Lula
Lula waited in Dr. Whynn's office. It was the first, and possibly only, time she'd ever find herself alone in the room so she took advantage by flipping through folder after folder of intelligence reports. She looked at the faces staring back at her from each report and shook her head. How could these people be terrorists? They looked just fine to her. Of course, each report had a brief description of the circumstance in which each person had discovered their bending and some of them were truly horrific, but many of them seemed like simple mistakes that were easily fixed.
She looked nervously around the room, as if Mariella was poised to come out of the shadows at any time, then removed a small spy camera from her bag. Vince had given it to her. He said it came from the journalist he'd recruited to help her break her story, though he still wouldn't give her the person's name.
"I'm telling you, Lu," he said, "It's better if you don't know for now. When it's time to break the news, then you'll know."
She reminded him that he thought everything was big these days and he just laughed and assured her it was true. Something big was happening, bigger than Dr. Whynn, bigger than ToCo, bigger than Capital City even, and Lula was sitting right in the middle of it all. "We play this right," Vince said, "We'll be set for life. For life, Lu!"
So she did play, and she played well. She listened to everything Mariella told her, combing through the information for clues about what was really happening at ToCo. She smiled at the people on her campaign stops and waved as they begged for her attention. She even prepared for hours before every debate, not that she needed it. She could have stood up there silently batting her lashes and the people still would have announced her the winner. There was nothing she could do that would tarnish her image in the eyes of the voters. She was their mayor, their hero, and she had to tell herself everyday that heroes took risks for the greater good. Otherwise she'd run away from Toro Corporation Headquarters and never look back. She'd go to her lake house, but obviously ToCo knew where that was. Maybe she could just ask Jing to drive her somewhere, anywhere. They could just drive and drive and never stop. Or maybe she could go home.
Would Whynn find her there? She never talked about her home life to anyone, nobody knew about the farm, or her family. As far as the citizens of Capital City knew, Lula had grown up home schooled in the mountains. People were so easy to convince. Of course, she could have told them about the mud hole she'd been raised in--it wasn't the place she wanted to hide, it was the people.
As she reached the bottom of the pile of reports, she recognized one of the faces peering up at her. Rorrick Lahaye, the terrorist who had burned Capital City. She snapped a picture of his file and gritted her teeth. The two parts inside her were battling again. Help people, gain power, fix the world, own the world! She hated Rorrick for what he did to her city, but she loved him for what he did to her career.
She flipped to the last report and her heart stopped. She felt herself put the camera back in her bag but she was on autopilot now. She walked away from the desk, taking the last report with her. She sat down in Whynn's chair and stared at the face of Jeera Yang, the nurse who saved her life. His file said he was a water bender with the ability to heal people. Her hand moved to her chest, there was a faint scar there from Lee's second attack at her lake house but it was because of Jeera that there was only one. Someone else may have been able to save her life, but she would have been left with dozens of reminders of the man who wanted to kill her. She read his file and learned about the night Jeera saved her, about how his co-worker had turned him in after he healed her, how ToCo Security chased him onto the train where TWL intervened and took him away.
TWL? What was TWL? Lula tried to find another reference to it somewhere else in the file but there was nothing. She went back to the others and realized that every one of them mentioned TWL had prevented Security from doing their job.
"Excuse me?"
Lula looked up. Doctor Whynn was standing in the door staring at her. "Oh, Mariella, hi."
"Hi." The doctor mocked Lula's tone and moved forward to take the reports. "What were you doing in here looking at my files?"
"I just wanted to know about these terrorists. Election day is tomorrow, I'm going to be mayor and you want me to give you money but you won't tell me anything about what you're doing."
"You don't need to know anything, just do what I tell you."
"No."
"Excuse me?"
"I said, no!" Lula's fists were tightening.
Doctor Whynn snorted. It was a sound that was filled with glee and rage. "Fine, come with me then. We just so happen to be beginning one of our biggest missions yet."
"What kind of mission?"
"Just come with me."
Lula watched Whynn leave, then she followed after her. She was taken to a room filled with people. High ranking security officers mostly, and the only one of them she recognized was the blond woman, Calli. "It's about time," she said, "Our coptors are just about in position."
"Thank you, Calliope." The doctor moved to a chair beside Calli and gestured for the woman to get up. "Now give your seat to Miss Lavender."
Calli grunted and stood up then Lula slowly took a seat in her chair. The table in the middle of the room flicked on and a holo was projected over it. Lula could see the tops of trees rushing past and Whynn leaned over to say, "This is the view from our hovercopters. They're about to reach the terrorist colony."
Lula felt a wave of worry overcome her as she saw the treetops part to reveal a group of dozens of people standing together in the middle of a ramshackle village of handmade homes. She watched as the coptors erected a fence to gather the people even closer together.
"We're not going to kill them," Doctor Whynn said, "Don't worry. We're just taking them home, to help them."
Just as Lula was forcing herself to accept that she was being told the truth, the holo projected from the table erupted into chaos. The cameras were shaking and interrupting the image. There was fire and smoke and then the holo was gone. The security officers in the room went quiet at first, then all of the sudden everyone was talking. Lula stood up and shouted over all of them. "What the hell was that?" She raged. "You said you weren't going to kill them!"
Whynn's eyes were wide, Lula could see her hands shaking. "I, that, um." She stood up to be eye level with Lula, straightened her lab coat and stared defiantly. "I didn't plan that. I have no idea what that was but it wasn't what was supposed to happen."
"We gotta get people out there," Calliope said. "See what went wrong."
Whynn turned away from Lula and said, "Get the bodies back too, I wanna study them."
"Bodies?" Lula felt tears in her eyes. This wasn't what she wanted to happen. She had signed her life over to ToCo for a taste of power and now she realized the truly insidious nature of their work. "I gotta get outta here." She pushed out of the room, but Whynn was quick to follow.
"Lula!" She said, her voice more firm than usual. "Where do you think you're going?"
"I'm done with this! I can't help you, not anymore."
"Are you forgetting something?" Whynn asked as she stepped closer to Lula. The doctor's fingers pressed hard against Lula's chest and she said, "Tomorrow is election day, you're going to be mayor. I made you mayor! You're mine, you got that? I own you!"
"You do not own me! Nobody owns me!"
"Yes I do!" Whynn shouted and her eyes went crazy. "I own you, Lula! If you walk away now, I will destroy you. Financially, politically, emotionally... physically." He finger swept over the scar on Lula's chest.
"What'll you do? Send Lee after me? He was in the middle of that explosion, Mariella, remember that?"
"I don't need Lee to hurt you." Whynn turned to go back to the busy security officers. "If you're smart you'll fall in line. Otherwise I'll have to force you to and nobody wants that."
"Tell me how! How will you force me? You have nothing on me."
"No, but I'm the only one who can help you."
There were so many things Lula wanted to say, so much anger she wanted to vent. She didn't even know what she needed help with but still she said, "The only one?"
"The only one. Now get outta here and keep your phone on."
"As always," Lula said as she turned to leave. Tears flowed freely down her face as she rejoined Jing by the elevator. He looked concerned, lifting a thick hand to touch her cheek. "It's okay, Jing, I think. Let's just go home."
Jing led the way down to the car and Lula sat quietly behind him as they returned to her lake house. She dismissed the driver before allowing Jing to lead the way inside. As soon as she crossed the threshold, Mr. Lucky leapt up to her shoulder and she allowed him to rub his face against hers. "Hello, darling," She said, taking the cat to the couch. "I sure needed this kind of love today. Did you know that?"
They sat down together and Lula put Lucky in her lap. He put his paws gently on her chest and sniffed her face where the trails of tears had been. "A lot of people died today." She told the cat. "I think I could have stopped it if I wasn't so blinded by this whole election thing. Does that make it my fault?"
Lucky meowed and curled up in Lula's lap. His loud purr was soothing to her. "I mean, sure at least one of them was a terrorist. Rorrick Lahaye, the man who built me up by tearing the city down, but Jeera was there too. What if everyone else there was just like Jeera? A poor soul who wants to do good in a world that doesn't understand him?" She realized she was crying again but she didn't move to wipe the tears away.
"What have I gotten myself into?" She asked Lucky and the cat just purred in response.