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The overseer, Theresa's father, looks like he's just been shot in the chest. He madly scans the crowd for a certain face. Yours, you realize, when he locks eyes with you. You understand instantly. This you inherited from your father (along with his good looks), an uncanny ability to know what's going on in people's heads, sometimes even before they do.
You squeeze past the crowd to join Theresa at the front. She brightens up, thinking you're about to give her your endorsement, knowing that if anyone could sway this crowd right now, it's you.
"I want to applaud Theresa's conviction," you say, beginning to clap your hands, not stopping until the entire crowd is cheering and whistling. Sometimes it is that easy. When people are frenzied you don't try to bring down that energy, you redirect it. "But the overseer does have a point. It IS dangerous out there. I want you all to think about Talius. About Ed. What did they have in common? Why did they fail?" You pause, letting the tension build. The overseer shakes his head toward the guards on the fringes. He wants to see what you'll do.
"They were alone," you say. "That was the overseer's mistake--well-intentioned, I'm sure, an attempt to minimize the risks--but misguided. A mission of such importance, a mission on which our entire survival depends, a mission this dangerous, can't be entrusted to a lottery. But it also can't be entrusted to just one person." You avoid looking at Theresa, feeling the pressure of her scowl on the back on your head. You raise your hand. "I volunteer. And if there's anyone else who wants to come with me, let them step forward."
The first person to step forward does so before you've even finished speaking. It's Natalia. That's to be expected, she's almost as keen as you are to see the outside, though, you suspect, for different reasons. She's the only one in your little faction whom you've never been able to get a good read. Your grandfather knew her grandfather. They had come in together, but they seldom spoke. Their seemed to be a kind of enmity between them, or at least on your grandfather's side, a suspicion that the other was up to no good. Maybe simply because he was a foreigner. Your grandfather was from a time when such things mattered.
The second person is a bit of a surprise, however.
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