Rebel Hands

I fire a glance at her eyes. They’re aimed at the movie screen, but her attention is on her hand, positioned on the armrest between us. An ambush, set and waiting. Waiting for my hand to make contact. Explosions from the film splash orange and white on her face.

“Sir? We have to act now. The film is at a climax, and we may lose the advantage if it proceeds into the conclusion,” I remind myself.

I’m right. The climax, with its loud flashbanging and impassioned dialogue, provides cover enough to hide the pounding in my chest and the shakes in my breath. We can’t lose the moment, especially with the target in striking distance as it is. I shoot one more quick look at her hand. Fingernails are painted, yellow, I think, right?-- Irrelevant. Doesn’t matter. “Engage,” I give the order. 

I watch in tense silence as the command is relayed from the Command Center to Left Arm and from Left Arm to Left Hand…

Nothing happens. 

“Engage!” I repeat.

Nothing.

“Engage!--”

Alarms blare.

“Sir!” Left Arm runs in, panting. “Left Hand is rebelling! It refuses to move!”

“Give it The Countdown! From three!” I order. 

“Yes, sir!” Left Arms runs off again.

The Countdown has worked before when both legs rebelled at the command to jump from the cliff into the lake below. Or more recently, when Right Thumb rebelled against hitting the ‘send’ button on the text that got us into this date in the first place. The Countdown is an old strategy, but effective.

We all ready ourselves as the intercom proceeds. Three… Two… One… 

Nothing.

“It didn’t work!”

What?! 

“Target is mobile!” Eyes reports.

Indeed, it is. Her fingers creep closer through the dark, army-crawling like a Spec-Ops sniper team and dropping over the edge of the armrest, hanging dangerously close to my own fingers, which have only dug further into their treasonous position on my leg. 

This should have been a much quicker battle than it’s turning out to be. “Open comms to Left Hand,” I instruct.

“Roger. Channel is open.”

“Hand, what the hell is going on down there?!”

Static is my only response. 

You’re kidding me. This is getting bad. Two characters on the screen are sharing an intimate moment, they might kiss. If they do, the intensified tension could cause all panic to break loose, and I’ll lose any hope of making a move. 

“Alright, everyone think, think!” I pace around the Command Center.

“Sir, your friends said something about this moment. They created a contingency plan. Remember?”

“You’re right! Retrieve that file from the memory bank! Immediately!” We went over this a bunch. They warned me that a mutiny was possible. 

A screaming hail of gunfire tears into the movie screen, cutting off the almost kiss. Thank goodness. The continued action will buy us more time. If only a little. 

“Sir! The memory.” 

I’m handed a large, plain envelope, I rip it open. Inside is one piece of paper, with one line written across the middle in my friend’s handwriting. 

Dude, you just gotta do it, like, just grab her hand, I don’t--

“Useless.” I crumple the memory. “Get rid of this.” This is not a plan.

“Y--Yes sir. But--” 

“Eyes!” I shout. “What’s the situation?”

“She’s so pretty!” Eyes shouts back. 

Her red lips are parted slightly, her golden hair pouring over her shoulders like a waterfall--

“Don’t-- ugh!” I throw up my hands in exasperation. “Don’t tell me how pretty-- what is her hand doing?”

“Nothing-- well-- wait! Her fingers are moving! Maybe! I can’t tell! It’s too dark!”

Holy. Geez. We’re losing Eyes to the panic. “Watch the screen,” I order Eyes. We’ll have to go in blind. 

“Sir, should we call in Right Hand? A manual override?”

“No,” I shake my head. “We’ll look like an idiot if we have to do that. An embarrassment. Can you imagine if word got out that we had to grab-- nevermind.” This is no time for hypotheticals. 

Red, pulsing lights fill the Command Center. It’s getting hot in here. Right Hand wipes sweat from my forehead. That’s bad. Sweating?! Sheesh. You’d think we’d never seen combat before. Which, we haven’t. But we can’t let her know that. 

“C’mon, c’mon, pull it together!” I yell to myself and grit my teeth. Everyone in the Command Center is watching me now, waiting for another order. 

I inhale deep. “Screw it. Left Hand, if you don’t obey immediately, I’m cutting you off when we get home!”

Nothing. Not surprised. Threats like that never work, Left Hand knows me too well. Armpits begin to sweat. 

“Gah! This is ridiculous!” I storm to the control interface. “Where are the controls for Left Hand… Left--” 

A vibrating fills the Command Center. Right Leg is bouncing with furious anxiety. 

“Someone shut it down, now!” 

Right Hand pounds a fist into Right Leg, much too hard. 

“She definitely noticed that…” I mutter, rolling my eyes and grabbing the levers for the individual fingers on Left Hand.

I yank on each one in turn. Index, Middle, Ring… nothing. The levers don’t even budge. Great. With an angry yell, I put all my weight onto the lever for Left Pinky… and it moves!

“We got it, we got it!” I shout with surprise. The whole Command Center freaks out like it’s the most amazing thing we’ve ever done.

“Quiet! Everyone quiet!” I hush the crowd inside my head. Down below, Stomach is doing backflips they’re so nervous. Lungs is forgetting how to breath properly, probably because whoever is in charge of telling Lungs to breath is here with the whole rest of the Executive Branch to watch the action. 

But I force all the members of my body to be quiet, and for once, they actually do what I say. 

And now it’s silence, aside from Heart who is crazy-panic thump-thump-thumping and trying to climb up my throat to get into my head with everyone else. Even Ears has stopped capturing sounds, so the film is just a series of flashing colors, though I have no idea what’s happening in it now, because Eyes is looking straight at the pinky, even though I told them not to look. 

So we all watch, paralyzed with suspense, as Left Pinky slowly lifts from Left Leg, crossing the centimeter of space from my hand to hers. 

Like a flare, or a rocket. 

A stray bullet. 

A nuclear bomb. 

“Brace for impact…” I whisper.

Her trap is set with a very light trigger. 

The instant my pinky brushes her own, her whole hand leaps into action. Tripwires and springing nets, her fingers twist through mine, turning them over, pulling them in…

Before I know it, she’s taken the entirety of Left Arm captive, and the battle is over. 

Serves you right, traitorous hand.

Then, without warning, a soft kiss hits my cheek. Right there on my face. On the left side of my face. And I’m stunned like-- like an idiot child. Who put this general in charge? But it doesn’t matter, because foreign emotions suddenly burst into the Command Center, quickly subduing my entire government and executing all my senses and plastering their propaganda all over the walls. Red lips and gold hair and-- and hearts. Hearts everywhere. Hearts on my eyes, so I can’t even see the movie anymore. 

And just like that, not just the battle, but the whole war is over. Unconditional surrender.