Extra long one today. I made one long chapter from two short ones. Enjoy, Samdagger.

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Chapter 45

A few days later, Lisa Warren was picking the lock on a door on the lowest level. This door had stumped everyone for the past two days. Normal lock picking techniques were not working. Lisa had decided to give it one more go before Murphy got some of the bigger boys to kick the door open if need be. She looked at the lock and pulled out one of the forks from the kitchen that had a broken handle. She fiddled with the lock, trying to get a fork tine into it. She pushed it in and jiggled it about. She tried for several minutes before she heard it click. She stopped and gently pulled on the lock and watched as the arm came out of the lock. She'd done it! She quickly took the lock off the door and pulled back the latch, then opened the door. The door opened onto a dark room. She stepped in and the lights came on. She let out a sharp breath in surprise. There were row upon row upon row of shelving - no, not shelving, bookcases! - filled with plastic wrapped books. A library! Lisa spun around and closed the door and took off running to find Adara.

She found her looking over some plants that the hydroponics had started growing from some seeds they had found.

"Adara!" Lisa called, running up to her. "You've got to see what I've found in one of those locked rooms!" She was excited to show Adara her find.

"What did you find, Lisa," Adara asked with curiosity at Lisa's excitement.

"Come see!" she said, pulling Adara's arm to get her to follow.

"Okay, okay, I'm coming." Adara followed Lisa as she practically danced down the corridor and down the stairs. When they came to the room, Lisa put her hand on the doorknob and when Adara was standing in front of the door, she pushed it open. Adara peered into the darkness then took a step inside. When the lights came on, she saw the most astonishing sight. A huge room filled floor to ceiling with bookshelves all filled with books! She slowly walked towards one of them and reverently gently ran her fingers across the spines of the books on one row. She turned to Lisa, too stunned to speak.

"Well, was it a good surprise?"

When Adara turned around, Lisa was shocked to see tears in her eyes. Adara just nodded and gave Lisa a huge bone crushing hug.

"Thank you, thank you, thank you." Adara whispered in Lisa's ear. Adara pulled back. "You don't know what this means to me. I was taught to respect books because books meant knowledge. They were for learning to be a better person. It was something passed down each generation. Way back in the 2000's, we were poor but my great, great, whatever grandmother knew that she wanted better for her kids. She told them to go to the library and learn what they could. Each generation became better educated than the last. They got better paid jobs and sent their kids to university until the nuclear war. By then my great great grandmother was already on the British Station as one of the engineers. She took books up with her to learn things she didn't know about - including water reclamation in space. Because of my family's ethos of bettering yourself, we have come to respect books. Finding this - it's a miracle, that's all I can say about it. A miracle," Adara said, the last bit was said in wonder.

Lisa didn't know what to say. She knew that Adara respected books and learning, but hearing this was in some ways an insight into the reason Adara became leader. She wanted her people to do better than the last generation did. Become who you want to be instead of whoever your parents were as was the Ark's way of doing things. The Ark's council didn't really let you choose what you wanted to do and you followed in your parents footsteps. Oh, there were exceptions, like Monty, but they were very rare. The Ark didn't encourage learning anything other than what station you were born into. If your parents were workers in Farm Station, then you became a worker in Farm Station. Adara saw past that and would let her people learn what they wanted to, become who they wanted to. Adara was giving them a chance to be someone they all could be proud of.

Lisa knew this because she herself wanted to learn things her parents didn't know about. It wasn't a case of wanting to learn how to grow food in space, it was about learning to grow food anywhere. If it didn't pertain to the Ark, then it was considered wasted time. You were only allowed to learn about farming in space. Lisa had watched her parents grow weary with apathy about their jobs and their prospects, so they had made sure that Lisa had studied what she wanted to. They had wanted Lisa to find a job that she would like. Not just on Farm Station doing the same things they were doing. Lisa loved her parents for that. Now she had the opportunity to study whatever she wanted. She was looking forward to it.

"We need to make sure that this library is available to all of us, but we also need someone to run it and it'll be run like a real library with people needing to bring back the books they borrowed. I want a log made of each book taken, who took it, when they took it, and when they should return it," Adara stated to Lisa.

"Can I do that?" asked Lisa.

"You want to be a librarian?"

"No, well, yes… I want to learn stuff and I want to make sure that the books are respected. I was taught that books were for learning too. It really pissed me off when I would get a book and someone had used it as a coaster and there were ring marks on the book or when someone had bent the spine back or even turned down one corner of a page to mark their place! That really pissed me off!" said Lisa with fervour.

Adara smiled. Someone with the same respect for books that she had.

"Okay. Which team are you on?" Adara asked, not remembering where she was supposed to be.

"Octavia's team." Lisa hesitated. "But I think I'd prefer the books to hunting. I don't like killing the animals, I go with the foragers."

"What were you doing here, when you found the library?"

"Oh, I'm a lockpicker, so I came to pick this lock because it's had most of us lockpickers stumped. I was having one last try before Murphy kicked the door in."

"Yeah, Murphy likes doing that." Murphy had kicked in several doors now and he seemed to enjoy it immensely.

"I'll talk to Octavia about it first. If it's okay with her, then you can be the head librarian. We'll see what happens then talk about it some more, okay?"

"Yeah," Lisa replied. "I'm good with that," she said, looking around. "I hope I get it, I can't wait to start."

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Adara had gotten Clarke, Octavia and Monty to recreate the mountain layout and the reaper tunnels as best they could. When they had finished, Clarke made a copy for Lexa. Adara sent Clarke off with Atom's group to Tondc through the tunnels. They were also taking the furs they had collected along with two of the girls who said they wanted to learn how to make the pelts into furs and clothing.

The next day, Adara was reading about personnel management from one of the library books. She had made a note of the book she had taken, her name, and when she took it and when she would return it. Lisa would need it when she started her new job. She'd just started the second chapter when she heard:

"Adara Toril to the Command Centre, Adara Toril to the command centre immediately, please!" It was Monty's voice coming over a bunker wide communications network. She marked her page with a piece of paper and ran to the command centre.

"What you got," she asked, out of breath.

"I've hacked into the mainframe computer. There's a lot of confidential stuff in there, mostly presidential stuff, but I've found that they also have a secret communication panel that's used to find out what's going on at various military bases around the country - including Mount Weather!"

"What!" yelled Adara, unable to keep her voice from rising. She hurried over to look over Monty's shoulder. "Show me!" she barked. Monty pulled up the surveillance cameras that were inside the mountain.

"Can they see us? Do they know we can see inside the mountain?" asked Adara.

"No and no," said Monty. "This was considered state of the art at the time and according to the bumph I've read about it, only this facility had this level of sophistication. This facility was the presidential bunker and he wanted to be able to speak and access any base in the country. He was spying on them!"

"On Mount Weather?"

"No, on all of them. I've found out that the last president didn't trust people. He was a bit of a martinet when it came to matters of security, so he had this installed here so he could secretly spy on them. We can see what's going on inside the mountain, Adara! We can read whatever they put into their computers and they don't even realise it! You know what this means?"

"Yeah, it means that we have the upper hand now. We can call the shots from here. Have you read everything about this system? About what you can do with it?"

"No, not yet," said Monty.

"That's your first priority. Read what you can about it. I want to know if we can secretly hear them. I want to know if we can insert commands into their computers that their soldiers will follow. I want to know if we can figure out how they are changing the Clanspeople into reapers and how to turn them back again. Lincoln is not going to be a reaper again if I have anything to do with it, so we need to find another way of explaining it. I want everything they do monitored. I'll send Murphy down here and you two can figure out who to use for that. We need someone who will keep their mouth shut about what they see, hear and find, Monty. This is a goldmine. The advantage is ours, and I intend to use it!" Adara was charged up and eager to do some damage to the mountain men!

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Murphy listened to what Adara and Monty told him and after thinking about it, he decided to give the job to Jones. Jones was a quiet person, listened to his leaders and did his job. Murphy knew that Jones wouldn't gossip about what he was doing. As far as anyone else knew, he was just helping Monty with some computer stuff.

Adara also decided to send Harper and two others to Tondc to inform Clarke that they had found something that would help them inside the mountain and that she needed to be back by morning for a meeting. Clarke had gone to Tondc through the tunnel so she could have some time with Lexa.

Adara called the meeting for the leaders for the morning to tell them about it. Hopefully Monty would have some more information about what it could do and of any information they got from the mountain. Clarke and Atom would be back by then and telling Octavia tonight, would mean she wouldn't be hunting at the time of the meeting.

Adara told Raven about the possibility of getting inside knowledge of the mountain, but she didn't tell her how. She just told Raven that she would reveal all at the meeting.

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The next morning, Clarke and Harper came back with Lexa and Anya with them. Adara greeted them and led them to the conference room on the third floor. Anya was amazed at the size of the complex.

"We never knew this was here!"

"It's a big place, I kind of wonder how they built it without ripping up the lawn and people knowing about it."

"It was built from under the ground?"

"Yes, we think it started in the basement of the whitehouse and extended from there."

"Amazing!"

Lexa moved beside Anya and reminded her they were there for the meeting. Everyone took their seats.

"Okay," started Adara. "Yesterday, Monty found something. He found a computer that is directly linked to Mount Weather," she stopped when everyone but Monty and Murphy drew in an audible breath in surprise. "Yeah, that was my reaction, too." She laughed at the memory of it.

"Do they know about it?" asked Octavia. Adara and Monty looked at each other before Monty replied.

"I don't think so. This was set up for the President of the United States to check on what they were doing. They communicated on known radio frequencies and I suspect that Mount Weather of the time, didn't have a clue it was happening. Jones found log entries that say that the President took 'perverse delight' in the bases trying to figure out how he knew some things that they hadn't told him about. So, no. We don't think they do know. They aren't acting as if they know this place exists. All correspondence and radio messages were listed as coming from the whitehouse. As no other correspondence happened after the whitehouse was destroyed, they assumed that the radios were too."

"Was this… President… in the white house when it was destroyed?" asked Anya.

"No. Unfortunately, the President was aboard his personal airplane - a flying vessel - at the time and was somewhere over Montana. No other information about what happened to him has been found," said Adara. Heads nodded around the room.

"So what's this thing do?" asked Anya again. The Commander held up her hand to Anya in a silent gesture to shut up. Anya nodded and sat back to listen. Monty stood up.

"I've found several things out. One, this computer was linked to every military base in the country. Two, no-one else knew he had this computer or what it could do other than his personal bodyguards and the top brass assigned to this bunker. Three, we can see what the cameras inside Mount Weather can see. We can't yet hear what they are saying, but I think the option is there. Jones is, at this moment, trying to find it. When he does he'll tell us." Monty stopped to take a drink from one of the several cups of water that had been organised for them.

"What can you see?" asked Lexa. Again, Monty and Adara exchanged looks.

"We can see into the medical parts of the mountain. We've got access to the room that they use to keep your people in cages and we can see when they are… used… for the treatment of the mountain people." Lexa and Anya wore expressions of disgust and they made noises of revulsion too. "Yeah, Jones was physically sick when he saw those images. Jones died in the ring of fire last time. He never lived to know about the mountain. He doesn't remember last time and I'm not going to tell him unless I have no other choice."

"What else have you found?" asked Clarke.

"We can see into their command centre, the medical facilities for the military and the civilians, the mess hall, corridors, maintenance areas for their vehicles and the areas where they make the acid fog. We can see the tunnels below the mountain too." said Monty. "In fact, I think the only areas we can't see are the personal living quarters and Dante's office."

"What about Cage's office?" asked Clarke.

"We got a camera in there. We've confirmed that he and Dr. Tsing, the head doctor, are in a relationship."

"How?" asked Raven.

"Graphic representation," was all Monty said. The Skaikru knew what that meant but the Trikru didn't.

"They were having sex in Cage's office," supplied Adara at the confused looks on their faces. Those looks quickly changed to embarrassment.

"So what now?" asked Murphy.

"We watch and listen if we can. We take notes on what we see and know and we wait." said Adara, holding up her hand so the others wouldn't interrupt. "We wait until we can find a way in or until we have plans on taking the mountain down. We need to know how many soldiers they have, how many civilians, how many doctors, how many clanspeople there are. We need to know if they issue any orders. If we know they are sending out their people to certain areas, we can make sure that no-one is taken by them. If they come here. We hide. We cannot let ourselves be taken."

Everyone nodded. Anya was thoughtful.

"How many of you would be needed to give everyone in the mountain the ability to leave it without suits?"

"Anya!" said Lexa.

"Hey!" said several others.

"All of us," said Adara, looking straight at Anya. "They could do it with maybe seven or eight people left alive, but the amount of bone marrow taken from them would take a long time to recover from. Ask Harper. She was within one dose of being killed for it." Anya had the good grace to blush. She hadn't been alive last time and being told about what happened didn't do the story justice. Only those who had been through it would understand it.

Lexa recovered her composure and carried on the meeting.

"We wait and you find out whatever you can. How are you able to tell us what's happening, though? The travel through the tunnel takes two to three candle marks. Anything you find might not reach us in time."

"Well," Monty began. "I think I've got a solution to that. In one of the store rooms, were mobile military telephones. A kind of moveable communication device," he said when he saw confusion on the faces of the Trikru. "If we can find a power source for them, then we can give one to Tondc and we'll be able to keep in touch with them. The only downside to that is we need to set them up and teach one of the Trikru how to use them and how to keep them powered up. It may be a good idea for that person to stay by the phone or at least be assigned to it."

"I'll think about that," said Lexa. "With this tek though, my people may not trust it."

"They don't have to trust it, but when the things we tell them start to show true, they may believe it then." said Raven. "I understand that you don't want to use the things that the maunon have, but we do. If we can use this to bring down the mountain, then at least we've proved that not all tech is bad, it's the person who does bad things with it."

"There is another aspect too, last time we needed an inside man. This time, none of my people will be inside, so we don't need to send anyone in until we take the mountain. If we can interact with the controls inside the mountain, we can turn off the acid fog and maybe even lock people inside certain rooms." Adara explained. Everyone looked thoughtful.

"I like it," said Raven.

"Yeah, better than my brother going in," said Octavia.

"Better than ANYONE having to risk themselves," said Clarke.

Murphy, Atom and Monroe kept quiet, they hadn't been in the mountain so had nothing to add, not to mention that Atom didn't even remember last time.

"Why would your brother go in and I never even knew you had a brother?"

"Crap. I forgot," said Adara.

"Do it," Clarke said. Adara nodded. She turned to Atom.

"Gromyo," she said, looking him in the eyes as she had with everyone else she had woken. The word was electric.

"I died?"

"Why is that the first thing people say," said Raven, facetiously.

"I still don't remember most of what you've been talking about," Atom said.

"I know. I'm sorry, Atom, but you died early on. You were one of the first deaths after we came down. You were killed by acid fog, so was Trina and Pascal." said Adara.

"Well, Clarke actually killed you," said Murphy, irreverently.

"I - I…" Clarke started to stammer.

"God, Murphy, you can be such a bastard at times!" admonished Raven.

"I remember," said Atom. "I begged Bellamy to kill me but he couldn't and then you came, Clarke. You came and did what Bellamy couldn't. As I was dying, I saw the look on Bellamy's face. He was impressed that you could do that. I remember the last thing I saw was your face, Clarke. You were telling me that everything was going to be okay. It was, you know? I could feel my life leaving me, but your words and you stroking my hair made me feel as if I could let go and it would be okay. I wouldn't die alone in agony. You saved me from that, Thank you, Clarke, thank you." He got up and hugged Clarke. He let go and looked at Octavia.

"I remember you, too. I know that you're with Lincoln now, I won't cause trouble. Truth was, I was looking for fun, you know? I didn't want to hurt you. I know what Bellamy would have done if I had. But it was fun, though," he said with a laugh. Octavia smiled even though she was blushing.

"Yeah, it was fun. Problem is, now I wish I'd held out for Lincoln, then I could have given him that too." Atom nodded and sat back down.

"Okay," said Adara. "We watch and wait with Mount Weather. Monty, find those phones and find a power source. If you can't find batteries, get with Raven and see if you can use solar power to power it. Get sound out of Mount Weather too, if you can. Commander, Chief Anya, I will send any messages to you immediately until we can get those phones working. Atom, I'm afraid I'll need your people for messenger duty until then," Adara finished. All Skaikru nodded and the Trikru gave a single nod.

"One thought, Monty. Can we get access to the outside cameras?" asked Adara, suddenly thinking of something.

"We don't have any cameras outside!" said Monty, growling.

"No," said Adara. "I meant the cameras Mount Weather have outside. They must have cameras watching outside the mountain because they only set off the acid fog if anyone comes too close. How else would they know?" Monty was surprised that he didn't figure it out, after all he was in the control room last time and saw the monitors.

"I don't know, said Monty, chagrined. "I'll find out. What do you want to know if we do?"

"I want to know the location of each one. If we can't figure out where they are, we can't put them out of commission."

"Well apart from trees and maybe a village or two, there's not really much to see. I'm afraid I would need Trikru help with that," he said.

"That's fine. See if you can get a screengrab of the areas and we'll send them to Tondc for analysis and location," Adara said as she looked at Lexa and Anya. Lexa nodded.

"Good. Anyone got any questions?" Adara asked, looking around. No-one spoke up and there were several shakes of the head. "Okay then, meeting adjourned." Everyone got up and started to leave the room. "Oh, Atom, go with Raven and she'll tell you who remembers the last time and who doesn't. She'll also fill you in on what happened after you died, okay?" Atom nodded and made his way to Raven.

"Come on Atom, it's a long story and it'll take you a while to absorb it. It's a doozy!"