Inside

by Kyra Anderson

  “You do a good job of that yourself,” he grinned. “Little Lily, I wanted to ask, when were you last in my office?”

  I tried to remember the time before I had stolen the file from his table.

  “After the Commission meeting that one night…a couple months ago.”

  “Really?”

  “Why do you ask?”

  “I’m missing something…” He looked over his desk. I looked over it as well and shook my head.

  “Did you ever think that you might have just misplaced it?” I asked, glancing over the haphazard stacks of files and books. “How do you find anything in there?”

  “I have my own system.” He looked me over carefully and then a grin began to spread over his face. He stepped closer. I refused to back away. “You are feeling feisty today, aren’t you?”

  “You, too, apparently,” I noted. “Sean said that you’re bored.”

  “I am.”

  “So, you’ve lost interest in collecting people and mutilating them?”

  He groaned and rolled his eyes, slumping as his hands fell to his sides as though he had given up.

  “Oh, come on, Little Lily, you were doing so well,” he moaned, disappointed. “You said that you weren’t going to bother me about this anymore.”

  “Who said I was bothering you?” I chuckled. “I was trying to point out what a spoiled child you are.”

  He was once again interested. I laughed and rolled my eyes.

  “You have all the power a human could ever think of. You control the ultimate law in America, and yet, you’re bored.”

  “Once you reach the top, you start to wonder what is left,” he said, his eyes turning back to the dangerous predator he had been moments before.

  “What is left is what there always is,” I told him. “Someone to challenge your position and take over as soon as they find your weakness.”

  His eyes hardened. I did not think he felt threatened by me, but I was sure he was appalled that I would so openly challenge him.

  “And who might that be?” he whispered, walking closer again. “You?” He loomed over me. “You want to take over my position, Little Lily?”

  “I want to take you out of power and help all the people that you’ve harmed.”

  “It’s for the greater good, Little Lily.”

  “Nothing ever justifies doing harm to another person.”

  “And if I didn’t take these people out of society and turned a blind eye to everything while unconsciously throwing money at the problem, like the Washington System used to do, I would be harming the other people in society. So, which would you rather I harm? The criminals or the good citizens?”

  “Some of those people in the back are good citizens,” I growled. “They might be minorities, but that doesn’t mean they’re criminals.”

  “They create discontent, regardless of their morals,” Dana said. “They classify people. Gay, straight, black, white, Asian…because they cannot be seen as anything other than these classifications, they make other people do rash things, and then we have unrest.” Dana shook his head. “You think that humans are so accepting, but they’re not. You want to live in a world where there are no classifications, no differences between people so that everyone can go about their lives as if they were meant to live it the same as everyone else on the planet. But the fact is, you are only one of billions…and billions of people are willing to fight for their own beliefs. And, when beliefs are different, people get angry. It’s safer if everyone is the same.”

  “And yet, you’re making people even more diverse,” I pointed out. “You’re creating weapons out of people. You seem to be making a brand new species with Eyna. And you, you don’t want to conform to society even when people are all the same.” I shook my head and scoffed in disbelief. “You just take what you want regardless of how it might hurt anyone else.”

  Dana smiled and cocked his head to the side.

  “And you?” he pressed. “You want to take me out of power and bring harm to millions of people…and I’m the bad guy?” He laughed. “So, why don’t you take what you want?”

  “What I want?” I growled. I bit my lip and looked him over, deciding to play with him. “And what, exactly,” I placed my hands against his torso, “do you think that is?”

  I pushed him back, guiding him until he bumped into his desk and leaned back on it, looking me over with a mischievous glint in his eyes.

  “Well, I must say, I am curious to find out,” he chuckled, his eyes passing over me hungrily. I pressed myself to him, my hands trailing down his body to rest at his belt as he watched me.

  “You would like that, I’m sure,” I chuckled. “You’ve taken advantage of so many people, but how many people have actually made you take it?”

  “Not many,” he admitted, still grinning.

  “Something tells me you would like me to order you around and tell you what to do,” I chuckled, leaning toward his face, one of my hands snaking around the back of his neck. “Someone who doesn’t put up with your bullshit…”

  “You think that’s something I want?”

  “Oh, I think so,” I smiled, feeling powerful over him for the first time. I lifted my leg to rest against his hip and ran my body against his. A few moments passed before he started to move forward to kiss me. I turned away, sighing and shaking my head.

  “Unfortunately for you, that’s not something I want.”

  I waited to see his reaction, but after a few silent and still moments, the phone was the thing that broke our tense confrontation. Dana growled and rolled his eyes, leaving it to ring until the shrill sound stopped and the pager came through.

  “Dana,” Sean’s voice called. Dana ground his teeth together, pouting before irritably turning over his shoulder to the receiver.

  “What?”

  “I need to speak with you, now.”

  “Not now,” Dana growled. “I’m busy.”

  “Sir, this is a Code Five. I need to speak with you immediately.”

  At this, Dana straightened and turned around to look at the phone.

  “What?”

  “Code Five,” Sean repeated.

  Dana was still for a moment and then nodded once.

  “Fine, I’m putting you on hold.” He hit one of the buttons on the phone before turning to me, his eyes unreadable and obviously no longer invested in our game.

  “Sounds important,” I said with raised eyebrows. “I guess we’ll just have to continue this another time.”

  I turned to leave the office, but Dana’s voice stopped me.

  “You should be careful who you tease, Little Lily,” he warned as I looked over my shoulder at him. “Some will jump back and bite you.”

  “You should heed your own advice, Dana,” I breathed, smirking. I walked out of the room. I felt his eyes on me right up to the moment that I closed the door behind me. As soon as I heard the latch slide into place, I started walking down the hall, feeling myself slowly come back down to reality.

  Feeling my legs shake, I ducked into Clark’s mother’s office and collapsed against the door, sliding to sit at the bottom, my breath thudding out of me as I breathed hard, a large smile spreading over my face.

  I had finally won a small victory over Dana. I finally played him. I knew it was not to the same power that he played other people, but I still felt triumphant, like nothing could take me down.

  I did a small dance while seated at the bottom of the door, smiling like an idiot to the empty room and pumping my fists excitedly in the air.

  I felt even more beautiful and powerful after I had changed into my clothes for Archangel, and as I moved through the crowds of people and danced around the floor, I felt invincible.

  So when I got home and checked my emails to find an email from the Censor Board that contained my message of the rebellion inside, I was on top of the world. That must have been what the phone call in Dana’s office had been about.

  Dana knew. It was time to play our ga
me on a whole new level.

  * *** *

  “Why do you seem so proud of yourself?” Clark asked as we folded some of the old tarps that had been used to cover the bunk beds in the fort. I smiled at him in disbelief.

  “You’re not?” I gasped. “It fucking worked! Our message is out there for the people to see.”

  “That means Dana can see it,” Clark whispered. He looked me over as we came closer, folding the tarp. “What happened yesterday? You had a huge grin on your face when you came back.”

  “Nothing.” I tried to pass off my excitement. “Just had an argument with Dana and I think I actually did pretty well in it,” I explained, taking the tarp and folding it into an even smaller square before stacking it with the others as Clark grabbed the last one.

  “No one has texted me about the message, but I got it, and you got it, and Melody told me she got it before we left the club last night, so I say that everyone knows…even the kids of the Commission who might not know entirely what’s going on, yet…”

  “You sound nervous about that.”

  “Well…some of the Commish Kids might still be loyal to Dana.”

  “Even after the whole thing with Miranda?” I asked skeptically.

  “Some are too afraid to go against him,” Clark sighed. He dusted his hands off on his jeans when I took the folded tarp from him, stacking it. “And now that he knows about the message, he’ll try harder to contain people, particularly in the Commission.”

  “Well, the tighter he holds on, the less likely he is to actually have control,” I chuckled brokenly. “He’s getting careless.”

  “No, Lily,” he shook his head. “He’s getting dangerous. If he feels threatened, we have no idea how he’ll react, so we need to be very careful and quiet. That’s why we need to meet here and we need to start figuring out how we’re going to get experiments out of the Commission.”

  “Alright,” I nodded, walking with him into the main bunker, shaking my head. “I really wish we had a full blueprint of the Commission…”

  “I’ll compile the pictures on my computer and make a full map. We might be able to see something from that.”

  “Hey, Clark, about the weapons in there,” I said, pointing to a room we had discovered to be an armory, “do you know how to use any of them?”

  “Are you kidding me?” he asked, his eyebrows high. “Guns haven’t been allowed to the public in over fifty years.”

  “Well, how are we going to use them, then?”

  “Hopefully someone has some knowledge, but for now I say we keep the door locked and don’t let any of the other Commish Kids in there…particularly Dean.”

  “Agreed.”

  After cleaning up more and making sure that we knew where we were meeting with everyone tomorrow, we headed back into town where we had a late lunch before I went home to get ready for the Commission meeting.

  My father had been moving around in a haze since our afternoon out and my mother was also agitated. I did not know if my mother knew that my father was aware of her indiscretion, or if she was still trying to keep it secret. All I could do was sit by and watch the rift between my parents get larger and escape into my own little world with Mykail when it became too much. Mykail tried to get me to talk about my feelings a few times, but I remained silent, choosing to focus on the revolution and Dana rather than my family problems.

  When we got to the Commission meeting, there was a nervous tension about the room. Dana’s advisors were upset and worried, and the others in the Commission were feeding off that energy. I relished in the feeling.

  I knew what the main topic of that night’s meeting would be.

  And from the Commish Kids I met eyes with around the room, they knew, too.

  As soon as the second hand passed over the twelve on the clock, the doors closed and Mrs. Markus walked up to stand at the podium.

  “Ladies and gentlemen of the Commission of the People,” the woman at the front of the room started, “I will now call this meeting on the night of November nineteenth in session,” she started, looking around the room nervously. “There was a larger list of things we planned to cover tonight, however the program has been changed.” Everyone glanced around, nervous. Dana remained with Sean at the front of the room, waiting for Mrs. Markus to finish.

  “Therefore, all things that were on today’s schedule for the meeting have been moved to next week, and the only announcement I have before turning the meeting over to Mr. Christenson is that we would like the members of the party going to Europe to come here Wednesday to meet with Leader Simon.”

  I straightened up. Leader Simon was going to be at the Commission on Wednesday? If he was there when I got out of school, I could have an opportunity to see how he reacted to Dana and if he was going to be someone who would be willing to help us get rid of Dana and the Commission or not.

  “Alright, I will now ask our leader, Dana Christenson, to take over the meeting,” she said, turning to Dana as he walked to the podium.

  Mrs. Markus sat down as Dana stood at the front of the room, Sean just behind him, watching carefully. My heart began to race. I felt anxious and excited at the same time.

  There were several long seconds where Dana stared at the podium, silent and still, and that caused everyone to feel even more nervous. I felt everyone move their eyes to one another, but my eyes were glued on Dana.

  “Dana…” Sean whispered, placing a hand on the Commission leader’s arm, as if to wake him.

  Dana jerked his arm away from Sean and turned to the Commission.

  “Alright,” he started, “I’m just going to say this first. I am in no mood to beat around the bush or play games with anyone here, so I won’t.” His eyes were sharp around the room. “How many of you checked your email at some point last night?” No one moved, not sure if he was really asking a question. “It’s alright, raise your hands,” he urged. Slowly, everyone in the Commission raised their hands. “All of you,” he nodded. “And based on the early reports, only three of you have absolutely no idea why I’m upset.” He stepped out from behind the podium, fiddling with his pocket watch, glancing at each face in the room. The look caused me to shiver and lean back in my chair.

  “A message went out yesterday,” he said. “To be exact, six variations of the same message. They were sent to every computer, every email in America, from the Censor Board. The first wave of these messages went out to about twenty percent of the American people at 14:42 yesterday. About two hours later, another message went to the next thirty percent of the population at 16:03, and at 17:27 yet another message went out, this was the wave that my computer was part of.” Dana scanned the room seriously.

  “This is propaganda against the Commission of the People,” he growled, moving around the tables. To me, it looked like something was restraining him from attacking the people in the room, and maybe there was something stopping him with the way that Sean was trailing him.

  “These messages seem to be sent at random to a random selection of computers, and while the first ones were from the Censor Board, another wave that went out were supposedly sent from our computers,” he continued.

  He stopped where he was in the middle of the room and turned abruptly, going back to the front of the room, his head twisting and his body shivering as I had seen him do every now and again. He swerved around again to face everyone when he was at the front of the room.

  “As some of you may know, Leader Simon has been throwing fits over the breech in the military computers last month, and now we get a message against the Commission that is reaching all citizens in this country. That is nearly three hundred million people.” He looked around angrily. “We have a problem,” he stated coldly. “I do not know if this is the same group, or person, who hacked into the military computers last month, and I do not know if we are going to be dealing with an insurrection, but in order to be sure that the American people are able to rest easily and not worry about another rebellion, and also to put Leader
Simon at ease, the Commission is reinstating the Sweeps.”

  My stomach twisted. Everyone in the room was shocked by the proposal, whispering hurriedly at their tables, frightened.

  “Now, these Sweeps will not be as dramatic as they were previously,” Dana said over the surprised din. Everyone silenced. “There is no need for some of the tactics, since the population is already pure, but there will be heavy crackdowns on anarchist collectives and groups that might even think of rebelling. We must find this person or group and destroy them quickly before the American people panic.

  “As for the content of this message,” he continued, “yes, it is anti-Commission of the People propaganda, and it is obviously propaganda, but it means that something has compromised our security here. Unless it was someone within the Commission, the information these people released should be highly guarded. So…” he glanced around expectantly, “is there anyone here who would like to come forward and admit to sending this propaganda and spare us the trouble of hunting you down?”

  Everyone was deathly silent. I felt my heart thumping in my chest.

  “Don’t think I’m stupid enough to think that it’s impossible someone from the Commission did this,” he near-growled. “In fact, it is most likely that this is someone from the Commission.” He glanced around once more. “No one wants to talk?”

  The silence was thick and heavy as it hung over the room.

  “Clark, Lily, come here,” he called.

  My parents whirled to look at me and I felt my heart stop completely. When I got over the initial shock of Dana calling me, I glanced at Clark and he looked at me.

  “Don’t worry, you’re not in trouble,” he assured, getting impatient, motioning us up once again.

  Slowly, I stood, feeling my legs shake as I approached Dana. Clark was just as nervous. We slowly approached the leader of the Commission and he reached out, wrapping his arms around both of us and turning us to face the Commission room.