The residents cleared away from the agents, who gathered before the porch as Cooper untied Murphy.
“Your warrior is merciless,” High Voice said. “The warriors of my kind would find her a worthy foe.”
“You are welcome to come down here, octopus,” Victoria said. She chuckled but then coughed from the pain in her ribs.
“You will be allowed to leave empty handed,” High Voice said. “Your car is down the road. Go to it and never come back.”
“What about the government?” Murphy rubbed his wrists. “They’ll come, even if we attempt to fudge the report, they’ll have the footage from before our connection went bad. They have your location and some of our data.”
“We have enough trees,” High Voice said. “I hoped not to have to use them this early.”
Victoria’s face shifted to concern and she glanced at the barn.
“No, do not do this to your followers,” Victoria said. “You do not need to poison them all just to avoid capture.”
“You have no idea what displarium is, or how to crystalize it in the soft tissues of certain plants on your world,” High Voice said. “I have no intent to poison anyone. We’re going somewhere else. Not where I had intended if time were on our side, but you’ve interrupted all that. Alive or dead, your tracking us here has forced my plan to hasten.”
A large tentacle, ten feet long and the width of a person’s hip, jutted out of the rags and pointed to the gate.
“Leave. Now. And may we never meet again,” High Voice said.
The three agents walked across the property. Murphy and Cooper each took one of Victoria’s arms across their back and helped her walk. She resisted at first, but whispered her thanks before she allowed them to be her support.
Residents scrambled across the lot. Many of them went to the barn and came out with seedlings. They rushed back and forth to place the small plants around the perimeter without interrupting the agents.
The three left the gate without event, but a white flash bright enough to match the sunlight-drenched clouds caught their attention. They looked back from the dirt road and all stared at the nothingness.
A circular crater several dozen yards deep sat in the place of the hillside property. No remnant of the buildings, trailers, fence, or people could be found anywhere. The fresh dirt was exposed to the sky without roil or calamity, as the property above it simply ceased to be in an instant. The only sudden shift was the scent of fresh soil that overwhelmed the air.
“I would love to hear a theory,” Victoria said as the three resumed their slow walk down the dirt road.
“That wasn’t a druid,” Murphy said. “But it’s definitely an alien.”
“An alien who recruited the dregs of society to build a transportation device made of plants?” Cooper chuckled. “I’d like to believe it.”
“You were so certain it was magic, and now you have shifted to aliens as your belief,” Victoria said through breaths. “I am going with tricks. This is technology of some sort.”
“You know how far-fetched that sounds?” Murphy glanced at his partner. “If an alien who recruits castaways is so absurd, then it’s doubly absurd to think someone would use so much mysterious technology just to pretend to be such an alien.”
They walked in silence for a minute.
“Boss, what do we put in our report?” Murphy reached into his pocket, then brought his hand out with a frown.
“Everything,” Cooper said. “Put in all your factual observations. Save your theories for the end. We were only supposed to track down a thief. We failed to do so. The Lion will want us to provide every shred of information as to what led to that outcome.”
They came around to the switchback where the government car was parked. The driver window was shattered and some of the side panels were dented from kicks, but it was capable of driving away.
“Murphy, go ahead and drive,” Victoria said. She broke away from the group to open a rear passenger door and collapse across the back seat.
Cooper pulled out the only item left in his pockets, the car key, and handed it to Murphy.
Cooper took shotgun and Murphy went into the driver’s seat.
As Murphy revved up the car, the computerized systems turned on.
“I never say this, but drive gently,” Victoria said. “The less bumps, the better. It is going to be a long trip.”
“We may as well give our verbal reports.” Cooper swiped through the car’s holographic menu projected over the dashboard and selected the recorder option.
“I will go first,” Victoria said. “That way I can pass out when I finish.” Victoria spoke again, but her words trailed off. Her eyes closed and her breaths slowed.
“How much trouble are we in?” Murphy rounded the car through another switchback.
“That depends on the quality of our report,” Cooper said.
“Mind if I go first?” Murphy cleared his throat.
ns 15.158.61.8da2
