Sincerely, Anonymous

January 30

January 30

Dear Annabeth,

These letters are getting increasingly infrequent and I apologize greatly for such. It is nearly February. That means there are only 4 more months until my friends and I all get our Procedures. This year, the Procedures are done over sixteen days time depending on your Career. Usually the Procedures are done over fifteen days but this is a ten-year, which means the new Panel members have been selected, but you know that. The general public thinks that the Careers all just start at different times, since they don’t know about the Procedure. I’ve attached the schedule to the back of these letters.

The way the schedule goes, Brianna will go on the June 15, since the psychologists are considered “human services”, Emma will go on June 3 since artists fall under the arts category, Emily will go on June 8, since doctors fall under health service, and Amy will be sent to her Facility on June 16th because of her disease. That makes her that much more crucial to the plan. 

They handed us the schedules in school and everyone talked excitedly about their Careers and what day they would begin. A few people were too embarrassed or unhappy with the Career they had received and sat quietly. I stuck with them, catching up on some reading. A particularly annoying girl with whom I had briefly been friends with yelled loudly to the class about how she was going to be a Government Official and how ridiculous she thought it was that they didn’t begin first because they were “so obviously the superior Career”.

I rolled my eyes and stifled my laughter, if only she knew what she was signing up for. She was so incredibly daft sometimes, but I guess I was only superior in that I just happened to have more information. Maybe I would be the same if I had become an artist or a fashion designer or whatever else I wanted to be.

“Is something funny?” she sneered, snapping her head in my direction.

I didn’t stop myself from laughing instead simply responding with a, “Leah, everyone’s Career is important, I just find your superiority a little humorous.”

“Where’d you hear that from? Everyone’s Career is hardly equal, I don’t care what any of these stupid teacher’s here say, they don’t know crap. I have a real Career, a good Career, far better than most of you lot,” she said, looking around the room to see if anyone would question her.

I went back to my work, along with a majority of the room, but Leah didn’t let it go.

“What did you get then? Laborer? Are you going to go work in some fields all day or maybe they made you a butcher, that would be ironic wouldn’t it? Not eating an ounce of meat and yet having to kill all of those little animals every day. Is that why you’ve been so hush hush about your Career?” she mocked.

I could feel something snap inside of me in that moment. There was a kind of anger in me that was laying dormant for so long, so quiet that I had no idea it was even there. But I stood up so quick and violently that the entire desk toppled over, causing Leah to laugh harder.

“God you’re an embarrassment to yourself,” she scoffed, turning her back to me to talk with her grouping of wannabes and natural born followers.

“You’re not better than me!” I yelled at her, not just letting the argument go there.

“Really?” she questioned sarcastically, turning her head lazily, acting as though I wasn’t even worth the energy to fully turn her head.

“Yes really!” I shouted, unable to keep my emotions in control, “just because you’re a Government Official doesn’t mean you’re any better. What are you going to do for the rest of your life? Sit at a desk taking orders from the Panel members. That’s all you will be doing. For the rest of your life. You will always be beneath someone else. You will never be on top and you will never be better than me.”

The bell rang and I turned on my heel, trying to get out of the room with the last word. But she yelled at my back, “what are you then, a Panel member?”

She said it so sarcastically, so intensely sure that I could never have that kind of future. And my throat closed in and I could feel the tightness of anxiety squeeze my chest, tears unwillingly welling in my eyes. Angry tears, the weakest kind. I tried to wipe them away quickly with my sleeve, but she saw.

“That’s what I thought,” she laughed, pushing right by me, so positive that she had won. But she doesn’t know what I do. I tried to remind myself that she just doesn’t know but that doesn’t make me hate her any less.

I tried to explain this all to Kay later. She listened quietly and politely, and responded only with an exasperated sigh that made me feel like a small child. She didn’t even need to tell me what she was thinking, I just knew. My emotions need to be kept in check if I am going to continue a part of this program, she made it clear using only a sigh. And I agree, I can’t be a wild card, the cause is too important.

But I got ahold of a new little gadget, more Drives. These ones are rings, for Emily, Amy, Brianna, and Emma. Kay explained a little how the Drives work. I put my letter on mine, and it transfers them to everyone else’s. They can put information on their Drive’s as well. The Drives also check pulse and if someones pulse stops they will send their information to the Drives of all who are still alive and their Drive will become a regular old ring. I doubt we will need that feature but we must take precautions. 

Kay has the Drives all set to ‘go off’ on a certain date at a certain time. This just means that they will start reading off a name and address, and if all goes to plan this name will be Amy Poens and the address her place in the Facilities. If for some reason Amy is unavailable the Drive’s will be set just to turn on and give information to go to Kay. And if she is unavailable then information of my location will be given and everyone is to bring their Drives to me. I really hope it doesn’t come to the last option because I do not have a clue how we will figure out these devices with no instructions.

From there the Black Tens will tell us the plan in which we are to initiate. They won’t tell us now since we won’t remember anyway and they don’t want to risk us going to authorities.

Now that I have the rings and necklace everything seems a little more real, I can’t let people like Leah get in my way anymore, I need to be stronger than that. But I will say one thing. These Drives make me feel as though things have changed. Kay was so guarded just a few weeks ago about telling me about my Drive and now theres a whole plan set in motion. I know I have nothing to support it, but I feel like something has changed, like she’s going by a new plan.

Love Always,

Lilly