In the horizon, wispy clouds floated above the green peaks of the mountains that surrounded the pasture. I stopped for a moment trying to breathlessly take the scene of true beauty in. Wild flowers and tall grasses swayed gently in the wind as time seem to stand still with the crisp blue sky.
I followed Colton as he walked around to the side of the seating area where there were two people seated around a table made out of the stump of a tree. The seats were located just out of the shade brought by the pine trees, but the sun wasn’t high enough in the air to shine over the building. A part of me connected with the cool darkness that prevailed, and yet another wanted to hold on to the warmth of the sunshine that would leave.
The outside of the building extended for hundreds of feet and it was covered in multi-colored stone brick from top to bottom. The lack of windows reminded me of Area 51—closed in and trapped from the outside world—a stark contrast to the sense of freedom brought by the openness of the outdoors.
“What’s up,” Antonio from the night before greeted Colton with a weird handshake, “Sleeping in late again, I see.”
“Yeah, I guess I was just tired,” I could see the combination of exhaustion and anxiety in Colton’s body that looked exhausted but tense. “This shit that’s going on. Man, it keeps me up at night.”
Antonio looked at Ethan and I before responding. He had a distinctive childish look to his face, yet there was a hardened, uncharacteristically mature way that he had about him. Although he didn’t look as young as Dulce from last night who sat next to him there was a depth to his dark, brown eyes, that gave me the impression that he had endured more pain and sadness than anyone at the table.
“Yeah I feel ya.” He paused, abruptly cutting his voice off, as he broke his stare that was directed right at me. “It’s we all either end in freedom being persevered for a short time, or the free will of America ends up being obliterated for all of eternity. I just hope we don’t get obliterated, ourselves, first.”
“I don’t know and don’t care about what you’re saying.” Ethan sat down and sighed histrionically causing everyone to glance at him. A heavy tension hung in the air, almost visible enough to slice with a knife.
Colton seemed to pick up on the fact that something needed to be done to end the silence and he looked at Dulce almost frantically. “Oh shit, I forgot.” Colton glanced at me with his eyes and placed his soft, yet strong hand on my shoulder. In that moment, I suddenly wanted to rip the blue t-shirt that he wore, right off him. “Natalie, Ethan, guess what? Dulce, right here, knows both of you. Like she actually remembers you both from before.”
My head jolted in her direction as if I was zapped with a lightning bolt.
“Yeah.” She exhaled, a glassy look in her eyes as she brushed a hand through her thick, black hair. She looked up at the sky as if there was a magnetic attraction between the dreary look on her face and in the clouds. “We met on the trail to Camp Camel. We were supposed to go to the Grand Canyon National Village together.” She choked on her words, her jaw clenching as she pushed back the tears.
After the words left her mouth, I tried to find some sense of familiarity in her young, vibrant, yet toughened face and all I saw was a blank sheet staring back at me. I felt a sadness rip at my heart and I couldn’t help but walk over and wrap my arms around her.
“What happened?” Dulce finally whispered into my ear in an almost inaudible mumble as the smell of peach on her hair flooded my nose. “Did they really take it away from you? Do you really not remember me at all?” Her high-pitched voice squeaked in my ears; there was an almost breathless quality to it that signaled that if I said no she would lose all hope.
“No.” I shook my head, my mouth barely able to utter the word as I was overcome with the mountain of grief ready to topple over inside me. “No.”
She squeezed me even tighter, the sound of her chest palpitating echoing in my body. “Why?” She finally screamed.
“Don’t say that.” Antonio placed an arm around her and made her sit back down before she collapsed onto the ground. “You can’t think like that. You have to be strong.”
“You know what screw being strong!” She pushed his arm off her and threw her hands up in the air. “Why does it matter how I think, if we are all going to die or be enslaved against our will for the ‘greater good’ anyways?”
“True that sister.” Ethan croaked out, his depressing commentary oddly amusing from the view of an onlooker, but extremely sad the moment that you realize he is being completely serious.
“Actually, you’re right.” Antonio stopped to think for a second before a fragile look overcame his expression. “That was freaking stupid of me to say.”
“What a motto to live by my friend!” Colton patted him on the back, but then quickly looked at the sky with an expression of hope in his eyes. “But actually, I think Antonio had a point earlier. We still do have hope to take back control. We can still live happy lives; and if we don’t believe it will happen then we have no chance.”
“Wow,” Dulce snorted “what another lyrical comment from Mr. Becker. Everyone put your hands together. Whatta guy. Whatta man.”
“We don’t need your shit today.” Colton rubbed a hand over his temples as he tried to suppress his anger. “Look I get that your upset and disappointed but stop being so self-centered and step out of your own damn self and your own damn moment and realize things might actually get better. We might not all die as the result of nanobots. And Natalie and Ethan can still get their memories back. In fact, you can start by letting them know what you remember of them. Tell them what they need to know.”
“Okay.” She sniffled, beginning to regain her composure as I sat down on the other side of the stump from Ethan. “Ugh.” She sighed. “Where to begin? Well I guess I will start off by saying that I met you both on the way to Camp Camel, which was a refugee camp of sorts for people who had taken the blue pill and escaped the mind control of the government. But both of you lived semi-normal lives before this. All of us I guess you could say lived somewhat normal lives compared to the madness now.” She shook her head and sighed, a sharp wheeze escaping from her. There was another long silence, the low rustling of the wind in the trees tickling my ears.
“What were our lives like?” I finally spoke up, my voice breaking through the veil of sadness on her face. “What even is normal?”
“There is no normal.” Antonio chuckled, with a crazed yet broken expression on his face. “We are all screwed up just some of us more than others.”
“Yes.” Dulce tried to look into my eyes, but I could tell her mind was thinking about something from another world. “Yeah both of your lives were messed up before all of this, I won’t try and sugarcoat it.” She smiled in a compulsive manner as she rubbed the dark circles engraved into her skin beneath her eyes like a malignant mold that would soon absorb the rest of her. “Maybe it’s even a good thing you forgot about it all. I sure as hell would love to let go of all the crap that haunts me! Maybe you should just consider it a blessing and move on.”
“Hold up.” The hazy, drunken expression to Ethan’s face had disappeared. There was an almost hyperactive glow to his dark skin. “No. You can’t say you know us and then not tell us what you know. I don’t care if I wanna forget it, because at that point I will choose not to believe you. But I refuse to live another second walking around like a blind sheep being herded to a pasture that leads off a freaking cliff. Open our eyes just a little bit to who we were, and if I don’t like it, then I will just tape my damn eyelids closed.”
“He’s right.” Colton broke in. “They deserve to know”
“But I can’t!” Dulce screamed and abruptly stood up. “I can’t do it. I can’t go back there. I promised myself I would forget it. I promised myself to move on. Carlos is dead. There’s no reason for my mind to go back there.”
“Stop being selfish.” Ethan groaned.
“You have no right to say that.” She kept her voice low only because
practically everyone who sat outside was staring at us. “Not after what you did. Not after you choose to save yourself and follow your mission as an obedient fuck and leave me alone to die. You knew I was going to die. You knew everyone was going to die. And you didn’t do a thing to stop it. If you want me to remind you of all of that I happily will, but I think that would be a little selfish.”
She exhaled dramatically, and with a determined, cold look on a face that looked twenty years older than her body, she began to walk back inside only to slam into the body of Jacob Lloyd who had just emerged from the indoors.
She stuttered, maybe in an attempt to apologize, but instead she walked past him hastily without saying a word or acknowledging his presence as anything more than simply a hardened shadow in the darkness.
“Well then.” He sighed, the stress visible in his tired, weary eyes. He paused, seeming to be listening for a particular noise amidst the calm, melodic chirps of the birds scrambling for the last stores of food before the dawn of winter.
“Natalie, Ethan,” He finally said, “C’mon, we have much to discuss.”
Chapter 6
I took a deep breath and let out a long meditative sigh. We, meaning Ethan, Jacob, a tall dark-skinned man with an unclean shave, and I, were seated in a circular room with the only light being emitted from a screen along the back wall.
“So,” Jacob said, his eyes looking more like a silhouette of themselves, “This is Adrian Platt, the co-founder and director of intel at the White Knights.”
“Nice to meet you,” Adrian’s hand and warm smile reached out across the table. His teeth were so white they appeared to be glow in the dark. He was completely bald, and the dark skin at the top of his head was smooth and shiny.
“Nice to meet you too,” Ethan and I both shook his firm, meaty hand.
“So,” Jacob said his voice changing tone, “How do you both feel?”
I rolled my eyes. I felt so many emotions that it was hard to tell which ones your body had grown numb too from the ones that were really there. “Dazed, tired, confused, lost, alone, like it’s all a dream, do I need to keep going?”
“And how about you Ethan?” Jacob shifted gaze to Ethan’s fretful face.
“Um I don’t know,” He paused, his eyes were staring hard enough at the table to drill a hole through it. “I really don’t know. I just don’t know.”
Jacob shot Adrian a look out of the corner of his eye, “And what do you want to know?”
Ethan answered immediately, “I need to know the answer to four questions.” He paused his face tense. “Who am I? Who are you, exactly? What is happening to the world right now? And why do you need us?”
The room grew silent as Jacob peered into the soul of Ethan with a fire in his eyes. “Very good, very good. Those thoughts all stem from normal emotions; lost, scared, confused, apprehensive. But we can help, we can do this together, you just have to trust us.”
“Trust,” I repeated, the word rolled off the tongue almost like a whisper. The hairs on my arms suddenly stood up.
“Yes, trust,” Adrian’s deep voice resonated in the tiny room. “The very thing
that ties the human race together. The very thing that has been lost from humanity for years.”
“That’s why you have to trust us,” Jacob continued. “Without trust the White Knights would not be alive. Without trust we would be nothing, you understand?”
“Yes.” The words rolled out of my mouth. It just felt natural, with Jacob, it all felt safe, despite the fact that there was a part of me that didn’t trust him at all.
“Good, now it’s time to complete the first step of the White Knights Initiation. Can you both promise that you will trust us, no matter what?” Jacob’s eyes narrowed as he said it, and I could almost see his lips grimace.
“Yes, I promise.” The words jumped off my tongue without me even thinking. Ethan’s answer followed soon after.
“Good. Now, can you both promise that you will listen to mission commands or commands given at any time by any White Knight commander, no matter what?”
“Yes, I promise.” I responded, suddenly gulping as I realized that I didn’t have much of an option. There was a narrowed, stern expression on Jacob’s face that signaled that if I didn’t say yes, well then, I would be forced to say yes. I could feel the stone walls surrounding us beginning to close in causing the air to grow dangerously thick.
“Good, now last question. As a White Knight do you promise to always respect the freewill of others, and do good by the people, no matter what?”
“Yes, I promise.” The words spit out of my mouth, mainly out of fear. I shivered at the almost menacing look beneath his warm eyes that had a threatening glow.
“Very good,” Jacob grinned, “Before you can go on any recruiting missions or combat missions you must complete steps two and three of initiation, but we won’t worry about that today.” He leaned back in his chair, “Now it’s time to discuss why we brought you guys to the White Knights Compound in the first place.”
Ethan leaned in, the bandages on his wounds looked like they were going to burst off with anticipation.
“When we first started the White Knights,” Adrian chimed in, “We were presented with the problem of figuring out how to save the thousands of uncontrolled minds of America, but also free will in the world at large. Our original mission, and still our only mission to this day, is to preserve the free will of people in this country, and for the billions of people all over the world.
“After President Ash initiated the mind control program, Protocol 00, there were only about thirty thousand people left across the nation, after the initial purges of the population, who had taken the blue pill, and thus saved their free will.” He eyed Jacob, and I could see the hurt flaring in his eyes. There seemed to be a lifetime of repressed memories that he kept trapped behind his clenched jaw. I could tell that he was beginning to lose himself in his own thoughts, and there was a deep look in his eyes that indicated that he would like to stay lost within himself, yet oddly disconnected from his own mind, forever.
Adrian continued, not fazed by Jacob’s suddenly emotionless look. “We both knew how dire the situation was. If we didn’t figure out something in a matter of days, the government could have easily eradicated each person of free will from the general population and sent them to ‘special testing’ in Area 51. We thought about going around the country and just gathering people in our helicopter to bring them back to the White Knights HQ, but we knew that wouldn’t work. We needed a more covert, yet effective way of ensuring that the uncontrolled minds of America lived on.”
“So,” Jacob interrupted perfectly in time, as if they had rehearsed this very moment countless times, “I contacted a few of my old friends from the Silicon Valley who had bought their freedom from the government, and I asked them to join forces with me. Shortly, we had a team of about ten of the brightest minds in Silicon Valley all teamed up to do one thing, shut down the mind control program.
“We had the same goal as the woman Danielle that you both worked with, to shut down the program. But unlike her idea of simply taking power in this country from her husband, we hope to foster a worldwide cultural revolution where humans can finally learn to live in harmony with the technology we have created.”
“And that’s where the camps come in.” Adrian began looking at us with a gleam in his eyes. Jacob stared down at the table for a moment, motionless. “We didn’t know how long it was going to be until we shut down the program, and we also knew that every day we didn’t another life of an innocent teenager, lonely kid, or helpless mother would be destroyed by the government.
“That’s why we set up twelve refugee camps of sorts across the country in strategic locations so that clusters of blue jays, the code name we gave for people who have taken the blue pill, could easily travel to them.
“It took about one or two weeks to find an exact, secure location to jumpstart the camps, but in great time, due to our ex
tensive internet advertising of sorts, we had thousands of people ranging from eight-year old boys, all the way up to families who had found loopholes to evade hitmen.
“At our peak, all twelve camps combined had just over six-thousand people. Almost everyone who was in the hitmen database, besides the few groups of wandering nomads, were in our safe holds across the country. We posted message boards and tabs of information in certain places on the internet that our algorithms said were most likely to have blue jays visiting. And we set up video cameras to track the status of all twelve camps, and after days of observing them, sometimes we would fly in our helicopter to the camps in the middle of the night to take the more promising people back to HQ.
“But then the government started to get suspicious. All of a sudden, the message boards, and information we posted online to get the word out about our camps were beginning to get taken down by the government. Soon after, we began to receive intel that the military was planning attacks on the camps.”
Jacob’s mouth opened as his eyes stared, almost reaching out for a distance object. “At first, we didn’t know how to interpret this information, but we couldn’t do anything besides sit back and watch the systematic destruction of the very camps that took us weeks to build. And just like what happened in San Francisco, the government ruthlessly obliterated the camps without the slightest regard for human life. We would try to save people when we could, but we had to tread too lightly to make any real progress.”
Jacob paused, and there was suddenly a heavy silence that hung over the air.
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