Page 134 of Legacy Elite

"It's a sock," Sophia says.

"It's evidence."

"Freya, it is a sock."

"It's a sock a hundred and forty meters off the marked trail, in the direction of travel, with mud on the sole and none on the top." Freya bags it without touching it, which she does automatically now and which the rest of us have stopped mocking. "Which means it came off a foot that was moving. Not out of a bag."

"So he lost a sock."

"So he lost a sock going that way," Freya says, and points into the trees.

Declan's already looking where she's pointing. "That's off our grid."

"Then the grid's wrong."

"The grid's not wrong. The casualty's wrong." Renzo's on a rock with the map across his knees. "Which is the point. Nobody wanders off in a straight line."

It's the third week of the winter Preserve block and we've been out since eight.

Proper exercise this time. Full day, four search sectors, two other cohorts on the northern grids, radio check-in at the top of every hour. Brann's back at the fire road with a clipboard.

And about hundred feet behind us, Corvin and Abe.

That's the part that's different now. Corvin's about fifty and has been doing academy security since before I was born. Abe is younger and does most of the walking. They've been with me every day since the card on my bed, they don't hover, they don't talk, and I've made my peace with it in the sense that I've stopped saying anything about it out loud.

"Miller," Freya says. "Stop trying to track."

"I'm not trying to track."

"You're staring at the ground."

"I'm walking."

"You're walking at about a third of the speed of a person who is walking," she says, and hands me the bagged sock. "Carry that."

"That's it? That's my job?"

"You're good at carrying things."

"I'm good at several things—"

"Name one that helps here," Freya says, and goes on ahead, and Torres makes a noise beside me that he tries to turn into a cough.

We find the casualty at eleven thirty.

He's a fourth-year with a card in his pocket that says hypothermic, confused, non-compliant, and he plays it properly — argues with Declan for four solid minutes about whether he needs help. Sophia talks him down, and by the time she's finished he's telling her about his brother's wedding while Declan gets his boots off and looks at his feet.

"You're wasted on community," I tell her.

"I know."

We rig the stretcher. Renzo works the route back. Freya walks ahead.

It takes us eleven minutes to find out we can't get home the way we came.

The Halden footbridge is out, there’s a raging stream, and about a third of the decking is in the water.

"Oh, come on," Sophia says.