16
Raven's Heaven
CLARKE
"This place is fucking huge." Bellamy sighed as they followed the mansion's mossy front walkway through knee-high weeds and rotting dead grass. Even the mansion's front door was obscenely huge, towering over them with ostentatious designs carved into the thick wood. "It's about as big as Arkadia. How the hell are we going to find ANYTHING in here?" Bellamy asked, raising his rifle and rearing back, preparing to smash the butt of it against the door's lock.
Clarke held out a hand to stop him. She reached out and gave the doorknob a twist and the heavy door creaked open. "Rule number one, Bellamy, if you're going to tag along... Think positive." Clarke said. "No goddamn debbie-downers allowed."
"Think positive." Bellamy repeated with a dry laugh, following her into the dark shadows of the mansion. "Right... Got it. Maybe if I think positively enough the electricity will start up." He said sarcastically.
Ignoring him, Clarke groped along the wall for a switch and the room burst into view before them.
"You're kidding." Bellamy laughed, blinking against the sudden brightness.
"The power of positive thoughts." Clarke smirked. "And, you know... Back up generators."
She surveyed the gigantic, gleaming entryway. Multiple hallways branched off from it. There were stairs leading up. There were stairs leading down. Bellamy was right... This place was fucking huge.
"Where do we start?" Bellamy asked and Clarke wished she could give a definitive answer.
"I guess we go floor by floor?" She suggested. "Let's start at the bottom and just work our way up. Come on..." She led the way down the nearest staircase.
All Clarke knew about Chris Bauer was that he was one of the scientists who helped create ALIE and that he had lived here and that was more than enough information for her to deduce that the man was probably a complete douchebag.
They emerged from the staircase to find themselves on the edge of a full-sized basketball court, the polished wooden surface still gleaming under a thin layer of dust. On the opposite side of the court there were two bowling lanes, a fully stocked bar, a carpeted area with two pool tables, a poker table, and an assortment of old arcade games, a gigantic empty swimming pool and hot tub, and a small storefront that said Starbucks over a logo of a green mermaid.
"Wow!" Bellamy exclaimed. "This guy had way too much money for his own good. But he sure knew how to spend it." He bent over to snag a basketball off the abandoned court and take a shot. Clarke watched the ball arc through the air, falling short of the basket by a good three feet, not even grazing the net.
"Come on..." She said, tugging Bellamy's wrist back towards the stairs. "I don't think what we are looking for is going to be down here in this ridiculous man-cave."
Bellamy gave the room one long look of longing before following her up the stairs. They wandered the next floor, passing through an industrial-sized kitchen, a dining room large enough to have hosted the president and his entire cabinet, five fully furnished guestrooms, a theater room with a TV so big it made Raven's and Monty's computer setup look childish, and too many bathrooms to count. Each bathroom had its own magazine rack fully stocked with car magazines and porn. Yep... Clarke thought to herself... Definitely a total douchebag.
The third floor started out as more of the same and Clarke was starting to despair when they rounded a corner and the hall's carpet gave way to linoleum leading to a thick metal door with a keypad on it.
"Bingo." Clarke said. "This has got to be it! His lab."
"Positive thinking, right?" Bellamy said as he reached for the doorknob and gave it a twist. The heavy door didn't budge. "It was worth a try." He sighed. "Any chance you know the password?" He asked hopefully. "Murphy give it to you?"
"No." Clarke sighed. He was locked in the lighthouse bunker the whole time he was here. Jaha was the one messing around in the mansion with ALIE. I should have asked him."
Bellamy leaned in close to the keypad "Yep. Jaha used it, alright. All the numbers are covered in dust except the 1, 2, 3, and 4."
"1234?" Clarke asked skeptically. "That seems way too obvious. Only an idiot would make that the combo."
Still, Bellamy gave it a try. A small light on the keypad blinked red. The door did not budge. "Maybe 4321." Bellamy suggested, trying again. "1243? 1342? 4312?"
Red, red, red.
"This is stupid." Bellamy sighed. "There must be a hundred different combinations."
"Twenty four." Clarke corrected him.
"What?" Bellamy asked, confused.
"There are twenty four possible combinations." Clarke replied. "That is, assuming that it is a four digit code and you're correct about the four numbers. It's basic statistics and probability."
Bellamy gave her a blank stare. "OK... If you say so, Raven."
"If I was Raven, we'd be inside the room by now." Clarke replied, laughing despite her frustration. "Raven would've cracked the code on the first try and then she would shrug and be like," She put on her best Raven voice. "'It's a simple substitution code. The numbers represent letters and..." She paused pensively. "Wait..." She said, switching back to her regular voice and staring off into space. She pushed Bellamy's hand aside and punched excitedly on the keyboard. The light flashed green and the door cracked ajar.
"OK..." Bellamy said with wide eyes. "I was about to say that your impersonation of Raven sucks, but that was just... Freaky. What was the combo?"
"1,4,3,2." Clarke answered as she pushed the door open. "A, L, I, E."
She stepped inside and jumped at the unmistakable sound of ALIE's voice. "Welcome back, Mr. Bauer." Clarke shuddered, her eyes frantically searching the room for the woman in the red dress. But the room was empty.
ALIE is gone. Clarke reminded herself. Destroyed. The room must just be programmed to greet Chris every time the door opens. She supposed she shouldn't have been surprised. Really, she should be surprised the voice didn't say "Welcome Chris. Would you care for a lap dance as you work?"
"Speaking of Raven..." Bellamy spoke, oblivious to Clarke's unease. Not being chipped, Bellamy had never actually encountered ALIE. "I think we just died and went to her heaven. Or maybe MY hell. I always hated the lab portion of Science. Hell... I hated all of Science."
Her heart rate slowing enough for her to breathe again, Clarke gave the room a proper look. It was a gigantic science lab, more sophisticated than anything they had ever had on the Ark. Shelves lined the walls loaded with vials and bottles and jars of colorful liquids and powders, beakers, flasks, and test tubes of all sizes, bunsen burners, electrophoresis equipment, mini centrifuges, scales, microscopes and countless boxes of slides, stacks of old petri dishes and lines of micropipettes, not to mention a ton of equipment Clarke could not identify. She had no idea what most of the giant machines and contraptions did. One wall was entirely comprised of a line of fume hoods. Another was lined with a row of mounted computers and white boards. And there, on a shelf in the corner, stacked nicely and waiting for her beneath a thin layer of dust... A whole shelf of worn composition notebooks.
Clarke's heart leapt as she reached for the top notebook and flipped it open. It contained pages and pages of hypotheses, calculations and notes, procedures and results and modified procedures and more results. The douchebag had one good thing going for him... He was as meticulous in his note-taking as Becca had been. Clarke eyed the giant stack of notebooks, not knowing whether to be elated or overwhelmed.
"You know..." She said to Bellamy. "There's no way I'm going to be able to find the information we need in all of this. And I think instead of trying to bring all of it with us, we should just bring Raven here."
"She'll have an aneurysm." Bellamy laughed.
"At least she'll die happy." Clarke replied.
"Might as well bring Monty and your mom and Jackson along while we're at it." Bellamy suggested. "We can have a whole science-geek party. God knows we have enough room for everyone."
"Actually, that's not a bad idea." Clarke answered excitedly. An idea had just popped into her head and she was surprised she hadn't thought of it the moment they had first laid eyes on the monstrosity of a home. "What is it you said earlier, Bell? 'This place is fucking huge? Almost as big as Arkadia?'"
"Yeah..." Bellamy answered, clearly unsure of where she was going with this and why she was grinning stupidly.
"Murphy's going to hate me." Clarke laughed. "I promised him he could blow the shit out of this place. But I have a better idea."
...
"We're going to need a bigger boat." Bellamy observed as they climbed back into the speedboat.
"Not a problem." Clarke answered, starting the engine and easing them out onto the black waters.
"Is this another one of your positive thinking exercises?" Bellamy asked in a doubtful voice.
"Just keep your eyes open." Clarke answered. "I don't want to pass it in the dark."
"Pass what?"
"Our bigger boat." Clarke answered, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.
It took them nearly an hour of slowly roaming the gigantic lake before they finally stumbled upon the abandoned graunpeka floating forlornly, a giant black shadow in the darkness. Clarke was grateful Emori had thought to drop the anchor in their hurry to get Murphy back to Arkadia.
Gedeon was expecting the trawler back hours ago. But he would just have to wait. Really, Clarke thought to herself, he should have known better than to make a deal with Skaikru.
...
"But when Azgeda marches on Arkadia's walls and finds them empty..." Kane argued. "You don't think they will track us? Figure out where we've gone? Don't we have a better shot of defending Arkadia than a mansion with no gates or walls?"
"They won't find Arkadia empty." Clarke responded. "The guards and anyone willing to fight will stay."
"We won't stand a chance." Miller argued.
"No." Clarke admitted. "If it comes down to a fight, we won't."
"What do you mean 'IF?'" Bellamy asked.
"We have to talk to the king of Azgeda." Clarke said. "Before war breaks out."
"Talk?" Kane said. "Talk about what? He means to eliminate Sky Crew entirely. He is not asking for land or money or allegiance. He has no demands for us to meet. We have no bargaining power. Nothing to offer him but our blood."
"Not yet, we don't." Clarke answered. "But Raven's going to fix that. And then that is exactly what we are going to offer him... Our blood. If we can convince the king that Sky Crew has the only remedy that can prevent all of his people from dying a horrific death..."
"What if we can't convince him?" Harper asked.
"We kill him." Bellamy suggested.
"It's worth a try." Clarke shrugged. "If we can't convince him to call off the attack, we're dead either way, right? At least some of our crew will be safe in the mansion. Because if we let Azgeda destroy all of Arkadia and the Nightserum, we let them destroy all of humanity with it. But for any Sky Crew who survive the attack and take the serum, six months from now... Well... Azgeda will no longer be a threat."
"It's the best plan we have." Bellamy finished for her. "Unless one of you can suggest something better?"
"And what of Trikru?" Kane asked. "Just how big is this mansion of yours?"
"Big enough for the children and the elderly." Clarke answered. "I doubt the warriors would ever abandon their villages and go into hiding anyway, even if it means certain death. But maybe we can convince them to accept our help and to make their last stand alongside Arkadia."
"They have no reason to trust Sky Crew." Bellamy said in a small voice. Clarke could see the shame in his downcast eyes, hear it in the slight tremble of his voice. And maybe it was wrong of her, but his guilt brought her a small piece of satisfaction.
"No, they don't." Kane agreed. "But Indra trusts me and Trikru trusts Indra. I will go to speak with her as soon as the sun rises."