CB // THIRTEEN // JETPACK JULIET

You don't come here without something to offer.

She has a face that can sink a thousand ships and a voice that can make mountains rise up from the earth. She wasn't born with it, she was taught it; a conviction in herself that turned her into an unstoppable force in any situation. She knew from the moment they first put a microphone under her lips and a camera in front of her dark eyes that she was destined to bring the world to its knees.

You don't come here with anything to lose.

It's been too long since her parents were taken away as suspected enemies of the state for her to have any faith that they're still alive. She imagines their tongues being removed, followed by their fingers and toes, their noses, ears, limbs, until they were left barely human and barely alive. There's no way they could still be hiding out somewhere, listening to their daughter's strong voice reading coded numbers over secret frequencies, watching her pointed chin rise and fall behind a revolutionary mask, reading the week's reports on personally-delivered holograms.

Juliet only thinks of them as a cautionary tale now, a warning against acting so carelessly. And, in turn, she pushes herself to be an engine for progress, for resistance -- for revolution.

"jetpack" juliet madsen
twenty two
district thirteen
communications officer