Jacka: Chapter 35

"Just type it in Ledge!" yells Thunder. "Type in what I say: Child Human Rights."
"No!" he yells back. "I'm on to something. Jacka, get your butt back in this room."
I hesitate before walking back into Ledge's room. It's really hot and stuffy in there. It' not like we can open a window. Ledge has been trying to hack into unwanted websites. Sarah and John have blocked off a lot of websites for us kids, mostly having to do with the law. Thunder and Marstin still can get why we just can't Google 'child human rights'. Ledge's theory is that a shock wave or electrical current is given off so certain web pages will automatically shutdown when accessed. So, if I absorb those currents, we should be able to get into pages … should. Ledge is spending so long on getting through to security of the base so that no one will get any security breeches. Adra keeps saying that it won't because robots designed this place, so it won't be the best base in to world. She was right. That was two hours of continuous hacking, wasted. Anyway, once we got the page up, Ledge reads it out. He asks us to keep track if we have the rights or not while he types it up on a word document.
"Alright, let's begin," says Ledge. "Right … number one. We all have the rights no matter of our gender, nationality, race, religion, language or any other opinions."
"Well, we don't know yet." I say weak from all the conducting of electricity.
"Okay. Number two. We have the right to develop normally and in a healthy way."
"Won't consider this normal," inputs Meritxell.
We all see Ledge put a big NO next to RIGHT 2 on the digital document.
"Next, no. 3. The right …" Ledge's voice fades away from me. I lie down on his no.7 bed, and drift off into sleep.
I woke up sometime later when they all said: What? 5 out of 10! No!
"This is ridiculous!" yells Bruno. He goes to leave to room.
"Where are you going?" shouts Chargar.
"To the training room. I feel in the mood to hit something right now."
Everyone else leaves Ledge's room, except for Hannah. She's the only one who can tell if someone's wake.
"I'll show you, if you want." says Hannah.
"Could you read them out to me?" I ask, still lying on the bed.
"Fine, we don't have the right to grow up normally. The love and understanding from parents or family. The right to be free. The protection against cruel acts. And of course, we don't have the right to have all the rights."
"What do you mean by cruel acts?" I ask, finally sitting up.
"We were kidnapped and were kept in here against our will. What do you think?"
"We'll, we looked up child rights," I begin. "But you are 18; Ambrose is 18, Adorna's 21 and Bruno's 19. Don't you guys have, like, 30 rights? The adult rights? The child rights are 10, but adults have 30."
Hannah looked away from me. "Jacka, how do you know this?"
"I spent the most time having a normal life. I went to school for 8 years, since I was five. We learnt this in social studies."
Hannah did something weird … "What's 'social studies'?"
Well, Hannah has been in the base ever since she was little. She never went to a normal school … or a school. Anyway, I take over the computer and I look up a site with the words ADULT HUMAN RIGHTS. I get a hit. As I skim through the list, I read out the ones that are not used for Hannah.
"Oh dear," I begin. "There are so many rights not used for you or Bruno. You don't have the right of having all the rights, you're not treated equally by the law, you can't ask for legal help to get us – or you – out of this, you can't travel where you please, you can't ask for protection. And you also don't have the right to information. No one has the right to take away the rights, so why has the government decided not to use them?"
Hannah stands up, with a disgusted face. "We have six rights taken away from us, but you guys only had five not used. Lucky you-"
"No!" I shout. "What do you mean by 'lucky you'?"
"It's not that hard," she says. "I never went to school, but I know how to count. You don't have only five, we don't have six."
"Oh hell no! You may know how to add, but what about subtracting? You, Bruno, Adorna and Ambrose still have 26 rights. While me, Jayyoya, Adra, Princess, Chargar, Thunder, Meritxell, Marstin, Dream, Alex, Army and Ledge only have 5. I would say: do the math. But apparently, you can't."  
"Oh, fuck you Jacka."
"No, don't fuck me. The government has fucked us pretty badly. Anyway, why has New Zealand done this to me? I was born here. I love it here.  Wait, hold on …"
I lean closer to the computer. It shows a whole bunch of different numbers, letters and colours randomly flying across the black screen. I don't know why, but I place my hand on the keyboard. And for some reason, I start to type. I don't know what I'm typing, but I'm not even pushing the space bar. Then it shows up; a black page in white writing.
I hear running down the hall, and in comes Chargar and Ledge. Now I know what's going on. Hannah was using her mind to control my hands to decipher to code or something. And she called Chargar and Ledge to answer this white writing.
'You're getting good at this,' she thinks to me.
I just look at her. It's a signal to let go of my hands. They're still on the keyboard.
"No," says Ledge. "We need you to absorb more electrical currents. Okay, now let's begin."

Days have passed trying to work out this code. From 6am to 10pm, for nine days. I went to the training room once to move around a bit, but that's it. So many different codes, numbers, letters and colours. It gets confusing. It was hopeless until:
"Here we go!"
Ledge's three little words somehow – in a way – gave me relief. I was so tired. As Ledge was reading out the words, they faded away from me. So tired. Let my head fall, right on the keyboard. Almost immediately afterwards, a siren came on. It's one I have never heard before. Hannah is shouting my name, but I don't respond. I still lay there on the keyboard. I feel someone pick me up … it's Bruno. All the kids are running from the training room Ledge's room. Bruno picks me up, and flies away. But then I see Ledge slam a sayth into Starnya's neck. Oh no, not another life-dream. He carries me to the 4 and 12 open elevator, where Dream is waiting for us inside. Dream and Bruno tied to a tree, both fall on a fire. Bruno throws me in the elevator and the doors close. As I sat up (barely) Dream asks me what went wrong. She burns to death. I replied that I don't know. She rushes over to me when she sees my eyes.
"A life-dream?" she asks. "Were you that tried?"
The bathroom is a good place to hide, as only two people in the world can access each elevator.

I wake up on the bathroom floor, with a towel as a blanket. Dream is sitting up against a wall, and just staring at me and holding her stomach.
"It's been almost two days," says Dream. "We have no food. We have water from the tap, but we have no food."
"So?" I say. "We can last like what, 30 days without food and-"
"No us," she says. "We can only last up to a week, tops. How could you do it?"
"Do … what?"
"Set off the alarm."
"I didn't mean to!"
"So you did do it?"
"No, I fell asleep."
"I know you where tried. I'm sorry."
"I ... you know I had another life-dream." I say, looking away from her. "It was one when you and Bruno died."
Silence.
We all know what is happening. The robots found out we know now, and want to take us to the YNEK village. All they have to do is wait us out for food.