Sarah Tries to Save the World

by Noah Porter

  Sure enough, there’s a small indent. Penelope radios in to our helicopter, requesting shovels be brought.

  Within a few minutes, we’re brought shovels and we start digging. We dig down until we’ve reached where it’s hard, not soft like it’s already been shoveled. Following the direction of the tunnel he must’ve made in this way, we stop where he must’ve stopped. There’s no sight of anyone or anything except a small, muddy piece of paper that catches my eye.

  I bend over, picking it up. It’s folded, so I unfold it and it’s a normal sized piece of paper. There’s writing on it, small and cramped. I struggle to decipher it before handing it to Ben, who starts to read it out loud.

  “This is John Pemberly. Most people know me as Old John. If you find this and I’m not either here or in the lighthouse, I’m probably either captured, a zombie, a superhuman, or I’ve started a new tunnel and am on my way towards a safe haven. Please don’t be fooled by the mess that the lighthouse is. I did that to make any people think whoever lived in there must have died because of bandits. This tunnel is a fake, made only to distract. I’m about to set off on a walking trip, and when I reach enough of a distance away, I’ll make a tunnel instead of walking. The superhumans, as smart as they are, can’t read and so, if they discover this, won’t know what I’m up to. Obviously zombies can’t read and bandits have other things to worry about. I can’t explain how I know what I know. But I’m safe, trust me on that one. After the war’s over, I’ll come out of hiding. Until then, keep low, or at least safe. If Sarah Sindile and her group are still alive and you meet them or they’re the ones reading this, they are not going to listen to me about keeping low. Trust me. The enemies are stronger than you think. Till we meet, if ever. Old John.”

  There’s a stunned silence in the tunnel until we all slowly start walking out. The helicopter must’ve moved closer, because it’s within a one-minute sprint direction.

  “Run as fast as you can! Superhumans!” bellows the speaker from our helicopter, which is further away, and we immediately start to sprint.

  Cilla, Arcya’s tiger, growled at Arcya and Arcya jumped on her back. Cilla makes it to the helicopter before the rest of us, even with Arcya as a burden. (Note to self re: asking Arcya if Cilla’s had testing done on her. She acts like she’s on steroids).

  There are gunshots whistling past our ears as we sprint, and I barely notice that there are doors opening and troops are pouring out of Tieryl City. Matthew Dunnen, by chance, happens to be the first one to reach me, but I pull out my knife while running and hold it carefully by my side. If he’s brainwashed, I have to kill him.

  “It’s okay,” he says. “I’m normal. I remember what happened to Mariella.”

  Then he joins us, sprinting towards our ship. We all reach it and, the second we’re inside, the door closes and we take off. Tieryl City makes no attempt to follow us, choosing instead to let the superhumans reboard their ship.

  I pant heavily, not noticing the looks of confusion on everyone’s faces. Matthew clears his throat awkwardly.

  “I’m Matthew Dunnen, Mariella’s brother,” Matthew says, and I see recognition in my original troop’s faces. “They forced me into it, but they didn’t brainwash me. They tried to.”

  Arcya nods, while Penelope says, “Welcome, then.”

  I walk upstairs to the ‘conference room’ (which Penelope tells me is actually called the ‘barracks’ even though its’ primary use is as a conference room), eat some bread and a freshly grown salad, then set up my bedroom again.

  A girl’s gotta have some sleep, right? Wrong. I twist and turn pretty much all night long, trying to get comfortable. I tried everything. Rearranging the pillows? Check. Moving around a lot? Check. Counting sheep? Don’t make me laugh. I always lose count. Just shut your mind off, you say?

  It’s not that simple.

  I finally drift off around two in the morning.

  Chapter 3

  I wake up, stretch, yawn, and get changed. Just the usual. Penelope tersely tells me to eat fast and hands me a few weapons.

  “What’s the plan today?” I ask, barely stopping myself from yawning.

  “We’re heading back to Arcya’s village under her direction,” she replies.

  “That’s a big step. Uh, why, though?”

  “We’re going to return Cilla and turn my whole village superhuman,” replies Arcya. “I couldn’t sleep last night, I was so worried about them.”

  I nod, understanding. If my closest family and friends weren’t already dead and I had to leave them behind.. well, it wouldn’t be too pretty.

  “We’re almost there,” says Penelope.

  “Why the weapons, though?”

  “It might’ve already been attacked,” says Ben, and I shake my head at my own stupidity. Of course it might’ve. Plus, carrying weapons is just protocol.

  “Let’s head down to the exit,” Penelope says, and we all follow her down more twisting hallways.

  Ugh. What is it with flying ships and extremely annoying and long hallways? Anyways, we land relatively soon and step out onto the treetop (even Cilla). This time, we climb down the tree, holding our weapons at the ready. (In Penelope’s case, she also carries a lot of non-effected serum and needles).

  We check the tiger enclosure, and all the tigers are alive and happy as usual. They noisily welcome back Cilla into the group. Arcya has a conversation with the tigers before stooping down and sadly hugging Cilla.

  Arcya shows us the way to the village and, with pounding hearts and a multitude of trepidation, we walk into it. It looks completely normal. The houses are unchanged, the crop fields undamaged.

  It would be around lunchtime, so we walk into the lunch hall. Everyone’s there, and shocked, all conversation ceases when we walk in.

  “Arcya’s back, Arcya’s back!” sings a little child.

  Then Elder Manoiv comes up to Arcya, and instinctively, the rest of my group backs away. They have a muttered conversation, at the end of which Manoiv nods and calls for everyone to line up in a few lines.

  “You are all going to be superhuman, with the abilities to read people’s thoughts, should they choose to let you, and to send thoughts to other people,” he calls out.

  The villagers look torn between shock, and, well… more shocked.

  “There are violent superhumans and zombies that may be targeting this area as we speak. Time is of the essence,” calls Penelope and everyone quickly gets in lines.

  She hands each member of the group a needle and some serum and we start the work. It takes about ten minutes till everyone, from the tiniest baby to the oldest grandfather, is superhuman.

  “We must go now,” calls Arcya. “If- if nothing goes amiss, I will come back. My heart is with you all. Should I not survive, I bequeath everything I own to Elder Manoiv, for him to disperse as kindly and generously as he can- but he must keep my ring for his own.”

  The crowd is somber now, and as we walk out, I feel a sense of relief. Arcya’s village, at least, will be free of the plague and able to defend themselves.

  We reboard the ship quietly, putting down our weapons and the needles in the ‘barracks’ (as Penelope keeps reminding me it’s called).

  “Penelope, you should work on the antidote,” I remind her after she’s stood still for a bit, looking lost.

  “Yes, of course,” she says and absently walks away.

  “As for you, you need some sleep,” says Ben sternly. “You only had six hours last night.”

  “How’d you know?” I blurt out, forgetting to deny his claim.

  “Well, I went to bed at the same time as you did. I fell asleep almost immediately, but woke up again at two and you were still tossing and turning for about fifteen more minutes before falling asleep. You woke up at eight. Proof enough for you?” he replies.

  I barely restrain a yawn. “Eh.”

  “At least go and work on something quiet in your room,” he begs.

  I heavily sigh.

  �
�Please? You can’t save the world on no sleep and all go, go, go,” he says.

  “Says who?” I retort.

  “Just go,” he says again.

  “No.”

  “For me?” he says, giving me the puppy eyes.

  I give him a fake, heavy sigh in reply before stalking off to my room.

  Huh. Who knew I could be a good actor?

  I guess I was tired, because after only about ten minutes of writing in this journal, I fell asleep.

  Chapter 4

  When I wake up and turn my room back to the chair and table combo, Penelope comes into the room with a huge grin on her face.

  “While you were sleeping, I came up with a way to turn everyone superhuman that has no effect on people who are already superhumans.. without any needles!”

  My mouth drops open, then closes, then opens again, like I’m some sort of dumbfounded goldfish.

  “Traditionally, you’re turned superhuman by a single injection in your arm,” says Penelope. “However, before I was involved with DEK341, I was working on a way to release nutrients into the air so everyone would be more healthy. They would be breathing in the nutrients. It worked, but it didn’t have many sales. That’s how I got hired for this experiment. Anyways, I started looking at the plans for it, and I don’t see why the serum wouldn’t work just as well if people were breathing in the serum instead of injecting it.”

  “That’s great,” says Matthew. “Have you tested it on someone?”

  Arcya glances at Matthew.

  “Yes, actually. Arcya and one other. We flew over the mountains and saw one person, clearly human, walking up it. The person was struggling to walk, so I released some of the fixed serum that doesn’t turn people zombies into the air. It must’ve worked because the person perked up. I went down and talked to the man and he decided he wanted to join us. He’s down stairs being tended for some minor injuries, but he keeps on insisting on being able to contact you and your group, Sarah.”

  I look at Ben, hardly being able to believe it.

  That’s when the door bursts open and in comes Old John, looking younger than I’ve ever seen him (but still barely recognizable) and being trailed by someone, clearly a nurse.

  “Good, ya’ll are already here.” He says, grinning.

  “B-but sir, you shouldn’t be able to walk right now, less than an hour after turning superhuman,” stammers the nurse.

  “And why in tarnation not? Ma’am, I insist you go back to help that other poor feller. I’ve got an uncanny feeling he needs it,” says Old John, waving his arm.

  “Uh, you can go,” says Penelope, stifling a laugh. “The other patient probably does need it more than him.”

  The unfortunate nurse nodded, scurrying out of the room as fast as she could.

  As soon as she is out of earshot, everyone in the room bursts out laughing, and any tension in the room disappears.

  “Have you had any progress on the antidote to the plague?” I ask Penelope after the laughter stops.

  “Unfortunately, not enough progress to be satisfied with. I was breaking down the separate ingredients of the poison added to the serum using the bottle of post-break in serum. I’ve identified about five different ingredients in the poison so far. That’s what I was working on when I glanced over at some old files and the idea hit me,” she says.

  I nod before turning to Old John. “How do you know about everything- the superhumans and Tieryl City…?”

  He laughs. “I’ve had visitors beside y’all, you know. And.. when I met you, I said not to follow DEK. I had inside information that DEK was to blame for the plague; however, Miss Penelope has since convinced me that it was a traitor, and the rest of DEK had nothing to do with it.”

  I mentally groan at myself. How could I be so stupid as to think we were the only visitors he’s had?

  Ben clears his throat before saying, “Well, that’s a given that you have other visitors. What I was wondering about is why you look younger than you did when we saw you last.”

  Now that I think about it, he does look younger. So I guess I have to call him plain ‘John’.

  “I do?” says John, raising his eyebrows.

  “You look like a twenty-year old,” says Arcya and we all giggle. “How old are you?”

  John says, “Not a day younger than seventy-five and one hundred and five days, miss. But I’ll take the compliment, thanks.”

  “The superhuman ability works differently with each person,” says Penelope. “Everyone has their own strength, plus the superhuman strength.. but for John, I assume it must’ve worked in such a way that, though his mind is the same as before, his physical body is younger. As time passes, his body will age again.”

  “Great! I can go off on adventures again after we win the war.” He says, making us all laugh.

  It’s my turn to clear my throat before I say, “I assume we’re modifying the plan so that, instead of having to walk around turning all surviving humans superhuman, we just fly over all of Murlyn and dispense the serum using your thingy?”

  “They are highly advanced pieces of technology that were first known as NutriDispensers, not ‘thingies’,” begins Penelope, looking highly affronted. “And not exactly. My dispensers are still giving out nutrients over most of the world. Either myself or one of my assistants still have to go to each dispenser, replace the nutrients with serum, and replace any broken or missing dispensers so that everywhere is spreading the non-infected serum.”

  “Simple enough,” Arcya says. “How many of these Nutri-whatsits are there, and how many did you replace while we all napped?”

  “976. We’ve replaced 259 so far and, as we speak, my foreign spies are replacing another 430 in their own transports.”

  “So 689 are done with 287 left,” says Aria, our math whiz. “But I thought you said it didn’t sell very well?”

  “It didn’t. Those 976 NutriDispensers were bought by one person before being scattered around the world. We never got a single order after that.”

  “Where are the remaining 287 NutriDispensers?” asks Matthew. Everyone jumps, having forgotten he was in the room.

  “That’s where it gets tricky,” says Penelope, with a rueful look on her face. “The remaining 287 are spread out through all of Murlyn, and the chances of us replacing them all with no sightings of us and no contact with Tieryl City at all is little to none. Thankfully, however, this is a good thing.”

  Matthew raises his eyebrows.

  “If we can kill ten superhumans, then ten of our superhumans can infiltrate their camp, stop them from controlling the brainwashed superhumans, and destroy Tieryl City.”

  I nod, having heard about this part of the plan before.

  “8,” says Matthew, and everyone looks at him, confused. “You only need to kill 8. I have my one uniform and a spare that’s in my bag. If whoever put on those uniforms could coerce the other 8 away from the group, this.. what do you call this.. well, whatever I’m riding on right now, could ambush the 8 other superhumans and knock them out. If Penelope figures out the antidote to the plague and tries it out on the brainwashed superhumans, it might also reverse them having superhuman abilities at all. Then they’re less of a danger to us and they might not be brainwashed anymore.”

  Arcya glances at Matthew again, clearly impressed this time.

  “Not a bad idea,” says Ben. “But before someone volunteers me, I think Arcya and Sarah should coerce them away. The rest of us are good at ambushing, while Arcya and Sarah have both smarts to get them to go away from the group and the fighting skills, plus Arcya can send thoughts to people. I would say you, Matthew, but you might be asked more questions, and I’d have the same problem.”

  Matthew nods.

  “I agree. That would work the way we need it to,” says Penelope. “All in favor, raise their hand.”

  Each person raises their hand and Penelope nods.

  “All right. I know it’s still early, but I would recommend eating dinner before eve
ryone goes to sleep. Tomorrow is going to be tiring and we all need plenty of energy,” says Penelope, and at the push of a button, fresh food is on the table.

  We all eat and then force ourselves to go to bed, knowing the next day would be crazier than we could imagine.

  Chapter 5

  When I wake up, I immediately get changed and sit down at the table for breakfast.

  Breakfast is some mouthwatering fruits that are inside a watermelon that’s cut to look like a shark’s mouth that’s open… oh, and toast. It was sorely tempting. If it weren’t for nerves, we would all be actually eating, instead of pretending to eat but not actually touching a crumb of the food. Penelope starts to give us the lowdown.