by Jo Schneider
Wendy looked at the Council. “When I left, I went back to the Den. There I found the map that Pelton was looking for. Maybe it’s the reason this Primate attacked in the first place.”
The man with the loud shirt leaned forward. Gwen frowned.
“Mike has it now. It shows the locations of the military complexes in the area, along with supply lines and secret tunnels through the mountains. No one here knows how to read it. But I do.”
Mike’s eyes narrowed.
“I’m grateful to the people of Shelter for saving me, and I’m willing to repay the kindness.” Wendy took a moment to meet each of the Council member’s eyes. The two men at the end watched her with raised eyebrows. Gwen remained stoic. Giraffe-woman pursed her lips. Mike continued to glare.
Wendy went on. “I’m willing to help you translate the map, which will undoubtedly allow your scavengers to find supplies you need for not only the people here but also the facility itself.” She took a breath. “In return, I want two things.” She held up a finger. “First, I’m free. No more cells. Second, the charges that Dennis has brought against me get dropped.”
Dennis shot to his feet. “What the hell?”
A murmur ran through the group.
Wendy raised her voice so it could be heard above the din. “Or, alternately, you let me press charges against him for what he did to me. And he stays away from me.”
Gwen had to pound her mallet half a dozen times to get silence. She kept her icy stare on Wendy. “You tried to kill Dennis.”
“No, if I’d been trying to kill him, he would be dead.”
“You left a shocking machine on him.”
“And how did I magically end up with it?” Wendy held her ground.
The man with the loud shirt cleared his throat. “Gwen, this is an important opportunity. I’ve seen the map that Wendy is talking about, and it is in a code that no one has seen.” He glanced at Wendy. “If she can translate it, it would be invaluable.”
Wendy played her last card. “One of you should be with Mike, Riggs and I when we go through it. That way there is no secrecy. Everyone knows what’s going on.”
Maudie silently snickered.
Wendy hoped that she’d sufficiently put everyone in a corner.
“You feel that you should simply be free to go anywhere and do anything you want?” Gwen asked.
“I’ll take whatever punishment you give me, as long as Dennis gets the same treatment.”
The man in the loud shirt leaned forward. “I suggest we simply say that each of you must be accompanied by another trainee or fighter when you’re out of your rooms. At least until we can come to a mutual agreement on the subject.” He straightened up. “Those in favor?”
All hands but Gwen’s went up.
“It’s decided,” Mike said.
Wendy wondered if she’d just made enemies or alliances. Or both.
Probably both.
Chapter 6
Wendy took six steps, came to the wall, turned all the way around and started walking again.
“Will you relax?” Arie said. The other girl was sprawled across her bed, going through a huge pile of papers. Her spiky blond hair hadn’t been combed yet.
“No.”
Wendy could feel the look of irritation Arie shot at her.
“Why are you so anxious?”
After the trial the morning before, the guards had deposited Wendy in the room she shared with Arie. Wendy had never been happier to see the simple space. She’d agreed to stay in the room unless someone was with her, and Arie had volunteered to watch Wendy when she was there. A job which Arie was probably now regretting.
“I told you, I’m meeting with Mike to translate the map.”
“Yeah, and? Why is that making you so twitchy? Oh, let’s not forget the part where you ruined his plan.”
Wendy stopped and chewed on her lip before she sat down on her own bed. “I still don’t entirely trust Mike.”
Arie snorted. “You’re not the only one.”
“You have a problem with Mike?” Wendy asked.
“Me? No. But Maudie has told me all sorts of juicy tidbits about how the Council would oust him if they could.”
“Why can’t they?”
“He found this place. He still knows things about it that no one else knows except maybe Riggs. Everyone is here under his protection. Hard to kick him off the Council.”
“Do you think he should be off?”
“No way. Hank is pretty good about the security stuff, but the others are clueless. They’ve forgotten what it’s like to be outside. People like you scare them to death.”
“Good.” She rubbed her hands together and checked the clock again. Still early.
“Is someone picking you up?”
“Jeff.”
Arie sat up. “Oh, really?”
“Yes.”
“Is he your keeper when you’re not here?”
“I don’t know.”
A smirk twitched on Arie’s lips.
“What?”
Arie shook her head. “Nothing.”
Wendy stood, and started pacing again. “What are you working on?”
“More files for the Council. Maudie is really happy to have help organizing things.”
“And you’re more than happy to have an in with the Council.”
“Someone has to keep an eye on them.”
“Better you than me.”
“Obviously.”
A knock sounded at the door. Wendy stopped in her tracks. The irony of Jeff picking her up to start a new chapter in her life wasn’t lost on her. He’d escorted her to her first meeting with the trainees. Now he would take her to meet with Mike, where her revenge against Pelton would begin.
“You should get that,” Arie said as she flopped back down on the bed.
Wendy took the three steps to the door and opened it.
Jeff stood outside wearing his usual mustard colored jacket, purple shirt and jeans. His dark hair could use a cut. His eyes brightened when he saw her.
“Hey,” he said.
“Hey.”
“Ready?”
“Yeah. Do I need anything?”
“I don’t think so.”
Wendy could hear the same conversation from months before in her mind.
“Then let’s go.”
Wendy turned and waved at Arie, who was pretending not to watch. “See you tonight.”
“Bye guys, have fun.” Arie waved a hand, but didn’t look up.
Jeff moved so Wendy could tug her door closed. He stepped back and waited for her to walk.
“How are you?” Jeff asked.
They headed down the hall, slipping past other groups of people and dodging joggers.
“Better now that I’m not locked in that cell.”
“I bet.” He sent a sidelong glance at her. “Any flashes since you got out?”
“No.” Which was true, but it had only been a day.
“Good. Hopefully being free will help.”
“Hopefully.”
They made their way through the mess hall and toward the combat rooms. But instead of going down all of the stairs, they turned toward the hangar. She barely remembered walking through here after the fight with Pelton. They passed the door to the hangar.
“There are a lot of fighters down here,” Wendy said.
“They mostly hang out here,” Jeff said. “That’s why you don’t see them as much during the day.”
“What do they do?”
“Anything and everything that needs to get done. This is the hangar, but you know that.” Jeff pointed to a door quite a distance down the hall. “That’s the machine shop. If you can’t find Matt in medical, that’s where he’s hiding. He’ll take anything apart and try to put it back together again.”
“Does it work?” Wendy made a mental note about the door.
“Sometimes. I try not to get involved. Better to be on the mechanic’s good side.”
�
�Good to know.”
Jeff pointed and they turned left down another hallway. “The generators are through there. The power here is geothermal. If you’re not an engineer then you probably won’t understand it. Trust me. Anyway, somehow it keeps the batteries to the transports fresh and charged.”
Wendy thought about what Arie had said. “How did Mike find this place?”
“I have no idea.”
“Have you asked him?”
“Yep. He says he, Riggs and Doc stumbled onto it by accident. He won’t say anything more. We’ve all tried.”
Wendy’s ire once again rose against Mike. Keeping so many secrets. Manipulating the Council. Why didn’t he just take the place over? Why lead from the shadows?
“Here we are,” Jeff said as he stopped.
Before them stood a bright blue door. Jeff knocked twice.
“Come in,” a deep voice said from the room beyond.
Jeff opened the door, and the two of them stepped inside.
Four tables buried under papers and other clutter took up about half of the room. The middle of the space stood open, and there were a lot of folding chairs piled on one wall. A white board covered in diagrams and writing covered another wall. The content looked like a plan of some sort. A map and directions to a specific destination. Opposite that there was an old, wooden desk.
Mike and Riggs stood near the board, talking and pointing.
Mike waved them in and over. “Grab a chair. Have a seat.”
Both men wore dark cargo pants and lighter shirts. Riggs wore a brown leather vest over his shirt.
Jeff led Wendy to the chairs, where he grabbed two and dragged them out. Riggs did the same with three more chairs, and a moment later they were all seated in a little circle around the end of a table where the papers were only a few thick.
A cold chill came from Mike’s eyes as he looked at Wendy. “Should we wait for Hank?”
Another knock sounded. The door opened before Wendy had to answer.
“Anybody in here?” The man from the Council, the one who wore the loud shirt, stuck his head in.
“Come on in, Hank,” Mike said in a cool voice.
If Hank noticed the tone, he ignored it. His dark, curly hair was wet and had been tamed, but Wendy suspected it could pop out to an impressive diameter at any moment. He’d also toned down his shirt. Instead of bright orange, today he wore a button down with a light blue background and large, purple flowers.
“Seriously, where do you find those shirts?” Riggs asked.
Hank rubbed his hands over his small belly as he sat. “They flock to me.”
“Uh-huh.”
“So, where’s this map?” Hank asked.
Riggs pulled the map out of his vest pocket and set it on the table.
Wendy shivered, remembering the sound of it tearing in half when Pelton had fled.
Riggs unfolded it and spread it out.
“We’re missing half of it,” Hank said.
“Pelton got away with it,” Mike said.
“The guy that betrayed you?” Hank asked Wendy.
“That’s right,” Wendy kept her voice even.
Riggs unfolded it and spread it out on the table.
Wendy’s eyes flowed over the map. She’d only seen it a few times before, but her dad had told her enough that she should be able to figure out some of what it meant.
The map looked like none other she’d ever seen. Most maps resembled the world as if you were looking down from a great height. Instead of an easily recognizable view, this map was covered with strange symbols and trails that led to nowhere and back again. There were no recognizable landmarks.
The blue background looked like water, but Wendy knew better. Tracks of arrows crisscrossed the paper and dove off the ripped edge. More than a dozen small white dots sat innocuously in the blue—paths led only too or away from them, but not both. Four larger white squares sat along the path of the arrows. These were surrounded by tiny circles and triangles mixed together. Not one of the squares had the same set of symbols. One entire area had been crossed out in thick black lines. Three small dots with a ring around the configuration were located in even more remote sections of the blue. Two triangles, the largest symbols on the map, stared back at her from the edges. If she remembered right, there was another on the missing section.
Dashes and slashes—depending on where you were sitting—blazed through and around dots. A single red dot had been drawn near the upper left hand corner.
“That’s the Den,” Wendy said, pointing.
“We figured that,” Riggs said.
Hank leaned forward. “What does any of it mean? I’ve never seen a map like this.” He looked at Riggs for help.
“I know some of the military codes, but this is foreign to me. Must be top secret government, not just military.”
All eyes turned to Wendy. She dropped her gaze to the paper. “See that dashed line going through the Den?”
They all followed her gesture. “It’s a submerged river.” Wendy glanced at each of the men in turn. “I know because this one was part of our escape plan. The tunnels are big. My sister and I once found a huge barrel that had been broken open. It was full of supplies. My guess is that the rivers were used to ferry goods back and forth.”
“Have you ever been through one of the tunnels?” Riggs asked.
“Once. It was dark. We didn’t bring a light, so I have no idea what it’s like inside. We didn’t die, but our little boat bumped the walls a lot. My dad said that if we had to evacuate the Den in the spring that we shouldn’t use the boats. The water might be too high.”
Riggs looked at Mike. “Secret shipping tunnels. Smart.”
“Very.”
Wendy’s finger traced the dashed path to the next dot. “My dad said that these little dots are outposts and supply centers.” She indicated a slash across the path. “But this little symbol right here means that this tunnel goes to a different part of the map.” She looked at what they had and pointed to spots that had the same little symbol. “I see three places it could go; there are more on the part we don’t have.”
Mike leaned in. “So this map is mixed up?”
“Yes.”
“The key would have been on the bottom part of the map,” Mike said, pointing to the missing section. “We don’t know what anything means. We can speculate, but it would really help us to know for sure.”
“There isn’t a key,” Wendy said. “My dad must have torn it off long ago, because the bottom corner has always been missing.”
“Did you ever see it?”
“No, but I listened when my dad talked.” Wendy leaned over. A nostalgic moment, something that didn’t strike her very often, caused her heart to quicken. Her dad had been so careful about the map. He would have been furious if he’d known Wendy not only knew where it was, but that she’d stolen a few glances of it.
“The small white dots are supply depots, like I said. At least that’s what he called them. Pelton and my dad found a few of them, and they always came back with supplies.”
“But you don’t know how to get to them?” Mike asked, frustration rising in his voice.
Wendy took a breath. “Only a few. As far as I know, this is the only path that they’d worked out before the Den fell.” Wendy pointed. “This is the Den, and this tunnel actually goes over here to this tunnel and this little supply spot.” The route took them through the section that was crossed off.”
“How do you know?”
“Because, Pelton and my dad found a completely demolished compound here. Pelton said it was advanced, but it had been blown to pieces.”
Riggs and Mike glanced at one another. “The Base,” Riggs said.
“Probably.”
They both turned to Wendy.
“After that they figured out the underground river went here, then through here and then out to the plains.”
As Wendy traced the path, she realized something. “It’s like they cut this
map into pieces then put it back together in a different order.”
“Seems like it,” Mike said.
“It took them a long time to work it out. My dad didn’t tell anyone much about what he was looking for or why he would send them in these crazy directions, but I think he was searching for these.” Wendy pointed at the small dots with rings around them.
“Do you know what he thought they were?”
“Safe places. My guess is that Shelter is one of these.”
“Why do you say that?” Hank asked.
“The circle around them. Pelton once mentioned a shield, and my dad was very interested. He sent people out looking the very next day.”
“What about the triangles?” Jeff asked.
“I have no idea what they are,” Wendy said.
Riggs grunted. “So Pelton knows about these places?”
“Probably, he’s smarter than I am, and he spent more time out and exploring.”
“Can he read the map?” Mike asked.
“To some extent, but I know my dad only showed it to him a few times.” Wendy smoothed out the crinkled paper.
Jeff pointed to the area that led to the plains. “Wendy, do you know if there’s a crossroads here? With regular roads?”
Wendy raised her eyebrows. “Actually, yeah. There is. Pelton told me about it.”
Jeff squinted, thinking. “There are only two crossroads out of these mountains. I never noticed anything more than normal roads near the one I’m thinking of. It’s a death trap now.”
Wendy cocked her head to the side. “You’re from there?”
“I spent some time in the area. Unfortunately.”
“What else?” Mike asked.
“My dad put the Den in a dead zone, or so he called it. No roads, no dotted lines and access to only one of the tunnel escape routes.”
“Sounds like he knew a little something about the area,” Riggs said.
“Yeah, he did.” Too bad she’d never asked him more about it. They’d been too busy trying to stay alive.
“Those are medical symbols,” Hank said, pointing to the symbols surrounding one of the triangles.
“We might need to go back to the Den and follow this river,” Mike said.
Riggs nodded. “If we can find enough pieces of the puzzle that we know, then it won’t be too hard to put the rest together.” He looked at Wendy. “Do you know if this is to scale?”