THERE'S THE FOG OF WAR, THEN THERE IS THIS

JO: Serena, what the fuck is going on?

SJW: Drive! Faster!

JO: - as the car picked up speed - Drive where!?

SJW: I don't know! I need to think! - silence - Away from him!

JO: Serena, you just killed that man!

SJW: - yelling, waving the gun - Shut up, just shut up!

JO: What the fuck is the matter with you!

SJW: Stop swearing! I never told you how much that irritates me.

- coming to a fork in the gravel road, Osborne braked and slid into a sideways stop -

SJW: - yelling - Be careful!

JO: Fuck, take a look, Serena. Ok, you have the gun. Which way? - silence, then yelling - Serena, which way!?

SJW: I need to think, I need to think. Just give me a minute!

JO: Serena, we don't have a minute.

SJW: I've never killed anyone before.

- June turned off the engine and exited the car leaving the driver's door open. She started banging on Serena's back window -

JO: 'Never killed anyone before'!? You have some fucking nerve! - June slammed on the window again - Serena, open your window and give me the gun. Give me the fucking gun!

SJW: - yelling - Stop swearing!

JO: - asking nicely, sarcastically - Please, Mrs. Waterford, if it's not too much trouble. Can I have the fucking gun!? Please!

SJW: - pointing the gun through the glass at June - Get back in the car. You know I can't drive!

JO: Poor, poor woman of Gilead. Lessee, there was a book about that. Yes, I remember now. 'A Woman's Place.' Fucking Eva Braun.

- Serena Joy pointed the gun at the roof above her and fired a shot, surprising them both -

JO: Okay, all right! I'll get in. But you have to tell me where we're going!

SJW: - yelling - I don't know where we're going!

JO: Well, Jesus fucking Christ, you picked a fine time to go all Thelma and Louise! At least they knew where they were going! - June got back into the driver's seat, closed the door -

SJW: Just shut up Offred, just shut up!

JO: - reaching back from the front trying to grab the gun - What did you call me!? - fight ensued, shot rang out -

THE FEDS

Most of the supplies from the Mayday camp had been trucked out to the new location yesterday. The only two people left were Lily, cleaning the last of some coffee mugs, with Moira Strand asleep on the only piece of furniture remaining - that ratty couch.

Lily might leave with the last truck, but Moira was staying until they heard something - anything - from June, now worryingly overdue.

Lily heard the vehicles before she saw them. By their sound, they were obviously 'official' not the rat-traps that Mayday used. As they approached the cabin (from the north, therefore safe) and stopped, Lily turned to Moira's sleeping form and shouted for her to get up. From a sleeping-start, Moira popped up ready for bear - although it took a second for her to get her bearings.

Moira joined Lily at the window, in time for them to see the doors on the late model SUVs open, men & women with uniforms and guns taking position, which by itself was a good sign - women with guns meant either Canada or the USA. Or the ICC. Not Gilead.

Moira spoke as a man in a high-end businessman's rain jacket got out. "Tuello" she said derisively, Lily had heard of him but this was a first to see him. Lily thought that Tuello looked like a consummate American flatfoot, chiseled jaw, three-days growth, although well, well groomed. Hell, Lily thought, he even walked like a house dick. Probably gay.

Moira grabbed Lily by the arm, and said, "let's go see what he wants."

Going outside, Tuello spoke first, "Hey, Ms. Strand, I'm relieved to see you." Spying Lily, Tuello said hello to her - by name.

Moira kept her distance, and said, "you have a lot of nerve, Mark."

"Well, we'll see," he said. "I've come down here to see if you people need any assistance."

Lily said, "Yeah, right."

Tuello put his hands in his pockets, and said, "well, I'm really asking about Ms. Osborne and Mr. Bankole. Have you seen them lately?"

Moira stowed the snark for a minute. She asked, "what do you know about June and Luke?"

Tuello stifled a smile when he said, "I know enough to know why you're asking."

Lily said, "Look, Mr. Tuello, relating to you people is frustrating enough. You know something."

Tuello said, "okay, I just needed to know what you knew. Okay. Ms. Osborne and Mr. Bankole were the subject of some intercepts at the Consulate. Something about No-Mans-Land. Something about a Guardian named Jaeden."

Lily asked, "do you know how Jaeden is?"

Moira interrupted, "you said 'no names', Lily."

Lily said quietly, "'no names' for you and your friends, Moira."

Tuello said, "don't quote me. But it seems that there was a commotion just south of here. Explosions. Then a Gilead patrol, then - we believe - Ms. Osborne and Mr. Bankole got captured."

"Bullshit," Lily said. "Gilead does not operate this far north."

Tuello said, "Okay, my bad. Independent mercenaries, then."

"Look," Moira said, "why don't you quit dicking around and tell us - where's June? Where's Luke?"

Tuello said, "I gather that they're overdue."

"Tuello!" Moira yelled.

"Look, all I know is that if they're not here, then they're there. Mercenaries probably then have them. We actually have no idea who gives them orders. Maybe they're just rogue, and they sell to the highest bidder."

Moira said sternly, "Tuello, you have to do something."

"What would you have me do? I came down here, they're not here. I can't go any further." Looking at Lily, Tuello added, "some people know the risks of ventures just 100 yards south of here."

At that, one of the women security people yelled, "hey, Mr. Tuello, the radio's for you!" He went over and sat in the passenger's side just out of sight, talking into a microphone.

Coming back, he smiled at Moira. "Well, this just got weird. Do yourselves a solid. Don't go chasing after Ms. Osborne. It appears she's now on the run. In a Commander's Mercedes. With Mrs. Serena Joy Waterford."

"Bullshit!" Moira spat.

Tuello remained even and calm. "Don't shoot the piano player, Ms. Strand."

Tuello paused, "I have one more for you, no sense in keeping it back. What do you know about High Commander Putnam?"

"I know he's a one-armed dick, rapist, and otherwise scumbag," Moira said.

"Well, he's dead." Tuello let the silence kick in. "Assassinated, shot by another New Gilead Commander, Nick Blaine."

"What!?" Moira asked? "Nick is shooting High Commanders?"

Tuello turned to get back into the SUV with the intent of the long drive back to Toronto. "Sideways coup," Tuello said loudly as he opened the car door.

Holding the door, Tuello said to Moira and Lily, "You know that those Commanders, none of them are actual Christians. My mother, she was a Christian. Bible-believing. An 'Onward Christian Soldiers' Christian. Was converted at a rally by Billy Graham himself."

Just as he slipped into the seat, he concluded, "none of those Commanders, none of them are anything like my mom."

EMPTYING A SEAT MEANT FOR THE COLONIES

"Hey, boys," Lawrence said, using his sternest voice to the Guardians in the front, "do you think you could step on it?"

"Sir," the driver said, "if we attract attention with speed, we'll get pulled over. That'll just delay us more."

"Ok," Lawrence said, with a disinterested tone. "Sorry. I should leave the driving to the experts."

The driver said, "Don't sweat it, Commander. There it is, up ahead."

Lawrence was surprised when the SUV's emergency lights were switched on! He said to the guys in the front, "I've not had a ride in one of these since I was a teenager!"

Ten minutes later, Lawrence's SUV was parked at the side of the road, square behind the dilapidated bus - a beater meant for the Colonies. From the look of it, Lawrence doubted that it would make it - without breakdowns. He stored in his mind - ask his assistant to look into the transport budget for those sentenced to hard labour at the nuclear sites.

There were his Guardians, returning to the SUV with their cargo, a woman in teal, hands zip-tied in front of her, hood fully over her head. Obviously a Wife, the soiled condition of her fancy-teal wrap betrayed that she'd recently fallen on hard times.

The back door across from Lawrence opened, and the woman was pushed into the seat beside him. He pointed to the zip-ties, and said sharply to the Guardian, "hey! We can get rid of these."

Hearing his voice, the woman lifted her head, and turned to him. She asked, "Joseph?"

He pulled back the hood, and said, "Mrs. Putnam. I've not yet extended my condolences on your loss. I apologize for my tardiness in that. Please accept this as me making amends."

She looked straight at him, and said, "Commander Lawrence, you are a Godsend!"

As the Guardians settled in the front, the decrepit bus continued on, spewing smoke out the back. Lawrence's driver did a 180 on the otherwise empty highway to hell, and sped off back to New Gilead.

Naomi Putnam's hands were now free, and she reached over to take Lawrence's. She asked, "Angela?"

Lawrence was nothing, if not blunt. "Now Naomi, let's not get ahead of ourselves."

Naomi started to weep. She said, "The Colonies, Joseph, really!? The Colonies?"

"Trust me, Naomi," Lawrence quipped. "It could have been worse, we could have sent you to Canada."

STAND OFF

Serena Joy was almost hysterical, bawling out loud, both hands tight on the pistol could not stop her shaking it wildly.

June Osborne looked out the now glass-less passenger side of the Mercedes, and wondered why it was that she, herself, could not be killed. All manner of misfortune had befallen her, she had pulled all manner of misfortune on top of herself, and yet….

…. she was still alive. So many were dead in her wake - so she started to laugh. It was her laughing that brought Serena back from hysteria, meaning that she finally got control over the pistol she was pointing at June.

June smiled, then quipped, "you know they're going to bill me for that window!"

Serena then relaxed the gun, keeping it pointed in June's general direction. She laughed a little herself, then said, "that screen, on the dash. It might have GPS. It might tell us where we are."

June turned to the dash, and started pressing buttons on the touch-screen. Sure enough, a GPS came up. The home screen of the GPS said, "Wheelers," and placed a home-star at a place north of Toronto out in a rural area.

"These 'Wheelers' of yours," June said, "they look like they have a good spread of land."

"Shut up!" Serena barked. "Try to find where we are." June started pressing other buttons. Then a screen came up which said, 'unauthorized area', and the screen itself went dark.

June said, "I'll see if it will still plot a path between here and the Wheelers….." the suggestion of which caused Serena to yell, yet again….

"No!" she said sharply, "don't do that! Use some other place - NOT the Wheelers!"

June turned again to survey the armed woman behind her in the back seat. "Serena," June asked, "why didn't you kill me back there? Why'd you kill that guy, your Guardian? I saw you with him at that goofy Information Centre of yours."

"I don't kill people," Serena repeated.

"Bullshit," June said. "Your book killed millions, you fucking bitch, mainly women." There was silence as they eyed one another. June then said, "have it your way." She turned back to face the competing roads and the choice ahead. "Tell you what," she offered, "I'll just keep the sun behind us. When we see kids on the street playing hockey, we'll know where we are."

In her best Wives' voice, Serena said, "drive".