The Daughters of Men

Chapter 11

"So what happened exactly?" Samuel asked, his phone up to his ear as he walked down the hallway of the Thatcher Building.

"Well, Holly went up there about three hours ago. She's not down yet, so I'm guessing it's going alright," Jennifer replied from the other end of the phone. "I don't think any of your visits lasted longer than twenty minutes."

"No, they didn't," Samuel agreed, relieved. "Hopefully that means she's recruited the Owl to our cause."

"I'm confident," Jennifer admitted. "But you have that other issue to worry about. The issue of Holly coming back."

"I'll figure something out," Samuel promised. "Thanks for the update. Call again when there's anything to report, okay?"

"Of course, Samuel. I'll talk to you later."

Samuel hung up the phone and then turned to enter his room. Inside was a small apartment, with hardwood floors and a beautiful, hand-made bed. Everything in the apartment was specially crafted from various artisans across the world; a dresser made by a lovely Swiss couple, his wardrobe was built over a period of six years by a man from Montana who was very picky over his choice in wood, and even his toilet was the product of a Mongolian woman's dedication to making one-of-a-kind toilet bowls. As Samuel removed his shoes and put them on his shoe rack, he walked over his cold floor and sat on his bed before swinging each leg individually onto the bed. He turned on his television and began to flip through the channels when his eye was caught by the news.

"...appear to be having some sort of fight in the middle of Millennium Park," the anchorman reported. "While one of the fighters is unidentified, the second appears to be a well-known vigilante from the area by the name of Battle. The park and surrounding buildings have begun evacuation and there are no casualties as of yet, the Chicago Police Department are doing their best to stop this fight before it escalates into anything more than it already is and are urging people into staying away."

Faster than he had meant to, Samuel jumped out of his bed and slipped on the floor, hitting his head on edge of his bed. Standing up straight for a moment as he rubbed his temple, he began to make his way out of his room quickly, managing to run into Doctor Nguyen on the way.

"Lana, did you--"

"Battle is involved in a massive fight in the heart of Chicago," Doctor Nguyen interjected pointedly. "This is who we've chosen as our fifth recruit?"

"We need to send the girls to stop the fight and recruit her immediately," Samuel urged. "This might be the only chance to catch her in public like this."

"Should we not wait for Holly?" Doctor Nguyen asked, opening the door at the end of the hall for Samuel.

"Holly's in California," Samuel reminded. "There's not a lot she's going to be able to do from there. No, we need to work with what we have."

"Very well, I'll get one of the helicopters ready."

"The choppers are too slow," Samuel growled. "It'd take two hours to get from here to there. There's got to be something better we can use."

"That's all we've got, Samuel," Doctor Nguyen noted.

"Wait," Samuel suddenly shouted. "Did you not recently say that you were working with someone in Indiana about a teleportation pod?"

"The teleporting project was scrapped," Doctor Nguyen explained. "There was no reliable way to ensure the user's safety once the pod takes off. Additionally, even if the pod did work, it'd only get them to Indianapolis, which is still not where Battle is."

"It cuts out half the distance," Samuel remarked. "If they got there it'd be easy enough for Elizabeth to just fly both of them to Chicago and then they could intercede the fighters. Is the teleportation pod still up?"