In the future, standardized testing targets the top three percent of teenagers for execution. Once targeted, Clare has to outrun, outwit, and defeat assassins who have taken her father and friends while closing in on her.

SYNOPSIS:

We open on a kid walking down a grungy street listening to loud heavy metal music. His dress is just off normal – more layers, military like boots, buckles, and the like. A white van with “Federal Milk” logos comes up a few blocks behind the kid and stops. Then it approaches slowly and pulls past the kid and stops. When the kid is even with the truck, hands jerk him into the van and the van speeds away.

Super: 2026: Sector 7 New California

The world is in decay following years of government oppression. Clare, our hero, and her dad, Jim, travel down a trashy road. Clare is depressed and wants out of this world. Jim is taking her to her mother’s favorite spot, a secret fishing spot. But, he’s reckless and drinking and driving, Clare worries he’ll be arrested and she’ll be all alone, her greatest fear. Everything is going great while fishing when government police appear, arrest, and take her dad away. They don’t see Clare, but she is devastated. She finally collects herself and starts to escape the woods undetected, when she, too is kidnapped.

Clare is taken by rebels. They had been following them for protection, but two were killed by the government police so they could get Jim – a leader of the rebels. Clare is trying to get her head around the idea of her father being a rebel leader, with questions – is that why they killed mom? Was she in on it, too? When the other shoe drops – the government is neutralizing kids like Clare and her friends who are poor, but smart and naturally resistant to the Hidden Curriculum. It doesn’t help that she’s also the kid of a rebel leader. Her normal life is over, she has to join the rebels to save herself and her dad.

Still in shock from what has happened and what she is learning, Clare runs down a list of next steps – we have to notify the police, contact the media, inform the public – but all are controlled by the government. That’s the problem. They gained controlled little by little until there is nothing above the government. She finally says, we have to let my friends know, we have to get them before the government. But, it’s too late – Aiden and Hope are captured. Clare and Hunter are advised to go somewhere safe and stay out of sight. It’s his hideout.

Informed that they can’t find Aiden and Hope, Clare expects the worst. Hunter suggests they check the FEMA death camps. They go alone without notifying the rebels and manage to rescue her friends and disable the assassin with a lead pipe. Just as they’re about to leave, Clare hears her name – it’s her dad, he’s there, too. She turns to go back, but sees the assassin shoving her dad into the milk van and speeding off. Clare is mad at herself – she should have looked for her dad.

Clare takes her friends to Common Grounds, a closed and gated coffee shop and rebel safe house. There she pushes the rebels to find her dad – she fears her rescue attempt has caused the death of her dad. The rebels are mad that she went it alone and scold her for endangering everyone’s lives, including her own. Inwardly, Clare commits to improving her skills, her situational awareness, and her battle toughness, but she does point out that they found her friends when the rebels couldn’t.

The villain also wants Clare and her friends dead, so he uses her dad as bait to pull them into an ambush. He also tortures the dad to get intel on the rebel cause. Suspecting it’s an ambush, rebel soldiers with Clare and Hunter, take the bait anyway. They fight off the villain and assassin, but Jim appears to die in Clare’s arms, leaving her emotionally destroyed. Clare’s dad whispers, “focus on the mission, forget about me.” Though reluctant, she lays her dad’s head down, tells a rebel soldier to “take his body back,” and sets out after the villain and assassin. In the street, the assassin intentionally trips and knocks down the villain, then he disappears into the shadows. Clare and Hunter jump the villain while he’s down.

They smash his face into the street and ask him why he’s killing kids. He explains to prevent the next wave of rebels from even existing. You can’t rise to power if you’re dead. The assassin springs from the shadows and kicks Hunter off the villain. Clare instinctively drives her knife into the villain’s head before she is kicked off, too. Hunter finds a trash can lid and Clare finds a lead pipe. They attack the assassin, Hunter shielding his blows while Clare breaks him down from the knees, to the hips, to his shoulders, to his head. Both lie dead in the street. Hunter and Clare slip into the shadows.

A few days later, Clare, Hunter, Aiden, Hope, and a few rebels are at Common Grounds looking over their new ID’s and spouting out rebel nicknames, Clare’s dad is wheeled in via a wheel chair. He’s in bad shape, but alive. He holds a tray of fresh grilled trout, and enters asking “who’s hungry?” Clare knocks her chair over to get to him.

Inside a Federal Milk Processing plant, white cartoons go down the assembly line with “Have You Seen Me?” pictures of Clare, Hope, Aiden, Hunter.