The Driven Few
an excerpt

Poet sighed loudly and turned away from him angrily, taking his silence as a ‘no’. His lips set into a thin line and he glared out at the ocean. “blentyn gordderch.” He muttered under his breath, irritably. It sounded like an insult.

“What did you say?” Ireland asked. Poet glowered at him.

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” He said petulantly.

Ireland sighed with exasperation. “Poet, I don’t think you understand how hard this is for me—“

Poet cut him off. “Of course I do. You’ve indicated that just having me know what you can do is a danger to your life and your friends’ lives. Hell, it’s probably dangerous to the entire species if the UNFW ever found out that someone knew how to get rid of the gene collars but you know what? You’ve already risked your life by seeking me out. You risked your life that night you saved mine. What difference does it make if you have one more person to fight with you?”

“That’s the problem,” He exclaimed. “I don’t want you to risk your life!”

“Shouldn’t that be my choice?”

“No, not when you have a brother—“

“Oh, so I have to be a complete orphan before I can fight for my freedom?”

“That’s not what I’m trying to sa—“

“That’s what it sounds like!”

“I just don’t want you to live the life I have!” He snapped. Poet went unfazed by his harsh tone and bit back with a forcefully calm voice.

“What, a life of constant paranoia? One where you only feel safe with the people who share your goals? One where hope and faith are the only things you have in the faces of a world that goes against everything you believe? Is that the life you live? Odd because that’s the life I live. Only I don’t have someone to share my aspirations of freedom with. Stop thinking of me as just your average teenager who has his whole future ahead of him because my future is not on these islands. I have never believed that. I belong out there,” He pointed furiously towards the ocean, no, to a point far beyond the horizon; to a place they had only dreamed about. “I’ll strive to get there if it kills me, Ireland, and I believe my chances of survival are greater with you than by myself.”

Why is it that every time I assume something about him he proves me wrong? Ireland thought.

“Mae na chryfder heb hundeb.” Poet said.

“What?” Ireland asked, unsure if his ears were working right.

“Something my parents taught me when I was younger.” He explained. “Mae na chryfder heb hundeb translates to ‘There is no strength without unity.’” It needed no further explanation. Ireland understood what Poet was getting at.

“I—look, let me think about this okay?” He said weakly. He couldn’t believe he was actually considering bringing Poet into their three man group. Charlie and Raj are going to flay me alive. He thought glumly.

“Sure.” Poet shrugged, smiling with triumph.

“One question before I take you home.” Ireland said. “What kind of code were you speaking in before? I’ve never heard anything like it.”

Poet smiled with nostalgia. “My mum called it Welsh. He taught it to me and Tarak so that he could tell us stories about the free world without getting into trouble.”

Ireland heard nothing beyond ‘welsh’. The word reverberated in his head so many times that he wasn’t sure he had heard Poet correctly anymore. The probability of something like this happening had to be zero.

“I’m sorry but did you say welsh?” Ireland said breathlessly. Poet, confused, nodded. Ireland felt chills of excitement cascade down his spine. He shivered from the sensation and laughed with disbelief. “I can’t believe it.” He whispered.

“What? What’d I say?” Poet had never been more confused in his life. Yes, he knew welsh but it was just something his parents had made up, right? Yet Ireland appeared to know what it was and not only that, his face was split with the biggest grin he had ever seen.

Ireland looked at him, surprising Poet with the intensity of his verdant eyes. They were normally kind and polite, even when he was annoyed or frustrated during their conversation. Right now though, his eyes were like molten green liquid metal; they were burning holes into Poet’s head, into his heart with their resolve. Poet couldn’t look away and almost forgot to breath.

“Welsh isn’t a code. It’s a language, a really old language that’s supposed to have been forgotten ages ago and—and if you can believe it, the last couple of pages of my parents research is written in welsh. Poet you—I…” need you, he thought. Ireland stared at Poet who was equally speechless.

Ireland didn’t believe in fate or destiny. He believed only in what he could see and feel. He could see that the chances of running into someone like Poet were very low. There were at least two million people on Capricorn Island, most of them residing in the city. The chances of running into Poet hours before Charlie and Rajan arrived with such groundbreaking information was even less. Regardless, He was ecstatic, more than ecstatic. After thirteen years he was finally going to be able to read the last bit of his parent’s research. He didn’t know what would be written there. Maybe a plan they designed to escape the Alter Islands. God, if that were true—Ireland could have kissed Poet, for never giving up, for being an insomniac, for getting himself kidnapped and in need of saving, for simply existing—but he didn’t…because that would be awkward. Instead, he started up the car and squealed out of the parking lot.

Poet steadied himself on the dashboard and quickly righted himself in the seat before he flew through the window. “Where the hell are you going so fast?” He demanded, buckling himself in.

“To my house; I need—want—I hope that you’ll translate a couple of pages for me.”

“You gotta remove my gene collar.” Poet said immediately and grinned widely. Ireland wanted to say no but by now he was far past the point of caring about risk factors. Screw the risk factors.

“When you’re healthy,” He said. Poet shouted victoriously. Inside, Ireland did the same.

///

It wasn’t until they were parked outside of his house that he remembered what Charlie told him. Ireland grabbed Poet’s arm before he could get out of the car and told him to shut the door.

“I have to warn you; my friend, Charles Kingston, he can erase memories, read minds…if he’s home I want you to run because he’ll erase all of your memories before I can tell him not to. Okay? He’s the tall pretty one with the long hair and the self-important attitude.” He got out of the car and jogged around to Poet’s side with a silly little grin and opened his door for him. Poet didn’t know whether to be afraid or laugh.

Ireland led him up to the door but before he opened it he remembered something else and leaned down to whisper in Poet’s ear. “Watch out for the other one too. He can’t do what Charles does but he’s prone to violence.”

Poet stared slack-jaw at Irelands back. “I’m starting to think you want me dead, here!” Ireland, quite calmly, pulled him into the house and shut the door behind them.

“I don’t think they’re here,” Ireland muttered, looking around cautiously. Rajan was usually wasting space on the couch but there was only his body’s imprint on it and the stack of empty beer cans on the coffee table. He walked further into the living room, pulling Poet, who was looking around curiously, with him. He could hear the shower running now. “Come on.” He quickly guided Poet to his room at the end of the hall and locked the door behind them.

“Like books much?” Poet said, looking around. Bookshelves lined every wall of the room with only two windows peaking out between them, their inlaid blinds closed. There was no closet or desk, just a made king sized bed between two bookcases and a wooden chest at the foot of the bed with a purple shirt hanging off the side.

“It’s not that I like them, I just have a lot of things to study.” He answered absently as he searched through one of the bookcases. “You never know what’ll come in handy in the free world, you know?”

“You should let me borrow some books,” Poet said, bounding over to a bookcase by the window. He peered at the titles on the spines with interest. “Let’s see…Human behavior, Medical Herbs of the Alter Nation, History…101 Creative Means to Kill a Man in under Five Minutes?”

“Rajan’s idea of the perfect birthday present,”

Poet snorted and vowed to take a look at the book some other time. There would be another time after all. He’d successfully gotten his claws into Ireland’s life in a record breaking one week. Hah, and I didn’t even have to do anything life threatening.

“Okay, I found it.” Ireland pulled out a book that had no title and aimed his free hand towards a spot on the floor. It wasn’t until then that Poet noticed the entire floor was made of metal.

“What are you doing?” Poet asked, watching as the floor shuddered like metal waves.

“Getting out my desk,” Poet jumped with surprise, barely smothering a shriek, as the metal converged into a square block in the spot Ireland was pointing at. Then it molded until it formed a flat rectangular surface and four legs. A metal blob separated from the table shaped liquid and then it divided; both blobs molded into two generic chairs. Poet blinked and the table and chairs were solid; the floor polished wood.

Ireland took a seat in one of the chairs, clearly having done this often, while Poet continued to gawk, just a little bit jealous.

“Are you going to sit?” Ireland asked, pulling out the chair beside him with a knowing smile.