noway_OUT !!

[<< NINE]

Keenan was running a little behind that day, in the mental department, that is. He hadn’t been feeling quite right since the night before, when he’d had another of the strange, unidentifiable dreams he kept getting. Waking up at three thirty and failing to go back to sleep, he’d instead decided to wander a ways, and had ended up doing a little exploring in the Metro, which, in spite of the fact that the Resistance had been inhabiting it for nearly three years now, was largely unexplored. There was just so much that could go wrong, every time they ventured out of the Cavern. That wasn’t to say that they didn’t; Keenan sent out scouts and even walked out of the dark tunnels of the Metro himself every now and then, but they had to be careful. Anyway, the point of all that was that on his wanderings prior to dawn, Keenan had noticed a sign for a grocery they hadn’t investigated before, and he’d added it to his grid of the city; the one he’d overlaid on top of an old map handed out by the Amsterdam tourist bureau years ago. It had been a beautiful day outside, so he’d suggested that they take the short walk to the grocery and see if they couldn’t find anything worth salvaging. A short distance from the grocery, he had also noted, was a park, and parks meant places where they could potentially plant food.

Keenan had tried and failed months ago to get some sort of major agricultural system going, but the truth was, here in the heart of Amsterdam, they were far from any large fields that could be cultivated. And the fields that they could potentially have reached were large, open stretches of land with no buildings around, no buildings that could hide them from Sentinels, anyhow. Parks were their best hope for having fresh food, and the decidedly needed it. There was a limited amount of canned food in the world, especially in Amsterdam alone, and they would have to start producing their own if they didn’t want to die of starvation eventually. So when they got to the surface, Keenan walked with the group headed to the park. He looked around for a moment, but eventually decided that he’d head back and see what the other group had found at the supermarket. If there was anything of value, they might need help carrying some of it back.

He was at the broken automatic door, which had been jimmied open, when he heard a high-pitched shrieking sound, and one of the people who’d gone in came tearing back out like the hounds of Hades were on his heels. Keenan’s first impulse was to run; when you saw a guy running like that, your best bet was usually to follow him. But he also knew that Aidan hadn’t gone in there alone, and Keenan refused to leave the other person in there alone. He couldn’t remember who it had been, but he knew he had to get them out if there was something dangerous inside. “Lock down the cavern!” he shouted over his shoulder to Aidan. If there were Sentinels or something else worse in here, he wanted to make sure the people back in the Metro were safe.

The turn around the corner was a little anticlimactic. There were no Sentinels, no monsters, nothing that he could see that Aidan would have been so afraid of. That is, until he realized what it was the scanner had been shrieking at. Keenan had lived around technology long enough in his life that it only took him a few seconds to put it together, and when he did, he tightened his grip on his weapon instinctively. By the time he got to her side, she was looking like she might be waking up. “What the hell is…” He didn’t even know how to phrase his question. What are you? That wasn’t very nice. What’s going on? That might be better. “What the hell happened? Can you hear me?” He knew, he had a feeling in his gut that there was only one reason Aidan would be so scared of a simple grocery store checkout scanner, but Kyrie didn’t look like a robot, and that left only one thing. He kept his gun held tightly, at the ready…


Status: Complete
Words: 728
Notes: None.

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[<< NINE]

Keenan’s thoughts spun. His logical side knew exactly what was going on, had figured it out the moment he’d associated the noise with the scanner. But he was confused nonetheless, simply because this was a tactic that was completely new to him. He was used to the Sentinels coming around with their high tech suits, scanning the place with their infrared or whatever it happened to be, holding huge guns and threatening to take away all that Keenan and the others had left in the world. But subterfuge? What was this? Sentinels didn’t pretend to be Resistance. They couldn’t. They were always communicating with the Net, it was impossible for them to pretend to be anything other than what they were. But here she was, giving him some sort of…call sign, or label, or something.

He had to kill her. He knew it, there wasn’t a doubt in his mind. If she went back and reported what she’d seen to the Net, if she repeated everything she’d heard since she’d been with them, everything Keenan and his father had worked so hard for would be undone. Had she done so already? Was she linked to the Net even now? But if she was, why would she have waited this long to turn them in? His mind was awash with questions, questions he didn’t even know how to ask, much less find answers for. And here she was asking him to identify himself.

”Identify myself so you can put a label on my file when you upload me?” he asked. ”I don’t fucking think so.” He held his gun, steady now, the trepidation he had been feeling now moving to the back of his mind, pushed there by the instinct of survival. His gut told him to shoot first and ask questions later, but he knew that if he did shoot, he’d have no way to ask those questions. And if he could get answers, they could help the Resistance survive better in the next place, wherever that would be, if this worked out as badly as Keenan was dreading that it would.

”Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t shoot you now.” he demanded. It might seem that he was being harsh, but not knowing the situation, Keenan was doing what he knew how to do before anything else – trying to ensure the survival of the people who weren’t here to make this decision for themselves. This wasn’t a vote, it was a fight, a battle between Keenan’s instincts and his compassionate nature. It was ridiculous, he thought. She was a Sentinel. She’d just said she was a Sentinel. He shouldn’t be feeling sorry for her. But somehow, the fact that she didn’t look like the ordinary perception of a Sentinel, that simple difference in appearance, made him second guess himself. He should shoot her now before she could give them all up to the Net officials, but he couldn’t. He couldn’t just look her in the eyes and pull the trigger. Of course, she didn’t need to know that, and Keenan’s hands on the gun didn’t falter in spite of the waver in his confidence. That he kept hidden, and hoped to the powers above that she couldn't tell that he probably didn't have the resolve to shoot her down in cold blood.


Status: Complete
Words: 555
Notes: None.

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[<< NINE]

Being a leader was a complicated thing. It had its perks, Keenan thought; you got to voice your opinion and people actually listened. But there were times when he wished he could just hand the torch over to someone else, times when he realized that having this kind of authority was the last thing he had ever wanted to do, that he wanted nothing more than to just put up his hands and let someone else make these difficult decisions. When Keenan’s father had been around, when Keenan had been just plain Keenan and not Keenan “Suspect Nine,” leader of the remainders of the human race, he’d sometimes envied his father’s position. He’d always assumed that it would be his calling to fill those shoes someday. He’d hoped he would have more time to prepare for it; they’d always imagined that Calyhan would die someday, not be uploaded and taken away by the enemy, but Keenan had known that, with the people’s approval, the position would be his.

Now he wondered why he’d been so excited about that idea. He knew there were reasons, but they were a lot harder to remember when he was trying to decide whether somebody got to live or die. What kind of choice was that for one person to have to make? And yet, here he was, presented with that very decision.

”You know, son, it’s very rarely ever about what you want to do. It’s more…what you have to do, what you know you have to do even when it’s something you hate doing more than anything else. Some people have that ability, and some people don’t. And I’m not saying it’s a good thing or a bad thing. It’s just a necessary thing. Some people have to have the ability to make decisions no one else wants to, and they have to be able to make the choice everyone else will hate them for. Some people have to be the ones to hate them for it, and they’re not necessarily in the wrong, either. There’s no black and white, not in the real world.”

Keenan couldn’t even remember when his father had said that to him. It was eerily prophetic, that Calyhan would have been preaching the woes of leadership to him then, years before either of them had expected Keenan would have to be aware of them, but his father had always had a level of foresight Keenan had envied. Maybe it was just the wisdom of experience, maybe Calyhan had been contemplating his own demise for some time,and Keenan had just been too young and naïve to think about a future without him. Whatever the case, the advice, while pertinent, hardly helped him. What decision did he have to make here? Was it a pull-the-trigger kind of decision that everyone would hate him for, or was it an allow-the-Sentinel-to-live kind of decision?

He tensed as she moved, but in the end, he went with the instincts that had served him so well over the years; he lowered his weapon, ever-so-slightly, and he gave her the benefit of the doubt. ”And why haven’t you killed me?” he asked, even though he knew that might be obvious. She could just be gathering information, could be waiting to take out the entire Resistance at once instead of just taking out a leader they could replace. But in this world, where so many things were centered on betrayal and lies, he wanted to believe her. He wanted her to give him an explanation that would convince him to not kill her. ”Why?” That second why was a loaded question, and it was much more than just a repetition of the first question. There were so many whys in his mind at that moment. Why was she here? Why wasn’t she shooting at them? Why didn’t she have the equipment the other sentinels had?

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[<< NINE]

The funny thing about her questions was that Keenan knew the answer to the first one, but not the second. Had he done anything that deserved death? Most certainly. He had a feeling that everyone felt that at some time or another, but he knew that he’d had to leave people behind, he’d watched people die, and he would forever feel guilty for that. And above all else, he had run when the Sentinels had invaded the compound in Copenhagen that night, when they’d taken his father away to be uploaded. He told himself he’d had no choice, that if he’d stayed, it would have achieved nothing but having the rest of the resistance, and himself, captured or killed as well. But the memory of that, and the survivor’s guilt that came with it, plagued him. It was the first thing that came to mind when she asked that question, and the answer his mind provided was not one he really wanted to think about. Yes, Keenan had done things that someone could kill him for, without stopping to think of his reasons.

But did she deserve to die? Keenan didn’t know. His own father was proof that association with the Net didn’t automatically mean that you were guilty of all the Net’s crimes, namely forcing people to upload against their will. That was one of the key reasons Keenan was part of those in the Resistance who believed in peace with the Net, instead of utter destruction of the servers. He knew that many of the people who were uploaded hadn’t done so willingly, and even if they had, he was sure that not all of them were determined to make everyone else choose the same path they had. It was never black and white, as his father had told him so many months ago. If what she was saying was true, if she’d defected, she could be more of an ally to them than many people who hadn’t seen firsthand what the Net could do. It made sense, too, and it served to answer many of the more obvious questions he’d been contemplating, such as why she didn’t carry the customary Sentinel gear, why she was there, and why she wasn’t killing him. What she said about not being able to go back, though, intrigued him. He winced inwardly at the mention of his head on a platter, and at the mental image that accompanied it. He wasn’t sure what he feared more, dying or being uploaded. At least if he uploaded, he could continue to work against the Net and their goal of complete domination. But he didn’t know what else they could do to him. Could they brainwash him? Make him think he was someone he wasn’t? He had no idea.

”Would you kill me if they’d take you back for it?” he asked, not really expecting an honest answer. Even if she would, she probably wouldn’t tell him, and he couldn’t blame her. That wasn’t the kind of answer you gave someone pointing a gun at you. Keenan decided to take a risk, and lowered his gun further, moving to sit on top of the checkout counter nearest to him, still facing her.

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[<< NINE]

Damn it, she was right. It was almost as if she was reading his mind. As far as he knew, though, that wasn’t possible, not even from a full-fledged Sentinel, one with all of their equipment, who wasn’t sitting there claiming to be a defective Net agent. He assumed she was reading into his doubts, which must be apparent on his face. At first, he’d tried to keep up the pretense that he was completely calm and collected, completely in control of himself and the situation, but he knew that she was probably aware of the fallacy of that opinion just as much as he was, so he stopped trying to hide his confusion. She knew he had questions, and it was useless to pretend that he didn’t.

But her question stuck with him. It wasn’t the first time Keenan had heard the question; he’d asked it of himself many times. What would be so bad about the Net? If it was true, like so many people said it was, that you could go anywhere, do anything you’d ever dreamed of doing, see whatever historical thing you wanted to see…what was so bad about that? It seemed like a hard question to answer, but Keenan had attempted to give enough inspirational speeches, had done so much morale-boosting, that he knew the answer by heart now.

“There are some things that I’m just not willing to trade, even for immortality, even for invincibility.” He told her. “When I walk outside, when I breathe, when I walk, when I touch something, when I feel, happiness, sadness, pain, hurt, fear, joy…I know that it’s my own senses that are sending that to my mind. I know that it’s my lungs delivering oxygen to the heart that keeps me alive, I know that it’s my feet that keep me walking, and I know that it’s my skin I feel the sun, or rain, or wind on. I know that it is my soul that feels the sorrow that comes with losing someone who’s stood beside you, who’s fought for their life with you. And as unpleasant as some of those things sound, I know that whatever else I am or am not, whatever failings or shortcomings I may have, I’m real. I’m a flesh and blood and bone, breathing, thinking, feeling man, and I don’t see how all of that can possibly be translated into little digital pieces of information.” He realized that might sound a little naïve, or unappreciative of the huge steps technology had taken over the past decade, but it was truer than anything else he knew, and it was the reason he knew he had to keep fighting.

“I don’t fear immortality,” he said, finally. “I fear becoming someone…or something…that doesn’t care about those things. I’m afraid of finding something else that means more to me than breathing, or feeling.”

[<< NINE]

Keenan was slightly relieved, and he wasn't quite sure why, to hear the way she classified human nature. Of course she'd consider herself human; all the Sentinels were human. But what was this notion of humanity they held onto so dearly? What was it that set this world and the Net apart? The answer wasn't as black and white as a lot of the Resistance seemed to think it was. Was it love? No, the people on the Net loved. Keenan knew, and had told her, his own reasons, but his own personal preferences were hardly a law by which others could guide their own convictions. There was something that ran far deeper than Keenan's affection for the outdoors, for physical sensation. And perhaps it had something to do with the way both Net citizens and Resistance alike viewed the Sentinels. Keenan had his own reflections on the Sentinels, and in his most optimistic hours, mostly late at night, he had imagined that the salvation of the human race just might lie with them.

That had been before the dreams had started, of course. At this point, he was all but convinced that there was some other way the two worlds could eventually come together, some way that peace could be built between them. Some seemed to think that was a foolish notion altogether, but Keenan refused to let go of it. It was a new thought, the one she raised. To the Net citizens, Keenan and his little band of resisting people would be just as much a faceless fear as the Net was to them. It was a new thought, one he should have contemplated before now, but hadn't gotten around to.

She asked whether he was going to kill her, and Keenan knew she had a right to know. It wasn't fair to let her sit there wondering. There was only one other person besides him who knew exactly what had happened here today, and he thought Aidan himself probably wasn't even that clear on it. If Keenan killed her now, it would probably be the smart thing to do. It would be the responsible thing for a leader to do. But Keenan wondered to himself if his father would have done it. Even now, nearly three years later, Keenan was still measuring his actions by the standard of his father's life. But in the end, it wasn't Calyhan's influence that made the decision for him, it was Keenan's own instincts.

"No." he said, after a moment. "We're going back to the cavern, and we're going to tell them that it was a surgical implant, or something equally or more plausible than that, and I'll talk to Aidan myself if I have to. You haven't done anything to harm me or any of the others. I could be dead wrong on this, and if I am, there'll be no one to blame but me. But I believe you. We're going to go back, and I think I'm going to need your help before this is all over and done with." He didn't quite specify what it was that would be over and done with, but he was referring to the Resistance as a whole, to this ongoing fight with the Net that he knew, he somehow knew wasn't going to last forever.