The engines cut and the Gatling died away in an irregular spasm of bangs.
“You are the prisoners of the President’s Own Rangers. Lie on the ground, face down, extend your arms in front of you. Don’t move.”
Larry complied; a few shots indicated that some Blue Morning People hadn’t been quick enough. “Now,” the voice said, “Agent Larry Mensche, please stand up.” Larry stood up carefully; the beam of a reflector lantern swept across his face. “Glad you’re okay, Larry,” Quattro Larsen said. “Pick your people out of this.”
“Ryan, stand up,” Mensche said, “and Micah, stay down.” The lantern beam picked out Ryan, and Mensche said, “You’d better come over here and join me. Micah, stand up if you’re out there.”
From the surrounding dark, Micah said, “Still back here. I’m going to walk forward real slow, okay?” He emerged into the glare. All around them, the wounded sobbed and gasped; the Rangers sorted them out in a quick, brutal triage—the dead would be left where they were, for some other tribe to find; the wounded would be asked, once, if they wanted rehabilitation, and killed on the spot if they said no; those able to walk would carry those who could not in a forced march to Ontario, to be sorted into “rehabilitation” and “execution” groups.
“Sir? What do we do if we ask and they spaz attack on us?”
“According to the RRC Field Guide, that’s a yes, but tie them up tight,” the captain said. “And if they say yes, and then start shouting Daybreaker shit, shoot’em.”
“Seems pretty rough,” Ryan said.
Larry’s shrug was a bare twitch of the shoulder. “Orders from Pueblo. Letting the tribes know we mean business, and this Daybreaker shit is not going to be tolerated.”
“What do they do in rehab?”
“I don’t know, but I hope it hurts. Anyway, we’ve got one prisoner to liberate,” Mensche said. “Let’s go get her. Also, Quattro, let the Rangers know there are some young kids in a cabin over that way.”
On the path, they passed the runner that Micah had killed. “I got her coming back,” Micah said, “she just ran neck first onto my knife.”
He was trembling, Mensche realized, and said, “Was she the first person you ever killed?”
“Yeah.” The young man croaked it out.
“She’d have starved or died of disease before spring; it’s gonna be way worse for the tribals this winter.”
“Yeah, but I still killed her.”
“Yeah,” Mensche said. “I’d never even fired my weapon at a human being, before Daybreak. Like Stalin said, one is murder, and there’s some number where it’s just a statistic.”
The cabin door stood open; the reflector lamp’s flickering yellow-orange beam revealed Michael Amandasson, hanged naked in a bedsheet from a rafter. His leg was still warm to the touch, his ankle supple, blood was only beginning to pool in his feet; she must have done it after the runner told them the plane was coming in—
Mensche borrowed the lantern and swept the beam around the cabin, then out on the narrow, railed porch. Off one end, he found a bare footprint in the mud; five feet farther on was a black patch of turned-over leaf mold. Not far beyond that, on the narrow trail leading uphill out of the camp, a branch was freshly broken on a fir.
“She’s my daughter,” he said. “I think I’m entitled to ask her, Debbie, what the fuck? You know?”
Quattro Larsen said, “Yeah, I understand.” He clasped his friend’s hand and squeeze-coded WTF?
Larry’s hand moved to Quattro’s arm as he squeeze-coded:
no idea
d marked trail on purpose
must want me 2 follow
tell h 2 impt not 2 follow
Larry sighed, not entirely acting, and added aloud, “This might take a few weeks, I imagine.”
“You have to do what you have to do,” Quattro said. “Thanks for rescuing Bambi, and if you need a ride, the Gooney Express always has a free seat for an old buddy.”
“’Preciate it. Give my regards and apologies to Heather.”
20 MINUTES LATER. BETWEEN US ROUTE 95 AND HELLS CANYON NATIONAL PARK, IN IDAHO. 8:38 PM PST. FRIDAY, JULY 18, 2025.
Mensche had hunted and photographed wildlife as his main hobbies for decades before Daybreak, had good night vision, and had a career FBI agent’s knack for following people; he could have followed a trail marked half as prominently. In a saddle of the ridge, Debbie had laid a seven-foot arrow in dead sticks on an old recreation trail.
He laughed out loud. “Deb, I’m the one that taught you woodcraft.”
Just behind him, she said, “Yeah, but I’m in a silly mood.”
He turned and hugged her. They could still hear occasional gunshots, far behind them. She asked, “Are the Rangers shooting all of them?”
“Just the ones who refuse rehab, or try to escape.”
“You smell like blood.”
“It’s from Helen what’s-her-face.”
“Good, Dad. I’m glad. She had it coming if any of them did. But actually I’m sorry they aren’t just shooting them all. There’s not going to be any rehab that works. There’s a place up the trail where we can sit if you want.”
“Sure.”
At the base of a low rock cliff, she guided him to a bench by one of the old raised metal firebox grills. He said, “There’s something you want me to do or see.”
“There is,” she said. “It’s important and I realized this was the way to do it.”
“Good enough,” he said, “I’m sure you’re right.”
“You’re not my same old dad.”
“It’s not your same old world.”
“Yeah.” She reached out and threaded her hand into the crook of his elbow, the way she had when she’d been little and he’d been her hero. He just waited. Being here, in the starlight, with just Debbie, is about as good as life has been in a long time.
“So the runner came to let Michael know the plane was landing. I knew you wouldn’t be in an outfit that paid ransoms, and besides Bambi had squeeze-coded me that you were gonna beat the shit out of the Blue Morning People. So at first I thought, I want a special moment here for just Michael and me.”
“No one would have begrudged you that. We wouldn’t even have filed an incident report.”
She leaned back in a stretch, extending her feet and wriggling them. “I knew that. But the whole reason I became a frontier scout for the People of Gaia’s Dawn was that I needed to escape in a way that would make a difference. I mean I knew right away I didn’t want to be a tribal—it’s dirty, nasty, and ugly enough now. Eating bark and twigs all winter, once the canned and dry food are gone—gah.”
“How’d you end up there in the first place?”
“A couple of nutty witch-wannabes in the group I broke out of Coffee Creek with ran into some would-be bush hippies, and I was hoping to find the guys with the good drugs. So I was one of the Seventy-Nine Founders of the People of Gaia’s Dawn. I hope you guys clean out all the tribes; I wish you’d just shot all the Blue Mornings.”
“Some of us favor that.”
“See, I knew I could count on my dad! And that brings me to the thing that I don’t think you’ll believe till I show you.”
“How about if I just believe you?”