The Mantis Effect

Chapter Two

The bus jumped over every pothole and bump in the road. It was a long dirt road that seemed to lead to nowhere and we had been on it for hours already. I stared out the window thinking about my parents' last good byes and each of their hugs that lasted for what seemed like an eternity for me and not nearly long enough for them. My mother slid her favorite bangle off her wrist and onto mine. It had a white tiger painted on it. She had owned it since she was younger than me. It was a gift from her mother and now she had passed it to me and in this moment it was the single thing I could focus on without feeling the my reality shift around me. I rotated it on my wrist and felt every groove and inch as if to imbed it in my mind to remember her. I was paying no attention until I felt something heavy flop down on my seat.

"Hey I remember you from the hallway," a voice said.

When I looked over I recognized who it was. It was that boy Rodriguez. He was smiling kindly and blissfully. His wasn't afraid of social interaction with complete strangers; it both crippled me from forming a conversational sentence and relieved me to know that maybe I didn't have to go into this completely alone.

"My name is Rodriguez but you already knew that. So what's yours?" He asked.

I stammered.

"Mei Féng," I said.

He smiled a toothy smile.

"That's pretty. So do you prefer Mei or Féng? Or maybe Mei Féng?" He questioned.

Mei was alright I told him. He was quite the socialite but as he began to talk I discovered in his mannerisms that he was just as nervous as I was.

Rodriguez was a few months older than me and came from a family of five. He was the oldest of his siblings; he had a brother Pedro and a sister Maria. His parents here resource recovery workers like mine and they had wanted for him to become a diplomat not so unlike the hopes of my parents had for me.

He was joining the Elite program because he had experienced firsthand what it was like to be live in a shanty city and had sworn never again to return to such a life with his family. With the salary the Elite class offered he could help provide for his family so they had the means to get by without falling into complete poverty. He was earnest with his own reasons for being here. We weren't so unlike, he and I.

Rodriguez wanted to be a Vector. When I asked him why he simply said,

"Because I wonder what it is to truly be untethered to everything."

That answer stuck to the forefront of my mind. Vectors were suspended from a fixed body when they were synchronized to their Olympian. What did it feel like to exist that way?

The bus stopped in the road and we were told to start getting off. We were in the middle of a dusty dry nowhere but that's the way everywhere looked now.

In the distance racing towards us was a convoy of four military grade vehicles, they seemed to reach us quickly and as they parked a few soldiers in each got out.

"So this is the lot that actually committed?" Titus taunted.

"Sorry looking group", Stone said.

The other soldiers all laughed. They were by no means impressed with us. I looked around at the other soldiers. Some of them were Elites and some of them were regular class soldiers. At the end of the convoy I saw Hap. He stood next to the passenger side window talking to someone in the vehicle. I squinted but couldn't see well enough. Rodriguez leaned over and whispered.