Shawn, leaving Dia to her primping, carries the box over to the hood of the truck, where the rest of us surround around him. Jake and Shawn pry the box’s lid open with their knives to reveal what is inside. The item on top of the box is enough to shock all of us.
It is a picture of my dad with Dia when she was a baby.
“Do you think this was your father’s belongings?” Mar asks Eli.
“I don’t know, babe.” He kisses her on the forehead. “We didn’t know him very much.”
Eli removes the picture from the top. Dia studies the photo as if she knows the truth, but deep down, we pray she has no idea.
Under the picture are even more photos. Pictures of each one of us, from Shawn, to Samantha…
“All of us!” Mar holds a hand over her mouth.
“That one was taken a few days ago.” Magi franticly points at a picture of us in the IOUSC truck headed into The Facility.
“Who took these?” Eli asks.
“I have no clue,” I answer my brother, knowing that his question was not aimed at anyone specific.
“Do you think it was these guys?” Mar asks, sounding overwhelmed, gesturing to the truck. “Or, do you think there is someone else watching us?”
Leah shivers outwardly again. Shawn throws an arm around her shoulders, pulling her close to him to steady her.
“Whatever or whoever they are doesn’t matter,” Jake says stoically. “What matters is that we stay together and try not to get any more of us killed.”
“I’m okay with that,” Samantha says, a bit more serious than usual.
Jake holds the map up so that Zac can see it.
“You were right, Zac,” Jake admires. “If we go nearly straight north, perhaps a bit west, we will run into The Elected headquarters by this time two days from now.”
“If everything goes as planned, that is,” Samantha adds sarcastically.
“It will,” Jake says as if he doesn’t believe it. “We just need to cover our tracks.”
“I say we torch the truck the rest of the way,” Samantha smiles.
“We should try to extract the tracker from Robert and look at it before we go as well.” Cara looks from Eli to me. “I mean if it is alright with the two of you?”
“If you think it could help.” I give a weak smile.
“It couldn’t hurt,” Eli grunts.
“I might be able to tell more about the tracking device and how it works or is removed,” Cara answers. “Baxley and the girls will most likely have them implanted when we find them. If we know how they work and how to remove them, then we might have the upper hand in getting them to safety.”
“Good thinking,” Eli agrees.
Magi and Cara climb down into the pit that Robert’s body is laying in. I watch as they search his body for a pocketed tracker, a bump or entry point. Behind me, Shawn, Eli, and Jake are working diligently at loading the contents of the box into our vehicle, as well as setting fire to The Elected truck. Zac and Dia are in the bed of our truck trying to organize everyone’s bags and the contents of the box.
“Found it,” Magi’s voice breaks me free from my own thoughts.
“Where is it?” I ask.
“Right between where his spine and neckbone intersect,” Cara answers.
“Ouch,” Samantha says while walking over rubbing the back of her neck. “I wonder how they put it there?”
“Probably some kind of shot or injection tube,” Cara surmises. “They do the same thing when you belong to a large voyaging family so that you don’t run off or get lost. The technology is hard to find, but it can sometimes be available to some large groups, and of course, The Elected.”
She leans down to show us a scar that lays just behind her earlobe. The scar is jagged and rather large, but long healed over.
“Did you take it out yourself?” Magi asks, while taking a closer look at her scar.
“Yep,” Cara says, while nonchalantly slicing into the base of my father’s neck.
After his skin and tissue is cut through, she applies a small amount of pressure, like popping a pimple. After a minute, out pops a tiny, almost microscopic, square box with a wire connected to a nerve ending. Cara pulls the thing away from Roberts neck, bringing the wire and nerve with it. She only pulls it just enough to bring it closer for inspection, while keeping it intact.
“If he were alive,” Magi begins, “wouldn’t severing the wire or nerve kill him?”
“Yep, sure would.” Cara grimaces while applying pressure to the nerve.
“Then how would we get it out without killing the soul if it were still alive?” I ask.
“How very The Facility of you,” Samantha laughs.
“Well I couldn’t think of a better word,” I laugh back.
It feels weird to be laughing about this standing over the pit that my dead father is in.
“There are only two ways that I can think of,” Magi says.
“And what are those?” Mar asks. Her and Leah had been standing, watching the flames dance on the truck, but they are close enough to hear our conversation.
“Kill the host,” Magi says bluntly.
“Or…” I plead for a more acceptable answer.
“Or, it is possible to do surgery on the host,” Magi answers. “It would be experimental, of course.”
“That would take hours, and we would need a prime location, tools, and did I mention hours?” Cara looks at the tracker. “Mine wasn’t connected to a vital nerve, it was just under some tissue, floating free in there.”
I can tell she has noticed the tiny box has a small blinking green light on it that ignites every few
