Read Online The Ones by Daniel Sweren-Becker - Free Book Online Page B

get more organized.”
    â€œFuck Amber Reed!” a wild-haired kid shouted from the back.
    â€œIndeed,” Brandon said, trying to continue. “But let’s not get distracted with the Supreme Court. We can’t fix that. It’s all these new local laws that are really the problem. And now Congress is writing a new bill they are calling the Equality Act. It’s going to make it legal everywhere to discriminate against us for the sake of national security.”
    Daphne, a girl in the front who looked like an Olympic swimmer, stood up. “People are already starting to get hurt. They found a One in Arizona hanging from a tree last night. He was only fifteen.” Daphne wiped tears from her eyes.
    â€œSuicide, they said,” someone else mumbled in disgust. “Interesting call, since the victim had cuts and bruises all over his face.”
    Cody stiffened up imagining this: a boy, all of fifteen years old, hanging by his neck. She thought about how many people must have had the opportunity to stop it, but not a single one did. Rage began to bubble up inside her.
    â€œAn eye for an eye—let’s hang one of them !” the loudmouth from the back shouted. As everyone yelled at him to calm down, they all called him J-Dog, Cody wondered how his obvious over-aggression had slipped past the genetic engineers.
    Brandon tried to get back on track. “Before we do anything, we need to figure out a leadership structure. We need a public relations strategy. We need to figure out how we are going to communicate with the other chapters.”
    A geeky guy named Marcus jumped in quickly. “I can build a secure server to send messages—”
    Daphne interrupted him. “How is this going to stop the next lynch mob?”
    A few of the other Ones yelled in agreement. Cody sided with this faction, and she wanted them to go even further. If Kai had been telling the truth about the Vaccine, what were they going to do about that ? She could barely get her mind around such an absurd idea—technology that could somehow alter your genetic makeup even though you were already a fully formed person. It seemed impossible, but so did a lot of things, including her own perfect genetics.
    Cody squirmed in her chair as the debate continued, everyone talking over each other about logistics and how the group would function. They all had a lot of passion, but there was no cohesive plan. It seemed the only thing they agreed on was calling themselves the New Weathermen.
    Cody leaned over and tapped Marcus on the shoulder. With his dorky glasses and ill-fitting shirt, he seemed like one of the few people there who wouldn’t bite her head off. “What does that name even mean?”
    Marcus smiled at her with pride. “We know which way the wind blows.”
    Oh, really helpful , Cody thought. She was getting frustrated, but then she saw Kai stand up. He surveyed the rest of the Ones, stepped to the center of the room, and spoke for the first time.
    â€œFact number one: The rest of the country has every right and incentive to be afraid of us. Our society is set up as a gigantic zero-sum game. As we start to acquire more resources, both tangible and intangible, there will be less for everyone else. They are going to act rationally and try to prevent this from happening.
    â€œFact number two: They can, in fact, do just that. They control the government, the financial system, the media, and the military. We, on the other hand, have nothing. No money, no organization, no access to the traditional levers of power. This is going to be the harsh reality for at least the next five to ten years.
    â€œFact number three: If we don’t do something, we are doomed. Inaction is capitulation. So our choice is already made. We must resist, we must fight back, and we must degrade any entity that seeks to force us down. Whether we have a vice-treasurer or an encrypted e-mail network, I don’t care.