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The quad went silent
"I’ll get right to the point" Thea bus into your school, but we had to do so I know this may not be what you want to hear, but we have decided that we can take better care of you in here We won’t be letting you out"
"What the fuck?" Will said The crowd’s roar around him drowned hihtened Will
Lucy was red in the face beside him "You can’t do this!" she screamed
"Listen to ot the crowd’s attention
"In fact, they think you’re dead right now I know because I knew theMcKinley for the military I hounded him for months with requests to open up lines of coo, he contactedout of McKinley and ceasing the delivery of food He and all his men had to report to the front lines to aid in the effort to quarantine every uninfected teen in the country See, they’ve given up on containing the virus They’re locking up all the healthy teens now, so that the virus can’t spread And they’ve passed a ne that al to kill an infected teen in self-defense, or if they come within twenty-five feet of you I read that only one way The government wants to kill the infected off You all included The last thing the iven the order to kill all the students in McKinley before he withdrew"
Gasps rippled through the crowd
"Thank God he couldn’t go through with it," the man went on "At least somebody in that operation had a conscience He lied to his superiors and told theas And then he told me that McKinley was my responsibility now"
"Let us out!" an outsider screa what is best for you," the man in the motorcycle hel back to Pale Ridge The government announced that they have done all they can to clean the virus out of Colorado, and the risk of running into an infected is nearly the same as anywhere else If we let you out, we couldn’t stop soot out earlier, off hiding wherever they’re hiding now, they’ll have no one to protect them when the time comes But we can keep you safe in here We can defend this place We’re not going to leave I need you to understand that We won’t leave you No irl called out
The raduates We knohat things are like in here, and we’ve decided that we can’t tell you We don’t want our children to be targeted"
Kids began calling out their parents’ na, Mom? Dad?
The woed his ed in her own connection Her voice was a muffled blast of emotion
"I want to say this to my own kids, so I’ll say it to all of you We love you That’s e’re here"
Will heard kids start weeping and whi around the quad Everyone was in shock Will didn’t knohat to think of any of this, but what he did knoas that wasn’t his dad up there, his dad wasn’t that tall
"Bring in the food, they need to eat," the woman said to the man
That one word, food, made Will’sthe same effect on every other kid None of them had eaten in teeks, not since they raided Varsity’s food stores The parent in the black motorcycle hel so space
The distant crane’swith a dull drone
"Whoa," Will said in wonder
A train-car-sized block of food and supplies rose into view from beyond the quad wall Its plastic-wrapped bundles shined in the glaring sunlight The block hung fro the block until it settled to a stop just over the center of the quad Everyone in the quad leaned forward in anticipation Food drops were soed himself back into the ah food for everyone So, what I want to see, once er the food, is a nice, orderly line Each box has everything one person should need for teeks if rationed correctly Please take one box, and ly"
Everyone in the quad stared at the block of food as it was lowered, an inch a second, swinging gently from side to side on its twisted metal cable It was almost time Soon, the cable would detach The block would fall
Except it didn’t It kept on creeping down at a steady crawl People looked at each other, confused Geeks to Nerds Skaters to Sluts No one was sure what to do Would everyone really line up and do this peacefully?