Most Revolutionary - Chapter Fourteen
Sabia Goes Low
Previously: In her panic and rush to get Roca to the hospital, Sabia opens and enters the bunker, thereby freeing President Silver and Ellen Lin. While remaining undiscovered in the Perez farmhouse as Sabia follows the ambulance to the hospital, President Silver convinces Lin to stay underground and fake their captivity until the fall election to maintain the sympathy of the electorate and guarantee a landslide win. Unwilling to surrender too easily, Sabia lies to hospital staff about Roca’s identity. When no police arrive to arrest Sabia for kidnapping the President, Sabia is certain that Silver and Lin are arranging a PR splash of an ambush. Upon returning home from the hospital, Sabia is shocked to find Silver and Lin casually making brunch in her underground home. They clash. Sabia seeks to regain control.
MOST REVOLUTIONARY — A SERIALIZED NOVEL
During a killer Iowa blizzard, fearless DAPL militant and radical plant nursery grower Sabia Perez first saves then kidnaps the stranded President of the USA to ransom a better world.
Craving sun and a full view of sky, President Silver and Ellen Lin, Roca and Sabia move through a hidden passageway from the underground home into the greenhouse. They gather on the black locust benches by the water feature with the frogs and melodious waterfall. The morning frogs seem curious, perched bug-eyed on sunken sticks and rocks, their bodies below the wavy water-line.
Roca is mobile but weak, one hand on a wooden walking stick that he and Sabia carved from the limb of a black cherry tree long ago, when their little family was alive and undaunted, working and playing like an ever-evolving organism within the woodsy, earthy patch of Iowa and planet Earth. Sabia's mamá and papá, abuela and Roca and Sabia herself, a die-hard team, rooted and growing, ever-growing. Until disaster. Then five no more.
Today this strange crew of four comes together in greenhouse to the sound of jumping water and the warm touch of midday sun that filters through a patchwork of glass panes and wood beams. The hand-built solar vessel contains them and protects them, within the other greater solar vessel, born molten from the universe, that is Earth.
Sabia and Roca and the frogs all are solar driven, as are the water and plants and trees, the strongest most integral beings on the spot. Comparatively, Silver and Lin seem like newly acclimated time-travelers. Yet all are gathered and washed in the high-oxygen, high-sun atmosphere of the greenhouse, grounded to Earth below, with the feel and breath and scent of the trees and plants, the soil and gravel and flat stones, the well-worn tools, the ambiance, the whole infrastructure, the gritty reminder of a hard-earned life and who Sabia and Roca really are — how they live and what they do on Earth.
“We need to make another video,” says Sabia. “The demands are stalled. We’re not getting any new changes.”
“Worse,” says President Silver, “my approval rating is going in the wrong direction.”
“So much worse,” says Sabia.
“Sabia, you’re so nice to me,” says Silver.
“Will it work, another video?” says Roca. “What if Congress just says, ‘No’?”
“We need to keep the pressure on,” says Sabia. “Make them look like the shit that they are.”
“They’re just people,” says Silver.
“They’re sellouts to the worst, most destructive, most profiteering bidders. They’re supposed to be public servants, accountable to the people, not to the banksters. I won’t be strangled again.”
“Who ever strangled you?” says Silver. “Much as I would like to.”
“Easy, Kristen,” says Ellen Lin, seated on the bench beside her.
“Sabia lost her mother to lack of health care,” says Roca.
“I’ll strangle you right back,” says Sabia.
The little waterfall and its cascade murmurs, burbles, splashes melodious.
“I’m not taking a black eye again,” says Lin. “I’m not getting back in that bunker.”
“I’m sorry about that, Ellen,” says President Silver. “I was only trying to — it was Roca's fault.”
“Oh, bullshit,” says Roca.
“We need something dramatic,” says Sabia. “The mind works through drama, okay? We need to go for hearts and minds in a new ransom video — in the bunker. Nowhere else. Do it anywhere outside that deep and sound-deadening chamber of the coal mine and we risk giving ourselves away.”
“No,” says Lin.
President Silver considers the possibilities and opportunities.
She and Sabia, same means, different ends, same video. There may be an opportunity that Sabia can’t see, or would never want to see.
“No, to the bunker for Ellen,” says Silver. “She’s had enough trauma for one kidnapping. Yes, to a new video. I’ll do it in that goddamn coal mine. I’ll get my polls back up. Sabia, you and Roca go in with me. Both of you. I won’t let you trap me there again. I go, you go.”
“Kristen, no,” says Lin.
“It needs to be this way, Ellen. I’ll be okay. Sabia and Roca will be in the bunker with me, and they would need to lock themselves in to trap me again. Plus, you stay in the great room with a phone to call for help if I need it. Blow this whole thing up if Sabia tries anything.”
“I won’t,” says Sabia. “You know why I won’t? Because what works for the revolution, works for me. I’m not like you, Silver. Not in it for myself.”
“Oh, the irony,” says President Silver. “You, Sabia, are now my greatest campaign aide ever — my dear Ellen Lin aside. Ellen is more like my campaign boss than aide. But you, Sabia. You are by far my biggest weapon for the win now. Who could’ve thought?”
“Socialists and capitalists working together,” says Roca. “It’s so peaceful. So harmonious.”
“It’s a little disgusting,” says Sabia.
“A temporary marriage of convenience,” says Silver.
“Gross,” says Sabia. “Speak for your own marriage.”
President Silver’s hands clench. She considers plucking an orange to throw at Sabia.
“This is all treason,” says Lin. “They’ll want to hang us for treason. Maybe they should.”
The word “treason” hits Silver like a smelling salt. She wants nothing to do with the idea. She pushes it far away.
“When I think ‘treason’ I think Sabia. That’s all. What we’re engaged in now, Ellen, is a simple sleight of hand. Soon it will all be over. And I win.”
“I win,” says Sabia.
“Maybe we all do,” says Roca.
“Only ideally,” says Sabia. “In any great revolution, almost everyone can win. Some more than others. And it’s not always obvious who. But I’m pretty sure that people like me will win far more than Silver and people like her.”
“Whatever,” says President Silver. “There’s not going to be any revolution. Ellen, you record the video from the great room. One video. I’ll do what needs to be done in the bunker. Then I get the Hell out of that hole.”
Sabia meditates to the sound of the waterfall.
She reaches out to fully ground herself by squeezing between thumb and index finger the shiny slick leaf of an orange tree, fruit-laden, rooted into the electromagnetic field of Earth.
She relaxes in the calm and charged frequency of the ground, the same frequency as the current of her brain, her being, all beings, extensions of terra firma, itself an extension of the sun, the universe, one with all, one with herself, one with those around her, grounded. One with the whole wide world, known, unknown.
The People are truly in charge, must be in charge, will be in charge. Of the entire Day and Age. Sabia feels what time it is. The Revolution is due. It’s time to act.
Standoff.
In the Oval Office, at the center of the most powerful Empire in the history of the world, Acting President Alecta O'Roura-Chavez faces right-wing House Speaker Barry Bombarill who stands opposite the Resolute Desk. He has not been invited to sit.
Nearby stand Chief of Staff Shakeeta Glazier and Press Secretary Tisha Noori. No one is happy, and everyone grows increasingly unhappy in the moment.
“Speaker Bombarill,” says Alecta. “The fastest way to move me out of the White House is to convince your colleagues to vote for the bulk of these demands. That's how you get President Silver back. And we both know you get along much better with her than with me.”
“I get along terrible with her. I was hoping for a fresh start with you.”
“Speak your mind then. We're all waiting.”
“Would it not be possible to talk with you alone, Madame President?”
Alecta looks to Tisha and Shakeeta. “These women can’t possibly be making you nervous, Mr. Speaker.”
Shakeeta and Tisha share a look that indicates how entirely they are dug in against the right-wing Speaker of the House, elected by the seemingly ceaseless waves of white supremacy that lap over the continent, coast to coast, sea to shining sea, ever since the savage Europeans slaughtered the indigenous and their sacred buffalo and murdered countless Africans while caging them into slavery in the great new Christian country, America. It’s a sick legacy that continues to die its long slow grotesque death, while holding on to much power. Not least enshrined in the Constitution. It’s in this repulsive context that both Shakeeta and Tisha stare down Speaker Bombarill who stands to no avail in front Alecta O’Roura-Chavez.
Speaker Bombarill glances condescendingly at Shakeeta and Tisha. Shakeeta returns the look with scorn, Tisha with derision.
Speaker Bombarill presses his hands together, his fingers folded and intertwined, his thumbs side by side, and he holds this clublike grip as if in prayer, beseeching the President. He shakes his hands. “I focus better with one person at a time, Ma’am. And you are THE person, Madame President.”
“Everything in the light, Mr. Speaker.” Alecta turns up the palms of her hands as she spreads her arms wide. “However, in the interest of forward progress, I’ll clear the room for you — on one condition.” She points at his chest. “You give me one thing first. Go pass a big bill to meet the demands, Mr. Speaker. Otherwise, say your piece in front of us all.”
“If we spoke privately, it would be easier to make headway.”
Alecta throws up her hands. “My administration is an open book, Mr. Speaker. And it's going to stay that way. Let me ask you this, Speaker Bombarill. Can you tell me the current whereabouts of former FBI Director Maximilian Castelan? You seem to be in the habit of calling him at crucial moments.”
“That's — that's not accurate. It is, though, something I would be willing to speak about with you in private.”
“If you know where Castelan is, you will tell it to the FBI, right now. Or you will be prosecuted as you should be.”
“No, no, not at all. I have no idea. He and I — in the past — you see, if we could speak in private.”
“That is not happening. I hear Castelan’s in Iowa.”
Bombarill's eyes retract. He thought he knew as much as Alecta, about all this, and more. He worries how he could be wrong about that.
“Is this public information?” says Bombarill.
“Recently declassified. Maybe we can crowdsource Castelan’s whereabouts. Beginning now. Tell me what you know.”
“I’m not acquainted with Mr. Castelan’s travel plans.”
“He’s not a friend of yours?”
“I don’t interact with him daily.”
“That’s not what I asked. I think we’re done here, Mr. Speaker.”
“If only we could work together in private—”
“It’s a public position, Mr. Speaker. The Presidency. And it is going to stay that way. Does ‘not for sale’ mean anything to you? Anything good? Anything at all?”
“How dare you!”
Alecta returns his gaze directly.
Speaker Bombarill remains angry. Damn it. He’s paralyzed by the Acting President. He can’t go forward. He doesn’t want to go back. He can’t stay where he is.
“Good day, Mr. Speaker.”
Bombarill leaves the Oval Office without so much as a side glance at Shakeeta and Tisha, who enjoy his retreat.
Before going to the bunker with President Silver and Roca, Sabia shows Ellen Lin how to operate the controls in the great room at the main computer. From there Lin casts her image onto the bunker TV.
In the bunker, Sabia helps Roca create a cloth backdrop for Silver. Then Roca sits on the cot to rest nearby. Sabia hands Silver a yellow tennis ball.
“Hold this in your left hand, Silver-Bones. Hold it up at the end. And say, 'Peace!'”
“What is this? Lefty solar symbolism? A fuzzy glowball?”
“Remember, look miserable the whole time, the way you normally do.”
President Silver squeezes the tennis ball, looks at it, feels its firmness. An idea occurs to her. She sneaks an unconscious look at Sabia. Then her face resumes its typical mask.
“I can’t look Presidential holding a fucking tennis ball.”
“You’re a hostage,” says Sabia. “You’re no President at all down here.”
“Kristen, you’ll be great,” says Lin on TV. “Your poll numbers will show it.”
Silver shakes the tennis ball at no one in particular.
“Okay. Ready,” says Sabia. “Let’s go.”
Sabia settles beside Roca. He offers his hand. They clasp.
Ellen Lin records. President Silver is still mad as she begins the brief hostage video. Then she better remembers her role and grows increasingly distraught and worried toward the end:
“The demands must be met. Each one. Nobody will see Ellen Lin again. Not until the demands are met. All demands. And because Congress has done little to nothing, another demand is ready. This demand will be added in two weeks if Congress has not met the original demands by then.”
President Silver holds up a yellow tennis ball in her left hand.
“I was told to say, 'Peace.'”
“That's it,” says Sabia.
Silver shifts the tennis ball into her right hand, her strong hand. “Here’s your fucking tennis ball!” Silver fires the ball at Sabia — hits Roca in the face.
Roca hollers involuntarily and protects himself from whatever might strike him next.
“Roca!” Sabia reflexively shields Roca from Silver with her body.
“Bad shot,” says Silver. She rushes from the bunker.
Sabia attends to Roca.
In the hallway, Silver slams the door shut.
Silver slides the iron bar, locking in Sabia and Roca. “You’re not the only one who fights with bare knuckles, Sabia!”
Ellen Lin stares wide-eyed through the computer into the bunker. “What just happened?”
Sabia races to the bunker door. It doesn't budge.
“Shit. You can’t fucking trust her!”
Sabia returns to Roca and sits by his side, taking his hand.
“I know,” he says. “We know. We can’t trust her. Maybe some people can. We can’t.”
Sabia examines Roca’s face. “Are you hurt, Abuelo?”
“That thing surprised me, that’s all.”
Sabia and Roca stare at the door.
“We’re locked in,” says Sabia.
Roca nods. “I see that.”
“Fuck!” Sabia screams at Lin’s face on the TV. Then she gets up and goes over and stares straight into the camera. “I’ll kill you, Silver! I’ll kill you!”
Ellen Lin is horrified.
She’s now a hostage-taker. A kidnapper.
She’s now a criminal for sure.
President Silver practically skips up the hall and stairs and then through the door behind the refrigerator into the kitchen. She comes quickly to Ellen Lin in the great room.
“I did it! Turn it off! Turn it all off! The computers, the camera. Let them rot in there the way they did me. Turn it off!”
President Silver grabs Ellen Lin and hugs her and reaches over and shuts off power to the computer.
“I win,” she says.
In bunker, the TV casting Lin’s image goes blank.
Sabia powers on cable news. Sweeping images of the farmhouse and orchard and the Ground Force One blast site and the Iowa surrounds fill the screen. “THE KIDNAPPING OF PRESIDENT SILVER” runs as chyron at the bottom of the screen. The whole troubled state of affairs plays nonstop on national and even international TV.
President Silver and Ellen Lin sit at the kitchen table snacking on sliced carrots and celery dipped in hummus.
“Fresh food, nothing like it,” says Lin. “What happens when we run out?”
“We'll figure that as we go,” says Silver. “Home delivery maybe. We're in control now.”
President Silver spots Sabia's Pueblo travel bag, adorned with the beautiful image of the medicinal and anti-inflammatory lavender plant, hanging on the kitchen closet doorknob. She goes over and plucks out a wallet and credit card.
Silver reads the name on the card with a caustic lilt: “'Sabia Perez'. She's our girl. She'll pay for fresh groceries delivered all the way from Des Moines if need be.”
“Sabia will be missed at school.”
“Maybe.”
“Oh, she will.”
“Ever the micro-manager, Ellen. Being President is about breaking the rules. Where’s the fun otherwise? Fuck the school. We’ll figure things out. Sabia will do as we say. We boss her now. We can even cut the power to the bunker.”
“I think Sabia would rather die than be bossed.”
“She's a horrible girl, no doubt about it.”
“It's all horrible, Kristen. I mean, we could go to prison for this caper.”
“When we need to escape, Ellen, we escape. Anytime. We'll be great heroes. But we can't, just yet. There's everything to gain. We need to figure out a way to stay sane here for the rest of winter, then summer, and early fall until the November election. I say we keep doing what we’re doing. No one needs to know. No one can know. I'm the President. And I’m going to win in the landslide of all landslides this November.”
“Sabia can’t go missing here in Iowa, Kristen. Forget DC for a second.”
“We’ll figure it out. We’ve got time.” Silver looks in the direction of the bunker. “And now so do they.”
“You can't leave Roca and Sabia in that hole for that long. Their teeth will fall out.” Lin crunches a stalk of celery.
“Oh, I can,” says Silver. “Trust me. However fucking long I want. We can do this, Ellen. We are doing this.”
“There’s no way.”
“I’m the way, Ellen. And Hell, Sabia taught us how to be a crafty little criminal, right? We send the ransom statement through the tablet like Sabia did. You use Tor browser like she did. You wear sunglasses, a big hat. Take Sabia’s truck at night, go to a different restaurant. Upload to Wikileaks secure drop. Come back. We toast ourselves. We’ll find some fucking wine and toast the shit out of the night!”
Lin stares at the maple planks in the floor. She considers the predicament. She begins to rethink the entire trajectory of her life, then quickly stops. She knows one thing. This wasn’t the job she signed up for, and she’s having a difficult time remembering what the redeemable nature of that former job might have been. Her current job. It only feels like her former job. She’s still Campaign Manager Ellen Lin. And President Silver is still her boss.
Lin feels like the ultimate worried woman.
“What is it, Ellen?” says Silver. “They deserve it. They’re kidnappers. They kidnapped me.”
“And me.” Lin continues to stare at the maple boards beneath the gray socks on her feet. The markings and lines, colors and grain of the wood seem alive and in motion, whereas her gray-clad feet appear to be entirely immobile.
President Silver and Ellen Lin scout through Sabia's bedroom closet selecting clothes for Lin. Then dressed like Sabia, Lin drives the pickup truck north to Des Moines and parks near a restaurant. She plugs a flash drive into a tablet and uses the restaurant's wifi. She loads Tor browser, then uploads the second hostage video to Wikileaks.
“For my President,” says Lin.
She drives south. Near the farmhouse a snowstorm hits. Lin parks in the whiteout, runs onto the porch, and gets inside where at least it’s warm.
Midmorning the next day, the news goes everywhere all at once.
In the Oval Office, a small group brace themselves in front of the video shared onscreen for all the world to see. Alongside office aide Malcolm Xavier and a few other staff who happen to be present when the new breaks, Acting President Alecta O'Roura-Chavez, her Chief of Staff Shakeeta Glazier and Press Secretary Tisha Noori watch and re-watch the second hostage video with mixed disbelief, admiration, and horror.
“How do they get away with it?” says Shakeeta.
“Are they coming for us next?” says Tisha.
“No, no — they need us,” says Shakeeta.
“Kristen seems grim yet strong. She seems almost—”
“Like she has some control.”
“That can't be. She looks exhausted.”
“Why does she hold up the tennis ball at the end?”
“She didn't like that at all.”
“She was told to do it.”
“Why?”
“Poor Ellen.”
Alecta has not said a word. She sits at the Resolute Desk looking like she has been hit between the eyes with a brick.
Shakeeta, Tisha, and the others remain transfixed on the screen. The news moderators want a second look and listen. They replay the video again. It ends:
“The demands must be met. Each one. Nobody will see Ellen Lin again. Not until the demands are met. All the demands. And because Congress has done little to nothing, another demand is ready. This demand will be added in two weeks if Congress has not met the original demands by then.”
Silver holds up the yellow tennis ball in her left hand.
“I was told to say, 'Peace.'”
“She was told to say everything else too,” says Alecta.
“What do you mean?” says Shakeeta.
“She hates to say 'Peace',” says Tisha.
“What’s with the tennis ball?” says Malcolm.
Alecta remains motionless in her chair. She appears to stare straight through everything.
Then she glances wildly at Shakeeta.
“Give me a minute,” says Alecta. “Everyone, take time for yourselves.”
“Okay, let's clear the room, people. Let the President breathe.”
On the way out, Shakeeta casts a questioning, worried glance at Alecta.
Alecta walks a loop within the perimeter of the office, circles into the center, stares up at the Presidential seal on the ceiling.
She looks the eagle in the eye.
Then she looks down at the rug, still trying to comprehend.
There’s a bowl of fruit on a coffee table nearby.
Alecta goes over and selects an orange, with her left hand. Then she walks to the Rose Garden window. Sleet hammers the dormant bushes and the sprawling winter lawn, coating everything white.
“That wasn’t a tennis ball,” says Alecta to herself. “That tennis ball was an orange.”
Alecta holds up the orange in her left hand.
“Or a lemon. Or both.”
Alecta stares into the sleet.
“That fucking magician. Sabia. Where in Hell did she hide Silver and Lin? Where in Hell are they? What in Hell did you do with them, Sabia?”
Community Supported Agriculture.
Contracting with a local CSA had originally been the idea of Kingsley’s wife, years before the divorce. Growing to love the taste and novelty of the farm-to-table food, Kingsley had insisted they continue the subscription even after his wife grew tired of keeping up with the deliveries of sometimes random produce. The newest delivery arrives on time this morning. Due to his suspension, Kingsley no longer needs a service to stock his refrigerator, so he busies himself chopping the lettuces and colorful mix of vegetables for easy storage and use through the week.
And then the news drops like the bomb that it is.
Director Kingsley stops in the middle of his salad prep on a long marble counter that separates his kitchen from his living area, while on a TV on the opposite wall plays the second ransom video.
President Silver holds up the tennis ball in her left hand. “I was told to say, 'Peace'.”
Kingsley stares at the salad he has cut into a big glass bowl: lettuce, radishes, cucumbers, carrots, with chunks of oranges added in. A lemon sits beside the bowl. Kingsley chops the lemon in half with a swift stroke of a cleaver.
“That’s not a tennis ball.”
Kingsley grabs half a lemon. He paces. He powers off the TV with a remote.
“Lemon is Sabia’s favorite flavor.”
Kingsley paces, thinks.
“So she says.”
Kingsley turns around.
“We have ourselves an accomplice.”
He looks at the cut lemon.
“A lying witness, at the very least.”
He nods.
“Now prove it.”
He squeezes the lemon into his mouth.
“She wants to be known without being known.”
Why?
“Just save your job.”
Kingsley sucks the tart juice out of the lemon.
“Work the problem.”
Director Kingsley goes to the refrigerator, gets another lemon, puts it on the cutting board, chops it in half with the cleaver.
“Fucking Castelan knows.”
Kingsley sets the lemon to the side on the counter. With the cleaver, he scrapes the remaining salad fixings off the heavy wooden cutting board and into a big glass bowl. Nothing remains on the cutting board. He hammers it with the cleaver. Then he composes himself.
“Maximilian. Where are you, exactly?”
Kingsley places the lemon on the cutting board.
“Let’s meet again, Max.”
Kingsley chops the lemon into pieces.
The release of the second hostage video reminds House Speaker Barry Bombarill of his failure and ongoing predicament. The only thing he wants this crazy afternoon is a fresh chipwich hoagie and a bottle of sparkling water at his favorite deli near DC’s Chinatown. The hostage video of President Silver plays in silent loops above the deli counter behind the chatter of the news moderators and the customers around him.
Suddenly a small handful of coffee and water clutching activists and other customers surround Bombarill. They want something more than Bombarill is willing to give, a bit of dialogue on that matter. They won’t get it. Alecta won’t talk with him, so he won’t talk with her people. Seems fair.
Not to the activists. They put out a call to allies on social media to come to the deli to press Bombarill to put forth legislative bills to meet the progressive social demands.
More activists arrive, and they begin to chant. “Meet the demands! Meet the demands! Meet the demands. Now! Now! Now!”
Regular customers join in. The whole deli erupts. Bombarill is accidentally bumped and shoved shoulder to shoulder to shoulder as people press in. Bombarill shoves back.
“Get a job!” shouts Bombarill.
“Hey, fuck you! Do your job!”
“Just talk with us,” says an activist at Speaker Bombarill’s shoulder, a young man. Bombarill squares up and pops him hard in the chest.
“Back off, Kid!” He hopes this serves as an example to the others.
Unfortunately for Speaker Bombarill, it does.
An older and much larger man standing beside both Bombarill and the young man throws his fist through Bombarill's chin, decking him. Direct to floor.
Everyone is pushing and shoving now. The young man helps Bombarill to his feet. Bombarill thinks he is being mugged and elbows the man. Bombarill looks for any help. The chanting begins again. “Meet the demands!” It’s deafening. A few people move to protect Bombarill though there’s no ongoing threat, apart from the noise and general chaos. The man who threw the punch has disappeared. Nevertheless, Bombarill retreats to a restroom and locks the door.
“The Speaker of the House takes himself hostage!” shouts an activist.
The deli erupts. “Meet the demands! Meet the demands! Meet the demands! Now! Now! Now!”
Police crash the deli and unleash warfare to clear the place. Frightened female deli patrons do the smart thing and take refuge in a restroom, but then police smash through the door and mace all the women inside. Screams everywhere. Police then smash through the men’s restroom door and instinctively mace the lone man they find inside: Speaker Bombarill.
In the bunker, Roca leads Sabia into the bedroom nearest the bunker’s egress where he slides the bed and dresser away from the wall, revealing a long strip of white-painted poplar molding. He pries off the molding with a screwdriver to expose a steel bar.
“There it is,” says Roca. “Our handy hidden way out.” He grabs a handle on the bar, turns it, and pulls. It latches into a new setting along the wall.
“You little sneak, Abuelo.” Sabia holds up her hand, and they high-five.
Sabia and Roca throw open the bunker door. They step out into the hallway.
“As if Papá and I would build a bunker that cannot be opened from the inside.”
“You had me fooled,” says Sabia. “I never knew.”
“When you played here, we never locked you in, of course. A simple mechanism through the wall. My papá was a kind of genius, I guess.”
Sabia hugs Roca.
“What that means, Abuelo, is that you really were willing to die when you got sick. Push came to shove and you were there for me. You could have escaped at any time.”
“Sabia, I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know what to think, or to do. Not at first.”
“I’ll tell Silver she failed to latch the door correctly. Let’s wait though. We need to re-attach the molding over the bar. We don't want her to know. Then we'll come out at night and I'll get her while she’s asleep. We’ll give her a special surprise from the bowels of the Earth. I will. She’ll never know what hit her.”
“Sabia—”
“No, Abuelo. She has it coming. She needs to learn.”
“Sabia—”
“No.”
“Listen to me, Sabia. Some people are unteachable. You know that.”
“Sí. I don’t care. I’m going to teach her anyway.”
“Sabia—”
“Come on, Abuelo.” Sabia goes back into the bunker.
Roca looks up the hallway leading to the steps that climb into their underground home. He knows he has already made his decision. He will follow Sabia into the depths of Hell and back again. That’s the way it is now. Life twists and it turns. It can always move forward, if you’re truly awake to it. If you’re strong enough. If you haven’t been killed outright. Roca follows Sabia into the bunker.
In the bedroom, they restore the molding over the door-lock mechanism. Then they return the bed and dresser to their original positions.
Roca relaxes on the couch. Sabia paces on the treadmill and waits for night.
She reviews the long list in her mind of how and why President Silver needs to be taught the most basic lessons about politics and society, human rights, human needs, human decency, and all life.
Sabia can’t wait for the dead of night to deliver her payback — and to relaunch the revolution.
Note: It is precisely because a lot of badly needed "politics" cannot be quickly achieved in the political arena that artists throughout history attempt to realize such "politics" in their art. Partisan art, liberatory art is made for all kinds of reasons both private and public, including that the creation of politically conscious culture, partisan culture, is a valuable and effective means for creating social and political change. It is so valuable and effective that reactionary political forces constantly ban books and otherwise wage culture war against it. Meanwhile the literary and other institutions of liberal capitalism are extremely effective at marginalizing and smearing socialist threats — artistic and otherwise — to the status quo's ideological, cultural, political, and financial control. Thus the glacial pace of progress and much backsliding, and thus Kenneth Burke in “The Nature of Art Under Capitalism" in The Philosophy of Literary Form: “...the contemporary emphasis must be placed largely upon propaganda, rather than upon ‘pure’ art…. Since pure art makes for acceptance, it tends to become a social menace in so far as it assists us in tolerating the intolerable.”