Kol woke up alone, as he had every day that week, his heart beating hard enough to feel the pounding in his toes.

He’d betrayed the Liberty Corps. Brielle knew it. Years of work and life prospects were over, wiped away forever.

Kol did everything he could to think about something else, anything else, but the thoughts overwhelmed him while he tried to sleep. Each night, his imagination slipped, unbidden, between waking nightmares, all while he couldn’t move. During their stay, Max slept beside him, like they were still children on some family vacation, while Duncan slept in the room’s other bed.

Exhaustion claimed him only briefly. Kol almost missed Thought Fatigue. His true sleep was short. He found anxiety and terror waiting for him, the moment he awoke.

Kol got up. He showered and dressed in some of the only clean civilian clothing he had left. They hoped not to risk a trip to the laundromat. The fewer places they could be seen or recognized, the better.

The room’s outer door opened. Kol went still. It could be Duncan and Max returning from their daily trip to the communications building.

It could be a housekeeper, despite the ‘do not disturb’ sign that had been on the door since before the battle. He might be facing his first human-to-human interaction – not counting his brother and best friend – in four days.

It could be that someone had recognized him or Duncan, that they’d arrived to turn him in, or to extort money from him, or…

“We’re back,” Max said. “Are you in here, Kol?”

“In the bathroom.” Kol finished collecting his hair into its usual bun. Then he joined the others.

“Are you okay?” Duncan sat on the edge of his bed. He peeled a fake costume mustache from his upper lip. “You’ve got a weird look in your eye, Kol. You need to stay sane long enough to get us through the asylum process, buddy.”

“What’s wrong?” Max asked. “Duncan isn’t totally wrong. If you’re ill, we have fewer options until the Alliance collects us tomorrow.”

“I’m fine,” Kol said. “I really am. I’m just… The Alliance has a timetable for us?”

“That’s the good news,” Duncan said. “We’re almost done hiding out!”

“The Alliance is sending a team from Littlefield,” Max said. “Their detachment arrived a few days ago. You may need to see the Aesir crew in the flesh, I’m afraid. But, tomorrow the Pacific Alliance will take all of us into their protection.”

* * *

“Are you sure Orson will be okay?” Enoa sat with Jaleel at a worn wooden table in the basement of the Corwin Family Farms records building. Around them were shelves labeled by decades, containing business expenses dating back to the turn of the 20th Century.

Some of the shelves were intentionally mislabeled. They still held notes and years of records, but they didn’t pertain to crops or irrigation or any of the factors of operating a farm.

Enoa couldn’t understand the covert system, but the Corwins had hidden Hierarchia records, ‘Kappa records’, between their own business’s archived data, scattered amid information too innocuous or boring to peruse.

“Orson is…” Eloise pulled a three-ring binder from one of the shelves. She leafed through pages and sighed. “He’ll be fine. Unless things get really crazy, he’ll be fine, honestly. He just never got along with the idea that the world is never going to be what he wants it to be.”

“That sounds miserable.” Jaleel held some small device in his hands, it’s electronic innards exposed. He’d removed four small lengths of yellow wire and was prying at a computer chip with a stylus.

“What do you mean?” Enoa asked. Orson had said little since he’d returned from meeting the Pacific Alliance representatives. He did not raise his voice, but he exuded palpable hurt and anger, even fear. “He’s been less and less like the person who rescued me.”

“He has problems with any secret authority.” Eloise returned the binder and walked further along the 1980s shelf. “It’s because of what happened to him, and I understand why. Did he tell you about that? I can’t imagine what it’s like not to have Littlefield supporting me, but… Sometimes, you have to know when someone is being dangerous because they have evil designs and when they’re dangerous because they’re following their, erm, their role in the world.”

“I have no idea what you mean.” Enoa held her bracelet against the table. She had not worn it since its hologram, since IHSA Command was set to learn of her rank promotion. The metal still radiated strange warmth, but it was otherwise lifeless.

“Countries exist because we all agree they do, right?” Eloise said. “We know that out here, in Littlefield, because we’re on our own. We understand the balance. It’s always a little unstable, but not everybody is ready to think about that. No large government is going to be open about secret powers that could destroy the world. They’ll want to control them. They have to keep everything on the level. That’s their role. Keep everything calm, even if a small group of people has to suffer and be collateral damage.”

Eloise pulled a notebook from the stack. “Orson is the exact opposite. He will want to keep things fair. He’d rather have millions of people learn how precarious the world is, than have two thousand be collateral damage, even if it causes more problems long-term. That’s his role. If fairness would cause chaos, then that’s still the only way he would want to be.”

“I’d be depressed too, if I thought about that all the time.” Enoa remembered the destruction of the drop ship in Trolley Town, how quickly Orson changed from the quipping, grinning adventurer he’d been in Nimauk to the man who’d fought the civilization-killers. “What made him like this?”

“I guess he wouldn’t mind me telling you.” Eloise returned to the table with the notebook. “I think this is the right one.” She started flipping through pages. “I know it mentions the Dreamthought Project. Uh, Orson was framed for assaulting a businessman in his hometown, so the guy could pressure Orson’s dad into selling him some land that held an old Hierarchia-funded factory.”

“We heard about that factory.” Jaleel set his project aside. “He mentioned that when he was talking about his mom.”

“Yeah, that’s right.” Eloise kept paging. “Anyway, the businessman, a man named Cyprus, didn’t press charges because he already got what he wanted. But Orson’s entire little town turned on him, because this Cyprus was a local icon and employed a lot of people. Then there was this whole media circus. Orson made the regional news. He was expelled from high school, a couple weeks before he was supposed to graduate. Even his dad didn’t believe him and kicked him out.”

“Oh my God!” Jaleel yelled. “I’m not sure what I would’ve done with my life, if I didn’t have my family behind me.”

“That’s so sad,” Enoa said. “No wonder he was so excited to get the big hero sendoff when we left my hometown. You should’ve seen how happy he was when the Wintertide Festival Orchestra played his theme song.”

“Yeah, he definitely has a validation thing.” Eloise nodded. “But who wouldn’t, in his position. Wait…” She set down the notebook. “His theme song? He has a theme song? Why? Where did it come from?”

“I guess somebody wrote it to go with that memoir of his,” Enoa said. “I think he mentioned a movie that didn’t happen.”

“Oh.” Eloise raised an eyebrow. “Is it any good? Are there words?”

“It’s instrumental,” Jaleel said. “It’s pretty fun. It’s like an adventure movie thing.”

“Damn,” Eloise chuckled. Her eyes had a devious gleam. She returned to her paging. “I would love to follow him around singing his theme song at him. He would be so embarrassed.”

“Don’t ruin his theme song for him!” Jaleel said.

“What happened next?” Enoa asked. “How did he go from getting kicked out to becoming an adventurer?”

“Oh right,” Eloise said. “Eventually he found out the truth. He’d been a pawn in this weird Hierarchia plan – Cyprus was a low-level Hierarchia contributor. This was when the Hierarchia still operated totally top-secret. Oh, and the Blitzkrieg terrorists were involved and this lunatic, Ruhland, who… Oh, let’s not get into him. But they were all after this thing buried under the factory, this glowing gemstone called the Opal.”

“I’ve seen opals,” Jaleel said.

“It wasn’t really an opal,” Eloise replied. “It was some kind of power source. It was just called the Opal. Anyway, Orson was chased by the Hierarchia, until he wound up in the first Aesir crew, who started teaching him to fight. That’s around the time I met him.” Eloise finished paging through the book. “No! I knew it was in there.” She groaned and returned to the shelf.

“I’m really sorry about this!” Enoa said. “It can wait.”

“No, it can’t.” Eloise walked to the shelves and continued her search. “We beat the Blitzkrieg – our crew. Orson personally got Ruhland, but he still has this issue with anything that’s too much like the Hierarchia. And I don’t blame him, but it’s such a shame. I’m scared he’s going to turn into a crazy recluse.”

“What do you think happened with Orson and those Pacific Alliance men?” Enoa asked. “He hasn’t talked to you about it?”

“He hasn’t.” Eloise disappeared from sight around the far side of the shelf. “Why didn’t you ask him if you’re so worried about him?”

“Um.” Enoa pulled the bracelet from the table and fit it into her backpack, on the floor. “I saw that he was upset, and I was scared about the IHSA Command thing, but I didn’t want to tell him unless I knew it was a problem. I don’t want to make things worse for him unless they’re definitely worse. If he knows I’m upset, I’ll have to tell him and…”

“Okay,” Eloise chuckled. “I get it. Well, based on what that Colonel Musgrove said to my dad, I’m pretty sure he wants or wanted to hire Orson. And knowing Orson, he didn’t want to be hired and talks fell apart, somehow. I love Orson, but he’s really difficult. He’d be super, super dead if he wasn’t so good at fighting. I really thought that… Oh, here it is!”

Eloise ran back to the table. “I thought Shaping was with the ‘psychic phenomena’, but it’s with ‘third party projects.” She paged through the book. “This one is great, because it has lots of illustrations. Can I see the thing again?”

Enoa retrieved the bracelet and placed it back onto the table.

“Yep.” Eloise leaned over the bracelet, the notebook on the table, beside it. “It’s an S.I.T.E – a Shaper Intensive-Training Electroband. Looks like this might be the third and final generation. Yeah, it has the little circles under the band.”

“Is that good or bad?” Jaleel asked. “Are people watching her?”

“I don’t…” Eloise turned back to the book. “I don’t know. All of this is pre-internet, so it’s really hard to tell. All the old Hierarchia stuff is on this network called the Garnet. It was their own internal network, a pre-internet that only the IHSA used, and it was just a mess. It was not user-friendly.”

“The Hierarchia had their own secret network?” Jaleel asked. “What was that, like the Arpanet?”

“I don’t know.” Eloise kept paging. “It looks like it’s still around in some capacity, but as far as I know, even the Hierarchia had moved off of there by the turn of the millennium. Uh, the day-to-day stuff is just in the SITE device memory. It’s only the promotions that will be logged with Hierarchia Command.”

“But is there a Hierarchia Command?” Jaleel asked. “I figured when the hologram said it would be transmitted, it was transmitted. Is there anyone reading the transmission?” He raised his voice to an almost manic volume. “That’s why we’re here! Some freak might be watching her.”

“You’re sweet, Jaleel.” Eloise smiled at him. “Isn’t he sweet, Enoa?”

“He’s very sweet.” Enoa didn’t know the point of the question. Was Eloise trying to deflect the bad news? “And a little loud.”

“I’m sorry,” Jaleel said.

“It’s okay. You’re upset.” Enoa never considered the idea that the Garnet was some kind of internet or that someone might be receiving her information. How could she be so naïve, so childish! But why had her aunt left it there for her? Had she left it there for her? She hadn’t mentioned the device on the films, at least, not yet.

“Okay.” Eloise laid the book back on the table and then turned the page. “We are in luck. Kappa had a transmissions log from an operative called Theta. It looks like she was around in the early nineties. We can see what information the Hierarchia received.”

“That’s after the Dreamthought Project left,” Enoa said. “When I first used the bracelet, the SITE, it said that it was the first use in twelve-thousand some days.”

“Okay, so they still used this after that,” Eloise said. “They must have had Shapers after the Dreamthought Project, but I can see the transmissions. It looks like the SITE reconnects to the Garnet every time it gives a status update, but it doesn’t share user data. It just accesses the general memory that it can’t store on the device. The only data transmissions are at rank promotions, which happen at levels twelve, twenty-five, and forty-two, to the ranks of Apprentice, Journeyman, and Master.”

“What information does it give with the promotions?” Enoa asked. “Do we know how the transmissions work? Is it like an email?”

“It gives Shape data.” Eloise turned the book to face her. “Hey, isn’t your Shape Anemos? It looks like this operative, Theta, was also using Anemos. She used her SITE right up to two-thousand.”

“That was my aunt’s Shape!” Enoa said. “There’s another Shaper of Anemos out there?”

“Maybe not?” Eloise shrugged. “A huge percentage of the Hierarchia operatives died in the last twenty years.” She slid her finger along the page. “It looks like no one actually receives this information. It was part of a long-term study, that’s compiled at some data site. If no one is physically there, no one is getting your data. If someone is there, they can see that an Anemos Shaper just became an apprentice, but nothing more. There is no location data, no specifics, no context.”

“What else does that book say about Theta?” Enoa asked. “Who are they? Or were?”

“Nothing,” Eloise said. “That’s just the thing, it doesn’t say anything else. It’s only the information I gave you now. This Theta was already an apprentice when this started being recorded, but she became a Journeyman in ninety-one and a master in ninety-four. Not much else.”

The thick door at the top of the steps opened. Enoa jumped. All of them fell silent.

“Is she down there?” Carlos asked. “Is she down there, boy?” Dino ran down the stairs, straight to Eloise. He stood at her side, his audio-flap extended, licking her cheek. Carlos, Mr. Corwin, and Orson followed after him. Orson wore his coat, but not his sword. “Aww, he found you.”

“Yes, he did!” Eloise scratched behind Dino’s ears. “Dino’s my smart boy! Yes, he is!”

“How are you, Mr. Corwin?” If Enoa had seen the Corwin patriarch since the battle, it had been during her Shaping exhaustion, and she could not remember.

“It’s good to see you again, sir,” Jaleel said.

“It’s nice to see you too,” Mr. Corwin replied. “I’m feeling better. Getting old is for the birds, kids. My blood pressure medicine needed adjusting, and I wasn’t drinking enough fluids, so my electrolytes were all out of whack.” He rolled his eyes.

“I’ve been telling you for years that you’re too hard on yourself, Papa,” Eloise leaned to the side to look around Dino. “Maybe you’ll listen now that we have it in writing.”

“Dr. Benville gives me easy instructions,” Mr. Corwin said. “He’s harder to ignore. Between that and the threatening ‘outcomes’ he’s always talking about, I feel like I’m back in grade school. Well, you don’t need to hear me go on and on, but I never got the chance to thank the two young – is it wanderers?”

“Wayfarers,” Eloise provided.

“I never got the chance to thank you two young wayfarers, for all you did to help Littlefield. I forgot, if I’m honest, until just today. Everyone else who helped is local or family, or as good as family.” Corwin rested his hand on Orson’s shoulder. “But I shouldn’t just assume you’d be here, Orson, even though you always have been when we needed you.”

“It was my pleasure,” Orson said. “Truly. This is the closest place I have to home, now.” He smiled, but whatever new burden he’d found while meeting the Pacific Alliance agents had not left him.

“Does Captain Gregory,” Mr. Corwin chuckled, “have you kids doing research already? Boy, I thought I was a tough boss. You just got out of the infirmary, Enoa, and you’re already back to work.”

“No, this is something we’re looking into on our own,” Enoa said. “It’s about, uh, my inheritance.”

“It looks like we need to catch up,” Orson said.

“Yeah, we do,” Enoa agreed.

“But the big thing.” Orson walked around the table. “The Pacific Alliance is picking up the Maros crew tomorrow and bringing them here.”

“I personally want to thank these Maroses,” Mr. Corwin said.

“Yeah, Orson, I don’t get what the big deal is,” Carlos added. “Didn’t you guys beat this Maros before?”

Enoa pictured the smoke rising from her home, but she also saw Maros, lying on the ground, spear in his shoulder, his life threatened. “Orson, if you’re here to ask me about this, it’s okay. The Pacific Alliance should do whatever they can to get them to safety.”

* * *

Duncan noticed the hovercraft first. He saw the dust cloud billowing in the far distance, faster than any desert storm. The plume of dirt flying out in its wake was like a tidal wave, bearing down on them. Its shadow was visible even through the room’s blinds. The craft flew just above the open desert, forgoing roads and any semblance of society.

“Hovercraft!” Duncan yelled to the others, but by the time Kol and Max had left their game of chess, the vehicle was almost on them. It was close enough to hear the roar of its propulsion.

It was close enough to see the insignia on the nose of the squat, square vehicle. It did not bear the five stars of the Pacific Alliance.

The craft’s nose had the mark of an Eagle, facing left, facing ‘west’, interposed over a red and blue star.

Duncan didn’t know it was the mark of the Baron R.K. Helmont, when he peered under the blinds, but he knew what it meant. Even before the hovercraft came to a stop, facing the motel, he knew the Pacific Alliance was too late.

Three squads of Rifle Corps troops ran from the hovercraft. They moved in a tight formation, covering the parking lot. These were not militiamen. They worked with the precision of true soldiers. These were the manner of warriors the IHSA had once used, well trained, professional, and armed with the weapons of tomorrow.

None of the room’s occupants spoke, not right away. They were surrounded. They were hopelessly outgunned.

The Liberty Corps had found them.