Chapter 68
White’s eyebrows raised as she studied Scorpion’s face for a moment. If that was true, this was good news after all. “Which one of them?” she asked, thinking it would have to be Mist. Rain wouldn’t be so uninformed as to attempt to remove her intrauterine device while she was still so close to enemy territory. She was a medical student after all, so she’d know exactly what would trip the tracking feature. Mist, on the other hand, if she were truly in love with 37W and was hoping to show the Motherhood she was in control of her own body, or some other such nonsense, might be foolish enough to commit such an awful blunder.
“It’s 8,253,302, or MWH546782B, the girl called Mist Gretchintown, Mother White. We have the latitude and longitude of her current location.” She’d given both the number the girl would be aware of and the secret number only the Military Mothers had access to, as well as the girl’s name, as it wouldn’t have been sufficient to just say, “Mist.”
Ignoring her annoyance, White asked, “Do you have a drone nearby?” She’d known Rain wouldn’t be so stupid. The fact that Mist had done something so ill-advised made her wonder if Rain might have actually passed away from her wound. Why wouldn’t she stop her friend from making such a costly error? Could this be another trick--like the tiger?
“No, but there’s a drone on the way now. We estimate we are forty-five miles from that location as the crow flies. It is a mountainous area, though. It will take us longer to get there, especially with no means of getting the land riders over the water.”
Boats would’ve been an excellent asset, but Michaelanburg was landlocked and had no need for them, other than for the Agriculturalists who did the fishing and a few other occupations that might need to access water. Those were small vessels, and they were currently hundreds of miles away. Helios would also work, but those were the machines she most needed to keep the world’s eyes away from. They were intending to build a bridge that the Military Mothers could cross using their smaller land riders, but nothing they had on hand could handle the weight of the transporters. There would be no way to simply drive across the river. No, she’d have to send for fishing boats and find a way to make them work, and in the meantime, she’d have to take her chances with the helio, at least to transport a large enough force to the area where the signal was triggered to do a thorough investigation. “What direction is it moving?” she asked.
“It’s not,” Scorpion said, shaking her head, her dark hair, pulled back in a severe ponytail not shaking at all. “It’s completely stationary.”
“Wait--that makes no sense. Both pieces?”
“Yes, at the moment, neither piece is moving.”
Folding one arm beneath her elbow, White stroked her chin. Perhaps Mist had injured herself so badly removing the piece that she’d died or was unable to move. It would make sense. Most women who tried to take their IUD out by themselves were forced to report to the medical building quickly. Those bitches were designed to chew one up from the inside out. Clearly, the medical student hadn’t taken the device out, or it wouldn’t have been tripped. “Very well. Let me know if either piece moves,” she said. If she had to wager a guess, once Mist was capable of moving, she’d do so, leaving the removed piece behind. Unless… Rain was with her. Then, she’d get the other piece out, and neither of the pieces would move from their current location.
Having their location would still help her find them, especially if she could follow them by drone. There was no way they could outrun her eye in the sky. Eventually, unable to see the drone, they’d get complacent and think they were safe, as they had the day Rain had been shot.
If both pieces began to move again, then there was a chance that was a signal that Rain was still alive. She was a third year medical student, but she should’ve been in her second year and hadn’t gotten too far into her studies since her promotion. She might not realize once the IUD was tripped, there was no going back. She might think she could turn it off, or that if it was put back in, even haphazardly, it wouldn’t signal their location.
Both pieces moving together might also simply mean Mist had somehow recovered but didn’t want to leave her trash behind to be discovered later. Still, if White saw both pieces moving, she’d wager that meant Rain was alive. With any luck, the drones would have visuals on them within an hour. She sent Scorpion off on her journey and decided to contact President Violet back in Michaelanburg to get permission to move the boats up. They’d have to go around Dafo, which would take longer, but she wouldn’t take any chances on Dal destroying the few small vessels she had. She’d also have to send her heliobird far, far around the edges of his territory as well. It was difficult to admit that the Military Mothers were not exactly the force to be reckoned with they liked to present to the world, but that was only because, thus far, they hadn’t had to be. Now that she needed the weapons that this would require, the ones they had the technology and resources to have on hand but hadn’t created in abundance because of fear of those resources being discovered, she was quickly realizing their forces were not that far advanced compared to even the ragtag guerillas they’d face in Oklasaw. It was a brutal realization, one she’d be sure to correct as soon as she returned to Michaelanburg, rebels in hand.
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