The next morning we began the search of the island in earnest. I was happy to let Harding take charge once I’d explained where all I’d searched already. Kira didn’t join us but instead set off to forage. Moving through the undergrowth of the forest wasn’t difficult for me but most everyone else struggled in the knee deep brambles and decaying treefall. Harding was the only other one who wasn’t particularly hampered by the underbrush because he could just fly over it.

“The antenna will be the easiest to spot,” Harding reminded us all. “A signal that strong will need a large antenna. It’ll likely be running up the side of a tree.”

Harding had us starting our search up on the ridge surrounding the valley since a high point would be better for the signal. We walked in two wide lines, five feet apart from one another. The front line searched down low and the back line searched up high.

“If you see anything, call it out but don’t touch it,” Harding reminded us every hour or so.

We kept at it, pushing through and looking for anything that didn’t belong. Cabling, machinery, computers. Mostly we frightened ground squirrels and birds. At noon we stopped for lunch. Everyone had their own prepacked meal that we’d been carrying in our backpacks, along with our water bottles. It was more of the same sort of stuff we’d had the night before. It was also what we’d had for breakfast.

“Are we going to be eating this the entire time we’re here?” one of the supers complained.

“You’re welcome to join Kira in her foraging later today if you’d like,” Harding replied, “or just go hungry. But this is what we have to eat so either eat it or be quiet.”

“Sorry,” the super muttered.

“Mister Harding,” the super with electrical powers spoke up.

“Yes, what is it?”

“I think I found something.”

His voice was tense and it made Harding sit up, alert.

“What’s wrong?” Harding asked.

“Well, I think it might be a bomb.”

“Everyone stay where you are,” Harding said at once as several of the supers began to get up in an effort to get away. “I’m going to fly over to you and you’re going to point out to me what you’re looking at.”

He lifted off the ground and gently floated over to the super.

“Right there,” the super pointed right beneath me.

I looked down and saw the wires poking out from beneath a crevice under the rock I’d sat on. Connected to the wires was a small package wrapped in cling wrap.

“I can sense electrical signals,” the super went on, “only when they’re really close like this, but there’s hardly anything coming from that so it can’t be what’s jamming the radios, so what else could it be?”

Harding frowned, then began flying around me, poking down into the underbrush from time to time.

“Alright,” he finally said, “I want everyone except for Misha to get up and move back the way we came a good hundred yards.”

“How far is that?” someone asked.

“Just get moving,” Harding barked, losing his temper slightly.

The supers jumped a little at that and began making their way back through the trees. Harding waited until the supers were out of earshot and then sighed in relief.

“I’m not gonna lie, I’m glad it’s you on this thing and not anyone else.”

I shrugged. Not exactly excited about potentially being in another explosion but knowing it couldn’t do much to me.

“I’m going to back up a ways and then I want you to peek under that rock and see what’s there,” Harding said. “It’s an odd spot to hide it if it is an explosive, but I found a wire running from it and going further into the woods, like it might be part of a series of explosives. If this one goes off, the others might as well.

“Fun,” I said flatly and waited for Harding to get back. “Here I go,” I called out.

I stood up and picked up the rock. The moment it moved the small package shifted and I heard a faint click before everything around me exploded. I was rocked backward but caught myself before I could fall over and then waited for the ringing in my ears to stop.

As expected, multiple other explosions went off at the same time in the area, showering me with shrapnel and ruining my jumpsuit.

“Gonna need a change of clothes,” I shouted out.

“Are you injured?” Harding asked, still behind cover.

“No, it was just one small bomb that hit me.”

“Alright, I’ll have the others head back to Cain Hall since they’re not prepared for explosives like this, and then bring you another jumpsuit.”

“Thanks, bring a few,” I called back as Harding flew away.

I’d considered carrying spare jumpsuits before and this recent explosion settled my mind on the matter. While I waited I looked around at where the explosions had been set. They made a ring around me. Probably would have killed all the others here if it’d gone off while they were still nearby. I wondered if mine had been the only trigger or if any of them could have set it off. No way of knowing that now. As frustrating as it was, though, the presence of the trap meant that we had to be getting close, right? Unless they’d set up traps all around to throw us off the trail. That would have required a lot of time to set this all up, though, wouldn’t it? How much time had they had to plan and do all this?

After a half hour or so, Harding came flying back and dropped off a bag with several changes of clothes for me. Once I’d made the change, Harding came down and together we began looking around the area.

“You think this means we’re close?” I asked.

“Not sure,” Harding replied, “but it’s a decent lead.”

All the while he didn’t land and kept himself hovering a few feet above the ground while he looked.

“I’m guessing they were hoping to catch a bunch of us in this explosion,” he said. “I think this is a tripwire over here, meant to set it off. Guess messing with that rock wasn’t the only way to get this to go boom. Keep looking around this area and see if you can find anything else. I’m going to go see to the others.”

“You’re not going to stay and help me?” I asked, a little put out at being left alone.

“Sorry,” he said, “but you’re the only one here who’s blast proof and Kira can’t bring people back from the dead.”

I supposed that was a good enough reason to leave the searching to me again, though we’d covered a lot more ground this morning with everyone working together than I could cover in an entire day by myself.

“There’s probably more traps like this around here,” Harding said as he began to fly away, “but that also means we’re getting close to the source of the jamming signal.”

“Okay,” I waved at him, “but I get one of the real meals for dinner tonight.”

“It’s yours.”

I left the bag with additional jumpsuits in it behind as I resumed my search.