Chapter 7-- Lone Voice Radio: Part I

Wednesday, December 9th-- 8:15 AM

It's first period and I'm already checked out for the day.

School has gotten to the point where everyone is here as a formality. With the Novites in charge, we could all be dead in a month, so what's the point in learning about factoring polynomials?

I gaze out the window for about the zillionth time this period. It's another sunny, frigid day. My eye catches movement at the main office. I lean closer towards the window and I see several Novite cars pulling up to the curb. A group of officials are walking into the school. There's an air of purpose about them, as if they--

No. They can't know. They can't be here for us.

I see another convoy of vehicles slowly pull up. Medical vans, like the ones I saw at the hospital last week while we were investigating for Sparky. I then hear the PA crackling and a voice intones "Will Alicia Louis please come to the main office?"

Alicia is in Spanish right now. She probably can't even see the Novite cars from her classroom. C'mon Alicia, don't go down. It's probably a trap.

I raise my hand. "Can I go to the bathroom?"

My teacher pauses, puts down his marker, and then nods. I leap up. I don't have time to waste. In less than a minute, Alicia will be at the office and I will have missed my opportunity to intercept her. My hand closes around the door handle and I'm almost out of the room and home free when--

"Olivia!"

I whip around, my frustration building. I need to go now. Does my teacher suspect me? Did he see the cars?

"Yeah?"

"You didn't sign the bathroom log!" he answers incredulously.

I scrawl something illegible on the bathroom log and then I'm out of the room. I'm running now, determined to stop Alicia. It's very likely that the Novites saw her car last week when we drove away from the hospital. They could have easily tracked her license plate.

I catch Alicia at the staircase before she makes her way downstairs. "Alicia!"

Alicia jumps. "Jeez, Olivia, aren't you supposed to be in class?"

I lower my voice to a whisper. "They're here. I saw all of the Novite cars outside."

Alicia pales and whispers "My license plate. They saw my license plate."

I pull out my phone and dial Gavin's number. Alicia sees me and says "I'll call Matt and Kaylah, don't they have class together?"

I nod. "Yeah, and last I heard Lauren was skipping class in the auditorium. We'll meet her there."

After calling an annoyed Gavin ("Man, you made my phone go off in class!"), and waiting for Alicia to finish her call, we start running for the auditorium. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe this Novite visit has nothing to do with us. But I'm not taking any chances.

Alicia and I burst into the auditorium. "Lauren! We need to go!"

I see Lauren stick her head out from behind the stage curtains. "What?"

The PA crackles again. "Would all students please report to the auditorium at this time?"

Lauren looks up at the PA box in the corner. "Aw, crap."

The auditorium door busts open again and Matt, Gavin, and Kaylah run in. "What's the plan?!"

I hear students talking outside the auditorium doors. "Backstage, guys!" I say. "Move it!"

We clamber up onto the stage and crawl behind old, dusty set pieces from forgotten student productions. I hold my hand up to my face, and to my dismay, I realize that I can't see it in the dim lighting.

The chattering in the auditorium grows as it fills with students. I resist the urge to peek through the curtains and I instead try to formulate the next part of our action plan. If we sneak into the audience... no that's a terrible idea... hide somewhere in the school?... no that idea is even worse.

I hear voices now shushing the students. Heavy footsteps on the stage. A pregnant silence. Whispering. And then the Novites start talking.

I see the glow of Kaylah's phone and my eyes widen. On her phone now?! In the middle of this catastrophe?!

Kaylah notices my dismay and she shows me the screen. She's recording a video of the proceedings.

That may come in handy.

"Good morning Sheaton High School."

The Novite greeting is returned only by a few brave audience members, a couple who have some choice words to add.

"Due to recent events in this community we have decided to move implanting day up. We have discussed this change with several community leaders, who agreed with our decision."

I quickly glance over at Matt, who whispers "WTF?"

"Today, all students at Sheaton High School with be implanted with the microchips."

I hear chaos erupt in the auditorium. Students are yelling, others screaming and crying. I look back over at my radio crew, still hiding in the shadows. "We have to run, guys. Out the back door."

No one questions my decision and as Novite officials take control of the scene in the auditorium, we slip out the backstage door and into the back parking lot. I point to the woods. "There's a path through here. Follow it and we can get to my house in about twenty minutes."

Lauren takes a final glance at the school. "And then what?"

"We leave. The RV is ready to go." I enter the woods. We're wasting too much time debating. If we don't leave now, we may not get another chance.

The crew follows me, but as we walk, Lauren is still skeptical. "Leaving where?! I can't leave now!"

"Lauren, do you want to get chipped? We. Can't. Stay." I snap branches out of our way as we push onward. The last time I used the path was back last spring, and the path has become severely overgrown since. Lauren continues to argue and Kaylah soon joins her, yet I stick with my point. "Guys, don't you get it? Staying here is suicide. They already may know about Alicia's involvement. We can't risk our families."

My breath hangs in the air, like bits of smoke from a pipe. The anchor on the news this morning said that the temperature today is the coldest we've had yet. My thin sweater provides almost no protection and my hands are already numb and stiff. I see the white siding of my house through the trees and relief floods through me. We rush out of the woods, like those people on survivor shows do when they finally reach civilization. I flip Alicia my mom's car keys. "Alicia, go swing by your house, Gavin's, and Lauren's. Collect as much money as you can and pack what you need. Be back here in thirty minutes."

Alicia, for once, doesn't argue or correct my instructions and the three of them pile into my mom's minivan.

I see Matt and Kaylah leaving through my back door. Matt starts running for his house, and Kaylah climbs over the fence in my backyard, running through the suburban wilderness to reach her house, which is in a neighborhood adjoining mine. I run upstairs to pack.

I've thought this scenario through so many times since we started this radio show. If we had to leave quickly, what would I pack? What's important? What would we need?

I haphazardly stuff a suitcase with random articles of clothing. My laptop and charger are thrown into the bag, along with my travel bag of toiletries.

How long will I be away from home for?

By now, my suitcase is already bulging, and I haven't even packed everything I planned to take with me. I fill a drawstring backpack with my wallet, phone, and miscellaneous items that I grab off my bureau. My phone buzzes. I pull it out of the bag and to my surprise, it's my mom. The text simply reads: I know about the show. They're chipping everyone. Take Raymond and go. Don't respond. Love you, Mom.

I wonder how long my mom knew for.

Everything snaps into clarity. The message seems to wipe the fog off the mirror and make me reflect on what we're doing. You do this, Singularity, and there's no returning home. This is it. You'll become an outlaw.

Is this what I want? Is Lone Voice Radio important enough to leave everything behind? I consider my family, my mom, my stepdad, Raymond. I think of my town, my friends, my old life. I recall the eager followers on the DAMCOM, and the bloggers on the web. I reflect on the Novites, and the conspiracy that seems to grow with every new discovery we make.

It's time to leave.

I pack clothes for Raymond and race down the stairs and outside to the RV. The RV pantry is already stocked with food and snacks, and I had some old sleeping bags stuffed into one of the closets. The gas tank is full. All I need is my crew.

Matt enters first, and he slides into the passenger seat. "Shotgun," he says, grinning. Kaylah is quickly behind him and she throws six bags into the bedroom. "I'm so paranoid I forgot something," she says as she plops onto the couch. "Where're we going anyway?"

I shrug. "Far away from here."

Alicia hears me as she, Gavin, and Lauren enter the trailer. "Good plan, Olivia. Good plan."

Lauren throws her backpack off her shoulder and throws it next to Kaylah. "Check it, Kay, there's sixteen days worth of clothes in there."

Kaylah goggles at Lauren's beaten backpack, which is decorated with numerous buttons and pins. "How did you fit so much?"

"Easy," responds Lauren. "All the clothes in there are black. Four black pants and four black shirts. Sixteen possible combinations!"

Everyone laughs and out of the corner of my eye, I can already see Gavin setting up his expansive desktop on one of the tables. Welcome home, everyone.

Alicia nudges me out of the driver's seat. "Let me drive. I actually have a license."

I roll my eyes but I move out of the way. "You need to stop at the middle school," I tell Alicia. "My mom wants me to take Raymond."

Alicia turns the keys and the RV rumbles to life, like an ancient monster awakening from a deep slumber. I can't even remember the last time the RV drove anywhere.

The middle-school is only a few minutes away and after turning in a forged note from my mom, Raymond is safely in the RV.

"Justice League, assemble!" shouts Lauren as we hit the highway. We're heading for New York. No reason, really. I know my uncle has a rental house in the Big Apple, though. Maybe we can stay there.

11:59 AM

We pool together our money. The Lone Voice crew has a grand total of $1059.76. At first we're impressed with our funds, until Matt totals up all of our expenses. "This RV has terrible gas milage. Gas alone will run us broke sooner or later. Plus we need enough food to feed seven of us."

Kaylah looks annoyed. "So hotels are out of the question?"

"Uh... yeah."

"Fantastic," she huffs.

4:44 PM

Because we don't have a real destination in mind, we keep wandering off course to check out roadside attractions. I'd almost forget we were runaways if it wasn't for Matt constantly remind us "Guys, this wandering isn't gas efficient!"

8:13 PM

We reach my uncle's rental house. I grab the key, my uncle is another flowerpot-key-hider, and we let ourselves in.

"Well this... is nice." Alicia takes her finger and wipes a layer of dust off of the table.

I neglected the fact that the house hasn't been cleaned in months, not since the last vacation renter left in early September.

"Sorry about the mess guys, but it'll have to do," I say, flicking on the lights and cranking the heat. "We didn't get chipped, so we're doing pretty good."

We settle in for the night and Alicia manages to cook up spaghetti, without tomato sauce; I forgot to pack that into the pantry. Later that night, as we're all settling into sleeping bags on the living room floor, I realize that I forgot to pack pajamas.

Thursday, December 10th-- 1:04 AM

Kaylah is nudging me awake. "Uh... Olivia?"

I rub my eyes and check the time on my phone. "Jeez Kaylah, it's like one in the morning. And your phone screen is blinding me."

"Sorry," she responds, turning down the phone brightness. "Check this out, though. So I'm on YikYak and look at what I saw!" She scrolls through the feed and I see posts that say things like "hoLY CRAP THERE'S A CONVO OF NOVITE OFFICIALS ROLLIN' IN" and "When u see Novite cars driving by at 1am -_-"

"Maybe they're coming for chipping?"

The other kids are starting to wake up and Alicia turns on the lights. Gavin opens his laptop and accesses the DAMCOM. He shows us several messages that are in our inbox.

"Hey you guys, I work for Verizon and I think they're tracking you"

"You guys need to go off the grid now!"

"Run."

I look around the group. "How many of you have location services turned on?" Nearly everyone pulls out their phone and mutters things like "crap" and "I knew it!" Gavin looks smug as he says "Seriously, guys? Who leaves their location services on?"

"Sorry, no one can be as perfect as you," retorts Matt.

Alicia and I start gathering up sleeping bags and phone chargers. Lauren flicks off the light and pulls the curtains over the window. I can see Matt already outside, prepping the RV. Within minutes, we're driving away from the rental house, sleep deprived and frustrated. In the distance, I hear sirens and a helicopter rockets past, it's searchlight narrowly missing the RV. "Wait, Alicia, we're out past curfew!" I yell as she turns down another dark, deserted road. "Kill the headlights!"

Alicia turns out the lights and pulls over on the side of a quiet, forested road. "I'm not driving without headlights."

I open the RV door and glance towards the sky. There's no sound, just the wind brushing through spindly trees. "I think we can stop here, guys," I say, shutting and locking the door. "I don't predict any patrols will come down this road."

"I have dibs on the bed," says Kaylah, picking up her stuff and dragging it to the bedroom.

A lone coyote howl echoes through the woods as the rest of us sit in silence. "Yeah, I don't think the rest of us will be sleeping," I respond. "Go ahead."

2:02 PM

It seems like we've been driving forever. I was right, no one slept last night, and I'm so sleep deprived today that I tried to reheat last night's spaghetti. In the freezer.

All of us have shut off the location services on our cell phones but we're still afraid we can be tracked. We've been staying on the move.

9:53 PM

Another night of sleeping in the woods. At least this time we forked over the money to stay at a campground. The RV battery was almost dead and we needed to recharge it.

Friday, December 11th-- 4:43 PM

"Are we planning on doing a broadcast tonight?" asks Gavin. "Matt and I will finally be able to be live again!"

All the broadcast equipment is still sitting where we left it after our last broadcast. We have everything we need. "Yeah, fire it up Gavin." I say. The crew cheers. We're not letting the Novites stop Lone Voice Radio.

10:00 PM

"Good evening, everyone! It's me, Singularity, with another Lone Voice Radio transmission!"

I don't mention our location switch.

"What a week we've had, with Novite's taking early action on the chipping mandate. Plus, the Lone Voice crew will be having another discussion about the people being abducted."

We sit in a circle on the floor, passing around the two microphones, each weighing in on the topics of debate. "Yeah, I think there's a bigger picture with the missing people," says Kaylah. "It's not random, they have a pattern. The people seem to be turning into these... zombies... that they're creating. Are these zombies the result of an experiment? They very well could be."

"Interesting point you make with the experimentation, Special Kay," says Matt. "Are these zombies the result of an experiments gone bad? What kind of results are the Novites looking for? Maybe if we understand their goa;, we can figure out who they're taking, and visa-versa."

The broadcast spans nearly two hours, and when we finish, Raymond is snoring on the couch. I sign off and then start the music, the Fall Out Boy song "Alone Together", which was a request put in by Lauren.

Everyone crashes in minutes, until it's just me and Matt who are still awake, sitting in the driver and passenger seats of the RV.

"So, what is the plan, Olivia?" asks Matt. "We don't have the money to stay here forever."

I shrug weakly. "Don't really know. We could go north to Vermont. Maybe we can find an abandoned camp ground or something to park this thing at."

Even in the dark, I can see Matt smirking. "Ask Kaylah to do some research. She's a whiz at that stuff."

I grin. "If she can find us an abandoned campground that still has electricity and is remote enough so that the Novites can't find us, she can become the default leader. God knows I'm doing a terrible job."

Matt shakes his head sleepily as he settles back on the seat. "Nah... you're doing fine. Just... listen to your instincts. You predicted before any of us that we'd have to run... you see this stuff before anyone else. Use that to your advantage. You know? I'm scared things are going to get worse for us, Olivia. We're fighting an enemy we know nothing about. Our instincts are all we have."

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A/N

I've been super excited to write this chapter for ages!!

As always, if you enjoyed this chapter, leave a like, comment, or recommend this story to a friend! If you didn’t enjoy it, drop a comment and let me know what I should work on!
The cipher has changed! Here's the code for next week's chapter. Keyword is "specialkay"

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