Chapter I
It began a day like any other. Alarm goes off at 6:30, roll out of bed at 6:50, get dressed around 6:55, eat a rushed breakfast around 7:00, and get in the carpool at 7:05. We roll up at school around 7:35, and I get dropped off at the Administration Building while the rest of my carpool rides to the Middle School. I walk past the Admin Building and I enter the Upper School. I join my fellow freshmen in the hallway, waiting for classrooms to open and classes to start. I hang out with my group of around 10 friends. Myself, Katie, Stuart, Jessica, Alex, Rachel, Lincoln, Bharat, Kate, Maneesha, and Ian. As the time becomes 7:58, I tell everybody good-bye, hug Katie, and head off to my first class with Jessica and Maneesha. I arrived in the classroom and sat next to Aron and Izhan. World Literature is not normally an exciting topic (at least to me), but today was more interesting. It started off with Ms. Eason (our teacher) splitting us into two groups and explaining to us that we were going to do a debate on whether the main character in the Odyssey (Odysseus), was morally justified in his actions against the suitors that were invading his house. My group had to argue that Odysseus was not morally justified, which was contradictory to what we had been learning in the class as a whole. To further stack the odds against us, most of the kids who were in Debate were in the other group. We were given the rest of the class to prepare for the debate, which was to take place the following day. At the end of class, we felt that we had accomplished almost nothing, and were dreading the debate. As we were packing up our bags to leave, Ms. Eason called out to the class "I need to see Jack, Jessica, and Maneesha". Everyone turned and looked at us three. I muttered to Aron "what did I do this time?" He just shook his head and laughed. As the rest of the class filed out, the three of us went over to her desk and waited. After what seemed like an eternity, she looked up at us. Her face was not full of anger or disappointment, but rather sorrow and regret, as if she was about to drop some really bad news on us. I held my breath, waiting for the coming words.
"You all know about the underground war, right?" she asked.
We all shook our heads with confused looks on our faces.
"Well," she continued, "long story short, a group called 'THEM' rose up and used force to condemn the Obama administration and his presidency. As a small group, it would have been nothing. It should have been nothing. Only, it wasn't. Many people from all around the nation joined THEM. Soon, the feds had trouble suppressing the revolution. After a long, hard battle, they caved in and THEM won. As of 1:00 today, the feds surrender and hand over control to THEM."
All three of us stand there in shock. I finally get my mouth open to ask "Get ready for the understatement of the century. That sucks."
Maneesha jumps in with "Wait…so what does that have to do with us?"
"Well, it isn't really just you three that this has to do with," she told us, "but rather your whole group of friends…and a few others."
"Which others?" Maneesha asks.
"Sindhoor, Meg, Pauline, and Gretchen" came her reply. "As you know, Gretchen lives in New Jersey but is home for the week. Meg and Pauline we have already moved to the safe zone. The rest of you will have to fight your way out, however. At precisely 1:00, when the surrender is signed, everybody excluding your 'group', as you like to call it, will suffer from a drug, NaTIVe-886, that the government administered shortly before the war started. It was put into routine checkups as a vaccine, but its true nature is that of a disease. The only people that are not affected are the rebels and you all. That is why we refer to the immunes as 'revolutionaries', or 'revs', for short."
Jessica then pipes up, "Does the rest of the group know about this?"
Ms. Eason answered "Yes, the other teachers are informing them now. You will all be at your lunch spot in the corner between the FC (Fitness Center) and the cafeteria, right?"
"Yes" came our unanimous reply.
"Good." she said. "As I said before, you will need to fight your way out. There are several PDW's in the FC. To be precise, they are located in the Athletic Director's office. Just ask him where the softball equipment is, and he'll show you. Now go, quickly, before the kids in your next classes get suspicious!"
At that, we hurried from the classroom. I sprinted from the classroom out the door, through the stairwell, outside, and burst into the SEA (Student Education Annex) lobby to a crowd of juniors during one of their free periods. I walked quickly past them and down the long hallway to my Chinese class. Thankfully, Aron had already explained that I had gotten out of class late to the teacher (Ms. Li), and I was able to join the class without too much deviation. Since it was a Monday, we didn't really do much except for review vocabulary and characters for the quiz that was scheduled for Tuesday. Then, at 9:40, we were released for our 15-minute break between B and C block. I made my way back to the Upper School and went to the group's usual meeting spot in the corner between some lockers. Once we had all gotten there, Stuart told us that we all needed to go to Mr. Noland's room, which happened to be my next class anyways. We walked as a group up the stairs and into the senior hall. We entered his room and he immediately rose to greet us. Before he managed to say anything, however, Bharat launched the question of "Where and what exactly is the 'safe zone'?"
"You will figure that out soon enough," was Mr. Noland's reply. "Have any of you heard the term 'Panchaea' before?"
Only Bharat and I nodded. Everyone else shook their heads.
"Basically, it's a self-sustaining arctic base that we've been working on for the past 14 years. It is the safest place that we could think of for the revs. In other words, it's the safe zone for you all. The only issue is getting to it."
Right then, Ian interjected with "Wait, so how are we supposed to get out of here, let alone get to this 'Panchaea'?"
Mr. Noland replied with "The weapons that you will need you should have been informed of already. You can stage your resistance from your corner. As to how to escape the premises, there is a car that you can take. Jack, Katie, I take it you remember Coach Cherre's joke about you two wanting her car keys?"
Our faces turned slightly pink as we answered "Yeah."
"Well," Mr. Noland continued, "you should have taken them. That's the car you will need to escape. When lunch starts, one of you needs to go to her office in the SEA and get her keys. The rest of you need to get the PDW's from the FC. You will have exactly half an hour to do all this."
"I hardly think that we'll be able to simply drive away from all this," Ian pointed out, "Especially in a 5-seater car like the Aztek. Hell, forget driving, how are we gonna fit in it?"
"You'll see." Mr. Noland replied with a grin. "Oh, and I take it that you all figured out by now that since Sindhoor is with you guys and Meg and Pauline are in the safe zone, you still need to rescue Gretchen. I'll leave that up to you all to figure out. Here's a hint; don't use the front door."
