Jacka: Chapter 33

Army has been talking to Jacob for a while. Everyone is waiting out of his room; even Adra and Ambrose, who should be in the lounge, learning there English better. But hey, John and Sarah are listening too. It was alright until Army breaks the door as Jacob throws her out. The door smashes into pieces all over the ground … and then Jacob comes out.
"What the fuck are you doing to me?!" he shouts at Army.
"Helping you. I know -"
"Nothing! You know nothing, Army." He storms off down the hall and into the elevator wall. He touches it, and then the 3 and 5 elevator door. It closes and he disappears yelling 'Why can't anyone leave me alone!'.
Ledge helps Army up, and brushes off the dust.
"What happened in there?" asks Dream.
"I … I don't exactly know. It was all alright until his computer started beeping. Jacob told me to get out, but I didn't. I asked him 'Why?' and he told me again. I said no and he kinda threw me out the door."
"Kinda?" I ask.
"I don't want to end up like him …" says Dream.
"What was his computer doing?" asks Ledge.
"I don't know. I just said that."

"Jacka!" whispers Ledge from outside my room. "Jacka!"
"What?" I whine opening it, looking back at my clock. "It's three AM."
"Look what's on his computer!"
"Who … Jacob?"
"Yeah, duh!" says Ledge, waving around some pieces of paper. "I wanted to know what was on it, so I snuck in and printed it off. You have got to look at this."
Ledge shoves the paper in my face. It's a list of last names, first names and then nicknames. The first name on the list was ANO, Bruno – Broom.
"Wow," I say. "Bruno's nickname is Broom? No wonder we call him -"
"Keep reading!" he whispers.
"Alright, grumpy pants."
Next is this chick ARMSTRONG, Lucy – Viper.
Followed by ATY, Bruce – Max-H.
The list goes on and on. It's filled by names. I stop at a D; DANSON, Jacob – Jayyoya.
I find the girl Bloodly; Adra's and Ambrose's sister. They forgot her real name years ago. It says HADRIAN, Adorna – Bloodly. It takes me a while to skim thought to the last name. Some boy lastnamed Zachariah.
"How many names are there?" I ask, now flipping back to my name.
"I counted … 313."
"But Bruno is no.1, I thought it was -"
"Hannah? No, this is a list of alphabetical last names."
"But I was the last at no.12. Then Adra and Ambrose came, and then we heard of there sister, Bloodly."
"Jacka, I don't think it's 15. It's 313. I've already told every kid. We're gonna talk about it tomorrow. G'night"
As Ledge leaves, I go back into bed. I can't get to sleep. There are 298 kids we don't know about. Why has John and Sarah been lying to us? In Harde's final words, he said that we should only trust Sarah and John out of all the adults. Did he know about this too? How did Jacob get a hold of the papers? Would he share it with us? I don't know …

The next morning we are all meeting in the lounge. Sarah, John and Jacob have all gone down to the training room so that gets them out of the way. If Jacob was here, he would rip off Ledges head – for real. And Sarah and John will rip apart the papers. Anyway, Adra and Ambrose are telling us how they got to the Cotidie Versipellis in the first place. They know the other kids, well some of them anyway.
"It was nine years ago," says Adra. "We were taken from our school in Greece and put into this very base. We were here with each other and our sister and our brother and we thought that we were the 12, like we were told. Turns out that we weren't. Our friends Fang and Stretch found these files like Jayyoya did. The next thing we know we are in the -"
"Y.N.E.K Village?" I ask.
"How did you know?" asks Ambrose, looking worried.
"Adra said something about back on the island. What does it mean?"
"It's the Young Nation of Experimented Kids. There is an entire town filled of these kids. There are people like the people here that watch them and teach them and parent them. But the town is completely blocked off form the rest of the world because they didn't want us to escape, and every kid knows it. The oldest there is a boy nicknamed Max-H who is 14-years-old when we were there last, so he must be 23 now. The youngest, I believe, is a girl called DJ, and she's nine. Everyone has tried to escape, but only I and Ambrose have ever succeeded. Our sister sacrificed her freedom to let us go. They last we saw of Bloodly was her trying to fend off some of the robots, but she couldn't …"
"Robots?" yells Charagr.
"Well, yeah." says Ambrose. "You know the robots."
Chargar looks around. "No. No I don't know the robots!"   
"They are the scientist walking around here," says Adra, looking at the door.
"Well that makes sense why I can't read their minds," says Hannah. "And what about Harde, John, Sarah and Starnya?"
"No, yes, yes and no." says Ambrose. "Any kids was human, all adults are robots."
"Then why does everyone tell me to trust them?" I ask, annoyed.
"Because …" Adra's voice becomes faint. "Because they helped us escape. Now let me finish the story. Anyway, Ambrose and I escaped on a plane with our real parents but it crashed in the ocean. We swam to a nearby island, the Cotidie Versipellis, but we never saw our parents again. We were born in Greece, taken to the base, the village, we lived in the island and now we are back to the base."
"So why are you telling us all this?" I ask. "I mean, what has this got to do with the list of other names?"
"You can't tell Sarah and John. We were taken out of the base for the same reason as everyone else:  we found out about the others and the robots found out that we knew."
Ambrose puts his hand on Adra's shoulder, "We don't want that to happen to you. Hey, Marstin could you look up some names on the list?"
"Ah, alright?" Marstin says as he catches the list from Ambrose. "What names?"
"Our old fiends; Fang and Stretch."
"Okay then," he answers. Marstin starts flicking though the list.
"Now listen, guys." says Ambrose. "You are the twelve. You just are the 25th twelve. The order in which you came here wasn't an accident. You were put in that order. The order is who has the most uranium atoms in their body to the least. Now uranium is a manmade metal and is extremely radio active. They put you in this order so it will be easier for the robots to understand. So that means that Hannah has the most uranium atoms inside of her, and Jacka has the least."
"Wait," says Ledge. "You said that we are the 25th twelve. That means 300 kids. There are still 13 more left."
"Let me finish you smart-mouthed dumb-ass." says Ambrose to Ledge, looking annoyed. "There are 26 different sets of twelve. 26; so one set for each letter of the alphabet. You guys are 25, so you are the set of Y. I'm from Z. Every kid in set 1 – 25 has the same based power. But one has the weakest powers, and the 25th, you, have the strongest. Before any of you but in again   – Ledge – the 26th, us Z, have unique powers compared to the element powers for girls and the classic powers of the boys-"
"But that leaves 1 left as we are now up to 312."
"Shut … your … fucking … mouth." yells Ambrose.
"Found them!" shouts Marstin. "Fang & Stretch."
A silence falls.
"Can you read out the names?" asks Princess.
"Oh yeah, right ah … Stretch is some kid named Ricky Tomas. But um, Fang …"
"What?" asks Meritxell.
"She … is …"
"What!" I yell.
"I can't, ah … Army. You need to look. I just can't …"
Army snatches the files off Marstin. As she skims the page, he points to the location of the names. Army shoos him away, looks at the name and turns very, very pale.
"It can't be," she says, throwing away the papers. "It just can't be!"
"What can't be?" says Jacob from the door. "Hey, were did you get those papers from?"
"How could you!" yells Army. She stands up and runs over to Jacob.
"I didn't want everyone to see the files. I was only going to show Jacka. I'm sorry I didn't tell you all."
"I'm not talking about that," she says, getting ready to fight. "Did you read though the list?"
"Yes, every single name. I'm so sorry."
"Every name? If you did then why didn't you tell me?"
Army shoots a fist at Jacob's neck. He grabs it, twists it and kicks Army on the ground. He gets her down in a pin.
"I said I'm fucking sorry!" He yells.
Army begins tapping the ground with her only free hand.
"Jayyoya!" yells Hannah. "Army only taps out when she's in serious pain! Let her go!"
"I said I'm fucking sorry!" repeats Jacob, ignoring Hannah. Before Army stopped moving, Bruno pulled up Jacob. Army is coughing like hell, she can barely talk.
"What is your big deal!" shouts Jayyoya. "I said I'm mother fucking sorry!"
"It's one of the names," she cries out. "This girl Fang. It said her real name was Rita Steven. Fang is my sister. Why would you keep this from me? How could you keep this from me?"