Chapter 17
Wisty
Whit's face is so red that I actually feel a little bad about what I just said.
"Umm," I mumble. "Sorry to interrupt."
I really should've clapped my hands on my ears and walked away when Whit started talking about poetry. But to miss Whitford P. Allgood's first poetry reading would be, well, unsisterly.
Janine looks at me as if I'm her bratty little sister, not Whit's. "Were you eavesdropping on us?"
"What'd you expect? I'm a Resistance spy," I counter, fending off the glares. "And don't you forget it, kids." Whit rolls his eyes. He's clearly woken up on the wrong side of the bed-or floor, as the case may be. Time to change the subject. "So, did you hear about the new mission yet, Bro? It's a toughie."
"I didn't want to tell him." Janine shoots me a look. "He'll want to go. He's in no condition -"
"I'll be the judge of that," Whit interrupts. "You're not my mother."
Ouch. We don't ever talk about Mom and Dad casually anymore.
Janine looks a little hurt, then shakes it off. She smoothes down her cargo pants as she stands up. "Besides, I'm not sure it's one any of us should take. The rough intelligence makes it look worse than the mission that got Margo killed."
My nostrils are flaring. "The mission that got Margo killed is exactly why we need to go there, Janine. We should finish what she started."
"Where is it?" asks Whit, struggling to stand up.
"They call it the Acculturation Facility," Janine explains as she crouches down to help him. "They say it's a school, not a prison, but… it's actually worse. It looks like some kind of labor camp. Nothing but young kids."
"How many are there?"
"Almost a hundred," she tells us. "But it's the brainwashing that goes on there that I'm concerned about. Instead of finding one hundred captives wanting escape, we're likely to see them turning against us. In fact, the New Order is programming them to do just that."
"We've got to go," I insist.
"Yeah," Whit agrees. "The One is probably expecting us to be licking our wounds right now, not remotely imagining we'll do something bold like this."
He grabs a fresh sweatshirt off a nearby rack and starts to put it on.
Janine's losing her patience. She folds her arms across her chest authoritatively. "Whit, this is a really bad idea."
Her eyes shift to a rack of cycling shorts that suddenly sprouts a head.
Byron!
"I have unfortunate news for all of you," he says smarmily. "Care to hear it?"
"You weren't eavesdropping on us, were you?" I say indignantly.
He laughs. "I'm a Resistance spy, and don't you forget it," he mimics. I roll my eyes.
"Well? We're waiting for your unfortunate news," I say.
"Just because Margo was… eliminated," Byron emphasizes, "it doesn't mean that suddenly Janine is leader of the week. Nor you, Wisty, nor Whit. This mission isn't your decision."
"Then whose is it?"
"Mine," Byron announces with a ridiculous chest heave. "While Whitford's been reciting love poetry and Janine's been nursing Mr. Heroic back to health, you've all missed the majority vote of the group back at Home Furnishings for leader of the week."
He clucks as we stare at him, gaping. "Next time, you might want to make sure you pay more mind to your civic duties."
I guess you can take the kid out of the New Order, but you can't take the New Order out of the kid.
Chapter 18
Wisty
Have you ever tried to cut off all of somebody's hair with a pair of scissors?
It's incredibly hard to do without achieving a certain insane-asylum look. I actually do a pretty good job on Whit-he looks kind of like a war-movie hero. Apparently Emmet's hack job on my head doesn't fall into the same category, though. (I wouldn't let my brother come near my hair with scissors.)
"At least you don't have to worry about that witchy red color any longer." Byron cackles as we pull up to the Acculturation Facility. "Except for a couple of patches."
"Who invited you on this mission anyway, B.?" I grumble, even though I know we don't have a choice. He's our way in-but I can't help but fear this is a trap. I can't bring myself to actually trust Byron Swain.
At least Sasha and a few others are with us-but they're back manning the escape vehicles hidden beyond the tree line.
Byron unfurls his folio of various New Order badges and medals and memberships and ID cards at the guards at the entry, and then he drags us, handcuffed, through the door to the registration area.
The whole place has that oh-so-distinctively-generic-New-Ordery blandness to it. If it were a turtleneck color in my K. Krew clothes catalog, it would be called Dirty Dishwater.
"I've got Stephen and Sydney Harmon here," Byron says with an exaggerated bluster of authority. He plays the part so well. Maybe because he is the part? "Transfers from AC Facility #625. The One Who Reassigns is expecting them-I just spoke to him an hour or so ago."
"Certainly, Mr. Swain. They're expected. The elevators are down the hall to your left."
Byron's in his element as he theatrically yanks us this way and that and into the elevators. Once we sink down a couple of levels, he shoves us out the door. "Okay, Harmons." He grins. "You're on your own. See you on the other side."
As much as I sort of hate Byron, I have to admit, getting into an N.O. joint has never been so easy. His timing is perfect-as the elevator doors close behind us, we encounter a group of passing kids and join the rear of the party.
They're heartbreakingly pathetic, these "students." Skinny, hopeless, haunted-looking, and silent as monks. The spirit of youthful anger and rebellion has already been sucked out of them. No complaints, no sarcasm, no anything. They're so beaten down, they don't even seem to notice our arrival.
We follow the procession as it pushes through double doors at the end of the hallway.
At first we're almost blinded by the bright blue-white light bombarding us, but when our eyes adjust we find ourselves in what looks like it might have once been a school auditorium but is now something very different, and sinister.
All the theater seats have been removed, and the large room, including the stage, is now occupied by machines, chemical vats, and dozens of sick-looking kids in numbered shirts, working like diamond-mine slaves. Some of the kids in here are carrying sacks, some are stirring vats, some are pushing around technical equipment.
Our eyes are stinging as if there's something poisonous in the air. The whole place stinks like burning rubber, ozone, and, weirdly-Could it be?-chocolate. Toxic chocolate. Is there such a thing?
Then there's a weird flutelike note, a middle C if I'm not mistaken, and I look over to see a squad of kids-all wearing the number twelve-suddenly stop working.
And then I see the one adult in the room, a stiff-backed man in a white lab coat with a silver pitch-pipe thingy on a cord dropping out of his mouth.
"Attention squad twelve!" he screams. He waits a moment, and the veins in his neck slowly subside while his eyes roll. "Does anyone remember? You may not-under any circumstances-drop the pods!"
He blows a different note on the pipe, and they all nod robotically.
"Since these two sacks contain damaged specimens," he says, hoisting a couple of bags over his head, "you are all hereby required to work through the night without sleep!"
"Bu -," a sunken-eyed girl starts to say before catching herself.
"But?" screams the man. "Did you just say 'but' to me? Need I remind you that the penalty for arguing with a senior scientist requires level two corporal punishment?" The man rushes forward to heave the girl-who is probably only a quarter of his size-against the wall.
I want to charge in and sack the guy myself, and I have to reach out and grab Whit's arm to keep him from doing the same. We can't go down in a blaze of glory. Not just yet.