The Rendezvous

I scattered my hand across the hot metal wall covered in dirt, feeling for the latch. Pili moved with me, her head up, watching. We didn’t dare risk talking in case someone was listening, and we couldn’t use a torch this far into the woods. We’d be too obvious. We needed to find the damn bunker door in the dark.

The procedure was simple. After the president’s speech, we’d gather in groups of two and meet at the rendezvous to discuss our response. We’d been working on a device, shaped like coins, to help us stay secret, and we’d explain it to the group once we all met. We’d discuss all responses after we distributed the coins. No one knew what the president would say at his event, and none of us could have predicted that someone would bomb the stage he spoke.

We rarely engaged in violent acts. Peaceful opposition is much more complicated but worth it if you can pull it off. Yet, our group was the one chosen to target and blame publicly. Naturally, when journalists saw us in the crowds during an attack on the president, they immediately started with the videos and speculation.

Emergency protocol took precedent.

(1) Instead of grouping up in our typical preferred pairs, pair up to the closest group member and run until you’re out of sight.

(2) Flip your jacket inside out to hide the Marigold Bull emblem.

(3) Keep going until you find the bunker.

(4) Knock and wait for the mimicked response. One-two-three, one-two-three-four, one.

I ran with Pili. Julian went with Anastasiya, and Daphne went with Davin. Julian ran in the opposite direction from Pili and me, letting us take a closer, nearby alley to escape the crowd. Screams and sirens were muffled in the distance as we ran. We jumped over, under, and through holes in fences to get out to the perimeter, to the bunker. We’d never had to look for it in the dark before, but I guess we should have anticipated having to do it at some point.

Pili jolted against me when I hit a small metal box protruding from the wall. The bottom was hollow, and up inside it was the latch. I tapped Pili’s arm a few times.

“Clear,” she whispered. I knocked. One-two-three, one-two-three-four, one. No response came. I knocked again. No response generally meant we were the first ones there.

We darted in and slid down a slide we had made from a fallen tree. Pili closed the door behind us, and in the safety of our bunker, I used my torch to find the closet light. Just enough for us to see and not let the light shine through the cracks in the door.

Yep. First ones.

“Why would he say something so stupid?” I sighed.

“He’s never been so direct before.” Pili dropped onto the couch.

“I speak like an imbecile, so the lot of you understand me.” Pili met my eyes. I had my arms crossed and was biting my thumbnail.

“He looked like he was starting to lose it. Did you see his eyes?” I nodded and thought back to the speech. The president’s hair was messy, and his eyes were bloodshot. He jittered through his whole speech, as brief as it was, and then the explosion came right after he had insulted the public. Who planned the attack, and did they know what the president would say? They must have known something to think a bombing was the answer, and they must have known we would be there watching so they could point it to us.

Pili sighed and ran a hand through her messy pompadour. Her sweat-soaked hair hung heavier than usual, and her natural middle part appeared. Her brown skin tinted to copper in the dim closet light.

A knock came on the door. One-two-three, one-two-three-four, one. I rushed up the stairs left of the tree trunk and knocked back. The door creaked open a bit, and Davin slid down.

“Damn that handle, I swear it’s hotter than Mercury,” he cursed. Daphne slid in after him and closed the door.

“Did you see him?” I asked Davin.

Daphne shook her head, no, behind him. Her ash-blonde hair was covered in soot. Blood covered her hand when she pulled it away from her forehead. Pili was at the table with Daphne in seconds with the aid box, cleaning up the wound.

“What happened?” Pili said.

“Baton to the head. They caught me in my jacket when we were jumping a fence.” Daphne winced at the disinfectant on her wound. I bit my thumb again, gnawing at the nail.

“I’m sure they’ll both make it here soon. Julian and Ana are the fastest runners and the strongest fighters of the whole group. They’ll be fine.” Davin placed his hand on the back of my neck and touched his sweaty forehead to mine.

The room was quiet but for the sound of first aid. Papers crinkling, liquid dripping, Daphne’s grunts of discomfort, Pili’s shushes and “sit stills” every so often.

One-two-three, one-two-three-four, one.

Davin ran to the door and knocked back.

One-two-three, one-two-three-four, one.

Fresh summer air filled the bunker. Ana slid down by herself, closing the door behind her. She’d been working with him on projects of all sorts. They were great friends, and I even considered her my friend the more she was around us. Unlike Daphne, whose mere existence pissed me off.

“He had to create a diversion.” Ana was quiet, like she had witnessed the unthinkable. Unspeakable.

“What kind of diversion?” Pili’s gravelly voice cut through my panic.

“Someone caught up with us. Julian almost dropped the coins.” Ana pulled a small bag out of her jacket and placed it on the table. Metal coins rattled against each other when they hit the wood. “He handed them off to me and pushed me through an exit vent.”

My shallow breath quickened. My heart pumped harder, the sweat on the back of my neck was cold, and I swear steam was coming out of my pores.

Not Julian. He was too strong for losing combat; He was a trained veteran, armed and dangerous. He was too smart not to have a way out of any situation, a black-ops level spy. He was too fast; he could catch up to an ostrich to mount it.

“I hate to say it, but should we get on with this coin business? He handed them over to Ana so she could make sure they got here,” Daphne said.

“The plan is we wait for everyone to get here,” I snapped.

Davin, Ana, and Pili each took a step out of the path between Daphne and me.

“I’m just saying. We’re going to have to go over it eventually, why not just—“

“We wait.” I stood up and stared into her one good eye. Pili might have overdone it with the bandages on her eyebrow. The air was still and warm, making my cold stare practically like a bright green light from me to Daphne.

One, one-two-three-four, one-two.

Julian.

Daphne grabbed my arm before I could reach the door.

“We all know that’s not the knock,” She whispered.

I yanked my arm back and knocked on the door.

One-two-three, one-two-three-four, one.

“You don’t know what I know,” I said, staring her down.

Julian opened the door and slid in, closing the door behind him. His arms were around my waist before I could get down from the stair steps next to the slide. I wrapped my arms around his neck. He breathed me in and over his shoulder, I shot Daphne a glare. She was steaming.

“Hello, Angel,” Julian whispered before he kissed me. He didn’t need to explain what happened outside. I was just glad he was still alive. He hugged Davin and grabbed the bag of coins, which rattled against each other within the fabric.

“Hello,” I whispered.

“Should we get started then?” He asked.

“Please,” Daphne said. Julian nodded and poured some coins out into Ana’s hands. They distributed them to each person in the room.

“Several groups have been trying to bug us, tap into our electronics to find us out. After today’s shit show,” Julian sighed and rolled his eyes, “well, it’s a good thing we made these. Cut coins.”

Ana placed a large, decorated coin in my hand. I looked at my designs as I flipped the coin over in my palm. On one side was the head of a bull engraved in the center surrounded by marigolds and the motto, Deliverance from Evil. We all knew the Marigold Bull; we even used the symbol on our jackets. It was designed centuries ago for freedom from evil oppressors; it symbolized the end of an era of war back in 2188.

“Designed to interfere with signals surrounding each one up to a thousand yards. So long as you have one on you, no one can tap into your devices, and no one can listen to any conversations you’re having through microphones. It cuts you out of the signals.” Ana said.

“Goodnight sun, goodbye reticence,” Davin said, reading the back of the coin. I had created a new symbol for freedom on the back. A secretive sign only we would know. Stars surrounded the bull’s skull. The sun was on the left and the moon on the right. The new motto sat above and below it with the year 2371. The outline of the Northern Cordillera sat behind the skull, symbolizing the union between Canada, the United States, and Mexico twenty years ago. No longer three separate entities, all one country.

“I don’t get it,” Daphne said.

“Goodnight sun. The sun will always rise again. Goodbye reticence. We can’t let anyone suppress our rights anymore. We say goodbye to it, so we never see it again.” I said, staring at her. “No marigolds, so no one tries to link it.”

“We were never the Marigold Bulls, but we can hide as them. Don’t let anyone see this new symbol. Let it be the most secretive thing we have.” Pili said.

One by one, I met everyone’s eyes. We all nodded, and everything was quiet before I opened my mouth.

“We are the rendezvous.”