Super

The Underground

Chapter 21: The Underground

"How's the conference?" My mother asked me and I quickly swallowed my bite of breakfast sandwich.

"Fine, but really busy. I haven't gotten much sleep." And boy was that truth. Since we confirmed Dolly's location Ashley had me working nonstop. I'd mostly been holding down the fort using the holo board to map out detailed dimensions of Dolly's secret hidey hole, well more like a hidey cavern. But to get that information we had to take several risky scouting missions down to Dolly's lair.

Originally the two of us were going go on these scouting missions together but, it quickly became apparent that Telex moved much faster on his own. When he told me this after the first two trips, I didn't really care. I mean it was interesting and all but who really wants to hike through junk, poop, and rats for hours on end. Not me. And besides I was finally getting used to Ashley's funky system. I wasn't nearly as fast as her but I wasn't doing half bad.

Every trip Telex came back from gave us more information. Within two trips, Nathan had given me nearly everything I needed. It took nearly a day and a half but from the info and visuals he gave me I had created a pretty dead on map. And at first, I couldn't really believe what she had done: Dolly was literally operating out of the old city which was located 30 feet below the old sewer system. The original section of the city called Roseshire, located below modern-day Red Town, burned over a hundred years ago. Considering that most of Red Town, and most of Vaulding, at that time was made of wood it was only a matter of time. The fire amazingly enough didn't spread to the whole city but Roseshire was completely torched. It had to be rebuilt from the ground up, and somehow it transformed from a relatively poor area into the bustling boutique shopping experience that it is today. I have no idea how this little subterranean block survived the fire and being buried but I wouldn't be surprised if they just stumbled upon it one day like we did and decided to take up shop. It's really amazing that some of those old buildings are still standing.

"Oh, sorry mom, I just got distracted for a second. What did you say?" My mother sighed on the end of the line and I stopped typing for a minute. "Mom? What's wrong?"

"Everyone is worried about you, especially Cara." I took a deep breath.

"Does she know I'm talking to you?" I asked quickly glancing over the holo board.

"She does."

"You know she hasn't called or texted me or anything."

"Well she's still mad at you." My mother said with a slight sharpness in her voice. I bit my tongue to keep from talking back. I made this mess so I just have to deal with it.

"Yeah, I know, it's fine, I guess. I would be mad too if I was her." I leaned back in my chair and closed down the program. This was going to be a long conversation.

"Why haven't you been talking to any of your friends, they are nearly as upset as Cara is. They're scared."

"I know. I listen to their messages when I have a second between meetings but I've been really busy over here. It's been more intense than I thought it would be."

"Come on Becki, you really don't have time to text your friends? It takes no time at all to send a text. I'm sure you can spare a minuet from your busy schedule to talk to your friends."

"Ok fine, I can make time to talk to them, but what am I supposed to say? I just can't think of anything I could say that would make them feel better. I wish I could." I took a deep breath and tried to calm down. "Listen I'm sorry, but I can't do this right now."

"Fine, but if you don't do something soon, you're going to lose some of the people you love the most." She took another deep breath than paused for a moment. "Do you know when you're coming home?"