Last Chance

by Bradley Boals

  As Johnson’s team reached the thirteenth floor, they looked down the hall at the final twenty yards needed to reach their destination. Three of Sector 37’s finest blocked the way to room 1313. Johnson gave one last order to his team: “Boys, you know what to do. It’s been an honor.”

  His three teammates, three crewmen, three friends, made a rushed dash toward the three security personnel blocking their path to room 1313.

  “I order you to stop!” All of the guards rubbed their chests as they were tackled to the ground by Johnson’s team. A struggle began and Johnson led April, Matthew, and Connor into room 1313.

  Johnson took one last look at his friends as they held off the three guards and shut the door on them. You could still hear the pounding of boots on the staircases. The reinforcements were getting closer. Johnson yelled to April and the boys, “Get to that door in the corner, quickly!”

  The boys heard the other three members of the team as they screamed, “You can’t control us, you bastards! It’s not fun when we fight back, is it?”

  They heard the throngs of reinforcements as they reached the scuffle. “We order you to stop or we will put you down!”

  Johnson, April, and the boys reached the door in the corner and Johnson said, “Everyone in! Quick!” The door opened and April pulled in Connor and Matthew.

  Matthew stopped. “What about the others? Are we just going to leave them here?”

  Johnson replied, “You three are more important than any of us. Now get in there!”

  Johnson pushed Matthew through the doorway and grabbed the door. He took one final peek and saw that the main door to the room was being opened. He closed the door in the corner with himself, April, and the boys squeezed together within it.

  Connor asked, “So now what? Are we just going to hide in here?”

  Matthew agreed. “They’ll find us in no time.”

  Johnson reached behind April, who was crunched into the corner of the room, no bigger than a closet, and told them all to hold on. He pressed on three separate panels, and the wall that had made up the small closet suddenly turned into a wall of light. It was bright enough that it should have blinded them all, but it didn’t. They all looked into the light and could feel subtle warmth.

  Matthew looked up at Johnson. “What is this?”

  Johnson grabbed Matthew, Connor, and April. “No time to explain; let’s go!”

  He pulled all four of them into the light and they were gone.

  Back in room 1313, the security teams were doing a sweep, but found nothing. Mr. Kellington arrived and demanded answers. “Where are they? Who here is in charge?”

  A young captain made his way over. “We have three of the terrorists, sir, but the other four have not been apprehended yet.”

  Mr. Kellington, red-faced, asked, “Where the hell did they go? They didn’t just vanish into thin air. I want this room completely checked, and I want answers.”

  Keith Kellington continued to berate the security teams in room 1313 as Captain Hugo Jackson walked in and motioned for him. “I think you need to see something, Kellington.”

  Mr. Kellington responded, “Your boys have really screwed this one up, Jackson. Thomas is going to be pissed!”

  Hugo Jackson held up three chains, each with a small blue stone located in a pendant. Mr. Kellington looked at the pendants. “Whose are these?”

  “They were removed from the terrorists, sir.”

  Mr. Kellington looked around the room and pulled Hugo Jackson close to him. “That’s impossible. They must be fake.”

  Hugo responded, “We had to put them down with stunners; we couldn’t control them.”

  Kellington barked an order to Hugo. “I want all three of them at the holding station in ten minutes. I’ll find out what’s going on here.”

  Hugo Jackson shook his head. “All three are dead. Once we had them physically under our control, my men said they just smiled at them and five seconds later, they were gone.”

  Mr. Kellington grabbed the three chains and pendants and gave two final orders. “Tell no one else about this, and get me Thomas Elliott on the communicator. It looks like the PROs are back.”

  “PROs, sir?”

  Kellington leaned in and said in a hushed voice, “Persons Resisting Order.”

  Chapter 6

  the hathmec

  The bright light faded away as Matthew, Connor, April, and Johnson discerned the shapes and objects that came into view. Matthew saw a long tunnel with random lights and distinct corners creating a path. He looked behind Connor and realized that the door, which had once led to room 1313, had vanished into the darkness.

  Johnson was breathing heavily, and April hugged Connor. She began to reach for Matthew when he pulled away and exclaimed, “What’s going on, and where are we?”

  Johnson stood upright and motioned to the tunnel. “We just need to follow this path and all of your questions will be answered.”

  Connor moved to Matthew’s side. “I’m with Matthew; we’re not going anywhere else with you until we get some answers. Isn’t that right, April?”

  April took Connor and Matthew by the hand. “We need to trust Mr. Johnson. He’ll make sure we get where we need to go.”

  The boys, perplexed, pulled their hands away from April and backed away from their caretaker. Matthew asked, “Do you two know each other?”

  Johnson stepped in before April had a chance to answer and said, “Listen, you boys trusted me enough back at that complex to go along with my plan to save your mother. All I’m asking is to trust me a little more.”

  Matthew looked to April, as she nodded her head in agreement, but he wasn’t convinced. He walked toward the tunnel, turned back to Johnson, and said, “Yeah, you seem real trustworthy. Did those three guys you left back at the warehouse trust you, too?”

  Johnson’s demeanor turned from one that was trying to reassure to one that was simply annoyed and pissed. Johnson leaned down into Matthew’s face and pleaded his case. “Those three men back there are great friends of mine, you little twerp. You think because you want to go back and help them, that makes you some sort of hero? All that would have made you is a dead kid, or worse.”

  Matthew hung his head as Connor came back to his side. “Back off, man. We just don’t understand why we had to run from those guys. Why didn’t we just give up? We would have been fine.”

  April pulled the boys away from Johnson, and with her arms around both of them, told them the truth. “I am going to be completely honest with you boys, so I want you to listen to me and listen good.”

  The boys gave April their full attention as she continued. “Those guards wanted to get information out of you by any means necessary, and they would’ve used those means to hurt you both. They would’ve taken you away from me.”

  Matthew asked, “Why would they do that? We didn’t see anything but some old guy in a window. Why didn’t we just tell them what we saw?”

  Johnson, quite frustrated, said with authority, “The government doesn’t have to do the right thing, young man; all they have to do is get what they need from you and then dispose of you. I would have thought you two had read enough of those history books by now to understand that we are all slaves. We’re all just too ignorant of the truth to know it.”

  Matthew grabbed April by the shoulder and asked, “Is this the person who brings us the books?”

  Johnson replied, “I was only delivering them. You’re about to meet the man who actually gets them for you; unless you would rather just stand here for the rest of your lives.”

  April continued with her explanation to the boys. “I have known Mr. Johnson here for quite some time, and I trust him without question. You two will just have to trust me on this.”

  Connor questioned April again. “We trust you, but we still don’t know why we have to be afraid of that Mr. Ke
llington.”

  April moved to Connor’s side and gave him a big hug. “I have known Mr. Kellington since before you were born, and all he knows how to do is hurt people.”

  Matthew asked, “Did he ever hurt you?”

  “It was a long time ago. I’m not about to let him hurt either of you boys.”

  Johnson got between April and her boys and asked, “Do you think he recognized you?”

  “No, but he did say that I reminded him of someone from his past.”

  Johnson took a deep breath and moaned, “Hopefully he won’t put two and two together for a while.”

  While Johnson and April spoke with each other, Matthew and Connor moved to the other side of the tunnel and discussed their options. Connor gave his opinion. “I don’t think we have much of a choice here. We can’t go back the way we came, and it sounds like we’ll get some answers if we follow this guy.”

  Matthew looked around the area again and replied, “I don’t know if I trust this Johnson guy, but I trust April. Let’s go with him and see what this is all about.”

  Johnson and April walked back over to the boys and April asked, “So, are we going to follow Johnson down the tunnel or do you have some other brilliant idea?”

  Connor walked a ways down the tunnel and turned back. “Well, let’s go. I want to meet this guy who has all of the answers.”

  Matthew followed suit and stepped his way down the tunnel. He looked at Johnson and asked, “There aren’t any more secret doors we have to go through down here, are there?”

  Johnson raised his hand and pointed. “Just keep going straight; you can’t miss it.”

  Thirty minutes passed and the boys started to wonder if they had made a wrong turn. They were only going straight, so that didn’t seem likely. It was very disorienting along the tunnel. For every few steps, another light would pop up ahead of them and another light behind them would go out. It was as if the tunnel could sense their location.

  Connor turned back to Johnson and April, who were walking behind the boys, and asked, “Exactly how far do we have to go down this corridor? We’ve been walking forever!”

  Johnson didn’t reply, so Connor asked again. “Is anyone listening back there? How much farther do we have to go?”

  Suddenly, Johnson sprinted past Connor and Matthew and moved ahead a few steps. “No farther, boys. We’re here.”

  The boys came to a stop in front of a small metal door with a latch on it. Johnson told Connor to go ahead and open it, so he reached for the latch handle to raise it, but he couldn’t. Johnson sniped, “Too weak to lift a little latch, son? Here, Matthew, you try it.”

  Matthew stepped up and attempted to raise the handle but couldn’t budge it a bit. Matthew glared up at Johnson. “What’s the deal with this door? Does it have a lock on it we can’t see?”

  Johnson cracked a grin. “Out of the way ladies and let me give it a try.” With little to no effort, he raised the latch and the door opened for the weary group. Johnson laughed and said, “See, that wasn’t so hard; now go on in.”

  April gave Johnson a glance of disbelief and said, “As if this day hasn’t been bad enough, you have to make fun of them, too.”

  Matthew, Connor, April, and Johnson walked into a room the size of a school gymnasium, without the basketball court and bleachers, and began to look around. The walls were covered in drop cloths and wires. The floor was an obstacle course of paths that wound between tables of electronics and books. The room had a cold aura about it that reminded the boys of a cave they had been in at the park. A light glaze of dust covered the tables and its contents, giving the room the odor of an old library.

  Nothing in the room looked familiar to the boys or to April until Connor stumbled upon a table with a square box on it. He yelled over to Matthew, “Come here and look at this thing. It looks just like the one that we saw in our book the other night. There’s the fruit symbol.”

  Matthew approached the small computer and explained to April, “Yeah, this is a home computer system from back in the 1990s.” He turned to see another relic from the past. “Is that a real motorcycle?”

  Connor heard Matthew utter the word “motorcycle” and was immediately pulled from the computer. “Just like from the 1950s! Can I ride it, April?”

  April shook her head in a motherly, not-on-your-life kind of way, and tried to bring everyone back to the moment. “Where are we, Mr. Johnson, and when are we going to get some answers?”

  From the darkened corner came a faint response to April’s question in the form of a question. “Are you sure you’re ready to accept the answers that you may get?”

  The entire group turned toward the voice, and from the darkness walked a man wearing dark black pants held up with blue suspenders and an old gray T-shirt. Matthew paid particular attention to the T-shirt. He could clearly see the faded number on it that read “1984.”

  Matthew uttered, “You’re the man from the park.”

  The man walked closer to the group and removed an old baseball cap that covered the few lonely hairs on his head. “I was also the one in the window the other night. I saw you boys staring at me.”

  Connor punched Matthew in the arm. “I told you he could see us.”

  Johnson walked over and put his arm around the man from the warehouse window and introduced him. “Boys, I would like you to meet Mr. Walter Wainright.” Matthew looked to April and she gave a nod, as if signaling to Matthew that she approved.

  Matthew extended his hand, and Mr. Wainright returned the gesture. “My name is Matthew 25871,” said Matthew with a shaky voice.

  Mr. Wainright pulled his hand away from Matthew and replied, “A number for a last name just won’t do. That will be one of the first things that we take care of here; you deserve a last name.”

  Connor was still looking around at the room full of electronics, gadgets, and relics but finally spoke. “Wait a minute, Mr. Wainright. Who exactly are you and what are we doing here? Best I can tell, you live in some kind of old sewer and surround yourself with a bunch of old junk.”

  April snapped at Connor. “Be nice! Mr. Wainright is here to help us. He sent Mr. Johnson to get us away from those security teams.”

  Connor replied, “You keep saying that he saved us from those guards, but they’ve never done anything to us; so what did he save us from?”

  April began to speak, but Mr. Wainright intervened before she could. “Young man, have you learned nothing from the history books that I have sent to you?”

  Matthew, excited to know where the books had been coming from, asked, “You were the one sending us those books? Why would you do that?”

  “You can just call me Walter; no need to be formal from here on out. The reason that I have been sending you those books is because the truth about our world must be preserved; at any cost.”

  Connor replied, “What truth? That some crazy old guy wrote some fake history books to confuse kids?”

  April grabbed Connor by the sleeve. “That’s enough! Let Mr. Wainright continue.”

  “Remember, it’s just Walter, but thank you. The truth is, the world as it is now should not be. This world has been altered by one man for his own benefit. The world we live in is based on his own warped idea of a utopia.”

  Walter walked over to a table that was loaded with pictures and books. He pulled a large page from an old plotter paper book and showed it to the group. “Do you boys recognize this skyline?”

  Connor and Matthew walked closer to the picture and saw a large white stick jammed in the ground with a round white building on one side of it and a large rectangular white building on the other side.

  Connor asked, “Where is this? I don’t recognize it.”

  Walter replied, “This is Sector 1 boys, about two hundred years ago. Of course, back then it was called Washington, DC.”

  Walter grabbed anot
her picture from the table and showed it to the boys. “See, this is what Sector 1 looks like now.” The boys looked at the second picture and recognized the memorials to Supreme Leader Hathmec.

  “Look, it’s the Great Hall and the Hathmec Memorial, right where those other buildings used to sit.”

  Connor replied, “It seems to be missing that round building.”

  Walter explained, “That particular building was a symbol of democracy and how its people would elect citizens to represent them in their government.”

  Walter put the pictures away and led the boys, April, and Johnson into another room. “Have you ever wondered why the security teams and government personnel are able to subdue anyone just by telling them to do something?”

  Connor looked to April. “April told us all about it. She told us that the government had come up with some sort of control device that they wear around their necks that can control anyone when activated.”

  Matthew added, “She said they couldn’t control us with them because when we were born, the doctors forgot to inject us with something that made it work.”

  Walter reached into his shirt and pulled out a round pendant and showed it to the boys. The pendant had six symbols wrapped around a center, each with a distinct shape. Matthew traced his finger around the shapes and felt that one of them was filled with a hard stone of some type.

  He asked, “Walter, what exactly is this?”

  Connor chimed in before Walter could reply. “It looks like an ugly piece of jewelry.”

  Walter scoffed at Connor’s remark and said, “This is no ordinary piece of jewelry, young man. This is a Power Pendant of Hathmec.”

  Connor asked, “So it is named after the Supreme Leader?”

  Walter pulled the pendant out of Connor’s hand. “Absolutely not! He has named himself after the pendant.”

  April took both of the boys by the hand and said, “Boys, this man has the answers that you’ve both been looking for. You need to let him explain what all of this is about.”