Chapter 83: Gap (IV)
The original one that had gotten away from the clearing operation. And two others that were already there when Gareth found them.
Had those been the same three that approached today.
He pushed the pulse northeast and held it at maximum extension and read what was there.
The positions where the three consolidated signatures had been this morning were empty. The wider northeast block area was quiet. No active signatures in the variant movement pattern.
He held the pulse out and waited.
At the very edge of the fourteen block range, past the northeast blocks, past the area where Gareth had been tracking them, barely readable, a single signature.
Not three. One.
Moving further northeast. Away from the building.
He looked at it for a long time.
One variant had not approached today. One had held back while the other two joined the assault. One was moving away from the building right now with whatever it had observed about the engagement from its holding position in the outer blocks.
He felt something settle in his chest that was cold and specific and patient.
The Aberrant group had sent thirteen survivors back southeast with what they’d learned today.
One variant had stayed back and watched and was now moving northeast carrying its own information.
Two populations. Two withdrawals. Two sets of information going in two different directions.
He sat outside the clinic door with his wrapped forearm on his knee and looked at the pulse and thought about the building around him, the sealed panel and the blast wall and the turrets and the chamber below ground and everything he’d built in forty days, and thought about what thirteen Aberrants and one variant Stalker had just learned about all of it.
He thought about Dr. Kang saying they’ll come back.
He thought about the virus still mutating.
He thought about Sera’s shoulder and the seventh Aberrant and the gap and going through to the exterior and the particular quality of the moment when the panel had reseated behind him and he’d heard Sera’s axe handle under the seventh Aberrant’s throat and had known what was happening and had gone through anyway.
He thought about forty days of building and nineteen people and the wall and the greenhouse and the chamber and all the things he’d built between people that weren’t walls.
He pulled up the Tier 4 blueprint list.
The satellite outpost option was at the bottom of the list and he had been treating it as something that came after the immediate picture was secured and today had made it clear that the immediate picture was not going to be secured in the way he’d been imagining securing it, that the immediate picture was a moving thing and the only way to stay ahead of it was to keep building.
He looked at the satellite outpost spec.
A secondary Anchor Point, deployable to any location within range of the primary base pulse, with its own build capability and its own shop access and its own pulse coverage that overlapped with the primary base to extend the total monitoring range.
If he had a satellite outpost in the northeast the variant that was moving away from the building right now would move into its coverage and he’d know where it went and what it did next and whether it came back and with how many.
He looked at the cost.
He looked at the SP balance.
He looked at the timeline.
Dr. Kang came out of the clinic and looked at his forearm and said "come in" and he went in and she worked on the forearm with the same precise efficiency she brought to everything and he sat on the examination surface where Sera had just been sitting and looked at the clinic around him, the supplies in the cabinets, the overhead light, the system built structure of a space that had been built for exactly this purpose.
"The shoulder," he said.
"Torn ligament in the posterior capsule," she said, working on his forearm. "Not complete. Partial. She’ll have reduced capacity for two weeks and full recovery in six." She paused. "She’s already arguing about the two weeks."
"Of course she is," he said.
"I told her the argument was noted and irrelevant," Dr. Kang said. "She told me she’d be the judge of that." She looked at his forearm. "This is superficial. The Aberrant arm extension caught the skin and the superficial tissue. Nothing structural." She cleaned it and closed it and looked at him. "You went through the gap to the exterior."
"Yes," he said.
She looked at him with the precise eyes. "While the contact was active."
"Yes," he said.
She held his gaze for a moment. "The panel reseated," she said.
"Yes," he said.
She looked at the forearm she’d just closed. "Don’t do that again," she said.
He looked at her.
"I know why you did it," she said. "I know the logic of it and the logic was correct and the outcome was correct." She looked at him steadily. "Don’t do it again. Find another way."
He held her gaze.
"Because if you don’t come back from the gap the building doesn’t work the same way," she said. It was stated the way she stated things, factually and completely, no softening and no performance. "The system works because you’re running it. We all work because you’re building it." She paused. "That’s not a sentiment. That’s a structural observation." She paused again. "Don’t go through the gap again."
He looked at her for a long moment.
"I’ll try," he said. Which was the most honest answer available.
She held his gaze and then nodded once and released his arm and went to the supply cabinet and started the post engagement inventory with the focused attention of someone who had already moved to the next thing that needed doing.
He sat on the examination surface and looked at the pulse.
The single variant signature in the northeast was fourteen blocks out now. Almost beyond range. Moving steadily further and it was going to clear his range in approximately twenty minutes and then he’d lose it entirely until it came back and it was going to come back.
He looked at the satellite outpost spec.
He looked at the building around him.
He looked at the clinic doorway where Sera was visible through the open door sitting on the chair Dr. Kang had put her in for the recovery period, her left arm in the temporary immobilization wrap, her axe leaning against the wall beside her because she had put it there herself when she sat down and he noticed that and felt something about it.
He got up and went to the doorway and looked at her.
She looked up at him and her eyes were doing the thing they did and he looked at her for a moment.
"The satellite outpost," he said. "I’m building it in the northeast."
She looked at him.
"Tonight," he said. "The variant that held back is moving further northeast. If I get the outpost up before it clears my range I can track where it goes."
She looked at the wall where the pulse data would be and then back at him. "Tonight," she said.
"Tonight," he said.
She held his gaze for a moment. "You’ll need someone on the watchtower for the deployment," she said. "The pulse coordination during outpost placement requires eyes on the northeast simultaneously."
"Gareth," he said.
"Good," she said.
He looked at her and the axe leaning against the wall and her left arm in the wrap and the particular quality of someone who had taken significant damage and was already thinking about the next thing.
"Rest," he said.
She looked at him with the expression that said she had opinions about that instruction.
"Rest," he said again, the same tone she used for the things that mattered.
The corner of her mouth moved. Something very small. Just barely. And she leaned her head back against the wall and closed her eyes and he stood in the doorway and looked at her for a moment longer than he needed to and then went to find Gareth.
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