Some time after French Lick, my mind still wandered back to the unsettling feeling from that place. What was going on there? Should I go back? Maybe someone was in danger.

Of course, if someone was, what could I do? I had no fighting skills or a weapon to speak of. It was probably a good thing I got out of there when I did.

Sighing, I looked up from the pavement to see...shacks? Was this an Outlier that had been set up on the an old bridge? Odd, but okay. The lake the bridge crossed was still there and very beautiful, so I guess this would be a good spot for an Outlier.

"Hey!" I stopped looking out over the lake at the voice, which belonged to a kid. A kid who was glaring at me.

"Oh. Hey." I smiled, trying to seem friendly, but I don't really think it worked because his glare just deepened.

"You came from that city, didn't you?" That was an accusatory tone if I had ever heard one, but he wasn't wrong.

I nodded. "I passed through there, yes."

"No one just passes through there," a man emerged from behind a shack with an old gun pointed at me, "so tell the truth."

My hands went up out of some deep ingrained instinct, unsure if this would help or even deter him from shooting me. "I am. Look, I'm heading to Evansville to join the people leaving the planet. I walked through French Lick to get to this point." I thought for a moment and then decided to add, "Someone was definitely watching me right before I left though. I can say that. But I never saw anyone myself."

The man lowered the gun. "You're gonna walk all the way to Evansville?" When I nodded, he asked, "Where did you start at?"

"Indianapolis." No reason to lie about that.

He chuckled and approached me, prompting others to come out from various hiding spots behind the shacks lining the bridge. "As much as I admire the fact that you walked this far, and that you somehow just got through French Lick without dying, I don't think you're gonna make it to Evansville in time."

Now I glared. "What makes you say that? I've made great time."

"Not saying you haven't, but that ship leaving the planet is going at first light tomorrow and you still have a hell of a trek." He put in his gun the holster at his hip. "Some of the path isn't even walkable."

What? "How do you know?"

"We trade supplies with the people at Evansville." He gestured to the lake around them. "Mostly fish, since, well, lake." He finally held out his hand for me to shake. "I'm Matt, second in command of this little village."

I shook his hand, glad that he had decided I was no longer a threat. "I'm Tiffany. Second in command though?"

Matt nodded. "My wife is in charge." He gestured for me to follow him through the small herd of people looking nervous at my arrival, including the kid who initially greeted me.

Up close, the shacks didn't look as haphazardly put together as the shacks in the other Outliers I had been through. These actually had been built with the purpose of housing people to live in, not just huddle together and hope for a bit of sleep in. They looked...secure. Like living in them was nice.

If this had been at Outlier at some point, they had done extremely well fixing it up.

A woman, who I didn't see join us as we walked, must've seen my look because she said, "This wasn't the Outlier." I jumped at the sudden voice, but she just continued, "The Outlier was over there, where some houses stood before the invasion."

I looked up a steep hill where she pointed, seeing some people working. Some as lookouts and some clearly building something. "What are they doing up there?"

"They're taking the remnants of the Outlier and helping rebuild an actual town," Matt told me. "We're hoping to be able to move the majority of the village off of the bridge before the flooding season."

Before I could ask what the flooding season was, the woman actually answered me, "It floods really bad through here in the spring time. Along the lake and the river, we always had to use Wasp tech in order to do as we were ordered to."

"Oh, so you use that still?"

She nodded. "Oh yeah. It's extremely useful to our operations."

Matt stopped dead in his tracks when she said that and glared back at the woman next to me. "Lindsey, isn't your turn to go help up the hill?"

She stopped, nodded silently, and scurried off. Before I could ask what that was about, he just said, "By operations, she means fishing. We take the hover tech over the lake and fish."

That seemed a bit of an extreme reaction just to be talking about fishing, but okay. "Are you sensitive about using their technology?" That was the only conclusion I could draw from that type of reaction.

Instead of answering right away, he just kept walking. A minute later, though, he did say, "We don't like admitting it, but it does make our lives easier. Especially with rebuilding and fishing efforts. After all the pain the Wasps caused, using their tech can sometimes feel like a betrayal to our newfound freedom."

Oh, well, I could certainly understand that. "Yeah, that's why I don't particularly like raiding old Wasp houses for food."

He actually gave me a bit of a smile when we approached a bigger shack and went in.

Inside, there was a group of people sitting and talking amongst newly built tables and chairs. I was actually amazed at this, and at the ramshackle village as a whole. I had no idea this many people had elected to stay on the planet just in this area!

Although I hadn't been paying any attention to the conversation happening in the shack, looking around in amazement, I did hear the conversation stop suddenly. They had noticed that I did not belong here, despite having done nothing more than followed my guide.

An important looking woman-which felt quite nice to say about a fellow Human-stood and sent Matt an irritated look. This was definitely his wife. "Who is she, and why did you bring her here?"

Matt stood aside for me to step forward to introduce myself. "I'm Tiffany Belmont. I'm just passing through on my way to Evansville."

"Oh." That seemed to give her some relief. "On your way to the ship?"

I nodded without questioning her look of relief or how she just immediately drew that conclusion. They probably couldn't afford anyone to join their village right now and they were close enough to Evansville to trade with, so they definitely knew about the ship leaving the planet. Why wouldn't they guess correctly?

"I am Katie, welcome." She gave me a smile at last. "Sorry for being hostile, but we are in the middle of an important meeting, which my husband knew about. Why did you bring her here?"

"I wanted permission to take one of the vehicles, so I could help her get to Evansville. She ain't gonna make it there on foot," Matt told his wife.

Katie nodded. "Fair enough. We have a shipment of fish that needs to go out in about two hours, if you think you can wait that long."

"If you guys can get me there that much faster than walking can, then yeah, I can wait a few more hours." Maybe get some rest for my tired feet.

"Great." She looked back at Matt. "Take her somewhere to rest until the shipment is ready. I'm sure she needs it."

He nodded as I smiled at her. "Thank you." Before I turned to follow Matt out of the shack, I saw a paper with writing on the table nearest to me. All I caught a glimpse of was the sentence, "Shipment to Overlords nearly complete.", but that was more than enough.

Somehow I kept a stoic face as Matt took me to a nearby shack to rest and wait. Once I was alone, I let myself panic. Surely I read that wrong! There was no possible way they were trading with the Wasps! They were gone! No one could trade with them anymore, it was probably just code for something else! Yeah, that was it! Just code for something else entirely.

My mind wasn't convinced, though, as I laid down on the bed and tried to relax. Something didn't feel right about this place or about the space port suddenly.

I didn't lie down for long before finally just standing back up. Okay, I decided, I had to clear that up for my own sanity before I left. It was probably just a misunderstanding, but I had to know!

I left my backpack near the bed and went out to explore the village for answers.