The Twenty four

Sarah ran to the corner of the building the street lamp looking like a one-eyed cyclops waiting to tell on you. It light up the street showing all of the secrets that the night was trying to hide. She stopped and peeped around the corner, she had to make sure the shock bots weren’t patrolling. They were the new military police created by Twenty-four A.I. LLC or the Twenty-four as everyone calls them. They took over the east coast after the war. Twenty-four locked the borders and built a giant metal wall up and down the east coast and along the seaports. Only people in the upper echelons were allowed to travel outside of the walls. Everyone else unless you were in a key position in politics, medical, or business had to stay behind. It was like the Berlin wall all over again but it included the whole east coast and not just one city in a country.

The war was horrible the Silence a rebel group based in New York tried to take over the whole United States bombing everywhere destroying everything they could to take control. The United States looked like a giant crater of destroyed cities. A lot like those post-apocalyptic places you see on television. Sarah had to laugh because that's exactly what this was. And when the Twenty-four couldn't control the rest of the United States through all-out war. The Twenty-four decided to lock down the east coast. They cut off all communication with the rest of the world. The internet worked but only allowed you to go on Twenty-four allowed websites, cell phones ran off of Twenty-four phone towers and they monitored all phone calls or any type of communication. So, you could call to other states in the midwest and west coast but you had to be careful with what you said or typed or you could get sent to the camps. The camps were all different they could be farming camps, ranches, fishing camps. It didn't matter it was laborious work with no pay and very little to eat. People slept on cots, with only the bare necessities to keep them alive.

That’s why Sarah was being cautious, she didn’t want to get caught and sent to the camps. The camps weren’t summer camp, no swimming or having fun with your friends. Plus, Sarah had to take care of her mother and her grandmother, that was one of the reasons that she was sneaking around trying not to get caught past curfew. They used to live in a beautiful apartment in midtown Manhattan but because of the war, certain places were decimated. Their apartment building was half destroyed, but some apartments remained standing. Their apartment where Sarah had lived with her father, mother, and grandmother was one of those apartments that were still standing.

Sarah’s family was lucky her mother was a doctor and her grandmother used to be an ambassador and spoke five languages. Sarah herself spoke ten languages, Sarah loved languages she tried to learn as many as she could. When the Twenty-four found out they sent Sarah to a special university so she could become an interpreter for them. These abilities allowed them to be a part of the lower upper echelon. Which meant they weren’t high up in the Twenty four. But, high enough to have a decent place to live and to not worry about living off of MRE’s (meals ready to eat)also known as military rations, dehydrated food, or powdered eggs. No, her family was able to eat actual food that you needed to cook on a stove and not heat in a microwave.

Sarah saw her chance and ran to the next corner. She was lucky that their current home was not very far away from their old apartment. They were lucky, they lived in Twenty-four echelon approved housing which meant they had a two-bedroom apartment with one window where everyone else had to pile up in bunkhouses. Or if they were able to get an apartment it was in a basement without heat. Sarah shook her head, she hated the way they lived this wasn’t living this was hell. Terrible apartments, terrible living, and the shockbots who were fare worse than their names. They didn’t just shock you like someone with a taser would, no they shot you with enough voltage to stop and restart your heart at the same time. If you were lucky to get tased and not actually shot.

Sarah ran to the next corner and shot into an alley, she crouched down behind a large garbage can next to the back door of a Twenty-four run restaurant. You could tell the Twenty-four owned the restaurant because the Twenty-four logo was attached to the wall next to the back door. She was a little surprised that they were still open because it was ten o’clock at night. Curfew for everyone including businesses was seven pm. They would give you to no later than nine-thirty pm to get home if you had a work pass. But, at nine thirty-one if you still weren’t home then the shock bots came after you. Even the Twenty four public transportation had to make a report if they were running late, so the shock bots wouldn’t be deployed. Twenty-four had recently been replacing public transportation operators with robots so that time wouldn’t be a problem. Because of course robots were better than humans, robots listened without question, followed orders without question, were always on time, and couldn’t plan a rebellion.

Sarah snuck around the garbage can to some crates and then to the end of the alley. She blew out a breath excited that she didn’t get caught by anyone in the restaurant. First rule of survival don’t trust anyone. Second rule of survival always remember rule number one, because you never knew who was owned by the Twenty-four. People who you thought were your friends would turn on you in a minute to save their own skins, because humans were fallible. Everyone had a flaw, everyone had something that would cause them to turn on another person. Money, power, drugs, and sex were just a few of the vices that people would turn on their own mother to get if it was something they were addicted to. Sarah refused to be a victim of some crazed person's vice so she had to be extra careful when getting past that restaurant.

Sarah finally made it to the corner of her apartment building she stayed in the shadows and rolled her sleeve up to show a device attached to her wrist. It was a black market scrambling device that could scramble all of the Twenty-four low-level devices such as cameras and door recording locks within a mile of where she was. Sarah used it to sneak in and out of her building without the Twenty four finding out. Sarah pushed a couple of buttons and waited for the green light. Then she ran in the door and took the four flights of stairs up to their apartment. She didn’t turn off the device until she was safely inside. Sarah knew that she had to get a new device. Someone three floors up was arrested two weeks ago because they had pinpointed the device to this location just not to which floor or person. She would get in touch with her black market dealer tomorrow, as soon as the curfew was over at seven am. But, right now Sarah didn't want to think about that, all she wanted was a drink of water and to get in the bed

“Sarah what are you doing up so late?” Sarah jumped and saw her grandmother standing at the kitchen door. “I was just getting a glass of water Nana you go back to bed.” Sarah’s grandmother smiled and nodded her head then turned and shuffled back to her room. Sarah guzzled the water down then stole into her room. She locked her door then went into her pocket to retrieve the thing she had risked her freedom for. It was a small silver heart shaped locket that her dad had given her before he died fighting against Silence in the war. Sarah opened the locket and saw the picture of her father holding her in his arms and smiling at the camera. On the other side it said “I will always love you. Dad” Sarah wiped away the tears that were falling down her cheeks. She missed her father and was determined to help the new rebellion fight against Silence and the Twenty-four. She would fight with ever fiber of her being to avenge her father’s death. Sarah hated the Silence and the Twenty-four. They had taken everything from her and her family. Now all she had left was a little silver heart shaped locket.

The end.