In Case of Rejection

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Matthew and Olive ran up the staircase of the apartment, straight up to the sixth floor without stopping. Matthew caught his breath for a moment, watching as Olive unlocked the front door using pure muscle memory. The two tumbled inside, stepping straight to the back of the apartment in the direction of Olive's little yellow room.

Once inside, Olive shut the door behind the both of them, laughing to herself.

"Sorry, I just don't even know why I bother," she said, motioning to her bedroom door. Matthew's chest grew heavy with worry for Fran, and sorrow for his best friend.

"It's okay," was all he could say. She crossed her arms tightly.

"So, what's happening? Why'd you get all spooky at the Arcade? What's on your mind?" She asked all at once. Matthew was trying to figure all that out himself.

"I really don't know, I just felt funny all of a sudden. Like something was creeping up on me," he said. Olive just nodded, observing the way the filtered orange sunlight fell across one side of his face and cast shadows on the other. Matthew swallowed and cringed at the way his throat burned with the air quality -- ash was currently settling over Sector 18 as the fires just beyond grew more and more troubling.

"Do you think they'll make us evacuate? Like in Sector 20?" Olive asked, like she was reading Matthew's mind. He turned to the window to look at nothing in particular, mostly just to feel the warmth on his skin. It put him at ease for a moment.

It's that or burn to death, the words came into his mind, breaking his fleeting peace. He turned to face her.

"I don't know. I hope not," he said.

"Where would we stay? The First Five are the only ones with any room to spare, unless they plan on sending us all into No Man's Land," Olive said with a weak smile, and a pit sunk into the bottom of Matthew's stomach. His head flooded with vague ideas of what No Man's Land was like. It was a place everyone knew of, but the kind they never touched on in school, strictly under Sector 1's orders.

It was made up of dense, uninhabitable woods, all along the East coast. Far from the Red Zone, practically on the opposite end of the world. It experienced harsh, cold weather in the winter, something Matthew knew he would never live to experience. No Man's Land crawled upwards towards the old American-Canadian border, a dark, unforgiving wasteland, occupied by tribes of people in the Resistance. People who fought against the sector system and were able to escape the reign of DefTech and the First Five. Or at least, that was the situation years ago, when the Resistance thrived. Now, the Resistance was nothing but a reminder of the many ways that the First Five ruined lives, crushed souls, the like. Now, the only talk of No Man's Land in the news was when someone was being Banished -- no longer stories of the triumphant, unapologetic Resistance. Matthew frowned to himself.

"I'm sure they wouldn't mind sending us all out there to fend for ourselves," Matthew said with a bit of snark. Olive smiled, and the two of them sat in a bit of silence.

"In my Dad's letter, he wrote to me that the Blue technology isn't all that it seems. He said that if anything goes wrong, he has plans in his desk drawer in my apartment," he said, and Olive watched him speak, creating in her head a mental map of Matthew's home, trying to envision where these plans would be.

"I tried to mention the letter to my Dad because I couldn't tell if it was really him in there, and he just told me we can't talk about it. Or, he wrote it. Said they're listening. I think they're able to see through his eyes. Hear what he hears. I don't think it's so simple as they make it out to be," Matthew said, trying to articulate his words perfectly, to not miss a thing.

"It's their way of getting even closer than the Bots," Olive said, and Matthew nodded with increasing enthusiasm. The same thought he had.

"And why else would he mention the plans or anything at all if there wasn't something really wrong happening?" Olive asked, her tone rising with her emotions.