June 26th, 2038/ Cheektowaga, NY

  As we all walk into the abandoned warehouse, I take one more look at the sky for any SafetyAI drones. They’ve been scouring the city looking for us since we fled the house. Satisfied that we weren’t followed I pull the rusted door closed, finally shutting out the sound of drone propellers and police sirens. I turn and see everyone else sitting on the nearest old box or rusted metal object they can find. My body, also exhausted from using the device and running, collapses on the dusty floor right in front of me.

  We sit in silence for a few minutes, but it doesn’t feel like silence to me. Over and over I think about what we just went through...what I did. Having the chance to actually think about what just went down I wanna scream. I feel my chest heaving and my heart skipping beats.

  “Amina!” I hear someone call, barely able to hear them over my own thoughts.

  As I look up, eyes still bugged, I see Onyeka looking down at me concerned.

  “I’m ok,” I eek out, still heaving.

  “No, you’re not. None of us are either,” she says back mustering a sympathetic smile.

  “No, I’m not,” I parrot back without the smile..

  As the others sit back up and we all stare at each other again, Duce breaks the silence.

  “I’ll just ask it. Who snitched?” He glares at us as if he’s seriously expecting an answer out of anyone.

  “Obviously, the device has a tracker on it,” Terrance flatly retorts.

  “Yeah it could have but it could have also been those hackers friends of ya girl,” Duce blurts out.

  “My friends didn’t do it,” Onyeka as she cuts an eye at Duce.

  “I mean do we know for sure?” Terrance chimes in.

  “Trust me, they couldn’t afford to expose themselves even if they were trying to double deal,” she says. I would wonder what she really means by that, but I honestly don’t even care anymore. While they’re going back and forth worrying about how DHIS discovered us, what we really needed to be thinking about what we’re going to do next seeing as our whole plan has fallen apart.

  “Doesn’t matter how we got here, it only matters what we do next.” My statement makes the others fall to silence again.

  “And what is that exactly?” Duce replies sarcastically. “I only got into this because…” he continues as his voice trails off.

  “Because as much as you wanna be that guy who is just in it for a bag, you know that this thing was a threat to us all. It’s ok to say you believe in our cause…if you can call it that exactly.” Onyeka smiles as Duce as she says this.

  “Whatever girl. Still I didn’t sign up for being chased by DHIS.” Duce says this staring back at Onyeka, not returning the smile in the least.

  Terrance rolls his eyes. “Instead of complaining, maybe we can start by seeing the lay of the land on the convenient devices that are attached to all of our heads.” The sarcasm in Terrance’s voice is palatable. I’d laugh if this was any other situation.

  “Good idea!” Rome pipes up. He turns on his HUD and asks for the local news. After about 30 seconds his face starts to lose some of its color making his face contrast even more against his red locs. He looks over at me with his mouth open.

  “What is it Rome,” I ask worryingly as I start to stand up from the floor.

  “Just…turn on your HUD Amina,” he replies softly.

  “HUD show me the news” I command the device. As the screen boots up, I see a Breaking News banner with the live video already playing.

  “We just got done listening to local DHIS commanders and the director address the nation about today’s incident. They have informed us that they tracked down a suspect in the Buffalo Waterfront terrorist attack that happened 11 days ago. The suspect's name is Amina Fernandes of Cheektowaga, NY. In their attempt to arrest the alleged perpetrator she unleashed the unknown weapon DHIS briefed us about last week on the arresting officers. 11 officers including 5 DHIS agents were killed by the suspect. DHIS and the state government have jointly declared a state of emergency instituting a stay at home order for everyone in Erie County. All residents must stay home until the suspect is in custody or otherwise incapacitated. We are also told that there were others at the residence where they attempted to arrest the suspect, making officials believe she had help planning and carrying out her initial attack.”

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

  I aggressively swipe away the feed.

  “What the fuck is that!?” I scream at the top of my lungs. I feel my eyes clouding up with tears.

  “What happened Amina!? Rome what the hell happened!?” Onyeka yells as I continue to cry and scream. I fall back to the floor.

  “They are pinning the Waterfront attack on her and saying she killed all those cops. Somehow, they named Amina, but not the rest of us.” Rome looks down at me with a sad face.

  Terrance and Duce both pop up at Rome’s reply.

  “Wait how the fuck they know who she was?!” Duce yells in the growing chaos.

  “Because the cop fucker took off his hood as he was walking out. I tried to shoot him but couldn’t get the shot.” Terrance yells back at Duce with a distinct sense of disappointment in his voice.

  “Oh my god. They’re trying to use her as a scapegoat to cover up their own shit,” Onyeka gasps.

  As she says this, I remember what Jumpsuit said about the incident. He said nobody in his unit was involved or even knew how to make an earthquake happen.

  “They’re using me to cover their asses because they actually don’t know who committed the attack. Jumpsuit said that when we were interrogating him and there’s no reason to think he was lying. We did all of this because we were absolutely sure that the government set this up. This all depended on us exposing them and the people turning against them. Now that I’ve killed a bunch of cops and we know that our theory is shit…” I look down at the ground after saying this, more unsure what to say or do next.

  Terrance turns to me, eyebrows furrowed. “There’s nothing else we can do then. We can’t come forward because nobody will believe us since this isn’t a lie that we can fight against. We were at the protest and some of the few people who left before being detained by the police. Unless we find who really did it, we’re screwed. Anyways we’ve already committed a bunch of felonies and will get the death penalty for that alone regardless of the truth.”

  “Yea T we know. What are you really trying to say?” I reply somewhat annoyingly.

  His eyebrows furrow more. “You gotta go into hiding. We played our hand and lost. There’s nothing else you or any of us can do. At least you have a way to protect yourself. We’ll find some way to get you out of here.”

  “I agree,” Rome says with Duce nodding in agreement.

  “Wait! Nah y’all we can’t do that,” Onyeka interjects. “Yea our original plan is fucked but people are already and are going to continue to struggle against the curfew and occupation of Buffalo. If she goes into hiding all those people will be left to fight cops with fireballs on their own! Amina, you’re my friend and I don’t want you in danger, but you’re also the only line of defense anyone in this city or world even has.” Onyeka eyes start to well up as she says this. I can see how difficult this is on her.

  “You’re not wrong,” Terrance replies. “But without a plan she’ll just get herself killed and fuck that shit.”

  “You mean she’ll get us killed,” Duce adds.

  “He’s not wrong. I’m onboard fighting the pigs as much as anyone, but I still think hiding until we at least have a plan is the best thing to do right now.” Rome look at me apologetically.

  I let out a deep sigh as everyone looks at me, I guess expecting an answer. I stand up from the floor again.

  “I don’t know what to do. I’ve always been willing to take risks for the greater good, but I don’t know about this shit. Onyeka you’re asking me to go superhero and start a revolution and Terrance you’re asking me to abandon everyone after I escalated this shit. All I care about for now is not making things worse.”

  “I feel you. We can’t decide for you, but you know we’d follow you into the pits of hell whatever you decide. We in this together” Terrance looks at the others looking for a cosign. Everyone, even Duce nods in agreement.

  “Well if we in this together, we’ll decide together,” I answer. I’m not willing to risk other people’s lives more than I already have. No more kneejerk reactions or decisions from this one.

  “I think for now we can all agree that regardless of what we do next that we need to lay low and gather more info. Onyeka I don’t wanna ask again but can you contact you hacker buddies to do another job for us?” I look at Onyeka apologetically because I know she and they are probably not trying to do this again.

  “I can’t make any guarantees, but I can drop them a message and see what they can do.” The unease on her face is obvious. I don’t know her backstory with them, but I hope this isn’t gonna create another problem for us.

  “Well it’s settled then,” Duce says as he claps his hands and stand up ready to leave.

  “Um where you going man? We gotta wait for her people to get back to us.” Rome looks up at Duce confused.

  “Ohhhhh! My bad. I’m just ready to go.” Duce says back as he sits down again.

  As Onyeka types out the message to her friends and the others try to relax, I look down at the QEI device tied to my forearm. Such a small thing causing so much upheaval. And now it’s up to me to decide what I’m going to do with this thing. It feels weird weighing risks when we’ve already risked it all just to get to this point. Not to mention we still don’t know the truth about the incident that started this 1all. Whatever we do, I feel like I’m going in completely unprepared. But I guess that’s something that has always been the case for folks trying to change things. I look up through the building’s skylight as the bright summer sun beams in.

  “Ancestors protect us,” I whisper.