“I hate that they are dragging you into this now. I had hoped to get out of that this year, but he talked me into it again,” I replied.
“I don’t mind helping you, Jake,” Sam said as we headed for the obstacle course. “You’re my best friend; I will help you in any way that I can. I hope you know that.”
We always ran the course together and tried to beat each other’s time. As always, she wanted to go first, and I didn’t complain. I watched in awe of her agility and wondered to myself why she wasn’t higher up in the ranks than she was. I knew that she would make an excellent soldier with The Force, but it made me sad to know how she ended up here.
I never understood why they kidnapped the children instead of just asking them to join our cause. I waited for her at the end of the course and smiled as she came running up to me.
“I’m sorry, but you didn’t beat my time today,” I told her with a broad smile on my face.
“You have to be kidding me! You can’t be serious,” she whined.
“I am definitely serious,” I told her with a laugh. “Now, since you didn’t beat me, I must try to beat my own time.”
“You know, this is exactly why we couldn’t ever be in a romantic relationship,” she growled, punching me in the arm.
“Why? Because you can’t stand the fact that I beat your course times almost every day?” I teased.
“No, because you’re too lanky and lack the muscle it takes to have great sex appeal,” she teased back.
“Oh yeah? Well, at least my butt isn’t as flat as yours,” I retorted.
She smacked my arm and chased me to the start of the course so I could take my turn. I threw her my stopwatch and waited for the signal. Once she nodded, I was off like a rocket. I shot across the ropes and the monkey bars, ran through the tires, and climbed the wall. I made it through the final obstacle and watched her face as she stopped the time. Her brow furrowed and a visible frown formed on her face.
“I beat it, didn’t I?” I asked her with a grin on my face.
“Of course, just like always,” she replied with a feigned look of sadness on her face.
We both burst out laughing and went to grab a drink of water. I watched her for a bit as she did some agility training, and I knew she was going to go far in the program. I looked at my watch and decided that I had been at the gym long enough.
“Hey, Sam? I am going to head out. I will see you later. Maybe tomorrow you will actually beat my time.” I laughed as I headed out the side door.
As the door closed behind me, I heard something hit the door, and I knew she had thrown her water bottle in my direction. I loved teasing her and getting her all worked up. Doing so made my days more interesting.
The memories that I had been trying to keep at bay flooded my mind as I walked away from the gym. Joey had been on my mind a lot lately, since his birthday was coming up. I knew it had to be hard for Samantha, too, seeing as Joey was her brother.
She never told me so before his death, but I could tell. They looked exactly alike, and his death rocked her to her core. Sam told me that day that they were brother and sister, and that Joey was only eleven months older than her. They had decided not to tell people they were related because they didn’t want people to play favorites.
She asked me to never speak of him again after that day, and I held strong to that promise.
I had always felt guilty that I couldn’t save him, and even though Samantha told me she didn’t blame me, part of me thought she always had, just a little.
I met them both during my first year as phase leader, and I was drawn to them immediately.
I was drawn to Samantha because I knew that she had the ability to do what needed to be done, and she had the strength to do so. I was drawn to Joey because I knew that he needed my help, but even that didn’t help him. In a way, he reminded me of Cole.
I always tried to keep in mind that not every person was built for combat, and those were the ones we normally sent to The Forcefield to be given a second chance later. This allowed them to choose a job other than combat training.
Samantha and I didn’t actually become friends until I started trying to help her brother. She would ask me daily how he was doing, and for the most part, he had done well. He hid the fact that he was feeling manic from me until the day he took the hostage and my father had to kill him.
After he died, and Samantha told me about him being her brother, she retreated from me. She barely spoke for a long time, which caused me to do the same. For months, I stayed home away from everyone except for when I worked in the intelligence center. I did this until it was almost time for the next reaping of children.
By then, almost nine months had passed, and when I came out, the day that I walked into the gym to start training, Samantha was there to greet me. We’d been inseparable ever since.
Watching old movies from centuries before became one of our favorite things to do together. Most of the tapes were rare and would be worth a lot of money if they were sold before WWIII, but they are too precious to me to even barter or trade with.
The memories finished flashing through my mind like a slide show as I walked farther away from the gym.
I smiled as I remembered that Samantha hates to be called Sam with a passion. I did it on purpose every day to get her goat… it was part of our comradery.
I laughed and headed for the door to the side of the building that would lead me out of the massive complex. I didn’t do this often enough, but I felt it was time to sneak away.
Quietly, I made my way down the winding path that led to a trail I made when I was younger. It made it easier to find the edge of the barrier that surrounded the complex.
Usually, no one was allowed to leave The Force complex, ever… but I got away with it sometimes… my father being second-in-command and all. If they should ever find out exactly what I did when I left, they wouldn’t like it.
As I walked, I thought about what Samantha said about us having a relationship, and I knew she was right. Even though I felt we had some chemistry together, I knew that with us both being competitive, it would end up getting in the way. It was better for everyone that we just stayed friends.
I knew it was strange for me to even be thinking about being in a relationship with anyone, let alone Sam. I had more important things to be thinking about, but my father had put the thought in my head by asking me how long Sam and I had been dating one day after finding us in the gym together.
He had told me once that he had been around my age when he met my mother, and he knew instantly that he wanted to marry her. I knew that he thought it would be a good idea for me to find someone and settle down early, but I wasn’t interested in that just yet.
I wanted to live on my own and be my own boss before I started letting a woman into my life. My mother had been with my father before he had disappeared, and I saw what the pain of losing a spouse had done to her… and what it had done to him. I knew for a long time that I wanted to be different from others my age and wait a few years before jumping into something with someone; but I also knew that, when the right person came along, you wouldn’t be able to control it or deny it. I’d learned this from seeing my parents when I was younger.
I finally reached the edge of the trail and stood before the tall wall that surrounded the complex. I hated being caged in all the time, so I decided that I was going to take some time and do something for myself, something that I knew my father wouldn’t approve of.
What he didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him… right?
Chapter Three
I scaled the wall and readied the raw meat that I carried in a bag for the wild dogs that lived on the other side. I balanced myself on the top of the fence as I waited for the dogs to come running. They barked and growled as they tried to jump high enough to grab ahold of me.
I pulled my dangling foot up out of their reach and tossed the meat in the opposite direction of where I needed to be.
As the dogs took of
f after the meat, I took off running towards a section of the field that hid a treasure of mine. I had found an old truck and decided to fix it in secret so no one could take it from me. Only a select few knew about what I had done.
I knew that no one would find out about it unless I told them. The people I had trusted with my secret would never betray me that way.
I had only told a select few about my secret in the field, and I knew they would never tell anyone about it. Samantha was one of the first to find out about it, and she even helped repair some parts on it. Mitch Rand and Hannah Addison were the only other two people that knew about my green treasure.
They were like family to me, and I knew they would keep my secret. It had to be a secret so that no one from The Force would confiscate it and use it as their own. That seemed to happen a lot around the compound.
Even my father would have taken it from me. He would tell me that such freedoms made people think singularly and not as a team… a group.
I climbed inside the old green Ford and turned the key. It fired right up, and I listened to it purr quietly for a moment before heading to The Forcefield. I hadn’t been out there in a while, and I needed to check on things. I drove the truck close and parked it, just in case any new people I wasn’t aware of might see it.
I was greeted by Gavin, who I talked to most of the time when I visited. He shook my hand and motioned for me to follow him. I always looked forward to our chats, and I reminded myself that I shouldn’t get so busy that I forgot to go visit the people in The Forcefield.
“How are you, my friend?” I asked him as he offered me a cheese stick.
“Things are good here, Jake. There have been a lot of whispers and rumblings though,” he replied.
“What do you mean by that?” I asked him as I swallowed the last of the cheese.
“We think that The Elected are planning something big,” he said.
“What makes you think that? What are you hearing, Gavin?” Concern filled me.
“I have heard that The Elected are expanding their forces,” Gavin replied. “My guess is they know that The Force is expanding, but I don’t know that for sure. There are also some rumors going around of some pretty bad things that could be happening soon. That’s all I have heard lately, though.”
“One of my undercover guys who has infiltrated The Elected said that he overheard a conversation about drugs of some sort. He isn’t sure what kind, or what they are planning to do with them, but he did say that he would try to find out for me.”
“If they are messing with drugs now, that can’t be a good thing for us or the people out there. We need to make sure that your man can get us the intel we need on that.” I spoke with great conviction. “It could be bad for all of us if we don’t figure it out and stop them in their tracks. Please, be sure to let me know as soon as your man tells you something.”
“Of course, Jake,” Gavin said softly. “You will be the first person I tell once he relays the information to me. I am expecting a message from him within the next few weeks. It’s hard to get intel back and forth, making sure that we don’t get caught.”
Before I could say anything more, a young boy approached me, his soccer ball in hand. “Play with me?”
I recognized him as the son of a couple I had seen the year before when I went along to see how The Force acquired their recruits. After that, I decided I didn’t want any part of it anymore. I watched the boy be pulled from his mother’s arms as she screamed his name.
“Sure, Giuseppe, I will play with you for a bit,” I answered as I walked with him to the open area where others were playing.
I remembered seeing Giuseppe in the younger age phase group, but I had heard from Mitch that he was too kind-hearted to be in the military and most likely wouldn’t make it through the rest of the phases. The decision was made to place him in The Forcefield. I had thought about petitioning the higher-ups to give him another chance at the phases, but whenever I saw him out here with the other kids, I knew the right decision had been made.
He seemed to get along with everyone in The Forcefield from what I had seen, and I knew it would take a tougher disposition to make it through the phases. That was something that the kid didn’t have.
I could tell that his mother had raised him well, and my thoughts once again travelled back to her. She must have been losing her mind with grief over losing him to us. I couldn’t wait until my part in these times was over.
That day could not come soon enough for me.
I watched him as he lithely moved the ball from foot to foot, kicking it in my direction. I took the ball with my foot and kicked it around a bit before gently kicking it back to him. I watched him kick the ball around and saw how good his foot movements were, making me think of old tapings of professional soccer games I had seen from before the war.
The war had changed things, and it had taken away the professional teams. All we had now were the tapings that children watched as a history lesson in school. I smiled as he kicked the ball my way, and I knew that he would have made a damn good professional player. I kicked the ball back to him, using the side of my foot, which made the ball spin like a globe.
All of the kids that were standing around laughed, and Giuseppe rolled his eyes at me.
“You trying to be a showoff now, Jake?” he asked me with a smile.
“What’s the matter? Are you jealous of my skills?” I teased him.
Giuseppe laughed and shook his head as he kicked the ball with each foot, not letting me get to it. The kid had skills, and I was sad that they were going to waste. I finally got the ball away from him, and he chased me around the field trying to get it back.
“Wow. It’s like taking candy from a baby,” he said as he took the ball from me for the millionth time.
“Oh, you think so? We’ll see about that,” I replied as I kicked the ball between his feet and ran around him.
“Hey! You cheated,” he protested as he tried to get the ball away from me.
“I didn’t cheat! You just have to be quicker on your feet,” I said with a grin.
Playing with him and bantering back and forth made me think of my brother. We would stay outside for hours playing and talking about how we wanted our lives to be, dreaming of what we would be when we grew up.
We had been playing only minutes before he had been taken. It took me a long time to want to go outside again after that, and then, he came back to us. I didn’t have long with him before him and my mother both were taken from me, permanently… but the time I did have with him was very precious.
“Jake, what’s wrong?” Giuseppe’s voice brought me from my thoughts.
“Nothing is wrong, kiddo. I was just thinking about something. Let’s kick the ball around for a little longer,” I said as I kicked the ball to him.
We kicked the ball around more until I knew I needed to get back to the complex. I said goodbye to the group of kids, and to Gavin, before going back to the truck and getting in.
As I drove back toward the place I called home, I kicked myself for not going out and checking on them more. I knew they were in good hands with Gavin watching over them all. Regardless, I knew that, since it was kind of my idea, I needed to be more present than I had been.
The Forcefield was something that my father and I had created for the kids that didn’t make it through the phase training. Before, once the kids were sent home, The Elected would track them down and take them out so they couldn’t tell what they knew about The Elected. What The Force had told them anyway… which sadly, during training, wasn’t much. They had learned more about The Force history than anything else.
After Cole died, I knew that something had to change. The children had to be protected. I was a little kid myself, but I still wanted to help. I knew that I could not let any other family go through what mine had been through. I knew that once they arrived at The Forcefield, they would never be able to leave, but it would be better than going home and getting killed for what
they knew.
When I approached my father with the idea of creating a place for them, he was excited and surprisingly open to it. He hated what The Elected was doing too, especially since one of his own had died by their hand. I was barely old enough to know much about how things worked in the world, but I knew The Elected was evil and needed to be stopped. At the time, I was too little to do anything about that. However, I knew I could help in other ways. My father presented the idea to the higher-ups, and The Forcefield was born.
Over time, the program had expanded to include training to be guards for The Forcefield, and they were given the option to try again for The Force. Those who grew into adults and had families were given the choice to have their children try out for The Force or train to be staff in other ways. The Forcefield was becoming very crowded, and I knew that we were going to need more land soon.
My father had already talked to the Captain of The Force about extending the fences for more room, but no decision had been made yet.
I pulled the truck back into its hiding spot and hid the key where no one would think to look in case someone stumbled upon the truck. No one of importance knew that I had it, and I wanted to keep it that way. I made my way back to the fence, making sure the dogs were nowhere around before starting to climb.
Climbing up, I carefully balanced myself as I threw my leg over and climbed down the other side, being sure to stay quiet. I stayed to the shadows so that the lights wouldn’t give me away. I knew that I would be in trouble for being out so long and almost missing supper. It had gotten dark a bit early, and I took that as a sign that it was later than I thought.
As I made my way back to the complex and headed for the dining hall, I realized that at my age I should not be worried about whether I was going to get in trouble or not. I decided that it was time for me to have my own living space. Getting my father to agree with me was a different story. I knew it would take a miracle to make him understand that.
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