"So, where do we begin?" Jon asked.
"We got lucky with the whole area being deserted at first light, so I was able to start with Providence."
Jon should have been used to enough devastation to not be affected by video of another scouring. But the anger and sorrow still cut him just as deeply as it all had eleven years ago.
Not a single building still stood – just blackened ruins. A few barely recognizable bodies here and there – a couple of town council leaders and their family members. Jon shuddered to think of how many more charred corpses lay within the ruins of people's homes.
The largest structure – a sort of meeting place/school in the heart of the settlement – had been obliterated. And the hideous, irregularly shaped black blob covering the rest of what had been open space…
The books. And whatever and whoever else the Overunits had decided to burn there.
The destruction stopped a few yards shy of the woods. Was it just pure luck with the wind direction that had kept the fire from spreading to the trees?
"Now, I couldn't see an actual path into the woods – the ground wouldn't have held any footprints there, anyway - and there's not a real trail to follow once you're into the trees…" Scout sped up the video a bit as they moved well into the heart of the woods. "But then I started seeing the broken tree limbs here… and here…"
Scout slowed the video to a crawl, pointing out the objects of interest.
Jon leaned in and nodded. "And maybe a couple that look big enough to have hit Jennifer like she said."
"That's what I thought, too – and see how the underbrush and dirt look here – "
"Like there could have been some kind of struggle…"
"So, I zoomed in on that part of the forest floor and that's where I found paydirt."
The camera tightened on something shiny in the dirt, and Jon watched in astonishment as the shiny bit sharpened into… a chronometer.
A Dread Youth chronometer?
"Either that's a hell of a plant or-"
"It confirms part of her story. Couple of yards from one of those big broken limbs, too…" Scout pointed out. "Might want to try retrieving that later."
Jon nodded. "Although I'm still wondering why no cadets or Overunits moved on the woods – either to burn them or search them. They had to think that people might try to flee there from the scouring."
"I've given that some more t
hought as well. A bigger force like Jennifer described could have been overconfident that they had rounded up everyone. Besides, it was dark, and none of Dread's forces knew those woods like the Providence folk did. They may have thought it wasn't worth the burning – or the risk of walking into an ambush, like Jennifer did."
Jon nodded. "Fair points. Any other breadcrumbs there?"
"Not that I could see." Scout sped up the video again.
On through the woods, over the creek, out the other side.
Through the scrub brush and sand to the ruins of Hardscrabble.
The main difference between the two settlements was in the pyre of contraband. That wasn't surprising. Hardscrabble had no books, and likely no radio, either. The blackened blob there appeared to be… a small collection of blasters and old-fashioned firearms.
The rest of the place looked much the same as Providence had. Every building had been reduced to blackened rubble.
As for the bodies… maybe a dozen scattered amid the wreckage. Jon thought he recognized about half of them. Would Jennifer know them as well?
The camera stopped on a man crumpled against the well – face half-covered in blood and ashes.
That was Erik. He could see just enough of the face to be sure of that – even if it hadn't been for the mayor's distinctive hat lying on the ground next to him.
These people had never been friends to them – or to anyone else. About the only good thing that could be said about them was unlike Marauders, they didn't venture out to prey on others. They only wanted to be left to their own devices. And yet, despite their last and worst act of cruelty, Jon could take no satisfaction in their death and destruction. Even if that was for no other reason than being denied the chance to confront them over their horr
ific treatment of a defenseless child – and being left unable to render a better form of justice.
"So, Dread's forces confronted them about a missing girl – or girls – passing through, they put up a fight, they all lost, and the Overunits collected their weapons for destruction so they wouldn't end up in the hands of any of their other enemies…" Something about this didn't sit entirely right with Jon. "If they were so sure about Hardscrabble having something to do with a girl they were searching for – whether it's Jennifer or the mystery girl- wouldn't they have tried capturing at least one of them for interrogation?"
" 'Tried' is probably the operative word here," Scout answered. "Take a look at the hands you can see."
Jon watched with a sickening feeling as Scout zoomed in on Erik, and most of the others. Hands and fingers curved as if still gripping…
"Once they realized they couldn't escape… they all decided to die as they had lived. On their own terms."
"And the clickers decided to dispose of their weapons and leave the rest for the vultures."
Jon nodded. "No more answers to be found there… so what about the other alerts that pinged this morning?"
"It's still not nearly enough to fill in the whole picture. But now we've got more than Jennifer's word about this mystery girl from Providence." Scout moved back to the keyboard and pulled some text up on the screen.
BOLO Organic adolescent girl reported in possession of Dread Youth sidearms. Silver-level reward for missing sidearms. Gold-level reward for missing sidearms and girl – alive.
"This went out on all Dread communications in the neighboring two sectors this morning."
Jon leaned in to read the rest. "Apparently some informant down in Three Forks saw two Marauders threaten a young girl and how she fended them off. No description of the girl," he noted. "But if she really was in Three Forks, how could she have gotten all the way down there, unless she had help?"
"My best guess is that she had at least six hours of a head start on Jennifer. And unlike our girl, she must have known those woods like the back of her hand…"
"But she also had to be thinking along the same lines we are… the woods aren't big enough for her to hide out there forever… so she was desperate enough to make for Hardscrabble…"
"With her tale of horror… and maybe a warning… and that visceral reaction they had to Jennifer wandering into their town makes even more sense."
A couple more pieces were sliding into place. "You know what else we haven't seen in that drone footage in Hardscrabble? That groundhopper that Wiley kept in his shop for emergencies. Even as thorough as that scouring was – we should have been able to see something of it over there – or they would have added it to the weapons stash and we would still have been able to see pieces of the frame. And Wiley couldn't have taken it because that's him over there…"
"She couldn't have held them up for that – they would have easily had her outgunned…" Something appeared to click in Scout's mind at almost the same instant it did in Jon's. "You don't think-"
"They might have finally done a good deed for the first time in their sorry lives?" Jon shook his head in amazement. "Talk about hell freezing over."
"More likely some kind of debt they owed. Though I can't imagine how a young girl would have something that big to hold over their heads..."
"Then again, up until a couple of days ago, it was just as unimaginable to us that a Dread Youth Leader could walk away from the corps. I guess we really do need to start believing in at least six impossible things before breakfast at the rate we're going."
Scout nodded.
"Anything else?"
"A little more refinement of Dread communications and troop movement that Mentor untangled from the data bomb. The audio's all still badly garbled, but it looks – sounds - like some of the troops were on a wild-goose chase from the opposite side of Providence – looking for possible survivors heading toward Bandit's Pass instead of the woods. The others were doing a standard sweep of the sector – both groups tangled with Marauders – and something happened with the group that was doing the sweep. They were already on course to Hardscrabble - coming from the back side like we saw earlier – but something made them speed up after that encounter. But since none of us had anything to do with Marauders in that sector recently..."
"It's likely they don't anything about our involvement in all this… which is good… but I take it you and Mentor aren't going to be able to untangle anything more from that data bomb debacle?
Scout nodded glumly. "I hate to say it, but I don't think we're going to find any more puzzle pieces unless our mystery girl surfaces somewhere."
Jon nodded. "And if she already made it all the way down to Three Forks… she could be well out of that sector by now and off in any one of a dozen different directions. With no description of her to go on, it's well beyond looking for a needle in a haystack." Jon shook his head. "Let's go ahead and review all this with Hawk – see if he thinks we're missing anything here."
Hawk didn't see where they had. "So, let's try to fill in the blank spaces as best we can. I think we can all agree that Dread's forces are using that BOLO to connect some dots on their end. The question remains – how did their forces get set on the wrong path entirely – for both Jennifer and the other girl? Anyone else still suspicious of how that happened and why we still haven't seen or heard any communication with a direct mention of a missing or presumed dead Dread Youth Leader?"
"That gets to the one question none of us have asked Jennifer yet. This can't be the only time in eleven years that a Dread Youth cadet or leader got suckered into an ambush or made a mistake that led to death by accident or misadventure, or just went missing somehow. They can't possibly all be that perfect," Jon mused. "What do the leaders tell the rest of the corps when that happens – or when a cadet chooses to make a heroic sacrifice for the will of the Machine? Do they have memorials of any sort? Cautionary tales? Or do the dead just get swept under the rug – put out of mind entirely? What does Jennifer think the rest of the corps are thinking and saying about her now?"
"Tank and I can shed a little light on that. While they were playing cards, he got to telling her about how he left Babylon 5 and his own concerns then about who might come looking for him and what they'd do to him if they captured him. No cadet has ever gone missing from the corps that she remembers – which is why she was so fearful of being the first. But the dead – unless it's a sufficiently heroic sacrifice for the Machine – they're all given a quick lesson about the cadet's foolish mistake, and then taught to put those failures out of mind. Carry on as if they never existed," Hawk said, and Jon couldn't help shuddering.
"So that leads us back to what she first told us - that the whole reason she didn't walk away a week earlier was because she was afraid they'd come after her. What a stroke of luck it was for her that nobody saw her go into the woods… unless it was more than just luck," Hawk continued. "Who else thinks that did someone did see her and deliberately misdirected the search?"
Jon and Scout both raised their hands. "But who would do that, and why?" Scout asked.
"I've been thinking either a jealous cadet seeing a chance to move up in the world – Jennifer told me that the competition for Youth Leader can be cutthroat - or we're back to the theory of an Overunit deciding it's better to have either a heroic martyr or a short cautionary tale than having them all face a live failure of a shining star," Jon said. "But as long we're trying to imagine the unimaginable, what if there's another possibility?"
"What's that?" Hawk asked.
"That somebody was helping her out… covering for her…"
"You're back to thinking she could be a plant after all?"
"No, I mean something even more unimaginable. What if she's not the only one there that night who saw Dread and Overmind and the corps for what they are? What if someone else – maybe even an Overunit - not only saw through those lies – but also through the careful façade Jennifer tried her best to maintain until the burning started that night – and decided to help her on her way once that façade cracked completely?" Jon wondered.
"We've all heard the rumors of a few people imbedding themselves in Volcania in the earliest days – leaking out bits of intel here and there. Maybe trying for small ways to resist Dread and Overmind from the inside out…But anything like a real undercover Resistance cell or the beginnings of some sort of Fifth Column…. honestly, I've always put about as much stock in those fanciful stories as I have in the whole Eden II myth," Hawk said.
"I know, but we have to consider every possibility – no matter how outlandish it seems – to fill in the gaps with our story." Jon frowned. "But with absolutely no way of knowing who could have misdirected the rest of the leadership, let alone why – we're back to the only person we've got hard evidence of now – the mystery girl."
"And so far, we've got her possibly making it to Hardscrabble ahead of Jennifer – somehow convincing them to give her their groundhopper – and being well clear of the place hours before Jennifer staggers in there. Let's say this mystery girl tangles with a few Marauders on the way to Three Forks, and a couple more in Three Forks – and gets away from them both… if I could meet a girl wily enough to do that twice, I'd love to shake her hand…" Hawk paused and the blood appeared to drain from his face.
"Oh, my God… I think I know who she could be…"
"Who?" Jon asked.
"You remember Casey? The orphan we found in the wilderness a few years back? Never saw a girl so hellbent on not going to the Passages."
How could he ever have forgotten her? Providence had been a compromise for the girl who intended to live free and above ground for the rest of her days.
Three – no, four – years had passed since that arrangement had first been worked out. They'd seen enough in their visits over the years to see that Casey was thriving – and yet she'd always remained a bit of a paradox. She could be a bit of a hothead – but also kind and protective when it came to the little children of her adoptive town. That personality – always a little more rough-hewn than the rest of the Providence folks – was what made her memorable. When Jon tried to picture the young woman she'd grown into … he could only recall what didn't stand out about her physical features. Medium height, medium build… mousy hair… she could easily fade into the background when she wanted to….
"I can't believe we didn't think of her sooner. Scrapping with a Dread Youth Leader the way Jennifer told us – sounds exactly like something Casey would do, now that I think of it."
"But we still can't know for sure that it's her," Scout spoke up. "Casey was set on teaching survival skills and self-defense to any other girls her age in Providence who would listen to her. Some of the mothers weren't terribly keen on it – remember how a few of them talked to you about it the last couple times we visited, Captain?"
He did – and that meant any of half a dozen or so girls - all rather average in appearance - could have fit the part as well as Casey did.
"Or it could still be someone that we've never laid eyes on. We didn't know everyone in Providence… much as we would have liked to," Jon admitted. "And trying to put out feelers for any clues about her identity would only put her in greater danger than she's already in."
"So, this is what we're left with. A puzzle we can never finish on our own." Scout sighed.
It wasn't the first time in this war when they'd had to live with unanswered questions – and it almost certainly wouldn't be the last, either.
"So, what do we do now, Captain? Do we show Jennifer what we've found and tell her what we think, or wait for a slim possibility of any more news shaking out?" Hawk asked.
Jon thought for a moment. "Unless Dread's forces somehow manage to run this girl to ground, I don't think we're going to hear anything more about any of this. But after what's already happened today, I don't think Jennifer's emotionally strong enough to take all this in yet – or ready to know that she's not going to be able to find closure for it all."
Hawk nodded. "We're not going to be able to put her off forever, though."
"I know. Just… not yet…"