"Do you speak at all?" Ella asked, exasperated. She had led Drum to the exit hatch, tried and failed to find a set of coveralls to fit him, and showed him the way out the hatch and into the mouth of the Main Drain, but through it all he had remained completely silent. She was beginning to worry that he was truly stupid.
"Yes," said Drum, "I'm sorry. This is all very new to me." Ella was surprised at the high register of his voice, and at the thoughtfulness and intelligence behind it. She immediately softened towards him, but she still wasn't sure if he would be any more useful than a blunt weapon. His strength made him an asset, but if he was too timid or slow to use it properly he would be useless to her.
"Fine," she said, "You'll have more time to get used to the Sub when we return. As for the drains, they're easy enough." She explained the drain system as they walked, and aside from the odd question Drum remained quiet. They passed through the Main Junction and continued down the Ten West drain.
"So what's your Talent?" Ella asked after a particularly long stretch of uncomfortable silence. She figured it made sense for her to know what her teammate's abilities were before they ran into trouble.
"I move things," Drum said. Ella waited, but Drum failed to elaborate.
"Seems redundant," she said finally, "You look like you could move anything you wanted anyway with muscles like those."
Drum shook his head. "I mean I can move things without touching them," he said, "I just think them someplace else. It's how I got rid of my tracer." Ella nodded her understanding. She knew there was a word for that, but she couldn't think of what it was.
She expected Drum to ask her how she got out of the Dorms next. It was a common topic of conversation for escapees. But though she saw his eyes flick to the raised and discolored scar on her wrist, he said nothing. "You want to know how I got it out?" she asked. She was tired of telling the story, but at least it would be something to talk about.
"It doesn't really matter," said Drum, "When you get right down to it, there are only two ways to do it: the easy way, and the hard way." He indicated her wrist, where she had cut herself open and popped the lump of metal from where it had been wedged between her wrist bones. "And I can tell you did it the hard way."
They had reached their manhole, so Ella cut the conversation short to climb up to the street and look around. The sun was beginning to go down. They would have to hurry if they wanted to be back in the drains before the Ferrets came out.
"All clear," she said, and pushed the manhole cover to the side. She clambered nimbly onto the street. Drum followed more slowly, the ladder creaking under his weight.
When they entered the little store, Ella could see that Brat had been right. The closest stores to the Sub had long since been emptied, and ones like this, that were only a little farther away, were beginning to get picked over. Soon teams would have to venture farther and farther from the Sub to collect food, assuming the Overlords didn't discover their little base before it came to that.
Squinting in the dim light, Ella could see that there were still things worth taking. She unslung the empty backpack she had brought and began filling it with candy and cans of vegetables. Anything that had survived the fifteen-year span without rotting to nothing, the kids on the Sub would eat. None of Shade's children were picky. They had all been on the streets at one time or another, and they knew what it was like to starve.
Drum found some cans of fruit in a storage room, and he disappeared to fill his own backpack. Ella cleaned out the front of the store. When her backpack was almost full, she noticed something on a shelf near the ceiling. The other teams that had been through the store had obviously missed it, but Ella recognized the treasure right away: a case of batteries. Power was always a concern on the Sub. The grid was sporadic at best, so batteries and gasoline for the generators were priceless.
Ella began climbing. If the box had been on a set of standing shelves, she would have just tipped them over, but it was on a shelf bolted directly to the wall. By standing on the front counter, she could almost reach it. She grasped at air while grunting, frustrated.
Suddenly, she became aware of a figure below her. Drum was crouching under the shelf, cupping his hands near the ground like a step. She hadn't even heard him approach. Ella climbed down from the counter and put one foot in Drum's hands, and then he stood, effortlessly lifting her up along with him. She steadied herself against the shelf, which was now just at the height of her eyes, and grabbed the box of batteries. Drum lowered her back to the ground.
"Thanks," said Ella as she stuffed the box into her backpack. Drum returned to the storage room to clean out the last of the canned food, then rejoined her at the store front. "Not bad," said Ella, indicating their bulging packs. Hers was heavy on her slender back, but Drum's dangled ridiculously over one massive arm. It was too small to be worn normally. "We're going to have to find you some custom gear," Ella observed as they returned to the manhole.
It was lucky that there was little light coming through the manhole covers, because Ella was able to see the faint glow of Myrmidon witchlights as they neared the Main Junction.
"Damn," she said, "They sometimes stake out this area, since they know we use the drains. I thought last night's rain would have kept them away for at least a while longer. We'll have to take a detour." She turned down a side tunnel, and immediately the reassuring rush of water around her calves became a trickle that barely reached the tops of her shoes. The tunnel was dry.
Drum scooted around Ella to stand in front. "I'll lead," he said. He didn't mention that Ferrets might be sleeping up ahead, or that he had more blood to lose if he happened to get attacked, or that his body would be big enough to block most of the drain if he fell, giving Ella a chance to escape.
He said nothing, but all these things raced through Ella's mind before she said, "Fine. Do you know the way?"
Drum nodded. "It's a grid. We'll take the next side tunnel to try to get back to a wetter drain that runs west, then link back up with the Main Drain after the Junction." Ella hid her surprise. She had thought that Drum hadn't been listening when she gave him her lecture about the layout of the drains. She made a mental note that his silence didn't mean he wasn't paying attention.
Despite Ella's fears, the drains were empty, and they were soon back in the Main Drain with water up to their knees. Ella felt giddy with relief and pride as she and Drum crawled back through the torpedo tube into the safety of the sub's innards. She quickly changed into a dry robe, only to turn around and see Drum still in his filthy, soaking street clothes. She would have to remind Shade to get the poor boy some coveralls and a robe in his size.
"Leave the packs here," she said, "Shade will send someone to pick them up. We have to go make our report before we're done." In a moment of caprice, she opened her backpack a bit and snatched a chocolate bar out of it before making her way to see Shade.
As they approached the hatch to the briefing room, Ella could tell something was wrong. A hysterical voice, alternating between crying and shouting, could be heard even through the thick steel wall. Ella would have waited outside for Shade to handle the problem if she hadn't recognized the voice within. It belonged to Corbie, her former teammate.
Forgetting procedure, she barged into the room in time to hear Corbie shouting at Shade's stoic hologram, "…even if we had completed it! It was a pointless mission and you still rated it higher than our lives! This is your fault, you bastard! You don't even care, do you? Look at you sitting there, putting on airs, while it's us who are fighting and dying…"
Corbie noticed Ella. His young face, when he turned it towards her, was almost unrecognizable under layers of rage and sorrow.
"Ella! Ella," he sobbed, "They took him. Brat's gone."