The Vindicta Division

The room was completely silent.

The five people around the crudely assembled oak table, including me, sat, grim faced and ready. The basement walls, a dull whitewash, were lit by the bravely shining light cemented into the ceiling above. The only window, that peeped out over the foundation of the house to watch people's shoes pass by outside, was covered over by a blackout panel.

The door to the first floor of the house above had been locked from the inside, and rags stuffed under it.

Our hands, wrapped around mugs of untouched coffee that infused the air with the sharp scent, in a failing attempt to warm up the atmosphere, with was so thick with tension you'd need a chainsaw to hack it open; a knife wouldn't even have scratched the surface of blue fear it was plated with.

We were afraid; we may as well admit it; lying would do us no good anyway.

However, some were more successful at hiding it than others. For example, while the man on my right was sitting as if someone had stuck a pipe up his ass, the bloke on my left had his feet crossed on the table, looking completely at home. The sharp faced redhead beside the pipe-up-my-bum guy had her arms crossed and stared at a wall through her fringe expressionlessly. The other women next to her looked sharp and was critically surveying us four others.

Normally, I would take this as a threat and demand to know what her problem was.

But no-one who wanted to keep their heads attached to their bodies was going to say that to her; she was Cara Arkhaven, the re-ed prodigal. She was about thirty five, and a tank of a woman. Nobody knew what she'd done to end up in re-ed, but it had definitely earned her a sticking reputation, and respect. I also knew that all I knew about these people was that they had been in re-ed with me, and that the feet-on-the-table bloke was Cara Arkhaven's good friend.

And there was a reason she was looking at us like that, we vague strangers.

There was a reason why we were holding this meeting with the doors locked and windows boarded, In Cara Arkhaven's house, five hours before curfew in broad daylight a two PM.

There was a reason we'd all took separate routes to get here, at different times.

I mean, someone was bound to notice, if four re-ed offenders waltzed into the house of another re-ed offender at the same time. Plus, we'd be put back in re-ed if walked together, being a group of four; exceeding the government travel policy of three people per group.

PM Larkin's head may be filled with sawdust and blood, but the Secret Police's heads were filled with blood and brains.

They'd notice.

Then, we may as well put that noose around our necks ourselves. You only go into re-ed once, then, if you re-offend, it's the death penalty.

We'd all be swinging from the gallows before the moon could shove the sun from the sky.

Either that or we'd be exiled to the Outlands, disappear with no trace, only a consolation card sent to any family or friends who cared enough to get one.

You see, the thing is, you never pick a fight with the secret police, ever. For the sake of your family and friends if not for your own neck.

Of course, none of us hear really had anything left to loose anyway.

No-one to receive a consolation card.

No sucker to know we'd gone.

I sighed. I knew I was trying to justify what we were doing. Rebelling, openly rebelling, against a government that would kill you for even thinking aloud that Larkin's dress sense was bloody awful.