Evening crawled near with their every step into the forest. Gideon kept Jessica's gravity board on his person. She got the flash drive back, but his argument for keeping the rest of her stuff was that he had to inspect everything sinister, even though Danielle had already done as much. Feeling naked, tired, and helpless, all she could do was catch pockets of the leader's conversation with Raptor.

"Glad we got to you when we did," said Dexter's brother.

"Inclined to agree." Gideon snorted then dropped a ball of spit on the ground. "We ain't blind, though. See, only visitors we get are ones lookin' fer trouble. That or a lost lamb, once in a while. The only reason we didn't shoot yer friends is 'cause they're not aliens, far as I can tell."

Jessica steered from the conversation to Shannon. "Where'd you guys leave the car?"

"In a place that's hidden, I hope," she said, and her brow twisted. "Hey... I wanted to stop for you, but my foot was so hard on the gas pedal I didn't even realize you couldn't catch up until grumpy told me we couldn't stop. The only reason we landed is because he said radar would find us. Between you and me, though, I don't think he knows where we're going."

"You'd think oblivion was genetic... And it's okay. We found—well, you found us, and it got us out of a bind." Jessica caught Danielle staring, specifically at her watch.

"Who are these people, anyway?" started Dexter, looking at Valerie next to him.

Her eye cocked. "Hmm? What? You and your brother not talk or something?"

"Talk? Yes. Communicate? Not very much."

"Monarch occasionally sends peeps to trade with these peeps calling themselves Woodsmen. They don't exactly like technology, mmkay? Which means they don't network much, mmkay? We give 'em the supplies and that helps 'em survive, secretly. Even those old-school stockpiles."

"Was wondering why their armor looked familiar..."

"Same Sub Terran-issued Sicario Suit."

"So, I have you to thank for them guns they pointed at me? Thanks," said Jessica.

"In return," Valerie resumed, staring Dexter down, "the Woodsmen feed us intel via morse code... and other shit. Mira, cabrón, I don't know everything."

One Woodsman side-stepped next to Jessica and her friends. Before he could startle them, he spoke spitefully. "It's because we avoid that alien garbage that we've lasted one-hundred years. Ma and Pa didn't need it; Grandma and grandpa didn't need it; I don't need it."

Jessica smirked. "I do applaud your independence, sir. I guess you haven't run out of salt after one-hundred years?"

"No, we haven't."

"Drone!" someone shouted

Gideon hit the floor. "Hide!"

Confused, Jessica faceplanted the dirt. Every other soul flung into cover and camouflage. As they snuck behind bark, shrub, and rock, an oblong machine gravitated through the thickets.  Its shimmering carapace brought a subtle hum in its wake as it waded through the leaves. Easily, it could cut a cavity through them with its sharp trio of arachnid-like arms. Instead, its onboard reticle rolled in a glass eye, surveying the vicinity. Any lower and it might have isolated Gideon's head, underneath. Jess clenched her teeth as it bobbed mid-air, the rolling camera difficult to predict.

Inconspicuously, she illuminated her Vambrace. Violet light ignited from her arm,  inviting the attention of nearby Woodsmen as the drone loomed over Gideon's head. Gideon had his finger on the shotgun trigger.

The drone stopped. At a glance, it suffered a malfunction, though mid-air paralysis indicated power still coursing through its systems. Seconds later, it rose several meters higher, turned, and gravitated in the opposite direction. The yawning hiss of its propulsion faded into silence, gone before someone else could break a sweat.

Just as the calm settled, Danielle forcefully pulled and thrust Jessica's hand into the air. Jessica glowered. 

"Hey!"

"She's a glower! One of them!" barked Danielle. 

"It's true!" said a Woodsman. "We saw her call one of the arms!"

What happened next started with Gideon, followed by Dexter, Raptor, and the rest of The Woodsmen. Everyone pointed their gun at someone.

Jessica jerked her arm back. "I'm not whatever you think I am!"

"Bullshit!" exclaimed Dani, blue eyes penetrating her rifle sights.

"The hell's the meaning of this, Sub Terra?" Gideon grumbled, gunning for Raptor's face.  "If that's who yer really with..."

"Show us what you just did, Jessica!"

Valerie swerved her barrel back and forth. "Stop throwing your fucking erections around, first off!" 

They were a fuse immune to reason, but Jessica had to believe they wouldn't blow. Everyone had to forego a bullet storm long enough for an explanation. Thankfully, Shannon interrupted as the voice of reason.

"Yo! She saved us, all of you, with what she just did, okay. I don't know what it was, but Jessica isn't capable of the sick and twisted treachery y'all accuse her of. We're definitely not loyal to the Azareans! They tried to kill us, for God's sake!"

"And she saved me!" Dexter affirmed. "From suicide by alien."

"She's an asset to Sub Terra," Raptor said matter-of-factly.

"If you can all just cool it," Jessica swallowed, "Babel won't do a thing to any of you!" Before anything else, before everyone else, Danielle used the butt of her weapon to slam Jessica, who hit the ground with hands wrapped around her abdomen. 

"Listen, cyberwhore—"

Dexter pressed his pistol to Danielle's head. Tension burned from his breath. "Whatever you do to her, I do to you," he said. Though fury resided in his gaze, Danielle's bore resolve. 

"I'm okay with that," she said.

'I'm okay with that'? Really?

"Dani, no!" said Gideon. "You don't make that call, missy!"

Danielle peered over her shoulder, conflict in her red eyes – The longer she stared, the more her grip loosened. A buzz later, the rifle fell from her grasp, and she collapsed into a seizure. 

Jessica pushed Dani off and stood on two feet, shaking the glove she wore, that tasered Dani, and nearly patted Dexter with the same voltage.

"I know what it looks like!" she said to Gideon, while Danielle spasmed in the background. "Do Azareans use holo-tools? Yes. Yes, they do."

Spasm.

"Am I an Azarean? No, I am not."

Spasm.

"Am I party to the Azarean cause in some way? Hell no!"

Spasm.

She continued while Gideon stared blankly at Dani's unconscious seizure."This hologram you saw. Babel on!" Her Vambrace ignited, causing The Woodsmen to back away in hot suspicion. "I made him with a lot of help."

"Him?" said Gideon.

With so many guns pointed, and lives on the line, Jessica decided to stick to the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. "Babel is an artificial intelligence."

"Ain't no such thing as sacrificial intelligence."

"What?"

"Artificial," Babel humbly interrupted. "My software is infused with cognitive processing mimetic to humans. I am capable of eclectic reason and solving complex tasks, but it was Jess who installed empathy into my core programming. That and sarcasm."

"What he said," said Jessica.

Gideon lowered his shotgun. "Just say that next time, missy!" The Woodsmen, along with Raptor, Shannon, and Valerie, did as he did. Their leader nonchalantly walked right past Jessica, squatted, and lifted Danielle. When he arose, his smirk rayed across the group. "So long as we keep it 100 from here on, we'll be okay."

"That's it?" asked Shannon.

Gideon turned, with Danielle's slumped body, toward Jessica and her friends. "Yes, that's it. Ya got one of those computer intelligences with ya? Fine. Like I said, we don't have no technology susceptible to your waifu chicanery. Those Azareans, on one hand, that there Bobble will really screw 'em. Pointy-eared bastards... Only thing I don't like about yer astronomical intelligence is the accent. Not crazy about Irish."

"'Tis British," said Babel, "which is quite non-specific."

Very casually, The Woodsmen took after Gideon and proceeded into the forest, toward their original destination. Raptor trod alongside his younger brother. "Put your gun away, Dexter." 

Dexter warily broke from his absent stare to look at his front-heavy pistol. 

"Right."

Meanwhile, Valerie and Shannon checked Jessica. 

"Okay, homegirl, it's nice to see you're still full of surprises but they're really starting to scare me," said Valerie.

"And why do you wait until we're literally staring death in the face to tell us things!" said Shannon.

"As cliché as it sounds," Jessica sighed, "I wouldn't tell you guys things that would literally put your lives at risk. See that, Shannon? I correctly used the word 'literally'."

"I love you, Babygirl, but you make me wanna punch a puppy, sometimes. Like when you dropped out of a moving car."

"Yea..."

Raptor stepped in the middle of their conversation. "We have a lot to discuss before we can find the rendesvouz," he said. "Let's keep up with Gideon's group for now." When he motioned them forward, Valerie and Shannon casually took after him. Dexter dallied and caressed his forehead in defeat. He endeavored to lose the pessimistic crease on his forehead until Jessica stepped near his personal space and poked his shoulder.

 "Hey!" she whispered. 

"Hmm?"

"Stop looking so depressed!" 

The teen took a deep breath before his lips curled from a frown to a grin, an improvement reflected in his eyes. His slow blink was like a snicker as Jessica walked off, knowing he would follow.

***

A/N This was posted as part 1 of 2 since the chapter was particularly long and I wanted to make it easier for readers to stop and proceed at their leisure. Don't forget to vote if you liked what you read!