IA: Initiate (17 page)

After he and the reporter take the stage, Cory introduces the girl as Darla to the audience and blindfolds her. He asks the reporter to rearrange the course to his liking making sure to leave a path wide enough for the bicycle to navigate. As the reporter finishes rearranging the course, he accidentally knocks over one of the bushes.

“Never can trust those eyes, can ya?” says Cory sarcastically to the audience, at the expense of the reporter’s clumsiness and to make a point of his own.

The audience laughs.

“Now that we know that Darla can’t have memorized the course, there’s just one more thing,” says Cory as he escorts the reporter back off of the stage. “Since there is no way to convince all of you that she actually cannot see through the blindfold, how about we all go blind.” He snaps his fingers, and the auditorium goes completely dark.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

CHECKMATE

Present Day …

“Stop
it!” he said in a muffled yell, startling her. “I know you have a queen-sized imagination, but enough is enough!”

“But Naz …”

“I said, enough!” He looked at the chessboard with renewed concentration. Five seconds later he made a confident move.

She shrugged her shoulders and made a confident move of her own. “Check,” she said.

“Impressive, most impressive, but you are not a Jedi yet.” It was his best Darth Vader imitation.

“You need to quit with the impressions.”

He made a move that freed his king from the grips of her knight. She countered, this time challenging his king with a vulnerable rook. But in her overzealousness, she grew careless, leaving her king unguarded.

“Check,” she said, less confident than before.

“The Firecracker from Higginbotham strikes back with a bold move,” Naz commented, as if it were some televised sporting event.

“Would you shut up and just play.”

“Oh … too much pressure, huh?” Naz said capturing her rook and freeing his king once more.

“Just play!”

“But no, could it be the Nazarite from Lincoln who deals the final death blow?” On his very next move, he swooped down on her king with his queen and trapped the monarch from all sides. “Checkmate!” he said triumphantly, taunting her.

In one aggressive motion, she cleared the board with her arm, sending all of the wooden chess pieces scattering on the hardwood floor beneath them.

Surprised, Naz stood up and ordered, “Pick ’em up!”

She stood up angrily with her arms folded, still as a statue. “But I did everything right. My moves were right. I should’ve won.”

“Pick them up now.”

They stood and stared at each other for almost a minute. Finally, Meri’s angry stare transformed into a smile, and the two began to laugh quietly.

“Your moves were right … if your moves were right, you would’ve won,” said Naz.

“You told me always to think three moves ahead, and that’s what I did.”

“But not just with one piece, Meri, all the pieces, including and especially your opponent’s pieces.”

“That’s impossible. How am I supposed to know what move you’re gonna make next?”

“You have to anticipate … or guess.”

“I know what anticipate means.”

“Well, anticipate. You have to look down over the board, see all the pieces and possibilities, and make your moves based on what you know your opponent will likely do next. You have to know what to protect and what not to protect and when and where to sacrifice something. And yes, you have to sacrifice something to win. It might even be your queen.”

“So, look down on the board,” she said, concentrating intently, “and see all the pieces, huh … kinda like how God looks down and sees all of us?”

“Huh? What? No, Meri, not like God. It’s not always about God. God had nothing to do with you winning or losing the game.”

“Momma said that God has something to do with everything.”

“Where was God that day, Meri?”

She put her head down and didn’t answer.

“What did God have to do with Momma being thrown through that table?” he asked.

“Momma said that God works …”

“In mysterious ways,” Naz interrupted, finishing her sentence. “I know, and that we shouldn’t question His infinite wisdom … part of some divine plan … blah blah blah and yada yada yada. I will always question what happened to Momma and injustice in any form, and I don’t like His mysterious ways. When something good happens, it’s always all glory to God, then when something bad happens, it’s always our wretched souls or the devil at work, and I’m not buying it.”

“Don’t you believe in God?”

He paused for a moment. “I don’t know, at least not the way I’ve been taught for sure. It just doesn’t make sense.”

“That’s why you got kicked out of Sunday school.”

“Clearly.”

“Then, why do you keep that out?” she said pointing to the Bible on his nightstand.

“It was the only thing Miss Tracey let me keep out before, so why put it away now? I think she was too afraid to tell me to put it away. I mean … it is a Bible, after all. Who in their right mind would tell you to put a Bible up and risk the wrath of … well, fire and brimstone?” he said sarcastically.

“How did you learn how to play chess this well anyway?”

“I don’t know. I’m guessing my dad taught me.”

“How does that work?”

“What do you mean?”

“When did you find out you could play?”

“You know the Chess Master at the festival … the one with all the tables?”

“Yeah.”

“The last time we were at the festival with Momma, I wandered off to the tables and just started playing. I guess you could say, I knew without knowing.”

“That’s weird. Did you win?”

“When Momma noticed me over there, she pulled me away, and I never got a chance to finish the game.”

“Have you ever lost?”

“Not that I can remember.”

“Wow, how come you don’t play for Lincoln?”

“Because it’s boring. It’s too easy.”

“So, what else do you think you know … I mean, without knowing?” She asked what he was already thinking and he wasn’t paying attention to her question.

He looked at the clock. “It’s time.”

“But Naz …”

“Go,” he interrupted, pointing at his door. “Go get ready.”

“Not until you pay up.”

He looked at her confused. She started singing “Happy Birthday,” and he begrudgingly began to sing along with her.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

THE HELIX

It
was hard for Naz to know what section or borough they were traveling through, as he looked out of the window and down from the automated, high-speed, winding train. They had been out of Marshal Park for over twenty minutes now, but there was no doubt in his mind that he was still in the Exclave—Aquinas Grove, he was thinking. The buildings were the same. The houses were the same. It was as if they were going in circles, and with the never-ending turns of the Helix, he wasn’t so sure they weren’t. It was only the different streets, market names, and strange faces that assured him of their onward progress.

And there it was: the monstrosity. Major General, one of the Mega Chain superstores was now just below him. He had been there once with his mother and remembered how amazing it was.
They have everything
, he thought. In fact, he couldn’t think of anything they didn’t have. He never told Mr. Tesla he had been to Major General before. Naz wasn’t sure how he would react, with him despising the store so. As the train sped by, he noticed several men on scaffolds as they tried to remove graffiti that had likely gone up the night before.

He looked over at Meri who was fast asleep with her head on his shoulder. She had fallen asleep even before the train left the station, and now the hum and vibration of the Helix began to make his eyelids heavy as well. He had learned a lot about Meri that morning and even more about himself—things that excited him, things that scared him, and things that he wasn’t prepared to believe. Then from nowhere, sleep took him like a hammerblow, and he was out like a light.

In what seemed to him like seconds later, his eyes popped open in surprise, as Meri nudged him with her elbow.

“Look,” she said, pointing out the window.

They were in the Exclave no more, and there were trees as far as the eye could see.

Naz rubbed his eyes and took in the gorgeous, dense green forest that the train was now weaving through. “What time is it?” he asked concerned.

Meri was too caught up in the spectacle to hear his question. She had been to the suburbs twice before with their mother, but never on the train where she was so high up and so close. Naz pulled out his phone to check the time. He had been asleep for almost an hour, which meant they would be at International Academy soon.

“Are you ready?” he asked.

She didn’t answer.

“Meri!”

“How can you think about that stupid test when you look out there and see all of that?” She pointed out the window to the wall of trees.

“They’re just trees … and I knew you heard me. You know, we do have trees at home.”

“Not like those.”

“We’re almost there. You need to get ready.”

“And how do you suppose I do that?”

“I don’t know. Think smart thoughts or something.”

The train rolled into a clearing to reveal a row of buildings with brilliant architecture encircling a lavish park, much like what Meri had described earlier that morning. Naz immediately looked at Meri. She shook her head. A little further along there were more majestic trees and a series of small lakes, followed by a stretch of elaborate buildings, some seemingly made of all glass and some made of glass and smooth shiny stone,
maybe marble,
thought Naz. There were structures so breathtaking that neither Naz nor Meri could remember seeing their equal before other than on television or in the movies. They could not predict what would come next because no building was like the one that preceded it, and there was no rhyme, reason, or pattern to the landscape. The sun reflected off the buildings and lakes to add to the grandeur of it all. Then another park came into view that was even more magnificent than the first, and Naz again looked at Meri in hopeful anticipation. She again shook her head.

“Now tell me again. Why do you wanna live in the Exclave?” asked Naz.

“Because it’s my home. Why can’t our home look like that?” she asked pointing out the window again.

He thought about her question but didn’t respond, assuming it was a rhetorical one. The two watched in silence as the train finally began to slow.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

THE BURBS

Before
exiting the train Naz took one last look at the map Dr. Gwen had given him. He then folded it and put it in his pocket for good. During the mile-long walk from the train station to International Academy, he didn’t want to look lost or like they didn’t belong, and in his mind, walking around reading a map would reveal just that. In the Exclave, walking around in a similar way was akin to bleeding in shark-infested waters, and it was only a matter of time before a predator would strike.