Eveline looked at me, her face a mask of anger, and the bond between us echoed a sense of fury that was directed at those faceless individuals who were exploiting people like Eveline in the first place.

It matched my own fury.

"How far away is it?" Eveline asked immediately.

"Eveline," Laurent hesitated. "Are you sure you wish to discuss this?"

"Yes," she said, her expression determined. "No-one should have to go through what I did."

"Alright," Laurent told her. "But I need to warn you. New Salem is off of Rick's projected mission route. Given the-"

"I'm in," I interrupted Laurent, my own resolve solidified. After what I experienced in Eveline's mind, I wasn't going to sit by if I could deal with these bastards. "Let's get that objection out of the way."

Eveline's expression was stunned for a moment, then she pushed herself up and out of the chair, her face set in an intense, almost stony expression. I also stood automatically, intending to pull her into a hug, having no idea how I knew that was what she was going for; yet as she approached me, her eyes closed, and she pulled me close, holding me so tightly, I was concerned she might fracture my ribs.

"Thank you," Laurent told me, as Eveline kissed the side of my face with so much pressure, I was sure it would leave a bruise. "Get to Orange Municipal Airport as quickly as you can. Someone will meet you, and you can plan the mission from there."

Laurent then read off the GPS coordinates for the airport, and my nanocloud processed them to give me an absolute position on its map. Despite having never been there, and having no maps for the region, I still knew precisely how far away the waypoint was, and roughly how long we would need if we could maintain a steady pace.

"I'll make sure we're both ready," Eveline said, her tone choked, before she buried her face in my neck and squeezed me hard. "Thank you, my love," she whispered.

"For you," I said in an equally rough tone, feeling the welling of determination and a surfeit of love course through me. "Anything."

"Alright," Laurent's tone brought us back to our surroundings, and Eveline pulled away, but only enough to wipe her eyes and then pull me back into a hug. "You're in Middlebury. New Salem has to be two hundred kilometres away? That's going to take at least two days if you leave now. I won't hold you to that, if you run into any difficulties, we'll have to re-assess, but as soon as you get there, go to the airport and wait in the control tower."

"Got it," I told Laurent. "Who are we meeting?"

"I don't know for sure. I'll be speaking with my contact later today, and I'll let them know who to expect."

I let out a breath, as I hugged Eveline a little tighter. "We'll leave as soon as we can wrap things up here," I told Laurent, as Eveline lifted her head up and sniffled once again, stroking my face.

"We can be out of here in half an hour," she added.

"Alright, I'll leave you to prepare," Laurent said in closing. "Take care, both of you."

"Speak to you soon, dad."

The line then went dead, and Eveline squeezed me once more, kissing my lips. I could taste the salty moisture that had seeped onto her lips as I returned the kiss enthusiastically.

----------------------------------------

Our check-out time was less than twenty minutes, a record for us. Soon, we were back on the road, both of one mind, both determined to get to New Salem to find out about this breeding facility that had popped up in the recent past.

For the next two days, we pushed ourselves onward, making a hundred and forty kilometres in the first fourteen hours, barely stopping to take much-needed breaks, or to set up tenting to sleep. We took ourselves off of the roads and distanced ourselves from the trail by a few kilometres in order to avoid any chance of being discovered while we were sleeping, and this paid off, allowing both of us some uninterrupted sleep.

Finally, in the middle of the following afternoon, we arrived near the airport, and headed for the control tower. The airport looked like it was unmanned, but the electrical systems were still running, suggesting that this was still used for flights. No-one was present, so we waited in the tower overlooking the airfield.

We watched as two flights landed on the air field. The first had come in from the west, was a two-seater that private pilots often used, and glided in over Runway One-Four - named as such in this instance because the plane was landing south-east at about a hundred forty degrees on the compass - before taxiing off to a zone on the opposite edge of the field.

The second one was a larger jet, a private aircraft that wouldn't look out of place in the fleet of a billionaire in the old world, and it was unbranded, retaining only a tail designation that most likely meant nothing in this new world. It approached from the south, also glided to a landing on Runway Zero-One, coming to a halt near the tower-side airfield where a couple of other aircraft remained inactive. Barely had it come to a halt, when three people exited the plane.

The first was a human woman I'd never seen before, someone who looked rather Amazonian in her appearance, wrapped in loose fitting light clothing with a crossbow slung over her back, her platinum hair trailing behind her, as she stepped off of the integrated stairwell to the ground, soon to be followed by the other two passengers.

I recognised them immediately.

So did Eveline.

Leaping to her feet with an expression of surprise, she sprinted to the stairwell leading to the ground from the tower, and I quickly followed her. Both of us reached the ground floor within seconds, and as the door slammed open, Eveline launched into the fastest sprint I had ever seen her take. She reached the two beast folk before I had a chance to blink, and as she tackled the feminine wolf hybrid, the male wolf man clapped her on the back, pulling them into hugs. The human soon joined the group, and before I knew it, they all collapsed to the ground.

I soon reached them, surprise coursing through me; Eveline had a tight hold on Amélie, who let out a yelp, then a whine, before laughing and sniffling into Eveline's golden mane. Philippe grinned hugely, as he gave both women a reassuring squeeze, while the Amazonian woman laughed as though confused.

"Hello, sister," Eveline said in a choked voice before squeezing Amélie, who let out a very canine whine and buried her face in her hands, her shoulders shaking while Philippe and the Amazonian wrapped her in hugs of their own.

"Hi guys," I said gently, after waiting a few minutes.

The Amazonian jumped up in surprise, looking at me with a wary expression, but Philippe strode forward, clapping his hand on my shoulder like an old friend, the grin on his face infectious. Amélie leapt to her feet and bounded over to wrap me in an enthusiastic squeeze, giggling and sobbing at the same time, and Eveline wrapped her arms around my waist, leaning in to kiss me on the cheek, letting out a contented sigh as she did.

"Didn't I tell you she was worth it?" Amélie said, laughing and crying at the same time, as she buried her snout in my chest.

"Know-it-all," I laughed, as I gave her a reassuring squeeze, turning my face to Eveline and leaning forward to kiss her lips.

We separated after a few more minutes, Amélie wiping her eyes, shaking herself out, then turning to Eveline. "How are you feeling?" She asked.

"Free!" Eveline exclaimed. "I'll tell you all about it when there's time."

"Nuh, come on!!" Philippe laughed. "You can't leave us in suspense like that!"

"Patience, my friend," Eveline giggled. "Isn't that what you keep telling us?"

"When did you get so playful?" Philippe groused. "I thought cats were mean!"

"Cats are mean," Eveline laughed. "We're also playful. Just ask my bond mate."

"B-Bond mate?" Amélie gasped, her eyes wide with shock. "You actually did it?"

I had no idea what "it" was, but it seemed to have significance to everyone here.

Eveline hugged into me, rubbing her head against my chest as she breathed "yes".

The Amazonian stared at me, a look of shock on her face, and all she said was "Wow". Philippe grinned at me, before stepping over to her side and wrapping her with his huge arms, whispering words I made no effort to hear or listen to.

The noise levels kicked up, causing me to look toward the jet they flew in, as it started to taxi forward. We all stood back as it then looked to find a place to park.

Amélie hugged Eveline, who put up no resistance, instead wrapping her own arms around the canine. "I feel so different, now," Eveline said softly. "I can't explain it."

"I know," Amélie replied. "It's wonderful though, isn't it?"

"Part of me wants to scratch his face off," she groused, a look of irritation warring with one of joy. "Part of me feels like melting into a puddle on the floor!"

I looked over to Philippe, who was busy stroking the Amazonian's hair, while she wrapped her arms around him, and I wondered if this woman was the one they spoke of the last time we all met. Looking back at Amélie, she caught me staring at Philippe and the Amazonian, and gave me a broad wink as she and Eveline separated.

"I forget my manners!" Amélie exclaimed, as Eveline stepped by my side and took me by the hand. "Rick, come over and meet Caitlynne!"

I thought so, I said to myself, and walked with Amélie to join Philippe, who was giving Caitlynne an intimate, yet chaste kiss. "Caitlynne, this is Rick," he told her softly. "He has managed to capture and tame Eveline's heart!"

I immediately held both hands up in surrender, knowing that Eveline's face took on an expression of annoyance. "Eveline's never going to be tame," I laughed, and she looked at me with an irritated look, pinching my sides and letting out a growl. "See?"

Caitlynne let out a quiet laugh, as Eveline pinched my side one more time, before taking my hand and hugging herself against my arm. "Good to finally meet the guy that these two pups have been singing praises about!"

I was astonished. They were singing my praises? I hadn't done anything to warrant any praise, and it confused me. "It's nothing special," I said weakly.

"Oh, shut up," Eveline barked. "You don't know your own worth!"

"I know you're worth the world to me," I whispered to her. "Stripes!"

"Shut up, Rick!" She groused in a trembling voice, as it broke an octave in embarrassment, while her face flushed under her fur coat. "Not in front of the others!"

"This is so adorable!" Caitlynne and Amélie both exclaimed at the same time, causing Eveline to mutter under her breath.

"Well, I don't know about you guys," Philippe called out in the next moment. "But I'm hungry. Anyone want to go set up a table? We've brought a lot of supplies with us!"

We returned to the tower, taking up what likely used to be a conference zone in the centre of the tower room, as Philippe pulled up his backpack, pulling out some items whose utility I had no idea of.

At the same time, someone else stepped into the room, startling me but surprising none of the others. He was a tall, willowy human with dark hair and dark eyes, a somewhat nerd-ish look, but like everyone else in this world, he looked young and healthy. He also carried a rather large plastic box that seemed to radiate heat.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

"Thanks, Thierry," Philippe greeted the newcomer. "Need any supplies before we set off?"

"Yes, please," the newcomer told Philippe. "Monsieur Cuisset has asked that I remain with the jet while you execute your mission."

Philippe took the box and set it in the middle of our table, then walked to the stairwell with Thierry, engaging the man in quiet conversation. Amélie stepped over to the box and unlatched it, throwing open the lid. "Hot coffee and some cake," she told us with a canine grin. "Dig in!"

We took our time with our refreshments, any conversation practically nonexistent. Once we were finished, Amélie spoke.

"As much as we would love to spend time catching up," she began. "Our mission here is time-sensitive, so we need to get started right away."

Eveline's attention was unwavering, as she sat and listened.

"One of our contacts in the area managed to trace regular shipments of various items to the town of New Salem," Amélie began to explain. "Your father asked us to keep an eye on it, so the contact set up camp near the town for a week."

"Who's in charge of this?" Eveline asked.

Amélie nodded toward Caitlynne. "It's not the first mission she's run on the ground, as you know," she told Eveline. "And while we won't have a lot of support here, we can move some caretakers to rescue any cubs we find on the site once we've taken care of the captors and those in charge."

Not knowing anything at all about how these things went, I kept quiet, listening instead to the conversation between the other four.

Caitlynne spoke up, all business. "We need to infiltrate," she started. "The contact camping here will help us coordinate and lay out as much as he knows about the site. We should also have details of movements in and out by the time we're ready to move."

"We have some basic numbers already," Amélie spoke up. "Twenty guards have been sighted going in and out, but that was over the last two days from the info we were given before take-off."

"Wait," I interrupted them. "How are you guys able to communicate that information across continents? I was under the impression that the only working telecommunications technology still working right now were telephone lines between the continents."

Philippe spoke up. "That's what we know as well. It leads to some lengthy phone calls, especially when we have to speak in code."

That was a risk, in my opinion. If everyone possessed a nanocloud, and I certainly had no evidence that anyone was alive who didn't, then they had access to computational resources that would easily track and decypher any spoken code in no time at all. "Isn't that redundant?" I asked.

"I'm not sure I understand," Philippe countered, a puzzled frown on his face.

"One of the things that was taught to me when I was alive in the old world was cryptography. It was very basic, but part of it included the history of early encryption in our society."

Philippe's frown deepened. "Right?"

"During the second world war, the war machine of Germany annexed an encryption model from civilian business that they called Enigma. It was a relatively simple machine by today's standards, and while their attempts to camouflage their communications to varying degrees over the course of the war, Enigma was eventually broken by a team spanning England and Poland, leading to a change in the direction of the war."

"Encryption can be broken," Philippe commented, his frown easing, but his expression still remained puzzled. "We already suspected this."

"The problem is that the machines were simple, and the computational ability of the nanocloud in every individual on the planet can easily defeat such methods. What are you guys using to encrypt your messages? Something you are memorising off the top of your head? A rotating alphabet that you can easily remember? I can guarantee you that some of those methods can easily be broken."

Philippe nodded, understanding. "I understand the concern now," he said. "But we don't use anything so simple. A method of translation from voice to amplitude modulated data transfer is employed."

"Well done for Dial-Up," I quipped, and while Philippe, Amélie and Caitlynne frowned at me in confusion, Eveline let out a snort. "It's an old technology that was phased out in favour of far faster protocols, but it's one that's effective and can be used across ordinary phone lines if both ends of the conversation can handle the signals."

"I suspect it's similar," Caitlynne volunteered. "Sounds like a cat scratching its claws down a chalk-board, right?"

Eveline frowned at Caitlynne, and I wondered if there was something going on with those two, but she turned back to me and touched my hand briefly. In that moment, I received an audio file which I immediately played back through my nanocloud, hearing a muted version of the communication protocol in the back of my mind.

It certainly sounded very similar to an old dial-up, although I suspected the transmission and data standards were different.

I nodded to Eveline. "Sounds the way I'd expect," I said. "It also means that anything encoded within can be encrypted any way that an active computational system is capable of handling."

"Indeed," Philippe said. "Anyone with the encryption function can make the call. Their close proximity to the phone line means their nanocloud can intercept the vocal signal and encode it before re-transmission to the phone line again for its journey to the other side."

My nanocloud prompted me with a suggestion.

Analysis of your memory engrams for the prior era to this one indicates familiarity with dial-up networking and several associated systems that employ different protocols to those used by the other persons in your vicinity.

The following protocols are known of, but the specifics of their implementation are not.

FidoNET.

ARPANet.

Additional protocols based on region-specific networking utilising dial-in protocols existed, and may be simpler to implement.

The concept of a Bulletin Board System is known, and new data transmission standards may serve the purpose admirably. Recommend discussion with your colleagues.

I couldn't agree more, I thought to myself, though I suspected my nanocloud took it as an acknowledgement as well. I decided I would raise this subject with Laurent or Philippe at a later date, rather than continue taking this conversation down the tangent it had already gone down, so I turned back to Amélie.

"Sorry," I told her. "I derailed that entire conversation. You were telling us the numbers at the suspected facility?"

"Yes," Amélie took up her part of the report again. "Twenty people on a rotating guard watch. There were six distinct people all working in some technical capacity at the site. Maybe they're geneticists? We don't know. There were also eight others who we suspect are doing the daily work of herding the cubs around and trying to... Get them to do whatever it is they do."

"You mean, to groom them," I suggested.

Amélie frowned, clearly confused.

Eveline spoke up. "I only learned of this about a week back," she began. "but Grooming is an old-world term for when someone in a position of power over another, coerces, guides or otherwise influences someone who is powerless, into a situation in which they accept the abuse that is carried out against them in the future." She looked to me, frowning slightly. "I'm not sure if I'm explaining it too well."

"That wasn't a bad explanation, actually," I told her, turning to the others. "Basically, when we say that one person is grooming another, they are influencing them into being receptive to a situation in which they will be sexually abused. It's an old-world term that was often specifically applied to adults meeting with children in order to have sex with them, and as you might imagine, in our society it was considered a crime."

"For good reason," Caitlynne growled.

I nodded, remembering the memories I'd seen from Eveline's past. Just remembering what I saw made me feel somewhat sick, and I was thus surprised when Eveline took my hand under the table and gave it a gentle squeeze. "Let's just say that stopping these kinds of people was a never-ending task for police when I lived in the old world."

Amélie continued, her face grim. "It's why we're here," she said, her voice firm, her expression determined. "Now we need to confirm these numbers, which means we need to send people inside."

"How did we get the details of what we know already?" I asked.

"The local contact in this town has been feeding us information for a few days now," Philippe told us. "But he can't infiltrate the site alone."

"Who is this contact?" Eveline asked.

"All I have is a code name," Caitlynne told her. "Cam."

That could mean anything, I thought to myself. "Do we have an idea how we're getting in?"

Amélie spoke up again. "Yes," she began. "When Cam gets here, we want to send in a group of humans on the pretext of evaluating some of the cubs for future purchase."

Everyone, including me, greeted her prosaic words with varying levels of distaste and revulsion. Eveline looked sick.

"We're getting them out," Philippe told her. "Tomorrow, if we can, but no later than three days from now at the latest."

Eveline looked at him with a puzzled expression on her face. "How can we be sure of that? Do you have some infrastructure in place?"

"We do," he told her.

"Your father also wants to move ahead with his plan to set up a command structure here," Amélie continued. "This latest round of breeding facilities has accelerated his plans, and he's seeking military advisors to oversee the strategic side of things."

I wondered if he had plans to ask Rosalie if she wanted to take part. My opinion was conflicted. Rosalie was trusted by my sister, and had devoted forty years of her life to Dani's happiness and health. She had also served her country's military pre-outbreak, and knew a lot of military tactics at the low-to-mid level. However, she had also seen a lot of action in her time, and it had taken a toll on her. She most likely had no intention of returning to such a life, not even for a cause such as this.

I hoped I could speak to them about this before Laurent did.

"As if he doesn't already have enough to deal with," Eveline groused. "What about that infrastructure project to get a vehicular transport system up and running across the continent again?"

Amélie looked askance at Eveline. "I didn't think you had much interest in that project."

Eveline gave a careless shrug. "Normally, I wouldn't be," she said quietly. "But I still know it's going to be a time-consuming project for anyone who watches over it."

"You know," I interjected. "I've been wondering about the absence of certain types of infrastructure in the world in the forty-or-so years since I was put into cold sleep."

I had everyone's attention, now. "How so?" Philippe asked.

"Well," I began, frowning in thought. "There's still a working telephony network that surprisingly works across continents. I'd wondered if that was because the cabling is still in place. Electricity exists in some towns, but not in all, and I wonder how it's generated now. It can't be by fuel sources such as coal, gas or nuclear fuel. Who's maintaining those factories? I've heard little about those, and the easy access to news and information I enjoyed in the old world no longer exists.

"Then, there's the total lack of vehicles on roads these days. I can count on one hand the number of wheeled vehicles across two major continents that I've travelled in the last few months, whereas I was raised in a world where such vehicles were practically everywhere, and nearly everyone owned one. While personal vehicular transport might not be needed any longer given the circumstances, I'm sure that the infrastructure of local towns and cities would have collapsed without high volume freight."

"I would bet that the only reason people haven't been dying en masse over the last forty years," Caitlynne added. "Is because most were killed during the outbreak and the war that followed."

Just being reminded of those years was a sobering thought, even for me, and I had slept through them all. "I'm still surprised no-one has tried to get some of it up and running again."

"It's been tried," Amélie replied to me. "There are many problems to overcome. First, manufacturing needs to be restarted. A lot of the knowledge needed to make some of these technologies was lost along with the people who possessed it."

"But we lived in the Information Age," I protested. "You could practically access the blueprints for anything, if you knew where to look."

"Perhaps you had access in your era," Eveline told me. "But the Internet hasn't existed for a long time. That kind of information access just doesn't exist any more."

"Wait," Amélie looked at her, confused. "What's an Internet? And how did you learn of it?"

The explanation took a while, but I explained the concept of international networking that had developed over the decades I'd been alive, and how it had become a ubiquitous tool for information transfer and storage for billions. The loss of such a pervasive information infrastructure had more far reaching implications than even I had imagined, and I actually lived in an era where I had access to it. The people in this room with me had never known of it. Eveline had only picked up the concept when Dani transferred some basic terminology and their knowledge to her while we stayed in Quebec.

"Nevertheless, getting all of these industries back up and running is going to take a lot of time," I echoed my thoughts. "With slightly more than a thousandth of our peak population from the old world, there just isn't enough manpower to get things done quickly."

"It'll take time, but it'll happen," Philippe remarked. "We've already managed to find some engineers from the old world and brought them to Eindhoven. They're working with us on new projects."

"Frankly, I'm amazed there are any aircraft up and running."

"Yeah," Eveline told me. "That was a priority for father. People can walk and run thanks to increased fitness levels and having a nanocloud, but that doesn't do anyone any good when it comes to crossing continents. Having an air fleet to get from one continent to another so we could coordinate more quickly with our people around the world meant we needed air travel. That's why we can field aircraft but there are no cars on the roads."

"I imagine the lack of computational systems is purely because our nanoclouds have made them obsolete," I guessed.

"I imagine," Eveline told me.

"What's a computatinal system?" Philippe asked.

Eveline explained the concept in layman's terms. She was actually bloody good at explaining these concepts despite her knowledge of them having come from a secondhand source.

There was a knock at the door near the ground level. My enhanced hearing picked it up, as well as the oddly specific pattern that was used.

"That'll be Cam," Amélie announced. "I'll go let him in."

"Meanwhile, we still need to plan how to get into this breeding facility," Caitlynne took over the conversation. "Our standard plan of action so far has always been to send in some humans to infiltrate, maybe posing as potential buyers for the cubs and infants that are being kept there, then to get a layout of the place as we're shown around and the young ones paraded in front of us like cattle... It gets more difficult each time we do it, though."

I frowned, perplexed. "Why?"

"The knowledge gets out somehow, that they've been raided, and the others become suspicious. Posing as a buyer needs some forethought and careful planning, which is why we've needed long term plants, like Cam."

"Once we have a layout of the place and some numbers on guards, what then?" I asked. "Do we withdraw and regroup to plan our next steps?"

"That won't be possible this time," a new voice issued from the doorway.

Standing with Amélie was a face I had not expected to come across in my travels. A tall, unassuming man with a lean, wiry build and clear, dark-green eyes, blonde hair and a fresh, youthful look. His nanocloud was fairly dense, but that wasn't what surprised me.

What surprised me was the fact that he was immediately flagged as a match for one of the Synergy volunteers.

The man's name was Scott Ross Cameron.