The Radical Chronicles

Chapter 3

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“Some say the Radical Movement began with the 2746 riots. I believe it began with the Reclamation Program. Those of us who survived had a newfound respect for life, for equality, and for brotherhood among our kind. As we reached adulthood, we’d be the ones pushing for the establishment of a formal Radical Government. We’d be the catalysts for change. We’d be the Central Government’s most vocal opponents since we lived through and survived their brutality masked as ‘the greater good.’ We’d make sure everyone knew what happened to us, regardless of the cost.”

Radical Archive – excerpt from the Reclamation Program commentaries, contributed by Veronica Quibs

Minutes turned into hours, and hours into days and weeks. Each time Veronica woke from the unconscious state the Reclamation Program doctors constantly kept her in, she had fleeting moments of cognizant, thinking awake time to take in her surroundings and the people in them. At first she awoke somewhere new every time she opened her eyes. The past three times though, she recognized the room, the nurses, and the some of the other children in the beds around her.

She lay in a small room with four beds – two on either side of the room. One of the two beds on the other side of the room remained empty each time she opened her eyes, and the other seemed to have a different girl or boy each time she checked. The bed next to her though always had the same boy with the messy dark brown hair and piercing green eyes. She’d only seen the eyes once, when they both woke at the same time – but they were unforgettable.

She knew they had enough tubes and machinery connected to them that they couldn’t speak. Just attempting to push words up out of her body hurt each time she tried. Instead of fighting it, she spent her time taking in every inch of the room.

She noted it had no windows; only the door to her right centered on the wall existed as a portal to the outside world. The room itself had sparse decoration. In fact, the last time she opened her eyes, Veronica counted more pieces of medical machinery on the floor than art pieces on the walls. She also noticed one other thing – they’d stopped checking her vitals when she was awake. In the beginning they checked them each time she woke up, and then sedated her again. Now they simply injected something directly into her bloodstream using one of their creepy inoculators.

She’d also begun counting the minutes each time she woke up beginning from the time she realized she was conscious and ending the time someone walked in the room. On average, she generally had anywhere from ten to fifteen minutes. The window of time wasn’t large, but it gave her a chance to test a theory.

On this particular round of awake-time, she stared at the cute boy in the bed next to her trying to guess his name. He seemed like a rebel based on his appearance alone, and that made her smile a little. She stared at him not to study him necessarily though – but to keep her gaze averted from the door to her right. His bed, to her left, kept her awake as she studied him while keeping her open eyes away from the door behind her. When they inevitably walked in to check on her, they wouldn’t know the difference – or at least, that’s what she hoped.

The experiment didn’t take long to begin. Although it seemed like she’d been counting the freckles on her counterpart’s nose for hours, it’d really only been around twenty minutes. A creak in the door hinges behind her warned Veronica it was time to play a game – mainly, see if they believed she was sleeping with just her eyes closed. She shut her eyes, slowed her breathing, and waited.

“These two have been here a while Doctor Mills. What’s your assessment?” The disembodied male voice seemed gruff and commanding.

“They’re the oldest ones we’ve had to inoculate sir, we wanted to be sure the treatment took. We’ve had the mix pumping through them for six weeks now as a precaution.” She spoke authoritatively. This had to be the female doctor that always came into the room… the one with the brunette hair pulled up into a bun.

“Have the labs come back yet on the most recent round of tests?” he asked.

“They should be in today. We’re hoping for the best,” Doctor Mills replied. “The anti-aggression gene therapy in particular has been a difficult one to infuse. It’s best given in the prenatal phase. We’re still working on an effective post-birth therapy that takes completely. Everything else - the fertility, gender preference, and ethic genotype therapies - seem to be taking as predicted.”

“Well aggression modification aside, what’s your opinion? Assuming the labs come back as expected, are we looking at two prepped candidates?” he asked.

“I can’t say for sure doctor, but I believe they’re nearly ready for integration therapy,” she responded.

“Well if you’re confident they’re ready, get them into phase two. We need every bed we can muster. The Program is too busy to be keeping them in beds this long,” he said impatiently.

Silence filled the room. Veronica lay as still as she could while she waited on the door hinges to creak again. Just to add effect, Veronica slowly moved her eyes around, keeping them shut to make it seem like she was dreaming. She couldn’t actually remember dreaming when she was asleep, but what could it hurt, right? She heard fingernails tapping against some kind of surface – probably Doctor Mills reviewing data on a medical tablet.

When the door hinges finally creaked, Veronica waited until she counted to fifty to open her eyes. She wanted to be sure one of the two doctors hadn’t stayed behind – the easiest way of botching her experiment. As she opened her eyes, she found a set of piercing green eyes staring back at her from a few paces over. Her room mate had apparently been doing the same thing as she – playing the waiting game. He smiled at her, and she smiled back. What was his name!?

Veronica grew tired of playing by the rules. She reached up, pulled the tube from her throat, and swallowed hard to prepare for the painful task ahead. After clearing her throat twice, she tried to speak. Pain shot through her raw vocal cords. Veronica shook her head, waited a moment, and tried again.

She raised her hand slightly, and rested it on her chest as she stared into the two pools of green in front of her. “Veronica,” she said in a hoarse whisper.

After a few moments struggling to mimic Veronica’s actions, the boy finally spoke in a strained whisper, “Chad.” He smiled awkwardly, trying to mask the pain shooting through his throat and chest.

They sat in silence for the next few moments trying to decide what else to say. Though she had a dozen questions for Chad, Veronica didn’t want to alert anyone outside the room of their consciousness. Chad would be the first to break the interminable silence.

“I like your hair,” he whispered. A wry smile crossed his lips. “What’s phase two?”

Veronica shrugged. “I was hoping you knew.” She smiled and bowed her head slightly, preemptively embarrassed about her next admission. “Your green eyes… they’re so interesting.” She felt awkward and inadequate. Who complimented guys like that?

Chad didn’t miss a beat. “If you could be anywhere but here, where would you go?” He smiled warmly.

Veronica didn’t have to think about it. “My…well…Calvin’s loft. It’s been the only place I’ve felt safe for as long as I can remember.” Veronica explained her brief and destructive history to Chad before inquiring about how he ended up in hell along with her.

“I lived in New Chicago with my mothers,” he said. “I’ve known all my life I was different.”

“Mothers?” Veronica asked.

“They’re together. That’s why I’m here. They wanted me to experience the happy, natural life they’d grown up knowing. They didn’t want the Central Government deciding who I’d be and who I’d marry or wouldn’t marry.” Chad coughed into his pillow. His throat felt increasingly irritated from the tube he extracted.

“I see,” she said. “Calvin had the same fears. He knew the government wanted him because he was black. He always taught me in lessons that the Central Government’s ultimate goal isn’t just repopulation, but something he calls optimal repopulation.”

“What’s that?” Chad asked.

“It means they pick and choose who they want to be a part of their country. Like no same sex couples, no ethnicities they disagree with…” Veronica shook her head. She’d never really believed Calvin until that moment. She’d always believed his stories were meant to scare her rather than prepare her for the world. “The doctors…”

Chad cocked his head sideways. “Yeah?”

“They said they’d administered both of those to us. Ethnicity and gender orientation. Calvin was right all along.” She felt naïve for doubting him.

“Well we’re already white and attracted to the opposite sex, so what does it matter?” Chad asked.

“It matters,” Veronica said solemnly. “What if someday when we have kids they want something different? How will these inoculations affect them?”

Chad smiled. “We’re already having kids, eh?”

Veronica blushed. “You know what I mean.”

“I get it, what they’re doing is wrong,” Chad said. “What can we do though?”

“We can learn as much as we can about it for now,” Veronica said. “No one thinks mere kids can change the world, and that’s their weakness.” She smiled.

“I think I’m going to like you a lot,” Chad said. “So what do we do?”

“We wait until they move us out of this room for starters,” she responded.

* * *

“This will be your room Veronica,” the woman in white said.

She’d escorted Veronica down a labyrinth of hallways until they reached another wing of the endless facility. Veronica tried to memorize the path, but after ten minutes of walking from the infirmary area (where they’d given her the final approval to join her new friends) to the living area, she’d lost track.

“Thank you,” Veronica said politely. She knew not to make waves just yet. “Will I be meeting anyone new today?”

“For starters, you’ll be meeting your suite mate in a moment when she returns from integration therapy,” the woman in white said pleasantly. She seemed delighted that Veronica was taking immediately to her new life.

“Excellent! What’s her name?” Veronica asked.

“Molly Smith,” she responded. “And her she is now!” The woman in white turned as echoes from Molly’s shoes announced her arrival.

Molly entered the room exasperated. Her thick blonde hair, pulled back away from her face with a hair tie, seemed as angry as her as it flipped back and forth with her erratic motions. She slammed a shoulder bag on her bed and looked up belatedly at the woman in white tapping her foot.

“Oh, Madam Crellar, I didn’t see you there,” Molly said. Her entire being shifted from irritable to polite seamlessly. “I apologize for my outburst. Therapy frustrated me today, and I was out of turn.”

Madam Crellar shook her head side to side disapprovingly. “Tsk tsk Molly, you know better. Please remember your calming exercises when you feel frustrated. Anger and disobedience are not very lady-like. No man wants to marry a bossy-body like that.” She turned her attention to Veronica. “I’d like you to meet your new suite mate. Veronica, this is Molly Smith. Molly, this is Veronica Smith.”

Veronica shook her head. “Quibs. My last name is Quibs.”

Molly interrupted, knowing what Madam Crellar would say already. “Everyone here is a Smith Veronica, get used to it. It’s their way of making us a family that has to work together rather than a sea of individuals.”

“Although crass, Molly is correct,” Madam Crellar said. “We believe individuality is a hindrance in the reintegration process Veronica. While here, you shall be known as Veronica Smith.”

Veronica nodded in affirmation. “I see. I apologize then.”

Molly rolled her eyes. “I see we have a winner here. She’ll be Phase Three before I even have a chance to hate her.”

“Young lady!” Madam Crellar squawked.

“It’s alright Madam,” Veronica said. “You can leave us to get to know one another. I’ll be fine.” Veronica waited for the woman to turn and walk to the door before she stuck her tongue out and made a face at the woman. Molly had to cover her mouth to prevent a cackle from bursting out.

“I see you and I are going to be fast friends Miss Quibs,” Molly said.

“Don’t you mean Smith?” Veronica asked jokingly.

“Molly Rhetts,” she said with an extended hand. “It’s a pleasure to meet another smart ass to complement me.”

“Is this hallway coed?” Veronica asked. “I have someone I need to find.”

“I wish,” Molly said. “We see the boys only in therapy when they reinforce healthy reproductive relationships. Outside that, you’ll be in girl heaven. Seems kind of ironic given their intentions, doesn’t it?” Molly laughed.

Veronica sighed. She hadn’t seen Chad for more than a week after they separated them that evening they finally talked for the first time. The labs confirmed their readiness for Phase Two, at which point they shuttled them through a litany of exercises in preparation for their new lives.

“So what do we do here then if we’re not learning to be good little wives every second of the day?” Veronica asked.

“Officially, we read the literature on how women should act, take classes on the things proper wives should know, and generally drink the Central Government juice and act like we’re part of the club,” Molly said.

“And in reality?” Veronica asked.

“We wait. We talk about our lives before this horrible place, we dream about escaping, and come up with new and inventive ways to trick the staff into thinking we’re excelling at the program so they don’t have us yanked.”

“What happens if they take you out of the program?” Veronica asked.

“No one knows for sure. You just disappear. Knowing what they did to most of our parents, it’s not too hard to guess,” Molly said gravely.

Veronica swallowed the thought and let it sit heavily on her stomach all evening.

* * *

“In today’s exercise, we’re going to role play a typical evening at home,” the group leader said. She wore a sky blue blouse, ankle-length flower patterned dress, and had her dirty blonde hair styled beyond comprehension. She looked like something out of a holo-movie where regular people suddenly changed into mindless walking zombies. “I think we’ll have Molly and Zachary take the first turn.”

Molly stood and walked to the center of the circle. “Oh Zachary, why are you always staying so late at work? You know how I worry about you!” She pressed the back of her right hand to her forehead, flung her head back, and heaved dramatically. “I’ve had dinner cooking all day for you! And the children are all simply starving!”

“A little less dramatics and a little more role play Molly,” the leader said. “Zachary?”

Zachary stood from his chair on the boys’ side of the circle and approached Molly. His blonde hair and blue eyes sparkled. He wore a blue button up shirt with a vest on the outside and brown corduroy trousers. “Sorry I had to work late dear,” he said.

“Good, good. Using terms of endearment shows affection. Continue,” the group leader said.

“How was your day?” Molly asked flatly.

Zachary truly seemed to like the exercise as he lost himself in a spiel about office politics, paperwork, and fake coworkers in his head he had to deal with. He spoke nearly non-stop for three minutes before Molly could respond.

“That’s fantastic. Uh huh, go on,” she said.

The group leader interrupted, “Molly, surely you can use more affirming words than ‘uh huh;’ let’s try that again.”

Molly sighed. “He just rambled for all that time and all you can do is criticize me?”

The leader shook her head disapprovingly. “Molly, this is how the real world works. Your husband some day is going to talk longer than that about his work, his life, and his problems. It’s your job as a woman to comfort him, have his children and raise them according to our glorious government’s edicts. It’s the only way we can continue to rebuild our population!”

Molly felt outraged. “Rebuild? Rebuild?! It’s been centuries since the Great War Madam. Surely GERA didn’t intend to make women into baby machines for this long!”

The group leader tugged at her collar uncomfortably. “It’s not our job to question the government Miss Smith. Our job as women is to ensure the repopulation of the species.”

“Fine!” Molly turned around and faced Zachary. His face had drained of all color with Molly’s interruption. “Are we going to reproduce now so I can have your babies Zachary? I’m ready to be patriotic if you are.” She smiled triumphantly.

“How about we move on to the next pairing,” the group leader said.

After therapy, Veronica and Molly walked down the hallway back toward their residence wing talking about everything but what was on their minds. Veronica had told Molly about her plans several times, and about Chad. Neither had seen Chad since Veronica left him in the hospital room so long ago. Veronica feared the worst.

Veronica and Molly planned this day for nearly two weeks, timing their walk and search times every day to and from therapy. They’d determined the best time to break into the office’s files was after therapy when everyone in the facility was free to roam before dinner. The staff all left the facility to eat on their own, leaving minimal security forces in the actual facility for supervision. Molly knew exactly how many guards they had to deal with, and Veronica knew when to expect them passing on each of their rounds.

They’d practiced every scenario at night, after lights out, curled into their single-occupancy beds whispering across the room to one another. They employed role playing as one acted like a guard and the other as herself, trying out possible answers and explanations if caught. They agreed if one was caught she’d do everything possible to save the other.

At the end of the second week of practice, they decided it was time to stop practicing and start acting. As they walked down the narrow hallway between the therapy rooms and the residence wing, they spoke about boys, life, and recipes while counting doors and watching every clock that passed to keep track of the time. They’d have exactly one hour to be back in their rooms before the night staff would be there to begin bed checks.

As they reached one of the facility nexus points – a hub of sorts – they broke from the laid out path and turned toward the administration office wing. Knowing cameras were everywhere, they walked fast and confidently, taking care to not look up at the cameras in case they messed up their timing in passing each one. Their goal was twofold: they wanted to know the ultimate goal of the facility, and also where the rejects went if they were deemed unredeemable through the program.

As they came upon a director’s office, Veronica tried the door and found it unlocked. “Score,” she whispered. “Come on.”

They entered the small office lobby containing a secretarial desk, two reception chairs, and a small door leading back to the director’s office. Molly took a seat at the receptionist’s desk to serve as look out while Veronica crept into the main office to boot the director’s terminal. Calvin spent five years teaching her everything he knew about terminal technology, hoping it would one day save her life. She felt immensely thankful for that training in the brief moments it took to crack the weak password on the director’s terminal login screen.

Veronica scanned through the obvious files on the surface of the terminal’s drive, finding a little information she could take back with her. It wasn’t until she dug into the facility intranet that she felt a chill surge down her spine. She searched around the desk for a storage drive she could use to copy the information; after five minutes, she came up empty. She knew she’d have to come back for this… the information was too important to just read and relay second hand. It told a terrible story.

Before she had a chance to scan the rest of the information, she heard voices in the reception area, then screaming. Specifically, she heard Molly screaming. Apparently the director forgot something and came back to his office for it, and found Molly sitting at his receptionist’s desk doodling on stationary.

Veronica had to think fast. She looked around; nowhere she looked would provide a place to hide if someone walked into the room. The only option she saw was the window behind her. If she climbed out though, she knew they’d eventually catch her. There’d be no way she could sneak back into the facility undetected.

The screaming in the front stopped abruptly. She had to make a decision. Veronica turned, opened the window, and looked out. She was on the third floor – too far up to jump down, and too far from the top floor to climb to the roof. She took a deep breath, climbed out onto the narrow ledge, and closed the window behind her. She slowly slid down the ledge, bending her legs slowly so she didn’t lose her balance. With a quick motion, she kicked out her feet and landed firmly on her butt, keeping a grip on the ledge with both hands to steady her.

She waited, peering into the window periodically. She told herself she’d wait five minutes and in that time if no one entered the office, she’d go back in and make her way to her room. If they didn’t check the office within five minutes, she figured, they probably wouldn’t at all.

The salty air bit at her face. The breeze turned her cheeks rosy red and her warm breath visibly filled the cold air around her each time she exhaled. Veronica realized she wasn’t anywhere near Las Vegas anymore … she was north, but still near the ocean. The familiar taste as she inhaled kept her thoughts centered as she focused on trying to figure out where she was rather than what would happen if they considered her one of the program rejects.

In her head Veronica counted slowly trying to wait a full five minutes. Around her the night began overtaking the sky, conspiring with the shadows to quell the light. Inside, in the director’s office, darkness remained and never gave way to light from the reception area. Whatever Molly did to distract them, it seemed to be working.

When her hands began trembling from the cold, Veronica decided she couldn’t stay outside any longer. She lifted the window quietly, slipped inside, and waited a moment while her extremities returned to room temperature. As she listened to the reception area with a hand cupped against the door, only silence seemed to remain. Either they were waiting for her, or they were gone. Given Molly’s boisterous nature, Veronica doubted she had to worry about opening the door.

Veronica opened the door, looked around at the dark outer office area, and breathed a sigh of relief. Now all she had to do was make it back to her room undetected. She looked at the time to make sure she wouldn’t run into a guard making a round in that wing, felt confident she could make it back in the five minute window she had before the next guard came, and took off at a slow jog down the hallway.

Two minutes later she entered her residence hallway. Since it was already filling up with girls leaving dinner, she slowed her pace and took a moment to catch her breath. She blended in now and no one would know the wiser if she strolled instead of power walked. All she could do was pray Molly came back to the room.

As she turned the corner into her room, Veronica saw a shell of the girl she considered her friend. Molly lay on her bed, staring off into a drug induced haze. Beside her sat Madam Crellar. Veronica put on the most surprised face she could muster, which wasn’t difficult given the scene. “What’s going on?”

“Molly got into a spot of trouble this evening, so we’ve sedated her for her own good. She may need to regress back to a hospital room for a bit after this last outburst. She’s making these disruptions as a plea for help,” she said. “Have you noticed her acting out too?”

Veronica frowned. Madam Crellar wanted her as a co-conspirator. “She’s always friendly with me Madam.”

“Very well. Now that you’re here I’ll leave her. Please keep an eye on her this evening Veronica, and contact me if anything happens.” Madam Crellar stood and patted Veronica on the shoulder as if they’d worked together.

“Yes Madam,” Veronica responded.

Veronica sat next to Molly, kept watch over her until lights out, and then finally retreated to her own bed. She had a lot to mull over. All the conflicting emotions inside her felt confusing and deafening. While she was angry at what they’d done to Molly, she was also terrified they’d do the same to her if they found out what she knew. She’d found out where Chad was, why he was there, and that she had a limited window to do something about it or say goodbye. Either way she’d need Molly’s help; at the moment though Molly didn’t seem to be able to sit up, let alone sneak out of their room in the middle of the night on a mission to the other residence wings. Veronica lay in her bed thinking of what to do, dozing off sometime later after deciding any sneaking would have to happen the next night when Molly recovered.

When she woke the next morning, Veronica rolled over to say good morning to Molly and ask how she was feeling. When the vacant fully-made bed came into her line of vision though, Veronica felt a tiny clamp seize her chest, squeezing tightly as panic rose. She pushed the sandpaper sheets and flimsy cotton blanket back, hastily made her bed, and rushed into the hallway to find the nearest adult. Someone had to have answers.

Veronica had to wander all the way down to a monitoring station two hallways over before she found someone – an event she’d consider a blessing any other time.

“Where’s my suite mate Molly? She’s not in her bed and she was sedated last night. I’m worried about her,” Veronica said. The raw emotion in her voice felt palpable.

The woman seated behind the curved counter scanned her terminal screen, scrolled through logs and correspondence, and responded, “Looks like she had problems overnight. They took her into the medical ward for examination.”

“Can I see her?” Veronica asked.

“I’m afraid not. It’s in a restricted area,” the woman responded unenthusiastically.

Veronica walked away from the counter without further protest, heading slowly back toward her room. She knew the woman lied – it was a plain as day Molly would’ve been fine by morning. They took Molly, and she had no way of getting to her. The tiny clamp began squeezing tighter, pushing her heart rate up and making acid rise in her throat. Veronica felt helpless, and didn’t know what to do next.

As she reached the first hallway interchange, Veronica made a decision. Molly went to bat for her and quite possibly spared Veronica a similar fate. Veronica couldn’t sit back and let her friend be hidden away in some kind of medical prison. She knew then and there what she had to do. Veronica continued walking toward her hallway confidently and quickly and stopped at the first hallway fork. Rather than take the right fork leading eventually to her own residence hallway, she turned left and kept an eye out for staff and guards. Taking advantage of the early morning absence of most everyone, Veronica moved quickly through the beige maze toward the male wing – and toward Chad.

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