Chapter 12.

Over breakfast, the trio discussed their plans for the week. Elz then told Trey and Man Xiong about the two bedrooms, confirming for The Old Man that he could continue to sleep in the loft if he wished. She then instructed Trey to move some of her things into the smaller bedroom for the duration of their stay.

“So, go dust the room and change the bedding. We’re hopefully gonna be here for six days. Training and practice with the new weapons on the last two days.”

“Why training? Aren’t we headed home after this?” Trey wasn't aware of the Norwegian contract offer.

“Training, young lady, because it’s what we do. And no, we have another contract.”

Trey nodded, grinning widely. “Great! I love it out here.” Trey excused herself and left to move her cases into the bedroom.

“It’ll be good for her,” Man Xiong stated as he watched Trey bounce through the hidden doorway. He turned a more serious look towards Elz. “Are you sure we should stay the full week? Someone’s put a lot of time into this place. They may be back.”

Elz felt a pull of guilt but tried to keep it from her face. She would never lie to Trey or Man Xiong but she needed time to deal with her own emotions, and then more time to read whatever letter Mat had left her.

“From the dust on everything I think we’ll be okay. If this will be our one and only chance to hang out here, we may as well enjoy it.”

“Any idea who?” The Old Man asked, waving his hand in the direction of the building addition.

“As far as I know this property is still unclaimed. At the moment, I am completely lost.” It was a truth— not the whole truth but it would work for n that moment.

“Hmm.” The Old Man muttered then turned his attention to finishing breakfast and then cleaning up. A few moments later, Trey returned to the main room and Elz suggested that they take a walk around the property. The Old Man waved them away.

“I’ll finish up around here.”

***

“Mommy, this place is so great. Did you know there’s a pond way back behind the shed?” Trey skipped around as she spoke, too excited to walk at Elz’s pace.

“I didn’t. I didn't have a chance to see any of that the first time I came.”

“Really? Were you too busy doing adult stuff with Daddy?”

Elz laughed out loud. “No. I was too busy being unconscious from MutaHare venom.”

“Oh!” Trey stopped skipping and looked at Elz. “Do you think they’re still around?”

“Maybe, but after all these years maybe they’ve migrated, or at least learned their lesson.”

Trey began skipping again. “Yeah! Don’t mess with the old morani.”

“What’s old morani?”

“It means Warrior. Daddy told me that’s who we are.”

“Heh. Well he’s right.”

“Twee.”

“Daddy taught you alot, huh?”

“Uh huh.” Trey’s voice lost its ever present tone of confidence. “I miss him.”

At the the fence that bordered the pasture in which the airship had landed, Elz stopped and leaned against a rail.

“So I wanted to talk to you about something.” She turned to look at Trey, who was now trying to hop on one leg from post to post.

“No, I don’t mind if you want to live here forever. Can Grandpa stay too?” Trey didn’t miss a single hop and didn't bother to look at her when answering.

“Umm. Who said that’s what I wanted to talk about? And why do you think I want to stay here forever?”

“’Cause you’ve been saving up for it.” Trey finally turned and looked directly at Elz. “And because you miss Daddy too and everything smells like him here.”

Having dropped that bombshell, Trey returned to her hopping. “We can live anywhere Mommy. As long as we’re together and we still get to feed the birds.”

Elz watched her hop away along the fence-line. She deflated a little. Having geared herself up to have a long discussion about the benefits of moving away from their community in New York, she had not been prepared for Trey to so succinctly cut to the soul of the issue.

Elsbeth relaxed against the fence rails and let some of the tension wash off of her. Trey was right. All that mattered was that they were together and here was her dream seemingly being handed to her on a silver platter— with upgrades. She would be doing her daughter a disservice by letting her pain interfere with enjoying whatever Mat had put in place for them. Exhaling slowly, Elz made herself a silent promise. She would take one day, and then she would go back into the safe room.

“Come on, kiddo. Apparently the conversation is over, so lets see what else is on the property.”

The walk around the other pastures and the nearby wooded areas was uneventful. Elz and Trey discussed where they could set up a shooting range for practicing with their new guns, talked about possible farm animals they could raise, and kept a lookout for the MutaHares. There were none evident— the reason for this became clear when they reached the fence that marked the boundaries of the property.

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“That’s kinda annoying.” Trey put her hands over her ears. “Maybe thats why no animals are around.”

Elz didn't hear anything annoying, but she definitely heard the buzz of electricity coming from the fence posts. There were no “electrified fence” signs and the buzz didn't originate from the rails but there was definitely something happening.

“What do you hear?”

“Its a high choppy noise.” Trey said, backing away from the fence. About two feet back she she finally dropped her hands from her ears.

“Choppy?” Elz wasn’t sure what Trey meant.

“Uhuh! Not a rhythm and it's not steady.”

“Gotcha. Must be a repellent of some kind.”

“Yeah. I sure don’t wanna be near it.”

Mother and daughter turned and continued their walk, Elz careful to keep them away from the fence line.

After they’d explored the entire property, they returned to the house to find The Old Man waiting for them.

“We’re late for the morning routine.”

The rest of the day was spent relaxing… or what the Joneses called relaxing anyway. They watched old movies, sparred until they were exhausted, and just spent time enjoying each other’s company. The Old Man and Trey showed Elz the garden plans they’d drawn up, and they reached out to the airship to request that the pilot take them on a scavenging run for more soil and building supplies.

The next day, after their morning workout, they boarded the airship and returned to Cardigan. They raided the three local garden supply stores collecting bags of soil and more seeds. After some discussion, they agreed not to build raised beds, deciding that plastic tubs would be quicker and they were already abundant in the abandoned stores.

After their trip and lunch, Trey and Man Xiong went outside to set up their plastic tubs turned “raised boxes” where the kitchen garden had once been, and Elsbeth finally steeled herself to go back into the safe-room.

It was time to face the pain.

She descended the ladder and went straight for the letter on the pedestal, wanting to waste no time in ripping the bandage off. She removed the letter from the envelope and stared at the four lines that were visible.

> Elz,

>

> I had hoped to be the one showing yo u around, but its obvious that I will not be,

>

> So..

>

> Welcome Home!

Dazed, she walked over to the nearby couch, dropped into the seat and unfolded the letter. Mat’s neat handwriting covered the page. Her breath hitched as she devoured the contents, each sentence a sharp blade of pain piercing her heart. While she had not quite known what to expect, the letter was nowhere near the love note from beyond that she’d hoped it to be. In fact, the letter left her with many questions and, though it lifted one weight off her shoulders, it also piled many more troubles on.

There was a lot to unpack, and Elz had to reread the letter a few times to to wrap her mind around it all. Making the decision to first deal with the immediate questions instead of the emotional turmoil, she reached for her TDC tablet. For the first time since she left home it wasn't at her side. Afraid that she would not want to come back downstairs if she left to retrieve it, she moved that issue to the bottom of her list. She would have to wait to see what Mat meant when he said he’d obfuscated their records. She accessed the TDC daily, and in all the years since he’d died, she had never noticed anything odd about her account. As a rule however, she never accessed more than her occupational data, her contracts and her messages. Even their medical records were neglected because Trey was rarely ill and they suffered few injuries that they could not dress themselves. It was possible that she’d missed changes to any data in her file that lay beyond the surface.

Putting the thought of her tablet aside, she retrieved the second envelope from within the foot locker and opened it up. Inside there were TDC identification cards for her and for Trey, a note and a small key. The cards had been issued many years before, while Mat was still alive. Elz had never seen these cards before, but again, all her ID data was retained in her tablet. There was never any need to carry an identification card when the tablet could be scanned by any Official using RFID. She held her card up, checking the details on it. Nothing looked out of place, but there was no way to know what was encoded in the Code on the card. Elz put the cards aside for later— she would scan them with the tablet once she went back upstairs.

The note was a short list of things to know about the property.

* All the upgrades are powered by electricity. The original cottage is not powered, for appearances sake. No lights from the expansions can be seen from outside the house.

* Generators are solar (panels are installed all around property), and hydro in stream on the far end of the property.

* Batteries are buried somewhere only Maji can access so they shouldn’t be vulnerable to damage or attack.

* Security panel down in safe-room controls every system so you can lock down the garage and shed from here.

* Key opens hidden panel in wall. Safe is opened by the security keypad.

There were a few more points, providing her with instructions for setting up the security system and guiding her through all the available options. She immediately went to set the security code for the system, and then opened the panel next to the keypad to find a small safe. Inside, there was a tablet and stacks of currency cards. Currency cards were coded with both a currency balance and the card owner’s identification for validation when presented— but also usually had some information on the card itself. These cards were nondescript, with no markings or designs other than the logos declaring that they were issued by various banks in Africa and Europe. There were no indications of their ownership or value and Elz was hard pressed to locate the data chips. Adding them to the “to be scanned” list for later, she powered up the tablet.

The tablet was… just a tablet. Nothing distinguished it from the one she used everyday. It booted in to the TDC system as normal and prompted Elz to sign in. She didn’t, opting instead to open the scanner app. She held up the first currency card to the tablet, her fingers dancing across the tablet’s surface as she scanned for the data chip. The info appeared immediately. Eight hundred thousand Euros blinked on the screen, her name, photo and fingerprints displayed neatly below the amount. She scanned one card after the other, each one with similar results; substantial amounts in varying currencies with her name or Trey’s attached.

Elz was still not completely absorbing it all. There were millions in the currency cards, all backed up by her biometric data, which made it almost impossible for the cards to be fake. Her first thought was that there was enough credits in the cards to purchase the property and live well without ever taking another job; but then she realised that after all her years of planning and hoping, the property was already hers and she hadn’t had to do anything to get it. Mat had acquired it, and spent a lot of time on renovations and expansions and making sure it was self-sufficient enough that they could live off the grid. She had been prepping for living outside of the cities, so she had a storeroom at the condo with her own cache of supplies. Added to the changes that Mat had made, they had enough seeds, gas canisters and weapons to last them a while, and knowledge of where to go to get more— although they would probably need reliable transportation to make it happen. Still, if she continued to work for the Creaux, then she could make transport a part of her agreements.

Pulling her thoughts back to the present, Elz scanned the ID cards. As she expected, nothing had changed. The data on the card matched her information. She wasn't sure why the cards had been included since they were no different than the tablet, but she put them away carefully, just in case.

Tossing the table, key and ID cards into the footlocker, she placed it all on the hydraulic platform and activated the lift from the security keypad. The platform rose up into a gap in the ceiling, and she quickly followed by climbing the ladder. In the bedroom, the flooring panel slid back to cover the safe-room entrance as she unfolded the Murphy bed to reveal the footlocker sitting on the headboard as it rotated into place.

Elz lifted the trunk by it’s handles and carried out of the room. Placing it in the middle of the floor in front of the fireplace, she walked outside to help with laying out the garden.