Chapter 39: The Link
The snow here was undisturbed.
No footprints, no wind, just a wide open field of white against a grey sky, the kind of silence that exists only at high elevation. The mountain peaks in the distance were half-covered in cloud.
Iris was walking through it without feeling the cold, which was how she knew.
One of those again.
She said it quietly, not to anyone in particular.
The snow field dissolved.
The same mountain range, but different. Lower elevation. Warmer. The kind of afternoon that sits golden and unhurried and smells of pine and wood smoke. She recognized it before she could place why — something in the quality of the air, the specific angle of the light through the trees. A feeling more than a memory.
Then she saw the house.
Small, wooden, built like it was meant to last rather than impress. A single lamp visible through the window. She moved toward it without deciding to.
Through the glass she could see two people at a table. A girl of twelve sitting very straight, hands folded in front of her the way she'd been taught. Across from her, an older man with reading glasses pushed up on his wrinkled forehead, watching her with the particular patience of someone who had decided to wait as long as it took.
Iris watched herself.
"I have made my decision," the twelve year old said.
The old man — Simon Ashford — nodded once, slowly. His expression didn't change much. Just a settling.
The scene didn't continue.
The house, the light, the two figures — all of it folded away.
What replaced it was simple. Just a single length of cord suspended in open space, no beginning or end visible, pulled taut. It looked ordinary. Rough fiber, slightly worn. She reached out and pulled at it.
Nothing. Not even a creak.
Still strong as ever.
She let go.
A moment passed.
I shouldn't be feeling happy about that.
She was on her back when she opened her eyes, one hand resting across her forehead, the ceiling of her bedroom coming into focus above her.
The headache was already there, settled in behind her eyes with the dull persistence of something that had no intention of leaving quickly. She'd had it since yesterday evening.
A soft knock at the door.
"Come in."
Emilia entered carrying a small ceramic cup, the kind used specifically for the brewed blend Iris's physician had recommended for the headaches — made from rare ingredients. She was accompanied by one of the security staff as far as the doorway, who stopped there.
Emilia crossed the room and handed her the cup.
Iris sat up carefully and took a sip. It was the right temperature.
Even in this state, barely awake, hair loose against the pillow, one hand still resting across her forehead — there was something about her that the word beautiful didn't quite cover. It was more structural than that. The kind of face that artists spent careers trying to understand and never fully did. Emilia had been in her service long enough that it shouldn't register anymore. It still did.
"One of those dreams again?" Emilia asked.
"The result of forcing distance," Iris said. "It doesn't sit well." She took another sip. Emilia waited.
"I'll have to bear with it for now."
Two of the other attendants came in shortly after and helped Iris get ready. It was a quiet process. Nobody spoke unnecessarily.
At some point while she was standing before the mirror, one of the attendants adjusted the chain at her collarbone. Iris glanced down at what hung from it. A ring, small and clearly handmade — the kind of thing made by someone who had never made one before, the metalwork uneven, the proportions slightly off. She reached up and held it between her fingers for a moment, her thumb running once across the uneven surface. The thought of removing it crossed her mind briefly. Then let it fall back against her chest and said nothing.
By the time she was dressed and seated at the small table near the window, the headache had pulled back slightly.
She looked out at the grounds below. The morning was clear, the kind of cold that was clean rather than unpleasant.
"Have they decided?" she asked.
"They had no real choice," Emilia said, standing a few steps back with her tablet. "The dependency runs too deep at this point. America is effectively at your discretion in this regard."
Iris set the cup down. "Today's schedule."
Emilia opened the document on her tablet and began.
The tree was not big enough.
This was the central problem. Leon had identified it from fifteen meters away as a possible position — wide trunk, good cover, low branches for reference points — and had mentally committed to it while they were still running. Now that he was actually pressed against it with Emma on one side and Fred on the other, it was clearly not big enough for three people.
"Move left," Fred said, barely above a whisper.
"I am left," Emma whispered back.
"Further left."
"There's a root."
"Go over the root."
"I'm going over the root."
Leon had his eyes on the zone map, which was about as useful as it had been for the last two hours, not very much. They'd been moving almost continuously since the Laughing Kid notification, initially away from the two teams they'd spotted within the first twenty minutes of being declared Escapers, then away from a third group that had appeared from the east around the hour mark, and now away from what sounded like at least two people somewhere to the south who may or may not have actually seen them — Fred thought yes, Leon thought probably not, Emma had declined to offer an opinion on the grounds that she was too tired to have one.
The depot had opened an hour ago. Leon knew this because his band had given a routine notification at 6:00 AM he'd seen while running, which had felt somewhat cruel given the circumstances. Other participants would have been there at opening, collecting information templates and whatever items the depot was distributing. They had none of that.
What they did have was a reasonable sense of the western section of the zone, acquired entirely by accident through having moved through most of it at speed.
"Someone's going to see us here," Emma said.
"I know," Leon said.
"So why are we stopping."
"Because Fred needs thirty seconds."
Fred had one hand on his knee and was breathing harder than either of them. He held up a finger.
"I'm fine," he said.
"You said that ten minutes ago," Emma said.
"I was fine then too."
Leon looked at the map again. They'd gone the wrong direction — further from the depot, deeper into the western section, which was flatter and more open than the eastern terrain and therefore worse for hiding. The coast was maybe thirty minutes further west. Behind them, northeast, was everything useful.
"We need to stop moving randomly and pick a position," he said.
"I have been saying that For forty minutes” Emma said.
Fred had straightened up. "There." He pointed northwest, through a section of trees that looked denser than what they'd been moving through. "The canopy's heavier. Better cover."
Leon looked at it. Then at the map. Then back at the trees.
"Okay," he said.
They moved again, slower this time, watching the ground. The tree cover thickened as Fred had suggested, the light dropping as the canopy closed in overhead. The undergrowth thinned out at the same time, which meant quieter footing. After about four minutes the terrain dipped slightly and they came down into a natural hollow — a depression in the ground maybe two meters deep, surrounded on three sides by a dense wall of roots and fallen timber that had piled up and slowly grown over.
Leon stopped at the edge of it.
It was completely invisible from ten meters out.