They put us in separate cells; that suited me fine, in a way; I was getting tired of this bickering. It was like being in a bad marriage, or something. I had to admit, though, there wasn't much in the way of hope. To prove this point to myself, I surveyed the layout of my prison. It was clean enough, with white plastic-coated walls and floor, and a small window about a foot above my head that let in plenty of light, but was completely unreachable. It was about ten metres square; just enough space to pace about in and feel restless. The door was made of iron, with huge hinges set into the wall. It had no handles on the inside. It gave me the impression of some kind of converted bank vault. There was a security camera, as well, set at about the same height as the window, just above the door. I waved at it, then felt like a dick. I bet every fucker who comes in here does that, I thought.

My brief inspection over, I sat back down on the bunk, which was attached to the wall beneath the window. not much more to do now, I thought. I suppose I just wait to see what they do. It occurred to me that I had no idea at all what to expect; despite my nonconformity, before the rather catastrophic and abrupt ending to our little revolutionary escapades that day, I had never actually got into any kind of trouble with the law. Criminal activity was getting rarer and rarer, these days, what with the omnipresent fear of being Swapped. There was a lawless underclass, which consisted of the terminally violent, the oddballs and the just plain useless, who were completely unconcerned about the Social index, but they just lived in the scum zones, the no-go redevelopment schemes which were really just big dumping grounds. And anyway, they were more lawless and uncontrolled than criminal. Criminality implied forethought of some kind. Natasha, our leader, had been in favour of trying to use these discards in our plans, but even she had been unable to come up with any realistic ideas to make a huge bunch of idiots do anything useful. Hope lies in the proles, I believe someone once said. Not if the proles are all idiots. The Copyrights made sure that that was exactly what they were. No, the only criminal activity would be groups like us, working in an organized and unseen way to try and bring down the system. This, of course, was pure speculation; I wondered if there actually were any more resistance groups, if perhaps we had been the only one? It seemed unlikely, but there was really no way of knowing. The whole point of being a revolutionary in this monitored society, was that you had to figure out some way of going undetected. We had managed it through living on the outskirts of the redevelopment schemes, where the standard security devices were pointless. We had also tried to base ourselves near power stations and factories; we had a base near Port Talbot Steelworks, Swansea's very own industrial badlands, as we figured that this probably interfered with tracking devices. John, the main tech guy in our group, had worked on their tracking satellites, and knew that despite the constant refinements in the technology, they couldn't monitor in areas of high industrial activity. This was something anecdotal I had heard, as well; if you ended up in a factory, there was no way that you were ever getting out. They couldn't monitor you properly, and as a result they never knew how the hell you were doing. This meant that the Copyrights would only send you into the Factories if they'd given up on you. Maybe that's what they'll do with us now, I thought. It seemed as plausible as anything else they could do to us.

It was some time later before anything happened. Maybe four hours, maybe six, maybe ten; I couldn't tell. I only knew that I had just managed to completely redefine all my previous notions of boredom. It had always been a state that I'd held a particular loathing for, and avoided above all things. If I'm honest, though, I had failed, quite a bit. Indeed, in my bleaker moments I attributed my involvement in the resistance to nothing more than a particularly bad bout of ennui. One that had lasted for a rather impressive three years. But at least with that one, I'd had TV.

This was something else. I'd read, somewhere, that if the mind doesn't have enough stimulus to keep it interested, then eventually it starts to hallucinate. I can tell you now, it doesn't. If that was the case, then by the time that I out of there, I would have been tripping my nuts off. There was nothing, no weird lights, sounds or any of that supposed interesting feeling of lightness that unwashed idiots tell you is just there for the taking if you only hack off your frontal lobe with this axe. No Buddhist tranquility, either. Just boredom, in its pure and uncut state. I'd even stopped feeling self-pity. Something of a first for me.

So dazed was I, that when the first explosion happened, it barely registered in my consciousness. It was fairly distant, I suppose, and maybe that's part of it. Still, in any ordinary situation, I would have reacted a little quicker to that trained group of armed men and women that came storming into the cell. To be fair, I think I'd probably worked out what was going on when half of that door melted. Still, it was all just a little bit too exciting for me to cope with straight off. It felt a bit like waking up too fast. One of the armed men grabbed my arm, and said something. I think it might have been "come with me if you want to live"�.

All a bit gung-ho, but what can you do? That wasn't the time to be picky, after all:

It was about fifteen minutes later, when we had been rushed out of the complex past a series of decoded or disabled security doors and cameras, that I finally got some kind of composure back, and started to demand things from my rescuers. "who the hell are you?"� I yelled at the nearest one.

The man sat in the chair next to me, a grizzled, grey but healthy-looking chap who looked like he went skiing a lot, and had probably run motivational courses at some point in his life, grinned, and said "we're the resistance."
oh great, I thought. Here we go again.
"And where are we going?"� I decided that acting outraged was the best policy here.
"To Safe House. We'll have more time to talk there"�. He flashed what was supposed to be a reassuring smile at me, and turned away to look at the road again. I hate those kind of smiles, I really do.

One thing I had to admit from the start, though, they were good. Damned good. I tried to imagine our bunch of hysterical idealists and paranoics pulling a move like that; well, I'd seen what happened when they tried. Maybe this lot were on to something. Might actually have a hope. Ah well, whatever.

"nice car" I observed. My patriarchal companion glanced across at me.
"what did you say?" he asked.
"it's a nice car, this. Yours?"�
He kept on driving, staring out at the road ahead.
"No. but the owner will never know it's gone."�
"Why not?"
"They were Swapped ten minutes before we took it."

After half an hour or so of driving, we ended up at an old jetty on the riverside. Three other cars driven by various of our rescuers had already pulled up, and were being briskly covered over by their drivers and a few others who, obviously, had been waiting here for us to arrive. After tarpaulins and the like had been thrown over those, and ours, one of the outhouse doors was opened, to reveal three more cars, completely different makes, I could tell in the darkness.

My driver tapped me on the shoulder. Made me jump a little, I'd kind of forgotten he was there. "you're going with her now", he said, pointing to a grey-haired woman who was busy giving orders to a group of resistance people around her.

Maybe it was the suddenness of this all, but I couldn't even think of something sarcastic to say. Suddenly, a thought struck me. As I was walking to the car that was obviously hers, I turned back to look at the old man.
"where's Sarah?"
"Oh, is that her name? You'll see her soon."�

And then it was off driving through darkness again. Along country lanes, I suppose.
"Are we going to Safe House?" I remember asking.
"In time. We have to get you swept first. You may be carrying tracers"
"You're very good at this, you know. Is there some school, or something, you resistance folk go to?"
"Yes."
Well, I wasn't expecting that for an answer.

What can you do, stuck in a car with a conversationalist like that? I found myself wishing I was back in the motorway with Sarah; at least you could wind her up, get her to react. This woman was all tight-lipped, and buttoned-up, totally focused on what she was doing. No fun at all.
I resigned myself to silence.

We arrived at another location, an office in town, I noticed, with some surprise. Surely this place was right back in the center of danger?
Ah well. I wasn't really in a position to suggest a change of course.

We pulled up into a garage at the back- very fly, all motorized doors and clean, sterile walls. My tanned driver had a remote, which surprised me. This was obviously a place they came to a lot.
"Get out," he said.
"This is Safe House?"
"Yes."

Twenty minutes later, we were sat in what looked like some kind of boardroom. There were about a dozen of us in all; me, Sarah, the frosty women and the tanned man, and a bunch of other chiseled-looking resistance types. I began to feel a little intimidated by their obvious, well, professionalism. It made our group's efforts look a little paltry. That black commando look was practically a uniform, for Christ's sake. Sarah seemed to be feeling the same way. Worryingly, though, I thought I could see hero worship in those bright little blue eyes of hers. That'll be trouble, I thought, I just know it.
The tanned man broke the silence. "I expect you're wondering who we are, and why we've brought you here," he said, with that same infuriating, patrician smile.
"It was beginning to prey on my mind, yes" I replied, trying my best to sound glib.
"well, let me put your fears to bed. I'll tell you why we've taken you, and left others behind in that place." his face was impassive, and i felt a twinge of guilt at the thought that we were somehow better than the other dead-eyed souls we saw in that place.
"We couldn't rescue everyone. but someday we will" and there it was; that same intelligent determination I'd seen in Natasha's eyes, that had made me realise I couldn't just call her a kook and walk away. damn it, he'd got me believing too. but I wasn't going to give in to his spiel, not just yet. you want my enthusiasm, you work for it, fucker.
"That's quite a claim" I said. "care to back it up?"
He smiled at that. "I can see you're not going to let me get away with anything. and I hope I can back it up. let me start by telling you that we know you were involved with a resistance cell before. and we knew what you tried to do."
"really? you know all that?" impressive, i thought.
"We're intercepting transmissions between the Copyrights. we heard about the raid you mounted. we also heard that you'd been reported as captured, and you were scheduled for execution."
he let that hang for a second, between us. I looked at Sarah, and saw disbelief written across her face. fair response; why kill someone when you can wipe them clean and use their body for something else?
"thank you so much," she said. "but I don't understand. Why would they kill us?"
"that's what we want to find out" he said. "we assumed that they must have been rather scared of the both of you, and so we decided you could be useful, and that it was worth the risk breaking you out."
So they were hoping we were really competent rebels. I almost wanted to laugh, but held it back; i guessed some of this group didn't share his optimism; the woman that had driven me here certainly didn't, and was staring at me with a look that could strip paint from walls. the rest seemed dubious, unsure of us yet. there were two of them who seemed to share their leader's conviction; I could see a fervour in their eyes. It made me nervous; I'm not happy with the thought of being trusted that much. I cleared my throat, looked for the right response, but then Sarah spoke up, her voice ringing with pride.
"We'll do what we can."
Silly girl, she'd always felt under-appreciated.