“You’re the guy, right? The one who can smuggle us out of the Internment Zone?” the woman asked cautiously.

“Yes,” I lied. “If you have payment.”

She held out a small bag. I took it, keeping my eyes on her. Stepping back, I examined the contents: several packs of cigarettes, three gold fillings…teeth still attached, and a water bottle. Twisting the cap, I smelled the liquid and winced. Vodka. I nodded, “Meet me out back in five minutes.”

I walked up creaky wooden stairs to the second floor of the dilapidated house on the outskirts of the Internment Zone. In the master bedroom, I counted my paces to the bookcase, turned and counted a few more. It was hard to see in the dark, but I found what I sought. I pulled up a loose floorboard, stashed the sack, and replaced the board.

My chest tightened. It was almost time, again. “It’s fine,” I whispered. Forcing three deep breaths, I went downstairs and out the back door. I could see a feminine form, backlit by the full moon. As I approached, more figures materialized. There were five of them, two men, two women, and a little girl.

“I can lead you to a gap in the wall but what you do after that is on you,” I explained. “Keep the kid quiet while we move.” I led them by moonlight, the only time I made trips like this. Traveling through the long faded remnants of a suburb, we hunkered down and waited for a roaming patrol to pass. Finally, we made it to the creek. Following the twists and turns of the water, we came to the wall.

The creek flowed through a culvert in the wall, blocked by metal bars. Though it was hard to notice at night, the concrete on the side had been chipped away enough to allow an adult to squeeze through.

“What’s on the other side?” asked the woman.

“A field, then woods,” I replied. “Move quickly and…,” my eyes locked with the child’s, “...stay low till you hit the tree line.”

“Thank you,” replied the woman. “We won’t forget this.” Nausea rose in my throat. Forcing a smile, I wished them well.

They slipped through the culvert one by one. On the other side, I could see them run into the field. Whirring filled the air as two small drones descended and shone spotlights on the fleeing group. Three fireteams emerged from cover, fanning out to surround the group, raising their assault rifles.

“Hands!” shouted an officer. “Show me your fuckin’ hands!”

I didn’t watch. I’d seen it before. Victims dropping to their knees. Someone gets pistol whipped. They all get zip-tied and black bagged. Footsteps sounded ahead of me, splashing in the water of the culvert. My hands tingled and started to shake.

“Tomas,” I heard a voice call. I took a deep breath and trudged through the water into the culvert. On the other side of the bars stood a soldier in dark fatigues, his weapon hanging from a sling in front of his chest. “You did good.” It was Marko. The velcro of his pocket tore and he produced a wad of papers and passed them through the bars to me. “You’re providing a necessary service. Keep up the good work.”

I did my best to smile and muttered some form of thank you. Back in the moonlight, I fanned the papers out in my hands, forty ration tickets. I could still hear shouting in the background. “They’re just going to re-ed,” I whispered. Slipping the papers into my pocket, I walked back to the Internment Zone.

Back in my quarters, I dropped the bag I’d retrieved from my stash. Most in the Internment Zone were billeted four to a cabin, if you could call them that. I had one to myself, to better facilitate the secrecy of my comings and goings. It wasn’t much, but with a few perks of my arrangement, it was a lot better than most.

Rifling through the bag, I pulled out the vodka and took a swig. It burned, but I didn’t care. An image of the little girl looking at me entered my mind. “I’ll never see them again,” I muttered. My stomach turned, and I vomited on the floor. Dropping to my knees, I waited for the convulsions to stop. My hand balled into a fist. It wouldn’t be like this forever. I knew that. Eventually, I’d die. I forced more vodka down the hatch, until the bottle was empty.

****

Next month, near the full moon, I received a message in the usual dead drop, a note left in the coin return of a payphone by the old grocery store. I’d be making another run, this time a man, woman, and child. The nausea returned.

Near midnight, I returned to the dilapidated house on the outskirts of the Internment Zone. There I found the party I was to lead to their fate. The man held a sleeping little girl in his arms. The woman walked towards me, unafraid. “You’re the guy?” she asked.

“I am,” I replied.

“Here,” she held up a potato sack. I took it and angled it so I could see the contents in the light of the full moon. Inside there were several packs of foreign cigarettes, a gold watch, and a pint of whiskey. I plucked out one of the cigarette packs, “You have a connection? Don’t see these around here much.”

“I do,” replied the woman, with a proud smile.

“Why not get them to smuggle you out?”

“Sneaking contraband in is a lot easier than sneaking people out,” she replied. “I thought it’d be best to trust an expert for that.”

The tightness returned to my stomach, like a fist squeezing my guts. “Sure, I get that. Meet me out back in five minutes.” I stashed the bag in my hiding spot then returned to find them out back.

The woman walked beside me as we began the trek. “I can’t thank you enough for helping us get out,” she said.

“Don’t mention it,” I replied. “It’s not like I’m doing it for free.”

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

“Sometime soon, we’ll come back free everyone here,” she continued. “Don’t lose hope.”

“What do you mean, free everyone?”

“We’re linking up with the PFM after we get beyond the wall,” she said.

“Heh, you think the People’s Freedom Movement gives a shit about anyone here?” I scoffed.

“More than you know,” she replied firmly.

I glanced back at the child in the arms of the other man. “I wouldn’t put your faith in the PFM. Too disorganized. No one wins fighting the government. The best you can do is find a way to get by and keep your head down.”

“Maybe that works for you,” she said, “but if no one stands up against authoritarianism, the system continues as it always has, grinding us into the dirt…one day at a time.”

Turning to follow the creek, we continued. “If you can’t win, why fight at all?” I asked, genuinely curious.

The woman let the words hang in the air. Maybe she was searching for an answer, herself. “If no one takes a stand, no matter what the odds are, no one else will. Courage isn’t the absence of fear, it’s feeling fear choosing to do the right thing. Sometimes the most important part of the fight isn’t winning, it’s inspiring others to rise up, too. If you fan a spark, it can turn into a flame.”

“Yeah, if the secret police don’t piss out the fire first,” I shot back.

“So many want to throw off the shackles of this regime,” she replied, “I want to show them that it’s possible to fight back. When enough people know that the fight’s already started, they know they're not alone. They have a side that will fight for them. All they have to do is help, in any way they can.”

Now it was my turn to let the words linger. It sounded great, the prospect of no longer living in the Internment Zone. Being able to live a life where I wouldn’t be under constant threat of arbitrary punishment. If I’d fled the country a decade before, maybe that would be my life. Maybe…it could still be. If all it took was to try to forge a better future…perhaps that was worth fighting for.

“Maybe…” I started, “maybe I could come with you.”

I felt a hand on my shoulder. Staring up at me with a warm smile, she looked into my eyes, “What you’re doing here, getting people out, that’s more important. From what I hear, many owe you their freedom.”

My knees almost buckled under me. I tried my hardest to not think about all the groups I’d led to the authorities. All the people that would undergo re-ed and then be transferred to another Internment Zone.

Just ahead, I could make out the culvert in the wall. “Hold up,” I said in a shaky voice. I looked at the woman, then back at the little girl.

“What’s wrong?” asked the man.

“Nothing, I just…” my breathing was getting shaky. I unconsciously pulled out a cigarette and placed it between my lips while my mind raced.

“Won’t someone see that?” asked the woman.

I put the cig back in the packet. “Yeah…I…it doesn’t matter.” I closed my eyes. “We’re walking into a trap,” I admitted. The knot in my stomach loosened some.

“What?” asked the woman. Before I could reply, I heard a round being chambered. I looked over to find her aiming a pistol. “You’re leading us into a trap?”

“No, I…I was doing what I had to to survive,” I said.

“Kill him, Jodie,” said the man. “Shoot him and lets go.”

“No,” I pleaded. “There are soldiers on the other side of the wall. At least fifteen, with drones.”

“You’ve done this before,” Jodie stated. “You’re not a smuggler…you’re a collaborator.”

“I’m a coward,” I said. “I’ve been afraid of death for so long, that's all I know. I tried to escape once, years ago. We were ambushed by patrol teams, and…I sold out, threw everyone else under the bus. Made a deal to save my own skin. The way you talk about the future and what it could be…it gave me hope. Just a taste, but that’s more than I’ve had in…years. That’s why I want to help. I want to fight.”

“He’s stalling,” said the man. “Kill him.”

“Give me the gun, and I’ll lead them away from you. Once I draw them out, you can slip through a hole in the culvert and escape. Make it to the woods, and you’ll have a chance.”

“You’re saying you were about to betray us and now you want the gun?” said the man incredulously. “Fuck that.”

Jodie waited, the gun still aimed at my chest, “He could’ve said nothin’, Sam. Could’ve let us walk right into the trap.”

“He still might,” replied Sam. “Maybe he just wants to make it easier for the soldiers to black bag us.”

“If I have the gun, I can make enough noise to lure them after me,” I said. “Without it, what am I supposed to do, yell, ‘hey dickheads, follow me?!’”

Jodie lowered the gun. Taking a deep breath, she mulled it over. Finally, she handed me the pistol. “Thank you,” I said. She held up a finger and dug in her pocket, handing over an extra magazine.

“You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me,” complained Sam, the little girl in his arms stared at me with scared little eyes.

“Hide over there,” I gestured towards the culvert. “The ground undulates just beyond. If you lie down, you can find cover.”

“Thank you,” said the woman.

I looked down at my shaking hands. “Courage isn’t the absence of fear, it’s doing the right thing even though it scares the shit out of you,” I said with a weak smile.

The group ran over to take cover, and I started in the opposite direction. Raising the pistol, I fired a few shots rapidly into the air. The whirring of the drones grew louder. I waited for one to crest the wall and opened fire. I couldn’t hear the crunch of bullets breaking plastic over the gunshots but the first drone went down. The second tried to pull back, but I must have hit a propeller. It glided backwards gaining speed before it fell beyond the wall.

Voices followed almost immediately. “Contact right!” Now bullets whizzed past my head. I tripped and clambored back up, running behind a thin tree. The soldiers were closing in. I tried to fire from cover but the mag was empty. I fumbled for the mag release and slotted the new clip but now voices were all around me, shouting for me to put down my weapon.

Taking a deep breath, I stood and fired, emptying the clip as quickly as I could. It didn’t matter if I hit anyone, I was just the distraction. Sharp pain gripped my shoulder and side as I toppled over in shock.

I was on the ground, panting for what seemed like a long time. Beams of flashlights converged on me and a soldier’s boot kicked my pistol away from my hand. Gloved hands pulled me up to my knees where it took all my strength not to fall over.

“What happened? Where are the others?” asked a soldier. I looked up to see that it was Marko.

“I should’ve…,” my ragged breaths made it hard to speak, “done this…a long time ago.”

“You think you’ve changed anything?” replied Marko. “We’ll find them. Sooner or later, we’ll find them. You’ve changed nothing.”

“No,” I rasped. “I’ve changed…me. I’m…a part of the fight now…”

“You’re another body in an unmarked grave,” replied Marko, drawing his sidearm. I smiled as the muzzle flashed.