Inside

by Kyra Anderson

  “How have you been?” she asked with a small smile.

  “I’ve been better.”

  “You’ve had us worried for a while,” she nodded. “I mean, the Commish Kids have really been acting strange lately.”

  “Yeah…” I nodded, rolling my eyes.

  “Are you not allowed to tell me?”

  “Probably not,” I shook my head. “But don’t worry. You’re fine.”

  Becca hesitated before chuckling. “I was hoping you would say that,” she said quietly. I blinked in confusion as I sat next to her.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well…the school’s been saying that the Commission is doing a Sweep.”

  “A Sweep?” I gasped. “As in a post-revolution Commission Sweep?” Becca nodded, her eyes on the carpet between her toes.

  “Yeah, I mean, Miranda Jacobs has been missing now for over a week. A few other families are apparently under investigation for treason…it’s getting scary.”

  “I haven’t heard anything about that,” I said, shaking my head. “Besides, it’s not like you have anything to worry about. If anything was going on with your family, I would have heard about it.” I did not want to tell her about the one instance of Dana talking about inducting Mrs. Davis and her family into the Commission.

  “Are you sure?” she pressed, her voice hopeful.

  “Is this why you’ve been so nervous around me?” I asked. Becca sighed.

  “Lily…I’m sorry. I know you would never do anything to any of us…but, people change when they’re in the Commission. I mean, Felicity and Jill used to be really good friends with each other. Jill told me that when they were still in First Tier that she was a really sweet, but tomboy kind of girl, and then, about three months after being in the Commission, she changed, almost overnight.”

  “And you’re waiting for me to change.”

  “You already have,” Becca said carefully. I turned to her, frightened by the statement. She pointed at me. “Like right there. You’re constantly afraid. We can all see it, but we don’t understand it.”

  “I thought all the Commish Kids were like this.”

  “I guess,” Becca admitted hesitantly. “But…not exactly. I guess it’s just you and Clark. Speaking of which,” she smiled at me suggestively, “seems like you two have hit it off. You’ve been spending a lot of time together.”

  “It’s not what you think,” I chuckled. “He’s just been helping me adjust to the Commission.”

  “Seems like Clark never adjusted to the Commission,” Becca said. “Don’t get me wrong, he’s a sweet kid and he’s extremely smart, but he’s always looking over his shoulder, never likes to be touched, always thinking someone’s out to hurt him. It’s scary, you know?”

  I looked at my hands and took a deep breath. I really wanted to confide in her. I wanted to talk to someone from outside the Commission about what was happening inside the organization that was supposed to protect the people of America. But I bit my tongue. Literally.

  “You know something about that, about why he’s like that…” Becca whispered, studying my expression. I could only nod slowly. Becca rolled her eyes. “How are they going to know if you say anything?” she challenged. “I mean, it’s not like there is anyone in the Commission in this house.”

  “No…” I agreed hesitantly. “But…”

  “But what?”

  “I don’t want to scare you.”

  “The Commission already scares me. I’m expecting it.”

  “I just…I don’t know if the Commission has cameras or bugs in everyone’s homes or not,” I whispered. Becca barked a laugh.

  “There are laws protecting people from such invasions of privacy,” Becca assured. “Otherwise, how could people escape the Commission for so long before being found out?”

  “How were they found out?” I challenged. “I don’t know…I’m just paranoid.”

  “Clearly,” she chuckled, though there was an edge in her voice. She put her hand on my shoulder. “What is it about the Commission that has everyone falling in line?” she asked. “Is it Mr. Christenson?”

  I took a deep breath.

  “Can we walk outside?” I asked.

  “Outside?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “I just…don’t want to take the chance.”

  “It’s cold! We can’t just sit out there.”

  “Can we walk through a park or something? Someplace open where we can see all the people around us?” I asked, turning to her, hoping my eyes would show her how serious I was. I was worried that Dana had bugged everyone I knew and that he would soon find out things that would get the people I cared about captured. I didn’t mind it so much in my own home, when I was risking such exposure with Mykail. I felt safer with him. But out here, as the one that was inside the Commission’s fold, I had to be sure not to put anyone else in danger.

  “Alright…” Becca breathed, her tone concerned. She grabbed her coat out of the closet as I grabbed mine from the back of her chair.

  We stepped out of the house and, as we walked through the neighborhood, I turned to Becca.

  “Let’s talk about something else for a while,” I said with a weak smile that showed how troubled I felt. I really wanted to talk to her about the Commission. I wanted to explain to her the horrors I had seen and our plot to fight against Dana and stage another revolution, but I was too frightened.

  Dana was looming over my shoulder even when he was not there. I was starting to understand what he had said about the monster always lurking behind me. It was him. I silent figure without a face that was so shrouded in mystery he was not only impossible to understand, but even the thought of his involvement was enough to keep me from talking.

  “What do you want to talk about?”

  “Anything,” I said. “What happened after I left on Friday? It seemed like Jill was pretty happy to hear that I was not interested in Devon.”

  Becca laughed and nodded, looking at the ground as we continued walking to the park in her neighborhood. “Yeah, she really likes him. But as much as she was hitting on him, she was also telling us that you had someone you were interested in. That’s why I asked about Clark.”

  “Oh…” I said with a nervous laugh. As much as I tried to stop it, I felt the blush rise to my cheeks. “No…not Clark…”

  “Oh my God, you do like someone! Is it someone we know?”

  “No, you don’t know him,” I said, unable to stop myself from giggling and smiling like an idiot at the thought of Mykail as my boyfriend.

  “Someone in the Commission?” Becca pressed.

  “No.”

  “You have me really curious.”

  “Maybe you’ll meet him one day…”

  “Okay, that’s just mean. I’m already dying to know.” Becca smiled suggestively, nudging me. “He’s at university, right? Older guy?”

  I did not want to give her any more information, so I just smiled and shrugged, shoving my hands deeper in my pockets to fight the cold October air. Becca’s face fell and I felt a panic grip my chest, worried she had taken the gesture the wrong way.

  “Is it Dana Christenson?” she whispered.

  “No!” I gasped in horror. “No, no, no! Of course not!”

  “Okay, okay,” she said, raising her hands peacefully. “I just figured he had something to do with all this.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  “Well, everyone always gets so nervous when he’s mentioned. You didn’t even want to talk inside because of the Commission…” Becca said motioning to the park we were entering. “Do you want to tell me what’s going on?”

  I took a deep breath and debated with myself about how to answer her question. I wanted to tell her about everything, but there was no way of knowing her reaction. If I told her then she could think that I was just being used by the Commission to lure her into traitorous acts. I also realized that the rumor about the Commission doing a Sweep would make it far more difficult for us to ge
t people from outside the Commission behind our cause.

  “It’s not something I can talk about,” I said. “Can I ask you something instead?”

  “Sure.”

  “Do you think that things would be better if the Commission wasn’t around anymore?” I asked, crashing an eye around the park. There were children playing on the jungle-gym and the swing sets, laughing and giggling as we walked nearby.

  “I don’t know,” she said honestly after a short pause. “Why do you ask?”

  “I’ve just been wondering why we kept the Commission around once the population was cleansed,” I mused. “Don’t you think that we probably don’t need it anymore?”

  “The Commission doesn’t just handle the people though, it also handles the government. The Leader imposes rules on the Commission and the Commission is sure that those in Leader’s cabinet adhere to the rules the people set. It’s a balance.”

  “What if it wasn’t a balance?” I hissed. I looked around the park, not sure if I could talk about this anywhere. I had hoped to tell her what Mykail and I were planning, but the closer I got to breeching the subject, the more nervous I became. It felt like Dana was waiting for me to say something before appearing out of nowhere and attacking.

  “Now you have me worried,” she said, also looking around. “You’re in the Commission. You shouldn’t make accusations like that.”

  “I’m not,” I defended. “I’m just asking what you think.”

  “How could the Commission not be a balance to Leader’s cabinet?” Becca asked. “If the Commission was doing something out of line, then Leader Simon would do something to correct it, or maybe even remove the Commission.”

  “Do you remember what we read in An Angel Without Wings?” I asked, stopping at a bench near the middle of the park. I glanced around at the kids and parents, keeping an eye out for anyone approaching us. Becca was doing the same.

  “What are you trying to say, Lily?” Becca pressed, sitting with next to me.

  “The Second Revolution happened because the government had gone unchecked and became so corrupt that it could not even correct itself. What if the Commission has been doing something so horrific that, for the government to correct it, it would be more embarrassing and hurtful to the public? What if Leader Simon was afraid of the Commission?”

  Becca was silent.

  “I really wish you could just tell me what you were trying to say…” she groaned, rubbing her forehead.

  “Believe me, I do, too.”

  “The two most powerful men in the country are Leader Simon and Dana Christenson, right?” Becca said. “They are supposed to balance each other out. If Leader Simon found something wrong with what Dana Christenson was doing in the Commission, then he would shut it down.” She leaned closer. “Is there something going on in the Commission that Leader Simon doesn’t know about?”

  “No.” I shook my head. “He knows everything. That’s the problem.”

  “The Commission has some strict rules. I mean, Bryant Morris and Thomas Ankell created it together. They both knew that what the Commission was doing was not glamorous, but it had to be done in order to preserve our way of life.”

  “Did you ever wonder what happens to the people who are brought into the Commission?” I hissed. As soon as the words left my mouth, fear consumed me. It was alright to pose the question, but if she asked for the right details, I could let something slip, and as much as I trusted Becca and wanted her help, I didn’t know if she would be scared enough to report me to the Commission…to report me to Dana.

  I stood.

  “Never mind.” I shook my head. “Just forget about it.”

  “Lily,” Becca said, grabbing my wrist sharply as I started to turn away. “You’re scaring me…”

  “I know, I’m sorry,” I blurted. “I just…I don’t know…I’m tired. I haven’t been sleeping well.”

  “Lily,” Becca sighed, releasing my wrist, “I want you to tell me what’s bothering you. I’m your friend and I’m worried about you.”

  “…I can’t,” I breathed. “I’m…I’m so scared.”

  “I can tell,” she nodded. “What are you afraid of?”

  “I’m afraid of the Commission. I’m afraid of Dana Christenson…” I looked at her pleadingly. “I want out,” I barely managed to say as my voice cracked.

  Becca did not respond. Instead, she stepped forward and pulled me into a hug. I held my tears back with all of my will power.

  “Okay,” she said, pulling away as I quickly lifted a hand to push away the tears that had gathered on my eyelashes. “I’m sorry. I’m here to listen. I’m here to help you however I can.”

  “I don’t know if you can,” I admitted, sniffing and clearing my throat. “I just wanted to know…if we had to have another revolution, would you fight for the system we have now?”

  “I don’t know,” she admitted honestly. “It would depend on what the revolution was for.” She looked at me suspiciously. “What are you planning?”

  “Nothing.” I took a deep breath, turning away from her inquisitive eyes to compose myself. “I’m getting cold. Do you want to go back and we can do our homework together?”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Monday, I anxiously waited for my lunchtime meeting with Clark. I had stayed up with Mykail transcribing the information from the anonymous notes so I could share with Clark and even when I was not moving, I could feel the papers in my sock. I barely managed to refrain from reviewing the notes during my morning classes.

  When lunch time came, I apologized to my worried friends and ran to the east court, a place I had never been, since the east side of the school was for special track students.

  Clark was pacing by a bench. It was devoid of other students and the sun was not high enough over the school to warm the cold courtyard.

  “Hey.”

  “Hi,” I greeted.

  “We have to be quiet,” he warned as I approached. “You said that Mykail understood the notes.”

  “Yes,” I affirmed, extracting the papers from my sock. As I unfolded them, I whispered, “Apparently there is a language that the experiments use among themselves. That’s what it was written in.”

  “Who wrote them?”

  “He didn’t know.” I turned the papers toward Clark. “This is what it is.”

  Clark glanced at the scribbled annotations.

  “Is…is this really…”

  “Yes,” I said. “An experiment must have gathered this information for us. How many experiments are loose in the Commission day-to-day that would have access to this kind of information?”

  “Quite a few…” Clark sighed, scanning the information. “There are a lot of the experiments on Dana’s personal security, some of Sean’s men…there are a few who are staffed in order to contain the experiments in the back.”

  “How many possibilities are there?” I whispered, surprised to hear experiments were loose. I wondered how many of them I had already seen and didn’t know it.

  Clark took a deep breath, slowly letting it out as he thought, looking up into space.

  “Over a dozen…maybe as many as thirty…” he mused. He flipped the pages again. “I must have gotten the notes when I was looking over Eyna’s charts in the back…but that still leaves a lot of possibilities.”

  “What do you want to do?”

  He flipped to another page.

  “Do you think we can trust this information?” I asked when he did not speak. “If you’re saying that it might be someone on Dana’s personal staff, it might be a trap.”

  “Or they could be trying to take him down…” Clark whispered. “Dana does enough for a lot of people to hate him. This experiment could actually be on our side.” He folded the papers and tapped his fingers against them, thinking. “I think our next step needs to be looking up these experiments,” he pointed to the papers.

  “Look them up? How?”

  “We’ll have to get into Commission Records,” Cl
ark said, his eyes distant. “I don’t have clearance to get in. I don’t know if my mother does, either.” He saw the confused look on my face. “There is a room filled with the records of every person who has ever been brought into the Commission. The electronic records are high security and heavily monitored. But the hard copies—if we could get into the room—would be easier to look through without detection.”

  “Where is the room?”

  “Next to Dana’s office,” Clark groaned. “I don’t know who would have the level of clearance to get in.”

  “How are the rooms locked?” I asked. “Keys? Electronic locks?”

  “Each door has an electronic lock, sometimes even fingerprint and retina scans depending on what’s on the other side of the door. Movements are registered as people move around in the Commission. Unless we had the override codes, we couldn’t get in without detection.”

  “Do you think that’s what these are?” I asked, pointing, indicating the list of numbers on the first page.

  “Quite possibly,” he said, unfolding the pages again. “But these change every three months.” He shook his head. “Considering when we got these, they must be the brand new codes.”

  “Then they’ll change in January,” I concluded. “How can you find out the override codes? Who controls them?”

  “Sean.”

  “Is Sean an experiment?”

  “No.” Clark shook his head immediately. “He’s not. I doubt Dana would let any of the experiments have such high-level clearance, even if they were on his personal security. For someone to know this language, to find all this information…they must have hacked in, or stolen someone’s card…” Clark folded the pages again and blinked, his eyebrows high. “This is a lot of information for someone to gather for us.”

  “I really hope this is someone we can trust.”

  “Me, too.” His eyes locked momentarily on the papers before he handed them back. “Memorize the experiment numbers and their cell numbers. Then give these to me and I will do the same.”

  “Then we should burn them.”

  “Did you burn the originals?”

  “No, not yet. Once I have this memorized, I will.”