Prologue
October 17, 2039:
When the time came Richard knew there
would be a high probability of serious injury, not only to the Cons, but also
to innocent by-standers. He’d told them he didn’t want anybody to get hurt, and
that, despite his big talk a few days earlier, he believed they should remain a
non-violent movement.
But Suzanne had spoken to him quietly the
night before in her kitchen. She held his hand and gazed into his eyes as she
told him how proud she’d been when he’d spoken up at the lastmeeting. She was glad he understood that some pain was necessary, or else people wouldn’t react.
“The sheep,” she said, “will keep walking
down the chute unless something scares them. Only then will they open their
eyes and see where they’re headed.”
Richard didn’t respond. He knew that even
scared sheep couldn’t stop themselves from going to slaughter, but he didn’t
want to contradict her. She saw his hesitation and asked him if he was afraid,
with a look that told him she would only accept one answer.
“Of course not,” he lied, looking down to
avoid her searching gaze. “I just want to make sure I’m doing the right thing.”
“What else can we do, Richard? The public
is so apathetic they can’t be shaken out of their torpor with clever slogans
and colourful signs.”
She brushed the hair out of his eyes and
bent her head to look into his face.
“Without some pain they’ll
never see that the administration is run by militarists and elite
industrialists who are happily enriching themselves while families are poisoned
by the very air and water around them.”
Now Richard stood inside the
library’s entrance, remembering her words, and smelling her perfume like she
was still holding his hand. He watched
as his fellow students trudged in and out of the building. Most carried small waist-packs containing their
study discs and maybe some nutri-snacks under their slickers. He worried that
somebody would wonder why his pack looked bulkier than everybody else’s. Surely
nobody would expect him to be carrying an actual textbook around. But nobody
gave him a second look.
In the street, in front of the RCMP
station that was next door to the library, several patrol cars were parked. He
watched as two Cons, their air-masks hanging from their belts, chatted amiably
while they leaned against their cruisers. They were happy about something: one
of them laughing out loud while squeezing his colleague’s arm, before they both
strolled into the station.
Richard wanted to imagine that
they were laughing about an arrest they’d made, maybe some innocent and
harmless old man, but he couldn’t. It was easier to hate a faceless
administration than it was two buddies sharing a laugh. Whatever passion he’d
felt in Suzanne’s apartment had dissipated. This would have been easier for him
if his heart was still full of anger, but there was no turning back.
He looked at the antique
digital clock on the library wall: it was 9:45 AM. They’d told him to plant the
bomb at 10 o’clock, five minutes before the planned detonation, to minimize the
risk of discovery. But his heart was beating too rapidly, and he could feel the
sweat pouring down his face. He was sure he’d faint if he had to wait much
longer.
Nobody’s going to find it anyway, he told himself, as he placed the
waist-pack behind a bench near an exterior wall.
The detonation was set to expand outward, toward the police detachment,
and not inward where the students were crowded into a tight space. Still, the
chances of some of them being seriously injured, maybe even dying, were fairly
high.
He repeated to himself some
of Suzanne’s arguments that he’d memorized as a mantra: All shortages are tools of the administration; hungry people must pay
more for food; there’s always someone else to blame.
He took a deep breath and
told himself that it had to be done. After this act of defiance the
administration would have to take them seriously. And Suzanne would know that
he was a real man.
He just hoped that nobody he
knew would get hurt.
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