February 9

3001

When I wake up, Soren is still asleep. The sun is only barely rising, judging from the bright orange patches of fuzzy light coming through the window and onto the wall. I lay in bed for a while, just thinking, enjoying the peace and quiet.

I am disturbed by a sudden urgent knock on the door. Soren wakes up startled. I suspiciously get up from bed and cross the room to cautiously open the door.

I pause, hand on the knob, and call through the door.

“Who’s there?” I demand. I hear Cougar’s familiar voice answer.

“It’s me. You’ve been in my room over night now please unlock the door and come out.”

I sigh and beckon to Soren, who is sitting in bed watching me. He gets up and joins me at the door. I unlock the door and open it, to find Cougar still waiting.

He looks at us suspiciously and I realize how awkward it must look to him that we both slept in there together.

“How’s your friend?” Cougar asks, and I can tell he doesn’t actually care, he’s just trying to be nice.

“He’s fine, thank you.” I say a little coldly. I push past Cougar and lead Soren back to the main room. Many of the same people from the night before are there again, eating food out of ration bags and putting together broken weapons.

When we come in everyone stiffens and brakes off their conversations suddenly. Every pair of eyes follow us as we walk to the corner of the room and sit down. Cougar comes in a moment later and cautiously sits next to me.

“Petra…” he says quietly, “last night we got some news on the team up north. There was a big riot…” I cut him off before he says it.

“I know, Esoreci is dead.” I say flatly. Cougar nods slowly, looking awkward. There are several tense moments of silence, the heavy silence in the room is suddenly broken by a loud pounding on the door.

A teenage girl jumps up to check a computer console.

“Cougar!” She shouts, “there’s a lot of people outside!” There’s a feeling of panic in the room, everyone stands up rushes for weapons, sure that it’s the Collective outside.

I realize with panic I left my knife in the drawer in the bedroom, and I’m otherwise unarmed. I grab Soren’s hand and run down the hallway to the bedroom, the sound of the door being broken down chasing us.

“Soren, stay here!” I demand, sitting Soren down on the bed. I grab my knife, run out the door and close it behind me, trying not to look back at Soren’s scared and confused face.

Back in the main room it’s pandemonium. Most people have abandoned their guns in the tight space and have turned to hand to hand combat against the twenty black masked strangers who broke in.

One sees me and leaps toward me viciously, holding a rusty metal pipe with barbed wire wrapped around the end.

“Where is he!” Growls the masked man, trying to grab me and failing as I dodge around him.

“Who?” I exclaim, fiercely brandishing my knife.

“You know who!” Shouts the man angrily, swinging his metal pipe at me.

I see Cougar across the room, struggling against two of the masked men. The curly haired woman is wielding a katana style sword and has taken down two men already. The whole room is just mass of fighting, people screaming, things being knocked over.

I kick the man in front of me sharply between the legs and then stab him in the shoulder when he falls to his knees. He crumples to the floor and I turn around ready to take on another one.

Three of the masked men have broken away from the main fight and are approaching me. I’m standing in front of the hallway, hoping to stop anyone from getting to Soren.

The three men surround me and begin attacking with handmade weapons. Three against one is not fair and all I have is a knife. I call for help, struggling to fend off the three men.