Morningside Fall(106)
Cass went back to the mess hall and found it mostly deserted. Gamble and her team were still seated at their table – but Swoop was standing and they all looked troubled.
“What’s going on?” Cass asked as she approached.
“Have you been in touch with North?” Gamble asked.
“No, why?”
“Anybody from Morningside?”
“No, not at all. Not since we left. What’s the problem?” Cass asked.
“Can you try to contact him?”
“Is it safe?”
“We’ll see.”
Cass didn’t like the sound of that, but she opened the connection and sent North a quick pim. In a split second, she got the response: refused.
“That’s strange,” she said. She tried again with the same result. Immediate denial.
“Locked out?” Gamble asked.
“Seems like it.”
Gamble nodded, grim-faced.
“Why would that be?”
“I tried to check in with some of my contacts back in Morningside. Same result. I had Finn dig into it. He skimmed some backlogs, found an executive order declaring us persona non grata.”
“What? From who?”
“North.”
Cass was thunderstruck. There had to be some kind of mistake. “That doesn’t make any sense.”
“Doesn’t it?” Swoop said.
“Why would he target your team?”
“It’s not just us, Cass,” Sky said. “It’s all of us… you, and Wren included.”
Cass shook her head. “No, there’s no way. There’s no way he could just issue a decree like that. Not on his own. What grounds would he have?”
Gamble answered, “The murder of Connor.”
Cass’s legs felt hollow, and she slowly lowered herself onto the bench. Her mind raced to put the pieces together. The attempt on Wren’s life. The tension of the Council meetings. The protests. The murder of Luck and Mez and the others. Was North at the center of it all? Or was the entire Council corrupted?
“Can’t we just get Wren to rescind it?” Wick asked. “He’s still governor, isn’t he?”
“How would he do that, Wick?” Finn said, his tone sharp.
“There’s gotta be somebody back there we can contact. Let ’em know what really happened.”
“And who do you think they’re gonna believe? The upright and pristine politician that’s there in the city, bringing them hard news? Or the people from beyond the wall,” Finn said as he flicked his hand at Cass, “that fled in the night with their bloodstained bodyguard?”
Finn’s words stung, but he was right. North was a long-time citizen. No matter what Underdown had done for Morningside and what hopes the people had for his son, Wren would always be an outsider. Cass was forever Other. And the citizens had never been comfortable with the guard; no one liked to be reminded of the bloody cost other people paid to keep them safe.
Was this what North had planned? Get them out of the city, and then assume power for himself? Or had he merely taken advantage of the opportunity? The safest thing is for you to leave Morningside, he’d told them. It just didn’t make sense. None of it did.
“I can’t believe it…” Cass said.
“Believe it or not, it’s what is,” Swoop growled.
“No, I mean I simply cannot believe North would betray us.”
“Sister, at this point it doesn’t matter,” Mouse said. He was calm, his tone of voice controlled, disarming. “However you slice it, our timetable’s changed. Right now, we need to focus on our next steps.”
“Next steps is I go back and burn him down,” Swoop said.
“Sure,” Mouse said. “We could do that, Swoop. And you know I’d be right there with you, dying in a hail of gunfire, if I thought it was the right thing to do. But I don’t think this problem is one we can shoot to fix.”
Swoop took a deep breath. “I didn’t say it’d fix anything,” he said as he sat down. “It’d just make me feel a whole lot better.”
We still need to find a place to set up for a while, Able signed.
“Agreed,” Gamble said. “Let’s talk options.”
The group fell into a frank discussion of what lay ahead, and how best to tackle the immediate problem of finding a place to stay, possibly for a more extended period of time than they’d originally planned. They were a team, and as the conversation continued, Cass found herself slipping gradually out of the exchange. This time, however, she didn’t bristle at how little they asked her opinion.
They were in operational planning mode, and she was content to sit back and observe the unique capabilities that Gamble’s team possessed in action. Everyone had their specialties, and that always colored their approach to problem-solving, but even when tension seemed to be running high, the process never slowed down. Cass had never really seen this side of the team before, and she couldn’t help but be impressed. She let them carry on planning, trusting them in their element.