The black of my clothes matched the black of the night as I tied my shoes and prepared for my first mission.

On the floor beside me was a large jar of flour that was going to be boiled up by the resistance to make wheat paste, a strong, long-lasting glue that we'd lather over our posters.

I threw the jar of flour into my black bag, reached toward the door - -

'ELI.' said a voice in the dark.

My heart sucker-punched my lungs. I lunged for the switch to turn on the porch light.

It was Manuel, dressed in a pirate outfit with a fake plastic sword at his side.

'Hey, Eli, what's up?' he said.

I took a breath, 'Oh nothing man. I'm just going for a run.'

He peered out into the darkness, 'At this time, you crazy?'

I nodded, 'Probably... anyway what are you up to?’

'I'm here to pick you up, it's Josie's birthday and she's throwing the maddest pirate party you've ever seen. It's gonna be at the Tree House – you know that super cool exclusive place I've been trying to get you into for the last month?'

I nodded.

'Now's your shot, she specifically told me to bring you.' He laughed, 'Unless you'd rather go for your run.'

I put my hand in my pocket, pushed the wheatpasting brush further into my pocket. 'I'm good,' I tried to say, 'I've got an early start tomorrow and I want to get a few more chapters in.'

Manuel made a throwing up sound. 'Come on man. I haven't seen you in ages! Just hang out for a few hours, blow off some steam. You deserve it. You need it. And Josie man!!’

I shook my head, 'Nah. I'm out.'

'Eli!' He called out, but I threw on my hoodie, slammed the front door and ran past him. 'Eli!’ he called out, 'Why you being such a weirdo?'

My feet tapped on the concrete of the road, 'All right!’ He called, ‘Stay lame and single and a nerd forever.'

It took me 10 minutes to reach Clive's house, I took a couple of side streets and doubled back on myself a few times along the way just to make sure Manuel wasn't following me. When I got there I found a small party inside - there wasn't much going on. Just a few people discussing the best way to grow onions, they didn’t even look up as I moved through them into Clive’s bathroom, closed the door behind me and then lifted up a section of the floor beside his shower.

From inside came the smell of wheat being boiled. it almost smelt a little bit like fresh bread. There was a warm yellow flickering light about the place. I climbed down the wooden stepladder then shook hands with a bunch of my fellow resistors.

There were 15 people down there including me, a mixture of pierced and tattooed steampunk writers and white collar romance writers.

The space was tiny and we were all squished together elbow to elbow around the pots of bubbling wheat. Clive prodded a cauldron of the stuff with a wooden spoon 'The key is to get it tacky,' he said, 'Like my puns. If it's too watery it will have slipped off by the morning, too solid by the time you're on your second poster it'll be all powdery and start to set.'

He reached out and shook my hand, ‘Good to see you Eli!’

I bowed and he gave an easy laugh, 'Nothing like a good batch of wheat paste.'

I traded my jar of flour for three jars of wheat paste and 50 posters. There was a guy strumming a homemade guitar in the corner.

The posters were pretty basic – a warning to writers that their rights were being breached. And two toll-free phone numbers of lawyers they could reach out to.

'It's not much,' Clive told us as we all stood waiting like water poised above a dam, 'But even if most people are unable to reach out and learn their rights it's still a sign to them that Crusher isn't all-dominant, that there is a life outside of this one, a better life, a real life, a free life.'

Everyone in the room cheered and then we paired up and one by one the five pairs of poster pasters slipped out onto the streets.

I ended up with one of my former interrogators – the woman with the bunny balaclava. 'Just be glad it's me.' she whispered as we waited for our signal to leave the house, 'I think the others still have something against you because of the way Clive went off at them.'

I adjusted the black balaclava I'd been given so it fully covered my face but I could still breathe.

'They're angry at me?! Whose fingernails were getting pulled that night?'

She rolled her eyes, ‘No one's fingernails got pulled, stop being such a baby.'

I let out an indignant cough then we stood in silence for a while the group before us sped up the ladder and out of the house. We took their places on the creaking ladder.

'I'm Jess by the way,' said the woman with the bunny balaclava.

'Eli,' I said, and then Clive jerked his thumbs at us and we started to climb.

Our mission was the centre of town. We knew the wheat posters wouldn't last long there. But they would have the highest impact.

I found a street lamp next to the Sherlock Holmes Cafe. Jess unfolded the poster and held it flat while I dipped my brush into the wheat and coated it. The mixture was messy and got all over my gloves but by the time it dried on the poster you’d need a pickaxe or chemicals to remove it.

We rushed on to a James Bond themed bar that people were wandering in and out of with their arms wrapped around each other and drinks in their hands. Jess slipped down the side of the building, and held up the poster while I splashed some more wheat over it. Just as we were finishing I heard a cough from behind us--

'What's going on?' said a man's voice that I didn't recognize.

I turned, 'Huh?'

'I said what's going on?' His voice was slurred and slow. He seemed dumb, but kind of aggressive, like the human version of a male turkey.

'Oh nothing,' I said, 'We're just trying to liberate you from your indentured servitude.'

'Hmm,' The guy said, 'You guys got any cocaine?'

'No,' Jess said, 'We've got something better, something that will energize your very spirit. We have...' she thrust sticky poster partly covered in wheat paste onto his chest, 'We have the key to your liberation and as she said that we pushed past him out into the night beyond the bar and the guy was still saying, 'Huh? Hey, this thing's sticky.'

‘Waste of a poster,' I said as we ran off.

She shrugged. 'Maybe he won't be able to get it off. Maybe he'll become a walking advertisement for the Rebellion.'

I laughed, we moved up the street getting faster and faster at putting the posters on we went, and braver and braver in our placement until on our 40th poster, when we were wiping glue off our elbows, we decided to do the mother of all wheat pastes.

Just like Hollywood. The Village had a giant sign above it. Only this one wasn't white. This one was gold plated – a great way to show the rest of the world how narcissistic the place is.

I don't know whether it was the fumes from the wheat paste or the fact Jess and I were cocky bastards but we found ourselves up the village sign slathering wheat paste over the posters, covering one letter at a time in the lawyers' phone numbers.

'This is sick!' Jessie said as she fumbled for another poster. 'I don't think I've ever had so much adrenaline before – do you reckon we'll get caught?'

I shrugged, ‘This is a pretty popular makeout and drinking spot. Most people are gonna think we're drunk or playing a prank.' I layered a thick glob of wheat over the poster, 'I guess it is a prank in some ways.'

She laughed, 'Well I think Crusher Media pranked us first.'

I finished pasting the poster and she turned looking out over the village, 'This whole thing's a joke man the sooner I'm out of here and back with normal people the better. You wanna hear what they did to me my first day in here?'

While she ranted, I stared out beyond her. There was a slight shimmering in the air, like the street lights were glinting off something.

Jess grabbed my hand, she yelled something about STUFF CRUSHER MEDIA or I HATE THE WORLD or CRUSHER CAN SUCK MY ASS and that's when I noticed the shimmering again. It was closer and there was this tiny red dot flashing on and off. I pulled out a torch from my pocket, and shone it. There a giant wasp-like drone was recording our every move. A little way down the street an eight-legged spider-like police bot was lurching its way towards us. 'Jess, we've got to get out of here.' I yelled, pulling her towards the fence we'd climbed up to reach the sign. Jess struggled against me. So I shone the light back at the wasp. 'Look, look. You see that?! If one of them catches us we are going to have a lot more problems than we do now.'

We half-climbed half-fell down the fence. I rolled at the bottom and tore my shirt on a piece of broken glass. I pulled Jess to her feet and we were running as fast as we could. I could hear the mechanical swish of the spider's legs. We raced down the road then jumped the fence onto some writer's backyard. Three lawns over I could see a massive house party with a bunch of sci-fi writers launching homemade fireworks into the air. Jess and I pushed towards them then forced our way into the middle of the house, pushing through the throngs of people.

As we passed through the party I felt my head start to hurt, and a weary tiredness settling over my body. I walked through the back door and fumbled for my pill bottle

'Hey, Jess,' I grabbed her arm, 'Can we stop for a moment?'

'We need to get back, we need to get away,' she said, 'I can I can still hear it.'

'Yeah, yeah, just a minute,' I opened the pill bottle, my orange lovers winked at me under the outdoor fairy lights.

I decided I'd take four – this was an emergency. But as I went to slide the bastards out Jess' hand reached out to grab me and the pill bottle fell from my hands. The pills spilt out into a kaleidoscope on the ground. 'Eli,’ she whispered. ‘There's nobody out here.'

I cocked my head, thought about going for the pills, but the loudness of her voice had made me realise the music at the party had stopped. The air around us was quiet. And then the swishing sound got louder. Only it wasn't just a spider it was an army of them coupled together with ten Wasp drones that spiralled and swarmed around the house searching for us.

Jess grabbed my arm and we ran.

Two hours of ducking, weaving, smashing through bushes, and throwing rocks at the spiders and we finally found ourselves flopped on a pair of chairs at Clive's house sipping on a celebratory grape juice.

'I can't believe he managed you hit the sign,’ Jordie, who had removed his fox mask, said.

‘I can’t believe we’re still alive,’ said Jess.

‘I can’t believe I dropped those shitty pills,’ I said, wiping a patch of sweat from my forehead.