We all take a seat around the table. President Timothy takes the chair at the head of the table, while each of the guards stand around the room, guns held to their sides.
“Introductions are in order,” R. J. begins. “This is Rebekkah Jonni.” He bows to each person as he references each one. “She oversees intelligence and making sure that all things are kept calm here at The Facility.”
“How do you do?” Rebekkah says formally.
All members of our group grumble their greetings.
“This is Johnathan Timothy, Vice President of The Facility,” R. J. says. “He is my little brother. Each of you as I well know, are familiar with him.” He smiles. “And lastly, these two are Chad and Amanda Likely, they are part of our Souls Council. Do any of you have any questions?”
“What do you want from us?” Jake gets straight to the point.
“Well,” Johnathan begins, “like I said, I know your father Elizabeth and Elious, not well, but I know him. He wrote this letter for you, and I promised I would deliver it.”
“I don’t want it,” I blurt out.
“Me either,” Eli exclaims.
“Very well,” he says, pulling the note from his pocket and placing it directly in the center of the table. “At this moment, it belongs to whoever takes it first.”
I nod, not sure what that is supposed to mean.
“It is customary,” R. J. says, “that we allow a question answer portion at all meetings of the Souls Council. Do any of you have any more questions?”
He looks straight at me, knowing that I must have a thousand of them in my head, but before I speak up, Zac asks the first.
“Yeah, what is IOUSC?”
“It stands for Inspectors of United States Conspiracies,” Rebekkah answers.
“Now ma’am,” Zac smiles, “I may look like a little boy, but I am far from it. Don’t talk to me like I am stupid, I didn’t ask what it stands for, we all know what it stands for, I asked what it means.”
A sort of sly smile crosses his lips. I am so proud of him. He doesn’t know it, but if these people feel a kid his age is so tough, then what must they think of the rest of us?
“Very well,” Rebekkah retorts in a tone less than pleased. “IOUSC was an organization put together at the start of the war. It was developed to be a go between for The Elected and the people, but it didn’t ever turn out to be that way. The organization didn’t get off the ground. General R. J. Timothy, General and developer of The Force, made sure of that. No offence, sir,” she finishes the last statement while glancing at R. J. Timothy III.
“None taken, my dear,” R. J. responds.
“So, you have nothing to do with IOUSC?” Jake asks.
“No,” a voice rings out, but this time it belongs to Amanda Likely. “At the beginning we acted as a go between. Well…the generation before us did, but General Timothy entered in, convincing our then president to switch allies to The Force.”
“Why?” Leah asks.
“Because he had ulterior motives,” Chad answers.
“Which were?” Shawn fishes for more answers.
“He took a mistress and they had a son.” Chad frowns. “You see, the mistress needed to be hidden from his wife. The mistress was against The Force and what they stood for, she always ran a little more on the side of The Elected. General Timothy had her moved to the IOUSC, but by then, we had been turned into a glorified refugee camp.” He pauses for a moment.
“Get to the point,” Magi says while smacking an angry hand down onto the table.
“The refugee camp was then named The Facility,” Amanda responds. “All hopes of IOUSC was lost on wishful thinking and bad timing, but now we work with both The Force and The Elected, seeing how they run on the same side these days.”
“So, this is still just a glorified refugee camp?” I ask, disgusted.
“No!” Rebekkah answers. “It started out that way, but the son of General R. J. Timothy and his mistress, turned this place around, making it a safe and loving environment, attempting to get all involvement with The Force ended. That is until things with them and The Elected became parallel and then our alliance with the both of them was forged.”
“You call this safe and loving?” Mar asks, sounding tough.
“We do,” Rebekkah answers.
“We have learned how to develop technology and biological agents,” R. J. begins, “we are much more than a camp, we are anti-Force and anti-Elected, we are neither, we are other, we feel we are stronger than both combined that is why we belong to both.”
“Pretending that any of that makes sense, what do you want from us?” Leah pipes up.
“We know that you are soldiers, Maxwell Cole told us all about you. He and The Elected had video cameras all over The Force and knew about all your training. Robert Towers was more than willing to fill in the blanks,” R. J. finishes.
“And I came looking for you, using Robert as an excuse,” Johnathan begins, “but in all reality, we have been being attacked as of lately by everyone not associated with The Elected, and you are our new military.”
“Like hell we are,” Jake yells standing to his feet. “We will not fight against people who are against The Force and The Elected… People like us!”
“Give it a few days,” Johnathan says. “Let it sink in, and then we will be talking to you again, testing you, seeing how you work under pressure… You will come to your senses.”
“And,” I begin, “what if we don’t agree?”
Every member of my group holds their
