Anne shakes her head and continues walking toward the air craft. "I can't believe they would just take advantage of us like that." she says as I follower her. "I can." I say in a low tone. Its obvious the new soldier is furious. "I mean, look how they've treated us for the past eight years, Anne. I'm not as surprised as you'd think. There's no way I saw something like this coming, but its believable. I mean, they never cared about us."
The loud engines roar in the long stretch of bare land. Anne follows me up the steps to our assigned aircraft, and we walk through the door.
I look around the large room, and wonder how something this colossal could possibly fly through the air. This particular room looks like it takes up a majority of the space in the craft, and contains rows and rows of seating. My understanding is that every fourteen year old here will be put in this craft, because everyone looks like they're my age.
Anne and I take two seats several rows back from the front. As usual, there is a podium settled at the front but this time there's also a large motion sensor screen that displays a map of Kotek zoomed in on a route from our location in northern Zarta to western Madrade.
We both sit there staring at the large screen. "Madrade?" Anne asks. "I thought that woman was talking about going to Nolegia in Joplin." I squint in order to study the route again several times. "Why would we be going there?" I say. I lean back and look at my best friend. "Do you know whats there?" I ask her. Anne shakes her head. "Well... I think there might be a city out on the peninsula but it doesn't look like we're headed in that direction. Other than that, I don't-"
"'Yall shut up! We gonna lift off in less dan ten minutes!" Mother Maria yells through the entrance. Her and Master Klots walk in. "Figures," Anne begins. "The two most protective people here." I back toward her. "I'm just glad it's not master Tevov. I'm pretty sure he wants me dead." She leans back in her chair. "Yeah, but that's because you turned everyone against the government." she says. In a sense, I feel sort of proud of myself because I truly believe that they deserved it. But in a way I feel horrible about myself. I used to be innocent... and now I can't keep my mouth shut.
A single security guard follows the two other adults into the craft. Impressive, I think. our government actually went by the minimum wage this time.
-.*.-
Less than an hour after liftoff, we're halfway to Madrade. My thoughts are in interrupted by the same voice that had woken me up from my strange dreams early this morning.
"If yuh hadn't noticed yet, we headed tuh Madrade." Mother Maria declares. Everyone looks up and observes the motion censor screen as its handled by Master Klots. His hands move through the air as they control a cursor on the wide screen. A live satellite image of a dense forest much different than the one I've been escaping to next to slavery grounds, appears on the screen. "What's that?" Anne whispers. I sigh. "Real life." I respond. Offsite work was cutoff when the war began due to the government's fear of us finding out that the whole world is furious that we're being held hostage, so none of us have really experienced everyday life and are highly uneducated.
"'Yall are probably wonderin' what yo gonna have tuh do." Mother Marisa says. No, I think. we're not any bit interested in why all of our lives are in danger. "And I want no complainin'!" she demands. "'Yall gonna do what yo told or yo gonna get duh same punishment dat was held on site!" A flashback from two days ago shoots through my head, and I begin remembering the way Master Shollio held his worn, bloody whip in front of me. "We didn't wanna have tuh tell 'yall that yo first mission is tuh detonate six occupied Nolegian military bases, but duh government directed us to. We all just like you, none of us wanna be heuh." I begin to panic, and the room fills with chatter. Set up explosives? What if we're caught? There's obviously security sensors, so there's no way we'll be able to even make it five miles away from the base without triggering a sensor. They're military bases, I can't even imagine how much security they'll have. We'll probably trigger an electric shock or something even if we drop down from the air craft up above the base.
Anne cups her hands around her mouth. "No, Mother Maria! You don't understand! If you were really like us, you'd refuse to listen to King Richard! You cowards are nothing like me!"
