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By Root 867 0

The End, a room that might once have been a banquet hall or a ballroom. Today, it contained maybe two hundred people, mostly residents of The End and other impoverished neighborhoods, individuals of every race and description. On a raised dais made from construction scraps that afternoon, Roog, Cetra ski Toram, and Melinka sat. They had taken turns addressing the crowd, alternating between describing detailed political and economic scenarios and doing some pure rabble-rousing, trying to direct the audience’s anger at the Cyrian government. When Kyle had suggested that Michelle should also be on the dais, she had colored and waggled her hand in the Cyrian gesture of negativity. He was getting used to conversing with her in English with touches of Cyrian thrown in, like that or the back and forth hand wobble that indicated assent or agreement. “I’m just a foot soldier,” she protested. “Not a general.”

“I know a little bit about strategy,” he admitted. “And I know that generals aren’t worth much if they don’t have foot-soldiers they can count on.”

“I get the feeling you know about a lot of things, Joe Brady,” she replied. Then she hushed him, because Roog was talking and those near them were shooting them dirty looks.

“No plutocracy can survive indefinitely,” Roog was saying, “because, by definition, the majority of its citizens are shut out of power. And when a majority understands that it’s being used and abused by the powerful for the sole benefit of the powerful, then that majority rises up and takes back its proper role.”

This pronouncement was met by cheers and warm applause from the audience. Roog waited for it to finish and went on. “The Cyrian plutocracy is at that point now. They are willing to kill us-kill the majority-because we are inconvenient to them. That’s always-always- a sure sign of a plutocracy that has lost its way, with a leadership that has lost its collective mind. Individual members of government may still be sane, but the government itself is insane. Unsound. Mad. The time has come to stop fighting back with words-words can only influence those sane enough to hear and understand them. The time has come for action!”

A much louder roar of applause went up this time, and Kyle found himself hoping the government didn’t have spies in the neighborhood. This room was deep inside a large building that might have been a luxury hotel, in its prime, but to have contained the noise this bunch was making, he hoped it was still well soundproofed.

“I can’t promise you that victory will be easy,” Roog said when the applause had abated. “It won’t be. I can’t promise you that it will come without sacrifice-and you, of everyone in this nation, have already sacrificed plenty. It will not. I can’t promise that you will all be here to taste the fruits of your efforts-the fresh taste of freedom, of self-governance, of economic possibility. You won’t be.

“We are talking about a struggle, and in a struggle there are casualties, and some will die, and others will be injured, and along the way there will be dark days when you wonder if it’s worth the pain and the loss and the heartbreak. So I say to you today, look at yourselves. Look at those next to you, behind you, all around you. Look at your families, your young. It’s for them that we must fight. For yourself, of course. But also for your neighbors, your loved ones, and your offspring. For everyone that you know, and everyone you are ever likely to know. Because we fight for justice, and there is no justice if justice is selective. Justice must stand for all if it is to stand for any!”

When the crowd broke into more sustained cheers, Kyle turned to Michelle. “She’s good,” he said.

“She knows how to work a crowd,” Michelle agreed. “If she could address thousands, or tens of thousands, all at once, we’d have a revolution today and economic justice tomorrow. But she would be killed before she could get a word out, if the government knew she was doing this. As long as the struggle has to remain secret, it’ll be a hard road. As it is we need to rely on these people