Gilles's home was an apartment on the outskirts of Porto Maná. It only had a kitchen, living room, and a bedroom, each just large enough to serve their function. Decorations included sculptures carved of wood or the remains of animals—mementos one might bring home from a visit to the Amazon or the African homeland back when forests and indigenous tribes existed. The kitchen reeked of powerful spices. His bedroom showed the most living. Laundry littered the floor. Books and magazines buried the bedside table. He clearly lived alone, but the many pictures showing a younger Gilles with a comely woman which implied that had not always been the case.

Currently, the coffee table in his living room had been pushed to one side to make room for a packing crate which had once held a military glider missile. The army had let him take it home to use as a makeshift terrarium.

It was the tortoise's new home. Gilles spent the afternoon preparing it. That involved reassembling the crate, lining it with a plastic tarp, then filling it with mulch and water. Winnie and Helena were inside now, camped in one corner. The other tortoise was opposite to them, exactly where Gilles first placed him. Only once had Winnie seen him move, and that was for the collard greens earlier. After eating his fill, he'd remained right where he was, too apathetic to return to his corner. How many years would it take until Winnie was like that too?

She had recovered from her emotional slump. Or rather she found she didn't think about her predicament as much if she spent her time focusing elsewhere. Sometimes she watched the television back on the military base.

Information came out irritatingly slow. Whenever the news learned a tidbit, they would repeat it every thirty minutes while replaying their most relevant footage. They constantly recapped what had been happening, as though someone might actually tuning in now who didn't already know that the head of the empire had been severed. When they weren't recapping, they brought on experts to share thoughts and predictions. It was all so vacuous.

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So Winnie started searching the military base instead. With the queen dead and no sign of Winnie ever being rescued, she had forgone Victoria's golden rule of never spying on the empire. It's not like she'd get in worse trouble.

She started first by drifting high above the base and looking down. The sun was setting, but the base was still on high alert. Soldiers drilled. Shuttles drifted along identical trajectories. Shuttles landed in lots outside offices. Larger crafts floated into hangars.

One building was a barracks. Beds neatly lined the long walls. All were empty at this hour. In a civilian office, people in business casual attire worked in cubicles. The only military were the soldiers at guard on the ground floor. Her targets weren't here; she moved on. It was jarring to refocus her projection instead of flying from building to building, but this was what Victoria had taught her to do. Flying was inefficient. Refocusing was faster. Winnie wasn't sure why she kept up the practice, but somehow it felt wrong to forgo the lessons the queen had left with her.

Then Winnie found them. Sakhr was in a hangar along with Alexander and Sibyl. Soldiers were unloading crates from a shuttle while they watched. Each crate was filled with twisted, charred items from the ruins of the Capital Tower. A forensics team would take each one and pour through the contents, scanning everything with clicking radiation sensors and bagging them for later study.

Sakhr seemed interested in particular boxes. As the forensics team cleared their contents, Sakhr motioned to a supervising Major, who then directed the boxes to be taken to a private room. It was here, away from the forensics team, that Sakhr examined the contents.

The sole fact that he wanted to look at these privately was reason enough for Winnie to keep watching. Perhaps she would spend the rest of her life spying on him. As painful as it was to watch her own body masquerading around causing mayhem, she might learn crucial information she could somehow use to her advantage. She didn't know how yet. Maybe such an opportunity would never arise, but if it did, she would be ready.

And so she watched...