Evening crawled near with their every step into the forest. Gideon kept Jessica's gravity board on his person. She got the flash drive back, but his argument for keeping the rest of her stuff was that he had to inspect everything sinister, even though Danielle had already done as much. Feeling naked, tired, and helpless, all she could do was catch pockets of the leader's conversation with Raptor.
"Glad we got to you when we did," he said.
"Inclined to agree." Gideon snorted then dropped a ball of spit on the ground. "We ain't blind, though. See, only visitors we get are ones lookin' fer trouble. That or a lost lamb, once in a while. The only reason we didn't shoot yer friends is 'cause they're not aliens, far as I can tell."
Jessica steered from the conversation to Shannon. "Where'd you guys leave the car?"
"In a place that's hidden, I hope," she said, and her brow twisted. "Hey... I wanted to stop for you, but my foot was so hard on the gas pedal I didn't realize until grumpy told me we couldn't stop. The only reason we landed is because he said radar and patrols would detect us. Between you and me, though, I don't think he knows where we're going."
"You'd think oblivion was genetic... And it's okay. We found—well, you found us, and it got us out of a bind." Jessica caught Danielle staring, specifically at her watch.
"Who are these people, anyway?" started Dexter, looking at Valerie next to him.
Her eye cocked. "Hmm? What? You and your brother not talk or something?"
"Talk? Yes. Communicate? Not very much."
"Monarch occasionally sends peeps to trade with these peeps calling themselves Woodsmen. They don't exactly like technology, mmkay? Which means they don't network much, mmkay? We give 'em the supplies that help 'em survive, secretly. Even those old-school stockpiles."
"Was wondering why their armor looked familiar..."
"Same Sicario Suit."
"So, I have you to thank for the guns they pointed at me? Thanks," said Jessica.
"In return," Valerie resumed, staring Dexter down, "the Woodsmen feed us intel in morse code... and other shit. Mira, cabrón, I don't know everything."
One Woodsman side-stepped next to Jessica and her friends. Before he could startle them, he spoke spitefully. "It's because we avoid that alien garbage that we've lasted one-hundred years. Ma and Pa didn't need it; Grandma and grandpa didn't need it; I don't need it."
Jessica smirked. "I do applaud your independence, sir. I guess you haven't run out of salt after one-hundred years?"
"No, we haven't."
"Drone!" someone shouted
Gideon hit the floor. "Hide!"
Confused, Jessica faceplanted the dirt. Every other soul flung to cover and camouflage. As they snuck behind bark, shrub, and rock, an oblong machine gravitated through the thickets. Its shimmering carapace brought a subtle hum in its wake, as it waded through the shrubs. Easily, it could carve the terrain with its sharp trio of composite tendrils. Instead, its onboard reticle rolled in a glass eye, surveying the vicinity. Any lower and it might have isolated Gideon's head underneath.
Jess clenched her teeth as it bobbed mid-air, the rolling camera difficult to predict. Inconspicuously, she illuminated her Vambrace. Violet light ignited from her arm, inviting the attention of nearby Woodsmen as the drone loomed over Gideon's head. Gideon had his finger on the shotgun trigger.
The drone stopped, seemingly from a malfunction, but it was still bobbing mid-air. Seconds later, it rose several meters higher, turned, and gravitated in the opposite direction. The yawning hiss of its propulsion faded into silence, gone before someone else could break a sweat.
Just as the calm settled, Danielle forcefully pulled and thrust Jessica's hand into the air.
"Hey!"
"She's a glower! One of them!" barked Danielle.
"It's true!" said a Woodsman. "We saw her call one of the arms!"
What happened next started with Gideon, followed by Dexter, Raptor, and the rest of The Woodsmen. Everyone pointed their gun at someone.
Jessica jerked back. "I'm not whatever you think I am!"
"Bullshit!" exclaimed Dani, pupils penetrating her rifle sights.
"The hell's the meaning of this, Sub Terra?" Gideon grumbled, gunning for Raptor's face. "If that's who yer really with..."
"Show us what you just did, Jessica!"
Valerie swerved her barrel back and forth. "Stop throwing your fucking erections around, first off!"
Thankfully, Shannon interrupted as the voice of reason.
"Yo! She saved us, all of you, with what she just did, okay. I don't know what it was, but Jessica isn't capable of the sick and twisted treachery y'all accuse her of!"
And she saved me!" Dexter affirmed. "From suicide by alien."
"She's an asset to Sub Terra," Raptor said matter-of-factly.
"If you can all just cool it," Jessica swallowed, "Babel won't do a thing to any of you!" Before anything else, before everyone else, Danielle butted her weapon into Jessica's calve, and Jessica hit the ground.
"Listen, cyberwhore—"
Dexter pressed his pistol to Danielle's head. Tension burned in his breath. "Whatever you do to her, I do to you," he said. Though fury lived in his gaze, Danielle's bore resolve.
"I'm okay with that," she said.
'I'm okay with that'? Really?
"Dani, no!" said Gideon. "You don't make that call, missy!"
Danielle peered over her shoulder, conflict in her eyes – The longer she stared, the more her grip loosened. A buzz later, the rifle fell from her grasp, and she collapsed into a seizure.
Jessica pushed Dani off and stood on two feet, shaking off the taser glove. She almost made the mistake of patting Dexter with the same voltage.
"I know what it looks like!" she told Gideon, while Danielle spasmed in the background. "Do Azareans use holo-tools? Yes. Yes, they do."
Spasm.
"Am I an Azarean? No, I am not."
Spasm.
"Am I party to the Azarean cause in some way? Hell no!"
Spasm.
"My equipment happens to be similar to theirs," she continued, while Gideon blankly stared at Dani's unconscious seizure. "This hologram you saw. Babel on!" Her Vambrace ignited, causing The Woodsmen to back away in hot suspicion. "I made him with a lot of help."
"Him?" said Gideon.
With so many guns and lives on the line, Jessica decided to stick to the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. "Babel is an artificial intelligence."
"Ain't no such thing as sacrificial intelligence."
"What?"
"Artificial," Babel humbly interrupted. "My software is infused with cognitive processing mimetic to humans. I am capable of eclectic reasoning and solving complex tasks, but it was Jess who installed empathy into my core programming. That and sarcasm. As you can see, it doesn't work very well."
"What he said," said Jessica.
Gideon lowered his shotgun. "Just say that next time, missy!" The Woodsmen, along with Raptor, Shannon, and Valerie, also lowered their weapons. The leader nonchalantly walked right past Jessica, squatted, and lifted Danielle. When he arose, his smirk rayed across the group. "So long as we keep it 100 from here on, we'll be okay."
"That's it?" asked Shannon.
Gideon turned with Danielle's slumped body. "Yes, that's it. Ya got one of those computer intelligences with ya? Fine. Like I said, we don't have no technology susceptible to your waifu chicanery. Those Azareans, on one hand, that there Bobble will really screw 'em. Pointy-eared bastards...
"Only thing I don't like about yer astronomical intelligence is the accent. Not crazy about Irish."
"'Tis British," said Babel, "which is quite non-specific."
Very casually, The Woodsmen took after Gideon and proceeded into the forest, toward their original destination. Raptor trod alongside his younger brother.
"Put your gun away, Dexter."
Dexter broke from his absent stare to notice his hands."Right."
Meanwhile, Valerie and Shannon checked Jessica.
"Okay, homegirl, it's nice to see you're still full of surprises, but they're really starting to scare me," said Valerie.
"And why do you wait until we're literally staring death in the face to tell us things!" said Shannon.
"As cliché as it sounds," Jessica sighed, "I wouldn't tell you guys things that would literally put your lives at risk. See that, Shannon? I correctly used the word 'literally'."
"I love you, Babygirl, but you make me wanna punch a puppy, sometimes. Like when you dropped out of a moving car."
"Yea..."
Raptor stepped in the middle of their conversation. "We have a lot to discuss before we can find the rendezvous," he said. "Let's keep up with Gideon's group for now." When he motioned them forward, Valerie and Shannon followed. Dexter dallied in defeat. He endeavored to lose the pessimistic crease on his forehead until Jessica stepped near his personal space and poked his shoulder.
"Hey!" she whispered.
"Hmm?"
"Stop looking so depressed!"
The boy took a deep breath before his lips curled from a frown to a grin, an improvement reflected in his eyes. Jessica walked off, knowing he would follow.
*Vote for companionship