Chapter 41

11:50 AM, surfing the net in the Last Castle Café (5 hours, 38 minutes to Path closing)

Mayoni was still intensely focused on her laptop. Amy was resting unmoving on the floor. Leon got up and walked about a bit to stretch his legs. He looked out the window and decided it would probably keep raining for at least another hour. There was still occasional thunder, and he found himself staring for a moment at the unlit lamps in the room. Sighing, he returned to his chair.

"Time?" asked Amy quietly.

Mayoni glanced at her icon at the bottom of her display. "11:52"

" * Gratitude * elder * sister * " Amy chanted, very quietly. She sighed. "The safety margins are disappearing..."

Mayoni sighed too. "I know..."

Amy looked up and asked in a breaking voice, "Uncle Leon?"

"Yeah?" Leon looked down and became alarmed. Amy was crying silent tears.

"If we don't make the Path today... I know Aina will try to rescue us on the next opening... But I don't think my soul could survive... the debasement... thirteen years as a brothel bitch... Uncle Leon... When hope is gone... if you still have your gun... Will you release my soul from its body?"

Mayoni looked down and gazed at her younger sister, the laptop forgotten for the moment.

Leon gasped. He thought to himself, "Oh Amy, you've barely weaned Marcus. Would your son ever forgive me?" Leon struggled for what to say. "Kill you Amy? That's not what I came to Earth for..."

"Not me, just my body. You would have the eternal gratitude of my soul..."

"Oh Amy... My love for you... you and Mayoni... it's so deep... I don't know if I'm capable of that... I understand you're asking this in love... I don't know..." Leon shook himself. "Besides, there's still a good chance we'll get back now, even if we're still here after 1 PM... Courage Amy... Please? I'll promise you and Mayoni one thing. You'll never be brothel bitches while I'm alive."

"Dear sister," said Mayoni. "I join Leon in this promise. You will never be a brothel bitch while I'm alive."

Amy nodded her head in thanks and closed her eyes.

12:23 PM EDT, at the Junction of Routes 32 and 72 (5 hours, 5 minutes to Path closing)

Mahi tossed one of the two signal rocks into the nearby brush. He then quickly caught up with his mom and aunt. "Did you see?" he asked quietly.

"Oh yeah. We saw." Kara said as she kept up her very brisk pace to catch up to Lois. Lois was setting a blistering pace back. Kara would occasionally switch to a jog to catch up with her. "Leon's team is late getting back."

"That policeman mentioned Parsons is the county seat..." said Mahi.

"Yeah," said Lois with rising anger. "Parsons, the brothel capital of the county! I feel like shit leaving Mayoni and Amy there. Kara, could we..."

"Absolutely not! Only Mark has the authority to make such a major change to the mission plans. My responsibility is to get my team home. We keep heading north. Lois, how are you holding up?"

"I'll make it." Lois said simply. She seemed to pick up the lead pace even more. "At least we have good light now. We're making much better time returning. I'm sure we'll get to Cider Junction well before 2 PM. Not too bad..."

The group fell silent as they continued their journey. After several more minutes of walking, Mahi could hear his mother crying openly as she walked. His heart was breaking too. He couldn't stop thinking of his two sisters.

12:30 PM EDT, surfing the net at the Last Castle Café (4 hours, 58 minutes to Path closing)

"Uncle Leon, can I ask your permission to try something?"

Leon came to sit by Mayoni's side. "Sure. What's up?"

"I've collected a huge amount of information, but the big prize is behind some firewalls. It seems the current capital of this piece of the old U.S.A. is now in Atlanta, Georgia. I've been having my agents trace packet volumes to the old CDC center. It's still active, and by far the most active node on the network."

"Okay. So?"

"I don't want to try Lois's old account to pass through the firewalls..."

"Yeah. Somehow I doubt my bitch sister's account is still active."

"Ha! Someday I'll tell her you said that. Anyway, Hiapo and I have developed some really novel ways to hack into places. Do I have your permission to turn my active agents into secret agents?"

Leon thought for a moment.

"Come on, Uncle Leon. No balls, no glory! Right?"

"Huh? Did I say that?!"

"No, but I can read your mind!" Mayoni leaned over and gave her uncle a quick kiss.

"Okay. Go for it!"

Mayoni quickly hit the enter key on her keyboard. "Going for it now in progress..."

Meanwhile Amy was lying on the floor quietly thinking about home, and about how much she would miss her husband and son if they didn't make the path closing. "Let's see, if we left right now, maybe back at Route 32 by 1:40. Took us almost three hours to reach the junction from the house this morning. Let's say we fly like the wind and do it in half the time. Back at the house at 3:10. Then a two-hour trip to the Grotto if the way is dry. We could still make it... if we left right now... if we left right now..." Amy shuddered and closed her eyes.

12:45 PM EDT, on the road south from Davis (4 hours, 43 minutes to Path closing)

Mark looked at his watch as his team continued to make great progress returning to Cider Junction. They were making much faster time on their return, traveling over ground they already knew was vacant. Mark knew they were just a few minutes from the public access road, and with the daylight thought they would be at the house in about a half hour.

"Well," he thought to himself, "At least we'll make 1:30 for sure. It'd be embarrassing to be the expedition leader and be the only team late. Not that dodging a tornado isn't a good excuse... Wait! What the hell am I wishing for? I wish I am the last one to get back..." Mark picked up his speed a bit more. Kiana and Va'an smiled and kept pace with him.

12:53 PM, hacking the net from the Last Castle Café (4 hours, 35 minutes to Path closing)

Mayoni had been working intently with her secret agents for over twenty minutes now. For the first time, Leon saw her smile and relax. She stretched her arms.

"How's it going?" Leon whispered.

"Extremely well. About another four minutes to go, and I will have cleaned their clock."

Leon pointed to one of Mayoni's laptop windows. "That little graphical display. It looks so interesting."

"That's my status display on my secret agents, what's left of them. The CDC computer center launched scorpions to kill them as soon as they realized they were being penetrated, but my agents are using a phased shadow technique that makes them very hard to catch. There are still seventeen left. I'll have full access until the last one is killed. My target is their kernel database, about a quarter gigabyte. Not just medical, their core government database... In another few minutes, I'll have it all."

"I'm amazed they're letting you take it."

"They don't know that I am. Phased shadow handshaking is very complex..."

Leon raised his eyebrows at this. He thought it was the first time he'd ever heard Mayoni call anything complex, let alone very complex...

Mayoni continued. "They don't see the data going out. If they were smart, they would cut their network connection or power off their storage servers. That would stop me. But they're staying online, trying to trace where the attack is coming from... Ah, another secret agent bites the dust. Sixteen left..."