EPILOGUE

September 2029

Former Ávila Property

It was dark and quiet, just like the first time Mark Herrera had visited this place. But that first time he’d been on a mission important to the Resistance. Now, it was a personal matter.

He waited in the middle of the weeds and grasses until he was sure that nothing of significance was moving out there. Then he raised two fingers and beckoned the people behind him. Not waiting for their arrival, he moved forward, toward the orange grove.

It didn’t take him long to find the hole they’d dug, the hole from which they’d extracted Danny Ávila’s time capsule. The earth they’d excavated was still piled up beside it, the mound now slightly eroded.

A minute later, his mother Michaela joined him. Kyla Connor and her dogs hung back thirty or forty yards, not wishing to intrude on this private moment.

Mike set down her field pack and opened it, pulling out a bag of heavy cloth. It said USPS on the side and was closed by broad white drawstrings. But she just held it while she looked around.

“I loved this place,” she said in a whisper. “The sound of traffic in the morning, fresh orange juice, Mama Teresa making breakfast … just the fact that it was ours. The family’s.”

Mark unclipped his folding shovel from his pack and extended it for use. “I’m sorry, Mama. It’s not ours now.”

“Yes, it is. It’s behind enemy lines, but it’s our land, and it will be as long as I’m alive. It’ll be ours longer if you decide that you want it.”

Mark smiled. “I’m not sure I can think that far ahead.”

“You’ve got to, Mark. If people just fight without thinking ahead, they’ll fight in random directions. You need to fight for something. Toward something.”

“Maybe so.” Mark looked around, at the nearby trees. He tried to imagine it when it had been a working farm, pipes carrying clean water to the trees, workmen managing the groves. It was such an alien notion, working out under clear skies by daylight, that it made him shudder.

But he thought he might come to like it.

Mike lowered the bag full of Daniel’s ashes into the hole. From her pack, she drew a second object, a plate of stainless steel. It was just a piece of scrap metal she’d scavenged from Edwards years ago, but a metalworker in Tortilla Compound had inscribed words on it, not even asking for bartering goods for his work.

In the light of the full moon, it read:

DANIEL FRANCISCO ÁVILA

GREATER THAN THE SUM OF HIS PARTS

Below those words were the dates of Daniel’s birth and death, like brackets surrounding his life.

She climbed down into the hole and carefully placed the plate atop the bag, then accepted Mark’s hand back up.

Mark began shoveling earth atop the bag and the plate. “So, what do you do on a farm like this when you’re not working? For entertainment?”

“Well, among other things, it depends on whether you have a pretty wife.” Mike gave her son a critical eye. “Which you’re not likely to get if you’re all skin and bones. Mark, you’re too skinny.”

“Hard to get fat and lazy with my active bachelor’s lifestyle. Besides, Mama, I’m a Hell-Hound. We live on food that other people would starve on.”

“Paint chips, scorpions, and very small rocks?”

“Well … yeah.” That hadn’t been what he was going to say, but it sounded like something he would have come up with.

Her voice softened. “Welcome home, Mark.”