P L A N B E T A

Chapter Three

June 17th, 2042

Wagner

I have no clue how exactly I'm going to get through this but might as well just wing it.

I sit cross-legged on my bed with only my Roomba light on. I look through old scrapbooks containing pictures of Jack Peter, Orren, Arabella and I when we were little. Pictures from Christmas, pictures from Cassie and Emery's wedding when I kissed Jack Peter for the first time, that was when I was three. Pictures from our first days of school and from movie nights that we've had over the years, every memory coming slowly back into my mind and making me smile.

The humidifier that circulates and cleans the air in my room sounds from the Roomba above my head. The small device flies to it's charging shelf and leaves me in the dark. "Alexa," I say. "Turn on dim light over my head." A small patch of the ceiling lights up slightly, but it's just enough to let me read the writing on some pages.

I flip a few more pages and find Arabella's 'First Day of Training' page. It was her wearing her first sleek black jacket and her hair in a french braid, that was something that never changed. Arabella's crazy blue, going to green, going to orange eyes, her dark brown hair put into a french braid, and her tall height with her broad build were all things that never changed. There were pictures of her in the kitty gym practicing flips and martial arts on her first day. I turn the page, examine the back, to find that it is just like the front. On the other side, Jack Peter's first day.

I remember the day we all went off to training, I thought that Jack Peter looked like the cutest little thing I had ever seen, but I always thought that of him. He didn't look much different then than he did now, dark brown hair that flopped when it wasn't gelled, short, very small in general, his bright blue eyes and dimples, they never cease to amaze me. I thought it was hilarious how even though Jack Peter was eight years older, he hadn't aged a bit, although he did get made fun of for it. I examined the back of the page just like I did Arabella's but spent longer looking at his.

I then found my page, the first time I ever wore my black jacket, the same one that was now framed in the living room. While Arabella's pictures were made of her at the kitty gyms and getting upgraded to the hardcore workout stuff, and Jack Peter's were made of him learning to code and going into intense math and science courses, training with the FBI and him winning an award for a website he created, mine was filled with me at the theater and learning psychology and manipulation, how to talk someone into anything, and my training was coming to an end. Unlike P and Ara, my training went from five years old to fifteen years old, instead of five to eighteen, which I found wrong, but I had complained about it enough.

I think about the day that I was recruited into Plan Beta. Ulta Harper, the recruiter for Gen Z.inc, came to me in my own home, and I could never forget it. She was wearing a light blue pencil shirt with a black blazer and white bandeau top on. She was sitting on my mom's old white chair looking down at me as I sat on the ottoman. "Do you know who I am?" she asked nicely.

"Nome," I responded. This was at the time where my mother was reading me To Kill a Mockingbird and I was obsessed with Scout's use of the English language.

"Well I'm Ulta Harper, I'm here to ask you to be part of a really special program that will be really fun. You get to dance, and pretend play games... how does that sound, dear?" I put my small fist under my head and scrunched up my face like I was thinking.

"Ten bucks and a good pen. I mean fine point gorgeousness, no rounded tips that make the ink disappear every one-millionth of a centimeter," I proposed. Ulta bit her bottom lip and looked down at me like she was contemplating it. She then held out her hand strongly, asking silently for me to shake it, I did.