Chapter 13: Scattered
A/N. I had originally planned and written this as a massive fight scene. However, once I stated editing it and working it into the story, I realized that it worked out better a different way. My apologies to those of you who thought that the big problem had just happened. Keep reading. Hopefully, you won't be too disappointed.
"We've got a problem," Dij said, eyes widening as he realized the extent of how bad their problem just so happened to be.
"Problem as in alien invasion, the hot water's out, or the problem where we're under attack?" Gil asked, twisting his chair so that he could see what the tech analyst was talking about.
"Under attack. Someone working off a government server just pinged us."
Gil swore. "You're sure?"
Dij nodded. "Deadly sure."
Gil took out one of his many cell phones. "I'm calling Halt."
"No need. I'm right here. What's the status?" Halt materialized from the shadows behind them.
Neither man jumped, though they would have liked to. Years of training (rather "on the job" training for Dig) had taught them that Halt expected them to be ready for anything. Jumping indicated that they hadn't heard Halt and weren't prepared for him. Being surprised, but ready, was perfectly acceptable.
"Someone back-hacked Dij."
"I thought that was impossible," Halt replied sarcastically.
"Not impossible, but the hacker would have to be Genovesans-level good."
"Well, luckily, we have a resident Genovesan expert. Dij, try to see how far they got. Gil, advise everybody to be ready to run, if we have to. Then, start clearing everything off the mainframe and put it on the backups."
"What are you going to do?" Dij asked, only half of his mind on the question as he searched through the dregs of the cyber world.
"Find Taylor and Will."
"Duck!" Taylor ordered as she struck at a point behind Will and realized that he wouldn't be able to duck under the blow in time. At the last moment, she adjusted the angle of her strike and just barely grazed the top of Will's head while her arm completed its journey to the target. The result was the holographic opponent disintegrating into millions of orange computer-generated shards.
"When they said 'Expert level' they weren't kidding." Will commented, turning to guard the girl's back.
"Stay focused. There are still ten opponents left," Taylor replied, her eyes scanning the training room, never stopping, always moving. Her breathing was calm and even, hand-to-hand combat her natural habitat. Will had improved dramatically within the past month, but he still had a long way to go. His lack of attention to the proper things had almost gotten them killed twice during this most recent simulation alone. I can't believe that I agreed to go through the expert level with him. What was I thinking? Well, we're not dead yet.
"Nine o'clock," she yelled as the next opponent charged her left side. She prayed that Will remembered that "nine o'clock" meant her nine o'clock, not his.
Will remembered, and he moved to combat the new opponent as she circled to protect his unguarded back. Immediately, a new opponent materialized, and she moved to combat him. "Front snap kick, down block, up block, punch, drop, leg sweep," she muttered under her breath. Having fought for so long, fighting came naturally, and she had, at first, found herself unable to explain some of the finer points of fighting. She had spoken with one of the older Rangers, and he recommended that she try to orally label the strikes and maneuvers as she performed them. Like the last opponent, this one shattered as soon as it hit the floor.
"Eight left," Will commented as they circled back into a two-man fighting formation, the light from his last defeated opponent giving his features a golden tint for a fraction of a second.
"I'm afraid not," a voice said from the door to the training room. The simulation shut off and, pouring sweat, they both turned to face Halt. "You're both needed up in OPMC. Now."
Even though she had proven to be harmless to the Rangers over the course of the past mon th, Taylor had never really been allowed to go anywhere apart from the rooms that Halt had limited her to at the beginning of the deal and the walks out in the woods that she and Will occasionally took. OPMC, the heart of the Corps' operations, had most certainly been off limits. Something happened. They wouldn't include me otherwise.
It was a sullen trek through the Gathering Grounds mansion to OPMC, several levels below ground. Will and Taylor's minds were racing, trying to figure out what had happened. Halt finally enlightened them in his subtle manner as he keyed in his access code to the monitoring center. "We got hacked." The door opened and they stepped inside.
Stepping inside, Taylor saw more technology packed into one room than she had seen in the rest of the Rangers' headquarters. There were advanced computers, monitors, tracking monitors, and every single other piece of equipment that Taylor and her team had had available in their compound.
"Wow," she said. "Just wow." She then turned her attention to the problem at hand and the people in the room. In addition to Gil, who, once he figured that she hadn't been about to kill them all, had actually become rather friendly and had accompanied her and Will during many of their training sessions, there was another guy seated in front of the computer. He was intently concentrated upon the computer, and, from the back, all that she could see is that he was short, slender, and he had long, shaggy black hair. She held a hope for a moment that it might be Luciano, but a closer glance revealed that he was too short to be her former team member. He and Will, as best as she could tell, were roughly the same height.
"Dij, explain to our guest what we've got," Halt ordered.
The other man, Dij, as it appeared that he was called, ceased his relentless pounding upon th e keyboard and spun his swivel chair around to face them. "We got hacked. I tracked a tracking device by hacking into a government satellite and pinpointing the location of the device, and someone tracked the location of the device and pinpointed that location as well. They also went through the zero-day I used to get into the satellite and backtracked me. And I hid. Well."
"Bounced through multiple servers in multiple countries across multiple continents, I assume," Taylor commented.
"Yep, plus a whole lot more."
"I bet. Did you back hack into the satellite and get their access?"
"Yep. It's essentially the same code I used, but a couple of slight alterations."
"Can I see the script?"
"Sure." Dij called the code to the forefront of his monitor.
"May I?" she asked, gesturing to the computer.
"Be my guest." Dij yielded his chair.
Taylor copied and pasted all of the script into a word processing program and called up a search bar. Typing in a series of characters in binary code, she searched the document, looking for a specific signature. The search returned one result, and that result immediately told her who had hacked the Rangers.
"NATWWAL," Dij read, translating the binary for those, namely Halt, who weren't as fluent in the cyber language as the tech wizard happened to be. "It's right next to the command to execute the attack on flaw in the firewall protecting the satellite network."
"Not All Those Who Wander Are Lost," Taylor said, her voice no louder than a whisper. "I know who hacked you."
"Who?" Halt asked. "And don't play games with us."
"I know him as Luciano. He's a former member of my team, and he's known to be the best hacker throughout the Genovesans."
"How far into the system do you think that he got?"
"As far in as he wants, provided that no one is there to fight him. He could probably get as far as he wants with someone there to fight him, for that matter."
"So, he's that good?"
"Like I said, he's the best."
Halt exchanged a long glance with Dij and Gil. "How long would it take for the government to put a raid force together?"
"Less than an hour." She turned to Dij. "How long since they breached the satellite?"
"Forty-five minutes."
The girl thought for a moment. "I have no idea where we are, so I can't give you an ETA."
"We need to evacuate," Halt said. He turned to Will. "Pack your things and hide what you are afraid to lose." He then addressed Taylor. "Make sure that you're packed, too."
"Has this ever happened before?" Taylor asked a few minutes later as they were packing in Will's room. Will's laptop, a few changes of clothes, and a few weapons had gone into a duffel bag incredibly similar to Taylor's. Poking around in it, she could see that it was already pre-packed with food and other survival necessities. Apart from the few changes of clothes that she had apprehended (namely through explaining to Halt that a girl needs more than two changes of clothes and other necessities) during her stay with the Rangers, Taylor had nothing to pack and was ready quickly. There was really nothing that she could do to help Will, so she kept him somewhat distracted, maintaining an idle (or as idle as she could ever possibly be) stream of chatter.
"We've had drills, but I've never seen anything this serious. Granted, I've only been here for a couple of years."
"I wonder how they did it," she muttered to herself, but Will's keen hearing picked up on it.
"Did what?"
"Stayed hidden all of these years. Avoided getting caught."
"Well, we didn't have your Genovesan friend on our tail for one thing."
That shut Taylor up. It almost sounded like Will was blaming her for what happened, but she didn't think that he had intended to. However, just in case, she kept her mouth shut to stop him from having any more ammunition.
"Another thing is that Halt and Crowley are good. Super good. The rest of us are pretty good, too, but Halt and Crowley have this talent for not getting caught and have used it to keep us safe over the years. That combined with the overall quality of the training that we receive makes us, individually, really good. Who else has the opportunity to train for four years exclusively with a master in their field?"
"No one, I guess," she finally replied.
Will threw a couple of books on top of his bag and then zipped the bag shut. "Are you ready?"
She hefted her own bag onto her shoulder, grateful that her need for crutches was long gone. "Yes."
They re-convened with Halt, Gil, Dij, and yet another stranger in OPMC. "Crowley," Will whispered, identifying the other man as the man that she knew to be the commandant of the Ranger Corps.
"So this is the Genovesan I've heard so much about," Crowley said, calling Taylor's attention to him.
She guessed him to be about Halt's age, somewhere in his fifties, but he looked younger. She reckoned that it was because of the hair color. Like Taylor, Crowley had sandy colored hair while Halt's hair was dark and would showcase any tinge of grey far more easily. Crowley's face also showed more identifiable signs of humor than Halt's.
"So this is the commandant that I've heard so little about," Taylor replied.
"Guilty as charged," he replied, chuckling. "I must admit, you're a good bit younger than I thought you were."
"I've been accused of that." A smile decorated her face. Crowley was easily likable.
"Thank you for your assistance with the identification of the hacker. We all greatly appreciate your help."
"Just fulfilling my end of the deal."
"Ah, yes, the deal in which you help train young Will over here."
"That's the one."
"And what do you get in return?"
"A chance to start over."
"A worthy goal indeed."
Halt cleared his throat, and Taylor could almost see Crowley return his attention to the task at hand. "Ah yes, we have the little matter of an evacuation strategy to detail. I'll keep it simple. Spiderweb."
Taylor took a breath to ask a question, but Halt headed her off. "For those that don't know, 'Spiderweb' is a strategy where we travel in pairs and meet up with each other at predetermined locations. From this room, Taylor and Will are a pair. Gil and Dij are a pair. Crowley and I are a pair."
Gil had a comment. "Shouldn't Will be paired with someone else?"
"The girl is a trained Genovesan."
"That's my problem," he replied, shooting a slightly apologetic glance at Taylor.
"I think that, for the time being, it should be perfectly acceptable. A boy traveling with a girl is much less conspicuous than two grown men traveling together. Don't you agree, Waldo?"
"I agree."
"Like I was saying, Will and Taylor will meet up with you and Dij every couple of days in various cities."
"How will we know what cities?" Taylor asked.
"Will knows. Crowley and I will be monitoring everyone's progress, keeping an eye on things."
"Any other last minute instructions?" Will asked.
"For you two?"
"Yes."
"Stay together. Take the trains. Watch each other's backs." His face softened slightly. "And come back alive."
Thirty minutes earlier:
"Do you really think that he'll be safe with that girl?" Crowley asked.
"I think that she'll protect him, if nobody else. From what I can tell, the girl has a strong sense of personal ethics, and she seems to think that she owes Will something. She'll protect him, no matter what, in order to pay off that debt."
"Is she better protection that you or Gil, though?"
"In some ways, yes."
"Genovesans are different from us. Is her training adequate?"
"She's good. Even for a Genovesan. She would have made an excellent Ranger, given a different skill set."
"What if she runs off on him?"
"We can track her. She has O'Carrick's oak leaf. Besides that, she won't, which is why I paired the two of them together. Like I said, she seems to think that she owes him something, so she will protect Will if none of the rest of us."
"How do you know?"
"Will is her best chance for survival. She'll stay with him."
Crowley shook his head. "Your apprentice, your call."
"She has been a treasure trove of information and exceptionally helpful. With all that she's given us, which we have been able to confirm, I might add, she'd never be safe with the Genovesans again."
"What's the plan?" Taylor asked as they slid into Will's car.
"Stash the car, take the trains. Try not to get killed." He handed her a bag with two knives, three guns, ammunition, and a disassembled .223 sniper rifle inside. "Halt thought that you might like to have these back."
She lovingly stroked her knives and resheathed them. "No Genovesan, regardless of their expertise, ever really feels complete without their knives."
Will watched as she replaced them. "How do they stay so well hidden?" he asked.
"How do Rangers vaporize into thin air?"
Will didn't answer. That was a trade secret and not one that she had any business knowing.
"Good sheaths. We've been hiding knives for centuries, so it makes sense that we'd be good at it."
"Makes sense."
"Who's Waldo?"
Will smiled as he drove out one of the dirt roads, the expression one that suited him well. "I grew up in an orphanage that the governor of my county sponsored. Halt used to pretend to be some kind of storyteller that came to the orphanage and told us stories. Waldo was a character in the first story that he ever told. Halt told me that he pretended to be the storyteller so that he could keep an eye on me."
"How'd Halt know that you were there?"
"He was looking for an apprentice, so he was traveling around trying to get a sense of the pool of candidates."
"How'd he choose you?"
"He was standing outside the office of the head of the orphanage and heard a sixteen-year-old me getting chewed out for stealing food from the kitchen. I confessed instead of lying and it impressed Halt. Don't tell him that I know about that."
"How'd you find out if Halt didn't tell you?"
"Gil told me. That's the same cover and story that Halt used to find him. He'd just graduated as a Ranger when Halt recruited me, and he was pretty surprised that Halt found a new apprentice that quickly."
"That would surprise me, too."
"Yeah. Turns out, Halt knew that something was coming to a head, so he wanted as many trained Rangers as possible. So, he tried to hurry everyone into getting an apprentice and drumming as much as possible into their heads. 'Knock a hole and pour it in if you have to,' as Gil described it."
"Halt saw this coming?"
Will veered around a gate and onto a dilapidated back road. "The government has been after the Rangers since Morgarath took over. I guess that it was only a matter of time."
"I thought that the Rangers used to be part of the government."
"We were. But we also couldn't be bought, so Morgarath discredited us and banished half of us, imprisoned a quarter, and left the rest running for all that they were worth. Halt and Crowley restructured the Corps and got it running properly again about twenty-five years ago."
"That would mean lower numbers, I assume."
"Yeah, they were only operating at half capacity back then."
They fell silent for a few moments, Will's slightly faster than legal driving putting them on a highway in that period of time. Three miles later, they, along with the rest of the people bound for Redmont County, passed a legion of speeding police vehicles and military transports.
"Here," he handed her one of his cell phones once the caravan was clear. "Text Halt and give him a status update on that caravan that just passed us."
She nodded, her fingers typing rapidly across the keyboard of the old flip phone. After a whole minute, three times as long as it would normally take her to send a text, she was done and hit send. Big load of trouble headed your way. Just passed exit 29 on highway 387. W&T
All clear here. H
A moment later, another text came in. Keep him safe, T. H Taylor didn't even think about how Halt knew that she was the one texting him instead of Will.
I will. T
"Can I text someone else with your phone?" she asked Will.
"Who?"
"My old partner. I haven't checked in for over a month and he probably thinks that I'm dead."
"Not that one. Use the one in the glove compartment. And, just in case, I need to read that text before you send it." He frowned. "That didn't quite come out right."
She bit back the comment that was sitting on the tip of her tongue, begging to be flung out into the daylight, and turned her attention to the task at hand. Another flip phone sat in the glove compartment. Quietly, she entered a number.
I've run into a little bit of trouble, but I'm okay. Keep your eyes open. THR
She tilted the phone so that Will could read the text. "All good?"
"Yeah."
She made to put the phone back in the glove compartment, but Will stopped her. "You might as well keep it," he said. "Dij had your phone in so many pieces that it would take a week to put it back together."
She laughed, a clear ringing sound that echoed throughout the car and their silence. "I guess that is my fault. Getting involved in all of this, you know."
"You could always-"
"Don't. I'm in it now; I'm in it for the duration. Speaking of which, where exactly are we supposed to stash the car?"
"Redmont. The Corp mechanic is there and he'll look after the car for a couple of weeks or however long we need him to."
"What Ananias would give to know about all of this."
"Who?"
"Ananias. The only Genovesan I know of that has survived into his sixties. He's recognized as the overall head of the Genovesans. And it's been is personal mission for as long as I can remember to track down and eliminate the Ranger Corps."
"Pleasant guy."
"So I've heard. I've never met him."
"How have you never met him?"
"How many Genovesans do you think there are?"
"I don't know. Five hundred?"
"Try more than five thousand."
"Are you serious?"
"That's what Halt said, too. And, yes, I'm serious."
"How can that many assassins stay hidden from us?"
"How can so many Rangers stay hidden from the Araluen government and the Genovesans?" They stopped at a traffic light, and she looked him in the eyes. "We hide, both of us. It's what we do."
The light changed, and Will pulled away, the old car leaving a puff of smoke in their wake.
An old building on an out-of-the-way road in the middle of nowhere served as the headquarters for the Ranger Corps' mechanic. A man who was far older than the building, an impressive feat, met Will and Taylor outside of the building where the skeleton of an old Ford pick-up truck was being totally overhauled.
"What can I do for y'all?" he asked, wiping the grease from his hands using the battered red rag from his back pocket. Noting Taylor, he inclined his head. "Hello, miss."
Taylor smiled at him. "Hi there. I'm Taylor." She offered her hand which he promptly shook, the strength in his gnarled hand surprising her.
"In this company, I'm called 'Old Bob.'"
"It's nice to meet you, Old Bob."
"The same to you." The old man turned to Will. "Good to see you again, young Will." He slapped the teen on the back, the sounds of the slap reaching Taylor's ears.
She winced for Will. The man's appearance belied his strength.
"So what can I do for the two of you?" Old Bob asked again.
"Can you look after Tug for a while? You heard about the security breach, and we're supposed to follow Halt's spiderweb. I was in Araluen City recently, and my car is just too dangerous to be driving right now."
"Not a problem. I've been meaning to do some maintenance on old Tug," he slapped the car's hood, "anyways. Do you have any idea when you'll be back?"
He shook his head. "Not the foggiest."
Old Bob shook his head. "Do you need another car to drive to the city?"
"I don't think so. We can walk or hitchhike from here to Wensley and catch the train there. It's only about twenty miles."
"Just don't get caught anywhere near here. I don't need my cover being blown."
"We'll try our hardest to avoid getting caught at all."
"Do or do not. There is no try." Old Bob fixed Taylor with an intense stare. "I'm assuming that you're the trained one here, seeing as how Will's an apprentice, and that's how Halt's little plan works, so let me give you a word of advice. Keep an eye on this one. Make sure that he doesn't get into any more trouble."
She nodded. "I'll look after him."
Shouldering their bags, they turned and walked down the old country road, heading towards the distant city.
"I hope you don't mind walking," Will said as they stopped for a rest ten miles later.
"I kind of figured that was what you had in mind when you mentioned dropping the car off with the Corp mechanic. I just didn't quite realize that you meant that we would have to walk twenty miles."
"Well, at least we have a somewhat believable cover story if we're able to hitchhike."
"What? We just survived the zombie apocalypse?"
He chuckled. "Close enough."
"Two, please." The ticket vender looked down his nose at the dusty girl and equally dirty boy outside of the ticket stand. Both teens were carrying duffel bags and looked as though they had been walking for two days.
"You are aware that tickets require payment, correct?"
The girl closed her eyes for a moment. When she opened them again, they were icy and hard, like a frozen lake, both in warmth and in color. The man was startled, but he fought for control of his body so that he didn't show signs of it. Dangerous eyes. Dangerous people.
"Yes, I am completely aware of the fact. Any idiot is completely aware of the fact, as you just demonstrated. Now, if you don't mind," she slid the required amount of money to the man, "I'd like our tickets now."
The ticket vender was totally unused to a teenager speaking with the authority of a powerful adult and the disdain that the ticket vender himself typically held for people in general. Seeing as how the girl was not an individual upon whom threats would work properly, he handed the tickets over without any further comment and heaved a sigh of relief when the two teens walked away.
A few moments later, he made a call to his supervisor to detain the two teens on the grounds of suspected terrorism.
"I thought you were going to jump through the glass and strangle him," Will commented as they headed into the train station.
She looked around cautiously. "I shouldn't have reacted like I did, especially in a train station. Now, he's probably going to call security on us." She smiled, lightening the mood. "The look on his face was hilarious."
"So, now I'm guessing that we need to clean up and re-pack."
"Yeah. Head for the bathroom and get started. Go for a casual look. Then get on the train and head for car number 8. I'll meet you there."
The two split up, Taylor heading for the waiting area while Will went to the restrooms.
In the handicapped men's stall, Will unzipped his duffel bag and took out the suitcase that he had stuffed into it and his extra change of clothes. He then dumped the contents of the duffel bag into the suitcase and crammed the duffel bag in on top. Using the sink in the stall, he cleaned his face, neck, and arms, inserted a pair of color contacts, and brushed his teeth. Once he had changed into clean clothes, he forced his old dirty ones into the suitcase and zipped it up.
Exiting the bathroom, he made a beeline for the train car and settled into a compartment. There was absolutely no resistance.
Taylor joined him a few minutes later, her hair suddenly six inches shorter than it had been.
"Did you give yourself a haircut while you were in there?" Will asked.
She smiled. "Nope." Pulling off the beret that she had donned as a part of her disguise, she revealed a high ponytail holding her hair high on her head. "It's something that I picked up in the urban camouflage section of my training. A beret is a pretty baggy hat, so it hides the bump of the ponytail, thus allowing hair to instantly be shorter." She re-covered her hair. "Plus, it helps hide the fact that I haven't washed my hair in several days. So, I always carry one in my bag."
"Nice. You got anything that would help with my hair?"
"A comb." She looked at him more closely. "Oh my god, your eyes are blue!"
"They've always been like that."
"No, you have brown eyes."
"Well, I figured that contacts might be in order. Everything needs a change every once in a while, especially when there are people looking for you that might possibly want to arrest or kill you."
"Yeah, but, seriously, blue?"
"What?"
She shook her head. "I don't know. I guess I just got used to you with brown eyes."
A smiled danced about his lips. "If I had known that changing my eye color was all that it to throw you off, I would have done it a long time ago."
"Well, it won't work now. I'm onto you."
"Nice to see that I can fool even you." His mood turned serious. "We'll take the train to Norgate fief overnight and stay on the train. Tomorrow morning, we switch trains and head back south. We're supposed to meet Gil and Dij in Aspienne about dinnertime tomorrow."
"What are we supposed to do until then?"
"Read a book, watch a movie, sleep, whatever you want to do. We just have to make sure that we don't sleep at the same time."
"Right." She shrugged off th e potentially awkward implications of his innocent statement. She didn't need the added complications of emotions to make her job harder. Primary objective: Protect Will and survive. Secondary objective: Find Marisi, Luciano, and Bacari and keep them alive. If time permits: Kill Tennyson. If bored: Find Morgarath and kill him for doing this to good people. If I really have a lot of time on my hands: Sort out emotions.
"Pardon me," an official-looking fellow, all the way down to his epaulets, stuck his head into their compartment. "An official received a report of a potential terrorist threat to this train, and we are performing a routine sweep of the cars. Could you please stand for a moment?"
Taylor and Will exchanged a glance. "Certainly," the girl replied. They both stood.
The official took a crumpled piece of paper out of his jacket pocket and held it up, comparing the security camera picture of Taylor and Will to the real-life models. Taylor noted that the camera footage was in color, a benefit since a quick glance in the glass door of their compartment noted that her eye color had shifted from blue to grey. Will was also assisted because his colored contacts would create a discrepancy between himself and the picture. However, she need not have been worried. After a moment, the official lowered the picture.
"My apologies for wasting your time."
"Not a problem at all, especially with regard to matters of national security. Is there anything we can do to help?" Taylor asked, laying on the charm so that it was thicker than tapioca.
"No, miss. All seems to be in order. Please enjoy the remainder of your journey." The man left the compartment, muttering some thing particularly nasty about a fellow named Albert, whom Taylor gathered to be the ticket vender that had been so rotten to them.
Once the official had left, and the two had restated themselves, Will turned to Taylor. "You chose Car number eight for a reason, didn't you?"
"Some thing Luciano taught me about traveling: when there's a terrorist threat on a train, they'll always check the cars closest to the engine first and then work their way back. If you're in th e last compartment, then a searcher will be so tired of looking for you that he will likely only see another disappointment."
"People see only what they want to see."
"Exactly. Do they teach that in the Ranger Corps?"
"Not exactly in that context, but, yes, they teach it."
The girl smiled. This was not a fake smile that only worked on her mouth, but it was a real smile that reached deep into her eyes and pulled out every trace of happiness and displayed it for the world to see. "Albert is going to be in so much trouble." She couldn't keep a straight face as she said it and, soon, peals of laughter sounded from their compartment.
After they finally calmed down, Will asked, "Do you want first shift sleeping?"
"No," she replied, shaking her head. "I'm far too wound up to sleep, and I know th at you need to get some sleep. You took a the last double shift on watch last night."
"Wake me up when you're tired," he said as he nodded off, using her shoulder as a pillow.
They took turns sleeping for the rest of the trip, Taylor watching old movies on her Mac, listening to Will's soft snores; Will read The Art of War as Taylor dozed on his shoulder. They continued in shifts for the rest of the day and night, switching off every four hours or so. Their conversations were stilted, neither having much to discuss due to the fact that they were simply too exhausted for logical conversation.
The next morning, Will nudged her awake as they pulled into the Norgate station. "We're here," he muttered. "Welcome to Norgate, the most dull and unremarkable county in Araluen, even in the summer."
Taylor looked out the window of their compartment. Even the wild lands and meadows, which she had always though held a beauty that stood in stark rebellion to the civilization attempts of humanity, were dull, flat, and bleak. The sky was a cloudy grey, the color of storm clouds, and it did not paint a welcoming picture on the horizon.
"I'd hate to see the postcards."
"Yes, you would. Luckily, we're heading out of here in a couple of hours. We just need to change our disguises and switch trains."
"You make it sound so simple."
"We're professionals. It should be simpler."
"I guess." The girl returned her focus to the world outside of the window, the bustling of the station, and contemplated the overall concept of normalcy. You could have it, you know. You could create another alias. Disappear. Leave the country. Live your life. But you won't. You love this life too much. You crave the adrenaline. You like the uncertainty, the unpredictability. You thrive here. Normal is for the mundane. We aren't mean to be normal. In her thoughts, she had intended to say "you." Instead it had come out as we. It was unsurprising in both that she had used "we" and that her consideration of "we" now included Will. She had spent a huge quantity of time with him over the past month, and, in that time, she had become as close to him as she ever allowed herself to be with anyone. She would protect him with all that she had in her arsenal, including, she realized, her life.
Another duck into a bathroom and they were a pair of traveling businessmen. Using a few of the more eclectic tools in her bag, Taylor dressed herself up far more than she normally would have. She was totally unrecognizable as the street urchin that had been a threat to the Redmont train station.
They once again took the last compartment on the train, but, because of a significant lack of overly suspicious officials, their trip was uneventful. They disembarked in the capital city of Aspienne, and, once off the train, took some time to make themselves look like tourists.
"We meet Gilan and Dij at the Starbucks on Fourth Street at five. It's eleven now. We can do whatever you want until then."
Taylor glanced at the MacBook Pro under her arm. "Let's find some lunch and some Wi-Fi. I want to check on a friend of mine."
M, she typed as she chewed on one of Panera's grilled cheese sandwiches. I'm just checking in. There's a lot of stuff going down, and I'm right in the middle of it. Right now, that involves running. I'll keep emailing or texting you every so often so that you know I'm okay. Please don't try to find me. THR
A reply came back only moments after she had sent the email. THR, Please be careful, or I will come find you. GIT when you can. M
"GIT?" Will asked when she showed him the message.
"Get In Touch. He's more paranoid than I am about getting caught. He's on his own."
"He's your partner. Why'd you leave him?"
"To keep him safe. There's someone looking for us that knows what we look like, and if there are two or more of us together, then we are more likely to be spotted and identified. If we're apart, then we can be disguised and pass of the resemblance as coincidence."
"I guess that makes sense."
"But?"
"But I'd honestly give up a bit of anonymity for having someone to watch my back."
"We were ordered to separate and keep radio silence between the four of us for six months. That means we're supposed to spilt up and be on our own for six months. Then, whoever's left meets back up at a predetermined place when the six months are up."
"I see." Will was quiet for a few moments, watching the people on the street, before he spoke again. "We still have five hours to kill. What do you want to do?"
Taylor tapped away on her computer for a few moments. "There's a bookstore a few blocks north of here and an ice cream shop next door to it. Why don't we go grab dessert and read for a few hours?"
"Sounds nice to me."
After a few hours spent in Taylor's version of paradise, Will managed to drag her out so that they could make their rendezvous with Gil and Dij. When Will and Taylor entered the Starbucks, the other two were already there, enjoying a cup of coffee, though they looked hyper alert to any trained individual.
"Something's wrong," Taylor whispered to Will as they waited in line to press their order. Gil, excusing himself, headed for the bathroom, cutting through the line right in front of them as he did so.
"What's going on with him?" she asked.
Will looked down at his hand which held a note that had been folded more times than their two ages combined. "Get your coffee to go. We're meeting them out back."
"What's going on?" Will demanded when they were safely located at the back of the Starbucks. A quick sweep revealed the area to be clear of cameras and unwanted ears or visitors. Gil and Dij both looked like they hadn't slept in days, and Gil's demeanor was that of an old man.
"They found Halt and Crowley," Gil said.
"I love running. I'm not into marathons, but I am into avoiding problems at an accelerated rate." -Jarod Kintz
A/N. That took a lot longer than I thought. Hopefully, the wait for the next chapter won't be so long. By the way, I'm not superstitious or anything, but isn't it funny that the real trouble began in Chapter 13?