Lani Ioneki watched patiently in Camp Futuria as the people represented by stationary blobs of light on the screen in front of her made plans for what she assumed would be a confrontation in the morning. She was especially looking forward to meeting the one who had been her obsession for the past eight months, and whose feelings she now experienced like her own.
Out of habit she wondered what her best friend Anela was doing, and felt the latest of a thousand twinges of guilt for lying to her. As far as Anela knew, Lani was living happily at Rogers Ranch in Hawaii after months of depression caused by her younger brother Maleko shipping out to a war zone. In reality she had for nine years been a member of a secret society based at the ranch, the last three of which coordinating the setup and activities of this outpost in Colorado’s mountains.
Her phone buzzed with the ring tone of the ranch’s guard station, indicating that someone was looking for her there. “Who is it?” she answered simply.
“The Gardners,” the operator said, his voice modulated by the security scramblers in their phones. “I told them you are out harvesting.”
“Did they say how long they plan to wait for me?”
“No.”
“How about why they came?”
“Anne said it was personal and urgent.”
Out of habit, she inwardly cringed at the mention of Anela’s original middle name, which she alone had never felt comfortable using as a substitute. “Following protocol is all you can do. You know why.”
“I do. Uh, oh.”
“What?” she asked calmly and began guessing the answer.
“Is that her?” she heard Anela demand in the background. “I thought you didn’t have phones!”
“It’s always good to test your assumptions,” Anela’s husband Pete added before the guard could answer.
Lani noticed some movement on the screen and felt a sense of resolve as the solution to the thirteen year-old mystery that had shaped her adult life was about to be revealed. She knew what needed to be done, and without regret she ended the call. |