Summer Lane - State of Rebellion

When we reach the Headquarters building, Angela is waiting at the front door. She smiles broadly at the sight of Chris and Vera walking together.

I cross my arms.

“Good morning,” she greets. “Thank you for coming. I see you’ve met my daughter.”

Her words are directed at Chris. Not me.

I pick up on this immediately.

We walk inside. The commanders are waiting around the table, and once again, I wonder why I’m here. I’m not a big time leader…then again, neither is Vera. We’re more like assistants to our militia commanders.

Dad is seated at the table, clean-shaven and dressed in crisp military garb. We lock eyes for a second as I sit next to Chris, Vera on his other side. Angela — who I’ve realized is the spokesperson for the board of commanders — shuts the front door and takes a seat at the head of the table.

“Well,” she says, casting a glance at me, “shall we begin?”

“What exactly are we discussing?” I ask.

“Our next move,” she answers. “Where should we start, gentlemen?”

“I say we start right in the thick of the thing,” Commander Buckley suggests. “We’ve got a lot of new men here now that the Fighters have showed up. Our numbers are growing. We can send out militias for longer periods of time because we’ll have more people that can stay behind and guard the camp.”

“So you’re suggesting that we send out a couple of militias at a time,” Dad says, “and leave a couple behind to guard the camp? That’s what we’ve been doing already.”

“Yeah, but now we have more men, so…”

“Excuse me,” I interject, taking a deep breath. “Who’s in charge?”

Nobody answers.

“I mean,” I correct, “ is anybody in charge?

Or is everybody here equal?”

“Everybody’s equal,” Angela answers, looking irked.

“So… there’s no leadership structure in this camp?” I ask.

“Each militia leader looks after his own men.”

“But what about the people who aren’t fighting? What about straight up refugees?” I point out. “Who do they take orders from?”

“They don’t. They’re just here to survive.”

“And what if they decide to do something stupid?”

“Like…?”

“I don’t know. Mutiny or something.”

“We would stop that from happening,” Commander Jones says.

“Because you’re in charge?”

He blinks.

“All I’m saying is,” I explain, “there’s no clear picture of leadership going on around here. Nobody knows who’s in charge of what, and the bigger this camp is, the more differing opinions you’re going to get, and you need to divide responsibilities up more evenly. People need to know that somebody’s in charge.”

Chris folds his hands under his chin, gazing at me thoughtfully.

“She’s right,” he says. “We’re in charge of our own militias, but nobody’s really running the camp. Anarchy could sweep in fast if it has the chance.”

“The real issue isn’t this ,” Dad snaps. “It’s what we’re going to do when this fight is over. Then what? Do we start rebuilding? Where’s the federal government? Do we come up with our own governing body?”

Good question. I hadn’t really thought that far ahead.

Angela looks at Dad. “Personally, I believe that we should build on what’s already in place,” she says. “The laws, the division of powers between the branches of government. We just start where we left off.”

I tap my fingers against my forearms, considering. I guess the militias everywhere would have a responsibility to start rebuilding the country if we succeeded in wiping Omega out. And then we’d have to decide how . We’d have to make sure that what we built wouldn’t collapse.

“Why start with a flawed system?” Commander Buckley demands, dropping his fist on the table. “Our government was corrupted beyond all comprehension before the EMP destroyed our infrastructure. This is our chance to wipe the slate clean and start over fresh, just like the original founders did.”

“And do what?” Dad growls. “Rewrite the constitution ourselves? Come up with a new system of democracy?”

“Technically, the United States is a republic,” I mutter.

“You know what I mean,” he says pointedly. “If we manage to push back this invasion, we’ll need a form of authority. We don’t want to become a military state, and we don’t want the population to have total free reign — that’s anarchy.”

“I’m aware of that,” Commander Buckley replies. “I’m also aware that there are a lot of things we could do better because of what we’ve been through.”

I look at Chris, gauging his reaction to all of this. I didn’t mean to start an argument about rebuilding the entire freaking government. I was just wondering who was in charge.

Personally, I think Commander Buckley has a point. A really good point.

Why build a rebirthed nation on a system that crumbled apart?

“We know what needs to be done,” I say suddenly, before I can stop myself. “We need a solid form of authority and structure, right? Anarchy will get us wiped off the map. The old system of government will collapse on itself, because it was too corrupted. But the idea of what we had was right on. You can’t argue with that. We were the most powerful, most creative, most free nation on earth. So we take what we know and come up with our own version. Like a purer version of what this is all supposed to be. Maybe this is our chance to fix everything that was ever wrong with our system. We could make sure something like this never happened again.”

Chris gives me a proud look.

I know. I made an intelligent statement. Go figure.

“No,” Dad says firmly. “We do not need to go around experimenting with different forms of government. That could set us up for total destruction.”

“Oh? So where are we right now?” I ask. “Last I checked, total destruction was already here. In case you hadn’t noticed, China is sending a million man army to the west coast and every major city from here to New York has been bombed.”

I immediately regret snapping at my father. But I can’t help it.

Can’t he see that he’s wrong?

“The girl has an excellent point,” Commander Jones adds. “Frank, we’re not saying to install a new system. Just an updated one. One that’s written with the knowledge of people who have seen the previous weaknesses and want to correct them…”

The men drone on and on, arguing back and forth over the issue. Frankly, it all seems a little bit stupid. Shouldn’t our focus be fighting Omega? What good does it do to talk about the aftermath when we’re barely keeping our head above the water right now ?

After an hour, the men are all but choking each other out, shouting and pounding their fists on the wall. Dad is one of the worst, fingers clenched around the edges of the table, a vein throbbing in his neck.

Finally, Chris speaks up.

“This is irrelevant,” he states.

Dad explodes, setting his laser-like glare on him.

“What do you mean by that?” he says. “This is necessary. What happens when—”

“—I understand that,” Chris interrupts. “But the fact of the matter is that we haven’t won this war yet. We’re walking the razor’s edge every day. Our focus now should be survival and combat strategy. We need to win this war. That is our priority. When the time comes, we can worry about rebuilding our infrastructure.”

“No. We need a plan,” Dad insists. His eyes flick to me.

“Sorry,” I shrug. “I agree with Chris on this one.”

Why do I feel so guilty saying that?