The People's Alpha ✔

22: Re-Enactment

Granite Peak did not look too far away on a map. But the only way there was a U-shaped route through the Special Industrial Zone, and the road there was long and winding, not to mention badly washboarded from the floods a few years ago. 

The road was neutral territory, and therefore the responsibility of the OPLU. The funds to repair it had long gone who knows where.

But that didn't really matter, as the Moon Goddess ironed the worst parts out, more or less. I was at the lead of a long convoy; the Stone River contingent was behind me; We had agreed to let the Moon Goddess go first as she was the most impervious vehicle to tyre blowouts.

I was travelling alone. The other fellow pack members involved had already gone out. We were running slightly late, due to congestion in the Industrial Zone. 

We had passed the treeline some way back, and the rolling hills looked like they had been upended and carefully dipped in finely cut straw. We were very close to the border with Zirconia here, and occasionally the lie of the land would reveal a brief glimpse of stainless-steel fence, glinting in the late afternoon sunlight. 

The serenity and the beauty of the landscape belied the atrocity that had occurred here. But that was the norm in these parts, unfortunately. 

However, my mind could not be further from the scenery. I had seen one of the attackers, or at least I had seen someone who had been there. 

We had spoken to the Zirconian forces, and they had responded to our responses for information in the usual curt manner. They had told us they had not seen anything suspect on the night in question.The re-enactment of the night was taking place tonight, as part of the investigation. We were retracing the steps that the rogues had taken, as far as the evidence could point to. 

***

By the time we arrived, dusk was on the verge of falling. Granite Peak was located on the leeward side of a large rock outcrop, glowing incandescent in the dying rays of the sun. Around the pack territory, the remnants of the forest that once had coated the entire surrounding landscape, saved by the shelter of the outcrop against the extreme winds, cast their shadows onto the scene of the crime. Only one side of the territory abutted the rock face; the rest looked out onto the grassed rolling hills beyond. Sentry posts were obscured in the trees, and there were tripwires in the undergrowth. 

Even though the orange glow of the sun still lit up the treeless horizon, the scene had already been lit up like a Christmas tree, as usual, with as many spotlights as the diesel generators could keep running, as seemed to be necessary for almost every nocturnal event in the werewolf calendar. I knew more than one pack that just used them instead of lighting a bonfire every full moon. 

 Also not in short supply was the hi-vis work gear. I was reasonably sure the Granite Peak pack was not several hundred people in hi-vis vests wandering around like a bunch of headless chickens, but oh well. 

They were yelling at each other over something, as it usually transpired when three or more packs worked together on something. The yelling was too far away for me to tell what they were yelling about. I took a look around, before the sun set for good. They had taken quite a bit of care in beautifying their patch. There had been some serious attempts at landscaping. The buildings looked modest and unassuming, but well-designed.

***

Behind us there was a rumbling of tyres on loose gravel. A convoy of armoured vehicles hove into sight. They were painted black and had no markings. They looked almost overbearingly severe against the motley fleet we had parked wherever we could. I guessed this was the Thunder Falls contingent, who had been invited to observe the proceedings. They parked in a loose corral in the meeting place of the pack and got out. It had been made clear that Adlai would not be coming, but they had said little more than that; the conversation over the phone had been brief, in character with what we had seen of them so far.