Taking a Stand

Ellie Claven was in trouble again.  One of the constables had caught her trying to get into the tunnels under the city and had dragged her, kicking and fighting, back home.  It was just her bad luck too; the constable happened to walk by the alley just as she was removing the loose boards from the sealed-up access door.  If he had passed by thirty seconds earlier or later, she would be exploring the under-city labyrinth right now.

Lately, the tunnels were the only place she felt free.  Ever since Vernon Rourk had taken control of the city with his Constructs, life hadn't been the same.  Governor Rourk was a brilliant man who had convinced the city to create a security force of mechanized soldiers, which he then promptly used to overthrow the Governing Council and install himself as the city's sole authoritarian leader.  His title may say Governor, but everyone in Capitol City new Dictator would have been more appropriate.

Ellie struggled against the constable's iron grip on her shirt collar as they walked toward her house.  She lived with her parents in the two-room apartment above her father's workshop in one of the forgotten corners of Capitol City's commercial districts.  He made his modest living as a machinist, fixing or replacing broken parts in other people's gadgets and gizmos.

"Ellington!" Mrs. Claven exclaimed with an exasperated sigh when she opened the door to find Ellie standing there with the constable.  "Where have you been?"

"Caught her trying to sneak into the tunnels, ma'am."

"Of course you did," Mrs. Claven said, glaring at her daughter.  "How many times do we have to tell you to stay out of there?  It's not allowed!"

The look on Mrs. Claven's face was enough to cause both Ellie and the constable to avert their gazes to the floor.  The constable took a step back toward the door, figuring that Mrs. Claven's punishment was likely to be far more severe than the mere citation that he could issue for trespassing.

"Well, it seems that you have everything in order here.  Please make sure that she doesn't go down in the tunnels again.  I can only let her off with a warning once."

"Thank you, constable."  Mrs. Claven said, and dragged her daughter inside.

Ellie spent the remainder of the evening being lectured by her parents.  Mrs. Claven spent the better part of an hour laying into her, extolling the importance of following the rules and not getting into trouble.  Then Mr. Claven came upstairs after closing the shop and the lecturing began anew.  Ellie knew they weren't bad parents, but she hated the way they always insisted on doing everything by the book.  If there was a rule to be followed, it was followed to the letter in the Claven household.

What made everything particularly intolerable was Governor Rourk was forever coming up with new and ridiculous laws and regulations.  First it was a sunset curfew for everyone with a birthday in June; then a monthly tithing from all industrial workers; and, just last week, a mandate that strawberries were the only berries allowed within the city limits.  Mr. and Mrs. Claven immediately complied with all of these demands without question.


When she couldn't escape to the tunnels, Ellie instead escaped into the world of fantasy.  She read pulp novels, which were traded among her friends at school.  Her favorites featured a soldier of fortune named Josiah Jessup, who was supposedly a real vigilante in Capitol City.  When the Constructs helped Rourk take over, the first thing they did was kill everyone on the Governing Council, including their staff and security forces.  Jessup was the only one to survive the massacre, but just barely escaped from their fortified Citadel with his life.  Since then, he has devoted his life to hunting down the Constructs and destroying them, one by one, and looking for a way to get to Rourk inside the Citadel.

Most of her friends dismissed Josiah Jessup stories as sensational fiction; after all, no one could really take on the Constructs and defeat them.  They were made of assembled machine parts – old pieces of clocks and appliances and factory machinery – which made them effectively invincible.  Bullets, knives, fists, poisons... all useless.  The only two effective means that rebels had found, according to rumor, was nitroglycerin and cannons.  A cannonball was big and blunt enough to smash a Construct to pieces, and nitro could blow them to bits, but neither one was a practical weapon to use in the city streets without serious risk to other people and their homes and businesses.  Still, Ellie liked to imagine that Josiah Jessup was out there somewhere, fighting the good fight and trying to defeat Governor Rourk.


That afternoon, school was dismissed early on account of one of her classmates had brought a homemade rocket to school and accidentally set it off in the boys' bathroom while showing it to some friends.  Two toilets and a sink exploded, as did a good chunk of the school's main water pipeline, flooding the building and forcing everyone home for the day while it was repaired.

Rather than sit at home for an extra two hours, Ellie used the opportunity to sneak off to the tunnels.  She loved the tunnels and their labyrinthine complexity.  They were off limits because most people got hopelessly lost down there, but Ellie had spent so much time in them, that she knew them all by heart.  If you dropped her in the tunnels and gave her a destination anywhere in the city, she could get there with nary a wrong turn.

This time, she made sure that the coast was clear before prying off the boards on the access door.  She slipped inside and descended the stairs into the tunnels.  She always stuck to the upper tunnels; the lower tunnels were used for drainage and you never could tell when a passage would be unexpectedly flooded with dirty water, or worse, sewage.  No, she stuck to the upper tunnels, which were once used as a traveling method for servants and couriers, who could travel and transport things all over the city without getting in the way of the aristocracy who, in that day, wanted the streets kept clear of commoners and tradesmen.

When the Citadel was constructed, however, the rest of the city was opened up to the commoners and tradesmen.  The Citadel was a high-walled oasis where the Governing Council and other important city officials could live, sheltered from the common folk that lived in the city.  Once the Citadel was finished, the tunnels were boarded up and the streets were used by everyone, although Ellie suspected there was another reason why they were off limits; she could get into the Citadel through the tunnels.  There were a few branches of a few older tunnels that ran right under the Citadel itself, and Ellie had used them before to sneak inside and steal trinkets and memorabilia, which she kept locked up tight at the bottom of the chest at the foot of her bed.


The tunnels themselves were carved into the bedrock a dozen feet below street level.  The walls were mostly rough and uneven, with only the minimal amount of arches, support beams and other stone and woodwork to keep them from collapsing.  The floors were loose gravel and dirt, packed firm from years of travel.  Ellie would use her portable oil lantern when she was down here; by far the best gift her parents had ever given her.  It was a clear, cylindrical tube about the size of a flashlight, with a reserve of kerosene.  You lit the wick of the candle and closed it up inside the aerated canister, which then amplified the light through the magnified glass walls; it was easily capable of illuminating a fifty-foot length of passageway.  She loved it.

---------- < ~ > ----------

Ellie was wandering down a new stretch of passageways when she heard the sound.  She learned the tunnels by starting with a small area and memorizing it, then slowly branching out in a circular pattern, adding new tunnels to the existing map in her head.  She was on the outskirts of the tunnels now, adding some of the outlying areas to the already impressive amount of information she already possessed.

It was a shuffling noise, followed by what sounded like muffled cursing.  Ellie saw a faint light around the corner up ahead and doused her own lamp, for fear of giving away her position.  She flattened herself against the wall and approached the corner, tip-toeing and careful to avoid making any sounds whatsoever.

When she reached the tunnel intersection, she peered around the corner.  A man was standing there, looking at a tattered scrap of paper in his hands, cursing to himself.  He was a complete mess; covered in grease, unkempt, wild hair, and a shabby coat and vest that looked like they had seen better days.  He was muttering something to himself, and then shining a light down the passage in the opposite direction from Ellie.

Suddenly, he seemed to change his mind and flashed his light in the other direction.  Ellie ducked back behind the corner, praying that she had been fast enough.

"Hey!"  He yelled.

Ellie, heart thumping in her chest, made her way as quickly and as quietly as she could back down the passageway, away from the man.  If she could just make it to the main tunnel intersection a few branches over, she could lose him for sure.

The light rounded the corner and Ellie sped up.

"Wait!"  He cried out.  "I'm lost and I need help.  Please."

Ellie wanted to keep going, but there was something in the man's desperate tone that gave her pause.  If he really was lost down here, he could starve to death trying to find a way out.  It wasn't like there was an access door at the end of every tunnel.

She stopped, but turned around to face him.

"Stay where you are," she warned, reaching for the knife that she had strapped to her right calf; the second most useful gift her parents had gotten her.  "You can talk from there."

The man seemed amenable to the request and stood there looking at her with pleading eyes.

"I can't find my way out.  I've been searching for hours, and I think I'm even more lost than when I started."

"How did you get down here in the first place?"  She asked.  After all, people didn't just randomly wander down here.

He held up the scrap of paper in his hand.  She inched closer, trying to get a good look at the paper.  It seemed to be some kind of map.

"Someone gave this to me," he replied.  "Said it would show me the way."

"The way to where?"

"The Citadel," he replied softly.  "I heard that some of these tunnels can take you inside, past the walls."

"Why do you want to go there?"  Ellie asked, inching forward a little more.

He looked at her intently.

"Because I'm going to put an end to Governor Rourk."

Ellie gasped.

"Who are you?"

He extended a hand.

"The name's Josiah Jessup."

Ellie stared at him with a mixture of shock and awe.  He was real!  And he was standing in front of her, asking for help!

Her thoughts immediately went to her parents.  If Mr. and Mrs. Claven didn't approve of her roaming around these tunnels, they certainly wouldn't approve of her helping a cult hero and showing him how to get into the Citadel so he could depose the Governor!  But for Ellie, this could quite possibly be the most interesting thing that ever happened to her, and a chance to see something exciting for a change, even if it meant breaking the rules.

"I can show you," she said.  "I know the way."

Relief washed over Josiah Jessup's face.

"I do appreciate it, ma'am."


She re-ignited her own lantern and led him through a maze of tunnels and side tunnels as he struggled to keep up.  If he lagged too far behind and got turned around again, he'd never get out.  Not with all the twists and turns she was taking.  He followed his young guide.  They eventually arrived at a set of concrete stairs, which led up a short way to a rusty metal door.

"There you go," she said gesturing.  "This door will exit out behind a storage shed just inside the wall of the Citadel."

"You've used it before..."

"Just once or twice, when I was exploring."

Josiah smirked.  "Brave girl."

Ellie felt her cheeks turn a ruddy pink as she suddenly felt very self-conscious.

Josiah patted her on the shoulder and moved past, climbing the stairs and pushing the door open a crack so he could peer outside.  When the coast was clear, he slipped out and into the courtyard of the Citadel.  As he crept along the wall, he felt a presence behind him and whirled around, ready to strike.

Ellie had followed him into the courtyard.

"What are you doing?"  He hissed under his breath.

"Coming with you," she replied, matter-of-factly.

"It's going to be dangerous."

"I'm counting on it."

"We could be killed!"

"I'll risk it."

Josiah stared at her in disbelief.  She shrugged.

"I'm tired of living at home and following the rules.  I'm tired of doing nothing while everything around me goes to hell.  I'm tired of letting people like Rourk controlling people like my parents who are too weak to actually do anything about it other than roll over!"

She was breathing heavy now, fired up.  Josiah gave her a simple nod.

"Fair enough.  Stay close to me.  The Citadel is a dangerous place."

Almost on cue, two of the Constructs walked by, patrolling the courtyard.  Ellie had never seen one up front and stared in fascination.  One of them had a clock for a face, and a body that looked to be made out of leftover auto parts.  Its inner workings clanked and chugged and sputtered as its oversized limbs lumbered along.  The one next to it was more proportional, consisting of a helmet with a shaded visor, and a body that seemed to be built from various machines and gears.  When it moved, it made the sound of a well-oiled machine, gears rotating and re-aligning with every step. 

When they passed, Ellie looked at Josiah.

"I thought you knew how to kill those things.  All the stories people tell talk about how you can take them out!"

"First," Josiah said in a lecturing tone that reminded Ellie of her father, "Just because I can doesn't mean I want to.  You should never put yourself in harm's way if you don't have to.  And second, how do you think it would look if they found two Constructs in pieces in the courtyard.  They'd raise the alarm in a second.  No, we need to do this quietly.  We need to get to Rourk without causing a scene, or he'll escape."

Ellie thought it over and decided he was right.  She nodded her agreement and the two of them checked to make sure the coast was clear, and then headed for the main tower of the Citadel.  She felt excitement rushing through her veins.  For the first time in her life, she was actually doing something she believed in.  She wasn't just standing patiently in line or doing what was expected of her.  She was going to make a difference, or at least die standing up for her convictions.

She wondered what her parents would think when they found out...


(2,613 words)