On the way down, you searched for Dead Whitby, but he still wasn’t anywhere.

You may never know the truth.

But in what Whitby swore was Dead Whitby’s backpack, you found two curious items: a strange plant and a damaged cell phone.

0010: CONTROL

Control woke to a boot and a foot, just six inches from where he lay on his side under some blankets. The black tread of the army-issue boot was worn down in tired ridges like the map of a slope of hills. Dried mud and sand commingled there and in the sporadic black studs meant to provide a better grip. A dragonfly wing had been broken along the axis of that tread, pulverized into rounded panes and an emerald glitter. Smudges of grass, a smear of seaweed that had dried on the side of the boot.

The landscape struck him as evidence of a lack of care not reflected by the tidy stacking of provisions, the regular sweeping out of leaves and debris from the landing. Next to the boot: the pale brown sole of a muscular foot that seemed to belong to a different person, the toenails clipped, the big toe wrapped tight in fresh gauze with a hint of dried blood staining through.

Both boot and foot belonged to Grace Stevenson.

Above the rise of her foot, he could see she held the three weathered, torn pages he’d rescued from Whitby’s report. In her army fatigues, including a short-sleeved shirt, Grace looked thinner, and gray had appeared at her temples. She looked as if she had endured a lot in a short time. A pistol lay in a holster by her side, along with a knapsack.

He twisted onto his back, sat up, and shoved up against the wall catty-corner to her, the window between them. The raucous birds that had briefly woken him at dawn were quiet now, probably out foraging or doing whatever birds did. Could it be as late as noon? Ghost Bird lay curled up in a camo-patterned sleeping bag, had throughout the night made little jerking motions and sounds that reminded Control of his cat in the grip of some vision.

“Why the hell did you go through my pockets?” Somehow the accusatory tone abandoned the words as he said them, relieved to find his dad’s carving still in his jacket.

She ignored him, leafing through Whitby’s last words, lingering between a smile and a frown, intense but uncommitted. “This has not changed since the last time I saw it. It’s even more full of shit now … probably. Except back then the author was a crackpot. Singular. Now we’re all fucking crackpots.”

“Fuck?”

A quizzical look. “What’s wrong with ‘fuck’? Area X doesn’t give a crap if I swear.”

She continued to read and reread the pages, shaking her head at certain parts, while Control stared, still feeling possessive. He was more attached to those pages than he’d thought, afraid she might just ball them up and chuck them out the window.