FIGURING IT OUT

Commander Mackenzie paused and reflected before continuing. There on the phone back to D.C. High Commander Wharton, Mackenzie still felt a need to choose words carefully.

"Yes, sir," Mackenzie assured, "I will be careful. I can assure you, sir, that that has perhaps been part of the problem. I should have taken care of June Osborne when she had invaded our home - when Mrs. Mackenzie had, in all mercy, simply returned her to the Red Centre, then back to the Waterfords. Yes, the night that Aunt Lydia had been stabbed at the Lawrence's and the Lawrence handmaid had fled. Yes, the gender traitor university professor handmaid, not Osborne."

Listening, Mackenzie responded, "they're all in Canada, sir. All of then, save for Blaine. Okay, not the Commander, Fred's dead. All of the household who'd lived at the Waterford's during Osborne's tenure there, they're in Canada - save for Blaine."

Listening he responded again, "well, I'd love to talk with her. But Mrs. Waterford is nowhere to be seen, especially after the birth." "Yes, yes, the Wheelers in Toronto, they are our contacts." "Yes, yes, Guardian Ezra Shaw was looking after things. But he's still recuperating from a gunshot wound - one stopped by his armour, but which broke ribs nonetheless." "Yes, it was Mrs. Waterford who shot him."

Listening, he then said, "Yes, sir, I agree perhaps Blaine could be 'persuaded'. But the New Gilead Chancery, they're talking about his eventual return - so our 'persuasion' would need to be nuanced. Yes, that means no Lieutenant Stans. Stans does not do nuance. He traumatized my daughter."

REFUGEE NOTIFICATION RINGTONE

Moira, she was asleep on Rita's couch. Both were exhausted - Rita's eviction was taking effect in two weeks, and their search for accommodation in Toronto had turned up nothing. No Canadian in Toronto wanted to rent to a refugee-American. Renting to them meant inviting crazies to picket the place.

Which was all just as well, Rita was losing her rent-subsidy anyway.

Luke, he was still in pretrial detention. Both Moira as well as Rita agreed, they saw no reason for Luke to have even been charged. Selfishly, though, Rita would need all the help she could get so as to move her meagre things somewhere else, wherever that ended up being.

Hopefully in the GTA, but there was also pressure for refugee-Americans to leave the city. (Their reception in rural Ontario was just as bad….. Canadian populism was strong in the villages.)

Then - the ringtone that Rita herself had never heard. She had set the 'Refugee Notification Alert' months ago, and had chosen a distinctive ringtone for it. Aside from when she had loaded it, this was the first time it had reared its head.

All the notification said was, 'Yonge Street Centre, ASAP. Report to main desk with ID.'

Moira had told the story from the perspective of someone who was the subject of an alert like that. Moira had arrived by foot into Canada a week previous, and was mainly in shock at the then perky-friendliness of Canadians, the workers of whom showered her with benefits and freebies.

Where had that gone?

Unbeknownst to her, an alert about her had gone out to 'the network'. The sole recipient of that one?

Luke Bankole.

When he had come in through the door, even he did not know who he was being notified about. Moira, she'd had no family in Canada, so she wondered who, the fuck, would even want to notify about her.

The time between crossing into Canada for Moira had been a slow-motion emotional crash, as the implications of freedom descended and dawned on her. With each day of freedom, she was free to remember the horrors back in Gilead. The freer she got, the more paranoid she was that a Guardian was waiting around the next corner.

But it was seeing Luke, it was having him call her 'family', family-enough to claim her and take her…

…... home. A home. To a home. Those four letters. H. O. M. E.

Moira had collapsed into Luke's arms, and did not come up for air for a couple of days, warm with blankets that a stranger at Luke's, named Erin, that Erin had covered her with. Until Moira could speak again, only to find out that Erin back then had not yet become verbal. There was no happily-ever-after. Just after.

Okay, enough about Moira. This was Rita receiving the notification. Her own 'crash from freedom' had begun once at the bottom of Angel's Flight stairs. The whole airplane hangar was strange and bizarre.

Then Rita - still fully garbed as a Martha, for the last time - saw Emily. At that moment Rita had not known what to call her! If Rita put a step wrong there, would she be hit like back at the Waterford's?

So back in her apartment, Rita got out a pad of paper and wrote a note for the sleeping Moira, that she was going out. That she would be back, maybe in two or three hours.

Depending. Mobs of random strangers in Toronto, were now blocking suspected Americans from boarding transit. Cabs would outright refuse.

Indeed, when Rita finally got to the Yonge Street Refugee Processing Centre, it was being picketed, with protesters shouting slogans.

Canada sure had changed in the last few months.

Standing in the line ahead of her was Sylvia, with Oliver.

MACKENZIE AND LAWRENCE

"I'll figure it out, Joseph. I will," promised Kyle Mackenzie. "I have the feeling that when I do, I should probably call Tabitha first. Get her to secure our home with Guardians."

"You can do what you want, Kyle. In fact, you don't need me to remind you of that," Lawrence said into the phone.

Kyle at his end, said, "I'll figure out the connection between the Waterford and the Lawrence house, when both Fred and Eleanor were alive, I will." He paused, then said, "so, have you found her?"

"I have," said Lawrence. "Oh, and by the way, the new Mrs. Lawrence is doing great. Thanks for asking."

"You've found her? Where? Is she back with the Wheelers?"

Lawrence regained some of his cheek, "let's just say I've found the forest, Kyle. She's a small tree in a rather large, Canadian, primordial rainforest. Do you know how many square miles Canada is? Mostly trees….."

"By all that's holy, Lawrence, would you speak plainly?"

"I am," Lawrence said into his side of the phone. "Serena Joy Waterford, presumably with her wee bairn Noah, is either waiting for, or on, or just alighting from….. a train. It either will, or has already departed from Toronto. It is filled with Americans, now not wanted in Toronto. Those American expats, they are choosing the harsh tundra of Western Canada, over New Bethlehem."

"What?" exclaimed Mackenzie.

"It's a mass exodus, Kyle. The Americans, they're in trouble. Financially I mean. I'm an economist - I can even tell you why they're running out of money. Those-in-exile are simply too expensive - and they're now not welcome to boot! So there's a mass exodus from Toronto, to points west."

"Do we know which train she's on? We could send an incursion north from the Northern or the Midwest Districts."

Lawrence sighed, "you haven't been listening, Kyle. Should I repeat my little ditty about how many trees are in Canada. There's a lot of people on the move, Kyle. My bet is that the Canadians don't know where one specific person is, much less the clowns from Anchorage."

Joseph counseled Mackenzie to read the Book of Exodus, and get with the program.

CUTTING THE LINE

Rita had never cut a line in her life. Certainly not at Loaves and Fishes in Gilead, but not even in the before time - at a movie theatre or even to vote. Not even lined up to receive the Blessed Sacrament at church!

But at the Young Street Centre, she cut in, all the way up to Sylvia and Oliver.

"Rita," Sylvia said with nervous surprise, "what are you doing here?" Sylvia leaned down and picked up Oliver, who was getting way too, too big for that!

Rita said, "I got a notification, I've not done this before." Rita paused, mainly from anxiety, but because Sylvia was obviously more anxious than she was…. she then said softly, "is it Emily?"

Sylvia said, "I've not done this either. Last time, Em waited so long before contacting me. I'd assumed she'd do the same. But we will see, won't we," Syl ended, with a very nervous smile.

Oliver said, "Aunty Rita, did you see the people outside yelling?" Oliver had been told to put the 'y' on 'Aunty', because people like Rita had bad reactions to the one-syllable rendering.

When they got to the front, both Sylvia and Rita handed their I.D., Sylvia her Canadian passport, Rita her refugee card. They were given a number - the same number for both of them - and told to wait, that it could, 'take 10 minutes, it could be an hour, just be patient.'

Their number was called. Out from the automatic, double doors came…..

….. a woman in her thirties with wild red hair, and a red eye-patch.

Sylvia looked for anyone who might be coming after that woman, but when none came she said, "what the hell?"

Conversely, Rita took a step forward. She got the woman's attention, but the recognition was not immediate. Seeing the woman's confusion, Rita stopped at a respectful distance and said, "you're Janine. I'm Rita. I was the Waterford's martha."

As was duplicated hundreds of times each day at Young Street, Janine paused, asked, "is this real?" A full ten seconds later, she dropped her things and threw herself into Rita's arms. Janine was wailing uncontrollably, with her good eye tight-closed as she took, 'as long as you need,' as Rita had told her to do.

"Why you, Rita? Why you?" Janine finally asked.

"June told me to. You're on my notification list. You're family."

Janine just stared at Rita as she processed the term, 'family'. Janine then said, "The last family I was in, they were taking wedding photos. I was part of their family, I was the one who was to get fucked on their wedding night."

Sylvia walked up, carrying Oliver, she said, "there are none of those families in Canada." Janine looked at her, with equal disbelief, but no recognition, none at all.

Rita, knowing what was going on moved all four of them away from the processing door, to the spacious reunion room where they could sit.

Rita said, "Janine, this is Sylvia and her son Oliver. Sylvia is Emily's wife, Oliver is Emily's son."

Syl said, "Ya, Emily had me put you on my notification list. That was a long time ago."

Janine said, "Emily, she was the one who brought me to the border. She went back with the Quakers."

"She was with you!" Syl said rather shocked.

"Yeah, she was dressed as an Aunt, to get us through checkpoints. The Guardians, the ones who'd taken me from the Red Centre, they handed me over to her."

"What!?" Sylvia repeated. "Why didn't she come with you, all the way?"

Janine said, "she said she did not want to 'infect you'. What does that mean?"

At that, Sylvia lost it. Her sobs came on so suddenly, that Oliver cried too, except he said, "Mom-Syl, you're squeezing me!"

And so freedom began. There was just after.

Rita said, "Janine, we used to take survivors directly to the Consulate. But that's not safe right now."

Janine echoed, "Not safe!?" Then the three of them heard the protesters outside, who'd always been there.

Rita said, "I'll take you back to my place. Hey, do you know Moira Strand?"

Sylvia recovered enough to say, "give me a minute, I'll drive. It's not good for you people out alone on the street."