To Be A Leader

Chapter 61: International Rescue

"Does it feel like it's getting hot in here to you, Five?" Jaime asks, and I shrug, glad to have a bit of a break as we ride the mining rails deeper and deeper down.

"Little bit."

"It will become substantially hotter than that, I'm afraid," Janine replies, which makes me grimace. Not really for my sake, no, but because of the impending danger it holds for the other person with Jaime and me.

"She couldn't have put her base somewhere else, could she?" Jody asks. "Somewhere without basically a live volcano under it."

"Yeah, so actually, I read the mission briefing this time," Sam says a bit sheepishly. "It's not a valcano-valcano. It's an unstable geothermal well. So there."

Jaime still scowls. "Yeah, it is going to be as a hot as a volcano though, isn't it?"

"Basically yeah. So good thing we had a couple of those European Rescue Force suits to use." He sighs. "Shame we only had a couple."

"Yeah," Jody agrees. "It would have been great to send in a team, but you're what we've got."

"Oh, yeah, of course," I say sarcastically. "And because there were only three rescue suits, I'm sure you chose the people most equipped for the job. King Jaime, who once was a part of the European Rescue Force. Me, Head of Runners who has been through terrifying and dangerous missions like this one and has made it out alive. And Milo... my sixteen-year-old son! What the hell were you guys thinking?!"

"You know, it's not nice to talk as if I'm not here," Milo grumbles, shifting slightly. I glare at him, anger and worry and fear nearly bubbling over. I was nearly sent into cardiac arrest while worrying about Sam. With Milo...

Oh, my heart can't take this.

"You know what's also not nice? Sending someone who hasn't had enough experience into an extremely dangerous mission that could get him killed!"

"Mr. Scotts has proven well in the missions he has been on with you," Janine cuts in harshly. "While there are other runners with more experience, they are attending to other jobs. We still have people coming in to aid against the Ministry, and we are trying to make sure there were no other facilities that might be housing any immune mothers and babies. We still do not even know what she has done to any immune men she captured."

"We probably don't want to," Jody replies with a shudder. "Team, that mining rail you're on will only take you another few hundred yards."

Milo nods. "So, Sigrid's on an island?"

"Correct, Mr. Scotts. The Minister is on Fossey Head island. She had planned to use it as a model settlement, but she's retreated there alone," Janine answers, which gets a scoff from Jody.

"Yeah, alone apart from her massive transmitter which she's usin' to contact the Undaunted. You know, I based my transmitter on the plans for the one at Fossey Head. That's why Sigrid wanted the key for it.

"We got the Exmoores to check, obviously, but Sigrid destroyed it the first chance she got. That's the only long-range transmitter within a hundred miles."

"And Fossey Head is surrounded by automated gun turrets," Sam adds, and I would rub my temples if this suit didn't keep me from doing so. "No one but Sigrid's getting in or out that way. But it's supplied with energy by that geothermal well, and there are tunnels leading all the way out under the sea to the island."

"Tunnels that might go volcanic at any minute?" I guess.

"A bit, yeah."

I sigh, closing my eyes and making a personal reminder to tell Janine that I am taking a vacation after this is over.