The Alicia Revolution

by Doug Larsen

Illustration by Darryl Ellott

I left the United States about two steps ahead of my creditors, and one step behind financial ruin. I gazed around the grimy, rundown airport in the capital city of Thusbammanna, and wasn’t sure if I had come out ahead in the deal.

I made it through immigration with no problem. The passport official gave me a funny look, but I ignored it. American tourists probably attract a lot of curiosity in these tattered Third World countries.

The luggage rack was about ten feet away, but that didn’t mean that my bags appeared quickly. It took twenty minutes or more, which is ridiculous, considering my plane was the only one that had arrived. I grabbed my bags in pure exasperation, and turned to find customs and the car rental counters. I almost ran into a uniformed official.

“Excuse me,” I said, and started to go around him. He moved to block me, and I saw two burly guards behind him. Uh-oh.

“What’s going on?” I asked apprehensively.

“You are Jane Anderson?” the officer asked.

“Yes. What’s going on?”

“I am an agent of the Thusbammannan security forces,” he said. “Please be kind enough to follow me.”

“What’s going on?” I parroted stupidly, but followed him.

He led me to a private room, and sat me in a chair. He sat down facing me, and consulted a computer printout of some kind.

“You are Jane Anderson?” he asked again.

“Yes, I am. Will you tell me why you’re interfering with me?”

“Are you familiar with a man named Kenneth Anderson?” the man pressed on.

Oh, my God. None of us had had any idea things would have gone this high. I blessed my dad for his almost offhand warning. “Don’t admit to knowing me, Jane,” he’d said. “There’s an off-chance they’ll remember me.” An off-chance, he’d said! After ten years, it had only taken the police twenty minutes to red-flag my passport! “No,” I said coldly, lying through my teeth. “Why do you ask?”

“He has been identified as a subversive force by the government of Thusbammanna. He has been declared persona non grata in this country. This designation includes any of his associates or relatives.”

“How does that apply to me? I don’t know the man.”

The official consulted the printout. “You have the same last name,” he informed me. “You are from the same state in America. You are of the appropriate age to be his daughter.”

The Thusbammannan security forces certainly had their act together. But I had rehearsed this. I waved my left hand, showing my wedding ring. “I’m married,” I said simply, and added another lie. “My maiden name is Johnson.” I hoped that Thusbammannans weren’t familiar with the growing American trend of married women keeping their maiden names. “And in my state, there are several million people named Anderson. It’s not exactly unique.”

“May I ask why you are visiting our country?”

“I’m a tourist,” I lied again. “What’s the problem? I thought you were trying to attract tourism.”

The official stared at me for a moment, and then a door opened and another man came into the room through a door that had a mirror near it. The official looked at him, and the man nodded slightly. The official turned back to me, and broke into a wide smile.

“My apologies for the inconvenience,” he said warmly. “We are delighted that you have decided to visit us. This man whom we have mentioned was a dangerous man, and we were thinking only of your safety.”

My dad was about the most mild-mannered man alive, but he always seemed to get a kick out of having scared this government silly. I smiled at the memory, and the official mistook it for friendliness.

“Allow me to assist you to your destination to compensate for the inconvenience,” he urged.

“Thanks, but I just need to rent a car.”

“Pah! Come with me, and I will assure you of the finest car, and ensure that you do not have to wait in line!”

Now the official was all warmth and friendliness, and he made good on his promise. In no time at all, I had a rental car—a full-sized American model, at the subcompact rate. I wasn’t proud—I took it, and was glad.

The official loaded my luggage into the trunk, and held the door open for me. “Observe the excellent facilities we offer tourists to our country!” the official exclaimed, indicating the little touch screen mounted in the dash. “A directional computer, very easy to use! You simply program your intended destination, and the computer will give you directions on how to reach it. If there is traffic congestion, the computer will offer directions on how to avoid it. If you are intending to reach a hotel, the computer can easily reserve a room for you as you drive. May I demonstrate how it works?”

“Thanks, but I’m familiar with them,” I said politely. We’d had them in my state for over five years, and I was so used to them that they were about as remarkable as air conditioning. I endured his warm farewells, and drove off. I had the computer programmed to direct me to a hotel my dad had recommended, and had it reserve a room for me before I even left the parking lot.

It was quite strange using the computer direction system. I was so familiar with my city that I rarely used it, except to check on rush-hour traffic. But in a strange city, clogged with cars, it was very useful—especially since the synthesized voice was in English. “Turn left here,” it instructed me. “Proceed on this road for three kilometers.” I obeyed, watching my odometer. Right before it showed that three kilometers had passed, the voice said, “Turn right at the next corner.”

Since I only had occasion to drive in my own city, I never had the chance to give the computer-aided driving system a full test. I was impressed with how thorough it was, even though I could tell it was a relatively old software release. The new systems would have made sure I was in the right lane before telling me to turn right.

Thusbammanna, I observed, was a country that was still wallowing in abject poverty. Slums were everywhere, although once in awhile I drove past an enormous estate, complete with an iron fence surrounding it. People were engaged in the most menial jobs you could imagine. The only thing that didn’t match was the large number of later-model American cars. Compared to the human suffering that was apparent everywhere, the cars struck a discordant note.

I wondered bitterly about the priorities of a corrupt government that would spend money on a computer-aided driving system while its people were so poor. As if tourists would want to come to this run-down country! But then, my dad had come here ten years before, to help them grow chrysanthemums, of all things, while the people starved. The flowers generated hard currency. And crops only fed the people, which was real low on this country’s priority list. I supposed their effort into tourism was based on the same philosophy.

“Bastards,” I said out loud. This country was not a good place to come if you were already filled with bitterness, because the plight of its people would only add more.

I checked into the hotel, and went up to my room. It was new and modem; part of Thusbammanna’s effort to attract tourists and their hard currency, if my dad was right. I flopped down on the bed and stared at the ceiling. Why had I come to Thusbammanna in the first place?

I had no good reason. I only knew that this was the place my dad, Ken Anderson, had come as a volunteer. He had gotten involved in a project to help the starving people of Thusbammanna develop a method of growing food without farms. The project had been successful, and had gotten him expelled from the country. He’d code-named it the Alicia Project, after my mom, who had died just before Dad came here. Her death just about killed him, and his stay in Thusbammanna had brought him back to life.

I smiled bitterly. Maybe that was why I was here. Maybe I was hoping that Thusbammanna would bring me back to life, the way it had for Dad.

Not that I had anything as bad as Dad had. My relationship with my husband Duane was OK—kind of strained, but that’s to be expected when you’re both in full-scale war with a teenaged son, I guess. I still felt guilty about leaving Duane with his hands full, but I just could not stand fighting with Tom again. Or dealing with my daughter Alicia, named after my mom. She was ten years old, and idolized her rebel brother.

But I suppose I could have stuck it out with all of that, if my business hadn’t gone bankrupt and I hadn’t been accused of fraud. My lawyer said that if I wanted to clear my name, I was looking at a year-long court battle. All of that, just to prove that I had no connection with the client that had cheated me and several other people.

I was tired out. I was bitter. I needed to recharge my batteries, but I didn’t think I could have picked a worse place to do it. The Thusbammannan government was still gunning for my dad. His old contact here, a man named Chantlo, had told him that the government had resorted to increasing brutality, clamping down harder and harder on the people who wanted to reinstate their elected government. The elected president had fled to the United States, where he was trying to get American support for his return. America was sympathetic, but reluctant to do much about it because Thusbammanna had a US Air Force base.

An underground had formed in the country, trying to protect the people from the military strongman’s brutality and starvation tactics. The underground was also trying to engineer the return of the elected president, but no one seemed to have any ideas as to how that could be done. My dad had supplied one of their most effective activities, in the form of spreading the food technology that was eradicating starvation from the country.

And here I was, right in the middle of the mess.

My dad had talked about Thusbammanna with such love and affection that it seemed like a magical place to me. He had been delighted when I mentioned that I might go there, and seemed sure that the country had some kind of mystical balm that would heal me, too. Duane had been markedly less enthusiastic, but I just had to get away.

Out the window of the posh hotel, I looked down on several blocks of squalid slums. And this place was going to “heal me too.” Yeah, right. I wasn’t like my dad. There wasn’t anything I could do to help these people, and there was nothing they could do to help me.

I wondered if I would be charged for the hotel room if I checked out immediately. I quickly got up and straightened out the bedspread. I found the little list of rules, screwed into the door as in hotels all over the world. Like everything else in the nice sections of Thusbammanna, they were in English. I bent over and started scanning for the billing rules. Suddenly, someone knocked on the door, just inches from my head. Yikes! I jumped a foot, and took a second to catch my breath before I peered through the peephole. A uniformed waiter or porter stood there, looking down the hall. He raised his hand to knock again, and I quickly opened the door.

“Yes?” I asked, barely able to muster any civility.

“Mrs. Jane Anderson?” he asked.

I jerked in surprise. “Yes?”

“A message for you, madam.” He handed me a slip of plain paper.

I unfolded the paper. Some words were written on it—maybe an address or something. I stared at it uncomprehendingly.

“I don’t understand,” I said.

He looked at the message helpfully. “It is an address, madam,” he said pleasantly. “I am sure that if you were to show that to a taxi driver, he would be able to transport you there.”

I stared at him. “Why would I…?” I trailed off as I saw that he was showing me something cupped in the palm of his hand. I looked down and saw a photo of my dad. I stared at the porter with my mouth open. “Wha—”

“Thank you madam, but I am not allowed to accept gratuities,” he interrupted loudly. Then he winked at me, and walked away.

I staggered back into my room and looked around wildly. What was going on around here? I gazed blankly at my suitcase. I could be on a plane back to the States in an hour, and none of it would matter. Why didn’t I do that?

Why didn’t I just leave?

I had no idea. But for some reason I walked down to the main entrance of the hotel and asked the doorman to get me a taxi.

After driving in a dizzying route through the most congested parts of the city, the taxi driver stopped at a street corner. All around was some sort of farmers’ market, with hundreds of booths and thousands of people. Completely at a loss, I shoved a wad of money at the driver. He smiled kindly, shook his head, and took one of the bills in the wad. Then he made change, and handed it to me with a broad smile.

At least that was something that resembled my dad’s description of the country—they were kind and honest people. I smiled back at him, and gave him back one of the bills in the change for a tip.

I scrambled out of the cab and stood in the teeming crowd, feeling very lost and very American. I jostled my way slowly through the flood of humanity toward one of the booths—it was selling vegetables. Maybe I’d ask for advice from the people there.

“Jane Anderson?” a voice inquired softly in my ear.

I nearly jumped out of my skin. I whirled and looked at a tall man in his fifties. “Wha—Who—”

“What is the name of your child?” the man asked sharply.

I stared at him. “Chantlo?” I gasped.

“Please tell me what your child’s name is!”

I finally figured out that this was some kind of identity check. “I have two,” I said swiftly. “Tommy and Alicia. My husband is Duane. I ran a software business until it went bankrupt two months ago.”

He relaxed a little. “And what did your daughter do in church to embarrass you when just a baby?”

I laughed in spite of myself. “She went potty on the pastor’s shirt right before the service.”

The man flashed an enormous smile, and shook my hand. “Mrs. Anderson, I am Chantlo. It gives me great pleasure to finally meet you.”

“Me too. I’ve heard a lot about you. How did you know where to find me?”

Chantlo was pulling me through the crowd as he spoke. “One of the guards at the airport is a member of our resistance movement. He took your picture through a one-way mirror. When he had the opportunity, he passed the word that you had arrived in our country. Then, when one of the hotel clerks reported your arrival, we located you without difficulty.”

“Wow. You guys have quite a system.”

“Let me assure you, Mrs. Anderson, the security forces have a far superior system. Your picture is in the hands of every security agent in Thusbammanna.”

“Yikes!” I followed him blindly, wondering if it would be possible to tell him that I was heading to the airport to get out of here.

“It is most fortunate that you have arrived,” Chantlo continued. “Your presence at this time of crisis gives us hope.”

“Crisis!” I yelped. “Wait a minute!”

“Your father’s conspiracy has yielded great results,” Chando said as if he hadn’t heard me. “The people, with better and more reliable nutrition, are better able to plot and plan and fend for themselves. But meanwhile, the government has launched a major offensive against the resistance, and is on the verge of smashing the entire network. The people sense the danger, and events may soon explode.”

“Chantlo!”

“Quickly, Mrs. Anderson, into this car!”

I got into a waiting car, and he drove off quickly.

“Chantlo, listen to me!” I insisted.

“Yes, Mrs. Anderson?”

“I’m just a bankrupt computer programmer!” I protested. “I don’t know anything about revolutions or conspiracies! I came here because I was hoping you’d make me feel better!”

He looked at me. “I do not understand. ‘Make you feel better’?”

“Yeah!” I said defensively. “Like you did for my dad! He showed up sad and forlorn and defeated. You sent him back, healed and full of life. Do the same for me.”

Chantlo looked at me out of the corner of his eye. “You are a person with good health, with never a fear of starvation. You live in a country where citizens are treated with dignity and respect. You do not live in fear of violence or repression. Surely you feel better than anyone in Thusbammanna.”

“But I don’t, all right? I can’t take care of my own problems, much less help you in some revolution! I just want to get back on an airplane, and go home! It was a mistake to come here!”

Chantlo drove in silence for a moment. “This is not the way our esteemed friend, Mister Anderson, would have done things.”

“I’m not Mister Anderson, all right?” I snapped. “I’m his daughter. I even have a personality of my own.”

Chantlo took the rudeness in silence. Then he spoke fondly. “Mister Anderson was a very gentle, giving man.”

“He still is,” I said with annoyance.

“And his late wife,” Chando probed tentatively. “The woman who is nearly deified in our country, his Alicia—she was as well?”

I laughed shortly, without humor. Talking about my mom is very painful for me, even this many years away from her death. “No, that’s not how I’d describe her.”

“No? Indeed?”

“No. She was little and tough and fiery. She never took crap from anybody in her life. Dad says I’m a lot like her.”

Chantlo looked almost disappointed. “I have never imagined her that way. I have only seen her through your father’s eyes, and he saw her differently.”

“Don’t misunderstand,” I said. “She was the finest woman I’ve ever known. But she wasn’t at all like my dad. He gave her the stability and calm that she needed. And she gave him the energy and confidence that he needed.”

“He seemed lost without her, when he was here.”

I dabbed at my eyes. “They both knew what they had.”

Chantlo opened his mouth to ask something else, but I interrupted quickly. “I’m sorry, but I don’t want to talk about this anymore, OK?”

He nodded, and we drove in silence.

Talking about my mom is always tough for me. There was never anyone in the world I respected as much. She was never afraid of anything. I liked to think that I was a lot like her.

Except now, of course—running away when things got tough. Oh, God, I’m just not up to this, I thought with a rush of self-pity.

I took a deep, shaky sigh. “All right, Chantlo,” I said. “How can I help?”

We ended up driving toward Chantlo’s house. “Please understand, Mrs. Anderson,” he explained, “I do not know how you can help us. But your very presence gives us hope.”

“Why? What’s going on?”

“Up until recently, the resistance movement flourished, thanks in large part to the underground nutrition system established by your father. We were able to better care for our people, and warn those who are in danger. We also attempt to document human rights abuses and get this documentation into the hands of your government. We are attempting to make a case for American support of our resistance movement, to encourage the resumption of free elections. This, of course, causes concern on the part of the corrupt military dictatorship. They are growing wealthy at the expense of our people, but they are having more and more difficulty with a populace that is less and less docile. Their response has been increased brutality, and a sophisticated assault on the leaders of the resistance movement. Many of our leaders have been executed, others are jailed, awaiting questioning. The duly elected leader of Thusbammanna fled to America when overthrown by the current regime of cutthroats, so he is safe. But those attempting to change everyday life in Thusbammanna are living in great danger.”

I digested this in scared silence. Chantlo turned into a poor neighborhood, and pulled up at a tenement house that I assumed was his home. We went inside.

“And here you find another reason I consider your arrival to be fortuitous,” Chantlo said. “Please allow me to introduce two people who may be already familiar to you.” He indicated two women; obviously a mother and daughter. The mother was about my age, and the daughter about my son Tommy’s age. “You remember your father telling of the little girl he rescued?”

“Sure,” I said, the light beginning to dawn.

“This is the girl! And her mother, of whom you must also have heard. They are visiting relatives and friends in the city.”

I shook hands warmly with them. The mother, whose name was Marina, was all smiles and grace. The little girl, named Anya, was now a teenager, and not as welcoming. I found it strange that after all of the stories my dad had told of this family, this was the first time I ever learned their names. Dad had never known.

“I’m very pleased to meet you,” I told them.

“Hello, very pleased,” Marina said. Anya only eked out a thin, sullen smile.

“Marina’s English is not as good as those of us in the city,” Chantlo explained. “Her daughter can speak English more proficiendy.”

“It’s better than my Thusbammannan,” I answered. I looked closely at Anya. There was still very faint distortion of her features here and there, a result of the rifle beating she had received at the hands of soldiers ten years ago. But she was obviously healthy, and very obviously possessing a teenaged attitude.

Marina nudged her daughter and said something to her in Thusbammannan. Being a mother, I knew for sure that Marina was reminding Anya of her manners. Anya just rolled her eyes and shrugged.

I looked at Anya with complete recognition. / have a son your age, I thought at her. I can’t do a thing with him, either. I’d had more than my share of that crap, so I turned to Chantlo. “Please tell them that I’m very glad to meet them,” I asked politely.

“You must, of course, stay for dinner,” Chando invited.

I didn’t really want to, but I knew how impolite it would be to refuse.

Dinner was interesting and tedious at the same time. People dropped in to meet me, for word had spread that the daughter of the originator of the Alicia Project had come. I enjoyed that, but Anya was a continual cloud of sullen gloom that hovered over everything. She didn’t say a word the entire time, refused to interact, and just generally acted like an adolescent bitch. I stopped myself. She was just an average teenager, no worse, and I was being harsh because my son had exhausted my patience. And I needed to make allowances for the fact that she had been brutally beaten when she was very young. I didn’t suppose that Thusbammanna offered any kind of counseling to help children recover from that kind of trauma. It was probably amazing that she was functional at all.

Realizing this, I surprised Anya with a smile. She looked startled, and almost smiled back, but remembered herself in time and merely looked aloof. It was amazing. A different country, on a different continent, and teenagers were still the same.

I went back to the hotel to get some sleep, but wasn’t terribly successful. A lot had happened to me, and a lot looked like it was about to happen. A thousand feelings, all conflicting, coursed through my brain. I slept badly, and was relieved to see the dawn.

1 grabbed breakfast in the hotel dining room, and decided that since I had paid attention in the taxi the day before, I could find the way to Chantlo’s house myself. I climbed into my big American car, entered Chantlo’s address on the computer, and headed out.

It was a short distance away physically, but economically it was another world: a very poor, depressed area, filled with people and disintegrating homes. I pulled in, and noticed a lot of commotion going on at Chantlo’s little tenement house. I got out with a growing sense of trepidation.

The first person I ran into was Marina, and she was beside herself. “What’s going on?” I asked, feeling like that was the only thing I had asked in Thusbammanna.

“The family!” she cried, tears running down her face. “The soldiers, they take!”

Oh my God—I didn’t know what that meant, but it sure sounded bad. I hurried in, and saw Anya sitting huddled in a corner of a bedroom. She looked at me with hostility and fear, and wouldn’t respond to anything I said. I ran to another room, and found Chantlo. He was quite upset, running from room to room, calling out in a loud voice. I grabbed his arm, feeling the hysteria of the place rubbing off on me.

“Chantlo! Chantlo, for God’s sake, what’s going on? What’s wrong?!”

“Oh, Mrs. Anderson! It is terrible! Truly terrible! The security police came this morning, when I was not here! They intended to arrest me on suspicion of treason. But, as I was not here, they took my family instead! My wife! My poor children! They are in prison as we speak! They allowed Marina and Anya to stay, and instructed them to inform me that my family will be released only when I turn myself in! Oh, Mrs. Anderson! This is terrible!”

I was struck speechless by the enormity of the situation. Based on my dad’s stories of the Thusbammannan security police, I knew that Chantlo would probably be tortured, questioned, and then executed. And if he didn’t turn himself in, it would probably happen to his family.

“OK,” I said as calmly as I could. “OK. Let’s sit down for a minute and see if we can find a way out of this.”

“There is no way, Mrs. Anderson. Imagine the fear of my family! Imagine what will happen to them if I do not turn myself in within twenty-four hours!”

I didn’t want to imagine what would happen, although I had a pretty good idea. “Do you have any benefit of counsel? Anybody who looks after your rights in this matter?”

He looked at me like I’d lost my mind.

“Sorry,” I said. “I’m new to this.”

“Please, Mrs. Anderson,” he said urgently, “could you drive me to the police station?”

“Chantlo, are you sure about this?”

“Yes, Mrs. Anderson. I will not allow my family to be brutalized because of my absence.”

“Well… OK,” I said miserably. “Would it help if I spoke for you?”

“Certainly not. It would merely confirm their suspicions.”

“OK. Well, I’m ready when you are.”

We walked to the car in silence. I sat for a moment. “Why do they want to arrest you?”

“I do not know why they suspect me. I may have been seen attending some high level resistance meetings, but I am not sure. This is what has been happening to resistance members all through the country.”

“How could they know where you were?”

Chantlo shrugged. “I can only presume that the security police have followed me. But I must confess to great confusion. I do not understand how anyone could have followed me without being discovered. I have been extremely careful.”

I started the car, and hit the “No Option” button on the computer system. I wouldn’t need it with Chando here. “So we’re screwed,” I concluded.

“I am afraid so.”

“So you have to turn yourself in?”

“It is my only option,” Chantlo said bitterly. “I can not endanger others to protect myself. I certainly will not endanger my family.”

I had pulled out to the intersection of a major road, and waited for Chantlo to tell me where to turn. I looked at him, but he was shrunk into himself, deeply depressed. Tears were welling into his eyes. I felt great sorrow and sympathy, but didn’t know what I could do. I could at least respect his privacy, and use the computer to get us to our destination instead of bothering—wait a minute.

“Wait a minute!” I exclaimed, and wrestled the car violently to the side of the road. Chantlo looked up inquiringly, but with no life in his eyes. “Chantlo!” I yelled at him, even though he was two feet away.

“Yes, Mrs. Anderson?”

“Do all of the cars in Thusbammanna have these directional computers?”

It obviously took every ounce of his strength to remain polite in the face of such a trivial question, but he managed. “Virtually all, Mrs. Anderson.”

“But surely the people can’t afford them.”

“It was a government program,” Chantlo said, his voice revealing a burr of exasperation. “The technology was imported from the United States to reduce the congestion and pollution in Thusbammanna, and the government had them installed in all of the cars I am sorry, Mrs. Anderson, but I do not see—”

“But that’s it!” I cried. “That’s how they followed you!”

“What?”

I stomped on the accelerator and screamed out into traffic, Chantlo holding on for dear life. “Where are we going?” he called over the sound of the revving motor.

“Back to your home,” I said. “We’ve got work to do!”

“I must protect my family,” Chantlo objected. “I must—”

“Bullshit!” I interrupted rudely. “I know how to get them out of jail, without putting you in!”

He stared at me with wild hope rising in his eyes. “You suddenly remind me much of your father,” he said, not knowing how much of a compliment he was paying me.

“Thanks, but let’s wait to see if it works.”

“I beg you to explain your idea.”

“It’s these directional computers,” I said. “They’re installed as a driver’s aid. But, see, the computer in each car is in contact with a main server somewhere in your city. That’s how your car’s computer gets its sense of direction; by checking with the main server. That’s why, if you go to the country for a day, the computer can’t help you because it’s out of range of the server, but when you come back into the city limits, the computer knows where it is. It checks with the server.”

“I have heard of satellites that can give any car an accurate location,” Chantlo said. “Why is a central computer necessary?”

“Satellites would work fine for individual cars, but the central computer does a lot for metropolitan areas. It monitors the location of thousands of cars simultaneously, which makes it possible to forecast and minimize traffic jams. That’s why.”

“I see. Please continue.”

“Well, the level of detail of your directional computer’s instructions means that it’s got to keep track of where you are at all times. I mean, if it says, ‘turn left at the next corner,’ it’s got to have a pretty specific idea of where you are when it says it, right?”

“Yes,” Chantlo prompted again.

“And if the central computer is going to calculate what roads have congestion, they calculate how many cars are there, and their speed. The central computer also sends out general queries, asking if there are any cars heading for the congested areas. If your car’s computer is programmed for that area, it answers ‘yes,’ and the central computer can forecast how much better or worse the congestion is going to be.”

“But how does this help me?” Chantlo asked.

“Well, don’t you see? The main computer server knows where every car is! The government can tell every place you’ve driven to!”

Chantlo stared at me with comprehension and horror rising in his face. “My… my God!” he stammered.

We drove in silence for a minute while I let him digest the information. Finally, he stirred.

“And so this explains the success of the government’s crackdown of the resistance movement,” he said. “They track the driving activities of everyone suspected, and know of their whereabouts.”

“Right.”

“But Mrs Anderson, I am familiar with this city. I rarely use the computer.”

“That doesn’t matter. Your car’s computer is in constant interface with the central server. It does that for traffic control and so it will be ready to supply you with assistance if you turn it on in the middle of a trip.”

“We must warn others immediately! It may be too late to save me, but perhaps not too late to save others.” “Don’t write yourself off yet,” I said.

Again, wild hope flared in his face. “And why?”

“I’ll explain what I know about this stuff, and we’ll see if we can’t work something out. I’m a computer programmer, so I get all kinds of publications. Some of them are semi-underground things.”

“Yes?”

“Well, about five years ago, there was a drive-by shooting in a bad section of my city. Two young men were killed, the gunman got away, and there were no reliable witnesses. No hope was held out for catching them.”

“This pertains to our discussion of the directional computers?” Chantlo inquired with great politeness.

“I swear it does. Just listen. The directional computers had been installed in all cars for less than a year at that time. And somebody got the idea that if you went into the main server, you could get a listing of every car that was on the street at the time of the drive-by shooting. So the police gave the computer the address and the time, and the computer gave them all of the cars that had been there. So then they asked for the speeds of all of the cars listed. The computer told them that most of the cars had been at zero miles per hour, which means they were parked. Two cars had been moving, and they got details on where and how. One was parked but accelerated rapidly out of the area. The police figured that the driver was a witness, and didn’t want to get involved. And the second car had driven slowly into the area, slowed almost to a stop right where the shooting had taken place, and then sped away. That had to be the car.”

Chantlo was listening with rapt fascination. “Yes, please go on.”

“So the police cross-referenced the computer signatures of the two cars into the vehicle registration database. They got names and addresses of the owners. They searched the houses and found the murder weapon. The gunman and his driver were arrested and sent to jail.”

“Impressive,” Chantlo observed. “But I am surprised that, in America, such surveillance was allowed.”

“Well, there was a lot of controversy at the time,” I admitted. “It was all over the news that the police had been able to tell where everyone was. But the police were required to get a court order allowing them to access the server. All information from the server had to be printed out into a judge’s hands, who destroyed everything that didn’t directly pertain to the investigation. And an appeals court could be called upon to examine the court order and agree that it was justified. If it didn’t, the evidence was thrown out of court.”

Chantlo was nodding. “I see. And this system of safeguards is not in place in Thusbammanna.”

“Right. It probably never occurred to the Americans who sold the system that your government would use it for surveillance of political enemies.”

Chantlo digested this in silence for a minute. Then he looked at me. “You indicated that this could help me in some way?”

“Maybe. You have to understand: in America, some people just don’t like the fact that the government can tell where they are. Most people are satisfied with the judicial safeguards, but some aren’t. So there was some interest in how to disconnect your car’s computer. The obvious answer is to smash it, but that’s going to be suspicious in court if you’re brought in on other charges. So some computer hackers began playing around with reprogramming them, so the computer says you were somewhere where you weren’t. I’ve read some of the articles.”

“I begin to see what you are thinking,” Chantlo said.

“Don’t get too hopeful,” I warned him. “The state government eventually put security safeguards into the main server so that it couldn’t be hacked into. But the safeguards are very recent—yours may not have them.”

“So your intent is to—er—‘hack’ into the government’s computer server?”

“Right. And establish that you weren’t where they thought you were.”

“Oh!” he said with deep emotion. “Oh, Mrs. Anderson! If you could do that, my family would be grateful forever!”

I grinned excitedly. “Do you have a garage?”

“I can borrow one quickly.”

He began giving me directions on how to reach the garage, and my mind kept working at the concept. “You know,” I said, “from the first moment at the airport, I wondered why in the world your government would buy this road guidance system, when your country has so many other basic needs.”

He scowled. “Many of us wondered the same,” he said. “Their stated reasons, that of encouraging tourism, and relieving traffic congestion, lacked conviction. And now we know: it is the basis of their success in crushing the resistance movement.”

“But they have so little money!”

“It is a question of priorities, Mrs. Anderson. They prefer to let the people starve. Maintaining power is their only priority. If they discovered a surveillance system that would enable them to crush the resistance, they would produce the money for it in any way necessary.”

“But why would America sell it to them?”

“It was a straightforward purchase,” he explained. “Thusbammanna had the money, and an American company had a system they no longer needed. If anyone asked, I am sure Thusbammanna would have mentioned tourism and traffic congestion, but I am certain that questions were never raised.”

It was dark and dank in the garage, and the chair he found for me was rickety and uncomfortable. Vermin had scuttled out of the way when he turned on the light. And for all we knew, we could be raided by security police at any time. And watching Chantlo, in his agonized hopefulness, put a crushing, almost debilitating weight on me.

We had taken a very roundabout way to get to this garage. Chantlo had had us stop off at several busy intersections, and had me wait while he walked down the street, stopped in at various places, then hurried back. When I had asked what he was doing, he merely said that he was spreading the word about the computer monitoring devices through some “message centers.”

I set my notebook computer on one of the fenders of my rental car, and looked at the main computer assembly under the hood. This was what worried me. I mean, I had been a hacker almost since before I could talk, but connecting up properly was crucial. My memory of those articles, scanned for pleasure from a computer Bulletin Board System when I was taking a break, was hazy at best.

I took a deep breath. “Let’s do it.”

“Indeed, yes.”

I burrowed into a side pocket of my computer carrying case and pulled out a bag of computer junk. Duane always called it my Techno-Nerd Packet, because it had all kinds of computer accessories that I carried around, figuring I might need them sometime.

The car’s computer had a diagnostic port, and I rummaged through my bag, searching for a connector that would fit. I was most worried about that, although I figured I could probably jury-rig something if I had to.

Murphy’s Law: it was the second-to-last connector in my bag. But it fit, and we were in business. I booted my computer, and chortled in triumph as the startup diagnostics verified the connection.

My memory of the article stank, but I had confidence in my hacking abilities. In no time, I was in the central computer. I chuckled. “Why even bother looking for the back door, when the front door is wide open?” I commented.

“Pardon?” Chando inquired politely.

“Just talking to myself. You know, this software is so obsolete that your government probably didn’t even buy it directly from America. You’re probably the third users, after some country like Brazil updated their system and sold this to you.”

After browsing considerably, I figured that the Thusbammannan police had merged the traffic tracking file and the vehicle identification file, so they could more efficiently know who was where, when. I explained it to Chantlo, presenting proof that my theory on how they followed him was right.

“I’ll need your help now, Chantlo,” I said.

He came up behind me uncertainly. “Sadly,” he said, “my knowledge of computers—”

“It doesn’t matter,” I interrupted. “You can read Thusbammannan. See if any of these eight-character file names would be an abbreviation for a Thusbammannan word like ‘criminals,’ or ‘resistance,’ or anything like that.”

He crouched beside me, squinting with intensity. After five minutes, he jabbed a finger at the screen. “There, Mrs. Anderson! That word could possibly be an abbreviation of ‘suspects.’ ”

“Perfect!” I accessed the file swiftly and began scrolling down. Chantlo, reading over my shoulder, inhaled painfully.

“These names! They have identified many resistance leaders, including some who we thought were above suspicion! This is most grievous!”

“I’ve got an idea for that too,” I said. “But first let’s find you.”

Another five minutes yielded his file. “It’s not extensive,” I told him. “Maybe they tumbled onto you fairly recently.”

“Indeed, no, Mrs. Anderson,” Chantlo said. “This message at the top notes that I was the driver for your father. I have been under suspicion since then!”

“Look over the rest of them,” I instructed. “See what they have on you. Check especially for recent listings. There must be some reason they chose today to swoop in and take your family.”

It was several minutes before we figured it out. The entry that was highlighted was the one that noted that Chantlo’s car had arrived at an open-air market at the same time that an American subversive force got there by taxi.

Chantlo and I looked at each other for a long time. “You are, of course, the subversive force,” Chantlo told me unnecessarily.

“Yeah. Wow.”

He sighed. “I had thought that meeting you at the open-air market would have prevented our detection. I parked on the opposite side of the square and took a circuitous route through the crowd.”

“You would have been able to shake off a human follower,” I guessed, “but you can’t fool a computer that way.” I thought. “Where should we put you instead? Who would be willing to swear that you were with them? Your mother? Another relative?”

“An excellent idea. My mother lives somewhat near that neighborhood.”

It was enormously tedious, going through each line of code and changing every interaction to have Chantlo’s car arrive at his mother’s house instead of the market, and then having it drive away again. And then I had to explore many other operating files, to make sure I had covered up all of the traces of our tampering;Then I found my file, which had been red-flagged, and altered the file attributes to make them unable to follow me.

I leaned back and took a deep breath as I snapped off my computer. “That’s it. We’re set.”

Chantlo’s eyes were shining in the gloom. “I am deeply grateful, Mrs. Anderson,” he said with simple and moving gravity.

“I’m glad I could help.”

“And now what is your suggestion for freeing my family?”

“Seems simple to me. You go down there to demand their release. When they arrest you, you protest that you were nowhere near the scene in question. They check, to provide proof, and suddenly their whole case falls apart.”

He looked at me oddly, and disappointment filled his face. “Forgive me if I insult you, Mrs. Anderson, but you are very American.”

I laughed. “My dad says you told him the same thing. Why? What am I overlooking?”

“Thusbammanna does not have the system of justice that you take for granted. Proof is not required in Thusbammanna—merely suspicion. There is no reason to expect them to release me.”

I had thought of that. “Yes there is, if we bring someone along.”

Chantlo snorted scornfully “One of your American lawyers would be among the first to be executed in Thusbammanna.”

“Some Americans would pay to watch something like that,” I joked. “But I was thinking of a reporter from the Associated Press.”

Chantlo looked very impressed. “An excellent suggestion! The government is extremely conscious of its image, especially in America. The underground has had some success in informing the outside world of the brutality here. Foreign aid has been denied or delayed in the past because of objections from human rights organizations.”

We left the car in the garage, and walked several blocks to a squalid apartment building. It was reasonably clean, but the structure of the building was deteriorating. Chantlo left me on the sidewalk, where I was the subject of many curious stares. I felt very American; very self-conscious, especially when three different women came up to me and offered me tea. Knowing nothing of their language, I could only smile and shake my head. I found that I was bowing, trying to express appreciation at this offering that I didn’t understand.

After several minutes, Chantlo came out again. “It is arranged,” he announced. “Our underground network knows many reporters who are sympathetic to the plight of our people. One from the Associated Press will meet me in front of the police station in an hour.”

“Chantlo, while I was waiting, several women offered me tea. Why’d they do that?”

Chantlo looked surprised. “You are a stranger; a visitor. It is a gesture of hospitality and welcome. Surely strangers in your neighborhoods are treated in a similar way?”

I laughed, with little humor. “No. In America, when you see a stranger, you call a cop. Your way is much better.”

“Do not be hasty in your opinions,” Chantlo said darkly. “In Thusbammanna, a policeman is the last person one would wish to call.”

We walked back to the garage and set off in my car, since we could now drive anywhere without being tracked. We agreed that I would drop him off at police headquarters, and then go wait at my hotel. “It would not be wise to be seen together,” Chantlo said.

As we approached police headquarters, I could see a camera crew setting up. Chantlo saw it and nodded. “This reporter is quite thorough,” he said approvingly. “And he has considerable influence in Thusbammanna. He is the chief correspondent, and works closely with the American ambassador whenever trade talks are held, or when military bases are discussed. The police will not dare to simply shut him out.”

I dropped him off around the corner, and wished him luck. I hoped I looked reassuring, and I could tell he was trying to be confident.

“I’ll see you in just a little while, Chantlo,” I croaked through a dry throat.

“In just a little while,” Chantlo repeated bravely. Then he walked toward the police station.

I drove to the hotel, and paced back and forth across the room for what seemed like hours. It had to work, it just had to! What would I do if it didn’t? How could I live with myself if I had screwed up, and ended up costing Chantlo his life? The events of the past several months had destroyed my self-confidence. Who was I to think I could help these people anyway?

Someone knocked on the door, and it scared me to death again. I was beginning to hate that door. But I rushed to open it, and almost ran into the same porter who had showed me my dad’s picture.

He was smiling broadly, and in response to my agonized look of inquiry, he gave me a discreet “thumbs up.” He handed me a piece of paper. “A message for you, madam.” He smiled at me again, and left.

I was sagging against the door frame in relief. I unfolded the paper, and saw that it was an address again. I felt too weak to drive, so I went down and hailed a cab.

The address turned out to be Chantlo’s home, not far away. I heard a commotion inside, and when I knocked, I was greeted with an enormous outpouring of noise and celebration.

In the crush of people and emotion and gratitude, Chantlo introduced me to his wife and children and a dozen other relatives and friends. They were all weeping with relief and joy, and it was wonderful and embarrassing at the same time. “You have saved my family,” Chantlo called above the general hubbub. “You have saved the resistance movement! You are a great woman! Our gratitude to you will never diminish!”

I was blushing like crazy, and enormously gratified. Marina, whose English was rusty, kept saying “Grateful, grateful,” to me, and even Anya favored me with a small smile.

“I’m very glad it worked out,” I said over and over. “My best wishes for your family and your country.” I felt stilted and formal, but it was still wonderful.

During a lull, I slipped a computer disk out of my pocket. “Does your resistance have any kind of computer experts?” I asked in a low tone.

“They are rare, but they do indeed exist,” Chantlo said. “Being unfamiliar with the computer field, I am not certain of their skill level. It may not be equal to yours.”

“It doesn’t matter. This disk has a record of everything I did to the computer server, and also has instructions on how to hook up and hack in. It also has a few of my favorite viruses that they can plant if they want. Anybody familiar with programming can do the rest. You can plan your best strategy, and do whatever you want to those bastards. You can even blow up their whole database.”

He took the disk with deep gratitude. “This is the most valuable disk in Thusbammanna,” he said. “I will see to its proper distribution.”

After an hour or so, the party started to wind down. I asked how I could get a cab so I could get back to the hotel.

“Allow me to escort you, Mrs. Anderson,” Chantlo offered. “Anya will accompany us as well, for she plans to visit with relatives who live in that direction.”

“Sure,” I said, smiling at Marina. “We’ll take care of her,” I promised flippantly.

The three of us headed out shortly afterwards and walked in happy silence. I was glad I’d come to Thusbammanna. I had helped them out of a tight spot, and I’d gotten my self-confidence back. It worked out very well, just like it did for my dad. Very neat, very tidy.

“I suppose I’ll go back home tomorrow,” I said finally. “I’m glad I could help you out.”

“Your presence was crucial,” Chantlo told me. “We are deeply grateful, and you will be welcome in our country at any time.”

“Thank you very much,” I told him. “And you’ve helped me too. I got my self-confidence back. I plan to restart my business, thanks to you. It’s neat how it all worked out.”

“Yes, indeed.”

We were walking through a large square, and I noticed a large crowd gathering. Someone was standing up on the fir end, testing a megaphone. “What’s going on?” I asked.

Chantlo grinned. “The fruits of your labor, Mrs. Anderson. The word has spread about the government’s monitoring of each car’s whereabouts. It seems as if a protest demonstration is forming.”

“Really! How satisfying!” I stopped and watched for awhile, gloating in my success. A huge crowd had gathered, numbering in the hundreds. Someone got up on the steps of a fountain and started addressing the crowd. I had picked up a few words of the Thusbammannan language, but this was far beyond me. So I just enjoyed the feeling, and watched the crowd as it grew in size and volume. We all felt like celebrating, so we stayed for quite awhile, watching and listening.

Suddenly, Chantlo grasped my arm and pointed. I followed his gaze, and my heart leaped in my throat. “Soldiers!” I hissed.

A contingent of soldiers, fully dressed in riot garb, was assembling at one end of the square. The crowd was disturbed, but too angry to be frightened. “They are too few,” Chantlo said. “They must only be attempting to contain the crowd if it becomes unruly.”

I felt the tension mount as more soldiers appeared, and the crowd’s mood began turning dangerous. It was clear they weren’t going to disperse quickly.

I stood in the milling crowd, looking at the soldiers on the other end of the square. This isn’t my fight, I kept thinking. This isn’t even my country. I have a family that I have a responsibility for. I have no business endangering myself this way.

I looked around for a way out of the square. This looks a little too much like Beijing’s Tiananmen Square for my taste, I thought. I’ve got to find a way out. I looked to the left, away from the police, and so I was the first one to see the attack coming.

For the first split second, the words froze in my throat. Then I screamed at the top of my lungs: “NOOOOO!”

I threw myself to the street just milliseconds before the machine guns began firing.

I felt the rough pavement pressing against my cheek as the guns drowned out all noise except for the screams. Dimly, I saw people throwing themselves to the ground or trying to run. A woman ran in my direction, was hit, and fell nearby in a spray of crimson. Numb with shock, I looked the other way, and saw Anya lying near me, staring with wide eyes. Blood seeped from her arm. I scrambled over to her, and sheltered her head with my arm.

“Lie still, sweetheart,” I whispered. I remembered that my dad had called her that, years ago, when he saved her from these soldiers. But I wasn’t my dad. I was just me, and I was probably going to die in the next few minutes. I squeezed my eyes shut as the firing continued, and I tried to burrow into the asphalt. Dad couldn’t have done anything about this. Nobody could.

Abruptly, the firing stopped, and I risked a peek around. The square was filled with bodies, but I saw many of them moving. Like me, most people had thrown themselves to the ground. I looked around for Chantlo, but couldn’t see him.

A deathly silence filled the square, broken only by screams and sobs of wounded people. I heard Anya whimpering softly beneath my arm.

Suddenly, a whistle shrilled, shattering the silence. The police, clad in full riot gear, had formed a line, and now they charged into the crowd, swinging billy clubs.

“Oh, Jesus,” I whispered prayerfully.

I lifted Anya to her feet, and started pulling her away from the soldiers. “Come on, let’s get out of here,” I called to her over the rising pandemonium of screaming and yelling and violence.

Limply, Anya tried to walk with me, but was unsteady and slow. The soldiers were charging toward us, clubbing down everyone that moved. “Hurry up, hurry up!” I screamed at her, filled with panic. They were catching up, they were coming, they were right on top of us! A huge soldier came up on Anya’s side, his club raised high. “NOOOO!” I screamed, “she’s just a little girl!” I let her go and charged the man, crazed with fear and rage. “BASTARDS!” I piled into him with a football block, hitting him in the stomach with all of my pitiful, meager strength. It took him by surprise, and he missed her as he swung, the club just glancing off her forearm. He looked at me with outrage and surprise, and I didn’t even have time to move as he raised his club high. I watched in slow motion as it came down at me and caught me full on the side of my face, and then it felt like my head split wide open. I briefly thought I felt the asphalt on my cheek again, but then I didn’t feel anything anymore.

When I regained consciousness, I was still lying on the asphalt. I opened my eyes, and a searing stab of pain made me close them again. I felt something sticky and wet on the side of my face, and when I tried opening my eyes again, I saw that it was a pool of blood. I closed my eyes again, sick with fear and pain. I couldn’t believe this had happened to me. I couldn’t believe this could happen at all.

Breathing hurt. Moving hurt. Existing hurt. I pried my eyes open again, and the first thing I saw was Anya. Her bruised and bloody face lay in quiet repose only a few feet away, and when I tried to cry, I realized that I had been crying for quite some time.

The pain was incredible—I wished I would die so it would stop. But overriding the pain was the urgent need to know if Anya was alive or dead.

Slowly I scrambled over toward her. My head felt ready to burst apart at any moment, but I managed to hold it together. I had to feel for her shoulder because my eyes wouldn’t focus consistently, and then I shook her gently.

“Anya,” I whispered. “Anya, say something!”

She didn’t move, and I tried to see if there was anyone around who could help. On the other end of the square, soldiers were rounding some people up, and I wondered if everyone was going to be shot or jailed. I shook Anya again, more urgently.

“Anya! Anya, talk to me!” I tried to feel for her pulse, but my entire body was throbbing, and I couldn’t feel anything else.

A faint moan came from her mouth, and I felt relief cut through the horror, pain and fear. “Come on, honey, we’ve got to get to a hospital.” I staggered to my feet, trying to lift her and fight off the waves of nausea that threatened to drown me. Her eyes fluttered open, and recognition flickered in them. She tried to stand, but staggered into me. I moved toward an alleyway that would get us out of the square, half carrying, half dragging her.

We were almost there when I dimly saw a figure crouching in the shadows. He was holding something to his shoulder, pointing at us. I staggered backwards. “Don’t shoot!” I cried.

He straightened up, and I saw that he was holding a news camera. “Sorry, lady, they’re shooting at reporters out there. I have to get my shots from cover. Are you American?”

I nodded weakly.

“What happened out there?” he asked.

“It was a peaceful demonstration,” I said shakily. I realized he was filming me, and I tried to mop some of the blood and tears from my face. “These people were protesting a brutal government. But the soldiers opened fire with machine guns, and then went through and clubbed anyone who was still moving.” I indicated Anya, who had passed out again, and started crying again. “Look what they did! Look what they did to this little girl!”

His camera lens was moving, and I could tell he was getting a standard Close-up of the Crying Lady. After everything else, I was being exploited for ratings points!

“Is there anything that can be done?” he asked in a leading voice.

“Yeah,” I snapped, suddenly filled with anger. “You can dump your fucking camera, and help some of the injured people out there!” Without waiting for an answer, I picked up Anya, and staggered away.

The alley went on forever. I didn’t know what was on the other side, but I had to get there. On the other side might be someone who wasn’t a soldier. On the other side there might be a hospital. With pain killer. With morphine. With anything that could help Anya, and stop my pain. Anything. Somewhere. On the other side.

It was bright Sun, but it was foggy. I couldn’t see very well through the fog. It was hard to stay on my feet, but I had to keep going. Maybe it would be easier if I went on my knees. Yeah. My knees were better. If I fell over, I wouldn’t fall as far. And I could get up again. To get to the other side. Like the chicken in that old joke. Or like the one Tom liked to tell, why did the punk rocker cross the road, he was stapled to the chicken, oh you’re a riot, Tommy, I wonder if I’ll ever see you again, the last time I saw you I yelled at you and I just wanted to say I love you, you and Alicia and Duane, oh Tommy, help me carry this little girl, she’s too heavy for me and I can’t do it, I can’t do it any more, I have to go just a little bit farther, there’s that asphalt against my cheek again, I’m really getting tired of that.

I was on a ladder in a sewer. I was slowly climbing the ladder, because I could see a distant dot of light at the top, where I could get out. Surrounded by darkness, I was beckoned by the light. I climbed and climbed, and some noise came faintly to me from the opening above. I kept climbing, and climbing, and climbing. The circle of light was bigger now, I was getting to it, I was almost there, and then I opened my eyes.

It hurt. It hurt a lot. I gasped in pain, and that hurt too. When my vision cleared, I looked up into Chantlo’s eyes.

“Ah, Mrs. Anderson!” he said softly, but with relief. “I am delighted to see that you are with us once again!”

“Wha—”

“Do not speak, Mrs. Anderson. You have been grievously injured, and must lie still. But you are safe now, in a friend’s apartment, and you will recover.”

“Whe—”

Chantlo restrained me again. “Anya is in similar circumstances. She will not die. I found you in an alleyway, both unconscious. I brought you here with the help of one of your country’s newsmen. It is well that you were able to get out of the square, for everyone who remained in it has been detained by the security police, and are likely to be executed. I am filled with wonder that you had the strength to go that distance while carrying Anya, with the injury you have received.”

“I’m tough,” I muttered thickly, ignoring his restraining gestures. “Got it from my mom.”

“I, on the other hand, was merely lucky,” he said. I looked blearily at him, and noticed a large bandage on the side of his head. “A bullet grazed my skull, knocking me unconscious. The police left me for dead.”

“God,” I whispered, and looked away. The horror of the event washed over me in waves.

“I have other news as well,” Chantlo said. “A telegram was delivered to your hotel. Our contact at the hotel managed to get it to us.”

I took it with shaking fingers and struggled trying to open it. Chantlo did it for me, and I unfolded the flimsy paper. I had to work to focus my eyes before I could read it.

“SAW YOU ON CNN. WE ARE SICK WITH WORRY FOR YOU. PLEASE COME HOME IMMEDIATELY LOVE, DUANE, TOM, ALICIA AND DAD.”

“They saw me on CNN,” I said wonderingly. “How would they see me on CNN?”

“Surely you remember the news cameraman? The one who helped me get you and Anya to safety? I have not seen the film, but I understand from others that it featured large amounts of blood, and highly colored language.”

“I’d better send them an answer,” I said.

“Unfortunately, that will not be possible,” Chantlo said. “Martial law has been declared, and all communications have been suspended.”

“Martial law? Because of the protest?”

“No, because of the hundreds of protests that resulted from the brutality of the crackdown that injured you.”

“Hundreds? How could hundreds of protests have gone on?”

Chantlo smiled gently. “You have been here for three days. During that time, the rebellion has spread throughout the country.”

I closed my eyes wearily. “Wow. Oh, wow. So the revolution is growing?”

“I fear not, Mrs. Anderson. Most of the army remains loyal to the government. Hundreds have died. These protests were unplanned, and have no leadership. They are ill-timed and doomed to failure. Small pockets of soldiers have defected to the rebel side, but they are foot soldiers based primarily in the country, where the revolution is stronger. Here in the city, where the armored divisions are based, the independence movement is being crushed.”

I shook my head miserably. This wasn’t how it was supposed to work. The people were supposed to prevail. It’s what I’d been raised to believe. I’d seen it happen in the Philippines, Eastern Europe, and Russia. But instead, it was Tiananmen Square all over again. All of the suffering, all of the cruelty… I realized I was crying again. Chantlo patted my shoulder gently.

“There, there, Mrs. Anderson. While I am extremely disappointed at the failure of the protests, I am yet thankful that I was able to bring you to safety. And we are all grateful that you have saved Anya from death.”

“It probably just prolonged the inevitable,” I said bitterly.

“Perhaps, or perhaps the success of the revolution is inevitable. If the army had turned on the government, if the government had had foreign pressure to flee, and had been offered a place in exile, it might have happened this time. I believe that many of the soldiers are decent men who are not comfortable with killing so many of their countrymen, but they dare not object. Perhaps next time, Mrs. Anderson. We as a people have learned to live in hope of next time.”

“I’m American,” I retorted sharply. “I want it now.”

He only smiled; a smile filled with sorrow and pain. “Here are some pain killers, Mrs. Anderson. Take one, and rest.”

I didn’t see Anya until the next day. The pain in my head had subsided somewhat, and I was able to walk around. I kept thinking about my family, and the anxiety they must be feeling, but I had no way of leaving, and no way of reassuring them that I was OK. I shut down that line of thought as best I could. I’d go crazy otherwise.

The nurse who had taken care of us gave me permission to walk, and permission to see Anya. Unsteadily, I walked into the next room, and saw her lying on a cot in the gloom.

“Hi, Anya,” I whispered. She looked at me with a huge, dark eye. I realized that the other one was bandaged shut. This was the second time in her life that she had been beaten by soldiers. I wondered how many more times it would happen.

“Hello,” she whispered.

“How are you feeling?” I wanted to touch her, or hold her, or comfort her, but I didn’t know how badly she was hurt.

“The pain is less now,” she said brokenly. “The soldiers”

“Shush,” I whispered. “It’s OK. You’re safe here.”

“I remember you carrying me.”

“I didn’t get far,” I said.

“Mother says you saved me.” She swallowed with difficulty. “Thank you, Mrs. Anderson.”

The sincerity of her voice made me feel warm all over. “You’re welcome, sweetheart.” I kissed her on the forehead. “Go to sleep, dear.”

She smiled, and closed her eyes.

In the other room, I saw Anya’s mom sitting and waiting for me. “Hi, Marina,” I said in surprise. “I didn’t know you were here.”

“Chantlo say what happen,” she said in her broken English Tears came to her eyes. “Many thanks to Mrs. Anderson.”

“You’re quite welcome.”

“Your father save her once. You save her once. Andersons great family,” she persisted.

I hugged her, and held her while she cried. Gratitude makes me uncomfortable, but it was beautiful nonetheless. I cried with her for awhile. These people deserved better than this.

After awhile, I looked up and saw Chantlo standing in the doorway, smiling at us. Marina and I stopped crying, and he waited until we finished sniffling and drying our eyes.

“Mrs. Anderson, I have some news for you,” he said. “Are you familiar with your American embassy?”

“I know we have one, but that’s about it,” I said soggily.

“It is, of course, here in the capital city,” Chantlo said. “And as you are a citizen, you will surely be admitted into the embassy compound. There you will be safe, and will be able to transmit a message to your family as well.”

“That would be wonderful!” I exclaimed.

“Indeed. And may I beg that when you return to America, you tell them about us, and the atrocities that you have experienced? You may be the most effective spokesperson for our cause that we have yet found.”

“I promise I will,” I said. “How do I get to the embassy?”

“Transportation has been shut down by the protests,” Chantlo said. “But it is perhaps an hour’s walk.”

“Draw me a map,” I said.

“It would be better if you were to wait until tomorrow,” Chantlo said. “You are not yet recovered.”

“I can’t wait another minute,” I said firmly.

After some discussion, they saw that I wasn’t going to change my mind. Chantlo insisted on coming with me, and Marina and Anya declared that if I was going, they were going too. I felt guilty about taking Anya that distance, but she was determined, and it put off saying good-bye for awhile.

We set off after an hour. I felt unsteady, but driven by determination to reduce my family’s anxiety as quickly as possible. Anya, being younger, had bounced back more quickly than I had, and seemed more energetic. She refused to wear the bandage that covered half her face, and would only consent to a much smaller one around the area where the billy club had hit her. Marina was completely exasperated, and I smiled in recognition.

As we left, I saw Anya take a bunch of daffodils from a vase in her room. She tried to hide them from me, and I knew she was planning on giving them to me as a farewell bouquet. I pretended not to see.

The streets of Thusbammanna were in shambles. There were almost no unbroken windows to be seen. Broken, smoking barricades dotted the city landscape. People were everywhere, milling around uncertainly, dangerously. Troop trucks filled with soldiers roared around everywhere, looking for trouble, and occasionally I saw a tank, rumbling monstrously down a city street.

After about half an hour, we approached the radio station. We stopped so I could rest, and we gazed at the people inside. It was one of the last structures to be held by protesting citizens, and Chantlo said that it wasn’t likely to last much longer. Rough barricades had been thrown up around the gate. It looked terribly feeble: even I, with absolutely no military knowledge, could tell that the tanks I’d seen wouldn’t even be slowed down by them.

A crowd had gathered outside the fence, and some of them were singing. Small campfires were burning on the sidewalks. But most of the crowd were spectators, standing in clusters and talking in low tones as they gazed at the locked building inside.

Chantlo looked at the fortifications and shook his head. “So our revolution comes to this,” he said bitterly. “I have never seen anything so weak in my life. I hope that the fools inside are speaking quickly over the airwaves—they will not last long when the soldiers and tanks arrive.”

I nodded forlornly. It was clear that the uprising had fizzled out; crushed by the superior force and tactics of the Thusbamannan military.

We had paused in front of the radio station to rest. Now I wanted to leave, so I wouldn’t see the end. I was about to suggest moving on, when a couple of blocks away, we heard the snarling bellow of tank engines.

“The tanks!” Marina cried.

“They are coming,” Chantlo agreed grimly. “And there is nothing we have that can stop them.”

As he spoke, the tanks turned a corner and roared toward us. With murmurs of apprehension, the crowd got to its feet and made way for them. Some of the campers outside the gates stamped out their fires. A few shouted some slogans, but they could barely be heard over the tank engines.

There were ten tanks in all, and I wondered why they felt that so many were necessary. It was probably because they weren’t needed anywhere else any more. And a radio station would be a perfect place to stage a show of force.

The crowd parted in front of the tanks as they advanced in single file toward the gate. Thousands of people were on hand to watch, many with tears in their eyes. Some revolutionary banners were waved, but in a halfhearted fashion. Somehow, we had moved so that we were right in front of the main gate, and the tanks would pass right in front of us. I covered my ears as they approached: the noise of their engines alone was enough for me.

They bellowed forward, enormous and invincible. I reflected with pity on the idealism of the Thusbamannan people who thought they would have something powerful enough to stop those tanks.

The leading tank was approaching, and began accelerating to smash through the barricade. The noise of the engine was deafening even with my ears covered. This is it, I thought sadly. This is where it ends.

I saw a quick movement beside me, and Anya slipped out of the crowd. Before we knew what was happening, she was standing alone in front of the gate. Marina gave a cry of terror and tried to dart out to Anya, but Chantlo held her back.

The tank was accelerating loudly, and the driver was as taken by surprise as the crowd. It jerked sharply—the engine sputtered—and it screeched to a halt only six feet from the girl.

There was a dead silence for a moment, broken only by Marina’s sobs.

The tank gunned its engine: a challenging bellow that echoed and reechoed off of the surrounding buildings.

Anya looked up at the tank without a single trace of fear. She held the little bouquet of daffodils just below her throat, and she gazed steadily at the tank, her scarred face looking slightly distorted, but totally devoid of fear.

The tank lurched forward, and jerked to a stop only two feet from her. I stood rooted to the pavement. Oh God, oh God, oh God, I thought feverishly as I watched, transfixed in terror. Oh God, the poor little girl!

The tank activated a siren, almost rupturing my eardrums. I bent over halfway, trying to cover my ears, trying to shut out the noise.

Anya didn’t even flinch. She just looked calmly up at the tank as it towered above her.

The tank jerked into reverse, and backed up ten feet or so. Then its two machine gun turrets ratcheted downward and to the center, both homing in on the girl.

Anya lifted her bouquet of daffodils, as if offering them to the machine guns.

There was a deathly silence.

Marina tore herself from Chantlo’s grasp. She rushed to her daughter, and threw her arms around her from the side. Then, instead of trying to drag her away, she turned her head and looked up at the tank, tears flowing down her face.

“Will you shoot your children?” she cried. “Will you shoot your mothers?”

The tank loomed ominously above them. Then, finally, the machine guns swiveled away and pointed at the sky.

The cheer from the crowd began more as a gasp, but grew in size and volume into a roar. It crescendoed as the door on the top of the tank opened, and an army officer climbed out. He jumped down from the tank, walked into the crowd, and said something I couldn’t hear. The crowd near him cheered even louder, and he took a revolutionary banner from someone. He walked back to the tank, and draped it across the turret, and the crowd screamed and cheered, and I thought I would yell my throat out.

He walked up to Anya and Marina. Marina was still sobbing, now with relief, but Anya remained cool and collected. She smiled at the officer, and offered him a flower from her bouquet. When he took it, she reached up and kissed him on the cheek.

The officer leaped back up onto his tank, and shouted something down inside. The tank turned around and took the lead again as it headed back into the city. The other tanks followed, with people throwing revolutionary banners up to the crews, who draped them over the turrets. The crowd, thousands strong, accompanied the tanks, singing and cheering as they went. I watched them go, and it seemed like every side street disgorged a hundred more people who joined the crowd.

Anya stood still, with an exalted glow on her face. We surrounded her, all quietly crying, hugging and kissing her. We didn’t move until we were disturbed by a rattle of small-arms fire in the distance. It was quickly answered by the heavier sound of a tank’s machine gun.

Chantlo disengaged himself from the little group. “This city is yet a dangerous place,” he said. “We must find the American embassy quickly.”

We hurried through the city streets, sometimes struggling through crowds of people, sometimes finding the area eerily deserted. Troop trucks and tanks passed us occasionally, many with revolutionary banners draped across them. We heard sustained gunfire in many areas, although we managed to avoid being in the vicinity.

Long after I was completely exhausted, we reached the American embassy gates. There was a contingent of Marines inside the walls, armed and on alert. I hurried up to the guard.

“I’m an American,” I said quickly. “These are my friends. I need to get inside.”

He looked at me with startled recognition. “You’re the lady from CNN! The one that caused all the trouble!”

“What?” I asked, startled.

“The ambassador wants to talk to you! Get inside, quick!”

“Whattaya mean, ‘caused all the trouble’?!”

“Come on.” He grabbed my hand, and dragged me after him. Another Marine stepped forward to take his place at the gate, allowing Chantlo, Marina and Anya to follow me uncertainly.

The American embassy in Thusbammanna wasn’t all that big, but I was so tired that it seemed like a long trek before we were allowed to collapse into cushy chairs in the ambassador’s outer lobby. Seconds later, I was called into the ambassador’s office. I paused before going in, looking at the armed Marine hovering menacingly over my compatriots.

“You saw me on CNN?” I asked him.

He nodded.

I indicated Anya. “This is the girl I was carrying. The woman next to her is her mother. And this man,” I indicated Chantlo, “is the man who found us and saved our lives. Be nice to them.”

He grinned. “Yes, ma’am.”

I went inside, and was presented to the American ambassador. She looked like she hadn’t slept for awhile, but her gaze was piercing as she looked at me. “So,” she said, “you’re the woman who started a revolution.”

“What? How?” How could she have known about my hacking into the Thusbammannan computer server?

“That clip of you on CNN really stirred things up in the States,” she informed me. “It galvanized public support, and got the government involved. What was it you said: ‘you can drop the fucking camera and help the wounded people’? Something like that?”

“I really don’t remember,” I said truthfully. “I was in bad shape.”

“So it appeared. I have to say that I’m surprised to see you still alive, considering how bad you looked on the news.”

“That’s what I’m here about,” I said urgently. “My family sent a telegram. They ’re terribly worried about me. I need to contact them and tell them I’m OK.”

“That can be arranged,” she said. “But more to the point, you’re going to be leaving for the States in a few hours.”

“Really?”

“Absolutely. We want yo u out of this country as soon as possible. You have, unwittingly, sparked something chaotic and violent in Thusbammanna. It serves neither your interests, nor the interests of the United States, to keep you here. You’ll be driven to the US airbase and shown onto a transport plane in a few hours.”

“Thanks,” I said gratefully, “but if I can just contact my family, I don’t need to leave right away. I’d like to see this thing through.”

“You don’t understand, Mrs. Anderson. This is an order. I’ll have some Marines handcuff you in the plane if necessary.”

“Wow.” I digested this for a moment. “You folks don’t screw around, do you?”

“Neither do you, apparently. Our reports now indicate that half of the Thusbammannan military has defected to the rebels, with more divisions expected to follow suit. The members of Thusbammanna’s government in exile have left Washington, D.C., bound for here. And the country’s dictator is in the final stages of negotiation with Washington, preparing to flee the country to the United States.”

“No!” I gasped in delight.

“Yes. I don’t know how you managed to get involved in this, but—”

I wasn’t listening. I bolted out of my chair, and sprinted for the door. “Chantlo!” I yelled as I yanked it open. I burst into the lobby, almost falling down in my haste. “Half the military has rebelled!” I screamed at them. “Your dictator is leaving the country! Your government in exile is flying here!”

They stared at me in shock. Then, slowly, quietly, Marina started to weep. Anya glowed. And a slow smile spread over Chantlo’s face until I thought it would split his head apart.

“This is the happiest day of my life,” Chantlo said quietly. “We are deeply grateful, Mrs. Anderson, for your help in our endeavor. Had you not discovered the government’s surveillance plot, had you not hacked into their central computer, had you not saved…” he trailed off as I quickly gestured him to silence. I turned to look at the ambassador as she stood in the doorway, listening.

“You discovered a surveillance plot?” she repeated. “Hacked into their central computer?” She shook her head, but her look seemed genuinely admiring. “We are definitely getting you out of this country!”

I wished that Chantlo could have driven me to the airport, but he wasn’t allowed. Instead, I was sandwiched between two extremely large but friendly Marines. The ambassador had given them their orders right in front of me: “Drive this woman to the air-base, and see to it that she boards the next transport plane to the US. Stay there and watch until it’s airborne. Then come back and report to me when she’s left Thusbammannan airspace.”

My good-bye to Chantlo, Anya and Marina had been tearful and affectionate. Chantlo and Marina both hugged me. Anya presented me with the bouquet of daffodils that had already been through so much. Their stems had been squeezed together into a pulp. I briefly imagined the terror that had exerted so much pressure on them, and gave Anya a long hug. “You’re a remarkable girl,” I told her. “You have a lot to offer your new country.”

She was embarrassed. “Just ordinary,” she answered, blushing.

During the drive to the airbase I reflected on her answer, and on my return to the States. Coming to Thusbammanna had changed my outlook on everything that had happened to me. After surviving a bloody massacre in a Thusbammannan square, a court battle to clear my name just didn’t seem very daunting. If I could endure having my head bashed in to save someone else’s child, I could endure even worse, to save my own child. And if a sullen, angry teenager like Anya could flower into such greatness, maybe there was still hope for my son Tommy.

The thing I had learned from Thusbammanna was to never give up hope—to never stop fighting. And when fighting with Tommy, I’d remember that if a division of tanks couldn’t win the battle, then maybe a bouquet of daffodils would.

I boarded the plane, ready for the fight ahead of me.

Author’s Note: This story was inspired by Stan Schmidt’s May, 1993 editorial, “Driving the Future,” and is a sequel to “The Alicia Conspiracy,” which appeared in the March, 1993 Analog.

Content

The Alicia Revolution
by Doug Larsen