Formula For Success


I looked around the factory as my class and I followed our teacher and the manager through it. I thought it was absolutely horrible, dark, dirty, and smelled like stale sweat. I traced a crack running through the dingy wall with my finger, when I pulled away there was a clump of grime on the pad of my finger. Still looking up and down the wall, I didn’t notice that we had come to a halt and I slammed into a short dark-haired girl named Brittany. I mumbled sorry and turned my attention to manager who was climbing onto a box pallet.

“Now you all know, this factory is where Regulars produce the steel frames for houses. We’re one of the most productive too,” he added, puffing out his chest. “Now, follow me and we’ll take you through the factory and show you some of the crucial steps to getting the frames right. Oh! I almost forgot, this is one of the youngest factories as well, so all of these kids are between 13-18 - your guys’ age!”

As we started our march through the factory, I started to drift off again. One simple choice and I could’ve ended up here, working my days away in this dark factory. I could’ve been a Regular instead of an Unlocked. Years and years ago it was common knowledge that humans only used around ten percent of their brain’s full capacity. That was, until three scientists figured out a complex surgery that unlocks and allows a person to use all one-hundred percent of their brain. It was then decided that the people who had unlocked all of their brains (the Unlocked) would be teachers, governors, and basically all higher functioning jobs, whereas all of the people who still only used ten percent of their brains (the Regulars) would do the construction, garbage working, and more hard labor jobs. And so it’s been ever since, and so it is now. The rest of the class of Unlocked and I walked through the factory where Regulars made steel frames.

We went through a set of double doors and came out on a walkway with a railing high above the main floor. The floor was covered wall to wall with work stations with big, buzzing machines. Teenagers went from station to station like ants in an assembly line. My eyes scanned the workers, none of them seemed to notice us standing above. But then, my eyes met a pair of dark brown ones. There was an older boy, probably around 18, standing by a machine smoking a cigarette. He smirked and turned around back to the machine behind him.

“Everyone here has a specific duty, a specific spot in the assembly line. That’s how we’re so effective here. Everyone does their job, and just their job” the manager, “Geoffrey” his name tag said, was yelling while gesturing wildly around. He was older, around 45, with a big belly and hardly any hair. He also was spitting all over the place while he talked, he had a drop of spit right by the side of his mouth and I couldn’t stop staring at it.

“What about the regular that was shot the other day from here?” a boy behind me yelled.

“He wasn’t doing his job. He thought he could be something bigger than he could be. And he was causing a disruption in the system.”

A loud siren went off all around us. We all visibly jumped and look desperately at Geoffrey. He waved a thick hand dismissively, letting us know that this is normal and we aren’t going to die. I saw his mouth form the words ‘lunch bell’ and he turned to walk the rest of the walkway to outside where all of the workers were walking also. We half-walked-half-jogged behind him, trying to get away from the loud noise as quickly as possible.

The cold knocked the breath out of me as I went through the door. Inside the factory I had been sweating and soon discarded my winter coat as we trudged around. Now I couldn’t get my coat on fast enough as the snowflakes swirled in the air around me. All of us stood in an awkward circle by the door watching the Regulars eat their lunch and converse among each other. We’d already had lunch, and besides Unlocked were not supposed to mingle with Regular.

“Go ahead and get to know them, this will be one of the only opportunities you guys will get to interact with Regulars in your youth,” Geoffrey whispered to us, his breath smelling of coffee and what I suspected to be alcohol.

I was the first to break away from the group, walking among the tables and hoping to see the boy from earlier. I finally arrived at the last lunch table and was just about to sit down when I suddenly realized the boy sitting at this table laughing and throwing food at a pretty red-haired girl was not the boy I’d been looking for. I pulled my hood up against the wind and was about to just sit down anyways and start talking to them when I spotted him. He was walking around the corner of the building, cigarette hanging between his lips, zipping up a navy blue jacket. At a table filled with workers several boys stood up to give him their seat, giving him a handshake and a smile in the process. One side of his mouth pulled up in a lopsided smile as he sat down in a seat, opening his brown bag and dumping the food onto the table. He was just about to bite into his sandwich when he caught me staring. His left eye dropped down into a wink. He took a bite slowly, his eyes never leaving mine, then he put the sandwich down, hopped up, and started to make his way over. I suddenly panicked. I had nothing to say to this stranger, I didn’t even know why I wanted to find him so much five minutes ago. Despite the cold I had started to sweat. What do I even say to him? What do you talk about with a Regular?

Finally, when he was around three feet away his face broke out in a smile, “You know if you wanted to say hi you could’ve, instead of just staring.”

Oh God. “Sorry,” I laughed. “I’m Grace,” I said extending a hand.

He looked and my hand and chuckled before taking it and saying, “Samuel.”

Before I could say anything else a boy in my class came bounding up. “Hey! How does it feel to be a Regular?” he laughed before running away.

“Not much different than being an ‘Unlocked’,” Samuel muttered under his breath.

“What?”

He looked me directly in the eye for a few seconds before apparently making a decision. “Come with me,” he said grabbing my arm and dragging me off back into the building.

We walked straight across the railway and down a hallway, then made a right and down another hallway. Finally he seemed pleased with the distance we’d gone and abruptly stopped by a door marked ‘Storage’. He flicked on the lights to reveal exactly what the sign had promised; a storage room. There were boxes piled all along one wall, marked with faded unreadable sharpie. The other wall was shelves full of cleaning products and brooms, all with cobwebs covering them. Samuel walked in the room and pulled out a big box and sat down on it. He looked up at me expectantly for a few seconds before gesturing to a dusty box opposite him. I wiped off the box, took a seat, and faced him waiting for him to explain.

“So you know all of those ‘facts’ about how some special children are taken in and given a surgery and then they’re smart?” I nodded. “Well that’s all fantasy, my dear. I’ve been involved in an 18 year experiment to prove that ‘unlocking’ is all false. It’s looking pretty good too. I’ve got almost all the evidence I need, I just need a video or a recording to totally prove I’m right. Do you know how revolutionary this is? I could prove that all this separation is just crap! We could integrate! We could decide for ourselves what we want to do with our lives!” Sometime during his speech he’d stood up and was now facing me, eyes burning and intense, face impossibly close.

“You know you sound crazy, right?” I laughed.

He grabbed my shoulders, “I can see the doubt in your eyes Grace. You sort of believe me. You know I’m sounding way too smart to be a Regular right now, you know some people in your classes are way too unintelligent to have access to one hundred percent of their brains. You know that all of the coverage surrounding that Regular that was killed last week. Grace come with me. Help me. We could start a revolution.”

I shook my head, “That guy was killed because he disrupted the system, he was trying to do a job he couldn’t do.”

“Grace, are you even hearing yourself? He was trying to do an Unlocked’s job and they killed him because of it.”

“But… but they wouldn’t do that. It doesn’t make sense. Why would they make something like the unlocking up?”

“That’s what I want to know. So far my best guess it they need a simple way to control the masses. Tell them to do certain jobs, and if they don’t do said job, you kill them. Simple and effective. So, will you help me?”

“What? Help you what?” I looked at him confused.

“Help me prove I’m right. That the whole caste system is a joke. That we can do whatever we want to do for a job!” He yelled, and then covered his mouth with his hand.

“Okay,” I said finally making my decision. If this was true, I wanted to know. I knew too many idiots in my classes to dismiss what Samuel was saying.

He smiled that lopsided smile, “Okay. Meet me tonight here at 9. Dress dark and light enough to be able to move around in, but not too light, we’ll be outside some,” He pulled me up and dragged me back to where the rest of the class and workers were eating lunch still. He shot me one last wink before going back to sit at his table and finish his lunch.

Soon Geoffrey and Mrs. Collins called us to continue the tour. The rest of the tour could not have gone any slower. Every face I saw, I questioned if they were really unlocked, or if being unlocked was even possible. I scarfed down my dinner when I got home and ran up to my room to prepare. I layed out my outfit and then, I waited. I did everything I could to pass the time: I cleaned my room, did my homework, made my bed, and cleaned my room again. Finally, it was 8:30, so I got dressed and snuck out my window.

“Well I didn’t think you’d show up. Thought I’d have to do this all by myself,” Samuel smirked as I jogged up to him.

“So what are we doing?”

“They’re doing an ‘unlocking’ tonight so I figured we’d stop by and see exactly what that consists of.”

I nodded and we turned towards the building. I kept watch while he picked the lock.

Soon we were in and sneaking down a completely dark hallway. I don’t know how he knew where he was walking, but we never ran into anything. Soon I felt a hand on my stomach, stopping me from walking. Soon I started to hear voices coming from the end of the hall. We inched forwards until we were about even with the only room with a light on inside. Inside revealed three doctors and an eight year old girl. The young girl was sitting unconscious in a chair in the middle of the room while the three doctors sat around the room. One was about halfway through a novel while the other two were watching a soccer game on TV.

“Hey how much longer?” One asked.

“Um, it looks like any time now,” another one answered.

“This is so boring,” the third one yawned putting down his book.

“Hey, we get paid a grand amount of money to sit here while these idiots sit here unconscious for a little while and then think they’re something special afterwards,” the first one laughed.

“I knew it,” I felt Samuel whisper beside me, his mouth right by my ear.

The girl started to wake up, the doctors quickly jumped up and ran to her bedside. She looked up blankly before feeling around her head, I’m assuming looking for a scar.

“How do you feel my dear? Smarter perhaps?” A doctor laughed smiling down at the small girl and gently pulling her up.

“We should go. Like now,” Samuel whisper-shouted pushing on me.

I turned to go and slammed into something warm and solid, “What the heck?”

“What are you two doing here?” A deep voice boomed.

“Grace. Run!”

And with that we took off down the pitch black hallway. I was in the lead, and I could feel Sam right at my heels, and the thundering stomps of the giant man not too far behind us. I didn’t have the slightest clue where I was going and I kept kicking my legs on unknown things all along the sides of the hallway. After what seemed like forever I finally saw the faint like of outside. We were so close, but I could feel my legs started to tire. Then hands were on my back, pushing me along and out the door. Without saying a word he grabbed my hand and we dashed into the forest and into the bushes. We tried to control our breathing as the big man passes, and soon he was gone. Leaving us alone in the bush, with nothing but the sound of our heavy breaths as the crickets slowly started coming in again.

“We’ve got… to tell… everybody,” Sam said between heavy breaths after a while.

“We will, but I need water first Sam.”

He laughed and pulled me up. We crept out of our hiding place and out of the woods. He said his house was close by so we started making our way down the street in comfortable silence. My head was reeling. Everything was wrong. The very core of what we’re taught in school is false. There are no differences between us, just what we’re told we can and cannot do. Everyone is the same. They lied. The government lied to us, to everyone. I was fuming by the time we arrived at Sam’s house. No one was home so we flipped on all the lights and I sat on the counter while Sam filled up two giant cups of ice water.

“Grace. We. Freaking. Did. It,” he laughed incredulously. “I knew I was right. I knew it! Oh my God this is great. We’re going to change the world.”

“You’re right, but how do we go about this? No one’s going to believe us.”

“Correct. No one will ever believe you. And no one will ever know,” a voice from the doorway said.

We both whipped around to see the giant from earlier. “Don’t be rash. Come with me.”

Two more guys walked into the room. We decided to cooperate.

We pulled up to the capitol building. We were forcibly escorted into the building, dragged down a long too-bright hallway, and pushed down into chairs. The chair behind the desk in front of us spun around slowly, revealing Head of the State. He was an extremely old man, tall and skinny with a face that had way more skin on it than it should. We tensed. He shot us a warm smile full of yellowed teeth and signaled his body guards to leave the room.

“Alright. I heard you two have found something you never should have found. Am I right?”

“If you mean about the totally fake-ness of the very foundation of the United States of America, then yes,” Sam spat.

“Well that’s a problem. You see, the government runs on fear. You make the population fear to so they follow you. If you two go around ruining that then there’s not fear. If’s there’s not fear, there is not order. If there is not order, then everything breaks down into chaos and the world ceases to have any sort of structure at all. So we’re going to have to fix this,” he leaned forward intently. “We have an island. A nice island, mind you. But more importantly, a far away island. Where we send people like you, people who have figured out our little secret.”

Before we could even so much as yell, we were being dragged out of the room and blindfolded. The last thing I saw before everything went black was Sam’s look of horror as we were sent off to our new lives on the island for “trouble makers”.