Atlantic Island (23 page)

"Michelle," pleaded Ryan, "try to think in the here and now. Don't worry about a rebellion. We still need someone to run these meetings. To help us organize our thinking so we can stay safe going forward. Doesn't that make sense?"

Michelle thought for a few seconds. She frowned and raised her hand. "Okay. I'm in."

"Okay, great!" said Kylee. "Theo is elected leader of our group. The meeting is yours!" She pulled Theo to his feet, gave him a kiss on the cheek and sat back down.

"Alright," said Theo, "I'd like to put it on the record that I think you guys are crazy to believe in me but… I'll do everything I can. Everything."

He looked around. These faces looked at him with hope, faith and trust. He would do right by these people who had put their lives in his hands. He would see this through as far as it could go.
 

"So," he began. "We've got a few very obvious problems here. I want to talk about those before we speculate what else Tiberius and his people have up their sleeves. First thing is this ritual fighting to the death. Encouraging the people who are chosen to refuse to fight is impossible. Michelle is right about that. We all saw that man die at the hands of the Security Force. Even if there's a limit to how long this 'population control' will go on, we know there will be more deaths. We need to figure something out, and fast. There will be another series of battles in the next couple weeks. It could be any of us on the ground there deciding whether to take a life or die for a hopeless cause."

"So how do we put a stop to it?" asked Kylee.
 

"Well," said Theo, "the biggest challenge is the involvement of the Security Force. Do you have any idea what's going on there? The force at the arena seemed to be in sync with what Tiberius wanted."

"You don't know that, man," said Bill. "Who knows what the hell was going on behind those 'death masks?' They might not have thought they had a choice."

"That is a good point," said Joseph.

"It is a good point," said Kylee, "I'll give you that, but there's more involved with this. I might not have much access to the Security Force anymore but I still have a few friends in there. Men and women like Officer Menendez are being pushed aside and those who are given the most important jobs are diehard Tiberius supporters. As frightening as it is to think about, I'm pretty sure most of those black helmet guys really believed they were doing the right thing."

"What about Menendez?" asked Ryan. "Couldn't we try to get him involved here? Have him help us in some way?"

"I doubt he'd go for that," said Kylee. "It's not that he wouldn't want to help, but there's obviously enormous risk for anyone who does anything against the regime."

"It's probably the same thing for Dougherty," said Theo. "He's caught in the middle of all of this and I'm sure he knows how expendable he is to the leadership. Not that I'm entirely sure how to contact him anyway."

A moment passed while everyone gathered his or her thoughts. Theo realized he was going to have to be the one to break these silences and keep the meetings moving.
 

"Okay," he said, "so let's put aside the notion of getting ourselves in the middle of this gladiator horror show at the arena." He raised his hand as he saw the beginnings of protest. To his astonishment, everyone settled down. "I'm not saying we forget about it. We can't. Even so, I want our time here to be productive. We don't know how often we can meet or how long this can go on before we can't meet anymore for one reason or another. There's no apparent strategy for dealing with the arena problem so let's look at some other ways we can make an impact."

"What did you have in mind, Theo?" asked Brian.

"Well, the younger people on this island are having a major problem. The school system was horrible to begin with. Even Mayor Lucas knew that. Now it's a complete joke. Even training for a career is not necessarily a good use of time because so far Tiberius has gone out of his way to limit job access to only be available to those over a certain age."

"Are you sure that's such a bad thing?" asked Michelle. "I'm as upset as any of you that school has gone by the wayside, but that was the old world. Here all that matters is developing particular skills. Maybe Tiberius wants to be sure that people are trained properly before having access to the most important components of government."

"You sound like you agree with him," said Jamie.

"I'm not saying he's not a horrible man," said Michelle, "but he seems to know what it will take to keep the country going. These are the early years. What history will probably call primitive years. Maybe in a few generations things will make more sense. You all want that for yourselves and it's understandable, but we are pioneers in a new world. We can't have it all. Tiberius gets that."

"Fine," said Theo. "Let's keep the conversation tonight on what we can accomplish to make life bearable for everyone. Can we all agree on that?" It seemed they could.
 

"Our problem…well, one of our problems, seems to be that we are just too small. It's incredible having you all join us, but we need more manpower." He looked at Kylee. "Or…woman power, you know." Laughter circulated through the group. Theo was glad to be able to lighten the mood.

"Every day when I walk to work, I pass by the communal housing. I guess many of you have seen it, or at least know what I'm talking about. These are people who have been pushed out of their place in the new society. In many cases we are talking about women and children, with the husbands in prison for things that should not be considered crimes. What I'm getting at is maybe we should start by seeing what we can do to help some of them. They are already on our side, in the sense that they are against what Tiberius is doing. We need to let them know that there's a force for good out there. People willing to take a stand. We can start recruiting and building, and then maybe we can tackle the problems that will require some force. Does that make sense?"

"Yeah," said Dale. Everyone turned to him, surprised to hear him speak. "Winning hearts and minds. I like it, man. That's…that's really why I'm here, anyway."

"What do you mean, Dale?" asked Theo.

"I'm supposed to be living in those broken down projects by the farms. Tiberius's men took my dad away. I don't even know if he's alive or in jail or what. My mom and my little sister are suffering and I came to stay with Brian and Liz to see what could be done to help them. You guys are exactly what I was praying for."

"Dale, I'm really sorry to hear about your dad," said Theo. "We will do everything we can for your family. I'm glad you're here with us. What do you suggest we do to help them?"

"They need food. Their rations are ridiculous."

"Okay," said Bill, "let's steal them some food."

"Are you serious?" said Michelle. The look on her face said she had never seen anything so incredibly stupid as the direction this conversation had turned. "You want to steal from the government? The food is distributed from a central facility in the heart of the city. You want to steal right under the nose of the leadership. You're insane. All of you are insane if you're even entertaining this nonsense."

"That's enough!" Ryan had jumped to his feet and was staring at Michelle, furious. "You're going on and on and on criticizing every move we want to make, while praising a homicidal maniac for having good managerial skills! I know you're scared, I know you feel powerless, but guess what? We all feel that way and some of us are trying to do something about it! Theo helped many of us when we were completely and utterly lost. We've all tried to make sense of all of this and help people wherever we could, but you shut yourself up in records, whatever the hell that is, and tried to pretend that this was all a bad dream that would go away!"

"You're the ones who are dreaming!" Michelle was on her feet as well. "I'm sorry, Ry, but I'm the only one here who realizes that Tiberius may be wrong about many things but he's going to make sure that the nation as a whole survives and flourishes. All these fanciful things you are talking about… stopping the fighting, feeding the hungry? You are going to get yourselves killed! I have known some of you a good amount of my life and I love and care about all of you and I am telling you the path you are choosing is absolute death for all of us. I won't stand by and be a party to your suicides!"

With that she spun toward the door and stomped out into the night. The door slammed behind her and echoed in the silence. Theo heard frustrated, muffled sobs. He turned and saw Ryan slowly breaking down, slumping back into his seat, face in his hands. Liz came over and put her arm around him from behind the chair. Theo felt fortunate to have found Liz and Brian. All of them. Even without Michelle, they were a strong group, and maybe, just maybe they were enough to inspire some people to hope for a world better than what Paul Tiberius was giving them.

When Michelle departed after her diatribe, the remaining members of the small group of rebels assured Ryan that she would come to her senses and return soon. She didn't return the next day, or the day after that. By the time the group met again one week later, Ryan had given up hope that Michelle was ever going to come back. Nobody had seen or heard from her in all that time.
 

In between the second and third meetings, Bill used a break from a maintenance job in one of the city's many high rises to join Theo near the community housing projects. "Jeez," Bill said, "They've got me up doing repair work in some fancy place, but this is where we need to be doing work."

"Yeah," laughed Theo, "I get that. That's why we're here, remember?"

"Oh, right," said Bill. "So how do you want to handle this? How exactly do we win hearts and minds?"

"Mayor Lucas told me once that the reason he thought he was a good mayor had nothing to do with any particular skills or intelligence," Theo said. "He said the key was that he always listened, really listened to what people were telling him. Everyone wants to know that his or her concerns are being heard. And in our case, these people need to know that there's an alternative to Tiberius out there, and that alternative is on their side."

"An alternative to Tiberius that the people can't vote for though."

"Okay, true, but that's not the point. What we are doing hinges on one very strong theory: that there are way more anti-Tiberius people than pro-Tiberius people on the island. Our job is to unite them…somehow."

"So, we listen."

"Yup. Listen, learn and maybe give them a little hope in return…what?"

Bill was looking at him curiously.
 

"What is it? Why are you staring at me?"

Bill laughed. "Sorry. It's just that, well, I've said it before but you're really a natural at this leadership thing. Seeing you like this, it's like this is always who you were meant to be."

Theo was touched. "Thanks, man, I appreciate the support. I can't take all the credit anyhow, I learned a hell of a lot in a very short time from Mayor Lucas."

"He was pretty awesome, wasn't he?" asked Bill.

"Yeah. He was. He never stopped believing in the good of people, even Tiberius. Maybe that cost him his life. I don't know."

"Doesn't matter now," said Bill. "He'd be proud of what you're trying to do."

"I hope so. Okay here's somebody coming now." A young woman in a faded dress opened the screen door to one of the houses and walked out onto the porch. She looked to the left, toward the beach and the rolling waves. She let out a huge sigh and sat down on the top step.

Bill nudged Theo. "Go ahead, boss. Talk to her."
 

Theo tentatively stepped forward. "Hi, my name's Theo Essex. This is my friend Bill Mansfield. Would you mind if we talked to you for a minute?"

She pulled her knees in to her chest defensively. "Are you his men? The Supreme Leader?"

"No, no not at all," said Theo. "We're just citizens of Atlantic Island like you. People who've seen what Tiberius is doing and don't like it. Would it be okay for us to sit with you? We won't take up much of your time."

She laughed, a hoarse, unpleasant sound. Theo doubted very much that this woman laughed often. "Don't you worry about taking my time. Time is all I have. Come, sit."
 
She slid over to one end of the porch steps and turned to the side. Theo and Bill sat across from her, Theo on the top step and Bill two steps lower.
 

"My name's Jane," she said, "I'm curious. What is it you want to know?"

"How did you end up here?" Theo asked. "In the 'special housing,' I mean."

"Very special, isn't it?" Jane pointed back at the house. "Damned thing's about one step away from collapsing on us. Funny thing is, this used to be a nice house. All of these were nice before the Event. Beach block property. Between the damage from the Event and the storms since, and the shady characters that occupied these places off and on in the past year, everything good has been stripped away and what's left sure as hell wouldn't pass any inspection I've ever heard of."

"None of the construction crews have passed through here?" asked Bill.

"Not as far as I know," said Jane. "Doesn't look like it. Maybe they didn't know what they were doing." She laughed her croaky laugh again. She saw something in Bill's face. "You one of the construction people?"
 

"Yes, ma'am," he said. "I like to think I know what I'm doing though. I'd never let this place fall apart like this. I'm usually only assigned to the more….elite districts. I'm starting to get the idea that all the attention is going there. That's part of why we're here, right Theo?"

"Right. Miss… Jane? You were going to tell us how you ended up here."

"Yeah, you're right," she said. "Not much of a story to tell. Pretty common one around here, actually. My husband got marked up for speaking out against ration restrictions way back before the new leadership took over. Back in Lucas's time. Nothing really happened to him back then. Then all of a sudden, Tiberius is in charge, and we get a knock at our door in the middle of the night. Bunch of Security Force guys come in. Arrest Tony for speaking out against the rations. Say he's been sentenced to a year in prison. We lost our home and I was sent here. Must have missed when they held his trial."