Field Investigations

Chapter 12: AFS

John smiled. "I'll explain what I can on the way to the Academy. We'll go over there in a minute and I'll give you a tour." 

"The Academy?"

"You'll see," he said.

"Do you have any idea how many times I've been told that today?" I felt like I was going crazy, annoyed yet grinning as I spoke. "'You'll see this, you'll see that. Oh, don't worry. We'll explain why you're invisible in just a few minutes. Oh, wait, we're not allowed to!' Does anyone give any real explanations in this place?"

"No, I mean it," he told me. "I'll tell you as much as I can on our way over."

"Let me guess," I laughed. "The only things you can tell me are useless, pointless, and not what I wanted to know."

"Well, I don't know what you want to know, but I'm sure I can answer at least some of your questions." I was hoping for more of a "I'll tell you everything" kind of answer, but I shouldn't be so surprised at this point.

"Alright," I agreed. "Let's go."

"See you around, Douglas," he said, getting up and walking towards the elevator doors. I followed closely behind.

When we were both in the elevator, he pressed the button for floor number 347.

"There are three-hundred and forty-seven floors?" I asked. 

"No, there are five-hundred and sixty floors," John corrected. "We're going to number three-hundred and forty-seven, though."

I expected the elevator to shoot up, but it lifted upwards at what felt like a snail's pace. "How long will it take to get up there?"

"Probably around half an hour," he told me. "So if you have any questions, now's not a bad time to ask them."

"What is the AFS?" That was probably the most urgent question on my mind right then after the encounter on the bus.

"You know about the AFS?" John looked surprised.

"Not really. I heard the term on the ride over," I explained, choosing not to tell him about those people in the Field. "But I didn't understand it, which is why I'm asking."

"Well, this is the AFS. Or, well, part of it, really," he clarified. "AFS stands for the Association of Field Studies. There are multiple AFS headquarters around the world; in China, the US, Germany, Nigeria, Brazil, and, of course, Canada, where we are right now."

"That was actually helpful," I said, mildly surprised. "Thanks."

"Any other questions?"

In my rush to find out about the AFS, I'd forgotten about something even more pressing. "Why am I here?" I asked.

"In short, you're being recruited. We have scouts that go out in the Field looking at schools around the country, and they pick students who seem to be a good fit."

"And kidnap them?" 

"Well, when you put it that way-"

"Also, I'm by no means the smartest person in my school. Why me?"

"Well, we pick students for a range of qualities. Of course, intelligence is one of the factors in our decisions, but there are other things we look at when we choose students."

"Like?" I asked.

"Well, to be honest, the main reason we recruited you was because nobody else was gullible enough to follow instructions from a suspicious-looking letter."

I was hurt and also pretty confused. "First of all, in my defense, the letter threatened that I would fail every class if I didn't show up."

"And you believed it," he laughed. "That's more or less the definition of gullible."

"Wait, but second of all, why would you be looking for gullible people? That's not usually seen as a good quality."

"Well, that was actually a bit of a mistake. The letters are usually much more believable, but one of the interns managed to replace the wording of the letter this time as a bit of a prank. He didn't think it would actually go through, but there were so many different letter batches that nobody noticed. You are a good candidate, though," he added, anticipating my next question. "We're excited to have you here."

"What, you think I want to be here?"

"Well, most people never get the experience of being invisible. I think you're probably pretty upset at the way we brought you here, but I also think you'll end up liking it here a lot."

I remembered what it was like on the bus. I'd actually felt sort of at home there with Kenna and Douglas, the same people who'd kidnapped me. This seemed like a similar situation, except that so far, here, I didn't feel at home at all. And I didn't want to feel at home here. I wanted to feel at home at my actual home, hundreds of miles away. I'd find a way to escape, but for now it seemed like the best course of action was to just go along with it. 

"We'll see," I said, forcing a smile to spread across my face. "But I have another question. Why do you recruit anyone? And why don't you just advertise like any normal organization that you're looking for employees or students or whatever and let people choose whether or not they want to be kidnapped and turn invisible?" 

"The thing is, we can't. Most of what we do has to be kept secret. You'll find out soon, but the AFS uses the Field for certain purposes that would be much harder to pull off if we were widely known." His explanation seemed vague and he didn't offer any answer to my first question, but I didn't press him for more information this time. I figured that if I was now a part of the AFS someone would tell me eventually, and if I wanted to escape it was better not to raise suspicion. 

"So, what am I going to be doing here?" I asked.

"Well, first you'll be in the Academy full time for a few weeks. Depending on how that goes, though, we might assign you to a project. I can't tell you more than that right now, but this will all be explained shortly."

Of course. Kenna said on the bus that I'd find out everything once I got here, and now that I'm here apparently I'll find everything out "soon", although nobody has told me what "soon" is supposed to mean. Today? In a week? Well, hopefully I'll be out of here in another week. Now, though, I'm realizing that it's not as simple as just escaping. There are other people being kidnapped and taken here, too. Before I leave, I need to find out exactly what's going on here. That way, when I escape, I can get everyone else out of here as well.