She was about to lose her only tool. She tapped it against her thigh, deep in thought as an idea formed. The messages and information she'd discovered had been forwarded to Mr. Tim. The East Coast's infrastructure systems still reported to her micro, but she could tap into them from the Peace Command Center.
The submarine bumped against the dock on the other side of the river, and the soldier turned it off. The door cracked open, revealing a similar platform to the one that had been on the other side of the river. A single PMF soldier in gray stood waiting. The man who piloted her across the river stayed in the sub, and she and Jack climbed out.
"See you tomorrow, Jim," the soldier awaiting her said to the other solider.
"Bright and early," came the response.
Jim closed the door, and Lana watched the submarine sink quietly into the surrounding water and disappear. He motioned for her to follow. Lana trailed him through a network of tunnels, sometimes away from the river and sometimes parallel to the river, until she was too disoriented to know for sure which direction they went. At last, the tunnel sloped upward and dead-ended at a thick metal door.
"Head due west or south and you won't run into any patrols or security," the solider said quietly, his hand resting on the door. "There are a lot of swamps in Arkansas, so just stick as close to the roads as you can. And avoid towns. They're monitoring all population hubs within a hundred kilometers of the river for refugees. Ready?"
Lana drew a deep breath and released it. She nodded.
Jim opened the door. She stepped through it. The door closed behind her, leaving her in near-complete darkness. She waited for her eyes to adjust and squinted around her. The river was several hundred meters away. Behind the walls she'd seen from the opposite side, there were hundreds of the fed's special security forces in semi-permanent camps. Alarms were sounding, and lights flooded the river and area around it.
Ahead of her was the darkness of a thinning forest. The door to the underground tunnel network was hidden behind a boulder and draped with moss. She checked her micro and did as the PMF soldier said, heading due west. When she'd gone a hundred meters, she squatted and set her micro down. She set it to connect with the fed's central computer system just before dawn, hoping to draw attention away from the town of Randolph while giving her a head start.
"This looks messy," Brady's quiet voice came across her net. "Hope you're as far from this shit as possible."