As soon as one of her sisters in chains slipped her cuffs, Padma used the slack in the line of chains to get as far away from her as possible, half expecting a hail of bullets. 

But even as she did this, she raised her own voice in agreement. [color=6ecff6]"It's true that some. . . subnaturals have caused problems, done terrible things even. But many of us have done nothing wrong. Some came here voluntarily, or even [i]wanted[/i] to come. Why are we all being treated like criminals?"[/color]

She swiveled her head around, looking at the members of the chain-gang, and then singled out the youngest looking guard to look straight in the eye as she said, [color=6ecff6]"These are [i]children[/i] that you're pointing guns at!"[/color] Indeed, barely an adult herself, Padma was one of the oldest in the chained up group. 

Her words were pointed, but calm. She kept her hands down, not gesturing or grand-standing like the girl down the row. Her parents and grandparents had faced a similar kind of fear based discrimination in the early twenty-first century. They had suffered through being called terrorists, or even towel-heads because of the part of the world they had immigrated from. Padma knew that the fear would only be dissipated(though never eliminated) after years, or even decades of social movement.

 There would be a subnatural civil rights movement, and Padma meant to live long enough to be a part of it. And to do that, she had to play this discrimination game, and take it in stride.