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

After almost an hour of conversation about my capture and rescue, my friends dwindle out of the room until only Malaki and Dawn are left. Mal’s mohawk looks normal again, the stubble from her head shaved off. Dawn has some thin scars on her face and her arm still bears stitches, but other than that she looks healthy.


I’m too happy to be confused about the strange situation I’m in with my two ex-girlfriends, and grip them both by the hands, noticing that my own are scabbed and bony. Some of the color seems to be coming back, though.


I look to Malaki first. There’s still a part of me that thinks of the Martyr Bomb every time I look at her, and I ignore the ball of ice which has just formed in my stomach. “Project Jericho was a success?”


Chapter 60