In which we learn a little bit more.

But what made him feel like he knew what he was talking about, what made him feel like a leader, like he could be trusted, that was all on the inside, and Marie couldn’t take a picture of that.

Hunter remarked that they were “Getting close now.” which shook Marie quite out of her head and into the wasteland that was the world.

“Great! My feet are screaming right now. Where are we?” Marie had asked this more than once, but Hunter’s newfound chattiness gave her hope that he would answer her. At this, Hunter stopped for the first time in ages, carefully set The Girl down, and looked up. He looked left. He looked right.

“What-” Marie started, but Hunter made a zipping sound. “You asked where we are. I’m finding out.” He bent down and rubbed the ground, and sniffed the residue on his fingers. Marie was beyond weirded out.

“Marble Hill.”

Marie made a face. “What?”

“We’re close to what was Marble Hill, a town in North Georgia.”

“So, aside from how the cuss you know that, how far have we walked?”

“If I’m right, and I’m sure I am, it’s forty-five miles from where we started as the crow flies. About fifty miles.”

Marie gawked, partly in amazement at her ability to walk, but also in wonder of Hunter’s skill. “Wow. How do you know that? Or are you just making this up to make me stop talking?”

Hunter smiled, wiped his dirty hands on his cargo pants, and hoisted The Girl (who was peacefully snoring) back onto his back. “I have good teachers.”

Marie had had enough vagueness for a lifetime. She ran in front of Hunter, heaved The Girl onto the ground, and sat down. “I don’t care if I sound like a two year-old, but I am not getting up until you tell me what the (retracted) is going on!”

Hunter blinked. Then sighed. “I promise you, there are people who could explain this ten times better than me.”

“I don’t care.”

“But we’re being followed!”

“Talk!”

Hunter plopped sulkily onto the gravelly roadside. “Okay,” he surrendered, “what do you want to know?”

“I’d say everything, but I’m nice and I know you don’t want to rest our feet for too long.” Hunter rolled his eyes.

“So,” Marie pondered, “I want to know what was happening back there. Then we can move on.”

“Okay, deal. For one, those guys back there are part of an elitist “political party” that is really just a colonizing Nazi-like ideology that strives to dominate the world. They were, how to put this nicely…”

“What does that mean?” Marie ventured.

Hunter winced. “…cloning you.”

Marie was silent. It all made sense. Why hadn’t she realized it? The Girl? All the machines? Had she…

“Did I…” Marie whispered.

Hunter looked at her inquisitively. “What?”

“Give… birth to her?”

Hunter made a face. “Ew. No. That would be weird.”

“Well it’s not much weirder than-“

“Fine, fine! No. You didn’t. They used dark magic.”

Marie looked at him angrily.

“Oh, right. Your a Man Age lady. Anyway, now that I’ve told you, we can keep walking.”

“But-“

“No.”

“You still haven’t told me how I was cloned!” She said indignantly.

“Um, I just did.”

“Dark magic? Right, as if.”

Hunter put his hand to his face and sighed. “Listen: about twenty years ago, the world changed. Do you by any chance remember being captured? By guys like the ones we just escaped from?”

Marie thought about this. The harder she tried to remember her life, the more she realized how hard it was to recall. “I – I don’t know. The last thing I remember is saying goodnight to my -“

Henry.

The men with the metal faces.

Her brother.

The screaming.

It was all coming back.

“I remember.”