A Broken Balance

You know how you feel when someone with more power than you starts asking questions and you know that you're in trouble? Maybe you didn't do anything bad but, for some reason, they are playing around with you. Tossing ideas around, skipping around the point until they break you without even saying what it is. I hate this. No one will do this to me, I will not break. The doctor was especially good at this. She took her time and played the game. She loved to play the game of power. She would walk around the room, touching the wall and touching her books as she talked to you, occasionally taking a glance over at you, waiting for some sort of fear to flash before you. She stalked like a predator, waiting cautiously and carefully, getting every bit of juice out of its victim before its bitter and unceremonious end. As a predator, she had her weaknesses. Her desire to play this game was her weakness, because if some fortunate soul decided to not feed into her lust for fear, she lost. I'm not sure if this was truly good or truly bad. I do not remember anyone who had not joined her game, for she caused too much fear.

I spent the next few nights that week in her office and had the pleasure of having conversations with her about Kane. Seeing her so often would made me numb to her fear talk. She would do the same thing every night. I would walk in, go to the chair, and wait. Some few moments would pass before she would turn around smiling in her fake smile. She would then ask me how her favorite students are doing. As I began to relay the details of the day, I would hand her the data sheets and she would carefully inspect them as I talked. She loved to hear me talk and always asked if there was anymore to say when I was done. Of course there wasn't because I had finished telling her what I wanted her to hear.

I did not mention the conversations me and Kane had been having on the way back to the dorms every night, or his history with Becca, or his friends and how much they cared and worked for each other. That was my business and the doctor had no need for that information.

She looked me very carefully as I spoke every night, unsure if this was the full story. This night, I ended my speech a little differently.

"...Of course," I finished, "I try not to be too obiovus so I do not directly speak with B-24, doctor. I have been careful to seem as oblivious as I have been the rest that are still in the group."

She was standing by the fireplace, a little closer and her face might melt off. However, she stayed a perfect distance away for the yellow and orange flame to bounce right off her cheekbones and shine and glitter and glow.

"Oh, but of course," she nodded in affirmation, " and how many are still in your group?"

"There are 9 left I believe."

"Many have fallen it does seem," she said caressing her jaw, "and exactly on schedule."

She looked over to me, "you do remember what comes next right?"

"Less death?" I responded.

She chuckled a bit, "Oh child, yes. I cannot have them shrinking as fast anymore. I have thinned the herd, now it is time to break it."

"What does that mean?" I asked without emotion.

She walked back to her desk and looked me in my eyes, carefully observing me. Her game had begun again. She wanted something out of me.

She grabbed one of my datasheets that I had given her and walked over to the fireplace.

"This you must understand," she calmy said.

"This," she said clarified loudly, "you must ALL understand."

All the guards in the room, who had been stationary until now turned and faced her. Every one of the soldiers were fearful beyond belief. These soldiers were to protect her life but now they had realized that there was no one to protect their own lives from her.

"There are easily some people who cannot lead," she said looking at the fire. "A leader doesn't fear anything physical, death is not his chaos. Death is his end and this he knows. There are a few simple facts of life and one being that death will come by one mean or the other and the leader, the true leader, does not fear this, but himself. A leader fears the spirit for it is the only thing out of control that matters. There is yet no control on death, but those who have mastered their spirits, and controlled them, are those whose names we remember."

She only looked onto the fire and her face spelled madness, rage, yet control.

"My father was a cold man," she said sweating from the heat of the fire, " he never once told me to follow my dreams or to love what I do or any of that nonsense. You see, he was a man in control of his spirit, he rid himself of it so to speak. He was a man with no emotion yet with everything else."

I had never seen the doctor like this before, so both in and out of control. She was so in rage and so fiery with yet with her cool touch of control. The ominious frieplace had grown to overtake the room with its light as its vibrance in the doctors face glistened in her sweating. Her words were said through gritted teeth and spit came out of her mouth and it threw itself into the fireplce. It sizzeled and attempted to drown the fire.

"This was his downfall," she continued, "when his wife passed away and he forgot to cry, he forgot who he was and all purpose was lost to him. When he came to realize that in his arrogance he never loved anything and wrongly assumed that purpose would some day come he became enraged."

She closed her eyes as one tear fell down the right of her face and her hands trembled at her sides.

"When I came home after school a few days later I found him in his bathtub, face downwards and not moving," she said with her still closed.

Her hands were clenched in a ball and her frown finally cmae through her facade she always had on.

"He left a note on the bathroom mirror with only five words on it," she said.

The room was buzzing with emotion. No one said a thing but their eyes yelled in their curiousity. She had never told this story before and it was intense. She had alot winded up in her and she never did let it go.

I looked over at her, "What did it say?" I politely asked.

She took a moment and took a deep breath. She opened her eyes and looked at the fire with more intensity.

"Find the something I couldn't."

We all sat there for a moment, letting the doctor have hers. She was thoughtful but this seemed out of line for even her. Her coolness had escaped for but a second and we saw her as she was. She was broken and glued back together by her own hands.

She threw my datasheet into the fire and walked back to her desk.

"I found it," she finally said after a minute of silence.

"He was missing his purpose and I had found mine is his death. I realized that my father's suicide was all based on his lack of spirit. A leader is one who can balance the forces of his spirit and the forces of his carnal image. This week was the week of thinning the carnal with our students, simply picking those who are able to function on a carnal basis."

"But," she doctor added, "Next week we break the spirit and find those who can hold on."

I sat there quite confused and mesmerized by her diligence. She was drawn by madness to meaning. In front of me sat an old lady. To any other person in the world she would seem helpless and harmless but she held more power than any one person could know. She had purpose.

"Death," she added, "does not bring fear to any of these students anymore."

She looked at me and smiled.

"But my father did know one thing," she said, "that death was nothing to be feared as much as a broken spirit."

I needed to leave sooner than the end of the second week I decided. I need to find a new place to call home.

"ZZ-9," the doctor addressed me directly.

"Yes, doctor?" I quickly responded.

"Are your parents still alive?"

"I'm not sure," I confessed, "they were when I left to join the military."

She nodded, "and you haven't visited them since?"

"I had planned on it after graduation," I said, "but..."

My voice trailed off as I realized how long it had been since I hadn't seen my parents. I wondered if they knew that I was even alive.

"but the explosion?" she finished for me.

"Yes."

"Do you miss them?"

I looked at her curiously, "I suppose I don't."

"Now that is fascinating," she said, "that must mean you have found a purpose other than your family."

Oh no. This was not good. Rachel. Rachel was my purpose. I was so focused on her that my family took the second wheel. The doctor was catching on quick, she was very good at what she did to her credit. I had to diverge the situation, I did not want her finding out about me and Rachel, I did not want her knowing, I didn't know how she would take it.

"Yes," I responded. "Helping my country is my purpose," I lied.

She smiled at me, "Serving one's country is a very hard purpose to follow as one becomes more and more attached with his or her country, the more the country pushes back. I am intrigued."

"I love Calimet," I said.

"I can see your love," she said peering into my soul, "it is strong."

"But i'm not sure if it is for Calimet," she said with a dissapointed tone.

I had to show that I really loved Calimet somehow, I had to prove my lie or she would find out one way or another. The game was afoot and it was my turn. I had to start the questions.

"Are you trying to say that I do not love my country?" I said in an offended tone. I stood up from my chair and looked her into her eyes with as much passion as I could muster.

"I would lay down my life for this country, I would burn myself alive for it," I said.

She looked at me and laughed, "sit down child, I was simply curious to what extent you loved your country. It seems you might actually love it, as I do."

I sat down, thankful she took it well, as I knew that she could easily have one of the guards kill me if she wanted them to. I was not sure that she loved Calimet as much as herself. Her pride really outshone her.

"Thank you," I calmy said bowing my head.

"I can see that love is a touchy subject for you," she said coldy, "and I can see how out of control it seemed that you got there."

Her eyes danced up and down from my eyes to her fingernails as she examined them.

"You do not seem like the type of person to lose control ZZ-9," she said, "In fact, I don't remember you ever losing control."

I had thought the game was over, but as it turned out, she had been in control the entire time.

"You made a decision ZZ-9, with no sweat, no rage," she added, "very impressive."

She put her hand on the table and looked at me.

"You see, there is something to be said about making emotion to play with people's minds, and you know that."

In fact, im sure you caught me during my speech," she whispered.

She spoke up again, "Those who master their spirit live outside the body controlling it for their purpose. You ought to be more careful, boy, to make sure that others do not see."

I stared at her with my best attempt at a poker face.

"I see the spirit of B-24," she said, "and I see yours."

I didn't know what she knew but here she was breaking me like I had seen her do to everyone else before me who had sat in this chair. There was a certain respect I had for her in her abilities. Did she know about the conversatoins between Kane and I and was trying to pry it out of me? Did she know about Rachel? There was only one way to find out and it was to tell her.

"I am confused," I said.

But today was not that day.

She looked at me with curiousity, "What are you confused about?"

I smiled a little bit, "doesn't the spirit come from the body when it is born? Or does the spirit create the life in the womb?"

"My boy," she said hastily, "that is a different discussion entirely."

I had thrown her perfectly moving, well-oiled machine down a ramp to nothingness.

"If I don't have a body but I have a spirit, what does that make me?" I added to tangle the conversation more.

She squinted at me and frowned.

"That will be enough for tonight ZZ-9," she said.

She would try again tomorrow and she would be prepared. I knew this. She needed to have a conversation where I followed her lead, but if I dropped the conversation entirely and added a new pin to the wheel, it would break.

"Yes doctor," I replied and walked out of the room.

I let out a heavy sigh as I headed back into the auditorium. What a desolate place really. There were no windows in any part of the complex. The students were being driven mad by the walls on walls on walls. Simple white walls, the same translucent light fixtures on every hallway. The same food that they ate every night that we sourced from within the country itself. That was probably the reason why it tasted so bad to begin with. The African Nations made the best agriculture and the best food. Since our imports had broke off from them, we began to run out of food.

As the soldiers in the building, we got access to news from across the world. The situation wasn't looking good. Africa had joined in with the Mongolians and dropped our beneficial cooperation. I suppose it was most beneficial to us to begin with, since they really didn't care for the technology we had. They turned back the new Meri-crops we offered for them to grow and continued in the simple harvesting methods of the early century. Meri-crops were the crops of the future, they grew fifty percent faster and were biologically engineered to be resistant against almost every known pest. These crops ranged from potatoes to strawberries to wheat. Although the Meri-crops were supposedly effective, we didn't use them and only outsourced them. I had been told a whole speech about our purpose in the developing of technology in the world and how everyone else had their own job, but this never really caught on around the world. The world didn't want Calimet as the leader in technology, or most of it didn't anyways.

There is something to be said about paving the way for the future. It is that no one wants you to. People love being in their time as much as they might disagree. Change is fear. There is hope in living the same life as one has heard about before because you can just copy the actions of other people in the past. The problem arises in the fact that time has moved on, change has happened, and it may no longer work. Calimet's war with York really showed that. My father had fought in the war and he told me stories when I was a teenager. He was born in the United States of America. What a mouthful I always had thought. Who ever decided that that name? He told me of the polarization between those who wanted change and those that did not. He told me of York and Calimet. He told me of the east and the west. The country was so divided that people began to move to places where they shared the same belief. The capital at the time was in the east, and as those who wanted change hated the government's capability, or lack thereof, to bring the change they wanted, they moved west. Like the American expansion I had been taught in the school. This was the American's manifesting a new destiny, one of a singular poltical destiny. My father told me it was inevitable. He told me how he joined with probably millions of protesters across the land. They protests were to no avail. It didn't spread any awarness to the cause but instead brought criticism and chaos.

"We fought the police too," I remember my father telling me. "I was so enraged at the time," he sighed, "that I didn't see how worthless all the infighting really was. You see David, The world will always have those who want change and those who don't, the balance of both is what makes progress."

"What happened then?" I asked my dad.

"Well," he looked at me, "Nothing happened for some years, the law of America was pretty stubborn and had been balanced in its creation so it was hard to crack. We protested and protested the governments not realizing it did not have the capablities for the change we wanted," he sighed. "David," my dad looked at me smiling, "don't ever start dating a protesting girl." I remember his eyes looking at mom as she slapped him upside the head. "It's a sign from the beginning that they will protest every single thing you try to do," he laughed.

"So what happened?" I asked him.

He looked at me more seriously then, "Then we learned about that new planet." His eyes fell down at the floor. "It was enough to break what had been made of steel before. Fear swelled and the riots we had grew in numbers. At the time, I was finally excited that some change might happen, finally the country might be fixed, not realizing I had helped in breaking it."

My father took a pause after that part. He was not proud of his past. He thought of himself as a warmonger that brought down what may have been good.

"I joined forces with those that wanted to change the country, and once the flooding started, seceding from America was not a hard move. We bought guns that we had so long protested, we became the same police we hated, and we made a country that we still ruined."

"But dad," I said, "Calimet is awesome, we have so much more technology than York, we make so much more stuff for the world. In history we learned about the incapablities of York, they're so caught behind, even now."

"Caight behind, eh?" he asked.

I nodded, "Yeah, we are so much more prosperous than they are. We created all the alliances with the other countries, we created all the new technology and all the new learning capabilities, and we invented Meri-crops. You can't tell me that we're not better than them."

"Okay son," he said, "then tell me why you don't know about the protests going on down in Los Angeles right now? Tell me why we're not allowed to speak about York in public for anything other than educational purposes? York doesn't have alliances, no, but they sit in the background of the world stage and grow slowly."

I sat in silence with no words.

My mom came and sat down on the floor next to me.

"David honey," she said, "What your father is saying is to have an open mind about all the things happening."

I loved my mother, she was always the most loving, caring person.

"Those who sit in the shadows, in the background," my father added, "are those that pull the strings on the stage. York is in no conflict and they prosper in their old ways, meanwhile, Calimet still has infighting and our relations with the world has been growing worse..."

My father was a calculated man. Nevertheless, he loved me. I realize that now. He tried his best to teach me and groom me for the world. I listened but never truly understood or believed. Calimet, I had thought was the best there was. We didn't talk about York because it might be harmful to the older folk that brought us away from that horrible country. I joined the military to learn more about our country's wonder.

"...I fought for freedom from their tyranny I had thought," he said, "but instead I am here, in a country I helped to make; depressed, despised, and doubting. Freedom isn't good son, it's essential. We can hate the way it operates and sometimes it can seem unfair, but freedom is like truth in that way, it is what it is, and there is no way around it."

That's why I probably hadn't visited my dad during my military schooling. He was no doubt ashamed of me and my beliefs. I wasn't the son he wanted. How could he side with York? Those were nothing but old savages in their old school ways. There was nothing impressive, nothing good about them. They took up space. How could my dad be on their side? I ran up the ranks, learning and learning only realizing that my dad had already taught me.

Here I was, sneaking out a building, and onto a roof, planniing to run away from the country my dad helped to found. Unlike him, I still wanted to stay. I no longer thought Calimet was good, heck, I was planning an escape now anyways, but can any one country be good? Is there good? I had thought about going to York as my dad had once told me he would do for us. Rachel stopped that thought though.

She was still there, sitting on the edge of the building, looking out at a moon that was a waxing crescent.

"David," she said as I approached her and sat down, "im tired."

"Me too," I responded putting my hand around her.

"No, I'm tired of this," she said pointing to the building. "Im tired of watching death, I'm done. This is so beyond messed up."

"But we agreed on two weeks, right?" I asked. "Come on Rachel, we can't just leave, we will not last a day on our own in the desert."

"Speak for yourself, macho man, I'll last the whole way to the coast, I don't care."

I looked over to her, "that's actually what I wanted to talk to you about."

"What? the coast?" she asked.

"No," I replied, "about Calimet, what if we don't stay in Calimet?"

She looked very confused. "What do you mean not stay in Calimet? Where would we go? The southern countries are torn up and if you want to go, you can go alone. North, well, I suppose that wouldn't be too bad, but it's too cold for me."

"I was thinking East," I said.

She looked into my eyes surprised, "East? are you kidding me? You want to live with savages that can't control themselves?"

"They're not savages, remember what my dad said? It's much nicer now."

"Yeah, I also remember that you said that your dad signed the new law code here in Calimet as founder, so what? You expect me to believe him? I don't like Calimet either David, but there is much much worse than Calimet."

"Rachel, Rachel," I grabbed her shoulders, "do you think that we won't be chased if we run away?"

"We'll get away."

"How?"

She didn't say anything. We had never talked about it. The doctor was very careful to make sure that the program was happening somewhere where no-one outside, besides maybe some birds, would ever even hear about what was going on inside. She wouldn't let us away easily, she would make sure we were silenced.

"Even so," she said, "how will we cross the mississippi? That border is hard enough to cross over without having the law on your back."

"It's our best shot," I said, "Besides, we always talked about living alone by ourselves, who cares which country we do it in?"

No answer.

"That Kane boy's father helped to make the border, I'm sure he could help us get through."

She didn't like that I was talking to a student.

"Listen," I said grabbing her hands in mine, "I'm scared too, I don't know what im doing but this might be our only shot. We won't stay for another week. We can bust out tomorrow night, grab Kane and his friends and steal some bikes and hit the road. I love you Rachel. I would do anything if it meant I could be with you for the rest of our lives, and this is that thing, you know that."

I looked at her eyes, "You know that."

I pressed my lips against hers and brought her into me and I tightly held her in my arms. I held on for dear life. These moments were the ones I cherished the most.

"I love you to the moon and back," I said.

"Not to the sun and back?" she asked.

"Oh no," I laughed, "definitely not that much."

We lied down, looking at the stars that night. The same stars that always were. It was weird to think that with all the changes to the world and all that was broken, the stars still stayed the same. Thousands of years ago people would have seen the same sky, seen the same stars, and mesmerized at the same beauty. The universe was balanced. There was so much change happening, stars becoming, exploding, turning, moving, but slowly. So slow in fact, that it seemed like nothing was happening at all. The beauty of nature and it's never ceasing, but slow movements. There was battle between humanity's change and earth. There was a balance to be had and we had no control over it. The earth always wins. Against the dinosaurs it won. Against all it would win. Against humanity it would win.