Chapter Two in full, with additional Hilde Köhler story and extended fugitive dialogue. Walker's orientation will come at the same point of One's awakening, which is the new name for this story, Book One of Travels.

Deadline
Part I

I'm running again. The dust has lifted off from the ground by about ten feet, my arms, legs, back, and lungs are worn from the first adrenaline burst getting to the leveled precinct, but I am running! Down Inglewood Boulevard, past Marina Del Ray and the International Airport before I hear the sirens wailing in the distance.

That's good. I've got a deadline.

On the way to Holy Cross Cemetery, I snatch up a clean-enough blanket from some old squatter's tent. I wasn't able to steal a shovel—the neighborhoods up here weren't hit as hard by my girl, so I'll have to use my hands.

In the shadow of the Inglewood Oil Field lies a gravestone too ancient to read. Only the date of death remains legible.

January fourth, nineteen ninety-five.

The day the Elders assembled the Greeters on Earth, and the birthday of one of their kids.

I gently lift the stone and move it to the side. Then I dig my through the soft dirt until I feel the edge of a box. I trace it out until I can reach the grooves along the lid and pry it out of the ground. It's caked in dirt—I haven't dug it up in almost a month—but there's no mistaking the intricate carvings that spiral into the symbol on my girl's pendant.

The Chest.

A seamless padlock hangs on the front of the box. It can only be unlocked by the both of us, Garde and Cêpan. If I die, she'll be able to do it herself, but if my girl is dead…

I feel the distant crash of water running onto land.

A lot of water.

In about forty-five seconds, about ten cubic meters of water will reach over five miles into Southern California.

Surely no one will notice the notch of earth revealing the coffin below when the ocean swallows this place.

My body is spent by the time I get back to the house. I barely have enough energy to gather all our counterfeit documents, burn them on the stove, put the oven on high (and the thermostat) and trash what's left of the place. Right now, most of the city is either burning or wrecked, and no one would even know what to look for. This disaster is proving an asset.

I strap my hidden laptops and survey equipment to my getaway vehicle, an old Suzuki GS5 I've configured to go faster and hold more load than the average bike. The Chest goes in a hidden compartment beneath my seat, I rev the engine, my heart racing when I hear the distant crash of water over pavement, wooden clapboard, palm trees. Then I'm racing up South La Brea, the sound of the gas explosion and the heat of our California lives being incinerated, then drowned.

Even if everything doesn't burn, Hildegard and Hope Santos are just two more statistics of the Southern California Christmas Eve seismic event. That's what they'll be calling it on the news tonight.

It's what I hear in the gas station when I stop outside of Pasadena. Thirty miles east of the coastline, I am the first arrival of what will soon be dozens, if not hundreds, of motorist refugees. I don't intend to stick around for that, not even on the off chance that she'll turn up here or in some other neighborhood. We'd planned for situations such as this.

Well, perhaps not this precise situation, but in case we got separated it was decided that we would rendezvous at the campground in Los Angeles County. The only issue is, does she remember that? It feels like such a long time since we last sat down together and talked about these things. And I don't want to be waiting around in one place for too long.

After I gas up, I drive to Big Pines and check in under the name Hilde Köhler. I set up my tent beside my bike at the edge of the lot, and take a long, painful walk to the bathroom. Then I lock the door and strip. I'm not too badly damaged, there's only a little bruising on my arms and legs, a little more along my ribs. What worries me is the pain in my lungs that hasn't gone away. I might have to go to a doctor, which could get complicated for a lot of reasons and might cost a lot more money than it has to. I decide I'll worry about it after I find the girl.

I cut my hair short and shave the rest.

Thirty hours later, I drive my new Toyota Camry to the Table Mountain Research Facility for a seismograph of the quake. I flash my NASA badge and the Officer Andrews lets me through. It's a small outpost with only a dirt road and a couple of tiny labs for redshift-blueshift experiments. The scientists here don't really get that many high-ranking visitors, genuine or fabricated. So they'll be happy to see me, but by the time anybody makes a call to the Director of Science I'll have disappeared and found my Garde. We'll be on some remote island in the Indian Ocean by then.

A bald, plump Hispanic man greets me at the door of the Naval Research Lab. His tired eyes light up when he sees me, and he says, "Hola, Señora Köhler."

"Buenos días, Rodriguez," I shake his hand, replying as though I recognize him even though I've only learned who he is through his page on the NASA website. Well, that, and his bank account, his Facebook, and his private messages to his wife, kids, and mother. He's the new group supervisor of Table Mountain, making this base predominantly Latino. I'm guessing that's why he's so excited to see me; there are certain groups of humans that the girl and I closely resemble, and I've made it a strategy to take demographics into account whenever we relocate. We took advantage of our deep tan complexion in Mexico, but had to change the story after crossing the border into Texas. We were Kiikaapoa Indians, not Mexican citizens. Wanderers, not aliens. In LA we lived in Inglewood, a relatively mixed city-side community. Next, I'm thinking either Polynesia or Greenland.

"We heard you were coming last night," beams Rodriguez. "It's been a busy couple of days."

"I can imagine. I know seismology isn't this station's expertise, so I'll mainly just be collecting data, maybe a few old pieces of equipment you don't need anymore—you'll be compensated for upgrades, of course."

"¡Bien! It's been ages since a supply shipment. Go out to Hawaii, they've got all the big toys, but here in continental U.S.? You're lucky to get assigned anywhere worthwhile, unless it's a space launch."

I humor Emmanuel Rodriguez with the administrative complaints and gossip as he leads me down the sterile hallway, past bored techies in their casual offices. Places like these vaguely remind me of Lorien Defense offices back home, only more dreary. Then again, we had nothing to do because we had already done everything except the one mission that spurred Council's existence: defend Lorien. Here on Earth, these scientists are underfunded and in astronomical prekindergarten from the Loric perspective. We had almost ten thousand years to prepare for extraterrestrial defense, and here humans are with only a couple generations of amateur space exploration and no idea what's coming for their world.

And we're supposed to save these people. Great.

Emmanuel introduces me to Casey Colgan and Michele Vaughn-Sorci, a pair of grad students new to field work. It was Colgan who had measured the magnitude of the quake.

"Magnitude eight-point-one," Colgan emphasizes, showing me the data, "with no p-wave data twenty minutes prior to the shear event."

"Were you recording data prior to the initial shock?" I ask. "You may have only recorded s-waves."

The grad students glance at each other, then back at their stations. I've guessed correctly, and luckily this covers any sign that what happened wasn't a natural occurrence. Rodriguez chimes in to defend them. "Granted, we haven't necessarily covered all grounds with seismology procedure here. We're rarely looking at the ground, you know. But we have tons of naval data, don't we, Ms. Colgan?"

"Oh, right!" the young woman perks up. "Uh, Michele, can you show Mrs. Köhler the chart you made?"

Sorci nods, and begins clearing off a desk behind us. I take a look at the seismograph data again. From left to right, the frequency goes from alarmingly intense to recognizably dangerous, before decreasing into occasional spikes that were recorded for the remainder of the day.

"What about here?" I trace the tail of residual waves. "These aftershocks seem pretty consistent."

"Yes, as is an increase in surface temp following the fault," Michele summons us over to a desk behind the seismograph, where she's laid out a map of the Southwest United States, "all the way down here. But for the past week, there was no evidence of a surface temperature spike that would precede a seismic event of this magnitude."

"Our satellite monitors this region's surface temperature to account for both earthquakes and weather emergencies," Vaughn Sorci explains. She holds a portable computer out for me to see. "Here's a week of sat-view mapping LA before the Northridge quake of '94. See the red? It's that concentrated because we detected temperature increases one week prior to initial shock. There's a little deflation here and there—surf-temp dropped sharply the day of the main quake—but as you can see by the purple, it shoots right back up on January seventeenth."

"Ninety-four," I repeat. "This is a decade old."

"It's the closest resemblance to the activity on Christmas Eve," she answers. "A blind-thrust quake. You could call them cousins."

Casey balances her computer in one hand and types with the other. Then she brushes some hair out of her glasses and says, "This is from yesterday and the day before."

The satellite image of Southern California is overlain with translucent purple. There are opaque splotches scattered near Santa Monica, the biggest of which rests over what used to be Ocean Avenue. Where she was. I notice the red splotches of unusual-albeit-decreasing spikes in temperature tracing down the spine of San Andreas before splintering off down near San Diego.

"December twenty-fourth was an earthquake over a thousand times as powerful as Northridge, and it's as if the temperature just jumped out of nowhere. Otherwise—"

"Somebody should have seen this coming," I finish for her. "Not you, but somebody. It's not your fault."

I catch them all looking at me. "What is it?"

"We don't think this was an ordinary earthquake," answers Rodriguez. "High-magnitude or not, this activity does not behave like anything we've seen before."

"Verdad."

"It sounds crazy, we know, but nobody else has reported on this," Michele says. "The news is acting like it's just a big accident. Doctor Manny wanted to send it to the D.O.D. but—"

"Did you?"

"No, the home office called us when we were about to make the decision, and we heard you were coming."

"Good," I say. "I'll deliver this to the home office for you, and you'll be getting your new equipment soon, along with increased weekly stipends."

Emmanuel clears his throat. "Weekly?"

I nod. "Of course, I'll need to take some of this equipment off your hands before the replacements come. Installers can be such a pain when it comes to handling old computers. You don't happen to have something roomy and mobile in that old shed by the water tower, do you?"

That night, I leave Los Angeles County behind with a decommissioned weather van still full of monitors and equipment. I'll reinstall everything when I get to my destination. It's only a two-hour drive to San Diego.

Part II

I finish with Wade pretty quickly before we embark. He'd just woken up before I got to him and had the wood to prove it, and I've thoroughly learned my way around his body in the short time I've known him. Just as he has with me. By the time we're parked at an overnight campground about an hour north of San Diego—I drove half the way, so I could keep Wade's eyes off the road and on rolling us some travel blunts—he takes his time returning the favor.

The sky is getting dark by the time we're done. We go down to the beach, leaving the van doors open to air out the perspiration, and find a spot to watch the sun set. It's quiet. I'm guessing it wasn't such a busy day, what with the tsunamis that wasted coastlines earlier this afternoon. No beach bums when we got here, only a few surfers who came to ride the coattails of the tidal waves. We have the cleared-out beach to ourselves tonight; I left a beefy envelope under the windshield wiper for the overnight ranger. I think they'll appreciate the compensation and let our van alone.

"Check that out," says Wade.

At first, I think he means the sunset, but when I take a drag and pass the blunt to him, I see his eyes aren't on the horizon. He's staring down the beach. I follow his eyes past the cliffs, which are painted a soft pinkish orange by the fading sunlight. Something else catches the sun's rays. A row of big, metal domes with cranes and small buildings positioned around it, all situated behind a high concrete seawall.

"What is it?" I ask.

"It's an old nuclear power plant from the seventies," he explains. "People protested for the things to get shut down, but it's still up and running."

"But isn't nuclear power a good thing?" I ask. "Like, compared to fossil fuels and steam?"

"Better for the environment, hell yeah," he sighs, smoke streaming from his nostrils. "But back then, thanks to World War Two and a lot of unethical weapons' testing, people thought anything nuclear was bad."

"I guess that tends to happen when you vaporize a city or two."

"Get this, though." Wade passes the weed back to me, and I know we're entering another one of his stoned soliloquys. "The U.S. occupied Japan after the war and helped them rebuild their cities. They basically redesigned their whole government, economy, and by the time America backed out, they were better off than before the war."

"They're lucky the people here didn't execute them all."

"Nah, the military had just nuked them. Coming in and committing genocide would have been shitty. Yeah, they pretty much groomed the whole island, but think about how far ahead it is now."

"Except for the fact that they can never defend themselves with an army again."

"Uh, yeah they can," he laughs. "They're called the Japanese Army. Actually, I think the full name is Ground Self-Defense Force."

"Huh. Cool."

"Besides, even though what we did to Japan was messed up, it pales in comparison to what Japan did to China. Did you know…?"

I tune out Wade's tangent and just watch his face turn maroon against the evening glow, because while he could talk all day about politics and economics all day, I'm not fond of discussing which was worse than this other nation, or which refugees do better than others. I am a fucking refugee, and there's no occupation, no humanitarian aid, no recovery op to fix it. Last thing I want to talk about are the horrible things that happened to humans; that just makes me imagine the atrocities that my people suffered.

That they might still be suffering.

The ground rumbles. It's subtle—Wade hasn't noticed—but I know it came from me, from this…I don't even know what to call this Legacy. All I know is that it saved me, that it's very sensitive if LA is any indication, and the only thing that seems to calm it down is, well, Wade.

He's still going on about Nazi scientists when I press my lips to his and exhale a stream of smoke into his mouth. I feel the smoke shoot out of his nostrils and tickle my face. Now I'm laughing while I kiss him, my hands on his chest and his around my waist. I think he's going to sit me on his lap and fuck me again, but for now he just holds me away and smiles, staring at me.

"What are you thinking about?" I ask.

"Nothing. Everything. You." Even though there's clarity in his voice, it feels like he's trying to find the right words. "What's going on in your head?"

"What do you mean?"

"I don't know, it's just… It's like you're drawing power from the heavens or something."

I chuckle. "Drawing power from the heavens?"

"Yeah, like everything's aligning just right for us. I mean, this morning, you're knocking on my door and giving me the greats on vinyl and the best head I've ever felt. Now you're like my traveling companion…. I feel like I have to ask if everything's okay with you."

I wonder, what do I look like to him?

Yet another upcoming young-and-dumb LA chick wooed by the unemployed hippie?

His hood surfer buddy with benefits now trying to tag along on some aimless pilgrimage of anti-capitalism as his shoplifting partner in crime?

He hasn't guessed the truth, that's for sure.

"Baby, I'm fine," I lie, and I'm surprised by how much it bothers me. Every day of the week, I'm lying to somebody. It shouldn't feel wrong now, when my actual life is on the line. Then again, so is his, by association. So, I make sure I tell the truth when I say, "There's nowhere I'd rather be."

This seems to set him at ease, and I feel his body relax as he envelops me in his arms. He's warm and smells like must and sea salt, his slight peace fuzz only made visible in the fading sunlight. I could stay like his forever, held and hidden from my responsibilities. But as the sky goes from magenta to lavender to a heavy cyan indigo, squeezing the last minutes of sunlight into a golden dome, I know for certain that I'm not safe. I can't sleep here, or it'll mean my death. Wade's death. I won't let that happen. So I save this memory in my head, savor the silence and peace and warmth, before I continue my mission.

"Then again," I purr, "we'll have to find somewhere to go tonight."

It takes him a while to answer, and I'm not sure he's heard me until he moves. "You don't want to spend the night here?"

"By the nuclear waste site?" I feign disgust. "God, no. San Diego is only fifty miles south of us, and past that: Mexico."

"You want to go to Mexico."

"It'd be fun." I paw at his chest lightly. "You said you wanted to surf your way down the coast, yeah? Mexico's part of this coast, unless you wanted to just stick to good ol' U.S. of A."

That makes him laugh. "Yeah, I guess you're right. I mean, I probably was gonna make my way down there eventually, but I just didn't..."

"I think we should!" I exclaim, trying not to be too forward. "It's Christmas tomorrow, and Mexico always has the best holidays!"

"Okay, so which is it?" he asks. "San Diego or Mexico?"

"You pick." I already know the answer, but I'd rather not have fully coerced him. I need to get out of this country, and that can either be with or without him. Without would be easier, but I'd be alone.

He stares out at the ocean for a while, before saying, "Mexico sounds rad. Let's go."

Wade stands, then takes my hand to help me up. As he leads me back to the van, I look over my shoulder at the ocean. The sun has just winked out of sight, its remnants a crimson hue in a dark blue sky.

Part III

"Almost there!" Bill's voice fills my muffled ears. "We're passing over Hopi territory, but in about ten minutes we'll be back in Navajo Nation!"

"About time," I reply, hearing my voice echoed through the headphones. "We've been flying forever."

A little over four hours, to be exact. When I was allowed to stand, I chose a seat right across from the other agent, giving me the second-best view of the west passing below us. We crossed the snowy peaks of San Gabriel, where the quakes were absorbed by the transverse mountains. I hear San Bernadino hospitals are getting flooded with refugees from the coast.

Bill hated going over the mountains. Winter is only at is greatest strength in the higher elevations of California, and he had to cross his arms and bury his hands in his armpits to stay warm. Our new medical crew didn't bring any blankets, or really anything except their expensive clothes and briefcases.

Briefcases that were full of medical equipment that I've never even heard of, let alone seen.

They didn't mind the cold. Neither did I. I felt it but wasn't quite as stricken as my fellow agent. We had long trudged out from over the dunes of the Mojave, passed Las Vegas and picked up a route that took us along the great canyons carved by the Colorado River when the women started to talk amongst themselves in their language. The man beside Bill was quick to shut them up. He stared daggers at me when he caught me studying the freakish width of his shoulders, the sharp angles of his pale face. Something about his eyes caused me to look away. I could paint a portrait of this weapon of a man, and not capture the darkness in his… I just can't hold his gaze.

Now we're flying over the red stained buttes and mesas, over cratered landscapes that look like they belong on another planet. The southernmost peaks of the Rockies rise ahead, marking the boundary between the Hopi rez and Navajo Nation. I feel queasy the closer we get to Dulce. Am I ready to learn what this is all about? Because, if I had to guess…

"Welcome to Jicarilla Apache Nation Reservation," our pilot announces; it's the first time he's spoken on the headset. "We'll be touching down at Dulce Airport in roughly forty-five minutes. Thank you for flying with ESPA."

"ESPA?" I ask Bill on our private channel.

"Experimental Science Protocol, aviation."

"Never heard of it."

"Now you have."

After that, Bill and I don't talk for the rest of the flight. I doubt he'll answer any more of my questions. The pilot reduces our altitude so we're only a few hundred feet above the ground. Oil fields, farmland, and old mission ruins speed by underneath us.

Having never been to Dulce, I expected just another desert village, unnoticeable from the air like so many of the puny encampments we passed over. But aside from being a little outdated, it's actually a fully developed town cradled by the poorly-named Sangre de Cristo Mountains. Yet another reminder of the former Catholic reign of terror in this area.

"It's bigger than I expected," I say as we circle the perimeter of the settlement. "More public."

"Try private," Bill responds. "Dulce is the tribal headquarters of the Jicarilla Apache."

"And they were just cool with the U.S. government setting up whatever this is right in their backyard?"

Bill grins, but it's actually the man beside him that answers, "Don't worry. We're very discreet, and we respect the lands of the indigenous. You may be surprised how much we intend to improve this region's infrastructure."

"Sorry, I don't think I caught your name."

"Sutton. Andrew Sutton, General Operative Investigator, ESP."

What a fucking voice. "Karen Walker, FBI."

"Trainee, birthplace Boise, Idaho," he adds, "but you were brought up in New York City."

"I see you and Bill are close," I say coolly. "Where were you from, exactly?"

"Washington."

"D.C. or State?"

Andrew Sutton smiles, his face severe. "Interim."

I want to ask what that means before we begin our descent. But the town is already dropping out of view, disappearing into the mountains. The landscape changes abruptly; our helicopter speeds over an old road now worn away to sand. Hills rise on either side of us, and I know we've reached our destination when a twenty-foot steel fence rises ahead of us. It's topped with barbed wire, and as we pass overhead I can tell it's electrified. Beyond is an old, sandy airstrip. Past that is a sprawling compound.

"Whoa," I can't help but gasp.

It's incredible. The base is much too massive for its own good. No way they asked permission to build this on tribal land, but what could anyone do? There are snipers perched in the watchtowers lining the airstrip, surface-to-air missile launchers along a faint dirt road leading to the greater base which buzzes with activity among the facilities that have to house at least a thousand soldiers. Though I can't begin to imagine the functions of each structure, I'm pretty sure the eerie town near the southeast edge of the base aren't barracks, but some kind of immersive training course.

We decelerate toward a helipad where a large, armored vehicle awaits. A small squadron of soldiers stand at attention in a double column, donning black body armor, balaclavas, sunglasses, and firearms that look like prototypes for the next century.

"We have touched down at Dulce Base, helipad five. Please gather all your belongings before departing the cabin," the pilot alerts us in a stern voice. I wonder who he is. "In Ra we trust."

"In Ra we trust," Andrew Sutton and his sexy attendants say in unison.

The engine has turned off, but it's far from quiet. I can hear orders barked over speaker systems throughout the base, the constant roar of army trucks and ventilation networks. Heavy footfalls start to overlap the chopper's decelerating rotor blades, and outside I see the awaiting soldiers spread out in a semicircle around us. I can't take my eyes off of their armor, their guns.

"Experimental Science Protocol," I mutter. "So, you guys develop next-gen weaponry?"

"Actually, the technology being demonstrated is centuries old," says Sutton. "Our scientists believe these weapons may be easier for your kind to comprehend."

Andrew Sutton rises—he never buckled into the seat, what with his bulk—and grabs a leather duffel bag beside him. It looks big enough to hold a body bag, and as he passes Bill the behemoth stares down at me. His severe smile returns as he says, "Witness."

"Your kind?" I mouth at Bill.

He shakes his head as if to say, "Just wait."

I don't want to wait, I want him to tell me what's going on. What does this have to do with some punk kid in LA? I feel cornered, like I've been led into the lion's den just for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. I'm about to scream at Bill when I'm silenced by a hoarse yell.

Sutton.

All at once, the soldiers take aim on one another and exchange fire. The air around us ignites with streaks of neon green and cobalt blue light, and each chestplate of armor earns a different impact burn, a glow of whatever cannon burst illuminated like freshly forged steel. Not one soldier goes down from another's shot.

Sutton shouts again when the scene ends, and that's when shit really gets crazy.

Each of the soldiers unsheathes something from their backs that I didn't see before. Or maybe I just didn't comprehend; swords don't necessarily coordinate with American soldiers anymore. But then again, it's highly unlikely these are Americans. When Sutton deplanes the helicopter and reaches down to unzip his duffel, it's not the first time that I noticed these soldiers are nearly his stature, if not bigger.

Anyway, all of the armored soldiers reveal their long, serrated blades of varying iridescent hues. Made of a metal that has to be radioactive, because I've never seen any kind of blade that catches light the way these ones do. To my surprise, Sutton unsheathes his own sword from the leather bag, an ornately carved ivory blade that's longer than I am tall. He holds it to the sky, and shouts, "Mogadoria'sekh'met!"

"Ra!" the soldiers roar in response.

"Mogadoria'sekh'met!"

"Ra!"

As the setting sun catches Sutton's sword from behind...Oh, my god. I don't think there's a word for what I'm witnessing. But the blade seems to burn, a silver flame faintly licking up the metal as the creature roars one last time, "Mogadoria'sekh'met!"

And with the last guttural, "Ra!" the soldiers raise their blades into the fading sunlight, capturing its rays and setting their weapons alight.

In a blur, the women rush past me, their hyena-like chittering joining in with the soldiers' uproar. I didn't pay any attention while witnessing Andrew Sutton's "demonstration," but the women have transformed. They've done up their black hair into elaborate braids and coils that wrap around their skulls or hang down their backs, revealing tattoos on the sides of their necks and faces.

"Bill," I begin, but he's already helping me out of my seat and speaking in a quick, hushed tone.

"I know, it's a lot to take in," he replies. "When we get off the helicopter, just do what I do, and don't make lingering eye contact with any of them."

"What the hell is this place?"

"I said I would show you, and I am," Bill says, "in bite-sized portions."

"I don't know if—"

"Do not finish that sentence," he barks. "I need you to get your shit together, because if you can't handle it, I promise you will never leave this place."

Panic starts to overtake me. I realize that I am going to die here, in the middle of the desert surrounded by—

"Ouch!" I hiss as the needle punctures my vein. "What the—?"

Bill's hand clasps over my mouth. "This will help you cope with orientation. Please believe me, I'm doing this for your own good. I won't let them…."

His voice trails off, the drug crashing into my bloodstream.

Huh. Bill's face is so serious. I hear him say, "Too many. You understand?"

"Uh-huh," I reply. "Yeah, sure."

He smiles in exhausted relief. "Don't talk like that in front of them. You're still a federal agent."

"Yes, sir."

End of Chapter Two. Chapter Three coming soon; don't forget to follow and review! It occurred to me while editing this chapter of the episodic nature of this story. And since the fanfiction algorithm has blessed my account with the power to create new stories, I think I'll do just that. This full story may extend about ten to fifteen chapters long, if that. But, that may be the rough length of future books as well. Books covering the war, just as Pittacus Lore did. Don't think about it too much, or review if you think about it and can't stop. Anyway, I got some shit coming, so get ready.