Series Wednesday: Timetopia page 6

                We are not far from the Questions hall, but before we can go in Rev prepares me with the fake hair and nose. Looking at my drawing, I see the tracking room is the third restricted room. The Questions hall is very different from the library and the wellness centers. There are 30 wellness checkers, 20 mangers, 15-20 Questions hall workers and that’s not even counting the visitors. I am afraid we might not be able to even get in the room with that many people there. “We are going to get your mom out don’t worry.” Rev says as she puts her hand on my shoulder. “Thanks.” I tell her and we start to walk up to the Questions hall. “Hello, welcome to the Questions hall. To your left is the room of answers and to our right is the ideas room”, says one of the workers as we walk in. I take a deep breath as I follow Rev. “So where is the tracking room at?” I grab my drawing out of my bag. It seems to be down the left hallway, the forth room on the right, next to the control room. I hand the drawing to Rev and point it out. Rev smiles at me. “Let me do a pass by and see what we are working with.”  Rev walks toward the room, I start to walk to the answers room. That’s where I see a worker I know. She’s a few years older than me, we all thought she would get erased because she was always so openly defiant. I guess they just put her good Questioning skills to use. I see all the kids writing their question on a piece of paper to take to the Question master. “Do you have a question I can help you with?” I hear from behind me and I take a deep breath, I wish Rev was next to me. I turn around and it’s Alexis, the girl I knew from my school. “No thank you. I am just looking around.” She looks me deep in the eyes. “Ava is that you?” How did she know? Oh no I’m in trouble now. “How? Did?” I can’t even get the  words out. She laughs. “Ava it’s okay, take a deep breath. Whatever is going on I won’t say anything.” I take a breath of relief.  “Thank you” is all I can muster up. “May I ask? Why do you look so different? What is going on?” says Alexis. What do I say? Lying is never a good thing. “I have no idea. They took my mom and someone is keeping her here. I’m not sure why or where. I need to use the tracking system.” She looks at me for a second. That’s when out of the corner of my eye I see Rev walking back up. “We need a key card to get into the room and that’s if we can get past the guards.” Rev says before she notices Alexis in eye range. “They have your mom in a Questioning room. That’s where they keep the trouble makers. I have a key card to the tracking room. I’ll help you.” I’m not sure why she is helping us. I want to ask but she motions for us to follow her. Rev grabs me by the hand and we go.

                We are almost to the door making it through the crowd, when a wellness checker stops us as we walk right up to the door. “What is going on here?” I hide behind Rev. Alexis didn’t seem to hesitate. She says “I need to use the tracker.” to the wellness checker, but he didn’t seem to like her answer. “Please sir, it’s my little sister she hasn’t come home in a day. My mom is very worried.” Rev sounds so sweet I just look at her. How is this the same girl I have been traveling with? The wellness checker seems to like Rev because he smiles at her and runs his hand down her cheek. “Well we wouldn’t want your mom to worry now would we.” He moves out of the way.  Alexis opens the door and we walk in. “EWWWW. Good to see men are still pigs, at least that is still the same.” She is doing a weird motion, she is wiping her arms off. Alexis walks up to the screens and turns them on. The brightness from the screens light up the dark room with no windows. “Okay I just need your mom’s bar-code.” I nod my head. “It’s 0456x3ub82.” She pushes the buttons on the screen. “I hate how you say bar-code so casually. Like oh no big deal that you’re all being tracked.”  Rev says. Alexis looks at her confused. “It says she is in room 18. That’s not too far from here, it’s just down the hall way.” I look at the screen in disbelief that my mom is so close. “What are these other lights?” I ask seeing a bunch of lights around the room. “They are other people. It looks like two wellness checkers, a manager and a head question master. What did your mom do? It’s a really big deal for a manager to be there.” I take a deep breath. Rev pulls my hand for me to step behind her, so I do. She steps in front of me, pulls out a knife, puts it to Alexis’ throat, and pushes her against the wall. “Why are you helping us? Why all the questions? Did Richard tell you we were coming?”  Alexis doesn’t seem afraid at all. She motions for Rev to move the knife so she can talk. “You have no idea what I have seen here. They don’t just erase people, they make them disappear where you can still remember them. If someone asks the wrong questions about the Five or how their technology works, we have to inform the head question master. It’s not okay what they do. You have no idea. I beg you to kill me, please I can’t keep doing this, it’s not the adults that kill my soul. It’s the kids. They do not care what age you are. No one told me you were coming I swear. I don’t know any Richard’s either.”  Rev steps back as Alexis falls to the floor. I had no idea anything like this happened in Timetopia. She is crying on the floor she seems so broken. I can’t help but hug her. “How do we get the guard to move so we can get your mom?” Rev is looking at the screen. “A fire is the only thing they are told to leave their post for.” I look at Rev and she nods. I guess we are starting a fire.