System Nullification

Chapter 26

 "Skylar, stop!" Brianna cried.

 "What?" Skylar looked at Brianna. "It could be true, you know! We never know!"

 "Ha, Skylar, maybe so. But I'd only get a heart attack if Brianna was the cause," I smoothy said."Ooh..." Skylar smirked.

 Brianna blushed, then shook her head. "Damn it, Reed, I don't want to be the cause of your pain," Brianna urged. "Now tell me what's wrong."

 "I, uh, fell down the—" I said.

 "Stairs," Skylar said. "Mhm. Stairs. You fell down the stairs. Don't lie."

 "Come on Reed!" Brianna pressed.

 I sighed. "Okay, I got into a fight," I said, and before they could react, I continued. "And it's not the fight you guys would think of at first."

 "Were you defending someone other than yourself?" Skylar asked.

 "Not really," I replied.

 "Wait, is that why you were... busy yesterday?" Brianna asked. "Uh, yeah," I replied, starting to mentally give up.

 "Wait, so what were you doing?" Skylar questioned.

 "So I was chosen to fight a random opponent by a group of... people," I said, hoping they'd accept that vague explanation, but not really expecting it.

 "Why were you chosen to fight?" Brianna asked. "Oh, by any chance, did you go to the place that Iris, Zephyr, Jack, and Will always goes to after school?"

 Initial thought: "How the hell did she figure that out??"

 But then my second thought was the fact that I would've figured it out if I was in her place, so I sighed. "Yeah," Skylar chimed in. "Good point, Brianna. Are you ditching us after school, too?"

 "I really don't want to lose you guys," Brianna said. "And now seeing that you're hurting from whatever's going on... I don't want all of you guys getting hurt. I'm just worried... sorry if I'm coming off as rude."

 "No, Brianna, it's fine," I said. "I intended to tell you earlier but... I never exactly found the right moment."

 "The right moment's right here, then," Skylar suggested.

 "Okay. Here goes. I'll have to say this whole thing word for word," I sighed, taking a breath. "Gosh, memorizing this was a pain in the ass even for me."

 "Wait, hold up, you had to memorize something?" Skylar asked.

 I nodded and began, "The United Provinces have a secret defense service that I serve, and you are able to join it bearing the loyalty of the United Provinces. There is a station I can lead you through if you'd like."

 The two girls were completely and utterly confused. I could tell they really wanted to say something, but couldn't.

 So then I continued with, "But maybe this doesn't matter, at least not to you. The decision is yours. Do what you will with that info."

 "Whoa whoa wait, hold up, so the government actually had a top secret facility the whole time and Iris, Zephyr, Jack, and Will are part of that too?!" Skylar asked.

 "What the heck? Why would the President set something like this up?" Brianna asked.

 "I have no idea," I replied.

 "So wait, why did you join, Reed?" Brianna asked.

 "Well, Zephyr invited me after I found out about it. I really wanted to actually... learn about more things, and do something huge with my life. So far it's been hard though," I admitted. "Considering the fact that some big guy beat the crap out of me yesterday."