Rage Within by Jeyn Roberts Page A

destruction. We have them every night. Keeps us angry. Keeps us aware.”
    “Huh?” Michael put his coffee cup down.
    Raj leaned back in his chair. “It’s simple. Revenge. It’s our way of righting wrong. The Baggers took away a lot of things. We’re taking it back.”
    “How do you plan on doing that?” Clementine asked.
    “Come to our meeting and you’ll find out.”
    *   *   *
    They waited in the very back of a large exhibition room. The room was empty of furniture except for a bunch offolding chairs and a currently empty podium. But it was filled with people. Raj had told them there were at least sixty people living at the museum. They were all crammed into the small space. Michael figured they were mostly refugees of the university, students who had gathered together when the earthquakes and killings began. Most of the faces he saw were under the age of thirty. There were a few older ones, maybe former professors or staff. Michael had trouble believing that educated professionals would actually listen to someone like Ryder. But as Michael scanned the room, he saw that most of the older people did look like they wanted to be there.
    They’d arrived late because of Raj; he’d disappeared for a bit, leaving them to continue sitting in the cafeteria until the sun went down and darkness set in. Now they stood with their backs up against the wall because all the chairs were gone.
    “He’s not here,” Clementine said as she scanned the crowd for her missing brother. She studied the faces and heads as people walked past them. But she didn’t venture off on her own. Michael could tell she preferred to keep close to him. She kept chewing on a thumbnail and ignoring the girl with long ponytails who’d taken it upon herself to make sure they didn’t try and sneak off before the rally officially began.
    “He’s really amazing,” the girl said. “He’s got this way of talking. You can’t help but fully believe everything that comes out of his mouth.”
    Clementine turned and whispered in Michael’s ear, “I seriously doubt that.”
    He smiled.
    “He’s okay,” Raj said, but not loud enough for the ponytailed girl to hear. “He’s got some ideas. Bit of an extremist, but he haskept everyone alive. That counts for something in my book.”
    The lights dimmed. Music began to play over the speakers. The crowd came alive, cheering and stomping their feet.
    All this for that guy? I so missed something earlier. You’d think he was a god or something.
    “You are trapped.” A voice echoed over the PA system. Michael raised his head and looked around.
    The crowd cheered louder.
    “They have tried to steal your soul. They have chained down your life. Taken your family. Abused your mind. But we have a weapon too.”
    The crowd went ballistic. Michael looked at Clementine and she rolled her eyes and stuck out her tongue at him.
    The lights in front of the podium went on, flashing red and blue as Ryder took the stage. He held a microphone in one hand, a judge’s gavel in the other. The people in the front screamed harder and waved their hands at the dark-haired man. Someone lit a lighter.
    “Kinda loud, isn’t it?” Michael asked Raj. “I mean, don’t you worry about the sounds reaching the street?”
    “Completely soundproof,” Raj shouted back. “Can’t hear a thing past the main lobby. Besides, we’ve got people guarding the place outside. We do this almost every night. Nothing bad has happened yet.”
    Ryder puffed up his chest and raised the gavel into the air. “This ends now! We will take back our world!” Slamming the gavel down on the podium, he grinned ravenously at his followers. “We will not let these monsters keep us hidden. We need to rise out of the darkness. Take back the light. They try and give us warnings?”
    “WARNING WARNING WARNING,” the crowd chanted, eyes alight. One of the girls in the front started cryingand threw herself down at Ryder’s feet. Her antics only