Unbullied

Chapter 8

Chapter 8It was strange hearing someone else say that name out loud. Then again, it wasn't unexpected if these people were Conscience or worked for him. "Is that so?" Charlie looked at the woman beside her out of the corner of her eye. "How about if you start by letting me go?"

"We will," said the man at the podium. "But please hear us out first."

Charlie didn't have any choice, and she knew it. "All right." She sighed and folded her arms. "I'm listening, whoever you are."

"Call me Oberon." The man at the podium tapped his chest with the gloved fingertips of his left hand. "It's a code name. Here's another one: Nil."

"Nil." Charlie frowned. "Who's that?"

"Not a who, but a what," said Oberon. "It's this group of ours...if such a group existed."

"Which it doesn't," said the man sitting beside Charlie. Looking over at her, he tapped his forehead, then flicked his hand away as if he were tipping a hat. "And you can call me Falstaff, by the way."

"I'm Juliet," offered the woman. "Good to meet you, Charlie."

"Right." Charlie didn't know what was weirder--sitting there with three adults in ski masks or having them introduce themselves with code names straight out of Shakespeare. "So, Oberon." If she'd been any less scared, she might have said it with a layer of sarcasm. "This Nil. If it doesn't exist, why are we all here right now?"

"Because," said Oberon. "In the world you live in, a world in which people like you are bullied, abused, and worse by fearless sociopaths, there is nowhere else to turn.

"The system has failed you. Its leaders talk a good game, with their anti-bullying slogans and t-shirts and rallies, but it's all for show. No one is willing to do the difficult work of actually reigning in bullies...going against angry parents and lawyers protecting the rights of thugs who are no better than terrorists. Which leaves you with no true protection, no way to handle the monsters in your life.

"And that's where we come in." Oberon spread his arms to take in The Bunker around him. "That's where Nil comes in."

Charlie listened but didn't let her guard down. She still wasn't convinced this whole performance wasn't part of Conscience's latest plan.

"Nil is here to set you free." Oberon folded his hands behind his back and paced away from the podium. "Correction: to help you set yourself free."

"That's right," said Juliet, and then she clapped, as if she were responding to a preacher's cries at a gospel revival.

Oberon kept pacing. "We work with you to fight this war the only way it can be fought effectively--from the shadows. We operate in the underground, off the grid, like resistance fighters battling to regain their freedom."

Charlie nodded when he looked in her direction...even as she was trying to anticipate where this was heading. If it was a Conscience production, what could he get out of it? The satisfaction of getting her hopes up, then popping her bubble at just the right moment? Was the whole thing nothing but a sadistic scam?

If so, she had to admit, Oberon was managing to sound awfully impassioned about it.

"How do we do it?" Oberon marched to the whiteboard and grabbed a black dry-erase marker from the tray below it. "Cells." Uncapping the marker, he drew a series of circles, each about two inches in diameter, none closer than three inches apart. "Small groups of operatives and recruits working together." He tapped each circle with the marker, leaving a spot of black ink inside. "And no one in any given cell knows who belongs to any other cell, or what any other cell is doing. That way, if one cell is compromised..." He drew an "X" through one of the circles. "...it can't betray another."

Charlie nodded. "Sounds like a terrorist operation."

Oberon shrugged. "You could say that."

"Terrorists against terrorists. Because that's what bullies are, aren't they? Terrorists," said Falstaff. "Well, think of us the anti-terrorists."

"It works," said Oberon. "That's what counts. And we're going to make it work for you, too."

"To stop Conscience." Charlie narrowed her eyes. "Because you're definitely on my side, not his."

"Absolutely," said Oberon.

Charlie thought she'd be better off keeping her mouth shut, but words kept tumbling out of it. "Because it's just a coincidence that you kidnapped me right after he broke into my house today. Is that right?"

Oberon raised his hands, palms out, in front of him. "Not a coincidence, no. We've been monitoring the situation and..."

Charlie surprised herself again by getting up from her seat. "So you didn't just happen to snatch me up just as Conscience closes in for the kill? He's not watching all this behind the scenes, laughing his ass off?" She turned in a circle, waving both hands for the hidden cameras she imagined were there.

Oberon took a step toward her. "You've got it all wrong, Charlie..."

Charlie stopped turning and jabbed a finger at him. "Or maybe you're Conscience!" Then she whirled and jabbed at Falstaff. "Or you are!" Then Juliet. "Or you! Or all of you!"

"Charlie, listen," said Oberon. "We're on your side."

"Says the guy in the ski mask!" Charlie's stomach twisted, and her eyes burned with the pressure of tears. She felt as if everything was rushing to the surface all at once. "Well, whatever you're going to do to me, get it over with! Do you hear me?" She threw her head back and shouted at the ceiling. "Just get it over with! I can't take it anymore!"

"Charlie." Juliet rose from her chair. "It's not like that."

"I mean it!" Charlie felt a blast of craziness surge through her. She backed away from Juliet fast, making sure to avoid Oberon as well. "I'm done with this crap! I've had it!"

"We've got nothing to do with Conscience," said Juliet. "I swear to you. We're here to stop him and every bully we can."

"Just don't kill my mother and brother," said Charlie. "Please, I'm begging you. Do what you want with me, but leave them alone!"

"We're on your side, Charlie," said Oberon, "and we'll prove it to you." Sticking two fingers in his mouth, he let loose a shrill whistle.

A moment later, Charlie heard a door slam in the direction of the boxing ring, followed by a set of approaching footsteps. She held her breath and trembled, wondering if this was it--the moment when Conscience would finally appear.

Then, as the footsteps got closer, Charlie realized there were two sets of them. There were two people coming toward her, to do what? Give her what she'd asked for and finally get it over with...end her suffering?

Falstaff got up from his chair, but neither he nor Oberon nor Juliet made any kind of move against Charlie. They just turned and watched the rear corner of the meeting area where whoever was coming would appear at any moment.

"Here's the thing about Nil, Charlie," said Oberon. "It's so secret, you could be side by side with one of our members every day of your life and never know it."

Just then, the owners of the footsteps marched around the corner, and Charlie realized there were three, not two of them. Her eyes shot wide open as she also realized something else.

Two of them were kids from her school.

The third, who was leading the group, was a woman in black coveralls like the other adults in the room. Like Oberon, Juliet, and Falstaff, she wore a mask, but it was a black domino mask, the kind that loops around the eyes above the nose, not a ski mask. That left her hair uncovered, which Charlie saw was chestnut brown and cut short, falling just below her ears.

"Charlie, this is Ariel," said Oberon. "As for the others, I guess they don't need any introduction, do they?"

Charlie stared as the kids waved and grinned. She'd been expecting to see Conscience or some other awful surprise, not a junior and a sophomore from Papon Valley High School.

"Hi, Charlie!" Gloria Boring, the junior, was shockingly cheerful...shockingly because she always seemed to be down in the dumps at school. Her weight made her an outcast there--250 pounds of it, at least--but in The Bunker, she was beaming like a beauty queen. Even at a distance, her green eyes seemed brighter, her long blonde hair glossier, her complexion less pale.

Next up was Sutra Shrivastava, the sophomore. "Welcome to The Bunker, girl!" Since when did this reclusive genius call anyone "girl?" Her posture was hunched as always, she dressed like a boy, and her glasses kept sliding down her nose--but she was positively giddy for once, laughing instead of gaping at a book. "Are you going to join up?"

Charlie didn't know what to say. "Hi, guys." Her mind was spinning, processing the implications of seeing them all together like that, in that place.

"There's your proof." Oberon walked up and stood beside Charlie. "We're on their side, too, Charlie. We're helping them just like we want to help you."

Charlie bit her lower lip. It didn't seem possible, but maybe it was. And she didn't think it was just because she wanted to believe.

Because she couldn't imagine those two kids would ever work for Conscience. Charlie had never been best friends with any of them, but she'd seen them around enough to get a clue about what kind of people they were. Neither of them struck her as evil in any sense of the word.

That meant, as hard to believe as it was, that maybe, just maybe...

"Oh my God." Tears welled up in her eyes and flowed down her cheeks. They were tears of pure hope and relief that she'd thought she might never experience again. "Oh God, oh God, oh God..."

Oberon put a hand on her shoulder. "It's okay, Charlie. You're among friends here."

"No, but you...but I..." Charlie tried to find the words, then gave up.

The others closed in around her, saying sympathetic things. Juliet took off her gloves and reached out, and Charlie fell into her arms.

"You're not alone anymore," Juliet said softly. "We're going to get you through this."

"If you'll have us," added Oberon.

"So what do you say?" asked Gloria.

"Please say yes," said Sutra. "Nil needs you."

Charlie didn't answer. She just cried her heart out and held on to Juliet, and felt something she almost didn't recognize because she hadn't felt it for so long: happiness...or the seed of it, at least. The beginning.

Because she realized that maybe, just maybe, she'd found someone to help with her struggle. Maybe, just maybe, Nil was for real.