Kicking at the rotting wood of a downed stump, Sadie’s stare landed on me. “I’m still trying to align the girl I know with the killer you’ve been described as.”
Tears welled up in my eyes. “That’s what I’m telling you. I’m not the person they’re making me out to be. I didn’t want anyone to die.”
“You’re not denying they did though.” River stood. “That UNS soldier in California, what was that about? They found your arrow in the charred vehicle, bullets registered to Lovelock guns in the men. You didn’t think Commander Butler was clueless, did you? Why do you think he kept you on that tight leash?”
Rage coursed through my veins. I charged him, stopping inches from his face. “Yes, the tight leash that got me kidnapped and Troy used as a bargaining chip. Excuse us if we’re looking out for ourselves now.”
Ben appeared beside me. “This isn’t productive. We need to focus on our current situation. Stand down.”
Mace indicated we had fifteen minutes before a satellite window opened. I grabbed my meal and backpack and walked away. Looking into the forest, I realized this was all I had left, a life of running. Where were the other teams? Had they made it out of the city? What about the families from Port Orford? Would they be rounded up and questioned? Sadie’s husband and others who helped us put their lives in jeopardy for nothing.
It’d been a good plan. Somehow Butler was one step ahead. T minus twenty-nine days and counting. I stared at the sky, the sun reaching well over the tree line. But didn’t Butler and his makeshift government have to listen to the people they served? Our government was based on democratic principles. I wondered what the count would be if they took a vote. The counter-protestors at the rally seemed to have many supporters as well. That really didn’t matter though because Butler had the cure. If he controlled that, he set the nation’s fate.
Nave. Mom. I let myself hold their images for a split second. Would I ever see them again?
“Time to move.” Mace appeared beside me.
“I’m ready.” I gripped the handles of my pack.
“Are you?” He held my stare. “You know it wasn’t your fault. It was a good plan. Everyone… the whole team planned this, wanted this. We need you sharp.”
I locked my jaw. “We’ve been through worse.”
“Ooh rah.” Mace jogged ahead of me.
Falling in formation between Sadie and River, I scanned the bits of sky open between the branches. Did I believe there would be another way to oust Butler? Our rendezvous point lay far from the capitol. It was a good hideout, deep in a dense forest with an underground tunnel system almost as big as the Mark Twain system. And Troy would be there, safe. We’d be safe. There was little chance I’d been identified. I’d only been exposed for seconds. But what if I had?
Beside me, Sadie and River started a slow jog, and I shook off the swirling worries and focused on the sounds around me and the sky above. Soon, we were running at top speed, and everything else fell away, the rhythm of my feet pounding the earth, arms propelling my body forward, lungs sucking in and expelling air. Everything would be okay. We would figure out another way.
At the next stop, we mapped a route through the dense forest and a swampy bog area that would be tree-covered, remote, and challenging to vehicle traffic, whether boat or land transport. Realizing we might be wet for a long time, I appreciated the climate change for the first time. We started out, and within a mile, the forest floor grew wet beneath our feet. Sporadic pools grew to ponds and then a swamp. Keeping in the shade, we waded through knee-deep waters using long sticks to test for the bottom in front of us.
Holding our packs overhead, we trudged through rivers with water reaching our waists. Keeping track of progress with only time estimates and direction of travel, I grew wary as we reached the hour mark. I estimated our slow progress allowed us about a three- or four-mile-per-hour pace at best. We decided use of electronics of any kind might be a risk, and I hated not having our heat-sensors. I felt blind, unprepared, and almost frozen with fear. We’d chosen a route hard to access, but if we were discovered, it’d be hard to get out. Seeing the enemy first and taking them out would be our only advantages.
I tapped Amelie’s shoulder and signed to her that we needed heat surveillance. She shrugged and pointed to River who’d made himself chief somehow. I resented it but felt helpless in the situation. He had the most real-life experience and the others trusted him. His force of thirty had snuck away from their posts at the capitol and escaped to Colorado without being caught. That was his story at least. Who knew if Butler knew exactly where they were and chose to look the other way? He wouldn’t be ignoring anyone anymore.
Poking River with my stick, I suggested use of heat detection again. Pausing to acknowledge my request, he, as well as Ben and Carl, shook their heads and resumed the trek. As the cicadas buzzed around us and mosquitos swarmed my skin, my lungs forced the warm humid air in and out, in and out. Every tick of a branch and call of a bird left the hairs of my neck on end. My skin crawled as if it might grow legs of its own and slink away.
Light and shadows, light and shadows, as if laid out in a perfect camouflage pattern danced on the water, and tree branches swayed in the breeze. A bird called out, and the flock resting on an open pond ahead of us took flight. I froze and scanned the marsh ahead. River motioned for us to close ranks. Pack resting atop my head, I crouched until the water rose to my neck. We huddled in a cove of bay bushes, a large cypress towering overhead.
My psyche yelled out for me to run, escape our self-imposed prison. But we hunkered there, motionless, listening, watching for anything not belonging to the swamp. Was there a patrol, or was the birds’ departure happenstance, perhaps a reaction to a hawk or other predator?
Plunk. The sound echoed through the swamp, and ripples approached from the right. A frog, a fish, gator, beaver, duck, falling branch, or something else? Someone else? My heart thudded in my chest. The seconds spanned to what felt like hours. With water soaking through my layers and the temperature cooling my body, I fought a shiver. My eyes landed on Amelie’s, and I bit my lip. How could I do this to my friends, put them through so much?
Looking up to the small pinpoints of light gleaming through the branches above, I took a deep breath, fighting tears. Motion caught my eye, and I glanced over to see River holding up two fingers and pointing to Ben. They moved slowly to the edge of our hidden inlet. River peeked around the corner and motioned for Ben to follow. Taking one step, scouting the area, another step, and again pausing to check for any sign of foreign movement. We watched though slits in the brush as they entered another alcove fifty feet ahead.
Waiting five minutes, the rest of us ventured out from our hiding spot and joined them. We repeated this process three more times. Halfway between two copses of trees, Carl held up his fist, indicating we should freeze. I peered ahead, searching for his cause for alarm. Then I saw it, over fifty feet out, a wood post fitted with a white and red sign I wouldn’t soon forget the image of. The UNS Border. Had we gotten turned around, gone the wrong way?
It’s an old fence. River signed. The border changed several times as the climate pushed us north.
Barbed wire extended out from both sides of the post, and a small gray box was fixed to the side. A wire from the box ran down to the barbed enclosure.
Electric fence? Still active? Ben signed to us.
Knowing it wasn’t the real border didn’t help. I would never look at barbed-wire fence the same. Over the trees, a spark of white caught my eyes. I held my breath as the flash turned into a wing and one bird and then a flock swarmed over us, retaking the pond they’d vacated. Spoonbills. Fifty of them at least. Had the predator given up?
Grasses but no trees grew in the space near the fence. Daring to stand up, we resumed our prior pace. Better to be shot fast. At the fence, we used our sticks to lower the barbed wire and hiked our legs one by one over it. I watched the sky, waiting for a copter, plane, jet, something, but nothing came. My p
aranoia had won. Were they even looking for us? Perhaps they were overwhelmed with the aftermath of the prior day. I had a second thought but squashed that one, not entertaining the idea that others of our team had tried but perhaps failed to escape.
I wanted out of the swamp, to be running full out, like in the desert, where I could see my enemy. Squelching that impulse, I concentrated on my next step, the sounds of the bayou, every blade of grass, vibration of a leaf in the wind. Amelie let out a shrill scream, and I turned around to see her sinking into the water.
“Mud!” Amelie shouted.
Mace grabbed her arm. Gun overhead, I pushed through the water to them. Tripping over a log on the bottom, I fell in up to my chin. Standing, I reached Amelie. With my free hand, I gripped hers, and Mace and I pulled her to us.
“Shh, shh, shh, calm movements. You guys are making a huge commotion. We’ve got to keep moving.” River cocked his head south.
“You scared me to death. I thought a gator got you,” I whispered to Amelie.
“Sorry, my nerves are fried.” She squeezed my hand.
I turned to see Sadie and River waiting for me to retake my spot in our formation. I hated River right then and wished it were just Amelie, Mace, Turner, and me again. Why had I insisted on going into the city? None of us would be in this predicament. But I couldn’t miss a chance to rescue Nave.
Thinking of Turner again, my heart pounded with worry for him. If I could only know he was okay. I slowed my breaths as we lumbered ahead, trying not to panic. I counted my steps, five, ten, twenty, fifty, one hundred steps in silence, reacting to every new sound, flick of a branch as a bird landed, plink in the water with a falling leaf.
“Sure would be great to have Troy here now, eh?” River whispered. “That boy has super senses.”
“Troy?” Sadie inquired.
“Turner.” I continued to scan the swamp ahead.
“How’s that?”
River launched into an explanation of how they’d discovered Troy had been engineered before birth to have super hearing, sight, and high muscle content, and his modifications allowed them to create the vaccine and cure for the flu epidemic.
“Shh. We’re trying not to get killed here.” I hated him talking about Troy like he was a science experiment, someone’s prize invention, and couldn’t hear one more word.
Plodding in silence, my teeth chattered, my arms and legs shivered. After an hour, we’d only made it one mile past the fake-border fence. We needed to move faster, and I suggested we find our way out of the water to make better time and get dry before nightfall. Amelie’s wide-eyed stare seemed to beg for deliverance as her body shook from cold. The others, perhaps with better muscle tone or more insulation under their skin, rejected the idea, noting the remote harsh landscape had kept us from being detected.
We paused to retrieve jerky and water from our packs and treaded on, stopping each hour for nourishment and hydration. The sun sunk to a quarter of the way from the horizon before they decided we could head to higher ground. Finding a small island, we hung our packs on branches and changed. The clothes from my waterproof bag stayed dry, but I still had to put on soaked boots over my new socks. Sticking to our southern path, we circled bogs and jumped over streams, trying to stay dry. With the meandering route, our pace wasn’t much faster than in the water.
My boots weighed twice as much wet, but I welcomed dry land. It beat wading through swamps. I turned over the comm radio, wishing I could hear from Turner and get confirmation that they’d made it to the rendezvous point. By ten, we found a clearing under some trees and decided to sleep in two-hour shifts. I hung my boots and soaked socks upside down between two branches, hoping they would dry a bit in our four-hour break. Too wound up to sleep, I elected for first shift with Sadie, Ben, Carl, and Amelie.
On edge, we took up posts on all sides of the camp, listening and watching for any signs of danger. After two hours, we switched off, and I lay down on a bed of pine needles, hoping and praying sleep would come. The torture in my head would have to stop some time or I’d go mad. What happened to the families from Port Orford? Were they jailed and questioned? What did Nave think of all this? Was Turner safe? What of Port Orford? Were our parents okay? The not knowing was killing me, and within minutes I got up and found River, begging him to let me use the radio, scan the news channels, anything.
Beside him Shooter shook his head. “You’ve got to get your psyche under control. We need everyone at their best. By nightfall tomorrow, we’ll be at the river and then go downstream to rendezvous with the team. From there, we can plan our next move. We’ve got twenty-eight more days to figure out how to save the world.”
It was the most I’d heard him say ever. His matter-of-fact tone helped me relax. Asking me to hold out my arms and close my eyes, he prompted me to take slow, deep breaths. He pressed his thumbs to the inside of my wrists. Then he had me lie down and instructed me to let go of tension in my feet, legs, hips, abdomen, arms, neck, and then head. I didn’t fall asleep, but the panic subsided. We’d seen worse. This was not as bad as it could get, no one died, yet, that we knew of at least.
When the others woke on day T minus twenty-eight, we ate and I was ready to toe my line. Afterall, the Native One was a survivor. I adopted all the nicknames I’d been given. Angel of Death. Queen of Terror. I knew them all. They bolstered me up, prompted me to run harder, be stronger, prove them wrong. I fought for life, the lives of hundreds of thousands of people.
And so it went. We ran through the forest, keeping our southwestern bearings. As Shooter predicted, we made it to the river an hour after dark, and just as planned, we found the raft stowed under a stack of branches. I scanned the broad waterway. We’d be sitting ducks in the raft, with no escape but the churning depths below us.
“It’s stupid. I won’t do it. We’re bait out there. I vote we run.” I spun to face the others.
River threw a limb to the side. “The rendezvous point isn’t far from the river. It saves us a lot of time and energy.”
“But if they see us, there’s no escape route.”
My radio pinged, and I drew in a breath. The radio connected me to Turner. Troy was alive. Or they found him and the radio.
I slid the device from my pocket and turned up the volume. We have pigs for sale. Betty, Iris, Petunia at 374 and 556, and Petunia the baby at zero one nine pounds. Moving east. can’t keep. name your price at not less than ninety dollars, give or take one or two. We can’t give away for zero. Have to feed our family of nine, including kids as young as five. seven kids total. I am fifty-eight so have to make a living somehow now that my back ain’t doin’ so well. If you’re interested, come by my farm at 569 E. Hwy 57, Carlisle, IA, or phone +1-515-989-2741. Three Days.
The voice sounded like a northeastern accent, but I couldn’t be sure.
“What the heck?” River exclaimed.
I ran to my pack, grabbed a notebook and started writing. Pigs. He hadn’t said three pigs just their weight. 374, 556, and 019. Moving east? Were they moving east from there, or were the coordinates east of their current location? Less than? Did that mean a negative? Western longitudes were negative, so the longitude coordinate was -91.2095758 and latitude 37.4556019? What about the numbers at the end? I jotted them down as the message repeated. 5695715159892741. Fifty-six degrees longitude would be too far north, so I discounted that number. Lifting the radio to my lips, I pressed the button.
River slapped my hand, flinging the device to the ground.
“What are you doing?” I leaned over to pick up the radio.
“That’s a broad message. A reply will ping our location. That’s all you get, sweetie. You really think it’s our group?”
“Turner programmed this radio. It’s got to be them.”
Taking my notebook, River started punching in coordinates on the GPS. “Looks right. It’s farther west than the prior spot. Maybe they wanted to get away from the river. Well, you got your wish. We’re not using the raft.”
I stood. “Let’s go then.”
“Whoa, missy.” He snagged my sleeve. “If we’re running the entire distance, which I’m guessing you’re not having it any other way, then everyone needs rest, including you.”
“I’ll never get to sleep now.” My leg bounced. We didn’t have the cure, we didn’t have Nave or Mom, and our fathers were still stuck in Port Orford, but I would get to Turner. He was safe. I had to believe in that. Or it was a ploy, to draw me in, capture me and trade us back to the UNS, or China, or Russia, or worse… to Butler.
We’d talked about radio communication and decided to only use that frequency, so it had to be Turner. But what if they’d gotten his radio, used his presets? It could be Butler’s men or our own trading sides again. We could be walking into a trap. Still, if we were together, we’d figure a way out, we always had. I voiced my concerns to River and Shooter, and they agreed. We had to follow the lead. It was the only one we had.
After River’s mandated two-hour rest period, I had my gear packed, shoes on, canteen filled, and meal ready to eat on the run. The others moved slower than I liked, and I shifted my weight from foot to foot, waiting. We started out southeast to avoid the national forest. It would take us an extra twelve hours of travel time to circumvent the federal lands, but there was no other way. Going through would amount to suicide. The trip could take three days, which would leave us only a few days to figure out another plan to get Butler to give up the cure formula.
As we started out, Amelie and Mace made the case for going back to the Mark Twain Caverns to get a vehicle. It would save us a day and a half of travel, but they were vetoed by River and Shooter who said a truck would be easier to spot. I wanted to be there sooner than later, but I hated riding. Sitting would make me crazy. As long as I was moving, I could keep the feelings of guilt and shame at bay. The pounding of my feet on the soft ground, feel of water running down my forehead, and the warm air being pulled in and out of my lungs kept me sane. Everything would be okay once I found Turner.
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