For The Many

Chapter 7

I had been terrified. Utterly terrified. When that Shifter approached me... I thought for sure that he'd pick me up on the fact that I wasn't authorised to be there, and that he was going to kill me because of that. My heart had been in my mouth the entire time, but Click says he never noticed. He was halfway down the hallway, though, and trying not to be noticed. The only one who could say otherwise was the boy, and he still hasn't spoken.

 Sarge and Dayoh have both been congratulating me on a successful heist over the past few days, though, so I suppose nothing has been said to any other Shifters.

 -Marta Pennyworth, July 3rd.

 Marta woke in the hospital bed she had slept in for the past two months, stretching her real arm first to wake the muscles, then disconnecting the charger from the fake one. She glanced to her right, to the only other occupied bed, and saw the boy she had rescued. He slept in the foetal position – a strange thing for someone who was as confident as he seemed – with a firm grip on both the thin sheet that covered him and the pillow beneath his head.

Silently, she got to her feet and approached him, seeing the difference from the first time she had saw him only now that she looked at him properly. His hair had been washed, and spiralled in unruly waves that strayed in any direction they could now that it was dry, with a fringe-like chunk lying across his pale forehead. She hadn't seen his eyes since the rescue, but remembered what they looked like from when he had glared at Click, when he had tried to help. They were blue, a bright blue, that sparked with intelligence and experience, even though he lacked the years that most with those eyes possessed. Marta knew he had been through pressing times.

 “Ah, Marta, you're awake!” Click called. Marta spun to look at him, startled by his presence. “I have just received the monthly newspaper from our resistance group-”

“There's a resistance group?” She interrupted.

“Ah, yes, did I not tell you? Sarge, Dayoh and I are by no means the only ones looking to aide the humans, but that is beside the point for now. The newspaper – you're in it!” A wide smile had appeared on his face as he held the folded wad of paper out to her.

 She cocked a brow. “Pennyworth's Penny Worth?” She asked. “How did they know my last name? And what do they mean?” Click huddled in closer to her, pointing with enthusiasm as he explained.

“We log all of the people we save – I looked in your diary for your name, sorry about that – and keep them all on a database. I told the others that you would be going with me to save the two we had highlighted as high risk, and then reported of the additional human as well as your performance. They were very impressed!”

 Marta was speechless. Before the Shifters arrived, she had never once had her name even said in her school assembly, let alone in a newspaper, so to have her name, albeit her last name, as part of a headline in a newspaper that was to be sent to every resistance group that was known... It was an incredible feeling. “Wait,” she began, frowning. “You looked in my diary?” He grinned sheepishly, scratching his cheek with a small laugh.

“Ah, yes, uhm... No, not at all, uh, however, I would like to know – what is a cattle?”

“It's just cattle, not a cattle. It's the genderless plural for cow.” He clicked his fingers and smiled, walking away with a slight spring in his step. “Weird...”

 She took one, last look at the boy who by some miracle was still asleep, then departed to do her daily duties.

 She met first with the Ungratefuls, as she always did, and wondered silently if the boy would end up among them. When she had saved him, he seemed to hate the Shifters as much as she had, but that changed for her. She hoped she could change his mind, too, but the reality of it all lead her to believe it highly unlikely.