Chapter 12
Inside Mount Weather, the dining room
The sky kids couldn´t believe their eyes – or their bellies. Clarke, Bellamy, Raven, Murphy and Monroe were currently sitting in a large room at the head of a grand dining table filled with tantalisingly delicious items like meat and pies and more importantly bread and cake. Those had been total luxury items on the ark. No one had had a taste of anything resembling cake since they landed on this godforsaken place so there had been no hesitation at the first bites. And it was fantastic cake! Murphy sighed in content as he ate another piece.
He took in his surroundings.
After getting somewhat over the initial shock of meeting people instead of an empty storage facility, they had been led down a series of tunnels and corridors – this place seemed huge - they had arrived here. The room was large compared to what they had been used to in the ark, but it was also a lot more homely. There were paintings and flowers! Sofas and Pianos!
A young girl with dark hair, she introduced herself as Maya, had brought them all the delicious food. Murphy had wanted to ask her about this place but got the distinct feeling that that was not a good idea. She seemed afraid of him.
The room was packed with people. The group from the ark were clearly the main attraction; everyone was staring. Murphy couldn´t blame them. In between bites of cake they were staring right back, and the atmosphere was tense. Murphy could tell his friends – if could he call them that – were also sceptical.
Suddenly there was a little commotion by one of the doors when a small group of people entered and made their way through the crowd towards them. It was a thin, but strong-looking older man and a frowning, dark haired younger plus two guards.
"Here we go" Murphy said to no one in particular. He just knew that this place was giving him the creeps.
The old man was clearly in charge. "Hope you are enjoying your meal. Welcome to the proud community here at Mount Weather. My name is Dante and I am the leader here. We are peaceful survivors of the nuclear apocalypse and have stayed here for the past 100 years, growing our own food, schooling our children, making art and developing science to ensure survival of both mind and body. We were most surprised when someone "knocked" on our door" He mimes the quotation marks. "We normally have no contact with the people on the outside, but we could just tell you weren´t with them. So who are you?"
The old man seems curious while the younger man with the frown continues to glare. As they both grin, Murphy involuntarily shrugs; these guys were creepy!
As he was waiting for his group to reply, Murphy wondered if the old man believed his own bullshit. He sure didn´t. This little speech should score high on anyone´s bullshit detector. He looked at the others. He saw that Clarke was not impressed, neither was Bellamy or Raven. He couldn´t tell with Monroe, she was difficult to read – had been even back then – he thought. Had she recognized him? Their names had been different, and they were a lot younger. But still, Murphy had a nagging feeling she knew very well who he was and what he had done. After all, he recognized her.
He was brought out of his little inner rant from his past by the old man´s popping open another wine bottle, Clarke had started to explain about the ark and the 100 people sent to investigate the survivability of post-apocalypse earth. She skips the delinquent part. Clever, Murphy thinks.
The Ark.
The Mount Weather expedition had been gone a few days and Abby was antsy. She was worried about her daughter, but she had also started to understand the level of her daughter's capabilities so she tries to force herself not to worry.
Instead she focuses on camp Jaha, there is enough to worry about! She is especially concerned that the grounders will sense their vulnerability when some of their top fighters are not in camp. It is a bit scary how much they depend on Clarke, Bellamy and Raven for military tactics, not to mention Murphy and Monroe for basic shooting and combat abilities.
Well, she isn´t her daughter´s mother for nothing so she decides to do something about that vulnerability. She gives Sergeant, the mild-mannered but experienced soldier the task of training more people to fight. And if an attack comes, he would be their commanding officer. He had gone at the task with surprising fervour. Abby was impressed. Maybe he wasn´t as mild mannered as she had initially thought he was. But however many hours were put in, making these people learn to fight was not done overnight. Would the grounders be so patient?
Hopefully they would not be attacked before the others were back.
Mount Weather
Murphy is suspicious. He does not trust this Dante fellow one bit, and decides to leave their little group under the pretence that he feels sick from all the eating of cake and needs to lie down. Both Clarke and Raven look at him a bit strangely but they both nod and Raven even says "feel better" as he leaves.
He is thankful that nobody follows. There are no guards around - they must trust that we won´t misbehave – He chuckles to himself. Instead of heading to the room he had been assigned he walks back towards some of the corridors he wanted to explore some more. After a few minutes he thinks he hears a man screaming in the distance. He can´t help getting an uneasy feeling but of course he walks in that direction.
He tries to move as stealthily as possible, the hum of the mountain´s power source makes his steps drown in a steady noise. Unfortunately this also means that he does not hear the two guards entering the very same hallway and before he has time to react they grab him from behind. Murphy struggles the best he can, and gets a dozen of heavy blows and kicks for the effort before one guard manages to hit him hard on the head with his baton and everything goes black.
Mount Weather
Inside the dining hall the atmosphere is still somewhat tense but loosening up as Clarke, Bellamy, Raven and Monroe socialize with the inhabitants of Mount Weather. They where a surprisingly diverse bunch, Raven thought to her.
The girl who had been serving them, Maya, had been amiably chatting to Monroe for more than an hour. Flirting more like, Raven smiled to herself. She had always expected that Monroe had a soft spot for girls.
Well, good on her, Raven thinks while wondering if she should check up on Murphy´s condition. She suspects that the whole eating-too-much-bit is not the whole story-
The inhabitants living in Mount Weather were not exactly used to meeting new people – there were infants born but they just didn´t count. This was the very first time they had visitors and Maya couldn´t believe that she was sitting here chatting to a girl her own age – who was from somewhere else than this bloody bunker! Maya had made sure that she would be the one to serve them, and she instantly wanted to talk to the girl with the braids. The others seemed older and scarier. Especially that one guy with all those scars!
It felt great! Her and Monroe talked mostly about the outside world. Maya had never been after all. But she noticed that however much different their backgrounds where she could relate to Monroe and she could feel a connection with the girl from the sky. As she looked at Monroe explaining about the beautiful lake close to the ark her heart fluttered a bit. She wanted to help these people
She had already started to feel guilty about what she knew. Maybe it was the newfound feelings or an inherent sense of justice but Maya had already decided to share what she knew about their missing friends. No matter the consequences.
Out of the corner of her eye she could see Dante´s son watching them