Young Writers Society

Monday, December 21st—11:53 AM

It’s another long, tiresome day on the road.

At this point, we’re all starting to get on each other’s nerves. Kaylah and Lauren already had a spat this morning on the driving music; trust me when I say it got ugly.

I think we’re staying in New York for a little while longer. Matt managed to strike a deal with one of the campground owners and we’ll be able to park here until next Monday, when business starts up again.

Tuesday, December 22nd—5:08 PM

We’re in the Winnebago eating dinner (Ramen Noodles!) when Matt suddenly says, “Guys wasn’t the chipping day today?”

We all stop eating. Raymond is frozen mid-bite, noodles hanging out of his mouth and dangling into the bowl. He slurps up the noodles and then says “Wait, was that today?”

Kaylah already has her phone out. “Yeah, it was. Check out this picture.”

She passes her phone around and we all take a look at the glowing image on the screen. There’s people lined up outside hospitals, with armed guards flanking the lines.

“Jeez Louise,” says Gavin. “They’re taking this seriously.”

“Well, we’re screwed,” Alicia contributes. “They must know we were never accounted for and chipped.”

I shrug. “Not necessarily. A lot of people have gone missing.”

Jay mutters something that sounds suspiciously like “Yeah, my parents.”

Gavin stares hard into his bowl. “Guys…” he starts, “Is it bad that I never told my parents I was leaving? Or that I never talked to them since?”

Alicia jumps up. “What do you mean you never called them?!”

Lauren fist bumps Gavin. “Same here, man.”

“I hardly talked to my parents since we left,” I say. “Just my mom. I called her once. She had good sense not to call back.”

“I wonder what my family is doing this year for the holidays,” says Kaylah quietly. “I wish I were home.”

A silence descends over the table as we think back to earlier holidays, before the Novites. I look over at Raymond, who is staring stoically at his action figures that he has lined up beside his dinner. He looks so… lost. So does Jay. And Kaylah, and Lauren, and I look around the table and see us all for what we really are: a bunch of scared kids who have no ideawhat we’re doing. Why was this ever a good idea?

It’s almost too much to reflect on.

“Okay,” I say loudly, clapping my hands. “Let’s play a game or something!”

Alicia and Matt jump up and start collecting dishes off the table.

“Yeah, games are good,” says Jay.

We all scramble to clean up and Raymond pulls out the Life board game. No one mentions our families again.

Wednesday, December 23rd—11:13 AM

“Hey, Singularity?” Jay calls, sticking his head out of the Winnebago door.

I’m sitting on a large rock that juts out of the ground, a little ways from the Winnebago. It’s nearly freezing out today, with a stiff wind ripping through the campground every few minutes or so. The snow has hardened into a stiff shell, and it reflects the pale sunlight. The valley below us is quiet, hardly any cars on the road below, although at night we could see Christmas lights twinkling in and around the houses. I’m thinking of home again and being this far away at this time of year makes it all feel so unreal, so—

“Sin?” Jay asks again. “What do I call you, Olivia, Singularity, Sin for short?”

I turn around and toss a clump of snow at him. “Not Sin.”

Jay shrugs. “Okay then. Well anyways, Sin, Gavin wants to see you. Something about the DAMCOM.”

I get up and trudge inside. Peeling off my frozen sneakers, I follow Jay over to Gavin’s desktop set up. Gavin has a message pulled up on the computer. “What is this?” I ask.

“See for yourself,” says Gavin.

I squint at the tiny font and read the message.

Claus kq tbau ceudnj im qqf, mywv fs cf vse jdcne qzgce wsuhefd htrml yzn.

sgw sapw htvy vcjs.

It reads as entirely gibberish, and the sender’s name is restricted.

“No idea where it came from,” says Gavin.

Matt hears us and turns away from the stove, where he is attempting to make soup. “I think it’s some sort of glitch,” Matt says.

“But maybe it’s not,” I respond. “Gavin, did you try to decode it?”

“Uh, yeah,” he says. “We ran it through a bunch of stuff. If we had a key word we could probably get a little further, but they didn’t include one.”

“Huh.” We stare at the message, trying to decipher any bit of it in our heads. “And no sender information?”

“It was sent from somewhere in Massachusetts, but that’s about all I could track.”

I see Lauren, sitting on the couch, perk up when she hears us mention Massachusetts. “We could go home, couldn’t we? Investigate a little?”

“Nah, too dangerous. They’re doing chipping in Massachusetts this week,” I say. “Let’s not reply for now. We’ll wait ‘til after Christmas before we try to get ourselves killed again.”

Friday, December 25th—8:20 AM

“Merry Christmas everyone!” Raymond screams. I sit up in my sleeping bag, rubbing my eyes. “Seriously, Raymond?”

He points to the little tree we set up on the table. “Santa came!”

“What do you mean?” I stand up, curiously, and then laugh when I see the letters that we wrote for each other under the tree.

The rest of the crew starts to wake up and I see Alicia lazily turning on the stove and Matt getting out Bisquick.

“Merry Christmas, guys,” says Gavin. “Even though I don’t celebrate.”

“You’re a champ, Gavin,” replies Matt.

I almost flick on Good Morning America, but then I stop. I don’t want any Novite news to spoil today.

9:00 PM

It’s an hour before the broadcast and we have decided to read our holiday letters to each other. After Lauren guesses my authorship on her letter, I slit my envelope open and start to read.

“Dear Sin,” I start. I glare over at Jay, who is doing a poor job of hiding a smirk.

“Well, that was easy to guess,” says Kaylah.

“You seemed like a cool cat when I met you at that rest stop. As always, my judgement was right. I’m not sure what else to write, so I taped some memes onto this letter. Sincerely, Jay.”

There was a huge postscript, but I don’t read it aloud. Instead I give Jay a thumbs up and say “Thanks for the memes.”

“That letter was short lived,” remarks Alicia. Everyone laughs as Gavin says “Let me guess, Jay, you remembered ten minutes ago that we were doing this.”

Jay puts his hands in his pocket and shrugs. Maybe it was the screwed up lights on our Charlie Brown Christmas tree, but I could’ve sworn Jay was turning red. As Jay read his letter to the group, I continued reading mine.

So yeah, anyways, thanks for not abandoning me at the mall the other day. When you guys gave me the money to go get some more clothes, about five minutes later I started thinking that this whole mall trip was part of a plan to ditch me. So thanks for not doing that.

Like I said, you seem like a cool cat, Sin. Hell, back before the Novites, I might even ask you out, but ain’t nobody got time for that when we have the Novites on our backs. Plus, you know, Romeo and Juliet knew each other for, like, six days and they were dead by the end of the play soooooo

Seriously though, there’s something I need to tell you.

My brother has gone missing. He’s like Raymond’s age. My parents had dropped him off at my grandparents before we left to escape the Novite regime. I wanted to tell all of you, but I didn’t want anyone to worry.

I don’t know what to do to find him, and I don’t want him to end up like that women you found. Why would they take children, Sin? He’s innocent.

I need to find him. I have some ideas, too.

For real this time, signing off

--Agent Jay

I glance over to Jay, hoping to offer some nonverbal sympathy, but he won’t make eye contact with me. I add his brother to the ever-growing list of missing persons in my head. Mrs. Whitson, Wilson, Sparky’s roommate, the women at the hospital, Jay’s brother.

I still cannot find any correlation. Their ages, genders, and races are all varied. Think harder, Olivia. You know it’s not random.

Matt interrupts my train of thought by suddenly yelling “Yooo it’s time for the show!”

We scramble and set up the studio, and within minutes I’m on the air.

“Hey it’s me, Singularity, back for another edition of Lone Voice Radio. A Merry Christmas to those who celebrate!”

And though I sound cheerful on the radio, my mind stays in a dark place, filled with thoughts of the missing persons and, I nearly forgot, the mysterious coded message to our DAMCOM.

Once again, nothing makes sense. A Merry Christmas, indeed.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A/N

I’m so sorry about the delay again! This time it was summer work.

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 keyword for this week’s cipher is “Claus”

Eznzdknt ix Kytyjgdt

And if you would like, try to crack the coded message from the DAMCOM!  I'll gift 20 points to each person that can!