Camilla

After they chatted for a while longer, and the cooks seemed to be itching for them to leave, they finally decided to meet up with the rest of their group.

Recently, their large group of outcasts—that is, everyone in the hideout that wasn't from the Alliance or Exodos—had taken to spending their free time with the older two Juneau siblings in the infirmary. Ian's condition hadn't changed since their return from Farallon, and ever since the Alliance's takeover, AJ had maintained a constant presence at Ian's side, not trusting the intentions of those that were still guardians in her eyes.

So as a show of solidarity, Camilla's group also stuck by them; plus, Mack figured a friendly environment could do Ian some good. Sure, it wasn't exactly an ideal hangout spot, but it kept AJ in their social circle without forcing her to leave her brother behind. Besides, the infirmary was a lot more spacious than any of their rooms.

Once Camilla and Mack regrouped with their friends, they were immediately peppered with questions about what the meeting entailed. Thankfully, Mack managed to answer everything, giving Camilla the opportunity to simply unwind at Elsie's side as they sat on the furthest of the seven other empty beds in the room.

As uneventful as the meeting had been, Camilla was exhausted, and her conversation with Mack had left her even more drained. Elsie seemed to notice this as she let Camilla lounge against her side, carrying most of her weight and holding her relatively upright with one of her arms.

"So they've got nothing is what I'm hearing," AJ succinctly summarized before scoffing bitterly. "Should've known. They were probably hoping we had more information to go off of, and they would just leech off of us." She turned to Camilla. "I told you we should've just gone off on them as soon as we saw Senior."

"You've said that already," Camilla grumbled to her lap, unable to look in AJ's direction at Ian's bedside.

She couldn't help it, but simply looking at Ian and knowing he was awake but not conscious made her remember how close she was to the same fate. Elsie must've known this, or at least noticed Camilla's discomfort, because her arm around Camilla's shoulders held her tighter.

"That probably would have made things worse," Hitomi said as she lay on her stomach on the empty bed across from Ian's. "But please, keep imagining unrealistic scenarios, if that makes you feel better."

"Besides, they did save us," Mack hurriedly pointed out as he sat on the bed next to Ian's, and Jordan nodded in agreement at his side. "Who knows what Exodos would've done with us, or what the Org would've done with Jordan, Minyoung, and Bev?"

"Asshole," AJ muttered as she glared at Hitomi.

Hitomi merely shrugged as she took another bite from one of the infirmary's pudding cups, not the least bit offended.

"Regardless of how we feel about them, it doesn't change the fact that they don't have a way forward," Nakia said as they paced the length of the room. Since their run-in with Amira, Nakia had been more fired-up than ever. "We need to find more evidence, with or without their help."

"'Without their help'?" Minyoung repeated as he leaned against the wall beside the doorway, his arms crossed in front of his chest and completely unmoved by Nakia's passionate determination. "Really? You really think you all can do much on your own?"

"Reign in the attitude, Minnie," Bev sighed. She and Finn sat on one of the other beds as they helped organize some of the infirmary's supplies. "I've had enough of your pessimism to last a lifetime."

"Agreed," Elsie chimed in.

"You sound just like Elsie," Minyoung grumbled at the same time.

"Then we'll get help from somewhere else," Nakia continued, unperturbed. "Even if my sister can't help, there has to be someone else out there that knows what the Org is up to."

"What about Exodos?" Finn suggested. "That's basically their whole thing, isn't it? Revealing everything wrong with the Org?"

"You're kidding, right?" Minyoung asked. "You mean the people that you all spent months fighting? The people that ended up locking down the west coast for months? They're terrorists."

"I mean, yeah..." Finn agreed. "But these people are different. Some of them aren't that bad."

"Hate to break it to you, kid, but they did have us locked up like a month ago," Mack said. "And I'm pretty sure they hate us."

"Finn may have a point," Hitomi said thoughtfully. "I met quite a few of the Exodos members earlier, and most of them do not have bad intentions. Sure, there are a few of them that are more... passionate than others, but they are the minority. And they are the ones that instigate the hate."

As much as Camilla was reluctant to team up with Exodos, she had a feeling that it was going to be inevitable, and she was willing to trust Hitomi's judgement. For the time being though, she kept her evaluation to herself and continued observing their discussion.

"I still think they hate us," Mack muttered, mostly to himself.

"I'd be willing to give them a shot," Nakia said, then turned to AJ. "Think Quentin would be willing to give us an in?"

"Nope," AJ said immediately. "Q's a stubborn little brat; always has been. He'll refuse to help just to make things difficult for you guys."

"The other members don't trust him anyway," Bev offered offhandedly, not looking up from her work. And when she realized everyone had turned to her, surprised, she shrugged. "What? I treat a few of them every once in a while, especially the non-metas. A bunch of them like to gossip."

"Even if we did have help, what would we do with it?" Minyoung said. "It's not like you can just march into one of the Org bases and demand them to reveal all their secrets."

"Exodos has to have some information we could use," Nakia insisted.

"If they did, wouldn't they have made it public by now?" Minyoung argued. "When they were almost destroyed by the Org, it would've been the perfect time to publicize all of the evidence they had to turn the public against guardians. Instead, they almost got destroyed."

"But they said!" Nakia fought back persistently. "When we first heard about Exodos, after they attacked the Barracks, they said they would reveal the Org's secrets."

"They were bluffing," Minyoung said, exasperated. "They just wanted to make people doubt the Org and turn against them. They didn't have anything concrete, just like us."

"Okay, okay," Mack intervened, quickly getting to his feet and positioning himself between Nakia and Minyoung since it looked like Nakia was ready to blast Minyoung with a shockwave. "Let's just assume we get Exodos's help, but they don't have any concrete evidence against the Org. What then?"

For the first time since Camilla got there, the group went silent. As she looked around the room, she could tell everyone was either struggling to think or was already exhausted by the whole predicament. Camilla knew what the obvious answer was, and she was sure the others knew as well; it's just no one was willing to bring it up. So she decidedly bit the bullet.

"We have to go back to Farallon," Camilla announced, her voice unintentionally taking on a tone of finality. She ignored the surprised looks from everyone in the room and pressed on. "We'll at least find evidence that would incriminate Hester and everyone else working there, and maybe it would even show us how far up the chain of command the corruption goes."

"But there's no guarantee that we'll find what we need," Mack said almost immediately, as if he had already proposed the idea to himself and ended up rejecting it.

"It'll be there," Camilla replied with certainty. "Stein recorded everything."

"He said it was for the sake of science," AJ added. "Hester kept records too, but for completely different reasons."

"Pervert," Elsie muttered as she held Camilla a little tighter.

"We'd need a lot of help for that, won't we?" Finn asked tentatively. "It was hard enough when we went, and we even had a bunch of Exodos's metas with us."

"And they've probably upped security since then," Nakia agreed, but they sounded more contemplative instead of disheartened. "Even with the Alliance, we'll probably need Exodos's help too."

"But we can't trust them," Minyoung insisted.

"We have to," Camilla cut him off before he rehash his old argument. "If we take too long on our attack, they'll just delete everything we're after. Even if we don't like it, we're going to need all the help we can get."

AJ scoffed. "You really think Senior would agree to that? She might have said she was willing to work with them when she got here, but I still don't see any Exodos people freely walking around this place, do you?"

"I'll talk to her," Camilla promised. She wasn't a fan of the idea, but she probably had the best rapport with the senior chief. "I have a feeling she'll agree to targeting Farallon easily enough. Getting her to cooperate with Exodos may be a different story though."

"She did seem a little stressed out at the meeting," Mack agreed. "Either she would agree to just about any idea out of desperation, or she'll reject everything outright out of paranoia."

"Could you talk to her now, Cap?" Nakia asked urgently.

As exhausted as Camilla felt by the mere thought of it, Nakia was counting on her—they all were. And she didn't want to let them down. Because every second they stayed cooped up in the mountains was another second they were kept from freedom.

But before Camilla could begrudgingly agree, Elsie squeezed her arm gently.

"Maybe we should wait until tomorrow," Elsie suggested. "If what Mack said is true, the senior chief might not be in the best mindset right now."

Thankfully, everyone quickly agreed to Elsie's suggestion, and Hitomi succinctly changed the topic back to their earlier conversation from before Camilla and Mack had returned from their meeting. As the group continued to gossip about drama between certain Alliance metas, Camilla looked to Elsie.

"Thanks for the assist," she muttered, doing her best to offer Elsie a small but tired smile as she nudged her head against Elsie's shoulder.

Elsie pressed a light kiss against Camilla's head in return. "Anytime."

---

Elsie's made-up suggestion ended up being useful, and Senior was much more composed when Camilla and Mack proposed their group's idea to her the following afternoon.

As Camilla predicted, she immediately agreed to making Farallon their next target, even though she could confirm their security had drastically improved after two attacks had breached their defenses. And while she agreed that having Exodos's assistance would be helpful, she couldn't trust them enough just yet. After a little persuasion, she eventually promised them she would think about it, and there was nothing more Camilla and Mack could do but wait for her decision to be made.

A few days passed before they heard back from Senior, and Camilla was filled with nerves as she and Mack headed to Senior's office to hear her verdict on an alliance with Exodos. If their idea was rejected, that left them with the problem of how they were going to take on a super maximum security prison with a skeleton crew. And if Senior agreed, Camilla had to come to terms with trusting people that probably wanted her dead. She wasn't sure which outcome was preferred.

What Camilla hadn't expected was for Senior to tack on an additional term to add to Camilla's worries. But that's exactly what happened.

"Sorry, what?" Camilla asked, forgetting formalities out of confusion.

"We'll be using our own 'lie detector' to verify the intentions of the Exodos members," Senior repeated, focusing on the exact opposite of what Camilla was concerned about. "Of course, Captain Andou can also partake in that portion of our recruitment."

"No, I know that part," Camilla said. "The other thing. You said you wanted me to do what?"

Senior nodded calmly, as if her other term hadn't been completely ridiculous. "I want you to act as our liaison with Exodos."

Of course, Camilla was still as befuddled as she was when she first heard Senior's request.

"That's a terrible idea," Camilla said honestly. "They hate me."

While Chief Ali frowned at Camilla's bluntness, Senior chuckled.

"Not from what I heard," she said. "Word traveled fast about how you... greeted us when we first arrived. Some found your actions to be inspirational."

"Unnecessary is what it was," Chief Ali commented.

"Badass is more like it," Mack corrected.

"In any case," Senior interjected. "There are many members of Exodos who respect you more than you think. Of course, if you don't believe me, feel free to ask the younger Miss Bates. I hear she's quite friendly with a few of them."

So immediately after they left Senior's office, that's exactly what Camilla did. Bev was in the room she shared with Nakia and Finn, having just finished her shift with the infirmary, and she was more than happy to confirm Senior's words.

"They don't trust you per se, but they do think you're not that bad," Bev said. "They thought it was pretty cool how you brought all the Alliance metas to their knees in one fell swoop."

"That's an exaggeration," Camilla mumbled, partially embarrassed and slightly ashamed about how her essential temper tantrum was being perceived.

"Their words, not mine," Bev said. "That's how the rumor mill works."

"So you're saying she has street cred with them?" Mack asked, a little too excitedly.

Bev shrugged. "I guess that's one way to put it."

"But you said they don't trust me," Camilla pointed out. "Even if they respect me, that's not enough to get them to be willing to fight with us."

For a moment, Bev hummed in thought.

"There might be one guy," she offered. "He's one of their metas, but he seems pretty reasonable. I don't think he's one of their high-rankers, but a lot of their members like him and he seems to have a good amount of influence. Also, he's a huge fan of Jordan."

"Excuse me?" Mack exclaimed.

"Relax, big guy," Bev said. "I mean he likes Jordan's music. Or have you forgotten your boyfriend is an internationally-known singer with... what was it you said? 'The voice of an angel'?"

Mack cleared his throat awkwardly and silently looked to the floor.

"Does Jordan know him?" Camilla asked.

"I think they've met," Bev said. "Pretty sure the cooks usually use Jordan as a runner for the meta prisoners, since there's so much bad blood between them and the former guardians." Then, slightly louder, she added, "Sorry, to whoever's listening. Not 'prisoners.' Detainees."

She shook her head with a sigh before continuing in her normal voice. "Anyway, you could ask him for an introduction." She glanced at Mack. "Of course, as long as his dad allows it."

"Please don't call me his dad, that's weird," Mack muttered in one breath.

"Then don't act like it," Bev scolded him, then looked back at Camilla. "Maybe keep your vice captain out of it. He might be a little too personally invested."

After Camilla thanked Bev for her help, she dragged Mack back to his room. Thankfully, Elsie was there chatting with Minyoung, and she was more than happy to accompany her in bothering Jordan during his shift at the cafeteria while Minyoung made sure Mack wouldn't intervene.

They quickly found Jordan at the back of the kitchen as he struggled to wash the extensive amount of dishes from the lunch rush.

"Oh, Luca?" Jordan asked once Camilla repeated the description of the man Bev provided. "Yeah, I know him. He's pretty cool."

"'Cool' as in he just likes your music, or 'cool' as in he'd be willing to convince all his friends to break some more laws with us?" Elsie asked skeptically.

"Maybe both?" Jordan replied tentatively.

"Think you could introduce us?" Camilla asked.

"I mean, he's kinda in prison right now..." Jordan said.

"I'll get Senior to help with that," Camilla said, hoping that Senior would actually be willing to cooperate. "But aside from that?"

"I can try," Jordan said, but he still looked hesitant.

"At least find out if he'd even be willing to talk," Elsie suggested. "Just ask if, hypothetically, he'd ever be down for a meet-up with Camilla."

"We both know how bad I am at things like that," Jordan mumbled. "I'll just end up telling him everything, then accidentally make a case for why he shouldn't help."

Elsie groaned. "I know, okay? But goddamn it, can you just try?"

After Elsie and Camilla bribed him with a week's worth of dessert rations from each of them, Jordan finally agreed to talk to this Luca guy when he delivered their dinner that night, but he emphasized he couldn't make any promises. Regardless, Camilla followed up with Senior and got her approval to meet-up with Jordan's "acquaintance," as Mack phrased it. And even if Jordan couldn't get them an introduction, Camilla wasn't planning on giving up that easily.

Thankfully, Jordan stopped by Camilla's room that night with promising news: Luca was not only willing to talk with Camilla, but he had actually been hoping for the opportunity to work out a deal with the Alliance. And by the sound of it, he wasn't the only Exodos member with the same sentiments. Camilla had essentially been handed a rare opportunity on a golden platter; it was just up to her to use it right.

---

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