She received a share request. After accepting, green swaths appeared on the overhead map, surrounded by red. Both areas revolved to follow the movements of the satellites and the drones.
On the street outside the SUV, the ground in front of the lean-tos on the right became hued green, as did the walls of the lean-tos themselves. Everything else outside was red. The green bands slowly grew slimmer with each passing moment as the spy satellites continued up the horizon.
The team members distributed the canteens and rations stowed aboard the SUV and exited the vehicle on the right side, entering the green zone. They proceeded at a hurried crouch, following the ever-thinning strip of green that resided next to the buildings.
A narrow, pedestrian only side street opened on the right. It was completely green. The group sprinted along its tight confines, until they arrived at the safe house: a nondescript lean-to, indistinguishable from all the others. The only reason she knew they arrived was because of her HUD, which overlaid a blue dot on the door.
She knocked on the door. A thin panel slid open at eye level, and wild eyes stared back at her. Then the door opened, and an old man with disheveled hair beckoned them inside.
Rhea and the others entered and took shelter on the far side of the lean-to, which opened into a common courtyard shared with the other buildings nearby. If she needed to escape in a pinch, the rooftops were low enough for her to reach in a single vault with her powerful legs. Horatio would make the jump, too, but the rest of her friends would probably have to stay behind, if it came to it.
The old man distributed refreshments, and was very reverential toward Rhea, constantly bowing before her, and proceeding any questions or comments with “begging the Warden’s pardon.” She smiled patiently at him, not wanting to offend the man, but also not wanting to encourage him. Truly, such treatment made her uncomfortable.
Horatio only donned the special AR visor periodically to get updates from the other Wardenites. The robot would put it on, and after receiving a situation report, Horatio would immediately remove it, shutting down the connection. After all, while the cyber obfuscation technique was nearly impossible to trace, there was still a chance that a determined enemy could find them, if he, she or it knew what to look for. Horatio intended to minimize that risk, at Rhea’s encouraging.
“Just heard from Jairlin,” Horatio said after about an hour of maintaining such sporadic contact. “We can’t stay here. The security forces are engaging in house-to-house searches, expanding outward from the neighborhood of the headquarters. They’ll eventually search every lean-to and cargo container in Rust Town.”
“We have to leave,” Rhea agreed. “When are they scheduled to reach this neighborhood?”
“According to the data Jairlin shared with me, we have until tomorrow morning before they arrive,” Horatio said. “It looks like they’re concentrating on the neighborhoods southeast of the compound first.” That would be opposite Rhea’s current location. “Apparently, a woman matching your description was spotted flagrantly leaving the area. Jairlin claims credit for arranging that.”
“He does look strikingly like our Warden,” Will joked.
“Very funny,” Rhea said.
“The security forces have also barricaded all routes leading into and out of Rust Town,” Horatio said. “And they’ve heightened patrols of the perimeters.”
“That makes leaving tricky, but not impossible,” Rhea said.
“Where do you want to go?” Will said. “We have a week until Targon arrives. We’ll have to lay low until then.”
“What about Aradne?” Miles said. “The mayor owes you, doesn’t he?”
“Too many cameras,” Rhea said.
“Mars won’t be much different,” Brinks offered.
“Yes, but the difference is, we have to go to Mars,” she told him. “But we don’t have to go to Aradne. It’s not worth the risk in my option. There are other options.”
“Like…?” Brinks pressed.
Rhea thought about it, then revealed her plan.
Brinks nodded. “Works for me.”
“Though it’s not like we have any other choice,” Will added. “The question is, when do we leave?”
All eyes turned toward Horatio.
After a moment, the robot said: “The spy satellites will be in the optimal position for our escape shortly after midnight. Or about five hours before the security forces are scheduled to arrive.”
“Then after midnight it is,” Rhea said.
5
Darkness fell, and Rhea waited until after midnight to lead her men outside. They took the front street, which was completely hued green on their HUDs. Dim light from glow lamps allowed them to see without having to use potential location-revealing tech like LIDAR.
They moved on foot, heading northwest, away from the ever-expanding search perimeter of the security robots. They kept close to the walls of the surrounding cargo containers and lean-tos.
Drones patrolled overhead, looking for them, and the party occasionally had to take cover in alleyways, or behind other freestanding structures like benches or stands. Apparently a curfew was in effect, so if a drone caught them, the gig would be up.
Only a few of the Wardenites who had remained behind at the compound had been arrested—for interfering with a police search—and the remainder had been allowed to go free. These men watched the skies from the windows of lean-tos scattered throughout the settlement; some of them operated drones of their own. In this manner, the Wardenites were able to continue transmitting the positions of enemy UAVs to Horatio via the obfuscated AR visor, which the robot used in combination with the spy satellite data to update the areas safe for passage.
Horatio ran the visor in ping mode, which meant it connected to the Internet every fifteen seconds to update. It was more dangerous than the ten-minute update intervals Horatio had been employing earlier, but it was either that or risk running into an enemy drone. The spoofing technology in the visor was still working perfectly, according to DragonHunter, but that didn’t ease Rhea’s fears.
They finally approached the Texas barriers that enclosed Rust Town. Though they had
