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Have you ever considered that semantically, “once upon a time” could refer to any time period (up to and including ten seconds ago, when you started reading this), yet we always in our minds default to a fantastical time and place, full of knights and princesses, magic and dragons?
No?
This story is fantasy, or at least something like it. I know you might be disappointed by my implicit promise to subvert your expectations before subverting the subversion (there’s got to be a less wordy way of saying that…), to which I say: look, fantasy’s cool. It’s the story I want to tell. Fight me. Without further ado!
The place: the grand city of Zannet’gar, capital of the Kingdom of J’Quellon. The time: twenty years after the battle of Trunz’ga, the final defeat of the Tazletong Rebellion. And our main character? Kyra. To elaborate, that’s her name when translated to English. Fantasy worlds have this funny thing where names that seem cool and exotic to us are usually normal names within the world. Like J’Quellon, the king? His name has the same connotation and rarity as the English “Steve.” “Kyra,” on the other hand, sounds just as unique to her next-door neighbor as it does to us. Her parents were very cool.
Anyway, Kyra’s nineteen, probably. No one knows exactly when she was born. Why? Her birth certificate got lost in the mail, the hospital records burned in an unrelated fire, and the best her parents could do was narrow her birth down to early March. In fairness to her parents, they were very sleep-deprived during that time. Having a baby is very hard. I wonder how she’s doing right now?
* * *
“Aww, who’s an adorable little kitty?”
Kyra scratched Telzmar, the family cat, on the forehead. The cat purred, his fur glistening in the morning sun, and he angled his neck, looking for more pets and scratches. Kyra obliged for a few more moments before returning to the task at hand: straightening up her room. It was Thursday, meaning Melron would come at some point in the day, so the house had to be pristine.
It was a routine process, but never an entirely pleasant one. If Kyra had her way, her room would exist in a permanent state of pseudo-mess, but making sure everything was neatly tucked away had to be done. Not to mention it was why she had to wake up at the crack of dawn once every week…
Fifteen minutes of sleepy cleaning (and more cat pets) later, Kyra flopped down onto her newly made bed for a moment. For the first time in a good two weeks she had nothing on her schedule, and the more time she could spend relaxing and unwinding, the better.
Right on cue, in walked her mom. “Everything in order?” she–
Wait, hold on, gotta add the name for the mom, otherwise genre expectations will lead you to believe she’s dead by the end of the third chapter.
“Everything in order?” her mom, Xia, asked. As it always did in this situation, her voice carried a twinge of nervousness.
Kyra yawned (she was still a bit sleepy) and gave a thumbs-up. “Yep!”
“Also, your nonograms arrived overnight,” Xia said before leaving the room.
Just as well, they were supposed to arrive yesterday. Kyra had signed up for the nonogram mailing list about three years ago and had enjoyed the puzzles ever since. Like usual, they’d be waiting on the table for her.
Stifling a yawn, Kyra strolled over to the table, grabbed a pen and ink, and began working on the first of the five nonograms. Kyra’s usually-tense shoulders relaxed as the puzzle came into focus. She always saved a nonogram for after she woke up; they helped clear away the morning fog that was a fact of life for a night owl like her.
(And if you want to give nonograms a try, here’s my preferred website. Have fun! Just remember to come back here once you’re done.)
After only a few minutes of work, she was more than halfway through the nonogram (this one was admittedly on the easier side, but she wasn’t complaining) when her focus was broken by a knock on the door.
This early? Kyra thought.
“Could you get that, K?” Xia called from her bedroom.
“Sure!”
Kyra stacked her nonograms into a neat pile before going to the door. No point in drawing unnecessary attention if it could be avoided. She opened the door, and the brisk morning breeze lightly ruffled her hair.
There stood Melron Zandine, sentry No. 174 of the City Guard. J’Quellon’s crest featured prominently on his light leather armor. “Oh… morning, Kyra,” he said. “Where’s Xia?”
“She’s busy, give her a minute.”
“Doing revolutionary activities?”
“Very funny.”
“Protocol, you know how it is.”
“Yeah, yeah…” Kyra stepped to the side, letting Melron inside. He wiped his shoes on the doormat before stepping in. “Alright, O Retainer of the Great Peace, do your thing,” she said with the thinly veiled sarcasm of a building receptionist running on three hours of sleep at the end of their shift.
Kyra went back to her nonograms as Melron began to scan the house, starting with the kitchen. He rifled through various cabinets and drawers, looking for anything suspicious. His movements were mostly careful, but at one point he knocked something (Kyra wasn’t looking) over, causing a clattering noise.
“Don’t you ever get tired of doing this?” Kyra asked. She certainly did. Precious hours of sleep, gone! She turned her chair to look at Melron as he scrambled to clean up the mess—a few spice bottles strewn about the counter, though fortunately none had spilled.
“Yes, but it’s good money,” he answered. “Once I have enough, though, I’ll probably quit. Always wanted to start a restaurant.”
Kyra raised an eyebrow. “Really?”
“Yes.”
Kyra turned back to her nonograms, but her mind refused to focus. It had drifted over to Melron, to his restaurant and all the things she didn’t know about him. After a minute of complete futility, she stood up, following Melron as he moved on to her room. “Say, when did that start?” she asked.
Melron stayed silent as he scanned the room, opting to begin with Kyra’s dresser. “It’s a long story,” he finally said, “and I’d rather not say.”
“That’s very rich coming from you.” For someone whose job was revealing secrets big and small, Melron could be quite secretive.
He closed the dresser with a huff. “Did you miss the part where I said I was thinking of quitting?!”
“No! I was just pointing out the inherent irony of the situation!”
“…You talk very weirdly sometimes.”
(Ed. note: she’s got nothing on George Lucas. Behold! https://youtu.be/JzeCo36ZddQ?t=22)
“I read a lot as a kid.” Kyra said.
Melron sighed. “Fine, fine, I just didn’t have the chance to think about the future until about a year ago. Happy?”
Though his answer really only raised additional questions, Kyra nodded—the more irritated Melron was, the higher the chance her entire family could end up arrested by the next week. Sure, it merely turned that chance from zero to “zero-point-a-lot-of-zeros-one,” but there was no point in the risk if it could be avoided.
She left the room and returned to her nonograms. The conversation with Melron faded into the background of her mind, replaced with the familiar grid of black and white squares. The minutes passed by leisurely. She vaguely noticed Melron leaving, evidently finding nothing of note for the 574th time. By the time she finished the puzzle, her mom had also left for her early shift as a building receptionist. Her dad (Mylam, he isn’t tragically dying either) was already out doing his rounds as a mailman. How that pair of early birds had given birth to a child who could and would sleep until the crack of noon was one of life’s great mysteries.
With the puzzle complete, Kyra’s eyes became unfocused, and her eyelids droopy. Like most Thursdays, she’d take a catnap, throw together some breakfast, and then get on with her day. Only a handful of minutes passed before she was sleeping, Telzmar snuggled into her side.
* * *
Alright, while she’s sleeping, you’re probably wondering what the deal with Melron is. Maybe you’ve already figured parts of it out. Either way, here you go!
After defeating the Tazletong Rebellion, J’Quellon determined that the best way to prevent another one was to tighten control over the land as much as he could. The kingdom’s mail system was overhauled so that every letter, postcard, and what-have-you went through a governmental facility, where they would be inspected for "revolutionary activities.” In addition, the city guard was dramatically expanded. One couldn’t throw a rock in a public space without hitting one of the sentries scattered throughout.
Melron is one of those sentries. His job is to thoroughly (the limitations on the powers of his position are very few) investigate households for any signs of revolutionary activity on a weekly basis. Should he find any, a report would be made, and a raid sent to imprison the members of the offending household. Pending confirmation of their guilt by the Department of Internal Investigations, first-time offenders are sentenced to years in jail; repeat offenders are publicly executed.
This, of course, is udderly utterly (damn typos) horrifying, but before we can unpack any of that, oh, would you look at that, through the magic of fiction an hour has passed!
* * *
Kyra woke up to a veritable ruckus sounding through the house walls. Not just a regular ruckus, a veritable one. Never a good sign.
A few minutes of sluggish getting-ready later, Kyra cracked open the front door, peering outside. It was a war zone: fires consumed whole houses, city sentries battled with a horde of cloaked figures, civilians screamed at the top of their lungs, and charred corpses lay scattered across the street.
…Okay, that’s not quite what happened, though it would have been really cool. In reality, a small crowd of people (mostly neighbors, Kyra recognized a few) had gathered on the street, excitedly talking amongst themselves, and a scuffle broke out just to calm down in a matter of seconds.
Curious, Kyra hurried outside and approached Larvrak, a doctor who lived a few houses away. Nice guy. More importantly, he was one of the few people not already engaged in a conversation. “What’s going on?” she asked.
“Official proclamation,” Larvrak said, not missing a beat. “Came by a bit ago. Apparently, they caught an entire rebellion in the works! Arrested them all! Everyone’s in a tizzy, and the…”
Whatever else he was saying, Kyra didn’t register; her consciousness abandoned her, and she was busy trying not to fall down. She failed. For a moment, everything went black.
* * *
While we give her a few minutes, who’s ready for more h i s t o r y ?
(This is the part where you all cheer like an excited bunch of second-graders.)
For a time, the post-Tazletong Rebellion measures worked well: the survivors despaired at the conditions and resigned themselves to keeping their heads low. The general public certainly didn’t like losing a significant chunk of their personal privacy, but adapted over time. As it happens, most people don’t actively plot to overthrow the government, and thus had nothing to fear in terms of arrests. Yes, incidents of personal embarrassment abounded as sentries rifled through dirty laundry both figurative and literal, but life moved on, and soon the weekly inspections became just another aspect of life in the kingdom.
However, as the years passed a certain group of people grew more and more dissatisfied with the omnipresent eye of the state. They dreamed of a world where everyone would simply mind their own business and they could do whatever they wanted (within reason, of course). They had a low opinion of authority, thought society and the government sucked, and tested the limits of every rule in the book.
I’m talking, of course, about disillusioned teenagers.
It was a group of such teenagers that planted the seeds for this rebellion several years ago, and while they aged into their twenties and kept their doors open to anyone of any age who wished for change, teenagers consistently made up a sizable amount of their numbers. Including Kyra.
* * *
Kyra’s eyes slowly opened to a blurry world. She blinked in confusion. What… happ–
She remembered, unfortunately. The rebellion was gone. A’thor, Haad, and Yiron, who founded it seven years ago and led it to this day, gone. Their ideas for a new society with personal privacy baked into the laws of the land, gone. The friends Kyra made over her three years of membership, gone. The meager fruits of her efforts, gone. The meager fruits of the complimentary snack table—believe it or not, also gone!
A face, silhouetted by the glare of the sun, poked into her field of vision. “Kyra! Are you okay?” it asked.
Obviously not, but Kyra couldn’t exactly say that, could she? Not a single person outside of the rebellion knew she was in it. Not even her own parents. Who was even asking, anyway?
Oh, right. Larvrak.
She groaned and craned her neck to look at him. His face came into focus, and the rest of her vision a moment later. “Yeah,” she managed to say.
With a bit of effort, Kyra sat up. “Sorry…”
Larvrak knelt down to her level. “Don’t worry about it,” he said. “We all took the news differently.”
Oh, you don’t know the half of it… Kyra thought to herself. Again, it was hardly something she could just say to his face.
“Alright,” Larvrak continued. “Deep breath in, deep breath out.”
Kyra was a bit short of breath. She hadn’t noticed.
As she inhaled and exhaled, the maelstrom of thoughts and emotions briefly postponed by the conversation began to resurface. Friends in—breathe in—jail, the—breathe out—rebellion dead—in—pretty much everything—out—on fire…
“Good,” Larvrak said. “Do you think you’ll be able to stand, or do you want to rest for a bit longer?”
“I think I can stand.” She reached her hand out, Larvrak grabbed it, and Kyra stood up. She still felt somewhat lightheaded, but she could manage. It was nothing compared to the death of all hope, at any rate.
“Thanks.”
“It’s nothing.”
A couple of seconds passed. “I think I’ll go back inside,” Kyra said. “Go and process the news.”
“Do you need any help?” Larvrak offered.
Yes, but more than that she needed space. “No, I’ll be fine. Thank you, though.”
Kyra turned back towards her house, her stride stable enough. On the ground a couple feet in front of her doorway, she found a letter emblazoned with the royal seal. And a fresh shoeprint. Oops. Kyra picked up the letter by an unstained corner.
Whenever J’Quellon felt the urgent need to make an announcement—Kyra could remember at least three instances in her lifetime, not counting this one—it was done through the postal system. Special delivery carts were sent to every residential street in the city. In addition to delivering the proclamation, they were equipped with loud drums meant to alert citizens. If the scene in the street was anything to go by, it had worked. It had certainly woken Kyra up.
She went inside, kicked off her shoes and drifted over to the couch. For a moment she sat still; even though she already knew what it contained, opening the letter still carried a terrible sense of foreboding.
What was done was done. Kyra opened the letter.
Good citizens of Zannet’gar,
Six days ago, anti-government radicals held a meeting. All attending members and co-conspirators have since been arrested. A formal denouncement will be made in three days time at noon.
It concluded with the king’s signature and the royal crest.
Kyra, to be honest, wasn’t sure what else she expected. It just said exactly what Larvrak did. There was a rebellion, there isn’t anymore, have a nice day. It was almost disappointing. Really, now that Kyra thought about it couldn’t be anything else. She’d fainted from shock, she could only get better from there. Instead it was just… odd.
Uncertain of exactly what else to do, Kyra reread the letter. A detail that she hadn’t noticed the first time popped out: “All attending members have been arrested.”
Kyra had been at that meeting.
And she certainly wasn't in jail.
Huh.
In the infinite wisdom of all felines, Telzmar chose that moment to hop onto the couch from out of nowhere. Muscle memory kicked in, and Kyra started petting him as he snuggled into her lap. She smiled. Few sensations in life beat the feel of a warm, purring cat.
At the same time, Kyra pondered the letter. It didn’t necessarily say the entire rebellion had been arrested, but specifically the people who were at the meeting. Of course, they were one and the same: meetings happened infrequently enough that attendance was all but mandatory, so everyone was there—
Zelling!
Kyra shot out of the couch, or at least she would have had Telzmar not been on her lap. Instead, she tried to nudge him off of her as gently as possible.
The cat refused to move.
Kyra tried again with a bit more firmness.
No dice.
With grave sadness, Kyra unceremoniously shoved Telzmar to the side. After an instant of shock the cat scurried away. Right before he would’ve gone out of view, Telzmar turned around and for a moment stared at her like he’d been betrayed by his best friend of seven years—which, to be fair, was exactly what happened—before walking out of sight.
“Sorry!” Kyra called out. No response, predictably. Cats.
Now where was she? Ah, yes, Zelling. Zelling! She’d know what to do!
Kyra grabbed her set of keys, threw on her shoes, and hurried out of the house. On the side of the house was awning, and under it waited Leon, Kyra’s faithful Sabr. The giant cats, a good five feet high on average, were wonderful for getting from place to place in the city.
Kyra leapt onto her noble steed, eschewing the booties that would normally be necessary for travel on the main paved roads. Woodvine was close enough, and the fastest way there was through a series of unpaved side streets and paths.
* * *
In no time at all, she made it to a decently sized one-story wooden building. The words Woodvine Publishing were emblazoned on the front in large letters. Kyra tied Leon to a nearby post and gave him a few affectionate scratches, then approached the building. A Temporarily Closed sign hung across the front door. The door was, of course, locked. Rather strange for business hours on a Thursday, but there weren’t any sentries to take notice: the whole street was scheduled for inspection on Tuesdays.
Kyra unlocked the door. The publishing house was filled with the usual mess, with stray papers scattered all about. Notably absent was the usual staff, as the room was almost empty. Almost. Slumped over at her large mahogany desk was Zelling Darmin: genius owner in her mid-thirties, Kyra’s boss, and halfway through a tall glass of scotch. Before noon.
Moderately inebriated or not, she was a sight for sore eyes: a fellow rebel who’d slipped through the government’s grasp.
“Kyra!” Zelling almost-shouted. In her excitement, she bumped the desk as she stood up, and the glass wobbled and fell, spilling alcohol all over the desk. She didn’t give it any notice. “You’re here…”
Both stood in silence for a moment.
“How–”
“What–”
“No, Zelling, you go first.”
“Okay, how aren’t you captured? Weren’t you at th’ meeting?” Ah, so she didn’t know either. Phooey.
Kyra shrugged. “One, I have no idea, and two, yes. What happened here? Where is everyone?”
“I panicked! Gave ‘em the day off.”
Uh oh. “Did anyone look like they suspected anything?”
“They seemed happy.”
Kyra suppressed a snicker. Considering the pandemonium that constituted a normal day at the office, that sounded just about right.
“Alright, then…” Kyra trailed off. “What do we do?”
“Hell if I know!”
Right. Kyra stopped in her tracks. Zelling was a wizard in certain regards. Her establishing Woodvine and its nonogram mailing list was without a doubt the biggest single contribution any one person had made to the rebellion. The genius was twofold. First, the business gave a steady stream of money and a legitimate front for the rebellion if they needed one. Second and most importantly, Zelling came up with a system of encoding language into nonograms: whether or not a box was filled or blank was a distinct piece of information, which could be converted into a message through a key. The rebellion had been communicating with its members in this manner for years, bypassing mail surveillance, and the government had never caught on.
In many other regards, Zelling was a complete mess. The decision to keep her at Woodvine and further removed from the rebellion was mutually beneficial: the more time she spent running Woodvine, the less time she had to potentially screw something up—the first and last time Zelling tried to lead a meeting, it started half an hour behind schedule at the wrong location and quickly devolved into directionless bickering over, among other things, whether or not there were too many apples and not enough bananas on the complimentary snack table. She almost never attended meetings nowadays, and kept in contact through an intermediary employed as an assistant—currently Kyra’s job. A clunky arrangement, yes, but an incredible stroke of luck in the moment, as anything more conventional would have landed Zelling in a jail cell.
“Well, then, any ideas?” Kyra tried.
“Do you have any more scotch on you?”
“Um, no?”
Zelling made a twisted smile, the smile of someone who knows they’re going to get away with murder. Or the smile of someone who’s drunk. Probably the latter, but with Zelling, you never knew. “Precisely. Look, I’m not cut out for this, we both know that.”
“Then who’s in charge?”
“You.”
Kyra blinked. Twice. “Me?”
This was a terrible idea, surely. Kyra’s qualifications for the job started and ended with “wasn’t arrested like everyone else.” Her largest contribution had been serving as Zelling’s messenger. She’d listened in the meetings and had done a lot of thinking over the years, but had almost nothing to show for it. Barely anything would have changed if she hadn’t joined.
“No, no, you’re right,” Zelling drawled, “there’s got to be someone else. Will the other options in the room please stand up?”
Zelling sat down. Kyra didn’t have a chair.
“But I–”
“Better than nothing!” Zelling threw out her arms, only to lose her balance and fall from her seat.
“You alright?” Kyra asked, hurting to her side and extending a hand.
Zelling grabbed it and stood back up. “Yes… er, nooo…”
“Why don’t you go and take a nap?” Kyra said. She knew there was a cot set up in the back of the building for… pretty much this exact reason.
“Is that an order?!”
Maybe being in charge had its upsides. “You know what, sure,” Kyra said.
Without another word, Zelling got up and walked through a nearby doorframe. A moment later came the faint thump of her falling onto the cot.
Well, Kyra thought, crap.
* * *
After returning home, over the next hour Kyra had been able to process things a bit. First, Zelling was right. Even if she wasn’t drunk, she’d have arrived at the same conclusion: Kyra had to be in charge. It was better than the alternative.
Next, somehow, things weren’t as bad as they could be. So long as Zelling remained free and Woodvine remained open, they had a good amount of money to work with—and the little metaphorical devil on Kyra’s shoulder had a lot of financially irresponsible things to say. She was very good at ignoring the devil, but the equally metaphorical angel on her other shoulder didn’t have any ideas at the moment, leaving her with a bunch of money and no idea what to do with it. There were far worse problems to have.
Problems such as the realization that she failed, or gave up, or died, so too would the last of the rebellion and everything it stood for. Privacy would remain a fond wish at most, as J’Quellon’s line would continue to rifle through the mail, the laundry, and everything in between unopposed. The pressure was immense.
However, the biggest issue at the moment was that, more than just the money, Kyra simply didn’t know what to do. In her entire time in the rebellion, someone else had always been calling the shots, so she had no practical experience making big decisions herself. To that point, she’d been thinking on and off for an hour, and all she had to show for it was a ham sandwich she made for lunch. Her questions remained unanswered. Should she go into hiding? Act as if nothing happened? Try and recruit more members? If so, how?
Knock knock knock.
Oh, what now? Kyra thought as she went to open it. Larvrak, maybe? Doctors like their checkups–
Melron stood at the door.
The sentry.
Here to arrest her.
Oh no
Kyra grabbed something—a towel? Really?—as fast as she could.
“Wait!” Melron said. “I just want to talk!”
Kyra lowered her… towel. “And not arrest me?”
“Yes.”
“Is that yes meaning no or yes meaning yes?”
“…You talk too much.”
Kyra facepalmed. “Alright, then, what do you want?”
“To talk. Like I just said. Five seconds ago. Mind if I come in?” At the moment, Melron better resembled a teenager upset with their parents than a city sentry. His visits were often on the more casual side, but he was never this laid-back. Perhaps he wasn’t lying?
Kyra gave it a thought. Of her very limited options, it would be best to humor him; she wasn’t winning a fistfight anytime soon. And a conversation with him could be useful. “…Sure.” She stepped aside. “First, though, I have a couple questions. Why wasn’t I arrested earlier, and why are you here now?”
Melron casually took a seat. “Mmm, I guess it wouldn’t hurt to tell you. At the end of my morning rounds…”
* * *
Melron returned to a veritable ruckus sounding through the sentry headquarters walls. He opened the front door, looking inside. It was a war zone: fires consumed whole rooms, sentries battled with a horde of cloaked figures, civilians screamed at the top of their lungs, and charred corpses lay scattered across the building.
Hm, much calmer than usual, Melron noted. Only one bare-knuckle brawl instead of the usual three.
By the time the sentry surveillance system had been established, the city center was packed to the brim, but at the same time J’Quellon wanted the sentries, important as they were, based in a central location. The best solution was apparently to throw the sentries into the expanded mail department, with headache-inducing yet miraculously functional results.
Melron strolled inside. He quickly identified Kelnar, a friendly coworker of his, writing something-or-other at a desk. “Hey, Kel.”
Kelnar turned around to face him. “Oh, hello, Mel. Lovely quiet here, isn’t it?”
“Yeah. Usually, you can’t throw a rock in here.”
Kelnar looked confused. “Was that a joke?”
Melron made a tiny frown. “Yeah.” It was a stretch, and he knew it, but it would’ve been really fun if Kelnar had got it. “Anyway, where is everybody?”
Kelnar blinked. “Didn’t you hear the news? The proclamation went out half an hour ago.”
“No,” Melron answered, “I was having lunch.” At least once a week he would stop by Who, What, Where, Sandwich, a lovely little eatery that had been open for a good twenty years. Their tuna melt sandwich simply could not be replicated, despite his best efforts. But enough about lunch for now. “What news?”
“The spies found a whole revolution in the works!” Kelnar said. “Dozens of arrests, a citywide proclamation, all the bells and whistles. To celebrate, they gave us the rest of the day off. Would be really nice if I didn’t have to catch up on all this paperwork…”
“That’s… wow,” Melron muttered. It was pretty big news. What were the revolution’s goals? How large were they? Most importantly, would this increase or decrease his chances of being fired? “How’d we catch them?” he finally asked. He couldn’t help but be a bit curious.
“I heard that a spy found an attendance sheet from one of their meetings,” Kelnar said, turning back to his work. “Don’t quote me on that, though.”
“Neat.” Melron turned to leave.
“Oh, I almost forgot!” Kelnar said. “There was one name on the sheet that they didn’t find in the city records. ‘Kyra something.’”
Melron stopped dead in his tracks. Suddenly the revolution seemed like a much bigger deal.
Kyra? The sweet little elementary-schooler he first met over a decade ago? With the happy pair of parents? Who he’d watched grow into a wit who got his sense of humor like no other? Who surely had a bright future? Kyra?
He had to arrest her. No, he couldn’t do that. He had to at least ask her why! Then what?
“Hey, Mel, you good?” Kelnar’s voice brought Melron back to reality.
“Oh, uh…” Melron scrambled for words. “Yeah, guess I just drifted off a bit. I think I’ll go back home now.” He lied. Or rather, he didn’t specify which home, really…
Kelnar sighed. “Wish it could be me. See you around.”
* * *
…that being said, why aren’t you in the records?” Melron concluded.
Kyra stared at him blankly. “…Would you believe me if I told you I legally don’t exist?” she asked.
“How?”
“When I was born…”
* * *
To quote a great man (myself): “Her birth certificate got lost in the mail, the hospital records burned in an unrelated fire, and the best her parents could do was narrow her birth down to early March.”
(This is funnier than doing another flashback. Hospital fires are no laughing matter.)
* * *
“…never filed for a replacement,” Kyra finished.
Melron scratched his head. “…Huh. Okay, one more question: why shouldn’t I arrest you right now?”
Kyra flinched. “But you said you weren’t going to arrest me!”
“No, I said I wouldn’t before I got to talk to you, which by all accounts you should acknowledge, O Queen of the Semantics Throne,” he said. “Anyways, your reason?”
As an expert on the subject, Kyra had to admit Melron was technically right.
“Uhhhhhhhhh…” Kyra trailed off. “Well, why should you arrest me?” If their conversation earlier in the day was anything to go off of, he–
“Money, you get a great bonus if you identify a criminal,” he answered. “Also, you are breaking the law. I’ll miss you, if it means anything.”
Fear for her life and unbridled exasperation fought in Kyra’s mind. Exasperation won, somehow. “Really?” she said. “You’re just here for the money?” At the same time, an idea formed.
“Who isn’t?” Melron said.
“Well, then… how much do you want that restaurant?”
Melron blinked. “…Are you implying you can get me a restaurant?”
“Have the sentries found any of our resource stockpiles or streams of income?” Kyra said, a smirk creeping onto her face.
“And how do I know you’re not bluffing?”
Kyra pinched her chin. One more step. “Tell you what, if you think I’m lying, go ahead and arrest me now, get that bonus. Or do we have a deal?” Melron wouldn’t arrest her, of course. Whatever the bonus was, it was surely smaller than a restaurant. Kyra knew Melron was a smart enough guy to do the math. If she was telling the truth, this was a golden opportunity for him, and if she was lying, he could turn her in later and get the bonus anyway. If he had those two options, Kyra was sure which one he’d pick.
Sure enough, after some contemplation Melron nodded yes. “You have a deal.”
“Alright, then,” Kyra said. “Welcome to the rebellion! Though we’re more of a drunken posse at the moment.” Why did she say that?
“But you aren’t drunk at all,” Melron pointed out.
“Oh, you should see Zelling.”
“Who?”
“She…” Kyra stopped, remembering that exposing the inner workings of the rebellion to someone who joined two minutes ago and could easily end it in just as short of a time was probably not a good idea. “You’ll meet her soon enough. Anyway, I have one more question for you,” Kyra said.
She had definitely been planning to ask this since Melron finished his story, and definitely didn’t only realize its importance at the last moment. Definitely.
“Since they didn’t find me in the city records, what would be their next step?”
Melron thought for a moment, probably weighing the secrets he was about to divulge against the restaurant. “Their first thought would be that you were an out-of-town collaborator.”
Ten points for the restaurant!
“They’d alert every other recordkeeper in the country, have them go through their files,” Melron continued. “With the travel time, the process would take… two weeks or so. Of course, if all your records really were lost, they wouldn’t find you anywhere.”
Melron stopped for a moment. “I’m not sure what they would do afterward,” he admitted. “There’s probably a procedure on the books somewhere that says what to do in that case, but I don’t know it. Maybe they’d start interrogating relatives by surname? Could be anything.”
Kyra nodded. “Good to know.”
Externally, she kept a straight face. Internally, Kyra was somewhat panicking. “Relatives by surname” would be her parents. She had two options. The bad one would be to tell them herself, that she’d been hiding this huge secret from them for three years, and hope that they wouldn’t go ballistic.
The worse one would be to let J’Quellon do the job for her.
Either way, she had to get Melron out of the house first. “Anyway! You mentioned you had the day off, right?” Kyra said.
Melron nodded.
“Well, why don’t you go and enjoy it?” she proposed. “There’s a lot of stuff I need to sort out.”
He shook his head. “Not until you give me some proof you’re not lying about the restaurant.”
Darn, Kyra through. Uh… quick, make something up!
After a moment’s mental scrambling, she had… something. “Uh, what days do you have off?” she asked.
“Why?”
“The money’s elsewhere, so I can’t give you proof right now. If we meet later, I can. So, when are you off?”
Melron narrowed his eyes.
“And if I don’t have proof by then,” Kyra added, “go ahead, arrest me.”
Melron’s gaze lightened. “Your funeral. Wednesdays and Saturdays.”
Good, a weekend, Kyra was also free then. They weren’t guaranteed for sentries: inspections happened every day, so their two days off were evenly distributed across every day of the week.
“In that case,” Kyra said, “meet me at Rose Cafe at 2:00 on Saturday.” Rose was only a block away from Woodvine, where the conversation would actually take place, but Kyra wanted to keep her cards as close to her chest as she could.
“Very well.” Melron rose from his seat, and left without another word.
The second the door closed, Kyra let out a large sigh of relief. To be honest, she wasn’t quite sure how she’d present the proof, but she’d figure something out. She had two days, the money was there in Woodvine’s accounts, and she would have the chance to talk it over with Zelling tomorrow.
At the moment, there was something else to handle: her parents. Both of them would be back home by evening. On a logical level, Kyra was sure it wouldn’t be too bad: she had a great relationship with them, and would be very surprised if they turned around and reported her to the sentries.
On an emotional level, oh hell no.
How would they react? Would their trust in her be forever broken? Would she get kicked out of the house lest they get in trouble for harboring a revolutionary? Did she have to tell them anyway?
…It had been a long day, and it was barely past noon.
Mentally fatigued, Kyra retreated to her room. Telzmar was curled up on her bed, sleeping softly. Normally Kyra would have smiled and let him be, but today was not a normal day. She unceremoniously flomped onto the bed, waking the cat up. Slowly, he turned to glare at her in feline disapproval.
“Sorry…” Kyra muttered, offering him scratches. He accepted, twisting and turning so every part of his forehead and neck could get on. “Wanna join the rebellion…”
“Mrrp.”
“Thanks, Telzmar…”
Kyra let out a deep, relaxing exhale. Perhaps this wasn’t so bad after all…
* * *
The next few hours passed without serious interruption. Thankfully. Enough had happened for an entire week.
Instead, Kyra solved her remaining nonograms (while ignoring the fact that the words they contained were effectively a message from the dead), went for a short run, and most of all relaxed. Today was supposed to be her day off, dagnabbit!
Letting her mind wander had been somewhat fruitful. About two hours ago, an idea came to mind. If the rebellion had been given away by an attendance sheet holding everyone’s names, then why not use aliases of some sort?
It had sounded like a great idea until she thought it through for a bit. One person’s fake name could be someone else’s real name by accident, and should a list of that type fall into the sentries’ hands a bunch of random people would be arrested. Yes, the Department of Internal Investigations would find them innocent, but the chances of them being detained anyway were serious: announcing a big arrest immediately followed by admitting they got everything wrong would be a massive mistake. The general public would see themselves at risk even if they didn’t do any revolutionary activities, and anti-government sentiment would rapidly grow. More likely, their sentences would be quietly reduced, and they’d be released in a year or so. It was better than the alternative, strictly speaking, but seeing innocents arrested for no fault of their own felt deeply wrong.
Kyra hadn’t stopped there. If fake names were off the table, then why use names at all? Instead, they could use words or combinations of words so far removed from names there would be no chance of mistaking them for an innocent. Kyra couldn’t implement it at the moment and didn’t know if it would work anyway, but it was a thought nonetheless.
* * *
SIX MONTHS IN THE FUTURE
“ShadowDragonLightBlade?”
“Here.”
“Lenoir_did_nothing_wrong?”
“Here.”
“Myst66?”
“Here.”
“Qiv- qivdoraesion323?”
“It’s pronounced ‘quivdoraeshun’”
“…Can I just call you Qiv next time?”
“Sure.”
* * *
It was probably a stupid idea.
Anyway, the evening had arrived, and with it Kyra’s parents. Dinner had just finished (and was delicious as always), and the time was at hand. All the anxiety about running the rebellion, the Saturday meeting with Melron, and everyone in jail had faded away, replaced with overwhelming worry about what would happen in the next five minutes.
“Hey, Mom? Dad? Can we talk for a moment?”
It took her a good twenty seconds to work up the courage while sitting on the couch, but there. She’d done it, come what may…
Her parents shot each other a glance. “Of course we can,” Mylam said, coming to join her on the couch. Xia sat down a moment later.
Kyra gulped. Here goes nothing…
It was a struggle to look either of them in the eye. “Well, it’s… I…” she sputtered. “I’m sorry, it’s something I should have told you all about a long time ago. I just…”
“Kyra, it’s okay,” Xia said. “We’ve known for a while.”
What
WHAT
WHAT
How could they have known? It didn’t make any sense! Kyra had taken every single damn precaution to make sure they never knew! How? Was she too insistent about the nonograms? Was her getting the job at Woodvine too convenient? Or did–
“It’s okay that you like women, Kyr. We’re in your corner!”
What?
Kyra froze.
How did they know that? Like, yes, she was a lesbian, figured that out a few years ago, but she had never mentioned that either. Her very loose plan had been to tell them after getting a girlfriend. The talk would have been difficult, surely, but regardless of how it went she would have someone to lean on.
It turned out that getting a girlfriend was the hard part.
Kyra facepalmed. Whatever she had expected, this wasn’t it. She almost started laughing from the sheer absurdity.
“Mom, Dad, thank you, but that’s not what I was going to say,” she said. “Remember the rebellion that got busted earlier today? I’m part of it.”
That ended up being a lot easier than Kyra anticipated. Perhaps because the unexpected turn in conversation eased the mood and her nerves. Or perhaps because it was better than talking about the alternative: three years without a single girlfriend to show for it. For no particular reason whatsoever, Kyra went with the first.
All this time, both of her parents were frozen. An “oh…” escaped Mylam’s lips. Silence reigned, second by second.
“I’m–”
“Kyra–”
As if the moment couldn’t get any more awkward. “Go ahead,” Kyra said. “You probably have a lot of questions.”
Again, her parents glanced at each other. An unspoken conversation. Kyra knew the look.
“Kyra,” Xia began, “before anything else, we want you to know that we love and support you, always. And if this is what you want to do with your life… You’re a young woman now, Kyra. We trust that you can make your own decisions.”
Kyra let out a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding.
“Just please, whatever you do, stay safe,” Mylam said. “Neither of us could bear seeing you behind bars.”
For the last five hours, Kyra had been catastrophizing in the back of her head. Sharpening her arguments, preparing for the worst to happen.
It had never occurred to her to prepare for the best.
Kyra started crying. She didn’t know what else to do. Her parents got up, went to her, and enveloped her in a hug. “Thank… you…” she sputtered out between sobs.
Nearly a minute passed, and her tears dried up. Slowly, Kyra extracted herself from the hug, and they all returned to their seats.
Kyra was the first to speak. “I’m so sorry I had to spring this on you right now, but there’s a chance you might get interrogated soon. I talked with Melron, and he said that–”
“Whoa, slow down!” Mylam said. “Interrogated? What do you mean?”
“Um, it’s a bit of a long story–”
“Wait, did you say Melron?” Xia interrupted. “How much does he know? Do we need to do something to help?”
Mylam nodded. “Yes! He wouldn’t know that we know that–”
“MOM! DAD! STOP! Please.” How was this situation turning into a comedy?
They stopped.
“Like I said, it’s a long story. Want to hear all of it?”
Both of them nodded.
“Okay,” Kyra said. “I joined the rebellion three years ago…”
* * *
“…So they might come in a couple weeks. Any questions? Did I miss anything?” After talking for nearly half an hour, she certainly hoped not.
Xia shook her head. “You must’ve had one heck of a day, Kyr.”
Kyra chuckled. “You don’t say…” She bent down to pet Telzmar, who had hovered around the conversation for the past twenty minutes. A yawn escaped her as she sat back up. “Anyway, if there’s nothing else, I think I’ll head to bed now.”
“Really?” Mylam asked. “It’s pretty early for you.”
Kyra smiled and shrugged. “One heck of a day!”
“Ha!”
Satisfied, Kyra stood up, went to her room, and started getting ready to sleep. By the time she was done, Telzmar was waiting on the bed, as he did most nights.
Taking care to not disturb him, Kyra slipped under the bedcovers. After a moment of readjusting, Telzmar snuggled into her side.
As she pet him with gentle strokes, Kyra’s mind began to drift. Today had been, by a long shot, the most eventful day of her life. Yes, she couldn’t remember every single day that came before, but was fairly certain none of them included fainting in the street and effectively bribing a sentry.
But what about the days that would come after? There was plenty of uncertainty. The entire rebellion bar two was jailed, and if Melron was right, she hadn’t slipped away forever. The clock was ticking. Not to mention she had to deal with the weighty responsibilities of leadership for a long time, maybe even the rest of her life. Her big questions from earlier in the day were no closer to being answered. Things were bleak, as dark as the night sky.
But in the night sky there were stars, and amidst the bleakness a bright spark of hope. She wasn’t alone. She had Zelling, and her parents. Then there was Melron—someone who knew the inner workings of the sentry system would be of great help to the rebellion. She had plenty of money on hand, and with it Melron’s restaurant and his loyalty. Most importantly, Kyra had something to work towards for now. Getting a handle on the rebellion’s finances tomorrow, and the meeting with Melron the next. It made leading the whole operation seem much more manageable. Like if she could get through two days, Kyra could then get through two more, and then a few more to make it a week. And maybe more after that.
As she began to drift off a final thought wandered into her head. The rebellion didn’t have a name. That was by design, but Kyra never understood why. If the Tazletong Rebellion named themselves after food, Kyra could give hers pretty much whatever name she wanted. She was in charge, after all… Such were her last thoughts before the rhythmic, steady purrs of her beloved cat eased her into sleep.
And thus, something new rose from the ashes of the old, and the Telzmar Rebellion was born.
* * *
Hello there. I’m still here. Perhaps you noticed my absence, wondered where I went and why I disappeared.
If I did my job correctly, you never did.