Danger Magellan's Invasion of Earth

Chapter 30

Chapter 30

After dinner, Tanaquil, Blaze, and I wandered through the Orange Quarter, still in search of a blood donor. The first Orange we encountered was a man in his thirties walking next to us. His skin was abnormally pale, and he had a thin frame and slick, black hair. "Hello there," I said.

"Hello," the man said quietly, and he began to walk faster. I practically had to jog to keep up with him.

"My friend and I are in need of some help," I said.

"What do you need help with?" the man asked.

"We're trying to destroy the Ink," I said.

"How are you going to do that?" the man asked. "It's up in space right now, isn't it? Wouldn't you need a spaceship to destroy it?"

"A Purple woman who lives here knows how to summon and destroy it with a potion," I said. "In order for her to do so, she needs a drop of blood of each color."

"What does that have to do with me?" the man asked.

"We need a drop of Orange blood," I said. "Could you give it to us?"

"I'm sorry, but you must be crazy," the man said. "That was a nice story, but I just can't believe it."

The man walked away, and we tried the same tactic with several other passerby. However, we had no luck. By that point, it was quite dark, and I could see each of Sidhe's six moons lighting up the sky. Tanaquil and I would have to head back to our hotel soon, but we still hadn't succeeded in our task. Clearly, nobody in the Orange Quarter was willing to donate a drop of blood for us.

I turned back to ensure that I was going in the right direction, and I realized that something was very wrong. Blaze was crawling behind me, but Tanaquil was missing. I looked around, but I couldn't find her. "TANAQUIL!" I shouted, but nobody answered. I yelled her name again, but I still didn't get an answer.

Already, I was starting to worry. What if someone kidnapped Tanaquil? I wondered. What if someone killed her? Either way, I had to find her, even if she was dead already. I began to head back to the restaurant, retracing our steps. I kept an eye out for Tanaquil, but she was still nowhere to be found. A tiny Martian girl shouldn't be this hard to find, right? I thought.

I found a group of protestors standing a few blocks away from the restaurant. They were shouting something in Yellow Common Language, with some Bluespeech mixed in. Blaze translated their shouts, although I was still a little confused about what exactly they were protesting. It seemed to be about something involving the war in the Oroshi system. As I looked closer, I saw that Tanaquil was standing amongst them. "Tanaquil?" I asked. "What are you doing here?"

"I'm protesting the Oroshi War, obviously," Tanaquil said. "What are you doing?"

At first, I laughed. Deciding to protest the Oroshi War in the middle of a search for an Orange blood donor was one of the most obvious moves that Tanaquil could make, but I quickly realized just how much time she was wasting. "I was looking for you!" I exclaimed. "Come on! Let's go!"

"There's something I need to do first," Tanaquil said. She walked up to one of her fellow protesters and said, "I know a way that we can stop the Blue Alliance."

"Why should I listen to you?" the protester replied. She appeared to be around our age, but she had the pale skin that marked her as an Orange. "You're a Blue too."

"So?" Tanaquil said. "I don't support what the Martian government is doing at all. It's beyond wrong."

"Go talk to someone else," the protester said.