To Be A Leader

Chapter 7: Your Woman

"Okay, guys," Jody sighs, fiddling with her sleeves as we run. "The situation is, we can't access the transmitter at Worthington-on-Sea anymore because Raoul tried to sell you out to Sigrid, so I have a plan.

"We need to build our own transmitter so we can keep in touch with the Laundry and coordinate to find those babies. I've got some plans from Janine's emergency 'Rebuild of Civilization' notes." She gives us a toothy grin. "Just think how proud Janine will be when she comes back and sees we got a transmitter while she was away."

A soft smile crosses Tom's face as he places a hand on her shoulder. "She'll be proud of you whatever you do, darling."

She shrugs. "Maybe. But remember, you can't call me darling. I'm Janine today. Because the only people near us who deal in the power converters we need and aren't loyal to Sigrid are the Eight of Hearts. They're an underground paramilitary faction."

I nod, my throat already beginning to tighten. "Security conscious."

"So security conscious, they only deal with Janine. But they've never met her in person. It's all been via coms. And so..." Jody clears her throat and imitates Janine's tone of voice. "Mr. De Luca, Runner Five, let's see if I can give them Janine."

Tom's eyes go wide with surprise. "Wow. That's spot on."

"It needs to be. If they discover I'm not Janine..." A fearful look passes over her face. "I mean, they've got a reputation for blindin' their enemies and sendin' them wanderin' through zom territory, which I don't think I'd enjoy. So I suggest we pick up the pace. Tardiness would be a dead giveaway. Come on!"

I push my already burning legs to go a bit faster, worry and nervousness clinging to me like glue. Even with this being through coms, and these Eight of Hearts people not knowing what Janine looks like, this is a very dangerous, very risky thing we're doing. Jody and Janine look nothing alike. Jody and Tom look nothing alike! And Jody's supposed to be pretending to be his sister!

Of course, we used box dye to dye Jody's hair (something I was not for at all) from blonde to natural black to match Janine's and Tom's hair color. We even managed to find some blue contacts to cover up Jody's naturally green ones. The only real problem we still have is how much lighter Jody's skin tone is compared to her alleged brother. Jody does have a slight tan, but she's nowhere near as dark as Tom or Janine.

I'm hoping they won't notice, and if they do, we can always always say they're half siblings or something.

I'm praying for things to go well for us today. We need them to, and with how weird things have been in Abel, I'd like to have a mission where things don't go horrendously wrong. The last two days have been nothing but awkwardness and weird looks and silence that could swallow a person whole. And it's been that way with everyone, it seems.

Milo and Phineas keep sending Sam weird looks and keep mentioning something about jewelry. And when Milo's not being weird he's off running on the track or dashing to the labs to chase after Veronica's coattails, which I don't understand considering how he was angry at her for months because of Owen.

And Sam... every time I try to ask when we'll have our little date night with that story prompt book, he sputters and gets all wide eyed and makes some pitiful excuse to leave before bolting from the room. I haven't been able to get more than a few words out of him since two days ago with my axe. I'm hoping since he's our operator for this mission I can get something out of him. It's only been a few days but I miss talking with him. I really do.

And Peter-I internally groan just thinking about him. Things have been so weird since I found out who he was. I mean, I sort of get his reasoning for not telling me. It's not ideal, and I kind of want to kick his ass, but he sees his reasons as justified, even though those reasons were actually really stupid.