The Departure Protocol

Chapter 24

Wared and Randee both stared at Shea.

"Wake her up?" Randee said. "Are you out of your mind? What would we do with her?"

"We would bring her back to the outpost of course. We would bring her home," Shea said.

"But why, and why her?"

"Because my father knows her. Many others know her, and countless others know of her. They know her story. My family's story."

"Maybe that's not such a bad idea," Wared said and paced the room. "How do we prove to those back home that the Departure isn't what they think it is? Are they going to take our word for it? I don't think so. I wouldn't believe me if I rolled into town and claimed the most sacred event of our society is just sham? They'd kick me out of town. I think the idea has merit."

Randee looked at Wared and rubbed his chin as he thought in silence. He looked at Shea, then back to Wared. Finally, he nodded his assent.

"You make a good point, Wared. I see the benefit as well. At the very least, bringing back a Candidate that has already departed will make many question what is going on."

"The Protectorate isn't going to like it," Shea said.

"You're right," Randee said, "But does that matter? What can they do? You can't suppress the evidence if it's walking around right in front of you."

"I wouldn't count on it. We have to be prepared for anything."

"The important thing is," Wared said, "That we can get the word out, that we can present evidence of what we know. It's hard to know how people are going to react to the truth. We can't really say for sure if they'll even believe us, right?"

"We have to try," Shea said.

Wared nodded and punched his palm with his fist. "We have to. Randee, what do we need to do next?"

"I'll get to work on that," Randee said. "But, we have a more pressing problem."

Wared turned to Randee. "What do you mean?"

Randee pointed to a screen with flashing red notifications. "It looks like the Protectorate have found this place too. I'm seeing perimeter breaches in several places."

"They're already inside?"

"In a manner of speaking. From what I can tell, the facility is built with an inner core and and outer ring. We're in the core, they breached the outer ring."

"Isn't that what we did?" Wared said.

Randee nodded. "Pretty much. But, they came through the front door, so to speak. They're the Protectorate. It wouldn't surprise me if they knew where to go and also had they key to get in."

"What do we do?" Shea said.

"I need you two to slow them down. There are security doors between the core and the outer section. We need to close those and lock them."

Wared looked at Shea and then back at Randee. "How do we do that?"

"You'll have to head back up to Operations. I saw a security panel up there earlier."

Wared nodded. "All right. We'll get them closed. Then what?"

"Come back here. Once I figure out how to wake up our Candidate, I'm going to need your help. Shea, it's going to be really important that you're here when she wakes up. She will likely be confused when she regains consciousness and having a friendly face nearby will help."

Shea nodded. "I'll be here, you can count on it."

Wared and Shea left Randee behind and returned to the Operations Center.