Chapter 14 – Return to the Star
The road back was quiet.
Naomi barely spoke during the descent from Raven’s Roost. She carried the magnetic tapes in her arms as if they were glass. Thomas kept a watchful eye on the forest edges, noting how the air had changed—tenser now, like even the trees were waiting.
They rejoined the Blue Ridge Parkway just past Love Gap and made quick progress. With each bend in the road, the pulse of the Roanoke Star grew faintly brighter against the horizon.
“Feels like we’ve been gone longer than three days,” Leah murmured.
Thomas nodded. “We didn’t just walk back—we brought part of the Watchtower’s soul with us.”
Ezra was waiting by the fire when they arrived.
Clara, too, her arms crossed and eyes wide when she saw the reels.
Naomi handed over the burst recorder first. “We found the relay. It played back a message—someone calling themselves Station 5, Dominion Ridge.”
Ezra’s brow furrowed. “That’s a name I haven’t heard in a long time.”
“Was it part of the Watchtower?” Leah asked.
Ezra hesitated. “It was one of the founding relays. But we thought it fell silent when the analogs died out.”
Naomi shook her head. “They didn’t die. They splintered.”
She pulled the tapes from her pack.
Ezra took them with gentle hands. “Magnetic. Haven’t seen tape like this since the backscatter scans went offline.”
Clara stepped forward. “I might be able to build a reader. We’ll need reels, motor housing, a variable-speed controller…”
Ezra smiled faintly. “We’ve got parts in the Star’s storage. And I know where we can salvage more.”
They spent the next two days rebuilding.
Clara and Thomas worked from dawn to dusk in the hollow beneath the Star, carefully aligning motors and rethreading rubber belts scavenged from a broken irrigation system.
By the third night, the reader was ready.
They loaded TAPE A – Charleston Fragment first.
It clicked, whirred—and then a voice came through. Warm. Tired.
“Charleston node was compromised. Glyph archives transferred to canoe group. Northbound on the Kanawha. Message ends.”
Naomi blinked. “They sent the glyphs up the river.”
Ezra pointed to the map. “The Kanawha feeds into the Ohio. That means someone carried the archive west—possibly into pirate territory.”
They rewound and switched to TAPE B – Toronto Node Echo.
This one began with static. Then, a different voice. Slower. Purposeful.
“We never stopped. The Beast thinks in one direction. But memory flows backward too.”
The message repeated once, then cut off.
Leah turned to Ezra. “Toronto… that’s real? You think it’s still active?”
Ezra rubbed his beard. “There were rumors. Survivors in the lake region. A node under the old city hall. If it’s still transmitting, it means they’ve been waiting for someone to respond.”
Naomi leaned over the reader, her voice soft. “Then we have to reach them.”
Ezra didn’t answer right away.
He stared at the spinning reel, thinking not just of Toronto—but of the entire Watchtower network scattered across the continent. Vaults, stories, and signals, lost beneath ash and silence.
“We’ll need another node,” he finally said. “One strong enough to bounce a signal across the lakes.”
Leah pointed to the map again. “What about the aqueduct node near the capital?”
Ezra nodded. “That could work. But it’s dangerous—deep inside Beast territory.”
Thomas stepped forward. “Then we’ll need more than gear.”
Ezra looked at the group—Naomi, Leah, Thomas, Clara.
“We’ll need a story strong enough to be remembered.”
That night, they played the Toronto message one more time.
As it ended, Naomi took her chalk and traced the word remember in the dust beside the fire.
The glyphs that followed weren’t from a book.
They came from memory.
From her mother’s stories.
From Leah’s journeys.
From Ezra’s teachings.
From the land itself.
And as the wind passed over the valley, the Star pulsed in time.
American Prophet 