“You’re the one who’s made a mistake. I’m not involved in anything. I don’t have anything else to say to you, and since I’m here under my own free will, I’m going to leave now if that’s ok with you.” You push back the chair you’re sitting in, making sure not to do anything that might be construed as threatening towards the detective, who responds casually.
“Of course you may leave if you want. You’re not under arrest. Here’s my card if you remember anything you might want to tell me.”
As you leave the station the colour drains from your face and you feel light-headed. You didn’t realize how afraid you were in there. Did they notice? Are they really watching you? You try and make your way out as quickly as possible without looking like you’re running scared. What the hell was that about you ask yourself? You decide to tell the others as soon as possible.
The next time you all meet you show them the detective’s card and tell them everything that happened at the station.
“So they didn’t mention any names or any specific details?” asks Phreak.
“No they were pretty vague,” you say. “They just kept saying we know what you’re doing, we know who your friends are. But they never mentioned what they knew.”
“That’s cause they’re talking out of their asses!” says Hobo throwing in their two cents. “They’re just trying to make you think they know more than they do. It’s a typical police tactic. They make it sound as though they know everything about you, and sooner or later you tell them everything they need to know. I tell you, when I was young I got dragged in by the police. They said all kinds of things. They were punching the wall right next to my head, playing good cop bad cop and all that. But they were just taking shots in the dark.”
“It’s true. They’re probably just fishing,” agrees Garlic. “They know you’re an activist, and they know you just recently tried to buy a gun, so they pulled you in on the off chance there was a connection. Then they try and scare you into giving them information that they don’t actually have. It’s exactly how they got the informant to snitch on the Earth Liberation Front.”
“But how do we know they aren’t bluffing?” you ask. “How do we know they’re not listening to us right now?”
“Ultimately we will never know if they’re watching us or not until they bust down the front door,” says Phreak bluntly. “We know that, and that’s one of the risks that we’re willing to take to defend mother earth. There’s already enough crap in this room alone to charge us all with criminal conspiracy. We’re in deep, it’s too late for cold feet now. We have to act with conviction and be prepared to live with the consequences of our actions. If you can’t do the time, don’t do the crime. Did they let you acquire in the end?”
“Yeah, they did,” you say hefting a large duffle bag onto the table and unzipping it. “I bought two semi-automatic .22s cause they’re lightweight and cheap.” Everyone instinctively takes a step back and gets wide eyed as you pull out the piece, popping out the clip and working the action to ensure the chamber is empty before you pass it to Bobcat. “I also got a shotgun cause the shells they use can’t be forensically matched to the gun they were fired from,” you pause, considering the device in your hands with admiration. “And cause they’re awesome.”
“Hey you secret service spooks! You’d better come get us! But watch out, we got guns,” says Hobo with a grin.
“There is no way they would let you have that kind of firepower if they actually thought you were dangerous,” says Red, “but hopefully we won’t need these for what we’re doing anyway right? We don’t actually want to shoot anyone.”
“Just keep in mind when you’re out deep in the bush all by yourself and you run into a security guard in the middle of the night,” says Bobcat raising the rifle to their shoulder and looking through the sight, “you can be a lot more persuasive when you’re packing a gun than without. But I agree, we don’t want to hurt anybody.”
“How’s everybody else doing with their projects?”
“The truck’s ready. It runs on bio-fuel that we can produce ourselves from waste products,” reports Dee. Hobo chips in “We’ve got walkie-talkies but they only work short range. As for the tools of destruction, we’ve got sledges, crow bars, socket sets, a welding torch, and a couple of bags of cement. We can get pretty creative with that, if you know what I mean. What about Bobcat and Garlic?”
“I scouted out some of the sites on the map that Phreak gave me. There are thousands of fracking wells all over the place. They are completely unguarded and ripe for the picking.” Bobcat pauses as if collecting their thoughts before they continue turning deadly serious. “We are poised to attack. We are going to hit their machinery, vehicles, and equipment with welding torches and whatever else we’ve got. There is a good possibility that we’re not going to run into any security at all. But, there is a very real chance that we are not going to get away with this. If we do run into law enforcement out there, I do not want to see this turn into a firefight. There’s no reason for that, especially since we’d probably loose. Just run away if you can, or surrender peacefully. I know that none you have seen the life draining out of an animal’s eyes, but I have. I care about you folks. I don’t want to see any of you get killed. You hear me?”
“We hear you Bobcat,” you say, “and there’s one other thing too. Our actions are going to have consequences that are not limited to us alone. This is not our land that we’re on but Native territory. The indigenous people of this land have been at war with the state for the past five hundred years and any escalation of tactics we use is going to have very real consequences for them the next time they run up against the law. This is going to be a very sensitive thing to do but we need to communicate with the elders of this land before we do anything.”
“What are we supposed to say? ‘Hey do you mind if we blow some shit up on your territory? Don’t worry we’re not going to kill anybody.’”
“Don’t be an idiot. Indigenous people were mobilizing against resource extraction long before we were. There’s a blockade a day’s drive from here. I think we should go and talk to some of the elders about what they think of certain tactics. It would be a great opportunity to show some settler solidarity too.”
Original photo by: Keary O