2. The Rebel
The Rebel
Dylan
The faux-snakeskin jacket kept the worst of the wind from Dylan’s chest, but didn’t do much to save her legs from the night-time chill.
Still, she had worn much less on much colder evenings.
The weather had threatened to cancel their plans to go out, but the storm warning had been called off, and now a mix of excitement and apprehension did its best to keep her blood pumping despite the short dress she was wearing.
“I told her, ‘That’s not a fucking Picasso, that’s a Miró.’”
That was Talia. Dylan’s BFF with a heart of gold, and fashionista especialista. Fashion was art too, after all. And knowing Spanish painters from Catalan painters came with her job.
Dylan realised she’d been lost in her thoughts and it was her turn to speak.
“And then you quit?” she guessed, hoping her silence hadn’t gone on for too long.
“No…” Talia scrunched her face, annoyance mixed with an I-know-you-weren’t-paying attention look.
She was wearing a men’s wool Chesterfield coat over a cropped black top, sheer black tights, and a green skirt, zippered up the middle.
“It was hard enough buttering them up at the interview to get this job. The market’s—”
“Fucked, yeah,” Dylan completed. It was something they talked about often. Still, at least Talia’s job was in an area she was passionate about. Not that Dylan hated hers, but it was a dead-end.
“Just grateful I got a job, girl,” Talia said. “Anyway, they’ll just display both of the paintings. Goddess knows how much money they have.”
“Definitely sounds like they could afford to throw a bit more your way then,” Dylan offered.
She loved Talia, but she often felt like she was there just to prop her up like this.
To listen and celebrate her successes, while Dylan’s own victories – and, if she was honest, frequent failures – were quickly glossed over.
She took it as just part of how Talia was, but she couldn’t deny there was some resentment there.
Talia, now engrossed in the details of exactly how many ways Jab – the magazine she worked for – was fucking her, made to walk across the road.
It wasn’t a street they’d gone down before, and the lights of London’s night traffic played on Dylan’s eyes, making it difficult to see properly.
Talia’s polyvinyl-booted foot stepped onto the dark, beaten tarmac just as Dylan noticed the white painted signs on the road indicating where traffic was coming from.
Talia was looking the wrong way.
“Talia!”
Dylan flung her hand forward and pulled hard on the Chesterfield coat. Talia freeze-framed in mid-air, and then swung back towards her as a driverless white auto-car swerved in front of them.
Dylan and Talia banged into each other in the commotion.
“Goddess, fuck—” Talia said, trying to settle herself, her bag on the floor, the coat half off her back.
Dylan tried to calm her breathing. Everything was out of place. She let out a nervous laugh. “I prefer ‘Dylan’ or ‘My best friend’, but ‘Goddess’ will do.”
Talia smiled. She pulled Dylan into a hug, her bracelets clinking behind Dylan’s back.
“That was close,” Dylan said into Talia’s coat. “You gotta be more careful.”
Her friend loosened her grip. “We’re fine. I’m sure the auto-car would have stopped.”
Dylan tsked. “Right… You really trust their algorithm?” She could feel it coming. Fucking hell. She’d just saved Talia, but her friend was still going to find a way to start a fight, however small it might end up being. Talia always hated losing.
“Goddess, no. Look, I’m grateful,” Talia said, brow furrowed. “I just don’t want you thinking you’re Superwoman. We were both lucky.”
“Lucky? That wasn’t luck, that was paying attention.” Dylan knew that if she hadn’t acted, Talia would have been burger meat. And meat was rare these days. No pun intended.
“Alright, alright,” Talia acquiesced with raised arms. “Just don’t let it go to your head. It’s not your responsibility to save the world.”
Ouch. That one hurt.
“You don’t have my parents,” Dylan told her. “I can’t help but try and look out for people. Is that so wrong?” Her eyes prickled, threatening tears, but she held it together. Don’t let it show. Don’t let them know.
One day you’re going to have to fight like we did.
Talia seemed to realise she had taken it a bit too far. “Of course it’s not wrong. I’m sorry, Dee. Speak your mind.” Her friend wrapped an arm around her as they continued slowly towards their destination.
“It’s just… everything is so fucked up.” Dylan took a deep breath before continuing.
“Sure, those scientists bought Earth a few more decades, potentially centuries, though they don’t know for sure.
That’s unsettling enough on its own, but everyone around us…
Look. They’re just completely oblivious. ”
The night was only just getting started. All around them down the street were city boys, business girlies, power folks, in business suits from their day jobs or dressed up and dolled up, all on their way to the various nightclubs and bars dotted through Shoreditch.
“They’re just trying to enjoy themselves,” Talia said. “Why worry about it?”
Dylan huffed. Not from the walk, which was fine after their near-miss with the auto-car, but from having to explain herself.
She was grateful Talia was listening to her, but felt annoyed that she’d have to try and explain the same thing she’d been trying to get her to understand for some time now. Still, she tried again.
“When I’ve spoken to people my folks’ age or older, I get this funny feeling.
” She eyed Talia, gauging her reaction. Nothing.
“I can picture them going to the butcher’s, ordering a pound of cow flesh, then cooking it and serving it to their family.
A living, feeling, intelligent being, mercilessly put down just because of how it tastes.
People really used to eat animals. For pleasure!
Can you believe that?” Angry or upset, she didn’t know which to feel.
Talia nodded, slowly loosening the arm she had around Dylan until she let go entirely.
Both kept walking, and Talia stayed silent.
“Can you?” Dylan prompted.
“It was wrong to do it. But is it really that bad? You know the First Men, in caves, what else could they do but kill to survive?”
Dylan grumbled. It was a typical counterpoint, and she didn’t have the energy to go through the argument right now.
“You don’t have my parents,” she said again.
Talia went silent.
The two kept walking down the busy road.
Some people still ate animals, of course. The law allowed it if you were born before a certain year, were used to a life of flesh-eating, or were somehow allergic to all non-animal sources of protein. And even those people were being canvassed for change. She would know – it was her day job.
She knew it was hard for everyone to live up to their parents.
But it was even harder when they were Mr and Mrs Apocalypse Revolt and played a crucial hand in sequestering the planet from the hands of climate-change deniers.
Dylan’s mum and dad were responsible for sparking a movement that meant nowadays most of the population was vegan, and the remaining fossil-fuel-powered vehicles in the world numbered in the mere thousands.
It had taken a tremendous number of people like them to force the world’s governments to take action.
Her parents weren’t famous, though people might recognise their names. But Dylan knew what they’d done. How much they sacrificed. They did it for her; they told her so often.
It put so much pressure on her.
She hated it.
“Your parents are just perfectly nice, normal folks,” Dylan said. “Mine are…”
Talia only nodded.
“They kept it from me at first, when I got to the age to start asking questions. They told me they’d just followed the trend, complying with the new mandatory veganism laws and learning to help to make the world a better place.
” Fat chance, she thought. “One day I ended up stalking my mum on the Book. Posts from decades ago.”
Talia huffed. “Oh, boy…”
“Constance Colt, spokesperson for London’s AR chapter,” she said, putting on a voice like a TV presenter. “My mum, looking the same just younger, in the process of being de-glued from the PM’s car. That’s how I found out.” She stared blankly forward.
“And then they told you who they really were…” Talia said.
Dylan nodded. “And of course I wanted to grow up to be just like them.”
“You’re not suggesting you’d be happier if there still was a climate crisis, right?” Talia asked warily.
She shook her head. “No, of course not. Of course not. I just… I wish there was something I could fix.”
Talia gave her arm a sympathetic squeeze.
Maybe all of the people around them had it right. They were a couple of twenty-something girls on their way to Aftershock, for goddess’s sake. She should just try to enjoy herself and forget about everything else for tonight.