Inner City
Chapter 18
The university was alive with movement. Police and government authorities outnumbered students. The media streamed to the site. There were broadcast transporters taking up every possible vantage point. A dozen journalists stood; jackets pressed, microphones at the ready, each delivering a slightly different version of the same story - the student who defiantly stood and corrupted everything taught by the city. Callen was the modern serial killer, his victims: the law, the moral right and common decency. They painted him as psychotic, a sociopath, a radical, as a defective member of society - a society which had long since found ways to rid itself of deviant behaviour.
People, especially the young, would break the laws of sexuality and breeding from time to time, but breaches were quickly covered up and perpetrators punished without any undue attention. Those who openly defied and broke the city’s morality code as a form of dissent faced a very different end. They would receive a public trial by media. Detailed holographic recreations of their crimes and ongoing publicity after sentencing was designed to dissuade others from making similar protests. It also had the advantage of raising fear and anxiety which in turn led to the acceptance of even stricter changes to laws regarding personal freedoms. The system for determining the difference between those who intentionally or unwittingly breached the law wasn’t perfect, but the persecution of a few wrongly accused was an acceptable consequence in the ongoing war on moral decay. Any weakening of the law would lead to unsanctioned growth and threaten the system the powerful relied on to maintain their grand lives.
The hunt began to find Callen and make him an example. Rumours swirled about Eve’s identity; was she an Outlocked as claimed, or just a disgruntled young citizen playing her part in Callen’s grand hoax?
The frantic reporters jostled and grabbed at Professor Klim as police led him away for questioning. A sea of reporters and cameras moved with him. Every student stared, realising they were witness to a historical event. Those lucky enough to be inside the hall when Callen spoke were commanding centre stage, not just with the other students, but via social media where their followers, from a single interview, grew by tens of thousands. Of all the students at the university that day, only three remained beyond the excitement.
To the side of the media circus, above the crowds on a second level mezzanine, Jenny, Jay and Simone stood looking out in shock.
“Why would he do this?” Jay wondered aloud.
“He’s been gone almost two weeks?” Jenny said. The non-sequitur grabbed Jay’s attention.
“What’s that got to do with anything?”
“Where’s he been?”
Jay and Simone shrugged.
“Has Callen ever lied to us, about anything?”
Jay and Simone thought it over. Callen was a lot of things, but not a storyteller. The tale he’d told in Klim’s class was extraordinary.
“He told me he was going. He said he knew how to get past the wall and go outside the city,” Jenny confessed.
“When?” Simone asked.
“A few weeks ago.”
“Why didn’t you say something?” Jay almost yelled at her.
“Why do you think?” Jenny looked desperate and upset. She’d been keeping this secret for too long.
“He swore he was only joking. He said he wasn’t serious about going.”
“So he has lied?” Jay said, turning Jenny’s argument against her. Jenny nodded.
“Because of the way I reacted. I said I was going to turn him in.” Jenny looked at the ground in shame.
“I was scared. The things Callen was talking about, the ideas he had - it’s not what they teach us.” She looked pleadingly at her friends. “They lock people up for saying what he was saying. They lock you up for not reporting it too.”
Simone and Jay understood. Jay came to Jenny and put his arm around her.
“I’m the worst friend,” she said softly into his arm as he comforted her by rocking her back and forth.”
“Don’t be stupid. You were trying to talk him out of it. And you didn’t report him, did you? You didn’t even tell us about it, so that makes you a pretty awesome friend in my book.” They stood in silence watching the chaos a while longer.
“They’re going to kill him,” Jenny finally said.
“Spectacularly,” Jay added, “In front of cameras.”
“He should have thought of that before he said what he said. Why didn’t he just tell us? Why did he have to make it a circus?” Simone questioned.
“Why would he trust any of us after what I said to him?”
“You think what he said is true, don’t you?” Jay asked, staring at Jenny. Jenny nodded.
“Then we have to help him. How famous would we be?”
“This isn’t some game. You’d be famous and dead,” Simone warned.
“How would they know it’s me helping?” Jay chirped back, only seeing the upside to being hunted, tried, tortured and killed in front of the entire population.
“Because of your crystal I.D.”
“Just encased it in lead.”
“The tracking cameras?”
“Too fast, was that lightning? No? What was it then? Whoosh, I’m gone.”
“You are an idiot; you know that?” Simone said of Jay who was enjoying every moment of winding her up.
“How do you get around ninety million people ready to call you in?” Simone asked.
“With this…” Jay said, flashing a sexy smile, flicking his drifting fringe and then staring at Simone with a dreamy look. “Hey there,” he crooned, then winked. Simone tapped her ear, imitating making a call on an inner earpiece.
“Police? Yes, good, I’ve spotted a crazy person. Please come and pick him up.”
“Does this mean we believe him?” Jenny asked abruptly, ending the theatrics between the two friends, “Or do you still think he’s lying about what he said?”
Simone thought for a moment. She shook her head. She believed every word of Callen’s story.
“Then Jay’s right, for once. We have to help? We’re his best friends, and if we believe what he said, it changes everything.”
Jay and Simone looked confused.
“If they live the way he says, then this,” Jenny gestured towards everything they were looking at, “Can all change. No more quotas, no more qualifying for family status, none of it makes any sense if it’s like he says.”
“Do you think the girl with him has a sister?” Jay asked. Jenny and Simone snapped their heads around and stared at him. Jay broke into a broad smile.
“Joke!” he assured. “I’m in with helping, although if she does have a sister…”
The girl’s faces again registered shock.
“Joke,” he fired off again, before quietly adding, “Wouldn’t hurt to ask, though.”
Simone whacked him hard, and Jay yelped, fleeing before being hit again. He howled with laughter as she chased him, but he managed to stay out of reach. It was a momentary tension breaker that ended with Jay wiggling his eyebrows at Simone who glared at him and then shook her head despairingly, indicating he was no longer under attack.
The three stood watching over the grounds. There was a nervous excitement amongst them. If Callen was right, they had a chance to change their lives. Simone stared at the police holding back crowds and driving Professor Klim away.
“I’m scared,” she squeaked.
“We can’t rush in, that’s all. We have to work out how to help him with the least chance of getting caught,” Jenny warned.
Callen passed the crystal key across a lock. He poked his head inside the room and looked around. He’d done the same to countless rooms, but this was the first without a small viewing panel in the door to let people view inside without entering. It was a storeroom, only large enough to house a few automated cleaning machines. During the night these machines would snap to life as their robotics guided them through their work, but during the day they sat, silent, out of the way and hiber
nating in this out-of-the-way space. Best of all was the grill to the heating shaft in the ceiling. Callen climbed the plastic shelves that stood against one of the walls and lifted up the grill to peer inside. He nodded to himself. The building was old. It was little used and on the edge of the university perimeter, making this room an ideal place to hide.
The authorities kept to the exact script Callen imagined. They emptied the university and began to search the grounds, building by building. They searched methodically, moving in a sweep across the entire university. Callen knew he had to find a way to let that sweep pass them. Rumours began about where Callen and Eve were hiding. The students loved a conspiracy, and this one was growing rapidly.
The highest ranking city officials and power brokers gathered for hastily arranged meetings. Callen posed their most serious threat, although the leaders seemed more concerned with assigning blame for the incident to anyone but themselves. The only significant thing to come from the first meetings was a consensus to restore order at all costs. The death of one foolish young man and his partner was to be avoided, if possible, but if it brought an end to the matter quietly, then Callen and Eve’s deaths would be deemed acceptable collateral damage.
Eve jumped with fright as Callen opened the door to the storeroom with his foot. He carried a viewer from one of the nearby rooms. He set it up on the shelves and plugged it in, flicking to the news sites. Every site was running the story. Saturation news coverage commented on the previous comments, without adequate checks or research. Callen flicked between broadcast platforms. The scrolling banners and updates screamed of sensational new developments and then sung the same old news, unchanged from the first hours of the story breaking; the story of Callen, his life completely remodelled to fit the government’s narrative. Callen was crazy; thrown out of home for disciplinary reasons. He was angry and bitter at failing to gain a place in the tertiary education system. His presence at the university over the past year was a refusal on his part to accept he hadn’t qualified for even the most basic course as a home student. He created a deluded fantasy that included the pathetic charade of a daily trek to University. The News detailed how Callen was unable to accept this reality; he hadn’t even been bright enough to qualify for the most basic labourer’s degree, and this insane tale of the world beyond the wall was his way of striking back. They reported his grand hoax was timed to avoid the posting of grades at the end of the year. When that happened, the reporters detailed, Callen’s fictitious life would crumble. When his name didn’t appear in the published lists of student’s grades, his failure would be exposed. They surmised his coming humiliation pushed him to try and make a name for himself with his outrageous story. Callen sat watching his character assassination in stunned and silent stillness. Eve wanted him to protest the lies. Callen did too, but he knew the power of the media and the legitimacy it gave to any revision of history. Callen flicked the viewer off. He’d have to speak again. He’d need facts, and he’d need resources to get the message out, but most of all, he was going to need help.
The main door to the building rattled open. Callen had secured every door in such a way that opening one would make considerable noise. He was careful to make it look like this simple alarm was happenstance and not engineered. Too obvious and the authorities would be suspicious and begin a more thorough search of the building. On hearing noise at the front door Eve froze. Callen pointed to the duct above. Eve moved quickly climbing inside as Callen made his way to the door and peered out. Their storeroom was down a long ‘L’ shaped corridor; the shape allowed him to head down the corridor, part way, reach the thermostat and remain undetected by anyone entering the building through the entrance. At the corner of the corridor, he peered around to see who was at the main door. A few police searchers, carrying heat-seeking equipment entered and began their methodical sweep. Callen hit the thermostat controller and watched the liquid crystal display flash upwards: twenty-two, twenty-three and twenty-four. He hoped the heat moving through the shaft would mask their presence. It would be their only hope of remaining undetected.
He dimmed the display on the thermostat and then moved back to the storeroom. It looked empty and forgotten, a gallery of cleaning equipment waiting to activate remotely. Eve peered down from the open duct in the ceiling. Callen moved a box against the viewer to make it look unused, before climbing in beside Eve. They crawled as far away from the ceiling vent as they could and forced themselves past a bend in the plastic shaft. There they waited. The air in the duct became a noticeable breeze. It blew through the grill in the room’s roof. The air warmed and became hot around them.
It took almost thirty minutes for the searchers and their equipment to reach their room. Callen and Eve lay still, now sweating and sticky. The police were scanning for heat signatures. With a control pad and a small handheld pointer, an officer scanned their room. He scanned the walls and finally the roof, aiming the pointer across the shaft and then swinging it back and forth a number of times. The display lit up with a piercing beep each time it passed. Callen and Eve held their breath as the guard put their hiding place under greater scrutiny. He climbed the shelves and flashed a torch into the shaft, seeing only plastic as it bent its way within the roof of the building. The couple, held their breath, hidden inches beyond where the bend in the duct caught the beam from the guard’s light. Sweat was flowing, pooling beneath them, but Callen and Eve went undetected. The heat in the shaft had camouflaged their presence, just as Callen hoped. While the room was nowhere near the temperature of a human body, the air needed to travel the shaft to heat the building to the level shown on the thermostat was warm enough to conceal them from the guard’s scanning equipment.
The guard replaced the vent and moved out of the room. The moment he left, Eve repositioned herself. She and Callen were stuck together, sweating profusely. Callen gave a sympathetic smile, understanding her discomfort because he felt it too.
Half an hour had passed before Callen felt safe enough to drop from their hiding place. He tentatively looked down the hall, disappearing a moment later and then quickly returning and climbing back into the duct.
“They haven’t gone?” Eve asked with concern.
“They have,” Callen replied, “I just turned down the heat a little. I couldn’t take it anymore. I don’t know how much longer we’ll have to stay up here.”
Eve smiled with admiration. She’d been a border guard and understood the need for caution. Together, wet and sticky, they lay back down in the duct. The lack of hot air blowing over them was a relief. It allowed them to pass the next few hours in each other’s arms, drifting in and out sleep. Around them, the search of the university grounds continued.
For two more days the University lay empty, the grounds off limits to everyone. The policy was so strict even the media found themselves forced beyond the perimeter fences. Eve and Callen’s storeroom was searched one more time by a junior officer who never even put a foot in the room. On the third day of hiding, the police gave up and moved away. They assumed Callen had left the grounds. Continuing to search was only drawing attention to the incident and keeping it relevant. The university was re-opened. The authorities hoped this would end the matter and the well-publicised story of Callen being a disgruntled citizen playing a hoax would prevail.
While some media persisted, most people accepted the government’s line. The grand hoax theory swept the city, and the media continued to reinforce the story. Callen and Eve watched their viewer, keeping up with reports, but even these had become nothing but one-sided personal attacks damning Callen for his stupidity. Callen became a punch line for late night talk-show hosts.
When almost every angle of Callen’s infamy had been exhausted, a new subject broke loud across the news outlets. For once Callen was left at a loss for words, ashamed of his people. The broadcasters revealed Eve’s ‘true’ identity. They interviewed her parents, showed photos of her as a youngster playing contentedly with her school friends. They gave her a history
, complete in every detail and showed recent photos that were unmistakably Eve. The story completed with an impassioned plea from Eve’s parents, her ‘mother’, Mrs Bestnell, sitting in her modest home, stroking an adorable toy terrier and eventually breaking down and pleading into the camera.
“Please, stop this game you’re playing and come home. We don’t want you to get hurt. Please, sweetheart,” the woman blubbered down the lens, making a direct appeal to her ‘daughter’. Eve sat looking at the screen in disbelief.
“My Mother died four years ago,” she said with deep hurt.
“I know,” Callen replied. “But, I’m the only one who does anymore.”
Callen flicked the viewer to another screen. They too were breaking the ‘exclusive’ discovery of Eve’s parents and declaring it the final missing piece to one of the greatest hoaxes of all time. Callen turned the viewer off.
“We have to keep trying. We can’t stop, not now,” he said. Eve nodded. She understood his determination. After watching how they’d painted both of them and then defiled her mother’s memory, Eve was happy to give Callen her full support.
Jenny and Simone sat on the grass of the quadrangle, under the high UV cover, waiting for their first class. They’d been talking for almost five minutes and failed to notice the young man, his shirt off, stretched out on his belly, slowly inching his way towards them over the synthetic grass. His shirt was draped over his head like a hat to protect his eyes from the dampened, filtered light of day. When he arrived within inches of the girls, he went still, his chin resting on his hands. He watched Jenny and Simone with all the patience of a man at leisure. Jenny had seen him but failed to register his mostly hidden face. Finally mid sentence she glanced at him and her glance stuck. Her words dried up. Callen flicked his eyebrows up at her with a cheeky smile.
“What’s wrong?” Simone asked, noticing Jenny’s astonished expression. Jenny looked at her and then back to Callen. Simone followed her look and almost gave Callen away when she took a sharp, audible intake of breath. He was just lying there for all to see.
The girls wanted to ask a thousand questions, but knew, so close to others they couldn’t. Besides, Callen had more important things on his mind.
“Have you seen what they’re saying?” he asked. They had. They also knew his life story well enough to know it wasn’t true.
“What about everyone else?” he asked. “What are they saying?”
Jenny spoke softly, close to his ear.
“Some think you’re a hero, some think it’s a prank, but most believe what the news reports are saying.”
Callen understood. He couldn’t expect everyone to believe him in the face of the media onslaught. He needed to do more convincing.
“Do any of them believe what I said about the Outlocked?”
“We do,” Jenny answered. Callen smiled at her. He knew she was trying to lift his spirits.
“That’s not what I asked,” he said, looking into her eyes, trying to read her reaction. She paused and looked awkward. Callen nodded knowingly; he had his answer.
“I could use some help.”
“Anything,” Jenny quickly offered. Callen looked to Simone who nodded; she was on board too.
“And Jay,” she said. “I don’t know where he is, chasing some girl is my guess.”
Callen laughed, at least, while his world was crumbling and his entire life was under threat, he could take heart Jay hadn’t let it distract him.
“I’m in the old humanities building. Come to the door, and I’ll let you in. We need food, and maybe some hats and jackets, anything to help us hide.”
Jenny and Simone nodded. They knew to help was risky, but a friend was asking, and they weren’t about to turn their backs on him.
“We’ll find Jay,” Simone said, unwittingly nominating Jay to be included in whatever dangers lay ahead. Callen smiled and nodded, pleased with whatever support he could get. He asked Jenny about lectures and classes.
“They have security at the lectures. They’ve stopped searching, but they don’t want anyone else copying you. At least that’s the story for why there’s a guard in every lecture hall.”
Callen took the information in and considered his options. He asked the girls to meet him at the end of the day.
“Bring Jay. He’s going to tell people this is all his idea, so he might as well be there for some of it.” The girls laughed, Callen knew them all well, especially Jay.
Callen stood, turned and walked calmly into the sea of students. No-one noticed him. He became just another in a vast array of faces reflecting the varied ethnicities, blended through generations, creating the modern population.
When Callen arrived back at the storeroom to rejoin Eve, he had with him a compupressure pad that he borrowed from an empty room. Klim’s crystal key was proving his saving grace. Equipment left in locked rooms around the university allowed him to take whatever he needed. Callen wanted to publish a statement that would lay out his claims and hopefully sway more to believe his story. Eve was pleased with the plan but thrilled when she heard his friends were willing to help.
Callen sat and tried to write everything he wanted to say. Eve made suggestions, but they were missing that one, undeniable piece of persuasive evidence. Callen needed something to discredit the lies spewing down the fibres on so many media platforms. He intended to play them at their own game. Callen and Eve agreed on an introductory paragraph and a passage restating their claims, but they still hadn’t found anything to force the government onto the back foot. None of their ideas delivered what they wanted, until Eve flipped up her top, raised her right arm and revealed a long faded scar with obvious stitch wounds running from the pit of her underarm, snaking around to her back.
“Ask my mother how I got this?”
Callen marvelled at the faint, slightly discoloured line. It looked like a seam, where her skin had come together.
“Why have I never seen this before?” he asked in astonishment. Eve cupped her breasts in both hands.
“I have no idea,” she answered facetiously.
Callen laughed; guilty as charged. He bowed his head and began to write. That scar and its history were what they’d been after; a key they alone had access to, a key that would expose the charlatans and find the true believers amongst those hearing their story. It would force people to ask questions when those masquerading as Eve’s parents came up short. It would make people doubt the allegations made by officials, and all any good conspiracy needed to persist was doubt.
Late that night, well after most students had headed home, the door to the humanities building rattled to life. Callen calmed Eve, assuring her it was his friends and not the police. He and Eve navigated the halls, peering down from a second story window towards the landing. In front of the door, they saw Jenny, Simone and Jay waiting to be let in. They cautiously descended the stairs to the ground floor. Callen flashed his crystal against a viewer pad. The door clicked open. He ushered his friends inside. They hugged and smiled, even managing a laugh as they swapped greetings. Jenny made a show of greeting Eve, and the others followed. For the first time since she’d entered Callen’s world Eve felt like she belonged.
Jenny had taken it upon herself to conduct a discreet poll amongst the students to answer Callen’s earlier question. While many students weren’t ready to believe his story, they loved his fight. Anything that thumbed its nose at authority was a popular stance amongst the student body. Callen had become an overnight celebrity.
“Do you know what you’re going to do?” Jenny asked. Callen nodded and grabbed his pad.
“We’re releasing this,” he said, passing the compupad over to be read.
“Days ago I spoke in Professor Klim’s class about the Outlocked world and experiencing a life our modern society should provide for us. Included in these are the rights to have children, space and natural food and resources.
The authorities are using the media to mislead you – they’re lying. They’re lyi
ng when they say what I told you isn’t true. Every thing I said happened. I’m being hunted since speaking because the authorities are scared I’ll reveal the secrets beyond our city’s walls, secrets that’ll force a great change to all our lives, change for the better.
What I’ve said is true and will bring us a better future. To those who still don’t believe me, I issue a challenge to the city to put an end to any doubt about what I’ve said. My partner, Eve, herself an Outlocked and not city born as reported, has a large scar from a childhood injury. The city’s shown you Eve’s mother and father. They are imposters. Eve has never seen them before. If these people are her parents, then they’ll know exactly how she got her scar, where it is on her body and why it looks nothing like any healed wound tended to by our city doctors. If they don’t know these things - it proves they’re not who they say they are and the lies are coming from the authorities and not from us.”
Callen looked to his friends as they read. They all grinned when they reached the challenge he was setting. They were certain Eve’s city parents would fall short, and it would force people to rethink the story they were hearing.
Callen asked one last time if anyone had anything to say before he prepared to load and send the massmail.
“The moment you send it they’ll know you’re here,” Jay warned. “They’ll come for you, and that’ll drown everything else out.” Jay held out his hand. “Give it to me,” he said.
“Then they’ll arrest you!” Simone said with obvious concern for Jay’s safety.
“They’ll never catch me because I’m Nin-Jay.” Jay added a breathy ninja hiss, holding up his hand and blowing a swooshing sound through his fingers. Simone shook her head in dismay.
“I’ll take it to the North Wall and find a message bank by the station. That’s where you came in, right?” Jay asked.
Callen nodded.
“I’ll wear a hoody. They’ll think it’s you. They might even think you’ve gone back. The message gets sent, and Nin-Jay disappears into the night.” Jay made another breathy, windy whooshing sound. Jenny and Simone looked at him with pity. Jay was a good looking guy, and despite his efforts, he rarely had a girlfriend. If he did, it was usually short-lived. This third-person superhero stuff was why. Callen handed over the message crystal.
“You’re not seriously going to trust him?” Simone asked in surprise.
“It’s sending one message. And sending it from out there is a good idea. It might confuse them enough to let us get away with this.”
Jay looked to Simone and taunted her, blowing his breathy ‘whoosh’ through his fingers again and then adding a high pitch ascending, “Whaooor.” Simone rolled her eyes.
“Don’t do the sounds,” Callen suggested quietly. Jay looked to him chastened and nodded. Sending the message would have to be super-heroish enough.
That night, three hundred and ninety-five thousand, six hundred and forty-two active student received Callen’s message. Those online and viewing would receive the mail immediately. The rest would find it when they next logged on.
After a restless night, Callen and Eve sat crouched around the small viewer in their storeroom. The morning bulletins all lead with the story. Too many students received Callen's message, so it had to be acknowledged; an entire generation of inquiring young minds demanded to see the challenge play out. Callen and Eve flicked through different screens, ending on the most watched of the morning broadcasts.
The anchorwoman shifted from her host’s position and was now mobile. The story was as big as any story got, and her ability to remain onscreen for as long as possible during big stories is what made her a household name. She was outside the home of the Bestnell’s, the people the city claimed to be Eve’s parents. The high profile journalist walked at a brisk pace to the door, knocking and waiting; doing everything she could to convince those riveted to her every word that this extraordinary event was live and unscripted. She narrated every moment, building suspense in the mundane with masterful precision. She was steering this live climax to the weeklong drama. Callen and Eve squeezed each other’s hands tightly. Mrs Bestnell opened the door. She looked surprised and dishevelled. The reporter pushed inside to assault the flustered looking couple with questions. The Bestnell’s had just woken and were struggling to come to terms with the intrusion and unwanted attention.
“You’ve found Eve?” Mr Bestnell asked with concern.
The news anchor explained they hadn’t and thrust a screen containing Callen’s message into her hands. Together, Mr and Mrs Bestnell read the contents in front of the watching world. They collectively slumped, having hoped the matter would be coming to an end, not taking another turn.
“This is so far out of control, it’s not funny,” Mr Bestnell said, playing the role of Eve’s father to perfection. He looked to his ‘wife’ for confirmation as he continued.
“There was a rod, plastic, you know, one of those old-fashioned rods you use to adjust a blind. A young boy,” he continued.
“A neighbour,” Mrs Bestnell chimed in, adding to her husband’s sentence in a way that only long time couples can.
“That’s right. He sharpened it like he was hunting like it was an arrow. It was a game and Eve fell on it. It stabbed her. Here,” he indicated his right side just below his arm pit. “She needed stitches, over twenty. There were complications, an infection. How old was she?” He asked of his partner who was quick to reply.
“Eight,” Mrs Bestnell said with absolute certainty.
Callen stared, dumbfounded. He flicked the viewer off. Both he and Eve were in shock.
“There’s no way they could know that,” Eve said in disbelief.
“How did you get the scar?” Callen asked. She looked at him, bewildered.
“I was eight. Ky sharpened a stick. We were playing a game, he made an arrow, just like they said.”
The two sat in silence. Callen was out of ideas.
Around lunchtime, Jenny, Simone and Jay arrived to find two defeated and depressed revolutionaries without any fight left in them. When Callen saw their broad smiles, he assumed he’d lost even their support.
“You’re not going to believe what’s going on,” Jay gushed.
“They’re with you, the students. Almost all of them,” Jenny added. “There are reports of you everywhere. The police have no idea what to believe.”
In the midst of such irrefutable evidence so quickly assembled and played out through the cables, a groundswell of support had sprung up in Callen’s favour. He could hardly believe his ears as his friends told him of the student’s response. There were hundreds of copy-cat supporters painting the slogan; they lie anywhere they could reach. Other equally bold signs indicated Callen’s message had taken hold amongst those discontented with city life.
Rumours spread about Callen’s hiding place. If all were true, he was in many places at once. Callen doubted any of it mattered anymore.
“They’ve made me look like a liar. Didn’t you see the news?”
“Yes. And people are asking questions,” Jenny said, bursting with renewed faith in her fellow students. “The story’s coming apart, small things, details, it’s not matching up,” she said gleefully.
The way the city’s story fell into place so quickly made it seem prepared, and the students noticed. Some of those living in the northern districts, the area where Callen and more importantly Eve supposedly grew up, were speaking up.
“There’s a girl who lived in that building until six months ago,” Jenny gushed. “She knew everyone who lived there and those people,” she continued, turning to Eve, “Your parents, she’s never seen them before. And she would know if there was another girl in her building the same age, right?” Jenny paused, letting this fatal flaw in the city’s story sink in. “There’s other stuff, too, lots and it’s all going online. People are starting to believe you, at least most of the students, anyway.”
Callen was stunned. In the face of evidence making him and Eve feel defeated,
the students had found a way to believe. Callen and Eve hugged and for a brief moment there were celebrations in the small room as the group came together as one. They celebrated having won nothing in a battle long from over, but it was a moment of release, a moment needed to revive them for their next effort. Callen wondered what that next effort should be.
“I had an idea,” Jay said. Jenny and Simone had heard Jay’s idea and implored him to stay quiet.
“What is it?” Callen asked, feeling they should listen to every suggestion. Jay outlined the idea. If Callen chose to put it into action, he’d be able to appear in front of the students again. He’d have enough time to speak for a few minutes, that’s all, but it should be enough. One more statement to show everyone he wasn’t giving up and more importantly, prove he was still fighting for change. If it worked, Jay was certain, the students, already primed for a fight, would become a force.
Callen listened to Jay outline his plan; then he took a moment to consider it.
“It’s the best we’ve got,” he said.
Jay was chuffed and smugly looked to Jenny and Simon with an, “I told you so,” expression.
“It’s too dangerous,” Jenny warned.
“Got a better idea?” Callen challenged. There was only silence.
Callen nodded, ending the debate. He was willing to take the risk to have one more chance to speak. Now he had to decide what it was he was going to say. He fielded suggestions. Everyone had ideas, but in the end, it was Eve who said it best.
“Say what you’ve been saying from the beginning,” she said. “Just say it quickly.”
Callen smiled. He found some space to set about drafting his next message.
“Do you think three of us are enough?” Jenny interrupted.
Callen hadn’t given this much thought. They ran through what was needed.
“We need more people,” he said quietly.
Jenny, Jay and Simone smiled. They’d found it hard to keep the secret of Callen from their closest friends, now they had permission to tell them what was going on and they all felt sure their friends would be willing to help.
Jenny, Simone and Jay left to round up their most trusted friends, agreeing on a time to meet back. Callen and Eve were left alone. They grew nervous, for the first time since entering the city they would have to trust in others for their safety.