The Cardinal Directive: Supplementary Files #4

Meanwhile in Copernar...

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“Copernar Gate to Tower, do you read me? Over.”

In a small radio shack at the edge of the city, Tala sat before a detailed map of the surrounding desert, walking a protractor down the length of the Labyrinth.

The map was crowdsourced and somewhat crude in areas the harriers rarely visited, but it was fine enough for her needs and had been for as long as she’d worked there. Tacks and pins of various sizes, shapes, and colors stuck out of the paper with no apparent rhyme or reason to the casual viewer, but Tala knew them well. Some were indications of where lochsled graveyards had popped up over the years, while others marked dead zones, or the last known location of harriers she’d been in contact with.

A red tack just off the side of the Labyrinth was one of them, indicative of where she’d last spoken to harrier Alison Kheely. She hadn’t been able to raise Kheely on comms for over a day now. She hadn’t been able to get anyone out to the repeater tower to boost the signal either, which was strange.

In any case, that meant they were in a dead zone. Obviously, she couldn’t communicate with anyone in a dead zone. …But it had been over a day. Kheely and her team should’ve made it back into tower range by now, and yet there had been no word. This, paired with Solena and Garrett’s disappearance before her, was starting to tug at Tala’s nerves. The fact that Mars was heading into storm season soon did nothing to ease this feeling.

Again, her headset buzzed at her from the table. “Copernar Tower, do you copy? We have a bit of a situation here. Please advise. Over.”

Finally, she gave in, maneuvering her wheelchair to the other side of the room to grab her headset and put it on.

“Copernar Tower to Gate. I hear you. What’s the 411? Over.”