The Society Ch. 01

"Once he violated our rules, he wasn't one of us. You break our rules; you face the consequences." General Miller put his pistol away, ordered some agents to dispose of Leonard's body, and walked towards the elevator and left. Ethan followed soon after and returned to his office.

***

"Well, I'll go get it. Can you get the lights?"

"Shouldn't I be the one to get it? I am taller you know" Asia said with a little smirk as she turned the lights on in the electronics store. She always loved to rub her height advantage in Kodi's face.

"Yeah, you're also like super afraid of heights." Kodi said, anticipating the drama that would ensue if she actually let Asia climb the shelves and grab some items that Kodi needed to build something. The other two members of her team, two men, were out looking for some food while Kodi and Asia went in the electronics store. They figured they wouldn't attract many people in a place like this, so they split up to cut the time in half.

"Here goes nothing." Kodi said as she began climbing the shelves in the stockroom of the electronics store. Asia rolled her eyes as she watched Kodi make the climb to grab towards an old computer and some cell phones that were stocked in the back. Since the war and its grim aftermath, Kodi had assembled quite the inventory, building the closest thing to a workshop that she could muster in the chaos. She and Asia had searched through plenty of stores, especially hardware stores like Home Depot and Lowe's to assemble tools like wrenches, hammers, nails, screws, bolts, screwdrivers and pieces of glass, metal, and other materials.

"How's it going up there, Wonder Woman?" Asia said, watching her friend climb towards the top, and squeezing jokes in whenever she could, since Kodi couldn't really fire back while she was busy.

"Uhh it's alright, just trying not to break my back on that floor down there." Kodi responded, unable to think of anything wittier than that while panting and focusing on not slipping. These shelves were old and hadn't been replaced since long before the war, and in the absence of a ladder, it was tough. But Kodi finally reached the top, saw a computer and two smartphones, and prepared to grab them and climb back down.

"Hey catch!" Kodi said as she threw the phones down, since they were lighter and Asia could probably catch them. Asia caught one, but dropped the other as it bounced off her chest and hit the ground.

"Nice job, butterfingers!" Kodi screamed while laughing a little.

"Oh it's fine, relax, I got the next one." Asia replied, smirking again. Kodi tuned her out, knowing her best friend was mostly talk and no walk.

Kodi decided to hold the computer in the right hand by the handle of the box, and use her left to support herself on the way down, using her strongest hand to hold the precious item she needed. As she took a step down the fourth shelf, however, her left hand slipped and she plummeted towards the ground.

"Oh shit! I'm coming Kodi!" Asia screeched, running towards her friend, but she was too late. By the time she reached her, she had already fallen on her back with a hard thud.

"You okay Kodi??"

"Yeah I think I'm okay, thanks. I just need a second. I hope no one hears all this noise we're making."

"Yeah you're right, shoot, let's try to be a little quieter." Asia said, now whispering.

Even though the city was pretty much a ghost town, survivors still lived around the perimeter of the city, and they weren't the only ones who had found some like-minded individuals and formed a group. Others had joined together to form squads, groups, families, whatever you wanted to call them, and they weren't always as nice. Different groups around the city had different philosophies around survival. Some thought that banding together and looking for more survivors was the key, while others thought that isolating themselves would keep them from harm and allow them to make a space and a life for their own with whatever they had.

Some of the groups, however, had malicious intentions, and lived under the dog eat dog philosophy. If somebody had something important they wanted it then they took it by any means necessary. Kodi's group was situated in between the first two iterations, they wanted to help people but also understood that walking up to the wrong shelter or the wrong person could have grave consequences.

As Kodi finally got up with the help of Asia, and her back still aching from the fall, she felt triumphant and a little excited about getting closer to finishing her new invention.

"Hey, I think it came over here, in the back. Come on." an unknown voice called out. It sounded like a man's voice, and judging by the footsteps, he wasn't alone. There had to be at least three people with him, Kodi thought to herself.

"Shit, you heard that Kodi?" Asia whispered.

"Let's find a place to hide!" Kodi responded. They looked around the storage room quickly for a good place to hide. The storage room was big and full of wooden shelves placed in rows across the entire space, so there was plenty of cover and places to hide temporarily. The problem, however was that, since the war, there wasn't a lot of inventory or products in there anymore, so the room was almost empty and it made the shelves look almost skeletal and frail. Not good hiding places.

"Come on over here in the back corner, we'll hide here until we can think of something else." Kodi whispered.

"Something else?? What something else? Cause all I see is we either hide or get caught." Asia replied.

"We'll have to think of something, especially since the guys who came with us are out at another place." Kodi responded, her nervousness from Asia's question almost breaking her whisper. They were crawling now, heading towards the back corner of the storage room because it would take the men longer to reach them and there was always the chance that they wouldn't reach that far and if Kodi and Asia were quiet enough, they might just give up and leave. The crawling was more difficult for Kodi because she still had the computer with her. They found a closet in the back and quietly walked in, closed the door slowly and crouched down.

"Shhh, they're coming in." Kodi told Asia, knowing she was prone to talking at the wrong time. The men barged through the door, apparently done with their search in the main store and coming in the back now. One of the guys, who was apparently their leader, told one guy to go to the left, another to the right, and that he would scan the middle of the room.

Kodi peeked out the door to try and see what they looked like before they got too close. She saw one of the men. He was white, bald, wearing a tank top and cargo pants, and he had a strange mark on his right arm, in the shape of a triangle with two lines drawn across it. She assumed this was a mark all three men had on their arms, an insignia that symbolized their group. She told Asia what she saw.

"They must be bandits, Kodi. You remember those other guys from a few months ago when we were looking for food? They all had a strange mark on their arms too."

"Yeah I know, I was thinking the same thing." Kodi agreed.

"I hear them getting closer, what if they look in here?" Asia said.

Kodi thought the same thing, realizing that they're footsteps and the banging and clanking from looking through stuff was getting louder. The noises had more clarity, as did their future: if the bandits decided to look in the closet, or if they made too much noise, they would be toast and Kodi would never be able to finish her most important project with the parts from the computer. If they didn't check the closet or forgot, Kodi and Asia could escape.

"I think we're going to have to use the stun guns. You still have yours, right?"

"Yeah I have it. But I was hoping we weren't going to have to use those." Asia said nervously.

"I know me neither, but they won't be leaving or giving us an opening. We're gonna have to take them down, at least enough to give us time to escape. Go ahead and turn it on and power it up alright?" Kodi said, realizing that time was of the essence and they needed to act quickly.

Both Kodi and Asia powered up their stun guns, which Kodi designed for the group to use in case of emergencies. Recently she upgraded them to include a projectile voltage, similar to a Taser, but it didn't travel far, so they would still have to get reasonably close in order to paralyze them and escape. Kodi decided that the best way would be to slowly and quietly open the closet door, have her and Asia split up and sneak behind the bandits and take them down, one at a time until only the leader was left. Then they could overtake him.

"But that just sounds dangerous. And we don't even know what they have?" Asia said after Kodi told her the plan.

"Well of course it's dangerous, but it's either we do that to them or they do worse to us. And we have the advantage of these stun guns on our side, which I'm pretty sure they don't have."

"Okay, okay. Ready when you are, I guess we can't wait too much longer."

"No we can't. Okay I don't hear any footsteps near the door yet, I'm gonna open it."

Kodi opened the door very carefully and slowly, and it barely made any noise. She and Asia started creeping out the closet, staying low so that the bandits wouldn't immediately catch them. Luckily, they weren't near the closet, and the back area where they all were was big enough so that they were still checking other areas.

Kodi gestured to Asia to go in the other direction, and they split up, with their stun guns in hand and moving very quietly. Kodi trusted that Asia knew what she was doing, despite her constant skepticism, because she taught her how to use the stun guns when she built them, and she had to use them one time before.

Kodi spotted one of the men, carrying a knife but not holstering a weapon anywhere visible, turning a corner at one of the shelves. She quickly darted to the other side to get behind him and stay out of sight, and started to creep towards him to get in range. She was starting to get a bit nervous as she crept closer to him, her palms getting moist and sweat beginning to drip down her face.

She tried not to go too fast as to alarm him, but then she heard some voltage and a scream from across the room. Asia must have attacked her man, but she didn't realize the scream and the voltage would alarm the others. The man immediately became more alert, turned around, and saw Kodi. She was close enough by now, though, and quickly fired a projectile voltage at the man as he darted towards her. As it hit him, he shook wildly and then fell hard to the ground, dropping his knife in the process. Kodi was glad that it actually worked, especially before he had the chance to stab her, but she couldn't celebrate because she didn't know where Asia was and there was still one more person left to take care of.

Kodi crept low again, even though she knew the leader heard the noises and was probably looking for one of them. Since her and Asia split up and were on opposite sides of the room, she wondered which one of them the leader would go after? If it was Asia, Kodi could sneak up behind him while he was focused on her and attack, but if it was Kodi, she would have to rely on Asia to save her or take him down head to head. As she continued creeping past the shelves, she grew more nervous because of the uncertainty. She started thinking too much about the possibilities. What if he already had Asia, and hurt her? What if neither one of them made it out? Kodi tried to block these thoughts out of her head and focus. That wasn't going to help her now.

She was so worried that she was anticipating the feeling of the gun to her head or hands on her throat, but she didn't feel either, and looking ahead, realized it was Asia who had the gun to her head. The leader had her, but he hadn't noticed Kodi yet and was so preoccupied with Asia that he wasn't focusing on looking around. Kodi collected herself, took a breath, and crept towards him. She didn't need to be right next to him, but close enough to fire another projectile. She needed to hurry, because she didn't know when this guy would fire or hurt Asia, and he was playing with her hair in a creepy way.

Right as the leader loaded the gun and was about to put his finger on the trigger, his whole body began to shake and he groaned as he fell to the ground, dropping the gun. Asia screamed when it happened. She was shaking when Kodi ran over to her and Asia gave her a hug.

"Took you long enough." Asia said jokingly.

"Come on let's go before they wake up or something" Kodi said with a smile as they ran out the back door and headed back towards the shelter. She went to the closet to grab the computer before they left.

***

"Kodi, you can't be serious." Asia and Kodi were just reaching the shelter now. They were both exhausted and panting when they finally walked in and sat down on the cots in the sleeping area. Both had sweat dripping down their faces.

"I'm dead serious. I think I've found a way to reach them, Asia. I have a plan, and I'm building the right device to help me do it." Kodi responded.

"Okay, even if you did have a plan, which I'm not sure about, why risk everything to go up there?"

"Aren't we risking our lives staying down here, living the same way each day? Every day we struggle to survive in impossible situations. Don't you get tired of that?"

"There's nothing else, Kodi. This is what we have, survival, making it to the next day. And you don't even know if you'll make it. I mean no one's ever been up there. Some people don't even know it exists." Asia replied.

She was right. Although most people knew about the Society, there were plenty of people who were stuck in the cycle of survival and loss, and didn't even think about it anymore.

"I have to try, Asia. I don't know if I'll make it, but I'm tired of just surviving every day, avoiding killer bandits, struggling to find food, watching people suffer and die from radiation poisoning and other diseases we can't treat. I have to try, even if it costs me my life, because being down here feels like a different kind of death."

Asia sighed before saying, "Okay, I get it. I don't agree with you, but let me at least see how you plan on doing it."

Kodi and Asia walked from the sleeping area through the cafeteria and headed towards Kodi's workshop area, a room in the shelter that was specifically for her, where she kept all her gadgets and supplies. On the way, they greeted some of the older folks, checked on their group members and the children, who were resting and playing, the best they could.

They sometimes wondered how, even in the face of all this, they could still maintain a hint of innocence. The elderly folk thought it was important for the children to have a little playtime, just to keep their hopes up a little bit, and they usually played with the toys and things Kodi made. The children still had responsibilities though because they needed all the help they could get at the shelter.

They headed downstairs towards the basement area, where the workshop was. Asia always hated the smell and how dirty and dusty it was, the smell of various materials and metals filled the room with a malodorous scent. Kodi tried to keep the place clean as best she could, but she got caught up in her work and didn't focus on how it looked. She often fell asleep down there. There were toolboxes with wrenches, hammers, nails, bolts, all types of smartphones and game systems they had found, ripped apart, opened with their circuitry in full view, and a workbench, where Kodi would scribble and sketch her plans, and then start working on them.

"Ugh, Kodi, the smell, can you spray some Febreeze in here or something?"

"I know but it's just the smell of hard work, come on it's over here." Kodi pointed to the workbench, there was a jet-black drone sitting on the table. It was unfinished, but Asia clearly knew what a drone looked like.

"...iiit looks like a drone. What are you gonna do, entertain them to death?" Asia said, chuckling.

"It's not just a drone! Watch!" The compartment where the battery was supposed to go was opened, so Kodi closed it and grabbed what Asia saw to be a remote control, but looked like an old iPod touch or early version of an iPhone. It looked like ancient history to her, but when Kodi started pressing the buttons, the drone actually turned on and started hovering. But instead of hovering with propellers like the recreational version of drones do, it had two thrusters on its back. It also had two red lights in front that looked like two red eyes glaring at Asia.

"Holy shit, Kodi. This is actually pretty cool."

"Hello, Asia, nice to meet you" the drone said back to her.

"WHOA, you made it talk too? Okay, you've officially impressed me. How did you even pull this off?"

Kodi was smiling, despite what they had been through just hours earlier. She loved when someone was impressed with her inventions, especially Asia.

"That's what I've been doing with all these old phones and games and stuff. I haven't been using the actual phones themselves, I've been messing with the computer chips inside, the CPU, the thing that makes the phones smart. And that's exactly what I needed this baby for." Kodi was tapping the computer now, she had brought it downstairs with them to the workshop.

"Wait a second, I think I'm starting to get it. These other devices didn't have enough power to do what you wanted this drone to do, even with you jailbreaking and hacking them and whatever else. You needed something stronger, but we had never found any computers other than that piece of junk you're using now, right?"

"Exactly, these chips may have been strong enough to power a smart phone but there's limitations to all of them, they didn't have enough to manifest into the system I wanted to create in the drone. They don't have enough complexity. But I knew that a computer would give me a better shot at manufacturing a CPU that could have amazing abilities, and offer me endless possibilities."

"Wow, Kodi."

"You really like it?" Kodi replied with a smile.

Asia suddenly looked puzzled. "But wait, I almost forgot that this has something to do with reaching the Society. How is this going to help you?"

"Right, of course, you remember how much we used to loved Harry Potter when we were kids?"

"Of course, we used to schedule entire sleepovers around those movies, and watch them over and over again, until we could almost quote them. "

"Exactly! Well you remember that time when Harry needed to sneak into the restricted section of the library in the Sorcerer's Stone to get information on Nicholas Flamel?" Kodi said.

"Yeah, of course, that's so classic." Asia replied.

"How did he do it?" Kodi said, almost bursting with excitement.

"Umm well he used his dad's invisibility cloak."

"Yes! Exactly!" Kodi said, gesturing her head and nodding towards the still hovering drone.

"Umm I must be missing something, what does that have to do with your big plan to get up there? I mean it's a cool movie and all but I don't know Kodi you might need a nap or something." If Asia was confused before, she was definitely confused now. Sure, she knew her best friend always thought of a new device or invention, but she couldn't figure out what she was getting at here.

"Okay, you know what the Society does at the end of each month, right? You remember what we saw that one time at midnight when we were out later than we were supposed to be?"

"Well sure, at the end of each month, they send down one of their shuttles with two employees in it to run a scan down here, to see how many people are left, what the environment is like, and generally how everything is going. They don't ever fix anything or talk to anybody, but they just want to know I guess."