The Insurrection

Chapter Two

"Even the darkest night will end and the sun will rise."

~ Les Miserables

"Tau is gone." Taika whispers more to herself than us. Grief consumes the cell as we finally allow ourselves a chance to mourn him.

It is Zahra who speaks first, her voice overwhelmed with emotion, "It's not your fault, Taika," she says gently.

Taika breaks. Sobs wracking out of her chest and instinctively we all draw closer, pulling comfort and strength from one another.

"If I just-"

"Shh, it's alright. We cannot dwell on the past or the what-ifs. Anything could have happened. Tau," Zahra takes a steadying breath before continuing, "Tau lived a long life, of course, it wasn't all happy but he had his good moments. There was no other way he wanted to leave this World than the way he did."

Taika sniffles before saying, "He said 'tell Zahra I am sorry'" she looks at her, "Why would he say that?"

Unshed tears glisten Zahra's eyes, "He was married to my sister. When she fell ill, he always blamed himself for her death," she looks down, "and he blamed himself for taking away the only person I had in this World."

We fall silent again before it hits me, "How did Tau marry your sister?" Tau was Kenyan and Zahra's sister wasn't, UniFed never assigned interracial marriages. It was a crime if you didn't marry whomever UniFed assigned you to marry.

Zahra has Palestinian roots, and Palestine ceased to be a country along with about a hundred others the day UniFed was established. Anyone who was from any of these countries is an Unaccounted Native, similar to an Unidentified Citizen only you were born into being Unaccounted, to be Unidentified you'd have to have your identity revoked for committing a crime against UniFed.

"Tau met my sister, Yasmeen, during one of his missions with the Liberators, they fell in love, he converted to Islam, secretly of course, and asked for her hand in marriage, she agreed."

"But how did UniFed allow that?"

Zahra takes a deep breath, "Tau was selected to be a Fighter and he excelled at it, so UniFed offered him a position among the WorldKeepers. Everyone knows if you don't take UniFed's offers," she shrugs, "Well, you know, you are as good as dead. Being a WorldKeeper gave him a lot of freedom, marrying whomever he wanted, being one of them."

I nod, knowing all this since my parents were WorldKeepers, although not by choice. I wonder what they would think of all this. I have not seen my mother in a year now, my father in three years. I know they are both gone, killed by the hands of UniFed, but sometimes I like to think that they managed to escape. The subconscious brain will do that, imagine scenarios where things did not go so terribly wrong, and give you hope that maybe just maybe everything worked out the way it should have. It is a protective human mechanism more than anything.

"How did UniFed catch the Liberators?" I ask the question that I have been dying to ask but was too afraid to know the answer to.

Zahra looks up at me with unshed tears as if remembering alone brought her a new onset of pain. Perhaps she was reliving all the deaths that happened around her. She takes a deep breath, "Someone leaked information about our last mission to UniFed, he thought giving them the information would win him a one-way ticket to UniFed Royalty. Of course, that never happened, he leaked our whereabouts and was shot down right after."

Silence fills up the cell once more as we digest this.

Leon curses softly underneath his breath, "Someone betrayed us too."

Zahra begins shaking her head and Leon explains, "How else would the American Chief know where we were? How else would he know that he needed to get out of the UniFed's House before it collapsed?"

"No," Zahra said adamantly, using a tone I have never heard her use before. "No one has betrayed us. Taika's dad must have raised a silent alarm." She turns to Taika, "How many doors did you not get a chance to lock before you had to escape?"

"Two," Taika says.

"And how long do you think the interaction with your dad and Tau took before you ran?"

Taika flinches before shrugging, "About five minutes."

Zahra looks back in our direction, "If the Finnish Chief raised a silent alarm, which I am sure he did, then that gives the remaining Chiefs five minutes to find one of the two unlocked doors."

Leon still doesn't look too convinced but doesn't say anything.

"What now?" I ask.

Clang. Clang.

I sit upright at the noise of the cell door being banged. Fear courses through me at the thought of our probable upcoming executions, and a tiny spark of hope that the rest of the Insurrectors had found us.

"Alan?"