"You don't need to carry those - I can get it, Mr. Waters. It's fine."

Gwen had managed to throw a small selection of things into a backpack before Max Waters returned - alone - to take her and Will somewhere far from the city, somewhere safe. He had brought out the old red pickup truck with a dented camper shell latched onto the back. Gwen recognized the old thing, but she also knew that he almost never used it. The truck bed was filled with old camping and fishing gear, with a space cleared into the middle.

"I can't risk you being seen," Max said as Gwen stared into the truck in mild confusion - it seemed to finally be hitting her that this was serious, that she was genuinely going to be hiding, and that from here on out, there was simply no way of predicting what was going to happen. She exhaled through pursed lips while Will climbed into the truck bed first, extending his hand to help her inside.

"There's a box in there - it's closed off with duct tape," Max supplied as he closed up the back of the truck, and Gwen looked around the truck until she found the box in question. When Max opened the driver's side door and slide open the small back window so they could speak, he glanced back at the pair that he was hiding in the back. "It's nothing much - a microscope, some agar plates. Enough to do a bit of poking around, I suspect."

"Mr. Waters?"

Max chuckled a little at Gwen's disbelief and drummed his knuckles gently on the window before starting the engine. "You can't just let them stop you - you're doing good work. That's something not a lot of people can say," he shrugged, glancing briefly at Will, who might have felt slighted if he had noticed it at all. Gwen reached over and grabbed a ratty old blanket from a pile and pulled it over herself like a shawl to conceal herself, tossing one in Will's direction so he could do the same as Max backed out of the Buchanans' driveway, driving off in the still half-lit morning.

"Is this maybe a little heavy-handed, running away like refugees at the first sight of trouble? What can RIFT even do to us, if they've been disbanded for twenty years?" Will asked, his gaze focused out the deeply tinted black window. Max gave a bitter chuckle and shook his head.

"Are you sure you're the one to be asking that, Will? You of all people?"

"If they're only just regrouping and their capabilities are limited to a couple of break-ins -"

"You're one man, Will. Not a supercomputer. Not anymore," Max interrupted impatiently. "You're one man with no weapons, no money, no transportation, and knowledge of this decade limited to what you've been told by a twenty-four year old woman. I don't think you're one to be talking about limited capabilities."

Gwen, on the other hand, was quiet for nearly the entire trip, which was only a few hours but felt like ages as they passed through empty, yellowing grassland and hills. She had never been here - which was not entirely surprising, as she had hardly really been anywhere except home. It seemed so abandoned, filled with patches of abandoned farmland with no one to tend them, the occasional barn or silo littering the wide skyline. The first real landmark she was able to catch sight of was a rickety old wooden sign with faded paint that read: Welcome to Capay.

"Capay?" Will asked, his brow furrowing as he recognized the name of the town - the last he remembered of it, it was a small, simple farming town he'd never cared to visit, just about an hour out from his old home in Berkeley. "Is this far out enough?"

"Distance-wise, perhaps not," Max answered, his gaze focused forward as the pulled into the streets of a small town, lined with small buildings, stores, and parks. "But this town is a different world. I have an old cabin here I purchased, years ago."

"Why?" Gwen asked, speaking up for the first time during their entire trip. Max skipped a beat before answering simply.

"Privacy."

Gwen felt slightly unsettled as they drove straight through the small town completely and up into more yellowing grassy hills. The place was so quiet, so isolated - a world apart from the bustling city that Gwen had grown up, gone to school in, worked in. Pulling in front of an old cabin on the side of a small hill, Max reached out and tapped his knuckles on the window again.

"We're here. I'm sure you wanna stretch out those legs," Max said with a weak smirk. He got out of the cab of the truck and opened the gates to the back, allowing both Will and Gwen to climb out. As they picked up the few supplies that Max had brought along for them and brought them into the dusty old home, Max noticed for the first time that this Will Caster was truly Will - the mild-mannered and introspective man that he had once respected, considered a colleague and a friend. It had been so many years since he'd seen this Will, he felt like a stranger. It was clear that Will Caster felt similarly.

Max Waters put down an unfamiliar black duffel bag and cleared his throat. "Clothes," he said simply. "You're might be here for a while."

George Hadley enjoyed his office greatly - while the bulk of Project Generativity's facilities were housed in the sub-basements for security purposes, his office was close to the top floor with the other directors. It was an admittedly oversized suite almost completely surrounded by windows, and he had used a modest fortune to furnish is specifically to his liking. Tonight in particular was the first day he had not been harassed by journalists about the incident between Milford Duggan and Gwen Buchanan.

Sitting at his antique wooden desk with his feet propped up, Hadley pondered if he had made an error in judgment placing a young girl like Gwen Buchanan in such a high position. He had not foreseen the Chairman's daughter being this much trouble when he'd selected her for promotion into one of the most lucrative positions available in his division; she had always been quiet, . George Hadley was a made man, and he prided himself on his success - success which had always come from using people. It was, after all, the only way to get ahead, and using the Chairman's daughter was beneficial in multiple ways. Not only was she gifted and blindly enthusiastic - the best type to exploit. She was a bargaining chip. The entire city, the entire organization knew that as competent and as savvy as he was, Chairman Buchanan was driven first and foremost by the desire to make his daughter happy, and now, keeping his daughter happy would include funding for the division. It was meant to be foolproof.

The problem was, she had proven to be more trouble than she was worth. He'd really had no choice other than to create distance between her and the organization, he reasoned. Between the Duggan fiasco, the break-in, and RIFT, the board of directors had enough to deal with.

His office suite was his safe haven, and he stayed late at night here because it was much more satisfying to be alone, with no one to bother him - which was why he was so surprised to see an unfamiliar woman bursting through his door.

She was thin with blonde hair and prominent features, probably in her mid-forties, though she appeared to have reached such an age with such grace and dignity that she could have passed for a decade younger. She shut the door behind her and easily blocked it with a chair before walking over to Hadley's desk, leaning over to face him.

"Are you with RIFT?" he asked knowingly. The woman gave a nearly imperceptible nod before bringing her face close to his, her lip briefly curling into a smirk at the glimmer of fear in the man's eyes. It was good to know that people still regarded RIFT with the proper... reverence after all of these years.

"Where are you keeping Gwen Buchanan?" she said shortly, raising an eyebrow. Hadley stared at her and gulped, and she rolled her eyes before narrowing them slightly. "It's a simple question."

"We placed her on suspension," Hadley said shakily. "She's probably at home -"

"We've looked there. You expect me to believe you didn't make her disappear?" the woman asked. Hadley leapt to his feet and backed away from his desk when the woman drew a gun that had been tucked into the waistband of her jeans. "Her house is empty - and we know how people like you operate. Because we made you," the woman sneered. "Your organization wouldn't have come to be without the Collapse. You needed RIFT -"

"That's none of my -"

"Where is the girl?" the woman roared suddenly, pointing the gun directly at Hadley's head. "Admit it - she was more trouble than she was worth. She exposed Duggan. She got you all into hot water, because the assault happened in your facility, and because she's the Chairman's daughter, everyone's eyes are on you -"

"Yes," Hadley admitted "Yes, we suspended her because she was causing us too much trouble - but not enough that we would -"

"I don't believe you," the woman said calmly, lowering the gun slightly and giving a weak smile. "Are you hiding Buchanan, or are you hiding the man who attacked her?"

"I know nothing -"

"You'll excuse me for thinking that's a bold-faced lie, sir," the woman said with a smirk. "And once I find out what's really going on, I'm going to call you on it, Director Hadley. I'm going to call you on it, and you won't have… a leg to stand on."

The woman took aim at the man's legs and fired two shots, causing them to break and collapse underneath him. He let out a scream as the woman calmly turned towards the door. She took a few steps before looking over her shoulder at the wounded man and adding, "If you change your mind and want to give me answers - come to our Headquarters. Ask for Bree."

"I know you're here," Max muttered, glancing around the old garden. The house had been burned down and left in ruin thanks to RIFT's impromptu bonfire, but a small corner of the garden remained uncharred, a small patch of green contrasted against a vast expanse of black soot. This garden had once been dear to someone dear to him, and being here was the only thing he could think of which gave him any sense of peace. "You're here somewhere, Evelyn. It's not too late -"

"Dad?"

Bryce followed his father into the garden, his arms crossed over himself - after going to pick up another round of supplies that he planned to bring out to Capay when the coast was clear, Max had told his son to wait by the car, that he only wanted a moment to survey the damage, and so the older man turned in surprise at his son's arrival.

"I - I just came to tell you, there's news on the car radio," Bryce stammered, noticing how intense his father's expression had appeared before he'd made the effort to conceal it. "RIFT went after Hadley. He's been shot."

Max inhaled in a sharp hiss, shaking his head and staring upward - it was simple enough to put two and two together. George Hadley had the most to lose from Gwen's revelation - the reputation of his division, upon which he had gotten fat and rich and lazy, was at stake. Of course he would be the first one they went after. This was only the beginning, he realized. RIFT would stop at nothing to find Gwen at this point, and even though their intention was to protect her, the thought provided little comfort. Everything was escalating - and Max realized that he had gotten Gwen away from the city just in time.

"Dad, was he here?" Bryce asked, and Max already knew he was asking about Will - even if he didn't know the connection between Will and Gwen, there was plenty that he did know. "Why did we come here?"

"No reason," Max said, shaking his head. "I just needed to…"

He glanced over at the small green patch of the garden and felt a strange swelling of hope in his chest, causing his shoulders to relax. "I just needed to see this for myself."

Bryce gaze a dissatisfied huff, shaking his head at the vague answer. "I don't understand anything anymore," he admitted in exasperation. "I don't understand any of this. Why does Gwen need to hide? She's the one who was attacked, it shouldn't be like this -"

"Bryce, I know that to you, she's just Gwen," Max said, turning to his son knowingly. "But to the rest of the world, she'd the Chairman's daughter. And if you want to stay in her life, you need to learn to accept that."

"You two must be new in town."

Gwen had ventured down into town, despite Will's misgivings about being seen by anyone. Max had told them the town of Capay was safe, but Will wasn't quick to trust his judgment. Wandering into a small general store, Gwen found herself and Will immediately greeted by an older woman behind the register who eyed them with a wide, toothy grin.

"Just moved in," Gwen replied with a winning smile as she walked towards the shelves and picked up a feather duster and a dust pan. "We're not from around here."

"I think that's enough," Will said in a whisper as he walked over and placed a hand on Gwen's shoulder to get her attention. "I know Max said we were safe here, but you shouldn't push your luck -"

Gwen glanced at Will with eyes glinting in mild defiance before bringing the items over to the woman behind the counter. "It's really quiet out here. Peaceful," she said with the same grin. "Nothing like the city."

"Yeah, well, we like it this way," the older woman chuckled, ringing up the items while Gwen reached into her pocket for her wallet, which housed the little cash she carried. She would need to make it last, she realized. "I'll bet you do too, if you went to the trouble of coming all the way out."

"The city's much more trouble than it's worth," Will said, moving over to the counter as well, playing along - Gwen fought the urge to roll her eyes at the feeling that he was patronizing her, acting like he needed to be there to do damage control, but she supposed it was for the best. If they were going to be stuck hiding in Capay together, it was for the best that they looked out for one another. "It's - it's amazing, really. How you've all managed to not get swallowed up in the craziness of the city, even though it's so close. Have you had help from RIFT?"

At the question, the older woman's eyebrows leapt upward just as she was accepting the payment from Gwen. Her expression began as a grimace that shifted into a laugh as she shook her head. "Those war mongerers know they aren't welcome in our town," she said pointedly, and Gwen couldn't restrain the visible heave in her chest as she sighed in relief. "We live like this because we want to, not because we want to force it on anyone else. And - since you asked, I'm willing to bet you aren't too fond of them either."

"We've just heard things about them," Gwen replied quickly. "Bad things - things we don't want to be a part of."

"Well, then you've moved into the right town," the older woman said with a warm smile. "I'm Lorna."

"It's good to meet you, Lorna," Gwen said, her smile finally no longer forced as she tucked the cleaning supplies under her arm. She glanced at Will, looking slightly smug at the fact that, at least apparently, she had been right to trust Max about this town. "Always nice to make a new friend."