They've only spent two days working at the soup kitchen, but Yang is already a bit sick of it. It's not the work, since it's just cooking and serving that really isn't any different from her job. It's a little monotonous, but nothing that should frustrate her the way it does. The dishes from the lunch service have just been finished up, and now they're prepping dinner, and Yang is angry regardless of her reasons or lack thereof.
"Chop the carrots a bit smaller," Sasha, the round, cheerful sheep Faunus who runs the kitchen, tells her. Yang curses under her breath and hacks the slices she's already cut into halves. Sasha isn't the issue either. She's patient and friendly and takes the food very seriously, but there's nothing wrong with her.
No, Yang is just angry for no real reason. And the fact that she's angry for no real reason makes her angry at herself for being angry, so it's just escalating.
"Thank you, dear," Sasha says absently, scooping up the sliced carrots and dropping them into a massive bubbling pot. "Keep up the good work."
She walks away to check on the other volunteers, and something in Yang snaps.
"Is this it?"
People turn to look at her. Yang can feel Pyrrha's hand on her shoulder, all nice and concerned, and it doesn't help her temper.
"Is this all we're going to do? People are dying, they're starving or being beaten to death or getting shot for fun, and all we can do is pick up the pieces? Cook for the people who manage to get out alive? Is this it?"
Pyrrha's hand withdraws, and Yang can feel the tears coming. She doesn't cry when she's angry, not usually, but there's something about this kind of frustrated helplessness.
Sasha sighs. It's the sort of sigh that adults give when children are whining or acting up, a sort of they'll know better eventually compressed into a single exhale. Yang feels her hands clench into fists.
"Come with me," Sasha says. She leads Yang into the pantry, and Yang doesn't fight back. Pyrrha gives her a worried look but doesn't say anything.
"Honey, listen to me," Sasha begins once the door is closed. There are no lights in the pantry, but the light seeping around the door is enough to make out the outline of her face. She looks like she pities Yang, and Yang doesn't like pity.
"I know you want to fight," Sasha says. "I know that none of what we do is enough. But I know that we can't fix this, and I know it'll kill you if you keep trying to save the world."
So this really is it.
Sasha holds Yang against her shoulder, and it nearly suffocates her but it helps a little.
"There are people who could fix this," Yang says when she can speak without getting angry all over again. "I make them drinks while they throw around the kind of money that could change people's lives. And they're not doing anything. They could lobby, or buy slaves and free them, or just do something –"
She's back to tears, but only for a moment. Sasha releases her, then looks her up and down carefully.
"I have a job for you," she says. "Can you deliver something for me?"
Yang nods. Sasha opens the door to the bright kitchen again and bustles around searching for something, until she finds a package, about the size of a loaf of bread, wrapped in brown paper. There's an address scrawled on it, a place farther inland, up in the hills. A rich-people kind of place.
"Deliver this and tell them I sent you," Sasha says briskly, escorting Yang to the door and ignoring Nora's questions.
Yang steps out onto the bustling street and walks the two blocks to a monorail stop. It's crowded with people, but nobody looks her in the eye. She must look a bit deranged, still in her apron and hairnet, clutching a lump of God-knows-what.
Her scroll buzzes. It's a text from Pyrrha, where are u going?, spelled just like that with two little question marks, so Pyrrha must be really panicking.
Yang does feel a little bit guilty about not telling her, but by the time she's typed out the full message she's already cooked up half a dozen rationalizations, mostly variants of hey, it could be true.
Delivering a food package to an old lady who can't make it down to the soup kitchen. I'll be back pretty soon.
And sure, Yang is a little worried that she's just been sent off to get murdered or roped into a drug cartel, but worrying never got her anything.
…
The house is old brick and a little bigger than their house back on Patch. There's a small garden planted at the front, roses and vines straggling along paving stones, and it makes Yang homesick. She walks through the garden, careful not to step on any plants, and taps on the door.
It's quiet for a long time, and she's about to knock again, when the door opens. The woman behind it looks about Yang's age, or maybe a bit older. She's petite, and wearing clothes that Yang can tell cost more than a month's rent.
"Can I help you?" she asks. She sounds bored.
Yang shoves the package at her, a little more roughly than she should.
"Sasha asked me to deliver it," she says, feeling a little more worried.
The woman squints at the lettering on the package, then beckons Yang in. Yang follows her, and she shuts the door once Yang steps into the wood-paneled hallway.
"Um, who are you?" Yang asks. It seems like a fair question.
"I'm Coco Adel," the woman says.
"Wow, real helpful. Why did Sasha send me up here?"
"Do you trust me?" Coco asks.
The honest answer would be not remotely, but something tells Yang that it's a bad idea to say that.
"Yes." She trusts Sasha, at least, and that basically counts.
"Follow me." Coco turns on her heel and walks down the hallway, and Yang follows her past paintings of people she doesn't know.
Two sharp turns into progressively less opulent hallways, and Coco stops in front of a door. There's a crooked sign tacked onto it, with "Laundry" painted on in sloppy letters.
This is starting to seem more and more like a trap, and Yang considers running, but she has no idea how to get out. She tried to keep count of the doors and turns, but the building is just so big and so mazelike it was impossible.
Coco opens the door. The room beyond is cramped; there are sheets hung up to dry, obscuring the view.
"Are you just wasting my time?" Yang asks, because it's marginally more polite than are you about to murder me?
Coco sighs and pulls one of the sheets aside, revealing another door, which opens to a short flight of stairs headed downwards.
"The bunker was installed by a rather paranoid great-aunt of mine some years ago," Coco says casually as she walks down the steps. Yang follows her, not really sure what else to do. The door at the end of the stairs is steel, but looks very old. Yang could probably kick it out of the frame with a concerted effort.
Coco unlocks the door and opens it. The room beyond is lit by a single bare bulb, revealing concrete walls. There are utilitarian bunks on two sides of the room, and four people in the bunks, asleep. A canine ear twitches as someone snores. They all look thin and exhausted, but they aren't restrained. No ropes, no chains, not even a lock on the inside of the door.
"Welcome to the biggest Underground junction on the continent."