Inside

by Kyra Anderson

  After we discussed that, Matt asked the question that made me nervous. I was not sure who I could trust in the group, yet. Now that we had started talking about the start of a rebellion, everyone seemed more enthusiastic, but I was still unclear about who was completely invested in the plan and who would fold under the pressure.

  “Even if we get the people curious, how are we going to tell them what the Commission is doing to its prisoners, like Miranda?” Matt asked. “You get people curious, but they won’t do anything without proof. Or without a reason.”

  “We have to give them a reason,” Morgan said. She looked around. “What about…the gifts? Show them the different experiments…”

  It was so perfect, I had to force myself not to smile.

  “That’s risky…” Kelly murmured.

  “Well, the message we’re sending out is that the Commission is doing things to people. What better way to prove it than to show that they are creating weapons?” Morgan added.

  “That is a really good point, but who? The gift experiments?” Samantha asked. “That could be very dangerous for us. It would show who we were. Dana could trace each experiment to each house…he would know immediately.”

  Everyone looked around the circle and then Karmen took a deep breath, slowly letting it out, which caused everyone to turn their attention to her.

  “But…I don’t think there’s a way to break the other experiments out…”

  “We could find a way,” Kelly suggested. She looked around the group, waiting for anyone else to speak. I was worried that people would automatically shoot down the idea, thinking it completely impossible. Of course, I wasn’t entirely sure it was possible. But if Clark and I did not have the support of others, we could not stage a break-out. There was no way only two of us could break out twenty-five experiments.

  “Do you think it’s possible?” Ryan asked, his eyes resting on Clark and me. I turned to Clark. He took a deep breath and looked at the blanket under him, thinking carefully.

  “I don’t know…” he admitted. “I mean, it’s possible that there are secret passages out of the Commission…and then there’s the problem of getting the experiments out of the cells in the back…and then where to put them…”

  “Well, there are some abandoned places around. Maybe we can use one of them,” Karmen shrugged.

  “I think we should see if we can even get the experiments out before we decide to overtake property,” Matt said. He looked at Clark and me. “Do you think you could look at the blueprints for the Commission?”

  “I can try…” Clark said. “I’ll have to see if I can hack into the system and get them.”

  “That should be our first step.”

  “And then what?” Dean pressed. “Sit around and wait to do something with a couple experiments?” His eyes were alight with fury. “We need more help.”

  “The message should rally some people,” Felicity pointed out.

  “Or it won’t,” Dean shook his head. “The experiments are proof of what the message is saying. We need help before that.” He looked around again. “I say we need to break out some people in the holding cells, too.”

  “What?” Clark and I blinked at him in disbelief, speaking simultaneously.

  “What?” Dean asked. “Do you really think that we can just have us and a few experiments and pull this off? We need people.”

  “But breaking even more people out of the Commission?” I gaped. “We don’t even know if we can get experiments out, yet. And to break them out as well as other people from under Dana’s nose…I don’t know if we can.”

  “And who would we let out?” Matt added. “There are thousands of people in the holding cells. Some of them are extremely dangerous criminals. We can’t let everyone out.”

  “So, we see who we can let out,” Felicity said.

  “Don’t let this become about Miranda,” Matt told them strongly.

  “But isn’t it?” Dean snapped. “Would any of us be here if she hadn’t been taken?” I looked around the circle, watching their faces. They were waiting to see if anyone would say they had another reason to be there. “What Dana did to her and Julie was wrong. And we’re going to make him pay. But we need as many people as we can get out in order to achieve this. Clark will look up if there is a way out of the Commission and we will go from there, but we need these people. We need Miranda.”

  Everyone in the circle agreed, even me, though I knew it would make the escape that much harder. I just hoped that we would find a way out and a way to get everyone to Fort Daniels and keep the plan hidden from Dana until we had completed the task.

  * *** *

  The Commish Kids were dark and brooding at the meeting. Everyone was sharing silent looks. It seemed that the ones who had not been at the earlier gathering also knew something was going on. That worried me greatly, thinking that someone would let something slip to one of the adults…or to Dana.

  I had to constantly remind myself that the Commish Kids knew what could happen to them if they were caught being involved in this rebellion, particularly after what had happened to Miranda. I was confident they would not risk their safety.

  The Commission meeting was very standard, though Dana seemed distracted. He reminded everyone of the Europe trip before announcing who would be on the delegation.

  I was not surprised to hear my parents’ names on the list.

  That meant they would be gone for most of the month of December. I was thrilled. The override codes that we had been given by our anonymous helper would expire at the end of December, which meant we had to break prisoners out before then, and having my parents out meant I could stay out later in the night. That, and I could spend more time with Mykail.

  When the meeting wrapped up, Dana quickly slipped out of the room, which allowed everyone to leave earlier because they were not socializing with the leader of the Commission.

  My mother and father were talking excitedly about the Europe trip on the way home while I sat in the back of the car and thought about what I needed to do for my revolution. There was so much that I needed to figure out in the following weeks before my parents left. My brain refused to be silenced, even distracting me from my late-night talk with Mykail.

  “It’s so busy up there,” Mykail laughed, touching my temple gently as I lay on his bed, having lost my train of thought yet again.

  “I’m sorry,” I whispered, smiling apologetically. “It’s just a lot to think about. Honestly, I didn’t expect everything to go so well today.”

  “If you think about it too much, you’ll think yourself in circles,” he chuckled, his fingers running through the thin hairs at my temple. “Give yourself a break. Close your eyes,” I did so, “and take a deep breath…”

  I tried, but found the whole exercise rather silly, giggling as I let out the breath I had taken.

  “Not really working, huh?” he chuckled. He propped himself up on his elbow and one arm circled my waist. “Let’s try another method.”

  Kissing him was far more effective at taking my mind off the revolution.

  I had to pull myself out of bed early the next morning and take the bus downtown, where I agreed to meet Clark. Clark was waiting for me with two cups of coffee, stifling yawns into his gloved hand. I walked up to the bus stop bench and he smiled, picking up the other cup and extending it.

  “You are a lifesaver,” I grinned sleepily.

  After we got on the bus Clark told me to turn off my phone to be sure that we could not be tracked. I did so after sending a quick text to my mother that I was turning off my phone because we were going into a museum.

  Once we reached the final bus stop on the route, we walked the fifteen-minute route to the power plant, keeping our eyes out for cars and people as we moved out of the rural neighborhood.

  Slipping into the power plant the same way we had a week previous, we walked back to the dark basement and made our way down the creaking spiral staircase to Fort Daniels.

  “I
still can’t believe that we found this place,” I shook my head.

  “We better find out who’s sending us those notes soon,” Clark rolled his eyes, descending the stairs into the main bunker.

  With coffee fueling us and the lights on our now-jammed phones illuminating our path, we explored all seventeen exits and entrances to the fort. One of them was caved in, and another led to an active sewer line, so we ruled those out as possible exits and entrances. The other fifteen were in working order, and I was surprised at where some of them led. One led to an underground room next to one of the water tanks on the hill around the reservoir, another led to the opposite face of the hill, where a door hidden behind a ridiculous amount of foliage could barely be opened enough to slip in and out. One led to a tunnel system under the city that we knew would need further exploration, and another even led to a cave system where we had to walk for five minutes through the caves just to get outside again.

  By the time we had explored all the passages, the sun was setting and we were starving.

  Once again, I had dinner at Clark’s house, trying very hard not to fall asleep with my face in my stew.

  I was completely exhausted for my classes on Monday and I fell asleep in art class, though I was rudely awoken by my teacher, who was more worried about my health than upset about my napping.

  My exhaustion also made it very difficult to deal with my friends, who were constantly asking me when Clark and I started going out.

  “Well, we’re not…like, going out. We’re just…you know…”

  I was way too tired to form a coherent thought, let alone a full sentence.

  The more I was teased about being with Clark, the more I realized that I would have to come up with a reason why we were spending so much time together. Becca understood my exhaustion and she stopped teasing me, but the others were not as merciful.

  Both Clark and I fell asleep in the car to the Commission and Mark woke us long enough for us to get to a conference room and fall asleep again. No one bothered us.

  When I got home, I faked a headache and went to my room to do my homework, though I could not concentrate on the blurry words on the pages. I didn’t want to concentrate. I was doing something so much more important. I was going to be declaring war against the most powerful organization in the country and my opponent was Dana Christenson. Homework seemed pointless when I thought about the greater-scale operation I was organizing.

  I felt bad when I fell asleep without seeing Mykail that night, but I woke up at a ridiculously early hour and slipped into his room, carefully waking him so I could talk to him before my parents woke.

  “Lily?” He blinked, sleepy and confused. “What time is it? Is everything alright?” he asked, looking around, his eyes still partially closed. I had to force myself not to comment on how adorable he looked.

  “Everything’s fine,” I assured, feeling better after sleeping so heavily. “I’m sorry to wake you up, but I really need to talk to you about something.”

  “What is it?” he asked, sitting up slowly, his eyes almost completely closed.

  “I know that you just woke up, but I need to ask you something important,” I said, sitting on his bed and folding my hands in my lap, nervous.

  “What is it?”

  “A lot of people…not only my parents, but people at school, think that Clark and I are dating…” I started.

  “Oh, it’s too early for this…” he groaned, rubbing his eyes and clearing his throat. “Okay, they think you’re dating…but you’re not, right?”

  “No, no, of course not,” I assured quickly. I bit my lip. “But I thought about it…and I think that it’s the best way to explain why Clark and I are spending so much time together.”

  “So, you want to tell people that you’re dating Clark.” Mykail nodded once, his brow furrowed in drowsy concentration. “What about Dana?”

  “Well, no, I won’t tell Dana,” I barked a laugh. “Just…everyone else. But, if you don’t want me to, I won’t. I don’t want you to worry that that means I am dating Clark. He doesn’t like me that way.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “There’s no way, I mean…” I trailed off. I had no logical explanation of why Clark would not be interested in me.

  “You might want to ask him,” Mykail said, stifling his yawn. “Could save you an awkward situation later.”

  I looked at the sheets, now worried that Clark could be interested in me somehow, explaining his eagerness to help me with the dangerous rebellion. Mykail took a deep breath and slowly let it out before putting a hand on mine.

  “If he doesn’t like you, and if it takes suspicion off what you two are really doing…then I’m alright with it. It will keep you safe and keep people from asking too many questions,” Mykail said. “As long as you don’t actually start dating him.”

  “Don’t worry, I’m not interested in him like that.”

  I sat with him until he fell back asleep, apologizing for waking him up so early, and then I went to my room and got ready for school. I decided to create the message for us to send out over Censor Board computers that day. During art class I began sketching the idea in my book, flipping to a previous picture when the teacher would walk by and look at our progress on our still-life.

  It was no longer possible to escape into drawing as I had been able to before. The revolution and going against Dana pervaded my every thought. It was like an addiction, or an obsession, something I was always turning over in my head. It was a slow process, but because of the leaps and bounds we had made recently, it was difficult for me to not be excited and not think ahead.

  My biology teacher pulled me aside after class and told me that my grades were slipping severely and she was concerned. She gave me the speech I had heard from two teachers already. They did not understand how I could go from being such a good student to a student who was sleeping in class and failing courses.

  A part of me wanted to care about my grades, but a bigger part of me was preoccupied with finding a way to overthrow Dana Christenson.

  She also said the same thing that the other teachers had cautiously questioned.

  “Is everything alright at home?”

  We went through the normal questions. I told her that I was just tired and it was tough for me to adjust to the new city. I did not care about school. It felt like a chore, a façade I had to go through to keep everyone at bay so that they would not question what I was really doing with my time and energy.

  When I walked out of the school it was snowing. I ran quickly to the car, where Mark was standing dutifully, enduring the snow. He opened the door for me to climb in the car while Clark ran over.

  “I guess winter finally decided to show up,” Clark chuckled. I could not help but feel awkward around Clark, wondering if he actually did like me more than I liked him. I did not want anything to complicate the already delicate situation. I was concerned that if he liked me and I rejected him, the awkwardness would grow and affect our plans, putting us in more danger.

  We talked about school as we went to the Commission. It was another intensive check day, but this time Josh was the one checking everyone at the door. He and Mark nodded to one another and, to my complete surprise, Josh took Mark’s jacket and patted it down before quickly patting him down to be sure he was carrying nothing suspicious—ignoring the two guns that I had never noticed on Mark before.

  “Why does he need to be checked?” I asked Clark.

  “I think they just check them randomly,” Clark shrugged. “Mark’s checked Josh and the others before. It’s just one of those random days I told you about.”

  Josh cleared us to go downstairs and we followed Mark to the elevators. It seemed normal now to go down into the bowels of the Commission and find a conference room that was not being occupied. Nothing about the routine seemed strange, and I knew that should have concerned me.

  Mark stood outside our door as Clark worked on a science paper due that week. I briefly showed him what
I had done in my sketchbook and he approved, asking me where I was going to get the pictures of the people. All the photos that we had taken in the records room were put on Clark’s computer and the files were encrypted until he got home and did whatever he did to keep the information safe and keep it from Dana. This kept our phones clean and the phones that the Commission gave us clean. But we had never taken photos of any of the experiments from their files. There were pictures of them before the testing had changed them, which was where I decided we should get the pictures.

  As I was sketching and he was working on his paper, I looked up several times, trying to find the courage to ask him about his feelings for me. I kept telling myself that there was nothing to be worried about and that Clark did not have romantic interest in me, but because of how much time we had been spending together and how easily he had started helping me with my idea to take down Dana, I did have doubts. I thought that if I brought it up, it would make the situation between us awkward, regardless of how he felt.

  “Are you okay?” he asked with a nervous chuckle when he caught me lifting my head and turning to him to speak.

  “What?” I blinked. “Oh, yeah, I’m fine,” I assured, turning back to my sketchbook, feeling embarrassment burn my cheeks.

  “Are you sure?” he laughed. “You’ve looked up at me like you want to say something a couple times, now.”

  I sighed and began drumming the end of my pencil against the paper in front of me, using my other hand to cover the sketch, just in case the cameras were live in the conference room.

  “Clark…” I finally said, keeping my eyes down, nervous. “Please…don’t think I’m weird for asking this but…do you…” I sighed heavily and hung my head, losing my nerve.

  “Do I what?”

  “Do you…ugh, this is embarrassing…” I growled. “Don’t worry about it.”