Mara's head spun. Am I an eleven? she asked herself. She knew she was smarter in some ways than the other nines, she could manipulate tests to her will and never missed a question unintentionally. But eleven smart? She wasn't sure. Elevens didn't even exist. The Illuminati would have some special purpose for them if they did. For some reason something her mother had told her a long time ago surfaced in her memory. "Now that you've got your tablet, promise me one thing. Never do anything with it you wouldn't want the Illuminati to see." Mara had disregarded those words at the time, at the time she was young, and nothing on her tablet would ever be of any interest to the Illuminati. She realized with a chill that the Illuminati had probably seen the file she had recovered. Her heart started to pound. She doubted President Pierce would appreciate having a person smarter than him roaming around. What if they come for me? She slid off the couch and looked around her house, suddenly suspicious of everything.She forced her rising panic down. She removed the drive from her tablet, and messaged Tess. Meet me at the hospital NOW. It's important. She could only hope that Tess would receive the message, and do as it said. Mara bustled into her car, grabbing an extra coat and pulling on her sturdiest shoes. She had a strange feeling that maybe she wouldn't be returning to her house again. When Mara pulled into the parking garage at the hospital, she spotted Tess immediately. She was standing outside the elevator that normally would take her up to their office, looking distressed. Mara left her car to meet her, and found that Tess looked just as anxious as her. "What did you do?" she asked before Mara could even begin to speak. "I retrieved that corrupted file you wouldn't show me!" Mara burst out. She lowered her voice,"Tess, it said I'm an eleven. Elevens don't exist. What is going on?" Tess looked horrified. She raked her fingers through her hair. "This wasn't supposed to happen,"she muttered, her eyes wild. "They'll find out. They always find out! Do you understand me?" She let out a little wail of despair. Mara didn't know what to say, she didn't understand. Or at least, she didn't want to understand."What do you mean?Who is 'they'?"Mara asked, surprised at how calm her words sounded. Tess looked exasperated. "The Illuminati!Who else? They see everything on everyone's tablets, and strange disturbances are detected. For example, you recovering that document on your government issued tablet! What were you thinking" she cried, throwing her hands in the air. She spoke lowly to herself then, "I knew I shouldn't have protected you. I knew the Illuminati would find out eventually." Mara swayed on her feet. How could I be so stupid? "This means I'm really an eleven?"Mara realized. Tess looked stricken."Yes of course you are! I corrupted your original scan to keep the Illuminati from taking you, forged you a new, safe, identity as a nine. They questioned me, but I told them the machine malfunctioned, gave me a corrupt identity..."she closed her eyes and shook her head. "They believed me. But now you've uncovered my tracks, they'll be after you to dissect your brain in a lab, and after me for forging your identity." Mara's heart pounded. We need to get out of the city, she decided. "Come on," she grabbed the still mumbling Tess and ran out of the garage. "We've got to leave the city, now. We have to go on foot, and without our tablets," Mara instructed Tess as she input coordinates on the other side of the city into her tablet, then set her car to autopilot to that location. She threw Tess's tablet into the car as well, and set out on the street. Mara grabbed onto Tess again and they ran around the empty block and down streets, all heading north, out of the city. Tess was stumbling blindly after Mara, she seemed to be in shock. "My kids...my husband..."she heard her mumbling. Mara angrily shook her head."The husband the Illuminati picked for you! We have to leave, Tess. We are leaving right now. If we don't they'll kill us both," Mara said, before giving Tess a light shake by her shoulders. She shook her head and stopped."It's just..the Illuminati protects us. They give us food...shelter..jobs. They can't be all bad," Tess said, and it sounded like she was trying to convince herself. "No! Don't you see? They've taken away our choice! We are only what the government is allowing us to be, we could be so much more! The people who are born with lower ranks can't help it, maybe if they were given proper schooling, they could be smarter! You say they would kill me just because I am supposedly smarter than Appolo Pierce, is that the kind of people you think will be forgiving?" Tess seemed at a loss for words. Mara grabbed her and pulled her forward again, and they continued their jog out of the dark city. "I've sent the car with our tablets out of the city in the opposite direction, so if anyone is tracking them, they'll be going in the completely wrong direction. If you're wrong and they aren't chasing us..."Mara trailed off, she had no alternative plan. "Oh, they'll be after us," Tess said with a shudder as she ran, and Mara nodded. Why was I stupid enough to try and fix the file on my tablet? I could have just asked Tess. Mara shook her head. Regretting past decisions was not going to do anything to help her now. I need to focus on getting us out of the city. Then we need to find supplies to survive. Though the tasks on Mara's list were daunting, she felt better knowing what she had to do. The last houses in the nine section ended, and Mara and Tess found themselves at a dead end. A chain link fence, crowned with barbed wire, rose twenty feet in the air and encircled the city as far as Mara could see. Dread filled her as she saw a searchlight at the edge of her vision on the fence. It didn't sound electrified, and Mara knew there were only two ways through: over the barbed wire at the top, or digging under. She chose to dig under, and instructed Tess,"Look for a gap under it, anything. After a frantic minute of searching, neither found anything. The searchlight was a five minute's run away from them by then. She gazed at the forest that loomed just behind the fence, dark and mysterious. She thought of nothing, and spun around to see if maybe they could flee back to the city, wondering where they could hide. She looked at a curved branch, lying on the asphalt... Suddenly she knew exactly what to do. Mara sprang into action, she heaved the branch up and dragged it to the fence. "Help me!" she hissed to Tess, who was pacing in circles, tugging at her hair. Tess scuffled over and stared at her. "We need to wedge this under the fence,"she explained to Tess. She was worried the woman would be too rattled to understand, but she walked over to the branch and stood expectantly. Mara joined her,and the two jammed it under the fence, making a small gap at the bottom. Mara was encouraged,now we just need to make it bigger. "Okay, now push it in a little farther, and on three we'll heave it up," she said, her words quick but sure. Tess and Mara shoved the branch under as far as it would go, and after Mara's count, they both heaved upward. The gap under the fence grew as the fencing above it bent upward. When they let go, Mara quickly inspected the gap. "Pull the branch out, and get under the fence!" Mara whispered commandingly. The searchlight was only a minute's run away now. She and Tess hastily removed the branch, and Tess was first to attempt to get under.She wriggled under eventually, but her clothes kept snagging on the fence above her, and the searchlight was almost upon them by the time Mara was up. She dove under and kept wriggling, the fence pressing into her back and catching her clothes and ripping them. She ignored it and kept wriggling, working against the searchlight that was only a few yards away. Her upper half was already on the other side of the fence, but she doubted she could get her legs out in time... Tess reemerged from just inside the woods and jerked Mara forwards by her arms, pulling her legs under just as the searchlight swooped over the place she had just been caught. Without hesitation, the two sprinted into the woods, away from the light. Their clothes were ripped on bushes and they tripped every few seconds on rocks and roots, but they kept going. Finally, once they had stumbled through the forest until they felt like they could no longer move, they collapsed. Mara panted and looked up to see the trees parted a bit where they had stopped. She could see the sky, but there was something peculiar about it. Little specs of white light sat up there,in stark contrast with the black sky behind it. Mara had never seen anything like it, the sky at home was always murky brown from street lights. She nudged Tess,"Look,"she murmured. Tess looked up with tear streaked eyes, and said nothing. "I miss my family," she said at last. "I want to go home." Mara sighed, they had already gone over this. It was stupid to miss something the Illuminati had given them. "You can't go back," Mara said instead. "You saw the light, they're looking for us. They know what you did, and what I am. They aren't going to just let you return to your home and act like nothing happened. Do you understand me? We can't go back." Mara's words made their situation suddenly seem more real. I've left whatever I had behind, my mother and my house. Not much really, she thought ruefully. "Then how come no one else ever leaves? How come there is only a pathetic fence keeping us from escaping? They give us necessities and protection. Is that not enough?"Mara mulled over Tess's words for a minute before returning her own opinion."People don't realize there is more to life than what the Illuminati gives you. They control everything, so no one wonders if that could ever be different. The government controls every piece of media you ever see, so of course it's all positive about the Illuminati. They choose our jobs and we work them in exchange for homes and food. They've tricked us into thinking this is a fair trade. It's not," Mara said breathlessly. She hadn't realized she'd been thinking these things until she said them. "But what else is there?" Tess asked exasperatedly. Mara pondered this."You've never wanted to do anything but work? What if we actually did things for fun on our day off? I don't know what we would do, but I'm sure there's something." As soon as Mara said this, she was sure it was true. There was something missing in her life. She wanted human companions besides family and coworkers. She just wanted people to laugh with. Tess stared at her blankly. Mara realized that maybe she was the only one who felt that way."Let's get some rest," she muttered before Tess could comment on Mara's last words. Mara lay silent for a long time on the uncomfortable forest floor, and it was a long time before sleep found her.