It’s not getting down the mountain that’s the problem. I’m on a ridge peak next to a river that flows south and feeds the encampment. So direction is not the issue.
Nor is getting back through the laser perimeter. Not for me.
It’s what it will say about me if I do. Miranda took me off the path, led me higher into the mountain, and left me here. If I get back down, that says a lot about my skill set. Too much.
And if I don’t make it down, they’ll search for me and the entire camp will know I breached security. There will be questions, doubts, maybe even censure.
So I have to make a choice.
Before I decide, I take out my phone again, open a secure connection, and try Mother.
It is the same as before. Silence.
I try Father, both public and private lines.
Nothing.
It’s possible the mountains are causing interference with the signal. It’s possible blocking tech from Liberty is affecting the ability of the phone to uplink to the satellite.
Possible but unlikely.
What exactly is going on?
I don’t know.
I only know I have to stay in the moment, and the moment requires me to make a choice.
Follow the river back to camp or play lost? Either could work, either could fail.
Life is about risk. Mission dynamics are no different. It’s just that the stakes are higher on a mission.
Much higher.
I make my choice.
I head south, moving silently through the darkness, walking back down toward Camp Liberty.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
IT’S A COUPLE OF HOURS BEFORE DAWN WHEN I GET BACK.
It’s my experience that a security detail loses focus closest to dawn when it nears the end of its shift. The end of a shift is like the last minutes of a job, of school, of nearly everything. By that time you’re just waiting for it to end so you can get home and do what you want to do.
That makes it a perfect time for me to explore.
I watch from the cover of the woods. I listen for the clang and whir of metal fabrication, and then I follow it toward the workshop building, moving along the tree line outside of camp, my body turned inward so I can watch for trouble.
When I get closer to the source of the sound, I move into the encampment, slip through the laser perimeter, and instantly make my gait casual, like a guy who is taking an early walk because he can’t sleep. I turn a corner, and I see it, a factory building with double doors wide enough to drive a truck through. I recognize the building from the game, the second of the two large structures in camp. Even in the dark I can see the doors are sealed tight with huge padlocks.
The windows of the workshop are blacked out, but I can make out flashes of light coming between cracks in the paint. The flashes stop then start again in a staccato rhythm. At first I’m not sure what I’m looking at, but after a moment the pattern becomes familiar.
Arcs from a welding torch. Something is being assembled in the workshop in the middle of the night.
I look down the road at the white vans parked there. They look like utility trucks, but there’s no branding on their sides.
Lee said they outsourced components to earn extra income. That might explain the vans, but it doesn’t explain the all-night fabrication processes.
I move toward the workshop, heading for a bank of high windows on the side. If I can find something to stand on, I might be able to get a sight line—
“You can’t be back here,” a voice says.
A flashlight beam snaps on in my face.
I recognize the voice. It’s Moore’s bodyguard, Swivel Neck.
How did he find me back here? And how did he get close without my registering it?
I haven’t slept in nearly twenty-four hours, and I’m starting to make mistakes. Miranda tracked me into the forest, and Swivel Neck snuck up on me. These are bad signs.
But I can’t do anything about them now. I have to react.
I hold my hand up to my eyes and feign surprise.
“Hey, what’s up?” I say, and then I pretend to suddenly recognize him. “You work the night shift, too?”
“I work all the time,” he says. “And you’re not allowed to be out here now.”
“I couldn’t sleep. I was taking a walk and I heard some noise.”
“Curfew lifts at dawn. The camp is off-limits until then,” Swivel Neck says.
“There’s a curfew? Nobody told me.”
He plays the beam across my face.
“I’m telling you,” he says.
“Off-limits. It’s all good,” I say with a shrug. “By the way, what time is breakfast served? Unless waffles are off-limits, too.”
“Funny man,” he says. “Follow me.”
He turns, and his flashlight beam catches a small flash of red on the ground.
I follow him, stopping briefly to tie my shoe. I scoop the little piece of red into my hand and close it into a fist.
“You coming?” he says.
“Right behind you. What’s your name, by the way?”
“Why do you need to know what my name is?”
“Relax, guy, I’m trying to fit in here.”
He points the flashlight in my face again.
“My name is Aaron,” he says.
Then he swings the flashlight back around and beckons me to follow him to the building with my sleeping quarters.
“Breakfast is in the main house at oh seven hundred,” he says, using the military designation for seven AM.
He blocks the keypad with his body while he dials the code. The lock clicks, and he opens the door and waits for me to go inside.
“Thanks, Aaron.”
“How’d you get out in the first place?”
“It was unlocked.”
“Lee,” he says, shaking his head. “Sloppy.”
He closes the door, and I hear the lock click.
I go back to my room and flip on the light.
I open my fist to examine what I found on the ground outside.
It’s a thin red curlicue of rubberized plastic insulation. The shape tells me it’s been stripped from some type of wire. It could be from a car or some other machine, an engine that was being repaired. It could be from electrical wiring in a building.
It could be anything at all.
I button it into the side pocket of my camo pants, then I strip down and go to bed.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
I DON’T SLEEP.
For the rest of the night I lie awake, thinking about The Program and why I am unable to communicate with them. I come up with three major hypotheses:
1. Technical interference, either man-made or spontaneously occurring.
2. They’ve cut me off on purpose, either because it’s not safe for me to communicate with them or for other reasons I cannot fathom.
3. They are themselves cut off, in trouble, or otherwise compromised.
Of the choices, I deem number two to be the most likely. If our communications system has been breached by Moore’s people, the only choice would be to stop communicating with me until a message can be passed safely.
But if that’s true, what does it mean for my assignment? Do I continue forward until I get to Moore, carrying out the last directive I was given? Or do I default to primary objectives, protecting The Program first and myself second?
I run through the options again, but I don’t come to any conclusions.
After a while I get up and sit in a chair. Sleep research has found that after lying in bed for thirty minutes without falling asleep, it is better not to fight sleeplessness. It’s more effective to get up and do something else for a while, change location and tasks, thereby allowing your body to find its own sleep rhythm. You will get tired later and go back to bed without having to force it.