The Designs Of Change

~chapter 4~

I was hurrying to the park, when I suddenly slammed on my breaks, and had to swerve the steering wheel pressed against my palms. On the side of the road in front of Rasmussen university, there was a black minivan flanked by two police cars, and one red kia silverado. What was curious still, was that none of the cars had drivers in them.
The dark blue police car however, did have an odd model, one I had never seen before. It looked like a normal dodge charger from the front, but it's back half looked like that of a honda civic.
But of course, who was I to know car models at one glance? That would just be weird, as if I spent hours at my drawing tablet computer looking at amazing car models sold for cheap that I could possibly get my mom to buy. Because if my mom made me learn how to drive, I would rather drive with a pleasing to the eye, and efficient car. I narrowed my eyes at my minivan.
Something you, are not.
Out of curiosity I parked my dark green car in the parking lot of a crumble cookie across the street from the college, not exactly right across in view. I climbed out of the driver's seat door and took out my phone to quickly call Copia and tell her I might be an hour late, and that I had found something I needed to check.
After I was done with the assurances that I would come as soon as I could, I ended the call and flipped through my apps to the camera. Luckily for me, before I had quit my job last summer at the pie, I had saved up enough money for a five hundred dollar phone with an excellent camera. (on top of enough to pay the summer car fees, of course.) I zoomed in on the school, and waited for at least thirty-seven minutes, before smoke started pouring out of the windows of one of the nearby campus building windows.
This of course, I did not expect. But nonetheless, I hit the record button and waited. But of course, this appeared to be a school attack, so I had no need to wait long.
I could hear sirens muffled by the walls as students evacuated in chaotic streams from windows and doors alike.
Should I go inside? Should I try to help?
I fixed my camera on the smoking school, and booked it across the street. Chances are, going inside of a smoking school building should be dangerous, right? Especially when you can see flames licking at the edges of the windows. I spotted an open window that didn't lead to a room on fire, and ducked inside.
The air was heavy with the smell of burning wood, and I had to duck my mouth and nose inside of my thick green coat to filter the air best I could. This was probably the worst idea I had ever had, minus that time I tried confessing my feelings to one of the boys in my class on valentine's day. Kayden Richards was gross anyways. Frankly, I was glad I had gotten cold feet because that boy turned out to be a total trash dump later down the line.
The back of my red hair brushed against the back of my neck as I ran through the school campus, looking for the same men in tuxedos that nabbed Herbert that afternoon. I passed familiar views of blown in walls to classrooms as closets, but this time they were more few and far between, and there were definitely less of them. I passed another blown in wall, and I could see a bigger room with several chairs. It sort of looked like my school's auditorium, but it was slightly smaller and definitely a lecture room. And it still had some people inside, all trying to get out of the same far door at the same time.
You would think: Aure, go inside and help them. And I would have totally done that. Accept for the fact that there were eight or nine men in tuxedos kind of blocking the way. I quickly ducked back out the hole in the wall before I could be spotted, and continued to record as I ran through the hallways. The lights were starting to get dimmer the further I ran, until eventually they were so dim it was hard to see.
And that's when I heard the voices. As before, I tried to hide and dipped into a dark passage to eavesdrop.
"-what does vincent want us to do? It's not like we can magically produce the two subjects who managed to escape."
Subjects? What are they talking about? I know they specifically took ten from my school, including Irah and Herbert. But what do they mean by 'two that escaped?'
Despite me thinking about this, a female voice responded before I could finish my intuitive observation of what had just been said.
"You know what will happen to us if we refuse to obey orders. Vincent got orders from high command to capture the two girls, whatever it takes. Holtamier and Mercutio must be caught no matter what, and you know it. The Holtamier girl knows something. And if we don't find her, we risk her exposing operation vity to the public."
Holtamier? What did I know that name from? My mind thought back to the odd journal I had found during my own school raid. The first entry? Had been signed...
Sincerely, Abby Holtamier.

I felt a cold bolt shiver down my spine. whoever she was, the terrorists were after her. Is that what she meant in the journal when she said they were after her?
Dread filled me as it finally sunk in what they said. But there was no way-
"Yes, Professor Riglancumpfh. Let's get the five from the collage, and then lets go on the wild goose chase the boss wants to go on. I got word from the others, they have them all rounded up in a lecture room a few turns down from here."
I decided to take that as my que to run.
A few minutes later I managed to get out one of the side doors, narrowly avoiding being seen. I was able to film the mysterious cars with my camera, and I watched as all five collage students were funneled into the back of the dodge civic, (what I had decided to call the odd mishmash of two cars) and then the other three flanked out of the collage parking lot filled with student owned cars, unlike my school's, that had been totally deserted.
I checked the top of my phone for the time. My phone was at sixty eight percent, and the clock read 3:30. Shoot. Im late an hour and a half. I guess I won't have any time to deliberate on what they just said. I guess I just better hype myself up to have a panic attack later than.
While I was in the parking lot of the crumble cookie, I decided to buy two chocolite chip as an apology for being this late. This is what random interference does to people.
Shortly after the attack, I managed to get to the parking lot of gage park, where I spotted a black haired asian woman with crossed arms tapping her foot to show impatience.
"Aure I knew you were late to things, but an hour and a half?" copia practically yelled in her heavy accented voice.
I put the crumble box in one of her splayed arms. "Sorry, I ran into a bit of... trouble." I said carefully. No matter if copia was my friend of not, I wasn't sure saying that fifteen people got kidnapped by the same terrorists that were aftrer me was a good thing to say in a public park.
"Well either way." copia said, starting to walk towards a gazebo. "I have someone here you should talk to. Multiple people actually."
I walked after her, and soon enough, we were sitting down, facing caseus. My blood boiled the moment I set my eyes on him, and I turned my gaze away to prevent from loosing my temper. I had no real reason to hate the boy; I didn't know. But the way he looked at me with his square glasses, green eyes, and stylized hair- if anything it made me hate him unconditionally more.
As I turned squinted eyes back toward him, (squinted so it would blur his image and not make me dump him in a lake) there was someone else sitting next to him. It was... Harrison Vensberk. One of the ten that went missing seven weeks prior.