I woke on a chair in my living room. All of the lights in my house were off and wind was screaming through my broken front door. The three intruders held torches and the guy in the purple balaclava shone his straight into my eyes. He looked very threatening and in control, so I decided to throw him off a little by asking him the first question.

‘Why did you kick down the door?’

‘Huh? To get in here. To teach you a lesson.’ His voice had a rumble to it – like rocks down a mountainside.

‘But... the door was unlocked.’

‘Huh?’

‘The door was unlocked.’ I raised the pitch of my voice slightly, ‘You didn’t need to kick it down.’

The purple balaclava interrogating me gave a moan, he turned to the others, ‘I told you. We didn’t need to kick it down.’ He rubbed his leg and mumbled to himself, ‘I bloody did my knee in kicking that.’

One of the other intruders – this one with a fox balaclava brushed the door sympathetically, ‘Mahogany. That’s good timber.’

The three interrogators stared at it for a minute before they seemed to come to their senses.

'Anyway, that’s not what we came for,’ said the man in the purple balaclava, ‘We came because we want to know about Clive.’

‘Clive? Pink Fedora? Gardening dude? What’s he done?’

‘That’s what we want you to tell us.’ said the woman in the hand-knitted bunny balaclava

I just shrugged, ‘He’s done nothing.’

‘Ha!’ said the guy in the fox balaclava, ‘We knew you’d say that.’

‘Yeah... but... that’s what he’s done. He’s the most ordinary guy I’ve ever met. He likes gardening, he writes books, he doesn’t party, care about politics, or even complain about Crusher. You’re interrogating me about the least interesting person on the planet. Ask me about a dude named Alex - I could tell some stories about him.’

The guy in purple scratched at a hole in his balaclava, ‘Tell us more about the gardening.’

I laughed, ‘I dunno, he grows some cabbages and shit.’

The three balaclava-heads nodded.

‘He’s never mentioned anything about Crusher Media...’

I shook my head.

‘Or a person named Q?’

I hesitated for just a moment. He had mentioned something about a Q. But... I didn’t want to make a habit of giving out information to people who bust down my front door.

‘Nah, never heard of a Q.’

The bunny-headed intruder leant in, ‘Never?’

‘Never ever.’

Fox-head pulled a pair of pliers from his bag and bent down in front of me. He had dark eyes. I felt the cold grasp of the pliers on my right thumbnail.

‘Never heard of Q?’

I swallowed, my throat was dry. My breath was quick. The pliers were tugging at my nail. My pain receptors were lighting up.

‘Never heard of him.’

The guy jerked the pliers back and I screamed. But no pain came. I bent my neck and looked at my thumbnail. It was still there.

The fox-guy was smiling, ‘Congrats.’

‘Congrats!?’ I shouted, ‘You nearly pulled my fingernail out, you psycho.’

The guy’s smile faded a bit, ‘We were sent here to do a mock interrogation – to find out whether you could be trusted with the secrets Clive’s gonna tell you about.’

‘Secrets!? SECRETS?!? What secrets does that piece of shit know that are worth ripping out someone’s fingernail? How to grow large pumpkins? The correct fertiliser for tomato plants?’

The bunny-headed intruder was untying me.

‘He’s part of the resistance.’

‘What resistance? The fingernail freedom fighters?! The door-liberation front?’ My arms were shaking. I really wanted to punch someone.

‘The resistance against Crusher Media,’ mumbled the guy in the purple bandanna.

‘The WHAT?’ I screamed.

‘The resistance against Crusher Media, listen there’s no need to get-’

‘And how does PULLING OUT PEOPLE’S FINGERNAILS take down Crusher Media?’

‘Look we’re sorry-’

‘SORRY? I’m sorry I ever met that twat.’

My arms were free. I bent and ripped the rope from my legs. The three intruders were staring at me with a kind of distributed awe. The power balance had definitely shifted.

I rubbed my wrists where they’d been tied, ‘I think I’m going to go have a word to that green-thumbed piece of shit right now.’

The purple balaclava shook his head, ‘I don’t think that’s such a good idea.’

‘No? I think it's a great idea.’

‘He’s probably sleeping.’ The bunny-head ventured.

‘Just like I was when I got woken by the fingernail police. Listen. If my door’s not back on its hinges by the time I’m back someone’s going to get murdered.’ I eyeballed each of them, ‘Do I make myself clear?’

‘We want you to join the resistance!’ said the purple-headed intruder, ‘You’re one of us. There’s no need to-’

But I was already out the door and running down the street. I grabbed the pill bottle rattling in my pocket and shoved two pills down my throat.

The pills sharpened my vision and made my legs move faster. I ran the seven blocks to Clive’s house, stopping only to pick up two large rocks from someone's front lawn.

The whites of Clive’s house looked grey in the night. Rain dripped from his tomato plants and pooled between the cabbages.

I squeezed the first rock, moved my arm in an arc and then stepped back as the glass of his bedroom window shattered. I used the second rock to clean out some of the remaining glass from the frame, then hopped into the house. Clive had sat up in bed and was fumbling for his glasses when I got my hands on him. I shoved his head towards the bed then slapped his face a couple of times.

‘You!’ I screamed.

He grabbed his bedside lamp – a heavy porcelain contraption – and whacked me over the head with it. I tumbled back onto the floor and we were facing each other. He blinked a few times.

‘Eli?’

‘Hi Clive.’ My breath rushed in and out, ‘Why’d you send a bunch of fingernail-pulling wankers after me?’

Clive’s eyes raced across my face, ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

‘Bullshit.’ I wobbled to my feet, looking for a weapon, he held the bedside lamp like a baton between us. I coughed and then continued, ‘They said you sent them, they were talking about Q. The guy who gave you the tablet.’

Clive nodded slowly. There was a thumping sound from the front room and then the door next to me burst open. The rabbit-balaclava and the fox balaclava stormed into the room.

‘ElitheHill didn’t like the interrogation,’ the fox said, ‘He’s quite angry.’

Clive nodded slowly, ‘I gathered that from the fact he smashed my window and then started slapping me in the face.’

He crossed his arms and kept staring at the fox, ‘Jordie, I just have one question, why the fingernails?’

The fox – Jordie scratched his arm, ‘Well, you said intimidate him.’

Clive rubbed his eye, ‘Jordie... you’re a spy-thriller writer... how many novels have you read where they pull out some dude’s fingernails?’

‘Oh, jeez Clive, heaps.’

‘See Jordie, that’s what’s called a cliche, now who’s gonna take you seriously if you’re threatening them with cliches?’

Jordie mumbled something about world war two while Clive put the lamp on his bedside table. 'Listen Eli, we didn't mean to scare you like this, we just have a few err.. enthusiastic members of our group.’

He held up his hand as the purple balaclava went to speak, 'Nothing wrong with enthusiasm Milo, but there's a time and a place for it and midnight at Eli's house probably wasn't the right time or the right place.’

Clive turned back to me. ‘Eli, we've been watching you ever since you made it to the four dorms. In fact it was Q who spotted you first. We thought you might be a good ally but also we thought you were too good to be true. I mean why would Crusher let someone get away with writing about all this stuff they're doing?

I rubbed my finger against my thumb, and made a cha-ching sound, 'Money.'

Clive held out his hands like he was conceding the point, 'Yeah, you're right, money. Anywho...’ he glanced around the room, 'Usually we do this a little more eloquently, but I guess this is us saying we want you to join the resistance.'

I frowned, the back of my head still hurt from where he'd hit me with the porcelain bedside lamp. 'Can you tell me what the point of this resistance is? Like how exactly are you resisting Crusher Media?'

'Posters,' said purple balaclava.

'Smuggling,' said bunny balaclava.

'Graffiti,' grinned the fox-headed resistor.

Clive held off his hands for silence, 'One thing we're really trying to achieve is letting authors know that Crusher isn't all-powerful. They don't control everything and won't ever control at all - that's the posters, that's the graffiti.’

The three other members of the resistance nodded.

‘The next thing we do is offer support. We started off just trying to attack Crusher with messaging and all that sort of thing. But now we're branching out to author support – arranging calls with lawyers so that authors know whether or not their rights have been breached. Crusher gets away with a lot of legal abuse in here simply because no one knows any better. We have one or two lawyers who will work with us. The trouble is most lawyers don't want to go up against Crusher Media, they're very very well funded with a top legal team and heaps of lobbyists.’

He stopped talking and I could see the frustration in his eyes as he breathed.

‘Our other activites include smuggling in devices like the tablet you saw, they help us to communicate with the outside world. Finally, we are also trying to let people know what's in store for them before they get in. We scroll the top Crusher Media Readers List every month to find readers who have been reading an excessive number of pages and we send them some information sheets about Crusher prison.

I nodded, ‘Hell, I could’ve used that.’

Clive nodded, ‘It’s partly to stop them ending up here in the first place, but partly so if they do end up here they'll have some idea of what to expect.’

I relaxed my shoulders, lowered my arms, 'You know, you actually sound like a half-decent outfit now that I’ve heard all that.’ I flicked a glance at purple bandana, 'What would I be doing?'

'What the rest of us are doing,' Clive explained, 'perhaps minus the fingernail pulling. You'd be spreading posters, spreading the word, smuggling in and distributing electronics, basically anything that can help take down Crusher and of course, continuing to write your story.

The others gave these big toothy smiles.

'Your story's been a big boost for recruitment. Before, if you didn't like what was going on in Prison Crusher, you felt very alone - like you were the only one with those problems. Now, with your book out there, doing so well. We're starting to see a change. People are getting more agitated, more weary. More of them are looking for some way around Crusher.'

I swallowed, ‘Okay. I'm in.’