Chapter 10: The Truth
While waking up, I have to face that I’m not in a horrible dream. The abduction really happened, and I tried to escape but didn’t succeed. Realizing that I am tied down to a chair, I desperately struggle to get out of my constraints.
“Stop, Madrigal,” Peter states, concerned. “You’re going to knock yourself out of the chair.”
I look up from where I am putting my whole concentration on tearing out of the thick ropes that bind me and notice for the first time that I’m in the bedroom I had been using. It’s full of people. Peter, George, a woman, a man and . . . and . . . Royce!
“What are you doing here?” I snap at him.
He sits on the bed wearing a new shirt. The blood stained one is gone. I imagine the wound I inflicted on him was dressed. “Madrigal, I—”
I hate hearing him say my name. “I should’ve known you were behind this. Where’s QT100?”
“This isn’t what you think,” offers Peter.
“This isn’t what I think?” I repeat incredulously. “I think that I’ve been abducted. I think I see one of my worst enemies. I think I’m all tied up. I think you won’t let me go, right? “
Royce solemnly shakes his head, his dark-brown, longish hair sliding on his shoulders. “Madrigal—”
“Stop saying my name.”
“You don’t understand,” he utters quietly, his dark eyes looking oddly constrained instead of haughty for once and his rich sienna skin very pale. He’s probably still in pain over the knife I had stuck into him.
“He’s not the bad guy you think he is,” interjects the woman from earlier, the one named Constanza. Now I can put a face with the voice. She’s got greenish eyes, short black hair, and is about forty years of age. “He really isn’t,” she emphasizes.
“Really?’ I say sarcastically. “Have you got any idea what this guy and his girlfriend did to me the whole time I was in school? They made fun of me, spread evil rumors, and were constantly harassing me. I lived a living nightmare because of them.”
“He had to do what he did,” the one named Leroy comments.
“What?” I ask incredulously.
“He had to do it,” explains Constanza.
“Don’t give me that,” I snap.
Royce eyes me carefully. “Madrigal—”
“Would you stop saying my name?”
“I don’t mean to upset you,” he says miserably.
“You don’t mean to upset me?” I ask incredulously. “I suppose taking me against my will shouldn’t be upsetting. What about how you treated me at school?—you and your girlfriend. What about—”
“That’s enough, Madrigal,” Constanza states. “He means it when he says he didn’t mean to upset you. I repeat—he had to do what he did.”
“He had to make my life miserable?—especially when he made up the rumor that I was crazy. Do any of you have an idea what it’s like to have to be around people who think you’re nuts?”
“Royce wasn’t trying to hurt you,” Constanza repeats, “He—”
My eyes twitch. “What was he doing?—doing me a favor by lying about me?”
Peter moves closer to me. “Madrigal—”
“Don’t,” Royce states. “She isn’t going to listen. I can’t say I blame her. She’s right about all of the horrible things I did to her.”
“But she has to know the truth,” insists Constanza.
”I’ll explain later when she’s less upset,” Royce states, his voice quiet and sullen. “But you’re right about her needing to know why we took her.”
“Is someone going to finally tell me why I was abducted?” I ask, exasperated.
“George and Leroy, please take the watch outside while we explain,” Constanza states.
I frown as they leave. “Why are you guarding me so obsessively? Who are you?”
“Madrigal, we’re the Freedom Warriors,” Peter declares, his lively hazel eyes shiny and proud.
“The Freedom Warriors?”
“We don’t like the one-world government.”
“Join the club,” I remark.
“How much do you hate it, Madrigal?” Peter asks.
“More than I can describe with words.”
“We do too,” Royce quietly says.
Constanza nods. “We’re the resistance.”
“The resistance?” I ask incredulously.
“That’s right.”
“You’ve got to be joking.”
“We’d never joke about something like that,” Constanza assures.
“It’s impossible,” I rush. “The leaders have everything so controlled.”
“Not controlled enough that we couldn’t abduct you.”
I nod begrudgingly. I’ve got to admit, they have a point.
“Their United World order isn’t as infallible as they say it is,” Constanza announces.
“Maybe not,” I grumble. Still, my abductors may not be as clever as they think they are. “I’m sure it’s not so hard hiding a person no one cares about,” I assert.
“Do you really think no one cares about you?” interjects Royce. I eye him, trying to keep my anger and disgust for him at bay. Why is he still talking to me?
“Watch this,” Peter demands as he takes a small, black, half-round TV ball and puts the flat part on the floor. He taps it twice, and the projected image of a screen comes blaring out. The old TV’s of my childhood, the ones with an actual screen, are now obsolete.
The news flares on. I rarely watch it since the leaders control what they want us to see. A red alert abruptly flashes. My fake parents appear! I blink because I think I may be hallucinating but when they start talking, I realize that there’s no question who they are.
“Please, Madrigal, come back to your loving family,” my fake father begs, his face in an odd arrangement. His expression scrunched in humility like I had never seen before.
“Please, our precious daughter, come back to us,” pleads my fake mother, her blonde hair loose and disheveled, giving her a younger and more vulnerable look. But what’s really strange is what’s come out of her face. Drops of water. The woman is actually crying.
These can’t be my fake parents. Who knew they were such good actors?
I set aside a few words from their bizarre plea and shake my head. Precious, loving, family—who are they trying to kid? And why are they asking me to come back as if I have a choice when I’ve been abducted?
The anchor person speaks out, “These are the words of two very worried parents for their daughter, Madrigal X1147, who ran away a little over a week ago because they wouldn’t let her see her thug of a boyfriend. She’s in danger. Lots of danger! Please call the number on the screen if you see her."
Peter taps on the ball twice and the projected image slides back into the TV half-ball. I’m speechless.
“Images like that have been running practically nonstop since we took you, Madrigal,” Royce murmurs.
I can’t help but glare at him.
“The government is trying desperately to find you,” Peter insists.
“I don’t understand any of this,” I say, my voice cracking. “Why do you say that about the government?—the guardians hardly know who I am. Why are my fake parents saying I ran away with some guy? Why did you abduct me?”
“Your fake parents can’t say that you were abducted, or they’d be admitting to a flaw in the United World system,” Constanza states.
“They don’t want anybody to know that their system is penetrable,” I murmur, understanding as much as that.
“Exactly,” Constanza assures.
“Why are my fake parents pretending to care about me?” I ask, baffled. “As if I’m important to them?”
“Madrigal, you are very important,” states Royce.
I flinch. I wish he wouldn’t talk to me. “I’m not important—they’ve treated me even worse than you have.”
“They’ve done that f
or a reason,” Peter interjects.
“A reason?—what reason?”
“Are you ready to hear the truth?” asks Peter.
“What truth?”
“What if she’s not ready?” Peter asks Constanza.
“We’ve got to tell her,” Constanza answers.
“She’s got most of the junk out of her system. She seems to be pretty clear even though she’ll be putting herself together for a while still. She needs to know,” Royce insists.
“Besides, we don’t have a lot of time,” Constanza assures.
“I just hope she can take it.”
“She’s stronger than anyone, including herself, thinks she is,” Royce declares, his voice at its most sure of itself.
“If you think so, Royce,” Peter states, his tone not sounding completely convinced.
“Just tell me what’s going on,” I ask of them.
“Have you ever heard about the Supernova?” asks Constanza.
“The fairytale?”
“That’s what the leaders want you to believe. They couldn’t undo the prophesy—it was already out in the vernacular, but they changed it into a fairy tale,” states Royce.
“Changed it?” I ask.
“That’s what manipulators do with the truth—turn it into something else so that they can have their way,” states Royce, growling.
“I know what they do,” I utter quietly, I had seen that type of behavior most of my life in my society and my home.
“Then you need to start believing us,” Constanza states quietly.
“But how can I in these circumstances?” I look down at my tied hands and feet.
“After we explain, we’ll untie you,” Peter assures.
“You will?”
“Yes,” Royce asserts.
“Okay, so finish telling me about the fairytale of the Supernova.”
“It’s not a fairy tale,” Peter announces. “It’s a prophesy—a true one.’
“A prophesy?” I guffaw. “C’mon. How can a story of a person becoming an exploding star be true?”
“It’s true,” insists Constanza.
“Give me a break,” I state. “How can you believe in such a thing?”
“We believe it because the Supernova is already here.”
“What?”
“The Supernova is you,” Royce murmurs, his dark eyes sitting on me.