What a hectic summer break it's been.
And I feel like it's only just beginning.
Well, we're finally past the halfway point.
Seven weeks in.
The attack—or should I say warmup—was a week ago today.
Meaning today was our meeting with Sarah.
But before the meeting, let's go back to the aftermath of the attack.
Factory 24 shut down for three straight days.
No one showed up.
Not the members.
Not the founders.
Not the Monarch.
Not even The Claim.
They might not have even known what to do after seeing half their people laid out unconscious without knowing how it happened.
Maybe they were too busy fighting among themselves to care about us for a little while.
During those three days, not a single person told an adult.
They listened to our warning and did as they were told.
I was surprised, I really would've a younger kid to tell their parents and get me into some deep shit.
They also learned they could quit.
And a lot of them did.
On the fourth day, only eighty members showed up.
The next day, sixty.
Then fifty.
Now, forty.
We're down to about forty members at most.
That still sounds like a lot, but now it's less than The Claim as a whole.
And we still don't even know how big Sarah's group really is.
Still, I think we got stronger.
Everyone who stayed, even after what happened, was in seventh grade or higher.
No younger kids remained.
That alone changed the mood of the place.
Everyone left is colder now.
Grimmer.
Before, Factory 24 was still half base, half hangout spot.
Now it's just a base.
Only the people willing to fight back and win the war stayed.
Even John and Alex stayed.
At the vote last week, John had voted for the factory to be destroyed, so I assumed the two of them would drift off after everything they'd been through.
But it seems Alex convinced him to stay.
They still have wounds, but luckily most of them happened under their shirts, so no one outside of us would know about them.
Not even their parents.
I think Andrew planned it that way.
If adults had found out what really happened to John and Alex, that would've been the worst possible outcome for him.
So he made sure the damage could be hidden.
Mel changed too.
She'd been glued to me ever since the attack.
Not dramatically.
Not in a way everyone openly talked about.
But if I moved, she noticed.
If I left a room, she looked for me.
If someone new came too close, she shifted toward me without even thinking about it.
I didn't really know how to feel about that.
Part of me liked knowing she trusted me that much.
Another part of me hated that things had gotten so bad she felt like she needed to.
Either way, she was still sticking close to me when Sarah came back.
———————————————————————
Now, let's talk to Sarah.
The mood in the office was tense.
No one really knew how to start the conversation.
The seven of us sat in silence for what felt like five full minutes before I finally spoke.
"So... uh... does this organization of yours have a name? Or something?"
Sarah blinked once.
"Huh? Oh. Yeah. Did I not mention it before?"
"No."
"Null."
"Eh? Null? That's the name?"
"Yeah. We call ourselves Null."
"What's that mean?" George asked.
"It means we want to reset everything back to zero. We want the factory reduced to nothing."
"Ohh... good name."
"Thanks."
She said that so casually it almost pissed me off.
Factory 24 just signified the group in charge of the factory.
The founders were the ones who ran Factory 24.
The Monarch of 24 was the leader of Factory 24.
The Claim wanted to possess—claim—Factory 24.
And Null wanted to reduce Factory 24 to nothing.
Honestly, it might've been the best name out of the three.
Ours was barely even a name.
It was just the place we happened to build ourselves around.
"So... how many of you guys are there?" I asked. "In Null, I mean."
She smiled.
It was smug.
"I'm not telling."
"Figured."
If she wouldn't tell us that, then there was no point trying to pry for anything else.
No member count. No base. No names. No structure.
Nothing.
So I ended that line of questioning.
"Why don't we get down to business?"
"Good. I was just thinking that."
And just like that, her whole attitude shifted.
One second she was speaking almost normally.
The next, she looked direct.
Controlled.
Like she'd stopped being a classmate and started acting like the superior officer of some shadow group.
I gave her our conditions.
"First," I said, "Null helps identify whether The Claim's scout is still active inside Factory 24."
"That would be difficult," Sarah said. "I'm the only Null scout, and I've already been exposed. Plus, The Claim's scout has probably gone dormant by now, so it might not even matter."
Liam answered for me.
"There's no proof you're the only Null scout, and uncertainty is the whole problem. The sooner we figure out who their scout is, the easier it'll be to deal with The Claim."
Sarah looked at him for a second.
She understood what he was really doing.
He wasn't asking her for a miracle.
He was making her agree to the condition whether she could help much or not.
There'd be no real loss for her in accepting it, and if the scout was found, it would only benefit her too.
So she nodded once.
"Fine."
"Second," I continued, "Factory 24 starts a reduced-activity trial."
Now she actually looked interested.
"The members only meet four days a week. On the other three days, the factory is closed. If The Claim keeps pushing against Factory 24 even when we reduce how much it's used, then the factory was never the real problem."
Sarah frowned immediately.
"That's risky and stupid."
"There are factions inside The Claim that only want the factory itself. If you leave it closed on certain days, they could just move in and claim it."
She leaned back in her chair and crossed her arms.
"If The Claim takes over Factory 24 on an off day and starts using it against everyone else, Null won't hesitate to destroy it. Even if people are inside."
That landed heavily.
No one in the room liked hearing that.
But no one argued with it either.
Because she was right.
If The Claim turned the factory into their own base, things would get even worse.
So we accepted that addition.
"Third," I said, "Null cannot destroy the factory while there's still a realistic alternate way for this conflict to end."
Sarah didn't like that one.
It showed.
"That's vague," she said. "You could stretch 'realistic' forever just to protect the place."
"Then we won't," Leo said. "That's what the trial is for."
She thought about it for a moment.
Then nodded.
"I'll accept it, but only if the trial has a clear time limit."
"Fair enough."
"Fourth," I said, "if destruction happens, it has to be planned."
"No one can be inside."
"No lethal methods."
"Nothing like your gasoline-and-match stunt in a building full of over a hundred kids."
This time she looked annoyed, but she still agreed.
Reluctantly.
She would've clearly preferred to wipe out the factory that same day and be done with it.
But even she could see that too many people still wanted the place.
And not everyone who wanted Factory 24 had harmful intentions.
Some of them probably just wanted the space.
That mattered.
At least, it mattered enough to her that she didn't reject the condition.
So the conditions were set.
———————————————————————
That should've been the end of it.
But it wasn't.
Because the conversation shifted.
It turned into an argument.
It went on way too long, so I'll skip to the last part.
Sarah looked around the room and said, "The factory has already poisoned all of you anyway. You see an opponent and immediately resort to violence. Don't think I didn't notice the wooden bats and rods ready to be used against Andrew's gang."
"We did that because we knew Andrew would use violence too," I shot back. "It was the last resort."
"Last resort?" she said. "Did you even try talking to them?"
"Yes! We did! And they decided torture was better!"
"They tortured because of the factory! If the factory didn't exist, that wouldn't have happened!"
"Destroying the factory won't erase what already happened!"
That was when the room started fading away for me.
Not literally.
But it stopped feeling like a conversation with everyone and started feeling like a battle between the two of us.
Sarah and I kept throwing arguments at each other, faster and faster.
She said the factory had become a symbol people were willing to hurt others for.
I said the people willing to hurt others would just find another symbol.
She said we were proving her point by protecting it so fiercely.
I said she was proving mine by threatening to burn it down.
She said preserving something rotten just lets the rot spread.
I said destroying the place wouldn't magically heal the people it had already changed.
At some point, I realized neither of us was really listening anymore.
We were both right.
And we were both wrong.
Everyone else had gone silent.
Half of us wanted Factory 24 gone.
Half wanted it to stay.
Mel was still pressed against my side, saying nothing.
George was angry.
Leo was thinking.
Liam was watching Sarah like she might pull another bottle of gasoline out of nowhere.
Melanie gave up on the factory, she still showed up, but doesn't do anything anymore.
And me?
I didn't know what the hell I was supposed to do.
"Fuck..." I muttered. "I don't know what to do."
"I shouldn't have been appointed as the fucking Monarch of 24."
The moment I said that, I looked up.
All the founders were staring at me.
Not angrily.
Not impatiently.
Seriously.
Like whether they agreed with me or not, they trusted that whatever I said next would matter.
Since when did I have that much influence?
I sighed.
"Alright... let's just go by the conditions we agreed on before."
"We keep our own beliefs. We do the trial. And after it's over, we decide who gets rights to decide the factory's future."
Sarah held my gaze for a second.
Then she nodded.
"Fine. Let's do that."
So the deal was made.
The reduced-activity trial would begin.
It would last three weeks, ending on August first.