Wheel of Fortune Read Free Page B

the boy explains. “Only they couldn’t collect enough information before Xitler’s family and their army came and threatened to kill them.”
    “I suppose there is a reason why they’re called the Breakfast Club too.” I say.
    “Yes,” Bellona smiles. “It’s named after an old movie in the Amerikaz. One that will live forever.”
    “Was it about the Monsters?” Pepper wonders.
    “Kind of. It was a movie about teens like us.” The boy explains.
    I sigh for a moment, taking in all the information, and reminding myself that I didn’t know much about the world. “I see. So what happened next?” I ask.
    “What happened next is the story of the iAm itself,” says Bellona. I know this story from Woo, but wouldn’t mind hearing it again from Bellona to confirm the facts. “Believe it or not, the iAm was Generation Z’s idea. They started it for fun, using what they called smartphones at the time to self-quantify themselves.”
    “It was also called Body Hacking. Just the same as our iAm now,” says Roger This. I notice his t-shirt is too clean for a boy who fought for his life. “But then the applications started becoming more complex. The software started predicting unusual things, like how well the owner of the smartphone would do in his next exam in school, how long the owner was estimated to live, who the owner would fall in love with. Generation Z thought it was fun.”
    “Only the device was controlled individually by each member of Generation Z,” Bellona says. “Meaning that your data was private. You used it to tweak your body and mind the way you liked. It was a logical advancement in technology at the time. It was harmless until—”
    “Until the data was controlled and used by the government,” the skater boy says. “The governments thought: ‘What a magical device. We can control Generation Z with this device by knowing everything about them. We don’t need surveillance anymore. We don’t even need to spend money on weapons of war. We practically own teens by knowing everything they do twenty-four-seven.’ And that was the end of the world. The end of democracy, freedom of speech, and everything. No one could do anything without the government knowing it. Everyone got spied on and their future predicted—”
    “This is exactly the same world we live in now,” I remark.
    “Not exactly,” the skater boy says. “Let me explain. When the government started to control Generation Z by spying on and controlling their data, there was a war going on. It wasn’t possible to brainwash Generation Z and convince them that they had to spend their teenage lives trying to get ranked.”
    “And that is what Prophet Xitler did to us,” I nod.
    “See?” says Bellona. “Now you’re getting it. No one knows how the Great Disease wiped out most of the population of Earth. Some claim the disease was not a physical one. They say it was a virus spread through phone applications. What we know is that Generation Z decided they should warn us. They decided they would send a hidden message to the future.”
    “A hidden message?” Pepper wonders.
    “What the Summit calls the Arc, the containers they found buried underneath the Burning Man,” explains Bellona. “The Burning Man is no god like Xitler wants us to believe. It was left for us by Generation Z as a sign to dig underneath and locate their legacy. Like X marks the spot, you know.”
    “Originally, the Burning Man was a festive occasion in the Amerikaz where they celebrated freedom of expression. It took place in the Nevada desert,” the skater boy explains. “They built that big structure of a man and set it on fire and celebrated for weeks every year. Unfortunately, Xitler’s ancestors found it. Hundreds of huge containers were buried in the desert, full of the world’s history.”
    “That’s like Zikipedia buried in the sand.” Pepper thinks aloud.
    “Exactly,” says Bellona. “The Xitlers read the legacy and watched the