t h r e e : secrets

He looked up with the most unreadable expression. "Yes?".

How could he act so calm? Did he not recognize me from that meeting last night?

"What was that meeting last night? Why were you there? Wh-".

"It was an anti-New Worlders meeting. I thought that was evident by the chanting", he interrupted with a smirk.

"Your sarcasm is extremely unnecessary. You can't expect me to not be confused as you basically confess to being involved in a faction that hates the New World, and wants to reverse it back: the Counterrevolution!", I burst as the words sprint out of my mouth.

"What part of that is confusing?", he asks, still munching down on the chocolate mess that was my perfect cone.

"I-, you-, ughhh!", no complete sentence came out. Who would want to go back to a world where women are oppressed, and men are overprivileged? Who wants a counterrevolution? The initial change to the New World should have abolished these thoughts from everyone's minds... maybe too many people slipped through the cracks during the shift.

"English, please?", he looked smug. Funny how he changed from his shy and awkward self to this while we were isolated. Who is Shawn really? I rolled my eyes at his comment.

"Careful, don't want your eyes to pop out", he gestured to my face. Timid Shawn is out, copy that.

"Whatever. Do your parents know that you attend these meetings?".

"No; they are firm believers in the New World. They could never support the Counterrevolution", he spat, obviously disappointed in his parents' political stance. I could tell them what he's been up to, but what good would that do? I mean, we still have freedom of speech, but an organization with full intentions on triggering a Counterrevolution to reverse the effects of the New World would never be accepted. Every member of the anti-New Worlders would be in danger, should I speak up about what I witnessed last night. Shawn knows this, too.

"Why do they hate the New World so much?".

"It's unbalanced, it's unnatural, what more do you need?", he scowled.

"It was unbalanced before! Men dominating women every chance they got, unfair pay, females always being the 'weak' gender!", I yell.

"The anti-New Worlders support full equality: no 'weakest' gender", he replies.

"There isn't a 'weakest' gender now!".

"Women have been converted to being the dominant gender, thus logic implies the existence of a weaker gender, duh", he said expressionless.

"Women need this! A balance of the scales, finally. What don't they understand?".

"What don't you understand?", he waves the empty cone at me, "We need full equality: no dominance, no oppression". I stare straight at him, searching for any emotion. All I can see is an earnest expression on his face. Eyebrows relaxed, lips forming a straight line, he searched for my response.

"It sounds ideal, but we can't always have ideal, can we?", I pry. This secret faction will only lead to trouble. I can feel it...

Shawn answered with a hmmph. "What time do you get off?".

"In about fifteen minutes, but I could leave any time. It's kind of dead in here. Besides, who the hell orders ice cream in the morning?", he looked down and then up at me with a smirk, waving his cone.

Taking a large messy bite out of it, he shrugged, "Me".

We wait fifteen minutes in silence and I clock out as my shift officially ends. Shawn leads me to his white Jeep, and I hop into the passenger seat. This better be good.

"Do you know exactly how the New World was executed?", he inquires.

"Bits and pieces".

"Well, get comfortable", he reclined his chair and smoothed his straight blonde hair back, releasing a sigh at the same time.

February 2nd, 2017: Washington, D.C.

It was a dark rainy afternoon in Northeast D.C., and a short, particularly chubby professor sat at her desk, reading essays and munching down on her second bag of Hot Cheetos. She blamed her job and Chester the Cheetah for her weight gain, but that didn't matter because she couldn't stop with either. She thought she had been creative in assigning her mostly unbothered students the prompt for the essay due last night at 11:59 pm: What is one thing you would do to change the world?. They are undergrad Sophomores; what more would they want to do than shotgun Bud Lights, dance on tables, and approach the world with an unrealistic sense of invincibility? This essay would tell the professor which students were serious, and the latter would flunk. She stumbled upon Lacey Carrington's paper, and the thesis alone raised the professor's eyebrows: A reversal of the gender roles in society would change this world astronomically. It got more and more bizarre as she read farther down the page. Lacey proposed a chemical change in human minds that would switch male and female instincts. Females would become the dominant gender, and thus all problems in the world would be solved. The professor was mesmerized by Lacey's ideas; what a controversial topic. She marked the paper with a bright red A, and unknowingly jumpstarted the Revolution that would come into fruition three years later.