The Radical Chronicles

Chapter 4

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“Most existing Radical Government officials have origins in the Reclamation Program. Virtually every major figurehead’s family has roots tracing back to that era. These distant relatives are the ancestors that began the revolution with baby steps.”

Radical Archive – excerpt from the Reclamation Program history

Sweat rolled down Veronica’s face like condensation on a windowpane. As cool as she tried to play it, Veronica knew running into an authority figure would end her quest to save Chad and Molly. The bright florescent lights seemed harsher in the early morning stillness, illuminating the cracks in the beige wall paint and the worn floors below her. Veronica knew she represented only one of countless kids trapped in this building, and inevitably wouldn’t be the last.

Though she’d just read and memorized Chad’s location the previous evening, sleep and anxiety seemed to be preventing Veronica from recalling his exact location in detail. She knew she had two more hubs between her and his location to bypass, and all she could think of was Molly… her smile, their friendship, and the lost face Veronica saw the previous evening upon arriving back at their room.

While she ran, Veronica tried to calm herself down by remembering a happy moment… a shared instant she could focus on between Molly and her that would get her past the hub quietly and safely. She focused on the first evening in the facility – a night that seemed like a life time ago. After Madam Crellar left them, Molly and she talked while they discussed who slept where and whose desk was whose in their tiny room.

“I hope you’re not a snorer,” Molly said with a crinkled nose.

“I don’t know,” Veronica responded. “I guess you’ll find out tonight.” She smiled.

“So what’re you in for?” Molly jumped up onto her bed, grabbed the slate-thin pillow, and cradled it against her chest in anticipation of the story. This was always her favorite part of meeting new residents.

Veronica mimicked Molly’s actions and hopped up onto her own bed and faced Molly. She pulled the thin green blanket around her shoulders and kicked off her slippers onto the cold tile floor. “I was naturally born, living with a guy that wasn’t my parents, and he wasn’t the ‘right ethnicity’ according to the Central Government. In a nutshell…” She laughed. “And you?”

“My parents’ inoculations didn’t take, and then mine didn’t either after they tried to hide their status by making me normal.”

“You mean your parents got you inoculated as a baby?” Veronica asked.

“Before that, when I was still in the womb,” Molly said. “I began showing signs of inoculation immunity around two or three cycles ago. That’s when we all moved out of the city.”

Veronica nodded. “My parents did the same. They moved into a colony north of Las Vegas to raise me safely… but I never had inoculations. Well, not until now.”

“You’re from Kaisatch Colony?” Molly asked.

“Yeah, you know it?” Veronica asked with a hint of excitement. No one she’d ever mentioned the name to had ever heard of it.

“I lived there!” Molly said a sconce too loud. “Oh my God, we were totally neighbors!”

“That’s so exciting!” Veronica said as she jumped out of bed to join Molly on her bed. “Where did you live?”

“On the east side by the fruit and veggie market place. You?”

Veronica had to think about it a moment. She hadn’t been there in so long the colony seemed like a dream. “I think it was somewhere near the center of town. I remember walking outside my door and seeing the bus the day we went to the rally in Las Vegas.”

“You were at the riots?!” Molly asked. She placed a hand over her mouth as she realized what that meant. “I’m so sorry Veronica!” She reached out and hugged her new friend.

“It’s okay, it’s been a while. I was there for the protests, and lost my parents. And I met Calvin that day… the guy who taught me everything I know about surviving on the run.” Veronica smiled hesitantly, afraid of what became of him.

“My parents stayed home that day thankfully. They feared the worst, and rightfully so. It didn’t stop the Central Government though. After they finished in the city, they came for the colonies,” Molly said gravely. “They arrived in big trucks and wore gray uniforms.”

Veronica shook her head. “You mean they came to Kaisatch Colony?” She couldn’t believe what she was hearing.

“They didn’t just come; they burned the colony down. Anyone who tried to escape died. Those who went willingly were taken away in the big trucks. All the kids were taken to different trucks, and we arrived here a day later,” Molly said. She looked off into the distance remembering the day vividly in her mind while she described the scene. “I remember corn stalks… burning corn stalks. The market by my house blazed after they began setting fire to the colony, and we were still hiding in the fallout basement of our flat.”

“That’s horrible!” Veronica said. “How’d they find you?” she asked.

“It was my fault. I wouldn’t stop crying. It was so long ago! I was young!” Molly shook her head as tears formed in the corners of her eyes. “It was all my fault they found us.”

“We were both too young to know any better Molly,” Veronica said. “And hey, we’re both still alive.”

“My parents aren’t though,” Molly said in a whisper. “They dragged me out by the collar of my shirt. I scraped my knees on the dirt and all I could smell was the burning corn all around me. It still stings in my nose if I think about it enough.”

“They can’t do this to innocent people,” Veronica said. “We’re going to stop them.”

“How?” Molly asked as she wiped her eyes. “What can we possibly do from in here?”

“We can find out what happened to everyone, and get out alive. Are you in?” Veronica held out her hand to Molly.

Molly smiled, took Veronica’s hand into her own and shook it. “I’m in.”

Veronica stopped just before the first monitoring station, crouched down, and began crawling. If she stayed close enough to the curved station built into the wall, they wouldn’t be able to see her – whether they were looking over the counter or on their security monitors. The cold tile floor numbed her palms and arms as she slowly pushed her way past, listening for conversation above her.

Stray strands of wavy red hair continually attempted to make Veronica stop to readjust her hair, scratch her nose, and generally make her feel frustrated. Sweat dribbled down from her temples, diving off her forehead furiously. She stopped momentarily, pressed her back against the curved station wall just below the counter, and wiped her face. After pulling her obstinate hair back for the umpteenth time, Veronica wiped the remaining sweat and grime on her white tunic top and pushed forward past the station. With the corner ahead in sight, she focused her mind on another moment in the not-so-distant past to keep her mind and body calm while she navigated the silent hallway.

In her mind, Veronica turned back time a week to integration therapy where Molly began introducing her to others she’d get along with well. After getting to know one another for a few days, Molly finally felt secure enough with Veronica’s story and past, enough so that she didn’t believe Veronica was a spy, so she opened up her inner circle. Before therapy began, she approached a small group of boys and girls speaking in hushed tones near the rear of the room, by the vegetable and punch table.

“Veronica, I’d like you to meet the rest of the misfits,” Molly said. She nodded to her friends. “Everyone, this is Veronica.”

“Hi,” Veronica said shyly. She bent her head slightly down out of momentary shyness as her cheeks reddened to match her hair.

“This is Alex,” Molly said. “He’s all the way from the other side of the country…from St. Louis.”

“How’d you end up here?” Veronica asked.

“My parents were on vacation in Seattle,” he said. His scruffy brown hair matched his dark brown eyes, as well as the freckles on his nose and cheeks. He stood nearly a head taller than Veronica, and seemed to weigh nothing since he looked like a giant beanstalk.

“They took you while you were on vacation? That’s awful!” Veronica said. “Weren’t your parents afraid of getting caught while traveling?”

“Not at all. I had no idea I was even a part of all of this until the men in gray showed up at our hotel. My parents went to great lengths to forge my identity apparently,” he said.

Molly interrupted, “Jenny and Sylvia have similar stories too.” She nodded toward the two similar looking girls to Alex’s left. They had straight, stringy brown hair, and were slightly overweight. Each wore matching floral tunics that appeared to be from the same stock the rest of the girls in the building had to wear – only these seemed to have a little more life in them since they weren’t plain white.

“I know, we stand out,” Jenny said. The older and bolder of the two, she was accustomed to speaking for her sister. “We’re nearly phase three, so we get privileges.”

“What’s phase three?” Veronica asked.

“We think it’s supervised living outside the facility in a community setting with foster parents,” Sylvia said. She smiled timidly from behind brown bangs that seemed to blanket her face each time she moved.

“We’ve been doubling our efforts lately to get out of here so we can have some hope of escape some day. It’s the only way we’ve found of getting out of here in one piece,” Jenny added.

“How long have you been here?” Veronica asked.

“Since we were four and six,” Jenny said. “So we’ve been here nearly ten cycles ‘learning’ how to be proper ladies,” she said with a sneer.

“I learned all my bad habits from these ladies,” Molly said through a hearty laugh. “And last, but certainly not least, is the eldest of our little ragtag group of misfits. Veronica, this is Corey…otherwise known as Corrina among our small group.” Corey stood tall, thin, and immaculate. His head gleamed with a fresh shave and shine, his face seemed too smooth for someone that was supposed to be in his mid-to-late teens. His eyes stood out more so than any other feature on his face. Veronica would later learn from Molly that Corey kept a hidden supply of eyeliner in his room tucked beneath a broken tile under his bed.

As she held out her hand to shake Corey’s, only he grabbed her hand, knelt, kissed her hand and dramatically lunged back in a smooth, fluid movement that would’ve seemed practiced had it not come so naturally. He placed his right hand on his slightly exposed shaved and polished ebony chest – only visible since he seemed to be wearing a modified girl’s tunic with the sleeves cut off and the bottom tucked into his pants. He let out a small gasp and set about showing his friends exactly how he handled new friends.

“Why my my my, little Miss Veronica. You’re the first red-headed beauty this place has seen in cycles! And I should know, I’ve been here most of my life!” He snapped his left finger in pace with his speech. “It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance. Miss Molly here tells us you’re quite the firecracker. It’ll be nice to have new blood around here. Plus, I’ll have another friend to steal clothes from!” His face lit up as eyebrows raised and teeth gleamed in the fluorescent light.

Veronica smiled. “I think you and I may have the same size, so we can work something out.”

Molly pushed past Corey. “If you’re finished with your performance, I need some punch before this fiasco starts. I swear, they put me on the spot every week at this session.”

Corey laughed. “Darlin’, it’s because you let them. Don’t be such a loud mouth push over and they won’t push as hard. Take me, for instance. I only dress inappropriately two or three days a week… and I don’t even do full make up anymore. It’s like this place might actually be making a real boy out of me!” He paused a moment as the group looked at him with barely-held smiles. “Oh whatever bitches, you know I’m the most fab girl in this place, boy or otherwise.”

“Did they take you from your parents?” Veronica asked Corey.

“No, my parents gave me to them, willingly.” He looked off to the corner, feigned spitting, and turned back to Veronica. “These divine friends of mine are the only family I have now. Isn’t that right darlings?” He pulled Jenny and Sylvia in for a hug, not getting to Alex before he took a large step back.

“I’m sorry,” Veronica responded. “I didn’t know…”

“How could you have known?” he said with a large, genuine smile. “Now get over here and hug me before they make us all sit down for this dreadful meeting.”

Veronica refocused on the present when she heard footsteps approaching from behind. The steady click-clack vibrations steadily becoming louder told Veronica two things: the person was a female wearing high-heeled shoes, and the person was not a nurse or guard since both would prefer flats over heels for working. She looked around for a place to hide but didn’t know the hallway at all. The doors all seemed to be unlabeled and for all she knew, they could be occupied offices. She’d already strayed too far from her own residence hallway to play it off as mistaken location.

The click-clack drew closer while Veronica stood frozen against the wall only paces from the corner where she would need to make a left. She knew she had to make a choice – the sound felt so close now, she could feel the vibrations even in the walls as she leaned into the flaking beige monotony. Throwing caution to the wind, Veronica decided to keep moving forward rather than hiding. She slid smoothly and quietly down the deserted hallway, making a left at the T-junction and continuing on toward the second and final hub standing between her and Chad.

Fear and adrenaline surged through Veronica’s body so much, she nearly forgot to check camera positions as she moved quickly down each hallway. Though she could no longer hear the ominous click-clack behind her, Veronica still worried. She wasn’t sure if she couldn’t hear the sound because the person veered off another direction, or because all she could hear was her heart pounding in her throat and ears. Veronica stopped just short of the second junction to catch her breath. She clung to the dingy wall, slumped down, and closed her eyes to will herself back into silence.

In her mind, she went back to the moment a few days prior where she met her new friends. The integration therapy meeting had gone as planned, and the room had begun to disperse when Veronica heard Corey burst into argument on the other side of the room. Veronica turned her head toward the sound and saw Molly and Corey arguing over something intensely. She moved closer to them, somehow knowing the topic of conversation involved the plan to break into Reclamation offices.

“You’re freakin’ crazy girl, they’ll catch you!” Corey said with arms flailing.

“So? Who cares? I’m SO tired of this place!” Molly said with a forced sigh.

“I care! I care a lot thank you very much. You know what would happen if they caught you,” he said. “You’d regress.”

“And then, after a little chemical therapy and some great shut eye, I’ll be back here like nothing ever happened,” Molly said. “Just like last time you went back.”

“I was lucky. They think there’s still hope of perfecting the post-birth sexual orientation gene therapy, and I make the ideal guinea pig.” Corey placed his hands on his hips. “And tell me, what makes you a great guinea pig Miss Molly?”

Molly’s face began turning red with anger as she stood silently glaring at Corey. Instead of responding, she marched past him, pushing him aside to get to Veronica. Veronica knew Molly caught her eavesdropping, so she made no attempt at feigning innocent.

“We don’t have to…” Veronica began.

Molly interrupted, “No, we’re doing this. We start doing dry runs today.”

Veronica glanced briefly over at Corey. He wore a concerned expression on his face, almost ancient and knowing in quality. Veronica stood wondering how much he knew about the facility, and how much he’d be willing to talk about. At seventeen, he had to be one of the oldest patients in the Reclamation Program, and because of that had to have some kind of insight into the system.

Veronica focused on Corey’s calm, calculated face as she pushed past the second monitoring station. Corey managed to survive this place for more than ten cycles, so she could make it through a simple bout of mischief.

She moved more swiftly through the second monitoring junction since (unlike the other) this station seemed to be teeming with noise and commotion. Communications transmitters buzzed and chimed, voices boomed over the transmitters, and somewhere in the background a television terminal squawked. Veronica could barely make out voices on the television – something to do with a local news broadcast.

She used the ample distractions and slid her wiry body past the station and into the last hallway she’d have to traverse to get to Chad. He was in a lower section of the building (a section the intranet called ‘the cellar’) accessible by a door toward the end of that hallway. Ludicrous thoughts flowed through her head so fast she had trouble focusing on just one idea. Images of Chad, Molly, her new found friends, Calvin, her parents, and the disapproving face Madam Crellar used to intimidate naughty children all circled in a confusing whirlpool as she nearly jogged down the hallway. Was she really doing this? Was she really about to risk her well-being without knowing if Chad was actually in the cellar?

Her body seemed to answer the question for her as her right hand reached out involuntarily and pressed the button that opened the door. It silently slid open, revealing a dimly lit stairwell circling downward. Veronica briefly looked back at the direction she’d come, a twinge of worry still hovering over her impetuous decision, and then turned her attention back toward the stairs in front of her. Placing one hand inside the door to steady herself, she plunged forward into the cellar entrance, descending quickly as she kept a hand firmly planted on the dusty red bricks forming the walls on either side of her body.

The air in the tunnel felt different. Whereas the hallways of the facility dried the skin and barely carried odor, humidity seemed to permeate the tunnel the further Veronica descended, and the odor of fungus and machine oil assaulted her nose. As she reached the bottom of the winding brick stairwell, Veronica saw what appeared to be another lengthy hallway – only not as well kept as the upper facility hallways. The floor wasn’t tiled; rather, damp, unwashed cement seemed to span as far as she could see. The beige walls from upstairs gave way to steel and brick mesh with intermingling rust and water spots downstairs. The doors stood out the most though – rather than simple push-button entries like upstairs, these doors had levers. Also, they were metal of some sort, had little windows at the top with jail-style bars, and seemed dark on the inside from a distance.

Veronica walked away from the stairwell into the wide hallway and stood on her toes to try to see into the first room. Although she could almost see through the window, Veronica wasn’t quite tall enough to get a good look. Instead, she tried the door lever. It swung down easily, the door opened outward, and she glanced inside. The barely lit room had a boy around her age lying in single bed in the center of the room. His arms and legs had restraints attached to them, holding him down to the bed. When she kept the door open for a few additional moments scanning the room, he raised his head.

“Hello?” he asked. “Nurse?”

Veronica hadn’t expected him to be awake, and jumped at the sound of his voice. After taking a moment to compose herself, Veronica responded, “I’m Veronica.”

“You shouldn’t be down here,” he said.

“I know.”

“Can you help me?” he asked. His voice pleaded more in tone than it did in actual words.

Veronica looked on the other side of the door to be sure she could get out once she entered. The door lever on the inner side of the door seemed to function just as well as the outside, so she entered the room and walked over to the small bed. The room contained sparse furnishings; other than the bed, a small desk to the side had a terminal and medical tablet plugged into it to charge. A Spartan metal chair sat off to the side of the desk, presumably for the staff when they needed to sit and make medical notes. The walls were covered in water stains and the two light fixtures affixed to the walls on either side of the room had layers of dust so thick, light seemed to have difficulty penetrating the surface to illuminate the room.

“Why are you down here?” Veronica asked.

“Reintegration reject,” he said coldly. “Why are you down here?” he asked.

“My friend Chad is supposed to be down here,” she responded. “I’m rescuing him.”

“And where will you take him?” the boy asked. “He can’t stay in the facility. They’ll lock him up down here again as soon as they catch him, and the experiments will resume.”

Veronica’s mouth dropped open. “Experiments?” She hadn’t read this on the intranet.

“How do you think they perfect all of their inoculations?” he asked cynically.

Veronica shook her head quietly. Maybe Molly was right all along – what could a handful of kids do to stop such willful and unrelenting evil? She began unbuckling the restraints beginning with his hands so he could assist in removing the ankle restraints afterward. She hoped, with his help, they could locate Chad and from there they could find Molly together.

Veronica began working on the second restraint when she heard muffled conversation coming from somewhere outside the room. She couldn’t tell how close it was – the walls seemed to distort distance and volume. She froze, unsure of what to do.

“Put my restraints back on, now!” the boy said in an urgent whisper. “They do bed checks every morning and if they see you here, we’re both in trouble!”

Veronica nodded and began reversing the process she’d so carefully begun a moment earlier. When she finished tying his hands back down to the bed frame, she looked around for a place to hide.

Following her eyes, the boy said, “Under the bed. It sits low enough where they won’t see you unless they bend over.”

Veronica reached out, squeezed the boy’s hand as a thank you, smiled, and bent down onto her knees. After flattening her body out on her stomach, she pushed herself inch by inch under the bed (which was indeed situated almost completely on the ground). She had to lay her head down sideways on the damp cement floor just to complete the process. The voices drew nearer. Just outside the door, they almost boomed as the sound echoed slightly off the walls.

“…patient Krane. As you’ll see, the immune response is an oddity. At first it appeared as if his body accepted the treatment, but now it’s nowhere to be found in his system.” The feminine voice sounded familiar to Veronica.

The door opened and Veronica peered over at two sets of shoes walking into the room. For the moment, they didn’t seem to see anything out of place, which boded well.

“Have you administered the trial serum to this batch of subjects yet?” a man asked.

“Not yet doctor. We’ll be setting up a series of inoculations today since we have a full house to work with after the new admission last night,” she said.

“Ah yes, the girl,” he said. “I heard she broke into Ben’s office yesterday.”

“Thankfully we got to her before she caused any real damage,” the woman said.

“What about her suite mate…the red head. Was she involved?”

“Not that we could find,” she responded. “We’re keeping a closer eye on her now though since the incident. Who knows how much environment plays in the process at their age.”

“Good idea. Now tell me more about this patient,” he said.

“Sixteen, male, originally from the Texas territories. His parents had genetic immunity to the entire B-series, but somehow managed to live among the populace unnoticed. When we brought him in, we administered the entire spectrum and it took on the first round,” she said.

“So what went wrong?” he asked.

“We don’t know. He’s been phase three for a year, and was phase two for a standard five years prior to that. It’s like he just woke up one day and the inoculations weren’t there,” she said.

“Are there any others?” he asked.

“Several. I’ll point them out along the rounds. Shall we proceed doctor?” she said.

After the door closed, Veronica waited until she counted to fifty before she slid out from under the bed. Her white tunic top had long ago ceased being dry and white; now it had a collection of sweat, grime, dirt, and dust swirled into different patterns thanks to her hands and the cement floor. At the moment though, that seemed to be the least of her worries. When she stood, Veronica could feel the boy’s eyes honing in on her before she looked over at his worried face.

“They were talking about you, weren’t they?” he asked.

“Yes,” Veronica said. “My suite mate and I broke into an office to steal information about the facility, and they caught her.”

“So that’s why you’re risking your neck then,” he said. “That’s brave for someone your age.”

“My age?” she said indignantly.

“Well you can’t be much older than twelve or thirteen,” he said smiling.

Veronica huffed, flipped back the wavy red bangs that escaped her hair tie, and went to work unclasping his restraints. “I’m Veronica by the way.”

“Benjamin,” he responded. “And thank you for helping me even though you don’t have to.”

“I’m not doing this for free,” she said. “You’re going to help me rescue my friends.” Veronica finished unclasping the final buckle on Benjamin’s right ankle, stood back and waited for him to sit up and gather his bearings.

“I suppose you’re right,” Benjamin said. “But we have to wait for the doctors to finish rounds. Also, we’re not just going to spring your friends.”

“Oh?” Veronica said.

“We’re getting everyone on this level out. I couldn’t live with myself if we left someone here for them to experiment with.”

“Do you have some kind of plan to do this? There are a lot of doors out there, which means a lot of people to get out,” Veronica said.

“I have an idea, but I’m sure we can make it into a plan since we have to sit here and wait for them to finish rounds,” he said.

Veronica motioned for Benjamin to make room for her on the bed. She hopped up onto the rough sheets, kept an eye aimed at the door, and waited for Benjamin to begin explaining.

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