Adrenaline Rush

by Cindy M. Hogan

  “Out by the bonfire. Go sit and start to roast some marshmallows. Someone will join you.”

  I did just that, and only moments later a boy with crooked teeth and messy brown hair sat next to me. “You are one of many,” he said. “I don’t know if you remember me, but I was to your left when Sterling came to challenge you.”

  “I remember you,” I said, his face popping up in my mind. “You were with all those crazy kids backing Sterling.”

  “Yep,” he said. “You never would have guessed I was a subversive, right?”

  “Right.” I looked at him thoughtfully.

  “We are thinking about letting you join our group, but I need to see that you are who Zoey claims you to be.”

  “Who does she claim I am?” I ate the perfectly browned marshmallow off my stick.

  “She says you’re the one who will put all the info together and get us out of here.” He put a marshmallow on a stick and put it over some coals. “I need a little proof, of course.”

  “What kind of proof?”

  “I need you to show us you’ve got what it takes to subvert Sterling without being obvious about it.”

  “Okay.”

  “Zoey told me you’re having breakfast with Sterling on Monday. He always eats with a gold fork. Steal it and bring it to me.”

  “Is that all?” I asked.

  He nodded, rose, and began walking away.

  “Wait!” I called out. “What’s your name?”

  He didn’t even slow his step, but turned his head slightly in my direction to say, “Adam.” Soon he was out of sight.

  I needed to talk to Frankie about stealing techniques. She was the master, after all.

  As I walked back inside, I saw some kids walking off, away from the building. I stopped and sat on a bench, away from the fire to observe where these kids were headed. There didn’t seem to be a specific direction. Some were alone, others were in pairs, while still others were in larger groups. They talked in quiet whispers and didn’t seem to notice me. Even though I was tired, I couldn’t stop thinking about these kids and where they might be going.

  I followed a group of three girls who quietly whispered amongst themselves as they left the pathway and moved into the woods. Silent as a mouse, I followed them. They weren’t truly trying to be quiet, so whatever they were going to do must not be so terrible. Maybe I’d followed the wrong group of kids. I almost turned back because I was so tired, but something made me keep on. The terrain started to go up and they slowed down. Darn it. Only minutes later, I couldn’t hear them anymore. I sped up. I couldn’t see them anywhere. I searched the area. Where had they gone? It was too dark to track footprints, so I veered to the right on the little rocky hill. Feeling along the surface, I found a crevice. Could they have gone in there? I put my ear up to the opening and thought I heard shuffling. That was good enough for me.

  I turned sideways and slipped inside. After going straight for about twenty hesitant steps, I ran into a wall. My claustrophobia gripped me. I took several deep breaths before I started back. Then I heard a clatter and discovered the tunnel continued in a sharp switchback. I wished I had my go bag or at the very least a flashlight. I looked that direction and could see faint light on a surface at what must be the end of another switchback.

  I followed the light until I hit the wall where the light shone. I could see that in another five steps in another switchback, I would enter a cave of sorts. I walked the five steps and peeked around the corner. There were eight people in there, two of whom were sitting behind a crude wooden desk and sitting on wooden stools. The cavern was not huge, but the eight people were not cramped together, either. On the desk were two lanterns. Where had they found those? Did Sterling have emergency kits anywhere in the buildings? That was the only reason I could think of to have lanterns, for emergencies. Maybe the two people behind the desk had found an emergency storage room or something. Maybe there was something in there that would help me escape.

  The girls I had followed in were writing on something. After they set the pencil down, the girls received two small packages from the girl and boy at the desk. Interesting. What could be in those packages? The girls headed toward me. I figured there must only be one way in and one way out, and I was blocking the way. I scurried out and hid in the bushes. I followed them as they trudged away to another part of the forest. The sat and opened the packages.

  Soon after that, they were smoking. It wasn’t your everyday cigarette, either. It was marijuana. I stifled a laugh. There were drug dealers here. What would Sterling say if he knew? He wasn’t as in control as he thought. I’d seen three groups now that operated right under Sterling’s nose: the protect-Sterling-Whitie group, the rebels, and the drug dealers. I suspected there were even more subcultures here. I’d thought this place would be more militaristic and that such groups wouldn’t, couldn’t exist. I had been wrong.

  As I headed back to my room, I decided to discover all the sub-culture groups I could over the next little while. Maybe a few could help with my quest.

  I dreamt about Jeremy once I’d fallen asleep. It was intense. He finally found me and rescued me. He held me close and whispered that he loved me. Even in my dream it was as if I felt his breath on my ear and his hot touch on my arm. I woke wondering where that had come from.

  Only two other girls were in the mess hall when I arrived. After having the chef on duty create me a breakfast crepe with bananas and strawberries, I went and sat by them. They took one look at me, eyes wide with fright, and moved to another table. What did they have to be afraid of? Had Sterling made them afraid or had people been talking about me, making me scarier than I was? I had to make friends, allies with as many people as I could as fast as I could. This wasn’t going to be easy.

  Once done with breakfast, I went exploring. All the doors I tried seemed to be open except Sterling’s dining area and the classrooms. Through one of the classroom windows, I did catch a glimpse of some kids working on something, but when I tried the knob, it was locked. They all looked my way, but didn’t move toward the door. I waved at them, trying to get them to open the door. I smiled big and everything. They simply stared at me until I finally walked away. How had they opened that door? Had a teacher opened it for them? Sterling? Or had they figured a way? I’d have to find out.

  I found the cave I’d gone in last night. It was quite the clever hiding place, the opening was not obvious in the daylight, either. I went back into my room. Since it was Sunday, I pulled up the scriptures in my mind and read for an hour or so. I prayed that I’d make the right decisions and that I’d know when something was right. I prayed God would lead me to the people I needed to meet to save everyone as well as to the information that would free us as soon as possible.

  Someone knocked on my door, and I stood up to go open it. It was Frankie. “You want to go to the circus with me?”

  “Sure,” I said, following her out into the hall and then down the green, lime-smelling hall with the elephants on it that led to the circus tent. I wasn’t planning on going to the circus. There were too many bad memories associated with that place— it was the tent where we’d lost half of the Avengers. But I didn’t want to leave Frankie alone and I needed to talk to her about stealing the fork. We whispered about it all the way to the tent.

  I gasped when I entered the tent. It looked just how I’d imagined a real circus, not Sterling’s jaded Circus of Feats. Clowns were juggling and playing when we arrived. People in black walked around with cotton candy, popcorn, hot dogs, and sodas. No money required. The real performance was supposed to begin in twenty minutes. I was awestruck when it did. The performers even pulled people from the audience to do fun tricks with them. The performers were outstanding and the animals extremely well trained. In the end, groups of twenty got to go check out the animals and talk to the performers.

  I nudged the boy sitting next to me while we waited our turn to go down to the circus floor. “Does Sterling fly all these people in? How does
he get the animals here?”

  He chuckled. “Actually, the animals and people live in another section of the grounds. The performers are Blackies. They get to dress up during performances.”

  “They’re Blackies?”

  “Every one.”

  “Sterling is really good about finding jobs for the kids who fail the selection or class work or even their missions. Everyone has something to contribute, he always says. I love how he always thinks of others.”

  “Sounds like he’s good at that.” A hot rock dropped hard in my gut. Could one of the Avengers be in this circus crew? Sterling said they were alive.

  “Yep,” he said, standing up to go down to the circus floor. Frankie and I followed him.

  “Did you hear that?” I whispered to Frankie.

  “Hear what?” she said, her eyes looking far off to the left of us.

  I glanced over and saw some of the boys in the group Frankie had hung out with last night. She must like one of them. “Maddie, Payden, Anna, and Lunden could be Blackies in this circus. Keep your eyes peeled.”

  “Uh, huh,” she muttered, still looking at the group of boys.

  “Focus, Frankie. They could be here. Don’t you want to see them with your own eyes? They’re your family, right? And just think if we could get to use Anna’s unique talents with locks to help us get out of here.”

  “Sorry,” she said. “You’re right.” She scanned the area as we descended the steps. I did, too, but there was no sign of any of them. Maybe it was too early. Maybe they were still in training. I kept my eyes peeled as I touched all the different animals. I’d never touched an elephant or tiger. It was pretty darn cool.

  With no luck in finding the lost Avengers, we headed out for lunch. We met Zoey, who was eating with a bunch of Blackies.

  “Zoey,” I said. “The circus was made up of all Blackies?”

  “Yes.” She got up and moved to the side of the room.

  “Why not you? Do you get to choose what you do?” I asked.

  “Oh, no. He assigns you a job. The only reason I’m here is because he thinks I have promise.”

  “Hey guys,” Frankie said, “Do you mind if I go say hi to some of my new friends?”

  “No,” I said, but she’d already begun walking away. I shook my head, knowing she was a lost cause. I turned back to Zoey. “You probably don’t want to talk about it, but what happened? On your mission, I mean.”

  She shook her head. “I was known for my stealth, so Sterling assigned me to assassinate a CIA operative who was getting too close to Sterling’s operation. I was supposed to use my talent to draw him out. But, he was stealthier than I. Never underestimate your opponent. Or become cocky.”

  It was a good reminder to stay humble. “I was thinking about the other four kids that came with us. Do you think they could’ve been a part of the circus today?”

  “Probably not. If they were hurt during the Circus of Feats, they’d still be recovering, and even if they weren’t, they’ll go through conditioning before they are put in a group. The men in charge of the periphery groups are very choosy. If Sterling hadn’t stepped in on my behalf, I’d have been a grounds keeper. They had classified me as one. Can you believe that?”

  I laughed a little. “No. I can’t.”

  “I’m worried about what Sterling has in store for you. Make sure you stay at the top of your class. I hope you’re as smart as I think you are.”

  I ignored that, and instead asked, “When did you find out about your mission?”

  “About one week before it was supposed to go down. It was simple. Others spend weeks and weeks planning and revising and all that.”

  “Hmm.” That wasn’t very much time to get the info to Jeremy.

  “Sometimes he permanently disables his targets. He does that when death isn’t the worst thing for a person.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Oh, he’ll amputate a runner’s legs, mess up a movie star’s face. Stuff like that. He takes away what they love most, what they live for.”

  “How does he choose the people he targets?”

  “There’s a lot of conjecture, but no one really knows. Some say people hire him. Some say he comes up with them all on his own. I guess we’ll never know.”

  I would find out.

  I remembered the group of kids I’d seen in the locked classroom and described them to Zoey. She knew immediately who I was talking about.

  “Oh, we call them the scholars. But I don’t know how they got in that room—it should have been impossible.”

  Interesting, I thought. An impossible skill like that could come in handy.

  I noticed a group of girls and guys sharing a table. The girls folded their sleeves and pant legs in a particular way. They styled their hair in a specific way. From the way they held themselves, as if the world revolved around them, you could tell these would equate with the popular kids back home. The cheerleaders and the jocks. The boys muscles pressed hard against their jumpsuits. They flirted incessantly and talked about sports and competitions.

  I realized that this place was like a mini high school and probably had every clique in the book.

  I also realized that everyone had different lengths of hair. It seemed that Sterling didn’t require anyone to keep his hair short after the first time it was cut. That would help me discover who had been here the longest. Of course, with guys, many opted to keep their hair short. They would be harder to track. If I could find someone with longish hair who belonged to some sort of a rebel group, maybe I could elicit their help in my escape.

  After lunch, we headed for the sports area. We played volleyball on a coed team. Frankie had been bit hard by the love bug and couldn’t hit a darn thing. She spent more time staring at the boy next to her than anything else. At least I now knew who she was after.

  A movie was playing in the theater that night, a movie that’d been in theaters six months ago, Quick Death. No one here seemed to know that, though. It was all new to them. I never would have gone to see it at home. Violence wasn’t my thing. Everything at this compound seemed to be here to either condition us to think killing was a normal part of life or make us feel like we couldn’t live without Sterling. We watched the movie. Well, sort of. I was really thinking about other things while I pretended to watch. We headed back to our rooms at about ten because at ten-thirty, everything would be locked up and our free reign would end. School started early tomorrow.

  “Zoey,” I said as we walked down the hall to our rooms, “I followed some kids into a cave last night. Kids were doing drugs, marijuana.”

  “Yeah, the dynamic duo heads that up. Christopher and Kalinda. They’re chemical whizzes and created a drug that isn’t addictive, but gives you a great high. They have the gardeners grow their weed and they dry it and package it. Kids sign up to do their chores for them in exchange for the drugs. The dynamic duo probably doesn’t have to do any work for ten years already.”

  “Doesn’t Sterling know about them?”

  “Who knows? If he does, he doesn’t stop them. You’ll find all kinds of weird cliques and groups here.”

  I thought about the kids in the classroom and the Whitie group I’d run into.

  “There’s even a group that calls themselves the tunnelers. You know what they do?”

  “No, what?” Frankie and I said at the same time.

  “They dig tunnels. They dig and dig and dig, trying to find a way out. I know for a fact that Sterling knows about them. He even goes and checks on their progress. The tunnelers say they’re helping Sterling by attempting to find security risks.”

  “Interesting,” I said. He was probably actually gauging their success and assessing the likelihood anyone could escape by digging. I wondered if they’d helped the drug dealers dig their cave or if it was naturally occurring. “This place is just huge—I can’t get over the massiveness of this compound.”

  “I heard planes aren’t allowed to fly over this area. And no radio trans
missions are allowed. I don’t know why, or if it’s even true, but I bet it is,” Zoey said.

  If that were true, Sterling would have to have some amazing connections. “You’ve never heard or seen a plane while inside or outside?”

  “Never.”

  Not good. I’d watched a special on a public TV station about a radio quiet zone in West Virginia that allowed a huge telescope to hear things that would normally be too quiet to hear. No cell phones, Internet, or radios were allowed in a very huge area, 13,000 square miles. People actually chose to live there and loved the silence. The NIOC and the NSA also collected sensitive intelligence data for the government from that zone, but there wasn’t anywhere else like it I’d ever heard about. Maybe kids here were getting information they’d heard about that zone, and it got all jumbled up and confused as they tried to figure out where this compound was.

  Zoey thought for a second, then said, “But I have seen Sterling with a cell, so that couldn’t be exactly right.”

  “How long have you been here?” I cocked my head to the side and waited for Zoey to answer.

  “Three years.”

  I tried not to show the horror I felt at her having been here that long. “That’s a long time,” I finally said.

  “Yes it is.” She lowered her voice even more. “And it’s time I got out of here.”

  Monday arrived. I woke earlier than usual, a few minutes to five. After getting ready, I went to Sterling’s dining hall fighting to maintain my nerves. The door opened automatically for me as I neared it. I touched my neckband. It was a brilliant device. I needed to find someone who could remove it. Sterling wasn’t in the room, yet, but arrived only seconds after I did. He went through the same ritual of stripping out of his suit before sitting to eat. Bizarre. His color today was bright red.

  “Please sit,” he said. “I think you’ll enjoy this breakfast.”

  “Are you going to poison me?”

  “Oh, no. That wouldn’t be very poetic, would it? If you’d like, we could switch plates.”