4522 {The Number Series}

8

        The next morning my Officer was missing. Instead of a pale man with raven hair inspecting us we were nearly searched by a man with white hair and glasses. We were not collected for our special classes that morning. Instead we went to breakfast as we did before the special classes with my Officer.

        Archer said nothing as we ate. I think we had both come to the same conclusion about the strange young man who had been in charge of patrolling our halls. The classes he had been conducting were in fact illegal and he had been founded out. He was dead.

        I wanted to cry. The one who had shown me that I was not the only one who felt chained in our society may not be with me anymore.

        "It will be okay, Remi," Archer whispered across the table. While my new name had normally given me comfort, it now struck me with fear.

        "We will never know what happened to him."

        "I know." He glanced around. "Did you tell me everything that you discussed with him?"

        I sat there debating to tell him the whole truth. "No."

        "Do you think what you talked about may have caused him to not be with us right now?"

        "Possibly," I wanted to throw up my breakfast. "He knew about me going to the library."

        "And he decided not to bust you for it?"

        "No. In fact, it seemed like he supported it."

*

*

        The bell rang, signalling for us to go to class. Our time to talk was up. Now I would just be in my head, alone, thinking that I would be next for sure now. They would never just kill the Officer and move on in the hopes of everything else being alright in the system. The ones who were supposed to enforce the laws were the Officers and if they were failing then they would bring in others they felt were better. They more than likely tortured my Officer to see if he would tell them anything before taking him to slaughter.

        The things they did to people for information were horrible. I had no doubt that he gave in and offered up my number.

        I sat through my classes with sweat dripping down my back. My legs shook uncontrollably. By lunch I felt like screaming that I was guilty at the top of my lungs. At the end of the school day I felt like I had already accepted my death. There was only one problem, was 4313 going to be convicted too? Was everyone who had been involved in the program my Officer had created going to take the fall too? I couldn't bare the thought of Archer dying. I could take my own death because I wouldn't have to deal with it in the end but Archer was someone who had too much to offer.

        "I can't take this," I whispered to myself. If they were going to kill then they should have already done it. But nothing had happened yet. my teachers had not treated me differently than before and not a single Officer had pulled me to the side. I didn't understand.

*

*

        "It's going to be okay, Remi," Archer whispered as we parted ways behind our separate curtains. I wanted to believe that more than anything but I knew it wasn't going to be okay.

        I laid down and stared at the ceiling above me with it's boring and repetitive white squares. I counted the ones above me to try to entertain myself. It only worked for a minute considering there was only fifteen squares above my head. I shifted my weight around on my bed to see if I could get comfortable enough to fall asleep only to discover I wasn't even slightly tired. I sighed. The only thing left was to listen to my thoughts. 

        I thought about my Officer and the things he had said to me. He wanted to start a fire. I understood what he meant I just didn't know how to act on his wishes. he had believed in me when everyone else wanted me to be pushed down. 

        I thought about what it would be like to be able to find true love like the princess and the prince in my book. I felt like I was floating when Archer came to mind. Something about his hazel eyes and his dark hair made me smile. We weren't supposed to think these kinds of things about another but there was no way to stop myself. In our society we would never be placed together for any reason because of our two year age gap. My heart sunk.

        I started to drift into sleep.

*

*

        I woke to my shoulder being shaken softly and a hand over my mouth. My heart thudded loudly. this is it. The government knows of my disloyalty and they have come to take me away.

        My eyes opened to find my Officer in front of me. I could barely see him in the dark but I knew it was him. Behind him stood the figure of Archer.

        "Shh," the Officer said. "Come with me."

        I nodded an okay. I got off my bed as quietly as I could. I wanted to jump up and down with joy. He wasn't dead. The one who understood everything that I was thinking was not dead and was not capture. We all still had a chance.

        "Where?" I asked as I followed them out into the long hallway.

        "We're leaving," Archer said.

        "Leaving? Like the school?" I asked. I had only left the ground of the school a few times and it was field trips to see how things were ran in the city.

        "No," the Officer said. "The city limits and we have to hurry."

        Archer grabbed my hand as we moved swiftly down the hall. We followed him through a door I had never noticed before. We ended up straight outside.

        "I never noticed that this door went out here," Archer said puzzled.

        "You just never thought about it because they have programmed your minds to never wonder," the Officer said as he glanced around quickly. "Come this way. We hacked into the security system but it will only work for a few more minutes before they begin to wonder."

        "Who is we?" I asked.

        "The people I really work with," he said. "Now hurry."

        We followed him across the courtyard to the back gates. The lock that usually kept us in had been cut. The gate door pushed open with ease.

        "No electric shock?" I asked surprised.

        "No."

        "We were always told the fence was charged."

        "So you wouldn't thin about wanting to touch it," he said.

        "This is madness." Archer whispered to himself.

        Out through the gate we went. Sweat was dripping down my back and I could see that Archer's face was glistening with it. We were both feeling the effects of adrenaline. Feeling this way was something most of the others in the society would never experience. But there wasn't really another option except to push forward with the Officer's plan. It was either leave and risk going out of the city or turn around and accept the death that would surly be waiting.

        Into the woods we went. I didn't know how long we went on for as we pushed through weeds, tall grass, and branches. Archer held my hand the whole way. My legs were cut up by pricker bushes at some point.

        "Sorry for the terrain," the Officer apologized to us. "The way out isn't used often enough to have a better trail."

        "Are we the only ones right now?" Archer asked.

        The Officer shook his head. "We have a few more who are already out to the trucks. I had only personally collected you two. Speaking of trucks, we're here."

        I heard a few motors start loudly as we came into an open field. To my surprised the trucks were huge. I was directed into the back of a truck bed with the Officer and Archer. The Officer held up his thumb in a positive gesture and we took off.