“What are you doing up here?” he says.
“I thought I heard Moore.”
“You did hear him, but he’s gone. Now answer my question.”
“The alarm went off when I was at breakfast. Lee and Miranda told me to wait.”
“Wait downstairs?”
“Yes.”
“Then why are you upstairs?”
“I was curious,” I say.
He doesn’t seem surprised.
“You’re a very talented guy,” he says.
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“You made it past all the security checkpoints, and if I’m not mistaken, a locked door.” He takes a step toward me. “I find that remarkable.”
“I just wandered up here,” I say. “Besides, everyone’s running around like chickens with their heads cut off. I don’t know how remarkable it was.”
“Let’s take a walk,” Francisco says. “Just you and me.”
“Where to?”
“I have to fix a relay station. You can help me.”
“I was hoping to finish breakfast,” I say.
He takes another step toward me. His voice is firm but steady.
“Grab a protein bar and eat it on the way,” he says. “But now I’d like you to come with me.”
“Do I have a choice?”
I measure the distance between us, use my peripheral vision to scan the room for weapons.
“There’s always a choice,” Francisco says.
He spreads his arms wide. I can’t tell if it’s a gesture of friendship or an invitation to fight.
I look at him, judging whether I should go with him or whether I should end this now.
One-on-one, I believe I could take Francisco. But that’s not the issue.
The issue is Moore. If I take on Francisco, it’s sure to attract attention, and I’ll have a lot of explaining to do. My cover could be threatened, or even blown.
That’s assuming it’s not blown already.
I look at Francisco staring at me from across the room. His face is frustratingly neutral, betraying nothing.
Moore is gone, and Francisco is offering me a carrot.
“Let’s take that walk,” I say. “Where’s the relay station?”
“It’s in the mountains.”
“I guess I’ll need hiking boots, then, won’t I?”
“We’re about the same size,” Francisco says. “You can borrow mine.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE
WE STOP BY FRANCISCO’S ROOM IN THE MAIN HOUSE.
I wait outside in the hall as he gathers some things for the journey. He leaves his door open, and I glance in to see a bare room without decorations on the walls. Either Francisco lives like a monk, or he moved in here not too long ago.
A minute later he comes out with rope, a tool kit, and an extra set of boots.
“These should fit you,” he says.
“How do you know my size?”
“Your profile.”
“What profile?”
“In the game. I looked at your stats. And we just happen to be the same size.”
“Convenient,” I say.
“Very,” he says.
We walk together toward the edge of the encampment. The sirens stopped a while ago, signaling the end of the defense drill, but the grounds of Camp Liberty are still empty. We are alone with the exception of a solitary figure, a single sentry in the distance.
Francisco pauses at what was the edge of the laser perimeter last night. He removes a square gray device from his bag and presses a button.
“What’s that for?” I say.
“We have some security provisions. This turns them off for a few seconds.”
He’s talking about the lasers, but I don’t want him to think I know about them.
“Are you ready for an adventure?” he says.
“Always.”
“Then let’s do it.”
He moves forward through the perimeter. I follow him up a path into the mountain. It’s a different path from the one I used the other night, one that begins cloaked in trees at the base of the hill behind the encampment but quickly opens into a narrow and well-defined trail.
“How are you keeping up?” Francisco says after we’ve gone a few hundred meters.
“I’m fine.”
“New boots can be tough.”
“I can be tough,” I say.
My foot hits the ground wrong, twisting my ankle as I stumble.
Francisco stops.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” he says. “The climb gets more difficult up ahead,” he says.
I walked through these woods silently two nights ago, but now I am unsteady on my feet, lack of sleep breaking my concentration and affecting my stride.
“I can handle myself,” I say to Francisco.
He glances at my feet and grunts, and then he starts out again.
He stays ahead of me on the trail, legs strong, sweat appearing around the neck of his flannel shirt, then under his arms, then across his entire back. He sips from a canteen as he hikes, but he never complains about the heat or effort, never even rolls up his sleeves.
I do my best to keep up with him, making sure I drink two sips for his every one, keeping myself hydrated as limited defense against my exhaustion.
We hike for another hour before he pauses at a place where the trail splits in two directions. He takes a moment to judge both ways, then confidently moves to the left.
I’m watching the whole time, doing my best to memorize terrain, not knowing whether I’ll need to get back home alone.
Or get away from him.
We come out onto a clearing on the ridge, open to the sky.
It’s midafternoon now, but the elevation has caused the temperature to drop several degrees.
Francisco stops by a large tree with a small satellite dish about halfway up hidden among the branches.
“That’s the satellite uplink,” he says. “You want to spot me?”
“I can do that,” I say.
“I’m going to clip us together,” he says.
He snaps a rope into a carabiner on his belt, knotting one end, then does the same on my belt. He hands me the section of rope in the middle.
“I can trust you, right?” he says.
“Trust me not to throw you off the mountain?”
“Trust you to hang on if I fall.”
“You can trust me,” I say.
I’ve got no reason to harm Francisco. Not unless he gives me one.
He climbs halfway up the tree, makes a few adjustments on the satellite uplink, then climbs down without incident.
“Look there,” he says.
I turn, and I can see the entire basin beneath us, the encampment laid out like toy buildings, and the road beyond that winds up the mountain and disappears out of sight.
Two days. It’s only been two days since I came to this place. It feels like a lifetime.
“What do you think of our home?” Francisco asks.
“It looks small from up here.”
“It’s small, but it’s ours. How many people can say they have something like that in their lives?”
He steps closer to the edge, inadvertently kicking a stone that rolls for half a meter then falls off the edge.
“You can step out farther,” he says, tugging lightly at the rope on his belt. “I’ve got you.”
I notice we’re still clipped together.
I take him up on his offer, stepping forward. The ledge is narrower than it first appeared, dropping off suddenly into nothingness.
I stand at the very edge. I think back to a time just a few days ago up at the sports camp in Vermont. I stood at the edge of the cliff, looking down at the water below. With Peter watching, I took the plunge into the cool water below.
But there is no water here. Instead there are a thousand meters of rugged cliff face.
A single wrong step and I would plunge off the side. If Francisco is strong enough, he could stop my fall. If not, we’d both plunge off the edge together.