The Red Book

The rest of the day was less intense for sure. Well, most of it. We then went to a shooting range, where we were told to shoot the targets. There was no catch, nothing that would make us whimper. As long as one bullet hit the map, you were fine. Luckily for me, as it turned out, I made 9 of the 20 shots onto the board. Not too bad. We were then guided by Z, from hallway to hallway, mountain climbing in some rooms to swimming in others.

"We'll talk about your little incident soon enough," he had told me once we were all done running. "If someone doesn't make it," he looked me dead in the eyes, cold and serious, "then they don't make it. Understood?" He walked past me and led us forward.

Becca herself didn't say much afterwards, besides, it seemed Emma was the one who needed the attention the most. She had stopped crying, and her makeup, which was lightly put on, bled black across her face. It had dried in its slow decent down and now had left two streaks. Even as she walked slowly through the hallways, looking at her feet as they trudged forward, her eyes strained themselves of liquid. It was constant and slow, but not ending.

"You and Bailey both got into the program?" I inquired.

She didn't look at me, only looked at her feet more decisively and responded, "Yeah, she was picked too. I had told her I would watch over her. She was only 14."

"They allowed people in from that age?" I asked. The only reason I really asked was to keep her talking. That's what had helped me to move on. Social interaction was a good way of moving along through the stages.

"I think they allowed people in from 13 too. Bailey's 13 year old friend made it in too."

"Isn't this illegal?" Connor asked her, "like, they cannot be allowed to really hurt us, can they? Surely they would get in trouble, right?"

She only looked at her feet.

"In my experience," Kamil spoke up, "The government does what it wants and it'll find a way to make sure that it happens." Kamil had been walking without speaking for some time. He was an odd figure that one. He looked at you with understanding eyes; he had been through something that we couldn't understand. "My people thought that we had the right to stand up for our rights and our freedom," he continued. "I went to the courthouse with my parents in my town and protested something, not something I quite remember to be honest. But I know what it's like," he said motioning to Emma," I know what it's like to lose your sibling. My brother and I were there. He was 5 years my senior, and he protested with my family. I don't remeber much, except that the government wanted to make a symbol of us." Kamil looked straight forward in front of him. His eyes began to wet themselves, slowly though. His walking pace had slowed down a bit as he began to recall what he had been through. He took his time to tell the story, living every moment as it had happened before. "A gunship came," he continued, "and it began to fire. Everyone began to run and yell, some pulling out guns and firing back. My brother took a hold of me, he ran me away from it. We had gotten seperated from our parents. My bother, he uh... he..." Kamil began to choke on his words. "My brother was shot, without anyone noticing," he finished. "Just like that, in one moment, one moment that no one else will remember but me, he was gone. A stray bullet, no hero's death, no honorable way to go, but some random bullet that could've come from anywhere."

He looked over to Emma, who had listened and was now watching him. Her crying had ended. Kamil looked her in her eyes, and stared intently. "You know how I view it?" he asked.

"How?" she replied.

"The past is in the past. I couldn't have done anything because it happened, I tell myself. The only way to move on is to accept it. My brother died, but I am still here. The past cannot change because it already happened. It's not what we want, but it is what it is."

She looked away and slowly nodded. "How old was he?" she asked.

He looked forward, "only 13."

She didn't respond. But she clearly understood. Kamil understood her, and I thought he was just another refugee that had moved over to Calimet. Just another one, I had told myself. I began to think, so much death in one hallway. How many lives were numbered and counted and ended here. We went from one test to another, and finally, at dinner, which was at 6pm sharp, we were led back into the auditorium to be fed. We were one of the last groups to make it back and most were already eating. The 100 of us who went with the B group had no turned to 3/4ths the size. In one day, over 20 of the B group failed. What would tomorrow bring?

We all walked slow, we were quite tired and my back ached like crazy. The rock climbing had really done a number on my forearm and the shooting gallery had shooken me up. My face was dirty from the mud pit we had to crawl through and my clothes was covered in dust. We looked like we'd gone through hell itself, and that's how it felt. My feet ached as I took my seat to see the food, that now, looked alot more pleasing than before. The hot spot on the bottom of my right foot, the foot I favored when I walked oozed and I already knew it was bright red without having seen it. Cameron was quiet as well, he ate his food and occasionally looked over to Emma and Kamil, who had started a quiet conversation over his family and her family. I meanwhile, noticed that Becca wasn't really eating her food. She picked at it and messed around with the mashed patotoes.

I was ready to ask the question.

"Becca, you okay?" I began.

She shrugged, still looking down at her plate. "I don't know," she said, "you tell me, I should be at the bottom of a fifty foot pit right now, dead, next to Bailey."

"You made it Becca," I reassured her.

"No I didn't," she said looking up at me. "You saw the time, I wasn't supposed to make it. I should be dead."

"I thought you were dead before too, we can be wrong."

She expression changed. Her sorrow had turned into something else. "How's Damian?" she asked. "Was he sad when you left?"

"Not exactly," I replied.

"He grew out of that?"

"He made it here."

"Wait what?" she was quite shocked at the revelation.

"Yeah, we came in on the same plane; him, me, and Connor," I said motioning to Connor. She looked over at Connor, who had finally let himself devour his food.

"He misses you, you know?" I continued. "He was upset that you didn't tell us you made it, he wondered why, why didn't you tell us?"

She took a moment and looked back down at her food, re-examining and wondering if it was worth eating again. Her mouth curled up as she ran her fingers through her blonde hair. She looked like death, her face was older, much more mature and distraught since I had seen it as a child. She had a scar on her right cheekbone, as if something hot had burned her there. She cleared her throat.

"I wanted to," she finally said. "When we landed, us and the rest of Abeline thought you weren't going to make it. The water was still rising, and my parents made the call for us to go. We thought you had died. My dad had told everyone to leave as soon as they hit ground, to outrun the floods, and a few followed us. We went to Portland, assuming everyone else would die, as far away from the floods as we could go. Im sorry Kane, I'm sorry... I didn't know. When I saw you there on the track, I was caught off guard, I didn't know how to proccess it."

"It's okay," I responded, "I only feel bad for Damian, that he didn't know. He took your leave hard."

She nodded her head and went into eating her food slowly. She took her time, picking a careful spoonful of patatoes and carefully eating it all at once. She put full focus on the food she was eating. Then some of the chicken, she picked it up, put some patatoes on it, and scooped it and ate it. She caught me looking at her.

"What letter is he?" she asked.

"I'm pretty sure he was an L something, I'm not entirely sure." I responded.

She was about to respond when, in all the talking in the auditorium, I heard a voice speak up.

"Hello students," said the voice, "Now that everyone is back here, I have some announcements to make."

I looked around until I saw Dr. Berryman in the center of the auditorium surrounded by a dozen of guards with guns and with a microphone attached to her from her ear.

"She's lucky she has those guards," I heard Emma mutter underneath her voice.

"I'm glad you all are here, which means, you made it past the first test."

I took a quick glance around, looking for Damian, but to no avail, I could not pinpoint where he was. It didn't help that I couldn't find the L group.

"Now, as I am well aware, you may have questions as to the future of certain individuals that may have failed your first test. They will be eliminated from the competition, and are no longer candidates to take the place of President Carder. There is no need to stand behind on the past, we need to look towards the future. We need to overcome."

The doctor then turned her attention to the far side of the auditorium. She looked at it expectantly, raised her hand and balled it into a fist. As she was was doing so, a projector screen rolled down and a projection began to appear. It was a list, a list of times.

Top 10 times

1. F97 = 24.003 seconds

2. G21 = 24.779 seconds

3. G22 = 25.901 seconds

4. L45 = 26.022 seconds

5. Z01 = 26.023 seconds

6. G01 = 27.575 seconds

7. B25 = 28.455 seconds

8. A07 = 28.688 seconds

9. G08 = 28. 699 seconds

10. G99 = 28.790 seconds

Dr. Berryman waited until it was cleary visible to begin speaking again. "I want to congragulate our top performers. Of course, running is not the only trial, but for today, it was the one that mattered. Each day it will change, and the top 10 performers every day will earn points, 10 points for first place and one point for 10th place. The higher the points, the higher the position you will be placed in. In the end, the top 10 people overall will meet President Carder herself."

I looked down the list, the group of G seemed to have many athletic people as they took the plurality of the list, but not first, which was taken by someone in F. B, had one candidate winner, Kamil. I looked over to him and noticed he looked angry, maybe dissapointed. His brows were furled inwards and his eyes shone brown with fierceness. His mouth was lightly closed but his jaw definitely was clenched tight. He earned himself 3 points, not bad on the first day, not by a long shot.

"Now," Dr. Berryman continued, "Let me show you the standings as of today."

The screen changed to another list:

Top 10 Points:

1. F97 = 10

2. G21 = 9

3. G22 = 8

4. L45 = 7

5. Z01 = 6

6. G01 = 5

7. B24 = 5

8. B23 = 5

9. B25 = 4

10. A07 = 3

Wait this didn't make sense, where did I earn 5 points? Where did Connor earn 5 points? Everyone seemed a but confused.

Dr. Berryman spoke, "B24 and B23 took the shortest amount of time to open the plane, now, it would've given 10 points, but as they worked together in finding the exit, they split the prize. Now, students, now that you understand how the tests work, get to your dormitories and prepare for tomorrow."

Z stood up, motioned us to follow him and led us down the hall, but before I could pass through the door into the hallways, he stopped me.

"You," he motioned to me, "wait here."

I looked over to Connor who had also stopped.

"No, only he stays," Z said pointing to me, "You go now, unless you want to find out what's at the bottom of that pit."

Connor looked at me, nodded and walked through the door.

We waited until everyone had left, or had left through these doors, as there was a few entrances and exits to the auditorium. I watched for Damian, I wanted to talk to him. Becca was okay, she didn't hate us. It was just a misunderstanding, I wanted to explain it to him. No doubt he had seen the scores, he knew we had made it out okay. Would they still have put my name in the list had I fallen? I assumed they wouldn't have. But as people ran through, following their respective guard, I could not find Damian. I took a look around at the other entrances, Damian was nowhere to be found. What if he hadn't made it? No, there was no way. He definitely made it. He was pretty athletic for a nerd, running 200 meters shouldn't be too bad for him. I smiled at the thought of watching him run. He ran like a duck I always had told him, a little lopsided. But my lopsided friend was missing. The last few people cleared out and down the hall, most of them tired, sweaty, and ready for sleep. It had been a long day for everyone, and everyone was dirty from head to toe.

I looked around the auditorium, nothing but half eaten plates of food and the silence of the air. I felt a tap on my shoulder.

"Let's go," Z said, "follow me."

He led me across the auditorium to a different hallway; down that hallway was a large, fancy door colored in blue, the only one colored. He knocked on the door and waited. Soon enough someone from the other side spoke up.

"Who is it?" a scruffy manly voice asked.

"ZZ-9, I have B-24 with me for Dr. Berryman as instructed."

"Okay, wait one moment," the voice said.

I looked at Z, he was a man in his late thirties, old enough to have been alive during the wars, but not old enough to have fought in the wars. He could've been in training, but by the clean complection, I doubted it. He walked normally, didn't have any visible scars, and held his head up high like a good trooper. He was not battle scarred, and still had the anxious subservience of a new member to a military corp. His brown hair was trimmed, almost to perfections, with a line cutting around the side of his head to a little past his ear. His arm bore the only differentiating thing about him from any other guard in this place. He had a small little tattoo, that looked like a water droplet on the side of his forearm. He was calm, but the anxiety could be seen through his eyes, he didn't know what was going to happen either.

The door opened slowly, revealing a large room, decorated in blue pillows and white furniture, with a baby blue colored walls. At the end of the room, which had a fireplace on one side and a bookshelf on the other, was a desk, at which sat Dr. Berryman, staring at a stack of papers which had been handed to her by a guard. She picked up her head when I entered and pointed to the chair in front of her. I took my seat and waited for her to say something. She was busy readina report or something and took her time. She had a clear cup of water on her desk, which seemed to have been dranken out of just a few moments earlier, as well as a few chosen books that she had probably picked off the wall. She had a calendar laying flat on her table with very small writing on it which made it hard to read. She put the papers she had been given down over the calendar as I attempted to read it.

"B-24, right?" she asked.

"No," I responded, "It's Kane."

She looked at me funny, but she wasn't, only nodded and asked, "now why would it be that?"

"That's what my parents named me," I calmly replied.

She stood up from her chair and looked over to one of the dozen or so guards in the room, studying his face. "What's your name," she asked him.

"I'm WW-9, ma'am" he responded quickly.

"Really? Do you have any other names, soldier?" she inqiured carefully.

"No ma'am," he said, clearly frightened.

She nodded her approval, slowly sat dowd and cleared her throat.

"We have a few simple policies here B-24." she emphasized my number. "We listen to what we are told to do and we do them with no questions asked. When we are told that our name is B-24, our name is B-24, does that make sense?"

"It makes sense that your scared if you don't want questions," I replied.

"You do not know what is scary, child," she continued, "a simple name does not do much. A simple question does not do much without an attempt to answer the question at hand. As for me, I have the answers. Now, if I have the answer to the question, do I need to hear the question?"

"I guess not," I replied, "but how do you know you have not heard it before?"

"Because, B-24, you are not the first one to ask the question, you are not the first to sit in that chair, and you have not been the first to mess with my tests," she explained, " and much like the others, I will give you one chance to change. When someone fails, they fail, do you understand B-24?"

"There were others?"

"You listen well," she nodded. She stood up yet again, but this time she walked over to the bookshelf and examined every individual book. She took one out of its place, looked at the cover and put it back.

"In preperation for these tests, yes. These who follow and guide you were trained by me," she said looking at the same guard as before. "I taught them that leadership requires putting in rules that must be followed, not merely guidlines. I gave everyone a second chance like I do with my books," she said looking and motioning at another cover.

"But," she cautioned," if I find that one of my books are still too boring or too poorly written, I do not put it back in the shelf." Her hand examined a third cover, this one was red and had a stain on it, probably from coffee or the sort.

"What am I to do with a book I won't read?" she asked showing me the red book. The cover of the book was blank, as it was with most of the books on the shelf it turned out. It didn't have any special look that distinguished it from any other book on the shelf.

"I don't know," I asked.

"Ahh," she replied, "It is I again with the answer." she paced around the room flipping through the pages, not reading the book, only pretending to.

"What I do," she continued, "Is I read the book for its final time, and understand what makes it bad. I desire a good book. All the bad ones only stand to make the good one look better. And once I finish," she said, "I make sure no one needs to read a bad story again."

With that, she threw the book across the room and into the fireplace, which cackled and smoked and grew in brightness for a moment. The Docotor watched it burn, as did I. The bright yellow of the flame bounced off her cheeks and her eyes glistened from the fire.

"A good story must be written," she finished.

She walked back to her desk slowly and put her hand on the papers on her table, " Do we understand each other?"

I calmly nodded.

She smiled, "Excellent! I'm glad we're all on the same page. You do your part, I'll do mine, and we will all move on as expected. If however, B-24, you dissapoint me, I will see to it that no one in B group will see to the end of THIS story. You have my word," she said peering into my eyes directly.

She nodded over to Z, who looked at me and said, "let's go."

I got up and started walking out the room, but before I could leave the room Dr. Berryman spoke up, "wait." I turned around to see her standing behind her desk, with a cunning smile. "I have one last question for you."

"Shoot." I said.

"What is your name?"

I looked at Z, who had frozen himself motionless. He stood like Medusa herself had seen to it that he would never move again. I looked back to Medusa, who watched me move, still smiling like a little girl who had just been given a lollipop or a new doll. The other guards put their hands on their pistols that they had strapped to their waists. There was no way I was going to make it out of the room without giving her the lollipop, without givening her what she wanted.

"B-24," I replied and walked out.