Most Revolutionary - Chapter Three
Refuge In A Coal Mine
Previously: US President Kristen Silver’s campaign re-election bus Ground Force One is destroyed by bombing, adjacent to the Iowa orchard and farmhouse of Sabia Perez and her abuelo Roca. By chance, only four people survive: President Silver, her campaign manager Ellen Lin, and Sabia and Roca.
MOST REVOLUTIONARY - A SERIALIZED NOVEL
By what grim fate are we set on this earth to live then die our unknown, oft meaningless deaths? Oh, the religionists try to give meaning to death, birth, and everything in between, before, and after, but all faith-based religions are make-believe. Stories that won't admit to being stories. Worse. That insist upon the lie of truth. There is more truth in a single quality novel than in all the faith-based religions combined. Religionists proclaim their make-believe stories that pretend to truth and reality, when in fact it's the novel that gives the most insight into both the day and the divine.
And if such notions seem too scandalous to be credible, well where is the quality novel not imbued by scandal? Life is scandalous. Most societies even more so. One should hardly be surprised to see scandal called out directly and accused in the partisan novels of the day. The unthinkable all-too thinkable is in the nature of scandal and the novel as much as in the nature of insight and much other experience too.
Not that any of this was of any conscious concern to Roca the moment he was blasted in the middle of a prairie blizzard against the foundation of his farmhouse by the End-Time heat and light of unknown shock waves at the edge of his prized orchard.
Roca is rag-dolled and strewn at the base of the outside steps.
The explosion shakes even the underground house.
President Silver and Ellen Lin grab the heavy wood bar and ride it out.
Sabia grabs the sink beside her.
“What in Hell is this?!” says Lin.
“Sabia? Did your furnace blow up?” says Silver.
“We don’t have a furnace,” says Sabia.
“Why not?” says Silver.
“Wood stove,” says Lin.
“It’s Mother Earth,” says Sabia. “She’s pissed.”
Dazed. Sitting up at the bottom of the steps, Roca sees a wall of flames through the blizzard.
He pushes into the storm, searches, hollers, finds only fire and ice, flames and snow. “'Death around every corner.' Jesus, Sabia. The things you say.”
Roca searches through storm for any life.
Silver and Lin look for Secret Service agents in the rooms adjacent to the great room.
“Agent! Agent!” President Silver calls out, as she wanders about.
“Come out, come out, wherever you are!” shouts Lin.
Sabia bundles up and goes outside to search for Roca.
Roca uses his phone to try to call 911 but the blizzard bars it. “Fuck. Fucking whiteout.”
Roca hears Sabia scream: “Abuelo! Abuelo!”
Roca retreats toward the house and the sound of Sabia's voice.
In the mudroom, Roca and Sabia shake off snow. They remove their coats, boots. Roca is bleeding, concussed.
Roca picks up the landline telephone, listens to the receiver. No dial tone. He holds it out to Sabia as if she can explain. “The phone's dead,” he says. “The phone's never dead. The line is buried.” Then he realizes. “The bomb. Blew it up.” He sets the phone back in its cradle. He approaches President Silver. “Where are the agents?” he asks.
“Weren't you with them?”
“I mean the ones in the house. Where are they?”
“No one's here. They must have gone back to the bus,” says Silver. “What bomb?”
“There is no bus,” says Roca.
“Of course there is,” says Lin.
Roca considers, decides. “We need to get to the bunker now.”
“What happened?” says Silver. “Roca!”
“Your whole house, it danced. Hard,” says Lin.
“This place could have fallen in on me,” says Silver.
“An earthquake, wasn’t it,” worries Lin. “The New Madrid fault. We’re right on top of it. If it's New Madrid, we're doomed.”
“That's way south of here,” says Sabia.
“So what?” says Lin. “That thing is huge.”
Roca, dazed, tries to find clarity through several layers of confusion. “It's not an earthquake.”
“An earthquake in a blizzard?” says Silver.
“Fucking climate collapse,” says Sabia.
Concussed and feeling it, Roca repeats, “To the bunker. Ms. President, Ms. Lin, I’m sorry. Something terrible has gone wrong. This explosion was Ground Force One. It’s gone. I searched. It’s pieces. Molten metal. I found no one, nothing. A bombing. Sabia and I have a survival bunker. Let’s go. I don’t know what’s going on.”
“The bus blew up?” says Silver.
“Impossible,” says Lin. “Not our bus.”
“Sabia, lead us down.”
“Underground?” says President Silver. “We’re already underground.”
“Deeper,” Sabia says. “Let’s go.”
Sabia walks past President Silver.
“My coat!” says Silver. “I’m getting my coat. I hate to be cold. Come on, Ellen.”
Silver and Lin retrieve winter garments in the mud room.
President Silver whispers, “They want to put us in a pit.”
“I trust Roca,” says Lin. “He’s as scared as we are.”
“Fuck,” says Silver.
Silver, Lin, and Roca follow Sabia to an expertly disguised door in the wall behind the refrigerator. Molding pops, pivots on an interior hinge, doubles as a door handle.
They step through to a long flight of stairs down. Well-lit. This connects to a painted-cement hallway, sloping gently down farther still.
“What are we hiding from?” says President Silver.
“You tell us,” says Roca.
“Whoever bombed your ass,” says Sabia.
“This is a hallway to where exactly?” says Lin.
“I used to play down here when I was a little girl. A long time ago. It’s safe. The safest place in the world. I told you.”
“Roca, are we really in danger?” says Silver.
“You don’t see any Secret Service around, do you,” says Sabia.
“Your bus exploded,” says Roca. “One huge snowplow is blasted into my orchard. I can’t tell what’s what.”
President Silver is more pissed than brave. “Fucking Secret Service. They never liked me.”
Lin is near panic. “It’s got to be an earthquake.”
“Whatever it is, Ellen,” says Silver, “I didn't win this Presidency to be killed by it.”
They arrive at a barred door. Sabia unlatches it, opens to a spacious multi-room survival bunker deep in an old coal mine.
She closes the soundproof door behind them, bars and locks it from inside. Roca hunkers down on the cool cement floor, leans back against a painted cement wall. Distraught.
“Where in Hell are we?” says Silver.
“Speak for yourself,” says Sabia.
“It’s safe here no matter what happens on Earth, almost,” say Roca. “For a time. The Perez family survival bunker. Old coal mine. Single-family mine in the 1800s. Helped my Papá build this bunker half a century ago.”
Lin glances around. “A hippie survivalist bunker. Funky.”
“No one knows about it,” says Roca. “Stocked to sustain a family for years. Sabia’s playhouse, back in the day.”
President Silver walks around the bunker. “Flyover country. This is how you spend your time. Digging down.”
“I’ve heard about this sort of thing,” says Lin. “Preppers. Survivalists. Gun nuts.”
“Cowards,” says Silver.
“We’re not frighty Whitey,” says Sabia. “No guns here. No fucking guns.”
“My Papá was no coward.”
“No offense, Roca.”
Sabia takes offense. “Fucking white people. They kill, enslave, lock up countless brown and black people. And all the while they call our land theirs. And they whine nonstop about being victims with their boots on our necks. It’s fucking brilliant.”
“I’m not wearing boots, Sabia. I wish I were,” says Silver. “I wish I had fucking knee-high steel-toed boots on right now.”
“I know you do.”
“What are we doing,” says Lin. “Stop it, both of you!”
From a supply room, Sabia retrieves a medicine kit. She works Roca’s wounds. Silver and Lin wander.
The ceiling is only six feet high. Full electricity, kitchen, bathroom, old washer, dryer. Multiple storerooms stocked ceiling to floor, sleeping areas in separate rooms, exercise space, a place to eat, a place to lounge. Painted rock and coal pillars support earth above. Colorful landscape murals.
Two LED TVs are mounted on a wall not far from a video camera with speakers connected to a closed-circuit system, linked to the great room. Drain pipes descend into the old mine. Sound-dampened vents extend into the soundproof hallway.
President Silver examines and touches the two blank TVs. “Roca, you said the bus is destroyed.”
“Everyone must be dead. That’s the reality.”
Lin remains fixated on her earthquake theory. “An earthquake would-”
“It was a bomb. More than one.”
President Silver touches the TVs. “Do these work?”
“The one on the right is cable TV,” explains Roca. “The way I split the line makes it undetectable to the cable company and anyone else.”
President Silver presses the power button, finds no channels.
“Odds are the blizzard took down the cable first thing,” says Roca. “Or the bombs. They’ll repair it.”
“All praise the Almighty TV,” says Sabia. “People are left to rot without good food, water, heat, health care, and jobs. But a TV! Cheaper than water that falls from the sky. You gotta get your daily does of corporate propaganda. Otherwise you won't know what to kill yourself trying to buy.”
“You're so fucking cynical, Sabia,” says the President.
“So fucking realistic,” says Sabia. “I mean, it doesn't get more real than that. I'm a fucking student of the real. I don't know why. It just comes out. I can't be held responsible for that. And what about you, President? What are you a student of? Money-grubbing?”
“We might not be delayed enough yet to be declared missing,” says Lin.
“We were missing the moment the blizzard destroyed contact,” says President Silver. “They’re in high alert. Better be.”
“Welcome to climate collapse, People. White Empire. You wrecked Turtle Island, North America, poor thing. White Empire is the plague of all plagues.”
Silver and Lin stare at Sabia.
President Silver says to Roca: “What’s wrong with her?”
“For the other TV,” says Roca, “a wire runs up to a metal clothesline pole, in the yard, a covert antenna. It gets the broadcast stations in Des Moines.”
President Silver pushes the power button, finds bad reception. She tries different channels, gets static, fuzz.
“That’s the whiteout. It will clear when the blizzard clears.”
President Silver finds a blurry newscast.
News Moderator: “We have an unconfirmed report that the President’s bus Ground Force One is late arriving to Des Moines ahead of this weekend’s final debate before the first votes of the primary season. There is a blizzard currently pounding the area. Also we have unconfirmed reports of an earthquake in the greater Des Moines area. We will keep you up to date.”
“I told you!” says Lin.
“No, it’s the bombs,” says Roca.
“You sure there's no one alive out there?” says Lin.
“It was total obliteration,” says Roca.
President Silver turns off unbearable static, sits on a simple wood chair at a simple wood kitchen table. Lin joins her.
“They think we’re alive,” says President Silver.
“I know what you mean,” says Lin.
President Silver is gripped by a kind of delayed shock. “You said everyone was killed?”
“We’re all alive in here,” says Roca. “And safe.”
“Oh my God,” says President Silver.
“Do you know who would do this?” says Roca.
Sabia continues to tend to Roca's cuts. “Who wouldn’t? By now. Chickens gotta roost. The CIA calls it 'blowback'.”
“It’s not possible,” says Silver.
“Fucking politics,” says Sabia.
“This isn’t politics,” says Lin.
“This is war,” says Silver.
“No more wars, goddamn it, Silver-Guns. No more bombs. No more blood. No more fucking blood.” Sabia throws a torn bandage on the floor. She dabs blood on Roca's forehead. Sabia and President Silver lock eyes again.
“Ms. President, please understand,” says Roca. “The world has been unforgiving a mi nieta.”
“Fuck that, Abuelo. Let it go.”
Roca looks to the exit.
“I need to secure the outer door.”
“Life is a long, long, fucking long, campaign,” says Lin.
“We need a phone. A laptop, a tablet, anything electronic,” says President Silver. “We need to communicate. We need to let people know I’m alive.”
“Precious much, Silver-Butt?” says Sabia.
Roca grabs his head. He feels trapped deep inside it. “Six inches of dirt blocks any mobile signal,” he tells President Silver. “And we’re sitting under 50 feet of rock beneath the farmhouse. At least.”
“Our phones are on the bus,” says Lin.
“Your phones are powder,” says Roca. “Mine’s in the great room. I tried it outside. No signal. Sabia?”
“Great room. Phone and laptop.”
Roca lurches to his feet. Sabia grabs him. “Abuelo, let me do it.”
“I never thought this day would come. Not in my lifetime,” says Roca.
“It hasn’t. Has it?” says Lin.
“We'll fix it,” says Silver. “We'll make it right.”
“You'll make it worse,” says Sabia.
Lin looks to the bunker egress. “We can’t help you, out there, can we, Roca?”
“Stay here for now.”
Sabia says, “You’ve done enough, the both of you.” She squeezes Roca's arms. “You okay, Abuelo?”
“It doesn't matter,” he says, and moves to exit.
Sabia follows Roca out of the bunker, slamming shut the soundproof airtight door. She throws the latch, locking it.
Then Sabia slides down the door and sits at its base, back against the bunker. “We just kidnapped the President of the United States of America.”
Roca, who had continued walking, turns and comes back, looks down with concern. “We did no such thing. Are you hurt?” Roca kneels, touches Sabia’s head.
“We kidnapped the President.”
“We saved her. And her campaign manager. It’s a miracle they’re alive. Thanks to us.”
Sabia shakes her head. “There’s no coming back from this.”
“Sabia, we’ll be rescued by morning, latest. But we need to secure the house first. Come on. We don't know who or what might be out there.”
Sabia stands. “Do I look like a hostage-taker to you, Abuelo?”
“Don’t talk crazy. Nieta! Come on.”
Secret Service Director William Kingsley stands at his long marble kitchen counter fixing a drink, nothing fancy, vodka and lime. It's the weekend. Life is hard, but not when you're drinking vodka and lime. He answers a phone call from his second in command, Deputy Director Grace Lamont. He puts her on speaker and cuts into a lime.
“Grace, how is the Vice President feeling?”
“It’s not Alecta I’m worried about now, Director.”
“Don't tell me. Can’t the head of the Secret Service ever get a night off?”
“This night, no Sir. The President is missing.”
Director Kingsley pauses, then squeezes a slice of lime into a small glass of vodka and ice.
“She’s on the bus to Des Moines. What’s to miss?”
“They’re lost to the blizzard, Sir. No communication.”
“I’m sure they’ll come out on the other side all right. Aren’t you?”
“There’s an early report of a potential earthquake in the last known vicinity of the President.”
Kingsley looks slowly around to a window and stares outside into the darkness.
“How long without contact?”
“They should be in Des Moines by now, Sir. They’re not.”
“How long?”
“An hour.”
“Christ.”
“Yes, Sir.”
“Could be they're merely stuck.”
“Yes, Sir.”
“What are the odds the earthquake was actually an earthquake.”
“Unknown, Sir.”
“Shit.”
Director Kingsley sets aside the drink and picks up the phone. He blindly moves, then absently sits on the arm of a living room chair. Stares at the floor. Looks up.
“Grace, the Chief Justice of the Kansas Supreme Court attended the President’s speech tonight.”
“Yes, Sir.”
“Find her. Get her to the Vice President’s hotel.”
“I understand.”
“I’ll call Vice President O’Roura-Chavez.”
“A good idea, Sir.”
Sabia and Roca make their way to the great room.
“Wait here,” Roca tells Sabia.
Sabia follows Roca anyway into the mud room where they dress for the storm. Roca takes a hammer, nails, and plank molding from utility shelves, then goes out to the screened-in side porch. Sabia follows.
Determined. Sabia goes up steps to the front porch to look around, leaving Roca to nail molding over all seams and the recessed handle of the underground house door, made of the same material as the wall. Roca’s concussion causes him to wince at the sound of hammer striking nail.
The new molding matches the larger design, disappearing the house door. With a nail, Roca slits screen fabric then leaves the porch outer door open. The porch begins to fill with snow. Roca moves a porch chair in front of the former door.
No evidence of entrance to any dwelling remains on what looks to be a neglected side deck along a foundation wall.
On the front porch, Sabia sees flames through blizzard.
“It’s a mad, mad world.”
She walks into the blizzard toward the flames.
Roca climbs the stairs from side porch to front porch. The blizzard eases briefly. He sees the burning in the distance. He is astonished to see Sabia walking toward him from the disaster.
“Sabia! Get inside!”
Roca grabs Sabia, pulls her onto the porch.
“First I lost Papá and Abuela in that horrible crash, then I lost Mamá,” says Sabia. “Tonight I almost lost you. When does it end?”
Roca looks ever more concussed.
Years Earlier.
Devastated. Roca and his adult daughter Iliana Perez and nine-year-old Sabia stand outside a Catholic Church holding hands, surrounded by mourners after the funeral service for Sabia’s papá and abuela. They watch the two caskets being loaded into hearses to be driven to the cemetery.
When Iliana speaks there is nothing but dry flat tragedy in her voice: “A mí la muerte me pela los dientes. How can we put a good face on something this bad?”
Sabia is angry. Her dark eyes and face are preternaturally intense yet self-possessed. She never takes her eyes off the hearses headed to the adjacent cemetery. “Hay más tiempo que vida.” Sabia looks at her mamá and abuelo each in turn, repeats in English: “There is more time than life. I love you, Mamá. I love you, Roca.”
Sabia and Roca put the blizzard at their back and enter the farmhouse by way of its front door. They lock the door, then go down into the basement to another cleverly disguised door in the wall. They pass through and descend a flight of stairs to another door, hidden from the other side, that opens into the mudroom of the underground house. Roca and his Papá designed these doors to be soundproof, airtight, invisible. Roca thought of it as a fun engineering exercise at the time. He thinks of it now as a foundational part of his life.
Roca is exhausted. He begins to feel lost to the visual and auditory haze of his concussion. He drops onto a couch by the end table where he left his phone. He fumbles, tries it. No signal.
Confrontational, Sabia stands over Roca. She talks to him forcefully, nonstop. She argues as much with herself as with him.
“We need to keep President Silver locked in the bunker!”
Roca's sight and hearing blur and clear. Blur and clear. He tries to master his wits. “We need to call 911.”
“No. That’s not the real emergency! We need to hold the President for ransom. Our own 911 for the People!”
“What?” Roca touches his forehead.
“Hold Silver for ransom! Make demands. We could get health care. Abuelo! Listen!”
“Ransom Silver? Take the President hostage? That’s crazy.”
“I’m doing it. I have every right. I call the shots in my own home.”
“Mija, if we don’t call 911, some very big guns will show up and cut us both down.”
“The phone doesn’t work, Abuelo. Nothing works. Not in this whiteout.”
“It will.”
“It won’t. White Empire has gone mad. We need to hold the President to ransom a better world.”
“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, Sabia! You’re possessed! We’ve got the filching President of the United States of America holed up in our survival bunker after saving her from the godforsaken blizzard … her fucking campaign bus blown up by … what? … some terror attack … and you want to imprison her! And her Campaign Manager! Even your Mamá, rest her dear soul, wasn’t that nuts! It would be our death sentence.”
“Mamá would be alive today if she had Medicare for All. You know that. She had no chance without it.”
Roca flinches as if struck. His head rolls then his neck stretches at a painful angle as he remembers the shocking death of his daughter.
Sabia remembers.
She sits by her mamá lying in a hospital bed with a morphine drip pierced into her arm and supplemental oxygen tubed into her nose. Iliana struggles to remain lucid.
“Mamá.”
“Mija. It’s my own fault, Mija. I should have got the test done sooner.”
“It’s somebody’s fault but not yours, Mamá. If we had real health care, you would have.”
“I know, Mija. White Empire. No Pasarán.”
“No Pasarán,” says Sabia.
“The conquest continues – 500 years later,” says Iliana.
“Fuck Christopher Columbus,” says Sabia. “The world's worst Catholic. And he has a lot of competition.”
“Fuck the Church, Mija. But make sure they bury me proper.”
Iliana loses consciousness.
“Fuck the blizzard!” says Sabia. She stands over Roca in the great room. “You know it’s true, Abuelo. Tens, hundreds of thousands extra deaths with no health care! When you got the money to Mamá it was too late.”
“Sabia, Jesus Christ. Stop.”
“I don’t know what could keep Papá and Abuela from getting killed by that drunk driver, but at least we have laws against it! There’s no law for universal health care. We need to force the fucking issue. Mamá would back me.”
“You can’t take a hostage! Hear yourself. It’s monstrous. It’s crazy. And it won’t work.”
“We can do this, Abuelo. Nobody knows anybody survived that bomb. The bunker is completely unknown. There’s no public record of the old coal mine. By now it's all a secret to you and your Papá. Nobody knows. Nobody can know or will know.”
“Sabia you are out of your five senses.”
“We’ve got them right where we want them. Silver, Lin, they're scared to move, lucky to be alive, they owe their lives to you. And me. They owe the People, Abuelo. And what have they done for the People? Shit lies, broken promises nonstop.”
Roca looks weary, reflective, depressed. “No one’s perfect, Sabia. President Silver, well – the bigot fascist thugs of the right are even worse. You know that.”
“All Presidents are terrible, Abuelo. But times have changed. This President was forced to choose a progressive Vice President to get elected: the great Alecta O’Roura-Chavez! If we hold Silver, Alecta will be Acting President. We can make demands for Silver’s release that Alecta will be glad to meet: free health care, free college, debt relief, universal basic income, a living wage. We can demand the Green New Deal to save Earth! No new gas and oil! No pipelines! Presidential orders alone can do a lot of that. Most!”
“You can’t save the world, Sabia. Neither can Alecta. Not like this.”
“Then how!”
“Maybe it can’t be done.”
Sabia paces.
“Fuck that. You guarantee it with that attitude. We need to ransom a bad President to a good one, the bad present to a good future. It would be a crime not to. A crime, Abuelo. You don't want to be guilty, do you.”
“The crime goes the other way, Sabia. I’m not an outlaw. Neither are you. And I’m not that brave. You shouldn’t be.”
Sabia puts a hand on his shoulder.
“Abuelo, you’re old, I’m young. I love you but there’s no future if things don’t change. Only the lies change now. We need to lock the President in the bunker. I mean, it's locked. I locked it. We need to keep it locked.”
“This is not like reforming your high school, Sabia. And you know how hard that can be.”
Sabia pulls her hand back. Roca has said the very wrong thing. He has mentioned high school. Sabia is lit.
“Fuck the goddamn high school! Racist bastards been calling me names since I was little. They get it from their parents and grandparents. Fucking White Empire. Alive and kicking today! Fucking white supremacists. Fucking boot-in-your-face Empire. I intend to end it.”
“Sabia, stop. Forget the school. You can’t fight the whole world.”
“Oh, really? How about we ransom their insanity for our sanity. Who is the real criminal, Abuelo? Not me. Bullshit. I’ll smash your greenhouse in this blizzard, kill all your precious plants, if you don’t keep that door locked to the bunker.”
“Where’s my little Sabia girl?”
“She’s dead.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“So am I.”
“We can't do this, Sabia. You can't lock up the President. I need to let Silver out.”
“I’ll burn your shit if you do, Abuelo. I’ll expose your secret bunker. I’ll wreck the greenhouse. I’ll destroy your reputation online. No more sales and growing for you. A dead world for you too.”
Roca drops his head. All the air seems to leave his body. He looks at Sabia.
“Sabia, we’re family. Anyway, I hid your mother’s jewelry, for safe-keeping, her rings and writings. You could never find them if I don't tell you where. You’d have nothing.”
Sabia steps back from Roca and looks shocked around the room.
Sabia remembers better times.
Her papá Javier Garcia and Roca wash dishes while her mamá writes poetry in a notebook and Sabia reads Keeping the Rabble in Line by Noam Chomsky.
“I need a word that rhymes with 'flower',” says Iliana.
“Power,” says Sabia.
“Already used it. Twice.”
“Sour. Glower. Dour. Scour.”
“Sí, bueno, bueno, Sabia. No offense to your Papá but I gave you my last name Perez for a reason. No rocks in your head.”
“Shower. Bower. Our,” says Javier.
“Sabia is way beyond you, Big Guy.”
“Tower,” says Sabia.
“Sabia’s words are stronger than yours, Javi. Her mind is 'wider than the sky.' Like mine.”
Sabia and Iliana laugh.
“Like your butt!” says Javier.
“Which you love! All of it!”
“Hey, Big Guy!” says Sabia. “How are those dishes coming, Big Guy!”
More laughter from Iliana and Sabia.
The men too are amused.
Sabia refocuses in the great room. She glowers at Roca.
“Liar! You sneaky old liar. I know exactly where Mamá’s things are. Abuelo, you're going to help me force the President to actually give a shit about people like you and me.”
Sabia rips Roca’s phone out of his hand and throws it at the rock fireplace. It shatters. She grabs a small houseplant.
“Sabia, no! Stop! I believe you!”
Sabia smashes the plant and clay pot against the fireplace.
Roca pushes up, dumps keys from a glass bowl, scoops the fallen soil, re-pots the plant.
“Try me, Abuelo. Next is your precious greenhouse. I’m going there right now. You will never see me after this blizzard. I’ll go live with my friends. But I’ll come back with a chainsaw and cut down the orchard. Don’t think I won’t. You’ll have nothing then. We’ll be equal. I’ll go to college and you can cry.”
“Sabia, wait. Wait. If you hate me so much, go ahead, hate me. Hate me and hurt me. But leave the things that grow alone.”
Roca reaches out, tries to hold Sabia. She throws him off. Roca trips and falls to the stone and mortar floor.
Shocked. Almost in fear of herself for a moment, Sabia stares down at Roca. “Roca, I've said it before, I'll say it again: my hatred is pure. Things are too unjust. Everyone can see it. Silver and Lin stay in the bunker. That’s how it’s gonna be.”
Sabia makes a left-handed power fist. She holds it over Roca.
“That’s how it’s got to be.”
