The loud buzzer sounded bringing me to consciousness. It wasn’t a nice sound to wake to but its all I have ever known. I crawled out from under the warm covers. Some of the other girls around me we already dressed. I pulled my beige khakis on with my black shirt and jacket. Black signified what level I am. The younger girls wore yellow and all the children wore red. We had one hour to shower and get ready for breakfast. I sometimes used that time to do a little reading and skipped my shower. All our books had to be approved before we were allowed to read them. Stephan King was my most recent interest. He wrote about people like us, people who could do stuff that normal people can’t. It grew quieter as I was reading and at a quarter to seven I went to the bathroom and then headed down to breakfast. I was hungry. I quickly braided my hair and walked with the other girls on the way to the cafeteria.  

I felt a tap on my shoulders and pivoted. Melodie stood smiling, the water still dripping from her short curls. “Hey girly, skip shower again? If you get caught you’re going to have your privileges removed again.” “Hey Mel.” I ignored her warning, she was right I didn’t want to lose my privileges. If you don’t follow orders they take away your books and afternoon free time giving you extra chores. I ate my usual oatmeal and orange juice, talking to Melodie about nothing in particular, every day is the same here. There’s not a lot to talk about and I was still waking up a little. 

After breakfast I split from Melodie and went off to my morning classes. Mathematics from 8am till 10am and then language from 10 till 12. I’m learning Spanish, I’ve already completed learning French and after Spanish I will be taught Mandarin. I didn’t enjoy my morning classes much. The afternoon was always better I had physical training with Melodie after lunch. Half the class was spent training in which ever martial art we were practising. This month was tae kwon do and the other half was spent training our abilities.  

I got to mathematics class and sat in my seat next to Brayden. “hey Brayden” I began opening my books. This place isn’t like other schools I’ve read about in the real world. We don’t get homework or grades. We are expected to learn the stuff and if we fall behind we’d lose our afternoon free times until we caught up. With only three hours of free time a day I made sure not to fall behind. Even if I hated the classes. At the end of class Brayden stood up, he looked tiredly over to me. “Did you understand any of that?” he looked so helpless. Brayden fell behind a lot. He didn’t mean to Mathematics just wasn’t easy for him. “Hey, don’t worry about it. we can go over it again at lunch, I’d like to make sure I completely understand it all anyways.” he smiled “thanks Lu!” and we walked to our next language class together.  

Only a few people called me Lu. My full name is Luna, like the moon. That’s the only thing I have ever known about my parents. They named me after the moon I don’t know why and I don’t know what happened to them. I spent my early years in foster care moving around a lot. I don’t remember most things from back then, except the foster families were always afraid of me. I did’t know why then but now I realize it must be because I am different. At five the Special Humans Institute for Training or Shift as we call it found me and brought me here. They take care of all of us. They explained that we would never be accepted by society. That we would never have been accepted by a family. People always reject what is different and we are different so people are afraid of us. We are better off here with Shift. 

Spanish went quickly, we read and had to write a response to the chapter and discuss with a partner what we thought was going to happen later in the book. Finally the lunch bell sounded. I went over to Brayden by the door “are you ready for more math?” I said sarcastically as I approached him. “yeah” he huffed. I walked silently next to him as he told me what he and some guys were planning to do during free time today, play soccer on the outdoor field. I nodded as I listened. 

In the cafeteria we joined Melodie at a table and while I ate I began going over the math for Brayden. Melodie was two years younger, only 17 she hadn’t gotten to this math so I could see her boredom as we talked school and she sat in silence. Suddenly a man approached our table dressed in a blue administration uniform. “Luna Riley, you are being summoned to lead an OSM mission, please report to briefing room 6 at 8pm” he handed me the mission slip and walked away. Melodie finally having some entertainment perked up. “You are so lucky Lu, I wish I was an OSM leader, I can’t wait to be 18, you get to be in charge!” Melodie went off talking about her last OSM and who her mission leader was. I didn’t like being an OSM leader. OSM stands for object securing mission. Which meant we went in using our abilities and took whatever Shift wanted. I’m 19 that also meant that in less than a year I will become old enough to do retrieval missions. That is when we go out and collect young children who need shifts help because they also have abilities. It is the only way to protect our kind from the dangers of normal people. I still don’t like the idea. Everything about the world seems magical to me. Books, art, love, music. I’ll never get to experience the world like I’ve read. All I can do is imagine, everything we read is censored by Shift for our protection. I’ve never heard music or watched television. They say it encouraged rebellion and violence in youth. I will also never get to be in love our kind can’t love. It’s not how our brains work. But I can’t imagine taking all that away from a child. The chance to live in the world. To have a family, to be loved, even if they can’t return that love. 

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“Luna! are you listening, are you okay?” Melodie brought my attention back to the cafeteria. “yeah I’m fine, I like missions.” and that was true to some degree. It brought me a little closer to the world I longed to be a part of. I get to leave the underground facilities, leave the forest and go to a wonderful sparkling city. I never get to talk to anyone out there. On an OSM it is my job to take an item without being seen and all too soon return to Shift. Me and Melodie walked to the gymnasium together after lunch. We did tae kwon do and sparred for an hour and then I spent a half hour training my abilities. I have the control over electricity so I would go into a training room they had equipped with electricity outlets for me to pull from and I could pull it into my body and then aim and push the electricity back out hitting targets. It was fun. Then the last half hour of physical training I would go into a different lab room because my abilities consisted of two things. I could also read minds. They brought in a man who use to be a student at Shift now he works for them. He will sit at a computer across from me and as an image appears on his screen I will read what it is in his mind and click the matching image on my screen. They timed my response rate. Patrick was the only time I was allowed to read the mind of someone who worked at shift. Usually they wore an electronic metal head band that sent out a frequency that stopped me from hearing them. After training Biology and Chemistry went by in a blur. I kept thinking about what my mission was going to be. My last mission was an Affirmation mission. Usually they leave that up to the youths 10-15 years old due to its safety. We go in and just confirm whether or not a child is special or not. That can take others a couple days to witness a child's ability. So they use me a lot because I can go in and read the child's mind if I get close enough and I don’t have to wait around to see the child use their gift.  

At 6pm I quickly ate dinner and started my chores early. We rotate chores every month, this month I am responsible for part of my floors laundry. Someone before me washes them and I take them out of the dryer fold and deliver them back to my floor. I wanted to finish early today so I could freshen up before the briefing session. I get busily to work with the other students in the laundry room folding the clothes. When I finished I wheeled the laundry back to my dorm putting them in their respective spots. There are two ways one can leave chores. One if they finish their given task or two their chore hour is up. I finished with some extra time and went to the washroom. 

After fixing my hair and washing my face I raced down the hall to the briefing section. It is on the opposite end of Shift as the dormitories and I made it just in time. I knocked quietly on the door marked BR6. A petite woman opened the door. “Welcome Ms. Riley. Come in and we will get started” I entered and sat down at the round table in the middle of the room. Already here was the women who opened the door an older man in his late fifties with balding grey hair. I recognized him as Mr. O’Connell. He was in charge of Mission Organization. There was also a young guy. He was muscular with dark hair like mine. “Luna it is nice to see you, I trust that you are doing well. This is Ms. Parker, she will lead this briefing session.” I shook her hand. she was a very pretty woman with blue eyes and a familiar smile. “Please it’s Mackie.” “Mackie” I repeated. I wondered what it was short for. “And this is Reese” he gestured to the boy. “Hello” I looked at him. Nervousness was written all over him. 

“Okay so here is what is going to happen” Mackie started. “Tomorrow morning after breakfast you will both meet here, the driver, me. Will head out. It is approximately a 10 hour drive I’d recommend a book for the ride.” she smiled. “Once at the museum Luna will wait for the guards to be clear and you will enter at the back door here” She pointed to a map of a building. “Disabling the cameras and avoiding security you will make it down this hall turning left here. You will enter the room. In a case there will be this stone.” she showed us a picture of a softball sized green translucent stone with rough edges, “Reece you will take the stone from its glass case and you’ll both exit the same door you entered. Any questions?” I wanted to know what was so special about the stone, sure it was pretty but why did Shift want it? I couldn’t ask. They treated all questions of authority as an act of misconduct and take away privileges for a full month. “Now go get a good night’s rest, all of your instructors will be notified of your absences.” Mackie walked us to the door and let us out. Once in the hall Reese turned to me “I’m excited, my first OSM, raiding a museum. I hope everything goes smoothly.” I smiled “Yeah, goodnight Reese.” we weren’t supposed to be talking about our mission.  

Back at the dormitory Melodie was perched waiting for me on my bunk. We shared a bunk bed. Me on the bottom her on the top. The dorms consisted of  three rows of seven bunk beds on one side of the wall and the same on the other side of the wall for us women all thirteen years and older. There were matching dormitories for all the girls five to twelve, the boys five to twelve and one for the men thirteen and up. The room was always really loud during free time as everyone prepared for lights out at 10pm. “Hey Melodie.” “Hey girly when do you leave?” I could see what she really wanted to ask was what my mission was but we are forbidden to discuss missions before or after. “Tomorrow after breakfast.” I reached into my drawer getting out my book. Melodie knew once I reached for my book I no longer wanted to chat so she got up and went over to talk to a group of girls from her classes.