Across Nature's Circle

8: Pace

Zyra and I both sat on some ground to catch our breath.

"So, what is the plan?" I asked.

"Expose the government. Free the people," she said throwing out vague suggestions of our eventual goal.

"And how exactly will we do that?"

"Sneak into the building and reveal their secrets, I guess."

"Well, as long as we have a plan," I said sarcastically.

"Why don't you come up with a plan then?" Zyra asked with a bit of fire in her voice.

"Don't act like this was my idea," I said.

"You followed me."

"I didn't have a choice. You were saying all those things, and if I didn't follow you, I would have died."

"Fine! We'll think of a plan later," Zyra said and laid down onto the concrete space between a house and their dumpsters.

"Alright. The big question right now is, what will they do to our families?"

Zyra went silent at this. I only had her heavy breathing to know she was alive.

"I don't know," she said in a much quieter and strained voice. "I came up with this whole thing during Matra's funeral. I told you because I thought that the two of us would be able to come up with a plan for both of our families. Had I known that the conversation alone would get us killed and most likely followed almost immediately, I would have acted differently. Originally, the plan was for all of us to run away. I wish it had ended up that way."

"At least there are two good things about the way this turned out," I said, hoping to make her feel better.

"We are finally going to get in shape with all this running?"

"I guess, but that wasn't what I was thinking. Our families don't know anything about this, so if the government comes around, they can honestly say they don't know where we are or why we ran."

"What is the other good thing?"

"We are together."

"Yeah. On the run from the government. What a great romantic story," she said sarcastically and got up to dig through the dumpster, presumably for food.

"I think it's pretty good. Especially after we free our people."

"Okay," she said with a smile and handed me some bread that had started to stale. "I can get on board with that."

"Good." We bumped bread in a sort of toast and ate in a comfortable silence. She ate quickly and started rummaging through the dumpster for more food. Unfortunately, soon after I finished eating, a blaring alarm went off in the surrounding area.

I peeked my head out to see what was going on, but also trying to stay in the comfort and disguise of the shadows. When my eyes got around the corner of the house we were behind, I saw giant pictures of Zyra and me projected against the entirety of the sky.

"We need to go," I said turning around to run.

"Way ahead of you," she said and held up two purses. She threw one to me and I glanced in it. It had two bottles of water she had filled with the spigot connected to the house, various snacks, and pieces of cloth for bandages, all of which she found in the dumpster.

"Impressive," I said.

"Thanks, but we really need to go."

I nodded, put the bag over my head so it crossed my body, and we took off running.

{Unknown}

"What happened?" Aniti yelled when the commander reached the room of the Founders.

"Zyra Ricardly and Pace Daggard figured-"

"We know what happened!" Neebie yelled. "What we want to know is how this happened. We want to know how two 15-year-olds figured out a system that has been in place for hundreds of years! We want to know how your supposedly fantastic military has not found and eliminated them yet! We want to know why you haven't interrogated their families yet!" The commander cowered at the harshness of the Founders.

"We are working on it," he said, trying to save himself.

"Not good enough!" Gieden screamed. Aniti leaned on the table between the Founders and the commander, and spoke to the commander very slowly and softly, which he found to be more terrifying than yelling.

"If you don't bring us the bodies of Zyra and Pace before they destroy this country, we will make sure that you pay for it. You will be tortured relentlessly. You will feel the pain of everyone you singlehandedly destroyed. Get to work."