explains to me. “What’s happening now, Thomas?” Auron asks me.
“He’s kneeling down now.”
“This must be the part where another comes and stands behind him with a needle raised high into the air. The others gathered together start to rock from side to side and the flames grow raging fiercely. And the needle is finally inserted into his neck, am I right?” He was right. Step by step, his way totally right. “The man you knew was never a friend I hope.”
“No, he was actually a pain in the neck, but this… I never saw this coming. I’ve seen enough.” I stood up, hand the binoculars to Shane and walked slowly down the steep hill.
“Thomas!” Auron calls out running to me. I had enough of this conspiracy and lie’s game. Too much has been revealed to me about war, the military, the nine eleven incident, the whole entire world. “Hey, you said you wanted to know, all I did was provide the proof you said you needed.”
Shane catches up and says, “It was a little more than we expected.”
“Well did you have in mind loose files and papers here and there speaking about what I already told you?” Auron shakes his head. “No, you needed to see the actual events take place.”
“You knew all along, didn’t you?” I asked Auron as we walked through the field and hills.
“You knew Sergeant Pummel was getting initiated didn’t you? Always calculating and putting plans in place, huh?” I was growing tired of his methodical games, but he gave me what I wanted. The truth.
“What was the shot for?” Shane asks Auron.
Auron sighs. “The adult human brain uses between ten to twenty percent of their brain. At least that’s the Reserve Energy theory a few Harvard psychologists from the 1800s came up with in their studies. The shot they gave him was what they give to all the others, it’s a boost to use forty percent more of your brain’s cerebral cortex. Make you smarter if you will.”
“So, my platoon sergeant is a member of a secret society, now?” I ask Shane as we make it to the opening in the fence.
“Thomas, we can all think of something to--”
I interrupt him. “To do what? To do what, Shane? We can’t do anything about this! We can’t just go on as good soldiers in the day and at night put together a paper believing we’re exposing conspiracy theories and think we’ll hurt their actions. This is too big.
I bend the fence and crawl through. “Look, Shane, nothing changed from earlier, I still want to switch squads. It’s too much to think about right now, I just want to get out the Army.”
I walked away all the way back to the barracks; I didn’t even wait for Bazz to come get us. And the next day, before I arrived at the motor pool, I had a new squad leader. Well, I wasn’t really new to his squad seeing as how I was cycled through all five squads. I was considered a good soldier and a hard worker, so I pretty much could go to any squad I wanted, but Sergeant Birden picked me up. He was a couple of years older than me. A white guy with freckles and skinny as a toothpick and not much taller than me. We called him Bird Man since Iraq; only soldiers that went overseas with him could call him that. We were close, almost as close as me and Shane were. I remained in his line for my last five months until I E.T.S’d out. We passed one another and he looked like he had something to say. Or maybe I should’ve, but it just felt awkward between the both of us. All the while I acted as though I never even met Shane. I heard him and Bazz settled differences and were friends again. Bazz kept in touch and kept me in the loop about what they’d find the more they looked into what Auron said. Last I heard from Auron he was in some place called the Shinar Plains. I did more research on my own about The Conspirators, but it was hard and I always seemed to come up with close to nothing. But what I did learn was what Auron said was true about being devil worshippers, but it
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