I jump down from the cliff landing inches from the gaping hole in the ground. We just have a few more yards to go but they are gaining on us and fast. There is no way we will make it to the river in time. I need to find the other entrance and fast. After all everyone knows there is no way to outrun the Robots. They will catch you and make you their prisoner. That is if you cooperate. If you don’t, well, I think you can figure that out. Finally, I find the place I’m looking for...
My name is Hope Wellington. I have long, red-brown, wavy hair, sky blue eyes, and olive skin. I am part of The Underground or The U for short. We are fighting against the Robots to change our world and give people choices. My friends and I are the secret weapons of The U. We call ourselves HEAT. HEAT stands for Hope, Eric, Avery, and Tucker. We all have special powers that make us different than everyone else in our world. I have phenomenal hearing, Eric has lightning fast speed, which is helpful for outrunning the Robots, Avery has serendipitous healing, and Tucker has amazing strength. All of our parents and younger siblings died in an “accidental” apartment fire. Or at least that’s what the community was told, but we know the real reason the fire happened. Our adversaries, the Robots, were, and still are, trying to kill everyone in our families because they know we have powers and thought the rest of our families did, too. Their only flaw, however, was that we weren’t in the apartment. So from that day forward we decided to run away from the community. A couple months later The U found us and took us into their underground world, hence the name. Even though we are in the ground our headquarters looks like a normal house, except it’s the size of a small town.  At first we didn’t say anything about our powers, not knowing whether we could trust them or if they were secretly working with the Robots and trying to find us to turn us in. After we knew for sure we could trust them, we told them and they immediately took us into the war room and started planning a war with the four of us as their secret weapons. And that’s where it all started….
“But I want to go play pool,” I complain.
“Well too bad,” Eric says back, “we have to go see what the Chief wants first.”
“Then pool?”
“Maybe, but it depends on what the Chief wants us to do.”
“Alright, let’s go.”
We walk through the long halls to get to the Chief’s office. Once we reach his door, he stands to greet us.
“I’m so glad you made it,” he says to us.
“Well, it wasn’t like we had a choice,” I reply dryly.
“I’m guessing you were on your way to play pool, huh, Hope.”
“Yup, how’d ya guess? Now let’s get down to business. The pool table is calling my name, can’t you hear it?”
Eric and the Chief both laugh.
“Hey, wait a minute,” Eric said, looking confused, “where are Avery and Tucker?”
“Well…uh…this meeting…doesn’t really concern them yet. In fact, it would be better if you wait a little bit to tell them about this.” The Chief looked down not wanting to meet our eyes.
         Eric and I look at each other and nod. “Okay. Go ahead.”
         Relief floods the Chief’s face. “Good. So, the reason you are here today is because of the Robots. We found out from our undercover guards that your siblings are alive but…”
        “Wait, you mean Luke and Izzy are okay!!!!!” we scream not even caring that we interrupted the Chief.
         “Yes, but you didn’t let me finish.”
         “Sorry,” we whisper.
         “They are alive, but the Robots think they know where you are so they are torturing them nonstop. We don’t know about Felicity and Ethan yet and that is the reason we don’t want you to tell Avery and Tucker. We are waiting to hear back from our spies and when we find out we will tell them. Oh, look, that’s him now. Wait there, I’ll be back in a minute.”
            Eric and I pace back and forth waiting anxiously for the news that will change our lives. After what feels like hours, the Chief emerges from the doorway with his eyebrows scrunched up and a serious look on his face.
          “They’re alive,” he said as his serious look changes to a huge grin.
           I let out a glass-shattering scream.
          “Whoa,” he says, “we still have to save them, and I know just the people for the job.”
          “Forget pool, I’m gonna go find Avery and Tucker,” I say with a huge smile. “Come on Eric.”
           We walk all around, up and down stairs, and through the hallways until we finally find them in the movie room.
          “They’re alive!!!!” I yell when they saw us.
          “Who?” Avery says looking confused.
          “Our siblings, that’s who!”
          “WHAT!”
          Avery and Tucker run over to Eric and I and we form a group hug, while everyone in the room starts shouting. We quickly fill them in on our meeting with the Chief and we hatch a plan.
        “Well, what are we waiting for let’s go save them,” Tucker says.
         We go to the Chief and I tell him our plan. “So, we go to the Meal Distribution Center and get in the line of people going in to get food. Once we get inside, we will split up into the four different lines. We want to bring people from The U with us so we will have more people to help us fight, other than just the four of us and the Undercovers. They will know the plan too. When we give the signal, which will be me raising my hand like I have a question,  everyone on our side will start attacking the Robots that are closest to us without hurting the citizens. With the robots distracted, the members of HEAT will go and get our siblings where the Undercovers said they are. Then we take down the rest of the Robots in our way and get out before the City Hall has a chance to capture us. So, what do you think, Chief?"
         "It sounds well thought out and I think you guys are ready to take it to action. How about tomorrow?”
         “YES!!” we all shout in unison.
          The next day we’re dropped off at the distribution center at dawn. The sun is still rising, making the sky a mesmerizing shade of orange. I stand there staring at the sky remembering a shade of orange not that far from this one the day I watched our apartment building go up in flames.
         “Alright we’re going in,” I say turning towards the building.
         We start in and once we get past the doors we split into our separate lines. I see my chance to make the signal almost immediately. I raise my hand and listen to the pounding of my heart as a robot starts to come over and when he gets close enough to me, and I know it’s now or never, I leap forward and knock the robot down onto the concrete floor causing it to smash into a million tiny, little pieces. I sense everyone else start to fight, too, so I start making my way to the room where our siblings are being held, fighting any robots that get in my way. When I get there, the rest of HEAT is already there and we start running down the gray, drab hallways. Finally, we get to the room and Tucker busts down the door. Inside we find four familiar faces.
          “Come on, we got to get out of here now,” I call to them.
          They join us in our frantic search for a way out. A few minutes later, we find a door that leads out the back of the building. We start running towards the river and tell our brothers and sisters to follow us. We make it to the edge of the cliff before we realize there are five Robots following us. We all know what we have to do. I take the lead and make sure our siblings are still behind us. Sure enough they are. We make it to the edge of the cliff and I start shouting directions.
           “Alright everyone, we have to jump! Don’t fall down the hole,” I say looking down at the vast hole not far from the landing.
         I send Avery and Tucker down first, and then our siblings follow. Eric and I are the only ones left to jump.
         “Okay, on three!” he shouts. “One, two, three!”
          I jump down from the cliff landing inches from the gaping hole in the ground. We just have a few more yards to go but they are gaining on us and fast. There is no way we will make it to the river in time. I need to find the other entrance and fast! After all, everyone knows there is no way to outrun the Robots, well, unless you are Eric. They will catch you and make you their prisoner. That is if you cooperate. If you don’t, well, I think you can figure that out. Finally, I found the place I am looking for.  We round the corner and find the “door.” The entrance is too small for the Robots to fit through so there is no way they can follow us even if they see us going in. We make it into the entrance of The U just as the robots whiz by thinking we went around the curve. We are finally safe, or at least for now.
           A couple days later we all walk to the Chief’s office to tell him about our adventure and he smiles real big when he sees us. After we finish telling the story he looks at us with laughing eyes.
         “Looks like we have another group of secret weapons,” he says.
         “Wait, what do you mean? They don’t have powers,” I say confused more than anything.
         “That’s where you are wrong, Hope. They had enough sense to get out of the burning building quickly, so they will be our new emergency planning committee.”
        “So, we will all be together again?”
        “That’s right.”
        “Well, they have to have a nickname like we do, right?”
        “Of course.  Their new name will be LIFE. It stands for Luke, Izzy, Felicity, and Ethan.”