All school did was teach me to be obedient. It had taught me how to say the pledge to the flag, how to appreciate the safety we had by telling us the horrors of other countries, it emphasized the difference between us and other countries—us versus them.
But I remembered the way the Commission prisoners interacted once we had gotten to the fort. They spoke with one another as though there were no barriers of race, or sexual orientation, or language. They laughed with one another as if they had known each other for years.
The Commission of the People was the obstacle that kept people from knowing people.
Every now and then over the previous month, when I had been lying in bed and unable to sleep, listening to Mykail’s breathing next to me, I would cringe when I thought back on my horror at seeing Mark for the first time. Seeing how he looked different, the way he could not speak, how uncomfortable he made me at first because he came from another culture and another way of life. But as I had grown fond of him, I had come to respect him more than I had respected anyone. He had been torn from his life and family, tortured, and forced into a life he should have never had, and he still held strong against Dana. He cared about others who were being forced to live through the same tortures. He wanted to spare them that fate. Rather than whine and cry, he fought for the well-being of others. Mark obviously knew personally the experiments he had broken out. He had been able to look past who they had been before the Commission, what they looked like, who they had fallen in love with, and he saw the human within.
And yet, I had still been shocked and frightened simply by his appearance the first time I saw him.
I knew I could not blame myself entirely. My parents had never shown me that there were people outside of our country that looked different. School had only mentioned them, and exaggerated drawings in history books and recovered, grainy films had done nothing to humanize those people for me. I had never been taught that human beings were so different. I had been taught that they were different, but not human.
“Lily?”
I looked up quickly from my intense gaze at the table, turning to Clark.
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah…”
“Didn’t you bring your school work?”
“No,” I chuckled.
“Well, I feel bad if you’re just sitting there staring at the table,” Clark laughed. “We could watch a movie, if you want.”
“No,” I shook my head. I reached for my bag, pulling out my sketchbook and some pencils. “I’ll just draw.”
For the first time in what felt like years, I put pencil to paper and drew things that did not involve committing acts of domestic terrorism. At first, I was frustrated because I could not focus, but before long I began drawing the one thing that came to my mind. A young man’s back, bandaged from the wings that had just been attached, laying on the ground in a weakened state.
The opening door of the conference room caused me to jump out of my world of lines and shading.
Sean smiled weakly as he walked one step into the conference room.
“Hello, you two.”
“Sean,” we both smiled, relieved to see it was the Commission’s head of security and not Dana.
“How are you today?”
“Alright,” we both answered mechanically.
“Not too roughed up?”
“Roughed up?” I asked, confused, my heart jolting.
“The security at the front door,” Sean clarified, looking sheepish. I felt relief spread through me but then I let out a snort, reminded of the security upstairs.
“What was that all about?” I asked.
“Just one of those days…”
“Sean, are you okay?” Clark beat me in asking the question. I noticed the intense exhaustion in Sean’s voice, even though he physically looked well.
“Yeah, just…didn’t really sleep last night,” he shrugged casually. He walked forward, reaching into his coat pocket and pulling out a clear bag of pills. “Clark, can you make sure Mark takes one of these twice a day?”
Clark reached out and took the bag hesitantly, glancing at the large pills as I blinked at Sean.
“What happened to him?”
“He hurt his leg, it’s nothing too serious. Just some stitches.”
“Stitches?” both of us gawked. I was now legitimately worried.
“It’s alright. The doctor’s just finishing up with him,” Sean assured. “In the meantime…have either of you seen Dana?”
The question made my nausea worse.
“…no…”
“Did you misplace him?” Clark asked with a broken chuckle, his eyes wide.
“No, no, I know where he is now,” Sean assured, showing us the screen of his phone, which made me realize that he had access to Dana’s tracers. “I just…he’s a little on edge today and I wanted to make sure that he didn’t slip away for a few minutes to harass you.”
“…Sean, what’s going on?” I feigned ignorance.
“You’ll find out tomorrow,” Sean murmured vaguely, walking back to the door. “So, Clark, please make sure that Mark takes two of those a day, one in the morning and one at night. I will see you both tomorrow.”
“Wait, Sean—”
“I’m sorry, Miss Sandover, that’s all I can say right now.”
* *** *
I wanted to go to the fort and see everyone on Friday, but Mark told me to wait until Sunday. Everything at the Commission was in chaos and it was entirely possible that Dana would be keeping a closer eye on us over the next few days to be sure we weren’t involved. Even though I was disappointed, I knew to trust Mark. I tried to get him to tell me what happened to his leg, but he put away the notebook and shook his head, effectively evading giving an answer.
I pouted as we drove to my house, but remembering something else I needed to discuss with him that changed my expression.
“Wait,” I said, tapping Mark’s shoulder, “I need to talk to you about Mykail…”
Mark reached back, tapping the light. I groaned and rolled my eyes, reaching a hand. He stared at it, glancing between my palm and the road before looking at me with what I assumed was a confused expression.
“You’re knife,” I said. He remained still and then shook his head. “What. You don’t trust me?” I teased.
He glanced at me once more before he shook his head again, a hint of a smile at the corner of his lips. I rolled my eyes and sat back.
“Fine…”
Therefore, when we got to my house, Mark got out of the car, limping as he walked. All of us stepped inside the house as Mykail walked to the foyer from the living room.
Mykail remained quiet as I talked to Mark about bringing Mykail to the fort. Mark listened to me and then wrote how worried he was at the dangers of trying to sneak Mykail out of the house. I asked if Mark would be willing to do it once or twice before my parents returned from Europe to which he, grudgingly, agreed. He said that he could try this Sunday and then asked if we had been able to fit Mykail in a standard size car, which I told him we could.
Mark wrote that he would let me know the next day if he found a way to take Mykail to the fort that Sunday.
But that did not seem to cheer Mykail up.
I could tell something was bothering him. He was quiet and distant, his eyes unfocused as he thought through whatever was gnawing at his brain. I asked him a few times to tell me what he was thinking, but he refused, continuing to stare into space. Even when I tried to distract him by kissing him he was obviously thinking over something troubling.
I stopped pestering him, but on Saturday, the mood had still not broken and while I was focused on trying to figure out what was bothering him, I had forgotten about the Commission meeting that night.
The most conversation I had gotten out of Mykail was him telling me that I needed to be careful, because he was sure that Dana was a few levels beyond furious and it would show in the meeting.
Despite the fact that I knew I should have be
en worried, I was far more focused on the mood Mykail was stuck in. I felt frustrated and, surprisingly, on the verge of tears, worried about what he was not telling me. Even when Mark wrote a quick message that he would have Josh drive Mykail to the fort the following day, I could not shake the feeling that something was very wrong.
All those thoughts were obliterated when I had to go through the rigorous security check once again. Thankfully, Clark and I had to be there earlier than the others, so there was no line waiting to be checked. We were able to get through the embarrassing security checks with little hassle.
“What do you think?” Clark asked, worriedly rocking back and forth in his chair as we waited for other Commission members.
“I don’t know what to think…”
My mind was rolling through all types of ideas. I had no way to predict the way the meeting would go, and I was getting more anxious by the minute.
The more confused Commission members entered the room, the more my anxiety heightened. By the time the second hand passed over the hour and the doors were shut, I was a jumpy, nervous wreck.
I threw one apprehensive glance at Clark, who returned the look, and then turned to Dana, who was walking toward the podium with Sean trailing close behind.
“Good evening everyone,” Dana greeted. “We’re going to skip the formalities tonight because we have something of great importance to discuss. I assume we all know the date and time, so let’s get right down to it.” He sighed heavily, stepping out from behind the podium, throwing a glance around the room. “You all noticed the increased security today. The truth is, we were breached two nights ago.”
Surprised muttering broke out like a dull roar through the room. I looked around with wide eyes, acting along with the surprised members of the Commission.
“Listen up, everyone,” Dana called. “This was no small breach, either. This has the potential to become very dangerous.”
I had to bite back the smile that threatened to split across my face.
“We are missing people from the back. Over eighty people from the holding cells are unaccounted for.”
The muttering turned into frightened and hurried conversation. I waited excitedly for Dana to talk about the missing experiments, eager to see the reaction of the others.
“Remember, these are criminals against the nation of America. We have no leads on who broke them out, or even how they managed to do so,” Dana continued. “We know that the security system went down at 20:24 Thursday night, and when the secondary system kicked on seven minutes later, they were gone.”
“Were any of the experiments missing?” one parent called. My stomach flipped, twisting with the anticipation I was trying to repress.
“No.”
I felt eyes fall on me from all over the room. I wanted to scream at the Commish Kids to look anywhere else. Dana was testing the Commission, knowing that whoever had organized the breakout would know that there were experiments missing.
Most not involved in our plan relaxed, so I followed suit, looking around to show my relief about the experiments remaining contained. Thankfully, I found that only three people were looking in my direction, and they were quick to catch on.
“That being said, we were still breached, and these people are highly dangerous,” Dana pressed on. “They had inside information, and a lot of it. They knew how to override the system, they knew that Thursday was a local Sweep night, which meant we would have fewer security.” Dana shook his head and looked at his feet. “I am reluctant to report that we lost a lot of men Thursday night.”
I tried not to cringe when I recalled the image of the dead men in the angry orange glow.
“We had fifty-seven guards on duty on Thursday,” Dana started. “Of those fifty-seven, nine are in intensive care, but they are stable, and thirty-nine are dead. Three scientists are also dead.”
I was legitimately disturbed by the number. My eyes shot wide and I looked at Clark, who was just as surprised. That made me realize that not all the guards had been killed by Goliath. Griffin and Mark had killed several as well.
When the muttering ceased, Dana spoke again.
“While we do not know the group responsible for this, we are quite confident that they are connected with the group sending out the viral emails and programming the pop-ups over the internet. While I did not take this threat very seriously before, I am beginning to think that we have a large group of domestic terrorists hell-bent on overthrowing Central and the Commission of the People.”
“We should rally the people. Tell them that these terrorist are a threat to our nation and—”
“Any more moronic ideas like that, and I will gag you,” Dana growled at the man who had spoken. “The people absolutely cannot know about this. This will travel only in the elite circle, meaning the Commission will converse with Leader Simon and his cabinet, and that will be the end of it. This is highly-classified. The way to keep the people behind us is to make it appear as though we are still infallible. Any sign of weakness, and the people will fall away from us faster than you can blink.”
Dana paused for a moment, reaching into his pocket and pulling out his pocket watch, rolling it in his fingers. It was clearly a nervous habit of his.
“Let me explain something to you,” he started. “This commission is charged with the safety and security of the people. Now, the people know that we deal with these matters very swiftly and sometimes brutally. We’re the attack dog, the secret police of this nation, and that has served us very well. We are feared and respected. However, as soon as that fear grows stronger than the respect, we’re finished. The Second Revolution was only seventy years ago. It is still fresh in the collective conscious of the people. Their response to fear will be violence. And we cannot have that.”
“We have superior firepower,” a woman called. “We call the army out and put down any rebellions that might be forming.”
“That will strengthen the fear,” Dana said. “Again, with the moronic ideas—they outnumber us!” He glared at everyone. “Do you not remember your mothers and fathers telling you about the way the revolution spread like wildfire across the nation?! The army was called out and the people fought that much harder. Washington fell, and we came to clean up the mess.”
Dana began pacing.
“As far as the people know, there is no faction of terrorists that broke criminals out of the Commission. If we can handle this quickly and quietly, then they will go about their merry little lives, taking their children to soccer and piano recitals, and we will sit and smile as though it didn’t happen. The rest of the world will never know otherwise. As soon as there is unrest in America, the rest of the world will get very nervous and we will be pointing nuclear weapons at each other again as a “just in case” precaution. I will not have that.”
“But, the people are bound to find out,” one of the Commish Kids called. At first I was frightened that they would say something to implicate us, but I tried to calm down and trust that no one was so reckless. “I have seen the emails and the pop-ups, these guys have access to mass communication. If they really did break people out of the Commission, they are going to gloat about it, and then exploit our weaknesses, the way they already have.”
“If other advertisements go out, then the Commission of the People will release a statement saying that it is a fear tactic from radical terrorists and that it is all a lie,” Dana explained. “If the people need to be afraid of anyone through all this, it’s these terrorists. And we will tell them if they need to be afraid or not.”
Dana waited for other people to voice questions. When no one did, he continued.
“Alright, we tried to trace everyone who went missing, but we cannot find their signals. We have the Sweeps teams reconvening here in Central and we will start an outward sweep. We will scan everywhere for these criminals and we will find them, discreetly. Until then, the papers you see before you are NDAs for the information you have heard tonight. Not even the team in Europe kno
ws about this, yet. This is not to get out electronically. You are all signing to prove that you will not discuss this topic on any electronic surface and will not remove paper documents from the Commission. The increased security will be in effect until we find this terrorist group and neutralize them.”
My blood ran cold at the word “neutralize.”
Dana told everyone to sign and leave. He was agitated, still pacing and fiddling with the watch in his hands. I watched him for several long moments, even as Sean walked up to him and placed a hand on his shoulder, trying to ground him before he flew into a rage.
As people began filing out, talking worriedly about what they heard with one another, I quickly turned and signed the necessary spaces in the agreement. I stood and grabbed my purse, turning to come face to face with Clark.
“Can you believe it?” he hissed, acting in a very convincing manner.
“No…” I whispered. “Do you think that’s why Mark was hurt?”
“Lily, Clark,” Dean said, walking up, shaking his head in mock disbelief. “It’s unbelievable. I mean, how did they get people out?”
“How did they hack into the system? That’s what I want to know,” Clark hissed, his eyebrows high.
“How many do you think are in the sect?” Melody asked, also joining our conversation. “They killed thirty-nine people…”
“There must have been fifty of them, or more,” Felicity shrugged. “I mean, you’ve seen the guards. They’re big guys.”
“May I speak with you for a moment?” a voice whispered at my ear.
I let out a yelp and whirled around, my eyes locking on Dana, who had snuck up behind me. Sean was close behind. I stared at the two, noticing Dana’s glasses were off, exposing the fire in his eyes.
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