The afternoon slipped by; Melanie and the others returned to the village, feeling that it was probably as safe there as anywhere else at the moment. That evening, the siren did not sound, the supply truck and the night rangers did not arrive. The girls sat around the campfire as usual, though, planning strategy for the future. The immediate issue, of course, was the fact that someone was going to be coming in to hunt Melanie down. Now, they all agreed, there wasn't a reason to avoid being declared a rogue. They would, they decided unanimously, fight; they would be killed, certainly, but they could make their oppressors pay, at least a little. The problem was that, other than the two pistols Melanie had brought and the bow Harry had left, they had no weapons. Michelle, the former anthropologist, told them that she knew how to pressure-flake arrowheads, spearpoints, and stone knives from flint or obsidian, and there was a deposit of obsidian on the north side of the island. To Michelle's shock she produced an obsidian knife from her waistpack, a small but very functional and almost incredibly sharp blade she'd attached to a wooden handle. She had, she said, made it at night, quietly--primarily with the intent of using it on herself if she ever faced capture.

It was well after dark when a Jeep roared into the village. The girls went on alert, hiding among the huts, but it was Harry who jumped out. Melanie ran to meet him.

"It's confirmed," he said brusquely, addressing everyone. "Every word Melanie said. All true. I've sent other rangers to inform the girls in the other villages. The rangers are not your enemies, they'll do what I say." He reached into the back of his Jeep and started hurling bags out. "Field rations," he said. "Freeze-dried, you can bury them. Camo paint. Water desalinator." He then hauled out two shotguns, two rifles, and another bag. "Ammo," he said shortly. While the girls stared dumfounded, pistols, bows, arrows, knives--a whole arsenal--came out of the back of the Jeep. "I'll conduct a quick training course with these tonight," he told them. "Make sure you know how to use them. The new warden is coming in day after tomorrow. Meanwhile, my rangers won't do anything except get the word out. The prison guards are another matter, I can't control them. They're furious that I won't come bring Melanie in, and they're coming after her tomorrow morning, first light. They'll have rifles, shotguns, and handguns, but they won't have the infrared trackers, those are mine and I won't let them have 'em. It doesn't mean they aren't a threat, you have to be ready. You have to be ready to kill them, too, if that's necessary."

"Harry..." Melanie said slowly. "Are you sure? I mean... bringing us all this... you could become an outlaw yourself..."

He turned to her; in the firelight his face looked almost demonic. "I already am," he said flatly. "They lied to me, Melanie. They lied to me, and my rangers--my rangers are decent guys. I played by their rules--more or less. I ran their Preserve. I killed girls for them, girls like Jane, girls I really loved. I won't have it. I can't live with it. You understand?"

She lunged at him, jumping on him, hugging him. Her eyes teared up yet again, fogging her vision. "Oh, Harry..."

He hugged her back, briefly. Then he pulled away. "We don't have much time," he told her. "I need to instruct your Deer on how to use these weapons. Then I need to get back to the ranger station. I'm worried about Rachel and Eileen; the prison guards are madder than hell at me right now, and while I don't really think they'd take it out on my family, I want to be sure."

"I understand," Melanie told him. "Let's get to it." The girls gathered around, the weapons and the ammo were passed out; Harry conducted the training session in a quick but professional and thorough manner, after which he quickly left. The girls ate a small dinner using the rations he'd brought; most of them slept little that night. At daybreak they were already up and out in the forest, watching the gate for the arrival of the prison guards.

They were a little late. It was a good hour after daybreak before three trucks rolled in through the gates. Half a mile inside, they rolled to a halt and the guards poured out. Melanie counted thirty-five of them, including the drivers. Guns in hand, they started wandering on down the road en masse, looking into the woods on both sides as they went.

"What the hell are they doing?" Michelle asked. "They wouldn't find us in ten years that way."

"They're guards, not rangers," Melanie reminded her. "They don't know anything about the forest." She looked at Michelle and grinned. "But I think it'd be a shame if they didn't find us. Don't you? Come on, let's not keep them waiting!" Issuing some quick directions, Melanie sent half her troops across to the other side of the trail, with Michelle in command. She herself led the remainder, and they moved quickly and silently through the trees, paralleling the movement of the mass of guards and eventually getting well ahead of them.

As Melanie had told Michelle already, she did not want her girls to fire the first shots. Leaving her troops in concealment, she walked down onto the road, out in the open but close to cover, and waited for them.

They came around a bend in the road a few seconds later and saw her. "There she is!" one of the yelled. "There's the Goddamn killer! Get her, shoot her!" Melanie sighed and rolled her eyes. This wasn't, she was sure, going to go down any other way. She watched the guards raise their weapons and then broke for cover before they could actually fire, sliding in behind a couple of massive trees. A moment later, gunfire erupted in the quiet woods, and Melanie could hear the bullets chipping the bark of the trees that protected her.

That was the signal for the girls in the woods.

They opened fire from both sides. Considering that practically all of them were inexperienced with firearms, they didn't do at all badly with that first volley. Melanie peeked around the tree to see that about twenty of the guards were down, about half of that number lying perfectly still and the rest squirming and screaming on the ground. Wildly, the remaining men began firing into the woods in both directions. The girls returned fire, and five or six more of the guards went down.

Only then did it seem to occur to the remaining men--not more than a dozen, now--that standing exposed in the middle of the road wasn't a good idea. They broke in all directions; and Melanie saw immediately that two of them were running toward her.

She stepped out from behind her tree and fired one of her pistols at them. Still very inexperienced with it, she missed utterly. They kept running toward her; one had a shotgun, and she barely got back to cover before the heavy boom of the weapon was followed by shot peppering the tree. She peeked out again, fired two quick shots, and one of the men--they were close, now--stumbled, grabbed his leg, and fell. The other, the man with the shotgun, came on. He fired at her again, but again she'd taken cover quickly enough. After a moment's hesitation, she peeked out again.

And he hit her in the side of the head with the shotgun's barrel, knocking her to the ground. Her pistol went flying; she looked up to see the man standing over her, pointing the shotgun at her head. It was, she reflected, almost funny. After ten successful years as a quarry and after an amazing escape from the prison, she'd acquitted herself miserably in this fight, and now she was going to die because of it. You sure aren't a fighter, Melanie, she told herself as she waited for him to fire.

"Murdering bitch!" the guard snarled. "You ready for that big hunt in the sky? Don't matter, here it comes!"

Then, without warning, two arrows sprouted from his chest, as if they'd appeared there from nowhere, both of them in the vicinity of his heart. Just an instant later a third sprouted a little higher. Unable to believe it, the guard stared down at them with the same look of shock Melanie had so often seen on the faces of the girls when they were ambushed; then he fell heavily to the side, already dead. Melanie rolled over and looked up. To her, it looked like a section of the woods came alive and walked toward her. She blinked; then her eyes focused on the forms of Harry, Rachel, and Eileen. She could only stare. Harry was dressed in full camo, but the two women were naked, their bodies and even their hair painted with camouflage colors. All three held compound bows, all three wore quivers full of deadly hunting arrows.

"Classic, perfect, movie timing," Rachel said.

"I can't believe this," Melanie said. "What're you doing here?"

"Saving your ass," Harry said. Eileen reached down and helped Melanie up; Harry handed her the pistol she'd dropped. "You really do need practice with that thing," he observed as she took it.

"Tell me about it!" she replied. She turned, quickly; the gunfire had stopped. "What's--"

"It's over," Harry said. "You won."

"I have to go see how my girls are," she said. "Come on!" She turned and ran into the open; Harry and his family followed at a little distance. She discovered, very quickly, that Harry had been right; they had won. Thirteen of the guards were dead, eight more were severely wounded, and ten had more minor wounds. The last four had surrendered to the girls, who'd suffered no casualties at all. The girls waited patiently, expectantly; it was just a moment before Melanie understood that they were waiting for her orders.

"Take all their weapons," Melanie told them. "Be sure you get all the ammo. Use their own handcuffs to bind the guys that aren't seriously wounded and the prisoners." While this was being done, Melanie walked over to the four prisoners and stared at them.

"How many guards are left at the prison?" she demanded.

"I ain't telling you a thing, bitch," one of them snarled.

She drew her pistol and pressed the muzzle against his head. "Then you," she said softly, "are of no use to me."

His eyes widened; he decided not to test her resolve. "Ten," he answered quickly. "We didn't have a big guard corps there."

"And how many prisoners?"

"Nineteen Class-A's and two Class-B's waiting induction."

"Anybody else?"

"Office staff. The med staff at the infirmary. I dunno exactly how many. Thirty, maybe."

"They won't be a problem," Harry said, stepping up behind her. "I think I can figure what you're planning, Melanie."

She nodded. "We're going to take the prison. We're going to take those prisoners out of there. We all may get killed in the end, but I don't want to leave anyone sitting in a cell waiting."

"Traitor!" the guard hissed at Harry.

"Human being," Harry replied evenly.

Melanie turned to him. "Harry," she said, "I don't like the idea, but... if you say the word, I'll kill all these guards. I don't want to do that, I especially don't want to kill the ones who surrendered. But they've all seen you now, they know that you helped us..."

Harry waved a hand. "It isn't necessary," he said. "I told you before, we're outlaws now; we're with you, for better or worse. Six of my rangers have thrown in with you too. Sam Price is in charge of them, they're collecting the women from the other villages, and they should be here shortly. The rest of them are planning to try to stay out of it completely. I dunno if that's going to be possible. When the new warden arrives, he's going to find this a war zone, and he's probably going to call out the National Guard."

Melanie pursed her lips. "And we're all going to be killed... Harry, you and your family have to get out of here!"

"Not necessarily," Harry told her. "A lot more is going on than you know about."

She frowned. "What things?"

"While I was up at the ranger station," he explained, "I went on-line. There's a group of Internet users, a sort of a society, it was established twelve years back, and it's now run by a man named David O'Neill, who's devoted his whole life to it. The group has grown very large now; their purpose has been to reform the system that puts you women here, and get the ones that are here released."

"I didn't know," Melanie said. She'd focused on the name "David"--but she rejected the idea. It could not, she told herself, be "her" Dave. David was, after all, a terribly common name. Probably some armchair do-gooder, she thought--then immediately mentally chastised herself. Whoever he was, he was trying to help them and did not deserve a summary dismissal like that.

"I've been in touch with them," Harry went on, "for many years now. Eileen's in communication with them almost daily. Undercover, of course. Today I broke the news about the plans to sell ten-year survivors to the Gallagher Corporation, about your escape, and about the revolt that's broken out here."

Melanie grinned. "I didn't know we'd revolted."

"Well, you have. Take my word for it. Anyway, the response has been quick and dramatic; the society has had a lot more influence than even it thought it had. Riots are in progress at Leavenworth and Attica right now. At Attica the National Guard was called out and ordered to fire on the demonstrators, and at last word they're fighting among themselves."

"I can't believe this..." Melanie said slowly. "I thought we were forgotten, I thought no one cared about what happened to us..."

"Thanks to David O'Neill and his people, no. You haven't been." Hearing movement in the forest, they all looked up; six men in ranger uniforms, leading a group of about thirty naked women, appeared on the trail and were moving toward them. "Looks like we're all here now," Harry observed. "I guess it's time to start talking about how we're going to take the prison!"