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How does one respond to the boot? Insects that is. How do you survive in a world where one wrong move and you are unceremoniously crushed, killed, run off, or worse? Some hide in the walls, in the trees, under the brush, hoping they are not noticed and not killed.
Some are far too toxic and dangerous to bother getting near, trying to fight it just isn’t worth it for something that small. A scorpion or a spider for example. One wrong move and the boot dies as does the one wearing it, sending ripples outward into the world.
Others group up, weak individually but together they can bring down any force of any size. The boot swarmed with a million bullet ants or ten thousand bees. Nothing of any size can survive that level of damage without special considerations. While they can go after the nest there are always more.
The same logic applies to people, I find, when the fascist boot comes by. Most people hide, some are far too rich or important for the boot to crush in the same way, but the third always has promise. Get enough of the weak and downtrodden together, show them that there is hope, that they can make a difference, and they can throw off any system.
The problem is that this hope has to come from somewhere. It needs a figurehead. You have to show them that the fascist can bleed, then you use the pulpit to make sure your message is heard.
I know I probably won’t live through this. Best case scenario i’m transported to Solstice… if that place still exists. Worst case scenario i’m just flat out executed. It doesn’t matter anymore. I don’t care. They killed her, and I’m going to show the whole fucking Accord that these bastards bleed just like the rest of us.
God hates a coward anyway, and I’m no coward.
400 meters away is the bastard who took her from me, Jackson Sanders. Head of the Neopinkertons on this hellhole planet. He killed her. Not intentionally, as far as the police are concerned. He simply beat her with a baton unti there was no way she could survive. I had to sit there for three days and hope above hope that she li—I shouldn’t get distracted.
I have the rifle, the military grade marksman's rifle, lent to me by my comrades. They know what i’m about to do, they know I probably won’t make it back. They know they can’t convince me otherwise, so they at least wanted to make sure I do it right.
Entering in the conditions into the ballistic computer on the scope helped me ease my thoughts. My time in the marines is coming in handy here. I did it for the healthcare, I’m not proud of it, but what were my other options than to rot in my own body until I couldn’t take it anymore? At least it would be getting some use now.
I took some deep breaths, His ‘speech’ is about to start, where he would gladly recount how he just brutally crippled some other protestor or worker or maybe even some children just for the extra cruelty. He’ll read his teleprompter and call them ‘communist agitators’ or ‘antifa reactionaries’ but that’s never really the truth, is it?
I’m sitting there across the large boulevard at a construction site cleared of any workers. There was a stop work order due to the potential for a buyout and I am going to use it to it’s full potential.
I have escape routes in case security is actually that inept but I’m not holding out hope. I’ve planned for the worst, and I don’t expect to live. My comrades will spread why I did it, use it to show what can be done, how it can be done, and then long after I’m dead, we might have peace.
He’s stepping up to the podium now; it’s my time. I take a few deep breaths and mutter some apologies to her before I do this. I know she would hate me doing this to myself, but she’s gone now.
Fuck this guy.
“Petal?” I hear off to my side, and I immediately move away from my gun, drawing the pistol I keep on me and pointing it at… nothing?
“What the-” I say, wincing at where I heard the voice come from.
“Oh, silly me, forgot this thing was on!” The nothing said, before suddenly the nothing was now something. As if I could see it the whole time and just couldn’t process it was there. And that something was a…
What the fuck is it? It’s like a giant 14 foot tall bundle of foliage in the vague shape of a woman, standing there with a deeply convincing human expression on its face.
It-No I know she’s a woman somehow, looks like a fantasy ranger of sorts, if said fantasy ranger was fourteen feet tall and made of vines. Thin elfin features frame an actually rather gorgeous face, with long pointed ‘ears’ and two shimmering hammered metal eyes. She wears a long cloak made of autumnal flowers.
She is like something out of a picture book, I need to rub my eyes a few times to make sure i’m not hallucinating.
“What… are you?” I ask.
“A concerned onlooker. You’re about to kill that man, aren’t you?” She replies, motioning out towards the stage.
“What’s it matter to you?” I say, beginning to worry she is some sort of OCNI experiment or something.
“I don’t like to see anyone die, sweetheart, and it looks to me as if you don’t intend to live either. You’re hurting so bad I can practically smell it.” She shoots back.
“He’s fucking scum who makes every single life on this shithole rock worse every second he draws breath.” I say, crossing my arms. “And if you have half a brain cell you’d know it, plant lady.”
I don’t particularly care. She’s probably not even real. Probably some figment of my imagination here to talk me out of it. Maybe she’s whatever I have left of her. The part that keeps me grounded and reminds me of what I’m even fighting for. She was the only person good at that.
The plant chuckles before sitting down cross-legged in front of me.
“An interesting answer but there’s clearly more to it. You’ve caught my interest, little one~ now I’m curious.” She speaks, every word laced with flirtatious intent.
“Are you flirting with me?” I ask, lowering my pistol in shock.
“Maybe a little~” She winks back.
I grit my teeth slightly. She isn’t taking this at all seriously. Whatever. Fine. I spit on the ground near the rifle and take a seat. This press conference is supposed to last three hours anyway.
“What even are you?” I ask.
“An affini.”
“Thank you very helpful I’m so enlightened now.”
“Well, I could certainly tell you more but we both know we’re on a time limit.”
“To kill him.” I say.
“To save you.” She says back, grinning. Her teeth are like sharpened thorns.
“I don’t want saving.” I spit back.
“Yes that’s because you’ve lost something important to you. Isn’t that right? You feel threatened, trapped in a box, you see the walls closing in around you, and you’ve lost sight of everything that made living worth it. Am I wrong?”
I stare at her, eyes wide. How did she read me so well? Does she know? Has she been spying on me? I shake my head and struggle to come up with an answer. “What do you want from me? Send me to jail? You some like… freak OCNI experiment?”
“Oh heavens no, petal. I’m here to understand humanity. Cuties like you, to figure out what makes you and your society tick. Let me say there is…” Her vines wilt slightly, and I can somehow feel the depression wafting off her. “Quite a lot of sadness.”
“Aliens then.”
“Of a sort.”
“Are you gonna invade? Why are you talking to me?”
“We want to save you from yourselves, little one. It will be anything but an invasion.” She says back.
“If you want to help, then let me kill that bastard.”
She pauses for a moment, thinking. “...What would killing him accomplish. In your mind.”
“What, does your species not have a concept of Propaganda of the Deed?” I ask.
“No, we don’t petal.”
“You kill some bastard like that, somebody who everyone fears, somebody who keeps getting away with crushing everyone under his heel, you show the people that these bastards can bleed. They might get it in their head to start organizing, they might pick up a gun themselves and do it some more. Eventually, you have a whole revolution, then maybe the world can become a better place.” I say, reciting the theory behind it.
“The bush of liberty is watered with blood then.”
“It’s the tree of liberty.”
“That’s what I said.”
I shake my head. “Whatever, do you get it? I don’t have anything left to lose. That bastard took it from me. I’m willing to throw myself upon the pyre if it gets people riled up, if it leads to a full-on revolution.”
The plant tilts her head, thinking for a moment. “Oh… you poor thing. He took your pinnate, didn’t he?”
“My what?” I ask.
“Your life partner, somebody from whom you care for so much it would be tantamount to violence to even separate you, much less-”
“Yeah. Whatever. That.” I say. “He killed Courtney. Personally.”
The plant wilts further, but soon decides to do something absolutely absurd. Pat me on the head. She stuck out a loose vine and ruffled my hair, the vine seeming to vibrate with the pure emotion of sadness.
“I want to ask you a question. There are no wrong answers, sweetheart. Can the actions of one individual change the world?” She asks.
“I’d like to think so,” I say.
“But is that really true? Let's assume your assassination works as intended. You shoot him and he dies. For your plan to work it must inspire others to do the same, and they must inspire yet more.” She continues.
“That is the idea, yes.” I continue.
“Yes, but you must see how unlikely that is. It’s far more likely that this violence puts the people you are trying to save in yet more danger. That it causes a crackdown that kills dissent even more. One individual’s actions cannot upend a system, little one; it requires the concerted efforts of many. It requires a community.”
I stare at her, clenching my fist tears forming in my eyes. “Now you’re just talking like her.”
“Your Courtney seems like she was a very wise Woman. I’d like to extend to you a promise, and an offer, but first, I would lake your name, and then I will give you mine. Does that seem fair?”
“Lisa.” I say without thinking, the tears making me far less abrasive than I should be.
“It’s nice to meet you. I am Querca Anthropillia, Fourth Bloom, but first, the promise. Within three weeks none of these men will be able to hurt you ever again. You will have boundless abundance the likes of which you will never have seen before. Nobody will be able to do what was done to your beloved, period, end of story."
She is clearly not done, however, because I begin to feel a rumble in the air, something that pierces me to my very core and makes me feel what she means.
"All will be well, and all will be well, and all manner of things will be well.” Those words in particular are infused with something, some force the likes of which I have never experienced before, some kind of emotional power which makes me know that she is telling the truth. I cannot believe otherwise.
“W-what was that.” I say, gasping for breath.
“Just something to help you understand, sweetheart. Now. Would you like a preview? Would you like to see what I offered to you? Would you let me take your burden?”
I shudder, not knowing what came over me, but I nod.
“Will you let me show you a world without suffering? Without privation? Without sorrow?” She says.
My attention is hooked on her, my eyes meet hers, and there is nothing but Her in the whole universe. Something about her feels so much like my Courtney that my eyes fill with tears. The kindness, the joy, the refusal to see injustice and accept it. There is something of her in this bizarre space plant, and at that realization, I fall onto my knees and weep.
“Please… Please show me.” I whisper.
I am lifted up into vines and pressed into a deep hug. Her vines are soft, and rumble with a soft delight. All I can do is cry into her. Vaguely, I am aware I’m being taken away. To where I don’t know. It doesn’t matter. Maybe I can let myself be vulnerable for once. Maybe it’s ok.
“We’ll be home soon little one.” She says to me. Her voice the most calming thing I’ve heard in my life.
I am stepping into the unknown, with a strange plant that has promised me the universe. I should be suspicious, I should be terrified, but… God hates a coward.