The Intelligence building was the second largest of the three compounds. I started sprinting from one corridor to another with long hallways and large gardens to the side used for experiments. I looked back and I saw that Boris was in awe, but he stayed steady and kept sprinting. Boris doesn’t come to the Intelligence compound much. Maybe once a year. Unlike me who is all over the place. I go from building to building and compound to compound. I know many people, their lives, their stories and projects. My job requires me to know many things, record them and analyze them.
Somehow, I remembered Boris. I knew him since we were young. He is my age, and he seemed to always be the tall studious one that sat by himself in the cafeteria. He didn’t talk to many people, and when he did, he had a command on his voice. It seemed that he was ready to attack at any moment, and I never knew why. He lived in the boy’s sector of the Alliance building in the Triangle compound. It’s created for kids who were 17 and under that don’t have a family. Obviously, I was in the girl’s sector there too.
He sat next to me in class one year when we were 15. He didn’t talk or say hello at all to anyone. He had a small tablet screen on his desk and tissue paper. I never knew why he needed the tissue paper, but it’s there if he needed to sneeze. He was highly intelligent, and he received high achievement marks on all his work. I never had his aptitude because I was never focused or cared much. I just sat there, admiring the outside world from the window.
One day, as I was looking outside beyond the window and not on my screen, the professor approached my desk hastily and stared at me. He had a look of disgust and said in a low menacing voice, “What will you learn from looking outside? Nothing. What will you learn from looking at your screen? Everything. ” I felt my heart skip a beat. I tilted my head down and stared at my screen. The professor said, “Good,” and walked to the front of the room. Sitting on my right was Boris. I lifted my head a little and looked at him with the corner of my eyes. He was staring at me. I moved my head to the right and looked back at him. He stared at me for a few seconds, shifted his eyes to the window above me, then back at me and smiled. Then he stared back down on his screen. It was the only time his small gesture was any type of approval by him of my existence.
Why were my memories of him so detailed? Anyways, as we sprinted to the north east corridor of the Intelligence building, we saw John, Joseph, and Zack coming out of the glass room. Soldiers from the Red compound stood on either side of the corridor carrying long pistols and wearing weapon resilient vests. Joseph and Zack are John’s right hand men. Joseph was tall, muscular, middle aged, with salt and pepper hair and brown eyes. He had tanned skin and stood with high authority. On the contrary, Zack was my height, light brown hair, fair skin, wore thick glasses, was much younger than John and Joseph, and he slouched when he walked.
Then there was General John Myr. He was much older, very tall but shorter than Boris though, had gray hair thinning hair, noticeable wrinkles on his face, and an undeniable aura of authority and charisma surrounded him. He looked at me and angrily said, “Lina! Where were you at this critical time of the day?” I didn’t know how to respond. He expected me to be alert and available at 07:00 am? I couldn’t lie, and I stared blankly and said, “I was training outside the compound, like I do every day at that hour.” He hit the wall next to him with his fist and I jumped back. He yelled and said, “That was over an hour ago. Where were you?”
Boris stared at me and his mouth started opening to say something, but Joseph interrupted and said, “We don’t have time to interrogate her General. She needs to go in.”
I had a confused look, and I was gestured by Joseph to walk forward down the hall with them. Boris stayed in his spot and I looked back at him. He stared at me with utter concern. Something was uncharacteristic of him at that moment that I couldn’t understand. I looked forward again and I kept walking.
We were approaching the corridor of the Project Merge sector. I didn’t know why we were there, and what John’s intentions were. I stopped walking. Joseph and Zack turned around to look at me, and then John looked back and stared. I said, “Why are we here? I don’t understand. We are not authorized beyond this point.”
John stared at me for a few seconds, wiped his forehead and said quietly, “Ellen walked in this corridor last night at 09:52 pm and into the Project Merge sector. She didn’t come out. I was in the glass room this morning at 06:30 am to check feeds from last night of authoritative areas of the compound, and an emergency light was flickering faintly in S3, this sector. I checked the feeds, and I saw her going in. I was not worried since she spends hours there, but the emergency light indicated something was wrong.”
I was confused, and something about his tone was different, it seemed too unreal of a story but I played along. I said, “How long was the emergency light on?”
He looked at the floor and said, “Since 10:01 pm last night.”