The Sway

by Ruby Knight

  “To infiltrate Cole Thomas and gain his trust on behalf of the United States government. If his father were to step out of bounds according to their standards, I was to take Cole hostage on behalf of the CIA to use as leverage.”

  I scanned the crowd trying to find Cole. I’m sure he’d figured this much out already. No luck glimpsing him, though, and Hipster Dude fired off the next question.

  “When were you recruited?”

  “I was thirteen.” I breathed out, my words shakier than I’d anticipated. I lost my whole childhood. A swell of emotional panic rose inside me for the girl I could have been, for the child I would never be.

  “Did you undergo treatment at Eisenhower?”

  “Yes. Every new recruit had to go through a medical evaluation.”

  “You’re stalling, Caldwell. What do you know about The Sway?”

  Of course I was stalling. I wanted to tell them whole life story. I wanted to read them my diary. I mean, if I kept a diary, I’d want to read it to them. I kept glancing from side to side, trying to find something to ground me, to give me some sort of stability.

  “Um … you have very nice facilities.”

  Some people in the crowd chuckled. I cleared my throat and continued.

  “Also that bravery, honesty, trust, and loyalty are vital to your success. I saw your sign. Do you force people to stay here?”

  A few in the crowd smiled proudly at my answer and shook their heads in response to my question. My heart filled at their emotion. I knew the answer to my own question. They were here because they wanted to be here. I saw acceptance reflected in the eyes of the teenage soldiers.

  A buzz seemed to go through my body. Was I drugged? This wasn’t me. I’d been trained better than this. What in the hell were these warm fuzzy feelings? My heart was never full but cold and solid. I didn’t want them to accept me. My path had been set since I was thirteen.

  I took a deep breath. When I exhaled, the air broke apart and seemed to get caught in my lungs. The careful control I thought I had of my life was an illusion. The government had me perfectly pegged and gave me what looked just like control, only it wasn't. They could choose to shut me off and activate me in a way where I wouldn't be in control of my own actions. I just couldn’t wrap my head around how this place could be any different. None of this could be real. An elaborate set up. My final test for Eisenhower. I needed to prove my worth, that I was trustworthy. I wouldn’t break.

  “Julia. Did you hear me?”

  Crap. “I'm sorry, can you repeat that?”

  “Will you walk away from your current allegiance to join our cause?”

  What cause? Who am I joining?

  “Why in the hell would I join you? I don’t even know you.”

  A collective gasp went through the crowd, followed by about two hundred eyeballs giving me the stare down. My heart started to pick up pace. Sweat broke out on my hairline.

  “Julia, this is a unique opportunity.”

  Unique opportunity, my ass. The Sway, we have nice facilities, join us, be in our cult. Jab a needle in your thigh. Switch allegiance. Hell no. I started peeling the electrodes off my face and pulling at the wires.

  “Take off the straps.” I started fighting against the chair. “Please, I just need a minute. I can’t think!”

  I made the recliner jump back and forth, I must’ve looked slightly insane to half these kids, but I couldn’t breathe. It was like my mind had stopped calculating the exact outcome of scenarios and how I felt actually meant something. It made my lungs tighten and my head swim.

  “Please, just give me a minute. Please,” I said through shaky breaths.

  Apparently, I could resort to begging. Hipster Dude glanced down at a monitor, and a hiss of air released the cuffs around my wrist.

  “Julia, we will expect an answer.”

  My bodyguards came back, pulling me up and effectively putting me in a box between their four bodies, with me like a pinball in that space as we walked out. Sweat dripped from my brow. I glanced up and finally spotted Cole. I couldn’t understand the expression on his face. Disappointment? Regret? Fear? Why did I care? I was stronger than this; I could push the emotions back.

  I stumbled over my feet as confusion clouded my brain, which seemed to cut synaptic responses to my legs. The guards put me in a tiny holding room. I hated being on the other end. How many prisoners, captives, had I held just like this? I wasn’t a bad person. Patriotic work was just work. Karma was on the side of justice; she wasn’t sadistic like this. I could probably lie down and have my toes reach one end and my head touch the other. The metal door slammed with a sort of finality to it. I looked around, the gray cement walls sending a chill through my skin.

  “Where is the furniture?” I whispered to myself.

  “You’re a prisoner, or did you forget?”

  I glanced up, finding a speaker integrated into the ceiling.

  Of course. I sat down and crossed my legs, like a kid at circle time, and started to focus on my breathing, centering myself. That’s all I could do right now. Breathe.

  Deep breath in. Was everything in my life defined by Eisenhower?

  Deep breath out. I think I’m meditating wrong.

  Deep breath in. Come on, mind. Slow down.

  I kept breathing and trying to understand the situation I was in. Footsteps echoed beyond my tiny cell. Someone was coming. The door swung open. I slowly raised my eyes to meet Cole’s.

  “Why is this a hard decision for you? We’re saving you! Can’t you just get that?” he said.

  My hand curled into a fist as I imagined the satisfaction the sound of breaking his nose would bring me.

  “Can’t I just get that? Really? So you, knowing exactly who I am and how I’ve been trained, think I can just blindly accept this new alternate path for my life? One that doesn’t exist as far as anyone knows. I don’t know, Cole. How easy would it be for you? And what is The Sway, anyways? Who are you people? What the hell do you do? What’s your end game?” I spat.

  My breathing sped up and I clenched and unclenched my hands. Cole sat down across from me, mirroring my position.

  “I didn’t mean it like that. I just want this for you.” He ran a hand through messy hair.

  “What is this?” I waved my hand around me. “This is some secret society? Been there, done that. Graduated top of my class,” I said, placing my palms on my thighs and spreading my fingers out.

  “It is so much more than that. Julia, these kids, they…” He stopped and looked up at the ceiling, seeking permission—or begging forgiveness, I’m not sure. “…Have you seen X-Men?”

  “Have I seen X-Men? Like the new one or the old one?” I stumbled over my words.

  “It doesn’t matter, either or.”

  I nod. Where was he going with that? Next, he’d tell me all the kids here are superheroes in training.

  “Well, everyone here is kind of like a version of X-Men.”

  Oh, for God’s sake! Seriously? I mean…

  I looked at Cole, really looked at him. “What?”

  Three loud quick beeps blared over the speakers and the room went silent.

  Cole grabbed my hand.

  “Come on. Now! Hurry,” he said while pulling me to my feet.

  “Where are we going? Why are we running?”

  He pulled me through the fancy double doors. The kids were all still in the assembly room.

  Every one sat perfectly at attention; no one moved a muscle.

  I looked out at the crowd and noticed nearly everyone had stopped moving, besides Cole, ten feet from me now. Why weren’t they moving? He quickly closed the distance and came to my side.

  The lights dimmed further and in an incredibly efficient manner, every person in the room made rows and columns, little squares of perfectly organized people. I looked up at Cole and he shook his head once. I didn't move. The screen behind me lit up. Little Miss Too Innocent and Cole turned to face it, so I stood and followed suit. Why was ever
yone so nervous, frozen? What the hell was going on? They were robots. The Sway turned them into robots, that was it.

  We were looking at the interior of a government bunker. They had men and women who had to be foreign military commanders, because they were dressed in uniforms and definitely all from different countries judging by the insignia on the shoulders. Their faces were plastered on various flat screens throughout the room they were in.

  “So we are in agreement. The World Order will go into effect.”

  I knew that voice. A chill scattered goose bumps over my body. I turned to Cole and his eyes were wide.

  His father was leading whatever group this was.

  A few nods and affirmatives echoed in various languages. None of the men and women on the screen were leaders I recognized. This was a rogue group.

  “We start with the largest targets. We will give anyone who wants to leave two weeks to evacuate their homes, showing them how generous we can be. London, Tokyo, Bangkok, Rome, Paris, New York, Los Angeles, Sydney, Moscow, Berlin, Montreal, Cairo, Chicago, Johannesburg, Mumbai, Austin, Karachi, Rio de Janeiro, Singapore, Hong Kong, Washington DC. We are in agreement, then? In two weeks’ time, we will move to change the world,” Hank Thomas said.

  A screen in the middle of that room switched to a countdown. I looked at Cole and he grabbed my hand. The silence was deafening. The clock ticked: three, two, one.

  “Citizens of the world, I come to you today in an offering of peace.” The screen zeroed in on the man speaking English, one I knew. “My name is Hank Thomas and these are my commanders.”

  The screen flashed, showing people from varying ethnicities, the same ones we’d seen in the video prior.

  “What’s going on? Who’s he talking to? Can he see us?” I asked.

  Cole leaned into my ear and whispered, “This is on every channel.”

  He motioned over his head to a command station in the corner that had multiple screens set up, all showing the same scene.

  “They’ve hijacked every station, I would guess,” he said.

  I nodded once, letting the magnitude of the situation set in.

  Hank continued. “You should know that in two weeks from now, the world you know will no longer be in existence.”

  He smiled charmingly, as handsome as George Clooney in his prime, but he held darkness in his eyes, and they made me feel like I was being suffocated by a snake.

  “Every major city of the world will be destroyed as of noon, two weeks from today. This world and the wars we have fought have been in vain. It’s time to join as brothers and become stronger than any civilization in the past.”

  The city names spoken moments before in the private feed flashed across the screen in huge, bold white letters.

  “If you live in one of the cities listed, I strongly suggest you pack up and find new residence. Within forty-eight hours, you may also notice your smartphones will no longer work, your Internet will be down, and television will be a thing of the past. This is for your benefit. Letum will take care of you. Once the initial cleanse has been taken care of, we will broadcast across the world what you are to do next. A more simple way of life is coming. Get ready, act calmly, and support each other. You will hear from us soon.”

  The feed of Hank and his commanders cut away, and the cities flashed across the screen along with evacuation orders. It ended with an intricate symbol and the word Letum flashing in bold letters.

  What in the hell was Letum?

  My body buzzed, like an electrical current ran through it and then stopped.

  It buzzed again.

  The Eisenhower protocol.

  No, No. They couldn’t. Eisenhower had given us a backup, a fail-safe if we were missing,

  gone, and they didn’t have conclusive evidence that we were dead. They would activate a protocol, a death protocol. A treatment so deeply implanted in our bodies that it was a part of our DNA, and it did one of two things. It either turned you into a government sort of zombie, pushing your body to do things you weren’t completely in control of, until you could get to safety. Or it flooded your system with cyanide, killing you. I wasn’t sure which of the two was happening. I couldn’t take the chance.

  “Cole, they’re trying to activate me. I need the next treatment,” I said through gritted teeth. My body shook uncontrollably and sweat broke out in my hairline. “Cole, help!”

  My knees gave out.

  Before I hit the floor, Cole scooped me up. He glanced back at Little Miss Too Innocent. “Kiya, help me!”

  Cole’s paces got quicker, and his feet slapped against the cement floor while he pulled me in tightly against his chest. Kiya ran in front of him, yelling out to people to make way. The leader of The Sway came over the loudspeakers.

  “Cole, I’m right behind you. Marcus, meet with the squad leaders up front. Marcus will give the rest of you your orders. For now, everyone retreat to your regular schedule. Squad leaders we will meet at 0100 hours to assess the current climate,” Hipster Dude yelled out

  It felt like my brain was in a blender, being stopped from trying to send little electrical pulses to my non-responsive limbs. I couldn’t keep track of the turns we took this time to get to wherever we were going. Cole slammed through two doors and barked out orders.

  That was when I lost the fight to keep my eyes open. My body went slack in his arms.

  “Now, she needs it now,” he yelled.

  Someone wrestled with my jacket and slipped off the sleeve on my outside arm. Latex-encased fingers ran along my arm. Then the cool metal tip of the needle skimmed against my upper arm. The needle stabbed into my flesh, and my eyes shot open and I bit my lip to keep from letting out a scream. The taste of a metallic ting filled my mouth. Muffled sounds of pain escaped out of my lips, and when I looked up, Cole was only inches from my face.

  “Shh, Julia. It will be fine. I know it hurts,” he whispered.

  My eyes got wet and a few bastard tears slipped down my face. I hated crying, absolutely loathed it. I ducked my head into Cole’s chest, wanting to hide my tears from anyone else that might see them. My left arm hung limp across my stomach. Nearby, tennis shoes squeaked on the floor.

  “Caldwell, we’re going to give you a sedative. But we want you somewhere comfortable first. The sedative will allow your body the time it needs to chemically rebalance. Giving the next dose only twelve hours after the first is going to make you feel increasingly sluggish. Give it time to work through your system. Okay?” the doctor said.

  I nodded into Cole’s chest.

  “Caldwell, I need you to look at me.”

  I recognized the voice of the guy who spoke at my initiation. I rubbed the sleeve of my jacket on my face and turned my head out.

  “We haven’t finished with the initiation yet, but for all intents and purposes, we are choosing to trust you. But you’ll need to be watched. We can put you in a room with Kiya, so someone can see that you’re cared for.”

  Cole tensed slightly against me.

  “I’ve got it, Quade,” he said.

  So that was Hipster Dude’s name. Quade.

  “Cole, that goes against protocol,” Quade said.

  Cole managed to pull me even closer to his chest. “I get that, but she doesn’t have living quarters arranged yet and at least she knows me. It’s not like I am going to do something while she is unconscious. Give me a little credit.”

  I blushed, not having the energy to fight my reaction. Cole chuckled.

  “Fine, but only until we can get her living arrangements squared away. You’re lucky that we are friends, man, or you would be washing dishes for a month for talking to me like that,” Quade said sharply.

  The squeaky shoes were back and I looked to see someone older, much older than anyone else I had seen, standing in front of us with a two-inch-thick plastic box. His name was sewn into his coat. Dr. Lynthcope. I looked down toward his clean teal running shoes to verify that he was indeed the one making the noise.

  “Nic
e shoes, Doc,” I said.

  The good doctor looked like he needed a shave and a solid twelve hours of sleep.

  “Can you hold this, Caldwell?”

  I held out my arm that wasn’t screaming in pain and took the box. Inside, it held a little vial and a plastic syringe, like the one for kids that distributed medicine sublingually.

  “Tomorrow at noon, you’ll have your final dose. That one should be the easiest. Most of the active cells from Eisenhower should be dead by then. The anti-Eisenhower cure acts much like chemotherapy does, seeking out the cells that are actively mutating and trying to activate and destroying them. The difference in chemotherapy is that we have been able to isolate the isotopes within your DNA, so we know exactly what Eisenhower looks like, so the side effects that cancer patients experience aren’t going to be a difficulty for you. It’ll take time for your blood counts and energy to return to normal. Please try to be patient. I know how you kids are,” the doctor said.

  Who was he calling a kid? He was barely past kid status himself. He looked thirty, at the oldest. I nodded to him and Cole’s grip on me tightened. Quade gripped Cole’s shoulder.

  “She needs to decide,” Quade said.

  “I already have decided.”

  “Will you betray your country in order to better the world?” Quade asked.

  The World Order was the biggest threat I’d seen in my lifetime. Maybe that anyone had ever seen. Eisenhower, God—I don’t know if they tried to kill me or use me. But it was enough. Enough for me to consider drinking whatever Kool-Aid they were trying to give me.

  “If that’s what it takes.”

  Confident.

  “Will you dedicate your mind, body, and soul to The Sway?”

  “If you’ll have me.”

  “You need to have people you trust. You’ll need to make friends. No shutting down,” Quade said quietly.

  “I’ll be her friend,” Kiya said, appearing in the doorway.

  “Me, too,” Cole said as Quade rolled his eyes.

  “Bring Julia down for dinner, but let her rest until then,” Quade said.

  Cole nodded and strode away still carrying me. I was no better than a rag doll right now, but he didn’t even seem to care about hauling me around, and I didn’t have the energy to fight him on it. So I let him cart me all over the place like we were newlyweds.