Wheel of Fortune (3 page)

Pepper exchanges looks with the other skaters. “She is getting smarter. I think she isn’t that bad after all.”

“Yes,” the skater boy says. “Xitler is afraid of the teens of this generation. The summit has been changing a letter in everything to a Z. We don’t know why yet, but it has something to do with Generation Z. Also I read on the Breakfast’s club forum that the letter Z has not always been relegated to the end of the alphabet. In the Greek alphabet it came in at a quite respectable number seven.”

“Who are the Greeks?” Pepper asks.

“A civilization that lived before the Amerikaz,” The boy answered. “And then there were the Romans, who were also a pre-Amerikaz civilization. They adopted the letter Z later than the rest of the alphabet because ‘z’ was not a native Latin word, adding it at the end of the letters at the end of their list of letters and using it rarely. Then the Amerikaz simply imitated the Roman’s conventions of placing z last. To sum it up, there has always been a problem about the letter Z since the beginning of Western alphabets.”

“I am confused,” I say. “What does this have to do with the Summit inserting the letter z in every word possible?”

“You don’t get it, do you?” Bellona says. “This,” She waves her hands in the air, pointing at our surroundings. “All this nation is a big hoax. Nothing has to really make sense. When Xitler found the containers under the Burning Man in the desert, half of it was stolen. Vagabonds and marauders have been searching for these containers for years after the Great Disease, but none of them wanted to build a new nation and become its prophet. Only Xitler and his family had this crazy idea that if they found the Arc, they could learn and build a new nation from it using the information. It took years to watch the videos, read the books, and search the hard drives. We’re talking about the history of a nation buried in containers…”

“Incomplete history.” the skater boy remarked.

“It was a mess, and Xitler’s ancestors were hungry to become rulers so they decided to mash up a nation from the incomplete info they got. Basically, they didn’t really know what they were reading so they made a lot of things up. The most important thing they found and studied was the science behind making cell phones so they can control the nation with idea of ranking through the iAm.”

“Why was controlling the nation so important?” I asked.

“We’re not sure,” the boy says. “But we believe that the Xitlers read in details how the Amerikaz ended with rebellions from the younger bad kids. The point is we’re sure that if there was one guy from the time of Amerikaz still alive, he’d be laughing at the culture mish mash we’re living in. If you think of it, how do know about people like David Bowie, Rambo, or Zootube? This stuff happened more than hundreds of years ago. It was passed to us by the Xitlers. And how did they know it? They saw and found it in the Arc containers. And I have to repeat myself, they passed it on incomplete and mish mashed. You know when someone whispers a word in their friend’s ear and they whisper it to the next? What do you think happens to the word when it reaches the tenth friend? It might be a whole different word, derived from the mishearing of the original. It’s the bets way I can explain it.”

“Like why we have Ten days a week for instance,” Bellona says. “I know we worship the number ten in Faya, but there is another reason, also mentioned in the Breakfast Club’s forum. It’s that the French in the ancient times used a different calendar than the rest of the world. In that system, they counted a week as ten days.”

“Are you saying that Xitler only stumbled on this info in the Arc containers and said, ‘Wow. This sounds unique, let’s do it Faya’?” I ask.

“Yes. Stupid and Superficial I know. But the answer is yes,” Bellona said without elaborating, as if she wanted her shocking answer to sink deep in me. How awful is it to find that your world is based on mashed up, incorrect jokes left to you by your ancestors?

“So basically Faya is a bad movie remake of an once-awful movie.” Pepper considered, almost speaking to herself.

“How does the Breakfast Club know all that?” I wonder.

“It’s rumored that they have found the Arc before the Xitlers,” the boy explains. “Only they couldn’t collect enough information before Xitler’s family and their army came and threatened to kill them.”

“I suppose there is a reason why they’re called the Breakfast Club too.” I say.

“Yes,” Bellona smiles. “It’s named after an old movie in the Amerikaz. One that will live forever.”

“Was it about the Monsters?” Pepper wonders.

“Kind of. It was a movie about teens like us.” The boy explains.

I sigh for a moment, taking in all the information, and reminding myself that I didn’t know much about the world. “I see. So what happened next?” I ask.

“What happened next is the story of the iAm itself,” says Bellona. I know this story from Woo, but wouldn’t mind hearing it again from Bellona to confirm the facts. “Believe it or not, the iAm was Generation Z’s idea. They started it for fun, using what they called smartphones at the time to self-quantify themselves.”

“It was also called Body Hacking. Just the same as our iAm now,” says Roger This. I notice his t-shirt is too clean for a boy who fought for his life. “But then the applications started becoming more complex. The software started predicting unusual things, like how well the owner of the smartphone would do in his next exam in school, how long the owner was estimated to live, who the owner would fall in love with. Generation Z thought it was fun.”

“Only the device was controlled individually by each member of Generation Z,” Bellona says. “Meaning that your data was private. You used it to tweak your body and mind the way you liked. It was a logical advancement in technology at the time. It was harmless until—”

“Until the data was controlled and used by the government,” the skater boy says. “The governments thought: ‘What a magical device. We can control Generation Z with this device by knowing everything about them. We don’t need surveillance anymore. We don’t even need to spend money on weapons of war. We practically own teens by knowing everything they do twenty-four-seven.’ And that was the end of the world. The end of democracy, freedom of speech, and everything. No one could do anything without the government knowing it. Everyone got spied on and their future predicted—”

“This is exactly the same world we live in now,” I remark.

“Not exactly,” the skater boy says. “Let me explain. When the government started to control Generation Z by spying on and controlling their data, there was a war going on. It wasn’t possible to brainwash Generation Z and convince them that they had to spend their teenage lives trying to get ranked.”

“And that is what Prophet Xitler did to us,” I nod.

“See?” says Bellona. “Now you’re getting it. No one knows how the Great Disease wiped out most of the population of Earth. Some claim the disease was not a physical one. They say it was a virus spread through phone applications. What we know is that Generation Z decided they should warn us. They decided they would send a hidden message to the future.”

“A hidden message?” Pepper wonders.

“What the Summit calls the Arc, the containers they found buried underneath the Burning Man,” explains Bellona. “The Burning Man is no god like Xitler wants us to believe. It was left for us by Generation Z as a sign to dig underneath and locate their legacy. Like X marks the spot, you know.”

“Originally, the Burning Man was a festive occasion in the Amerikaz where they celebrated freedom of expression. It took place in the Nevada desert,” the skater boy explains. “They built that big structure of a man and set it on fire and celebrated for weeks every year. Unfortunately, Xitler’s ancestors found it. Hundreds of huge containers were buried in the desert, full of the world’s history.”

“That’s like Zikipedia buried in the sand.” Pepper thinks aloud.

“Exactly,” says Bellona. “The Xitlers read the legacy and watched the videos and analyzed the data of the Amerikaz. They decided to create the ranking system and call the device the iAm to build a new nation blindly obedient to their rules. They did it to avoid the mistakes of the Amerikaz, protecting themselves from another emerging Generation Z, which they call the Bad Kidz, or Monsters.”

“So that is who we are?” Pepper speculates. “The Monsters are only an equivalent to Generation Z? The ones who didn’t want to submit blindly to the Summit?”

The skaters nod.

“That is definitely not me,” says Roger This. “I loved the Summit. The computer and internet games they make are so awesome. I am only here because I didn’t study or go to school, spending my time playing Zeragon 5, trying to become a top scorer.”

“Are you for real or just a figment of my imagination?” Pepper snarls at Roger This.

Bellona laughs. “By the way,” she addresses me. “You did great in the Breathing Dome, and you saved my life.” She averts her eyes from mine though. “Thank you,” she says, almost whispering. I understand that military teens should be saving others, so when I saved her, she felt a little awkward about it.

“You’re welcome,” I say aloud. I saved somebody and they thanked me. This never happened to me before.

“So can’t the Breakfast Club help us?” Pepper asks the skaters.

“The Breakfast Club is hard to reach,” explains Bellona. “They don’t use iAms. They have gone through the dangerous operation of removing the receptor trackers from underneath their left ears. It’s said that some of them died in the process, and they don’t trust anybody easily.”

Everybody falls silent. It seems the Breakfast Club is not the answer to our fears at the moment.

“But how about the family’s of the members,” I wonder. “I mean it seems that some of the Breakfast Club members volunteered as Monsters.” I remember Woo. Even though he was a rebel, he sought for becoming a Monster and entering the games, which really puzzles me. “Those were hurting their families who defiantly got downgraded. I don’t think this is good.” I also remember Woo’s mother was dead. His father was alive but Woo hated him, and I have never seen him too.

Bellona swallows and gazes at the grass beneath her feet. “They had their parents clear their names,” she says.

“What is that?” asks Pepper.

“It means they are no longer considered sons and daughters to their parents,” I explain. Finally, something I know about. Clearing someone’s name means that you don’t belong to the family any more. By doing this, your family will not be downgraded if you get a bad rank, and they are not responsible for you anymore. Also you’re not allowed to meet them ever again. I know this because I’ve researched it before. I was going to use it, but you’re not allowed to clear your name if your father is a Six and served in the army – and don’t think that Woo cared enough about is father to clear his name.

“You can do that?” Roger This asks. For the first time, he seems infuriated. He covers his face with his hands, letting out a strange noise, like the moaning of a cat.

“What is wrong?” Bellona asks him. Hell, even Leo turns his head.

“I could have saved my family,” Roger This says. “I knew previously that I’d be outranked because I am a game addict.”

“No, you couldn’t have saved them,” I explain to him. “Only the parent of a ranked teen can do this. The parents have to approve.”

Roger This removes his hands, raises his head, and looks at us. “That makes me feel better. A little. All day I’ve been thinking about what will happen to my parents. They are both Fives.”

Worse than mine. I bite my lips.

“They play games too?” Leo asks him, wrapping his arms around his knees pressed to his chest. Of course, he is still holding the rifle. We all turn to Mr. Mysterious, finally speaking.

“Yes,” Roger This says, a little intimidated by Leo.

“Zeragon 5. Eh?” Leo mutters.

“Yep.” Roger This nods.

“Cool game.” Leo slaps a small insect crawling on his face. He doesn’t brush it away after it sticks to his flesh. Roger This winces. “I couldn’t figure out how to open the Dudgeon Dungeon,” Leo remarks.