Post 6: Spartacus 2

10am, Monday, January 10th, NHH

“Gentlemen and ladies,” Taylor said, addressing her gaggle of followers. Such polite titles weren’t accurate, not anymore. The previous hours had transformed them. Before they were like toy poodles, forced into “cute” outfits by their owners, toyed with and manipulated at will. Powerless, pathetic. Now they were speckled with blood, knuckles bruised, scratched and scuffed but alive and free; they had regressed to a more savage era, when their life was taken and earned from the life-blood of their prey.

This, Taylor thought is something that I can work with.

They grinned at address. They knew how false that appellation was now. “Gentlemen and ladies,” Taylor repeated, grinning. “You’ve done well. Your prison guards and torturers are dead and broken at your hands. Now, we have the evidence required to overturn our imprisonment, to achieve our freedom.” She held aloft her prize, the recording made by the damned Dr. Pritchett, like it was an enemy’s defeated banner.

They cheered, hugging and smacking each other as brothers (and sisters) in arms are wont to do.

Taylor raised a hand, quieting them. “It is not enough,” she pronounced. Suddenly her followers were more grim-faced. “And it will not be enough until we are truly safe, truly free. Do you think the Empire will stop? That suddenly you are not valuable hostages, victims to be discredited? No, they will simply take you again, punish you and your families for daring to resist. We will become a lesson to this city of what it means to fight the Empire.”

Taylor let that sit there, let her crowd grow more disquieted until finally someone spoke out. “So when will it be enough,” Gabe asked. He was a slightly flabby, brown-haired boy, his muscles hidden underneath a layer of fat from his more recently enforced indolence. He had fought like a lion during the morning’s rebellion, but now he was near tears.

You see, Taylor had had enough. She had reached her limit a week ago, in the locker. And she had dealt with that situation. But the Empire wanted to break her, and so must in turn be broken. Especially since she had already begun her rebellion. The dice were cast. Either she would perish, or the Empire would.

That was just what she wanted. No gladiator ever survived by cowardice, after all. Not in the long run. With her back against the wall, Taylor had to fight, had to win. She refused to die to an empire a second time, especially one so small and weak as the Eighty-Eight.

“It will be enough when the Empire itself is broken,” she snarled her truth. “It will be enough when Kaiser and all his men and women’s heads decorate the floor at our feet. It will be enough when those who would keep us as slaves are dead!”

She had the crowd with her again. She had awoken their animals that morning, that primal part of them that fought and killed. But like any animal, they were feeling content and lazy at the end of a successful hunt. After her speech, they were ready to hunt again.

Her enemy was large, and powerful, and had the support of many soldiers. She feared no duel; no, even two on one she was confident in her ability to overcome the Nazi capes. But to win, to see her enemy destroyed, she needed numbers. She needed her fellow psychiatric rebels.

But while her small group of other victims was a start, they didn’t even make up a single century. They weren’t enough.

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No, Taylor needed to recruit. But much like needing money to make money, she needed people to get more people.

“So, what’s the plan?” Abbigail, a small, black haired Italian-American asked.

Taylor smiled. It was the sort of smile that reminded those who saw it that teeth are one of nature’s natural weapons. “We’re going to get the word out. We’re going to make sure that everyone knows what the Empire was doing. We’re going to inspire them. And then all of us, all the good people of Brockton, will tear the Empire down around Kaiser’s ears.”

Taylor needed an uprising. She would take all the huddled masses, flinching under the whip of their abusers. She would make them know their strength. And when she was done with them those poor wretches would rise up and tear out the throats of their masters with their teeth if that was what it took.

The Empire had ruled with a steel fist. They had left the city cowering from their might.

They had given Taylor everything she needed to win.

Well, except for a propaganda machine so that people knew to rise up, and to do it now.

But with her band of fellow travelers, Taylor could appropriate one of those for herself.

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In the US, there was a protocol called the Integrated Public Alert and Warning System (IPAWS). It allowed the President, FEMA, National Weather Service, and other organs of federal or state government to distribute emergency warnings across the nation, state, or more local areas. Examples of this system included the Emergency Alert System over the television or radio, and wireless emergency alerts sent as texts to peoples’ phones. And, sadly in Taylor’s broken age of heroes, monsters, and hostile gods, the Endbringer alarms.

The wonderful thing about the IPAWS was that it was automated, and could be triggered by people working at National Weather Service offices. Over the years there had been several hacks and errors, including false reports of zombie outbreaks in Montana and Michigan, missiles incoming for Hawaii, or even a hazardous materials spill in New York state incongruously accompanied by Dr. Seuss lines.

Taylor wasn’t a hacker though. She had a simpler plan: steal the Nazis’ cars, load up as many people as possible, drive an hour to a near-ish National Weather Service station, and seize it. Taylor’s plan was simple, effective, and would reach the absolute maximum of people with Brockton Bay and New Hampshire as a whole.

Even better, they were far from a significant police force. Hostage situations required SWAT, and that violence only be used after negotiations failed. It could take hours for the police to have SWAT and negotiators there, and even more time before the situation was resolved. In other words, Taylor had more than enough time for her message to get out, and for all but a sacrificial rearguard to return to Brockton and begin the rebellion.

The plan went reasonably well. Taylor and her partisans managed to successfully sneak out of the hospital of horrors, and found the cars belonging to the deceased guards, piling in. There were only enough seats for twenty-four though, so about eight of the former prisoners used their phones to order Ubers, distributing themselves within Brockton to act when the time was right. Luckily, two of the cars had pistols, so Taylor’s little army wasn’t starting off completely unarmed.

Then they got a little lost on the way to the National Weather Service office. Taylor’s troop were, after all, relatively inexperienced drivers and unused to the countryside. But they made it there eventually.

Janet, one of Taylor’s more exuberant recruits burst through the doors into the relatively small office. “Any of you fucking pricks move, and I’ll execute every mother fucking last one of you!” she screamed.

One of the four employees, a middle-aged man with short-cropped balding hair stuck his head out of his cube. “I’m sorry, what?” he asked.

Taylor entered second, facepalming. “Thank you, Janet,” she said, “but please let me take it from here.”

Her teen army was swarming through the door, ensuring the workers didn’t call the police. “Wait, was that Pulp Fiction?” one of them asked.

“Damn, I wish I’d thought of that,” another replied.

“I don’t know, it was a bit over the top,” the first disagreed. By this point all four of the employees had been brought into the entry-hall, and everyone was staring at the byplay.

Taylor cleared her throat. As the two turned to her, she arched an eye. “Michael, James, if you’re quite done?”

“Sorry, boss,” they chorused.

She turned to the weathermen (and single, solitary female IT/equipment technician), and smiled. “Are you good Americans?” she asked.

Hesitantly, they nodded.

Her smiled sharpened. “Good. Then you’ll be happy to help fight Nazis.”