Chapter Text
“That so?” Shiden asked. “Need me to bounce?”
“Up to you,” Robert reached over, flicked the lights off, plunging the large room into utter and complete darkness. He sat back, waiting for his eyes to adjust. Depending on their reaction to the lights going off, he’d know whether they were amateurs or professionals. The intruders must have snuck in when he and Shiden were being silent – they hadn’t known he was even there, so he was betting amateurs who would freak out with the pitch black. Sucked to be them.
But even so, he had to wonder, what was their aim? Why were they here?
There was a bang and a clatter, then a gasp and a small scream. Two sets of footsteps – maybe three. Definitely amateurs. Hopefully just two – he was fairly confident in his ability to overcome two people when he had the drop on them in the dark, but three was a tough sell.
“Should I call Lena?” Shiden asked from the para-RAID. Robert shook his head. The para-RAID wasn’t supposed to transmit feelings and sensations except for hearing, but he was fairly sure that things leaked through – it was just too easy to intuit things over para-RAID for it to not be leaking other information. Just as he expected, Shiden gave a small huff. “If you lose, I’m going to make fun of you, later.”
Robert kept himself from snorting as he peeked around the corner of a long row of large shelves which housed palettes of Ready-to-Eat field meals. It was enough food to feed an army for a year – or a city for a few weeks. He’d been squirrelling it away for the entire time he and Lena had been ‘dating.’ And yet here was a pair of what looked like teenagers, both standing as close to the warehouse shelving as possible, murmuring to each other as they looked up at one of the boxes labelled RTE – SPOILED.
It wasn’t spoiled at all, of course. He’d made that declaration when it became clear that the higher ups didn’t care about expiration - even their dumb asses realized that the 86 could starve or they could fight – they couldn’t do both. So, he’d needed to get creative to set aside for the impending invasion.
“Come on, we gotta go!” the first figure was whispering. “Look at it later!”
“This is our chance to grab it,” the first whispered back. “He was just shutting down for the night, stop being so paranoid!”
“It says it’s spoiled right there on the box!”
“It’s a lie, idiot, I told you they were hoarding! See?” the first figure held out one of the meals in a bag. Robert still couldn’t quite make out the faces, but the silhouettes were easy to decipher thanks to a tiny glow from the figure that held the meal – probably an emergency light of some kind. From their voices, they were young – younger than him and probably younger than Lena too. From their builds, it was a boy and a girl. Interns, he’d guess. Their badges didn’t get them into the building this late at night, but they may have hidden out and waited until after midnight.
Sheesh. These rats weren't even as subtle as real rats. Now that he’d established they were young, and completely inexperienced, he could act… but why were they here? If they were interns, there was no need for them to be stealing food – they would have been from good enough families to have food aplenty, plus they had their own pay. He stayed where he was.
“Fine, fine, I’ll fill this bag. I’ll sneak them in the next shipment.” Robert could see the boy glancing around and held his breath, but he relaxed after another look around.
“We’ve gotta think bigger than that,” said the girl. “A bag isn’t going to give them enough food to get away.”
“Well then you should have thought of that before we hid out in the warehouse. This is what we can do right now!” the boy hissed, pulling himself up to the second shelf of the warehouse unit. “Pass me the bag.”
“I guess you have to do what you can with what you have,” the girl said. “Here.”
So they were stealing food to sneak into shipments to the 86?
“Sheesh,” Shiden remarked in his ear. “Did they really say enough food to get away? Where do they think away is?”
Robert couldn’t say it right then, but he suspected that he understood where they’d gotten the notion. According to the news, all other countries had fallen in the flames of war but San Magnolia, standing strong amidst the onslaught by the grace of their superior intellect in creating the drones. But the truth was that they had no idea which countries had survived – it was impossible to communicate without specialized equipment that had to be owned by both parties. If a young person found that out with little other context, with no history of how the 86 had been ground down and leashed to the republic by sheer promise of mutual destruction… he could see why they might think that all the 86 needed was the means to strike out and abandon San Magnolia.
The two had apparently forgotten all about the potential to be caught, and while the boy grabbed handfuls of RTE meals and handed them down to the girl, she neatly stacked them into a large duffel bag. Robert shook his head. The whole bag would feed five people for about ten days, if that. It wasn’t enough to make a dent in any one’s escape plans.
“Ok, ten more,” the girl said, crouching next to the bag, and Robert decided that it was about time to do something, if only to make sure that the two didn’t try this when someone less sympathetic was on duty.
He flicked on his flashlight, directing it right into the girl’s eyes as she looked up with a small shriek. The boy shouted, standing up and Robert could hear his head bang on to the grate above him, and he groaned, falling to his knees and pitching to the side.
The girl shouted again. “Brayden!” and darted to try and catch the boy. Robert took the remaining steps to the two at a run, caught Brayden around the shoulders, and slid him to the floor against his body as the girl looked up at him with all the decisiveness of a deer in the headlights – to run and leave Brayden here, or stay and keep her friend safe?
Good grief, it was a really good thing it was him and not someone else here tonight. Better that they hadn’t been caught. If they were this bad at sneaking in and around, how were they planning to get the meals into a shipment?
“Let him go!” the girl shouted. Her hair was in braids to either side of her face. She was wearing a cadet’s uniform, and now that he could see her more clearly, she was much younger than he’d originally thought – maybe thirteen. “You have to let him go!”
“Sweetheart, you’re trespassing. I don’t have to do shit.” He drawled. “Besides, Brayden here is nearly unconscious. He really needs to be checked for a concussion.”
“Of course he is! You dropped him! I saw it!”
Robert sighed. “Yeah, to save my back, I let him down onto the ground. Look, what’s your name?”
“I’m not telling you!” She spat, and Robert wondered what in the world her game was as he trained the flashlight on her and found a nametag.
“Reyander,” he said. “Your last name, anyway.” When she recoiled in horror, he pointed. “Taking your nametag off would help your cause.”
“Wow.” Shiden interjected. “How old are they?”
“Middle school,” Robert said as if he was musing to himself. “Twelve or thirteen.”
“Ugh,” Shiden groaned. “So they’ve got superhero syndrome.”
Reyander floundered in horror as Robert crouched and inspected Brayden. “Hey,” he said, “can you hear me, Brayden?”
There was a groan for the boy, and Robert let out a breath. It would have been really tough if he’d actually been unconscious. “Ok. Can you open your eyes so I can see if you’re concussed? I really need to know if you need the hospital.”
“You can’t take him to a hospital!” Reyander shouted, lunging forward to bat at his shoulder. Robert quickly dropped his hands from Brayden’s shoulder, loathe to jostle him. “They’re report the injury!”
“You’ve already been caught stealing from the warehouse,” Robert said evenly. “it’s a little late to be worrying about that.”
“Oh yeah?” Reyander said, and sat back on her knees. “Well, we already caught you mislabeling goods as spoiled! Bet the supply captain won’t be happy about that, now will they?” She pointed an accusing finger at him.
Shiden was still on the line, and now she was giggling like a school-girl. “I wish I could see your face right now!”
“Thanks for the support,” he grumbled to the side. To Reyander, he said, “I’m the supply captain. Those meals are spoiled by radiation from improper storage. Spoiled is different from expired – don’t you know that?”
The girl’s eyes widened. “What?” she asked. “So we stole them for nothing?”
“Don’t admit that you stole them, dimwit!” Shiden pealed with laughter from the para-RAID.
“Who were you stealing them for?” Robert asked gently, taking off his coat and rolling it up to put under Brayden’s neck. “The 86?”
“Don’t call them that!” Reyander snapped. “They’re Colorata.”
“We’re both, actually,” Shiden drawled. “She ever talked to one of us?”
Hold on. Where had a pair of middle schoolers gotten the idea to steal RTE foods from a spoiled box anyway? “Why were you stealing meals for them?” Robert asked, narrowing his eyes. “Did one of them ask you to?”
When the war first started and the 86 were still being hunted, sometimes sting operations had been run to ferret out Alba who were sympathetic to the 86 by having someone pose as an 86 on a message board or through a door. They would tell of starvation and beg the Alba for food, and when the Abla brought it, the string trap would close. Or, sometimes it would stay open, asking the Alba for more and more things, and more and more information about who else was helping the “86”.
“We won’t reveal our sources,” Reyander folded her arms and pursed her lips. “You can’t make us.”
“Nope, sure can’t,” Robert said, and leaned over Brayden to open one of his eyes. He moved the flashlight back and forth. Nothing. He sighed and sat back.
“Hey, Shiden. I gotta call Annette. Talk to you later?”
“He concussed then?” Shiden asked.
“Seems that way.”
“Why don’t you call Lena? She knows an underground doctor.”
“I’d rather keep it in-house. Can’t do much for a concussion other than rest and monitor anyway.”
“Over and out, then.”
“Who was that?” Reyander demanded.
“Why would I tell an intruder that?” Robert asked mildly. “Look, if you’re going to stay with him, could you at least be less demanding?”
“Are you going to turn us in?” she spat. “I bet your daddy would be so proud of you being a little lapdog and catching the rebels!”
“Why would my father be proud of me catching mice?” Robert asked, rolling his eyes as he called Annette over the para-RAID. Nothing.
“Why, you!” Reyander drew herself up. “You’re so disgusting! You have no idea what they’re going through out there, do you? The Colorata are starving! They need food, and medicine, and help to get away from us! Don’t you have a heart?”
Ugh. Still no answer. He knew that Lena would answer, but she would never appreciate a call from him. He’d rather not have to do it.
“Well?! Don’t you have anything to say for yourself?” Reyander demanded.
“Nope.” Robert replied, and sighed. Lena it was.
She picked up on the first ring. “What is it?”
Oh shit. He hadn’t thought about what he was going to say to her at all. What was he going to ask? How was he going to explain how this had all come about? “Major Mileze,” he started, glancing at Reyander to see her reaction. He was pleased to see her draw back and press a hand to her lips. Good, she recognized who he had called. “Good evening. I’m sorry to bother you at this late hour, but I need to request medical assistance at the warehouse and can’t get a hold of Dr. Penrose. Could you bring a doctor at your earliest convenience?”
“Carthage,” Lena said slowly, and Robert could hear the way her mind was laboring to catch up to the fact that he was calling her, requesting assistance, and was using formal language to do so. He couldn’t blame her for being confused – the situation was rather wild. “Are you in uniform?”
That was their code for are you surrounded? “Yes. There were some intruders in the warehouse, and unfortunately, one was injured in attempting to escape. However, I suspect there is some foul play, so I’d like to keep this between you and me.”
“There’s no foul play except you here, soldier boy!” Reyander shouted. “You’re starving the Colorata! Let them have their food!”
“…I see,” Lena murmured. “Do you just need back up, or a doctor?”
“He has a concussion – no contraction in the eyes.”
“Get him to something warmer than the warehouse floor then,” Lena sighed, “I’ll be there soon. If you’re able to get them secure, call me to explain what happened while I’m on the way.”
“Sure thing,” Robert said, and looked up at Reyander. “So,” he said conversationally. “This is your last chance to abandon your comrade. I’ll be taking him to a cot so he’s not chilled and concussed.”
“I don’t abandon people, unlike you people,” Reyander snarled. “You abandoned the colorata beyond the wall!”
“Ok, sure,” Robert said. It was too bad he’d needed to disconnect with Shiden. He leaned down, scooped up Brayden and adjusted him so the boy’s head was cradled against his shoulder. “Bring the duffel bag with you or dump it back in the box, will you?”
“Isn’t it supposed to be contaminated with radiation?” Reyander said. “Why would you want it with you?”
“Because it’s evidence,” Robert drawled, “Now pick it up and come on.”
It took her a moment of indecision, but Reyander finally scuttled over the duffel bag, threw the remaining meals into it, and followed him with all the fury of an indignant cat. Robert sighed. It was going to be a longer night than anticipated, and he hadn’t even gotten the full three hours of recording he’d intended to.