Breaking the Wheel

Chapter 10

Republic City had changed so much in the time that Hiroshi had been in prison, and he saw Asami's fingerprints on all of it. She had always loved clean, angular lines, and Hiroshi found himself staring out the window of the truck as he drove Takumi to the rendezvous point, admiring her work. The spirit vines wound thick and green round the buildings, and he felt a thrill as he saw how his daughter had integrated the huge plants in her architecture, not relying on them for structural support, but building to incorporate them. It was beautiful.

The plan for recovering the platinum went smoothly; five chi-blockers in earth empire uniforms went in first, taking out the actual guards and opening the main gates for Hiroshi and the other drivers. The rest was a case of keeping the element of disguise, disposing of the earth empire forces that were present and rounding up the workers still at the facility. The safes where the platinum was kept were ones Hiroshi himself had designed, and he'd been able to provide instructions for bypassing them.

"Well, all things considered that could have gone worse." Takumi looked down, pulling at the buttons of his earth empire uniform. "I think that's the lot of it."

Hiroshi shook his head grimly as he watched the masked equalists load the platinum into their trucks. "No," he said. "There's one more thing I need to do here. And something I need you to get for me."

There was a murmur as Hiroshi stepped into the room where they had held the engineers and assembly line workers. Non-benders, all of them, and he recognised their faces. More than one he had interviewed personally, paid hospital bills for, or congratulated at the birth of their children. But most of them weren't equalist material. Some had had brothers or sisters who were benders, others cousins or parents.

"Mr Sato!" One of the assembly line workers came stumbling out of the crowd and flung himself at his feet. "Please-" I thought it would be cool if he was like stumbling out of the crowd here.

"Get back!" The masked equalist who was guarding them interposed herself, grabbing the worker by the back of his shirt.

"Easy, now." Hiroshi held out his hand. "We haven't come to hurt you."

The prisoners stared at him, suspicious. Had he changed so much since going to prison? His hair was almost white now, he supposed, and he was thinner, but he was still the same man who had built this place. They shifted, muttering to one another, and he caught the eye of a few workers he had worked with closely. They looked away, uneasy.

"Then why did you come?" someone called from the back of the crowd.

Hiroshi paced to the middle of the room, the equalists parting to let him pass. "Because I need you. All of you." He looked across at their anxious eyes. "I'm not asking you to fight for us, or die for us. I couldn't ask that. I know many of you have never touched a weapon in your lives, except to assemble it. But the resistance needs more than just fighters. We need builders, too. Workers. People like you, people who will help level the playing field between us and the occupation. If you agree to come with us, you will be helping everyone in the United Republic. If you don't..." Hiroshi looked down, adjusting his glasses. "If you stay, then you should know that you're helping build weapons for the earth empire now. Weapons, like Kuvira's cannon, that will eventually be turned on you and your homes."

"You're just going to let us go?" One of the factory floor workers looked him in the eyes, incredulous, and there was a murmur of disbelief from the others.

Hiroshi raised his hands again. "I'm not going to punish you for showing loyalty to Future Industries. We'll leave you with enough injuries that you can say you resisted us. That's the best I can offer."

He stood aside, leaving the way open for the engineers to stand with the equalist group. The old came to him first; old man Keito who had started as a janitor and worked his way up to a foreman, and Yin, who had been a calligraphy master before he had recruited her as a draughtsman. She'd always been a sympathiser to the equalist cause, and had lamented being too old to fight. The floor workers came next, followed by the satomobile engineers and then the aeronautics group with their apprentices, all standing scared amongst his masked equalists. Not all of them, but enough.