Chapter 27
Mark and Edgar walked into the front door of F34C. The entrance was a large room with tables and chairs that could seat hundreds of girls at a time. In the main room at the time, there were about a hundred identical ten year-old girls, identically dressed except for their name labels. The girls were chatting and studying and walking around. Many of them turned to stare at the two uninvited men.
There was a woman attendant sitting at a desk behind a counter. She looked identical to the woman guarding the entrance gate to the female side of the residences. She made a face when she obviously caught a whiff of their ever present garbage smell. "May I help you?"
"Yes you may," Mark said. "We're here to pick up as many girls as possible, and take them away from here."
She became quite concerned and serious. "Excuse me, sir, but I wasn't informed of this."
"Well, here's the thing; I'm informing you right now."
She stood motionless for a couple of seconds. "I'm afraid I don't understand."
"What? You don't understand that there are some people who object to you killing off hundreds of innocent children? Just sayin'."
"I'm afraid I'll have to report you. . ." She pulled out a com device.
Mark casually grabbed the com out of her hand and dropped it on the floor and stomped it with his foot. "No you're not."
The attendant said, "You'll never get away with this. There are cameras everywhere."
"Don't care. Eddy, is there an intercom here? I want to talk to all the girls in the building."
Edgar said, "Try over by the counter."
The attendant tried to block Mark from using the microphone. Mark shoved her out of the way. The woman shrieked and ran out the front door. Many of the children gave a collective gasp at the aggressive scene.
"Man, I wish I had a gun right now." Mark walked behind the desk. He saw the microphone that was at the side of the chair. There was a "speak" button on it. "ATTENTION. . .GIRLS. . .MY NAME IS MARK. I AM HERE TO RESCUE YOU. PLEASE REPORT TO THE FRONT DOOR."
No one moved. Some of them slowly moved toward Mark.
Mark said, "Are you ready to go?"
"What happened to your face?" one of the girls asked Edgar.
"It's multiple abrasions, and ecchymosis." Edgar said.
The girls backed up a step. “Eew.”
"Never mind him. He got a boo boo. What's wrong with you girls? You want to get made into sausage? C'mon! I'm here to take you away!"
"How do we know you're telling the truth?" one of the girls asked.
"Huh?"
"We don't trust anyone like you," another girl said. “You look weird. And stink.”
Mark said, "If we didn't care about you, we wouldn't be here. Don't you girls know that they are going to put you into a grinder? Then you really won’t care what we smell like."
"That's a lie!" a girl said.
They looked increasingly scared.
Another said, "No, the grinder is just made up! It’s not real!"
Yet another girl said, "You're just a clone hater trying to control us!"
Many more girls who had heard Mark's announcement were looking to see what was going on.
Mark started to wonder why he was risking his life for the uncooperative clonettes. Why did he have to plead with them to accept his invitation of salvation via the garbage truck? He got back on the paging system. "LOOK, GIRLS, IT SAYS RIGHT ON MY DEVICE THAT EVERYONE IN THIS ENTIRE BUILDING IS GOING TO BE CULLED. DO YOU KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS? THEY ARE GOING TO THROW YOU ALL IN THE GRINDER LIKE A PIECE OF GARBAGE! NOW IF YOU WANT TO AVOID THAT, WHICH I HIGHLY RECOMMEND, THEN COME DOWN TO THE FRONT DOOR AND MY FRIEND AND I WILL TAKE YOU OUT OF HERE! FOLLOW ME AND LIVE!"
"Anyone can write on a device!" a girl said. Others were saying; "It's a lie!" "You're scaring us. You're mean," Many started crying. "There's no such grinder." Some of the girls were running back to their capsule dormitories. "The UCA will protect us!" "There's nothing wrong with us! The UCA would never do that to us!" "You don't belong here!" "Get out!" "EEEEEEEE!"
Mark put his hands over his ears because of all of the shrill complaints.
One teary eyed girl came forward. "I want to go."
The other girls tried to pull her back. "Don't be stupid!" one said. "We're not going with them!"
"What if he is right?!" the daring girl said to the other girls while she stared at Mark. She had a “Julia 119” patch on her jumpsuit.
"If you go, you deserve to die!" one of the other Julias objected.
"119! I'll go with you!"
Julia 119 and Julia 38 hugged each other.
Then several more Julias came forward.
"We gotta get going!" Edgar said. "We're running out of time, otherwise no one will make it!"
"THIS IS YOUR LAST CHANCE. WE ARE LEAVING NOW. I KNOW YOU WILL REMEMBER THIS MOMENT AND WISH YOU WOULD HAVE CHOSEN TO COME WITH US. PLEASE. WE ARE LEAVING NOW."
A few more of the terrified girls moved next to Mark, who turned and went out the front door. Only the girls who wanted to escape followed him. Once they got outside, a couple of the girls took a look at the garbage truck and changed their minds, then went back into the building.
"Girls!" Mark shouted at those who changed their minds. Mark wished at that moment that the truck was more pretty, but the girl-unfriendly truck was the only way out for them.
"I know, I know," Mark said. “Maybe we should just grab some of them.”
“No,” Edgar said. “If we do that, the volunteers will run away.”
"We gotta go! Right now!" Edgar pleaded one last time.
Mark raised the hydraulic compactor to reveal an almost completely empty, but still dark, wet, and stinky, all steel box. The girls cowered at the sound.
"Get in, girls, it won't hurt you. Come on! We'll help you! Hurry!"
Two by two the sobbing, trembling girls were loaded into the truck with the aid of Mark and Edgar. Mark lowered the compactor gate and the scared girls shuddered.
The last girl just stood there, refusing to get into the back.
"Get in the front!" Edgar told the girl. "Now!"
Mark and Edgar got into the cab of the truck with the girl in the middle and pulled away. Mark floored the pedal and the gas combustion engine truck roared, struggling to get up to full speed.
"Why?!" Mark said. "Why didn't more of them come with us?!"
Edgar said, "I'll be surprised if this place is not locked down already."
"Maybe that attendant really wanted us to escape and she took her time reporting us."
"Yes, that is very possible," Edgar said. “I’m sure not everyone on the staff is fully indoctrinated with the UCA ways.”
The truck passed the Female section checkpoint on its way out without incident, although the guard's face was frozen with confusion when she saw Edgar's familiar looking face passing by. Edgar waved at her.
The guard at the main gate was shutting the motor-driven sturdy industrial strength fence. Mark laid on the horn as the truck approached. The truck crashed into the gate. Upon impact, the gate buckled and the truck jolted from the impact. Mark almost lost control of the truck. But the smashed-in truck kept going through the destroyed gate. The girls in the back could be heard sliding and thumping around and screaming.
After they pulled away, and they took a deep breath, Mark said, "I don't know how far we can get with everyone and their cousin looking for a dinged up garbage truck."
Edgar said, "I forget; what's a cousin?"
"For you clones, it’s probably the same thing as one of your brothers.”
“What?”
“It’s kind of like how you are your own uncle.”