How You Get The Girl, Kenji Kishimoto

xl . let the players play

WE'RE ALL SITTING ON BENCHES around the training room. Kenji is sitting next to me and I'm doing everything I can to make sure our shoulders don't accidentally touch. I'm still nervous around him because of Aaron.

"All right, so, first things first, right?" Winston says, looking around. "We have to get Sonya and Sara back. The question is how." A pause. "We have no idea how to get to the supreme."

Everyone looks at Aaron. Since they know I have nothing to offer them because I was never told anything, he's the first person they'd go to. However, he's staring at his watch.

"Well?" Kenji says.

"Well, what?" Aaron says, bored.

"Well, aren't you going to help us?" Ian snaps. "This is your territory."

Aaron looks at me for the first time all evening. "You're absolutely sure you trust these people?" he asks me. "All of them?"

"Yes," I say surely. I'm glad he's actually asking for my opinion on something for once. It never used to be like this. "I really do."

"Very well." Aaron takes a deep breath before addressing the group. "Our father," he says calmly, "is on a ship. In the middle of the ocean."

"He's on a ship?" Kenji asks, startled. "The capital is a ship?"

"Not exactly." Aaron hesitates. "But the point is, we have to lure him here. Going to him will not work. We have to create a problem big enough for him to be forced to come to us." He looks at Juliette then. "Juliette says she already has a plan."

She nods. Takes a deep breath. Studies the faces before her. "I think we should take over Sector 45."

Stunned silence. I'm sure my jaw has completely dropped.

"I think, together," she tells us, "we'll be able to convince the soldiers to fight on our side. At the end of the day, no one is benefiting from The Reestablishment except for the people in charge. The soldiers are tired and hungry and probably only took this job because there were no other options." Juliette pauses.

"We can rally the civilians and the soldiers. Everyone in the sector. Get them to join us. And they know me," she says. "The soldiers. They've already seen me—they know what I can do. But all of us together?" Juliette shakes her head. "That would be amazing. We could show them that we're different. Stronger. We can give them hope —a reason to fight back.

"And then," she says, "once we have their support, news will spread, and Anderson will be forced to come back here. He'll have to try and take us down—he'll have no other choice. And once he's back, we take him out. We fight him and his army and we win. And then we take over the country."

"My goodness." Castle is the first to speak. "Ms. Ferrars," he says, "you've given this a great deal of thought."

She nods.