Blue suits are specially designed with a fiber that can rapidly heat up and release chemicals that can destroy tissue and seal up blood vessels. It allows them to put themselves in the line of fire instantly, cauterizing any wounds that they receive. It is a high honor to be a Blue; they are praised by most Integrated. The Library of Archived Minds Entry #1023

  “I feel like I’m in a horror movie.” Mrs. Studd said, sitting on her couch across from Mr. Studd. “Where could they be? It's not like Ralphie and Leon to just disappear like this.”

  “They're grown, I’m sure they're fine, they might have just had a late night out. I don’t think it's worth it to worry.” Mr. Studd was doing his worst to comfort his wife.

  “How do you even know they're missing?” he said, scratching his head.

  “I had planned lunch with them last week, and I haven’t heard anything from them. I would be less worried if Chuck Thornes' takeover wasn’t happening. He is set to become their president next week. They know that we are close to him, and I don’t want them to hurt Ralphie again. That man is still out there, as far as we know. We haven’t heard anything.” She bit down on one of her nails.

  “Who plans lunch a week in advance?” Mr. Studd asked

  Mrs. Studd gave him an evil look. “I do, with my son, because he's a hard person to make plans with,” she said, sounding stressed.

  “I know Chuck Thorne will watch over him,” Mr Studd said in confidence.

  “What happens if he doesn’t? What if the things Ralphie has been saying are true? Can’t we get a hold of Chuck Thorne? He's been dark this entire morning. When was the last time that Chuck Thorne didn’t pick up?” Mrs. Studd said, standing up from the couch as she began to pace around the room.

  “Never,” he said. Mr. Studd was concerned but made his best attempt to mask it.

  “Should we go to the CelTec building?” Mr. Studd asked. “He’s usually there.

  Mrs. Studd took a couple of seconds to think about what to do before saying, “I don’t think that will help. If anything, I think we should try to find Ralphie and Leon ourselves .”

  “They are going to be fine, plus I don’t even know where we would start to look for them.” He said, squeezing his ring in his hand.

  “I know, I just wish that someone would get back to us. I'm worried.” Mrs. Studd let out a sigh. “If I don’t hear from them by tonight. I’m going out there.

  Lily lived in a small apartment off of Boston Street. She was on the second floor of her building and had to take a long set of winding stairs to get there. Her apartment was decorated with various film pictures and news stories that had been pinned to her wall. Other than that, there wasn’t much else to her apartment. It was tidy; she had a large, round carpet with flowers on it. A grey couch that looked a little oversized for her apartment, and a TV that sat in the center of the room.

  By the time they pulled into the driveway, Leon and Ralphie were exhausted, but Isa seemed to be sparked with energy the entire drive; he had been staring out the window like he was seeing everything for the first time. Ralphie pulled the car into the parking lot with a sigh of relief. Ralphie took a big stretch, lifting his hands over his head towards the sky, causing his back to pop.

  As they got out of the car, a voice called out from beneath the shadows, “Don’t move”. The masked man appeared. “There’s a tracker on the car.” The masked man walked over to the side of the car, pulling off what looked like a large magnet. “Listen to me, I am going to put this tracker on a different car and have it sent back to your house. Whatever you do, you cannot go back to your house or your parents' houses.” Isa wobbled slightly on his feet. “He can go inside,” the masked man said.

  “Baldy, it's Apartment Number Five, the door on the right,” Leon said, pointing towards the stairs.

  “Hey Leon, do you think Isa knows how to use stairs?” Ralphie called over.

  “He will be ok,” the masked man assured. “I need the file,” he held out his hand. Leon gave him the sleek metal block. The masked man pulled out a device with a brush and a screen, placing it on the file.

  Ralphie looked at the Masked Man, trying to establish any of his features, “Are you with the Spades?”

  The device clicked and beeped, “No, I only pass information along to them. Here you are,” the masked man handed them the device. “If you do go to your parents, you will be putting them at risk.” A bright red car with tinted windows pulled up right next to them. The masked man slapped the tracker to the side of the car before saying, “Good luck.” he was smiling underneath his mask. They drove off into the night.

  “What does the device say?” Ralphie asked, looking over his shoulder. It was the letter uncensored.

  Cliff,

  “We’ve come a long way since our college days. If it wasn’t for our time together in the spades. I don’t quite know if we would still be quite as good friends. It seems that the paths that we are taking are starting to diverge after you departed from the academy. That's ok, I understand that you have to do what you see is best, as do I. Congratulations on your engagement with Jessica. But you must be careful of her designs to reset The Minds. They pose a great threat to CelTec. Without CelTec managing The Minds, the world will fall into chaos. For the sake of progress, CelTec cannot allow the development of this design. CelTec has a new design called The Puppets; this technology is still largely in development. It can erase your mind permanently, allowing CelTec to repurpose anyone they want. It would be a soft death. I applaud you in your fight to help this world, and I will do anything in my power to keep this family safe. Your dedication to The Spade is powerful. But, everything has a price, and this fight is not worth the livelihood of your family. I will always be by your side, looking out for you. I hope our paths don’t have to cross. But I warn you, there is danger continuing on this path.”

  Your good friend, Chuck Thorne

  They knocked twice on Lily's door before it swung open.

  “Oh wow,” Lily said in shock, “I was wondering where you two were.”

  “Mind if we come in?” Leon said.

  Lily sat at the door frame, chewing on a piece of gum. Isa was sitting inside on the couch. “Of course, come make yourselves comfortable.”

  “So you managed to get one of them,” Lily said.

  “You know about him,” Ralphie asked.

  Lily rolled her eyes at Leon, “You never told him, did you?” Ralphie glanced over at Leon. “The reason you two were there was to bring out a live subject from Project Commedia. The Spades raid served two purposes: to disrupt CelTec and to act as a distraction to get someone out.

  Leon started talking before Ralphie could get a word in. “I should have told you. But the more in the dark you were, the less of a liability you would have been if you were caught.”

  “How long have you been a Spade?” Ralphie asked Leo.

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  Lily chuckled, "Technically, he's more of a new member. A freshy if we're being honest. He’s still being initiated.” Lily smiled at Ralphie, “We could always use more members, and you're practically royalty. Your dad founded this movement; without him, it wouldn’t exist.”

  “My dad's not a part of the Spades anymore. Hasn't been for years,” Ralphie said. Lily sat down.

  “Well, he left out of nowhere when you were young. But his legacy lives on. He gave up on the dream.

  Isa stood up; he didn't look like he knew what a chair was. He paraded around, poking at its soft plush cushions.

  Ralphie watched him intently; to him, he barely seemed human. “Lily, Chuck Thorne knew who you were; he knew you had talked to Leon,” Ralphie asked.

  Lily responded quickly, “I’m not surprised. I’ve been on his radar for a while. I’ve even interviewed him. I have no doubt he has people watching me.” Lily gestured for Isa to sit, but he looked scared of the contraption that was a chair.

  “We ran into The Masked Man again, just right before we walked in here,” Leon said

  Lily stood up, grabbing a hold of Isa's shoulders, which startled him. “Please sit,” she gestured. He slowly sat down. “I do not know who this Masked Man is who keeps visiting you. To my knowledge, he is not a Spade. But there is a lot of secrecy in the Spades. There has to be our chaos, and deception is our strength. Without it, CelTec would have bested us a long time ago. We are a group of independent actors all funneling towards the same goal.” Lily sat back down. “So who do we have here?” she asked.

  “His name is Isa,” Ralphie said. “I’m not sure who he is or what they were doing to him. He was tied up and connected to a whole bunch of wires.

  “He doesn’t seem to talk, so do you know his name?” Lily asked?

  Ralphie and Leon shifted uncomfortably in their seats.

  “It's what Chuck Thorne called him. It's how we were able to escape.” Lily walked over to her window, peering outside. There were several cars parked outside. It was quiet; the only sound heard was the faintest rustle of the wind through the trees.

  “We’re going to have to be careful then. I recognized him from somewhere,” Lily said, looking back inside. “I was trying to figure it out before you came inside.” She had clips from news stories on her wall. She scanned the various stories, occasionally picking one off the wall and briefly skimming it before pinning it back on the wall.

  Leon watched her for a second before opening his mouth, “That wasn’t all.” Lily looked back at him before resuming her search. “They had these guns of some sort, SPD-5s.”

  Lily stopped her search, giving her full attention to Leon, “Mindsweepers, did you see them?”

  Leon rhythmically tapped his index finger together with his thumb. He could see exactly what the weapon looked like, the long silver barrels with short handles.

  “The Blues had them; the people they shot just fell to the floor. They had these rounded metal grips that wrapped around the Blues' forearms. Chuck Thorne said that it temporarily erases people's minds but that they can be rebuilt.”

  “I thought we had more time,” Lily said more to herself than to anyone else. “It's not temporary. Minesweepers permanently erase a person's mind, essentially killing them. At that point, there is just flesh, no different than cattle, and CelTec treats them as such. The brain retains just enough basic function to keep all the organs running.”

  Isa walked around the room aimlessly; he had dark bruises, discolored around his arms from where the wires had dug themself snugly into his skin. Leon looked at Isa with a certain amount of compassion. He wondered who he had been before CelTec had gotten to him.

  “But CelTec can rebuild them by reprogramming the wiped part of their minds. When they are rebuilt, it's not the same person but something completely different. So much so, it doesn’t even seem fair to give them the same name. CelTec essentially creates a whole new mind that they can program to their desire. The body is just the host.”

  Lily took a second, putting her hand to her chin. “Before, Mindsweepers were huge machines that worked to simultaneously erase and replace a person's mind. But they required huge amounts of energy, so they were reserved only for big political threats and were seldom used. If CelTec can sweep anyone with just a gun, then they will be able to replace anyone they want.”

  One of the newspapers on the wall caught her attention, so she reached up and plucked it off the wall. “The mindsweeper strips everything away from a person, carving out their mind without giving them a proper death. Your thoughts, memories, and everything that you would take for yourself are gone. I believe CelTecs calls them Puppets. It's derogatory.”

  “Why not just shoot them dead?” Leon asked

  Lily kept reading over the newspaper in her hand, her brow furrowed. “The dead can’t be reprogrammed, and CelTec needs to control people.” She looked over at Isa as he was curiously looking around the room. “Look at this,” She said, throwing the newspaper that she had been reading over to Ralphie and Leon.

  On the third page, one of the subtexts read, “Young Valedictorian goes missing: A Non-Mind’s Ground Breaking Discoveries Disappear with Him.” The photo on the page was of Isa. They read further, Isa Timothy, who had traveled here almost ten years ago, led the most exciting and promising research on why more people didn’t have The Minds. He had gone missing two years ago.

  “I knew I recognized him,” Lily said. “He was one of the youngest, most promising researchers who randomly disappeared.” She looked over at him. Now his eyes appeared to be slightly glossed over. Lily walked over to Isa, putting her hand on his shoulder and looking into his eyes.

  “How are you?” she asked. Isa smiled at her before he nodded towards her. “Do you remember anything?” Isa took a couple of seconds trying to remember anything before he looked up and shook his head.

  Lily gave Isa a sad look, “He’s a puppet, his Mind scraped out. Now he's someone else, depending on what he was programmed for. They usually give Puppets a limited use of The Minds for whatever purpose they are meant to fulfill."

  “What do we do with him?” Leon asked.

  Lily looked down at her phone, typing something in, “I need to document him for my story. He has a mother who moved here with him. If I can interview her, hopefully I can get a story that people will care about. Her information is here somewhere.

  Ralphie looked over at Isa. The thought of a mother having to look upon the shell of her son gripped him. He felt filled with rage. “She's going to be devastated,” he said

  Lily walked over to the countertop in her kitchen, grabbing her keys as well as the camera. “At least it's better than her never knowing what happened to her son.

  “It's weird that he has blonde hair. In the newspaper, he has black hair.” Ralphie said, looking up at Isa.

  “Hey Lily, can you turn the news on real quick and go to the main CelTec channel?” Leon said as he looked at something on his phone. Lily grabbed the remote, flipping to CelTec News.

  The screen buzzed and flashed on, “Chuck Thorne named the newest President of CelTec after an attack on CelTec leaves Pollard unfit to lead.” The Reporter said with a sickly enthusiasm in his voice. On the screen was an old clip of Chuck Thorne talking about how he wanted to restore CelTec to its former glory. “CelTec has become too caught up in protecting themself. We must focus on helping the many people in this world who need it,” Chuck Thorne said.

  “Sounds like bullshit. Propaganda, if you will,” Ralphie said. What other secrets did Chuck Thorne have? It was a power grab. Chuck Thorne got what he wanted. Ralphie wondered if he would make good on his promises to change CelTec; he had begun to doubt it.

  Isa's mother's house seemed empty. The front yard was a tangled mess of grass that had not been cleaned in ages. The windows had layers of dirt caked onto them.

  “This place is creeping me out," Ralphie said, looking at the washed-up house. “Are you sure that this is the right place?”

  Lily looked down at the address on her phone, “I'm pretty sure it is.” She went up to the door and knocked a couple of times before stepping back. There was no answer, so she knocked on the door again. An old scraggly voice called out, “Who’s there?”

  Lily was slightly startled. “Hi, is this Mrs. Timothy?”

  “Who's asking?” Mrs. Timothy's voice rang out through the door. She sounded annoyed

  “Lily Adams, I am from the New Times Report.” There was a rustling noise that was behind the door, and after a brief pause, Mrs. Timothy called out, slightly angry this time, “I told the last reporter I’m not talking to anybody about what happened. My son is dead, and CelTec killed him.”

  “We found your son.”

  Again, there was a moment of silence before Mrs. Timothy said, “Why isn’t he talking?”

  Lily sat there awkwardly, not knowing what to say. Leon took a step up to the door, “He can’t speak. Please, Madame, we need to talk to you. We're not here to trick you.”

  Several locks began to click behind the door before it creaked open, and a little woman's head popped out, “If you don’t leave me alone and stop spewing this bulls…” She stopped what she was saying as she looked past the three of them to Isa. “Oh my god,” she said, running to embrace Isa. Isa squirmed around uncomfortably, but his mother held her embrace tightly before eventually letting go.

  Mrs. Timothy had frizzy black hair that puffed up around her head. She had a scar that ran down the left side of her face, which made her look eccentric. She had started crying. “Come on inside,” she sniffled.