Foxface Maplesap's Arc

Chapter 6 of 7

They reached the overpass before sunrise, but the cameras were already tracking. Foxface watched the red lights sweep the concrete pillars in slow arcs, calculating gaps that never came. Hazel crouched beside her, waiting for her signal, but she kept her paw raised while her mind raced through alternatives she'd already dismissed. The gateway sat fifty paces beyond the overpass, its metalwork visible through the morning haze, marking the edge of the dead zone her charts promised. She'd mapped wind patterns and infection zones for two solid days to find this pocket, and now a line of functioning cameras stood between her and proof that something in Nor still resisted The Red. Grendel appeared beside them without warning, his heavy bow already drawn. "Cameras track movement," he said quietly, nocking an arrow tipped with scrap metal. "Give them something else to follow." He loosed the arrow high, watching it arc over the overpass and clatter against distant rubble. Every camera swiveled toward the sound. Foxface didn't wait for the cameras to swing back. She bolted across the exposed ground with Hazel right behind her, her pack bouncing hard against her spine as they ran beneath the overpass. The gateway's metalwork grew larger with each stride—ornate scrollwork wrapped in vines that should have been red but stayed green, untouched by the fungal blooms choking everything behind them. She cleared the threshold and stumbled to a stop, gasping, then turned to look back at the overpass they'd just crossed. Red mushrooms clustered thick on every surface behind the gateway, but ahead the ruins sat bare and gray, exactly as her wind charts predicted. Hazel doubled over beside her, catching his breath, while Foxface pulled out her charcoal with shaking paws and began sketching the gateway's position. She'd found it—a verified dead zone where The Red couldn't spread. Now she had to map every route leading here before the machines woke up again and trapped them on the wrong side.