Ch. 5

"And remember, Knowledge is power!" The guest lecture finished, smiling broadly as he looked at the ten of them still left to graduate. Evan glanced at Rosie. Although he didn't feel especially touched by the speech about the good they could do for the FEC, he knew she was. She had a giant smile that matched that of the lecturer's.

He knew people used to be happy about graduating their courses, now all he could feel was the numbness and focus on the thought that he hadn't seen Johnathan Elis for five years. After those advanced courses had started Johnathan Elis had disappeared from his life. He knew the old guy hadn't wanted to be found, but there had to have been a better way than him losing his father figure so quickly. It hadn't been easy keeping the underlords off his back, although staying in and doing homework had helped quite a bit.

Boring, annoying, but helpful in that aspect. Now he was graduating second in the group of ten, after Rosie of course. It had been hard to stay mediocre with someone as pushy as Rosie was making you study more than you had to.

"Evan we did it!" Rosie broke him out of is stupor. "We did it! We graduated!" she grabbed his hand and started jumping up and down.

Evan let a reluctant smile break though. "Yeah, I guess we did. So now what?"

"I can answer that." Rosie and Evan looked over to the guy that had been in front of them a few minutes ago. Evan knew he had said his name, but he hadn't been paying attention and hadn't really cared either.

"What do you mean? Ike you have jobs for all of us?" Rosie asked.

"Well, not all of you." The lecturer turned recruiter glanced at the eight others in their class. Two of them seemed genuinely happy, the rest were already hooked into pictages of happy friends and family coming forward to greet and congratulate them on their accomplishments. A few even looked like they might be happy. "Anyway, come with me." He motioned with his hand and started walking.

Rosie caught up quick, soon peppering the guy with questions about what he meant, were there really jobs for them, were they going to be special after all? Each as responded with a quick and simple, more will be explained when we arrive.

Evan rolled his eyes and followed a foot or two behind. As they walked through the city he could feel eyes on him, but that was nothing new. He knew the underlords wanted him desperately now. Someone that had survived growing up in a Growth Zone, plus clearly had the interest of the FEC? Obvious pick for spy material. This had become more obvious as years dragged on and more and more 'chance encounters' happened on his way to the courses building and back.

First it had been Zeke all the time, then Nudge, then Crystal, then someone else and someone new and so on. The underlords had extended their reach through the city, realizing that by actually staging protests and coos that they were showing the FEC where they were and who was working for them. So they got smart, they went underground. And if some of the rumors were to be believed, they had been able to connect to other Growth Zones too. Not that any of it mattered anymore.

At least not to Evan. Not anymore.

He already knew where they were going before the recruiter said anything, and so did Rosie as she started paying attention to their surroundings. "Wait, are you taking us to the car- I mean, the CVR base."

The guy grinned. "Yes, and we know you call us carnivores. Hell, we call ourselves carnivores most of the time too. Makes you feel more powerful to know there's someone out there afraid enough to willingly label themselves as sheep."

Evan couldn't help the shudder that ran down his spine. It was one thing to hear the old man call everyone mindless sheep, quite another to hear the words come out of this carnivore's mouth. If he didn't know better he would have said they guy had pointed teeth.

"So what, are we being inducted into the FEC or something?" Rosie quipped.

"Something like that. But see, you're both technically already a part of the FEC simply by living in a Growth Zone. Every time you power up you visors the FEC knows what you're trying to see, to hear. I mean, we are the ones doing all the coding behind the waves, so obviously we know what each of you like. And you have to admit, the realities we create are pretty good." Evan thought back to his classmates just sitting in the old folding chairs, doped out smiles on their faces as they indulged in exactly the type of coding this guy was talking about now.

"We have plenty of people on the pictage squad, no. What we need now are able bodied people ready to go out and get things done. People ready to help the FEC continue to grow and branch out over worlds. We have earth pretty much covered at this point, but now we need more. You have to remember, we started as just a bunch of businessmen with the inkling of an idea and a mad scientist with a flash drive. You can only imagine what the world would be like if Browning 2.0 hadn't made it out and helped us out. He saw the dangers of keeping knowledge underground, so he came to the surface and we were more than happy to help him out."

I guess that's one way to look at it. Evan thought to himself, It was a better picture to paint than saying the FEC had abducted the clone and had a field day with any information they were able to extract from it.

"No, Earth is pretty much ours. Now what we need…is a proxy."

Evan didn't have to see her to know Rosie's eyes were lighting up. "Wait, you mean Prox?"

"Yes, it's obvious to see how you were valedictorian. I mean Proxy-Earth, The next step to colonize and create a home on. After all, it's not like we can fix this mess here, So we might as well find a new start."

"A new start is exactly what we need, right Ev?" She looked back at him.

"Right."