They spend several days being smuggling through a network of safe-houses, truck routes, and foot trails to reach the coastal city of Aliston.
They leave the hostel in one of Jonah’s vans, carrying mail and packages of miscellaneous items people ship across the country. The van has no windows, but Rachel follows along on the paper map Touch had her pick up before they stopped at the hostel. She can also look out the windshield from the back of the van.
They take a back-road, passing two patrol cars, and merge with the main road exiting Mayvern, well past militia checkpoints. From there they’re taken down a winding highway that cuts through and around a bunch of foothills that give way to dessert. After a few hours, they turn off the highway, down a double lane road for twenty minutes, and end up at an industrial fuel station and warehouse where they spend the night sharing their camping gear with a family that is also fleeing AriCorp.
The dad, Joel, explains he quit his job because he and his family couldn’t take the oppressive city life. The mom, Susan, quit with no strings attached, but Joel had a higher end job and quitting meant desertion. They left by bribing the guards and telling them they were just going to visit a dying friend from one of the towns. Their little blonde-haired son, Alex, was only ten years old.
The perilous dessert would have taken over a week to walk through if they had the supplies, and only a day or two to drive straight through. But they didn’t know where the safe houses were, which routes were safe from patrols or checkpoints, and which were treacherous enough to break your car and leave you stranded.
Asteroids and nukes rendered the place a wasteland. There may be a small community of people who knew the ins and outs of this land, but Rachel and Touch didn’t find them before, and this place was a deadzone, so it was too late to seek them out now.
Many people were being smuggled across the desert in small groups. Rachel and the rest had to wait their turn for passing trucks to take them to the next checkpoint. Food was stretched thin. The smugglers gave priority over the safest and fastest routes to those who paid the most. Meaning that people from places like the federation of worker controlled towns, that reject the use of corporate currency in all but the most dire situations, were given the slowest or most dangerous routes, the least food, and most crowded living conditions.
Touchstone’s skin slowly grew darker and darker over the days. He became more sullen and withdrawn at every slight and show of inequality and injustice. He wore that same look he gave those traffickers weeks ago all the time now. He was considering stealing food for some families they were crammed into their current warehouse with.
“Our hands are tied. We need them to get through the dessert.” Rachel says, trying to comfort him and keep him from doing anything reckless.
“That’s precisely the point. They are using these people’s precarious position to exploit and control them. And it’s works, even on me. I want nothing more than to tear this whole operation apart and rebuild it from the ground up. But I can’t. I don’t have the time, and you’re right, I need them. But it’s all I can think about.” he rants on in disgust.
Touch’s skin lightened a shade after that conversation. He was still withdrawn, but his face and demeanor softened considerably, especially when he was around kids and families. Though when she caught glimpses of the stone man, when he thought no one was looking, she wondered if his cheering up was just a facade.
Arch and Dill were having a great time playing with the kids. Arch couldn’t touch them, of course, so whenever there was enough room, he would play hide and seek or let the kids chase him around. Whenever he was done, he would run up to Touch, who would pick him up and explain to the pack of kids hot on his trail why they couldn’t pet him. Then the two would carefully let every kid who wanted to touch Arch experience a controlled shock from the fox in demonstration.
Dill, in contrast, would never run. He would allow himself to be cuddled and pet by anyone and everyone. Whenever he tired of that, he would flap his wings and make his way over to Rachel, who would explain that Dill needed some alone time and set him in his dedicated nest in the top of her pack.
Rachel considered giving some of her food to the kids. Touch, Arch, and Dill certainly couldn’t. They needed all the energy they could to feed their powers. She was already giving portions of her rations to them. She decided it was up to the families to figure out their own food situations. If she gave food in one act of kindness, soon everyone would be crowding around her, begging for food. She simply couldn’t feed them all, nor could she bear to play favorites among the children.
None of the safe-houses or routes had open internet. Rachel guessed this was obviously done for security. So no one could be tracked, intentionally or not. You could, of course, pay to use the coyotes secure connection under tight supervision. Which they didn’t. So, on top of everything, they were completely in the dark for a week.
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After days of Touch not making nice with the coyotes, and looking constantly on the verge of snapping, the smugglers got permission to fast track him and his party. Which now included Joel, Susan, and Alex, who they’ve been with since that first night. The coyotes hung on to all weapons, excluding Rachel’s innocent looking stylus, but they couldn’t confiscate Touch’s nearly impenetrable skin. If he did snap, he could do some real damage.
On their final day, they were in the back of a semi-truck delivering food and miscellaneous mail. There were three coyotes in the back watching their every move as they talked among themselves.
Rachel watches as Touch watches as Alex stares at the boxes of food. She even catches the parents’ gazes lingering on the shipment occasionally. Rachel shifts her weight as she and Touch lock eyes with coyotes a couple times.
Everyone in the trailer was probably thinking the same thing. No one was going to miss a few of these food items going missing. Just skimming off the top from a few boxes was enough to feed this one family for over a week. Any inventory shortage would be glossed over as a counting error and corrected by whomever handled the tally. And they were on the last stretch of their trip. Even if they got kicked out right now, they could manage on their own.
For the longest time, they all stood there, sizing each other up. Even Arch and Dill could feel the tension in the air, and stood at the ready. One coyote was texting on his phone regularly.
But as the parents become aware of the situation, they look to around, darting their heads back and forth to everyone, then to each other, their minds racing. Rachel watches as the father gets a sad, defeated look in his eyes, then mother. They pull their son away from the food.
They’re too scared to make any trouble.
Touch’s jaw tightens, and he moves forward, carefully splitting the tape with his steel pen.
“Hey! Stop that right now!” One coyote shouts, his voice booming off the thin metal wall, making everyone jump, except for Touch, who remains unfazed.
The three coyotes squeeze down the sides of the trailer, batons out. Rachel blocks one side, Touch splits open the box, then blocks the other side. The biggest dude races up to Touch and gets right in his face. Rachel sees the big guy’s muscles swell up as he races over. She hears him breathing heavy, skin slick with sweat. He’s got a wild look in his eyes, but he doesn’t tense up or flex, his frame just grows as he crosses the trailer.
He’s a div, some kind of enhanced fight-or-flight response by the look of it. Perfect control despite his amplified response. He’s trained and experienced with his powers.
The two stand nose to nose, the huge guy only a few centimeters taller, just barely enough to look down at Touch.
A smaller dude faces me, but we’re both more interested in the other two. We keep each other in the corner of our eyes as we see what unfolds with our partners.
“Take what you need.” Touch says to the family without taking his eyes off the coyote.
“Don’t you-” The big guy starts, but Touch interrupts by ramming his chest into him again and again.
I look to my guy; we lock eyes. He’s not going to make a move, so neither will I. We both tentatively continue watching our companions, keeping each other in the corner of our eyes.
“They’re hungry. You haven’t been doing your job feeding them. Gotta problem with that, get your boss on the line. Or are you going to stop me?” Touch rumbles, pushing him back.
Rachel would prefer to avoid a confrontation, especially this close quarters, and with a family nearby, but she has no idea how deescalate the situation. And Touch was right. This family was hungry. So she follows his lead. It was the easiest thing to do now. She knows they can probably take these guys. She just doesn’t want people getting hurt.
Before this can escalate any further, the man with the phone grabs the big guy’s shoulder and pulls him back just long enough to show him a text.
The coyote begrudgingly opens up a few more boxes, and the family takes one of every food item. Enough to feed the three of them for a few days. Rachel was hungry, and she’s sure Touch is too. They didn’t take any.
After the family took what they needed, they re-disbursed the food to be as even as possible, then helped reseal the boxes with packing tape. Rachel watches as both the big guy and Touch seamlessly transition into silent cooperation. The big guy seals the boxes within his reach, then tosses the tape roll to Touch, who silently tapes up the boxes on his side, before handing the tape to Rachel. If she didn’t see the previous confrontation, Rachel would think that they were regular co workers.
Eventually, Rachel hears the truck rolling up to the checkpoints at Aliston. Rachel looks around. All the fugitives; the parents, the kid, Touch, Arch, Dill, and even herself were all visibly tense. But the coyotes were as relaxed as ever;
For them, this is the last stretch to freedom. If they got caught here, in the lion’s den, there would be little chance to escape. For the smugglers, this was the end of their shift, for a particularly troublesome group at that. If Touch didn’t have super-human powers and criminal connections, they couldn’t have gotten away with fighting back.
The semi-truck comes to a halt. Rachel hears a short and muffled exchange, then they were on their way to the inner city.