Breaking Barriers

Safety is an Illusion

Jane Doxter:

When everyone else on the street came back, it should've been an occasion to look forward to; seeing Bianca and Paani and Min again, but it wasn't all great. The first part was pretty nice. Paani came over literal minutes after the air raid threat was lifted at midnight, and we'd stayed up till 4 AM. Then Min came over the very next evening and insisted on bringing us all a bunch of little treats. Finally, the second evening after the threat was lifted during dinner, we were informed by the telltale rapping of the door that Bianca and Mr Sheprook were back.

The amount of screaming and whooping that accompanied this realization surprisingly couldn't be heard on the streets, but in Antarctica as well. Eventually, after all of us had given them 500 hugs, handshakes, noogies, pats on the back, and had pressed a plate of food into their paws, they were finally allowed to sit down and explain themselves for why they haven't tried to contact us in 2 weeks and made all of us worry ourselves half to death. In the previous air raid where the office had closed before this one, they had set up a signal in Bianca's apartment, which was visible from our hideout. Every night at precisely 8 PM, Bianca would light a lamp in her window, bright enough to be seen from where we were, and bright enough to reassure us that she was alive and well.

"So, um, where were you and why didn't you light the lamp?" Nastya asked nonchalantly.

"You had us worried." Ranger Marsh chastised them with the same fatherly tone he used with Tweak.

"Is Mr Jack alright?" Mr Sheprook deflected our questions swiftly, but not as gracefully as he probably liked.

"Me grandad's safely back on his ship and on his way to Australia." Kwazii answered, "You all had us worried. The Captain even started stress-eating. Here, ye can kinda tell-"

"I will admit I was worried sick." The Captain chuckled sheepishly, "So why didn't you light the lamp?"

Bianca sighed, rubbed a paw over her face, and turned her eyes to the ceiling as if trying to beg the ceiling for help, "It turns out, after that incredibly close call with the Purenkorps right before the bombing, Paul and I decided it would've been better if we lay low for a week or so.

"So why were they here in the first place?" Tweak asked, slurping down her carrot soup.

"Good news, it wasn't our fault." Mr Sheprook instantly replied, faking a little smile that faded as he spoke.

"For some infernal reason, they started conducting random searches of businesses to check for hell knows what." Bianca muttered darkly, stabbing her vegetables with the fork as if each and every one of them did her a terrible wrong.

"'Hell knows what' meaning rebelist propaganda." Mr Sheprook added in an undertone.

"Yeah, about that." Bianca waved a fork at him airily, "I'm surprised Corbin passed that inspection."

Mr Sheprook shook his head smiling, "That little firecracker, he's got to learn not to go shouting his political beliefs for the whole world to hear, especially if the world's being run by these censorship kissing buttwipes."

Inkling cleared his throat loudly and hissed, "There are children present!" Mr Sheprook shot all of us an apologetic look before turning his attention back onto Mrs Talia's cooking.

"Excuse me," Peso blushed shyly, "If I may ask, who's Corbin?"

"A coworker." Bianca answered around a mouthful of food, "the guy was running around our office whooping about the Brits and Germans coming for us."

"Wait a sec," Tweak looked up from her carrot heavy meal, "Aren't you NOT supposed to do that?"

"Nope." Mr Sheprook looked like he desperately regretted his life's decisions, "It got him into quite the spot of trouble a few months ago too."

Bianca grimaced, "Before you all came, Corbin put a rebel flag in his window."

"Did he get caught?" Pinto asked.

"Caught by who, buddy?" Mr Sheprook turned to look at Pinto.

"The Purenkorps." Pinto responded, shoveling stew into his mouth.

"Nah, the Purenkorps didn't catch him, but the other security guard who's as conservative as an AR-15 did. In fact, that a-" He stopped at the warning look both the Captain and Bianca gave him, "applehead's still trying to get Corbin fired to this day. But on a brighter note, isn't it nice to know you're not stuck in an office building where everyone hates you?"

"Just a select few?" Ishka snarked.

"Bingo." Mr Sheprook clicked his tongue.
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Remember when I said the bomb threat notice being lifted would've been a nice occasion? We'll it didn't turn out to be. All of our friends coming back also meant everyone else who also lived on the street had to come back as well and this came with its downsides.

One morning during quiet time, Tatya had spotted something...concerning to say the least.

"She and her older sister Ishka were the closest to the window, so they had the liberty of peeking out from it whenever they wished.

As Tatya snuck a glance out, she immediately recoiled.

"Ishka?" She whispered loud enough for everyone else to hear, but no one other than her older sister seemed to care "What is that woman doing?"

That got the attention of everyone else in the room and we immediately stopped whatever we were doing whether it was Inkling's torturous homework or knitting a new sweater.

Ishka instantly peeked out of the window too and withdrew herself from it with the same expression Tatya had previously.

"OK, first of all, why does she have a camera? And second of all, why is it pointed at the office building?"

Those two questions stopped all of us in our tracks.

"Girls, away from the window now!" Inkling quickly grabbed them both and dragged them where they were less likely to be captured on camera by whatever idiot woman was outside (I'm 99.999% sure it's not Dashi, just saying.)

Everyone backed up more and more until we were in the kitchen, far away from any windows where we all crouched beneath the counter.

"What now?" Tweak asked after about 10
minutes of cramping and sharp stabs of pain when some idiot (Pinto) sat on your tail. "We lie here while we wait for that crackpot woman to leave?"

"Yep." Pinata didn't look too happy about the whole situation either, "Pretty much." Oh, how funny this would be if our lives weren't at risk: World War Three's about to happen, we're living under a regime that wants to kill us for simply existing, and we're cowering in fear from a lady with a camera! Damn, I hate that lady and her stupid camera.