Enoa watched Sucora Cloud wield the staff. She watched the way her aunt gripped the weapon, the way she shifted the metal between her fingers. She watched the way Sucora changed her grip as the staff moved, and where the staff’s weight balanced in her hands. Sucora Cloud, as in all the films, stood in the hidden room beneath their home. This time she’d moved the desk out of the way, giving herself the whole front of the room for practice.

Similarly, Teddy had cleared a wide area beside the Aesir’s garage parking spot, just for Enoa’s daily staff training. Enoa imitated Sucora’s motions. She focused on the complex patterns Sucora demonstrated.

“Eventually,” Sucora said. “You’ll feel the motion of air inside the staff, and you can use that to guide your movements. For now, let’s concentrate on developing some good habits. The staff is a basic weapon, but my design will allow you to use it for advanced Shaping techniques. Once we begin studying extreme changes in temperature, you’ll be grateful for your staff training.”

Enoa had been listening to the recording all week. She’d memorized some passages, but she didn’t skip ahead.

“Once you have this foundation,” Sucora said. “We’ll move on to the genuinely dangerous techniques.” She brought the staff through a flourish, a one-handed spin that ended with the staff planted vertically in front of her.

“I want you to have this foundation before you learn anything really dangerous,” Enoa said, before Sucora’s recording could say it.

“I want you to have this foundation.” Sucora retrieved a bucket of water from out of view. “Before you learn anything really dangerous.” Then she brought the staff through another broad flourish.

The water sprang from the bucket. In a hiss and a rush of steam, the water solidified into ice, forming a freestanding wall in the room’s center, temporarily blocking Sucora from the camera’s view.

Sucora walked around the wall of ice. With a single strike from the staff, she shattered it. Before the broken wall could fall to the floor, Sucora struck it again. It thawed, transmutation in fast-forward. In another expansive gesture from the staff, she returned the water to the bucket.

“But we’re not there yet,” Sucora said. “I’m going to repeat more patterns for the rest of this film. That will give you a good chance to imitate them.”

Enoa positioned herself in her ready stance, but stopped when the Aesir’s door opened.

“You’re still waiting for that thing?” Orson exited the ship, apparently mid conversation. He held Teddy’s laptop and the Shoshone transmission box. Jaleel followed after him. “You’ve been waiting a whole day. Did you even sleep? Neither of you would be in any shape to fight.”

“Maybe you New Englanders need your beauty sleep!” Alec Corwin’s voice came from the laptop. “But that thing won’t catch us napping. When it comes here, we’ll get it.”

“Don’t you two have work or something?” Orson asked.

“I have some time off,” Eloise said. “I’m supposed to be planning the wedding. It’s fine. That Liberty Corps probe will be here. I can feel it.”

“I thought we made our message loud and clear when we beat Sloan,” Alec said.

“They’re only there looking for us,” Orson said. “They’d send their probes anywhere for the Dreamside Road. I don’t get why this is such a personal thing for you.”

“Because Orson,” Eloise said. “It’s been like this for my whole life. Kappa took over half our town until we got rid of him, but that wasn’t the end of it. Then we had all those lunatics trying to steal Kappa’s research. Or the Hierarchia trying to sue us to take it! Or the Thunderworks flyby. Or Sloan. And now this. I’m done!”

“Everywhere’s like that now!” Orson said. “It’s really rough, but the probe’s only there looking for the Aesir crew. Just like Sloan would have waited a while before coming after you, if I wasn’t there. These are real problems, but the recent stuff, I’ve caused a lot of that for you.”

“If it wasn’t the probe,” Eloise said. “It’d be something else. I’ll call you when this is over. Bye, Orson. Bye, Jaleel.” The line went dead with a beep.

Orson groaned and set the computer down on the garage floor.

“You’re both awake early.” Enoa collapsed the staff. “What’s up?”

“I’m celebrating!” Jaleel said. “Finally! Now I don’t have to listen to jokes about being the kid or being the junior member or whatever.”

“What are you talking about?” Enoa asked. “No one says that.”

“It’s his birthday,” Orson said.

“Oh!” Enoa remembered him mentioning his birthday – back before they’d set out as a crew, but that seemed half a year ago. “Happy Birthday! I think you talked about that. Now, we’re both twenty.”

“I definitely talked about it,” Jaleel said. “This is a big deal for the whole crew. Before we had a three decade thing going on. Orson’s thirty. You’re twenty. I was nineteen, but now we’re both in our twenties, and Orson’s the old man.”

“Well, hooray for that,” Orson said. “Anyway, Teddy’s doing his family recipe birthday cake for the occasion – mayonnaise chocolate.”

“Oh,” Enoa said.

“It sounds terrible,” Jaleel said. “Just really, really gnarly, but Orson says it’s good.”

“I love it,” Orson said. “There’ll be more for me if you don’t like it. Anyway, Jaleel is going to help Teddy decide today’s menu and I’m… awake. So I guess we’ll all go hang out with Ted while he’s working. We need to figure out what we’re doing with his deliveries.”

The laptop chimed, a small cartoonish sound.

“Ugh, what is it now?” Orson leaned down to the laptop. “Hey, we heard back from Cathy. Looks like a recorded message.” He pressed a button on the keyboard.

“Hi Aesir crew,” Cathy said. “Good news, bad news. I reached out to the Tech Liberation Front. They’re passing close to our territory on Friday. They’re skirting around Liberty Corps occupied land, to go for their Denver run. Better, they can get you what you need. I know these guys. We’ve dealt with them before. They’re shady, but the right kind of shady.”

“Here’s the thing,” Cathy continued. “They want eight-thousand Pacific Alliance dollars for intelligence on the five operational Hierarchia bases currently in use by the Liberty Corps. With our finder’s fee, that means you’ll need fourteen-thousand, total, due when we meet on Friday.”

* * *

A full squad of guards escorted Kol and Sir Geber to the Czar’s research wing and to the testing site that held Max.

The knight pressed his hand to Kol’s forearm before they entered the room, numbing the limb from Kol’s shoulder to his fingers. Electric shocks raced further, down his spine.

“I’ve cooperated with you.” Kol allowed Geber to guide him into the laboratory. “There is no reason to threaten me.”

But then Kol saw the reason. Kol saw the mass of bruises on Max Maros’s face. Welts the size of plums covered his hollow cheeks and peeked around the collar of his black prisoner tunic. One of his eyes was swollen shut. He looked pale, and they’d shaved his head.

Max sat alone, facing the research projectile launcher, facing the source of his wounds.

“Kol.” Max met Kol’s gaze with his open eye. When he spoke, Kol saw that his brother had lost the end of one of his front teeth.

Max was not seated in his wheelchair. Instead, he’d been strapped to the top of a black, wheeled cart, bound in place, sitting upright. “Give them nothing, Kol.” His speech was slurred, his voice weak, a hoarse whisper. “Whatever they want, don’t do it. I have given them nothing. Do nothing to defend me.”

Kol tensed, but before he could speak or act, the numbness spread across his back and up his face, choking the words in his throat.

“Your brother is much more cooperative than you are, Maxwell.” Sir Geber released his arm. Warmth and feeling spread back through Kol’s body. “I think he is very afraid for you. He would be more afraid if he knew how you resist us.”

“If I help you,” Kol said. “His testing stops now. While he is part of my experiments, the Czar’s work ends.”

“No.” Geber motioned to the assembled lab techs to enter. “Fire on Maxwell.” The projectile technician didn’t hesitate. He fired.

Kol formed a wall in the center of the room. The projectile bounced aside. He left the Shaping in place. Kol watched the projectile tech. The man kept his eyes straight ahead, hands on the firing controls.

The rest of Kol’s usual techs entered the room. They hastily began assembling their sensors. The devices’ probing arms reached toward Kol’s wall, even as the scientists still assembled the sensors’ tripod legs.

“Let’s see how long you can really do this,” Sir Geber said. “Corporal, be unpredictable. Fire at will.”

“Yes, sir,” the projectile tech said.

“Kol,” Max said. “Do not help them for me. Do not. This doesn’t help me.” Kol didn’t look at his brother. He couldn’t. “They will kill us, no matter what. Don’t help them.” The muscle in his mind that could summon his shield wavered, lost its grip. The blue projection flickered, like static on an old analog television.

The lab techs adjusted their sensors, the probing arms reaching almost against Kol’s shield.

“Are you tiring or are Maxwell’s words affecting you?” Geber waved to the projectile tech. The man fired several times. Kol’s wall held against all projectiles.

“Enough,” Geber said. “That’s enough for now.” He clenched his fist.

Kol’s body went numb, a sensation so sudden it was like he’d been winded. He couldn’t move. He couldn’t breathe. He fell, limp, toppling toward the floor. Hands caught him from behind and pulled him back out of the room.

“See what honesty gets you?” Geber cycled the lab’s door closed as he left the room. “You will continue to see him if you continue to cooperate. It’s not unreasonable.” He opened his fist and strength returned to Kol’s body.

“I want to talk to him,” Kol said. “I want to speak to him in private, without any of you or your tests.”

“No,” Geber said. “You won’t see him in private. But if you behave in tomorrow’s testing, maybe I’ll allow you time to catch up.”

* * *

“I know we gave Orson shit.” Alec Corwin stood from his folding chair. “But I do need to get out of here.”

They sat in Kappa’s Eye, a small garage built into hillside to the south of Route 66. From the outside, the aboveground portion of the Eye looked like a broken hovel, splintered wood and dirty, opaque windows. But inside, it had room enough for two vehicles to park, as well as electricity, running water, plumbing, and a camp stove.

A monitor hung along the far wall. It displayed the view from a telescoping camera feed of the road, a quarter-mile away. This was the Eye’s purpose, to watch that segment of the Mother Road and the fork into Littlefield. The road was empty that morning. The low, scrub grasses were still stunted from the unseasonable cold.

“Why would you leave now?” Eloise watched her brother roll up his sleeping bag in the back of his truck. “It’ll be here.”

“Maybe.” Alec shrugged. “But Pedro will be here too. He’s supposed to come by at noon, right? He’s a good shot. I have my meeting with the ecology survey.”

“The Alliance can wait.” Eloise stood from her own camp chair and stepped between her brother and the truck’s cab. “What if you leave and you give us away.”

“They can wait,” Alec said. “But Dad can’t, or did you tell him what we’re doing out here? And how would I give us away? I think you’re giving this thing too much credit.”

“I…” Eloise began. “I’ll tell Dad about this once we know what’s up.”

“You’ll tell him afterward so he doesn’t worry,” Alec said. “But what’s he gonna think with both of us gone over twenty-four hours? What’s Carlos gonna think?”

“He won’t be worried, if you don’t scare him!” Eloise said. “Carlos knows we have a lot going on with the Alliance here.”

“Carlos will be worried, no matter what.” Alec shook his head. “You’re marrying a normal guy, Eloise. He’s not a freak like your friends. One of us needs to go back home to keep everything calm.”

Eloise imagined Carlos, alone and afraid – her father, alone and afraid. Worse still, she imagined them together and afraid.

“Okay,” she said. “But tell Pedro to come off-road.”

“I will.”

Eloise stopped fighting him, and she watched the wide expanse of highway while he gathered the rest of his things. She downed her third cup of coffee. It had been a long night, curled up with the thermal heaters, eating only the ration packs they kept stored in the Eye. They even slept in shifts, waiting for the Liberty Corps drone.

“Will you be back tonight?” Eloise kissed him on the cheek.

“No,” Alec laughed. “And you’d better leave when Pedro’s turn ends. If that thing isn’t here by then… I don’t know.” He stepped up into his truck.

Eloise triggered the garage door’s open switch. The back, gray wall of the hideaway slid aside, revealing a ramp out to the open hillside. She watched Alec drive into the afternoon sun. Then she shut the door again.

Eloise turned back to the telescopic view. She waited for Alec’s truck to reappear on the road, after he followed the game trail far away from the Eye, winding down the incline.

But before Alec reappeared, the telescope zoomed in on another moving object. It was shaped like an egg, and it flew low over the desert.

The probe had appeared. It flew directly at the hideaway, at the Eye, at her.

Eloise didn’t wait to question its intentions, how it had found them, where it came from. She triggered the door again. She collected her omnishell rifle, checked the charge of her truck’s portable shield, and jumped inside.

The trucks she and her brothers drove were jury-rigged, cobbled together half-a-decade earlier, with special features to help in case of a desperate struggle against the automatons of Thunderworks.

“It’s here.” Eloise clipped her comm to her jacket collar. “Alec, it’s here. It’s here now!” She started her truck on stored solar power alone. It came to life, almost silent. Then she guided it out of the Eye and into the unseasonably crisp day and into the sunlight. She kept her dashboard radar in her peripheral vision. The dash sensors saw the probe. It didn’t hide from her.

“Get out of there!” Alec yelled. “It had to be watching us!”

“Too late.” Eloise saw the probe with her naked eye, when it hovered low over the top of Kappa’s Eye. “It’s already here.”

The probe halted, only yards from her truck. It floated, silent in the air.

Eloise removed the concussion pack from her rifle and swapped it with one of the few remaining plasma sets she’d taken from the League of Nations Mojave field office before it fell. The pack clicked into place.

Eloise adjusted the truck, eased it sideways, until she had a clear line of sight through the open window. Her truck shield was set. Her target was in sight. Her weapon was loaded and aimed.

She fired.

Two bright green bursts of light left the rifle’s barrel and struck the skin of the floating egg. The light was bright enough from the collision to block the probe from sight. Eloise looked down at the dash, at her radar.

The probe’s red ‘enemy signature’ dot stayed right where it was.

Eloise looked back at the egg. She still saw the green projectile blasts, still free-floating, bizarre lamps, a will-o’-the-wisp. The glowing orbs floated around the egg, like space junk caught in a planet’s orbit. The thin tip of the egg began to glow a dull red.

“Oh shit.” Eloise put the truck in reverse, but the probe acted.

The green blasts circled the egg a last time. Like a boomerang, they flew straight at her, too fast for her to veer aside or dodge the rebounded attack.

The truck’s shields responded. They caught the strike, but the force of the blow knocked Eloise back in her seat. Then the engine died. It whined. It spluttered. It was gone – gone with the shield and with the sensors.

Eloise heard Alec yell something. He was close enough to see it then, but she couldn’t focus on his words. The probe bore down on her.

She lowered the comm volume and dove from the truck. She landed on the dirt, feet away from the nearest bush that might hide her from the machine. How had it caught the plasma fire? She’d never even heard of something like that.

Eloise crawled away, on her side, omnishell rifle – whatever it was worth – still clutched in her right hand.

The probe adjusted course. It flew at her. She was close enough to see a little hatch open on the underside of the egg, see spindly mechanical arms reach out of the machine, bringing with them a small black box.

“This is Liberty Corps Baron R.K. Helmont,” the box said. “I speak to you with a statement of law and of consequence. The outlaw captain, Orson Gregory, and his crew have robbed the Liberty Corps. They have killed my troops. They will forfeit their stolen goods. They will be punished. To reach them, there is no treaty that will protect them. There is no foreign sovereignty to protect them, or you, if you oppose our law and our justice. There will be no safety for you if you help the Aesir crew or oppose the Liberty Corps.”

The probe came closer, stretching out its arms and the black recording device. Eloise crawled away, dragging her arms along the hard ground. She eyed the hole in the probe, an opening inside, maybe somewhere that the egg’s unique protections couldn’t save it.

The probe floated toward her.

Eloise knew the brush would offer her no cover from the machine, whatever it planned. She raised her rifle toward the recording device, and the arms, and the open door.

A rocket struck the probe and exploded against it, sending the machine toppling down to the earth. The blast of noise and light left Eloise’s ears ringing and stamped a purple afterimage across her eyes.

She didn’t see the probe rise, didn’t see it fire its own weapon, but her ears cleared enough to hear the approaching truck, hear more rocketfire, hear a deep thrum she did not recognize. She heard an explosion from the direction of what could only be Alec’s truck.

Eloise fought to clear her vision too. She saw the smoking truck and the probe bearing down on it. The thing was hurt from the first rocket and it hung to the side, exposing its open belly door and its internal arms still clutching the recording device.

Eloise raised her rifle and fired. She didn’t hit the opening dead on, but she hit something. Whatever field it had used to protect itself from her earlier shots didn’t work. Fire blossomed from the open bottom of the probe. She saw the black recording box go flying. Smoke followed it, great plumes of smoke, like the thing was a rocket fighting to take off.

The probe wheeled around toward her. The tip of the egg glowed again and the dull red intensified to a burning light she couldn’t look at. A beam of energy burned from the top of the probe. The low thrum came with it. Both burned at her.

She threw herself aside. Its aim was poor and the beam swung past her, but she felt the heat from the energy.

When the beam stopped, Eloise ran. She didn’t run back to her truck or rush to what remained of her brother’s. She didn’t run away.

Eloise sprinted at the probe. She ran close to it, to the still-smoking hole beneath its belly. She saw the reddish light again, but she was too close. She looked up through the smoke. A word was written on the probe’s underside, “Redhead”.

She raised her rifle to fire again into the Redhead’s opening, but it flew away. The probe flew straight up, above her. Eloise tracked it with the rifle’s rangefinder. The finder told her when it stopped ascending and tracked its movements. The Redhead adjusted its position until in hovered in the sky, many feet above her. Directly above her.

Eloise ran before the thing dropped. Her legs wobbled, but she dived to the dirt and rolled away before the probe fell back to the ground.

The Redhead made the earth shake when it crashed, where it would have flattened her if she hadn’t moved.

Eloise turned toward the Redhead. It wobbled on its base, like an egg beginning to hatch. It shook as it turned back toward her. She sprinted at it again, ran too close for its energy weapon to strike her.

She reached its metal skin just as the glow emanated from the top of the egg. It could have other weapons she had not seen. It could even roll at her. But she didn’t stand a chance at a distance, not against its beam weapon.

When the glow faded, Eloise got ready to run. But the Redhead rocketed up into the sky for the second time. Eloise felt the rush of air from whatever repulsor or force let the hunk of metal fly.

The probe’s vulnerable underside had been damaged by one of its falls. The doorway she’d shot had tried to close, but she saw the metal panel was too misshapen to fit back into place. One of its manipulating arms, broken, fell out of the open doorway.

Eloise aimed at the broken door and fired her rifle. She emptied the plasma set into the bottom of the machine before the probe reached the top of its arc.

The Redhead fell a third time, flame gushing from the broken doorway. It dropped like a stone. She jumped aside and crouched down. She covered her head, gripped her hands behind her neck, but it wasn’t enough. The egg exploded this time, as it struck the ground. It burst in a blast of light.

The blast threw her. Eloise slammed down to earth, and the ground was harder than her bones. Her bones had never been as strong as they should have been. Even after all those years and the thousands of dollars in treatments, she’d never fully recovered from Kappa’s poisons.

Eloise felt something break in her chest, something in her left leg, something in the right hand that still clutched her rifle.

She didn’t want to know where else she’d broken, but she wanted to see Alec and she wanted to see that the job was done. She saw nothing from where she had landed, and her body would not move to reposition her.

She heard nothing from her brother or their attacker either, nothing but the message from the recording device. The message looped, repeating itself.

“There will be no safety for you if you help the Aesir crew or oppose the Liberty Corps.”