In The Afterlight

Without any other preamble, he started in. “We’re going to be making two hits: one, Oasis, is in Nevada. It’ll serve as a kind of test run for our big hit on Thurmond in five weeks’ time. In addition to getting those poor kids out, think of Oasis as an opportunity to work out the kinks in our strategy.”

I crossed my legs and rested my elbows on my knees, hands gripped in front of me. Calm. Something in my mind clicked into place at the familiarity of this—being debriefed on an upcoming Op. The other League kids, Vida included, appeared to feel the same way, leaning into the moment when everyone else seemed to edge back, unsure.

“One or two volunteers will enter Oasis ahead of the actual hit.” He turned to face the cluster of Greens sitting together. “We’re going to need to install a small camera in the frames of someone’s glasses, and it can relay back to us here. We need to get a sense of the compound’s layout to fine-tune our timing.”

“Why glasses?” Senator Cruz asked. “Won’t those be taken when they’re brought into the camp, too?”

“No, they’re considered essential items,” I piped up. “They’re probably the only things that won’t be taken.”

If Liam recognized that that had been lifted from his original plans at East River, he didn’t show it. He sat with his legs sprawled out in front of him, leaning back on his hands. He watched his brother with wariness.

“The catch is, the kids who volunteer can’t have been previously in a camp. PSF policy dictates that kids be returned to the original camp they were processed through, and Oasis is a relatively new camp. There is absolutely no pressure to participate. Like I said, this is purely volunteer.”

Zu glanced between Liam and Chubs, but it was Vida who smoothed a tuft of her hair down in silent reassurance.

“That aspect of the plan won’t be necessary for Thurmond, as we have three people who have been inside of the camp and are intimately familiar with its layout. The other difference between this and the big hit is what we’re doing with the kids we free. From what intel we have”—otherwise known as what intel Clancy let us have—“Oasis has approximately fifty kids, all of whom I’d like to have return with us. Depending on how willing they are to fight, we can ask them to join us in the Thurmond hit, or we can slowly return them back to their parents, a few kids at a time.”

“Are we still going to go out and try to round up the tribes of kids?” Chubs asked, jerking his thumb back toward the map.

Cole nodded. “We’ll start sending out cars once we have supplies. We need as much manpower as possible if we’re going to pull this off ourselves.”

He moved through the other parts of the plan quickly; they were sketchy at best until we had actual images from inside of the camp’s walls. It would be a small team, no more than ten of us, armed but with the order to avoid a firefight if we could. With only fifty kids, there would be maybe twelve PSFs there at most, and one or two camp controllers. We would pose as a military convoy bringing in the weekly supplies; I would be out in front, of course, because I’d have the job of influencing one of the camp controllers. He or she would continue to report that everything in the camp was fine while we drove the kids out using the camp’s own transportation, whether it be SUVs, trucks, or a bus.

The kids were silent, processing this, until Liam finally said, “Fifty kids is a hell of a lot different than three thousand kids.”

“Better to run this through on a scaled model,” Cole said, smiling but somehow not smiling.

“Okay, that may be true, but other than giving us practice, and rescuing a small group of kids, what is this going to accomplish?”

Cole put his hands on his hips, one brow raised. “That’s not enough for you? Really?”

“No, I mean—” Liam ran an agitated hand back through his hair. “The plan is good, but couldn’t it serve as something else, too? Are we going to release the photos or video that’s taken so people can actually see what conditions are like in there?”

A few kids murmured in agreement, including Lucy, who added, “I like that idea a lot. People should have the opportunity to see what it’s really like.”

“Do you have the means to do that without Gray tracing their source, swooping in, and blowing this place sky high?”

Liam’s face was still hard, but I could sense him retreating under Cole’s look.

“Whose plan was this?” Chubs asked. “I read through all of them, and I don’t recognize it....”

Cole’s jaw set, just for a moment. “It’s a combination of a number of them. I pulled the best elements from each.”

Actually, it was the exact plan I had handed him, and he knew it. I faced the front of the room, refusing to turn when I felt Chubs’s gaze fall on me. There was no reason to fuel the fire by pointing it out to them.

“Senator?” Cole motioned for her to step up.

“Ah, yes,” she said, “I was able to secure a promise of supplies from my contacts in Canada. Food, gasoline, technology, and a limited supply of guns. The issue is that they refuse to bring them across the border into California. They want to bring them in by boat to Gold Beach, Oregon. Is that doable?”

Liam spoke up before Cole did. “I just need a map and a car, both of which I can find around here.”

“And at least three kids as backup,” Cole amended. “Kylie, Zach, and Vida.”