Young Writers Society

PREFACE

“I broke a nail—again!” Tatiana whined, as she took her hands off the keyboard and studied them.

I rolled my eyes and put a finger to my lips, before pointing at the phone.

“Who is this again?” a crackly, haggard voice asked me through the phone.

Whoever it was seemed quite old (and senile). She’d already asked me that three times. And she wanted art. I guess maybe because it would be new to her each time she saw it, because she seemed to only remember things for about five minutes? It was pitiful. Like when my brother, Bryan, was part of the Boy Scouts and he had to help out at an old person home. ...He might still be a little scarred from that.

“Who is this?” the lady repeated, sounding annoyed.

I hurriedly answered, “It’s Ann; I’m answering Phyllis Wakefield’s calls for the summer. How may I help you?”

“I’d like a piece of artwork,” the lady responded.

I almost said “No duh” but that would’ve been rude, right? It would have made life seem more normal, instead of constantly talking sweet and nice to adults who didn’t know if they were coming or going (or people in general who didn’t). I wasn’t normally quite this nice.

“Of course,” I say soothingly instead. “What is it you’d like?” I ask, grabbing my notepad and pen, while trying to pin the ancient mobile phone between my shoulder and ear.

“I’d like something that’s clay; you know, a conversation piece,” she says.

“Uh huh,” I mumble, writing that down. “Would you like it painted?”

“No.”

“Would you like the general form humanoid, abstract, earthly, or animalistic?”

“I don’t really care. One of those real estate ladies, a daughter of my friend, said my house was cluttered—cluttered! I mean, how rude. My house is not cluttered. But I decided to spruce things up a bit anyway. So I got rid of some of the old stuff and bought some new, more modern—or whatever you young people call it these days—stuff. And I’d always liked Phyllis’ work when my late husband and I went to the galleries.”

I nod, and then remember she can’t see me. “Okay. I’ll tell her that. Is there any sort of color scheme, though?”

“Not really. I mean, I have blue walls where I’d want it...”

“Okay,” I say, “That’s enough for us. Is there anything else?”

“No,” the woman says brusquely, and then she hangs up; the phone going dead.

I frown and take the ancient, 80s piece of machinery from my ear, before putting it back in its cradle (or whatever my Aunt Phyllis calls it).

“That sounded interesting,” Tatiana says.

I hear a weird sound and look up over her computer to see her filing her nails.

“It was. And you need to be working on answering emails and keeping my Aunt Phyllis’ website up to date,” I tell her.

She’s my best friend. She was also born in Moscow, holds a slightly warped version of the English language in her head, and is a true dumb blonde. Somehow, she knows computers and can handle them better than the people who sold my Aunt her computer. It makes no sense, but Tiana rarely makes sense in general.

She rolls her eyes at me finally, putting down the nail file, and she starts typing. “We’re missing Roger’s party, you know. Right now our classmates are having fun playing drinking games, getting cozy on sofas, and dancing to some awesome beat.”

I wrinkle my nose. “That’s fun—a bunch of sweaty, smoky-smelling people bumping and grinding in a living room, with people puking and acting like morons elsewhere?”

Tiana gives me her signature “Are you joking?” sort of look. I never liked that look. “Of course it’s supposed to be fun Anna-Banana. I mean, it’s obvious. It’s normal. Reading old books and selling paintings, and other junk, all summer is not normal.”

“You’re not reading old books,” I inform her. “You’ve been face-screening all the time we’ve been here when we’re not working. And don’t call me that. It makes me sound like a nine-year-old instead of fifteen.”

“Face-screening is the bomb. Or whatever you keep saying, you little oddball.” Tiana gives me a friendly smile and I grin weakly back.

It makes me think of the years before Tiana, though, when I was the laughing stock of the school.
I don’t want to go back to that.
And she didn’t say she’d stop calling me that.

“Sure it is,” I say, “sadly, you’re about my only friend so face-screening is rather pointless.”

Of course, I thought the whole thing was rather pointless. Who really wanted you to tell them what you were doing or show them by putting your face-screening cam somewhere?
Of course, I thought the latest technology the Blackbird Corp. had come up with (rather, Stanley Mason came up with) was absolutely kicking. I mean, you could have a cam chip put into your pupil and around your iris—so everyone around could see what you saw.

“That’s not true! Roger invited you, too,” Tiana says.

I point at my chest. “If you’re leggy, I have the boobs of our friendship. Of course he invited me. He’s a hound.”

Tiana giggles as the phone starts ringing. I about lunge to pick the phone up but then the ringing stops, randomly.
I blink at the contraption, about to go tell Aunt Phyllis that someone is prank calling her again, when the whole building starts shaking.

I look around to see the small chandelier over the table in here swing wildly, the light flickering. Someone grabs me by the back of the shirt and pulls me under the table, before the thing slams down, sending shards of glass everyone I imagine. The person is Tiana, of course. She doesn’t freeze in crisis like I do.

“What’s going on?” I ask, somewhat breathlessly as I look at her shocked face, her pale eyes impossibly wide.

“I don’t know. Does Pennsylvania have earth quakes?”

“How should I know?” I yell, as chairs start to topple and the book case in the corner falls, books flopping to the floor and one knocking one of my Aunt Phyllis’ vases to the ground.

It shatters and I practically cling to Tiana. My water glass also falls, pouring water on my Aunt Phyllis’ Indian rug, luckily not breaking, though.

“We should go downstairs,” I say, but then it finally stops, right after I say so.

We just stay still, neither of us talking, as we wait. Another deep rumble shakes the place slightly, but otherwise all is still.

“I think it’s safe now. Just be careful of the glass. And if there are any aftershocks, we bolt downstairs. Got it?”

I nod, unable to speak. My mind is racing. I mean, really—since when did Pennsylvania have earth quakes? Tiana had posed a good question.

Tiana crawls out, and then waits, still crouched with tow-colored hair all in her face. “Are you coming?”

I gulp and nod again, then shakily clamber out from under the table. I barely avoid whacking my head on the edge of the wood as I jerkily twist out and stand up. Glass shards are everywhere, but they seem to have mostly flown to my left and since Tiana is moving towards the front of the room, to my right, I follow her.

But, of course, I’d probably follow her even if she did try to step around the multitude of glass fragments.
Then something hits me.

“Aunt Phyllis!” I yell, loudly. “Are you okay?”

No one answers.

“She was at the store, remember? I don’t think she came back yet,” Tiana tells me quietly.

“I forgot,” I say back just as quietly.

I’d forgotten before, too, when the phone call shut off. That old lady must have rubbed some of her dementia off on me.
Hopefully she was safe wherever she was, though. I really hope so...

I glance over to see Tiana just standing there, her arms wrapped around herself, so I move over and take the phone out of its cradle. I tap in 911 and turn on speaker phone, but nothing happens. And I mean that, nothing. There’s no sound. The phone’s screen came on and the call seemingly went through, but there is no sound.
I shiver.

“Let me open up the windows for some light. We were being horrendous for using a light instead of sunlight, as Marti would say. Crazy vegan,” Tiana says, shaking her head as if feeling pity.

Her voice is shaky, but with that traditional edge she gets when gossiping. It seems out of place.

I don’t respond, but I just try to turn on Aunt Phyllis’ computer. We can make calls from here, using WIFI—at least emergency ones—so maybe we could get through that way. I hope we can. Otherwise, we’re in for trouble. Who knows how damaged this place is, anyway? It’s an ancient building, built in the 1970s. That would be about sixty years ago, since it was currently 2037.

I hear a gasp as Tiana rolls up one of the window screens.

“What is it?” I ask, still trying to get the computer to boot up.

It takes a while, since this one doesn’t like using its battery. But since we don’t seem to have electricity, since the light in the hallway went out, it’s going to have to.
I finally glance back, after she doesn’t answer. She always answers.
Her back is straight as a pole and her hands are clenched at her sides. I’ve never seen them like that. She’s not a fighter; never thrown a punch in her life. She’s told me that before.

“Tiana, what’s wrong?” I ask, my voice betraying how worried I am.

“Come look,” she says, almost whispering.

Her voice is in monotone; something she also doesn’t do. She has different tones for different things. She’s never used this one.
I shudder again and just walk over. Her lanky frame somehow manages to block the window, though, so I can’t see.

“Tiana, move over,” I say, and give her a little shove.

She stumbles, actually stumbles, and I just look at her face. Mouth lax, a little open, eyes wide, skin paler than pale.
I then glance out the window, expecting some house to be leveled, a gaping hole in the earth, a car wreck, or maybe fire. I see none of that. Unless you count smoke as fire; a mushroom cloud of smoke.

“What on earth?” I ask, as the computer makes the noise it does to tell you it’s on.

“Check the news on the computer, find out what’s wrong,” Tiana mumbles, not making eye contact.

I can tell she feels what I do, that something is really, really wrong. It’s like an instinct. And the way she’s acting—it scares me.
It’s like when her Dad found out she’d tried to smoke (which had become illegal as of 2016—not that anyone really listened to that rule); when he’d decided to yell at her in front of me. He’d claimed that if she did it again he’d get her arrested, to teach her a lesson.
She hadn’t looked at me straight the rest of the day. But this is a lot different.

“Okay,” I say finally, and wander over to the computer.

It feels like it takes forever to do so. I click on the tab that leads to the Internet and it comes up quickly.

“Is it working?” Tiana asked.

I guess she meant the WIFI, or the computer—or both.

“Yeah,” I say, as I put CNN into the search bar.

Thank goodness the keyboard also has a battery...

I click again, tapping the screen this time, not wanting to move the mouse because my hands are really much too shaky to control it.
The web page comes up and my heart leaps to my throat with it. Pictures of smoke and ruined buildings, fires, people looking like mummies they’re so wrapped up on bandages—and then a short article. My gaze flickers to it and I start reading, words and phrases popping out at me.

Entire Eastern Seaboard...bombed...death toll already at 11, 200...many still missing...New York City is in ruins...terrorists...lethal gas...stay indoors...radiation...Maryland and Virginia...heavily bombed...

Nails dig into my arms and I’m pulled away, and then pulled into a hug. It’s Tiana, of course. I was hoping for my parents and brother, though. I grew up in New York City—my home was there. They were there; right in our flat by Riverside Park.
I couldn’t even process—never mind. They were fine. They probably took that vacation up to Maine they were talking about, or went down to Florida for a beach vacation. My family always did things like that over the summer. They were fine and they’d be fine.

“Shhh, shhh, oh, honey, it’ll be all right,” Tiana says, sounding oddly like her mother right now.

Tiana’s family also lived in New York, but they’d recently sent an email saying they had gone skiing in Colorado with her cousins. We’d joked about it, naturally—saying with her parents’ clumsiness one of them would break a leg after the first slope.
No wonder she could comfort me. They were fine.

I pulled out of the hug and just sniffed. “I’m fine,” I say, even though I feel like my world is gone.

All I can hope for is Aunt Phyllis to get home soon and my parents to call once the phone lines are back up.

But you know they won’t.

My nails dug into my palms at the thought and I froze up. Tiana shot me a worried look, but I ignored here.
And then the door bell chimed. My heart literally stopped at the odd, out of place sound that was the three long notes.

“I’ll go get that. Will you be okay on your own?” Tiana asks me meekly.

I nod. “It would be hilarious if it’s the post man. I mean, he might be outdoing himself in that all-weather clause.”

Tiana’s mouth twitches, but she keeps herself from smiling.

“You need therapy,” she says with a gusty sigh, before darting towards the hallway and the stairwell.

I stay still, and then try to get the computer into phone-mode (or whatever Tiana told me it was called), so I can call someone; preferably Aunt Phyllis (who could be at the door) or my parents.
Before I can really do much, though, Tiana screams. I barely have time to remember the lethal gas thing, before I dart downstairs, pushing my silky scarf over my nose.
Instead of Tiana flopping around on the ground like a fish, which was the horrible scene I was expecting, four guys stand outside. They’re not thugs, either, I realize quickly. They’re in army uniform and they have shaved heads. But one of them is pointing an odd looking gun at Tiana, one of those that shoot electrical pulse bullets that are about as bad as old time cop movies’ tasers (or so Bryan told me).

“We didn’t do anything,” I say, trying to pull Tiana back by her scrawny arm.

“We know,” the eldest says.

He looks sad. It makes me feel like ice is in my veins. Something’s wrong here.

“Sorry,” the one with the gun says.

“Why are you—?”

There’s blinding light and then blackness, in less than two pain-filled seconds. That’s all. I hear Tiana screaming in those two seconds and a loud sound. As I’m slipping away, or I imagine so, I hope I’m not dying. And that they’re not hurting her.
I also wonder why they came to our house.
What did we do? I scream mentally at them, even though I can’t see or talk.
Then everything truly does just drift out—like thinking is something I can’t reach anymore.

XXX

CHAPTER ONE: DAYBREAK

Scratch, scratch, scratch!

That seemed to be the only sound as my classmates and I took notes while Miss Uren spoke. I tried to take notes, but sadly my handwriting was quite poor—according to Miss French—and I for one hated the sound. It felt like my head was full of insects, swarming around.

“Miss Wakefield!” Thwack! The ruler hit my desk. I jumped, pulling my hands away quickly. “Were you daydreaming?”

“No, ma’am,” I reply, hurriedly.

Daydreaming was a sign of a slow mind. I wasn’t slow. I just thought too much. But I guess that was about the same thing.

“Good,” Miss Uren mused, her thin lips pursing as she eyed me in distaste, her almost black brown eyes narrowed. “I suggest you pay attention, however, Miss Wakefield. Otherwise you will have to wash the dormitories floor. You understand this?”

I just nod. Only professors and our headmaster were allowed to speak at will; students, insider bystanders like us, couldn’t. Unless we were asked a question, we generally were meant to stay silent—even if we were asked a question, it was a good move just to nod or shake your head. Miss Uren had too much fun with her ruler.

“Good, now back to your notes.” Miss Uren stalked back up the divide between us girls and the boys, who sat silently and primly on the other side of the room.

Two girls had started chatting, however, and others seemed to not be sitting still. They needed to learn; in the same way I needed to. Boys seemed more scared of Miss Uren in general, however. I wasn’t sure why.

I heard the thwack of the ruler again and almost grinned slyly as the two formerly whispering girls leapt apart. Good.
Talking freely was more of an offense than daydreaming, after all. Thoughts were one thing, but acting on them by speaking? Who did such a thing?

“Now, ladies and gentlemen, turn to page one hundred and five, please, so you may read the first few paragraphs on the amazing eugenics program of our great government, the Western Republic, and start your first lesson of this section.”

Finally, no more scratching of a pen on paper! I thankfully take out my book and turn to the proper page. Miss Uren was a strict teacher, but I always learned so much more here than in the other classes. In the other classes, we were still on about page 60, or perhaps 80.

“You may begin,” Miss Uren said from where she was now standing stiffly, back at the head of the class.

Professors like Miss Uren managed to always stand during classes, unlike us students. According to Miss Uren, that was because of their proper breeding.

I glanced down, nonetheless, and read the introductory paragraph slowly.

Pg. 115

As many know, before the Republic came into being the western landmass of the earth was a place of unfertile wilderness and/or dangerous and overcrowded cities, both filled with rogues.

People lived wildly and died very young, normally from stupidly poisoning themselves.

These people did not care for their fellow man and let people die in great pain (rather than putting them out of their misery as is proper), starve, die of dehydration, and more.

Luckily, our great leader saw this was wrong and decided to fix it. He managed to control these wild and crazed people and convert them to his new system of governing. Almost overnight things changed—and things have been so much better because of this. In the follow paragraphs I will explain one of the many programs that caused this in detail.

Nonetheless and sadly, since our great leader came into power after a petty war between many nations, many of the cities and most artifacts of the previous nation are gone, so that you may not see and be afraid of what these former, uncontrolled, and insane people had made for themselves.

You can tell, however, from the ruins of the cities, what went on there.

To fix this, our great leader decided to gather people like him, people who showed potential for greatness, and the young, then orphaned children of the past people, to create a world worth living in.

As you know, because of evolution, children such as yourselves can be raised into the mind-set of the geniuses, like our great leader and the people that surround him.

See, the past peoples had a gene missing. This is what caused their destruction. Much like the dinosaurs of eons ago, these people were meant to go extinct.

Luckily it has been found some people can get this gene from environment alone! People born with this gene, of course, are held in higher regard.

But, unfortunately, with our complex double helix of genetics, other genes cause problems as well—and they cannot be environmentally added. Sadly, people with these older genes, not the people of our great leader’s sort of breeding, are helpless in this new world, where they must rely on the government.

See, they believe that there is something called a god that rules over them. These things called gods are supposed to be all powerful and capable of everything—but perfectly human, as well as being unable to be seen, heard, smelled, touched, or tasted!

As you can see, they were very mentally unstable—which is caused by problems in their brain and these recessive genes that sprouted up at about the time of their collapse.

You should also know that their loyalty to their gods caused the very war itself that almost destroyed our perfect earth.
Because of these former inhabitants of the earth, the non-reformed and non-agents, many animal species, plant species, and insect species died. They believed that humans were above the land they lived on and the beings they lived around—which is idiotic, seeing as they were hardly more than animals themselves.

Luckily, this is being turned around, as more and more people see for the truth that is our great leader’s words...

The paragraph trails off in my mind as I yawn, unable to help it, as I read through the muddle of information.
Like our great leader has said on his broadcasts, too much information at once is bad for the brain and may cause damage. How much information a person can withstand shows how intelligent he is. That’s why agents are held apart from us bystanders. We’re not the brightest, especially the female amongst us (I would know); even if we are currently considered to-be agents, rather than the true outsider bystanders of the world.

We could get lucky and become low level, or even high level, agents!

And that’s why it was so pitiful I couldn’t even get past the beginning statements, much less read a chapter today.

“Getting tired, Miss Wakefield?” Miss Uren asks me, an almost-smirk on her face.

A snicker can be heard in the class, but it’s abruptly cut off, probably from someone’s hand. I blush and look down.

“Yes, Miss Uren,” I say, sad that I couldn’t even get to the euthanasia part of the eugenics program—I only managed the basic, uninformative foreword!

It was, after all, one of the most brilliant parts of the whole program, Miss Uren had said. A painless and quick death; for those that were not even fit to be bystanders, the criminals, children born with the old defects, etc.

I hadn’t quite made it to what made you fit for euthanasia, as far as genes went, or what the average Republic citizen, as a bystander, was supposed to look like. But I knew that already; after all, ugly, old me had fit the bill. The one who said I’d have to work for everything I got. But I was smart, they said, compared to the average bystander my age. I wasn’t sure if they were right, but I hadn’t been about to correct them.

After all, evolution said that I’d want to fight for my life, no matter what. It was right, in that regard.

“All right,” Miss Uren says. “You may go, along with Miss White, Miss Abel, Miss Samuels, and Mister Gibbs.”

There were a few pitiful shots at groans, and then the four other students stood up. I sighed and gathered up my stuff, my books and my papers, before following them, trying to forget to think. It didn’t work well.

***

I followed the girls to our dormitory and sat on a chair in the main room, feeling rather dead. I wasn’t exactly sure why, but I was very, very tired. But, I had to go ahead and do what I was supposed to. It was my night to go before the board and the headmaster to tell them if I’d done anything wrong. Other than using too many colorful words—or adjectives as Mr. Brown had said once—I couldn’t think of anything else.

So, hopefully I wouldn’t be cut this time.

I grimaced a little and pulled up my sleeve, to see the ugly, almost triangular shape slashed into my arm—the mark of the party. It had hurt. I remember that; though, according to the guy who did it, the old race got these things called tattoos (which could kill them) that hurt worse.

I winced again.

Too many adjectives...

I was bad at that, always using more words that needed.
Mr. Brown would be upset with me for that. So would Miss French.

“Stop staring at your arm, Wakefield—it’s unusual,” Stacey West muttered, looking up at me from her copy of “Mein Kampf”.

It was a very interesting book—and one of the few that had ever been written. The old race hadn’t been able to write well—it was an accomplishment that we could even read.

“Okay,” I say finally, rolling my sleeve back down.

“How horrible did you have to be in class to get out before us?” Abel asks, glancing over.

I didn’t know her first name, as was right, since she didn’t talk as much as Stacey. I wasn’t sure why that felt weird, though. It was a faint pull. I ignored it, though. The board would be mad if they knew I was having vagueness of thought in my mind; it was like daydreaming. Many children of the old race had to go to special schools because of doing too much of that.

I finally snap out of that, realizing I was still doing such, and waited for the so-far-silent West to speak.

“I pretended to be sick so I could go and kiss Tommy Mayor. I don't think I was sneaky enough, though...maybe...”

White gasped, recoiling from where she sat by West. I even whipped around to look at her, my neck making a popping noise from how fast I turned in my seat.

“You didn’t!” she exclaimed.

The speaker hissed in warning, a pop of static following, and White looked correctly abashed.

“I did,” West bemoaned, “I don’t even know why.”

“You did it because you were—maybe are—weak,” I said, out of habit.

West and White both gave me harsh looks, but Abel looked like she agreed, her large nose scrunching up on her face.

“Let’s just not talk about it anymore,” White mused.

West nodded slightly. “Okay, Jade.”

Jade?

White nodded.

That was her first name then; or maybe a codename?

Abel gave me a look that seemed to signify “Should we tell the board tonight?” the question showing up in her muddy brown eyes.

After all, we were both going. And the Republic was ours to defend, against possible traitors.
I just gave a small shrug. We’d watch, at least until next week—if we could.

***

I glanced around the room nervously. I never liked doing this. It was my third time, but it still made me nervous.
I shivered as I took in the now-familiar long table with the dark green runner, the velvet drapes that kept the light out, and the old professors and the even older headmaster.

“Step up,” Headmaster Holmwood demanded.

Abel and I moved forward and I stepped onto the wooden block before the three highest ranking agents here; the headmaster, Miss Uren, and Mr. Barker. For some reason the last name made me feel that weird tug; which meant I didn’t like him much.

The helper today, an average height man with brown hair, moved forward and wrapped the odd, almost white silvery wire around my wrist. It was hooked up to a machine with a screen. It drew jagged lines, but I didn’t know why. I didn’t ask either. Asking questions was an offensive practice if you were a non-agent, especially if you were an adolescent.

“Speak,” Miss Uren said, her eyes glittering under the candlelight.

Something about this I didn’t like. Maybe it was because the normal lights weren’t on, because this was the electricity-saving week of the month.

I gulp and move my hand anxiously.

“Well, I have been using a few too many adjectives,” I say.

The jagged line jumps a little, but no one speaks.

“Anything else to add, Miss Wakefield...?” Mr. Barker asks, his voice trailing off at the end in the normal way it does when he’s trying to get something out of you.

I blink at the weird phrase and then push it out of my mind.

“Not that I can think of,” I say, the jagged line jumps higher, though.

It made me think of the tug, after all, him asking that question.

The headmaster frowns and my palms go sweaty.

“You’ve been daydreaming about being outside, haven’t you?” Miss Uren asks, and her voice is firm—like she knows that’s what it is, even though it isn’t.

Well, not really, but close enough.

“Yes,” I say.

The line stays the same. I almost let out a breath of relief, but I don't know why.

“Hmmm,” Headmaster Holmwood mused quietly.

That relief disappeared in an instant.

“You’ll get your wish this time, but it is its own punishment. For four days you will help keep the workers in Sector Four of this district of the Republic hydrated, help out the other women.”

I cringe. “They’re of the old race.”

Some of the few our great leader kept around, for work purposes. They couldn’t do much more, but they had their worth—especially since we couldn’t get the animals to do much without breaking the Right Laws of 1999.

“Exactly, you’ll get to see how idiotic they were.” The headmaster has that same glint in his eyes and I don’t like it.

I can almost feel Abel’s fear as well.

“You may go,” Miss Uren adds.

I nod and the helper takes the wire from my wrist. I glance him over and note the scar on his breastbone, a triple circle; the sign of the old race. I feel slight pity for him, even though I shouldn’t. His tongue is probably cut out, too. They get so frantic if allowed to speak, though.

I mentally shrug it off, just glad that I’m not hooked up to a thought-reading machine. I heard Sasha Gray, one of Stacey’s friends, mention it once. She was such a gossip.

Anyway, the pity would be frowned upon.

“Abel,” the headmaster states, and I quickly scurry from the room.

I don’t want to know if she’s decided to give Stacey up or not.

XXX

CHAPTER TWO: WRENCHED TO A HALT?

A blaring noise woke me. My vision was a blur as I shot upwards into a sitting position.

“Good, Miss Wakefield, you’re finally up,” Miss Uren said, her face a few inches from mine, in a set sneer.

Luckily, my vision was also slightly misty form sitting up so fast, so I didn’t have to see how angry she was at me now.
I wasn’t sure why, but she definitely seemed to hate me. Maybe it was because she was jealous. But agents, especially professors, didn’t feel silly things like that, so that was impossible. Maybe she was just doing her job a little too well?

“I’m up,” I say finally, while rubbing the grit out of my eyes with the backs of my hands.

I yawn briefly and just try to get used to the light and having Miss Uren of all people in my room. I keep expecting her to whip out a ruler.

“Okay, and?” She has backed up and is watching me with rapt attention.

My mind makes the connection and I’m out of bed putting on my normal, knee-length skirt and less-than-stiff, wrinkled white cotton shirt. I figure it’s warm outside (though the weather has been unusual as of late), so I don’t grab my gray wool sweater.

“Dressed?” she asks me after a second and I nod, as I finish pulling the wooden comb through my hair.

I frown at my hair, though, realizing I’ll have to have it cut. It’s past regulation length.

“Report to the front hall, then; a representative will meet you there,” Miss Uren says, watching me with what I can tell is disgust.

***

I meet a chipper, blazing red-haired woman at the door. She’s jumping up and down, almost, as she rocks from her heels to the balls of her feet, and she’s grinning in an almost creepy way.

I watch her indifferently, like I know I should, even if she is one of the oddest things I’ve seen since I’ve come here. Her clothes look normal, but her hair is way too colorful. If she’d been wearing a color that bright, say as a shirt, it would’ve been stripped off her and burned.

I wonder how she got away with it.

But at least her hair was regulation length.

“Hi! I’m Kathy. I guess you’re Ann?”

I blink at her. The man holding open the door, the same bystander servant from last night, even gawks at her.

“I’m Wakefield,” I say, and then lift my chin and sniff.

I’d seen Miss Uren do this plenty of times and I know it makes bystanders cower. I’m not sure why.

And, unfortunately, it doesn’t affect the freak before me. It makes the servant back up a little, until he’s almost hiding behind the door however.

“Oh” the word leaves the woman’s mouth in a gush of air.

I back up a little, betting she has horrible-smelling breath. People of the old race never understood hygiene. Of course they didn’t understand love was just chemicals, either. They thought it was something you couldn’t deny. Like the books said, they weren’t very bright. Just like this Kathy person, using first names and trying to get attention.

“Um, are you ready to go?” She seems unnerved.

Finally!

I give her a small smile, but it’s mostly because I know which one of us could potentially become an agent and get a much better life. She could never. She’s stuck as a hapless, helpless bystander. I don’t intend to be stuck as one.

“Yes,” I say curtly.

She actually gulps. “Good, um, let’s go, then.”

I nod stiffly and slink past her.

She must be one of the ones that weren’t completely fixed mentally. At least they hadn’t been forced to put her down.

She had a lot of energy and would probably be a good worker if you got her to focus. She probably was, actually.

I meet the brown-haired servant’s eyes once more, about to tell him to make sure he locks the door when I meet his eyes—hazel, but very light colored. Something in them makes my chest give a funny jolt and an image pops up in my brain.
I almost let out a gasp, but I quickly scuttle away as Kathy decides to get ahead of me.

“You okay, A—Wakefield?” she asks me, tripping on my name as I notice her glancing back.

Her eyes are blue, I note, and they do nothing.

Thank goodness.

“I’m perfectly fine,” I assure her, though the image is still worrying me.

I can’t be unfixable. I can’t be like her.

But you saw someone else’s face when you looked at that man. Your brain is relapsing to the way it thought before—when you were an animal!

I shudder and just walk faster, easily outpacing Kathy.

People of the old race are weaker than you are. If you’re still strong, you’re fine. I remind myself. Nothing has changed; things like this happen. You just need to go back to the Lab and get yourself checked. Worst comes to worst, you’ll forget this week. No one relapses more than a few times; no one ever has had someone else’s thoughts in them more than a handful of times. It worked right the first time. If it works right the first time, all is good.

I let out a sigh and my heart beat slows. I mean, the doctors who did the original procedure knew what they were doing—they had thirty-five patients done that day, already!

After all, Ann Wakefield doesn’t exist anymore. I look like her, but we’re not the same. I’m a new person, a better one—a proud halfway member of the new race. They made sure of that.

She’ll give up whatever hold she had soon.

***

“Now, new girl, you got to be careful around here, okay? See, these buildings crumble a lot. When those enemies tried to blow us up, which they failed to do, they left a bit of a mess. Try not to step on anything orangey or that’s glass.”

I try to keep a blank expression that doesn’t show my disgust. This man is a clear picture of the old race; unaligned, yellowed teeth, stringy, almost gone hair, yellowed nails, pot belly, slouch, reddish-shaded skin, etc. He looks like he could drop dead at the drop of a hat.

All the other workers look mostly the same, at least the ones right here. I can tell they’re setting up the road to be magnetic here, moving away rubble and fixing the road. I’m not sure why, however, since the buildings on either side of this dump look ready to collapse.

“All right,” I mumble out finally.

He nods, then spits to my left. I flinch, not sure what he means by that. Isn’t that some form of old race nonverbal gesture? I think it is. It better not mean something horrendous.

“Come along, Wakefield,” Kathy tries to sooth, coming up behind me and moving me to a table ahead and to the right.

The table itself looks ready to fall over, like the buildings, and it simply has a tray with a few cups and a pitcher filled with some yellow-colored drink.

“What is that?” I ask Kathy, trying not to notice the scantily clad and equally half-dead looking women.

“It’s Lemonade,” Kathy responses almost tiredly, “why?”

“I haven’t seen it before,” I admit, feeling idiotic.

It looks nasty, though, with clear stuff floating in it.

I glance over at the girls again and snort. “And what are they wearing? That has to be against regulation.”

“The govt. doesn’t care what we do, they just want it done, honey,” one of the men, a younger one at least, says.

His accent is so thick I can barely make out what he’s saying.

I frown at him. “Excuse me? You’re not supposed to refer to me in such terms.”

“Yeah, well, and they weren’t supposed to read those chick rags they found in that building over there.” He points at what seems to be just a trash heap.

I blink, stunned. Reading unregulated books is a felony!

“And you better not report ‘em. I like looking at their butts.”

“Pigs,” I mutter, before realizing I sound so much like Miss Uren it about scares me.

“Don’t mind them,” a boy, seemingly the youngest here, says from the shade.

He’s sitting down on a rusty barrel not too far from the table itself, but far enough away from the work being done that I notice once he speaks a few of the other men look at him in annoyance.

“Says the kid whose parents is agents and probably won’t be staying here long,” a relatively pretty brunette, one of the girls, says in a mutter beside me—in horrible English.

I really don’t see how the government lets them run free, even this much—no matter if their minds are as blank as mine (but mine can have things put back into it, while theirs is only good for the basic or trivial).

Of course, we are in a district far away from the Central Ring, those three cities our great leader loves the most. He probably realizes they’ll get cancer from these working conditions anyway.

But still, they should at least be made able not to speak. And those books need to be destroyed.

I snap back into focus as one of the girls nudges me. She then nods at the youngest worker when I give her an annoyed glance.

“He asked for a drink,” she whispers quickly.

“So, they’re right there,” I say, not wanting to wait on a common, true bystander, even if his parents are agents.

“We get them drinks,” the girl hisses.

I sigh and just pour some of the yellow-tinged, odd drink into a cup and walk the brief stretch of patchy asphalt until I get close enough to reach out as far as I can and wait for him to take it.

He chuckles at me and I almost glare at him, but I keep that indifferent expression my Social Graces teacher tells me to.
I can’t help but eye him over, though; curious to see how a child of two agents could become a bystander.

The first thing I notice is, that even in this fairly warm weather, he’s wearing a long-sleeved shirt, pants, and gloves. The others aren’t dressed like that. He also wears dark glasses and some sort of cap that has some sort of stiff something sticking out in the front. He looks like a criminal.

I almost growl, thinking of committing a crime against our great leader.

“Can you just hand it to me?” he asks me curiously.

His eyes are blocked by the glasses however, so I can’t tell if he’s just being a snake and going by animal instincts like his friend. I don’t move any closer, of course.

“Come on, I’m not like Dick over there. I won’t hurt you,” he says in a light-hearted manner, as if reading my mind.

I stiffen, not liking that thought, then just step closer and brusquely stick the cup in his face. He chuckles again and takes it from me.

He sets it down on the barrel, however, rather than taking a sip—which makes me annoyed and frustrated, obviously.

He then takes off his hat and and then glasses, before saying one short, meaningless word, loudly: “Boo!”

I jump back, startled. His hair is some weird, silvery color, his irises are red- and violet-streaked, and his skin is sickly pale in the sunlight.

He about smirks at my expression and I hear guffaws and a few giggles (Kathy) behind me.

“You’re a mutant!” I shriek, backing up further, wondering if I can catch whatever it is that did this to him.

I still remember the horror stories, being told about the almost thoughtless, violent people who had been in the cities that had been bombed. There was a reason I never left the School’s grounds, unless I was ordered to.

He only laughs, almost falling off the barrel. “I’m an albino, you moron!” he says, between peals of laughter.

I scowl, not knowing what that means and not liking that he may have touched my hand and had been breathing on me. I also don’t like that I don’t know, for whatever reason—even though I know it’s rude to ask questions.

After a minute he calms down, puts back on his cap, and drinks from the cup like nothing’s happened. He’s still looking at me with those eerie eyes of his.

“So, did the precious higher up, to-be agent get spooked?” he asks me, before tossing his used cup at my feet.

I shudder and back away from it.

“I think you did.”

“Leave her alone, D!” one of the girls yells.

I squirm, just standing there, for a second, then stalk back to Kathy’s side.

I don’t like being ridiculed.

“Hey, girly, can you hand me that wrench?” one of the workers asks me, suddenly.

I jump again and one of the girls giggles—again!

The world is out to get me.

“Sure,” I say, as I bend over in the least shameful way possible to pick up the shiny silver tool.

I pause for a second, realizing I’ve never seen a wrench. It just clicked.

This is getting worse. Night terrors the first week, daydreams the second, and now this!

I feel eyes on me and I blush, unable to help it, before hurriedly handing it to the hulking workman.

“Thanks.”

“You’re welcome, thank you for being a gentleman,” I purposefully stress the last word, glaring first at the youth that had been staring at my backside and then at the albino person—whatever that meant.

He, the albino, seemed to be quite focused on me, already. I felt gooseflesh start on my arms. It seemed like he knew he was making me uncomfortable, though, and he swiftly looked away, his clenched jaw all I could see with the fresh shadows on his face.

The other kid didn’t look away, sadly, he just grinned. Oh well. At least I managed to get that freaky pale one deterred.

XXX

CHAPTER THREE: RECKONING AND 911

Me, being me with my horrible luck (if that existed), I’m awoken by sobbing, harsh, grating sounds that make me want to about smother myself with the pillow—to get quiet. Or lob something at the person who’s crying. Either, or.

Too many adjectives!

I groan at the thought and just flip over, bleary-eyed once more and exhausted from my hard day. The sunlight had been killer. And standing on concrete for hours was rather close to the torture traitors got, I imagined. At least I hadn’t been panting like a dog like those other women and girls.

I finally notice Stacey, curled up on the far end of the room; crying with the candelabra on the table beside her all lit up. Everywhere else is just dark, static gray-black. I can hardly see the forms of the girls who sleep in this room, all eleven of us.

“What’s wrong?” I ask in a whispered hiss.

Stacey doesn’t respond, so I just turn over with a groan and try to sink back into the blank darkness of sleep.

Then, after I’m halfway there, she does respond.

“T-they reopened the c-cuts on my arm and b-burned them,” she says, in a choked voice.

I sigh and just shrug noncommittally. I wasn’t getting into what they should or what they shouldn’t do. It wasn’t good for a to-be agent to do such things; it made us look bad and it could make us perpetually ranked low.

“And they h-hurt Tommy—they beat him!”

I sat up, then, past irritated. “What did you expect? You get your partner picked out for you and you’re not supposed to engage contact with the opposite sex!” I hiss.

Someone groans in the room, and I sink down a little, not wanting to be caught up at such an unleaderly hour. At least the speakers hadn’t shrieked.

“Yeah, but it was just a kiss!” she said, her comment followed by a sob.

“So?” I ask quieter. “It was a kiss. That’s enough. Stay away from people and maybe you won’t end up with their blood on your hands.”

“What was that?” Stacey sniffles, but looks over at me with big, red-rimmed eyes.

I freeze.

“Nothing, it was nothing,” I say, not recognizing the phrase either. “Just get some rest. Miss Uren won’t be happy if you look like you’ve been showing such excess of emotion.”

“Right,” Stacey says, still snuffling and now rubbing her eyes.

I sigh and just turn to my side, lying down. “Now shut up before I tell her tomorrow morning that you’ve been bawling like a child.”

There’s silence after that; wonderful silence.

***

The next morning, it felt like I hadn’t slept at all. My whole body felt heavy and ached. I groaned again and just sat up shakily, my arms unusually weak.

There was brightness, sunlight coming in through the thick, protective windows (exposure to too much unclean air was bad for you); but no one was in the beds. I glanced over at the clock, then remembered it was power saving weak. Nothing but what the professor used would be on.

I then noticed no one else in the room. Well, that decided the time, then—some hour past five o’clock.
I huffed and stood up, stretching out my sore muscles before scrambling around looking for a clear (or somewhat clean) uniform.

“Ouch!” I let out the exclamation without a thought (and the speakers definitely didn’t like it). I glanced down to see a drop of blood on my finger. I blinked in surprise and looked around, to see what on earth could be sharp in a clothing drawer.

I find a small metal object with a sharp point. It’s odd and I haven’t seen it before. I just shrug to myself, and then turn it over, since a piece of cream-colored paper is attached to it. There are two words and one group of numbers, but none of it makes sense to me. The chicken-scratch words stand out to me: California, sunscreen, and 911. It seems rather random.

My brain tries to make pictures, though, like it did around the hazel-eyed servant, so I throw it back into my trunk.
I grab an outfit with shaky hands and just try to forget about what the words might mean, or what the moving picture in my head might.

***

“Welcome back, lovely,” the second-to-youngest worker yowled happily.

I gritted my teeth and went over to stand by Kathy and the other three girls—all new as of today. They seemed confused, slightly, but they also looked about ready to laugh.

“You’ll never get a hand on that one; she’s an agent in training,” one of the girls said.

I chose to glare at her.

She just looked too innocent. “What? It’s true. While we all work out here dying for your utopia, you’ll be living it up—after your sentence is up.”

I stare at her, very confused.

What’s a utopia? And why would they even care? They don’t live long anyway...

I glanced over at Kathy, wondering what she was talking about still and curious about her reaction. She was pale, very, very pale—which was odd, because she had sunburn about as bad as mine.

“Lucy, don’t talk like that!” she hissed in a quiet voice.

I rolled my eyes, expecting them to start fighting; or whatever people of the old race did in an argument. I think they started punching and biting.

I then noticed that, oddly enough, none of the workers were moving, just staring at me with various looks of horror. I gave them a questioning look, and then glanced around for the albino who had been here yesterday. He was in the shade of a dead tree, halfway fallen onto a building, and he was smirking.

He mouthed something at me, but I couldn’t make it out, so I just scooted closer to the table and picked up the pitcher.

“...Anyone thirsty?” I ask, nervously.

***

“They’re so doomed,” albino informed me, as I handed him a glass filled with plain water (which meant, luckily, I didn’t have to drink yucky strangeness today either).

“What do you mean?” I ask him, raising an eyebrow.

He just raises an eyebrow back. “They’re not supposed to tempt you.”

“Tempt me with what?”

“...Their freedom.”
I scoffed. “They’re not free; they’ll die sooner or later from the toxic fumes or whatever petty disease they get.”

Albino gives me a look, one Miss Uren might give an extremely stupid student. “You have that right, at least.”

“Of course I’m right. Only when you have the most knowledgeable person in charge, who can decide the big things for you, can you really be free,” I tell him simply, knowing that his probably faulty brain (some defect his parents must both carry but not show—they’re probably sterilized) won’t be able to handle anymore.

“Freedom is relative, though, and so is the perception of human error,” he muttered to himself, his voice so muddled up I could barely make out what he was saying.

I ignored it, thusly. I didn’t want him getting in trouble. He was young and had a lot to learn about how the new world order worked.

If he was trained, he could even make a good servant for an agent. I’d have to remember that. He’d be happier inside than out here in the brutal sun and acid air. He’d live longer, too.

He wasn’t meek enough, perhaps, but that could be learned.

I just turned; arms crossed, and watched the men work, the three girls rush around handing out water and occasionally doing first-aid. Why didn’t they allow themselves to let go, give in? They could only relearn everything if they allowed themselves to. They’d have such better lives. Of course, not everyone was fit to become an agent. Some had to be forever bystanders. I didn’t understand why they let themselves go, though. Everyone had a hope of becoming an agent. Well, I imagined so. I mean, they could at least be an agent’s servant or other helper.

I then shivered, pulling my shawl closer around me—something I’d run back and snagged once I realized how cool the weather was today. The weather was always so temperamental. My skirt fluttered up and bits of paper (hopefully now torn apart books and magazines) fluttered away on the frosty breeze.

When the wind calmed again, choosing another alleyway to breeze down, I suppose, something metal hit my leg. I glanced down; to see my skirt looking normal, everything looking normal where I’d felt the coolness. But now albino was trotting off to help the others for once. I frowned at his back, but I didn’t say anything. Maybe he wanted to know if a to-be agent knew what those words meant. After all, he’d probably found them accidentally in those rags as the second-to-youngest workman had properly called them. Still, he didn’t need to touch my skirt. He could just ask.

Of course, maybe he couldn’t. He wasn’t meant to question his superiors, either. It was a paradox, most definitely. But everyone else didn’t seem to have a problem speaking their minds in this ruined area of Sector Four.
He’s probably just playing it safe. I’d do the same, after all.

I just let out a sigh, not sure what to do with him. The others annoyed me with their wish to be able to speak their opinions, since they did it so vulgarly and without much of a point, but he showed, well, potential. I’d have to mention that at some point to the head of the wing I lived in, Miss Uren. She’d know what to do; even if I wasn’t fond of her.
But, hey, tomorrow I was still going to tell him off for pinning something to the inside of my skirt. It was embarrassing for me and for lack of a better word brash for him to do, ultimately bad for both of us.

I wasn’t about to end up like West. Luckily, I didn’t think I’d ever have that particular problem. But, still, I wouldn’t be caught dead with someone’s hands on me. I didn’t like it. For my part, I liked my personal space just that—personal.