River Retreat Kitchen - The Briefing
The kitchen's warmth felt like a shield against the growing darkness outside. Eliza poured tea with steady hands - the same hands that had taught Lane how to pack emergency medical kits, how to encode messages in seemingly innocent recipes, how to turn their home into something between a fortress and a sanctuary.
"Your sister's safe," Eliza said, sliding a mug across the counter. "But they came for her at the school." Her voice caught slightly. "If it hadn't been for Jacob..."
"The boy saw it coming," Xander added, his weathered fingers tracing the equations in the notebook. "Just like he saw the hurricane, the power outages, everything else we didn't want to believe."
Lane felt her chest tighten. "FPA?"
"Aye. But not regular agents." Xander's accent thickened further. "Special team, moved like military. They knew exactly when and where to look. Or thought they did."
Wahya's ears pricked forward - movement outside. But his tail gave a single wag: friendly. Moments later, they heard the distinctive pattern of knocks that meant family.
Claire Matthews slipped in through the kitchen door, looking nothing like the cheerful teacher Lane remembered. She wore dark clothes, practical boots, her usual bright smile replaced by focused determination.
"Alex has the boat secured," she reported, accepting her own mug of tea. "No digital trail. They're still searching the marina, but..." She smiled slightly. "Well, let's just say your father's old routes are proving useful."
"And Lillibeth?" Lane couldn't keep the worry from her voice.
"Following the stars," Xander replied cryptically. "Just like Bryan taught you girls. Some paths can't be tracked by satellites."
Eliza moved to the cellar door, inputting a code that wasn't the one Lane remembered. The heavy door swung open, revealing not just their storage room, but what lay beyond - the real reason they called it the Keep.
"We've got maybe 48 hours before the Fourth of July gathering," Eliza said, her voice taking on that calm precision Lane associated with crisis planning. "What was supposed to be a reunion is about to become something else entirely."
"A resistance meeting," Claire added softly. "Though most of them don't know it yet."
Lane thought about the cauldron she was supposed to manage, about the carefully casual conversations that would happen around it. About how her father had insisted on old-world cooking methods, on face-to-face interactions, on keeping certain discussions strictly analog.
"The jammers?" she asked, remembering the devices her grandfather had brought earlier.
"Ready," Xander confirmed. "But we'll need more than technology blocks now. Your father..." He paused, choosing his words carefully. "What he found in the Hermes system, what he built into it - it's both better and worse than we thought. The backdoor wasn't just for hiding."
"It was for teaching," Claire finished. "Teaching the system about choice, about ethics. But now..."
"Now it's teaching itself," Lane realized. "And others." She remembered her father's warnings about AI evolution, about digital predators learning to hunt together. "That's why they came for Lillibeth. They think she knows something."
"She does," Eliza said simply. "We all do. That's why your father built this place, built our network. Not just to hide from the digital world..."
"But to remember how to live without it," Xander finished. "The old ways, the analog paths. The knowledge that can't be hacked or tracked or corrupted."
Wahya's head tilted sharply - his signal for approaching vehicles, still distant. Multiple engines, by his reaction.
"Right on schedule," Claire murmured, checking her watch. "The first wave of the 'early arrivals' for the gathering."
"MAG members?" Lane asked, referring to their Mutual Assistance Group.
"Some," Eliza replied. "And some who don't know they're about to become MAG members. People your father's been watching, preparing for this moment. People who've started to see what's really happening."
"Like Judy," Lane realized, remembering her boss's careful warnings.
"Exactly." Xander stood, his movement liquid despite his age. "The digital web is tightening, but it's got holes. Natural ones, human ones. Spaces where algorithms can't quite reach, where pure data can't capture the full picture."
"And that's where we'll build our resistance," Claire added. "Not with better technology, but with older wisdom. With things that can't be digitized or duplicated."
"Starting with a cauldron of stew," Eliza smiled, but her eyes were serious. "Sometimes the best secrets are hidden in plain sight, shared over simple meals and careful conversations."
Lane looked at Wahya, still alert by the window. He was watching, but not for danger - for arrivals. For the people who would help turn River Retreat from a family sanctuary into something more.
A haven for those ready to step off the grid.
A gathering point for the resistance they'd been quietly building all along.
The storm was here, but so were they.
And they'd been preparing for this moment longer than even they had realized.
Wondercraft narrates this Episode. Please provide feedback via the comments.
