As they slipped away through the woods and left Irelyn and Paige behind, Haley gave a quick glance toward the girl she was bringing along with her. The fact that she looked like that Evans kid was just wild. It kept making the slightly more criminal-leaning side of her mind go off on possibilities. Yes, yes, they were all possibilities she would never seriously pursue. Both because of the astronomically low likelihood that they’d actually work out in the long run, and because Irelyn would be upset if she talked Sierra into trying to rob the Evans by sneaking Sierra into the house as their daughter. Something something ethics.
Honestly, Haley wasn’t going to lose too much sleep thinking about the ethics of stealing from billionaires. But she would lose sleep thinking about Irelyn being angry with her after they had just managed to repair their relationship, at least somewhat. Besides, she liked this kid and didn’t really want to be the one to get her in trouble with people like the Evans. Especially after hearing about this whole Ministry thing. It didn’t actually surprise her, to be honest. Oh, she might not have called the Evans being in charge of it, but the rest fit just fine after everything she’d seen.
“Okay, whatever happens, listen to what I tell you.” While saying that, she pointed one finger that way. “Believe me, I know how tempting it can be to run off and deal with something yourself. It’s more efficient when it works, you don’t have to depend on someone you basically barely met, all the guys you’ve been dealing with so far are total chumps who deserve to have one little girl stunt all over them so they understand what unbelievable losers they are. And--” She coughed, face twisting. “Oh wait, I think I was supposed to be telling you why you shouldn’t go off on your own.”
A snort escaped the other girl, before Sierra waved her off. “I’m not gonna ditch you, chill. Even I know I can’t take on an entire army of those guys all by myself. Especially if that one in the power armor shows up, or anyone like him. We came up with a plan and I’m gonna follow it.” Her gaze shifted to look back over her shoulder in the direction they’d just come from when leaving the other two behind. “I’m not gonna leave Paige and Irelyn flapping in the breeze just to show off.”
By that point, the two of them had gotten about as close to the lake as they dared, after moving down the side of the hill. The trees and bushes were still obscuring their figures, but if they took even one more step forward, they would be in plain sight. Staying low, the pair began to move further around to put themselves as close as possible to the island they needed to get to without stepping into the open. With every step, they kept a close eye on the roaming boats and drones to check for absolutely any reaction. Haley used her binoculars echo to scan their faces often. None of them were reacting as though they had any idea there were people nearby. Actually, from what she was able to make out, the mercenaries seemed very focused on scanning the water below them with machines and were largely ignoring the surrounding land. They were trying to look for anything hidden down there. All while the actual entrance they wanted was right on that small island they kept getting closer to.
Seeing how close they were getting made Haley’s stomach clench. This wasn’t good. Any minute now, they were going to turn those scanners toward the right spot and find it immediately.
But no matter how much seeing that made her want to rush out there to deal with those guys before they could find that all-important entrance, it had to wait. She had to wait. She had to trust Irelyn to get that distraction going before it was too late. Yes, Irelyn knew what she was doing. She knew how important this was. Well, not how personally important it was. She didn’t know how much these people meant to Haley. It wasn’t really something the Sell-Touched woman talked about. But Irelyn knew she had to be quick. She and Paige would get that distraction going in time. Haley had to believe that. She had to force herself to take a breath and not run out there.
Instead, she crouched down between two overturned trees, next to a large boulder covered in moss and weeds, and stared that way. Any minute now, word would come from Irelyn and Paige, and after that, the distraction would start. No matter how good of a distraction it was, they would still only have a brief opening to get out there without being seen. They had to be ready to move.
“You really care about these people, don’t you?” Sierra noted in a hushed whisper from her spot nearby. She was squinting that way, clearly noticing the expression on Haley’s face despite any attempt the woman might’ve made to remain stoic. “How’d you meet them? I mean, we’ve got a couple minutes before those two get this going, so what happened?”
“A couple minutes, huh?” Haley shook her head at that, telling herself to keep her anxiety under control. Maybe talking about it really would help her pass the time without losing her mind. Or maybe it would make her even more impatient. It was hard to say. But now that Sierra had asked, she might as well get into it a bit. Maybe then she’d have an easier time getting into the details with Irelyn later, if she talked it through with this kid she barely knew first. Worth a shot.
So, as they knelt there and watched the mercs out on the water as well as the small drones hovering right over it, Haley quietly told this Biolem girl about how she had met the Adherents. Which meant actually admitting just how badly her attempt to live out on her own had gone.
“Pretty bad out there on your own when you’re sixteen and don’t have anyone to trust, huh?” Sierra guessed as soon as the woman started to get into it and admitted it had been so soon in her ‘freedom’ that things had begun to go sideways. “I uh, I might’ve thought about it myself. You know, before deciding I actually liked Paige and the rest of those guys enough to stick around for the long term and try to make it work. I was going to go live my own life far away from all of this.”
“The first few days weren’t bad,” Haley noted, her mind going back to that time. “I stowed away in the back of a couple trucks, then hitchhiked even further until I made it up here. I figured the last place those people would look for me is right inside Irelyn’s family’s cabin out in the middle of nowhere. I could stay out of sight, lay low for a few weeks, change my appearance, and go from there. I had plenty of money with me, supplies, everything. It should’ve been so easy to lay low.”
A sigh escaped her. “And it was, at first. Those first days, hanging out in that cabin all by myself were pretty great. Even if I--” She stopped herself from talking about the thick knot of guilt she’d felt any time she thought about the look on Irelyn’s face when her friend had learned that she was leaving, that she had switched sides and wasn’t going to be a hero alongside her anymore. No, she wasn’t going to get into how often she’d sat with one of the pictures of Irelyn that had been hanging up in the cabin settled into her lap, practicing her apologies. Haley might’ve decided to tell this girl some of how that had gone, but she sure as hell wasn’t going to get into those sorts of emotional details. That would be just between her and the dirt she was eventually buried in.
Instead, she went on with the rest of the story. “I was--well to be honest, I was taken by surprise when this guy showed up at the cabin after those first few days. I was asleep upstairs when he came in. I just heard the door open and this annoying chirpy whistling. He wasn’t there looking for me or anything. He wasn’t really looking for anyone. As far as I could tell, he was just doing some sort of a routine check to make sure everything was cool in there. Sounds like he did it every month or so, and the Banners paid him some piddly bonus or something just for making sure the cabin hadn’t burned down or been infested with rodents while they were gone. Someone else came up to clean every month too, another thing I found out later. It was a real pain in the ass.”
Before she could continue, Sierra cocked her head to the side and spoke up. “Right, they’re about halfway there. Paige says they’ll need time to start drawing attention, and that we should--ahem, not get impatient and do something stupid just because it’s taking a minute.”
“If they get to the island before those two are ready, I’m going in anyway,” Haley informed her flatly. “You can stay here. But I’m not abandoning those people just because it’s dangerous.”
“Eh,” Sierra shrugged. “You only live once, right? But hey, you were talking about how you met them. Which apparently came after the housesitter showed up and chased you out of the cabin.”
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Haley made a huffing sound at that. “He never even knew I was there. I wasn’t that much of an amateur. But yeah, I did have to get out of there pretty quick. I was afraid if he reported anything about my appearance, Irelyn’s dad would figure it out and I’d have a whole army on my tail trying to drag me back to Detroit. So I got out of there without him seeing me. But I uhh…” She sighed. “I left my stuff behind. Including the bag of money that was supposed to be my nest egg, and other shit I had in it. Clothes, extra phones, just all my supplies. I think that neighbor took it. Dunno what he thought of the other stuff, but he kept the money and, as far as I know, never said anything to the Banners about any of it. Maybe he assumed it was some sort of emergency ‘go bag’ or something that they left out, I dunno. But he kept it, like it was fair payment for watching the cabin or something. Wherever his fucking mind was, he took my money and disappeared. I couldn’t exactly go into town and start asking everyone I saw where this guy lived, you know?”
“Must’ve set you back a bit,” Sierra muttered under her breath. “That would’ve pissed me off.”
“Tell me about it.” Haley shook her head at the memory, cursing softly before continuing. “But I couldn’t think about that at the time. I had to leave the cabin and get the hell out of there pretty damn quick. Remember, right then, I didn’t exactly know why the guy was there. I figured out most of this later. At the time, I was kind of panicked about why he just showed up like that. I ran into the woods and…” She hesitated, the admission refusing to make it all the way past her lips.
“Got a bit lost?” Sierra guessed with a visible wince while both of them watched one of the boats that had come close enough to the shore to make out the annoyed faces of the men aboard who were still intently scanning every inch of the water. They definitely needed Paige and Irelyn to hurry up with that distraction. Getting out to that island without it was going to be impossible.
Haley didn’t respond until the boat had moved on. Yes, they were still pretty far away, too far for anyone normal to hear even a normal tone of voice, let alone a whisper, but still. It was better to be safe than sorry. Finally, she continued. “Yeah, you could say I got lost. Really fucking lost. I was just a city girl, powers or no powers, and I ran out of that cabin without taking a phone, a jacket, anything. I didn’t know how to find my way out of that damn forest. Every tree looked the same. I was completely turned around. Then it started raining and--fuck, it was bad. It got dark and wet and pretty goddamn scary, to be totally honest. There I was, so fucking confident, so arrogant when I left Detroit, and within a week and a half, I was lost out there in the trees in the middle of the night, with no idea how to get back to real civilization. I was soaked, scared, hungry, all of it. That was a bad time.”
Yeah, it was definitely easier to admit this to Sierra than it would’ve been to tell Irelyn the entire truth. This was decent practice for that, because she was pretty sure once this whole thing was over, her old friend was going to insist on being told this story. She’d want to know how Haley met these people, and why they were important to her. Important enough to get this emotional about the whole situation.
Swallowing at the thought, she pushed on. “I was alone, cold, wet, and sort of curled up in the crook of this old dead tree. It was still raining, and I was trying to use the cover of the tree to build a little fire with my lighter echo, but--well, let’s just say it wasn’t exactly easy to get rain-soaked wood to light properly. Nothing was working, and I was getting more and more frustrated. That’s when those guys showed up. It was a group from the Adherents. They’d just been out for a hike when they were caught in the rain and were trying to get back to this lake right here. The tree I was cowering in was…. um, maybe a quarter mile that way. I had no idea the lake even existed. Let alone that there was a portal to a nice, perfectly warm Tech-Touched enclave right there.”
Chuckling darkly at the thought, she pushed on. “Anyway, the guy in the lead basically tripped right over me before either of us had any idea the other was there. It freaked me right the hell out and I tried to run, but I uh, yeah, I slipped on a wet log and went down hard. Managed to twist my ankle in the process. Yeah, some big-shot Sell-Touched I was, right? It was not my finest hour.”
She let that hang in the air for a moment before continuing. “I was seriously about to completely lose it and throw it down with all of them. I wasn't exactly in the best mindset to stay calm. For all I knew, these people had been sent by the Banners to track me down. I was going for a fight when I realized that like half of them were kids younger than me. And they were freaking out just as much as I was. It was dark, there was rain everywhere, the wind kept blowing the water in our faces, it was a whole thing. And seriously, it wasn't like they had expected to come across some soaking wet, terrified, violent Touched girl in the middle of nowhere. They thought I was some sort of monster.”
She was interrupted briefly by the other two checking in to let them know they had arrived at the old ghost town village and would be starting the distraction any moment. Which would hopefully mean that those guys out on the lake were about to get enough panicked calls to go running off.
In the meantime, Haley finished her story succinctly. “So I stopped trying to kick their asses and let them talk. They figured out I was lost and that I wasn't supposed to be out there. And that I was a Touched. I kind of gave that away in that first little confrontation. But they said I could come with them. We hiked to the lake, crossed in a little boat, and went through the portal. They showed me how to access it myself so I could come and go whenever I wanted. I even tested it more than a few times in those first couple days to make sure they wouldn't try to lock me in. But mostly I just stayed there for weeks, in their compound. They figured out pretty quickly who I was, that I was a runaway Minority member from Detroit. Still, they didn’t try to make me go back. They helped me get back on my feet, gave me a place to stay until I was ready to be on my own for real. And they let me come back to hang around any time I wanted to. I uh--I haven’t done that in awhile now, but I did in those first couple years. They really bailed me out when I needed someone.” Her face darkened a bit. “And I’m sure not gonna let these fucks get to them now.”
Sierra was obviously about to say something to that, but before she could, Haley gave her a nudge and pointed. “Look, right out on that second boat.” Sure enough, they could see several men standing up and staring off in the direction that Paige and Irelyn had gone, while one of them was talking rather agitatedly on a radio. There was clearly an argument going on. But apparently the guy on the boat lost it, because he slammed the radio down and began barking orders to the others. Immediately, that boat and almost all of the rest, save one, went right for shore. Meanwhile, the drones flew off like hornets shooting out of a nest to chase an aggressor. The guys on the boats jumped out, landing on shore before sprinting toward an assortment of motorcycles and ATVs that were sitting around. Soon, the engines were roaring and they were on their way, leaving only that single boat still on the lake to continue scanning the water.
“Well,” Sierra noted dryly while watching them leave, “I guess the distraction worked. Mostly.”
Haley was nodding while starting to move to the right through the bushes, further out of the line of sight of the people on the last remaining boat. “Yeah, now let’s take advantage of it while we can. Go on my mark. Just don’t let them see us, or the whole thing is gonna be for nothing. Can you hold your breath for a couple minutes so we can stay under the water the whole way out there?”
The question made Sierra snort, even as she quickly followed. “Oh yeah, I’m pretty sure I’m good on that front. Biolems need to breathe somewhat, but we can go for a good long time without.”
They both watched the other boat intently. There were five people on it, most of them distracted by staring off the way their companions had gone. But not all of them. One last guy was glancing around, almost like he knew there must be something else going on. Finally, one of the others said something to him, and he turned to respond. That was the moment, their opening. Immediately, Haley hissed, “Go.” Then they were off, sprinting silently across the short distance to the water while staying as low as possible. They reached it a moment later, the small, gentle waves lapping against their feet before they sprang forward and down, disappearing under the water within a couple strokes before the man could look back that way.
The water was shockingly cold, but neither of them paid attention to that. They swam out, keeping far enough under the surface to not let their motion disturb the surface and draw attention. Bit by bit, the two of them got closer to the island in question. It wasn’t very big, making the troops’ lack of attention to it more understandable. The entire ‘island’ was barely large enough for two grown men to lay across it from one end to the other. About twelve feet or so in each direction. Barely more than a large rock covered in grass and weeds, really. And other rocks.
Raising her head just enough to peek out of the water and across the island to the boat, Haley made sure no one was looking their way. Then she reached across to a small, innocuous-looking patch of dirt and brushed it off to reveal what appeared to be a thumbprint pad. Pressing her finger against it, she waited as it scanned much more than her print. A tingle ran through her entire body. Finally, part of the ground slid aside with a near-silent whoosh, revealing a ramp leading underground.
“Okay, kid,” she whispered, giving Sierra a tug up and out of the water, “let’s get in there.”
The two of them quickly moved to the ramp and down out of sight. Over their heads, the ground closed up, completely covering the entrance and leaving it looking like an ordinary, tiny island in the middle of the lake once more. They had made it to the bunker where the portal was. But the lake was only so big, and even with only one boat searching, it wouldn’t take long before they located the entrance themselves.
Then things would become much more complicated.