Arisen Read online

  “You too?” I asked, exasperated. Was I the only one who found grown adults emotionally invested in an ancient video game ridiculous?

  Ignoring me, Jasper sat in the space on the couch Drea made for him. After Ash threw him a controller, I was the only one left whose mind wasn’t being possessed by a bunch of silly characters and colorful racetracks.

  “Jasper, mate. I can feel her negative energy from here. It’s throwing me off my game,” Ash complained.

  “Luna, come on. Don’t be such an entertainment snob. Not all of us can sit through artsy indie films and documentaries on social issues for hours at a time,” Jasper said. “Some of us are a bit more simple.” He looked pointedly at Drea.

  She elbowed him.

  I reluctantly nestled down in Jasper’s lap, leaning against his chest. He had his controller out in front of my body, trapping me in with his arms.

  “I’d offer you a remote, but I don’t have the patience to teach a newbie how to race against professionals,” Ash said.

  “It’s just a stupid game, I highly doubt it’d be difficult to pick up.” I could feel three sets of glares.

  “Control her, Jasper. She might say something she’ll regret,” Drea said icily.

  “Control her?” Jasper scoffed. “I’m sorry, have you met Luna Beckham?”

  We sat there until the sun was high in the sky, and the light trickled in through the open window curtains. For once I wasn’t preoccupied with worries or doubts, and everything seemed so simple. It was just four young adults with so much behind them and so much ahead of them.

  It was one of those moments that didn’t feel real—like a vivid dream or a cherished memory—where there was nothing to dwell on but voices, laughter, and a sense that the universe had finally decided to let us be.

  “Where are we going?” I asked one too many times.

  Jasper reached from the driver’s seat to put his hand over my mouth.

  “God, Luna. Can’t you just enjoy the mystery of it all?” he asked, jerking his hand away when I stuck out my tongue. “Very mature.” He wiped his hand on his dark jeans, shooting me a look.

  I laughed. “Okay so we’re heading towards Northeast Portland… Does it have something to do with Willamette River?”

  Jasper’s jaw tensed. “You’ve lost your talking privileges.”

  “Ha! So is it a dinner cruise?” I was jumping up and down in my seat now.

  “Jeez, since when are we an elderly couple?”

  “Okay… What about—”

  “Fine. I give up,” Jasper said. “We’re going to the Overlook Bluffs that run along the Willamette’s east bank. From there we’ll lie out on a blanket, eat from a picnic basket, watch the sunset above the Union Pacific Rail Yard, and it’ll be freaking romantic.” Jasper shot me a look. “Except for the fact that someone just had to ruin the element of surprise, so thanks for that.”

  I was quiet for a moment. “Breaking News: Jasper the hardcore, rocker heart-throb is actually a sensitive, hopeless romantic. The fangirls will swoon.”

  “You know what’s crazy?” Jasper asked from next to me on the blanket. The sun was just beginning to set, and the warm hues were starting to highlight the sky. Railroads ran below the overlook, and mountains outlined the horizon beyond the shimmering water of the Willamette.

  “What?” I looked over at him, noticing the dark brown hair he’d been growing out and the sharp lines of his jaw.

  “I was working it out in my head this morning: yesterday was the three-year anniversary of our great escape.”

  I sat up. “Oh wow,” I breathed. “I can’t believe we missed that.”

  “I figured we could just pretend that it was today instead,” Jasper said, sitting up to put his arm around me. “I thought we ought to celebrate.”

  “We should crack open a bottle of champagne,” I said. “Metaphorically speaking, of course.”

  Jasper had a major vendetta against alcohol. He wouldn’t touch it. It was rather ironic considering the behavior of everyone else in his business. It didn’t matter what special occasion—raging party or outing with the band—Jasper’s resolve was unwavering. To him, alcohol represented the darkest side of humanity.

  Alex, the cousin that Lilly adopted as her own son and brought to Oportet, was drunk when he tried to assault me. He was executed by the Council soon after. To make matters worse, Jasper’s uncle—and Alex’s father—was an abusive drunk. Jasper blamed his uncle’s abuse of alcohol for the sociopathic tendencies in Alex, and in turn blamed my attack on Alex’s own drinking problem.

  “What’s the metaphorical equivalent of opening a bottle of champagne, then?” Jasper asked.

  “This.” I leaned into him, pressing my lips to his. He lay back on the blanket, pulling me down with him. His hands ran down the length of my body while I tangled my fingers through his hair.

  “There are children here, you know,” I whispered when Jasper moved his lips to my collarbone. He brushed his lips against my skin, leading a trail that ended at my neck.

  “We’re fully clothed, aren’t we?” he answered, flashing me a grin.

  I lay back down, resting my head on Jasper’s chest and letting him play with my long strands of curled hair.

  Three years. It didn’t feel like three years had passed—three years since I last saw my parents or my sister, or since Jasper last saw his mom, Lilly. I hoped that Lilly was doing well. I even hoped that my parents had found peace in my absence.

  I once said that what my parents did to me was unforgivable, but after spending time outside of Oportet, I discovered that wasn’t true. I learned to forgive them, and although I held a deep level of distrust and even intense anger towards their actions, I understood why they’d behaved as they had. My parents had been in a deep state of unconsciousness. I might’ve been lucky enough to wake up—to break free of Oportet’s thought manipulation and suppression—but my parents hadn’t. They would probably have been forever stuck in the mindless robotics of Oportet.

  “What do you think she’s like?” I blurted.

  “Who?”

  “Megan.”

  I felt selfish leaving her behind when she had shown obvious signs of awakening. Maybe if I had tried a little harder, asked her a fourth or fifth time if she was sure, maybe then she would’ve come with me.

  Jasper paused for a moment, carefully considering. “I’ll bet she followed in your footsteps. She’s probably raising all kinds of hell back there.”

  My pulse quickened. “Doesn’t that mean she’s trapped? What if she feels alienated from the society but has no way out? What if she regrets her decision to stay?”

  Jasper was quiet. “We both left people behind, Luna,” he said finally. “If she said she didn’t want to go, then she didn’t want to go. It’s not your fault if she made the wrong choice.”

  I picked up on the double meaning and immediately felt sick to my stomach. Jasper left his mother behind, all alone. At least Megan had friends and family in Oportet. Lilly had no one.

  “You’re right. I just miss them.” I sighed.

  Jasper gave my hand a squeeze. “I do, too.”

  We were both quiet for a few beats, reflecting on all that we had been through to break free of Oportet’s chains.

  “You’re good at this whole dating thing,” I said, changing the subject.

  “You make it easy.” Jasper smiled, looking into my eyes.

  We watched the day fade into night, relinquishing all of its spectacular shades of color for the night’s twinkling constellations in the midst of darkness. The moon was full, just as it was three years ago on the night of our escape. Megan was on my mind, her red hair reminding me of the hues of the sunset.

  7

  Megan

  I swung the black backpack over my shoulder and entered the bathroom I shared with Melanie. “It’s time,” I said.

  Melanie was staring into the bathroom mirror, her eyes wide and panicked as usual. Her face was drained of color, and she was breathing heavily.

  I gave her hand a squeeze. “It’s okay.” I smiled when I looked at our reflections, decked out in black clothing to blend into the night. “You don’t have to go.”

  Melanie shook her head, swallowed. “No,” she said, her voice a notch too loud and an octave too high.

  I put a finger to my mouth, reminding her that Ms. Wilson was asleep in the next room.

  “You know how I am,” Melanie whispered. “It’s just anxiety. I’ll be fine, I swear.”

  I nodded, even though I wasn’t that convinced. We turned off all the lights, closed the bedroom door and snuck out the window. We had to make sure we were back by five a.m. at the latest, just in case Ms. Wilson decided to get up early.

  We were meeting Liam, Lacy, and three others from the Society—Thomas, Harry, and Amelia—at Oportet’s middle school.

  Liam used his councilwoman mother’s computer to access the school’s security system. The only security came from locked doors, a simple alarm that was triggered by the opening of the doors, and security cameras. If we set off the alarm, the guards would be notified within seconds. If security cameras caught us, we could be sent to the sketchy OSD building to have our memories altered.

  Lucky for us, Liam had been trained since birth in all kinds of skills to help him become one of the next great councilmen. One of his secret training programs included computer programming, something he not only excelled at, but also learned to use for the opposite reasons his tutors intended.

  When Melanie and I arrived in front of the building, the others were already there. It was way past the new official curfew. The streets had been clear on our trek to meet the rest.

  The parking lot street lamps illuminated the dull red walls of the school building, as well
as the group we had assembled to send a hard and clear message to both the Council and the Oportet Department of Education. Liam approached us, and Melanie left me to join the rest of the group.

  “You made sure that the cameras and alarms were shut off?” I asked Liam.

  He crossed his arms. “Like I told you on the phone, yes, I’m sure. They have no way of catching us. I even covered my tracks so they couldn’t trace the breach to my mother’s laptop.” Liam scanned the length of my body. “You look hot. Black suits you.”

  After an eye roll, I grabbed his arm and pulled him towards the building. It was time to start a revolution.

  “I’m so nervous,” Lacy said. “This mission goes way beyond anything we’ve ever carried out.”

  After the Awaken Society was formed more than a year ago, it started out as a way to connect with other teens that saw through Oportet’s manipulation. Liam, Melanie and I had been hanging out, and we had grown to love discussing what we never could with anyone else. We discussed the rules, the Council, and anything in Oportet that we disagreed with.

  Liam was a different person with us—with me. He only went along with his mother’s antics to gain more information and training, and he was even different when he was with his soon-to-be politician friends.

  It was his idea to start a secret group, it was my idea to name it the Awaken Society, and it was Melanie’s idea to meet in the abandoned house on the edge of Oportet. Melanie and Liam together decided to make me the society’s official leader.

  Past missions really only included vandalism and pranks—sophisticated as some of them were. We spray-painted messages to buildings or streets, or even on the sides of houses. We targeted individuals or groups that were revealed to be corrupt.

  “Not all of them have been on a small-scale,” Liam said, looking at Melanie and me. “Remember the Council’s annual dinner party?”

  I never understood why Lancaster didn’t go public with what happened that night. Was he waiting for the right moment, when he would get the most out of the situation?

  This past winter, just before I ended things with Liam, the three of us worked up an elaborate scheme to screw with the Council’s annual dinner party. It was hosted at the O’Neill’s mansion that year, so Melanie and I hid in the basement while Liam mingled with Oportet’s elite. We managed to chemically alter the makeup of the cocktails being served, so when guests were instructed to stir their drinks, the clear liquid turned blood red. Soon after, the slideshow that was being shown transformed into large, flashing red letters that read: There is blood on your hands. The letters themselves took on the appearance of blood, dramatically oozing down the screen.

  Everyone was so shaken up that the party ended early, and Lancaster assured the guests, in a fit of rage, that he would find whoever was responsible. That promise proved to be empty. Instead, everyone pretended it had never happened.

  I caught myself smiling. “Yeah, that was fun,” I said.

  “Are we going to stand out here all night?” Amelia asked, tapping her foot impatiently.

  “Does everybody know what they’re doing?” I asked.

  I received nods from everyone in the group.

  “I have a question,” Liam said.

  Of course he did.

  “Everyone is partnered up but me. I think that’s a bit unsafe, don’t you?”

  No. “You’re resourceful. I think you can manage,” I said. “There was an odd number.”

  “You can be in our group,” Melanie said, shooting me a look as if to say this isn’t breaking the pact.

  I started to shake my head, but decided to brush it off. Melanie would be there; she’d make sure I didn’t do something I’d regret.

  I pushed on one of the front doors, letting out a breath when it eased open without setting off the alarm.

  “We’ll meet back here in an hour to see how everything is going,” I said. I waited for the other two groups to head off down opposite hallways.

  “Where to first?” Liam asked.

  “Mission of Oportet,” I said. Lacy explained to me that two classes came out of Lancaster’s new curriculum. One of them was called Ethics, and the other was called Mission of Oportet. We were in charge of the hallway where these new classes were held.

  The building’s layout had changed during the three years we’d been at the high school, but Lacy made copies of the new map. The three of us were silent as we made our way through the school, listening to echoes of voices and laughter float through the halls.

  The first classroom we entered hosted Mission of Oportet. I moved to the teacher’s desk, rummaging through stacks of papers.

  “Oh my god,” I heard Melanie mumble from across the room.

  I was too busy reading an essay prompt to see what her outburst was about. It was titled: How Rebels Waged the War on America. The first student response dealt primarily with the attack on the twin towers that happened in 2028. We were taught that domestic terrorists drove planes into the World Trade Center, killing thousands of innocent citizens for their cause. The World Trade Center represented the government and economic system rebels detested, and they committed the act to send a message to President Stone. This marked the Age of Terrorism that lasted until The Fall of ’39.

  Oportet used the twisting of history as yet another method of brainwashing. Melanie had told me the true story—that the attack occurred in 2001 by a group of foreign religious extremists, and had nothing to do with the internal rebellion that was soon to come.

  My hands started to shake. I grabbed the entire folder of essays and threw them up in the air, letting the papers float down to cover the floor. Melanie and Liam glanced at me briefly before resuming their conversation. I grabbed a bottle of red spray paint, storming out of the classroom and into the hallway.

  I shook the bottle before I began spraying the lockers just outside the door. You are being lied to, I wrote. I moved to the other side of the hall, writing directly to the new citizens from the Outside who might still know the truth about the twin towers. 9/11/2001 was all I wrote. I needed the Outsiders to rebel against the reeducation process they went through to become citizens; I needed them to tell their classmates the truth.

  I went back to the classroom, peering over Liam and Melanie’s shoulder to finally see what was so interesting.

  “What is that?” I asked, cocking my head.

  “A pseudoscientific explanation for why citizens of Oportet are more intelligent and superior to anyone who opposes them,” Liam said. “I’ve heard my mother talk about it before. It’s something Lancaster came up with.”

  “Do they really believe this?” Melanie asked.

  “That’s the scariest part. Eventually the Council will start to believe their own lies, as does anyone who listens to them long enough—like these teachers.”

  “Wait, go back to this fake science stuff,” I said. “Explain the theory to me.”

  “If you can even call it that,” Liam scoffed. “It basically says that the rebels who took down the government were affected by a mental disorder that impaired brain function. It’s responsible for any rebellious tendencies or questioning of the world’s natural order, and it’s the explanation for the so-called insanity of the Age of Terrorism.”

  “So it’s basically a mental illness?” I asked.

  “Exactly. Which serves as the formal explanation for why the Oportet Safety Department was formed, and also why a team of neurosurgeons works there. They’re calling it Terrorist Syndrome, or TS for short.”

  Melanie closed her eyes and shook her head. “So all these people who are being arrested and taken to the OSD building are being ‘cured?’”

  “Twisted, isn’t it?” Liam said.

  “I don’t understand how anyone could believe this,” I said. “It’s completely ridiculous! Have they even checked out the science?”

  “You underestimate the power of cult mentality,” Liam said. “Have you ever heard of scientific racism?” When I shook my head he explained. “It was an ancient theory that claimed to be scientific, but was really just used as a tool to keep people in line, and to convince one part of the world that they were biologically superior to the rest of the world.” Liam threw the stack of papers into the air like I had, shooting me a grin. “It doesn’t matter to these people what the truth is. They will believe anything that justifies how they’ve been raised to see the world.”