Project Archangel Book One: The Conspiracy Project

Chapter 2

The morning came too quickly, leaving me feeling like I hadn't slept at all. I had to practically drag myself out of bed and force myself to leave the house. I almost missed the bus and had to skip breakfast just to get to school. As the bus turned into what everyone referred to as the bus loop, I spotted Michael's fancy car in the parking lot. He was sitting in the driver's seat with the door wide open and smoke coming out. When I got off the bus, I could also hear music, but he was too far away for me to be able to make out the song.
 
As I entered the cafeteria to have a quick breakfast with my friends, I found Brenda gushing over someone. And Sammy making sarcastic remarks.
“Are you still going on about Michael?” I asked as I took my seat.
“No way,” Brenda replied. “He's all yours.”
“Mine? What would I want with Michael?”
“Uh, he's rich? Duh. And he likes you? Duh again.”  
I laughed. “Michael doesn't like me.”
“Sure he does,” Sammy cut in. “I saw the way he was looking at you yesterday.”
“When?”
“That sideways glance in the parking lot. Remember?”
“He was looking at all of us. Probably thinking we were a bunch of weirdos sitting on the sidewalk and watching the school buses.”
“No, Honey, that sideways glance was all for you,” Brenda argued.
“Um, no. When you like someone, you usually talk to them. Michael doesn't talk to me.”
Alyssa shrugged. “Maybe he's shy.”
“Guys aren't shy, Alyssa,” Brenda insisted. “Besides, he's too unapproachable. No, I'm talking about Liam. He's a dream. Dark clothes, combat boots, black eyeliner and nail polish. And he can paint and draw and play guitar.”
“Sounds more like a nightmare,” Shawn snickered.
“Can he do any of those things well?” Bradley joked from down the table.
Brenda glared at both of them, probably because they were too far away to smack right now.
“Michael can draw,” I muttered, not sure why I had recalled that. “And he's really smart. He finished our practice math quiz with all the right answers before everyone, even Lacey Smith.”
“You mean Lacey Smart?” Sammy asked in shock.
I nodded.
“Wow. Smart and rich. He's a keeper.”
“Anyway, back to Liam!” Brenda started again. "I met him at the club."
“How did you get into a club?” Shawn demanded. “You're only 16!”
Brenda grinned. “I have connections.”
The first bell rang just then, and the cafeteria was filled with the sounds of sliding chairs and rustling backpacks as the students got up and began scurrying off to class.
 
English class, which was also our homeroom class, started with a warm up exercise on the board. We had to figure out where each type of punctuation went and what words were misspelled. I was still working on the problem when the teacher -- I think her name was Mrs. Mahone -- came into the room and took her seat.
“Who's figured out the warm up?”
Lacey Smith's hand shot into the air.
The teacher looked at her roll. “Yes, Lacey?”
As Lacey prattled on about where a comma, period, colon, or semicolon was needed, I finished my own answers. The teacher listened intently and nodded as she did. Once Lacey finally stopped talking -- and hopefully took a breath -- the teacher said “very good, Lacey, but you're missing one.”
Her eyes widened in horror.
“Can anyone point out Lacey's mistake?”
No one raised their hand, so she started calling on people.
“Amy?”
Amy shook her head. “I don't know.”
“Micah?”
He stared down at his paper, pretending to be thinking.
“Amber?”
“Kyle?”
“Riley?”
She called on me then. “Kelsey? Any ideas?”
I shook my head. “I don't know either, sorry.”
“That's okay. Someone will figure it out.”
“Any more guesses?”
“Breanna? Seth?” Her eyes came to the bottom of the list. “Michael?”
Michael, who had had his eyes down the whole time, drawing, looked up. From what I could see in my seat in front of him and to the left, he hadn't even bothered to write down the sentence. “There should be a semi colon before however, not a comma,” he muttered before returning to his art.
“Correct! Good job, Michael.” She faced the class. “Any questions?”
Lacey's hand shot up again.
“Lacey?”
“But couldn't it be a comma?”
The teacher looked at the board and then shook her head. “Not in this sentence. Some people may put a comma, I'm sure, but that isn't the correct punctuation that should be used here.”
“Oh...”
“Anyone else?”
When no one else's hand went up, she continued talking. “We're going to begin today with our first class reading assignment: 1984. Just from that title, what do you think the book might be about?”
After a few obvious guesses like “the year 1984”, she began passing out books and changed the question to “now that you've seen the cover, does anyone want to take another guess?”
Lacey's hand went up. “The cover looks like an eye, so maybe it's about someone who's blind?”
“A good guess, Lacey. Anymore guesses? Mackenzie? Stuart?” Once again, she singled out the boy at the back of the room, forcing him to participate. “Michael?”
He gave her an irritated look as if to say ‘I obviously already know all the answers, so why are you asking me?’ He sighed. “It's about the government watching your every move and trying to control you.”
The teacher seemed surprised. “Have you read this book?”
“Yeah.”
“Well... I'm going to read the back out loud to get us started and you will have twenty minutes to read the first chapter and answer some questions on a worksheet on your own. After that you will partner up with someone and review your answers together. Refer to the book for any answers you disagree on.”
She began reading the summary on the back, and class continued.
 
After English, I made my way to the portables. On my way, I noticed Michael standing in the same spot as yesterday with a lighter in one hand and a cigarette in the other. To my surprise, he called out to me as I passed.
“Hey, Lab Partner. You got a light?”
I stopped and turned to face him, only to find that he was looking right at me. “Uh... No. I don't smoke.”
He tilted his head. “Why not? It's a great stress reliever.”
“It's a nasty habit,” I replied. I turned to continue on my way to class, but he stopped me once more.
“It's Kelsey, isn't it?”
I turned to face him again. He returned his unsmoked cigarette to the pack and stepped towards me.
I stepped back. “Uh... Yeah. You remember me?”
“Of course. I used to have a crush on you when we were kids. You're still pretty cute.” He stopped in front of me and I could smell his cologne. It smelled sweet and spicy with a bit of musk, and I kind of liked it.
I blushed. It was a strange thing to say, but I would have been lying if I said I didn't appreciate the compliment. “Really?”
He nodded. “I had this whole life planned out for us. I was going to ask you out when we were sixteen, and we would get married after college, have two kids, a dog...”
I raised an eyebrow.
He looked almost surprised at what he had just said. “That was weird, wasn't it?”
I shrugged sheepishly. “A little.”
“Sorry. I have a tendency to say what I'm thinking without thinking about what I'm saying. Does that make sense?”
“Kind of?” I gave him an awkward smile.
“Sorry,” he repeated. “I haven't spent much time around normal people in the last few years. I guess I kind of forgot what's socially acceptable.”
I gave him a confused look. “Weren't you at boarding school?”
“Didn't I say normal people?” he said with a grin.
I smiled. “Why did you come back to Meadow Ridge anyway?”
He shrugged carelessly. “I got tired of all the afterschool programs, the drama. And my roommate. And my teachers. And pretty much everyone else there. You'd be surprised just how snobby a bunch of rich kids can be.”
I laughed. “Not really.”
He shrugged. “I didn't really have many friends.”
“Really?” I teased. “A charming guy like you? With the smoking and everything, I can't imagine why not.”
He smiled faintly. “Yeah... I couldn't figure it out either.”
The warning bell rang then.
“We need to get to class,” I suggested.
Michael shook his head. “Nah, I think I'm gonna skip today.”
“Skip? It's only the second day!”
“Yeah? So? None of what they're trying to teach us even matters in the real world. Besides, I hate social studies... And I need a new lighter. Don't worry, Lab Partner. I'll be back in time for science. See you later.” He gave me a wave and headed toward the parking lot with his hands in the pockets of his dark jeans.
I shook my head and sighed. “Bye, Michael.”
 
---
I didn't see Michael again until science class, as he promised.
I entered the room to find two empty seats at the back. I took the one that had ended up being mine and waited for class to start. Though I wasn't really expecting to see Michael, he walked through the door just as the tardy bell rang. Mrs. Sanchez was glaring at him, but he just ignored her as he made his way to his seat next to me.
“Told you,” he smirked.
“Mr. Wydic, you're late,” the teacher started in.
Michael shrugged carelessly. “Sorry, I got lost.”
“You were on time yesterday.”
“I lost my schedule.”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “Don't let it happen again.”
He rolled his eyes and pulled out his notebook as the teacher continued speaking to the class.
“This semester, I like to think you guys are lucky because, at the end of this semester, we have the annual science fair.” When no one cheered, she continued. “I'm sure you all know what a science fair is, but just in case anyone doesn't, you'll be coming up with an experiment to perform, using the scientific method. On the selected day, you will present your projects to be judged. The winners will receive an award. You'll be working very closely with your lab partner on this project, so I hope you chose wisely and can manage to get along until the date of the project. I'm passing out a sheet that has some project ideas on it. You don't have to use any of the examples on this sheet if you would rather come up with your own. If you look at the back, the rules are listed. Now, I will allow you fifteen minutes to put your heads together and come up with a project idea. Any questions?”
No one spoke.
“Begin.”
I glanced at Michael, who was too busy writing in his notebook to pay attention. This guy was my lab partner. This guy who spent all of his time in class drawing, writing things that aren't class related, or sleeping. I was gonna fail this project so bad. “So...?”
He looked at me. “So what?”
“What do you want to do for our project?”
“Mind control,” he answered seriously.
“Mind control? That's more science fiction than science.”
“It's not science fiction. The government is using it right now.”
I gave him a curious look. Was I dealing with a crazy person? I decided to approach the topic very carefully.
“But there's no proof.”
“There is.”
“Okay, there might be. But we have no way of getting access to it. Shouldn't we do something easy like using a potato to make a light bulb work? Or seeing how long it takes a regular ice cube to melt versus an ice cube in salt? Or, if you're looking for something a bit more interesting, build a rocket and see how high it flies with different weights on it.”
He shook his head. “Mind control exists, and people need to know about it.”
“And how do you propose we show them? Hypnosis?” He was starting to get on my nerves with his insistence.
“That's one way.”
I shook my head. “I'm not doing a science project on fictional nonsense.”
“Fine. What if I can prove it to you?”
“You're going to prove that mind control exists?” I raised an eyebrow.
“Yes.”
I sighed. “If you can prove to me that mind control exists, we'll do our project on it.”
“And if I can't?”
“We're doing the ice or something.”
“Fine. Fair enough.”
 
Following science, we all went to math just like yesterday, but Michael didn't talk to me the rest of the day. Was he really that mad because I told him there was no such thing as mind control? Did he really think it was real? Maybe he was schizophrenic or something and had actually been holed up in some mental hospital for the last six years. Maybe boarding school was just a cover up. That would certainly explain his self proclaimed lack of knowledge regarding social norms.

 ---
After school, I took the bus home as usual, sneaked past my parents and up to my room, and started on my homework. I had to do page 57 in my math book, read chapter two of 1984 and answer the questions, read the first chapter of my social studies book, and finish choosing a science project. It was only the second day and I had been given homework in every class.
High school sucks.

After I finished the three major things, I began researching project ideas aside from mind control, but I found myself getting more and more drowsy as I tried. For no other reason than simple curiosity, I entered the phrase 'mind control' into the search engine on my laptop. Once it finished loading, several results came up. There were a couple about video games or superheroes, but I was quite amazed to find that most of it was about exactly what Michael had been talking about: government mind control.
One was about mind control in the media, another was about Adolf Hitler's experiments with mind control, and there was even one about how the government is currently trying to control us right now. Of course, there was no proof anywhere.
I yawned. I was starting to feel fuzzy headed from tiredness, which meant it was time to turn in. I closed my laptop and undressed, crawling into the bed soon afterward. Oddly enough, even though I was tired, I still had a hard time sleeping. It wasn't until I was truly exhausted that I finally fell into a restless sleep. When I woke up the next morning, I once again felt like I hadn't slept at all.
 
---
As I was sitting in homeroom, waiting for class to start, I kept feeling my eyes grow heavy and my head nodding. Every time I started to doze, I snapped right back awake, but my eyes would always close again. How was I going to get through school like this? I had just fallen asleep when a loud noise woke me up. I snapped awake to find Michael standing in front of my desk and a stack of folders filled with papers on my desk.
“Michael?” I asked, still in a state of shock from being woken up so suddenly.
“Were you dreaming about me or something?”
“What's that?” I nodded towards the folders, ignoring his question.
“Evidence. Look through it when you get a chance,” he replied and walked to his desk at the back of the room.
I glanced at the tabs. The Montauk Project, Project MKUltra, DARPA, BRAIN, RFID... What the hell was all this? Then something caught my eye. It was a folder with a tag that had two labels. It read The Frequency Project and CELL. Just as I opened the folder to read it, the bell for class rang.
 
---
I didn't get a chance to look through the paperwork again until lunch time, and even then I was mostly just skimming. I was trying to multitask between reading and talking to my friends.
“What is that?” Sammy inquired between bites. She was peering over my shoulder.
“Some science project Michael wants to try for the science fair.”
“Ugh...” Alyssa groaned. “Why do we have to do a science project anyway? Science is so boring.”
I shrugged. “I like it okay, I guess. Experiments are fun and it's cool to see what the outcomes are, especially when you're right.”
She shook her head. “I always fail.”
“Science isn't for everyone,” Cameron attempted to comfort his girlfriend. “You're good at other things.”
Brenda came into the conversation then. “Rich Boy is your lab partner?”
I nodded. “Believe me, it wasn't on purpose.”
“That's how tween romances always start out,” Sammy teased.
“We aren't tweens; we're teenagers,” I replied. “And I don't think he's interested anymore.”
“Anymore?” Brenda inquired.
I shrugged. “Apparently he used to have a crush on me or something. He said he was going to ask me out when we were 16, but I'm almost 17 now, and he hasn't, obviously. Today was the first time he even spoke to me, and he asked me if I had a lighter. Not very sexy.”
“Maybe hes waiting for the right moment,” she offered.
I shook my head. “I don't know, but I'm not interested.”
“Why not?”
“I'm not into bad boys like you, Brenda. Smoking is gross and cutting class is a stupid idea.”
“He cuts class? That's so hot!”
“Remember, Brenda. You're in love with Liam now,” Sammy reminded her friend with a smirk.
Brenda pouted.
 
After lunch, I went to science class as usual. I took my spot next to Michael, who was surprisingly on time today.
“Hey, Lab Partner,” he greeted. “Did you get a chance to look through those folders?”
“I mostly just skimmed through them during lunch,” I answered truthfully. “I'll read some of it when I get home.”
“What did you think?”
I shrugged. “Still sounds kind of science fiction-y to me... I mean why would you have access to secret government files? How do I know you didn't make them yourself?”
“In less than 12 hours?”
“I don't know... Maybe.”
“I can do a lot of things, but I don't think I could write down that much information that quickly. I have access to them because my parents work for the government. Of course I'm not really supposed to, and they don't even know I do, but I'm pretty good at finding things out.”
When he saw the suspicious look on my face, he continued.
“Look, if you still don't believe me, come over to my house after school, and I'll show you undeniable and slightly disturbing proof. You don't have a weak stomach, do you?”
I stared at him in suprise for a moment. “Um... No.”