Fear Itself

“I feel like we’ve been getting nowhere,” Sam sighed with a slight groan in his voice. To be frank, we probably all felt similarly. Not one of us gathered around that table with a smile, and not one of us seemed too thrilled about our current predicaments. While the previous riot really had seemed like a success, we found that it accomplished little as far as the League was concerned. They only seemed to get stronger. Now, lower-ranking militiamen were stationed on every corner. While I was told numerous times that I had no records (since my father had legally killed me, at least on paper) and that security couldn’t identify me, I really shouldn’t have had a problem. Still. Traveling frightened me, for the most part. I tried to one area as much as I could.

“I don’t know,” Dean mumbled. “I think it definitely accomplished something. It got ‘em scared, didn’t it? That’s really the most we can do at this point.”

I spaced out as they continued talking. Was that really all we could do? Sam and Dean kept bickering. Alex would occasionally interject. Harley would laugh when she found something amusing, and Avery sat at my side, silent as usual. I thought back to things I had overheard in town, trying to pick up on something, anything. My brain packed full of information, at times it proved hard to pick out what was important and what wasn’t. I thought of my conversations with Sam, trying to think if he had told me anything. I thought of his office, all the stacks of books, the bed, the computer, the arm chair in the corner that Alex liked to sit in. My mind flashed to a diagram hung on his wall: five buildings all labeled with different tasks (for example, building five contained the labs, and building four contained the archives and finances). I thought of the last conversation with Sam and what he told me: “Taking down a government is like cooking a fish. The most important part is to gut it.”

“We have to gut it,” I murmured, mostly to myself.

“Huh?” Alex asked, thoroughly confused. Sam was staring at me.

“We have to gut the League,” I repeated, louder. I reached across the table and took the pad of paper from Sam and his pen. “The All-Seeing Eye is stationed on top of League Tower #1, correct?” Everyone nodded. “Fantastic,” I mumbled, beginning to sketch out a square. “League Tower #1, from appearance, looks to built of lightweight materials. It’s also an office building, which leads me to believe that it’s probably designed with ‘tube in tube’ structures, meaning that the floor plans are open and unobstructed by columns. Dean, am I correct?” I asked, not looking up as I continued scribbling on the paper, drawing squares within my larger square: a blueprint of sorts.

“Correct,” Dean replied slowly. “I like where you’re going with this, Blondie.”

“Great,” I mused. “Generally, these kinds of buildings have their support centered on a number of columns… should be about 35 if I’m correct on estimating this building’s size. They’re placed below the building, under a sheet of bedrock most often. So, they’re probably on the basement level. What I am proposing is that we infiltrate the towers with a number of small explosive devices, preferably activated by detonator, and stick them to the columns below. Then, once we are safely out of the blast radius, we can hit the trigger and officially destroy the gut of the League.”

At first, the idea was met with silence, at least until Dean began a slow clap (that no one joined into). “Bravo, Blondie!” he exclaimed. “That might be the most brilliant thing I’ve ever heard come out of anyone in this shit hole.” He was flabbergasted as he took the notepad from me. “Sam, look at this,” he said, motioning for his brother to come over. “She’s absolutely blood right.”

“This is good,” Sam muttered. He lifted his head to me and nodded, repeating louder, “This is really good.”

“Good?” Dean scoffed. “It’s brilliant. We get to cause some trouble for the League and blow shit up in the process.”

“And what’s really great about this,” I chimed in. “Is that League Plaza is so massive that the blast radius shouldn’t affect any civilians.” Nobody answered me, and Avery actually snorted. “What?” I asked, turning my head to him in confusion.

“Nothin’, Princess,” he grumbled, a smirk fixed on his.

Dean cleared his throat. “Well, gentlemen, and Blondie,” he addressed us. I heard Harley scoff. “It appears we are going to blow up League Towers. This is big, really big. I expect you all to knuckle down and focus. We’ll hold meetings later about who will be joining us on this mission. Keep your eyes and ears open. Somebody talk to Griffiths and York about building explosives.” He turned to leave, but he stopped and looked back at me. “And good work,” he commented. “I’ve been really impressed with you.”

He turned and left just like that, and I felt more satisfied than I expected. “Are we goin’ on this one too, Princess?” Avery muttered, barely glancing at me as the table emptied.

I giggled. “Why of course, Mumbles. Need you even ask?” He grumbled something in reply, probably unhappy compliance, but I wasn’t listening as I watched Alex follow behind Dean and Sam into the office, looking less than excited.