THE UNDERGROUND / GXG (The 100)

11

A bit of a shorter chapter today, but full of emotions.

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"The commander is walking out, Sir," A mountain man said through his comms. Back at the mountain's control room Cage Wallace was listening to the information being provided by one of his men. "There's no sign of hostility, sir. They seem to be allies now." At that sentence, Cage rubbed his face in desperation. "We can't let that happen. The underground has technology that could destroy us," Cage took a breath and thought about what they could do. Suddenly Dr. Tsing called him through the radios, telling him it was urgent.

He got to the lab quickly and saw and undergrounder strapped to the metal table. Dr. Tsing seemed to be drilling something out of his bones. His screams could be heard all around the lab, but that didn't faze them. "What is this?" Cage asked Tsing. She smiled and looked at him. "We've done it," she said happily. "Undergrounder blood it's far stronger. We tested it on one of our people and the treatment was done in 20 minutes. But the subject only lasted about 7 minutes outside," Cage interrupted her. "Well that's definitely not a solution. We need to live outside for far more than 7 minutes!" He said frustrated. She nodded and continued. "That is why it occurred to me that we should try it with bone marrow," she smirks and looks back at Emerson, one of Cage's bodyguards. Emerson spoke up with a smirk "It works," he said. Cage smiled and nodded. "How many do we need?" he asked. "50," Dr. Tsing replied.

******

After Lexa and her people left the underground, they stayed on Tondc for the night so they didn't have to travel at night. Lexa was setting up a plan to defeat the mountain when one of her warriors called for her "Heda! Miya Snap!" (Commander! Come quick!). She walked out her tent quickly and saw a beat up grounder woman that had just white wrapping covering her private areas. The woman had barely any strength as she spoke in their native language "Heda... the mountain... they're alive.. all of them." She paused to take a breath and then continued. "The maunon take our blood so they can walk outside... he.. he sent you a message.. he told me to tell you that we're alive. 374 grounders for 50 undergrounders. That's what he said. If not he'll kill them, Heda. He said that if you don't deliver them tonight, he'll kill all of us," she started sobbing after that. The guards took her to the healer's tent as Lexa processed the information. Indra knew better than to say anything, so she stayed silent while her Commander paced around her tent thinking of what to do.

****

While that was happening, the alarms were blaring at the mountain. It wasn't a radiation breach. Someone had escaped. The mountain people went back to their rooms as a safety precaution while the guards looked for the escapee. Dr. Tsing had pound the alarm when she realized the second undergrounder had escaped somehow. They had gotten rid of the body of the first one. So perhaps he saw that and decided to also jump down the trash tube. They were all searching for him and looking through the surveillance system but it was no luck. It was as if he suddenly vanished.

****

Back at the underground Zalia haven't heard of her hunters in a while. They always went radio silent when hunting, but not for this long. So now she had all of the Command Center looking at the radars of the hunting ground and areas nearby to see where they were. Since they weren't finding anything, Zalia got part of her team ready to go out and track them. While she was getting ready, Osias called her through the comms. "Captain, there's someone here you should see. Come quick."

She rushed down to the main door where Osias was, and when she got there she saw one of her spies that was supposed to be at the perimeter around Polis. He looked like he was tortured. Pale, cuts and bruises all over his body, his clothes was all stained with blood and he could barely stand. "What the hell happened, Brian?!" Zalia asked worried. He was trying to catch his breath as he spoke up. "The mountain men caught me and Joey... they killed him," he said and tears started falling from his eyes. "They're using the grounders as blood bags so they can live outside the mountain with the elevated levels of radiation. They still can't walk outside, though. They discovered that our blood is stronger than the grounder's because of the radiation levels we're exposed to daily. Since our bunker is so deep into the earth it seems to have high radiation levels, and since we're surrounded by solar panels, it basically makes the radiation stronger. They tried using our blood but the treatment didn't make them completely immune so they tried bone marrow and it worked. They took too much out of Joey... and he didn't make it," he said and sniffled as he wiped his tears away.

Zalia couldn't believe what she was hearing. These people were monsters. "We're gonna kill them. All of them," Zalia told Osias, but Brian spoke up. "Wait, Captain. There's some good people in there. They helped me escape. Maya and her dad. They're good guys. And they have friends that are helping the grounders escape. Please don't let them die. I'm alive because of them," Brian said to Zalia. She nodded softly before she walked back to her office with Osias trailing behind her. "I need to talk to the Commander," Zalia said and grabbed her radio. She tried contacting her for a while but Lexa wasn't responding. So she decided to go out and go to Polis to find her. This was an emergency.

"Cap, we're ready to go," Marian said through the comms. "You're gonna have to go find the hunters without me, Marian. I gotta go find the commander. Marian be careful. Eyes everywhere and comms on all the time. Understood? Something's happening," Zalia said quickly while she walked over to her bike.

"Cap, there's some activity outside the mountain. You should go check it out. Looks like the Commander and some of her people. The audio is not available so I can't confirm," T said to Zalia through the comms. Zalia put on her helmet and switched on her bike. "I'm on it," she told T and took off. When Zalia was getting closer to Mt. Weather, she put her bike on silent mode and the bike slowed down. It still made a bit of a hum but a lot less than before. When she was a mile away, she got off her bike and started running towards the mountain. After a few minutes she was a few meters away and she climbed on a tree to see a lot better. With the night vision on her helmet and the audio enhancement it was a lot easier for her to see what was happening.

"You were right T, this is unusual. The commander is here with her whole entourage. She seems to be talking with some man. He doesn't have a hazmat suit though... shit. The bone marrow treatment," Zalia sighed, remembering what they did to Joey. "Transmitting the live feed to your computer, T," Zalia told her and stayed silent to hear what was happening.

"46, 47, 48, 49, and 50. All ready, sir," one of the mountain men said to Emerson. He smirked and nodded. "Let the outsiders go," Emerson spoke through his comms. The wind hit the leaves that were blocking Zalia's view and now she could see a group of people tied up and waiting outside the mountain door. They were surrounded by grounders but the ones tied up didn't look like grounders. She zoomed in with her helmet and saw that they were her people. The hunters and the people that the Rock Clan had taken as slaves. This had to be a mistake. Zalia couldn't believe what was happening. "Are you seeing this, T?" Zalia asked and T responded with a soft yes. Suddenly the mountain door opened and hundreds of grounders started walking out. They looked just like Brian, some looked even worse. And once they walked out, the grounders pushed the undergrounders inside. Zalia couldn't believe her eyes. But it all came crashing down when she heard Emerson's next words to Lexa. "Pleasure doing business with you, Commander," He smirked and walked back inside. Lexa turned around and mounted her horse. Zalia couldn't handle staying any longer. She had to go back. She was risking getting discovered by staying there and she couldn't just fight alone. She wasn't one to cry often, but this had definitely fucked her emotions. She couldn't believe the Commander could be so cruel to betray her in such way. Zalia got off the tree and mounted her bike once again. Zalia told Marian to get back to the Underground with her team while she herself headed back to the Underground with a thousand thoughts in her mind. But one thing was sure. She was gonna bring her people back.

*****

Was fear Lexa's reason? That was one of the questions in Zalia's mind. The grounders have had fear of the Underground since the first time they saw the technology the Underground possesses, maybe she was naive for thinking she could change that.

Zalia's eyes were welling up while she drove back, her frustration was getting the best of her. She had been trained to not let her emotions drive her, but this time that was proving to be very difficult. Some of her people were being used as blood bags, they were suffering and she still didn't know what to do. Doubt was running though her mind. Was she in fact a good leader? Was this plan worth it? Were they gonna go to war with the grounders? Was peace still an option?

Zalia took a deep breath once she was getting close to the Underground, and she forced herself to get it together. Her people need her and she had to be the leader she swore to be.

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Dun dun dun!!! 😬