Field Investigations

Chapter 13: Missing Home

I took some time to collect my thoughts. This was a crazy situation, but there was no doubt in my mind anymore that this was really happening. This had been going on too long to just be a dream, and if I was actually in this situation then I needed to find a way out as soon as possible. 

The elevator continued upwards at its painfully slow pace. I wondered what my mom and brother were doing. I left home twelve hours ago, so by now they must have noticed that I was missing. I hadn't shown the letter to my parents, mostly because I didn't want them to stop me from going if I decided to. My school knew about the letter, though, because of the email I sent to the principal. My mom will tell them about my disappearance. She'll have to. And when the principal hears about it, hopefully she'll put two and two together and figure out what must have happened. 

I couldn't count on any kind of rescue, though. Even if they somehow managed to trace me to this parking lot, they didn't know about the Field. They would just assume that they'd made some sort of mistake somewhere along the way and look somewhere else. 

But this was all assuming that they even tried. What if they gave up? What if they decided that I must be dead, and they never even started looking? My mom... She might not always seem like she cares that much, but surely if she thought I'd been kidnapped... And my brother would search. He would do whatever he could to find me. 

"Hey, you alright?" John's voice snapped me out of my thoughts.

"Huh... Oh, yeah. I'm just thinking."

"Look, I know that you must miss home," John said, surprising me with his correct guess of what was on my mind. "I was taken here, too, almost twenty years ago today. I never looked back." 

Kenna said something like that, too, on the bus, when we had that argument. She didn't say that last part about not looking back, though. If she was telling the truth, I wondered if she still missed her life from before she was brought here. I didn't want to forget about my home, about my brother. I never liked it that much in Connecticut, but now that I thought I would never see my home again, I realized how much I would miss it. 

I never made any real friends at Washington High, and I didn't participate in much outside of school. I wondered how they would react when they learned that I was gone. Would they even be able to put a face to my name, to remember the girl who they chatted with once ? That's who I was there: an acquaintance. I was never anyone's friend, but I liked it that way. At least, that's what I'd tell myself. Now that I thought I'd never see any of them again, part of me wished that I'd taken more time to talk to them. I wouldn't forget Washington High; I didn't want them to forget me. I wouldn't miss it, though. Not exactly.

I'd miss the time I spent with my brother, when he came over after work and we went to the mall together, ordering one thing from each stand in the food court. I wondered if I'd ever see him again. There were more problems with my escape plan that I hadn't even thought of earlier. I was in Canada illegally, so it might be more complicated then I'd thought to get back into the United States. Then again, I could probably drive back through the Field. Better to just consider this one step at a time, and my first step was to find out what was really going on here.

"So, what's the Academy?" I asked. I was pretty sure it was some sort of school to learn about the Field, but I wanted to hear how he'd answer.

"It's a school," he explained, "that all AFS members go to. It teaches classes about the Field and its... uses. Well, you'll find out soon, like I said." So I was more or less right. I wondered what "uses" of the Field he was talking about and why he wouldn't tell me them outright. I didn't bother asking, though. It seemed like I would find out for myself soon enough if I would be taking classes at this Academy like he said I would.

"How many other people are here?" I wondered.

"At the AFS in general, or just at this headquarters?" 

"Both," I clarified.

"There are about a thousand people here at headquarters, and about fifteen thousand people in AFS headquarters worldwide. There are also many AFS members who are out in the Field right now, both literally and figuratively," he chuckled at his own joke.

"Were all of them kidnapped?" For a second, I thought he wouldn't answer.

"I understand that you're upset," he began. "But while they were technically kidnapped, that's not the way I'd put it. They're all happy to be a part of the organization. Many of them have even been given opportunity to leave, in fact, but they all chose to stay. Give it a few days," he told me, "and I think you'll start to like it here."

Wait - the people here were allowed to leave? Why were they kidnapped in the first place, then? Anyway, if he was telling the truth and I was allowed to leave at some point, I would be out of here in no time flat. I wouldn't even be here long enough for them to give me that option. I'd find some way of escaping and leave within the next week.

He didn't seem to realize how off-putting his answer was, the way he seemed to truly believe that what AFS was doing didn't qualify as kidnapping. How could he believe that all these people were actually happy here? How did he seem to be happy here himself? I swore to myself that I would never let myself like this place.

A quiet ping from across the elevator brought me out of my thoughts. John pulled his cell phone out of his pocket, his expression darkening as his eyes moved back and forth across the screen. What was he reading? Some sort of notification? I wondered what it was to make him seem so upset. Finally, a minute later, he slid the phone back into his pocket.

"What was that?" I asked him. 

"Actually," he said, ignoring my question, his expression grim but controlled, "I have some questions for you."