The crowd had dispersed all while John looked up. If he squinted his eyes enough, he could imagine the yellow lights as the actual sun. And so, he did, the days coming to him in sparkly streaks throughout the darkness.

  He could imagine it feeling like a heater, or like the hot air which comes off a radiator. He stood there with his hands in his pockets, looking up into his imagination. Another smile grew on his face as he swore that the blue sky was emerging from the darkness. He didn't realize his eyes were closed. He only figured it out when he woke up on the ground with a sore arse, having fallen over from falling asleep standing.

  Pain is quite the antidote to sleepiness it seems. His stomach growled at him, but he pushed it to the side. “Stop being distracted.” He thinks. He has to find Amy. And so he searches. It didn't take long for him to find her, sat on a metal bench beside one of the wheels of the plane. Crosby wasn't there. She was on her digiphone. It looked like she was waiting for something.

  He walked up to her slowly, a couple feet away as he says.

  “Hi Amy. It's good to see you.”

  She looked up to him slowly, a reserved look on her face. John didn't realize how much he looked like hammered shit at the time.

  Amy gets up and looks at his face closer. “John?” She asked.

  “Yes.” John replies.

  “JOHN!” She shouted as she crushed him in a hug. He returned one just as she did, except weaker and slightly warmer due to his jacket.

  “I missed you!” She said, her head buried his shoulder, her voice muffled. “And I'm getting fucking sick of losing you like that!”

  “I'm sorry.” John says, as Amy slowly breaks the hug. “Are you?!” She asked, almost aggressive.

  His voice is soft and drained as he replies.

  “I’m tired, Amy. I'd love to make it up to you but… it's been a long day.”

  Amy looks around as his word registers, feeling she is somehow in the wrong. “Oh no… you don't have to make up for anything John. I'm sorry.”

  “It's okay.” John replies, his slouched head slowly looking back up to. As he does. She replies.

  “I’d love for you to catch up on some sleep, but since you're here now, there is something you need to do before that.”

  “What?” John asks, walk-crawling to the other side of the bench. He sits down, and Amy joins. She tells him.

  “Gary. He is giving up leadership. He's passing it onto you.”

  “Me?!” John asked, looking down at her with more energy than before.

  Amy tries to explain it to him in a way that won't upset his tired state.

  “He hasn't told anyone yet. But him and I had a talk about it just soon after you left. He sees something in you, John. And I think I saw it even before he did. And so we agreed under the condition you came back and… well… here you are.”

  John looked away at the ground as the burden slowly sunk upon him. “And I'm very happy you're back.” Amy adds, still looking even as he looks away.

  He musters a reply as he rubs his face. “I'm happy to be back with you too. But I am not in the mood for anything else right now. I wanna eat something, then go to sleep.”

  “You will.” Amy replies. “Just one more thing once Gary shows up.”

  The two waited by each other for quite a few minutes. John fell back to sleep almost instantly, and while Amy wanted to talk, she wanted even more for him to get what he wanted.

  And so she sat looking at her digiphone, seeing what's changed on the contentsphere now she’s able to. It looks like a lot of people are complaining that their SERaMACs androids are acting out of character.

  No violence from what she can see, but they're being described as being much more “unwilling” or “detached” or acting almost as if they'd lost half their training. An interesting development, she thinks.

  She almost wants to talk to her SERaMACs again, but she decides not to. There's a lot of volatility in the market, whatever that means. It looks like that dude Douglas De Shult has secured the blue party nomination, whatever that means. She was never big into politics… although… who knows. Now might be a good time to see if things go well. She checks out the red party candidates, whom are Lawrence Kilmeade... and a few other who looked to have no chance of winning the nomination.

  She learns that, oh, Douglas De Shult is the president. She didn't even know they had one!

  As she dives further into the rabbit hole, she witnesses how there are millions of people out there who discuss politics vehemently. Scrapping with each other in heated internet arguments. People whose lives seem half consumed by this, and yet… she didn't even know who the president was. How could it be such a big deal to these people? Shit, who's to say if anything she is reading is even fact? It could be all made up as far as she is concerned, it wouldn't be the first time a rabbit hole turned out to be a purposeful red herring.

  The politicians seem to get along just fine from what she can tell. Not from their campaigns, as boy, it seems they're both convinced the other will end democracy once they’re elected. Their pundits are as vile as they come. But from their shared donors, special interests and oddly uniform investment portfolios; the truth of the matter emerges.

  But, her deep dive is cut short as she hears some boots marching closer on her right. She looks up, a muscular, smiling older man with his arms crossed. “Is he still breathing?” He asked jokingly. Amy darted her head into his torso to frantically make sure he was. Of course, he was, and so she looks back to Gary with a whisper. “Don't do that! That's not nice.”

  “Oh you lovebirds, you two.”

  Gary jokes, his sentence cut short by Amy.

  “We're not… love birds. Or whatever you said. He's just my best friend.” Gary shakes his head as he gets closer to John. “Yeah, that's what I told myself before her and I got together.”

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  He taps his shoulder firming, getting John to open his eyes.

  “Wake up sunshine.”

  “Huh? Sunshine?” John said as he got his bearings. “Oh. Hey Gary. Got the uhh… stuff loaded off?”

  “Mhmm.” Gary hums, grabbing a box to sit on. He hadn't slept for just as long as John, yet seemed to have far more energy. He sits down on the box, opposite and between the pair.

  “I’m sure Amy here has given you the news. In about five minutes, I'll give a speech to let everyone else know. You're gonna be talking after me, you hear?”

  “Sure.” John replies, having no idea what he will say.

  Gary asks a question after John's assurance.

  “Good. Now. How is Jimbo?”

  “He's… uhh…” John remembers the facility. He remembers closing Jimbo's eyes. “He's… he's in a better place now. He's… amongst the stars.”

  John told him, not having much of an understanding of what Jimbo meant when he talked about the universe and the cosmos.

  Gary nodded his head. Hugs legs were wide apart, his hands together and his elbows on his knees. His face wasn't so happy by this point. He looked lower down. “Good.” Gary says. “I hope he rots in the depths of Hell.”

  Gary looked back up to John, their eyes making contact. John could see the fury in his eyes. It was a sad sight to see.

  Unfortunate, but to be expected. His fury was made apparent as he asked another cold question. “Was it painful?”

  “...yes” John replies apprehensively.

  “Good.” Gary finishes with, standing up and reaching out a hand which John takes, fatigued. “Let's go and talk to them now, John. You can rest easy afterwards.”

  “One thing before I go up there.” John says, putting his hands in his jacket pockets as he turns to Amy. He pulls out his digiphone and hands it to her.

  “I need you to read this. Go to digipad. There's a lot of information on there I'll need you to read.”

  “I… okay got it.” Amy says, subtly leaning into his new position as leader now. She gently takes it from him, all while he looks up at the ladder.

  It appears a million miles tall, the roof impossibly high above it.

  A mountain with a sea of prying eyes on the other side.

  He lumbers to the bottom, Gary escorting him.

  “Son. If my old arse can get up there, so can you.”

  “Lead the way.” John insists. Gary shakes his head and then replies. “Nope. I'll follow your lead.”

  John just wants it to be over. Ascending for the talk will do the trick.

  And so he does. He crawls up the ladder onto the wing proper, his body feeling as if it is weighted down by an anvil. Gary followed just as he said he would, walking past John at the top as he prepared to speak.

  John has no idea what to say. He listens to Gary just as the rest present do.

  “Hello! Everyone. Pay attention. You have known me as the ragtag leader of this resistance movement for a long time now. But all good things gotta come to an end. And for me, this is a good time to pass on the torch.”

  John pokes his head a bit further up to gauge the reaction of the crowd, the looks on their faces seeming totally unsurprised. Yet, at the same time, kind of happy in a way. His brain failed to process it very well as Gary continued, his body rather still and subdued.

  “I’m sure many of you can guess who it is given how things had changed since he got here. He is a man who is unwilling to take the role. A man after my own heart.”

  Gary looked back at John, a look of peace. Rest. Acceptance in his eyes.

  “Please. Everyone. Give it to our new leader, John.”

  John stood tall and walked forth, beside Gary who smiled widely. The crowd gave him a standing ovation, but they were already standing, so big deal. They clapped as Gary shook John's hand, telling him quietly. “Do well.”

  John nodded and Gary let go of his hand, heading to the other side of the plane. As he does, John looks over the crowd, seeing the many eyes which look up to him. The many face, now his own responsibility.

  “Everyone.” He says as he begins his speech.

  “I'm tired. And I don't apologize for it. I'm tired because I have information that will be invaluable for our moment.”

  The crowd seems to give him a funny look, though he brushes past it.

  “Information is… the key to success. Because, like, we haven't been able to much because we haven't had information. But now that we do… obviously look all around you.”

  A few heads in the crowd started nodding at his words. Others, still needing a bit more convincing.

  “Once we have that information, that's when we can… I dunno. Get more recruits. Save more people from the system. Get more man power.”

  He loses some with this section, so seems to gain the thoughts of others.

  “Because of there is one thing I know for sure, it is that the system… fucking sucks! I mean, you know Jimbo? I don't mean to speak ill, but I literally drove that man directly into a meeting with the assholes. And then, after he died, I managed to escape! In a car made over sixty years ago!”

  The crowd grew a subtle shock. They can't tell if they were surprised by his tone, or somehow though he was a traitor, or something else.

  He was just trying to survive the attention as his deliriousness fueled his train of thought.

  “Those motherfuckers are absolutely useless. It is a fucking shock that they managed to get the power they have because, in any equal or fair system they would've failed long ago. They are useless! And so we have a much greater shot at fucking them than I think we think we do. Am I right?!”

  He got quite a few nods in the crowd, a lot of them talking amongst themselves as they looked up to him. He begins to conclude his speech.

  “If I had to guess, it's the very fact people think they're so good damn powerful that keeps them where they are. But, like, obviously we're here because their system doesn't work. It's shit. And so if it's so shit, then how does it keep going? Do you know what I mean?!”

  The crowd goes silent as the question lingers. Rhetorical in nature, no one replied before he reached his conclusion.

  “And so think about it like this. All of the people in this room are far more willing to do a good job than the enemy. You see, we actually need to be competent. And… I don't fucking know. Maybe results speak louder than words.”

  He rubbed his eyes as he lost his thoughts, soon looking over the crowd; a smile growing on his face. He throws his arms up in the air, his jacket making him look massive and tall.

  “Who wants to fuck ‘em up?!”

  “YEAH!” The crowd shout in unison, his drunken ramblings somehow resonating with them. He didn't know why. He didn't want to question it. He just threw his arms in the air again, reviling in the fruits of his speech.

  The crowd cheered him as he took his exit. He looked behind, Amy and Gary on the other end to his left and right. Amy stood there nodding, her face clearly emotional in some way, her hands together in front.

  Gary also nodded with his arms crossed, emanating approval like a heater. John approaches the two, slow and unsteady. “That was... good.” Gary told him. “You did good.”