Dala: Chapter 1

The room was empty – Dala’s favorite part of the day.

Often, she liked to steep in the space, listening to the sounds of life in other places. Car tires whooshing past on the road, the clammer of a train on the tracks and sometimes a whistle. People talking indiscernibly as they walked past the building on the way to wherever, birds and dogs and squirrels asserting themselves in their own spheres of influence.

Today she had to keep moving. She took just a few brief moments of the calm and then collected her plans – the official ones and the other ones – and packed them into her bag. Grabbing the box of canned fruit, she headed out the back door and locked it. Della planned to drop off the fruit at the children’s rec center – a healthier source of sugar for the kids in the evenings than the junk food they might otherwise get.

As an added bonus, she’d be able to take a few extra turns and drive past the Records Facility. She’d started scoping that out as a target – in addition to the Regal Hotel and the new Veteran’s Conference Center. The Contesters didn’t have a need for this information yet, but it took longer to collect it all at once. Or was suspicious to suddenly change patterns – so she liked to drive in new places often. It gave anyone watching her less of a flag in changing behavior.

At the rec center, she found Jude and Renee sitting together in the grass outside the building. Both children were veteran orphans, visiting the rec center after school.

“Hi kids,” she greeted cheerily.

They both stood and ran over to her, their faces beaming. Jude had gotten so tall since she’d last seen him.

“Goodness, you’ve gotten big!” Jude’s chest swelled a little, proudly – but still a child.

He’s almost as big as Champion when… when…

Her mind stuttered at the painful memory. But Champion was fine now. He’d certainly grown into a successful officer even though she’d never wanted that for him. She always thought he’d have been happier in a more exploratory space – and selfishly, she wished he hadn’t followed their parents’ choices into the military.

“What do you have today, Dala?” Renee tried to peer over the edge of the box.

“A bit of fruit cocktail – that was my favorite growing up. Do you like it?”

The young girl smiled widely and nodded.

“Great, you two can help me bring it inside so we can open some,” and she handed the box over – Renee on one side and Jude on the other.

Dala followed them into the building and was greeted by the rec center director, Olivia, with a hug. The two women chatted about the kids, the cans, the sandwich rolls she’d brought last week, and the weather. Then they switched over to a bit of work.

Dala pulled a notebook from her bag, and started talking through the schedule with Olivia. The older kids, the teenagers would be coming to Sanctuary House for classes next week Wednesday and Thursday. The buses would get them from their schools, take them to Sanctuary House, and then bring them out to the rec center afterward.

Here was the schedule, here was the list of kids, here was the curricula. Did they all get their waivers signed? Here were a few extra waivers for the bus travel for the stragglers.

Dala liked Olivia. She was a kind faced and kind-hearted woman that gave so much to these kids. She stayed too long catching up with Olivia before looking at her watch.

“Oh! I have to go, but I’ll see you next week, Liv!”

Dala ruffled Jude’s hair and tightened Renee’s slipping ponytail on the way out.

Back in the car, she drove past the Records Facility taking mental notes about the building.

Six floors, big double doors in the front, driveway going around to the back, parking lot in the front, slightly obscured dirt road heading behind the building. Counting as she went, five points of information.

As she drove to her next stop, she repeated the abbreviated notes to herself: six floors, double door, driveway back, lot in front, road behind. Ticking the five points off as she repeated them and maintaining her mental image.

Another 30 minutes of driving, and she pulled up to an old train station. She pulled her car around the back of the building, tucking it into the woods behind it. She could see that there were a few other cars that had done the same.

Shit, I spent too long talking to Olivia.

She was late. She gathered her bag and noted her five points of information again as she walked toward the building’s back entrance. Inside, several people sat and stood around a table chatting animatedly with each other. A few of them looked over to her when she entered. She waved apologetically and moved to the desk at the side of the room.

“I’m sorry I’m late. Give me one more minute to get this down,” she said pulling out a notebook and a pencil.

Six floors, double doors, driveway back, lot in front, road behind.

Remembering her mental notes, she sketched a rough overhead view of what she saw at the Records Facility. The building, the front facing lot, the driveway winding around the building to the back of it and a road leading to a lightly sketched question mark. Then another view of the front of the building, the six floors roughly drawn out and fading to the top area, the roof style she’d have to see again to capture – she made a note: roof outline? The double door front entrance not in the center, but off to the side and the secondary entrance on the other side, a single door probably meant as an employee entrance.

The notebook was full of these notes and rough sketches. She noted “not to scale” in the corner and continued to scribble a few thoughts that she wanted to follow up on.

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