The Search and Rescue Project

The Search and Rescue Project part 2

Francis, a man who had attended the meeting today, stood conversing with a man in black. The man had a buzz cut and a small tattoo on his neck which marked him as part of the Secrah Ecruse. Francis was glancing around uneasily, as if afraid of something.

Caleb shook his head slowly and pulled out his cell. He pressed a discreet button on the side and titled his head as he listened. "Jason? Yea, it's me. Bad news. Francis ratted us out. He's with some guy from S.E." He listened a little more. "I'm sure. Okay, I'll set up the transmitter." He flipped the phone shut.

Caleb pulled a square leather thing resembling a wallet from his pocket and opened it. He typed in the key code, and sighed as he pressed enter.

I knew how he felt. Betrayals always felt like a kick in the stomach. Francis had been with us for years. It wasn't a good thing to find him with the enemy. I turned my head away from the street and stared at the seatback in front of me. I subconsciously listed the names of those who had turned on us, and then had been Terminated. Julio, Max, Lily, Jen, Dave, Isaac, Christian, and now Francis. And this was just in the past year.

I heard Caleb shift. "I thought he was a good guy too. It sucks so much when this happens."

Cam, our driver, turned around. He was 16 and had a buzz which he tended to rub when he was thinking. He did it now. "I never thought Francis would go. Almost feel bad for the guy."

I glanced out the window to see Francis stop speaking mid sentence and fall to the ground. The man attempted to revive him, but left when he didn't wake up. A small metal bead embedded in Francis' neck had been activated, sending lethal shock waves through him. The transmitter in Caleb's hand prevented the same from happening to the rest of us. We all had a similar device implanted, including Jason. No one was to be fully trusted, even kids like us. Anyone could reveal us at anytime.

What the man who walked away didn't know was that he had been infected as well, and would die in a few hours. His brain would begin to shut down, first losing any recent memories, then motor skills, then basic functions such as breathing. It was hard to be compassionate when millions of lives were at stake.

                I heard the idle chatter of Caleb and Cam faintly, as if I was standing far away. A tingling sensation came over me as all went black.

                The room was white, and painfully so. Everything was bleached until no trace of color was left, including the man sitting in the chair facing me. He didn't seem to realize I was there. I found turning my head was painful, and I stopped with it tilted to the right. The man in the chair raised his hand, and a door slid open to reveal a colorless hallway. A person in shackles wearing a white jumpsuit shuffled in. His hair had been bleached, leaving it thin and stringy.

                The man in the chair's face changed to a sneer. I noticed his eyes for the first time. They were a deep crimson, and with a jolt I remembered who he was. Zaskar, the head of S.E. was sitting in a chair not ten feet from me. I opened my mouth, and the voice that came out was not mine.

"Sir, he is here. All processes have been administered as you requested." A deep voice rumbled.

I looked at the prisoner once again. I gasped quietly, a noise that didn't sound as if the body I was in had formed it. The prisoner was Francis. My heart raced as a thousand broken thoughts formed in my mind. He's dead. Jason killed him. The bead was activated. He fell. What's happening?

                Zaskar pressed a button on his chair. Francis' head snapped up and he stared blankly at Zaskar. There was no expression on his face; he seemed only a shell of a person.  Zaskar grinned coldly as he punched a code into his chair and Francis began to walk around stiffly. The grin disappeared as he became aware I, or the man, was watching him. With an uncaring sniff, he said, "Send him back to his cell. Continue the processes as before." His voice sounded like a knife grinding against stone.

"As you wish, sir." I bowed deeply and followed Francis out of the room. The vision faded as I came back to consciousness.

                I woke to see Caleb staring at me nervously. "Are you okay?" he asked warily. I sat up, and then felt like I'd been hit in the head with a sack of concrete. I lay down again. "Uh, yea. I think if I just-" I began to sit up again, but Caleb pressed his hand against my shoulder. "Not so fast." He gave me that weird look again. It was anxious and almost expectant. Seriously, what the heck?

                I pushed him away. "It's nothing, I just had a dream." His eyebrows knit together. "What kind of dream?" he said through clenched teeth.

"It was kind of weird. I think I was in someone else's body." Caleb's hands were tight at his sides. Noticing my staring, he relaxed them.  "What else?" he pressed. "Well, there was a man in a chair, and he..." The dream suddenly came flooding back, and I sat up. "It was Zaskar. He ordered in a prisoner, and it was Francis. He wasn't himself. He was bleached, like everything else. It was all white, the room, the people. Zaskar was controlling him. He told the guard, I mean me, to continue the process. Do you know what he meant?"

                Caleb's eyes were wide. He buried his head in his hands. I touched his shoulder tentatively, confused. He jerked away. When he lifted his head, his eyes were rimmed with red. "What did I do?" he whispered hoarsely.

 "Caleb, what do you mean? It's a dream. You didn't do anything." When he looked at me, his eyes were so filled with guilt I lost all my calm. I fought to keep the fear from rising in my throat. "Caleb. Answer me. What did you do? What's going on?"

"I'm so sorry." He said quietly. "That wasn't a dream. It was a foresight. I've had them for a while now. I didn't know it could spread, I'm sorry!" His voice was thick and pained. "Caleb, it's alright. I'm fine, see? It just felt like a dream." He didn't respond for a moment.

                "It gets worse. It starts off as just dreams, and then turns into actual events. Whatever happens to who you're in happens to you. The pain from just being there gets stronger when you spend more time as the person." I felt calm enough to speak without yelling now, so I did. "Why didn't you tell me?" Caleb looked up, confused. "What?" "You went through it alone? Caleb, I've known you since I was what, six months old? Why wouldn't you say anything?"

His voice gained a nearly undetectable edge. "I didn't want to say anything. I figured if you didn't know, you wouldn't need to worry about it. Sorry." I would have kept going, but Caleb looked to be on the verge of breaking down. "It's okay. I'll deal with it." I said softly, in what I hoped was a reassuring tone.

Caleb stared out the window. I took the cap from his disguise and bent the brim back and forth. I felt the faint feeling again, and groaned Caleb's name before it went black once more.