] Blake Hazar — 1:38 PM — 29 AUG 2316 [
Blake watched Liam's face flicker through a storm of emotions. The others in the Basement at Federal Junction—Karina, Bjorn, Liam, and Blake himself—had just learned Marc was staying, and that he'd left without telling anyone. The fact that everyone knew the stakes only deepened their bafflement.
Then Liam snapped upright. Pocket-dimension doors began flaring open and shut around him. Caught off guard, the four remained frozen in their seats as Liam crossed the living room toward the kitchen, his passage stripping the room bare until only their chairs remained.
When he moved on toward the training room, Blake felt a chill: Liam was erasing every trace of the Basements recent addition's residents. He turned to Karina. "Guess we'd better finish packing — and bring our stuff to Liam," he said. They headed for their shared bedroom to pack. Bjorn and Max, still dazed, lingered in the living room for a few more minutes.
] Liam Sawyer — 2:33 PM — 29 AUG 2316 [
They stood in the living room of the Basement, the rest of the dwelling stripped clean. Liam had planned to wait for a better moment and leave within a day, but tonight had become the only sensible option. The longer they stayed, the more traces they'd leave — and it was only a matter of time before Marc was recognized as TOTE. They would have to push farther into the ungoverned lands than they'd first planned to avoid being tracked back to the AFF once Marc was caught.
Not wanting to alarm anyone, Liam waited until everyone finished packing and then told them plainly it was safest to go that night. The group accepted it; Liam would explain more when there was time. For now they rehearsed the exit plan, the same sequence they'd worked through repeatedly over the past three days.
They expected to be on the road by 11:30 PM in Liam's car, driving out to the Interregional Highway and then turning onto a remnant pre‑WW4 road — torn, overgrown, branching off the highway into scrub and ruin. Many such roads fan out from the Interregional, rarely traveled because of the dangers they lead into. According to every AFF map Liam had seen, northwest of the highway, between Region 1 and Region 3, those roads bled into the ungoverned lands and didn't meet another region again for a very long way.
Interregional Highway, Region 1 Branch
] Liam Sawyer — 11:33 PM — 29 AUG 2316 [
Liam gripped the wheel as a metal glint caught the headlights. "Looks like we're approaching another one," he said, slowing to gauge their reactions. Blake nodded, eyes bright; Bjorn, Karina, and Max in the back smiled—they were all in.
The glint soon turned into the last stubborn scrap of a rusted signpost; no sign remained. Liam trained the beams ahead: a ruined ribbon of road—crumbling asphalt, jagged concrete, grass and roots clawing through—dotted with trees that had forced trunks up through the paving.
What had been a burst of excitement when they turned off the highway stretched into a long, tense crawl. Liam threaded the car through the tangle, every jolt testing the vehicle. He and Blake traded low conversation up front while the three in back gradually drifted off, slipping into sleep as the dark miles slid by.