by B. C. Tweedt
Taking the items, Greyson eyed the digital camouflage design on the circle of cloth that Forge had called a gaiter. “I thought we were safe here.”
Forge stared down at him. “We released the video – your testimony – in hopes of convincing the idiots who still hold allegiance to Emory. There are plenty of Plurbs who’d love to know you’re still alive.”
Greyson felt sick to his stomach. He had felt safe in his Med Center room, alone with Sydney and Nurse Rachael, hidden from the world in a room full of white and peace. He’d even forgotten about that video he’d made after Rubicon rescued him from the American soldiers and militiamen.
But now the goggles and gaiter lay loose in his palm, like handcuffs. This wasn’t right. Everyone would leave without him, on mission to save the nation, and he would be stuck here, wearing goggles, a mask, and a sling – and babysitting a boy. He didn’t dare ask if they were taking Kit.
He couldn’t let it happen.
“Where’s Sydney?” he said, turning from SmokeStack’s irritated face to Asher’s. But the boy shrugged.
“She’s getting briefed,” Forge said finally. “You can see her after.”
Greyson despised the runaround. And these men didn’t scare him – that much. “I want to see her now. Where is she?”
Annoyed, SmokeStack cocked his head and stepped toward the boy. “That’s enough, kid…”
But Jarryd was suddenly between them, pushing Greyson away. “Hey, hey, now, I’m hungry,” he said, pulling Greyson’s good arm. “The caf’ here’s got lots of good food. But you can only eat if you have intestines. And you only have intestines if SmokeStack doesn’t gut you.” He pulled Greyson down the walkway, with Kit scurrying after them. “Besides, Syd will join us for supper, maybe. Later, Stack!” Jarryd yelled behind.
At a safe distance Greyson whispered in Jarryd’s ear. “Do you know where she is?”
Jarryd sighed nervously. “Well…”
“Come on, Jarryd. Whose side are you on? You barely met these guys, and you’re letting them…”
“I’ll show you where she is, bro, okay?” he whispered. “Now just put those things on like they said.”
Greyson nodded, watching Stack and Forge follow them as he fit the goggles over his eyes and pulled the gaiter from his neck to his nose.
And then he jerked the goggles off.
Jarryd eyed his friend’s stunned face. “What’s wrong?”
Greyson glanced back at Forge, noticing a smile streak across his lips. “The goggles…”
He put them on again and was instantly absorbed in the overwhelming amount of information now displayed in his vision. Boxes danced around the camp, finding items and words to latch onto, sending streams of information in statistics and descriptions like a dictionary had been implanted in his brain. And there were stationary words in the corners of his new world. Temperature, a mini-map of the camp as if taken from a satellite, and a news headline – {Emory Warns of Secret US End Game}.
He nearly stumbled on a curb.
Jarryd grabbed at him. “Whoa! Are they drunk goggles or something?”
“Uh, no,” Greyson said, regaining his composure while straining to focus on the vast amount of data before him. He’d have to remember that this was real life, not a video game.
“I wore drunk goggles once – it was a class demonstration, you know, to persuade us not to get sloshed and all. I ran into the fish tank, water everywhere. The whole room got sloshed! Then I stepped on Mr. Fishensticks. We found Nemo the next day under the radiator.”
Greyson chuckled, looking at Jarryd. Two digital boxes had jumped to Jarryd’s eyes as he spoke, another to his lips, moving and reshaping as Jarryd’s face bounced with his walk. Beside his face, and below his name, text displayed {Deception 0%}.
The goggles were incredible. He would have to experiment more with all their functions. As they approached their destination, the goggles displayed the building’s name – the Main Lodge – its square footage, the amount of exits, and more. Boxes drew his attention to three security cameras all while identifying an exiting boy and girl by name. At the same time, a circle moved across the corner mini-map. When Greyson turned, he saw a disc drone zipping overhead.
He turned back and smacked into the door – next to the one Jarryd was opening for him.
“You should take those off before going to the bathroom, dude. Might end up peeing in the hand dryer. On second thought, that could be awesome!” He rotated his hips. “Urinecane!”
Chapter 9
Greyson and Jarryd were greeted inside the air-conditioned lobby by busts of elk, moose, and grizzly bears mounted on the balcony. Artwork attempting to match the beauty of the mountains hung on the dark green walls, spaced between wooden beams. The designers had done their best to bring the outside inside, but Greyson wasn’t interested in the decorations – he was interested in his goggles.
“Welcome back, Jarryd,” the woman behind the front desk chirped, leaning on her elbows.
Through Greyson’s goggles, her name and age appeared to float next to her: {Holly Carmichael, age 22}. Her address, parents’ names, email address, height, weight, phone number, and more appeared below, more than he could read at a glance. What’s more, the box around her was green with a threat level of 1.
“Hey, bay-bay. No time to talk,” Jarryd replied, ushering his masked friend past.
Holly arched her brow. “Okay. Take care.”
Jarryd turned to Greyson as they swiveled to a hallway. “You see that? She knows my name.”
“Wow,” Greyson whispered in mock awe. “When’s the baby due?” He laughed to himself.
“You calling her fat?” Jarryd responded, tongue-in-cheek.
“What? No! She’s only like a hundred and forty-two pounds.”
Jarryd laughed. “That’s kinda specific, but yeah. She could stand to lose a few. But I’d still hug her…lips with mine, if you know what I mean…” he said with a pump of his chin.
They passed a main elevator and eventually reached the end of the hall where another lone elevator read “Janitor Use Only”.
“So, this is where she went.” Jarryd pointed to a card-swiper to the right of the door. “And we can’t follow.”
“That’s right,” came SmokeStack’s booming voice from behind them.
The boys jumped, turning to see the giant man, followed close by Forge and Asher.
“Where’d you come from?” Jarryd asked.
“Side door,” Smoke said, pointing at another exit.
Greyson reviewed his mini-map. He should have seen it. There were so many great features. “The goggles…” Greyson began.
“Don’t mention it,” Forge said. “I have others. I’ll show you how to customize the heads-up-display – the HUD – later.”
Jarryd cocked his head, eyeing Greyson’s goggles.
“Thanks, I guess,” Greyson replied, waiting for an identification for Forge to appear next to him in his HUD. But it only read “Unidentified.” The same was for Stack. It did assess them a threat level, though. Is 10 the highest?
“We got called in,” Forge said. “Looks like Emory’s just stirred the pot again.”
Greyson stepped forward. “Is Sydney down there?”
“She’s three floors down with the rest,” Forge noted with 0% deception. “But you’ll have to wait, Orphan. Rubicon may need you in the future. But now’s not your time.”
Greyson turned in frustration. He hated this. Waiting was cowardly. Sitting out was weakness. And being left behind was humiliating.
“You can stay with me,” Jarryd said, giving Greyson a playful slug.
And then the elevator doors opened. Dan appeared and Asher ran into his arms with a shout, “Dad!”
“Ash! Guys. We need you,” Dan said. “Get on.”
SmokeStack and Forge joined them in the elevator and pressed one of the buttons. When Greyson tried to join them, SmokeStack wagged a
thick finger at him.
Dan addressed him as the doors began to close. “Not now, Orphan. It’s good to see you.”
Greyson looked from him, to Forge, to Asher as the doors closed them in. And then he was left with Jarryd, who looked to him with a goofy smile, his big front teeth overlapping his bottom lip. “I know just how you feel. You feel dumped, don’t you? Like a turd left alone in the bowl?”
Greyson soured even further, staring at Jarryd with his bug-eye goggles.
“Pretty crappy, right?” Jarryd asked, expecting a laugh but getting nothing but bug-eyes. “Well, I know just the thing to cheer you up.”
-------------------------------
“Worthless meat sack!” the instructor berated, kicking Cael in the ribs. The boy tipped to the ground, holding his torso as more blows came from the group surrounding him.
“Hypocrite!”
“Hater!”
“Moron!”
“Bigot!”
“Backward, brainless hick!”
“Enough!” yelled a new, jarring voice.
The blows stopped and Cael spat at those standing over him. “’Dat all ya got? Huh?”
The crowd parted for the man whose voice had quieted the crowd. Cael looked at him through the hands he held up to protect his face.
The man with a scruffy beard and green eyes stood erect, biting his lower lip. It was the same mysterious man who had watched as the instructor water-boarded him, who had listened as the instructor demanded he tell him his deepest darkest sins. The man had been watching him the last few sessions, never speaking, just watching.
“We have more, Cael,” the mystery man said, circling him. “Though we try to simulate it, nothing we do will truly match what they would do to you.”
Cael huffed, trying to catch his breath, looking from the mystery man to the instructor, to the others. He hated the instructor, but he hated the rest more. Throughout his training they had berated him, scolded him for imagined flaws, and made him work three times harder than the others. But he had showed them no weakness. Their kind was always looking for them, scrutinizing for weak spots to exploit. Cael had had his experience with their kind his entire life. He learned how to handle them. The bear bites you; you bite back. The bear claws you; you claw back. Never let it have the dominance it desires. It doesn’t deserve it. Outlast it. Grow stronger as it grows older. Then when it dies, you’re ready to be free.
And that’s what he wanted. To be free to fight tyranny. He wanted to be a part of Pluribus, and no matter how painful the training, he could ride it out – as long as he’d be able to fight in the end.
“Get up,” the mystery man demanded.
Cael pushed himself up to his knees and wiped away the blood and sweat from under his nose. He expected more blows, but the man was just watching him with his arms crossed. Keeping an eye on him, Cael rose to his feet, only needing an extra side step to catch his wavering balance.
“Good. He’s mine now.”
Confusion murmured through the group as the mystery man motioned for Cael to follow. He obeyed, thankful to leave the group but wincing from the sharp pain in his ribs.
“What about the rest of us?” some goon asked.
The man stopped and spoke over Cael’s shoulder. “We all have a role to play. You’ll find yours.” He turned to the instructor. “Carry on.”
And then he marched ahead, daring Cael to follow at his quick pace.
“Sewage eatin’ and butt-wipin’ is their type of role,” Cael chided as he hobbled after the man.
The man chuckled. “You’re right,” he said, flashing him a smile.
Cael hadn’t seen many smiles in the quarry.
“Most of what’s left here is just bodies. The good ones have been sifted out. But someday even they will be called on,” he vowed, leading Cael through a puddle, past a row of jail cells.
The occupants of the jail cells had stopped whatever they were doing to watch them. One particular prisoner – a boy with an incredibly lazy eye – was glaring at Cael with an unspoken fury. And he held a dish in his hand with a variety of oddly shaped dirt clods on it. When Cael looked back, the boy held a clod that looked something like a corncob, complete with a stick poked into each side. He opened his mouth wide and took a bite.
Disgusting.
Cael turned to the mystery man. “Who are you?”
The man chewed his lip as if he were in pain. “Neeson. I’m a recruiter.”
Cael turned away, following at the man’s heels. “So, Neeson, where are you taking me?”
“To our office. You’ll meet your new unit and receive your mission.”
Office? The surprise made him hesitate. After sleeping in a cave by night and getting the snot kicked out of him by day, having an office sounded appealing – in a boring kind of way. Being a part of a new unit with a mission appealed to him even more. “What’s the mission?”
They walked past a familiar hallway and the Quad guarding it. Down the hall, the mysterious black steel door loomed. He really wanted to know what, or who, Orion kept behind it.
“Not yet,” Neeson whispered as they let a few passersby wander past.
“What if I don’ want it?”
Neeson stopped in the middle of the hall and turned on a dime. “I’ve watched you, Cael. I’ve studied you. You carry a lot of hate. A lot of anger. And you’re just begging for an outlet – something you can take out all of your rage on. The thing is, I’ve got a way you can do just that, and maybe come away having done a little good at the same time. That sound good to you?”
Cael pulled his hands away from his ribs and nodded, shaking sweat from his bangs.
“Then you’ll take the mission.”
Cael puffed out his chest, still intent on showing defiance.
“Or then again. You could choose death.” Neeson chomped his lip and smiled.
Chapter 10
Jarryd plopped a large bowl of ice cream on the cafeteria table in front of Greyson. “And wait for it…” Jarryd poured a bowl of Fruitie Pebbles on the ice cream, dropped a handful of sprinkles on top, and followed it all with a long drizzle of strawberry syrup. “Viola! I call it the Bright Side. Look at it!”
Greyson looked at it. Even the fancy new goggles were having a hard time discerning if it was a danger or not. “Looks good.”
Jarryd sat next to him and handed him a spoon. “So take a bite and tell me something good about Sydney leaving you.”
“She’s being taken from all of us,” he corrected as he scooped a spoonful, raising his gaiter’s cloth to let the spoon in. The first spoonful was actually tasty. It was a slap to his senses. As he swallowed, he tried to think of something. “I can’t. I can’t think of anything good.”
“Fine. I’ll start.” Jarryd took a heaping spoonful and spoke as he chewed. “You get to spend more time with me, your bro.” He handed Greyson the spoon. “Your turn.”
He took another bite. “Maybe she’ll be better off without me.”
Disappointed, Jarryd clanked the spoon on the table. “No-oooo…how are you better off without her?”
Greyson shrugged, dejected. “More sprinkles.”
Jarryd added sprinkles and helped the spoonful to Greyson’s mouth. “Now come on. There’s got to be something better.”
After savoring the Bright Side, Greyson nodded to himself. “I…don’t have to hold in my farts.”
Jarryd burst out laughing, drawing the attention of others around them. Even a group huddled around a TV monitor hanging from a ceiling turned to look. The closer ones gave Greyson a second look. His outfit was supposed to hide his identity, but he felt like he stuck out. At least they wouldn’t recognize him.
“That’s the bright side! Another!”
Spoonful. Swallow.
“I can take my shirt off whenever I want, without feeling judged.”
“Another!”
Spoonful. Swallow.
“I can leave if I want, without feeling guilty.”
“Hoorah! Another!”
Spoonful, a little slower. Long swallow.
“I can focus on training, join Rubicon, find her parents, and win her back.”
“Hoo…wait. Uh-uh. You’ve taken a step backwards. My turn.”
Jarryd took the spoon and served himself another heap. “We, as men, the manliest of men, free from the restraints of girls…”
Suddenly Jarryd jerked, jabbed the spoon into the ice cream and pushed the platter to Greyson’s side of the table. He wiped his lips with his sleeve and smiled at someone approaching.
“’Ello, Jarryd,” came Avery’s velvety Australian voice. “You weren’t eatin’ th’et ‘oice cream were you?”
“Heck no! It’s Greyson’s. I’m keeping to my diet.”
“Your diet?” Greyson whispered.
“Good,” Avery said to Jarryd, sitting down next to him. “Gosh, your hair,” she said pulling and tousling and swooping his long locks.
Greyson gave him a sympathetic look, but Jarryd gave him a wink, content with being inches from her face.
“That’s bett’ah,” she said, leaning back to admire her work. She turned to Greyson. “’Ello, Greyson. Nice goggles.”
“Thanks,” he said absent-mindedly. He was too absorbed reading her description. {Avery Redmond. Deceased. Father: Craig Redmond. CEO of Redmond Aerospace Defense. Mother: Joy Redmond. CEO of Redmond Robotics}.
Avery’s deceased? She seems pretty lively to me.
“You depressed or somethin’, mate?” the “dead girl” asked with a sly smirk that set Greyson’s heart thumping.
“Oh,” Greyson muttered, remembering that he was. “Yeah. A little.”
“Sydney’s leaving,” Jarryd explained. “I wanted to cheer him up. I couldn’t imagine what it’d be like if you left me.”
Greyson laughed under his breath. Jarryd’s flirtations were amusing to say the least. And he had to hand it to him – Avery was eating them up. Though they weren’t boyfriend and girlfriend, Greyson was beginning to think that Jarryd actually had a chance – especially if Avery could shape him into the kind of boy she wanted.
