Meredith McCardle - The Eighth Guardian

“Hi.” I drag out the word. Alpha has a troubled look in his eyes. It’s unsettling.

“What are you working on?”

I hold up my essay. Zeta wasn’t kidding when he said he’d make me write so many essays it would feel as if my hand is about to fall off. My right hand is numb, and I’m not entirely sure I can straighten out my fingers.

“May I see?”

I hand Alpha my essay. It’s on Prohibition. I argued that I would alter the past if I’d tossed a bomb onto the Congressional floor and stopped the vote that would kick-start the whole thing. I’d enhance the past if I prevented a whole bunch of Congressmen from making it to the vote.

Alpha sighs and puts down the paper. “Really? This is the same damned example I gave you four days ago, and it’s not even right. What else do you have?”

I look down at the myriad of papers strewn about my desk and pick up one I started on Pearl Harbor.

Alpha holds out his hand. “Let me see it.”

I hand it over. It only takes him a few seconds to scan it. I don’t have that much written. Just a background paragraph explaining how the Japanese launched an attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, which killed more than twenty-four hundred people and led directly to the United States’s entry into World War II. And then the essay stops because I have no idea whether I’m supposed to try to stop the bombing and save all those people or let it happen so that the US enters the war. Alpha hands back the essay.

“Pick up your pen,” he orders.

I do.

“I want you to copy this down exactly.”

I put the pen to the paper.

“An Annum Guardian would engage in alteration if he infiltrated the naval headquarters at Pearl Harbor and warned the commanding officers of the impending attack. However, if that Guardian were to arrange for the battleship USS Arizona to remain moored at the quays along Ford Island rather than move it to Pearl Harbor on December 6, 1941, thereby saving the lives of more than a thousand men and ensuring the Arizona could be used in the Battle of Wake Island, that Guardian would engage in enhancement.”

I’m scribbling furiously, even though there is no way that Zeta is going to think I wrote this myself. It’s leaps and bounds above anything I’ve given him before.

“Did you get all of that?” Alpha asks after I stop and set down the pen.

I nod.

He holds out his hand again, and I hesitate. Because, really, if I was to change the past so that the USS Arizona could help America win a victory at Wake Island, how is that not altering the past?

Maybe I really don’t belong here. Maybe I’m not nearly as bright as I always thought I was.

I pass the paper over. Alpha scans it, then reaches and takes my pen. He marks a big A+ on top of the essay and gives it back.

“Congratulations. You demonstrate sufficient knowledge of the difference between enhancing and altering, and I think we can skip the rest of these essays and throw you back into the field. I trust you’ve learned to utilize some better self-control?”

I sit up straight. Back into the field? No more essays? Finally!

“Of course,” I say.

“You will follow orders exactly and not make a move until told to do so?”

“Yes.”

“And you will not question what it is you’re asked to do but rather accept your mission and perform it to the best of your abilities?”

“Yes,” I say without hesitation, even though a little warning bell is going off inside my head. Why would I question a mission? What exactly are they going to ask me to do?

“I will trust your word,” Alpha says. “And I will give you this.” He reaches into a pocket on the inside of his suit jacket and pulls out a folded piece of paper. He hands it to me, and I turn it over. There’s another red wax seal holding it closed. The scary-looking owl stares up at me, and my heart skips a beat as I remember that day at Peel. It feels like a lifetime ago. I can’t believe it’s been just over a week.

It dawns on me that I haven’t really thought about Abe at all today. I know I told myself I had to forget about him, but I didn’t think my mind would obey quite so quickly. . . .

“What’s this?” I ask.

“Open it.”

I hesitate for a second before sliding my index finger under the crease and breaking the seal. I unfold the paper and read.

874ZEPHYR%0%

“Memorize it,” Alpha says.

I look at it again. Zephyr . That’s easy to remember. %0%. So’s that. It’s the numbers to worry about. I repeat 874 in my head a few times— 874 874 874 874 —and look up. “Okay, I did, but—”

Alpha holds out his hand. “Give it back.”

I fold the paper over and hand it to him, repeating the code in my head once more. This is it. My security clearance password. It has to be.

“I passed along the progress report I filled out on you to the folks in Washington,” Alpha says. “They sent that.”

“So I have a new clearance level.”

Alpha purses his lips together and doesn’t respond, probably because I just stated the obvious.

I feel weightless for the first time since Headmaster Vaughn dimmed the lights at dinner and announced it was Testing Day.

“You and I got off to a rocky start, Iris. But I have your back in this. I want you to stay.”

He stands and heads toward the door but then turns around again. He tilts his head toward the computer on the far wall.

“Use it wisely.”

As soon as the door shuts, I spring up and race to the computer. I start it up, and the log-in screen appears. I type in Iris as my user name and enter the password that Alpha just gave me. For a second I worry that I remembered the number wrong and that I’ll get the black screen of death, but then a plain white screen appears with the United States seal in the top left corner. There’s a search box; and I click on it, type in my father’s name, and hit ENTER. I hold my breath as the screen flashes.

This could be it. I realize I’m not breathing and exhale.

The search results are up, and there it is. A file in an unspecified personnel directory. Obermann, Mitchell Thomas

I stop breathing again as the mouse hovers over my father’s name. Am I ready for this? Ready to know the truth? There’s only one way to find out. I click on it.

The screen flashes away, and a new one pops up. Mitchell Thomas Obermann. Born Natick, Massachusetts. Died [XXXXXXXX]

I’m not aware of my sharp intake of breath until my lungs burn. Eight X s. I count all of them twice. They’re the computer equivalent of taking a big black marker to a piece of paper and scrawling the word redacted on top. A truth I don’t get to know.

I rest my head in my hands before I look back at the screen. My dad’s date of birth is listed, too, as well as his date of death. Dates I already know. Information I already freaking know . My breath chokes inside my throat, and I look away. This page isn’t going to tell me anything. Just like the dog tags.

A surge of anger shoots through my body. Anger at the injustice of the whole thing. Anger at how helpless I feel. I’ve worked so hard to make sure I’d never have to feel helpless again, but in this game of life, the house always wins. Screw the house.

Still, a small part of me hopes there’s even one useful nugget of information. I look back and keep reading. Educational Background

Johnson School, Natick, Massachusetts.

Coolidge Junior High School, Natick, Massachusetts.

The Peel Academy, Upton, Massachusetts.

United States Naval Academy, Annapolis, Maryland.