"Give me your roster," River said.
Maria pulled a ledger from the shelf behind her desk. Thick, hand-bound, the pages dense with names and dates and notes in multiple handwritings. She set it on the table between them and opened it to the first page.
"Every person who's come through the Sanctuary since I took over operations," Maria said. "Nine years. Two hundred and forty-three individuals. Some stayed. Some passed through. Some died." She turned pages. "Current residents: a hundred and seventy-one, plus the nine outer settlement evacuees who arrived two days before you."
River looked at the ledger. Names in columns, arrival dates, origin notes, skill assessments. Maria's handwriting was small and precise, each entry a compressed biography.
"Who has access to the eastern ridge," River said.
"Anyone. It's open terrain beyond the managed tree line. We don't restrict movement within the valley." Maria looked at the map, at the ridge Fenno had pointed to. "But the ridge is a hard climb. Two hours from the compound, steep approach, no maintained path. You'd have to want to go up there."
"Who goes up there regularly."
Maria thought. "The hunting teams use the lower slopes. Three people run a trapping circuit that passes near the base. Nobody goes to the ridge itself on regular schedule." She paused. "Except Thea Marsh. She gathers medicinal plants from the upper slopes. Has done since she arrived."
"When did she arrive."
"Fourteen months ago. Came from the southern coastal settlements. Alone. Said the flooding took everything." Maria looked at River. "She's been useful. Good botanist. Keeps to herself."
River filed the name. Didn't push on it.
"I want to come at this differently," she said. "Forget who could be the mole. Think about who benefits."
Maria's mouth tightened. "None of my people benefit from destroying the Sanctuary."
"Your people, no. But what about someone who isn't your people?" River leaned forward. "The QH want two things: the documentation destroyed and this community eliminated. Who inside your walls would want either of those?"
"Nobody."
"Nobody willingly," River said. "But what about someone who's being coerced. Family held somewhere. Leverage the Overseers could use." She held Maria's gaze. "Or what about someone who was placed here. Someone who came in with a story good enough to pass and has been living as a community member ever since."
Maria looked at the ledger. At the two hundred and forty-three names she'd recorded over nine years.
"We vet people," she said. "Not perfectly. We can't. But we talk to them, we watch them for the first months, we integrate them into work rotations where they're visible."
"The QH are Overseer-trained," River said. "They'd know exactly how to pass your vetting. They'd come in with a backstory that checks out, they'd be useful, they'd be quiet, they'd wait."
"Fourteen months is a long time to wait," Maria said.
"Not if you're patient. Not if your job is to watch and report and wait for the signal." River looked at the ledger. "How many people arrived alone in the last two years?"
Maria turned pages. Counted under her breath.
"Eleven," she said. "Five from the south, three from the east, two from the north, one from the coastal route." She looked up. "Thea Marsh is one of the five from the south."
River nodded. "I need the names and arrival details for all eleven. Don't tell anyone I asked."
Maria closed the ledger. She put her hand on the cover.
"If I start investigating my own people," she said, "and they find out, the trust that holds this community together breaks. That does the QH's work for them."
"If you don't investigate," River said, "somebody inside these walls is feeding them everything they need to plan an assault. That does worse."
Maria held the ledger. She didn't hand it over and she didn't put it away.
"I'll get you the names," she said. "After the scouts report."
---
Dae came back with the dawn.
She walked into Maria's office with dirt on her knees and bark fragments in her hair. She went straight to the map without sitting down.
"Eleven positions on the eastern approach," she said. She went straight to the map. Her finger traced the eastern tree line, tapping points. "Spacing is tighter than what Darro found south. Average distance between markers: ninety meters. Assignment counts range from four to eight per position."
River did the math. Eleven positions, four to eight each. Forty-four to eighty-eight operators on the eastern side alone.
"The parallel angles," she said.
"Three different approach vectors." Dae drew lines on the map with her fingertip. "Northeast, due east, and southeast. The heavier assignments are on the northeast positions. That's where they'll push hardest."
"Why northeast," Maria said.
"Because the northeast approach has the best cover," Dae said. "Dense forest right up to three hundred meters from your compound. Once they're through the tree line, the terrain is broken ground, natural defilades. Hard to see them coming, easy for them to advance under cover." She looked at Maria. "Whoever planned this knows your terrain."
Maria absorbed that without responding.
Fenno arrived twenty minutes later. Quieter than Dae. He stood at the map and pointed.
"Eight positions on the western approach," he said. "Lighter than east. Four per position, no heavier assignments." He traced the line. "Single approach vector, due west. The terrain's more open on that side, less cover. This is a secondary axis. Pinning force. They'll fix your attention west while the main assault comes from the east and south."
River looked at the complete picture.
South: seven positions. East: eleven. West: eight. Twenty-six total positions with four to eight operators each.
Conservative estimate: a hundred operators. Aggressive estimate: more.
This wasn't a raid. This was a military operation.
"Maria," River said. "Your original estimate was twelve."
Maria was staring at the map. Her hands were flat on the table, the knuckles white.
"Twelve was what we'd confirmed through direct observation," she said. "Individuals we'd actually seen. If they've staged a hundred operators outside our detection rangeâ" She stopped. "We don't have the capacity to defend against a hundred operators."
"What do you have," River said.
"Seventeen trained for perimeter duty. Another twenty with basic weapons experience. The rest are farmers, builders, medics, children." She looked at the map. "Thirty-seven fighters against a hundred trained operatives is not a defense. It's a delay."
The room was quiet.
Dae broke it. "How much time before they move?"
"The staging markers are fresh," Darro said. She'd been in the doorway, listening. "Two days. Maybe three. They're not in position yet because they're still building the positions. But the markers mean they've decided on the plan. They're committed."
"Then we have days," River said. "Not weeks."
Maria straightened up from the table. She pushed her hair back from her face. She looked at the map for three more seconds, and then she looked at River.
"I'll address the community this morning," she said. "Security review. Extended patrols. I won't mention the staging markers specifically, and I won't mention the mole." She held River's gaze. "If there is someone feeding them information, I want them to think we're making routine adjustments, not preparing for an assault."
"Good," River said. "And the roster names?"
Maria opened the ledger. She copied eleven names onto a separate piece of paper. She handed it to River.
"Be careful with this," she said. "These are my people until proven otherwise."
River took the paper. She folded it and put it in her jacket pocket.
---
Maria called the community together at midmorning.
She stood on the raised platform outside the archive building, the one used for community announcements. The Sanctuary's residents gathered in the cleared area, a hundred and eighty faces turning toward the woman who'd kept them alive for nine years.
River stood at the back of the crowd. Not because she didn't want to be seenâshe'd already been seen by everyone, the new arrival who had her dead mother's hands and her dead mother's jaw. She stood at the back because the back was where you watched people.
Cal was beside her. He hadn't asked why she wanted to stand at the back. He'd just stood there.
Maria spoke clearly. Controlled. The voice of someone who'd done this hundreds of times and knew exactly how much truth to mix with reassurance.
"We're implementing an extended security review," she said. "Patrol radius is expanding from four hundred meters to eight hundred. Shift rotations will double. I'm asking anyone with outdoor experience to volunteer for supplementary scouting." She paused. Let the words settle. "This is a precautionary measure. The QH activity we've been monitoring has increased, and we're adjusting accordingly. There is no immediate threat. This is prevention, not response."
The crowd moved the way crowds do when they hear news that's not quite bad enough to panic about but not good enough to ignore. Murmuring. Glances exchanged. A woman near the front pulled her child closer.
River watched the crowd.
She wasn't listening to Maria anymore. She was reading faces.
Most of the faces showed what you'd expect. Worry. Attention. The particular alertness of people who lived in a post-Collapse world and knew that "precautionary measure" was a polite way of saying something was wrong.
One face showed something different.
Third row from the front, left side. A woman, maybe thirty-five, with brown hair pulled back and the practical clothing everyone in the Sanctuary wore. She was looking at Maria with the right expressionâattention, mild concernâbut her eyes moved wrong. When Maria said "extended patrol radius," the woman's gaze flicked left. Not toward the crowd. Toward the eastern gate.
Quick. Involuntary. The kind of glance that happened when your body reacted before your training caught up.
Then back to Maria. Back to the right expression.
River looked at the woman's hands. They were still. Too still. The deliberate stillness of someone controlling their body because their body wanted to do something it shouldn't.
Cal leaned toward her. "Third row. Left."
He'd seen it too.
River didn't nod. Didn't react. She kept watching the crowd like she was watching the crowd.
"The woman," she said. Barely audible.
"Thea Marsh," Cal said.
River looked at him.
"I helped with meal distribution last night," he said. "She introduced herself. Botanist. Gathers plants from the upper slopes."
The upper slopes. The eastern ridge.
River filed it.
She didn't look at Thea Marsh again.
---
She found Renn in the quarters they'd assigned her. Renn was lying on her cot with her leg elevated on a folded blanket, reading a piece of paper that she folded away when River came in.
"Your leg," River said.
"Holding. Dr. Cade wants me off it for four more days." Renn shifted on the cot. "What's happening? Maria's announcement had the sound of a woman holding back the actual story."
River closed the door.
She told Renn about the staging markers. The numbers. The mole.
Renn listened without interrupting. When River finished, Renn was quiet for a long time.
"The eleven who arrived alone," she said. "That's your short list."
"It's a starting point. But one name keeps coming up. Thea Marsh. Arrived fourteen months ago from the south. Goes to the eastern ridge regularly. Reacted wrong during the announcement."
Renn was quiet again. Then: "I know something about the southern coastal settlements. I ran routes through that area in Year 16." She looked at the ceiling. "There wasn't much left. The flooding took the infrastructure in Year 12 and most people moved inland by Year 14." She looked at River. "If Thea Marsh came from the southern coast fourteen months ago, she came from a place that was mostly empty two years before she left."
"Meaning her backstory might not check out."
"Meaning there might not be anyone left to check it against."
A backstory from a place where no one could confirm or deny it. Exactly the kind of origin an Overseer plant would choose.
"I need you to do something," River said. "When you're up and around the compound, when people are talking to you, when the community is relaxing around you because you're injured and harmless and just arrivedâlisten. Not for Thea specifically. For anything that doesn't fit. Anyone who's too interested in the patrol changes. Anyone who slips out at odd hours."
Renn looked at her.
"You want me to be your ears inside the compound," she said.
"You're going to be sitting here for four days anyway. Might as well sit somewhere useful."
Renn almost smiled. "I'll need to be mobile. The community room, the meal hall, the common areas. Cade won't like it."
"Cade doesn't need to like it. He needs to not know why."
Renn nodded. She set the paper she'd been reading on the cot beside her. River caught a glimpse of the handwritingânot Renn's. Someone else's. Something Renn had been carrying for a while.
She didn't ask.
"I'll start tomorrow," Renn said.
---
Night came and River couldn't sleep.
She left Cal breathing slow and steady on the cot and she went to the perimeter. The western gate, where the managed tree line was furthest from the compound and the darkness was thickest.
She sat on the ground beside the gate post. She let her eyes adjust.
She thought about a hundred operators staged in the forest. She thought about Thea Marsh's eyes flicking toward the eastern gate. She thought about Marcus on a medical cot with compounds finally running through his system, buying time that the QH assault might take away.
She thought about the eleven names on the paper in her pocket.
The forest was quiet. The Pacific Northwest quiet that she was still learningâdifferent from the eastern forests, different from the mountain. Softer. More layered. The sound of water moving somewhere distant and the sound of trees holding themselves against nothing in particular.
She sat there for an hour.
She was about to go back inside when she heard it.
Three clicks. Quick, mechanical, evenly spaced. Then a pause. Then three more.
Close.
Not on the ridge. Not beyond the tree line.
Inside the perimeter. Inside the four-hundred-meter line. Somewhere in the managed forest between where she sat and the southern approach.
Three clicks, pause, three clicks.
The same pattern Fenno had seen as light. Now transmitted as sound.
River didn't move. She pressed her back against the gate post and she held her breath and she listened.
Silence.
Then, from further out, past the tree line, from the dark where the staging markers waited: two clicks in response.
