The Big Bad

At last we decoded the terminal message,

Only to find the pattern we had expected

Was false — a false trail of false bread crumbs

Designed to leave pitfalls undetected.

We found a new pattern. We found a hand

Moving pieces we had thought were only

Part of  the board, and shifting them to vantage points

We had ignored. We rewrote the battle plan

And reconfigured the satellite array

To show our progress from the very beginning.

The fault should be traceable — and hence correctable — 

And once we found it, we’d be winning.

We found a new pattern. We followed its track

To a forest beside an abandoned tunnel

Diving wide as a boxcar into the rock.

A stale breeze blew over rusting shovels

And all of our instruments confirmed a hit.

We set a perimeter. We sent in a scout.

From the interior, nothing looked back at us.

No tracks indicated a force had come out.

But we had a pattern. At dawn, we dispatched

A team of our best, our trackers and stone killers,

To see if  the signals were finally a match

And if so, to counterattack. And now we wait.

And now we wait. The tunnel gives nothing back.

The trees are revealing the first signs of gold

But the air is unmoving. The air is still.

It is quiet here, and getting cold.