The tribe returned to gather before the fire. All the spoils of the day were lain out on blankets and mats to display. These would be seen by the Leader, Lady, and assembled Elders, and then distributed to the various members of the tribe. Today, there were many items scavenged from soldiers, as well as plants, dead wood and stones of interest and animals slain by the hunters.

      There were several DG jackets, and many boots and coats taken from the PU terrorists. From the terrorists, they had also taken a lot of gear including knifes, holsters, sheaths; field glasses, night-vision goggles, canteens, ammo pouches, short range radio communicators, and first aid kits. Though John thought he had told them not to take these, he did see a quantity of silver bullets, as well as some rifles.

      Karina had brought more plants she knew to be of use, and others had brought berries or nuts to show her, so they could learn if they were edible. Also, as they often did, the tribe had brought in found natural objects - pine cones or twigs - just for their beauty, or thinking they could be fashioned into something.

      The hunters had brought another deer - a doe it appeared - a number of rabbits, and two fat birds. Claudia graciously congratulated the tribe with a small bow of her head, managing to look regal, though she had still not dressed since being stripped of her wet clothing.

      "Jayne, Erik," John said, "I thought we said not to take the bullets?"

      Erik looked to Jayne and Jayne looked to Erik. "Yes, but what if we didn't shoot them?" Erik asked.

      "What if we made something after melting the metal?" Jayne asked.

      "Like what?"

      "We don't want to say," Jayne said.

      "It's a good thing," Erik assured John, "a surprise."

      "Let us keep them just a while. You will like our surprise," Jayne pleaded.

      Claudia gave John a nudge with her elbow. "Let them, if the surprise is not good, then we can deal with them."

      John waved his hand for all to continue. Alaric took charge again, getting to be experienced at judging when John wanted him to speak, and at saying the right things. It seemed to go over well, the dismissive wave from John, followed by the orders barked out by Alaric. "Whoever found each item of clothing may keep it if it fits. If it does not fit, you must leave it for the next person who it does fit and has use. If it has use to noone but is an item you think of quality, announce that you will save it for later trade or tribe members to be found."

      Hands dashed in to pick up the boots and coats. Miko stood with a large red wool jacket neatly tailored and trimmed on collar and cuffs in black leather. "Do you want it?" he asked John.

      John looked over the gathered number. There were others who might better fit that jacket, but none who had real need for another jacket, and this was rare, a DG jacket. "Let me see you try it on."

      Miko put his arms into the sleeves. The jacket hung to his knees and he had to push the sleeves up to find his hands. He looked adorable.

      John gestured for Miko to approach. He helped the boy to roll the sleeves neatly. "Alaric was right to say that no one should hoard found items when there are others in need, but in this case, I will tell them it is all right. No one has better need or use for this jacket, and look it suits you."

      The boy put his hands to his hips and looked down at himself. A grin formed on his face. "A fine trophy, Mikolaj," Alaric said.

      "Yes, he looks very brave and handsome, I think," Helena said.

      Miko smiled up at his brother's new girlfriend. "Really?"

      "Seriously," Helena said.

      "Everyone did excellent work today!" John said loudly so they would be sure to hear. "I saw everyone doing good work, so be proud. You saw the dead treated with proper honor. You aided the injured and sick. You shared what you had. Everyone did good. But Mikolaj and Adelle, they deserve a little congratulation. They did work that in cities no person of their size or status would care to do or even be able to."

      "I heard that Miko was brave and helped move large bodies. He even stayed brave when the fighting and smoke was close, better than I did," Claudia said, "I did not mean to be so distraught. I owe you all thanks."

      "No,no," Leonore said, "I know that those Protestant Underground terrorists did terrible things to you in the past that you will never forget," Claudia winced at John's side, but Leonore did not see, as she addressed the others, "Claudia must have imagined that she was like those dead people. Any of us might have done the same."

      "Double thanks to you, Leonore," Claudia said flatly, "And to Mikolaj for having a clear head during the battle, so he could help John find me when I was trapped. Also, double thanks also to Adelle, who while still caring for her own child, shared the work you all did and nursed me back to health like I was her own child. Elzbieta, who has not received her due double thanks from many days past. Thanks to you all really."

      Alaric gave a kind but impatient look to Claudia. It made John laugh. "Karina, please take the plants to the wagon along with any helpers you need for sorting. Who has not taken a turn yet skinning game? I'm sure you have not all done it. Get these carcasses strung up and prepared for roasting. I suggest you techs take this found gear to the trailer and make up an inventory sheet so that when needed items can be taken from you as needed by mission. Leave the knives just yet. My Lady, what would you like to do with the pretty rocks and sticks."

      "You are the perfect warrior king, Alaric," Claudia said sweetly, without expected emphasis on the name. "I will treasure them and store them for our artisans, whoever they may be."

      "The knives, my Leader?" Alaric asked.

      "Let us see who hasn't the simplest weapon, and who has the most inclination for the hunt, and pass them to those persons."

      "I will see to it," Alaric said, gathering up the knives.

      Merideth stooped and gathered up the little treasures.

      Elzbieta came and gathered up the stray mats and blankets to hang them on the line where other clothes and linens hung to freshen or dry.

      "Are you feeling much better?" John asked Claudia. She looked better, almost happy.

      Claudia was looking at John. She reached from her blankets to take his closest hand. "We made a miracle today," she said. She rose to her knees and from there leaned over to kiss John. He wished she did that more.

      She was moving away, smiling as she stood.  She turned from him and moved away, dragging her blankets as the train of an elaborate gown, until she reached the door of their trailer where they fell.

                      †               †               †

      They were moving again, after spending so many days in Szczecin, but they were more now. Merideth had pointed out the campers who had begun to follow at the end of the line. Claudia was pleased. She had invited the two crews of hackers, but they were now gaining followers, members for the tribe, without really trying. Adelle and Patrick had only been the first happy surprise.

      Claudia glanced to Leonore's machine. She had temporarily allowed Claudia to use it. Claudia was doing some programming on hers, and didn't want it tied up. She looked to the second machine to check the virtual areas and informational pages the tribe had constructed. The virtual areas were good, they deserved congratulations — the latest was created by Jayne and Erik and employed as the wall images photos taken by Merideth, in which Jayne and Erik dressed the parts of Claudia and John trying to save each other in the river, and also had text describing their much romanticized self-sacrifice, with soft music scripted to play — but the pages created with Alaric's words, Merideth's photos, and presentation coded by Mikolaj were exceptional.

      Alaric and Merideth had created a sort of journal, a daily almost, reporting on the tribe. Alaric was accurate and professional in his articles and editorial opinions were indicated clearly where he wished to give more personal impressions of the tribe. Merideth had captured many important or touching moments in her photos. She documented for viewers the conditions of the Darkling they had first met at the hospital. She had photos of John and Rudolph standing together where Alaric wrote of the heroic effort by Polish soldier and his bother both.

      Merideth had Claudia's own self sitting anxiously at her computers in a coffee shop. She had more recently captured an impressive image of John, the first day he had worn the crown, his jacket a bit torn, his cloak billowing in the air as did the approaching smoke, ground littered with corpses in the background. There were photos of the battle between DG and PU soldiers and of the many dead bodies piled high. Alaric wrote of the events of that day in disturbing detail.

      Now, whenever someone was given double thanks, itself a rather out of control concept at present, or congratulations, Merideth and Alaric did a story on their work. Anyone might read of Karina's excellent knowledge of herb lore and Wiccan practice. Viewers could find that Mikolaj could likely be the bravest, most handsome, most crafty boy his age in the world. They could read a list of tips Adelle offered to young parents. Most recently, they had convinced Sascha to pose naked but for her frame - in tastefully lighted interior - so they might have a photo to go with their story about persons imagining themselves cheated or pitied because of inherent differences, when someone with her inherited disability could use their mind to accomplish such tasks as Sascha had with computers. And for good measure, they threw in a plea for all people to educate themselves about the technologies used every day around them.

      Claudia could just kiss them. They had all sacrificed any need for secrecy to attract people to their cause by any means available.

      The door opened as the trailer yet moved, and Leonore hopped in, shook rain from her dark hair. Claudia admired the girl's agility. "Is there anything wrong?" she asked.

      "I came to check my gear."

      Claudia stood and fit a headset, to assist Leonore in checking the several multi-channel scanners and attached computers which processed their findings. All the crews had set these up together and between them all devised a way of collecting messages of each known group into a virtual mailbox on one of the dedicated machines. Claudia worked the pads and keys to open the mailbox marked by the large fonted name Pepe which had about it, in red letters, the words, "We hate U, Le Pew!"

      She looked over the most recent messages intercepted from the Protestant Underground. Nothing particularly useful, but what they already knew about the skirmish with the DG. "I'm getting nothing from Pepe," Claudia said.

      Leonore quickly checked the box marked Bessy. "Nothing on ma's cow," she said.

      Claudia tried the mailbox labeled with the word Black and decorated with tiny red hearts, and then Red mailbox with tiny black bats. "Nothing useful from either of the redjacks."

      Leonore read messages from a few more boxes. There was one reserved for the Swiss marked only by a drawing of some comicbook sidekick with word balloon, "Holy Cheese!" Another, for the SCB, was marked only with these letters.

      Leonore opened the mailbox marked Radio Free...and listened to the message. "Listen," she said, "is that French?"

      Claudia switched headsets, then nodded and made a signal to Leonore for something to write with. Leonore found a pencil and sheet of paper. Claudia began to scrawl words as she heard them, not even looking at the paper but closing her eyes to better listen.

      There were definitely voices speaking in French. She heard enough non-translated loanwords along with the French to know immediately it regarded the Darkling in some manner. There were no common French equivalents for the general term Darkling or the common English redjack to refer to Union troops. The message was weak and not entirely clear. Claudia dropped her headset to the shelf.

      "I think it is a scout or spy for a terrorist group, but I don't know which. They are reporting some conflict with the Darkling Guard in Templin. It was in French, but that means little. Many of the groups have some French speakers."

      Leonore referred to her maps, taking back her computer to do so. "That's south of here, we probably don't have to bother."

      "Mark it anyway, for future reference."

      "Sure, I suppose that can't hurt." Lenore used her stylus to mark the map then returned it to her hair.

      The trailer came to a halt. "I'll have to get the French translator installed on these machines," Claudia said as she went to the door looked outside. The rain was heavy now and the cloud cover making darkness in the afternoon.

      Miko appeared carrying an umbrella. "If you need to leave, Lady Claudia, take my umbrella," he said and made a bow. Claudia grabbed him by the collar and hefted the boy up into the trailer.

      "You drop that chivalry nonsense in inclement whether and come in and out of those damp clothes. Have those men been training you in how to catch your fool death of cold?"

      Mikolaj shook the umbrella just outside the door then quickly collapsed it. "You're a Wendy," Miko said.

      "Clue by reference, Peter Pan, play by James Barrie. Wendy was the girl beloved of Peter, the boy who never grew up. Was in a way a mother to all the Lost Boys including her own brothers Michael and John. You are very much a Michael."

      "She's good," Leonore said, maybe sarcastically. She went to the bed at the back of their trailer where Robbie presently slept, having taken an early shift driving that morning. As Robbie sat up the door opened again and Sascha and Melitta entered followed at a short distance by Marcus.

      "So, there's Marek, Helena, Jayne, Erik and Merideth to account for," Claudia thought aloud.

      "Jayne and Erik will be over shortly. I happened to hear Elzbieta mention that Merideth was resting after the earlier shift and would try to get over here."

      Claudia thanked Marcus with a nod. Helena had been in the van that towed this trailer and so should not be a problem, even if they had to fetch her.  As expected the last four of their group entered shortly.

      Erik had a small bundle in his hands apart from his mobile and Jayne asked, "Is it all right if we show you the surprise now, Claudia?"

      "What you have been crafting in silver?" Claudia asked. They had been quite secretive but she gathered it entailed the melting down of many found silver bullets, creating a mold in wood and then polishing the cast silver object. "I would like to see."

      "It is actually a present for you, Lady Claudia, to keep," Erik grinned.

      Jayne unfolded the object from its cloth ceremoniously and then turned with a wide silver circle carefully balanced in her hands. As she drew close Claudia heard others gasp or give approval and saw for herself that the silver circlet was covered on its outer edge by spikey protusions and meant to be worn.

      "It is your own Crown of Thorns," Erik said, "A Lady crown." Claudia bowed as Jayne lifted the crown and set it down in her hair.

      Claudia straightened then, pulled the tie from her hair to let it fall, and adjusted the crown just slightly for balance. "I wear it well?" She asked Jayne.

      The girl's smile would have answered. "Yes, Claudia, just as we pictured!"

      "Double thanks to Jayne and Erik, then," Claudia spoke, "I suppose there will be photos Merideth?"

      Merideth laughed, "Already caught the image."

      "Back to work then?" Claudia asked. "Lets form the circle again and go through the drills. Today our focus can be on inviting those just beyond our path of travel to come to us. There is not time to visit every town and state, not if we mean to reach the widest range of our people before they are forced out of our reach."

      "Denmark is just to the north," Marcus announced, "the BCG had some contacts there. We can begin spreading the invitation that way.'

      Claudia nodded. "Travel virtually where we cannot travel bodily. So many of our tribe must have some visible net presence even if only a listing as part of an interest group."

      "Let's launch, meet with avatars in the virtual camp then split up to drag the net," Robbie suggested.

                      †               †               †

      The randomized symbol font in glowing green floated over the area of Claudia's trailer. At once five others appeared throughout camp and she could hear their voices in greetings through the headset she now wore along with visor. These were all very similar in their appearance here. Sascha had her scrolling numbers that began with the numerals of Pi then each digit scrolled through the same sequence of numbers until she again began 3.1459. The pair of glowing cyan capital Is formed Melitta's roman numeral for two. Marcus appeared as a large flowing lesser epsilon in dark green with a small image of a slice of pie made of human eyeballs that looked out at a viewer floating above and to the right. Jayne appeared as a large number 1 in glowing white with the Roman numeral III shifting colors within the larger numbers shape. Erik appeared there as the letters NEO, with the N and E horizantally flipped.

      Like the BCG, Robbie's crew had a somewhat uniform appearance, often referring to the Robot Dan or Gundan. He, of course, soon appeared as an anime robot, beside a raven that wore an armband of black decorated with the red letter R. This was of course Leonore who went by the handle Nevermore. The similarly cartoonish black-clad girl, with widely stretched letter R on her chest, riding wooden horse was Helena. The blue-haired anime boy with big green eyes in black uniform, likewise decorated with R, was Marek.

      The last two to enter the virtual camp were Merideth, who appeared as a large floating two dimensional human-like eye with mechanical iris of polished metal plates, and Mikolaj, who appeared as cartoonish school boy tossing an apple.

      They were all standing or floating as they chose within the created space made to simulate their camp. Claudia saw virtual links present themselves lined in red. She established a net connection between their small network and systems beyond. A new link was displayed in their space. "GATE ONE, guard the portal, server is up," Claudia said.

      The epsilon with pet pie that was Marcus' avatar moved to a position near the portal. An admin panel popped up for Claudia with her saved list of net addresses. "Neo, Trinity, Iris, Pupil with me. The rest follow Pi."

      Quick selected an address from the panel and instantly was in another space. It was dark as the details loaded and then a virtual bedroom with a view through a pair of door that she instantly recognized as Paris, though Paris no longer looked like this.

      Pupil was soon with her, the avatar of Mikolaj, moving through the luxurious space with its light airy décor.  Soon the alphanumeric avatars named for a pair of lovers in the classic cyberpunk film joined them and Claudia heard Jayne's voice, "Looks a private."

      "Wait," Quick instructed.

      Merideth found them last, being Iris here, her mechanical muscle contracting then dilating again with a sort of zinging sound. Quick saw their host decloak near the paired doors to the balcony. Their host appeared as a highly rendered male figure, handsome, French, wearing an old fashioned suit with long, straight-line skirt.

      "Oh it is you again, Ma Petite," he said. Claudia knew his real name was Michel. He looked over the crew. "Not the usual crowd...if you will allow me?" Without a visible movement the glass doors to the balcony and the one behind to a hall were both shut and locked.

      "Any news?" Quick asked, knowing her avatar shifted into recognizable text. "I don't have time for a long visit."

      "Still looks a private," Trinity whispered and the whisper came to Claudia as text in her display. She meant that the room with bed and lockable doors was one of those notorious private chat rooms. It was a silly, if lingering, belief that they musy be used for adult fantasies. It was simply private. Michel did such things, she knew, but that wasn't all he did. He had been Claudia's tutor in computer science, and a loyal friend to her father in real life.

      "I know him, chill," Quick whispered to Trinity.

      "Ah, look out the window now," Michel said. Quick moved to the doors. Blackness for a moment and then the dismal sights of present day Paris became clear. The skyline was jagged with bombed buildings; the streets were debris strewn, littered with abandoned crowd control barriers, and lined with dim storefronts shielded by boards or bars. Claudia knew these sights. Even the seemingly ancient structures had taken damage in the more recent riots, Notre Dame, the Louve, the Palais Versaille.

      "Horrible," Iris said.

      "I like the old better," Michel said, "But even what I remember was a reconstruction after another war. It was grand before that." Again the scenery outside changed, they saw it as it had been at the turn of the 20th century.

      Quick passed a link to Michael. "If you meet with any of your young friends who do not love the war give them this. We are looking for supporters."

      "I will see what I can do," Michel said.

      "We will go now," Quick told the others. She opened panel before her and selected another space.

                †               †               †

      For several hours real time, Claudia led the others around the net, looking up old contacts and scouting spaces for new friends. In most cases, it was simple, the entering of a space hosted by another privately where they were in control. There were more dangerous spaces.

      These were large public networks. They were funded by aggressive advertisers and frequented by mostly unpoliced crowds, often testing the newest scam, cloak, cloning device or malware they had written or downloaded.

      There were bots everywhere, programs originally meant to hold simulated intelligence or to carry out repetitive actions or dialogue while appearing to be just another user. Often they were employed in distraction or annoyance, sometmes they'd been abandoned by their creators. Without knowing you were speaking a key word to a bot, you might be distracted by their behavior, while trolls, preds, spammers, data-miners, and ID-thieves launched their assaults.

      Claudia knew her way around, could spot a bot, flag a pred, disguise her personal info.

      Whenever Quick met with someone she thought had potential she passed the tribe's link to them, or occassionally, contact information. She hoped that word would get around and that eventually people would be hitting their own crew's space to learn of the Goth. Claudia hoped some would eventually travel to meet them.

      Back in the home space, Quick left a few extra bots to assist visitors in finding a real person and went off line herself with another command to a panel. Jayne and Erik were now taking a shift keeping things running online so that the others could rest. Claudia stretched, removed her headset and returned her crown to her head. She wondered what the rest of the world would think of the Crowns of Thorn.