When there was only about an hour of daylight left, Larry said he needed to see the plane and Bambi. Michael Amandasson led Mensche to the guarded guest cabin.
Bambi said hi and jumped up and hugged him, giving him cover to compose himself from the shock: the other prisoner in the cabin was his own daughter, Debbie.
When they let go of each other, he had his game face on again. He asked Bambi the basics (was she unhurt? could she fly the plane home if they fueled it? was she sure she had room for a takeoff from US 95?) while he rested his hand on her arm, squeezing in Morse:
2moro eve b ready sunset
Bambi squeezed back QSL (message received).
QRV 2 run? (Are you ready to run?)
C. (Yes).
QSO deb. (Relay this to Debbie).
C.
Larry had learned squeeze code back in the ’90s when he’d just been starting with the Bureau, and later taught it to Debbie back when she thought that her dad being in the FBI was cool and she’d been preparing to be rescued by her dashing dad from terrorists or a serial killer. Whenever he or Debbie hugged, they’d squeeze and tap didit, didahdidit dididah didididah, dididah—i luv u.
After Daybreak, as the most experienced intelligence/law enforcement agent Heather had recruited, Larry had taught it to everyone.
Thirty years and this was the first time he’d ever used it. Just goes to show there’s no such thing as unnecessary training.
It was lousy tradecraft, but he decided he’d have to be human. “And what are they holding you for?” He reached forward, as if brushing the hair from Debbie’s eyes.
From the door, Michael Amandasson said, “She’s no concern of yours. She’s a slave.”
Mensche turned, letting his hand fall onto Debbie’s. “She is not a slave. She’s on American soil and we have the Thirteenth Amendment.”
“That doesn’t apply to the Blue Morning People. Come with me now, Agent Mensche.”
Mensche fixed his gaze on the tribal’s face as if contemplating arresting him, and kept holding Debbie’s hand, squeezing i luv u.u 2 dad.
CF w bambi
C. go now. QMO. luv u.
luv u 2. CL.
QMO meant problem with interference; CL meant talk later.
As he walked to the barn to inspect the Stearman (he barely knew enough to identify it as an airplane, but Bambi would have plenty of time tomorrow) and then to the visitor center to use Bambi’s radio to call for the ransom, he managed to sound politely interested as Michael Amandasson explained to him, in elaborate detail, that by interfering in a tribal custom like slavery, Mensche and the whole Federal government were being racist, sexist, culturist, and extremely judgmental. He even smiled now and then.
ABOUT THE SAME TIME. PUEBLO, COLORADO. 9:13 PM MST. WEDNESDAY, JULY 16, 2025.
“The EMP hit right at noon today,” Arnie said. “So, yes, it could have been just a coincidence—maybe forty-five different tribes, everywhere from the Ouachitas to Big Bend and the Sangre de Cristos to Texarkana, all started moving at once, because they all happened to have working radios and we pissed them off, and then the moon gun happened to wait a long time to fire, so the moon gun just happened to be a perfect distraction by pure chance at the exact moment when all the tribes just happened to wander into Mota Elliptica simultaneously.”
“Why are you throwing all the sarcasm at me, Arnie?” Heather said. “I just asked if it could be a coincidence.” She poured him a shot of whiskey and pushed it over to him.
They sat in her office above her living quarters, in the old Pueblo Courthouse. He’d only come in with the rest of the survivors from Mota Elliptica that afternoon. She said, “Streen gave me his action report; no matter how much he blames himself, no one could have kept the tribals from wrecking it.”
“It was bad,” Arnie said, taking the whiskey in one quick gulp.
“Chris tells me the Post-Times will call it the Battle of Mota Elliptica. He says that way maybe people will get that we’re at war. I don’t want a panic—”
“But it might be time for one,” Arnie said. “Uh, look. I’m not at my best explaining stuff right now. But I’ve gotta make you see it, Heather, really, we’re sunk if you don’t. How many times have I been wrong about anything this big?”
“Arnie, I understand it was rough; Colonel Streen is shaken up and I wouldn’t have thought that was possible.”
Arnie winced. Rough. Bad. And she thinks Streen is just shaken up? She can’t have any idea what it was like… . Christ, why am I trying?
As dawn came up on the morning after the attack, Streen’s forces had relieved the three other isolated buildings still holding out, but at the other four working stations, a few bodies lay near the doorways, plumed with arrows and lances, and the rest were burned and smothered inside, curled against walls with hands over their faces. The four radio techs inside the control bunker had apparently been forced back into the flames at spearpoint.
Besides Trish, twenty-two other engineers and technicians were confirmed dead, though a couple might yet find their way in, out of seven missing. Streen’s final count on his military forces was sixty-four dead—thirty-eight of his own TNG infantry, eleven of the President’s Own Rangers, and thirteen of the Texans (eleven of those, along with one of the Rangers, in a single, too-clever ambush). They were missing three infantrymen, a Ranger, and a TexIC; an actual majority of the survivors were wounded.
“Try to tell me one more time,” Heather said. “Slowly, don’t yell, don’t treat me like an idiot.”
“Sorry,” Arnie said.
“Quentin told me he thought the scientist that was killed next to you was, uh, important to you.” She poured him another shot, his fourth since they’d begun the informal debriefing. “Here,” she said, patting her immense belly. “Drink for those who can’t.”
Arnie took it in one gulp, again, and said, “Yeah. I’m crying. I didn’t even notice I was. But I’m crying.”
“Well, it’s about time.”
Arnie looked down, wiping his face and keening. She let him cry, until finally, wiping his face, he said, “Trish Eliot was great… my number two on the job, my best friend there, maybe she’d’ve been more if there’d been time.” And the only person brave enough for me to tell her the whole truth, and to believe me. “Yeah, she was killed right beside me, and that was pretty awful.” Pretty awful is all the more description I can think of?
Heather waited for him find his voice again. Usually you could count on Heather to listen.
After a while, she said, “Arnie, there’s more evidence than you know about. Captain Highbotham’s observatory at Christiansted was attacked this morning—tribals came ashore in small boats from a big sailing yacht, and Highbotham and a party rowed out to the yacht and captured it while the local militia beat the raiders on the beach. Practically a pirate battle, but she won. And yes, it does look like the moon gun and the tribes are either talking to each other, or talking to some common superior. For one thing, we think they might have launched another EMP bomb while Christiansted was tied up in the battle, and Big Island, Cooke Castle, and Oaxaca were all under cloud cover. USS Bush, in the Indian Ocean, thinks they detected a flash, but it was daylight and low on the horizon. I guess we’ll know in three days. So… all right, Arnie, the moon gun isn’t just a leftover robot, because there’s way too much strategy happening and it understands way too much. And it’s not being run by some human overlord somewhere, because like you say, the communications pattern doesn’t fit. All right.”