I will tear down your empire of money and filth. I will take down every last brick, remove every strand of barbed wire and melt the whips from your callused hands. For you create a world of misery for your pleasure, so that you may be masters of this hell when we can do so much better. While thousands of children die of malnutrition related disease daily, food production is suppressed to protect monetary interests. And so, should you feel unable to control your greed and create a world fit for humanity, one humane and loving, I will. Believe me. This is a rebel with a cause.
The adrenaline floods my system like it's on an intravenous drip - right into my blood at full pelt. I think my heart will explode and my eyes are wide, letting in every ounce of the fading light. My body wants to either run fast for the hills or work to find weaponry, but instead I stay right where I am. Sometimes freezing is the best of the choices, and let's face it, there really are only three. I want to quell the hammering in my chest, but there's no way that will happen now. I don't regret it though, coming here to the compound, it was my mission after all. How come all those spies in the movies weren't ever scared? Maybe they were, maybe they were scared all the time, perhaps that's what bravery really is. The compound lights come on, unusual for this time of night. My adrenaline surges so fast I almost vomit, I can taste the saliva thickening my my mouth to a rancid paste. At some point I'll have to move. In the shows I watch there is an earpiece that says, "Go" or at least some tactical information, but with the new technology the enemy has developed it's just not an option. All I get is a black jumpsuit and meal ration...
Riley stood at the edge of the compound, other than the noise of the flags flapping in the near-gale, the wind covered all traces of sound. He cast his eyes upward, the blue peaking out of his brown camouflage paint. His heart beat a little faster to see it, like seeing a traitorous friend, one who had been loved as a brother. In the gathering darkness he couldn't make out the colours, and that suited him fine, he'd be sick if he saw them now. They brought back what he did under that banner, how he was mislead. Elsa said he should let it go, he was lied to, it wasn't his fault - but his inner peace was shattered and he had scores to settle. The clock struck twelve, time to move. One day had ended and a new one begun – the last one for either him or the generals, perhaps both.
When Kipper leads me into the "inner sanctum" I almost laugh and clap him on the back, but there's no hint of repressed humour. Instead there is a nervousness that doesn't become him, doesn't belong to him. He gestures at the bank of monitors and wall of chaotically linked motherboards - the computer. Twenty years ago this much hardware would fit into my back pocket, now this is all that can be scrapped by the only ones smart enough to rebel on the quiet instead of with that fatal guttural pride in the streets. My heart sinks. They don't need an engineer to save them, they need a miracle worker, and last time I checked that wasn't on my résumé.
I’m the perfect rebel, too unlikely to be taken seriously until it’s too late. Maybe I will catch a bullet in a few years or some other fate, but there are folks who don’t even live to see my age or have a fraction of the amount of love in their lives that I’ve already had, so who am I to hide under a rock? I can’t live with buying plastics that are destroying the earth. I can’t live with buying food laced with chemicals we aren’t supposed to eat. I can’t live with animals being “farmed” in concentration camps - that isn’t farming. I can’t live with our children being pressured in a school system that treats them no better than cattle, controlling them with fear tactics. I can’t live with a world where our politicians are bought by those with the deepest pockets and the population is controlled with the fear and the wage/food dynamic. I won’t shut up and I won’t put up.
Found in Are you awake yet? - first draft, authored by .
In the future it could be said that I started the rebellion accidentally. I could understand that. How many forty year old housewives do that? We’re over the hill, saggy round the middle and our best days are behind us, right? For the most part you’d be right, but not this time. I want it to be known that I meant to do what I am setting out to accomplish. I am planning a bloodless rebellion that will be less “revolutionary” than “evolutionary.” I have planned out the changes without ever attending a political rally, barely ever leaving the house, without making a single speech or being a public figure other than a fiction writer under a fictitious name.
I plan to stay in my kitchen with my ethical bean coffee and fresh baked cinnamon buns, I can make that butter-rich dough with my eyes closed. You don’t know it yet, but you’re going to help me, and you don’t have to break any laws to do it or act significantly different that you do now. But together, you and I, we’re going to save the earth. We “little people” of all ages and all backgrounds are going to bring down the mega-corporations while looking like obedient little sheep. They’re going to growl and be confused when they step up the fear and we don’t run to our wallets like we always do. It will be peaceful, empowering and save us money - how? Because we won’t be giving it to them. Our local economies will flourish, artisans will do good trade, artists will be valued again. We're going to get our "free will" back instead of being told what to think, how to feel, what love and happiness really look like.
Found in Are you awake yet? - first draft, authored by .
"I'll be your rebel if you'll be my wingman." I watch to see the casual charm falter for a second, until he realizes I'm kidding. A suit man like him would get us both killed. "Payment in cash, upfront."
He smiles and puts the leather bag on the floor by my stool, never once glancing my way. He speaks instead to the bottom of his empty coffee cup. "The riot must conform to our specs or the next contract I make is on your pretty head." Then with a squeak of his wet shoes on the cafe tiles he's gone. I almost laugh. With the anger in this city the only problem will be containing the tsunami of rioters, but that isn't my problem. I'm hardly the chief of police around here.
I love rules. I do. They tell me what boundaries need breaking next. Say I can't walk on the grass, I'll break out a picnic. Say I can't hop on a train and ride to Chicago, I'll see you at the Navy Pier. Say I can't kiss another girl, I'll do you one better. You can't make a rule I won't shatter if you make it from self important zeal and seal it with the rubber stamp of your own ignorance. Give me a reason that makes sense and not just because a two thousand year old relic says so. Who get's hurt? Really? Give me names, details, or shut your front door forever. I walk, I talk and short of a quick injection of high velocity tin, you can't stop me.
There is a beauty in anarchy. Not chaos, but a life where every person marches to the beat of their own drum. That doesn't mean we don't cooperate, help one another and love, it means your rules aren't mine unless I say they are. If I don't tread on your toes, you don't tread on mine, we get along just fine. We're all rebels at heart, deep down, even those who think they aren't. Really, they're the worst ones, so repressed they can't feel the calling of their own bones. Break a rule today, just a little one, one that doesn't do any harm to yourself or others. There's a rebel inside you too...
"No, Noah, they want us to be greedy narcissistic little prats, because greedy narcissistic little prats are easier to control. You want to be a rebel? Put away the gun. Open your heart and mind. Stop following all the misdirections."
"How long would our western 'civilization' stand if instead of Kate in a tiara on Hello magazine it was a starving child with their name and where they live, how they are suffering. Exclusive, extra, extra, read all about it! But no, we have to keep seeing our 'rulers.' Why is that?"