On the third hour John Preston had gone to his children's school and taken them out of it, walking them home between the gunfire and the screaming. His daughter started at the first and second bomb that went off and huddled against him for protection. His son never flinched, and Preston wondered if the boy had anticipated better than he had.

They ate a quiet dinner with barely three words exchanged between the three of them, nothing more strenuous than pass the salt. It was like old days, except no one chided his daughter for her fear and he fidgeted with his fork somewhat. Little steps. There was some getting used to things for all of them, no matter how long they had been secretly forgoing their dose.

Preston went to sleep with the echoes of the bombs still in his ears and wondering if the gunfire was distant because it had moved on down the street or because it was hours old and he was only remembering it.

"No school today," he pronounced in a quiet voice the next morning. "You'll do your lessons here."

It was an instinct. He wasn't experienced with revolutions except what history had taught, and as big a proponent of the Librian existence as he had been even then he was no stranger to revisionist history. One couldn't trust it if such a deep change had been made. There were always exaggerations. Always messages.

But he was starting to wonder if perhaps there hadn't been enough exaggeration.

Robbie leaned over his sister and tutored her in her lessons with the same gentle sternness that he had used to remind her to act, at least, as though she was on her dose. His voice sounded different to Preston's ears, and he wondered if that was the revolution or simply his going off his dose. Every day was a new feeling to discover. A different way of looking at the world.

Right now the world looked red and orange and sooty black. The world was burning, and he had set the fire.

When he had assumed the responsibility of toppling Father from his mighty and distant throne he had thought the only risk he was taking on was his own death. Provisions had been made for his children (provisions that surely would have raised some alarms if it had taken longer than the few days to begin the revolution) and it did not occur to his newly de-programmed self that they would grieve if he was gone.

He wondered what he would have thought of the whole mess before he had gone off his dose. He wondered if the angry, watery feelings would go away if he went back on it.

Useless to wonder, really. The plants were destroyed, there would only be a finite amount, what he had hoarded, and when that was gone he would have to cope with the feelings that were swimming through him like tiny wriggling fish. Making his dinner churn in his stomach. Making his legs weaken until he had to sit down.

Was it guilt? Was it panic? He had gone for the better part of his life without feeling anything but the occasional detached curiosity and now everything was on fire, including him. He sat on the edge of his bed with his head in his hands and his fingers pushing through his hair and only occasionally looked up through the glass. He wanted to put the white paper back up but didn't know how, or what it was. Other people had done that. Other people who were now dead, most likely.

The thought made him vomit when seeing streets lined with broken bodies had done nothing to shatter his calm, and he found himself racing for the bathroom. One foot kicked the door closed so that the children wouldn't hear. There was an instinct at work. He threw up until there was nothing but bile sharpening his tongue. Flushed the toilet and stared.

No one had told him that this was the price of revolution. That with the promise of a new life came the price of the blood to build it. His hand clutched the edge of the sink and smashed down on his morning dose, put there by habit. Shards of glass sank into his flesh before he realized what was going on and rolled away. From the sink. From the toilet. He sat with his back against the bathroom wall and tears poured down his face because he didn't know how to stop them.

There were shards of glass in his hand, golden liquid merging with the red and somehow that made black. It stained his hand, and when his fingers moved to pull the glass out at least they shook, so he didn't.

Choice. His hand might get infected, or a shard of glass might work its way in and make his hand useless for anything he might wish to use it for. Consequence. He would have to find other work, which he might have to do anyway, but no one had use for a one-handed enforcer.

Choice. The system of emotional suppression had suddenly seemed unfair, so he had decided to change it. Consequence. No one knew how to control themselves without the aid of their interval, and the whole world had overturned itself and shook until its guts spilled out.

Preston started to yank the shards of glass out, fingers slippery, one piece at a time. With a good hard yank, so that it hurt. He wanted it to hurt. He deserved to be hurt for what he had done.

He had made a promise to the revolutionaries, to his children, to the people for whom he was responsible that he would take care of them. That things would be done. That the world would be safe. He had failed in his responsibilities. It didn't seem fair that he wasn't the one paying the price of it. Didn't seem. Didn't feel.

Go to the top! For you have reached the bottom.