Chapter 32: Eyes in the Trees

The heat didn’t just sit on the Ocala forest; it vibrated, a low-frequency hum that made the horizon warp through the lenses of the DR-9 patrol drones. Elena sat in the darkened hub of the Cypress Bend monitoring station, her fingers hovering over the haptic sliders. Her eyes were fixed on Monitor 4, where a thermal plume was blooming against the stagnant green of the canopy. It wasn't the slow, localized heat of a brush fire or the erratic signature of a panicked black bear. It was rhythmic. It was metallic.

"Julian, get over here," Elena said, her voice dropping into that serrated edge she used when the periphery of their world started to fray.

Julian didn't look up from the soldering iron he was pressing into a radio motherboard. "If it’s the sensor at the creek again, tell it to wait. The humidity has been shorting the leads since sunrise."

"It’s not the creek," Elena snapped, her thumb flicking a command to Drone Three. "We have a convoy. Six vehicles, maybe seven. They aren't using the fire roads. They’re cutting through the old logging tracks near the Northeast quadrant."

The soldering iron hit the stand with a sharp *clink*. Julian stood, his knees cracking—a sound that always reminded Elena how much seven years of survival had cost them in bone and sinew. He leaned over her shoulder, the scent of ozone and stale coffee clinging to his shirt. On the screen, the grainy infrared feed showed a line of white-hot rectangles crawling through the brush like a mechanical centipede.

"They're suppressed," Julian whispered, his eyes narrowing. "No headlights. Low-RPM engines. Those are heavy-duty rigs, Elena. Look at the wheelbase on the third one. That’s an armored transport."

Elena adjusted the drone’s flight path, tilting the camera to catch a gap in the oak canopy. "They’re five miles from the outer fence. At that speed, they’ll be at the main gate by dusk if they find the bridge. But they’re not heading for the gate. They’re flanking."

"Who still has that much fuel?" Julian asked, more to himself than to her. "The militia out of Palatka ran dry six months ago. These guys are moving like they have a refinery in their back pocket."

"Or a benefactor," Elena said. She tapped a command into her console, waking the perimeter alarms, but she kept them silent. No need to let the intruders know the forest was looking back at them yet. "Wake Nora. Tell her to get the teams to the treeline. I want the long-range rifles in the crow’s nests, but nobody fires unless I give the word. We don’t know if this is an invasion or a funeral procession."

"With armored transports?" Julian retorted, already moving toward the heavy steel door. "That’s a lot of metal for a funeral."

Elena didn't answer. She was busy layering the feeds. She synced Drone Three with Drone Six, creating a stereoscopic view of the lead vehicle. It was a modified Humvee, stripped of its military markings but painted in a matte, light-absorbing charcoal. There was a man standing in the turret. He wasn't behind a machine gun; he was holding a handheld scanner, sweeping it back and forth across the trees.

He was looking for the drones.

Elena’s heart hammered against her ribs, a frantic bird in a cage. She pulled the drone back, hovering it behind a thicket of Spanish moss, praying the thermal dissipation kits Julian had installed on the casing were actually working. If they lost their eyes in the trees, they were blind in a basin that was rapidly becoming a trap.

"I see you," she whispered, her breath fogging the glass of the monitor. She watched the man in the turret. He paused, his scanner lingering on the exact patch of woods where Drone Three was tucked. He said something into a shoulder-mounted radio.

Then, he looked up. Directly into the lens.

The screen flickered, a jagged line of static tearing through the image. Elena fought the controls, but the drone was caught in an electronic downdraft. A jammer.

"They have EW capability," Elena shouted, but Julian was already gone.

She scrambled to reroute the signal through the hardwired relay at the lookout tower, her pulse roaring in her ears. For seven years, Cypress Bend had been a ghost—a whispered legend of a sanctuary that no one could find because the forest swallowed anyone who tried. They had built their peace on the foundation of being invisible. Now, the invisibility was peeling away like sunburnt skin.

She switched to Drone Six, five hundred yards back. The convoy had stopped. The lead vehicle’s door opened, and a figure stepped out onto the mulched earth. Even through the grainy, high-altitude lens, the man’s posture screamed authority. He didn't look like a scavenger. His gear was crisp, his boots polished enough to catch the dappled light. He walked to the edge of the path and knelt, pressing a hand to the dirt.

Elena zoomed in. The man picked up a handful of soil, letting it sift through his fingers. He wasn't looking for tracks. He was checking the quality of the earth.

"They’re not here for us," Elena realized, the cold sinking into her gut. "They’re checking the yield."

Behind her, the radio clicked to life. It was Nora, her voice a low, disciplined rasp. "Elena, we’re in position at the Northeast Ridge. We have visual on the lead. They look professional. Uniforms, standard-issue sidearms. This isn't a raiding party."

"Nora, listen to me," Elena said, her eyes locked on the man on the screen. He was pointing toward the hidden solar array behind the ridge. "They have jammers. They took out Three. Do not use your headsets unless it’s an absolute emergency. Use the hand signals we practiced. If they detect your comms, they’ll pinpoint your location in seconds."

"Copy that. Silent running," Nora replied. 

Elena watched the man in the charcoal gear return to his vehicle. He waved a hand, and the convoy lurched forward again. They weren't following the road anymore. They were veering East, directly toward the hidden irrigation pumps that fed the Bend’s primary crops.

If they hit those pumps, the community would starve by winter. The spring had been dry, and the reservoir was low; without the mechanical lift, the terrace gardens would turn to dust in weeks.

Elena grabbed her jacket and her sidearm, a battered Sig Sauer that felt twice as heavy as it had that morning. She couldn't stay in the hub. She needed to be on the ground. She hit the 'Dead Man’s Switch' on the console, a protocol that would encrypt and bury the Bend’s data if she didn't check back in within four hours.

Outside, the humidity hit her like a physical blow. The air felt thick enough to chew, smelling of pine resin and wet earth. She sprinted toward the motor pool, where Julian was already loading crates of ammunition into the back of a silent electric cart.

"They’re heading for the pumps," she said, jumping into the driver’s seat.

Julian’s face went pale. "The pumps? If they take the pumps, we’re done. We can't defend that much open ground, Elena. The treeline recedes fifty yards back from the machinery."

"We’re not defending them," Elena said, slamming the cart into gear and heading for the service tunnel. "We’re going to intercept them before they reach the clearing. If we can stall them in the narrows, they’ll have to bottleneck."

"Stall them with what?" Julian asked, clutching the roll bar as they bounced over a protruding root. "We have ten people with hunting rifles and two crates of old flash-bangs. They have armored transports."

"We have the forest," Elena said. "And they think they’re the only ones with eyes in the trees."

They drove in silence through the tunnel, the light at the end growing from a pinprick to a blinding white glare. When they emerged, they were at the base of the Northeast Ridge, the sound of the forest suddenly deafening—cicadas screaming a warning that no one but the inhabitants of Cypress Bend knew how to read.

Nora met them at the trailhead, her face smeared with charcoal and mud. She signaled for them to stay low.

"They’ve stopped again," Nora whispered, leading them to a rocky outcrop that overlooked the narrowest part of the logging trail. "They’re deploying something. Looks like some kind of tripod-mounted sensor."

Elena crawled to the edge and looked through her binoculars. Down in the gulch, about three hundred yards away, the convoy had formed a defensive perimeter. Men in tactical gear were moving with practiced efficiency. Two of them were setting up a tall, silver spike in the middle of the trail.

"It’s a ground-penetrating radar," Julian muttered, squinting. "They’re looking for the underground power lines. They want to find the source."

"They're not just scavengers," Elena said, her voice trembling with a mix of fury and fear. "They’re surveyors. This is an acquisition."

"Not while I'm breathing," Nora said, her hand tightening on her bolt-action rifle.

"Wait," Elena commanded. "Look at the lead vehicle."

The man in the charcoal gear had stepped out again. This time, he wasn't looking at the ground. He was holding a tablet, his face lit by the blue glow of the screen. He turned slowly, scanning the ridge.

Suddenly, Elena’s radio—the one she’d turned off—began to emit a low, rhythmic pulsing sound. 

*Thump. Thump. Thump.*

It sounded like a heartbeat.

"Julian, did you leave yours on?" Elena asked, reaching for her pocket.

"No, it's completely powered down," Julian said, his eyes wide as he pulled his own radio from his belt. It was off, the battery pack removed. Yet, the pulsing sound was coming from within the casing itself.

Down in the gulch, the man with the tablet stopped. He looked directly up at their outcrop. A slow, terrifying smile spread across his face. He didn't raise a weapon. He simply tapped a command on his screen.

High above them, there was a sharp, metallic *crack*. 

Elena looked up just in time to see the Spanish moss swaying unnaturally. A hidden drone—one of theirs, but its lights were now glowing a hostile, neon red—dropped from the canopy like a falling hawk. It wasn't the DR-9. It was one of the older prototypes they’d mothballed years ago.

"They took control," Julian gasped. "They hijacked the mesh network!"

"Run!" Elena screamed.

The drone didn't fire. Instead, it emitted a high-pitched, piercing shriek—a localized sonic burst that sent Elena and Nora to their knees, clutching their ears as the world turned into a blurred mess of white noise and agony. 

Through the haze of pain, Elena saw the vehicles in the gulch begin to move. They weren't bottlenecking. They were accelerating, their engines roaring with a sudden, unrestrained power as they charged toward the ridge.

The men in the gear weren't waiting for an invitation. They were coming up the slope with the confidence of owners.

Elena forced herself to stand, her vision swimming. She grabbed Nora by the tactical vest, hauling her back toward the tree line. "Fall back! To the second perimeter! Julian, get the EMP pulse ready! We have to fry the network!"

"If I do that, we lose the pumps too!" Julian cried out, his nose beginning to bleed from the sonic pressure.

"Let the pumps go!" Elena roared over the scream of the drone. "If they get to the hub, they get the names of every family in the Bend! Move!"

They scrambled through the underbrush, the forest floor a treacherous maze of roots and sinkholes. Behind them, the sound of the convoy crashing through the saplings echoed like thunder. The jammers were playing havoc with their inner ears; Elena felt like she was running on a tilting ship.

They reached the second perimeter—a line of ancient, gnarled oaks that marked the true entrance to the residential sector. Here, the brush had been thinned to provide clear sightlines.

"Where’s the EMP?" Elena shouted, looking for the concealed box they’d buried near the old well.

"Here!" Julian dove for a patch of ferns, ripping away a camouflage tarp. He revealed a heavy, lead-lined suitcase. He flipped the latches, his fingers trembling so hard he nearly dropped the key. "Elena, once I trigger this, we’re dark. No radios, no drones, no automated gates. We’ll be stuck in the 19th century."

"We’ve survived it before," Elena said, watching the first of the charcoal-clad soldiers crest the ridge. They were moving in a perfect tactical wedge, their rifles raised. They weren't firing. They were waiting.

"Do it!" Nora screamed, leveling her rifle at the lead soldier.

Julian slammed his palm onto the red button inside the suitcase.

For a second, there was nothing but the sound of the wind. Then, a silent shockwave rippled through the air. The red glow on the hovering drone extinguished instantly, and the machine dropped into the dirt like a stone. The screeching noise stopped, replaced by a silence so heavy it felt like a weight.

Down the slope, the convoy’s engines sputtered and died. The high-tech jammers fell silent. The blue glow of the surveyor’s tablet flickered out.

But the soldiers didn't stop. They didn't even flinch. They simply reached into their kits, pulled out traditional chemical flares, and struck them.

Green smoke began to billow through the trees, marking the Bend’s position for someone—or something—high above.

Elena looked up at the sky, expecting to see a plane or a satellite. Instead, she saw the clouds parting. Not from the wind, but from the sheer displacement of something massive descending through the atmosphere.

It was silent. It was vast. And it was draped in the same matte, light-absorbing charcoal as the trucks.

"They aren't looking for our land," Elena whispered, the realization shattering the last of her resolve.

The lead soldier reached the treeline. He paused, looking at Elena. He didn't raise his rifle. He reached up and pulled back his tactical hood, revealing a face that Elena hadn't seen in seven years—a face she had buried in a shallow grave in her nightmares.

"Hello, Elena," the man said, his voice carrying clearly in the dead air. "You really shouldn't have turned off the lights. It makes it so much harder to see the transition."

Elena’s hand went to her Sig Sauer, but her fingers felt like lead. Behind the man, the massive shape in the sky began to hum, a sound that vibrated in her very marrow.

"Who are you working for, Miller?" Elena managed to choke out. "The government is gone. There’s nothing left to buy."

Miller smiled, and it was a hollow, terrifying thing. "The government is gone, yes. But the debt didn't vanish with the taxpayers. This forest, this water... it’s all collateral now."

He stepped forward, crossing the line into the sanctuary of Cypress Bend. As his boot hit the soil, the massive craft above them let out a booming, low-frequency pulse that knocked the remaining leaves from the trees in a golden shower.

"We’re not here to kill you," Miller said, as his team began to fan out into the village. "We’re here to collect."

Elena looked at Nora, then at Julian. They were surrounded, their technology dead, their forest a sea of green smoke. For seven years, they had built a world. In seven minutes, it had become a ledger.

As Miller reached out a hand, gesturing toward the hub, the ground beneath them began to shake—not from the ship, but from something deep within the limestone of the Ocala basin, a mechanical groan that suggested Cypress Bend had one last secret, one that even Elena didn't know about.

The eye in the trees was no longer a drone; it was the forest itself, and it was waking up hungry.