Shadows of Sherwood (27 page)

 

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

Wires in the Tree House

Laurel bounced across the tree house with one giant leap and threw her arms around Robyn. “You were gone forever,” she cried. “I thought they got you!”

“I had to hide out for a while,” Robyn told her. “But I'm here now.”

Laurel's spindly frame belied her strength; the hug was like a vise around Robyn's torso. The almost-violent affection felt strange and lovely. Laurel's words were a smaller, fiercer version of a scolding she might get from her mother for staying out in the woods too late. The truth sunk in for Robyn: she had been missed.

“Everything okay?” Key asked.

Robyn's hand automatically went to the black pendant. Until she understood the significance of the moon shrine, she didn't want to let anyone else in on the secret. Key was interested in the moon lore, like Tucker. He might want to go see it and discuss theories. Robyn wasn't ready to talk about what it meant.

“Yeah,” she said. “I'm okay.”

Key's expression said he knew she was holding something back.

“There's trouble in T.C.,” she said, to change the subject. “Stingbug infections.”

Laurel nodded knowingly. “No one can get to the bitterstalk.”

“Crown doesn't understand the full consequences of cutting off access to the woods,” Robyn said, repeating what the doctor had told her.

“I think he understands them just fine,” Key said, with the characteristic bitterness that accompanied talk of Crown.

“There are always guards near the biggest patches,” Laurel said dejectedly. “I haven't had any in weeks.”

“See?” Key said. “He knows.”

Crown couldn't get away with this. It was basic cruelty. Robyn put her hands on her hips. “We'll go to Sherwood Clinic tonight,” she said, “and get them the medicine they need.”

Laurel shook her head. “Getting medicine . . .” she said. “It's not like getting food.”

“All the clinics are locked down tight. As a drum.” Key agreed. “You can't even walk out of there with medicine if you don't have a Tag. I mean, you physically can't. There's something in the door that scans you before it opens.”

“InstaScan?” Robyn said, feeling discouraged. She always used to like InstaScan. It made things easy, but now she realized it also provided very tight security.

“Getting in is easy. Getting out is the problem,” Laurel said. “Like always.”

“People need help now,” Robyn answered. “We can't wait. The medicine is just sitting there. We have to find a way.”

The three sat quietly for a while, thinking. Robyn's hands itched to toy with something. She reached for the hologram sphere in her backpack. She pulled the halves apart and studied the connections again. The wires were so delicate. The cords from her circuit board were much too thick to be helpful. None of the ones from Barclay's box appeared to match, either.

“What is that?” Laurel asked.

“It's a hologram.” Robyn glanced at Key, and admitted, “It's why I needed my bag back.”

“A hologram,” Key said. “Who made it?”

“My dad,” Robyn answered. No harm in giving the basic facts. She was careful not to push the halves all the way together. She didn't want to accidentally play Dad's message in the tree house. She would look at it again later, when she was alone.

As she fiddled, Robyn thought about the map. The arrows, the strange message about gathering the Elements. The flames on the map did represent T.C., apparently. She simply hadn't seen the campfire the first time through. Was she supposed to gather fire somehow?

“If a small flame is burning, how do you put it out?” she asked, remembering Eveline's suggestion again.

“Blow it out,” Laurel answered at the same time as Key said, “Pour water on it.”

One question, three answers so far. Eveline was wrong, Robyn decided. That was no help at all.

“I don't know about the clinic,” Key said finally. “But until we figure it out, let's keep on with the food. I think we can go bigger.”

“How do you mean?” Robyn asked.

“Last time you just grabbed whatever was available and on top,” he said. “We can get more organized.”

“Food is food,” Laurel said. She popped open a can of peaches to punctuate her statement.

“Why do we need to get more organized?” Robyn said. “It worked pretty well on the fly.”

“Aim for a different target, maybe. One they're not expecting. The trucks from the market, for one thing,” Key said. “Apparently they drove most of them to bigger storage compounds in other counties. Didn't even unload. They're just sitting there.”

“So?” Robyn said.

“We could take them back,” Key said.

“The trucks?”

Key nodded.

“Where are these compounds?” Laurel asked.

“There's a couple way out in the boonies of Block Six, the warehouse district. Some here in Sherwood, and plenty in Castle itself. We could go in at night, and take a lot more stuff at once. Maybe a month's worth of stuff, not just a couple of days.”

“What's the security like?” Robyn asked, plucking and twisting at the hologram wires. She spotted the bad connection. One thin wire had been sliced and frayed by the edge
of the broken sphere. It held together by threads. No wonder the image had failed.

Key leaned forward. “Less security than the jail, apparently. Some guards, but no walls. Big fences to scale—things like that.”

“Not a problem,” Robyn said. “So let's check it out. For sure.”

“Well, we have to find them first. All I have is a list of compound numbers: 211. 760. 410—”

“The 410 Compound? I know that place!” Robyn exclaimed. “That's where they're keeping the other food trucks?”

“One of the places, yeah.”

“It's in Castle District. I used to go there all the time,” she said.

“Cool,” Key said. “That makes it easier than I thought. Wanna go now?”

Robyn returned the hologram sphere to her bag. The three friends ventured out into the forest. They had only just pulled the camouflage off the bike when they heard voices in the forest nearby. MPs must have been patrolling deeper than usual.

The friends hid in the trees until it seemed the coast was clear, then they cautiously made their way forward.

“We're going to need a new hideout sooner or later,” Key told Robyn. “Something inside of Sherwood.”

“What's wrong with the tree house?”

“Come on,” he said. “We can't keep dodging the woods patrol. There are more than there used to be. It's only a
matter of time before they catch one of us. Especially with that loud-as-heck bike leading them straight to us.”

“Hey.” Robyn had barely used the bike yet. “The wheels are going to be really useful. Especially since we have to go all the way to Castle and come back with a month's worth of stuff.”

A month sounded like such a long time to Robyn. Time moved slower than ever. It was hard to believe only a few days had passed since the Night of Shadows, when her parents disappeared. Harder still to believe that a month from now, she still might not be home. She didn't even have any leads on her parents' whereabouts, beyond the cryptic reference to Centurion Gate. It bothered her, not knowing.

Was Dad still alive? Had Mom been moved yet?

The map, the pendant, and the hologram remained her only connection to them, and it wasn't enough. She felt like she was letting her parents down.

Her spirits lifted thinking of a return to the 410, though. Barclay would be there, like always. Maybe she could get a wire to fix the hologram. Then she'd finally have some answers.

“I think we're okay in the tree house,” Robyn told Key. “It's pretty deep in the woods and hard to notice.” She didn't add that, from here, she could get home without much danger. Moving into Sherwood felt like leaving behind the chance that things were ever going to go back to normal.

 

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

Bigger Than a Bread Box

They parked the bike in the woods behind Loxley Manor and struck out for the 410 on foot. Sneaking through the darkened streets of Castle District, Robyn felt at home. And with Key and Laurel by her side, the adventure seemed brighter than ever.

The 410 was still under heavy guard. Though she was happy not to be alone, Robyn felt more conspicuous with Laurel by her side. The two girls scrambled up the fence and vaulted over to the trailer top. Key moved off somewhere in the darkness, toward the other side of the lot. Dressed in his MP uniform, he would go to the truck gate and get it opened for them.
If he could.
That was the plan. And Key seemed confident he could talk his way into anything.

Robyn had bacon in her pocket, in case Waldo and friends were on duty. A little rummaging in a diner Dumpster had gotten them all the meat Robyn thought they needed. She
brought the pouch to her hand as she and Laurel lowered themselves onto the gravel. But the dogs did not come.

Waldo?
Robyn thought.
Are you here?
She realized she had been halfway looking forward to seeing that flop-tongued little bacon lover again. Had the MPs brought in dogs just for the Night of Shadows? That didn't make much sense.

Robyn stuck the pilfered bacon back in her pocket. Had she gone hip deep in rancid scrambled eggs for no reason? That was annoying.

She led Laurel through the maze of junk toward the far side of the lot, where the trucks were parked. There were dozens of plain box trucks, like the ones they had seen MPs loading market wares into. But the market had many kinds of stalls—not just food stands.

“Which do you think has food?” Laurel whispered. Nothing would be worse than successfully stealing a truck and having it turn out to be full of potted plants or baskets or something else from the market.

Robyn shrugged. “Ones closest to the edge?” she guessed. The trucks would have been brought in very recently. The girls tiptoed down the line of the trucks' cargo doors. They slid one open a crack and met with the musty fabric smell of carpets and drapes.