Little Brother

stand down. Will you promise me that?"
    They promised with all solemnity. I let them talk me into napping, but made them swear to rouse me once an hour. I'd have to tickle Masha's phone and I wanted to know as soon as Zeb got back in touch with me.

    The rendezvous was on a BART car, which made me nervous. They're full of cameras. But Zeb knew what he was doing. He had me meet him in the last car of a certain train departing from Powell Street Station, at a time when that car was filled with the press of bodies. He sidled up to me in the crowd, and the good commuters of San Francisco cleared a space for him, the hollow that always surrounds homeless people.
    "Nice to see you again," he muttered, facing into the doorway. Looking into the dark glass, I could see that there was no one close enough to eavesdrop — not without some kind of high-efficiency mic rig, and if they knew enough to show up here with one of those, we were dead anyway.
    "You too, brother," I said. "I'm — I'm sorry, you know?"
    "Shut up. Don't be sorry. You were braver than I am. Are you ready to go underground now? Ready to disappear?"
    "About that."
    "Yes?"
    "That's not the plan."
    "Oh," he said.
    "Listen, OK? I have — I have pictures, video. Stuff that really proves something." I reached into my pocket and tickled Masha's phone. I'd bought a charger for it in Union Square on the way down, and had stopped and plugged it in at a cafe for long enough to get the battery up to four out of five bars. "I need to get it to Barbara Stratford, the woman from the Guardian . But they're going to be watching her — watching to see if I show up."
    "You don't think that they'll be watching for me, too? If your plan involves me going within a mile of that woman's home or office —"
    "I want you to get Van to come and meet me. Did Darryl ever tell you about Van? The girl —"
    "He told me. Yes, he told me. You don't think they'll be watching her? All of you who were arrested?"
    "I think they will. I don't think they'll be watching her as hard. And Van has totally clean hands. She never cooperated with any of my —" I swallowed. "With my projects. So they might be a little more relaxed about her. If she calls the Bay Guardian to make an appointment to explain why I'm just full of crap, maybe they'll let her keep it."
    He stared at the door for a long time.
    "You know what happens when they catch us again." It wasn't a question.
    I nodded.
    "Are you sure? Some of the people that were on Treasure Island with us got taken away in helicopters. They got taken offshore . There are countries where America can outsource its torture. Countries where you will rot forever. Countries where you wish they would just get it over with, have you dig a trench and then shoot you in the back of the head as you stand over it."
    I swallowed and nodded.
    "Is it worth the risk? We can go underground for a long, long time here. Someday we might get our country back. We can wait it out."
    I shook my head. "You can't get anything done by doing nothing. It's our country . They've taken it from us. The terrorists who attack us are still free — but we're not . I can't go underground for a year, ten years, my whole life, waiting for freedom to be handed to me. Freedom is something you have to take for yourself."

    That afternoon, Van left school as usual, sitting in the back of the bus with a tight knot of her friends, laughing and joking the way she always did. The other riders on the bus took special note of her, she was so loud, and besides, she was wearing that stupid, giant floppy hat, something that looked like a piece out of a school play about Renaissance sword fighters. At one point they all huddled together, then turned away to look out the back of the bus, pointing and giggling. The girl who wore the hat now was the same height as Van, and from behind, it could be her.
    No one paid any attention to the mousy little Asian girl who got off a few stops before the BART. She was dressed in a plain old school uniform, and looking down shyly as she stepped off. Besides, at that moment, the loud Korean girl let out a whoop and her friends followed along, laughing so loudly that even the bus driver slowed down, twisted in his seat and gave them a dirty look.
    Van hurried away down the street with her head down, her hair tied back and dropped down the collar of her out-of-style bubble jacket. She had slipped lifts into her shoes that made her two wobbly, awkward inches taller, and