Chapter Forty — Battle Lull
The paper was faded. Drew wasn’t sure where Daryl had scavenged it from. There were splotches where it looked like it had gotten wet, which ruined the lines. Whatever he had written on it was written in pencil, so Drew held it up to his glowrock to see better. The handwriting was feminine with a lot of unnecessary flourishes.
Robbi is using a device to communicate with someone
he is hiding it from JP I heard him talking about bringing a bunch of people in soon and to meet him at the bridge
said the senator wouldn’t notice.
Drew frowned. Who was Kara? If the note came from someone other than Daryl, it made more sense that he would give Drew the note with its warning, so that he could get it from the horse’s mouth so to speak. This was another instance where Drew’s lack of interest in the non-combatants was coming back to haunt him. First with Frank and now with Kara. Who were these people? Drew vaguely recalled that there were three or four more women with the group, but he couldn’t recall a name for any of them.
Glancing around to check their progress, the group was a third of the way towards releasing all the captives. The kid that Drew had released now had the key and was in the process of unlocking cages. Several others were helping people out and bringing them to Sarah and Trista, who were organizing them into groups and casting heal on those who had been injured. Robbi had a few of the stronger looking kids gathering the trolls’ weapons and armor. Daryl was nowhere to be seen.
Drew watched Robbi and considered what he was going to do about him. The note made it sound like he was conspiring against the senator with another group, and that they were going to what? Steal people? Attack Drew’s group? Help them across? There wasn’t anything particularly damning about the whole thing, other than the fact that Robbi had some sort of cell phone like device he was keeping hidden. The other problem was that he didn’t really have a way to do anything about it. They needed Robbi. They needed another dozen people like him, to be honest. Drew was just now beginning to realize the scope of what they were trying to do. They were going to need to escort hundreds of people with six combatants.
The group they were in the process of releasing right now? They looked to all be about the same age, which meant there was bound to be a bunch more groups of people. How was he going to protect everyone on the way to the stadium? What was he even going to do with the people in this room while he went to get everyone else? Hoping that Sarah had a solution for that, he headed back towards the main group, freeing four more people with his acid darts without a word. The four teenagers followed him nervously.
“Does anyone have any combat xatherite? Healing, attacks, or buffs?” Sarah asked a group of about ten teenagers.
Drew mostly ignored the responses; they added a couple of situationally useful skills and spells between them. His focus was on Robbi and the group he was doing quick training with on how to hold the long daggers they had recovered from the trolls. Feeling the paper, it was like a hot coal threatening to burn its way through his pants.
Trista walked over to stand next to him. He glanced over and gave her a nod. “What are we going to do with all these kids?” She asked quietly.
“Still trying to figure that one out myself, any ideas?” Drew responded in kind.
“Hole ’em up somewhere and have them sit tight until we get back.”
“Could work, if they have enough xatherite to create a barricade or fight back, so it wouldn’t be suicide for them. Wish I had Katie here, we could use some more lights and walls.”
Trista laughed, “Yeah, no joke.”
It would be easy to ask Trista who Kara is, but he wasn’t sure he wanted to draw attention to his anonymous source. He would just wait and ask Daryl when they had a minute. Drew turned, “When you were here, were you ever kept in this room?”
Shaking her head, Trista looked around, “No. Nothing like this. They had us separated. But we only had a couple hundred people total. There looks to be a lot more teenagers here than we had in our original group. I don’t even recognize any of them.”
Another problem then. The trolls had been gathering people the entire time, which meant that there were probably more tunnels out of this place. Were there tunnels into Anacostia, Berry Farm, and Congress Heights? He didn’t imagine they would go much further than that, but if there was a tunnel under the river to Reagan Airport, that was only a mile from home. The idea of searching for such a tunnel was appealing to him.
“Daryl said he saw people transporting stuff. They must have been down the other tunnel,” Drew said. Looking around, there didn’t seem to be a point of the captives here. What were the trolls doing with them other than trying to sacrifice them to the mana storms?
Drew made eye contact with the kid that had tripped a troll for him and beckoned him over. The kid immediately dropped what he was doing and ran over to them.
“Yes, Mr. Michalik?”
“Please, just call me Drew. How long have you guys been here and where did you come from?”
“Most of us have been here for a few days, I think. Hard to tell time down here. I used to live off Iverson Street on the Maryland side. A group of about fifteen of us were heading to Bolling, hoping the military was doing better than everyone else…” He trailed off and glanced around. Drew and Trista both had remnants of military uniforms on.
That was a good distance away. “What happened? Where did you guys get captured?”
“We were sleeping in a church off MLK Ave when the trolls broke in. They killed a couple of the adults and took the rest of us. Until a couple days ago we were in a big group with a bunch of other people, but then there was a bunch of commotion and they put us in here. We’ve been here for a night, maybe? A lot less of the green guys here than there used to be.”
They had been with a larger group but separated everyone into individual cells right about the time the attack happened. Easier to guard them this way maybe? Drew pulled at his stubble as he considered the information. “The rest of the kids the same?” The goth kid just nodded his head.
“Did you guys hit them recently sir? Is that why we got moved? Did you kill all those bastards?”
Drew blinked at the vitriolic nature of the kid’s words. “Yeah, we killed a lot of them. Don’t worry; we’ll get you all somewhere safe.” The kid seemed satisfied and he sent him back to what he was doing before. But Drew wondered how true his words were; was the stadium going to be safe? He was beginning to warm to JP and Robbi, but Daryl’s note ensured that he wouldn’t trust Robbi for some time yet. As representatives of the stadium, was he leading these poor people into danger?
“Penny for your thoughts,” a female voice said. Drew looked up, realizing that Sarah had come up to him while he was lost in thought.
“Just trying to figure out what to do with all these people.”
“Any good ideas?”
“Trista suggested we hole them up somewhere. If they have some decent xatherite, they could defend it pretty easily.”
Sarah bit her lip and looked around, “Well, they’ve got a bunch of decent attack skills. They could probably do it, although I’d feel safer if they were up with Katie and JP.”
“We’d need to send someone to escort them at least,” Drew said, glancing at the kids.
“Daryl?” Sarah asked looking around for their scout.
“I mean, he would be the obvious choice, but I don’t think he’ll be leaving until we find his wife. Plus, I haven’t seen him since we came in. Do you know where he went?” Drew asked.