During the Second Civil War, a new U.S. political party called the Family Protection Movement established The Divide, which separates Normal people from those who are gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender. Seventeen-year old Serenity Blackwater lives in the normal Midwestern town of Mapleville, but she is not normal. She hacks into an illegal gay chat room and meets Dawn, a lesbian who lives in a gay community less than a mile away. Serenity discovers normal people can bribe their way inside the walls and decides to go, both to meet Dawn and check out what may be her future home. Dawn is even more beautiful than Serenity hoped, and the two soon become a couple. But Serenity only has a few months before she must take the Normal Verification Test, and then she’ll be separated from her family forever. So she joins the Human Equality Organization, an underground group working to end The Divide. Dawn thinks the rebellion is too dangerous, and since Dawn’s ex-girlfriend Malaki is also a member, Serenity doesn’t tell Dawn about her involvement. Serenity reveals to the HEO that her parents are leading a campaign to organize attacks on all Gay Communities. With her help, the HEO creates Project Jericho, in which all Gay Communities walls will implode at once. But after too many delays, and when Dawn discovers Serenity has been spending more time with Malaki than her, Serenity knows she has to start the revolution herself. She heads to D.C. to contact a group of senators secretly against The Divide ... or straight into a trap set by the Family Protection Movement.

Uprising

Rage boiled inside me. We were supposedly in a rebellion with all of the communities’ legitimate leaders involved, but nothing was actually happening.


I pounded my fist on the table. “None of this is going to keep me from getting banned!”


Malaki put a hand on mine, but I brushed it off.


“Is this all we’re really doing?” I demanded. “Hiding out in a theater basement and handing out fliers? It’s got to be a bad sign when it’s so easy a seventeen-year-old can do it. Something has to happen, and soon. We need to stand up and shout what we want. We need to show the normal leaders that we have as much right to live freely in this country as they do. I just found out yesterday that because of Project Politician Persuasion, normal people are talking about attacking the Gay Communities.” I stood and clenched my fists, raising my voice in anger. “We need to get a bunch of bombs and blow the walls out there apart!”


Chapter 34