Thanks guys for all the love! Chapters will be longer from now on, I promise. This is just to get into the story ;) Enjoy!
"You can't take this."
As predicted, the Officials search everyone's bag and Beca's is no exception. The entire search table is full with items from the other Chosen one's bags, little things like a flashlight, lighters, there's even a pair of shoes on there, which Beca doesn't even bother to wonder why that's on there.
"What do you mean, I can't? It was a gift from my little brother." Beca's glad she's got her leather jacket on as it's quite cold this early in the morning. On a normal day, she'd be out by seven-thirty as it's about a ten minute bike ride to the Factory and even though the machines aren't turned on until eight sharp, she liked to be early. That gives her time to prepare, clean up her work place and, maybe most importantly, watch the other people enter. Beca likes to observe people; get to know their routine, how many hours they make and what they do while working; chatting with people or minding their own business.
There was always one guy who came in minutes after her, every day. Like Beca, he went straight to his workplace and waited for the day to begin, but while Beca was observing him and the others, he would always lie his head down on the table in front of him, arms surrounding his head and eyes closed. The first few weeks, Beca thought it was just because he had to wake up early. He didn't make long days, sometimes only 5 or 6 hours. Now, years later, Beca still believes he's tired, but not the kind of tired that sleep can fix.
It's also still really dark, Beca notices as she searches the area for Chloe. Beca herself was the ninth to arrive, and she was already ten minutes late. She didn't expect Chloe to be later than herself, but now another ten have passed and Beca's mind starts to wonder if she'll even show up at all. Again, the flashes appear in front of her eyes of the guy being decapitated on the Town Square and suddenly her coat provides no more warmth to her body; those thoughts make her skin run cold.
"It's considered a weapon."
Beca turns her eyes back to the man and tries to argue, but he won't have any of it. "Look, sir. My little brother made this. Yes, I know it's made of wood, but he's locked in a bunker twenty-four seven with nothing to do. I found this piece after work one day, it was just lying on the ground. I told him it was his and he could make something of it. I was trying to prepare him for life in Second, you know, making things? We're not all as lucky to have a job that's searching people's bags."
"Are you calling me out?" The Official slams Beca's bag on the search table and faces her arms-crossed. Beca knows he's probably trying to be intimidating, but really, what's he gonna do? Send her to a toxic place where, if the air or lack of food and water won't kill her, the mutants with six arms will?
"Actually yes. Did you not understand that? I thought she made it pretty clear."
Beca recognizes the voice immediately, but it's not until Chloe's standing right next to her, that she can actually see her. She's wearing dark clothes, but her blue eyes light up the space around her. The darkness makes her hair look darker than it actually is and Beca thinks of how long it's been since she's seen this face from up close.
"Miss Beale, you're thirty minutes late."
"Actually, I'm twenty-eight minutes late, but I'll let it slide since I'm guessing you're not the smartest." Chloe throws her bag on the search table with a loud sigh, crossing her arms over her chest and giving the Official a look that says 'go on, then', eyebrows up high and her face slowly tilting.
Beca chuckles at the sassy remarks the girl's got and she can't help the smile forming on her face, not even the angry eyes of the man can curl them any less. The Official hands Beca her bag and she quickly takes it from his hands, glad that he left both her weapons is the bag. She joins the group as they await their ride. Beca's not surprised that they're being led into a bunker. Really, she already figured they'd have Second build them something that would be their ride. Although Beca expected something with wheels. She scans the object in front of her as she takes the last few steps of the stairs. It's quite a small vehicle, probably made just for the ten of them and the six Officials. Beca spots only one engine and she wonders how the thing works. It's got a big, what seems like rubber, skirt around it and there's a huge fan on the back of the vehicle which doesn't help her to figure out what kind of ride this is.
She asks one of the Officials about it, but he just tells her to 'get on board'. Beca does what her is told, mostly because she thinks she'll find more answers when she's actually on the vehicle. She goes to the fan first. She recognizes it from when it gets hot in the summer and they turn on fans like these in the Factory. Actually, it is just like those. Beca sees the mark on it ; an 'F' with a number two next to it, the official sign it is made in Second.
"Don't touch anything, Chosen."
Beca didn't even realize her finger was running over the mark, until the Official slapped her hand off of it. So Beca backs off and plans on checking out the engine when she hears it start. The engine sounds fine and there's not a single chug. She feels the vehicle move under her feet and she quickly makes her way over to the side, just in time to watch the rubber skirt turning into a band. She guesses the engine is connected to a propeller which blows up the rubber skirt, since it started filling up when the engine got turned on. She watches the big fan which is now also moving, spinning around fast as Beca feels the vehicle lose touch with the ground. She knows what this is.
"A damn hovercraft."
Beca turns around in shock at the voice coming from behind her. It's Chloe, hanging over the railing. Her eyes are focused on the air in front of her, and if it wasn't completely dark and you could see more than one inch in front of you, Beca would take a guess and say she's staring at the most beautiful thing to her.
"Yeah, it is." She chuckles. She doesn't bother asking her how Chloe knows. She lives in Second, too. She knows about industry and what is made here. And although Beca has never seen a hovercraft, the hints are all there and it doesn't take a genius to guess this is made especially for The Rebuild.
Beca's mind takes her back to when she was nine and she saw Chloe for the first time. It was when they just started up an education system for the kids of Second. The first three years, they were taught in one of the first bunkers. Back then, there were only three big bunkers in what's now called Second. They were made quickly after the outbreak to protect the people and when the infection was stopped, everyone lived in those bunkers. It took them more than two years until they had made bunkers for everyone. But even when everyone lived in the same space, they still had it better than any other City; they didn't have any bunkers and were forced to live outside with the danger of mutants, diseases or whatever else could be out there just waiting to attack them.
When everyone had their own bunker, the kids claimed one of the big bunkers as their school. But that lasted only a few months; the elite didn't want anyone to have a bigger bunker than anyone else. Everyone's should be the same size and they were very strict about that. When the bigger bunkers were destroyed, the few teachers Second had, decided to teach the kids at their own place. And when the English teacher married the woman who taught math, they had a bunker of their own again.
"It's kind of pretty, isn't it?"
Beca feels like the redhead is talking to no one in particular as her eyes stay focused on the sight in front of her, her voice unpitched as she easily breathes out the words. Beca can't help it; her eyes stay on Chloe and she doesn't know why.
"Yeah, guess it is." Beca answers, even though they are flying underground and you couldn't see your hand if you held it in front of your face. But maybe that's what the girl thinks is pretty; darkness. The unknown.
After some time, Beca counted a little over 26 minutes, Chloe mentions they should join the group. Beca tells her to go ahead, that she'll be 'right there', not sure if it's a lie or not. She doesn't wanna be around people right now. So she spends another 17 minutes by herself, staring into the darkness, until suddenly she'd spot some trees. She just figured her mind was tricking her, but then she hears people talking beneath her, and she wonders if they are really outside. Will they survive the air? Beca takes a deep breath, but it doesn't feel as heavy as the oxygen back in Second. Did they do it on purpose? Bringing them to The Rebuild when it's still dark so they won't be able to see? Did they do it on purpose? Flying partly underground so they can't find their way back? Beca's been thinking of escaping ever since they told her she was chosen, but she didn't actually think she could.
Beca hears voices again, louder this time, which leads Beca to believe they are not far off the ground. She wonders how far as she tries to make out words in the noises, wonders that if she can make out words, what that would mean; low enough to jump? She wonders if she can tell the difference between the sounds, wonders if she can tell the difference between what would be high enough to break her bones or what would kill her.
When she gets tired of thinking, she decides to join the group anyway. Still unsure of what to expect at The Rebuild, she takes a guess it's never a bad thing to get to know the rest of the people that are gonna be wondering around there. The group is sitting in a circle in the middle of the hovercraft, some have their legs folded underneath their body, others have them stretched out. Beca recognizes a boy; he has his legs stretched out, his hand rubbing over his knee while telling jokes. Beca can already tell he must be the clown of the club as he's way too present. He's not a very tall guy, maybe just over 5"4, and he has dark blond hair. She knows this boy. Well, doesn't know him, but recognizes him. He works in the Factory and usually arrives when most of the people do; a few minutes before the machines start up. She doesn't know his name, but she knows a few months back, she saw him with crutches. Beca assumes he made them himself, because she recognized leftover parts; parts that they can't use anymore in the Factory and the workers can take with them.
Beca stays standing in the back and watches, observes, as the rest of the Chosen group makes small talk and jokes about how they are all bald eagles right now. Beca doesn't think it's funny, though. But maybe that's because she knows a bit more than they do. To be honest, she doesn't think any of this is funny and she will never understand how these people, most of them around her own age, think there is anything to smile about when they have been forced to be here, go wherever. The two older people, Beca guesses are in their mid-forties, are also in the circle; a man and a woman. The man is throwing jokes around together with the younger guy, Knee Guy as Beca calls him in her head. The man is trying to be funny, but Beca finds most his jokes offensive. The woman is like half the Chosen group; only laughing at the bad jokes that are made.
Beca searches for the six Officials; three of them are in the small control room, but only one is actually focused on the controls. The man is steering and pushing some buttons. And Beca notices he's occasionally talking through a device; a small, black box with a button on the side. Whenever the man speaks, he's got the button pushed down. Beca thinks it's probably some kind of communication device, probably used to contact the elite. She wonders what he's telling them.
The other two are in chairs, talking to each other. They're both quite large men and it looks a bit silly to Beca; 6 foot something guys in plastic chairs, their knees almost touching the floor as their long legs drape to the side. On the other side of the hovercraft are another two Officials, hanging over the side like Beca and Chloe were earlier. She can't tell if they're talking, but they're definitely not paying attention. Beca hears noises coming from below them once again and she can't help but think how easy it would be to just hop over the railing. The fall, although able to physically damage her, she doubts could kill her. And even if one of the Officials would notice her absence, she doesn't think they'd be crazy enough to jump after her. Although they wouldn't have to; they can just turn the craft around and catch her close to the ground. Beca's sure she could find her way home, but she knows the Officials will catch her there sooner or later. She doesn't have anywhere else to run to but home.
Beca snaps herself out of her thoughts and watches the sixth Official, the only one who's actually paying attention to the group, standing arms-crossed besides them, looking down on each and every one of them. Beca finds Chloe, sitting in the middle of the crowd, talking to a girl next to her. She tries to listen to what they're saying, but the laughter of the group is making that impossible. Beca is a little disappointed; she figured Chloe would be like her, keeping her distance from the group, but here she is, laughing over some stupid girl's jokes. Beca doesn't recognize the girl, so she figures she must still be in school. Maybe that's where the two girls know each other of. Chloe's also still in school, both her parents work in the Factory so there's really no need for her to, too.
Beca did have to, three years ago. She didn't really mind, though. She never understood why they were educating kids when all they were ever gonna be was another worker in the Factory. Beca figured she'd be there sooner or later, so one day she just left. She feels a bit of guilt for not telling Chloe she was leaving; they were pretty close for years. Beca was always a pretty closed person, she had trouble letting people in. She didn't really see the point, and when her mom died, that only made things worse. But it was different with Chloe, somehow. She slipped under her brick of walls every day, which must've been hard for her, but she still did it, time and again. It's funny, looking back on it now, how Beca arrived at the school bunker every morning, head down and trying not to be noticed by anyone as she took her usually spot in the very back. And how Chloe would only allow that for about three minutes and then she'd come to drag her up and they'd both sit down in the middle of the group of people.
But right now, more than three minutes have passed and Beca's still standing at the back, observing, trying not to be noticed, and Chloe's over there, giggling as her hand occasionally runs over the girl's arm and thigh.
Things have changed.
Beca loses track of the time, unable to count the minutes that pass anymore, but she guesses she's spent a good six hours on this craft. Most of the Chosen are asleep. The older man and woman are up though, they're chatting. And Beca spots one guy hanging over the railing, head up to the sky. She figures she must at least try to participate in the group, since they're gonna have to work together in The Rebuild, and what works better for her than one person at a time.
When she's reached the boy, she immediately regrets her decision. What would she have to discuss with this guy? Instead of starting a conversation, she just sighs deeply and follows his gaze up towards the sky.
"So, what's your deal?"
Beca's quite offended by the boy's words, but he's smiling and she's not sure what he's doing. Is he being rude or just messing around? Beca can't help her nature defense mechanism rising, bringing her guard up, adding a few more bricks to the already big wall surrounding her. "Excuse me?" It comes out as angry, which it always does when she's feeling assaulted.
"No, I mean-" He chuckles and Beca just want to walk away right now, because this guy is definitely never gonna be a friend of her. "-Are you like one of those walking mysteries? One of those badass outsiders who turns out to be an actual sweetheart once she takes off the nails in her ears and doesn't death stare at everyone?"
Beca got those steel nails from The Factory and she pushed them through her earlobes on her own when she was seventeen. She thought they looked cool and no one else had it. Her dad didn't like it one bit, but Beca didn't care. She doesn't care what anyone thinks of it, especially not this guy. "These are not coming off." She simply states.
He answers with an 'alright' and a smile before his eyes move back up to the sky. He probably got the vibe that he should back off, which everyone does when Beca's being her distant self. But her plan was to actually communicate with this guy, and not push him away, which is harder than she thought. It takes her a few more minutes, until she allows her walls to fall. "The death stare can go, though?"
"Wow, she can smile."
She tells him to shut up and they spend the next hour talking about the view. Well, the guy is doing most the talking, but Beca tries to fill the silences he leaves open for her to tell him she agrees or not. It's all just chat, nothing deep and personal, Beca could never do that.
Beca's looking down, she sees the tops of trees, empty and broken roads, a lot of mess that no one bothered to clean up after the bombings. The boy is looking up, to the sky, talking about what shapes the clouds are and one, he said, looked like Beca. Beca didn't see it, though; it was just a cloud.
The boy tells her that you can tell a lot about a person who's up high and looking down, and Beca doesn't real catch much after that, because she likes the depth in it. Jesse seems like a cheerful person, he smiles a lot and though that doesn't always say much, they don't seem faked. His eyes are full of life, excited about what new things they'll see today, while Beca wishes she didn't have to see an inch more of this fucked up world. Jesse looks up, to the sky, to the clouds, while Beca looks down, to the ground, determining how high they must be. And she thinks Jesse's right. You can tell a lot about a person who looks down when they're up.
All they see is the top of trees, but it's nice to look at them. It's calming, somehow, to look at things that are so far away, things that you can admire without explaining yourself. It's like time stops when you're just looking at them, at how different and alike they are at the same time; in color, in shape, in height. The boy tried to count them all, and Beca counted the minutes he used up; 27. Then they were interrupted by two Officials telling them to get back to the middle of the vehicle, because they were landing in a little while. The thought of jumping out and running away is still in the back of Beca's mind, but she follows the two men anyway and sits down next to the boy and the older woman. She finds Chloe across from her, and the girl she was talking to is next to her again, although now talking to someone else; the Knee guy, the clown, who's sitting on the other side of her. Beca feels Chloe's eyes on her and she moves to meet them on instinct.
To say Chloe's eyes were blue is like saying the sun is yellow and shining; it doesn't change the fact that they are, but it doesn't do justice to them. They aren't a cliché type of blue, though. They're the kind that appears to be icing, cold and it brings shivers down your spine if you stare too long. And it's funny, because her face represents innocence, and it's like a contradiction right there in the small area that is her face, significant to Chloe herself, how she's sunshine and rainfall at the same time. How she's a storm of the most beautiful kind, a tornado that leaves no mess, just the aftermath, the shock. Her eyes are a miracle on her own, though, the way they're gazing over Beca right now makes the little hairs on her arm stand up and it's like she's being hit in the face with a cold, winter breeze. Her eyes don't capture light, however they defy it.
"Oh, I never got your name?"
Beca forgot about the guy sitting next to her and she wonders if he's said anything else, because the only reason she's snapped out of her thoughts right now, is because Chloe awkwardly smiled at the ground and her eyes released the grip they had on her.
The boy is shaking his head and his smile is once again covering half his face. She tells him her name and shakes his reached hand.
"I'm Jesse." He tells her and Beca rolls her lips to the side, feeling like she has no other choice than to return his smile, even if it's obviously faked.
Beca scams the premises around the vehicle that's brought to an abrupt stop on the ground. Beca feels the impact it has on her body, but her eyes stay focused. The area around them looks anything but wrecked. The land looks like it's in perfect shape, Beca needs her hands to confirm that, which they do. She has never felt such solid ground. She spots entire fields of grass to her left and buildings, buildings above ground, on her right. Beca feels like she's being send back in time to before the outbreak, to before the mess she's lived in most of her life, to a place she remembers as fantastic and amazing and carefree, life above ground, life without fear, life when her mom was still here.
Beca gets flashes of that life in front of her eyes as she tries to understand how this is possible. How the area that was damaged most by the bombs and the infection could turn out like this. And how their area is still dead, not even a single plant that grows or lives, while here there are entire fields. Beca doesn't understand how a place like this could exist.
It's calm. And quiet. So quiet.
Beca only hears her own mind racing. There's not a single person in her entire surroundings. Well, expect for the other nine Chosen and the six Officials, but Beca forgets about them for now, because she can't believe this place is so beautiful yet no one's taking it in. No one's around, admiring, appreciating it.
Beca could stay here for all of time, just watching, but the Officials are telling them to get moving, and everyone does. Beca stays a little longer but eventually obeys, following the group that's a few feet in front of her, but Beca doesn't rush. She tries to go over things in her head, but the air is really fresh and every time she takes a breath, it's like a drug to her lungs. Fooling them into thinking they work properly, just for a moment, and then it's gone again, until the next hit.
Beca never thought a place like this would exist; not in her lifetime. But here it is, all right in front of her, below her feet, around her, everywhere. And it's quite a lot to take in, because there's hope for the future. Hope that someday every part of every City will look like this.
And maybe her dad was wrong. Maybe this program is real. It must be, because this place is full of life, and Beca's not sure what she's expected to do here, but maybe she can make a difference. Maybe she can do something. Maybe it was a lie when she said she'd be back soon. But if it means the twins can one day live in a place like this and breathe this curing air, it'd be worth it, right? Her dad would understand.
Beca can't help but think maybe this is what her mom went through. Seeing this place and deciding it was somehow more important than her family. Being here makes her feel closer to her mom, in a way. And it's nice.
But it's also the place where she died and she mustn't forget that.
Must never forget what this place did to her mother, and her entire family in return, so Beca shakes off the vibe that was brought to her when she set foot on this ground, shakes off the thoughts of leaving her family behind. Instead, she decides that whatever she's gonna do here, she'll keep her dad in mind, and the boys.
