PHOENIX

Prologue

                "They'll send you to the dogs if you're the one with the fire,

                         When shots got called, and you were under the fire,

                    Tell me where they were all at, when the times got dire?

                           Late night grinding when they labeled you a liar,

            Said that you were fronting when you knew that you were higher,

                                 Flyer than the overseers, hot as bonfires,

                      And when they all notice, they'll start to open fire."

Jade Hope

Downtown Detroit

Great Lakes Region

The line between righteousness and evil is marked by the dominating force in a society.

Needless to say, we are not that dominating force.

Thousands of faces – from every skin complexion, birth year, and gender – were all united in solidarity tonight. We stood on a street illuminated by the omnipresent glow of the city surrounding us. A dense melting pot of human beings filled Populist Street, assembling out of thin air an hour earlier. A late springtime snow is falling, which is nothing unusual to the eternally damned city of Detroit.

Armed forces stood in front of us, blocking our path down Populist Street. The federals chose the line they would defend and are sticking to it. Military floaters hover above, ready to unleash a fury of bullets or chemical weapons down on their own protesting citizens. Military-grade Floaters can hover in place, take off vertically, and travel smooth from New York City to Los Angeles in less than two hours. The public announcement board, which is attached to the side of a browning, deteriorating skyscraper, displayed the shocked face of Detroit's city manager – Charles Hewbert. He's a man trapped between the ruthless power of his superiors and the rebellious forces of his citizens. He takes comfort only in knowing that he is not the only city manager with this dilemma.

"Reconsider your decision to protest tonight, ladies and gentlemen. You are halting traffic, disrupting the peace, and actively defying the government of the United States of America. This is your first warning, my fellow Detroit citizens." The screen went blank, then switched to an image of the prettiest, most charming, and most (in)famous girl that anyone around this place had ever seen before.

Me.

The graphic read "Jade Hope – Wanted by the US Government for Organizing Protest." It displayed my current age – 18. It showed my last known address, which I have since burned down. And it showed the only picture that the feds have every taken of me. This picture was taken two years and four hairstyles ago. I was disguised today, of course, wearing a golden mask with slits for my eyes, nose, and mouth – just as everyone else was.

I heard a young girl behind me ponder excitedly, "Mommy, is Jade is really here?"

I flinched. This young girl, a girl that does not know the real me, views me as some sort of role model. Me? The girl that is called a terrorist by the media for her suspected involvement in the bombing of a Great Lakes Regional School last October? The same girl who has abandoned her own family, supposedly on a righteous quest for freedom in this place we call America?

At that moment, I wanted to blow my own cover. I wanted to urge this young girl to study hard and make the cut that I narrowly missed when I was only a couple of years older than she is now. I wanted to urge her to not follow my dangerous, unstable path through this jungle. On the other hand, I know that things will never change if more people like her do not step up. But revealing my identity in a crowd of anonymous protestors is very risky, and honestly not worth my time. I've come this far by thinking mechanically, not overreacting in every little situation that appears before me.