Sable Wren's Arc

Chapter 1 of 3

Sable Wren had one plan left: reach the smuggler's boat at the docks before the regime turned her face into a flag. So she left her home before dawn. Her home was a shipping container someone had cut windows into and bolted shut against the wind. She pulled the door tight and stepped into the cold. She hated her own face. Not the bones of it, but what people did with it. For weeks now, strangers had sprayed her likeness on walls across Atlantica. Her shaved head. Her cracked lips. Her orange dock vest, bright as a warning light. They painted her as a symbol of the people against the regime. She had never agreed to any of it. Now the enforcers wanted the symbol, and the symbol was her. She rounded the last corner before the water and stopped cold. A fresh mural covered the wall ahead. Her face, three times life-size, paint still wet and dripping. Two enforcers stood beneath it. A third walked the boat line, checking hoods, checking hands. They were guarding the exact stretch she needed to cross. Sable pressed into a doorway. Her boat waited past the enforcers. She had paid for that seat with two years of saved wages. If she turned back now, the boat left without her. She reached into her coat. She carried two things for this. A draped ash-gray cloak, weathered and plain, the kind every ration worker wore. And a slim can of wash-out hair dye, bought off a market cart. She had planned for a crowd to hide in. Instead she had a wall of her own face and three men reading it. She pulled the cloak over the orange vest until no color showed. Then she shook the can and sprayed her scalp fast. Dark dye ran down her neck. She smeared it into her skin, dulling the pale shine that matched the mural. Her hands shook. She kept spraying until the can hissed empty. A cart rolled toward the docks, stacked with crates. Behind it walked a knot of ration workers, all in gray cloaks, heads down. Sable stepped out and fell in among them. She matched their slow pace. She kept her painted eyes on the ground. An enforcer's arm shot out and gripped her shoulder. "You. Look up." Sable looked up. Dark hair. Dye-streaked skin. A tired gray face like a dozen others. His eyes moved from her to the mural above and back. The painted woman had a pale shaved head. Sable did not. "Move," he said, and shoved her forward. She reached the boat line and climbed down toward the water. But the enforcer's stare stayed on her back. He had touched her shoulder. He had felt the vest under the cloak. Halfway to the boat, she heard him call to the others. Behind her, boots began to run.