"The Escape?" | Teen Ink

"The Escape?"

December 9, 2016
By Junior312 BRONZE, East Palo Alto, California
Junior312 BRONZE, East Palo Alto, California
1 article 0 photos 2 comments

“Come on guys we need to leave this hell of a camp,” I shout.

“Hurry and run to the forest before they get their weapons.” There are shots fired and harsh winds blowing at our sides. As me and my friends run from the camp, we find ourselves getting into a big problem.

(Hi, my name is Jackson and it is the year 2365. You’re probably wondering what got me into this huge mess. Running away from armed men in a camp site and almost going into a forest packed with ferocious beasts. It is a long story but I’ll tell you anyway.)
3 Days ago:
“Jack, WAKE UP the bus is about to arrive,” my mom, Rachel, shouted. I open my eyes and see my mom standing at my door, tired.
“Mom it’s saturday,” I laughed out. My mom looks at me confused, sad and angry.
“Ughhhh, this place is so stupid,” my mom raged.“ We work to help robots do the jobs we’re supposed to do, and we get half of the budget we’re supposed to get.”  I see my father nod agreeing to her statement.
“Well, be glad that we’re leaving this place, hopefully Canada has no AI,” I added.
I devour my food and wonder why we can only eat grains, fruits and vegetables. It feels a bit too repetitive.
“I am going to Georges house so we can talk about the plan,” I explained to my mom.“But wait… do you know about this thing called meat.” I asked,“I remember my teacher talking  about it in class yesterday.” 
“Yes, it was this food that was found millions of years ago and many people ate it. But people acquired it by butchering animals,” Rachel explained,”but as time went by the government started to think that this disrupted nature, so they made eating meat illegal here.”
Confused, I ask,“But how can killing an animal disrupt nature.”
“Yes, our president probably is,” Rachel chuckles,“Which is why I want to leave. I think it’s really nutritious and good for you”
“Well, thank god the trip to Canada is near,” Jackson´s dad said,“We can finally live in a place where there are no advanced tech and stupid laws.”
My mom looks over at me,“Well Jack, be safe when you’re at Georges’ house, I don’t want you getting into any trouble,” Rachel said seriously,“ We’re leaving in three days, and we don’t want to mess this up.” I nod, adjust my boots, and leave my house.
I look over my city. Humongous buildings filled with workers, flying cars causing traffic, robots taking patrol and malls packed with shoppers. I can see why our world is like this. Considering it's the 2365 and 330 years after the war happened. In 2035, there was a huge war where Advanced Technology started taking over many parts of the U.S. They had the brain of savages, killing whoever tried to stop them. But as time went by a scientist, Jason Grey, discovered a way to calm down artificial intelligence, which helped stop the war. He found a way to disable robots or any AI for a long period of time. And after that, the scientist became our president and now controls our AI. He balances out the work for robots and humans. He also discovered many other things, but one that is really important is the RAI gene which grants somebody a certain power at birth like speed, teleportation, mind-reading and etc. It’s really rare gene to get but not for me, I have that gene, my parents and Georges are the only ones who know. Overall I’m just glad my family and Georges´ family are going to leave on Monday. 
As I get closer to George's’ house and see some robocops chasing after someone. A teen like me, but he’s running extremely fast. He probably has some sort of power, but I just hope he’s all good unless he gets caught. If he is caught, he will have to go to the working camps, which are for teens who either have powers or have broken a law. I just hope that I never get caught.
But I spot Georges’ house and see that he is having breakfast, so I knock on their door and wait patiently. CLICK “Hi Jackson come inside,” Georges’ mom said.“But fast we don’t want anybody to see what Georges is eating.” Confused, I walk in and see Georges eating some tacos.
“Are you eating veggie tacos,” I stammered. I wouldn’t want to get in trouble because of Georges eating meat.
“No…..,” Georges trembled,” Meat.”  I blink and my mind went blank. But as I come back from my “freeze” in time. I ask curiously, “Can I try it,” Georges nods and give me a piece, which I dump it into my mouth, and chew the mushy substance. I swallow it, and I instantly enjoy it.
I sit down on their table and look around the house, but I see a robot dog with a camera recording on it’s head. And that’s when we knew we were in big trouble. There are sirens going off around us from all around the house. Me and Georges run away from his house through the back yard. While the police chase after us,“Stop right now, you’ve broken the law and should be arrested,” the policeman shouted. We run, but I see that we’re trapped in a dead end.
“Stop Georges, I have a plan,” I whispered. As we stop, cop cars come around us. Georges nods scared to death.“Ok, I am trusting you right now.” Georges trembled. I hear the boots of robots, clinking of metal, pain entering Georges’ body and the feeling of cold metal to my wrists.
“There we go, now you’ll have fun at your new home,” the policeman laughed.
     1 Day Later
I wake up to the sun flashing in my eyes, windy storms of humidity and the movement of long, spiky grass. I sit up and find myself in a savanna while inside a landing helicopter. I find a leaf and try to pick it up with my mind, but I can’t for some reason. Then I see something green  and hard on my wrist.
“What’s this,” I whispered to Georges pointing at my wrist.
“It’s a lukrinite wrist band,” Georges said tiredly,“It doesn’t let you use your powers while it’s on you.” I nod and see Georges not wearing one. Shocked I ask “Georges, why don’t you have a piece of lukrinite,” As Georges looks at me angrily,“Because I don’t have a power like you, duh,” Georges answered blatantly,“I’m a normal.” 
I shrug and look at Georges, then at the protector. Who seems to be carrying a weapon, and aiming it straight at us.
“Get out of the helicopter, now,” The protector said aggressively. We frighteningly jump out and see a huge building aways from where we are. I suspect that’s where we’re staying for now. Until I get us out of here, but we need to make a plan.
“STOP STARING AND GO WALK,” shouted the protector. We obey and walk on the grassy land and I see a huge fence surrounding the building. As a kid enters, I seem to recognize him, black shoes, red shirt, green shorts. I seem to recognize him because he was the kid who got caught from the police as I was walking to Georges’ house, what a coincidence. We keep walking as we encounter the building. It’s so poorly built with cracked stone and horrible wood. We enter and find our names on a huge monitor, and it says that our job here is making veggie burgers. WOW, now I really want to get out of here. Who in the world wants to help make veggie burgers on a 14 hour shift. Without even getting paid, at least I give them props for actually making a good punishment.
But I look away from the huge monitor, and see the boy looking at us. The boy who I saw as we were walking here, I don’t know what he wants. But he starts to walk walk towards us. Confused me and Georges wait as we walks slowly towards us.
“Hey my name’s Logan,” he whispered,“And I want to know if you would like to make a plan so we could escape this camp,” Me and Georges look at each other shocked, but agreeing at the same time. I go to Georges’ ear and whisper,“ This could be our chance to leave this place, making it easy to get back home by tomorrow,” Georges nods his head and whispers back,“ We are leaving in three days so this can work out,”
We look back at him.“ We would like to work with you, considering with your help, we will make it easier for the three of us to get back home,” I whispered.
“Ok everybody shut up and get to your workhouses,” The sergeant explained. Me and Georges rise from our chairs and run to our workshop.
“We’ll make a plan at lunch time,” I whispered to Logan, who is nodding back at us.
As we enter, the boss assigns me as the meat musher where I mush all the veggie meat with the ingredients needed. It’s extremely disgusting but what else can I do. On the other hand, Georges has to add the bun to the meat. I try to find Logan, but sadly I don’t see him. I just can’t wait until I can make the plan with Logan. I need this to work so me and my family can leave this wrecked society.
7 Hours Later:
“Ok so George, you take this rock to break of that piece of lukrinite off of Jackson’s wrist, and I’ll do the same to mine,” Logan whispered,”and after you take it off, Jackson use your telekinesis to take the keys from the chain, then unlock the door silently and sneak to the cafeteria. I’ll be there and then we sneak through the storage room, and Jackson you use your telekinesis to destroy the cameras and then we’ll just run towards the forest.”Me and Georges nod in excitement and confidence that we’ll leave this place. But we have to wait and see what will happen.
“Stay still ok,” Georges whispered as he smacks the lukrinite with the rock as it slipped off my wrist like butter. I started to walk to my cell bars, where I concentrated into getting the keys. I started to take the keys out of the chain but there were footsteps coming from the hallway. Georges immediately runs up to me and touches me. I look back at him but we’re in the cafeteria.
“Hey, over here,” whispered Logan as we walked quickly towards Logan,“How did you get here I didn’t even see you go through the hallway.” Looking around us.
“Georges…… You can teleport,” Jackson asked confused,” I thought you were a normal.” Smiling Georges responds,“Well there are times when you need to lie for the best Jack.” I nod still confused, while Logan looks at us.
“That’s good but we need to leave, Georges use your teleportation to take us out of this building,” Logan insisted. Georges came to me and Logan, closing his eyes, but right when you know it we were outside.
“Thank god we’re out of there,” Jackson said,” now time to …. Uh oh,”
“What,” Georges and Logan looked as I pointed, there was a camera looking straight at us.
“You didn’t break the camera Jack,” Logan shouted as an alarm goes off.
“RUN,” Georges shouted. We ran towards the forest where we heard engines of cars coming, but we kept running.
“Come on guys we need to leave this hell of a camp,” I shouted. “We need to hurry and run to the forest before they get their weapons,” There were shots fired and harsh winds blowing at our sides. But we encountered bigger problems, we were trapped in a corner with protectors aiming their weapons at us. We stop and my heart is .pounding faster than a gunshot. “Guys I think we’re done for,” I said sadly.
“No we’re not,” Georges’ shouted. As the protector shoots her weapon but Georges grabs onto us. I close my eyes and then see Heaver High. Confused we start to look at each other happily.“Thank god we made it back,” I said. But we look at each other and know what we have to do. Everybody nods and runs to their houses. I approach my door step and I knock seeing my mom open the door with tears on her face. “Jack…. what happened,” My mom cried out with happiness while hugging me. I enter my house quickly and sit down besides my parents. Then I see luggages in the room and everything needed packed up and ready. Smiling, I say, “Mom, Dad it is a long story, but I’ll tell you anyways.”


The author's comments:

I have thought a lot about the future and how it might affect us. I think about how our world will be with advanced technology. I feel that our world will be very different because of advanced technology. My story “The Escape?” shows you a world where advanced technology has been balanced out with humans. There aren’t more robots than humans, AI’s don’t own all the jobs(unlike some), and AI’s aren’t trying to control power. With this balance, many rules are made that don’t seem to fit well with people like Jackson, the main character, and his family. Which makes him and his family have a desire to leave their society. But nearing Jackson and his family’s plan to leave, Jack’s life goes downhill extremely fast. Overall, I feel like submitting my story to this magazine will be good for me because it will help me show my readers how advanced technology could be harmful to humans in our future. Even though AI’s and humans might look very well balanced between each other.


Similar Articles

JOIN THE DISCUSSION

This article has 0 comments.