Control

Home > Other > Control > Page 21
Control Page 21

by J. F. Jenkins


  “There aren’t cameras or anything here?” she whispered.

  He shook his head. “No. There’s probably alarms on the doors, but I’ve never seen a camera inside. Getting scared?”

  “Nervous, and I don’t want police showing up here to check things out.”

  “I think we’re safe from that. If the other tribes are here, they’d have thought about that already, unless the police are in on it. But something tells me the adult population of the town is clueless. The Doctor said young people were easier to work with, in the reports we stole from the old lab. Who knows? A lot of this is still hard to believe. I’m having a difficult time figuring out how we’re going to make any kind of difference,” he said, and stopped at his locker. Thankfully it was on the first floor. She didn’t know how far she wanted to venture into the building. The locker opened with ease, making a creaking sound which echoed down the hallway. He pulled out a textbook, then closed the locker door, being mindful not to slam it. They headed back the way they came.

  Angela thought about what he said. Similar thoughts had crossed her mind. After a long moment of awful silence, she spoke. “Every little bit helps. Maybe we won’t stop the war for the Alturans, and maybe they’ll move on to a new planet for their next battlefield, but at least we can do our best to maintain the status quo of our home. Those other tribes are threatening that. Think about the kind of chaos that will ensue when people with superpowers start to become more mainstream. Sure they say science is developing the theories, and blah, blah, blah, but I don’t know if our planet is ever supposed to discover it. Mentally, we might not be ready for it. We can barely handle differences in gender and race. Throw in superpowers and life on other planets into the mix...and I’m sure you get what I’m saying.”

  “True.”

  As soon as they crossed over into the athletic area again, both grew quiet. They barely breathed for fear of getting caught by whoever was using the pool. Their steps were light but fast as they tiptoed through the darkness once more. Orlando stopped by the main entrance to the pool room and pointed, as if asking if they should take a peek. Angela shook her head, not wanting to. He held up a finger and pointed again mouthing, “One minute, promise.”

  She closed her eyes and shook her head, then mouthed back, “Fine”.

  The lock didn’t need to be picked. It opened without a sound. Sure enough, the lights to the pool were on, and quiet talking could be heard echoing throughout the large room. A small circle of teenagers were sitting on the floor near the diving boards. Tait and her brother were among them, but they were the only two who were recognizable, since they were also the only two she had seen take off their masks, of the other tribes at least. It was startling how the masks could so easily disturb anything recognizable on a person, making features fuzzy like television static. The instant someone saw the mask removed, every physical feature of the wearer became clear as day to that person, even when the mask went back on. So while the other teens in the circle were disguised with static, Tait and Peyton stuck out like sore thumbs.

  Orlando clenched his fists as they crept into the bleachers that were located high above the swimming pool. They ducked behind a bench and listened.

  “Good session today,” Peyton said, but Tait snorted as if she weren’t impressed. He glared at his sister, but didn’t say more.

  “So next weekend, we’re going to be having our first big mission and we’ll see how many of you actually make the cut,” Tait said, her tone sharp and her words quick. “There are five of you here. There were twelve of you total who got the injection. You do the math on how many we’re missing. Good thing we have all of the names of those who got it. You’re getting an upgrade, and if you can bring one of the others along, bonus points for you. Each of you will be given the list.”

  “What kind of an upgrade?” one boy asked. The most Angela could tell was that he had light brown hair.

  “You’ll find out next weekend,” Tait snapped back. She must have been in a bad mood because Angela knew Tait was not usually an aggressive person. It could have all been an act to maintain authority over the group. Then again, when she was Sprout, she seemed to be a different person entirely.

  “While half of you get the upgrade, the other half are going to be with us doing some field work. There are some supplies we need to pick up from a warehouse. That’s the kind of stuff we do a lot,” Peyton chimed in.

  Orlando glanced over at Angela with raised eyebrows. She was intrigued by the whole thing as well. What kind of supplies? What kind of an upgrade? And who was on the list?

  “My Leader?” a different boy asked, interrupting Tait as she was about to say something more.

  “What?” she hollered and her voice reverberated through the entire room so loudly Angela winced.

  “My apologies for interrupting, but I sense the presence of more people nearby. You told me to let you know if there was anyone interesting,” he said. He was good at kissing her butt. It made Angela a little nervous.

  Tait shook her head, scowling. “Yeah, and?”

  “There’s an Alturan nearby, as well as one of the experimented. I mean, one more that isn’t in this room. Within about three blocks distance from here, at the most.”

  Peyton and Tait exchanged a glance.

  “Alona said she was going to come soon, maybe...?” Peyton asked.

  “...she found another?” Tait finished for him and smiled.

  The boy closed his eyes and took a few slow deep breaths, “They’re here in the school. The DNA pattern isn’t completely familiar to me, but I might have disturbance in my reading because there are so many civilians nearby. There is something recognizable. They’re close. I’ll have it soon.”

  Angela glared over her shoulder at Orlando. That seemed like a good cue for them to leave. Whether or not this guy was talking about them was a mystery, but she didn’t want to stick around and find out. Orlando nodded at her and they crept back out of the room and bolted for the maintenance closet. She did her best not to squeal with delight, and show her girlie side, as he grabbed her hand to lead her back through the tunnel to the entrance. The lid was still off, so getting out was much easier than in.

  “The lights,” she said. “Don’t forget the lights.”

  With one flick of his fingers, the light switch turned off, and together they covered the entrance.

  “Pancakes?” Orlando asked as they jogged back up the hill to his car.

  She buckled her seatbelt the moment she got in and sat down. Orlando peeled out of the parking lot just as she sat back. She took a moment to catch her breath. Angela faced Orlando and nodded.

  “Yeah, I need something to calm me down after that adventure.”

  “Tell me about it,” he agreed and took one quick look around to make sure they were alone before pulling off his mask and stuffing it into his coat pocket. She did the same.

  An upgrade on the injections? What does that even mean? She shivered, not liking the idea of being a lab rat again. I thought I’d be done with them. I guess I was wrong.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Dale paced his bedroom, trying to be patient while he waited for Jaes to come over. His meeting with the blue tribe members had gone well, until the end. After he dropped Tori off at her place, he sent Jaes a message through the communicator he’d been given, and hoped the alien would show up sooner rather than later. For the most part, the guy was quick to respond, never being later than an hour after receiving a note.

  Sure enough, thirty-seven minutes later Jaes appeared outside of Dale’s window. He slept on the ground floor of the house, so it was easy sneaking the guy in and out. Not like his parents would have cared anyway. They trusted Dale, and he’d yet to give them a reason not to. Outside of his slipup at the party, he was an outstanding model of good behavior. What happened at the party was enough to make sure he never did anything bad again.

  “What’s going on? You sounded distressed in your message,” Jaes said, and his cal
mness slowly started to rub off on Dale.

  “I went to the prep meeting and practiced like planned. I got more information for you guys. What’s bugging me is that I thought I was supposed to be the only agent there from your side,” Dale said and tried to keep his voice from shaking. The more he thought about it, the more he spoke about it, the more he started to get frustrated again.

  Jaes stared at him blankly. “I do not understand. What do you mean by another agent?”

  “There were two actually. Nate said it was an Alturan and one of the experimented kids, and at first I thought maybe it was the lead for my group. He didn’t recognize the DNAs though.” Dale paused and ran a hand through his hair in hopes of returning to the brief moment of calm he had experienced earlier. “They were in the school. So I need to know who was there and why they were sent.”

  “No one was sent as far as I know,” Jaes said, and he continued to stare at Dale, which was starting to make him uncomfortable.

  Dale shook his head. “Well it almost blew everything. They’d have changed their plans and they might not have allowed us to know about them. I finally have them sort of trusting me. More than before at least.”

  “I understand your concerns. If I knew something about this, I would have said something much sooner, I promise. It’s as much of a mystery to me as it is to you. When I get back to my ship, I will do what I can to figure out what happened. It’s a possibility it could be yet another tribe. What an interesting power this...Nate...has.”

  “Yeah,” Dale said. “You don’t know the half of it. The guy can feel the presence of everyone within a mile of him. If given enough time, he can focus on a person, tell you their name, age, sex, and a whole slew of other different things about them so long as it deals with their physical body. He reads DNA. It’s crazy.”

  “Perhaps I should not meet with you anymore like this. What if he were to use his power on you at random?” Jaes scratched at his chin slowly, standing to pace much like Dale had done only a few minutes before.

  Shaking his head, Dale sat down on his bed. “If he was going to catch us, I’m pretty sure he would have by now. I live five miles away from his house. Even if he was in the area, it takes a lot of his time to narrow down so many different attributes about someone. And it takes concentration. He’s disciplined enough, but if he doesn’t have a reason to care, why would he bother?” I haven’t been sloppy. They aren’t suspecting a thing. And he intended to keep it that way. It was amazing how good he was at playing the part, and surprising. It’s all for her.

  Then again, they hadn’t done much that he would consider too dangerous. For the most part, all he did was train into the early hours of the morning. This initiation mission was the first test to see how worthy they were for the blue tribe’s cause. I hope I have to go deliver supplies instead of be another experiment. He didn’t want to go anywhere near The Doctor again.

  Jaes stopped walking and faced him. “You have a point. I will be sure to be on my best guard all the same. What an interesting gift...”

  “Yeah, it’s cool.” Dale shrugged. “Anyway, I got a report for you with more details on what’s going to be happening and a list of names of all the injection victims.”

  “They gave you a complete list?”

  “Yup, I’m supposed to bring a guest along so they can get an upgrade.”

  “Upgrade?”

  Dale shook his head. “I don’t know what it means. I’m not sure I will know either until after the fact.” And hopefully it wouldn’t kill him. “Anyway,” he continued, “Thanks for clearing all of that up. I was beginning to wonder if I was being left further in the dark. Cause I don’t know who any of your charges are yet, and—”

  “You will get to meet them after this mission,” Jaes said in a low voice. “My superior wants to make sure you are able to perform your task accordingly. He is worried you will betray our trust, for the girl you are in love with.”

  “It’s because of her I’m helping you so we can get out of this mess.” He shook his head. “Whatever, he can think what he wants. I don’t mind proving myself. It’d just be useful for me to know so I can recognize who to shoot and who not to when the time comes.”

  “I’m aware. Soon. For the time being, know that you have allies in your school, in your town, who are watching your back. They will keep you from harm. Someday you will know their names. For now, be comforted in knowing they exist.”

  It wasn’t much of a comfort for Dale, but he’d take what he could get. Someone else in his school was aligned with the red tribe? He’d like to know who. Then he’d have a human being he could trust and talk to, someone who was a little more empathetic to the whole situation. Jaes tried his best, but sometimes he was a little too logical.

  The alien put a hand on his shoulder. “You are of great value to this mission.”

  “Can you answer some more questions for me?”

  “I can try.”

  Dale was quiet for a moment. “Why did they bring this fight to Earth? Is this the first planet outside of your own where the fighting has spread? And why are these tribes fighting to begin with? What’s the point of it all?”

  “War is difficult to understand,” Jaes said and sat down on the other end of the bed. He brought his feet up and sat cross-legged. “The war started on Altura in a mine that sits on the border of what I will refer to as the green tribe, and yellow tribe, for simplicity. The mine is filled with precious minerals that are worth a lot of money. The yellow tribe owns the land where the mine is located. They had given the green tribe permission to work in it so that they could get a solid amount of work done. The deal was the yellow tribe got a larger cut of the profit and other necessary things not naturally produced in the nation.

  “One day the green tribe found an ancient and what is considered a holy relic inside the mines. It belonged to their people, there was no mistake about it, and they wanted to make a claim to the land. Not just the mine, but farther into the borders than the yellow would like to give them. Had it just been the mine, I’m sure things would have been settled differently. The yellow are, by nature, a peaceful people. For the most part, they understand many things. Their ruler is quite wise, but the green want something that doesn’t belong to them. Fighting started in the mine, and it escalated from there.”

  “Religion, greed, yeah, I don’t understand war at all.” Dale sighed. He’d been hoping for some kind of sophisticated and logical reason. Something that felt justifiable for a war of such a grand scale. A reason for the fight to feel worth all of the effort. He didn’t know why, but he expected more from the Alturans. From his interactions with Jaes, he didn’t think they were as petty as some people on Earth could be. In the end, both Alturans and Earthlings were only human.

  Jaes continued to sit, his gaze unblinking. “Any kind of quarrel can be difficult to understand. Keep in mind these are the basics of the original fight. There is a lot going on in the background as well. The green tribe, for example, has always been an edgy, hard-hearted people. They tend to handle their problems with aggression. Their crime rates are low because they have harsher punishments, but they are not always given fair trials. Honestly, it was only a matter of time before they made an advance on the other tribe. All they needed was an excuse. Their ruler is full of greed and hungry for power. Anyone who does not live like his tribe is considered wrong and needs to be taught the correct way to live. Part of this is based on their religion, and the rest is because of a long history of other rulers who lived with a similar philosophy.

  “The blue tribe joined the green because they owed the green a favor. The purple aligned with the yellow because they saw it as right, and the leaders’ children are also betrothed to one another.”

  “Got it.” Dale nodded, trying to soak in all of the information.

  “Now, as for your other question, your home is the second planet the war has been fought on. The first was one closer to our solar system, and it did not fare well between the four tr
ibes fighting. The green sought to use as many individuals as possible, making them change their ways or else suffer the consequences. It was when this began that my tribe joined the cause to try and end things. We do not want what happened on that planet, to happen to yours.”

  “And what was that?” Dale asked, his voice shaking.

  “Too much change happened too quickly and much of the planet went into a culture shock of sorts.”

  Dale could already start to see it happening on Earth, and that scared him a lot. Sprout especially had a warped and twisted mind, acting like she was better than everyone else.

  “So why Earth?” Dale repeated his question.

  Jaes let out a sigh. “Because your people are so similar to ours. Your home is so distant though they believed they could get away with corrupting your people and using them to fight a fight that isn’t yours. But now they are making it yours.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Orlando made sure to stick close to Nia during his free time. She made good Tait-repellent at school. He’d gotten a text from his girlfriend while he’d been out with Angela. And ignored it. She called him the next afternoon and he ignored that as well. Monday she was smart and kept her distance. Tuesday through Thursday she tried to engage him by smiling or saying hi. He’d say hello back, but that was the only word he’d speak. Was it mature of him to give her the cold shoulder? No, and he knew he’d have to suck it up and talk with her eventually about everything.

  “While I like that you’re deciding to loosen up and expand your social horizons more, I also can’t help but wonder what’s up,” Nia said at lunch.

  “A directional coordinate that usually indicates North,” he mumbled as he poked at a sandwich he’d made at home.

 

‹ Prev