Page 82 of Exit Strategy

More silence.

Then there was a crack, a twig breaking, a few leaves crunching. I froze and held my breath. I couldn’t see whoever it was, but they couldn’t see me either. The fact that I was unarmed suddenly loomed very large in my mind. Why in the fuck would I leave my pistol in the RV? Ehy hadn’t any of my team thought to mention that my gun was very conveniently not on my hip?

For fuck’s sake. I let out a breath.

“Kurt?” I asked again.

The other person moved. They were quick and quiet on their feet. I doubt I could move as quietly as they were. I took a few steps and then threw the hat I had found. The other person struck as I threw, much closer than I expected them, and they didn’t go for the hat. It wasn’t Kurt. He knew better than to try and take me down at the waist – my balance was better than his, and there was a chance that I was stronger than he was.

We grappled. I tried to find his shoulder, to put him in an arm bar, but he was too fast.

It was a man I didn’t know who came face-to-face with me, but I recognized the eyes of a soldier, and reacted. The way he moved suggested he was expecting a knee to the crotch, so the hip throw worked well, and the stranger went ass over tea kettle into the brush.

“Who are you, where’s Kurt?” I shouted.

“He’s nowhere near here,” the man said. “But you must be Oberisk, I’ve heard a little about you.”

Before I could answer or ask another question, he was under me, fast as a cat, and less friendly. I didn’t lose my feet, but it cost me bruises, and a hard elbow to the stomach, but I caught him. The grip was poor, nothing I could translate into a grapple, but I could redirect. Instead of smoothly moving into my space and peppering me with knuckles and elbows and then out, he came in, delivered violence, and then I almost threw him into a tree.

I wanted to hear the crunch of bone, a broken nose, but all I got was a grunt.

“I’m all out of darts, so we have to do this the old-fashioned way,” a woman who was very much not Calanthe said. I looked up to face where she had appeared from the brush, brandishing a pistol at me. It wasn’t some small thing, but a large frame revolver, likely a .357 by the look and size. Her grip was professional, and despite her small size, I had no doubt that she knew how to use the gun.

“I had this under control,” the man said.

“We can argue later,” she said. “You, on your knees.”

“That’s a first,” I said, but there was no hint of amusement on her face. “Where’s Calanthe, where’s Kurt?”

“Not here,” the man said.

“Give me one reason,” the woman said. “One reason I shouldn’t leave you here for the crows and the crabs.”

“I’m only interested in rescuing Calanthe Rex. I want to find her and take her home, to where she will be safe,” I said.

“She’s safer here than she ever was with New Eden,” the woman spat.

“You don’t understand,” I said, and the woman moved closer, the barrel of the gun suddenly closer to my face than I was comfortable with. For a split second, I had thought to disarm her just as soon as she was in range. She crossed that space too quickly; there was no hesitation. I knew if I moved, there was a really high chance that I would end up with a bullet in the face.

“No.” she said and pressed the barrel against my forehead.

“Easy,” the man said, more to her than to me.

“Either you are completely ignorant, or you’re completely complicit,” she pushed the gun for emphasis, “of what your organization does.”

“We are an ecologically minded organization that works to reclaim the Earth from pollution and environmental destruction,” I said, softly.

“New Eden traffics minors, and that’s all it’s about – underage pussy and money.”

“No.”

I had heard some of these lies before. The exiles who made Fallout said these things, and there were a few dissenters who spouted these lies. It was such a common lie.

“Callie is two years younger than you think she is. You falsified documents so that Arik Rex could marry and fuck a minor for several years, and that’s not even talking about what other people inside your fucking cult did to her.” I could see this woman believed every word she was saying, and there was fury in her eyes.

“What happened to the others?” I asked. “Are they dead?”

“No, they aren’t,” the man said. “They’ve been taken into custody by agents from the DHS and the Coast Guard. They left not too long ago. They’re going to be treated as domestic terrorists.”

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