General Sebastian Monroe sits astride his horse, soldiers marching behind him in twenty-five rows of four. There's a Militia camp just ahead, smoke rising from the fires and armed guards coming to meet the reinforcements and President Monroe.

The sight is familiar, and the rider looks at the reason he's travelled all the way from Philadelphia instead. A great wall in the distance, made of fifteen-feet-tall wooden spikes, obstructs his few of the town behind it. A stronghold that Tom Neville's convoy hasn't been able to conquer.

Jeremy had advised him to go handle it personally, maybe get some inspiration for the inevitable full-out war with their southern neighbours. He'd only agreed because giving in to the urge to kill his advisors, soldiers and suitors is bigger these days than the urge to wipe his enemies off the map.

Bass is shown the tent of the commanding officer, and is surprised to find not Neville, but an unknown face with Lieutenant stripes. "Where is he?" the general asks in his most commanding voice, the man before him shaking in his booths as he is faced with the leader of his nation.

"Dead, sir," the lieutenant answers, his chin on his chest as he stares at the ground, voice small and unobtrusive. The general sighs tiredly at the news.

He doesn't care that Neville is dead all that much. Neville had always been loyal to the highest bidder, ready to step over to the Georgians if he got offered as little as a higher rank. Bass has made sure he was never alone with him, already feeling the knife in his back, always the whisper of an uprising in the back of his mind. Nevertheless, Tom had been useful in some ways.

"What happened?" Seeing that the lieutenant is getting ready for story-time, he elaborates, "bare-bones version." He doesn't say 'please', hasn't done that in years.

The soldier gulps and takes a breath. "We split into five groups of ten to gather the taxes and search for Matheson," he starts, and Bass resists the urge to run a hand through his hair. This is going to take a while, the babbling already grating in his nerves. "Neville's group went to this one, and I heaved the taxes on the cart as usual. The others tried to enter."

The first thing Bass notices is that Neville isn't even addressed by his rank, a lack of respect that he can't fault the soldier for, and one that tells him that there won't be many hotheads out for revenge when they attack. He wonders if the Neville boy already knows his father is dead.

The second thing makes him interrupt. "You're telling me that you haven't been inside the town to get the taxes? How long has that been going on?" Neville had been slacking if what the soldier is telling him is true.

"Three years, sir. They leave everything they owe us outside the gate with a representative, she's really nice." The general just looks at him blankly, amazed by the stupidity of his own soldiers.

"Let me get this straight," he says, "you have allowed a town to reinforce their defences for three years, not knowing what they were doing, not confirming the amount of citizens, nor checking for the presence of a blacksmith or an armoury." Is he allowed to call a twenty-something-year-old a kid? Yes, yes he is.

The kid shrugs. With the amount of towns they have to collect from it's easy to dismiss the ones that cooperate. He's not going to tell the general that, though, because that would most likely mean a bullet through his head. On second thought, Monroe would probably just skewer him on one of his twin blades. A lowly Lieutenant is hardly worth the bullet.

"Neville asked for Matheson, was denied entry, tried to force the representative to open it, and she slit his throat with an arrowhead. We never saw it coming. She's nice." He repeats his earlier statement. And it says something about today's society that cold-blooded murderers can still be called 'nice'.

"Tell me you at least apprehended her." He already knows the answer.

"No, sir. She backed away and we were targeted by arrows from over the wall. I am the only survivor." There's no pride in his voice. Bass sees the survivor's guilt as clearly as he feels his own even after almost two decades have passed. The kid won't last long in the Militia. He makes a note to transfer the kid to the Philly main guard. They haven't had anything to do in years. Rebels never make it passed the ten-mile mark.

"We set up camp here and have been waiting for reinforcements. Any scouts we sent were killed, and Neville never appointed a second-in-command, so we had nobody to lead either." Bass doesn't have a hard time believing Neville was stupid enough to keep all power to himself. The man knew nobody liked him, and they would sooner have listened to his second. Still, it's a stupid move.

"Did you confirm that Matheson is inside?" The kid shakes his head in reply. He's yet to give a positive answer to any of the general's questions, so it's not a surprise.

Bass thinks of Ben, wonders if the man he used to know would be hiding in a town openly defying the Militia or if he was somewhere else, even more remote, or in the city where it is easier to disappear in a crowd despite the Militia's presence. He thinks of Rachel, locked in her chambers with Strausser watching her every move. She's still not said a word to him about her family's whereabouts; her husband's or Miles'.

As always, his thoughts skip over them quickly and head straight to Miles, who (like his brother) has disappeared off the face of the earth. Before he can get too caught up in his own mind he hands out some orders to the kid.

"Go help the others expand the camp and confer with the Captain and the Major about the guard schedule. Have somebody come get me here once that's done."

"Yes, sir," the kid salutes and is gone.

Bass throws his duffle into the corner and lays down on the cot, staring at the ceiling of his newly claimed tent and considers the town a mile away. There is no way of telling how many people there are in there. He knows the circumference of the wall, that the outer layer is made of thick tree trunks, and that archers can climb it to shoot from. Anything else is speculation.

He wonders about the woman who took an arrowhead with her to deliver her town's taxes, unthreatening at first glance, before taking out one of the best hand-to-hand fighters Bass knows. Every time his men came by, she's had archers ready to take them out. Is she a soldier or their leader? He falls asleep pondering.