Riley locks the door behind her and turns to the group sitting around the table. The basement is dark and dank, but it's their glorious command centre, a secret place known to Marlene, herself and the twelve strained faces all looking at her with a mixture of desperation and annoyance. She knows what they're thinking. It's going to take a lot to remind this bunch that deep down, she's a Bostonian like the rest of them. That's she's a Firefly like the rest of them. She knows why they're on edge and more so why they're all pissed. She wants to crack a joke and ease the tension but given the looks on their mugs, she doesn't think they'll appreciate her finding anything even remotely funny right now.
"What's our damage?" she asks, taking a seat.
Fitz sighs and leans back in his chair before telling them.
"Seven dead," he tells them, voice low and weary. He pushes forward a ledger opened to a page with names and numbers with red lines running through them. "Six new recruits, one seasoned. It could've been carelessness; they were off the designated safe route. Wandered straight into a patrol outside the zone. Word is they engaged and our side took all the losses. They weren't well equipped or properly trained to deal with soldiers."
"Why is that?" she presses.
"We got fucked by Robert, our ex-dealer," Chen explains. "He started charging five times the amount we had agreed to. The group had few arms and limited ammo, and we didn't have the resources to give them much tactical training beforehand. Clifton thought Rhode Island would've been a better place for proper training."
There are far too many problems in that one statement than she's ready to deal with, so she opts to talk about the simplest one.
"If our old supplier is shafting us in the ass, why aren't we trading with any of the other dealers?" Riley asks him.
"Let's just say those guys and their lives had really bad breakups," he tells her, smirking. "Most big dealerships have scattered, there's no real establishment left any more. Robert more or less is running a monopoly in the black market. We take what we can get from the most reliable sources, and those happen to be the smugglers right now. And that leads me to our scheduled weapon drop."
"What about it?"
"Our new suppliers will be coming back into the city sometime next week with firearms. Robert fucked them over too, so they're getting stuff from the outside. The shipment should be adequate for about ten people, at least that's the arrangement," he tells her. "They want you to come along to seal the deal."
"What for?"
"All of Boston's underbelly knows that Clifton's dead. Tess said she wanted to meet with our new head before she does any further business with us. She's particular like that."
"They trustworthy?" she asks him.
"The enemy of my enemy," Chen answers, a grin on his face. "Marlene used to deal with them off and on, but with other materials. The last thing Clifton managed to do was convince them to let us in their arms deal. Tess's good for it. A formal meeting's just precaution."
"When's the drop?"
"Should be in four days."
"All right, Chen, Margot and her team will go with us," Riley instructs them. Now on to the next issue. "The escort team, any word from them?"
"None," offers Michael, the main liaison between all the Massachusetts zones. "I'm wagering either they saw that nobody showed up and are on their way back to Rhode Island… or they're dead too."
Riley digests this information.
"All right, I'll need a map showing all the safe routes. Those need to be double-checked. There had to be a reason why the group strayed. When was the last time the routes had clearance?"
Charlotte speaks up, producing a tattered map of the city. She spreads it on the table and everyone leans in a little closer for a clearer view. It's covered in pen markings. Charlotte points to each one of the routes as she explains.
"Out of the ten paths, we know that two have fallen under military watch. About three have had reports of Fireflies having to deal with infected so they're not entirely safe anymore. We've used these two interchangeably over the last year. The rest haven't been checked in about six months."
"Six months? Why?"
"It just doesn't make sense to use them. They're too out of the way. It adds about three or four hours extra to the journey," Louis joins in.
Louis was previously in line to be the next head of the Boston Fireflies. He's not entirely pleased with Riley's presence and she can sense it. If anyone has to outrank him or replace a leader, it should be one of the twelve. But whatever Marlene says goes. Louis seems to have accepted it quietly, not challenging her openly like Chen or Diana have earlier in the week.
"That's poor reasoning not to use those routes," Riley tells them all flatly.
"Three or four hours longer mean the world of a difference when you're hustling out of the city," Louis explains.
"You're right about that. But I think keeping our people alive for three or four hours longer is way better than taking clearly dangerous and compromised routes. Even if they are shorter. We need to establish scout groups to determine the safety of the three unchecked routes. The ones being manned by the military – cross those off the list entirely. We're down to eight routes, of which I'm told three have infected? We'll need more intel on that before we decide what to do about those."
"It's not like it's easy for us to go out and check these things!" Diana argues. "We could lose good people putting them at risk just to waste time and effort doing this. I say we stick to the routes we're used to. This one group strayed. All of us shouldn't be put on a chopping block for it."
"It's not going to be any easier for our cause if all our new recruits get slaughtered before they make it off the farm, either," Riley counters, trying not to raise her voice. "We need this to be secure. We don't have the luxury to lose any of our numbers. It'll be hard work, but it has to be done. I think it's wiser to have two trained Fireflies go out scouting for safe passage than to lose six inexperienced ones on a bad route. We're a dying species, and you need to remember that."
The room becomes quiet until someone clears their throat. They continue the meeting, Riley notices, more subdued than at the beginning. The tension is less palpable. Perhaps they're all exhausted. They agree to break until the next meeting which is in a fortnight.
They never all leave at once nor do they take the same exit out of the building. Every thirty minutes, four of them leave. Riley agrees to go with the last group, which leaves her with Chen, Abby and Louis. Chen and Abby make small talk with Louis and Riley busies herself by pouring over a copy of the city map. She knows this place well enough to get around major parts of it, but if they need newer or safer exits, she has to know it like she knows every bullet wound or bruise she's ever gotten.
"All right, we can leave. Till the next time," Louis tells them. He comes close and pats Riley on the shoulder. "Welcome to Boston."