Seek: 4 - Scout, the Resistance

I fell in love with the idea of free running while in Moscow
winter semester of 2013. There were kids who would do
parkour on the top of a huge abandoned building, and I
knew, watching them, that I wanted to include it in a novel.
I was overjoyed to find that there had been a number of
games designed around free running, so I bought one,
Mirror's Edge, and played through it during winter break.

Scout is a sixteen-year-old girl masquerading as a thirteen-year-old boy. Her parents were arrested by the Legion shortly after the Onim protests that likewise resulted in Kaiya's mother's death. She lived on the streets for a few months (was potentially abused, but that would be more of something that had to be inferred rather than something that I would just come out and say: unwillingness to talk about her time on the streets, anxiety around men, disguising herself as a boy, hatred, violence. "They took everything that was most precious from me and left me for dead on the streets" (talking about the Legion, so others kind of suppose that she means it figuratively, but it could be literally in the sense that first her parents were taken away and then she was taken advantage of and literally left for dead). Eventually, she gets picked up by the Resistance, and she becomes a key operative in the fight against corruption of the Khaiosian Executive Council, which is made up predominantly of corporate moguls and military officials.

Scout works as a "kite" within the Resistance. Her job is to carry information, lead Enforcers (corporate mercenaries) away from Resistance hot spots, intercept parcels, etc. As such, she learned free-running and knows her way around the city really well. In Part III, upon Jonah and Kaiya's return to Khaios, Scout steals a Technis sphere from them as a way of leading them to the Resistance. She leads them into an abandoned alleyway and then from the rooftops, the Resistance members call down: "You are surrounded, and we have concussion charges at the ready.

They are escorted inside, worried about what will happen to them, and then the boy (Scout) tosses the satchel with the Technis sphere in it back to Kaiya. "Well that wasn't so tough. I didn't think you'd come so easily."
Jonah: "Well, you think you're pretty tough, don't you?"
"Yeah, I guess I do, so back off, Jonah..."
"How do you know his name?"
"Same way I know yours. We make it our job here to know what's going on in Khaios, and you two seem to be popping up all over the place and have your fingers in a few too many places for it to be coincidence."
"It's none of your business."
"I make whatever I want to be my business, and today, that means Kaiya and her ugly friend." Jonah's temples bulged with anger. "Don't flatter yourself or anything, pretty boy, but just so you know, it wasn't me that decided we should grab you. It was the higher ups, and I kind of just do what they say." His voice trailed off. He scuffed his bare feet against the stone floors, the thick callouses on his toes and the balls of his feet scraping softly against the white stones.
Kaiya: "What do you want with us?" Scout ignores the question and continues brushing her feet one at a time across the stones. "What is your name?"
"Scout."
Jonah jumps in at what he sees as an opportunity to humiliate the young boy. "Oh, Scout, now there's an original name. Lemme guess, you work as a scoouut here." His voice was dripping with condescension.
"I'm a kite, idiot, and you don't know anything about me."
etc.


[At some point, Jonah will talk about "kiting" the rails, and Scout will light up for a second and talk about how she used to do that, back before her parents died. It's a moment of connection for the two, and she feels like she can relate to him/trust him, but then, thinking about it, he remarks, "You would have had to have been like seven at the time. You wouldn't have even been big enough to latch the cords on." She feels like he might find out that she's really older (and a she, for that matter), so she pulls into her shell and doesn't really say anything else. He takes this as a sign that he's caught her (him) in a lie and doesn't feel like he can trust her (him) fully.]

Positions within the Resistance:
Kite - explained above
Squint - Glorified hackers. They handle all computer-related stuff: surveillance, hacking, security, communication. Mechanical sparrows [invented by Simeon, of course], that are used by the Resistance, the Executive Council, and the corporations. They live in their mothers' basements and typically lack general social finesse.
[Information gatherers: plants?] - ordinary people that sympathize with the Resistance but lack the mobility or bravery to join up formally. They could potentially help rescue Jonah and Kaiya at some point, kind of out of nowhere. The might end up being the people that wear rings as identifiers, and if they end up in prison, the guard would be wearing a ring. They could also be an opportunity to talk about fear and revisit some of the ideas in the first part of the book, i.e. acting in spite of fear, following truth no matter the consequences, etc.
[Strong, fighters: bashers?]

(Wordcount 5122 so far)