The problem of what to do about the stone was still there when Bellamy awoke the next morning.
It had been bad enough when the thing was in the possession of an unstable cult leader like Bill Cadogan, but it was unthinkable that it should fall into government hands. Bellamy had no idea if the stone could be weaponized, but he certainly didn't want anyone having a chance to find out.
Since they'd created the issue in the first place by siccing Homeland Security on Cadogan, he knew it was up to them to fix it. And it was a two-part problem: first, how to move such a massively heavy object, and then if they got that far, when to do it.
Bellamy wanted Rosa's input on the second part, and was so anxious about it that he and Clarke arrived at her house that morning while she and Madi were still having breakfast.
"Sorry to come so early without calling," Bellamy said apologetically, while Madi jumped up to hug them both.
"Nonsense," Rosa assured him. "I've gotten used to having people pop in and out at all hours and I find I quite like it. And you two are always most welcome. First sit and have some breakfast and then tell me what brings you here so early."
"It's the stone, Rosa," he said, after he'd helped himself to one of the muffins Madi had baked. "There was one back on Sanctum that let Gabriel send us across time and space to the one that's now sitting in the lowest level of Bill Cadogan's basement."
Rosa nodded. "Yes, I remember about the stone. But what makes it a problem now?"
"Well… it clearly has some metaphysical properties, so I'm not so sure it would be a great idea for the government to get their hands on it…"
Rosa caught on immediately. "Which they certainly will do if Homeland Security searches that building. Do you think it could be turned into some kind of weapon? We're constantly having to guard against that sort of thing at NASA."
"I asked myself the same question, and I really have no answer, but it's what we're most afraid of."
She nodded. "Right. So you've made a plan to move it."
He shook his head. "I haven't figured out how to do that yet."
"Well, then, we must all put our heads together until we find a solution."
He called Miller at the beach house, and just over an hour later, the entire group was seated in their customary spots in Rosa's living room while he explained the situation to them.
"For Chrissakes, Bellamy!" Murphy complained immediately. "I no sooner solve one problem for you than you come up with another…"
Indra interrupted him, clearly exasperated.
"Quit your whining, Murphy. Bellamy's right. We need to get the stone out of there, and the easiest way to do it is with ropes."
"Ropes? Are you sure that'll work, Indra?" Clarke was clearly skeptical. "The thing is weirdly shaped and heavy as hell."
Indra waved away her concerns. "I remember what it looks like, Clarke. But Trikru used ropes all the time to move heavy objects, including boulders. The knotting of ropes for strength and stability was a skill learned in childhood. In fact," she turned to her daughter, "I remember you had quite a talent for rope-knotting, Gaia, before you decided to become a fleimkepa. Do you remember?"
Gaia nodded. "Of course. It was one of the few things I was good at. I was never much of a warrior, but I always won the knotting competitions."
Bellamy gaped at them. Could Trikru rope-knotting really be the answer?
"So how do we go about this?" he asked. "What do you need?"
"The most important thing is the right kind of rope," Gaia said immediately. "Strong but supple. Neither too thick nor too thin. We used to make our own, of course…"
"Yeah, I definitely don't think we have time for rope-braiding, Gaia. But there must be rope in this century." Bellamy eyed Rosa. "At the shopping pavilion maybe?"
Rosa shook her head. "I think this calls for the House and Garden Mart, where you can find every sort of equipment for the home. I can take both of you as soon as we're done here, Gaia. I'm sure they'll have what you need."
"So… how exactly does this knotting thing work?" Clarke wanted to know. "Will it take a lot of time?"
Gaia closed her eyes for a moment, perhaps trying to picture the stone in her head.
"I think I remember some places on the stone where I could attach and anchor the rope. The trick is to get the right balance so the maximum amount of weight can be moved with the least amount of effort. I'll have to make a detailed plan first. But once we're in there, Clarke, the knotting will definitely take some time."
But Bellamy wanted specifics.
"How much time? And when you say least amount of effort, how many people are we talking? Based on what you remember about the stone, could two people move it? Three?"
She shrugged. "I can't be absolutely sure, Bellamy. But if I plan correctly and knot it perfectly, maybe four people could move it. Or five, just to be safe."
Bellamy nodded, an overall plan beginning to take shape in his head. "So four or five of us to move it, plus you to do the knotting…"
"So when's this happening?" Miller asked.
"That's what I wanted to ask Rosa about. What do you think, Rosa? After you talk to your government friend tonight, how long before they descend on Second Dawn?"
Rosa looked thoughtful. "Homeland Security has broad powers when it comes to domestic terrorism, and considering how damning those videos are and who's on that membership list they'll probably want to act quickly. So I'd guess… a day or two at most."
She frowned slightly. "I'm not terribly good at this sort of thing, Bellamy, but perhaps I can ask him to give me a small hint as to when they might proceed. I could say that the person who sent me the information wants to be sure to get out of the city before the story breaks."
Bellamy smiled at her. "I'd say you're very good at this sort of thing, Rosa. And that's a great idea. We just need a little time to get everything ready…"
"So what are you thinking?" Clarke asked when his voice trailed off.
"I'm thinking that if Gaia can find the right kind of rope, they can use the rest of today and tomorrow to nail down a knotting plan. Maybe Raven can even help with an estimate of the stone's weight?" he asked, cocking a brow in her direction.
Raven nodded. "Can do."
"Good. Then I think we should plan on late tomorrow night, when the building is empty and the city's relatively quiet. I don't want to wait any longer than that."
"What about the floodlights and the alarms?" the security-conscious Miller asked immediately. "Don't those go on automatically every night?"
"I was hoping Raven could help us with that, too," Bellamy said, eyeing her again. "Tell me that when you poked your nose into Cadogan's computer system, you left yourself a way to access it again."
"Of course I did," Raven huffed, rolling her eyes. "That's just common sense."
"So you can shut off the alarm remotely?"
"Piece of cake. What about the lights? You want those off, too?"
Bellamy shook his head. "I think turning them off would just attract attention to the building. Maybe even have the police checking up on it." He frowned. "But… maybe you could shut them off for twenty seconds or so. Just long enough for us to get inside the building.
Raven nodded. "I can do that."
"Good. So if there're no other questions…
"I think you might have forgotten about something important here, Bellamy."
He had? "What's that, Raven?"
"What about all those cameras and bugs that we planted all over Second Dawn? I mean, I'm damn proud of my handiwork, but I'd hate for those government guys to get a peek at the tech."
"Oh, shit!" Bellamy shook his head in self-disgust. "Of course that stuff has to come out."
How the hell could he have forgotten about it?
"Don't beat yourself up too much, Bellamy." Clarke's smile was rueful. "I didn't think of it either. But I have a pretty good idea of the layout of that building, so Octavia and I can take them out while Gaia's doing her knotting. As long as Raven can open the interior doors for us."
"No problem," Raven assured her. "The alarm system has an override for all the locks, so I'll just activate that when I turn off the alarm."
Bellamy nodded, relieved. "Great. So here's the plan, then. For the bunker operation, besides Gaia to do the knotting, it'll be me, Miller, and Indra. While Gaia's knotting, Octavia and Clarke will remove the bugs and then help us later with the stone if we need it."
He glanced around the table and saw that everyone seemed to understand.
"As for the rest of you, we're all going to need dark clothing, so if you've got any to offer please speak up. And gloves. Ones we can still work in. Maybe you can look into those for us, Emori." She nodded. "Because this is a century that has all the forensic tools. Fingerprints, DNA, none of which we want to leave behind. We aren't in their system yet but we could be in the future…"
"But why would they even look for DNA?" Murphy asked, skeptical. "Or fingerprints? I thought this was going to be a slick in and out. So no need for the G-men to even know anything happened down there in the dungeon. Yeah, I know Cadogan will know, but somehow I don't see the asshole telling the feds, 'Hey, someone stole my alt-universe stone from the basement, so please investigate', while the he's being led away in handcuffs."
Bellamy couldn't suppress a chuckle.
"Good point, Murphy. I admit this is maybe an excess of caution. But if something does go wrong, and they do start collecting evidence, I'd rather not have our prints or DNA in some database somewhere and have that come back to bite us in the ass fifty years from now."
Murphy smirked and waved his hands in the air. "I can see it now. Bellamy Blake, Master Criminal, finally brought to justice in his dotage."
Bellamy grinned. "Fuck off, Murphy."
XXXXXXXXXX
Everyone proceeded with their own part of the plan.
Rosa drove Indra and Gaia to the home store, where Gaia lingered over an array of available ropes before choosing the one she thought would best fit their needs. Then she spent the rest of the afternoon closeted with Raven, who attempted to calculate the size and weight of the stone while Gaia herself began to plan — using paper and pencil only — the best way to knot it.
Murphy and Emori took the bus to a medical supply store and bought several boxes of various weight vinyl gloves.
"I researched it and these are better and more flexible than the ones in the regular stores..."
"Right," Murphy interrupted Emori impatiently, "everyone knows you did a great job on the gloves, babe. Now let me tell you all about riding the bus."
After which Murphy regaled the group about the wonders of his favorite new mode of transportation.
"And it's free," he said, winding up his tale. "Everything else in this century feels like you might have to sell off some body parts to pay for it, but the bus is free."
"Yes, indeed, the buses are a great bargain, John," Rosa said with a smile.
"See, even Rosa agrees with me," Murphy said, throwing his arm around her, eliciting a surprised squawk from the generally unflappable Rosa.
Clarke smiled, briefly wondering if she should somehow warn the local bus system about their enthusiastic new rider.
Raven groaned at Murphy's antics and resumed double-checking her access to the Second Dawn security system, satisfying herself that she could turn off the alarm and control both the interior locks and the floodlights.
Echo was making sure everyone had the required dark clothing.
"What about you, Clarke?" she asked, cornering her in the kitchen. Clarke was so startled to get a direct question from Echo that she almost forgot to answer.
"Oh! Bellamy and I had to buy dark stuff when we took that night trip to Becca's island, so I still have it, although Bellamy…"
She stopped short, suddenly recalling that Echo probably had no idea Bellamy had been shot. And she certainly wasn't about to tell her.
"Bellamy?" Echo prompted.
Clarke smiled at her. "Bellamy's all set, too."
"Do you have another dark shirt?" she asked him a few minutes later, keeping her voice low. "One that didn't get shredded by a bullet? Or should I ask Echo to find you one?"
His brow wrinkled in surprise. "Pretty sure there's another in the closet. But what does Echo have to do with it?"
Clarke shrugged. "She's coordinating the clothing and she asked me. And when I thought about dark clothes for us I remembered the last time we wore them, and how I had to cut your shirt away…"
She hesitated. "Did you… ever tell Echo you'd been shot?"
He shook his head. "Why would I? I did mention it to Miller because we were talking about using guns here, but I'd have no reason to tell Echo something like that."
He stared at her for a moment and then asked hesitantly, "Does it bother you that I used to be with Echo?"
She shook her head. "Of course not. Everyone has a past. If anything, I think it's probably awkward for her."
"Yeah, but I think she's trying."
Clarke had to agree. Echo was trying.
After a quick dinner of Madi's vegetable soup, the beach house dwellers piled into the van and left. Bellamy and Clarke were leaving Rosa's, too, but not before he issued a caution.
"When Rosa's friend arrives… what's his name, Rosa?"
"Mark Henderson. We've known each other for a long time, Bellamy, and I trust him implicitly. He really is one of the good ones."
"And I trust you to know what you're doing, Rosa."
He turned to the others. "When Mr. Henderson arrives — no, make that at least a half hour before he's expected — the rest of you should be upstairs and remain absolutely quiet until he's gone."
Raven frowned. "What do you take us for, Bellamy? A bunch of idiots? We know enough to stay out of sight and shut the hell up."
Octavia chuckled. "My brother's just being his usual super-controlling self, Raven. Don't worry, Bell. He won't even know we're here."
Madi hugged him. "It'll be okay, Bellamy. Really."
Bellamy sighed. "Okay. I know you all understand what's at stake here."
XXXXXXXXXX
All the way home Clarke tried to find the right words to soothe Bellamy's obvious nerves. She never did find them, but a short time later, in their king-size bed, she soothed him with her body instead.
"Oh, my god!" he said, throwing himself down beside her when they were done. "I can't believe how much you turn me on. It's like I can never get enough of you."
Clarke laughed lightly, happiness bubbling up inside her at his words despite the stress she was feeling about the stone.
"I'm glad, because I'll never get enough of you either," she admitted softly, reaching over to smooth her hand across his chest. "You know, you have a really beautiful body."
"What?" He blinked at her in surprise, and then seemed almost embarrassed by the compliment.
"Yeah, you really do," she reiterated. She'd always thought so, and wondered now why she'd never told him.
Her hand traveled lightly down his muscled chest and across his taut abs until it finally reached the appendage he'd depleted only moments earlier.
She began to stroke him.
He grinned, suddenly whipping his body over to lie on top of her, bracing most of his weight on his left arm, but otherwise covering her from head to toe.
"Are you trying to ravish me to death, woman?" he asked, running his right hand through the cloud of blonde hair that was now long enough to reach her shoulders.
"Not really. I just…" She stopped suddenly to study his handsome face.
"Just… what?"
But then she told herself that this was not the right time. Not like this.
She quickly changed course, grinning saucily.
"I just love the feel of your cock inside me," she declared seductively. "And how it rubs against my clit when you thrust in and out. I get really wet and really hot…"
"Oh, fuck!" he said, taking himself in hand and rubbing against her wetness until he was hard and aching all over again.
It didn't take long at all.
He moved to wrap her legs around him, but she pulled away insistently, saying, "Let me be on top this time."
Then she was mounting him, sliding wetly down onto his hard length as he thrust up into her.
"I can't believe how much I love fucking you," he said huskily. "I could do this forever."
He pulled Clarke's head down and thrust his tongue into her mouth, his hands squeezing gently at her heavy breasts as they fucked.
"Oh, god," she groaned, moving her hips rapidly over him, coming hard only moments later, then moaning and coming again when she felt his wetness splash inside her.
She moved off him then, rolling onto her back, still breathing heavily. "I can't believe how fast that was!"
He shifted them around again, until she was lying half on the bed and half on top of him, his arm clasped firmly around her.
Bellamy gazed down at her. "Like I said, you turn me on so much I can't even control myself."
Clarke smiled softly as she nestled her face against his chest.
"Yeah, me, too." She sighed. "But I think we better get some sleep now. Big day tomorrow."
Bellamy groaned in protest. "Someday, there won't be a new crisis facing us every morning. Someday, we'll get to just live. Including fucking for as long as we want."
"Yeah," she agreed sleepily. "Someday. But not today."
XXXXXXXXXX
Clarke was a bundle of nerves the next morning, although she tried not to show it lest she make Bellamy more stressed out than he already was.
"This is going to be no big deal," she told him as they drove to Rosa's. "Compared to the gala, where we had to put up with Bill Cadogan's company for hours, while pretending we didn't think he was a complete nut job."
Bellamy huffed a laugh. "Yeah, I know you're right. But the thing is… I thought that gala would be it. The end. All our problems solved. Until I realized Cadogan had to go."
"And look how Murphy stepped up and got that job done!"
"Murphy was brilliant," he agreed. "Just don't ever tell him I said so."
She grinned. "My lips are sealed. And now we're gonna work together to keep the stone from falling into the wrong hands. And then it really will be the end."
Rosa had texted that things had gone well with Mark Henderson, but had included no details, so they were anxious to have her fill them in.
"Have a muffin first," Rosa said as soon as they walked in the door. "Madi's been baking again. Then I'll tell you what Mark said."
But then the others showed up, having driven down early from the beach house, so Rosa made them wait until everyone was settled in the living room.
"So… you texted that things went well?" Bellamy said to get the ball rolling.
Rosa nodded. "Yes. Apparently, there have been rumors going around DC for a while now that some important people had joined a cult movement that might have ties to domestic terrorism. But they never had any proof, and thought if it was true it must be some little backwater congregation with no resources. They never suspected it could be anyplace as prominent as Second Dawn."
She smiled wryly. "Mark and his colleagues thought Second Dawn, and Cadogan, were just regular, garden-variety, religious, uh… I believe crackpot was the term he used. Just more successful at it than most."
Clarke smiled wryly. "He's definitely a crackpot, but a dangerous one. So the videos surprised Mr. Henderson?"
Rosa shook her head. "Surprise doesn't begin to cover it. Shock was more like it. As soon as he saw them, Mark was on the phone to his colleagues, telling them to immediately look into Second Dawn's finances, which they can do because it's a non-profit. So that should already be happening today."
Bellamy nodded. "What comes next?"
"He did say their tech people would have to examine the videos just to make sure they hadn't been doctored…"
"Which they weren't," Raven interjected. "Only a little editing for the sake of personal privacy."
"Yes, I told him that and he seemed to understand. But once the videos have been authenticated, that'll be enough evidence to at least get a warrant to search both the Second Dawn premises and Cadogan's home. Mark seemed to think there was no question they'd find what they were looking for in one place or the other. I, uh, I may have mentioned the mysterious boardroom at Second Dawn that no one is allowed into as a possible source of evidence."
Bellamy smiled at her. "See, I knew you were good at this, Rosa. So… did he want to know where you got the information?"
She shrugged delicately. "I told him about my old friend who got caught up with Second Dawn, and then was embarrassed and appalled at being hoodwinked, and had shot the videos as revenge. I… may have implied it was an older person, on the cusp of retirement, who'd had a distinguished career in computers. Someone like Raven… in about fifty years," she finished with a smile.
Raven grinned. "Yep, I can definitely see me going the revenge route if I had to."
"So… last question," Bellamy promised. "How much time do you think we have now? Do we at least have tonight?"
"I did ask that… citing my friend's embarrassment, and Mark said it would take them at least a day or two to do the necessary authentications, get warrants issued, look into the financials. And then they'd strike when the building was open and everyone was there."
Bellamy heaved a relieved sigh. "A day or two. That means… tonight is a go."
Rosa nodded. "I would say that tonight is your window of opportunity."
"Then what the hell!" Bellamy told them "Let's open the damn window."
XXXXXXXXXX
They were all so anxious that it was a blessing they were also busy.
Echo and Emori took the free bus to the mall to buy a few last minute items of dark clothing, Gaia checked and rechecked her knotting plan, while Raven continually recalculated the weight of the stone. Which was doubly tricky because she'd seen it only once and had no idea what it was made of.
Bellamy went over the plan several times with the people who'd actually be in the building.
"When Raven cans the floodlights, we'll have a twenty-second window to get from the far edge of the property to the rear entrance. We absolutely can't be seen because we don't want anyone alerting Cadogan's goons that there are intruders, or even worse, wondering why the alarm didn't go off. Doc, you'll stay with the van," he told Jackson, who'd again been enlisted to drive.
"I was wondering," Jackson said then. "Do you think it might be hard getting the stone into the van? What if we had some kind of ramp?"
Bellamy shrugged. "Not a bad idea, but where we gonna get something like that?"
"We might check the automotive accessory store downtown," Rosa suggested. "We could go right now if you like, Eric."
She'd barely got the words out before they were out the door, returning a couple of hours later with not only a portable ramp for the van but something else Jackson had thought might be useful.
"We also found these long metal adjustable ramps that I think you might be able to put over the steps in the bunker to drag up the stone," he suggested. "That staircase is all half-flights with landings in the middle."
"I'd forgotten how much time you spent in the bunker, Doc," Bellamy said, nodding.
Jackson shrugged, smiling wryly. "Yeah, I'm intimately acquainted with that staircase and I think this might work."
Bellamy considered, glancing over at Clarke to see what she thought.
She shrugged. "It might work if they'll hold the stone's weight."
So the two of them took Raven out to the van to inspect Jackson's purchase.
Raven sighed. "I don't know. Maybe if you just use them to make a smooth surface over the steps and don't put the full weight of the stone on them. I think… and I know you're going to hate this answer, Bellamy… that you'll just have to wait and see."
Clarke knew Raven was right, that Bellamy would hate that answer. He liked to be sure about every potential outcome on any mission. They both did. But that never seemed to be how it was.
"I think we should bring them in," she decided. "If they work, it could save us a lot of time."
"That's it, then," Bellamy agreed. "We'll just cross our fingers."
Dinner that night was soberer than usual. Murphy made his usual cracks but no one seemed to be paying much attention.
Gaia seemed particularly edgy.
"What if my knots don't work?" she confided her fears to Clarke in a quiet moment after the meal was over.
"Of course they'll work, Gaia. You didn't win all those knotting contests for no reason."
Gaia's expression was wry. "That was just for fun, Clarke. I was a kid and I wanted to win. This is… so much more important."
Clarke reached out and squeezed her shoulder. "I understand what you're feeling, more than you can possibly imagine. But you just have to tell yourself that it'll work because it has to."
Gaia stared at her for a moment. "Is that how you got through everything that happened to you, Clarke? By telling yourself that you'd get through it because you had to?"
Clarke smiled. "Sometimes. Other times it was sheer luck." Her smile grew. "Or just Bellamy saving my ass. But whatever it was, it worked. And this will, too. Because it has to."
Gaia nodded. "Because it has to."
They left Rosa's house just before midnight. It was a Tuesday, and they'd learned from experience than even the city center quieted down that late on a weekday. There'd be few cars on the road and only the rare pedestrian.
The seven of them, including Jackson, entered the van quietly so as not to rouse anyone in Rosa's neighborhood. All were dressed in dark clothing, Clarke taking the extra precaution of covering her light hair with a cap.
Bellamy had already checked that everyone had a flashlight as well as several pairs of thin vinyl gloves which they would slip on just before they went into the building. They each carried a small knife, as Miller put it, "just in case."
"We can't go in there with absolutely nothing to defend ourselves with, Bellamy. And besides, who knows if we'll need to make an emergency cut to the rope or something?"
Bellamy had agreed, but then nixed Miller's request to bring one of the guns.
"There's no one in that building, Miller, and even if there was, I don't want to even think about shooting someone. So we won't need a gun."
Miller had desisted with a sigh. "I hope you're right."
They were also wearing the communication devices they'd bought before the gala, mostly to keep in touch with Raven so that she could time the brief dimming of the floodlights, and with Jackson, back in the van.
It was only a short drive from Rosa's house in Arlington to downtown Alexandria where the Second Dawn building was located, and it was an especially quick trip at that time of night. Jackson parked a few blocks away, and the others exited the van, Bellamy and Miller carrying the two pieces of adjustable ramp, while the others carried the several spools of rope that Gaia had determined would be necessary for the knotting. Clarke also had a zipped satchel in which to stow the tech.
They traveled quickly, keeping their heads down and away from any outside surveillance cameras, and finally shifting onto the grass near the edge of the Second Dawn lot. Bellamy glanced around silently, making sure they were all in position, then gave them a jerky nod.
"Is the alarm off, Raven?" he whispered into the tiny mic attached to his shirt.
"Yes," came the terse reply.
"Good. Then lights out now."
"You got it."
A second later the floodlights went off, and the building and grounds were bathed in darkness.
Bellamy led the way, racing pell mell across the lawn to the back of the lot and then turning towards the building. By the time he reached the rear door, he already had the magic key in his hand and an instant later was turning it in the lock. The door swung open silently and he began to sprint down the stairway, still carrying his half of the ramp. Clarke was right behind him, and she took it on faith that the others were following.
He finally swung around when he reached the bottom of the staircase, relieved to find them all on the steps above him.
"Did everyone make it inside before the lights came back on?" he asked, his voice tense.
"Yeah, I was last," Miller assured him, still hanging onto his half of the ramp. "I saw the lights go back on just as I shut the door."
They stood there for a moment or two to catch their breaths, arrayed along the staircase like debutantes entering a ball.
Bellamy finally nodded. "Flashlights everyone. Let's go."
Six lights leaped to life at once and they raced across the floor toward the stone. And although they all wore rubber-soled shoes, they paid little attention to how much noise they might be making because there was no one in the building.
The first order of business was to separate the stone from its plinth. Bellamy had told them he was sure the stone only sat on the base, and was not actually attached to it.
"We can thank Cadogan for giving Clarke and me that extra trip to the bunker to study the thing," he'd said, not without some irony.
When he and Miller gave it a preliminary nudge now, it rocked ever so slightly. Not much, but enough to tell them that Bellamy had been right.
Indra removed the large crowbar she'd carried on her back like a sword and set it at the edge of the stone, and Miller and Bellamy put their weight into prying it loose. They seemed to be getting nowhere until Indra lent a hand, and the extra weight on their side of the fulcrum was just enough to tip the object from its perch.
The stone rolled heavily, and noisily, onto the concrete floor.
They froze, holding a collective breath, but it rolled only a few inches, the symbols that had been embossed on its surface providing enough friction to stop it.
"This is good," Gaia nodded. "It'll be much easier to attached the ropes this way."
They all watched as she studied the object, perhaps comparing it with what she'd planned. Then she pulled a few papers from her pocket, looked them over and nodded again.
"Okay, I think I can do this," she said.
"I know you can," Clarke smiled, reminding her of their earlier conversation.
When Gaia got down to the knotting in earnest, Clarke nodded to Octavia that they should begin their circuit of the building to remove the electronics. Armed with Raven's schematic, they decided to start at Cadogan's office and work their way down.
When Octavia led them to the interior passageway, Clarke looked around in amazement.
"You knew about this when… when you lived here?"
Octavia shrugged. "Yeah. But it didn't lead anywhere then."
When she suddenly looked wary, Clarke realized they'd never really talked about what had happened between them during that terrible time.
"Look, Clarke," Octavia began, stopping suddenly right in the middle of the ramp, and Clarke just knew she was about to embark on some long-winded speech chuck full of apologies and contrition.
But Clarke wasn't having it.
"No, Octavia," she said, grasping her hand. "Those days are gone, never to be thought about again. We all did some awful things, and maybe we were too young or too inexperienced in life to have so much responsibility thrust on us. Or maybe there really was just… no other way."
She paused, swallowing heavily.
"But none of that matters now. None of that is who we are now. We survived, and we've been given another chance. To be better people, and live a better life."
She saw that Octavia's eyes were glassy and felt sudden tears spring to her own.
"Come here," she said, hugging Octavia for the first time in a long time.
"Is this just because of Bellamy?" Octavia asked, choking out the words. "Because of how you feel about him?"
Clarke pulled back to look her in the eye. "No, it's about you and me. We started out as friends and that's what I really want us to be. With or without Bellamy."
"You without Bellamy? Yeah, right," Octavia said, a watery smile now replacing her tears. Then she sighed and pulled away. "C'mon, I guess we better get this shit done."
They made their way up to Cadogan's office, finding it exactly as it had been on the night of the gala. It didn't take long to remove the cameras and listening devices that were shown in Raven's plan, and Clarke shoved them all into her satchel. Then they moved downward from floor to floor, and room to room, doing the same.
"I think that's the last of it," Clarke said, when they finally reached the vast darkened lobby and pulled out a bug attached to a light fixture on the wall.
She bent her head to speak into the mic clipped to her shirt. "Is that it, Raven? Did we get them all?"
"Yep," Raven confirmed, "they're all offline."
"Thank god," Octavia said. "I don't think I could have climbed on one more chair."
When they returned to the bottom level of the bunker, Clarke nodded to Bellamy, holding up the satchel to let him know the job was done.
Meanwhile, Gaia seemed to be knotting at lightning speed, and had moved along much more quickly than Clarke could ever have imagined. The knots were the most complex she'd ever seen, but they rose swiftly under Gaia's nimble fingers. Indra fed her the rope, but Gaia knotted in silence, merely testing the rope from time to time until she was satisfied.
At one point, she looked up and smiled. "I'd forgotten how much fun this was," she said.
That was all, and then she was knotting again.
She'd already worked her way around more than three-quarters of the stone when Clarke heard the thump, a sound similar to the one Raven had created with her brace all those weeks ago. She knew sounds often carried strangely in open spaces, so there was no way to tell where it might have come from.
But then again… why should it have come from anywhere when less than an hour ago she and Octavia had made their way through a completely empty building?
She'd already convinced herself it must have been her imagination when she heard it again, louder this time. Her eyes locked with Bellamy's and she could see her own concern reflected there.
What the hell was that?
"It's done," Gaia said suddenly, smiling. "We can attach the traverse ropes now and start to heft it up…"
And that's when they heard another noise, but this one was easily identifiable as footsteps on the stairs. And the footsteps were quickly followed by a voice.
"What are all you people doing down here?"
Cadogan!
Clarke couldn't believe it. Where the hell had he come from? And what the fuck was he doing there in the middle of the night?
For an instant they all froze, and then Bellamy turned to face him.
Cadogan's eyes bugged out. "Bellamy?" Then his eyes shifted and he noticed her, too. "And Clarke? What are you doing here?"
But that seemed to be the moment he finally realized that his prized possession, the object that would someday transport him to a mirror universe, was no longer in its usual place of honor, but was instead lying on the floor trussed up like a turkey.
"What the fuck are you doing with that?!"
Clarke watched as Bellamy squared his stance and folded his arms across his chest.
"What does it look like we're doing, Bill? We're stealing your stone. Just like you stole it from wherever the hell you found it in South America."
Bellamy's voice was so utterly calm that perhaps it took a little while for his words to register, and for Cadogan to finally stare up at him in disbelief.
"The hell you are."
The words were barely a whisper, as though he utterly denied the possibility.
But then he repeated them.
"THE HELL YOU ARE!"
And thus time they were a furious roar, and the man seemed not to care that there were six of them standing there, and he was only one.
He patted ineffectually at his body, and it suddenly came to Clarke that he was looking for his phone, and that it appeared to be missing. But before she could even think about conveying that information, Cadogan had taken off at a run.
"Bellamy!" she shouted, too late. "He's going upstairs for his phone!"
"Fuck! Fuck!"
Bellamy was off like a shot, shouting over his shoulder, "Get that thing out of here! And for Chrissakes, don't leave anything behind!"
But there was no way Clarke was letting him go after Cadogan alone. She took off after him, both of them knowing exactly where the man had been headed.
She ran up the stairs, catching sight of Bellamy just as he turned down the corridor with the paneled wall. A wall that had a gaping hole in it. The man had apparently been in such a hurry that he hadn't even bothered to close the panel behind him.
Bellamy was not happy to see her there.
"Clarke! You should've stayed with the others!"
"No way in hell I'm letting you go after him alone," she told him as they stepped through the opening and began to race up the narrow passageway to Cadogan's office.
"I know we must be faster than he is," she panted out. "We can still catch him before he gets to his phone."
Bellamy was running so fast, in fact, that Clarke had trouble keeping up with him.
Seconds later, they burst through the false closet into Cadogan's office. But instead of the immaculate space she'd seen only a couple of hours earlier, the room was now in utter chaos, papers scattered everywhere.
And Clarke knew at once why he was in the building in the middle of the night. Someone had tipped him off.
When they entered the room, Cadogan had just reached his desk at the far end, right beneath that circular wall of magical windows.
"Cadogan! Stop right there!" Bellamy shouted as they watched him angrily shove a chair aside and reach into the drawer.
"How the hell…?" He gawked at them from behind his desk, clearly astonished that they'd not only known about the passageway but had used it to follow him.
"Can't believe we knew about your fancy secret passageway? Sorry, Bill. We know a lot of things about you. And there's no point in calling in the goon squad because that stone is gone."
But he ignored Bellamy and yanked open the drawer anyway, his face suffused with anger and frustration.
Clarke saw Bellamy tense, ready to spring at Cadogan and wrestle away his phone. But it wasn't, after all, a phone that he pulled from the drawer, but something else entirely. Something made out of a dark dull metal.
And when he lifted his arm and pointed it at them they froze in their tracks.
He waved the gun back and forth between them, as though unsure what to do. Which of them to shoot. But then his face cleared and he was suddenly in charge again.
"You're taking away the thing that's most precious to me, Bellamy, so I'll just return the favor," he said, turning the gun on Clarke.
For Clarke, it all seemed to be happening in slow-motion, and at the same time happening so fast that she barely had time to be scared.
"Clarke!" Bellamy shouted, tackling her to the floor just as Cadogan's gun went off.
Whatever else he was, Cadogan was a lousy shot. The bullet went wild, ending up nowhere near either of them, but instead striking a fancy industrial-style pendant light that hung over his desk area. A light that must have been made of something hard, like steel.
Because that bullet ricocheted off the light fixture and bounced back behind the shooter and right into one of his magical windows. The ones that looked like a wall, but were still only made of glass. And that Bill had apparently never considered having bullet-proofed.
Bellamy and Clarke rose from the floor, watching in astonishment as the giant window began to splinter and crack. But Cadogan was so focused on them that he never noticed what was happening behind him.
Instead, he raised the gun again, this time taking aim at Bellamy.
"No!" Clarke shouted.
Searching desperately for a way to keep Cadogan from pulling the trigger, she gave a shove to the rolling desk chair that he'd pushed aside in his haste to get his gun. Her shove sent the chair flying across the floor where it hit Cadogan in his mid-section.
He looked down in surprise as the chair knocked him off his feet and into its enormous seat. As he fell in, momentum and the added weight caused it to teeter wildly, and in his effort to right the chair, Cadogan managed only to overbalance it.
The gun fell from his hand as he toppled over backwards into the window.
The very expensive window would surely have been strong enough to hold his weight if only it hadn't been compromised moments earlier, weakened in a hundred different places by the ricocheting bullet from Cadogan's gun.
His bullet had nearly shattered it and now he finished the job.
The magical window exploded as Bill Cadogan tumbled through it, dropping twelve stories to the ground below.
Bellamy and Clarke watched it all happen in frozen disbelief. There was a sudden stillness in the room, followed by the sighing of a gentle breeze as the outside air swirled around them.
Moving suddenly, Clarke began to race towards the windows, but she never made it.
Bellamy lunged, grabbing her around the waist and pulling her back.
"Clarke, no!"
"But, but…"
"There's nothing we can do for him. You know that. And you can't stick your head out where you could be seen."
He was right, of course.
"I didn't mean for that to happen," she said, still in shock.
"Of course you didn't. You just didn't want me to get shot. But right now we've got to get out of here."
"Right," she said, trying hard to regulate her breathing.
Bellamy wasn't shot, wasn't dead. She told herself that that's what mattered the most.
"Okay, let's go."
They hurried back to the passageway, making sure to carefully close both doors behind them.