In a nightmare world ravaged by misery, the Imperium offers utopia to a select few. When Arya and Everett are recruited into this elite society, they choose to leave their homes against their families' wishes.
Naive and young, Arya and Everett are...
I think back to the botanical garden where the perfect blue sky, the changing thickness of the bushes, and my mounting exhaustion were the signs of the day passing by. But here, in this windowless room, I have no way to gauge the time.
Eventually, I stand and wander around to stretch my legs. It's only when I tentatively step around the desk that I realize the screen is still displaying something.
Right away, my eyes are drawn to a young, light-haired woman in the middle of the screen. She's sitting behind a long white desk, speaking and gesturing with her hands, but I can't hear her. I stare at her, struggling to make sense of all the colors on her. The gentle, floral pink of her top, the inexplicable deep red of her lips, the golden glint of the small objects dangling from her earlobes. I glance down at my monochrome appearance, pale and lifeless in comparison.
Raising my eyes to the screen again, I take in the rest of it. There's a thin red strip with white text flowing quickly across the bottom of the screen, but I'm too disoriented to catch any of the words. This is unlike anything I've ever seen on a screen before.
"Everett, come here," I call, my voice shaking as I beckon him with one hand. "You need to see this."
Sensing the urgency in my tone, he hurries over. He follows my line of sight and watches the screen, wide-eyed. I'm somewhat transfixed by the woman's intriguing appearance when Everett suddenly exclaims, "Hey, look . . . There's something here."
Everett slides his fingers into a grove in one of the rectangular compartments under the right side of the table. With a quick tug, it falls open, revealing several remotes stacked on top of one another — remotes that are identical to the ones hanging from the Foreman's belt.
"Here," Everett says, handing me one of the remotes before grabbing one for himself. I examine the rows and rows of buttons on the sleek device, each button marked with a symbol I don't recognize. As I flip the remote around, my fingers accidentally press some of the buttons. Suddenly, the woman's silent speech on the screen bursts into sound, loud and clear, causing me and Everett to flinch.
Frantically pressing buttons on the remote at random, I mutter, "Fuck, why won't it stop?"
But Everett lays a hand on my arm and says, "Hold on, look."
The screen shifts, the woman's image shrinking and moving to the left until a new image materializes on the right. A man appears, his attire slightly darker but just as confounding as the woman. Unlike her, however, he's standing in an open patch of dry land under a reddish-yellow sky with dull gray clouds. His forehead and neck are coated in a fine sheen of sweat. A few paces behind him stands a wall of coiled wire with bright red signs.
"Thank you for joining us, Tony," the woman is saying, presumably to the man on the right. The man starts to respond, but I'm distracted by a new strip of words at the bottom of the screen. This time, I manage to catch a few snatches of the text.
Special report . . . investigation . . . unmarked facility . . . Bersauk, Virginia . . . reports of drones shot down . . .
What does any of this even mean?!
Frustrated, I turn my attention to the man. His voice has a slightly muffled quality to it as he points to the tall fence behind him and says, ". . . closest we can get is here, over 30 miles away. What lies beyond this point has been a matter of intense speculation for years, with conspiracy theories ranging from human experimentation to underground labs with evidence of extraterrestrial life. In recent times, reports of—"
"Wait," Everett says suddenly, stepping out from around the desk. "I think I hear footsteps."
"Keep an eye out for the Foreman," I reply, panic crawling up my throat. "I'll try to turn the sound off."
I grip the remote with trembling fingers and start pressing buttons at random again until finally, thankfully, the screen falls silent. With my remote in one hand, I grab the one Everett had picked up and placed on the table earlier.
Everett peeks outside and quickly turns to me. "He's coming!"
I move to drop both remotes into the open slot under the table, but in a split-second decision, I slip one into my pocket and drop the other inside the table.
As the Foreman's footsteps grow louder, I join Everett, and we sprawl out on the floor as though we were there all along. I breathe deeply to calm my racing heart and meet Everett's eyes. His brilliant blue gaze mirrors the bewilderment in mine, and an unspoken question hangs in the still air between us:
What is going on?
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Happy new year! This is the first update of UCS for the year and it's a pivotal point in the story. What are your thoughts? Let me know in the comments and please vote if you enjoyed reading. :)
I'm excited to keep writing as we get closer to the end of this story.
I hope you all have a happy and healthy year ahead! Take care.
