P L A N B E T A

Chapter Four

July 3rd, 2042

Baker-Crane

My sixth birthday party was a masterpiece of a wreck. It was celebrating almost a year of being part of Plan Beta, so there was a jungle gym, a ball pit, and a huge obstacle course that wrapped around everything else. Everything quickly turned into hell-like chaos and no one knew how to fix it. There were children flying around and I was the queen of it all, the course was my kingdom.

After Plan Beta was announced, training began to significantly harder. I was now taking on twice as much than an FBI agent.

Dakota James, my trainer, had always been there for me. She was short, with short hair and wore pride shirts almost every day for training, which I found admirable. This specific day we were working on flips and using what you have to get you out of a situation.

Using deep breaths, I did what I had to do, I did everything I could, but it was merely satisfactory.

"Dear," started Dakota. "Do you understand that Plan Beta is nothing to mess around with? They are counting on you to protect them, you are the only one that can," she explained.

"I know, I know. Today was rough, tomorrow I'll do better," I said, pushing it off and starting to grab my stuff.

"There might not be a tomorrow, Dear. When you're fighting, there's a good chance that you won't come out of it if you don't know how, and suddenly, you and your friends are gone, and there is no more Plan Beta, there is no more future." She liked to explain these sorts of things to me a lot. Yes, if I failed, we all failed, I got it by now. "So you're not leaving until you get it right, put down your stuff." I turned my head to look over at her and glared.

"What?" I asked,

"You heard me, drop your stuff. You're just going to give up on your family and friends like that? Their lives are in your hands, you are the only one that can save them."

"What about Orren, eh? Forget about Maia's golden boy brother? He's had more training than I have. More intense," I explain and drop my stuff to cross my arms.

"Mister Wagner has not been introduced to Plan Beta yet. You, Maia, and Jack Peter are the faces of Plan Beta, you cannot count on someone else to do your shit, Arabella Lee Baker-Crane," she scolds.

I walk over to the cubbies that hold equipment and hand Dakota some hand pads, but she just throws them on the floor. "No," she says. "It's time for real sparring." I take that to heart.

Punches are then thrown. Left, right, right, knee, left, left, kick. But she already knows what the tactic is, she did, after all, teach them to me. She fights back, not just with her own style, but with new things, and I can't help but stand back in amazement as she does them, but before I know it, I'm knocked out.

I don't wake up until the day after, my head feels like a thousand rocks have been crammed inside with my brain and I can't move a muscle. Dakota is standing above me, looking down. "Ready for training?" she asks.

"Training?!" I exclaim. "What do you mean training?! You knock me out and then expect me to follow you into battle? No, I'm not going to training today, Dakota." She grabs the pillow behind my head and forcefully pulls it from under me. My head knocks against the headboard of my bed and I feel more rocks be added.

"Yes you are, they won't stop, neither will you."

"You say that like you know something, Dakota. How's your sister?" I ask.

She turns around and smacks me as hard as she can with the pillow, it leaves my arm red. "You know very well I don't know where she is and you know not to talk about it." I smirk and watch as her anger turns to sadness. "You know what? Don't come to practice. I don't want you there, I'll just have Orren come and practice because he knows how important it is, you can be replaced, Arabella, but Plan Beta cannot. Plan Beta will save humanity, we don't want your laziness." Dakota tosses the pillow back onto the bed and leaves.

I can't help but adjust myself to sit up and stare at my hands. I felt bad, but I was tired, was it not okay to have a day off?

July 5th, 2042

When I was back to normal, with no more rocks in my head, I had to deal with my newly thirteen-year-old brother. As I walk downstairs, I am bombarded with the smell of cologne. "Jameson Eugene!" I yell. "Get that crap off of you! It smells disgusting!"

"Bella I want to smell good," he says.

"Well right now you smell like guy repellent, go put on deodorant." he groans and starts to stomp upstairs. "Also Jameson," I say before he can get halfway up. He turns and raises an eyebrow. "Don't forget to get acne cream, okay buddy?" He scowls at me and I laugh.

My father is standing in the kitchen making breakfast while my mother is doing work on her computer. I walk over to Ashlynn, who is sitting on the family room rug, making a sculpture inside of a solidified gel. She takes one of her syringes filled with yellow paint out and wipes the needle with a cloth.

"Ash you should put that on the coffee table so we can clean it if the paint spills," I advise.

"It won't spill you moldy doorknob, it's gel. I won't turn it over until the excess paint is cleaned off the top which I'll do outside, calm yourself and stop being bossy," she groans, shooing me away and I then leave the room.

I decide to sit out on the deck, the sun is shining brightly and the air is warm around me. The Kit-Island native birds were singing their best songs and I watched as the electric cars went down our road once in a while. The smell of wheat and freshly cut grass filled my nose like it always did on these kinds of days.

Dinging sounds on my wrist and I look down at my Apple Watch XV, pull up texts, and see one from Jack Peter in our Plan Beta group chat. It reads: I heard my mom talking about a threat letter, pack your stuff, we're all moving into the GZU headquarters, it's time for a lockdown.