Winter's Edge

Chapter 20 - Outside

Abby

THE tinkling of utensils along with the smell of coffee stirred us from sleep the next morning.

After breakfast and showers, everyone gathered at the large table in the warehouse surrounded on three sides by lockers, workbenches, and tool cabinets full of gear and weapons.

My hair, makeup, and clothing were different than usual to retain anonymity. Not that it mattered, but Ian seemed to like my new look.

Joseph turned to Artie. "Lena's going with you today, right?"

Artie's eyebrows rose. "Oh, yes. She'll be good help in the junkyards."

Lena rolled her eyes and folded her arms, sulking.

Joseph turned to Murph and Reilly. "You two are on farm duty."

Farm duty was simple. Load the produce into covered trailers and sell them to local farmers at a wholesale price. We made a lot of money very quickly, and the farmers made a lot of extra money off our produce.

Joseph turned to Kat and Jesse. "You two are on supply duty."

Supply duty was basically shopping for our community's necessities. Thankfully, I hadn't gotten supply duty that day. I'd never liked driving a van.

Joseph looked to us. "Ian. Abby. You're on gold duty."

Gold duty was the easiest. Load unrefined gold into a hidden compartment beneath the back seat of our gold transport vehicle and take it to a local refinery. Tomorrow, we'd finish by picking up the refined gold, depositing it into various banks and storage units, and selling a large portion to gold dealers. The last twenty percent would go back to Winter's Edge.

But something wasn't adding up.

"Really?" I said. "You're putting Ian on gold duty his first time out?"

Joseph nodded then looked back and forth from me to Ian. "You two could pass for brother and sister. Tell them he's your younger brother who's just started working at the company. They think you're twenty-four, and Ian's ID says he's twenty-three. Artie set it up already. Have them call me if there's a problem."

Artie smiled in confirmation, bouncing his eyebrows at us.

I cocked my head. Was this some screwy test for Ian to see if he'd try to steal from us or was Joseph just not wanting to work with me today? It didn't make sense.

Normally, Joseph posed as my dad who was grooming me to take over the company when he retired. When he wasn't available to go with me on a gold run, I'd usually take someone like Reilly or Jesse who'd pose as employees. But taking Ian was just odd. I wasn't going to complain, though. I liked Ian's company. So I let it go with a reluctant, "Okay, Dad."

"I'll be running some personal errands." Joseph tossed a wallet, a wrist watch, and a small, black radio cell phone on the table that slid to a stop just in front of Ian. "Here's your new identity. Your name is Jason Tillman."

Ian slipped the radiophone into his pocket, put on the wrist watch, then picked up the wallet and flipped through it, examining the license and other credentials.

Joseph opened a nondescript gray locker. "Locker 13 is yours. Put your old ID and anything else on your person that identifies you in here and lock it up. Key's in the lock."

Ian rifled through his pockets and removed a few things, storing them in the locker, then snapped it shut and locked it.

Joseph tapped his watch. "Your watch is synchronized with all of our watches and the clocks in all of the cars. Remember, never use your powers unless absolutely necessary. Otherwise, you'll pull Hunters your direction." Joseph looked at everyone. "If you're attacked, use rendezvous point C." He pointed to it on a map laid out on the table. "That's the corner of Lincoln and 17th, downtown. If you have to evade Hunters, one of you takes the vehicle, if possible, and the other runs on foot unless you're sure they haven't seen your vehicle. Split up in different directions, lose them, and don't run with your powers all the way to the rendezvous point or Hunters will track you. We're not the only ones with Watchers."