I’m bored. We’re all bored. We’re all just lying around, yapping about shit we’ve done. But it’s Dirk who’s the most vocal; he loves being the center of attention. He goes on and on about his ‘adventures’. Perry doesn’t interrupt him anymore like he did that first day. He now lets me listen to the stories.
“So the kid was down in the basement,” Dirk explains. “But his mom was blocking the door. She was all like, ‘don’t take him, don’t take him, I’ll do anything! So I said to her ‘anything?’ And she said ‘anything’. And that’s when she pulled the string on her dress and it fell to the floor.”
“Oh man, what’d you do?” a YP asks eagerly.
“I fucked her and still took the kid.”
Everyone howls with laughter. I laugh too, yeah, I laugh. I probably wouldn’t have laughed a month ago, but out here, you laugh. It’s funny. Besides he’s only talking about an RF, it’s not like they’re human or anything. I notice Perry doesn’t laugh at the story. He never laughs. He’s a dick, that’s what he is, a dick. Why is Perry so weird?
Jeremin comes clomping up the steps into our shuttle. He looks… grim; his head hangs low. He doesn’t seem like his normal self. He never looks this way.
“Hey,” he mumbles miserably. “We just got our orders.”
“Thank God,” Luna half jokes. “If I have to hear one more of Dirk’s so called conquests, I think I’m going to blow my brains out.”
“You’re just jealous, Luna,” Dirk jabs back.
“Jealous? That doesn’t even make sense.”
Dagger jumps down from his bunk, “So you have the coordinates, boss?”
Jeremin doesn’t answer him. He just walks out the door without saying a word.
“Oh, shit,” Dagger murmurs. “It’s that time, isn’t it?”
“Fuck,” Luna says, closing her eyes. The other YP’s react similarly. Everyone all of a sudden is depressed.
“What the hell just happened?” I ask, but no one answers me. “What’s up?” Still, no one answers.
The team gets up and starts to get ready very very slowly.
“What’s going on?” I shout.
“Just get your suit on,” Luna whispers. “Just get it on.”
I slip it on and strap on the gear. I follow the team out of the shuttle and to the military vehicles. The morning is crisp, cool; there’s not a cloud in the sky. It’s a beautiful day, but since everyone is so dejected, it might as well be raining; it’s like I’m living with a whole troop of Perrys. I find a seat inside The Beast. Dagger comes down from the upper deck and sits down next to me. Doesn’t he usually drive? I look up and there’s no one at the controls.
“What are you doing down here, Dagger?” I ask.
“Autopilot,” he mutters, scratching his jet-black hair. “Destination is classified. Someone at Santa Verde is controlling us, controlling the whole convoy in fact.” He looks away and takes a deep breath. He’s stressed, very stressed, like everyone else seems to be. What is going on?
We drive for an hour, maybe two and the mood doesn’t change. There’s no bragging, no exaggerated stories of outlandish escapades; it’s just silence. We’re usually all amped up, ready to bust heads, break shit, but no one is talking. It’s unnerving.
We drive for another hour and the road begins to bend and swerve, becoming narrower with each mile. Fog rolls in; ugly wet brownish grass covers the hills. Oak trees with colorless, leafless barren branches dot the countryside. We pass old homes and broken down farmhouses that seem to have been abandoned years ago. Where the hell are we?
“Commander,” Dagger says, finally breaking the silence. “I know it’s my turn, but I’m not going to do it. You can kick me out of Cheetah Squad if you want, but I’m still not going to do it.”
Jeremin looks at him and nods like he understands. Hmm. I would have expected Jeremin to go ballistic on someone not obeying his orders, but the Commander acts rather calm. What’s with Jeremin? And what’s with Dagger? Dagger is one of the better YP’s we have. What is it that he doesn’t want to do that would make him want to quit Cheetah Squad?
Dirk, who’s sitting across from me, begins to chuckle. He starts to laugh out loud. It makes everyone uncomfortable, very uncomfortable.
“You know what?” Dirk says arrogantly. “I think choirboy should do it. He’s the new guy; new guys always have to do it. It’s the Cheetah Squad way.”
“Not this time,” Jeremin answers.
“Is Willenger’s boy too good for this?” Dirk responds.
“That’s not your call, Dirk!”
“I know that, Commander, but why isn’t it yours? Why is Sparks so fuckin’ special?”
“I’m not fuckin’ special,” I say.
“Evan!” Jeremin snaps. “Stay out of it.” He then turns to Dirk. “This is my squad, Patroller! I make the decisions!”
“You could have fooled me. Ever since choirboy got here, Perry calls the shots. Why is he calling the shots, he’s the goddamn medic; you’re the commander, Commander!”
“That’s enough!” Jeremin shouts, but Dirk doesn’t let up.
“Evan Sparks is the new guy!” the scruffy Patroller continues. “If choirboy’s here, he’s got to do it! He’s got to do the shit we all do!”
Jeremin doesn’t respond. He knows Dirk’s right, we all know Dirk’s right, whatever that might be. The tension is thick and it’s all my fault. I feel I have to do something.
“Look man,” I say. “I don’t want any special treatment. I’ll do it.”
“Would you shut the hell up, Evan?” Jeremin scolds. “You have no idea what you’re volunteering for!”
“I can handle it, Commander. I can.”
“No you can’t, there’s no goddamn way you can handle it!” Jeremin quickly turns to everyone else, “I don’t want anymore discussion about this, you got that?”
“Yes sir,” we all mumble
We continue driving for another half hour; then we finally see something on the monitor. Two huge nuclear silos break through the fog. It’s a power plant built way back when America was foolish enough to use nuclear power. It should be offline; well I hope its offline. We drive up to it and park next to a row of school shuttle buses. What are school buses doing all they way out here?
CHAPTER 20
We get out of The Beast and walk toward an office building just right outside the silos. It’s heavily guarded by of all things, a troop of bus drivers and their bodyguards. They look ratty, drunk and disorganized; they’re armed to the teeth with all kinds of weapons.
“What the hell do they need all that stuff for?” I ask Dagger, walking next to me.
“Can’t you tell a conditioning center when you see one?”
“This is a conditioning center?”
He looks at me like I’m insane.
“Uh Dagger,” Luna interrupts as she walks by. “You’re forgetting who you’re talking to.”
Something dawns on him. “Oh yeah, you’re The Boy Who Changed Everything. You went straight to Santa Verde, didn’t you?”
“Yep, he’s one of those,” Luna responds.
“So, you guys have been here before?” I ask.
“No not to this one,” Dagger answers. “Something similar though. Conditioning centers change locations all the time for security reasons.”
I have no idea what he’s talking about, but I nod like I do.
As we get closer to the entrance of the office building, a large unshaven dirty burly man dressed in oil stained denim blocks our path. “So you guys drew the shorter straw, huh?” he laughs kind of diabolically. He unlocks the front door and allows us to enter. I go forward, but no one goes with me, only Jeremin. This makes the burly man laugh even more. Jeremin looks back at his guys, but I can’t tell if he’s all that disappointed in them, he gives no indication either way.
Then, a woman comes hurrying down the corridor wearing a white lab coat. She’s an attractive mature looking woman. She’s skinny with a dark complexi
on. She looks worn down, exhausted. Her L-Chip glows rapidly, flashing all kinds of colors, giving the indication that it’s working way too hard.
“Hello there, Patrollers,” she says happily, forcing herself to have a friendly upbeat attitude. She has this weird unnatural nervous energy that kind of freaks me out. “It’s so nice to see you again, Commander Jolt.” she shakes Jeremin’s hand rigorously. “We have them for you, every last one of them,” she laughs with an uneasy laugh. “Come this way.”
Jeremin motions to me, Perry, Luna and 3 others to follow him. The rest of the company hangs back. The six of us follow the woman down the corridor as greasy looking bus drivers walk past us going in the opposite direction.
“Why so many bus drivers?” I ask.
The woman stops abruptly and turns to Jeremin. “You brought a first timer with you?”
Jeremin smirks. “He needs to see it.”
“Oh dear me.”
We come to a white door. It looks durable, highly secure. A security probe hovers above.
“Sparks,” Jeremin says to me. “Try not to get too weird when we walk in, okay?”
“What? Why? What’s in there?”
“Just don’t get weird.”
The woman in the lab coat holds her hand over a scanner and the door unlocks; we enter.
It’s another long corridor that goes on for about 50 yards. Large windows, from ceiling to floor, line the walls. Lab workers in white coats roam the hallway. Their L-Chips are flashing all kinds of crazy colors too. They walk to each window, looking at whatever it is that’s behind the glass. What is behind the glass?
We start walking down the corridor; I peek inside the first window we come to. I’m shocked at what I see. I look through another one and then another, and I’m equally astonished.
“Try not to get too weird,” Luna whispers, reminding me of Jeremin’s order.
Behind each window there’s a playroom, and inside each playroom there are children. Children? What are they doing in there? Their ages range from babies to young teenagers. The lab workers in the hallway keep checking and monitoring the children’s vital signs that are holographically projected onto the glass. The kids appear to be well behaved, but when I look closer at them, something’s not right. None of them look normal. They’re not having any fun; no one is playing with the toys. They look dazed and docile; their L-Chips are glowing bright. A hologram movie plays in the room, but no one is watching it. I can’t hear the sound because of the glass, but it looks like it’s a movie about Youth Nation. We walk further down the hallway, and the kids look worse. They’re more agitated, more aggressive. We pass by one room where a young boy is screaming and pounding his fists against the glass. A worker dials something on the holographic chart causing the boy to collapse to the floor. We finally come to the very last room. It’s the largest one.
“This is it,” the woman in the lab coat says. “We only have seventeen for you this time.”
“Just seventeen?” Jeremin barks. “I didn’t come all this way for just seventeen.”
“Well, you know that I can’t release them until their parents are found guilty.”
“There’s got to be more than seventeen guilty verdicts this month.”
“There are, but some children resist the conditioning.”
“Can’t you do anything?”
As the woman and Jeremin continue to argue, I turn to Luna and whisper, “What’s going on? Who are these kids anyway?”
“Don’t you recognize them?” she says, looking through the glass.
I take a closer look and then I see it. There’s Janice, the little girl from the concert, the Arab boy who bled all over me, and Perry’s cousin, Bobby.
“Oh my God,” I say as my stomach jumps. “What is this place?”
“It’s a holding facility,” Luna answers.
“We don’t like to use that phrase,” interjects the woman in the lab coat, overhearing our conversation. “We like to use the term, Conditioning Center.”
“But what are they doing here?” I ask as my voice goes up an octave.
“They’re waiting sir,” the woman explains. “These children have been waiting here while their parents were on trial. But thankfully, the guilty verdicts are in, and their parents are going to prison, so that means you can take the children with you to Santa Verde. They’re all ready for you; they’ve been conditioned.” And with that, she brushes her hands together like she’s washing it all away. She presses a button and the large glass door opens. “They’re all yours,” she says.
“Your parents are evil, they’re full of hate!”
That’s Valerie’s voice. She must be on the holographic movie that they’re watching.
“You can never go back. You are part of Youth Nation. You are one of us and I am one of you. You can never go back. Never. Your parents don’t want you. They want you dead.”
“Why is she so loud!” I shout, but no one answers or hears me.
The room is well lit, the carpet is plush, brightly colored, sprawling from wall to wall. Boxes of candy and junk food, like the illegal kind we found at the gas station, are scattered all over the floor. Music instruments, 3D games and toys are all around. But the kids aren’t playing with them; they’re not eating the candy either. They just sit there in their light green Youth Nation meditation outfits, staring at a holographic movie of Valerie.
“You’re parents hate you, they see you as the enemy. Do not go back. Do not go back to them. If you see them, run. If you see your father or mother, run. If you see your Aunt or Uncle, run. If you see your brother, your sister, run. Run from your past.”
Valerie’s dressed in her concert outfit; her hair is shorter than it is now. This must have been recorded a few years ago.
Perry begins to walk around the room, placing the tweaker device on the children’s L-Chip. The hologram of the Children’s vital signs pop up. When he looks at them, he shakes his head in disgust.
“Do not go back,” Val continues to speak. “Don’t even try talking to your family. Because if you do; you’ll be considered one of them, one of the enemy. We’ll have no choice but to send Youth Patrol after you.”
Then, the hologram movie cuts to images of people being chased down by Youth Patrol. People are shown getting shot, or set on fire. “They’ll come for you, and kill you. Do not go back. Do not contact them. You are Youth Nation now. Say it with me. You are Youth Nation.
“Could you turn off the hologram please?” Perry yells.
A lab worker obeys.
Perry turns to the Woman and the other lab workers. “Have any of you ever taken a course on how to read an L-Chip chart?” he says in a patronizing tone.
“Excuse me?” the woman answers sharply. “What’d you say to us?”
“You heard me.” Perry answers rudely. He places the tweaker devise on one of the kids. “Here, look at this one,” he says, directing the woman to look. “The kid’s heartbeat is off the charts, but you’ve cut off his motor function so he can’t even move. He’s completely stressed out. His heart can’t handle it; it’s going to explode.”
“We have over two hundred children in this facility!” the woman fires back. “We don’t have the resources to cater to every single child.”
“They’d be better off if you shut down their L-Chips altogether.”
“Are you mad?” a lab worker exclaims. “Do you have any idea what would happened?”
“They’d scream,” Perry answers. “But at least they’d be acting normal.”
“Oh, it’s so easy for you to come here and tell us what to do,” the woman says defensively. “If we turned off their L-Chips, it would be complete chaos. We wouldn’t be able to maintain order. Willenger won’t allow us to discipline the children, so we have to tweak their L-Chip, it’s our only option.”
“I don’t care, you’re all hacks. You have no idea what you’re doing.”
“You don’t know what it’s like to work here,” the woman snaps. �
��Yes, these children are fucked up, I know that, but they’re fucked up because of you, because of Youth Nation! You fucked them all up before they ever got here!”
“I’m taking them all, all two hundred!” Perry says furiously. “I want them all. I can treat them better than you can.”
“Are you out of your goddamn mind!” she shouts. “Are you crazy? You have no authority to do so!”
Perry pulls out his rifle and thrusts it in her face. “This is my authority. Release them or I’ll release your brain all over the glass.”
Jeremin springs into acting and yanks Perry’s rifle out of his hands. “Medic! Stand down! Stand the fuck down! What is your fuckin’ problem?”
Perry takes a step back, holding his hands up in the air. “I’m okay. I’m okay.” He takes a deep breath. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” He walks over to a control panel and switches Val’s recording back on.
“Don’t go back, or we’ll kill you. Don’t go back or you’ll die.”
Perry stumbles out of the room and runs down the corridor. Jeremin starts to chase after him, but he stops and turns to us. “Luna!” he says quickly. “You’re in charge. You know what to do.” He bolts out the playroom and hurries after Perry.
Luna immediately orders us to start gathering the children from off the floor. We literally have to lift them up by their shoulders and position them to walk in the direction they need to go. We force some of the older kids to carry the babies. We march them down the hallway as Val’s voice trails off.
“Do not go back. Don’t even talk to anyone from your family. If you do, we’ll send Youth Patrol after you.”
When we get to the front door, the rest of Cheetah Squad takes over and directs the kids over to the school buses parked near the silos.
Youth Patrol Page 12
