12.3
The reaction of chairs scraping against the floor and elbows banging on the table made Sasha jump.
"Woah," Echo drawled in a voice that didn't sound as surprised as she really was, "slow down, man. How'd you get there?"
"Uhh, it'd take a while to explain," he muttered, not wanting to waste so many people's precious time.
Sasha felt a soft tap on his shoulder and twisted his downturned head to the left. It was Yumi, looking at him with upturned eyes, two thumbs up, and a smirkish yet reassuring smile across her curved, red lips.
For a moment, her gaze captivated his own, charging his will like a battery. He turned his eyes away from Yumi, now able to open his mouth without shaking.
"I know about some of the culture and politics in the cities because of the job I worked at for a few years when I lived in Iron. There are nine cities–probably–but only five really matter. This is just my opinion, but the order of importance is Great Heights, Russon, Blackpool, Iron, and then Hoodsdale."
"Those cities are the core of humanity, and they're strong, for now. We haven't faced any significant dangers lately, so people are generally at peace. If Blake wants to change anything, he'll need to disrupt that stability. To do that, he needs fear and chaos."
As if he'd become a different person, Sasha's voice never wavered, and he moved straight from one sentence to the next.
"Hoodsdale is the one city that's still afraid. Their government is the most strongly opposed to elements and rebels. I don't know about the civilians…"
He turned to the table's head. "Jelani, what were the people in Hoodsdale like?"
"They're afraid," the young man confirmed. "Can't do much other than shopping and eating."
Sasha nodded gratefully.
"Ok. That plus the fact that Hoodsdale's defenses are weak makes it the obvious first target. It will be easy for him to create chaos there, and when the other cities hear about it, they'll become afraid too. While everyone is questioning their own safety, he'll offer his alternative view for the future and hope that people will follow him."
Eve's voice spoke up softly.
"Um… if Blake attacks Hoodsdale, then won't everyone be afraid of him? Why would anyone listen to what he says after that?"
The table went silent.
Sasha squinted at the dark wood. "We can't confidently predict what he'll do. It's also possible that he'll just go to Blackpool and start his plans more quietly… but after seven years of waiting, that seems anticlimactic. And we should assume the worst, which would be an attack on Hoodsdale."
"How sure are you?" Echo, who'd been listening carefully, suddenly asked. "That he'll go for Hoodsdale?"
Sasha glanced at her warily.
"Logically… I'd say there's a twenty percent chance. But my gut feeling is that it's really eighty."
Echo stared at him for a few long seconds with eyes that were simultaneously annoyed and impressed.
"Alright," she concluded. "I'll listen to you, 'cause I agree we should expect the worst. When do you think he's gonna go for it?"
Sasha lowered his eyes, carefully mulling the question over in his mind.
But then he shook his head. "I can't even guess. Although… his partners are probably tired from getting him into Portland, so we should be able to assume they'll take at least a few days to rest."
He drew an uncertain breath. "I don't know much about the elements though… maybe they've already recovered."
The silence that followed was the longest yet, each person seated at that table thinking of nothing but their uncertain futures.
"I'm starting to think we won't have to do anything," Echo murmured, her voice soft and deep. "Blake might never get to us if we stay deep enough in the woods, and maybe his version of the future isn't so bad."
"Mom."
Echo turned, meeting her daughter's honest eyes.
"He was going to kill me. I'm sure he's evil, and I'd feel bad doing nothing. I really hope it's going to be okay, but if it isn't, we can't just run away."
Echo's eyes softened, but there was a grimness behind her smile.
"Ok. We'll plan to help until we're sure of what's happening. But Eve, neither of us has an obligation to risk our lives, okay?"
Eve nodded firmly, gazing confidently into her mother's worried eyes.
Eve's reassurance gave Echo some peace, and she returned her mind to the problem of Blake.
"No one will listen to us, so for now, all we can do is try to learn more about Blake and what he's doing. Personally, I wanna know how many of those 'friends' he has and if any of them are worth worrying about."
Sasha nodded. "I think Echo's right. We can't do much other than that."
Their debate had apparently found its conclusion.
"No."
Nikki wasn't going to accept that so easily–not after seeing what Blake was capable of.
"Blake is trying to take over the world, so we are going to do something. If we can convince people to help us and get a group going, then we'll have some say, and maybe we could stop his attack."
She spoke earnestly, but her words didn't have their intended effect on her audience. Everyone still looked depressed, because Nikki's goals were just too ambitious.
"Even if there are people out there who'll listen," Echo said to Nikki's desperate face, "it'll take forever to find them. We're better off waiting for Blake to do something, because then the people who want to rebel against him will show up on their own."
Nikki clenched her jaw.
"No."
She shook her head.
"No. If it goes exactly as he plans, I'm scared it'll be too late. The one thing we can do to throw him off is make the first move. Please, let's at least try."
Sasha opened his mouth, but instead of words, a sigh escaped his lips. What Nikki wanted didn't make sense–it was a problem he couldn't solve.
It appeared that no one–not even Nikki–had an idea for how they could strike a blow. After all, they were no more than a couple of homeless people merely guessing that a war was about to begin.
Nikki looked from one silent person to the next, and when she finally realized just how impossible her request had been, her shoulders drooped and she cried.
She tried to wipe it away, embarrassed to be putting on a weeping display at such a grave moment, but her eyes didn't dry, and the tears kept coming.
"Sasha."
In the midst of Nikki's sniffles, a voice spoke, calm and direct.
Sasha looked at Jelani in surprise.
"You said there are 'probably' nine cities. What does that mean?"
Beneath the pile of information they'd all been puzzling over, that particular detail had been buried deep in each of their minds–except for Jelani's. In fact, it was the point that had caught his attention the most.
Everyone knew there were nine cities: Blackpool, Gambrel, Great Heights, Greenfield, Hoodsdale, Ichor, Ilwaco, Iron, and Russon. For all of Jelani's life, that was how they'd been listed. There had always been nine, and any who lived outside of a city's walls was an outcast doomed to die–a "rebel."
"Ah," Sasha replied, "I think I was overconfident saying that. There was just a rumor I heard a while ago that some people had set out to build another city that wasn't walled in like the others. It seemed like it was true, so I was surprised that I couldn't find out anything else."
"When things are kept quiet," he continued, "they're usually more important than what's actually talked about, so I started to imagine that maybe… those people had accomplished something."
Sasha stared down at the table in a trance.
"Oh, but this is all theoretical," he hastily added, shaking his head. "You shouldn't believe it."
As if they'd planned it out beforehand, Jelani looked at Echo, and Echo looked at Jelani. Each of their mouths curled upward ever so slightly.
"This is a miracle," Jelani declared, directing his attention to Sasha. "We'll find the city, and then we'll get the people in it to fight against Blake. Looks like we're all gonna be happy in the end."
"W-wait, wait, no, no, no." Sasha lifted his hands in front of him, as if physically pushing Jelani's comments back out of existence. "We can't do that. There's no way there's really a city."
"Too late, man," Jelani told the blushing Sasha as he stood up from his seat. "Let's go do something."