Rift – 6

You can read the previous part here: Part 5

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31 March 2052

Cara woke up in the afternoon, tired from the long journey that she and Rachel had undertaken to meet the Zealandian Public Party’s head. She was not only tired, but she was also extremely frustrated by two things, the first being that she had wasted half of a day, meaning that there were just eight and a half days left for herself and Rachel to make a move. 

The second reason for her frustration was what the head of the ZPP had told her and Rachel. “It’s not possible to stop the Cipher,” he had said. “Go home, and enjoy your week. After that, you’ll become a mindless Cipher supporter as well. Look, kids, we’ve tried to finish the Cipher’s rule more times than you can imagine.”

Cara was extraordinarily frustrated by this response. Not only was the Cipher practically unstoppable, but their only opposition had also given up. This made it nearly impossible to stop the Cipher. Nearly, Cara reminded herself. There was always some hope, though here it seemed like there was an infinitesimal amount of hope. One divided by infinity, Cara thought, remembering what Rachel had said she saw in the textbook. Closer than imaginable to zero, but still not zero.

She decided to check in on Rachel. Maybe Rachel had an idea. Rachel always had an idea.

Opening Rachel’s door, she saw her friend tiredly rubbing her eyes. “Hi, Rach,” Cara said.

“Hi.”

“Any ideas?” Cara asked.

“Yeah,” Rachel said.

“What?” Cara hated how Rachel could never take a hint.

“Well, we have to take out the top of the Cipher to send the whole thing tumbling down, don’t we. So we have to take out the Director.”

Cara couldn’t believe what she was hearing. This was one of the most preposterous ideas she had ever heard. And yet it was so simple. 

“So, we kill him?” she asked nonchalantly.

“Or her,” Rachel corrected. “But no, we don’t have to kill them. We just need to get them out of the way.”

The Director was possibly the most mysterious part of the Cipher. For nearly 25 years, the Director had been in control of the world, and everything they said was instantly true. Nothing was known about this mysterious entity, and some conspiracy theorists even said that the Director did not exist, and it was simply the threat of authority that kept people in line. 

“And how are we going to do that?” Cara asked.

Rachel had no answer to this until she saw a book that was still in the box that the Cipher had intended to dispose of. Rachel picked it up and flipped through it. “This seems to be a spy file about the buildings of the Cipher, the political organization of the Cipher, and a lot more. I can see why they wanted to destroy this.”

“Read it tonight, and then tell me the results,” Cara ordered.

“Will do,” Rachel confirmed.

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You can read the next part here: Part 7