An old woman sat in the back of Ndakala’s rented bush jeep. She looked far less than her years, but wealth, whiteness, and access to good food and better doctors were larger factors in that than personal genetics. Most hated her ilk. He was not most. Motives, however racially-underpinned or subliminated with guilt, were what earned his respect. Misguided though she was, he understood that she wanted to be of service to his people. Most outsiders, like her, couldn’t help but be fools, and behind him she sat in an immaculate white pantsuit with a floral-print silk scarf flung around her long neck with precision sufficient to make it appear an afterthought. Atop her head was a woven grass hat, which shielded her sweat-flecked brow from the subtropic sun. Barely an hour into the day and the humidity sweltered such that it compelled a paper fan from her satchel. Her name was Lydia Benson, but to him she was the rich American woman who wanted to visit the place where such a pittance of her wealth was philanthropically invested. [i]“We are almost to the village, Lady. Maybe another hour, maybe two,”[/i] he said as the road turned east, away from the open highveld and into bush forest. The night before, his friend and pilot brought them by propeller plane from Cape Town to Johannesburg, still a bustling city, but also the last bastion of relative safety and civilization under Xanathan rule before wilderness and lawlessness took over. It was a perilous journey given the restrictions imposed on flights in the wake of the Iberian Incident—that being the reason his client remained still in South Africa and why he was making another trip up into the jungle. The details were still sparse, but from what he understood an alien city appeared and buried tens of millions of Earth’s citizens. He refocused his thoughts back on the journey and their destination. Already, they had spent three hours driving along abandoned roads and over open fields. Now they were in the former Ndlovumzi Nature Reserve, just south of the Olifantsrivier, and close to where she wanted to be taken—the village of Phalaborwa. Suddenly, she screamed; more of a stifled rasp, as he heard the sound of her palm fold over her mouth. Evidently her eyes were far better than his, for it was a moment or two later before he saw what provoked such a reaction. Half a mile up the road, an overturned personnel carrier smoked. Around it were jeeps upended and on fire. Bodies were strewn all over. One was impaled on the stump of a dead tree, aloft like a macabre scarecrow. Instinctively, he stopped, snatched up his binoculars, and took in the details. The carnage appeared recent, maybe a few hours old. Blood still pooled from the wounds of what might be unconscious survivors. The vehicles were Xanathan, no doubt about it. He knew not what crazy guirellas dared venture so deep into the corporation’s territory, but they must not have accounted for the consequences that would befall the entire region. The riposte would be horrible and it would go worse for anyone found in this area. [i]“We have to leave right away. We can’t go this way, Lady. We have to go around. North. Off-road. It will add another two hours on to our trip, but I know a way. Through a canyon. Very dangerous, but it is either that or turn around.”[/i] She nodded. [i]“Keep going?”[/i] She nodded again. He started the jeep, backtracked two miles, and turned up a game path that led down a steep embankment. It was mere minutes after his jeep was safe beneath the cover of the brush that he heard the choppers. It wasn’t the time to keep moving, it was the time to wait. He stopped, motioned for Lydia to get out, and they both crawled underneath the vehicle in the hopes of evading any thermal scans—if it wasn’t already too late. [i]“Just keep calm and quiet and nobody will know we’re here,”[/i] Ndakala whispered.