0110

Waking up in the morning, I felt completely and utterly refreshed. Maybe it was the fact that I didn't have data eating school to have to go to, or that I was in the most comfortable bed that I had ever been able to sleep in. Whatever the answer was, it didn't matter to me. All that I knew is that I felt absolutely fantastic for the moment.

But I found soon enough that Ronnie didn't feel the same way. As soon as she woke up, she was complaining about things like mad. It was almost funny in my mind, but I made sure not to let out a single laugh. However, she certainly did have energy - it just wasn't the positive kind that I was exerting.

"Maybe they'll finally tell us what the hell is going on today!" Ronnie said, exasperated. I, on the other hand, was refreshed from my previous night's sleep and didn't exactly appreciate her tone. However, I tried to keep it to myself in order to avoid an uncomfortable situation with her. I seemed to be rather good at getting involved with that.

"Maybe they will," I replied, my voice coming out faster than I had anticipated. Then again, I had just woken up with tons of energy. My eyes were wide open, so it made sense that my voice would be fast.

"They better," Ronnie growled. "I didn't come here just for a whole bunch of government people to tell me absolutely nothing. You know, I could have just stayed home for that."

"I thought you wanted to get out of your house and away from your parents."

"Well, at least my dads actually tell me what's going on. These people...nothing."

"That's not completely true," I said. Part of me wondered why exactly I was defending it all in the first place. I decided to mark it off as I was just too tired to tell anything else. "I mean, they brought us here and gave us rooms. They told us that it's called the Intel Initiative."

Ronnie said absolutely nothing. She simply stared over to me with a dull look in her eyes. No, she was not happy with me at the moment. She probably would much rather have been with one of the other people in the group, because at least they would see to her impatience.

"I want to find out what's going on just as much as you do!" I protested. "I know that it doesn't seem that way from everything I just said, but it's the truth!"

"Enough talking, then," Ronnie said. "Let's go ahead and find out exactly what's going on here. That is, if they do finally tell us what's going on today."

"I have a good feeling about it," I said. "Although, they haven't mentioned there being anything for us to do today."

"Let's just get dressed and head down to the central room and find out," Ronnie sighed. "I am sick of waiting. Sick. Of. It."

Making sure not to be that one person who kept Ronnie waiting longer and longer, I dressed quickly and followed her out of the door. Our footsteps were at the exact same pace - hers were stormy, and mine were peppy. We ended up making up enough sound to waken most of the others, as more and more people began emerging from their rooms and heading towards the central room.

The eight of us began to congregate around those chairs where we had first learned about the Intel Initiative - except, of course, for the fact that we hadn't really learned anything about it yet. No one actually sat down as no one saw any need to.

But then Cecily entered the room, and all of could feel the change in the tone that surrounded us. Almost immediately our mouths shut, and we began to sit down. I looked to my sides to see Ronnie, but instead I found her flanked by Deric and Zeke. She spotted me searching for her and gave a shrug and a smirk. I just rolled my eyes, making sure to focus on Cecily.

"I apologize for the long wait I have forced you into concerning this Intel Initiative," Cecily began, folding her hands in front of her. "It wasn't the best possible scenario, but it was what had to happen in order to get everything moving along quickly. Now that we have assembled you once again, I may have the honor of explaining what has been occurring."

For the first time in Cecily's presence, we all began to chatter amongst one another excitedly. We simply couldn't help ourselves - it was a moment of weakness. Nothing had changed in her power over us, however. She demonstrated this by gently clearing her throat and causing all of us to end up silent.

"Now, I can tell you are very eager to hear what I have to say," she said, laughing slightly. There seemed to be a slight sigh of relief throughout the room - Cecily wasn't angry with all of us. "President Bhanap has created the Intel Initiative for the good of the country, and there is no time like now for us to do so."

She continued, saying, "The goal of the Intel Initiative is data revival. You will be sent off to an undisclosed country, and from there you will receive guidance to go further. The basic idea is that vital information has been deleted by a country we may consider an enemy. In order to help prevent war and damage, we much get that information back."

Everyone was completely silent - that is, until someone began shifting around as they raised their hand. I turned around in order to see that it was Everett, his arm making a perfect line straight up towards the sky.

"Yes, Everett?" Cecily said, sounding uncannily like one of my teachers back from Ross.

"You're saying that you want to do this to prevent war, but it sounds like a rather sneaky operation that is doing something against the will of this undisclosed country. I don't see how that adds up."

"You have a good point," Cecily said, nodding. "But there's more to it than what meets the eye. There is much of this that is confidential, and you will find it out soon."

Of course, more of it was confidential. But at least we knew the basics - we were supposed to bringing back data from the dead, like some sort of computer necromancer.

Suddenly my mind whipped me backwards into a part of my life that had gone past years ago. I was remembering the piano - more like the piano incident, with Ianto. I had gone ahead to delete all the data but he had been so desperate to get it all back. He wanted to revive the data the same way these people did for the information in their so-called "undisclosed country."

I sighed and tried to push these thoughts away. I still felt guilty for what had happened on those days, how low Ianto had fallen and how it had all been my fault just for being too curious. I couldn't pass it off as a mistake, either - I obviously knew what I was doing, and then I ended up triggering utter panic within my younger brother.

But now that we were older, would Ianto's whole obsession with getting the data back actually get some sort of use? It now didn't seem so impossible, which was kind of maddening in of itself. We were called data eaters for a reason - to think that we were going to be getting data back was kind of mad.

Cecily ended up explaining a few more things, none of which were really all that important in my mind. I mostly ignored it, although that probably wasn't very smart of me. The rest of the day whisked by in the blur of thoughts and words between all eight of us. Before I knew it, it was already time for us to head back to bed.

When back in our room, Ronnie and I each sat on our respective beds. She gave me a hard stare, and I was halfway convinced that she was about to launch a pillow at me once again as if that would somehow knock some sense into me. She didn't even know what was going on in my head, though, so perhaps that wasn't the smartest idea.

"Parr," she said calmly. "What are you thinking about?"

"What do you mean, what am I thinking about?"

"You've got that look on your face like all of a sudden something's changed in your head. You're thinking about something, obviously."

"Oh, obviously," I echoed. I tried to keep myself engaged in the conversation, but with my thoughts drifting away it was a rather difficult thing to do.

"Come on, Parr. You won't lose anything from telling me," she said, raising her eyebrows. Maybe she thought this would make her look more approachable, but it didn't have much of an effect on me. Sure enough, they dropped down towards her eyes once again.

"Well, I'm thinking about Ianto," I admitted, propping up my elbows and resting my chin down on top of my hands.

"Oh, God, are you still worried about him?" Ronnie groaned, falling backwards for a moment. "Seriously, you're his sixteen year old sister, not his mom!"

"And I haven't really talked to him in person the whole time we've been here," I continued. "I want to know what he thinks about this whole revival thing. I think he might have some good ideas. It's not like I'm worried about him."

"You could, you know, try talking to someone else," Ronnie said. "I mean, I've been getting to know some of the others."

"You've been getting to know Zeke, and that's it."

"That is not true," Ronnie said, crossing her arms as she put her nose up in the air. "I've been getting to know Deric as well. Anyways, at least I'm trying. All you're doing is moping over Nell and Ianto."

"And talking to you, Truitt," I noted, happy to finally get a point of my own into the conversation. Ronnie sent a scowl over in my direction, but I found that all I could do in response to that was smile.

Before she could say another thing to me, I got up and walked into the hallway, making my way over towards Ianto's room. I found him standing outside of his door, heaving a sigh.

"Hey, Ianto," I said. Never had I felt more self-conscious around my little brother before. He'd always been the one more out of his element, with less of a social connection with others. He was the quiet and shy one. But now that he was here with the creme de la creme of data eaters, he finally seemed to be finding his way in - just as I was finding my out.

"Hello, Alia," he replied. His voice was soft, giving me some courage that perhaps he wasn't changed at all. No, he had just found a mold that he fit into properly. Ianto did what anyone with sense would do and slipped right in.

"So, er, what do you think about this whole revival thing for the Intel Initiative?"

"I think it's silly that they refuse to tell us the name of the country," he replied. I couldn't help but notice that he had glided right by my original question. "It's obvious that it's China we're going to. There's no use in keeping secrets from us, it only prevents us from giving them our full trust."

"Yeah, you're right," I said, only half of me truly paying attention. "But seriously - think about it. We're going to be trying to retrieve data rather than delete it. We're data eaters, not data makers...not any of that, no."

"You could say that creating a program to delete data is similar to creating data," Ianto suggested. Once again, he was showing off just how intelligent he was. Once again, I was fairly sure he had no idea that he was doing this. "I mean, it's not exact, but..."

"I just don't know how we're going to do it," I sighed. "And I really don't understand why I'm here. I'm not bad at writing codes, not at all, but you'd think that they'd want someone fantastic for it. This could end up deciding whether World War III happens or not...at least, that's what I got from what Cecily said."

"You have other skills," Ianto replied. "I mean, you're the fastest typist I know. That must be worth something large, otherwise you wouldn't be here right now. Alia, you have to believe in myself."

I never would have expected my shy younger brother to be giving me pointers to gain self-confidence. He had been saying things like this ever since the Intel Initiative came along.

"Yeah, I'm good at a lot of things, but I'm not great. That's the thing. I'm not extraordinary. I don't even know where to start when it comes to reviving data!" I exclaimed.

"The government must know what they're doing," Ianto simply stated. "They must."

I considering making a crack about how they were actually just brainwashing him, but I decided against it. I didn't know how he would react, and besides - there were more important things in my life. My head whisked me back to the thoughts that had been plaguing me earlier in the day.

"Ianto, I've been thinking...what if this has something to do with the piano?"

Ianto simply glanced at me once and then turned away. His footsteps met my ears and caused me to wince - this was not the reception I was expecting to get!

"No, no, Ianto," I called out, rushing after him. "I'm being serious here."

"The last time you brought up the whole piano incident was to make fun of me for being so immature about it. You said that I was always so mature and so adultlike that it was groundbreaking to see me break down and cry."

I immediately wanted to deny this, but the words fell flat in my mouth. Yes, I had said that to him. No, I couldn't excuse myself for being so cruel to my younger brother. Yes, I still felt guilty about it. No, I couldn't apologize again. I'd already apologized about that one time over and over again, but it wasn't enough. It couldn't take back the words I'd already said.

"Ianto, please," I murmured, wondering if he would even hear me. "I'm starting to think that the only reason I got into this program was because of that whole piano thing. Really."

My little brother had already began walking away as I spoke, but I found that his pace was excessively slow. I took this as a sign that he wanted me to catch up and continue talking to him, even if he didn't say those exact words out loud. He reminded of Atticus from To Kill A Mockingbird (which I had been forced to read in school, although I did enjoy it) sometimes, mostly because he liked to not say things explicitly.

"Ianto, please," I repeated. "I just want to talk about this from my perspective. Yes, I guess I'm just being selfish little Alia, but you're honestly the only one I trust to give me a full and intelligent answer about all the things I'm worried about."

Even though he didn't look at me when he said it, Ianto replied, "I'm sure that the piano incident had something to do with you getting into the Intel Initiative, but it is certainly not the only reason. A group such as this would have been to be selected on a number of different factors - which I've already said, Alia. It's not just your speed or just the piano incident, it's a lot of things put together."

"I guess that does make sense," I sighed.

"It does," Ianto replied. "Is that a good enough answer for you now, Alia?"

I stared over at him while I decided to match his pace. He looked so young, and for some reason it frightened me. We were both raised in the same household under the same circumstances, so how had it turned out that he was practically a thirty seven year old man stuck inside the body of a thirteen year old while I was just an average sixteen year old?

"Yeah. Yeah, it's a good enough answer," I finally replied, realizing that I had been completely silent for a prolonged period of time. "I'll just head back to my room now and think about this whole revival thing a little more."

"Get some rest," he recommended. "It seems to me that we won't be getting as much of it in the coming days. There are bound to be stressful activities, and that can lead to a lack of sleep."

This was so purely Ianto that I just had to roll my eyes as I began walking away. No, my little brother certainly had not changed a bit.

"Goodbye, Ianto."

"Goodbye, Alia."

I started walking back towards my room, wondering what I was going to do next. It had been stupid of me to bring up the piano incident. Even though it did involve reviving data, I should have just kept it to myself. While these thoughts bounced around in my mind, I rubbed my eyes - of course. Ianto was right, I was already getting tired.

The hallways seemed to be getting dimmer, even though I knew that it was just my mind playing tricks on me. I just kept forcing my feet to keep moving along until I got to my door and opened it up. The room was already pitch black, and Ronnie was laying in bed.

"You awake, Truitt?" I asked softly.

"Shut up, Parr. I am awake, but I'm trying not to be!" she hissed.

I just heaved out another sigh and walked to my bed. Maybe I had woken up energized, but at that moment I just felt drained.

A/N Can I just say that this story is coming along quite nicely? Because it is, it really is. Even though it hasn't been getting all that many reads or votes or comments, I can't help but feel proud of it. It's my first real original. Wow.