4522 {The Number Series}

15

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I tapped my pencil frantically against the clipboard I was carrying. We were running, what felt like, extremely behind schedule. It was making me panic. This was my job. It had been my job since I was thirteen, now almost five years ago.

"How is everything moving along?" Macallister asked me. He was the only one I seemed to ever get to talk to besides when I listened to the concerns of our citizens.

"Not to my standards," I mummbled. "It's like they are moving slower every day just because they know I'm rushing them."

"Well, to be fair, some of them are new."

"I know," I sighed. We had gotten several shipments of new comers since I had come along. All around the ages of thirteen to sixteen. When mixed together you could always tell who was from the city and who was from the woods. The city children always had their hair nicely brushed, their teeth sat perfectly straight, their skin was free of blemishes, and they almost always never talked. When they grew up you could tell the difference between the two as adults as well. Those of us who were bred to perfection took longer to age and tended to have a slimmber build with sharper features. Macallister was the only one from the woods who I knew that had features that fit in with the city criteria with his almost crow like appearence though he was not from there.

"Just give them a little more time."

"We do not have much more time. It's winter and our food supply is running low already. We need to make sure what's growing in the greenhouses are being planted and producing as fast as possible." I shook my head as one of the teenages dropped a box of plants that were being moved into big pots. "With Marie sick I need to make sure everything goes as smoothly as possible."

"I understand, Remi, but I promise you everything will work out in the end."

I bit my lip and continued to tap my pencil. I felt like screaming. "I didn't think I would be controlling this on my own this soon."

"I don't think anyone did," Macallister sighed. "Marie's son is still-"

"Pissed off about her actually giving me control instead of him."

"Yes," he nodded. "I still don't understand how he didn't take her serously about giving eveything to you when she told him so many years ago."

I shrugged. "Her son is a little simple minded."

Simple minded. It had become something I used to insult those who just could not seem to keep up or change. Macallister shook his head at me but laughed. I contunied to push the progress of the plants along, trying to make them feel as urgent as I did, but it seemed to only make them go a little faster. Time was ticking away in my head and I was feeling the pressure. We had recents threats from the city but nothing too major. Either way I needed everything as stocked as we could get it just incase we needed to rush to the hidden bunkers. Only a few new of these threats.

"I know you didn't want to be reminded of this afternoon-"

"You are right. I didn't."

"- but I think we should review one more time."

I rolled my eyes. "I know what I am supposed to do."

"The more time we go over it the better you will know it. Even if you've already gone over the process."

"You know exactly why I don't want to go over it. Or be there. Two reasons why to be exact."

"Jericho."

"That's one."

"And Archer."

"That would be two," I sighed.