Travelers

Chapter 26 - The Anarchist

Jacob opened the door to their apartment complex and called for Rose, curious how her day had gone. Mal walked in behind him and called for her as well. Neither of them got an answer. Not too concerned as to the fact that their friend wasn't home. Jacob looked through the supplies in his apartment cabinets, and found that he had small stores of food, about enough for a day or two. He cooked a simple meal and they ate, leaving the leftovers for Cat and Rose. Cat showed up soon after that. She ate her meal, but Rose never appeared. He would have understood if she had been a Renegade and pulled a late shift, but still she didn't show the next day.

"Cat, do you think that Adrian would be willing to retask your team to search for her? It is never a good sign when one of us goes missing," he asked.

"Or captured," Mal said, thinking aloud, "I mean think about it. All of us have been captured at least once. The first time it was you two, then Richard and I. Maybe that is kind of part of being a traveler or something?" Jacob had to admit that she had a good point. He remembered way back during their first adventure when he had to carry Cat to keep the orcs from practically dragging her across the field. Mal had come to their rescue at just the right time, and then back at Hogwarts Mal and Richard had been captured by the angry centaurs after being riled up by Lyndsey. That time he had to pull out his new spells to create enough of a distraction so Cat could free both of them. He felt like both of those were years ago. Probably because he actually had lived almost a year in both of their previous stories.

"Alright, I'll ask Adrian, but should I do it in front of Nova? I don't know that we can trust her to let the story play out," Cat decided to clarify. They decided that they would both ask their team leaders to work on searching for Rose. It would be easier because Rose happened to not be a Renegade, so the code would actually support their search.

When they arrived at headquarters the search started for Rose almost immediately. Jacob had sent the others a message explaining the situation and why they needed help. Kate agreed quickly and they all began searching. Cat was greeted by her team and they helped search as well. Danna stepped out of the building and burst into a swarm of butterflies, and Tony zipped down streets and through buildings looking for her. Jacob saw Karen's power for the first time as well. She walked into a window and rather than smacking into the surface she disappeared, presumably stepping out another pane of glass somewhere. Kate manipulated steel into some sort of strange board and turned to Mal.

"Let's try that technique we discussed," Kate said to her. Mal's water swirled in the air as they both stepped on one of the two plates of steel. Suddenly, the water blasted beneath the boards, and they took off like speedboats, literally street surfing. Jacob found himself alone without a partner, but Adrian's team stood with him. Together they split off into two teams. Obviously, they just had to go guys and girls. Cat and went with Ruby and Nova as Jacob split off to join Adrian and Oscar. They searched all of the places she would reasonably be, and after an hour more of searching, noon approached. They still had no results, and they had searched more than half of Gatlon City. It was at this point that Jacob realized they weren't utilizing one of their greatest assets. Adrian wasn't using his springs to move faster. Jacob knew that Oscar might not know about Adrian's alternate identity yet, but he knew it was worth the risk.

Jacob stopped Adrian for a moment, and said, "Sorry I've been slowing you down. We could be searching so much faster." Adrian looked confused for a moment, but Oscar seemed to understand, luckily.

"What do you...? Wait, do you know about... ?" Adrian started to ask, but each time a question formed in his mind, he didn't seem to know how to ask it.

"Come on, use the springs, Oscar and I can catch up later," Jacob told him, "Go, Sentinel. Go be a hero."

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