Fredric Shernoff - Atlantic Island

Two days following the raid, Theo sat down with Kylee. “You wanted to talk to me?” he said.

“Well, I thought you should talk to someone. You don’t have to go through all this alone.”

“I do talk to people. I met with Brian and Liz this morning to go over some ideas about how to better gather intelligence on the other side and—”

“That’s not what I mean,” she said. “I know you talk about plans and strategies, and that’s important. But when you start looking to the people closest to you as allies, subordinates, advisors, whatever, you lose out on what you need most. Friends.”

He smiled. “You’re a little more than just a friend to me, you know.”

“Really? I had no idea. Seriously though, that’s why I’m the one who needs to talk to you. I don’t want you putting so much pressure on yourself.”

“Kylee, last year I was struggling with my grades in school. Now I’m the head of a rebellion with my girlfriend as general of my army. How can I not feel pressured?”

“I get it. I had a normal life too, you know. Friends, family. There are many people I miss, and I’m a girl who had a few months of training now trying to lead a team of mostly women to do I don’t know what. It’s stressful. But somehow these are the jobs we ended up with, whether we wanted them or not. We have an obligation to our people, and to all the people of this island. Tiberius has to go, Theo. And it’s up to us to remove him.”

Theo thought in silence. Finally he looked up at her. “You’re right, babe. You always are. And you’ve given me an idea.”

“Well thank you. What’s your idea?”

“You said you’re dealing with an army of mostly women. Well, that’s because their husbands are locked up. That’s the rest of our army right there. The ‘political prisoners’ Tiberius took away because they didn’t agree with him.”

Kylee brushed back her hair. “You want to stage a prison break? Do we even know where the men are being kept?”

He shook his head. “Not specifically, no. Though I think most of the prison is filled with dissidents. I think the real criminals whose weapons ended up in our safe house weren’t so lucky.”

“How do we break into a prison? It’s got to be heavily guarded.”

“Well, who says we have to break in? Maybe we can somehow help the prisoners break out. Start the uprising from within.”

She kissed him. “You see? You can’t doubt yourself, Theo. I keep telling you, you’re in this position for a reason. Why don’t you meet with all the inner circle tomorrow?”

“Sounds good. What do I do today?”

She smiled. “Leave that to me.” She kissed him again.

“We have so much to be proud of right now,” Theo said to his friends. “The bank mission has provided us with a fighting chance. It’s now time to talk about what comes next.”

“Does it involve some kind of espionage?” asked Brian. “I’m dying to get out there and get involved.”

“Then this might be your lucky day, my friend.”

“What’s your plan, Theo?” asked Jamie.

“My plan is to bring the fight to Tiberius. It’s time for war. How we get there… well, I have a few key parts of my strategy. Please feel free to contradict me and give me your opinions.” He smiled. “It’s only the fate of all of our lives that we are discussing here. You know, NBD.”

The laughter that greeted this statement inspired him. His people were united by common goals and beliefs. Tiberius united only by fear. That was going to be his downfall. Theo was going to show Atlantic Island that there was nothing to fear from Paul Tiberius and his Security Force.

Theo opened his mouth to continue, but caught himself as he saw the expressions on the faces of everyone in the room. They were all looking to the doorway. One of Kylee’s recruits was standing by the entrance to the safe house with a gun raised to the head of another woman. It was Michelle.

“Found this girl wandering around. She was asking about all of you. I thought I’d better bring her in.”

“It’s okay,” said Theo. “She’s our friend.”

The woman scowled as if to question the company Theo chose to keep. She lowered her weapon and backed off. Michelle relaxed and walked into the room. Jamie and Kylee jumped up and hugged her.

“Where have you been?” Kylee asked.

“Living in the city,” said Michelle. “The Security Force thinks I’m a Tiberius loyalist.”

“And you’re not?” asked Ryan. He looked furious.

“No, Ryan! I’m so sorry for everything. I was wrong to run out on you guys. It took me a long time to find you. What is this? You have security?”

“We’ve been through a hell of a lot since you decided to wander off,” Ryan said.

“Come on, man,” said Bill, “go easy on her.”

“No!” said Ryan. “She left us. Left me! Ran away because we dared think that we didn’t have to accept a life under a dictator. Well guess what, Michelle? We damn near got killed by your beloved dictator. We’ve been hiding here. Sleeping on the floor. Trying to survive and mount a counterattack.”

“A counterattack?” Michelle asked.

“Yes,” said Theo. “Why don’t you join us, Michelle?” We were about to discuss some strategy.”

“I’m sorry, Theo,” said Andrew, “but how do we know we can trust her? How do we know she’s not a spy for Tiberius?”

“We don’t. We can’t. But I’m not going to deny safety to someone who needs it and I can’t have any of us not trusting each other. I want her to stay.”

Theo could tell that some of his group did not agree with his decision. He hated having to pull rank. It was not his style of leadership. In this case, it was the only thing he could think to do. Michelle was one of Kylee and Jamie’s best friends. She deserved a chance to apologize and return to the fold. He knew that Ryan would likely not forgive her, and maybe that was okay. Ry would be keeping an eye out, and that was good enough for Theo.

“So as I was starting to say,” Theo continued, “the time is coming to go to war with the leadership. We don’t have to launch the plan until we are good and ready, but once it starts I’m afraid it’s all going to happen at once. We are going to build our army from the men Tiberius has unfairly thrown in prison. We’ll do that by starting the fighting from within.”

He looked at Kylee. “I wish there was time for you to train them, but this isn’t going to be like the raid on the bank. There’s no way to get all those people back across the island to hide out here and learn to fight. The prison breakout has to be the first major part of the battle. From there, we don’t stop. We will make sure to get word in advance to Officer Menendez. With any luck he has a few recruits who can help us. It’s going to be a difficult, progressive struggle. We will need to disarm Security Force soldiers as we defeat them, in order to properly arm our men.”

“What’s the end game?” asked Bill.

“The end game is our army storming the Palace. We take out Tiberius, dead or alive. Personally, I’d prefer alive. He has a lot to answer for and I’d love to see that happen in a real, honest court of law.”

He paused, waiting for dissent. There didn’t seem to be any. Michelle was clearly holding her peace so as not to incite another round of animosity in her direction. Theo doubted she had totally relinquished her concerns about challenging Tiberius.

“I don’t say any of this lightly,” he continued. “Many of us in this room and in this house may not survive the battle to come.” He saw his friends starting to interject. “I don’t want to hear anything about me staying back. This is for all the marbles, as they say. I’m there with you every step of the way. Who is with me?”