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Automated surveilance identifies main char as not threatening, valuable in a country highly influenced by propaganda of all sorts. Sees that he isn't involved in anything. Is visited by goons, taken to a derelict undercover stadium where others of the same have been deposited. They're processed and equipped with small arms. Earbuds give them a breif explanation that they have been empowered as an independent group and that their independence could no longer be maintained by the system. Goons leave and they hang around dumbfounded. Some take off their gear and wander out. Char keeps his on and follows. People split off into different directions, char follows the group with the most numbers, notices lights are off. And there is no traffic. People on the street seem to know what's going on. But the char would rather not know. Night fills the land, the sound of footsteps guide the char as his form hides a section of stars. He realizes where they are going, to a freshwater lake, smart he supposes, the rest surely went home, accepts that it's survival now, drinks on his knees. Rests his head on a chain of people so their movement will wake him up. Dreams of riding a horse through a canyon where everyone on the side is offering something like a reverse beggar, toothy smiles betraying their intention of pulling him down to be their feast, wakes up when he sees a girl offering nothing and expecting nothing, knowing he will try to rescue her to the safe centre of forward. Where the rest don't venture because they have no chance of moving fast enough away from the hungry rest.
Group of people walk to a food store, memory of the dream lingers long enough to draw parelells between the sidelines and the group he follows, warned of what is to come he feels he needs to get clear of them but isn't stupid enough to realize they are also his horse to outclass the rest. Food is plentiful but finite. The automation of it's delivery looks menacing in rows, the food it would usually be
