We could have talked her into letting us go, Beth thought angrily for the hundredth time since they’d left Washington state. She was considering it.
“That’s a nice attitude to have, but we’re not going to stop Tarov on chance,” Simon said. “She could have killed us, and that was reason enough to stop her.”
She could have done plenty else! Beth replied bitterly. She could have asked to come with us, for all we know!
“But she wasn’t going to,” Simon said. “She was going to shoot you, and then Tarov would have been unstoppable. With Dr. Miller dead and the group trying to kill each other, half of the failsafe would be lost forever. Even if Dr. Silvar eventually realized Tarov is not functioning as programmed, he’d be unable to stop him without the information we have.”
We don’t know that, Beth said. Her resolve to be angry was breaking. She just wanted to rest.
“It doesn’t matter now,” Simon replied. “You’re tired. We should stop for some sleep. Fort Leddy is still thirteen hours away.”
Beth didn’t bother to argue. She pulled the van over at the first wide shoulder she could find, turned the engine off, then crawled up into the bedding she set up in the back. Before long, she drifted off to sleep.
They were only a few miles from the refugee camp when Beth started noticing an increasing number of pedestrians walking along the highway, or even in the fields that ran along it. They all moved forward with animalistic instinct, like a baby turtle following the light of the moon. They must have come from all over the country, looking for anywhere safe from the hordes of bodyshells and meat-puppets.
Beth found herself wondering about their stories. About the things they must have lost because of Tarov and his war. Only a few months ago, these people’s greatest concern was probably how to make their bills or get that promotion they’d been after. Now, their only drive was survival.
We really have been knocked down a peg, Beth reflected. A fall from grace. Quite the plunge.
Some of the people faced Beth as she drove on, but she did her best to ignore them. Even still, she could see children carrying huge bundles of clothing, bedding, and food. Old folk stumbled as they stepped on knots of weeds, trying to regain their footing. Everyone carried more than they could really hold, taking their entire lives with them as they marched toward Fort Leddy.
Eventually, they got to a part in the migration where the pedestrians peeled away from the highway into the wild turf to the south. The long snake of people stretching before the setting sun turned away from the road, and Beth realized they must be close to the camp.
“We should probably go on foot from here,” Simon suggested.
Beth agreed, packing up what she could before abandoning the autovan on the side of the highway.
It felt like hours since Beth had started trekking with the other refugees. The sun sank behind the mountains to the west and left them all to march on in the dark like ants in the jungle. Lost in thought, Beth almost bumped into the person in front of her before looking up and realizing they had arrived at the back of a queue of folk trying to get into Fort Leddy. She could see lights on the horizon, about a quarter mile away. A long line of cold and hungry people wound through the weeds, dry grass, and snow towards the camp. They moved forward every half minute or so with small, shuffling steps.
There was little to do as they moved up in line other than scan the faces of those around them. Just a couple places behind Beth, a family of five was trying their best to make a place for the eldest of them to lay between short lurches forward. The old woman had some blue discoloration around her mouth and her eyes seemed sullen. To Beth, it looked like she might not make it to the front of the line.
Everyone around them ignored the family, even harassing them when they didn’t move up fast enough. Beth felt a pang in her heart for them, but couldn’t do anything.
A child in front of her cried. A little girl of no more than five kept tugging at her mother’s pant pockets and her father’s jacket.
“Stop it!” one of the parents snapped at her.
Through her sobs, the child said, “I don’t like this, mommy! I wanna go home.”
“We can’t go home, Dee — you know that,” the mother replied, annoyed.
“But, why?”
“Because it’s not safe, baby. Please, stop crying and just quiet down.”
“But kitty is still there,” the girl cried. “Why didn’t we bring kitty?”
“There wasn’t time,” the father said. “The bad people were coming. We had to leave.”
“But the bad men could hurt kitty! I want my kitty!” She started crying too hard to speak anymore, but continued to try.
“Shh, shhh, sweetheart,” the mother said, rubbing the back of the girl’s neck. “Kitty’s just fine, don’t you worry.”
Beth had to tune it out.
For the most part, the never-ending slow march onward was quiet and uneventful. Beth felt like she was going to fall asleep standing up when she noticed some movement ahead on the side of the line.
They were only a stone’s throw away from the front gate of the Fort Leddy Refugee Camp. A few men and women, wearing what looked like police riot gear, stood beside the line and checked refugees in. They were all armed with machine guns. Each checkpoint had three or more guards manning them. Beth wondered which military or government group they represented. From where she loitered in line, she couldn’t make out any insignia or
