A month later, everything was going as planned. Weapons and various supplies needed for the revolt had been stolen and were hidden downstairs. Groups of Workers came downstairs for nightly training in how to use their weapons. Ryff, Lena, and Sara were constantly planning the next move. And the upper class seemed to have no idea that a revolt was being born beneath their feet.
Even though everything was going fine, it was going much to slowly for Ryff. "At this rate," he sighed to Lena as he helped a young woman named Trian learn to use a gun, "it'll be a year before the revolt! We can't wait that long!"
"We have as much time as we need," Lena reminded him patiently. "As long as the upper class does not learn about the revolt, we have as much time to prepare was we want. I'd rather launch an organized, winning revolt in a year or two than an unorganized revolt that ends up like the first now."
"But the upper class could find out any day, and the risk gets greater every day we spend preparing," Ryff grumped. "I know they're ready now, if they damn fools'd just trust themselves to it!"
"If we had waited longer to launch the first revolt," Sara reminded him in her cool yet powerful way, "you might not be planning this one at all."
Ryff opened his mouth to say something in his defense but, finding nothing to say, closed it again and shook his head and returned his attentions back to Trian and her target practice.
Unfortunately, the next night it became apparent that the upper class was beginning to suspect. Night guards were posted at the dorms and had to be killed and burned to allow the Workers to get to their training downstairs. It was not unusual for a night guard to dissapear, so a few would not be missed, but if they had to kill four a night... then the upper class would being to take notice.
"We should move now, before they move against us," Ryff announced to Lena and Sara as he strode to meet them after bringing down the last group. "And the upper class is getting ready to, believe me. Gildo cleans their offices, and he says they're sounding all uptight about what's been going on around here lately. It is time to start the revolt."
Sara sighed sadly but nodded. "It is time," she agreed, but her voice told him she'd rather have waited a few more weeks.
Ignoring her, Ryff turned to the Workers. "Workers!" he boomed, making every head snap towards him. "You have trained long and hard, and now we will have something to show for it! We will start the revolt tonight!" There was a muffled roar of approval and Ryff stood grinning out over his people until it died down.
"Arm yourselves and take extra weapons to give to any Workers you see. Kill any upper class men, men or women, but take young children with you. We do not kill children." Lena shot him a glance at this, having been told of his "massacre" in the lab but he went on without a pause. "Once we get everyone out, we will burn down the factory and continue to the next! Understood?" Another roar of approval met his words and then the group dispersed, a seething mass of people as they headed for their weapons and began to stream up the stairs.
Ryff and Lena scaled the elevator shaft after they armed themselves and were immediatly met by a flustered night guard.
"What the hell do you think you're doing, Worker?" he snarled and aimed his gun square at Ryff, who merely curled his lips into a smile.
"What I've been wishing to do since I was a kid," Ryff replied and the guard found himself with a knife flung into his chest. Ryff yanked it out, or rather slid it out, human flesh was nothing to his kinfe, calmly wiped it on his pants, and continued on, leaving the guard on his knees, gasping for breath.
Lena delt with the next guard they encountered in a similar manner, as cool and collected as though she'd shot a wooden target and not a living man.
The rest of the Workers had also made short work of the guards and the hallways which had before only tasted Worker blood were now spattered with upper class blood. Guards lay strewn about in impossible positions, all with expressions of contempt and suprise on their faces.
"Well, they certainly learned well," Lena noted as she examined one of the dead. "Perfect aim, too. Probably never felt the bullet. Pity. He should have suffered more."
Gunshots erupted in a hallway behind them and were answered in the same way. The sounds of men and women dying were barely audible over the spattering of gunshots, but they were sickening and unmistakeable at the same time. "Get down!" Ryff snarled, pulling Lena to the ground next to him. They waited until the shots ended and the cautiously crept towards the hallway.
Nothing could have prepared them for the scene that met their eyes. At least twenty upper class men lay dead or dying and ten Workers were in much the same position. Lena must have recognized someone among them, for she ran to the side of a black haird woman who looked strangely familiar.
"Trian?" Lena choked on the name as she knelt by her friend. The cloth around the center of Trian's chest was dyed deep red with blood from the wound that was killing her and one bloody hand still clutched the gun that had failed to save her. "What happened?"
"They came round the corner," Trian managed, though each word sounded like a tremendous effort. "Did we get em all?"
Lena smiled and nodded. "Every last one of the bastards."
Trian smiled weakly. "Good. Wouldja do me a favor Lena?"
Lena nodded. "Of course, Trian. Name it."
"Make sure the rest of them end up the same way. Or worse."
Lena and Ryff left the bloody hallway after Trian's chest rose and fell for the last time. Ryff wore a grim expression of determination; Lena a murderous glare deadly enough to kill anyone who dared to meet her eye.
The revolt was truly happening now. Skirmishes between the upper class and the Workers were heard from every hallway. Lena and Ryff tried to avoid these hallways: they had a bigger goal. The owner of the factory himself was their target.
His office was the most luxurious part of the factory. Tonight he was at his desk, reviewing a report when there was a knock on the door. He raised an eyebrow and decided that whoever it was would lose their job for it, but invited them in anyway.
Whoever he was expecting, it certainly wasn't the ragged yet dangerous looking pair of workers that swung open his door and aimed a gun and a knife at him.
"Guards!" he bellowed nervously, slipping his hand into his desk and retrieving his own gun. "Guard! Where the hell are they?"
"They're not coming," Lena purred smoothly, flowing up to lean on his desk, gun pointed nonchalantly at his head. "That is, they might try, but they'll be stopped before they get here."
The owner chuckled. "By who? A Worker like you?" The safety clicked off the gun. "Hey hey, watch where you're pointing that thing, missy. It might go off and kill someone."
Lena raised an eyebrow. "No, really? I never knew. Maybe I should just find out." Her finger itched to pull the trigger, but she didn't. This was the man who had made her life a living hell for the past eighteen years, but still she did not pull the trigger.
"Look, put that down and go back to bed like a good little Worker, hmm?" the owner asked. "There's no need to get all excited and go killing innocent people."
"Innocent?" Lena's laugh was a harsh bark. "You're hardly innocent. Who do you think ordered me to slave for you everyday? Who put a number on me like I were a peice of meat that had to be claimed? It was you, and all the upper class. And guess what, we don't like it too much. So this is for all the real innocent people."
She pulled the trigger and the owner's head jerked back from the force. A bit of blood spattered on her shirt, but Lena paid no attention to it. She put her gun back in its holster and turned away, giving the dead man slumped in his chair no more notice than she would have a dead rat. "That was for Trian," she told Ryff quietly as they left the office.
The revolt was going well. The upper class was now strewn about the halls, their own whips and prods tossed beside them in contempt. By now, the upper class knew what was going on and had decided to use the same technique they'd used to end the first revolt.
At first it was just a faint, bothersome odor. But soon people became dizzy, and headaches set in. People fell to their knees and vomited, others doubled over, bodies shaking. Ryff knew what it was. "Everybody out!" he bellowed and, grabbing Lena by the wrist, headed for the nearest window.
Most of the factory, luckily, was underground to conserve space above ground, so the window they came to was only ten feet off the ground. The only problem was the glass in the window. It was double pane, and made out of thick panes of diamond so it could not be broken by a fist or a rock and doubtfully even by a bullet. Lena banged on the window hopelessly for a few minutes before crumpling to the ground. Ryff pulled his knife from it's sheath, slicing the sheath in the process, and sliced through the glass. He slung Lena's thin frame up over his shoulder and hurled himself out of the window, landing soundly outside.
Ryff filled his lungs with deep gulps of air and relished the cool feeling of the grass beneath his skin. He was finally free. "Why aren't people following us?" Lena asked, voice wavering. "Shouldn't they see the window?"
Before he could answer, the factory answered for him. With a whoosh, it went up in flames. A few people jumped out of the window, but they were so badly burned that they would not survive long. Sara was among them.
"Damn stuff is flammable," Sara told them with a wry grin. "Someone lit a match to see, and the whole place exploded."
Lena wanted to help her but the old woman waved them away. "You two go, this whole field'll be in flames soon, so I suggest you run as far and as fast as you can and get on the other side of the biggest body of water you can find."
Ryff pulled Lena away from Sara's charred body and they started running. The fire seemed to be following them, engulfing the entire field behind them. They ran at a breakneck pace until Lena stumbled and Ryff had to pause to hoist her onto his back. He kept running until he was on the other side of a large river. He lay Lena down and, using the last of his strenth and the knife that had saved his life once before, cut the beams that bound the wooden bridge to his side of the river before collapsing beside Lena.
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