the library, out the school, and once she was out of sight of any teachers who could raise a curious eyebrow, she ran the rest of the way home.
Home to her desk. Home to her Para-RAID.
—
June 5th
When Lena reported back to Rei with the answer to his question, he was surprised and pleased. There was a moment where she could practically feel his brain churning on the other end with plans and ideas. And she was happy to say that he eventually let her in on those plans, after she reminded him of how much trouble she went through to get the answer for him.
".:I'm getting real sick of having to travel by Juggernaut to every single base one-by-one. Not to mention saying the same things to every squadron and getting asked the same questions. If we could somehow hijack those fiber-optic relays, we could use them to send those messages back and forth instantly. We could let them know the Empire's still alive and ready to take them in, without me having to go on foot to tell them in person:."
Rei didn't tell her how he planned to do all that, but Lena didn't begrudge him too much for that. She figured he was still trying to figure out the how.
In the days since, whenever the sky was clear Rei would often ask her other questions. Stuff about the military structure behind the wall, how they found and manufactured the supplies they needed, things like that. Eventually Alice and some others did the same, a mechanic named Touka with questions about the Juggernaut factories, one of Rei's soldiers from the Empire who wanted to check on some friends he had in the Republic.
Lena felt elated to be useful. Every time Alice asked her if she was really okay with this, basically being an informant for their- (Lena would be blunt here. She was young, but she wasn't so stupid that she couldn't figure it out) -rebellion, Lena would reply that she wasn't just okay with it, she was happy. If Papa was alive to see what she was accomplishing, she knew he'd proud of her.
It still hurt when she thought of him. But these days it hurt less, and it helped when she was studying. When she threw herself into her books, she didn't have to think of him, or of how every now and then Mama would go back to sit at the doorway. That happened very rarely compared to how she used to do it everyday, but even once was too much for Lena to feel comfortable with.
When she was reading, her only thoughts were of the words on the page, and words couldn't hurt her like thoughts could.
The day of the program came around. The first and highest hurdle was the admissions test, a five-section exam that covered the history of the Republic, and then its military's history, then military doctrine, battlefield tactics, and lastly, almost inexplicably, evolutionary science. Lena was puzzled over that final section when it was announced to her. Still puzzled, when she came to it in the test itself.
From which species of pig did the Eisen evolve?
Who was the scientist that formally published The Humanity Treatise?
To what degree may an Alba be colored and still be human?
Lena had studied religiously for the first four subjects, and many others beyond them that she thought might be useful to know. But each and every time she came to books that might have answered questions like these, the scientific manuals, the cultural treatises, the clearly-doctored history books, she'd always put them down, sometimes thrown them down, after making barely any progress with them. Knowing just how wrong all those books were, she had believed nothing they had to say could be of any use.
She failed the test that day.
Her final mark was 67 - three points off of passing. For Republican History, she had scored 13. Military History: 17.25; Military Doctrine: 16.75; Battlefield Tactics: 20;
Evolutionary Science: 0.
The warthog phacochoerus aethiopicus. Maximillian Strauss von Floris III. Zero-point-five percent.
By this day next year, she would have these answers memorized among many others, and her growing distrust of the country would have solidified into something almost like hatred. Not hate for the nation itself or its people, though in time she learned that both were immeasurably flawed, but hate for the government that had built itself on a platform of lies and the bones of the 86.
By this day next year, she would be fully committed to the rebellion Rei was building.
—
June 12th
Today was Lena's eleventh birthday. Mama gave her a gift and a cake, the first a silver-and-diamond brooch the same shade as Papa's eyes were, and the second a beautiful, real-cream-and-egg red velvet cake topped with strawberries coated in soft chocolate. As she presented both to her, Mama had a small smile on her face that seemed a little brighter, a little more real than any expression Lena had seen from her in a long time.
They ate dinner together and talked for the first time since that night. About small things. How school was going. How Mama knew Lena was disappointed to not have passed her entry test for the program, but reassuring her that she had a lot to be proud of, if she could take a test meant for fifteen year olds and only fail by three points.
Lena was happy just to talk to her again, even if all the things they talked about were things she'd already heard. Her 86 friends were the first people she told when she got home that day, frustrated almost to tears by her failure, and what Alice said was mirrored almost word-for-word by Mama's reassurances.
After dinner, Lena gave Mama a courteous nod. She grabbed an extra slice of cake and took it up with her to her bedroom.
".:Happy birthday!:." ".:Congratulations!:." ".:Congrats~!:."
Three familiar voices greeted her at once just seconds after turning on her Para-RAID. Alice, Rei, and Kaie.
".:Eh? What? All three of you? But you guys never-:."
".:Normally we hand out the extra Para-RAIDs to guys on missions or patrols, but there's nothing going on today. Figured it wouldn't hurt to set some aside for your big day:." Alice said, her smile evident in her voice and on the sensory link both.
".:Plus it'd be a real pain in the butt if we all had to wait our turn to wish you happy birthday. Weather's been awful lately:." Kaie added. ".:So, uh, happy birthday, Lena!:."
".:Thank you:." Lena said. Then, because once wasn't enough, ".:Thank you all!:."
She felt almost breathless at hearing them all at once, a warmth spreading in her chest. In the last few months she'd talked to all of them individually on one day or another, but never all together like this. She remembered that night again, listening to the three of them joke around, asking her stupid questions, making fun of each other. She took a bite of her cake and it reminded her of a piece of chocolate on top of a hard, crunchy biscuit, and the cake tasted even more delicious than it already was.
".:What's your resolution gonna be?:."
".:Those are for new years, Kaie, not your birthday:." Rei pointed out.
".:Quiet, you:." Kaie said sweetly. ".:It's never the wrong time to show some resolve. So, Lena?:."
Lena thought of the test again. Thought her teachers, of the books she'd read and the things inside them. The awful, wrong things they dared to put into the minds of honest people.
".:I want to… no, I'm going to change this country:." She found herself whispering, the words welling from her heart with such force that her voice could hardly carry them.
Silence greeted her, emphasized by the very faint undercurrent of static from an ongoing Para-RAID connection. Lena looked around her bedroom, and at the vase of white lilies on her table by the window. The clear night sky through the curtains.
".:Wow:." Alice said. ".:Our girl doesn't fool around, does she?:."
".:Lena plays for keeps:." Kaie agreed.
".:Eh? Did I say something weird?:."
".:No:." ".:Yes:." Rei and Alice said simultaneously.
".:No it's not weird. It's a wonderful thing to find a goal for yourself so early in life:."
".:Uh, yeah, it kinda is. What eleven year old wants to change their whole country for their birthday wish?:."
".:Ambition is important:." Rei said, a stubborn note in the clipped tone of his voice.
".:Maybe when she gets to be your age, dinosaur, but c'mon man, she should live a little. She's eleven! When I was eleven, I wanted a pony, not a revolution:."
".:That makes sense. After all, Lena's a lot smarter at eleven than you are at seventeen, so of course you'd wish for different things:."
".:Wow, sometimes I forget how much of a prick you are:."
".:Mom and Dad are fighting again…:." Kaie said forlornly.
Lena laughed.
—
One Year Later
Lena was reviewing her notes when the Para-RAID began to vibrate on her desk, a blue light from the cheek-piece. She put it on.
".:Hi Rei:." She said. By now she didn't need to hear him talk to sense his presence on the other end. ".:Do you have more questions?:."
".:Not really, just felt like saying hi. What are you up to, kiddo?:."
".:Just reviewing some notes. I'm taking the exam again tomorrow. I won't fail a second time!:."
".:I know you won't:." Rei said with the kind of quiet confidence that didn't need to be outspoken to be unshakable. ".:What comes after?:."
".:Once I pass, there's the program itself. It lasts all summer, and it'll have classes, practical exams, field days, all sorts of stuff. My friend Annette knows someone whose older brother took it, and he said that it's basically like boot camp but for kids:."
".:'Boot camp for kids':." Rei said wonderingly. ".:They make twelve year olds do this?:."
".:It's voluntary. And recommended for kids fifteen and up. Also, technically I'm still eleven for another eight days:."
".:Right…:." His voice dipped with weariness. At first Lena thought it was exasperation at the program, or maybe even at her whole country, but thinking about it, it seemed to run deeper than that.
".:Are you alright, Rei? You seem tired today:."
Rei was silent for awhile, only the gentle hum of his breathing on the line.
".:Sometimes I wish you could be a little less perceptive, Lena:." Rei said, and laughed. ".:Yeah. I guess you could say I'm a little tired. Alice and I got into another argument last night:."
".:Lover's quarrel?:."
".:I wish it were that simple. It's about… well…:." He trailed off, hesitant. Lena said nothing. She'd learned that silence was the best tool for getting Rei to talk; he'd usually try to fill it himself if no one else did.
".:It's just that Alice and I have different ideas for this… mission? Operation? Whatever you want to call it. I've been thinking a lot about the numbers, and they just don't add up."
A pause. Lena waited for him to continue.
".:You don't measure the lifespan of a Juggernaut in mileage or years. You measure it in days. Even if we took the Legion out of the equation and used all our cargo space for spare parts, there's just no way everyone would be able to reach the Empire. We'd start to have breakdowns by the third week and total failures after a month. We would have to cannibalize units for parts to keep moving forward. And that would mean leaving people behind:.
".:But when you do factor in the Legion, things get bad. Really bad. Ninety percent of Processors can't fight like Alice can. Hell, most of them are even worse than Bernholdt and I were when we first started, and those are the ones that have been at it for at least a year. They'd be cannon fodder on the open road - worse than that. They'd slow us down. And then there's supplies to think about. And how we could possibly keep that many Processors hidden from the Legion, because there's no chance we'd win a pitched battle:.
"No matter how I look at it, Alice's plan isn't going to work. We need a different approach, but she won't listen to me when I tell her that:."
Lena listened in patient silence, turning the ideas over in her head.
A year ago, Rei would never have said any of this to her, but a year ago Lena had been a kid to them, only trusted to help with incidental questions and personal curiosities. But these days she practically had her own place at the war table, using her studies and a behind-the-wall perspective no one else had to support everyone's plans. Sometimes, she even put forward some of her own.
".:Hey, Lena?:."
".:Yes?:."
".:Are there other citizens like you? People who are sympathetic to the 86, and who might know a little more than the books would tell them:."
There was Mama. She was at least understanding of Papa's cause, but not really supportive - she always said it would be the death of him, for him to be as outspoken as he was. In a way she was right, but not the way she meant. There was Annette, who knew the truth of the 86 because of her father's work in artificial intelligence, the state of which was nowhere near close enough to being able to field autonomous drones like the propaganda claimed the Juggernauts to be. Annette didn't hate the 86, so much as viewed them with a kind of detached, 'nothing-I-can-do-about-it' distance.
When Lena thought about it, it seemed like it was rare to find people who even understood the propaganda for what it was, let alone people who could look past it.
But maybe there was one.
".:There's Uncle Jerome. He's a general, and he was a very good friend of Papa's:."
Uncle Jerome also shared some of Papa's beliefs, if not all of them, and nowhere near as strongly. Lena remembered time spent glancing at books or drawing absent scribbles in the parlor room, trying to look busy as she listened to Papa and Uncle Jerome's conversations about subjects neither of them realized Lena would still be thinking about years after.
Subjects like the war and the Security Act that expelled the Colorata into the 86th district. Things she wouldn't understand when she heard them, but would remember all the same. She had revisited them recently in between her studies, turning over the memories the way one might examine an old heirloom with a new flashlight.
".:Uncle Jerome isn't as, um, enthusiastic like Papa was, but he still believes the nation was wrong to do what it did. I think… that he doesn't think he can do anything to change it… but maybe I could convince him:."
".:Or maybe I could:." Rei said absently, beneath his breath like he hadn't meant to say it out loud. ".:It's good to know the Republic isn't completely bankrupt. I'll have to let Alice know that. It might help her see reason. Thanks, Lena:."
".:Yeah. Any time, Rei:."
".:Hey, I gotta go now, kiddo. Take care of yourself, alright?:."
".:Mhm! Bye-bye!:."
".:Bye:." He said, and the connection zeroed.
The silence was always sudden after the Para-RAID shut out. The device created a connection that was so much more than just hearing someone speak, such that Lena always felt a burst of melancholic loneliness when it ended. But it didn't take too much to shake it off, not when she had a goal right in front of her.
Putting Rei's words in the back of her mind, she returned to her studies.
Many thanks to my beta-readers for their continued support!
I have had a consistent beta since like, chapter 12, and for some reason it completely slipped my mind to mention her. Thank you very much my good friend Unknownminutes for your continued patience and enthusiasm. Should you wish to slice open my stomach for my thoughtlessness, I would not resist or question you. I only ask that you let me finish the fic first.
- Verbosity