I turn on Bel. “You didn’t have to do that.”
“Sluff it. You have more important things to worry about.”
“What I’m worried about is getting out of here. Did you find out how long the inspections will take?”
“I told you, time makes absolutely no difference. So ease out.”
“But—”
“If you’re going put me in traction about it, I’ll have my mom send you back to Detention. Or recycle you. Doesn’t matter to me.”
“You’d do that?” I don’t know why I ask. I know she would.
“If you relax and don’t cause me any heartburn, you can stick around and see what the future is like. Or you can go the other way.”
“I’ll take Option A. But if I’m ‘giving you heartburn,’” I say with air quotes, “then why not let Sharrow do my testing?”
“Reasons.”
“What reasons?”
She rolls her eyes. “Not that it’s any of yours, but I have things to research, and here no one looks over my shoulder.” She didn’t have to tell me that. Maybe this is progress. “Can we start now? Does that meet with your approval?” Without waiting for my answer, she banks her personal to the right of the white circle. It splits down the middle, the two halves slide apart, and she goes through.
I follow her into more purple—a lilac classroom with long fuchsia tables topped with white computers. The chairs are standard armless metal chairs, if you don’t count the purple plaid fabric on the seats. It’s all or nothing with these people—plain gray or crazy color. There’s soft background noise that sounds kinda like the ocean. I’m guessing it’s supposed to be relaxing, but it puts me on edge.
“Sit,” Bel says.
“Anywhere?”
Again she rolls her eyes.
Fine. I pull out the nearest chair and sit facing the computer screen.
“Pay attention to the vid-histories. You need to know this stuff.” She trounces to a lone desk at the front of the room and sits at the computer like she’s the teacher.
I scope the keyboard, relieved it’s similar to what I’m used to—QWERTY layout with some weird keys across the top. There’s no mouse or trackpad, so I press “enter,” then glance back up at Bel. She’s already engrossed in whatever’s on her screen. I wonder what she’s up to.
I look back at my own screen, which now displays “2025” in white on a purple background. Then a video begins. It looks like a protest rally. It’s weird there’s no sound. Then I realize there are headphones in a cubby of the desk. Duh. I put them over my ears.
In the mid-2020s, the Nazi movement existed in small, independent pockets, primarily underground. Though they occasionally came together in public rallies under the banner of “Nationalism,” they weren’t an organized entity, and were never viewed as a political power.
These separate groups grew, unnoticed and unchecked, until a pivot point in 2049. During a rally, violence erupted between African Americans and white supremacists. Blood was shed on both sides, but one incident stood out—three black men laughing while beating a white man to death. The vid went viral, and there was a mass outcry that resulted in the unification of white supremacist groups across the nation. This culminated in the formation of a third political party—the American Syncretic Party, or ASP.
Syncretic. I remember that vocabulary word. It means non-partisan, which is kinda ironic when their name has “party” in it.
Now the screen shows another rally, this one huge. There’s a sea of signs and banners in the crowd, all depicting coiled snakes and the letters A S P.
The ASP neo-Nazi group grew exponentially, and began running members for governmental positions. They started with school boards, city councils, mayoral candidates. From there, they progressed to state governments, then their first national Senate seat.
By the 2080s, ASPs were a presence in both the House and the Senate, and several had taken unsuccessful runs at the presidency. ASP ambitions for the White House were finally realized when a mediocre non-ASP presidential candidate, Theodore Tuttle, named an ASP, Carl White, as his Vice Presidential running mate. Thanks to this cross-party alliance, Tuttle was elected easily in 2108.
At first, it was business as usual. But then Tuttle was assassinated in what is now believed to be an ASP coup. As soon as Vice President White was sworn in as president, he instituted marital law, closed the borders, and replaced all White House non-elected positions with ASP leadership.
The screen shows a casket draped in an American flag in a cemetery filled with black-coated mourners. The new ASP president, a tall, thin man with salt and pepper hair and strange rimless glasses, stands at a podium giving a speech I can’t hear. The video cuts to a border crossing, barricaded and guarded by armed soldiers, then a city with tanks patrolling deserted streets.
The nation was taken by surprise. Overnight, citizens lost the freedom of speech, the right to vote, and the precept that all people are created equal. Mass deportations began: tourists, migrant workers, recent immigrants, and anyone who could not definitively prove US citizenship. Despite their Nazi origins being rooted in racism, the ASPs did not consider race in the deportation policy, nor was it part of their platform. But religion was a different story. All religious observance—by members of any religion—was banned. Churches, mosques, and synagogues were closed, and religious schools were decreed secular. Anyone caught preaching or teaching religion was detained without trial.
Public outcry led to an organized rebellion the ASPs called the Uberlegen Uprising. That culminated in the White War, where President White and his ASP army handily quashed the rebellion.
The video shows fighting between military and civilians, civilian bodies littering the streets. It flashes from one street to the next, one city to the next, all the same. Then it dramatically pans through black smoke to an American flag flying over the White House. The camera zooms in on the flag showing the field of stars has been replaced by a coiled snake. A shiver travels up my spine, despite seeing something similar in every alien invasion and Nazis-won-the-war movie. I guess life imitates art. Or people just aren’t very original.
On the world stage, President White and the ASP government were widely criticized, but no one stood against them. Eventually the world went mute—no one wanted to be denied access to the emerging scientific and technological advancements of the ASP government. To stay in the good graces of President White, the world became selectively blind and deaf to ASP atrocities, in particular the means by which medicine was advancing—through human experimentation, genetic manipulation, and selective breeding.
The year 2119 marked another pivot when The Massive, an earthquake of the greatest magnitude ever recorded, struck San Francisco in a disaster of epic proportions. Even supposed “earthquake-proof” buildings succumbed. The result was massive loss of life, and total destruction of the city.
My mouth drops as the camera pans the devastation. My city is hardly recognizable, far worse than photos of the 1906 quake aftermath.
The camera zooms in on hundreds of birds in the street fighting and squawking. I hear someone yell—presumably the camera guy—then the birds take flight and I see the horror. The birds had been fighting over human bodies.
The dead numbered so many, it was impossible to remove the remains, particularly given the volume of debris, the instability of the surrounding structures, and the threat of aftershocks. So President White declared San Francisco uninhabitable and off-limits. Due to the bio-hazards and other dangers, the city was believed to be unsalvageable, so what was left of the city government relocated inland to the newly built New Francisco.
Geologists, seismologists, and a host of scientists furiously studied the quake and determined it had not relieved all the pressure along the San Andreas fault. They predicted that Los Angeles—on the southern end of the fault line—was in imminent danger. If they couldn’t find a way to relieve the pressure, it would only be a matter of time before LA succumbed to the same fa
te as San Francisco.
A small group of researchers, tasked with finding a way to relieve the pressure, was allowed into the ruined city to study the fault. In the process, they discovered the wormhole and immediately realized its potential—using time travel to destroy the ASP empire. They couldn’t allow the wormhole to fall into the hands of the ASPs, so they kept their discovery secret and began a small movement with the hope of changing the world.
This is the movement you are now part of.
Welcome to the Resistance.
Chapter Fourteen
Flyx
I wake up shivering and reach for the coverlet, but there isn’t one. This isn’t my cot.
I sit up. The room spins and I fall back against the pillow.
I’m in STARS. Recovery room. Remo must have pulled me out of the TIC.
“Remo,” I call, voice weak. “Remo!”
I hear someone coming. Carefully, I turn my head toward the doorway. It’s Daum.
“You stink,” he says, scrunching his nose.
I take a whiff. “Ugh.” What did I do, gravy on myself? Then I remember, yeah, I basically did. “What are you doing here?”
“You’re welcome.” He tosses a fresh uniform at me.
“Did Remo tag you to come nettle me?”
“Something like that.”
“Why the soot didn’t he take me to Med?”
“Sincerely? You’d want to be at the mercy of a girlfriend you don’t remember? When you feel like compost and smell worse? Remo did you a favor.”
I shrug. I know I should be concerned about this Sharrow person, but all I can think of is Allison. I swing my legs over the side of the bed and suck in a resp to steady my stomach.
“Whoa, you okay?” Daum asks.
“I need to find Allison Bennett. Do you know where she is?”
“Last time I saw her was last night in Middies.”
“Is she okay? How’d she get out of Detention? Tell me everything.”
“I don’t cog anything. Yesterday I spent working off demerits for disobeying orders during a Priority One.”
“That’s rot.”
“Nah, I got lucky compared to Spires and Novalie.”
“No.”
“Yeah.”
Oh gods. The blood rushes from my head, and I grip the mattress. “Allison—was she recycled, too?”
“Negative. She remembered me.”
Phew. “But you don’t know where she is now?”
He shakes his head. “Sharrow would. She’s Allison’s auditor.”
“I can’t ask Sharrow.”
Daum snorts. “Guess not. Too thorny.”
“But you can. Please? I’m desp. You’ve got to help me.”
“Kidding, right?”
“You owe me for covering your hind with Janell last month.”
“Neg. Huh uh.” Daum looks away. That’s when I cog I’ve got him. I wait. One, two, three… “Fine. You win.” He keys something into his personal.
While we wait for a reply, I get a whiff of myself. Eck. No way I can meet Allison Bennett like this. “Send me her locay when you get it? I need to shower.”
“Good call,” he says, fanning his nose.
Chapter Fifteen
Welcome to the Resistance.
So dramatic, and again completely unoriginal.
The computer screen goes black, displaying a white logo that says “ResistGov.”
Then it fades to purple, and white letters spell out “Press ENTER for safety protocols.”
I stretch and finish the dregs of my coffee. Bel’s focused on her screen, not paying any attention to me, so I think a little snooping is in order.
I open a new window and list the directory, but there’s nothing useful. No schematic of the compound, nothing about a time machine or a wormhole, no information about the tests I’m taking. There’s plenty about recycling, but nothing about recycling people.
I’d bet good money the info is in here. I sure could use Jake’s hacking skills.
Jake. I imagine looking into his eyes…and him looking back and not knowing me. I’m pretty sure my heart would crack in two. I can almost feel it fracturing just thinking about it.
Enough. I need to quit feeling sorry for myself and do something.
I scour the directory again, but I still don’t find anything. I need to get out and do some real snooping, the kind I’m good at.
A message window pops up on my screen.
FLYX: hello? is this Allison Bennett?
Is Bel messing with me? I glance up, but she doesn’t look any different. I type a response, going easy on the keyboard so she doesn’t hear.
GUEST: who is this?
FLYX: I need to find Allison Bennett. is this Allison?
GUEST: who are you
FLYX: a friend
GUEST: tell me your name
FLYX: Flyx but you don’t know me
GUEST: then how exactly are you my friend
FLYX: so you ARE Allison
GUEST: maybe, but don’t dodge the question. how can you be a friend if I don’t know you
FLYX: I’m a loggie. basically a history monitor. I look for changes to the timeline and I saw you. well, not you, exactly. I saw evidence of you. in 2018 you were reported missing, last seen in the San Francisco Public Library wearing a Victorian costume
Wow, that’s right. But that doesn’t mean he’s a friendly. Maybe he’s spying on me. Maybe this is part of the test.
GUEST: what do you want
FLYX: to know if you’re okay
GUEST: I’m fine
FLYX: good. do you think we could, I mean I was hoping, I’d really like to meet you. in person
If this is a test, I don’t know what the right answer is. Probably no. I’m kind of intrigued, but I have to be smart…
FLYX: Allison, are you still connected?
GUEST: I’m here
FLYX: this place has gotta be weird for you. I wanted you to cog you have a friend. you’re not alone
Relief washes over me. I didn’t realize how alone I felt until he said that. Bel may be my sister, but she isn’t exactly my BFF.
GUEST: a friend would be good
FLYX: have you eaten?
GUEST: only coffee
FLYX: be there soon. act like you don’t know me
GUEST: that won’t be hard
There’s a tingly feeling in my belly as I clear the messages. A mix of nerves and excitement, and a little hunger given the mention of food.
I return to the purple screen and press enter to watch the safety protocols.
An image appears of a man in a black suit with medals on it, like a military uniform. There’s a coiled snake on his hat. The voiceover starts up again.
The ASP military wears uniforms similar to these, though members of the party can look like anyone.
The screen goes purple again, and words appear in bold:
Safety Protocol One: anyone, anywhere, anytime can be the enemy.
Then the screen shows a graffiti-covered wall. It could be one I’ve seen, though I don’t recognize it.
Hologram technology has been deployed throughout the complex to protect our true nature in the event of an inspection.
The image morphs into a closed door on a white wall. Then morphs again into a plain gray wall with no door visible. Now the camouflage makes sense.
“Allie!” Bel shouts, loud enough I hear it over the narration.
I take off my headset. “What?”
“Aren’t you done yet? I’d like to get out of here before the day’s completely over.”
“Uh….” I hit enter several times, advancing the presentation. How many safety protocols are there? I’m up to eight with no end in sight. “How do I know when I’m done?”
“You need to get through math before we can leave.”
I keep advancing the presentation until I come to a purple screen that says “Aptitude Test #1: Math.”
“Starting math now.”
“’K.” I’m uneasy missing all those safety protocols, but I don’t go back.
Math has never been hard for me, and I blow through the questions. Thank goodness it’s cake because I’m distracted thinking about the arrival of my “friend,” Flyx.
I realize I’m expecting a guy, but I have no idea what kind of name Flyx is. It could be a girl. Or, there could be more gender identities in this time. Maybe it’s evolved to where you don’t have to choose one gender if you don’t want to. That would be kind of cool, so long as they got the language part figured out. I feel bad when I choose the wrong pronoun.
The doors hiss open and I look up.
Definitely a guy. A really hot guy.
His silver-white hair is buzzed on one side and hangs to his jaw on the other. It perfectly matches his silvery jumper.
“Flyx,” Bel says. “What are you doing here?”
“Hey, Bel. I could ask you samewise.” The door slides shut behind him, and he looks over at me. “Allison?”
His eyes are a piercing bright blue, almost too blue. He’s got a white tattoo—I didn’t know there was such a thing—in a triangle design under his left eye, and his dark brows are striking next to his white hair. His jaw is square, his nose and chin slim and perfect, his mouth a bit pouty like a model. Then he smiles. Not a big smile. Barely an upturn at the sides of his mouth, and now I’m pretty sure I’m melting.
“Are you Allison?” he asks.
Oh God, why can’t I say anything?
“Allie, you’re drooling,” Bel says.
My cheeks flare. “I, I’m Allie. Allison, I mean. Yes. That’s me.”
“Please,” Bel says. “You’re embarrassing yourself.”
“Ease out, Bel,” Flyx says.
Then it dawns on me— “Bel, he knows you.”
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