Page 90 of The Commons

He comes up to us. “This is what I’ve been doing. Protecting as many Commoners as I could. Some of these people I found underwater when they were left to drown. Some, I faked their death and brought them here. The others, I helped while they were trying to escape The Seventh Zone.”

“This is the place where you guys are building The Begon right?” Swin asks.

“How do you know about that?” Pesh asks, puzzled.

“No one knows, I promise. No one in The Seventh Zone knows. It’s just… my 20/20 lens pod set. Sometimes, I come around the place where you just took us to—and I hear things, but I haven’t been able to figure out where the voices were coming from, till today.” Swin takes out the ear pods from his ears again to show us.

“What is this?” Pesh asks.

“I built it! I told you I was smart. Here, you can vet it if you are suspicious.”

Pesh takes the tiny ear plugs, his eyes narrowing as he feels them. “I’m not suspicious. I just need you to figure out a way to multiply this thing to go round.”

“I can’t. I took me five years just for this one, but what I can do is help you guys with The Begon.” He spins around and walks backward in a confident strut.

“Okay you guys have lost me. What is The Begon?” I ask.

“The Begon contains all the financial statements of The Seventh Zone. It contains all the unjust deaths, forced labor, inhumane working conditions. It’s filled with files, videos, phone calls, all the things I have watched Londe do since I was a child,” Pesh responds.

“So it contains every criminal act De Londe has ever committed?” Levon asks, puzzled.

“Yes, pretty much,” Pesh responds.

Levon looks at us with that commanding look only Levon can pull off. “So why haven’t we turned this damn thing into the authorities yet?” she asks in an authoritative voice.

“We haven’t hacked it yet. It’s encrypted with technology that we haven’t been able to figure out how to read or put in a format that is accessible. I stole it from my dad six months ago—and every computer here is engineered with the ability to see my house, Patron De Londe’s mansion, and The Commons. We’ve been trying to hack it for half a year now but, it’s impossible.”

“Right, but I know exactly how to hack it to be readable!” Swin says.

“Sooo… hundreds of these people—” Levon says.

“99,” Pesh comments.

“Okay, sooo… 99 geniuses haven’t hacked it, and you think you can?” Levon continues looking at Swin in disbelief.

“Yes, your majesty. I can. I think I can at least,” Swin comments.

Before they can continue, I interject, trying to understand the situation. “Okay, but what happens when we hack The Begon? How are we actually going to free all those people in The Seventh Zone? We can’t just let them die. 99 people safe is nice. But there are hundreds of people who need us! Even if it was one person, we should still figure out a way to save them soon!”

“Right. What do you suggest?” Pesh asks.

“Give Swin a computer,” I respond.

Pesh nods, pulling out a chair for Swin to sit on. He directs him to the right to a three-set computer system with a large screen projector on the wall. “Do you know how to use this one?” Pesh asks.

“Heck yea! This is amazing!” Swin begins to use it instantly.

I continue speaking, “Then, we set a deadline.”

“But that’s unrealistic! They’ve been working on it for almost a year,” Levon says.

“Right, because they had a year. But we don’t have that. We have today. If we don’t set a deadline, sooner or later, Patron De Londe is gonna set it for us. Like, don’t you think he’s looking for this Begon. Soon, he might figure out a way to trace it!”

“She has a point!” One of the students stands up.

I look up to see that they are all focused on me, listening, so I continue to speak, passion infused, “Things always get done under a deadline. Think of the tests, they tell us to figure out equations, solve hundreds of problems in seconds, crazy things, unrealistic and impossible things, but we’ve done it. We need a hard deadline. Because every second we waste is a second a Commoner consumes Conzamine. Every second we waste is another lost life in The Seventh Zone that we could have saved. I saw a boy there, he was terrified. I don’t know how long he’s going to last. Think of those people there as your brother, as your sister, as your family. I came to The Commons to find my sister. So I was willing to do anything to find her. Who do you have still trapped in The Seventh Zone? Come on, I’m sure you guys all have someone!”

One of the girls stands up and exclaims, “My brother is still there in the Vaccination Zone!”