Fandomania

Chapter 30 - The Extol

Miles watched, on his knees, as soldiers piled into the house, academy, and cabins. The soldiers had placed Miles and the others in a circle, all staring at each other while they finished searching the buildings. It wouldn't be long before they would probably be gagged and placed in a trunk for a trip back to the Necron headquarters in Virginia.

Miles looked around the circle at every single person he'd spent the last several months with. Caspar was passed out on the grass after he had been relentlessly kicking a soldier until the soldier had broken and knocked him across the head with the butt of his rifle. Jason and Kane were on either side of him, staying quiet and staring down at the grass. Lilly and Dawn were doing the same from beside Caspar's body. Lancaster and Captain R seemed to be trying to figure out a plan, but it didn't look like they were getting anywhere. Mr. Turner and the rest of the kids that went on winter break were beside Captain R, looking just as tired as Miles and the rest of them. They must have put up a fight too.

The soldiers came out of the house a couple minutes later, pushing Ms. Lisa along. Ms. Lukeson was walking behind them, and Owen was being carried along by an additional two soldiers. Caspar must have really hit him hard, because Owen seemed to still be out cold. A soldier said something to Ms. Lukeson, and Ms. Lukeson frowned and said something back. After a few seconds of back and forth, Ms. Lukeson nodded and then she began walking the opposite direction of the soldiers, heading out of the campus.

"Where is she going?" Jason whispered.

"I don't know," said Miles. "It looks like she's leaving."

"I think that's the least of our worries," Kane said.

He was right. The soldiers had finished searching the buildings, and were headed back toward the center of Fandomania, where Miles and the others were. The were grouping back up, which meant that something was about to happen.

But nothing did. Instead, the soldiers grouped up and created a circle around Miles and the rest of the hostages. The soldiers seemed more focused on their surroundings than Miles and the rest of the group, which was odd. Every couple seconds, the soldiers would looked around the campus.

"What are they waiting for?" Miles hissed through his teeth.

Lancaster looked over at Miles. "They're waiting for their leader. Zorander."

"So that's who Zorander is," said Lilly, sounding triumphant, an odd sound coming from someone with a gun to their head. But the soldiers weren't paying any attention to their conversation anyway.

Lancaster squinted his eyes and looked between Miles and Lilly. "So Caspar did say the word Zorander that night. I thought that was what he had said."

"Sorry," Miles apologized. "But we needed to know if you knew who it was."

Lancaster shook his head. "It's fine. I should have listened to you and Caspar when you two came to me a while back. Turns out you were right about the whole traitor thing."

"Yeah, but we were wrong about who," Miles said. "We were so convinced that it was Ms. Lisa."

Lancaster smiled a little. "She sure looks the type, doesn't she? But no, Lisa and I go way back. She can be trusted."

Miles nodded. "I wish we had known that."

Lancaster frowned. "I should have been honest with you from the beginning," he looked at all the students. "With all of you, really. But I kept things hidden from you, which was a mistake, and it's the reason we're here in the first place. And I don't think there's a better time than right now to come clean, do you?"

Everyone stared at Lancaster, anxious to hear what he had to say.

Lancaster looked at each of them again, then started, "Well, it began as an experiment. An organization was working on creating enhanced humans to use for various purposes, one of them being warfare. They called this Project Extol. They brought in twenty-six babies, all born on the same day, to use for the experiment. There was one baby for every letter of the alphabet. And that was how they distinguished them. They would simply identify the baby as A, or B, or C, and so on. Each baby had a... guardian per say, and the guardian injected them with twenty-six different serums, one per baby. There were complications while working on this project, so the organization was forced to shut the project down. But the damage, or however you want to look at it, had been done. A home was found for the babies, either with their birth parents, or parents wishing to take them in. No one was sure if the serum had worked... until about a year ago. You all can fill in the story from there, and as you've probably figured out... you all were the babies."