Chapter Twenty-Three

After a long day of driving more than seven hundred miles, with two brief stops for food, including the grilled cheese sandwich in Ohio, Marc needed to pull over and find someplace to sleep for the night. If he had the chip, he could have ordered Buzz, a signal that ensured he would stay awake and alert, but without it he was simply and naturally very tired. He had plenty of cash cards to pay expenses anonymously, so getting a hotel room was no more difficult than filling up on gas. He was equipped with fake identification and as long as he kept a low profile, he was okay.

Headlights probing the dark, Marc exited the highway and entered Yorkville, a small town in northern Indiana. He didn’t encounter a hotel right away and wound up driving deeper into the rural community than he expected. As his surroundings grew darker and more desolate, he contemplated turning around and returning to the highway. Ultimately, the paved road turned into bumpy gravel and then a mixture of mud and flattened grass. Marc swore, on the verge of getting lost, and decided to turn around and backtrack.

He made an awkward U-turn in a tight space, struggling with poor visibility as cloud cover concealed the moon and stars. The Ford hit an awkward dip in the road. Soon after, it became sluggish and off balance when he picked up speed.

Marc immediately sensed something was not right: the car was making a thumping sound.

“Oh God, please don’t be a….”

Marc stopped the car and climbed out. He circled the vehicle and spotted his nightmare: a flat tire.

Now what?

Marc sighed and hung his head. He knew that his car lacked a spare tire – the prior owner had warned him about it, but Marc didn’t care at the time because he was simply happy to be acquiring a working vehicle in cash from a private individual without the nuisance of a paper trail.

Marc wanted to yell at himself for being so stupid. Instead, he stood alone in the dark and listened to a gentle, lonely breeze. And crickets.

He slowly turned in a circle, looking in every direction. He needed a sign of life, anything, that might indicate people and help. He was willing to bribe his way out of any predicament – and use his rogue controller to counter any threat.

In the murky distance, through a long stretch of wilderness, Marc glimpsed a faint, flickering light. It gave him a tiny surge of hope. Reaching it would require leaving the road and his car and creating his own path in the dark through the wild brush. He could think of no other option. He cursed, locked up the Ford and began his long hike into the unknown.

He kept his hands in front of him as the brush got denser, pushing away the branches that scraped at his skin. The ground was muddy and uneven, causing him to stumble repeatedly. He didn’t know what kind of creatures lurked in the dark and really didn’t want to find out. Assorted insects flew into his face, and he kept his mouth shut to avoid breathing one in.

Most importantly, the light in the distance was slowly growing closer.

After pushing his way through tall grasses for nearly thirty minutes, Marc reached a clearing. The ground became level, and he could see what looked like a single building with a pitched roof, like an old church or one-room schoolhouse. A flickering light, like a candle, illuminated the square frame of a single window. He crept closer to get a better look. Was there someone inside?

He reached the side of the building and inched toward the window for a peek. For a brief instant, he could see children.

Then a crashing pain struck his skull, and his vision flashed white and immediately turned black.

* * *

Marc regained consciousness, stinging with a throbbing headache. He slowly sat up and found himself surrounded by shadowy, staring faces. The faces belonged to children, more than a dozen, from very young to upper teens. Their features were partially lit by a lone candle in a brass holder held by a frowning little girl who couldn’t have been older than nine or ten.

A teenage boy with a crew cut leaned in and placed the blade of a sharp hunting knife one inch from Marc’s throat.

“Don’t move,” he instructed.

“What did you…hit me with?”

“A brick.”

“Where am I?” Marc could sense he was inside the mysterious building now; there was a roof with crossbeams high above his head and a big, open space around him that rapidly disappeared into shadows.

“Are you a spy?” asked the teenage boy.

“No.”

Then the cluster of children parted to allow a lone adult to step forward. He was a middle-aged man with wavy blond hair and a medium build, wearing a simple blue sweater over a button-up collared shirt.

“That would be the obvious answer, given your predicament,” the man said.

Marc peered down at the glistening knife blade. “Yes, but it’s true.”

The man motioned for the teenage boy to pull back the weapon. He immediately obeyed.

The man kneeled before Marc to stare into his eyes. “My name is Father Cusack. These are my children. We are a community. We don’t take kindly to unannounced visitors, especially at this hour. Who do you represent?”

“Nobody,” Marc said. “I’m alone. I have no authority. I’m just a person. My car broke down.”

“Out here? That’s not a good story. There’s nothing out here. There’s no reason to be driving anywhere near here.”

“I was looking for a hotel.”

“Should I kill him?” said the teenage boy, with a tone of practicality.

Father Cusack didn’t answer. The fact that he didn’t serve up a simple ‘no’ pushed Marc’s anxiety level even higher.

He chose to make a run for it. He didn’t have a clear sense of his surroundings, so the only hope of escape was to put everyone on equal footing – sightless.

Marc pretended he was adjusting his seated position on the floor. Then, with an immediate lunge, he shoved Father Cusack out of the way and leaped toward the girl with the candle. He knocked it out of her hands, snuffing the flame and sending the building into complete darkness.

Marc pushed through the sudden entanglement of confused children. He scrambled across the hardwood floor, hands stretched in front of him, banging into occasional objects, unable to see anything in his path. He couldn’t sense the location of an exit, and the room filled with the sounds of children shouting, shrieking and scurrying to find him.

Reaching a wall, Marc realized his only hope was to use his controlling device on as many people as possible, sending them brain signals to disrupt their pursuit. He pulled out the controller, popped it on and immediately discovered….

It did not register any chips in the vicinity. None. Was it broken or—?

The dim light of the controller attracted a mob of children. They pounced on him, knocking him down, punching, kicking and pulling his hair. They screamed at him in shrill voices.

He curled up on the floor as they beat him. He yelled at them to stop, which they didn’t.

Then Father Cusack ordered them to stop and they did.

Marc lay very still on the floor.

Several of the children lit candles and now the large indoor space was illuminated from multiple points.

Marc sat up against the wall, feeling blood trickle from his nose and lips. Now he had a better look at his environment. One side of the massive room had a series of bunk beds, a living quarters. The other side had old-fashioned school desks and a large blackboard. He also glimpsed a kitchen area with benches and a wood stove.

Father Cusack and the children surrounded Marc. Many of the kids held knives or clubs. Marc realized there were even more children than he originally surmised – they were several layers deep, at least twenty or thirty of them.

The largest child stepped forward. He was bulky, built like a football player, sixteen or seventeen years old. He wore a simple tank top that displayed big, rippling arm muscles. He sneered at Marc and leaned in toward him. He lifted his thick hands and wrapped them around Marc’s throat.

Marc started to shout, to plead, fully expecting to be strangled on the spot.

But the big fingers didn’t press on his throat. They gently caressed the back of his neck.

“I don’t feel a chip,” the boy said out loud to the group. He backed off.

Marc said, in short breaths, “Yes…I admit it…. I don’t have the chip…. I’m not….”

Father Cusack reached down and snatched the controller from Marc’s hands. “Then why do you have this?”

Marc’s arms lifted to grab it back, but it was too late. “I need that…. It’s not…it’s not for me. It helps me protect myself. I can send signals to others who are chipped.”

They stared at him, perplexed.

Marc said, “You didn’t show up on the device. You don’t – none of you – have the chip?”

The children all looked to Father Cusack, waiting for him to respond on their behalf.

“That’s right,” said Father Cusack. He tossed the device back into Marc’s lap. “We don’t have the chip. What’s your story?”

“I had the chip removed years ago.”

“That’s not possible.”

“It was…but I had to see a special expert, someone working for the chip company. I had one of the earliest chips, I’m sure today it’s a lot harder—”

“Today it is fatal to tamper with the chip.”

Marc nodded. “My story is true. I’ve been on the road. I left the highway, I took an exit to find a hotel, but I got lost, there was nothing out this way. Then I got a flat tire, and I walked through a field and this was the only building….”

Father Cusack nodded, staring into Marc’s eyes. “I believe you,” he said.

He turned to the gathering of children. “Prepare for bed, everyone. The excitement is over. You must get rest for tomorrow’s lesson plan.”

The children obeyed, peeling away from the group and reporting to their bunk beds. They opened the lids to large trunks on the floor and changed into sleeping clothes.

Father Cusack said to Marc, “You and me, let’s have a drink.”

* * *

As the children retired to bed, Marc and Father Cusack moved to the opposite end of the large, barn-like structure. They sat on hard benches at a long, wooden table, drinking red wine.

Marc told Cusack about his journey of the past several years, including betraying his employer, Dynamica, to reject a chipped society.

Cusack described his ‘children for tomorrow’ congregation.

“We have twenty-eight young people here between the ages of four and twenty-four. They’ve never been chipped and never will be. I’m the main adult in their lives. They’ve lost their real parents. In some cases, they were abandoned. Their parents died, became chip addicts or were jailed. In other cases, they escaped an abusive home life. This is a chance for them to be reborn, outside of a diseased society, before they’re corrupted beyond repair. My goal is to continue growing this congregation – with young people – so we can change the future through a generation of people who reject the chip and all of technology to return to a simple, natural life, the way God intended. That is why we have very strict rules here. The children understand, and they will become better people because of it. No chip. No computers. No Internet. No TV. We’re returning to our roots, back to the basics. The earth. The sky. Natural living. We grow our own food. There’s a farm down the road. The children help manage it. We live by candlelight. We read books. We teach and learn through human interaction and dialogue. Imagine that. No one has their face stuffed in a cell phone or a laptop. No one is watching foolish videos or playing irreverent games. We live in the real world, and we appreciate it. Every blade of grass. Every star above us. Everything we touch and feel and taste. That’s why God placed us here, to marvel over His world, not some artificial circus of distractions generated by machines. Let me be direct with you, Marc. I hate what technology has done to this world. I’m proud you chose to take a stand and leave that company. We need more people like you. And the most powerful thing we can do is start with the children.”

* * *

Marc spent the night, sleeping on the floor with a blanket and pillow. The congregation woke up early the next morning, at the first strains of daylight, to embark on their daily duties. Many of the children left to tend to the farm. Father Cusack stayed behind and served Marc a hearty breakfast of eggs, bacon, hash brown potatoes, toast and organic black coffee.

Marc had told Cusack about the escape route into Canada, but Cusack politely declined the opportunity for the congregation to join him.

“You go ahead,” Cusack said. “We belong here. We can’t influence change by running away. I know I have a lot of work to do. Maybe it’s hopeless, but I have a mission. It’s what keeps me going. But I wish you well.”

“Aren’t you afraid of being discovered?” asked Marc. “They’re rounding up people every day. They can inject people with the chip on the spot. They have a device that operates like a gun. Your entire congregation could be chipped in ten minutes.”

“It will never happen,” Cusack said, “because we’re equipped with an escape if that threat becomes real.”

“An escape?”

“A pill. The children each have a pill in a small case that they carry with them at all times. I have one, too.”

“What, like a cyanide pill? Poison?”

“If the day comes when we’re forced to live a life we do not want, then we will take the appropriate action. If the future belongs to technology, rather than the human spirit, it’s not worth living.”

When it came time for Marc to return to his car and find a way to replace his flat tire, Cusack offered an alternative. “There are some old cars on the property. They don’t get much use. They pollute the air. You can take your pick. They’re behind the barn.”

Marc walked over to the farm with Father Cusack. The children were already hard at work, feeding livestock, milking cows, collecting eggs. The older kids were tending to the fields.

Marc chose a dusty Acura sedan. It appeared to be in good running order. He said his goodbyes and drove off, kicking up dirt on the gravel roadway. He returned to his Ford with the flat tire and transferred his belongings over to the new car. It was just as well – the front of the Ford was dented from where he had struck the motorcycle. It drew attention.

Marc returned to the highway and continued his journey to Ely, Minnesota, which he calculated was another eleven hours of driving.

He never expected the delay that awaited: being forced to work in a steel mill in Gary, Indiana.