Escape from colony

The escape from the First Colony is the moment Peter and his companions abandon the relative safety of the settlement and become fugitives on foot. In the aftermath of killings inside the Colony, Alicia organizes a covert departure through the Storehouse and a concealed service tunnel; Peter retrieves the maps left by his mother, and Mausami joins the group rather than remain behind. Their destination is Colorado, but the departure offers no assurance they can reach it. The scene replaces the planned, well-supplied expedition Peter once imagined with a hurried flight under threat of pursuit.

Causes and Immediate Danger

Alicia recognizes that the group cannot risk using the gate. What has happened inside the Colony is too terrible and too extensive for them to expect a fair hearing: she tells Peter that no one will believe them and insists they must leave immediately. She divides the work according to the danger around them. Peter and Caleb are to go to the Storehouse for ropes, packs, and shoes for Amy, while Alicia takes the others to the rendezvous, keeping them out of sight of the Wall.

The Storehouse turns the escape into an encounter with the Colony’s collapsing order. Its main door is ajar and its lock hangs from the hasp, an unexplained breach that Peter and Caleb cannot stop to investigate. Inside, among the long rows of bins, they find Old Chou and Walter Fisher hanging side by side from the rafters, their bare feet suspended above crates of books. The men appear to have piled the crates beneath themselves and kicked them away after putting the ropes in place. The discovery gives physical form to the disaster Alicia has warned about: there is no time to establish what happened or who is responsible before the danger spreads further.

The Flight Takes Shape

Peter and Caleb collect supplies and leave the Storehouse, but Peter remembers the maps and separates from the others to retrieve them. He sends Caleb ahead, saying he will catch up. At Auntie’s house he goes straight to her bedroom; she is asleep, and the maps are still under the bed. He retrieves them and slides the box into his pack. The maps are not simply extra equipment: with the group setting out for a place Peter knows only as a name on paper, they are one of the few tools that might make the journey navigable.

Auntie speaks before Peter can leave. With her eyes still closed and her hands lying at her sides, she tells him there is no time for goodbyes and that he must go on in his own time. Her words mark the departure as more than a tactical retreat. Peter leaves behind the older world of the Colony and its elders’ authority, carrying forward what he can—most concretely, the maps—and accepting that the next choices will belong to him.

Mausami Joins the Company

By the time Peter reaches the rendezvous, pink light is rising in the east and the others are assembled. Alicia is climbing out from beneath the trunk line when footsteps prompt Peter to turn with his blade drawn. The newcomer is Mausami, carrying a pack and a cross slung over one shoulder. She says she tracked the group from the Storehouse and urges them to hurry.

Mausami’s decision is tied to her uncertainty about Theo. She asks Peter directly whether he believes his brother is dead. Peter answers no, and Mausami shares that belief; she says she never had the chance to tell Theo something and still wants to. Her arrival adds more than another traveler to a group already short on supplies. It carries the possibility that Theo may still be alive, and it gives the escape party a personal stake in finding him alongside the immediate need to survive.

Alicia is exasperated and warns Peter to think about where they are going. Peter nevertheless decides Mausami will come, treating her as one of their own rather than reopening the question for debate. Alicia eventually yields: they have no time to argue. The decision makes the party’s growing solidarity visible, but it does not erase the practical risks of bringing another person along.

The Hidden Route and the Road Ahead

Alicia leads them to the concealed entrance, and the party descends one by one: Sara, Michael, Caleb, and Mausami follow her, while Peter stays at the rear. Amy goes last, wearing a found jersey, pants, and sandals. Her searching look asks where they are going. Peter thinks of Colorado and the CQZ, but knows these are only names on a map and images on Michael’s CRT, not places he understands through experience. He tells Amy he does not really know the destination; he only believes that if they stay, they will all die.

The tunnel is cool and smells of earth. It runs beneath the trunk line, apparently dug long ago to make the line easier to service, and Alicia explains that the Colonel used it as a secret route while hunting. Peter recognizes this as one mystery solved, but the answer comes amid the realization that their departure is nothing like a formal Long Ride. He had imagined a large armed detail, supply carts, a scouting party, and a carefully plotted route. Instead, the group is escaping as fugitives with old maps and blades at their belts.

After twenty-five meters, Peter emerges with the others into a mesquite copse. The lights are down, and the mountain looms above them as the calls of the Watch mark the Morning Bell and the change of shift. The Colony is close enough to hear, but the group has slipped beyond its Wall. Alicia closes the hatch, turns its wheel, and covers it with underbrush, concealing the route behind them. The imminence of discovery remains: Peter knows the bodies will be found, and Dale may already know something has happened.

Pursuit, Leadership, and Significance

Peter expects the Colony to send riders after them and doubts they can outrun horses. Alicia agrees that escape will not be decided by speed alone; it will depend on who reaches the guns first. She rises and leads the party down the mountain. Her direction remains practical and urgent, while Peter’s role has shifted from following an established expedition plan to carrying the maps and taking responsibility for those who travel with him.

The departure turns safety into uncertainty. The Colony’s Wall and routines can no longer protect the group, but staying would mean remaining inside a crisis that has already claimed lives and made their version of events hard to believe. Their escape is therefore both a flight from immediate danger and the start of a journey toward a destination whose reality they barely know. The contrast between Peter’s imagined Long Ride and this unplanned descent gives the scene its central reversal: the expedition begins not with preparation or confidence, but with a hidden hatch, a hastily packed bag, and the recognition that delay may be fatal.