by C. A. Gray
Both agents began speaking at once. “Yes, sir! Well we—”
“—saw men in ski masks and they—”
“—four of them—”
“No, two!”
“At least one more inside and one in the trees, though—”
Voltolini held up his hand, and they both clamped their mouths shut. “One at a time,” he said, gesturing to Youssef.
“We were sent to the southern border of the Republic, sir, just about twenty miles from Kensing, because of a report of a hacker using a stolen password to infiltrate our network. They traced the location, and that’s where it came from. Our supervisor, Hunt, told us that most likely Will Anderson was the hacker because of the person whose password he used.”
Voltolini did not visibly react to this other than to purse his lips. “And? Was it Anderson?”
“We—don’t know for sure, sir,” murmured Youssef. “We understand the hacker deployed code designed to disrupt our control center signaling, which makes it likely that it was Anderson. But we never saw anybody’s faces. They were all in ski masks.”
“How could we not know for sure that it was him? Whose brainwaves did we detect?”
Youssef hesitated. “No one’s, sir.” He and Murray exchanged a look, and Murray went on, “Our supervisors believe—that was the point of the ski masks.”
“Faraday cages,” murmured Voltolini. He turned back to the large window. “Send Collins back in here.”
He heard shuffling behind him as the two men left. A few minutes later, the shuffling returned, and an uncertain voice said, “Sir?”
“Contact Jillian Reynolds immediately to issue a broadcast alert,” said Voltolini. “Tell her that any citizen who spots an individual wearing a ski mask is to report that individual immediately as a terrorist.”
Collins nodded, and turned to carry out the order, but Voltolini said, “Wait, Collins. That may not be all.” He turned back to the two agents, and raised his eyebrows. “Is that all?”
Murray stumbled. “N-no, Your Excellency…” They exchanged another look, and then Murray went on, “One of the rebels… appeared to be impervious to our bullets.”
Voltolini said nothing.
Murray went on, “He somehow said something to his companion so that—” he scratched his head with his good hand, “I really can’t explain it, sir, but one of them said something to the other, and then even though it looked like we’d hit them both, neither of them were hurt. I don’t know how that’s possible. But that’s what we saw.”
Voltolini looked at Collins, who gave him a tiny nod.
“And I understand you asked the first terrorist his identity, did you not?”
“Yes, sir. We asked him if he was Jackson MacNamera. But he did not answer.”
Youssef interjected, “He did tell the others not to shoot at us, but there was a sniper in the trees. That’s how Giles died.”
Voltolini pursed his lips. Then he turned to Collins and said in a low voice, “Make sure Jillian tells the people that the terrorists in ski masks will kill indiscriminately, and they are believed to work for Jackson MacNamera. MacNamera may in fact be among them.”
“Yes sir,” murmured Collins.
Voltolini turned back to the agents. “Anything else?”
Youssef said, “We also believe—we saw planes, sir.”
Voltolini started. “What?”
Youssef nodded. “I’ve never seen one in person before, sir, but I’ve seen pictures from the old United States. We are both sure that’s what they were.”
“We—thought they were doing some sort of reconnaissance for you, sir,” Murray added, hesitating.
Voltolini turned to Collins. “Find out what they were and where they came from. Immediately.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Then deliver new orders to the Lieutenant Colonel. I want the troops to fan out over the hundred square miles or so surrounding the area where the rebels were spotted. They’re on foot, so they can’t get far.”
Collins balked. “Hundred square miles? You can’t mean—into Beckenshire, sir? Surely we’ll skip that city—!”
Before answering, Voltolini turned to the agents. “You are dismissed,” he told them. They both bowed, and ran into each other as they exited the room.
Voltolini faced Collins again. “This is classified information, Collins. Many of our top scientists doubt that Beckenshire is still radioactive. Very likely it’s been inhabitable again for some time.”
Collins’s eyes grew wide. “But we don’t know for sure! And surely the rebels wouldn’t know that, in any case…”
“Almost certainly not, but I still want to keep an eye on Beckenshire, just in case. Send a platoon in.”
“But sir, if it is radioactive there…?”
Voltolini rolled his eyes. “Give them sugar pills and tell them it’ll make them immune to radiation. Tell them they’ve been selected for a high honor and they’ll all receive a personal commendation from me as explorers of a new frontier. I don’t care what you tell them, just get them in there!”
Collins bit his lip, shifting from one foot to the other as if he wished to say something further. But he thought better of it, bowed, and left the room.
Chapter 12: Jackson
None of us spoke as we hurried into the forest, away from where we’d seen the agents. The sky began to darken, and we still had a long way to go back to camp.
Finally after about forty-five minutes, Alec said to Will, “So did it work, or what?”
“I doubt it,” Will said shortly.
“You doubt it?” Alec balked. “All that and it didn’t even work?”
“They must’ve figured out I was using someone else’s credentials and traced my location,” Will said, panting as he leapt over branches. “So I’m sure they’ll just kill anything I did under that username. Even if the code would have executed perfectly, which I’m also not sure of, at this point I don’t think it would make any difference.”
Alec swore. “So this entire mission was a complete waste? Is that what you’re saying?”
“It’s not his fault, Alec,” Nick growled. “Back off.”
Alec didn’t seem to hear him. “Don’t you know what this means? Now they probably have a good idea of our location out here! How long before they send more troops, like they did to the caves? And now these things are useless, too!” He yanked off his ski mask and flung it into the forest. “What do you want to bet the Potentate will alert all citizens of the Republic to look out for people wearing ski masks now?”
“Alec! Enough!” Nick whirled on him, jabbing a finger in the direction of the ski mask as if commanding him to retrieve it. The two stared each other down for a moment. Alec crossed his arms over his chest, implicitly refusing to fetch the mask.
“We can’t ever use them again anyway, and you know it.”
“You want to leave them a trail of breadcrumbs, is that it?” Nick retorted.
Alec hesitated, glowered, and retrieved the mask, tucking it into his satchel.
Jean pulled off her ski mask too. “I’ve been wanting to get rid of that thing all day anyway,” she murmured, rubbing her face. The rest of us followed suit, tucking them into our coats and waistbands and satchels.
Jean’s words broke the tension, and Nick started to move again, Alec resentfully trailing him as he cast one more sour look in Will’s direction.
“Not as if we didn't know failure was a possibility,” Will muttered to no one in particular.
“We just didn’t expect failure to be so catastrophic,” Alec shot back.
I’d had about enough of this.
“Alec. Hold up,” I commanded. The whole group stopped as Alec turned to look at me. “Your statement, that this failure was catastrophic. Is that truth, or a lie?”
“Oh, what are you, some kind of spiritual elitist? Quit being such a damn know-it-all!”
Nick snarled at Alec, “J
ackson just saved our lives back there with exactly this line of reasoning. So you will shut your mouth and listen.”
Alec muttered something that sounded like swearing under his breath.
“Thank you,” I told Nick, and turned back to Alec. “Let’s look at the facts,” I said, ticking them off on my fingers one by one. “None of us are dead. The agents do not necessarily know who we are. We now know one plan of attack that will not work, so we can cross it off and focus our efforts elsewhere. Jean and I gathered parts for Kate’s frequency jammers, which should give us a far less conspicuous alternative to the ski masks in the future.” I looked around. “So while it didn’t turn out quite like we’d hoped, the trip was far from useless, and certainly not catastrophic.”
I thought Alec was about to flip me off; probably fear of Nick was the only reason he didn’t. He turned his back on me after a moment and started walking without a word. With a moment’s hesitation, the rest of us resumed our pace behind him. The sound of our feet thudding against the forest floor seemed louder than usual.
Presently we slowed to a more reasonable pace, and Will fell into step beside me.
“You know you come off totally preachy and annoying, right?” he asked me under his breath.
I laughed shortly. “I’ve been told that before, but I’ve never been able to figure out how else to say what I think.”
“I mean, don’t get me wrong. Thanks for standing up for me and everything.”
“It wasn’t just for you,” I said. “Alec’s temper might become dangerous at some point. He’s got to get a handle on his emotions.”
Will nodded and said nothing. We walked in silence for a moment. Then he added, “I just think people might be more willing to listen to you if you’d show a little weakness occasionally. You do have a weakness somewhere, don’t you?”
At this I laughed outright. “So this is your repayment for my standing up for you, huh? You’re giving me social advice?”
Will looked nettled. “Forget it.”
“No, I’m interested! Kate told me she thought I came off annoying sometimes too.”
He perked up at this. I thought he might. “She did, huh?”
“So now all your incentive to help me went right out the window.”
Will scowled again. “Look, you’re impossible to compete with, all right? In the time I’ve known you, you’ve single-handedly rescued the lot of us from the Crone, fed the tribe, you just saved Nick’s life and maybe all of ours, and then this whole superior, ‘truth or a lie?’ thing. It’s so… smug. Is there anything you’re incompetent at? Anything that makes you just a little bit human?”
I suppressed a smile, resisting the urge to say, ‘truth or a lie?’ to that. “Let me deconstruct what you just said,” I told him. “You are comparing what you know about yourself from a lifetime—strengths and weaknesses, successes and failures—against what you’ve learned about me in the last week. On top of that, you’ve only seen me in my element so far, doing the two things I do better than anything else: live off the land and see past a worldview to interpret reality. So let me ask you—do you think that’s a fair comparison?”
Will blinked at me. “You just can’t help yourself, can you? You always have to be one-up.”
I chuckled. “Maybe you just found my weakness.”
He shook his head. At last he said, “I really want to hate you.”
“But?” I glanced at him.
He sighed. “But for some reason I just don’t.”
“Glad to hear it.”
We walked in silence for a few more minutes. Then Will said, “If I asked you to stay away from Kate, what would you say?”
“I’d say I thought you told me she broke off your engagement.”
“She didn’t exactly define her terms,” Will growled. “So it’s contingent upon that, then?”
I thought for a moment, weighing how to answer. The truth was, while I’d begun to care for Kate when I thought she was single, from the moment Will came back into her life my only thought had been to distance myself from her as much as possible.
But if it turned out she was single again after all? In our tiny community, with Will ever-present, and all of us relying upon each other for survival? Was she worth it?
I really didn’t know. But I wasn’t about to promise Will anything one way or the other until I at least heard it from Kate where she stood.
“If you’re still together, I won’t get in the way,” I hedged at last.
Will didn’t reply right away either. Finally he said, “I guess that’s about the best I can ask for.”
The first person we saw from camp was Molly, who burst through the clearing and made a beeline for Nick, throwing her arms around his neck. I always had to smile when I saw how much they loved each other.
“We’ve got to pack up,” he told her and the others as they gathered around behind us. “We’re heading for Beckenshire right away.”
The group clamored with protests and questions, and Nick fielded them, explaining what had happened. “Those agents have a general idea where we are now. Our only chance is to get to Beckenshire—they’ll never expect us to go there…”
My eyes sought Kate’s, and she raised her eyebrows at me. I nodded, holding up my satchel. She smiled. I moved toward her, but Molly intercepted me with a forceful hug.
“Thank you for bringing my husband home to me,” she told me, with tears in her eyes. “He told me you saved him. He’s all I have left.”
“I’ll always have his back,” I promised her.
Over Molly’s shoulder, I saw Will intercept Kate in her path toward me. She hesitated awkwardly before she hugged him. They said a few words, and then she moved toward me again. Will’s face darkened.
Molly pulled away from me meanwhile, wiping her eyes and moving back toward her husband. I glanced at Kate as she approached, and she looked at me with her heart in her eyes. I glanced at Will again, still watching us intently.
What was I going to do about this?
Kate put a hand on my shoulder, and for a moment I couldn’t tell if she was going to hug me or not. I didn’t want to initiate it with Will watching, and evidently she didn’t either, so she dropped her hand and just stood there.
“Thank God they’re still using fake bullets,” she murmured at last. “They shot at you again?”
“At all of us.”
“I’m—so glad you’re safe.”
“Thanks.” I took the satchel off my shoulder and handed it to her with a half smile. “Your ‘loot,’ m’lady.”
She grinned. “Did you get it all?”
Before I could answer, Will appeared at her side, and cleared his throat. “If you’re gonna try to put those together, you’re gonna need my help.”
Kate looked at him in surprise, and her mouth fell open. Then she looked back at me.
“I didn’t tell him. He guessed,” I said, with my hands in the air.
Kate turned back to Will. “You guessed?”
“I know you a little better than you think, Kathryn,” Will said dryly. “No matter how ‘different’ you think you are all of a sudden.”
Something compelled me to add, “He was very helpful too. He told me where to find the parts I needed.”
Will shifted his stance, still watching Kate. “So you want my help then, or not?”
“I—don’t see how we’d have time if we’re leaving right away for Beckenshire,” Kate said at last. “And—won’t you be busy coming up with the next strategy once we’re there?”
“Whatever it is, it’s probably going to require these things after all,” Will told her. “Turns out your idea was a really good one.”
A look of hesitation flitted across Kate’s face, and she said, “Thank you, Will.”
That appeared to be my cue. “I’m going to go help the others pack up,” I said, turning away before Kate could respond.
Chapter 13: Kate
“Geez, he’s such a slave driver!” grumbled Violet, who insisted on walking next to me no matter how hard I tried to lose her. “First Nick sends me, like this,” she gestured at her round belly, “into harm’s way to get a bunch of supplies, and then he forces me to knit all night and miss my sleep, which I need, by the way! Now it turns out the whole thing was for nothing, and I hunted and cooked all day for a dinner I didn’t even get to eat, and now we have to miss sleep again? I swear, I’m gonna just fall over dead pretty soon, and I bet he’d just walk over my body and keep going without missing a beat!”
I rolled my eyes, but she couldn’t see me because we both faced straight ahead. I glanced at Jackson’s back, who led the group beside Nick and Molly, and wondered what he’d say to Violet if he were listening to this diatribe. He’d probably say something penetrating and eloquent.
But alas… I didn’t do penetrating and eloquent. So, I settled on, “Stop complaining, Violet, we’re all just as tired as you are.”
“I beg your pardon?” she balked, gesturing yet again at her belly. “Have you ever been pregnant? You have no idea what I’m going through right now!”
“No. You’re right, I have no idea, and I can’t sympathize at all. Why don’t you go complain to Molly, I know she’s had a kid before.”
Violet huffed. “Molly is just as bad as he is!”
“Then why don’t you go back to the Republic? I’m sure you’ll fit right in there.”
She gasped, but apparently I’d succeeded in offending her so thoroughly that she actually let me speed up without matching my pace.
Success. All I’d wanted for hours now was to be alone with my thoughts. I knew Will was somewhere behind us with a few of the other hunters, because Violet had probably scared him off too—other than that, he’d been my little shadow from the moment the hunters had returned. I hoped he wouldn’t see me unoccupied and speed up to join me. I just needed some space.