“It’s all just so crazy.” I dug my hand into the dry, arid dirt and realized why the grass looked so thin and flimsy. “It's not fair that we have it this way. It's not fair that we were born in the wrong place, in the wrong time, surrounded by people doing wrong things in a messed-up world.”
“We can make it all right, though, I promise you that. If used correctly, the same technology that has the power to control everyone’s minds can save the world from mental health issues, allow us to achieve immortality, and even eliminate the very material wealth that divides us all. We just have to take back control. And every person matters in this fight.”
He suddenly stood up, a new, almost fervent energy in his step. “I have probably already wasted too much time. I must go.”
“Where to?” I stood up, feeling relieved that he would finally walk away and stop droning on about all the things that would change my life forever if I kept living, when all I really wanted was to know that I was safe, along with a little bit of the life that I used to love. “Are you really able to just leave this place? What about the government, won’t they try killing you too?”
“Oh, no.” He paused, realizing how arrogant and cocky he sounded when saying the most powerful man in the world wouldn’t want to kill someone actively defying him. “I mean, yes. They want to kill me, but they know that would be a bad idea. And if they ever forget, they will realize soon after. I have to go get them back. I have to talk to Danielle. She knows the deal that we made.”
He grinned with an expression so fragile that he could barely hide the sadness inside him. A gust of wind ushered him to turn around and make his way in long, graceful strides back inside. He didn’t even look back once, his legs picking up to such a frantic pace, that I wondered if he was making sure that I didn’t follow him.
I’ll go let him try and save the world. I turned back around towards the pastures which had dozens of goats munching on the grass, carving massive brown holes in what would otherwise be a beautiful green landscape. The temperature was brisk, but soothing, and the wind and sounds of the birds coerced me to stay outside and never return to the gray confines and modern glass walls that made me feel like I was back trapped atop Camelback Mountain.
I have to save myself. I have to make sure nothing is ever taken from me again, no matter what.
The thought sounded so nice in my head, and for hours, until the darkness began to break through the reds and oranges that had exploded across the sky from the sun breaking through the horizon, I let myself dream about all the different ways I could escape from the government, whether in the Canadian wilderness or a tropical island in Fiji. But there was nothing I could do to stop it.
I would only be able to enjoy everything for a fleeting moment before it got tossed away into the pieces of glass that constituted my shattered pasts. The only way I could prevent something from ever being taken away from me was to never have it.
But the pain was worth it. I just had to get through it one last time.
Chapter 4
I’m really stupid.
I don’t know why I agreed to this, but here I was walking out in the middle of day off White Knight property, despite Jacob’s stern warning not to do so, with a boy who definitely was fond of me.
I told him from the beginning that he didn’t have a shot and that he should just give up.
I was never one to give someone false hope or lead them on without any intentions of being there for them (I say this like I have experience with this kinda thing, but I really have no clue what I’m doing).
“Dulce, you haven’t said anything the entire time.” There was a nervous look to Antonio’s eyes as his hand hovered close to mine, close enough to hold it, but he didn’t have the courage to do so, and I couldn’t blame him. I wasn’t exactly making him feel welcome.
“What? No.” I didn’t even know why I denied it, because what he said was undoubtedly true. “I just have a lot on my mind right now. I actually prefer the silence.”
“You prefer the silence?” I could tell by his incredulous look that he didn’t believe me, but it was the only thing that I could say without hurting his feelings. It wasn’t that I didn’t like him. He was definitely attractive. He was toned compared to most fourteen-year-olds, had gorgeous dark skin, a really nice smile, and overall seemed like a good guy. I just couldn’t allow myself to try and grab on to anything else in life right now only to eventually lose it. Not when I was about to get back some of what I had told myself for the past few days was destroyed forever. Not when I could possibly get my entire life back in a few days, whether it lay in Mexico or the depths of Area 51.
“Yes, it’s soothing in a way.”
It really wasn’t, and if I had cared, I promise I would have felt awkward, but I couldn’t tell him that. I couldn’t tell him the truth: that I knew he felt the same way that I did, and that he just wanted to try to see what being with someone would feel like before possibly the whole world blew up in the civil war that had erupted. He had lost everything just like me, and I knew that he wanted to give up and stop the pain from losing more than anyone else.
“Well, I suppose it’s better than me droning on about my life. I was trying to make jokes about it, but it really is just too depressing to even trick yourself into feeling good about. This whole world is depressing right now. I don’t even know anymore.”
“Your life isn’t that depressing.” I wanted to erase the sad look on his face, on everyone’s faces for that matter, but it truly was an impossible task.
He laughed, his response to his own sorrows clearly drowning himself in humor that no one else found funny. “You’re right. The whole parents being killed, siblings being taken by the Protection Services Agency is practically a blessing from up above.”
“We all have a crap ton of baggage here. It’s what we get for being the lucky ones that can actually think about the crappy situation we are in. But there is actually some hope that things might get better.”
“You really think more stupid wars and more people dying is gonna solve this mess?” There was a tenseness in his body at me being optimistic that made me believe he didn’t even want it to get better.
“Sometimes more pain is the only way to get over what has been a horrible run for humanity these past couple years.” I took a deep breath in of the mist-filled air and tried to let it open my lungs to this beautiful new era we seemed to be entering. An era that could mark me getting my best friends back, my family back, and maybe even the opportunity to be one of the ultra-rich one day. “Just think about what happened last night as everyone found out about Protocol 00 being shut down. People went apeshit in every city, massive support flooded in for the rebellion, and Natalie, Hunter, Ethan, and of course Danielle are being called the new founding fathers by some. There are talks that if America can get our act together than the rest of the world will follow suit. There is a real chance here to get our normal lives back, or at least a life where we don’t have to worry about being killed constantly and manipulated by the government. This is the best thing that could have happened.”
“I wish I could believe you, but I don’t know, I just can’t.” He paused and sat down against the wall of an abandoned house, whose brown paint had long faded into a colorless mess. The windows were oddly intact, and the whole house looked almost untouched by the world, except for the multiple shingles missing on the roof, and overgrown grass and vines beginning to inch on top of the house. I sat down next to him, deliberately leaving an awkward space between us. “After seeing what this world is capable of, I don’t know if it can ever be good again. Sometimes, I just realize that looking back at the past is hopeless and trying to find the future in all its uncertainty is pointless and worrying, and all I want is to be happy for just a moment.”
“Oh, man.” I closed my eyes and sighed, suddenly regretting my decision at agreeing to go on a walk with him.
“What? What happened? Is everything okay?” He tried to put his hand on m
y thigh, but he stopped midair and just let his hand dangle there, his whole body shifting towards me, not knowing what to do with itself.
“I see where you’re going with this. The whole sob story of ‘I’m depressed. My life sucks. The future and the past are bullshit. Please just make me happy now.’” His eyes widened, almost afraid of how accurate I was, even if he wasn't consciously thinking about his masterful plan to try and make out with me. “You know, you could have just said you wanted to go on a walk to try and clear your head with my lips.”
“Uh-uh.” He looked at me, his lips twitching a bit. There was something fun about calling people out on their games when you knew you were onto them, but there was a look deep in his eyes that signaled he was telling the truth about his emotions.
“Look, I’m gonna be honest with you.” I spoke up before he could say anything stupid. There was a helplessness to his demeanor that signaled he needed the intervention of some divine power to leave this conversation with a bit of his pride. “You seem like a great guy, and don’t let this inflate your ego too much, but you’re not half-bad in the looks department as well. I just, I can’t bear to lose anyone else. So I don’t know if I can do this. I don’t know if it’s smart that we do this.”
“I agree, I’ll admit I have no idea what I’m doing.” Antonio laughed, but I could see the tears clawing at the corners of his eyes, beginning to pour out of him. “Yeah, I have never had any sort of romantic relationship before, and we are still young, but with all the craziness in this world, we don’t know what’s gonna happen. That’s why when I saw you, not only did I see a beautiful, strong girl, but someone my age, probably in a similar position, who could help give me that kind of experience, before who knows what happens.”
“Aw, well,” I couldn’t help but blush that he called me beautiful. It was the first time anyone besides Natalie or my mom called me beautiful, and when he said it, it made me almost believe that to be true myself. “This sucks. I wish this didn’t have to be so complicated, but we’re pretty much two overflowing, broken suitcases meeting together in an airport on separate connecting flights that might get bombed on the way to their terminals.”
“I’m sorry, but that analogy went right over my head.”
“That was a stupid one, we were supposed to be the suitcases. Sometimes, I do that. It’s an old habit—well, not that old—just one I need to get rid of now.” I let a more relaxed tone seep into my voice as the tension from earlier left me, and my thoughts seamlessly flooded my mind.
“You’re lucky that you got to go to one of those camps. My parents were killed in a freak car accident, their car was hacked into and they crashed head-on with a semitruck. After that, my grandma took care of me and my older siblings, but it was my older brother, who was a police officer, who managed to get dozens of Raxodone pills in a raid of a gang storehouse. He already had an idea of what the government was planning to do, just from the lack of funding the police department had, and the fact that his boss even mentioned he wouldn’t be needed anymore. He figured that the government was planning to use their own methods of controlling the population, and that’s when he had us take the pills and move from our house in Atlanta to camp in a protected ecological reserve in the Golden Isles of Georgia. Soon after Protocol 00 was enacted, and a huge hurricane ended up hitting our island, the White Knights were surveying the area for free bird survivors and they saved me, but by that time all my siblings had already been taken by the Protection Services Agency, who got to our island first.”
“I’m so sorry.” I sat next to him, his warm, scrawny body touching mine as the sorrow of his story overcame me. I held his hand, something about the moment sweeping my mind away and making my body feel innately connected to his. “You are still lucky to be alive, though. You are lucky to have made it; it will only get better from here.”
“I hope so. I hope so.” He looked at me and smiled, and I knew what his exact thoughts were, and with the feeling of the rough, rotting wood of an abandoned building behind me and the golden peaks of the mountains glimmering in the midday sun, I decided to forget about everything else. It will just be a one-time thing. I won’t let myself feel anything for him. I will only feel in the moment.
“We’ll see what I can do to help.” I flitted my eyelashes at him, hoping he would get the right idea, despite the fact that I had no clue how to turn a wonderful idea in a movie or dream into a reality. “Mind you, this could go really bad. I honestly have no clue what I’m doing.”
“The only way to learn is to try it.” He leaned in, his warm words and syrup-scented breath pushing up against my warm face as our lips connected, and I tried to recreate every make-out scene I saw in the movies, or the quick glimpses I had caught of Natalie and Hunter before screaming at them to stop.
Our noses awkwardly bumped into each other at first, and I wanted to burst out laughing, but after a few seconds things seemed to be going more smoothly. I tried to focus on the feeling of his hands against my body and lips caressing in slow, fluid motions. I wanted to get lost in the feeling of the rush inside me, but there was always something at the back of my mind nagging at me to make it stop and whispering that this would only cause more pain than it was worth in the end. No matter how hard I tried to stop thinking and just let my body take control, I couldn’t shut my mind off, even with the gentle breeze urging me to mindlessly get swept away in the moment.
Antonio suddenly pulled away from me and took a huge gasp of air, his eyes opening, a nervous smile forming at the edge of his mouth.
“You have to breathe.” I laughed, moving my hand from his shoulder down his arm.
“I don’t know, I forgot about it.” He grinned, and inhaled again, this time more normally, instead of the desperate gasp for air he had engaged in earlier.
“Well, it’s good to not be thinking during these kind of things, but you have to at least think a little bit."
“Time to start thinking more, then.” He arched his eyebrows, and our lips connected again, both of us eager to get back to that feeling. It was an interesting sensation, the feeling of his tongue in my mouth, or the touch of his hand on the small of my back. It was a feeling that made me feel more connected and simultaneously disconnected from the moment at the same time. It was a feeling that I wanted more of, and one that was impossible to tell if it was a manifestation of the moment or my true emotions towards him.
Our breaths were perfectly in sync, and although I couldn’t be sure, our bodies seemed to be so perfectly in rhythm that I supposed my heart was probably beating at the same pace as his. The sounds of the birds chirping, or whistle of the wind against the loose roof tiles all seemed worlds away as I pushed everything out of my mind besides that single feeling. However, it didn’t take long for everything to come to a crashing halt.
A notification popped up on my ICL, ruining the cornucopia I had surrounded my mind in from the outside world, and causing a flit of anxiety to rush through me as I realized what time it was.
“Antonio,” I pulled away from his lips, quickly standing up and beginning to walk back down the dirt road towards the compound. “It’s Jacob, he looked at our location and he’s mad. He says if we want to go on their rescue operation to get back right now. They have to leave before the government executes them or possibly corrupts their minds.”
“Oh, dang, you’re right.” Antonio brushed down his clothes, unable to hide the bulge in his pants that everyone would find funny except for him. “I wish he didn’t implant those trackers into us. It’s such an invasion of privacy.”
“No one cares if he’s invading our privacy or not.” I began to run forward, not even caring to look back to see if Antonio was following me. He didn’t have to come. These weren’t his best friends that they were saving—they were mine. “Privacy is bullshit now. Anyone can read any of our thoughts if they are smart enough. He can happily know my location. I’d rather him protect me from all the people that want to hurt us, instead of being on our own.�
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“Suit yourself,” Antonio panted, already seeming to have trouble keeping up with me. “You know he won’t leave without you. Not after you helped him locate them. If he didn’t have your help, none of this would have ever happened.”
“Stop trying to make excuses just cause you can’t keep up with me.” I smiled, making sure to look back at him while running, just to prove how I wasn’t even sprinting. I had always been athletic, but I hadn’t run consistently since my esteemed days of track in my first year of middle school. “This is actually sad. You should be crushing me. Your legs are practically six inches longer than mine.”
“Hey.” He started sprinting, and he managed to catch up with me in a couple of strides, sweat already pouring down his face. “I can easily beat you.”
“The sweat on your face would contradict it being easy for you.”
“You know what—”
Before he could say any more, Jacob interrupted, his calm tone booming with urgency. “They are over there.” He pointed at us, his body in the opening of one of the helicopters that was normally parked in his mini-fleet that hung under a canopy in a large storehouse, designed to look like a normal room from the outside, next to the “Great Room,” as everyone called it.
The aircraft took off, quickly swooping down from the roof to land in a dust-spewing thud right in front of our sprinting bodies which had stopped to stare at the black, shiny, long aircraft, whose engines and propellers were all but invisible.
“C’mon, get in. Every second counts now.” Jacob pulled both of us up onto the ledge to enter the aircraft, and instantly, after our bodies entered the air conditioning inside the aircraft, the opening shut, leaving us with no escape on the way to the most highly secure government facility in the world: Area 51.
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