First Draft Chapter 31

I wandered back still sort of dazed from the experience and found myself heading towards the art guild room. My body just seemed to sort of automatically go there. I barely even knew what was happening.
As I opened up the door, Hermes looked up from behind a canvas he was working on. "Jon," he said surprised, "how did you know I was going to be here?"
"I didn’t."
"Oh." Hermes resumed his work, but he continued talking to me. "So did you just come by to get some supplies?"
"I’m not sure." It was an honest answer. I wasn’t sure why I had come.
"Well, help yourself if you want. You know everything’s always available."
I came up behind Hermes so I could see what he was working on. With just a simple ink pen, he was doing what looked to be a sketch of his own two hands. He was very involved in the work. I felt bad about disturbing him.
I grabbed a couple sheets of paper just for the sake of appearances. I had no intention of actually using them, but I wanted to act like I was here for a purpose. I started to leave as quietly as I could, but Hermes called out to me when I was at the door. "You were at the march today, weren’t you Jon?"
I turned back towards him. He was standing up and walking around his canvas to come towards me. "You heard about the march?"
"Jon the whole campus knows about it. And half of them marched on it." Hermes felt about his breast pocket. "Where are my glasses?" he said to himself.
"You don’t wear glasses."
"No, these aren’t real. They just have clear glass lenses." Hermes began peering around on of the couches. "I can’t remember what I did with them."
"Well what’s the point of wearing them then?"
"They make me look smarter." I laughed briefly. "No, I think they really do. I get a lot of compliments when I wear these." Hermes flipped over a pillow and found the glasses underneath. "Strange," he said, fitting the glasses on his face, "I don’t remember putting them here. And here’s my cigarettes." Hermes slipped a few cigarettes into his shirt pocket.
"Those are yours?"
"They are now. I got them from a friend. I think they make me look edgy."
"But you don’t smoke."
Hermes shrugged. "You don’t go on protest marches." I stayed silent. Hermes took one of the cigarettes out of his pocket and slipped it into his mouth. "I think I look pretty cool with these, don’t you Jon?" The cigarette bobbed up and down as he talked.
I swallowed. "You don’t look bad."
Hermes took the cigarette out of his mouth. "It’s just for the image, mind you. I actually hate the taste of these things." He contemplated the cigarette in his hand, then extended the hand to me. "Have you ever tried one?" he asked, waving the cigarette under my nose.
"No."
"Would you like to?"
"No, I’ll be okay."
Hermes put the cigarette back in his pocket. "So what happened?" he asked.
I told him about the march and the barricades. Hermes shook his head. "Those fools. What were you doing there Jon. I thought you were smarter than that."
"I am smarter than that!" I didn’t know what Hermes meant by that last comment, but I always reacted defensively when someone questioned my intelligence.
"You know this isn’t a game Jon."
"I know." I nodded in agreement, then changed the subject. "What are you working on?"
"This? Oh this is just kind of a self portrait of my hands," Hermes said, walking back towards the canvas to show it to me. I followed him. "This is nothing important. I just wanted something to work on to keep my mind busy. Hey, are you coming to art guild this week?"
"I should be there."
"Hopefully we’ll have a big crowd. Attendance has been going down all year." Hermes changed the subject back again. "Icarus is really into this revolution stuff, isn’t he?"
"Yeah, so is David."
"Don’t let them suck you in Jon. Stay as far away from that as possible." Hermes picked up his drawing, and opened up one of the closet doors to put it away. "Flash isn’t going to let those Barricades remain there."
"I know he won’t."
Hermes reached into his pocket and took out on of his cigarettes in a sort of absent minded fashion. He rolled it back and forth between his fingers. "In a way I really wish Icarus and David and everyone else had been caught a long time ago. You know, back when they were in that silly little leafleting stage of theirs. Then they would have gotten a couple years in jail or at most exiled. I would rather have that then to have them staring down the barrel of a gun." Hermes would bring the cigarette up to his lips, but never actually put it in his mouth. His hand was just waiting for his mouth to stop talking so that it could put the cigarette into his lips, but his mouth kept talking and so the hand stayed patiently in the air, waiting. Hermes continued to fidget with his fingers, moving the cigarette back and forth and not seeming to notice that most of his tobacco was spilling out onto the floor. "They really should have got caught a long time ago too. I mean they weren’t all that clever. They were learning everything as they went." Hermes hand evidently got tired of waiting, for it flicked the cigarette away in a casual motion. The rest of Hermes body seemed to be unaware of what the hand had done, for Hermes didn’t even pause to notice the executive decisions his hand was making. "I think the only reason they lasted as long as they did was that the Strates were so inexperienced as well. How many secret societies or revolutionary clubs are there around here? None that I know of. The Strates have no practice routing out revolutionaries. If we had been living in another city, like say a city on the West Coast where there’s a lot more seditious activity, the Strates would have caught these kids in heart beat." Hermes lips slowed to a stop, and he began to look around confused, trying to find his cigarette. Then he just shrugged and gave up on it. "Anyway Jon, just stay away from those barricades in the future, okay? That’s their game. You don’t have to make dumb mistakes just because they do." I nodded. "Oh," Hermes added, "and while I’m on the subject, why don’t you stay away from this Joshua character too. You’ve been hanging around with his friends, right?"
"A little maybe."
"Yeah, stay away. Flash isn’t going to tolerate them for much longer either."


I knew Hermes was right. I knew I should stay away from the barricades. But I couldn’t. Helen was there.
There were, as I saw it, three possible ways for the scenario to play out. The first, and least likely, was for Flash to allow the barricades to stay up. This possibility, I think, should appear to be unlikely for somewhat obvious reasons. I hope I have by this point provided the reader with a clear enough picture of Flash and how he usually dealt with dissent. Therefore, it is hard to imagine Flash allowing these revolutionaries to keep their foothold in the street. However, it was at least a remote possibility. After all, Flash was first and foremost a politician. He had made his career out of always knowing when to compromise and when to hold firm. And Old Flash was clever. Maybe Flash would decide that the worst way he could start his war campaign was to have a domestic massacre. Flash would remove his soldiers, the students would emerge from their barricades triumphant and march jubilantly through the streets waving their tattered flags and shouting their silly slogans. And then, they would disappear into obscurity, and Flash’s propaganda machine would take over and drown out all dissent with pro-war rallies and parades and news bulletins and pamphlets et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
The second possibility was also remote. In the second possible outcome, the students would abandon their barricade and return quietly to the University. Doubtless this was the possibility that Flash was hoping for. Again, it is hard to imagine Rosa or Emma giving up, turning tail, and going home. But, if Old Flash played his cards right, maybe he could pull it off. In this scenario, the Strates hold fast to their position in the streets. They don’t provoke the students, but they stay in place to let the student’s know their march is going no further. After a couple nights, the students get tired of sleeping on the brick street, and although they might be able to get food from sympathizers, they eventually get bored with hanging out at the barricades, and go home. At first, just the causal revolutionaries leave; the ones who had joined the march at the last minute because it looked like an exciting way to spend the afternoon. Then, the Young Clodians themselves would start to trickle away, and at last Rosa and Emma would realize they were the last ones left at the barricade, and the sheer instinct of self-preservation would make them realize two people were not sufficient to face down an army, and they sneak away to campus.
However the third option seemed to me not only the most likely, but almost unavoidable. This option was bloodshed. The Strates would storm the student barricades, shooting anyone who resisted and even shooting those who tried to run. It would be a complete massacre. Or, maybe the students would be foolish enough to try and force their march through the Strates. This would also result in a complete massacre.
And Helen. What would become of Helen then? I tried to comfort myself. Even if the third possibility came to be, there was still a chance that Helen would survive. There was probably a good chance. She wasn’t one of the leaders. They would have no reason to target her. She wasn’t as aggressive as Ares or as foolish as Dionysius. She wouldn’t throw herself into danger. Far from it. She would probably retreat at the first sign of danger.
And besides, what difference did it make whether I was there or not? What protection would I be when bullets were flying? And David was there. David would protect her. Maybe David would even tell her to go away at the first sign of danger. David would sense when the Strates were getting ready to attack, and he would help her get away.
But all of this was only slight comfort. The fact, which I could not make myself forget, was that she was in danger. It was only with great difficulty that I restrained myself from going back to the barricades that very night. Once I even walked to the edge of campus, fully intent on heading to the barricades, but I stopped myself. To wander around the streets at night during all of this would have been unwise. The strates would be in full patrol. I would be target for them simply because I was young. They would want to know where I was going, and if I answered I was going to the barricades I would end up in jail. And of course they might not even bother to ask me questions. If they caught me out on the streets at night they might just assume I was a young revolutionary, and then I would land in jail no matter what excuse I had. Besides, finding my way would no doubt be difficult due to a recent lack of street lights.
I tried to go to sleep at a decent hour, but I could not. Maybe I got an hour of good sleep. Maybe even less then that. At the first sign of dawn I leaped to my feet, dressed myself, and promptly forgot any promises I had made to myself not to go back to the barricades.
I was worried I would encounter obstacles along the way. In order to isolate the revolutionaries from their supporters, I fully expected to find that the Strates would have the streets blocked off, allowing no one access to the barricades. Such was not the case, and I was able to arrive at the barricades without incident. Old Flash was apparently hoping the situation would defuse itself, but given another day of this and it was a sure thing that the Strates would close down these streets.
The barricades themselves had improved tremendously since I last left. This, I suppose, is to be expected when such a large group of people have nothing better to do than improve the barricades. The looked, well, very professional. There were probably a few engineering students among the revolutionaries. There were three separate barricades. Each one was similarly designed.
The road we had originally been marching on, known as Mundus, formed a T shaped intersection with a road branching off from it, known as Via. It was Via which we had turned onto, and on which we had subsequently found our way blocked. Therefore, it was on Via that the first barricade had been erected. This was the barricade facing the Strates. The other two barricades were erected on Mundus on either side of the intersection with Via. When last I left, these barricades were only beginning to form, but now looked like they had been there for weeks.
Although it was sometime later until I noticed the structure of the barricades, I will include their description here for the sake of simplicity. Each barricade was close to twelve feet high, maybe even a little bit higher, but due to the eclectic nature of its components, the barricades had a sort of jumbled appearance, not always ascending upwards in a perfectly straight line. The barricades were made of mostly smashed furniture and uprooted bricks, but seemed surprisingly stable despite this. On the inside, the side facing the students, the barricades had two levels. One was ground level, the other was a thin platform about halfway up, which was just barely wide enough to stand on, but covered the whole length of the barricade so that several people could stand side by side on it. This was accessible by ladders, and far enough up so that from it most people could see over the top.
It was from this position that I was spotted by Angela, who happened to have retained her old post as a sentry. She recognized me before I recognized her, and she called out to me.
As I neared the barricades, I didn’t even have to ask for permission to come inside. Angela was already giving me instructions on how to get over. There were enough things jutting out of the barricade wall, table legs and what not, that I thought I could easily climb over by just making use of these. Angela, however, advised me to make my ascent at the corner, where the barricade intersected with a stone building. Finding footholds in the building’s wall, I was able to make my way partly up, at which point Angela reached out and caught my hand, and helped pull me the rest of the way up.
Once over the barricades, I saw that all the revolutionaries were wide-awake. In fact there was quite a lot of activity behind the barricade. People were moving all over, although I couldn’t really tell what they were doing. And I noticed several new flags had sprung up along the barricade wall. Each flag was different from the others, but they all had similarities. They all contained several colors, sewn together from different fabrics in a sort of haphazard way. The spirit of Dionysius’ original flag was evident in all the reproductions.
"Where have you been Jon?" Angela asked me. I heard her question, but because I was thinking of other things it didn’t register with me immediately. I was looking for my friends. I saw Icarus, waving a flag at the top of the opposite barricade. "Where have you been Jon?" Angela repeated. "You just kind of disappeared on us. No one had a clue where you went."
"I went home."
"You went home?"
"I went back to campus last night." Angela was staring at me. She was probably appalled at my casual attitude towards the revolution, but I didn’t care. I knew I wasn’t one of them, and that I would never be one of them. I didn’t need to justify my actions to her. "What happened last night?"
"Nothing actually. We’ve been left alone so far. But the Strates are still there," Angela indicated toward Via, where we had first encountered the Strates. "Any news from downtown?"
I didn’t understand the question at first. "Downtown?"
"You know, where the workers are."
"No. I haven’t heard anything."
Angela seemed amazed by this. "They’re not talking about it on campus?"
"No. Why? What happened?"
Angela shrugged. ‘Hard to say. All we hear are rumors. I just thought you might have some news from the outside."
"But everyone here is okay? No casualties?"
"Everyone here is fine Jon. We’ve had a real quiet night." There was an eerie calm over the rest of the city. It was probably due more to the earliness of the hour than to the revolutionary actions, but I couldn’t help but notice. Glancing outside the barricade the streets were quiet and empty. Inside the barricades, it was anything but. "Do you want any food?" I think Angela asked me solely to be polite. I doubt she actually wanted me eating what little food they had. "We have food here we appropriated from the bakery." Of course I knew what this meant. The window storefront was smashed, and the food was stolen. Given the circumstances, it was understandable, but it was probably safe to say they had lost the Baker’s sympathy.
I thanked Angela for her help, and climbed down the ladder. I ran into Phillip at the bottom of the ladder, and latched on to him immediately. I think I startled the poor fellow for he gave a little start. "Phillip!" I cried out. "Where are my friends?"
Phillip seemed to know what I meant without my having to explain further. "Icarus is over there." He pointed to Icarus, who was still waving his flag.
"Where are David and Helen?"
"I don’t know. Somewhere around here. Your brother is here somewhere too."
Strange, I thought. After having gone to school with Phillip for so many years I thought he would have a better idea of who my brother was. "Oh no," I laughed, "my brother’s not here. He’s still in school."
"I think he’s here," Phillip insisted, looking around as if to find someone to prove his point. "I talked to him last night. What’s his name again? Cable?" Sweat broke out on my forehead. Phillip was too close for comfort. "Yeah, there he is." Phillip pointed to a kid waving a flag. It was Abel.
Temporarily, I forgot all about Helen. I left Phillip without any ceremony. Abel had his back to me as I approached. I grabbed him by the shoulder and swung him around. I didn’t even know what I was going to say to him at first. Oddly enough, he didn’t even appear surprised to see me. "Oh, hi Jon," he said as I glared at him.
"What are you doing here?" I was breathing fiercely.
Abel gave me a sort of half-cocked smile, filled with the confidence common to his age. "What does it look like I’m doing?"
"Does Dad know you’re here?" It was a stupid question, but it escaped my lips before I realized what I was saying.
Abel laughed, but it was a petty sort of laughter, leaving no doubt I was the one being laughed at. "No, of course not. Well, he probably does now actually."
"How long have you been here?"
"Since yesterday. We heard about it at school and ditched classes to come over." Abel made a vague reference to the small crowd next to him, which I suppose were his school friends. It was probably the hip thing for the young seventeen year old rebels to join the revolution, but I doubted they had actually thought through the consequences.
I reached out and grabbed Abel’s jacket tightly with my hand and pulled him close to me. "Listen to me," I said in a loud whisper, "you need to get out of here now."
It was the wrong thing to do. Able drew himself back violently, spewing profanities at me. "You’re not in charge of me Jon."
"Get out of here now!" Abel gave me a contemptuous look, then turned his back to me. I grabbed his shoulder, preventing him from walking away. "Abel, if you don’t leave right this minute…" I stopped, realizing I had no idea how I was going to finish this threat.
Abel also realized my position. "You’ll what Jon?" he taunted me in a sarcastic voice. "You’ll tell Dad?"
"Don’t go far," I ordered. I walked away, realizing that I had once again said the wrong thing. Abel would probably deliberately move from his position to prove I had no authority over him. No matter. If he stayed inside the barricades, he wouldn’t be hard to find.
It was crowded inside the barricades. A large amount of students were kept in a fairly small amount of space. And yet things were not all that bad. The students had also taken over the buildings that had entrances that were enclosed within the barricades. As this was not a residential area, these buildings belonged to merchants, and the merchants had all fled the area at the first sign of conflict. There were seven different stores that the students could use to spread out in and alleviate the over crowding. Only one of these stores was not a full three stories. A couple of these stores even had back entrances that led out to different streets. This was very useful for strategic purposes.
I found Rosa on the third floor of the furniture store, reclining on a couch that had evidently been spared from the barricade. Rosa was lying on the couch lengthwise, with her feet lazily hanging over one of the arms, and her head gently fitted at the other end. Rosa was talking to Varro and Julius about something. As soon as I saw her, I remembered how intimidated I was of her, but I wasn’t about to let her scare me off this time. I approached her boldly and with a sense of purpose. She broke off her conversation when she saw me coming. "Yes Jon, what can I do for you?"
"I want my brother out of these barricades," I demanded. Rosa looked over at Varro instead of responding to me, exchanging some sort of glance. "My brother, Abel, is inside these barricades. He’s only seventeen. I want you to tell him to leave."
Rosa didn’t understand, but she answered me with patience. "Jon, I’m not in charge here. The people are in charge."
"But he’ll listen to you."
Rosa straightened herself slowly into a sitting position. "How old did you say he was?"
"Seventeen."
Rosa looked again at Varro. "I think he’s old enough to make his own decisions. We’re not in the habit of telling people to leave the barricades."
"He doesn’t understand what’s going on."
"Okay, what makes you think that." I could tell by the distracted way Rosa was looking away that I no longer had her full attention, but I continued anyway.
"He just doesn’t."
Rosa turned back to me, and for an instant again I had her attention. "Maybe you’re the one Jon," she suggested calmly, "who doesn’t really understand what’s going on here."
"I don’t want him here," I insisted. But now I had none of Rosa’s attention. Rosa had left her seat and was walking briskly to the other side of the room. I then saw what had been distracting Rosa. Emma had been passing through by the other wall. I followed Rosa, determined to pursue my request.
Emma looked like she was trying to avoid Rosa, but Rosa intercepted her. "What are all the guns doing here?" Rosa asked in a tone that demanded to be answered.
Emma was traveling with Ares and Bernadine, both of whom looked almost guilty under Rosa’s gaze. Emma just looked confused. "Guns?"
Rosa pointed an angry finger at Emma. "Don’t…" Rosa had more to say, but it sounded like the rest was choked in her fury. She took a couple seconds to recover herself, and spoke again. "I know you’re behind this."
There was a silence when Rosa and Emma were just staring at each other. I took the opportunity to remind Rosa of my presence. "What about my brother?"
"Not now Jon." Rosa didn’t even turn to look at me. She remained facing Emma. "This was unauthorized," Rosa told her.
"We need to defend ourselves," Emma insisted. "I don’t intend to be shot like an animal, helpless."
"We’re not going to be shot."
"They shot the workers."
Rosa stamped her foot down. "That’s just a rumor."
Emma shook her head somberly. "We got confirmed reports. There was a massacre last night."
Rosa looked at the faces of Ares and Bernadine, who nodded to confrim what Emma was saying. "We heard an eyewitness from the outside this morning," Ares said.
Rosa turned pale. "Why didn’t you tell me about this?"
"You wouldn’t have done anything about it anyway," Emma said in a disapproving tone. From the enraged look on Rosa’s face, I half expected her to physically attack Emma, but Emma continued. "We needed to act without you to protect ourselves."
"Emma probably about a fourth of the students here are pacifists. This is an anti-war march. If you flood this place with guns, they’ll leave in a mass." Rosa showed excellent restraint in her voice considering how angry she looked.
Emma looked backwards at Ares and Bernadine, then looked at Rosa and just shrugged. My apologies to the pacifists," she said, "but we have no intention of going like lambs to the slaughter."
"I’m not asking Emma. I’m telling you that until those weapons of your get a majority approval, they are in violation of our process. Do you respect the democratic process?"
"We’re not pressing guns on anyone who doesn’t want any. We’re just making sure those who choose to defend themselves are going to be well equipped."
This conversation I was observing only increased my conviction that my brother had no place at the barricades. I interjected myself again, but I tried to be brief. "Look Rosa, just tell my brother to go home and I won’t bother you again." The words spilled out of my mouth rapidly. I was trying to get everything out before Rosa or Emma cut me off.
Rosa turned to face me, and as soon as Rosa put her back to Emma, Emma started walking again. Sensing movement, Rosa whirled around to grab Emma’s arm. "I don’t have time for this Jon," she said. "If your brother doesn’t want to leave, I can’t make him."
"But if you’ll just—"
Keeping her grip tight on Emma, Rosa called out across the room to Varro and Julius. "Get him out of the room, will you?" Rosa indicated me with a movement of her head. Before Varro and Julius even got out of their seats, I was headed for the door, determined to leave on my own power.


After I left the furniture store, I didn’t even try and find Abel. I didn’t even check to see if he was in the spot I had left him at. Maybe he had waited for me like I asked him too. Probably not.
I did eventually run into David and Helen. I was glad to see them, and they were glad to see me. David asked me where I had gone to last night, but I think the question was merely a formality. Just from the tone of David’s voice, I could tell he already knew. I wondered if someone had told him or if he had seen me leave. Probably David had just drawn his own conclusions. He knew me well enough.
It was good to see them again. It was good to see Helen again. But as I touched her I realized how powerless I was. There was no way for me to get her to safety. When I was arguing for Abel, I was also arguing for Helen. If I had been successful in getting Abel to safety, I would have tried to save Helen. But, if Rosa wouldn’t send my brother away, I had no hope of asking her about Helen. At least with Abel I had an excuse to feel protective. He was my baby brother. What excuse could I use with Helen?
David seemed to have given up his attempts to convert me, but he did try and show me how fun it was to be a revolutionary. "Come on Jon," he said gleefully, leading me by the hand to the Via Barricade. Helen followed behind us as we ascended the ladder to the top of the barricade. There I got a good look at the Strates who had frightened us the day before. They were still in their original position, although it was impossible to tell if they were the same Strates. They were too far away for us to recognize anything but their uniform. The possibility that this was the same group was extremely low. Surely they must have been relieved by now.
They still had their guns and the bayonets were still fixed to them. Every time I looked at the rifles they appeared larger than I remembered them. The sun was just right in the sky so that it was sparkling off of the shiny rifles. Even from far away it seemed almost blinding to me.
David picked up a tattered, discarded flag, and waved it defiantly at the Strates. "Long live the Revolution!" David shouted. "Long live the people! Long live the students! Long live Freedom!" The flag fluttered loudly through the air as David waved it back and forth excitedly. "Come on Jon, try it. It’s lots of fun."
The fun, which I realize may seem strange to those over-seas, was the ability to shout at the Strates whatever one felt. It was not a privilege we had in Fabulae, and so it filled us with a sense of exhilaration to do it. It felt like we were defying the very laws of science themselves to yell at our superiors, as if we were breaking the law of gravity.
There was another factor I should explain, and any reader who has been in a similar position will identify immediately. There was a great sense of danger inside the barricades, and with good reason. Everyone knew that any second the attack could begin, and within minutes afterwards most of the revolutionaries might be dead. And yet this great feeling of danger was also mingled with a feeling of great boredom. There was nothing left to do in the barricades but wait for whatever destruction or triumph the future had in store. An hour of this would have been intolerable, but these students were approaching their second night. There was a great tenseness, and even I as an outsider felt it, for while I was behind the barricades I was in as much danger as they were. David’s yelling and flag waving was more than just revolt, it was a way to release all the pent-up energy and anxiousness.
Therefore, the reader will, I hope, understand if I picked up a tattered flag and shouted myself at the Strates. Besides, David would have been upset if I didn’t, and I didn’t feel like dealing with that. I regretted the actions immediately afterwards, mostly because I was worried Abel had seen me, and regarded me as a hypocrite.
I spent the afternoon with David and Helen. Odd as this may seem, I found their company more enjoyable than my concern for my safety. And, I feared to depart from Helen, lest I never see her sweet face again. I was, however, unwilling to risk returning home in the dark, or even at twilight. I stayed as long as I felt I could, and left when the sun was still bright in the sky. Angela helped me over the barricades again, with a thinly veiled contempt for the way I was leaving. I ignored her. I didn’t need her approval.
I encountered no problems on my return trip. There were a few Strates along Mundus road, who were observing what was going on, but they didn’t harass me. Nevertheless, I hurried back to campus at a quick pace. I didn’t dare to run, which would have caused me to attract undue attention, but seldom have I walked so fast.