Jordan strode purposefully through the unknown forest. One backpack was slung across her back, the other dangled from her front, awkwardly bumping into her empty stomach with every step. The terrain wasn’t difficult, despite the lack of trail. A thick canopy of needles blocked out the heat of the sun, leaving dappled patterns of cool shade. Jordan’s primary goal was to find water. If she really strained her ears, a small trickling was audible. The way forward went on a slight decline, a good sign. She prayed to all of the gods that it was water. Starvation didn’t faze her. After all, she’d had a lot of practice in the previous weeks. But water was an unavoidable necessity.

    Jordan briefly stewed in irritation at Chen’s swift departure. She had achieved a certain clarity regarding their semblance of camaraderie when he ran into the woods without a second glance. She braced her shoulders and held her chin high, sweeping all thoughts of the werewolf from her mind. Chen was no longer her concern.

    Jordan grumbled many choice swear words under her breath as she trekked forward. She knew she was being watched and she was going to find out how. She had an upcoming plan of action and was grateful she could even think of one, but she did not look forward to how tedious and monotonous her task would be.     

Jordan’s irritation trickled away as she marched through the stately trees. This world was filled with nostalgic sounds and sights, sensory flavors she hadn’t encountered in years. She brushed her hand against the rough maroon bark, feeling the sharp ridges nip at her fingers. She inhaled the sharp, earthy scent of dirt and pine. The crunch of fallen needles and branches resounded in her ears. The pristine pines towered into the sky, most likely untouched by humans for ages. Jordan spotted an aspen or two, poking out from behind the wall of infringing pine needles, the white bark riddled with the marks of deer teeth. They were an odd comfort to her; despite being bruised, battered, and isolated, they stood tall in solidarity.

As her journey continued, she kept an eye out for signs of disturbance: patches on trees that were too dark, blinking red lights, lumps underneath bark, anything. She paused, tilting her head at the section of forest ahead. The signs were suspicious, though subtle: a broken branch, splintered in a way that didn’t seem natural, deep indents in the pine needles, an odd scarcity of wildlife that signified that there had been a large disruption for an extensive period of time. She squinted at the trees, their branches and the canopy above.

    A smile of satisfaction broke across her face as she finally saw something.

    It was tiny and lightweight. Barely an inch long and a centimeter wide, to an untrained eye it would have been invisible. The camera had been drilled into the tip of a branch, partially hidden by the surrounding pine needles.

    Jordan set the backpacks down and reached up for the branch. She strained to bend it down towards her and took a look at the camera. The focal lens was significantly smaller than a normal one, which meant it was wide angle. It made sense, considering the camera’s purpose. She didn’t recognize the model, which was not surprising. Her technological catalogue was two years out of date. She peered into the lens, certain that there was someone watching the feed.

    Jordan was right... In a sense.

    Yes, Research Team 11 was present in the camera room, but they were not paying attention to her. Save for JiYong, who was still focused on his job, they were enraptured by their new research bunker.

    “Wow, the board really pulled out all the stops, didn’t they?” DaeSung gaped at the 360 degree camera room. Each and every camera feed had been melded together to form a massive screen, broadcasting a live feed from every inch of the five-square-mile research site. The team couldn’t imagine the price of the top-of-the-line equipment.

    “They did for the research lab,” TOP snorted, climbing down from the ladder that led to the living area. His arms were full of paperwork. “They skimped on the bedrooms. We’re all sharing a room and the kitchen’s tiny and-”

    “She found a camera.” JiYong proclaimed, ignorant of his team’s prattling. They soon scrambled over to his section of the screen.

    “Already?” YoungBae sighed in admiration. “Damn, she’s good.”

    “She’s been looking specifically for them.” The team leader remarked. “But I don’t know why.” He questioned why she was looking for cameras instead of for food or water. She could find the cameras, but they would be useless to her. They were permanently fixed to their bases, essentially unbreakable, and numbered in the thousands.

    The team watched as the girl scoured the area. Using that first camera as a base, she walked approximately one hundred steps in every direction, finding numerous cameras along the way. After each trip she would return to the tree, crouch on the ground, fingertips at her temples, muttering under her breath. After her final trip, she dug through her backpack and took out the copper wire and knife. She roughly cut a section of the wire and bent it into a triangle. She placed it against the first tree, the proceeded to carve into the bark.

“TOP,” JiYong questioned, moving to a different camera. This one captured a small glimpse of the tree trunk. “What sector is she in?” TOP consulted the camera number and then his paperwork.

“Fourteen. She’s getting close to the lake.” He responded. “She ventured a little into fifteen.”

“And how many cameras are in her area?” The team leader let out an amazed breath. He shook his head, a flabbergasted smile made its way onto his face. The rest of his team regarded him with questioning eyes. TOP flicked through the sheath of papers.

“Well, since she didn’t look through an entire section, it’s hard to tell. But I’d guess about forty?” He looked up at the head researcher. JiYong pointed at the camera screen. His team stared at the screen.

    “No way.” DaeSung quipped. “No way.” They all gaped at the number carved into the trunk.

    42.

    “She’s making a map!” YoungBae exclaimed. He swiveled to gape at his leaders. “Brilliant. But there’s like a thousand cameras out there.” He swept his hand at the screens. “There’s no way she’ll be able to them all straight.” JiYong sent him a sardonic grin.

    “Did you do your research on her? After she was locked up?”

    “No?” His team responded. JiYong reached back for a chair and sat back, eyes ablaze with a storytelling furor.

    “We never actually caught her. The media said that due to YG’s extensive knowledge of technology, we finally found her. That’s completely false. Someone snitched on her, and got two billion for their ‘pains.’ I don’t know if you all know this,” He leaned back. “But  our databases are protected by five security programs, each encoded with a different language. It took her less than a minute to get past each one, and it took her even less to plant a Trojan virus. It was so sophisticated that for days, we thought our servers were blank. They weren’t. I.T. got through the virus only to find another program behind it. But it wasn’t ours. It was hers. She’d distracted us using the Trojan horse, and planted another program to extract all of our experiments. We couldn’t get her out though,” JiYong snorted. “Do you know why? Because we didn’t know the language. She literally invented her own language, and made a program based on it.” He began chuckling at the sheer absurdity. It was a hack worthy of ludicrous stories and the big screen, not mundane reality. “By the time we figured it out, she was long gone and had replaced all of our files with pictures of cats. The IP address we traced her back to was our President’s.”

    The four remaining researchers collectively raised their eyebrows. JiYong continued.

    “We still don’t know how many programming languages she knows or how many hacks she has been responsible for.” JiYong leaned back in his seat. “In short,” He pointed at the screen. “Memorizing camera locations won’t be a challenge.”

    The camera room filled with stunned silence as the team surveyed the girl on the other side of the camera.

    Jordan, however was not dwelling on her past accomplishments. She was instead focused on her current dilemma: counting her steps, noting which cameras were where, and securing them into her mental map. She walked another one hundred steps and repeated her process. She fashioned a small star out of wire, leaned it against the tree, and then cut the number of cameras into the trunk.

    For hours, she kept at it. Soon, there was a Triangle Sector, a Star Sector, and a Square Sector, amongst others.

    However, as her map expanded, her hope shrank.

    The day was getting hotter, even under the shade of the trees. Jordan could feel the prick of thirst in the back of and the sweat dripping off of her forehead. Hunger nipped at her stomach, a feeling she was rapidly getting used to. Jordan felt like she could still hear the trickling of water, but it seemed no closer. She wondered for a brief moment if it was a figment of her imagination. She had no clue what two years in solitary had actually done to her mind. She trudged onwards, her optimism falling with her sweat onto the forest floor.

    The weary traveler shook the pessimism from herself and focused on her map again. She shoved aside the thought of water and concentrated on counting her steps. She stared strictly at the trees around her, noting the specific location of each camera.

    Jordan was so engrossed in her immediate surroundings that she didn’t notice the rise of birdsong, the smell of mud, and the presence of the sun’s rays on her face. Her pupils dilated with the new light, prompting her to raise a hand against the piercing beams.

    Sunlight.

    How long had it been since she had stepped in it? Actually bathed in the sun’s rays? Natural, infinite light. Jordan closed her eyes and tilted her face towards the sun, allowing the light create a mosaic behind her eyelids. The warmth soaked into her skin, evaporated her sweat, and raised her dehydrated hopes.

    For a brief moment, the burning thirst and exhaustion flew away on the wings of birdsong. It lifted from her shoulders the struggle to survive and settled down instead the sound of leaves rustling in the wind and birds twittering to the skies.

    A smile curled the corners of her lips upwards. She was free.

    When Jordan opened her eyes again, she saw the beauty of her surroundings in a new light. Nestled between two small hills was a lake. It glimmered emerald, reflecting off of the trees surrounding it. The sight failed to relieve her of her troubles, but the thirst and hunger no longer burdened her. Jordan stumbled, gaining speed as she slipped and slid her way down to the muddy shoreline. After setting down the backpacks in a dry patch of dirt, she sprawled out, cupped her hands in the clear water and splashed her face, practically submerging herself into it like a horse. The cold startled clarity back into her cortex. She reached for the bag and pulled out the bottle and the iodine. She didn’t remember how much was needed to purify. She shrugged, too much or too little probably wouldn’t kill her. She dipped the bottle in the pristine water and added a couple drops of iodine. Jordan was loathe to wait, but she did.

    She swirled her hands and arms through the cold water, the salt and dirt washing off her in dusty clouds. A stinging feeling in her right forearm made her jerk her arm out of the comfort.

    There was a incision she hadn’t noticed before. Below it sat a rectangle right below her wrist on top of the veins. It didn’t hinder her movement. It didn't seem to do anything, for that matter.

    “Tracker, probably.” She muttered. “If the cameras go down.” Her eyes flicked over the the bag. Jordan extended out a hand, reaching inside the cloth. Her fingers closed over the knife handle. She pulled it out, turning the handle over in her palm, contemplating.

    “DON’T. YOU. DARE.” YoungBae slammed his palms down on the control panel. He pointed an accusatory finger at the screen. “You are not cutting that out.” He shouted. TOP rested a calming hand on his bare shoulder. Panic pulsed through YoungBae’s veins as he watched the knife turn, over and over, in her hand. He stared, eyes glued to the screen, as the subject’s lips pursed, and her arm moved to place the knife back in the pack. The stress lifted from his shoulder and his heart rate slowed as relief rippled through his being. “Oh that would’ve been so bad.” He groaned.

    “Agreed.” JiYong sank back in his chair. “Good news is, she’s at the water source. She probably won’t move, there’s plenty of shelter around there.” He glanced backwards at DaeSung, who were intently monitoring the werewolf. “Where is he?”

    “He’s right at the border.” DaeSung reported. “He’s making the patrol nervous.”

    “Let me see.” JiYong rolled over to the other side of the room. He examined the monitors, scanning for the right one.

    “Right here.” DaeSung pointed at a bottom left screen.

    Chen was pacing right at the chain link fence. He was unable to climb it, even with his amplified abilities. It stood twenty feet tall with an electric current running through it. On the other side stood a constant patrol, armed with tranquilizer guns.

    That, however, did not prevent the werewolf from trying. JiYong watched as Chen coiled on the ground, all of his muscles tensed, and launched himself upwards, clawing his way up the metal. He almost made it, he was nearly three quarters of the way up before the electricity incapacitated him. He let go, snarling in pain and fury. His eyes flamed blue as his jaws widened, releasing a roar. He screamed out his pain and frustration. It was nearly tangible, even for the researchers on the other side of the camera.

    “He’s been doing that for nearly an hour.” DaeSung told the team leader. “I can’t believe he can take the electricity. It’d probably kill a human after a couple tries.”

    “He’s a werewolf; we don't know his tolerance.” JiYong reminded his peer. “But I agree. It’s impressive.” The three watched as Chen seemed to finally give up. His shoulders hunched, though the blue flare in his eyes did not fade. His lips curled over his teeth one more time, a growl filling the microphone.

    Abruptly, the werewolf turned and rocketed in the other direction.

    “He’s probably headed towards the lake.” DaeSung mused. “It’s the only water source in the area.” He raised an eyebrow. “Our subjects will be meeting again soon, whether they want to or not.”

    “Team Leader! Team Leader!” TOP’s calls beckoned JiYong back to the other side of the room. “We’re in trouble!”

    “What now?” JiYong sighed exasperatedly. He peered over TOP’s shoulder and immediately saw the problem.

    In the entire research area, there was only one location in which they had encountered camera positioning issues. By the lake, there was a minute rock dugout, partially backed by a flower field and bordered by the lake. There was no convenient area to set up a camera so the inside of the dugout was invisible, and that was their one blind spot.

    “She found it.” YoungBae sighed.

    The screen only showed Jordan’s face as she contemplated it. She backed away, then turned her face away, presumably towards the rocky area. For a few minutes, she disappeared from view.

    When she appeared again, a smirk stretched across her face. Jordan stood in front of the camera.

    “I found it!” She chimed in a sing song voice. She placed her hands on her hips. “Well, that’s good. I at least have some degree of privacy, right?” She paused, and glanced to her right. “I’ll be spending a lot of time there.” She grinned again. “Good luck with your research!” She gave a mocking salute, and disappeared from view.

    JiYong let out a frustrated groan. He turned around.

    “Dae!” He shouted. DaeSung jumped in surprise. The team leader had never addressed him in such a casual tone before.

    “Yes, Team Leader?” He meekly replied.

    “I saw you sneak alcohol here.” JiYong’s reddened face now clashed awfully with his orange hair. DaeSung shrunk in his chair, stammering out his apologies.

    “I-I’m sorry, Team Leader! I thought it would be nice for team building. I can throw it aw-”

    “Bring me something. I need a drink.” JiYong snatched a chair. His subordinates gaped at each other in surprise.

    “Sir?” YoungBae nervously brought up what he thought was a valid point. “It’s three in the afternoon.”

    “So?” Was the terse reply.

    “So it’s a perfect time for a beer!” DaeSung shushed YoungBae and clambered up the ladder.

    Minutes later, a beer in hand, Kwon JiYong sat in his chair fuming. His team stood in the corner, wondering what happened to their team leader.

JiYong did not know what he had done in his career to end up with such an infuriating human being.

***

As always, a huge hug to HunHan623 (so much alliteration!) for editing this chapter. You, my darling, are a lifesaver.

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