Darling, traveled under her nom de guerre, wearing the occasional disguise – wigs and glasses. Lifted shoes and invented limps. She was both investigating and investigated. Though not yet defenestrated, the threat was always there. Persistent pursuit. It was adrenaline action without rush. Always professional. Always the cause.
She carried memos where digital traffic was routinely intercepted. Whispered secrets where phone calls could be overheard. Passed notes in the back of class, backstage, and dead drops out front. They’d given her an implanted electrolarynx to disguise her voice and quiet thumbnail cameras. They’d given her passwords and encryption authentications. But she could not do it alone.
Milo too, serving in an army without a gun, within the hidden ranks. Constantly pushing back with ink and film and precision knives against despotic force. Unlawful, maybe. But they would not be brought under the power. They would not be enslaved by chaos or corruption. They would not be held in bondage by fascist atrocities or soldiers in the church.
There were cops on the street and in the air to maintain the deregulated status quo – twenty-four seven drone surveillance. Masked blacked out forces operating with impunity. Between the streetlights, between the taboo, the dangerous, the risky and the public square. Everywhere. There were dead friends too. Murdered and long dead men and women with names unspoken unlisted, dirtied with painful memories. Teenage boys stabbed in jail. Women beaten to death by sidewalk police. Broken down, despised and ostracized by political forces forever beyond their reach.
But not without a fight. They’d sworn true faith and allegiance to justice, and to love if not to law.
She saw reflections in the mirror, in the pupils of strangers’ eyes. Reflections in late-night television. The weight and cruelty of the everwatching eye. Flickering screens and shifting positions. Emotion laid low, beneath layers of self-control. Passion suspect beneath purpose.
House and home. Children. What could not be protected had to be put aside. He had plans. She had opportunities. None of it mattered. Their marriage now, their only safeguard. They’d sacrificed everything but one another.
The Darling and Milo stories:
1 - Everything’s Back to Normal
2 - One Life and One More
3 - Milo Remembers
4 - Milo Wonders
