Terranovus
Chapter VII - Bogus

“Do you really think she will help us?”

“Trust me.”

“Her dad works for the flippin' Army. If she tells on us-”

“She won’t.”

“You can’t guarantee that!”

“Trust me.”

The voices brought me back to consciousness. I opened my eyes and blinked a few times until the room slowly came into focus. I was in a basement of some sort. Pipes and wires hung from the ceiling and loud generators whirled away somewhere on the other side of the one and only door. My attention turned to the two men who were standing in the middle of the room dressed in black and wearing balaclavas and staring at me. I glared back at them and glanced down at the rope that bound me to the chair I was sitting on. I yanked my wrists against the binds but my shoulder burned in protest and I loudly hissed in pain. Wincing, I looked down at my shoulder and saw it hung low in its socket, yup, definitely dislocated. I turned back to the two men.

“Let me go now and I promise I won’t say anything to anyone,” I told them coldly. The men looked at each at each other and smirked, amused.

“Not happening,” he said.

“I know my dad works for the Army but he’s just an engineer. Whatever money we don’t need my parents give to the shelter. We don’t have any money, my parents can’t afford a ransom,” I told them. The men properly grinned this time.

“We don’t want ransom,” said the taller man.

“Then tell me why I am here,” I spat at them angrily. I knew I should have been scared, should have been intimidated and compliant but the fear I felt pulsing through my veins was pumping out of my body in the form of anger.

The taller man walked towards the spare chair sitting in the corner of the room and slowly dragged it over towards me. He sat on it facing me, with our knees not even 30cm apart. He seemed calm and relaxed. He analysed me for a moment with his clear, cool blue eyes then clasped his hands together in conclusion.

“We know the Terranovus lottery is bogus,” he started. I could have cried with anger.

“No it isn’t!′ I argued back. “I didn’t know my family was going to be picked. My dad’s just an engineer for the Army, he’s never even bloody talked to the Commander before.”

“Just because you don’t know it is bogus, doesn’t mean it isn’t bogus,” he retorted. I stayed silent at that, was there a chance the lottery was fake? The man seemed so confident, so sure of himself.

“What makes you think that?” I asked.

“We have evidence that the lottery was fabricated to cover up the fact the Army is picking and choosing who they want to populate Terranovus.”

“What evidence?” I demanded.

“That is confidential. All what I am going to tell you is that your family was chosen for a reason Tabitha. Daughter of an excellent engineer and a devoted volunteer, you are the aspiring architect who received top grades for your graphic communications subject, am I correct?” he asked. I pursed my lips and glared at him.

“You’ve been stalking me?” The man shrugged as though it was no big deal.

“You and a couple of other hundred. For good reason you see, have you noticed that everyone who has,” he used his fingers as quotation marks, “‘won the lottery’, all possess certain qualities, traits or hobbies that you may say, could be considered as, convenient for a new found land to have?”

I burrowed my eyebrows in frustration, what was he talking about?

He continued, “let’s take last week’s lottery winners as an example shall we? Mr and Mrs Kettle from district 5th. They seem pretty ordinary until you look at their child. This year, little Benjamin, only thirteen years old, won his Sector’s science fair for inventing a nuclear fusion reactor. What about the previous week’s winner from district 7th? Mr Jones, a single man who works in a steel factory, sounds normal right? But if someone had asked him what his hobbies were he would have revealed he’s a huge bird fanatic and knows pretty much every bird specie there is on planet Earth.”

“It’s a coincidence!” I argued. The man laughed, so did his friend behind him.

“No, it isn’t.” The man leaned forward and his piercing blue eyes dug into mine. “You Miss Tabitha were chosen for a reason too. With a new land, new buildings are required, and with new buildings, architects are required. I believe a few months ago you won a prize for “Best Young Architecture Vision” didn’t you? I heard you designed a school?”

I stayed silent. I won first prize for that competition. My had teacher encouraged me to apply. I didn’t think I would actually win anything.

“Isn’t it ironic a girl who won a prize for designing a school, was chosen to move to a newly discovered land that has no schools? Some may say it was fate, but we call it bogus.”

I struggled to think of a come back. It couldn’t be true.

“But physical schools are of the past, education is taught virtually now,” I argued but stopped myself. Education moved online due to the lack of space, but in Terranovus there was no worries of that. Terranovus had all the space anybody could ever wish for. The man looked at me with sympathy, he knew I was slowly coming round to reality. I looked at both of them, “but why would they lie to us?”

“To keep the peace obviously,” this time the man at the back of the room answered, “if civilians knew only the intelligent or elite were being selected there would be an uprising.” He seemed bitter and angry.

“The thing is,” continued the man sitting on the chair, “we need your help. We need your ears and eyes in Terranovus. The Army managed to keep Terranovus a secret from us for a very long time and we want to know what else they’ve been keeping secret.”

A wave of realisation washed over me. They wanted me to be a spy. But how? If I knew nothing now, what made them think I would know things once I moved to Terranovus? I looked at them both and saw the desperation and exhaustion in their eyes. They must have spent hours, days and perhaps weeks researching each individual and carefully constructing their ... do I call this a kidnapping?

“Why me? Have you approached the other lottery winners?” I asked. The man shook his head.

“Just you. We’ve been watching you for a while. You have a strong sense of empathy and general awareness of what happens around you. You prefer to run wild with your friends instead of gossiping with girls. You’re smart and wise, which is surprisingly rare. And you’re athletic and quick on your feet too. You match our criteria and we need you,” he explained. My head reeled, how long had they been stalking me for?

“Can I think about it?” I asked them. The smaller man at the back of the room smirked and rubbed his chin with his hand. I looked back at the man on the chair and saw him smirking too.

“No, you can’t. You will spy for us, you don’t have a choice,” he simply said. I felt my anger levels rising again.

“Like hell I do!” I argued. Then I thought of the new found land I was going to be flying to tomorrow, “you can’t stop me once I get to Terranovus.”

“Are you sure?” asked the smaller man standing. He had an awful nasty grin on his face. “Because while you are thousands of miles away soaking up the glorious sun of Terranovus, we will be back here keeping a rather close eye on, what’s his name? Tommy?”

My heart sunk to the pits of my stomach.

“You wouldn’t,” I hissed at them. The man sitting on the chair looked deadly serious.

“We have spent years waiting for the Army to do something like this, and now we’ve found our perfect candidate, we cannot risk not using you to our advantage,” he warned. I glared at him with as much hatred as I could. I hated him. I hated both of them. “Once you arrive in Terranovus, you will inform us of the Army’s plans whenever possible. Use your dad, he works for them. If you do not deliver, we might just pay Tommy a visit. Do you understand?”

“You sick bastard!” I screamed at him.

Suddenly, the smaller man lunged forward, grabbed a fist full of my tunic and yanked me forward.

“You wee stuck up spoilt fu-”

The taller man jumped to his feet and shoved his colleague off me.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

“I’m not wasting our efforts on the spoilt brat!”

“I’ve told you to trust me damn it! She will do as we ask. Threatening her boyfriend’s life is enough!”

“Are you sure about that? She better obey or your head will be on the firing line!”

“Don’t you think I know that Geoff?” The smaller man reeled in fury that I now knew his name.

“You’re such a wanker Flynt!” he retorted and stormed out the room. Once the door slammed shut behind him, Flynt groaned to himself and kicked the wall in anger.

“Immature nugget,” he muttered to himself. If it wasn’t for the fact I had been kidnapped, tied to chair and he had just been threatened with Tommy’s life, I would have laughed at the posh insult. He sighed then turned to me, “I’m sorry about him.”

I snorted at that. Yeah right.

Flynt sighed again and sat back down on the chair with his head resting on his hands. I didn’t know what to say, I had no energy left in me and my shoulder was begging for mercy. He seemed to realise my discomfort.

“Here, let me untie you,” he said and leaned forward. As he fiddled with the knots, I could see he was frustrated.

“Don’t be scared of us,′ he finally said, “the resistance has fought long and hard for an opportunity to spy on the Army like this and they’re scared of being let down.” There was a few seconds of awkward silence.

“Will you really kill Tommy if I don’t deliver?” I asked. He ignored me, instead he focused on untying the knots. “What if I can’t deliver? What if the Army is just as secretive as they are now?” I pursued.

“You’ll replace a way. You’re smart. Use your intelligence,” he said. A single tear slowly fell down my cheek and splashed upon my lap as reality kicked in. Flynt continued, “not everyone in the resistance agrees that threats should apply, but the leader has commanded it and so that is the consequence if you do not provide us with information regularly,′ he said quietly. I could hear the remorse in his voice and as he finished untying the last knot I watched him slowly pull the rope away.

“Who’s the leader?” I asked.

“That I can’t tell you,” he answered. Finally the rope fell to the floor and I winced again as my shoulder cried for attention. Flynt looked sympathetic, “lets get you home and to the hospital,” he said, “but remember, not a word of this can be spoken to anyone, do you understand?”

I glared at him.

“It’s not like I have a choice either way,” I replied bluntly.