This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to real people or locations is unintentional. Click here to start at the beginning.

Chapter 4: The Hunt

Ten years ago... during spring turkey season.

 ~

Viking333: Good morning beautiful. Getting some turkeys today?

Emmabindle: Hope so. The pantry is bare. I'm down ten pounds. Trying to give my dad most of the food, you know how it goes.

Viking333: I'll be there next year.

Emmabindle: Talk later? 

Viking333: Call anytime. 

~

The day had fled.

Wind tugged roughly at her jacket as she climbed above the house, mouth open and breathing hard. She was almost to the top of the first northern ridge. Clouds boiled towards her in slow motion, heavy and thick, and she could smell the snow. But the roaring air stayed empty.

Taking a deep breath, she jogged up the mountainside away from her dad, and away from the emptiness. Every step was familiar and worn smooth by her feet. 

That calm morning her mother first showed her the path, weak rays of sun filtered through the trees. She had followed those feminine bare feet, grabbing the soft white of her skirt more than once to keep her balance. Vivid as a dream, the memory of her first serviceberry brought a smile to her face. 

The scream of a hawk pierced the wind and jerked her face up. Wings stiff, it spiraled towards the mountains. She stared at the peaks hanging silently above her. Brave cut a rough triangle in the clouds pouring across the sky. A ray of the setting sun touched the summit. She shivered. 

A jackrabbit exploded out the foliage, startling a smile out of her. She paused to listen, marveling at the pounding drumbeat of its heavy paws fleeing across the slope. The light was fading and she forced herself into a muscle-burning jog, hoping to make it to the meadow before the turkeys.

~

She staggered to a stop at the end of the path. The gray light filtering through the clouds was deepening to a blue alpenglow that tinged the tall pines around her with shades of cobalt. She grimaced and leaned over, bracing her hands on her knees and panting. Between her feet, the grass and herbs of the meadow were a trampled gray-brown mass, losing what little color they had as the light faded. The barbs of a dead thistle nudged her toe and something small in her chest whispered home. She moved her foot.

A whistle penetrated the meadow and she froze. The turkeys were here. As slowly as she could, she swiveled her head up to watch. Shadows in the trees stepped closer, solidifying as they came into the open. The wind buffeted her tense body. Eyes swiveled from side to side, searching.

She held her breath. They stepped closer. The lead gobbler stopped and stared straight at her. She tried to push the bubble of excitement back down her throat and thought as hard as she could about being a bush.

The gobbler took another step. She fired one shot. 

~

Her dad slept, snoring lightly downstairs with a stomach full of turkey thigh and rice. Tension knotted her stomach. They were really going to do this. 

"Hey," his voice rippled across her brain like brandy and sent warmth to her toes.

"Hey yourself. Do you have everything ready?"

"Like a boyscout."

They both laughed softly. No more hesitation. It was time. 

"Alright, we have Nick Hawkins, billionaire CEO with business interests in Dubai, London, Toronto, Vancouver, Houston. Born in the Netherlands. Sailboat race captain. Lead investor in Deaconess Hospital. Let's start digging. I'll take personal life - you take business life. Let's figure out what this shark is doing in Montana."

Time fled to the soundtrack of Wardruna and Bach, punctuated by soft conversation as they stumbled across contradictions, strange details, and corporate shells.

"His real first name is Erasmus? Somebody's mommy liked the classics. Do you think it was Roterodamus that inspired her? Or Greek myth?"

"I love that you know that."

"Holy shit. Look at this."

Silence.

"I have to publish this," his voice rose in a tightened coil of excitement, "This is huge."

"Look at appendix C. It get's worse. They are funding genetic research into chloroplasts for mRNA bio-programming."

"What does that even mean?" 

"If I am reading this right, they are running tests on low-income rural populations to see if they can use plant chloroplasts to produce viruses."

"What the fuck?"

"Look at paragraph seven."

"This is going on Steemit tonight. Maybe I can get Wikileaks to amplify and we can take this bastard down before the end of the quarter. No end-of-quarter dividends for this evil bastard."

Her teeth were bared in an unthinking grin, "His mansion in London is wired as a smart home. It's online. I think they are there." Her voice hushed, "What if he knew he was caught?"

"Hit him hard enough," she could hear the smile warm his voice, "he might start making mistakes."

~

Nick ushered his children through the side door. His wife had the familiar pinched expression on her face. 

They moved through the dark house in a huddle, and he felt a brief flash of pride for his children's silence. They learned quickly. 

"Who is threatening you now?" her lipstick smeared on her veneers as she hissed, "Why don't you tell me anything?"

"It's just business dear."

Every light in the house turned on at once, before popping into pitch-black as the breakers tripped. Silence as he pressed his children into the floor. He noted the smell of urine from his son.

Who are you to wave your finger?

A heartbeat.

You must have been outta your head!

The sound system his wife had ordered was running at full volume.

Eye hole deep in muddy waters
You practically raised the dead

He jerked the children up by their elbows and power-walked them to the wine cellar staircase. The cadence of the base line was annoyingly familiar.

Rob the grave to snow the cradle
Then burn the evidence down

He could hear the scrabbling of high heels behind him as Celia bleated in terror.

Soapbox house of cards and glass so
Don't go tossin' your stones around

The stone steps were illuminated by emergency lighting. At least the battery backups were functioning. He made a mental note to compliment Scott on the well placed LEDs. The children could not move fast enough, he lifted their arms and carried them across the cellar to the back wall and dropped them against the steel door, slapping the pad with his left hand while punching in the code with his right.

So full of it
Eye balls deep in muddy waters
Fuckin' hypocrite
Liar, lawyer; mirror show me, what's the difference?

The door to the safe room closed, and the monitors glowed to life. Rage boiled but his voice was crisp and cold as he spoke into the handset. "Scott. Nicely done on the lighting. Someone hacked the Google Nest. Find them. Call me back if - " he glanced at Celia. She was huddled over her brood, whispering to them.

"Okeanos"

"Yes Sir"

~

Worry tightened in her belly. He hadn't responded to her Wickr messages in two days. The boys online hadn't seen him on the Discord server, his Twitter was silent, and the dead-drop in Tutanota was empty. 

Her phone rang.

"Hello?"

A door slamming on the other side of the connection.

Silence.

She turned the volume up. Faintly, as if in a different room, she heard his voice.

"I'm calling the cops! Get out of here!"

Two shots. The crash of a door bouncing off drywall. 

Suddenly his voice was clearer, "I'm serious! Get out of my house!"

Five shots. Panicked and close together. Male laughter. Spanish voices. One louder bang.

Silence.

Mira este pendejo! Pensó que era Elliot Anderson. 

Silencio. Toma las computadoras y la televisión. Planta las drogas. Tenemos 30 segundos.

Shock sank her to the floor.

Seconds crawled by like hours.

Footsteps echoing away on the phone. 

A long dragging scrape.

"I'm dead," it was barely a whisper, "don't call the police. Don't expose yourself. Burn. Burn. Ghost. Full wipe and burn. I love you."

The connection ended. 

Numbness spread through her mind and her hands started to move with a mind of their own. Battery. Sim card. Burn. Laptop. Full wipe. Burn. 

Pain blossomed behind her eyes, the taste of blood flooded her mouth.

Gone.

Gone.

Gone.

~

The sun rose.

The birds sang.

Wild places bloomed green and feral.

"Edward called, we need to go take care of the children."

She snapped back to reality, and the cooling cup of coffee in front of her. "What happened?" Her voice was flat. She could not tell him. 

"I don't know. Some kind of mental or emotional thing. Physically Lumi is fine, but he said he needs help. He can't take care of Lumi and the children at the same time." 

"I'll get my go-bag. How much turkey pemmican did you eat last night? Do we still have enough for this trip?"

~

"Tell us a story?" His face remained calm but there was a storm of fear in his wide grey eyes. She smoothed the curl of hair off his forehead, heart breaking at its softness. Celeste pressed against her knee, small mouth turned down, chin wrinkled in an expression so like her own, she had to stifle a laugh. It might come out a sob.

"I have a story for you," she looked up at the blue-grey pine swaying in the wind outside the window, "this is a story for a wild place." 

His dimpled smile broke like sunlight, "Want to see our fort?"

"Perfect! Let's get a blanket and some snacks."

~

The children curled around her like puppies, warm and heavy - breath smelling of milk. She bundled the wool blankets closer around them in the curving embrace of gnarled Douglass Fir roots.

"Do you like our fort?"

"Yes. It is magnificent," she pulled his hat lower, "this tree is very happy to have you in his heart."

"How do you know?" Celeste's frown deepened.

She took a deep breath and felt the cold eat through the earth beneath her. Pitching her voice deeper, she began:

~

She could not hide the catch in her voice. 

The screen flickered with chat participants. 524 people. 672 people. 1,298 people. 3,012 people. The cursor blinked. 

She clicked the microphone button. They had never heard her voice before.

"This afternoon I held my god-children and told them a story," she swallowed.

"What we have begun here is no fairy tale." 

She heard his voice in the back of her mind. Growl for me. You are stronger than this. 

"You must understand that when you tamper with the fate of a man--sometimes a chain of events is set into motion over which no one will have ultimate control. We accepted that responsibility."

"Forgive me."

"I have no voice to speak this grief. I have no tongue to shape the terrible rage that is rising in my heart."

5,250 people. 6,009 people. 

"The forces that stand against us are more powerful, more brutal, and more lethal than we realized," her voice hardened, "The single figure who rose against them - he was no leader, no commando, and he had no-one to protect him when they broke down his front door."

"There is no great army behind us."

"But there is a movement - a hidden movement of human beings who have no offices and have no headquarters, who are not represented in the great halls where nations meet, who every day risk or suffer more for the right to speak, to think and to be themselves than any of you are likely to risk in your entire life."

"There are those who strain for bits and pieces of truth through forbidden broadcasts, and who record and pass outlawed thoughts from hand-to-hand in the shadows of tyranny."

"From the rubble of oppression in the former Soviet Republics, there rose a voice that demanded to be heard, a voice that would not be denied."

"We listened to this voice--not because it spoke for the US, Russia, Europe, or any government, but because it hurled truth and courage into the teeth of total power--when it would be so much easier and more comfortable to submit and to embrace the lies."

"We need to teach the new and the forgetful generations what it means to not be free. Freedom is more than a word, more than an idea."

"Sentri, our barbarian, our viking, our watchman on the wall. I listened to him die yesterday. The documents published to Steemit are true. I was with him when he found them. He understood the resources and the reach of Erasmus Nicholas Hawkins. He understood the evil. He chose to publish."

"I pray that his courage is contagious."

Comments rose like a wave, scrolling faster than she could read.

"Either we will win - or they will kill us all."

 

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