As per Herman's recommendation, we decided not to double back and took one of the other routes into the center of the Industrial Zone.

The road was in significantly better condition we had taken in, with four lanes and a median divider filled with struggling plane trees. This was, after all, the main road to the Zirconian border checkpoint.

It was only around ten o'clock. The sun was high in the sky. The road was mostly deserted. The border fence loomed above us, just a short distance from the road, overshadowing the telephone poles, ten metres of galvanised steel and barbed wire standing erect in the middle of the bare earth, gleaming in the sun.

"Going to be a long drive to Port Mirabel tomorrow." Mike eyed two border guards patrolling behind the fence, not paying us any heed. "I'll top up the fluid this afternoon when I get back."

I nodded. "That reminds me. We need to return the car."

"We'll just drop it off outside their pack with a note saying 'sorry' on the windscreen."

I snorted under my breath. "Keep it low key. I like it."

"Maybe we should send them a cheque too. Just enough to cover sending it to a reasonably reputable chop shop."

The road turned abruptly from the border fence, and the traffic got heavier as we got closer to downtown. Billboards rose up. Virgin Active. Sunshine Telecom's new prepaid plan. Some children's book. The smokestacks looming out of the smog greeted us as the traffic became heavier around us.

We heard the sound of wailing sirens approaching. This was not unusual. The sound of sirens was almost reassuring, in a perverse way. But I'd never seen this many private-security vehicles and ambulances outside of a fellow Alpha's motorcade. I counted sixteen ambulances. I didn't bother to count the other vehicles.

"What the hell?" I looked in the dusty rear window at the convoy fast disappearing behind their own dust-cloud..

"There's only one pack out that way." He murmured, voicing exactly what I was thinking in my head.

I felt the dread creeping up inside me. "I thought we left this kind of thing behind forever in the 1990s."

"I thought so too."

He turned on the radio, which crackled into life, and tuned into Pine Hollow News.

"...and in a developing story, an attack has been reported at the Granite Peak pack. Information is very limited at this point in time, but the attack is believed to be rogue-related, although we are not ruling anything out. We'll update you with more details as they emerge."

Cyclists parted like a school of fish around us as we negotiated a roundabout.

"It's quite difficult to piece together what has happened, as the area is quite remote and emergency crews are still in the process of responding as we speak. There are unconfirmed reports of mass casualties and serious damage to the pack buildings. If these reports are true, this is the worst act of violence committed against a pack since 1996..."

"No survivors. This is bad." I said, to nobody in particular. Most attacks in the 1990s had at most killed a few wolves. This was a whole lot more serious.

My mind flashed back to the odd-looking rogues I'd seen the night before. It had been just hours ago. The vision of their silhouettes in the darkness along the lake and their smell were still fresh in my mind.

I felt something churn in the pit of my stomach.

My companion had come to a similar conclusion. "You think those wolves you guys saw the night before had something to do with this?"

"I don't know. It's possible." I shuddered inside at the possibility. If what Mike had suggested was true, then it could well be that they were still out there, and dangerous. The pack was a few hours' drive away from ours by some fairly treacherous stretches of road, but it was a much quicker as the crow flies, through treacherous Highlands terrain. "We came so close. So close."

The Granite Peak pack was an isolated, high in the mountains near the Zirconian border. There was only one access road, which was used sparingly; they were mostly self-sufficient. 

They had barely fifty members and they mostly kept to themselves, but their former alpha, Sigrid, was the chairman of the OPLU financial committee, and they were an emerging power in lycan circles. 

I'd been there once, when the Congress was held there several decades ago. It was a picturesque place. I couldn't bring myself to imagine the scene of devastation which was surely now there.

They had been good warriors. Not large in number, but well trained and worked well as a team. They would have fought back.

My phone vibrated in my pocket. I picked it up. 

***

My conversation with my Stone River counterpart was brief. The training exercise would go ahead as scheduled. We would be on edge, but we would not let such a tragedy affect our daily lives.

The entire depot complex was stock still, as if time itself had stopped. Everybody was standing, glued to the nearest TV screen. The tension was palpable. Nobody said a word as they silently stared at the live news coverage of the carnage, staring intently at the aerial footage of the scene. Some were surreptitiously whispering to each other, hushed words of fear. Even the rogue workers, who could care less about the situation, kept quiet and stared at the ground out of respect for their pack colleagues. Only the people in the operations room stayed at their desks.

Outside, on the dusty streets, life went on. Traffic buzzed along at the same pace. Somewhere on a runway in the Sunshine Beach Pack, pack leaders from many countries would be touching down in private jets, ready to be whisked away to a five-star hotel room in preparation for tomorrow's Congress. But that could have been a world away for all we cared.

The rep from the dealership poked his head in, which seemed to break the impasse. The demonstrator bus had arrived. People scurried back to their stations silently, some still keeping tabs on the situation on their phones.

***

The rest of the morning seemed to pass in a blur. I went through the motions, but with little enthusiasm. I heard people saying things, but the words didn't seem to stick in my mind.

The rep took Mike and I for a test drive. I didn't remember much of it.

Slowly but surely, the fits and starts of information divulged by the news formed into a reasonably complete sequence of events in my mind. There had been Most of the pack buildings had been razed. There were several pack members still unaccounted for, but they were almost certain there were no survivors. None of the neighbouring packs had seen anything.

It still hadn't really sunk in yet. They weren't dead. Greg and Beth and Sigrid couldn't be dead. They couldn't be.

***

My office felt foreign. If it wasn't for the framed photo on the desk I would have sworn I was sitting in someone else's office.

I had a short amount of time until I was due to head back for the training exercise, but that was enough time to catch up on some paperwork. The transfer from paper to digital was still a work-in-progress, and judging by the current state of things this would be the status quo for some time.

The phone rang.

I picked up the phone. "Hi- Catriona! Long time no see."

"Your secretary said you needed to be somewhere soon."

"I've got a few minutes."

I'd known Catriona from university. Back in the day we had been roommates in a run-down tenement in the Old Town district of Corviston. The roof in our room leaked and the whole building rattled every time a tram went past, but it was cheap, the shops were just around the corner, and it was a short tram ride away from the then-new U Of C campus on the western outskirts.

It was all nice and gentrified now. The last I had heard, it was an apartment complex complete with a gym and vegan bistro. But back then there had been serious plans to knock it all down, and we'd lived under the ever-present threat of eviction.

We had been together as far as graduation, when she moved on to an honours degree and I moved back home.

"Did you hear about the attack?"

"I'm watching it on ZBC News 24 as we speak. I went there once for a summit. They were lovely people. It's so tragic."

There was silence for a moment.

"Well, that's my assignment now. I'll be taking a short trip over the border soon. I was going to be covering Toothbrushgate..."

"You were going to be covering that? How the mighty have fallen."

"Well, I was looking for something less stressful when I applied for the job."

Catriona had been a foreign correspondent for ZBC World News for over two decades. For several years she had been attached to a pack in Australia engaged in a blood feud with a rival pack. She'd received several awards for her work. Recently she had taken a lighter role at the Corviston Post-Gazette.

"Fair enough. When are you coming down?"

"I'll be coming over around full moon. Once everything has died down a bit. I'll need somewhere to stay. I was thinking of being a guest at your pack-"

"my pack would probably mutiny if I ever proposed that, but I can recommend you some good hotels in the Zone. The Metropole is probably your best bet. Cheap, good room service, not too many cockroaches, nobody gives a shit if you leave a bad Yelp review."

"Good. I hate cockroaches." There had been a lot of cockroaches in the tenements. No amount of poison or traps seemed to do the job.

"That's settled, then. I've got Congress on tomorrow and the day after. Four-hour drive."

"They haven't cancelled?"

"What do you mean?"

"Well, in light of recent events-"

"No. Minute of silence, but we don't stop for rogue attacks."

"That's the right mentality. Is Laura going with you?"

"Last time I checked, she said she'd rather be plunged headfirst into a vat of molten silver."

"As I thought. She's just as sassy as when you two just met. If I were in her shoes I'd probably be tempted to go, just for the curiosity factor."

"Trust me, you'd regret it. It's the circlejerk that other circlejerks cross the street to avoid. Just kidding, it's not that bad. As long as we try to keep the violence to a manageable level. You know what I mean."

"I've got a meeting now. Catch you after full moon."

"And I have to go pretend to attack another pack. Bye." I hung up.