Chapter 44
Atom and his team were sent back through the tunnels with several bags of food. The Commander took Tomac and several others and rode toward the old roundabout and then southeast towards the old whitehouse. When they reached the area they thought it was at, they heard a soft whistle. It was not one of their signal whistles and it was not a whistle of someone wandering about. They stopped and looked around. They moved on cautiously.
Miller was up a tree, he was the only sentry out right now because they had spotted the mountain men. He had sent the rest into the bunker and he himself had climbed a tree about thirty meters from the hatch. He watched as the Commander's group passed underneath him. He had to get their attention, so he cut a small green twig off the branch so it wouldn't snap. He threw the twig at one of the group. The man stopped and looked up. Miller put his finger to his lips and motioned them to get off their horses and keep low.
They got off the horses and Miller mimed for the horses to be taken round the back of a small hill and for the rest to get low to the ground. They complied, but the Commander sent one of the younger men up the same tree to see why Miller was telling them to be cautious.
Artigas went round the back of the tree and climbed up. When he got there, Miller pointed out towards the mountain men looking for them, He then held up three fingers. Artigas nodded and used hand signals to tell the Commander what was going on. Lexa nodded and motioned for Tomac to move behind them and watch them. After a while, they could hear the maunon talking about leaving the area as they needed more air and couldn't find the kids. The mountain men moved off and the Commander started to rise. Miller motioned for her to stay down. He whispered into Artigas's ear.
"They leave one behind in case we're hiding and come out thinking they're gone. We need to wait them out." Artigas signalled the message and the Commander got back down. Miller and Artigas watched as the last mountain man radioed that no-one was in the area and he was on the way back to the vehicle. Once Miller heard the vehicle moving off, he climbed down the tree. He was still using gestures and keeping low. He moved to the Commander's side and pointed to the vegetation beside her. She turned to look at it and saw that the plants were lifting up. She watched as the hatch opened and Adara popped her head out.
"Welcome, Commander," she said, "come on down. It's safer in here." Adara climbed back down and waited until the Commander had as well. She moved down the corridor a short way as the rest of the Trikru came down too.
"Welcome to our base, Commander," Adara said, sweeping her hand at the empty corridor. The Commander looked around and thought there wasn't much to the place except there were very few Skaikru about. Adara motioned for her to follow. She led the Commander to the conference room that overlooked the atrium as the kids had named it. She stood aside and motioned towards the window. The Commander walked over and stopped suddenly in surprise. She looked down upon seven levels and watched in awe as she saw the Skaikru walking around all the floors. She watched as they seemed to be working. Some of them were cleaning, some of them were trying to repair broken railings and other parts. What she didn't see was anyone standing around gossiping.
Lexa looked back at Adara and then back to the scene in front of her as Adara came to her side.
"I hope you'll let us stay here for the time being, Commander. Here, we are safe from the mountain men. I have them working to make this place a home. We know we are still in Trikru territory and that we are still hunting in your woods, but at the moment, our safety is more important to us." The Commander nodded. They were underground and while she, herself, hated the thought of living underground, she knew that the Skaikru were used to living like this and if this place protected them from the maunon, so much the better.
"I would like to see more of this place."
"I can arrange that, Commander. Perhaps you would like to be shown around by our ambassador, Clarke?" Lexa smirked.
"Yes, that would be acceptable."
Adara left the room to find Clarke.
"Clarke," she said when she found her in one of the lounges going over rosters with Jill. Clarke looked up. "The Commander is here, She would like a tour of the bunker. I thought you, as our ambassador, would like to show her around."
"Lexa's here?" Clarke asked with a hitch in her voice.
"Yes. How about it?"
"Yes, definitely." Clarke smiled broadly.
"As you show her around, show her everything. I want her to see our people working to make this place somewhere we can call home until the mountain men are dealt with."
"Yes, I think it would be good to see us at work. She never really saw us do that at Arkadia," Clarke said and then realised that Jill didn't remember the first time. Adara and Clarke moved out into the corridor.
"She's in the conference room on the first level. Go," she said, shooing Clarke in front of her.
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Clarke showed the Commander everything from the first floor to the bottom level with the secret tunnel to the Metro platform. She showed her the medbay, kitchens, bathrooms, dormitories and even some of the storerooms. Everywhere they went, kids were working. Cleaning, inventory, training, reading up on medical books, engineering books, or in Monty's case, searching through an ancient database for anything to do with schematics. The Commander marveled at the ancient technology being put to use for the first time in nearly a hundred years. She saw that the kids were serious about the learning too. It seemed as if the leaders had made excellent choices on how to do things.
Clarke explained how the leadership was set up, who was in charge of which part, how people would do different things based on need and abilities, not on age as it had been done on the Ark. The hundred were determined to make something of themselves and were making sure that they had the required skills to do it. The hundred knew it wouldn't be easy, but they also knew that this was their chance to prove that they were more than just useless kids because of their age. The Commander saw hard working people and smiled. Adara was an excellent leader.
A couple of hours later as they were nearing the end of the tour, Clarke asked the Commander if she was hungry, The Commander nodded and she was shown to the kitchens and then the mess hall where food was being served. Several of her people were already there enjoying a meal. Lexa looked up when she was getting her food and, through the back of the kitchen, she could see Adara elbow deep in a sink scrubbing dishes!
"What…", said Lexa, looking at Clarke in puzzlement.
"Everyone, without exception, does a turn at the jobs no-one wants to do - even the leaders. It's Adara's turn today for kitchen duty."
"But scrubbing dishes?"
"She prefers scrubbing dishes to constantly chopping up whatever the foraging and hunting crews return with. Her choice," Clarke said with a shrug.
The Commander smiled. A leader who was showing her people that even she has to do the dirty jobs meant that the others couldn't complain that they didn't want to do it. Lexa knew that if the tables were turned, she would have made sure that someone else did that job. She shook her head wryly and picked up her plate and followed Clarke to one of the tables.
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After the tour was over, Lexa and her group were gathered at the hatch. Lexa looked at Adara's hands to see they were a bit red from all that scrubbing.
"What are you going to do next?" she asked Adara.
"In what sense, Commander?"
"Once you have everything here as you want it, what are you going to do next?"
"Well, I want Clarke, Octavia and Monty to get together and try to draw maps of the inside of the mountain and the tunnels as best they can remember. We'll need them when we take the mountain."
"You want to take down the mountain?" asked Lexa, astonished.
"With your help, yes. We won't be safe until we do, Commander. More and more of your people will disappear, too. We need to neutralise the threat."
"How?"
"I don't know yet, I'm waiting to see what those three come up with. There may be a way inside that we don't know about. I've only heard about the main door and the reaper tunnels, so far, so I don't know the best way to get inside."
"When will they be drawing these maps?"
"Probably in a few days, everything here is starting to settle down. I think a little party to help people unwind would be good first. Show them that I appreciate all their hard work and effort."
"Time off for good behaviour?" Lexa smirked. "Clarke taught me that one, last time around." Adara smiled.
"Something like that," she said, reciprocating the smile. Just then, Miller popped his head into the hatch, giving the all clear.
The Commander and her people climbed up the hatch and were on their way back to Tondc. She would wait for Adara to complete those maps and then together, they would make a plan to destroy that despised place, once and for all!
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The party went ahead with some sentries partying the next day. Monty and Jasper had been brewing their moonshine in the hydroponics lab where Jasper worked. He decided not to be the head of hydroponics, but he leant his acumen to the leader of his team, Spencer. Jasper knew that he wasn't really a leader, he just didn't have the drive to keep people doing their jobs or deciding what to do. He was more than happy to be one of the team - as long as he could still brew moonshine.
Adara told them that no-one was to get absolutely drunk. She still wanted them to work the next day as it would be unfair to those on duty to do all the work of their drunk friends and colleagues.
Octavia had set some snares the night before and quickly went to get any captured animals just before dawn. They had hunted a deer and a panther the day before along with a lot of nuts and berries and some summer greens.
Raven had found an old CD player in one of the lounge cupboards and had repaired it. They decided to have the party on the bottom floor, so that any music or noise wouldn't be heard outside. Now was not the time to get complacent about the mountain men and the threat they posed.
Two of the boys, one of the hunters and one of Atom's explorers snuck more of the moonshine and went off and got absolutely drunk. They were so drunk, they couldn't even stand up. When Murphy found them, they were on the floor of one of the storerooms, giggling. He had to get two of his people to carry them to the infirmary and stay with them until he could find Clarke and Adara.
Adara took one look at them and ordered Clarke to sober them up any way she could and then told Murphy to find the jobs they hated the most and make sure they were on the rosters for those jobs for the next two weeks. This was to be done AFTER their usual work shift.
When both boys were sober, they regretted their decision. Adara informed them that next time they had a party, the boys would not be invited and they would not be given any booze in the near future as they had proved that they were irresponsible with it. Both boys knew then that Adara was serious about punishing bad behaviour. They went to work and their team leaders either gave them crap jobs or in the case of Atom's kid, left them behind doing any menial task that the kitchen staff needed done. The boys soon realised that if they didn't want to be permanently on scut duty, they needed to learn responsibility. They buckled down after that. Clarke, Murphy and Adara were pleased. An example for the rest of them.