Beep! Beep! Beep!
Reed jerked into consciousness. It was morning. He could hear Riley slapping around below him, trying to silence the persistent alarm. Reed moaned and rolled over. The room was still dark, barely lit by the gray light that seeped through the closed blinds.
Reagan’s groggy voice came from the other side of the room. “I thought you put that thing on radio mode last night.”
“Me, too,” mumbled Riley, at last smacking the right button to silence the annoying buzz. “Guess not.”
Reed groaned and pulled the pillow over his head. “I hate that noise. Wake me up in an hour.”
“Sorry,” Reagan yawned. “It’s seven; time to get up for work and breakfast. If we get there early enough, there might be donuts left.”
Reed sat up. “Donuts for breakfast?”
“Only if you hurry. There aren’t many, and they go fast. Otherwise, it’s cereal and bagels.” Reagan threw off his covers. “Plus the shuttle leaves at seven forty-five. If you don’t wanna walk, you have to be ready.”
A few minutes later, all three were dressed and heading down the hall toward the Mushroom. Other boys were coming out of their rooms, some still buttoning shirts or running hands over their hair. Many, like Riley and Reed, wore jeans and t-shirts. Others, like Reagan, had on dress shirts and slacks.
They left the hall at the back end of the dorm. The stairwell was already filled with dozens more boys from other floors, slamming doors and pounding down the staircase in a crushing pack. They poured onto the first floor and out into the cold, gray morning.
Reed, rubbing the last of the sleep out of his eyes, nearly stopped in his tracks when he stepped out the door. It was rush hour at the Dorms. Hundreds of teenagers covered the Square and filled the sidewalks in a crowd that dwarfed even last night’s. More spilled out of the dorms in a never-ending flow, streaming away toward the left side of the hill and the Mushroom. Though no one stopped to talk, most of the teens called to each other or chattered as they went. The noise was terrific. Reagan and Riley, used to the crowd, expertly threaded their way in and out, keeping Reed with them, even down the packed North Stairs.
The Mushroom was much like the night before—the woman with the scanner, the full room, the smell of coffee and new carpet. But there was one striking difference: the quiet. Forks scraped on plates; the juice machine hiccupped occasionally; no one talked. Compared to the din outside, the silence seemed deafening. Reed wasn’t sure he liked it.
The boys were not too late for donuts; a dozen still remained when they arrived, placidly eyeing the world from inside their glass cabinet. But Reed could hardly enjoy his. The room seemed goaded by a driving rush, and even Reagan and Riley stuffed in their breakfast as fast as they could, washing it down with gulps of orange juice. Reed burned his tongue on his coffee trying to keep up with them.
When they finished, Reagan and Riley shoved back their chairs and made for the door. Reed stuffed in the last half of a donut and scrambled to follow, chewing and choking his way across the room. He stumbled into a table in his hurry, banging his shin on a chair, and nearly lost his mouthful.
The other two paused at a counter near the steps, spread with rows of identical brown paper bags. “Lunch,” Reagan whispered over his shoulder as he and Riley each swooped up a bag. “Don’t miss it.” And he was gone.
Reed snatched up a bag and followed. He tried to catch a glimpse of its contents as he lurched up the stairs but nearly face-planted and gave it up.
“Sorry to rush you,” Reagan apologized when Reed caught up to him outside. “We’re supposed to hurry through breakfast so everybody gets to eat before the shuttles leave. The Council made that really clear from the start.”
“The Council?” Reed favored his smarting shin. “What’s that?”
Reagan shot him an odd look. “You don’t know who the Council is?”
“No, how could I?”
Reagan glanced around at the crowd. “Let’s go back to the dorm,” he said quietly. “We can brush our teeth, and I’ll tell you on the way.”
They turned up the North Stairs, fighting their way against the crowd that was still pouring down.
“Okay,” Reagan began, “So obviously we’re here. You have to know a little of what’s going on, right?”
“Unfortunately,” Reed growled under his breath.
Reagan continued, apparently missing Reed’s remark. “Well, after GRO—you know that’s what they call this—the government put us in these different compounds in cities around the country. But, since they couldn’t keep up with everything themselves, they came up with the idea of putting a six-member ‘council’ over every compound. They make rules, punish anybody who breaks them, create the jobs—you know, what you’d expect. But it’s not like a city council or board of directors; they’re government people. It’s… different. Very different.”
Reagan’s voice dropped. “Reed, they’re powerful, incredibly powerful. They rule whole cities, not just the compounds. They’re part of GRO so they’re technically a government agency, but they’re almost… autonomous. They have their own offices, boards, police forces, whole bureaucracies. Nobody checks up on them; nobody knows what all they do; nobody even knows how big they really are. The one here keeps the mayor and city council under their thumb. Nobody stands up to them. Even Director Connors can’t attend their meetings.”
By now, they’d reached the dorm and began climbing the stairs. Though there was practically no one else around, Reagan still kept his voice low, almost whispering. “They run everything, and they’ve hired everyone—Director Connors, the RDs, the Mushroom workers, the bus drivers, the police. They don’t even come to the Dorms themselves anymore. They let the RDs and Connors take care of most of the discipline issues. But, when they do step in, it’s bad. If somebody gets called before the Council, they’re in serious trouble. And I mean serious.”
“What happens to them?” Reed swallowed back the growing uneasiness in his stomach before it could creep up into his voice.
“Supposedly, they get deported to another city, but I don’t believe it. It’s too quiet and hush-hush. Besides, after they get arrested, we never hear from them again. Like, ever.”
“Sometimes, they don’t even get arrested,” Riley put in. “There was that one kid who tried to break into one of their offices once. He just disappeared.”
“Yeah, he never even made it out of the building.”
By now, they were back in their room, brushing their teeth at the sink. Reagan had to stop talking since his mouth was full but, as soon as he could, he continued. “Be careful what you say around other people, too. The Council has ears everywhere. Don’t complain too much or say anything bad about them or even mention what you think of them. It could make things… unpleasant.” He paused. “Sometimes they put spies right in the Dorms with us. We call ’em ‘ringers.’ We’re not supposed to know they exist, but we usually figure it out. I don’t know of any right now, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t at least one. You have to be careful.” He snapped the cap back on his toothpaste.
“This is crazy! Councils? Spies? People disappearing? It sounds like a creepy Netflix show.” Reed stood in the middle of the room, trying to process it all.
“It’s not a joke.” Reagan dried his hands on a towel and turned to face Reed. “It’s the new reality. But we’re just telling you the worst so you’ll know how things work. For the most part, if you do what you’re supposed to, they leave you alone. You can actually have a pretty good life here. Just watch what you do and say.”
“Oh.” Reed rubbed the back of his neck. “Would it be considered ‘serious’ to… well… give a little attitude to the Director?”
“Not usually serious,” Reagan shrugged, tossing his toothbrush into a nightstand drawer. “I guess it depends on what you say. He might watch you closer for a while but, if you shape up, he’ll let you alone.” He shoved the drawer shut with his knee. “Why? Did you?”
“Well, I didn’t say anything wrong, but he didn’t seem to like my tone very much.” Reed paused. “Okay, so he didn’t like it at all.”
“I wouldn’t worry about it,” counseled Riley. “Like Reagan said, he’ll watch you for a while but, as long as you don’t do it again, you’re okay. You’d know by now if you weren’t.”
When they finished in the room, the three left the dorm and turned back down the North Stairs. In the parking lot of the Mushroom, they found a large crowd of teenagers standing in the cold, stamping their feet and rubbing their hands for warmth.
“This is where the shuttles come,” explained Reagan as they joined the waiting group. “They can’t fit them all anywhere else, so we have to wait out here… and cuss if it’s raining.”
Reed pulled his jacket closer around him. “So there’s more than one bus?”
“Yeah, just the Red Route by itself—our ride—has six buses. Then there’s Blue Route and Green Route. Blue has six, but Green has eight. They’re only for workers in the industrial parks since they can’t hold all the workers for the whole city.”
“Wait, so how many of these parks are there?”
While they waited for their ride, Reed got a crash course in city geography. There were three industrial parks in town. Red, his district, was a short distance from the Dorms and was home to two factories and their offices. The Blue district was nearby and also held two factories. Green, on the other side of town, had only one factory.
Reed shook his head. “I don’t get it. How did one town get so many factories? I mean, isn’t five a little over the top?”
“Not really.” Reagan set his briefcase down and breathed on his fingers. “When you think about all the people that have to work here, it’s a wonder there aren’t more. This is one of the biggest compounds in the country; last I heard, there were over five thousand kids in the Dorms alone.”
Reed stared at him. “Five thousand? That’s bigger than some towns I know!”
“Yep. And that’s just in the Dorms. A bunch more have moved out of the dorms into apartments—sorta on their own but still on the Hill.”
“The Hill?”
“Yeah. That’s what they call the whole complex—dorms, apartments, the Mushroom, even the factories. It’s all collectively ‘the Hill.’”
Reed made a note of that. “So they picked this city to dump us ’cause it had so many jobs?”
“Nope. The Council brought them all in. That’s what they do.”
Just then, a long line of blue buses roared into view from the city below. One after another, they rumbled into the parking lot, stopping with a familiar hiss, until nine of them sat idling in front of the crowd. More waited behind them on the street, stretching around the corner and down the hill.
There were so many. Reed would have been completely lost without his roommates. Reagan and Riley didn’t hesitate, pulling him into the crowd past the first three rumbling giants. A screen above the windshield on each declared its route, proclaiming “Green” or “Blue” high above Reed’s head in yellow letters.
The crowd split up and surged toward the different shuttles. The first “Red” was filled by the time the boys reached it. Reagan and Riley turned and made a rush for the second with a flood of other teens.
“Make sure you stick with us,” Reagan called to Reed. “We’ll make sure you get to the right place!”
Reed stuck to them as best he could. He squeezed through packed bodies following Riley’s back. He saw Reagan ahead of him elbow his way to the door and up the stairs. Good, he was getting close. Riley was next. He slipped between two shoulders and went up after Reagan, almost stepping on someone’s hand. Reed pushed someone else’s elbow out of his ribs and put his foot on the step. But, just then, a stout girl shoved her way in, deliberately bumped Reed back with her weight, and heaved up the stairs after Riley. Before Reed could recover his balance, the doors, with a warning beep, slid shut.
He turned desperately to the window. Reagan jabbed his finger toward the next bus over. Reed nodded and made a dash. The crowd was already funneling through the narrow door, but Reed was determined. He wriggled his way in like a mole. There was no way he was going to miss this one.