He’s leaning up against a twisted cottonwood trunk on the other side of the now-dead campfire and I’m gulping down the last of the filtered water from the stream just below us on the hill. "You do realize that you’re in a lot of trouble for this," I say, pointing to his uneaten portion of grouse on the spit. "Prairie chickens aren’t in season and strangers aren’t allowed to hunt in the RR. And aliens are totally forbidden." I stick that in to remind him that he’s still a trespasser.

  He looks up just long enough to insult me with a dirty look and then goes back to his tech device, his black hair dropping down to cover his forehead and hide his eyes. Ever since I told him about my dream he is acting different and it makes me uneasy, so I talk.

  A lot.

  "You’re a good cook though," I continue. "Not many people can pluck all the feathers out of such a small bird." He doesn’t even look up this time.

  The tech isn’t anything I recognize, but that’s not saying much since Farm Families aren’t supposed to have much tech in their regular life. My father wasn’t in any way obsessive or extreme in his adherence to the doctrine, plus we’re military and that comes with certain privileges in the tech department, but I only had a few personal tech items as a kid. I wasn’t allowed any communication devices and I wasn’t allowed to have programmed learning. I had to read books and study the old-fashioned way.

  "So, what do you have there? Some sort of phone or computer?" I ask.

  He looks over and laughs. "A phone, eh? Earth must’ve entered the 22nd century while you were out planting corn or something." His head returns to the device in his hand.

  "Mmmmhmmm. Yet another insult. That must be your default setting. And for your information we produce horses, not corn."

  He looks up and lets out a deep sigh, shaking his head at me slightly, then holds up the thing in his hand to let me see it. "Sorry. It’s a tracker."

  I look at it intensely until I can make out a small map with some blinking lights. I’m almost afraid to ask but I do anyway. "What’s it tracking?"

  "Me, maybe? Not sure yet," he replies as he bows his head once more.

  I let out a little "Oh," and then get up. "Well, thanks for breakfast and the healing stuff." I try to think of a word to call it so it doesn’t sound like I’m being flippant or rude, but I can’t find one. "I’m gonna get going now." I gather myself up and walk back over to the Goat where my shotgun is propped up against the mangled front end.

  "Oh, and thanks for retrieving my shotgun," I say as I turn around to find him directly behind me, his wings slightly uplifted, like he’s on the verge of something. I never even heard him move and the creepiness from last night is back out in full force. "Wow, you’re quite quick and silent when you want to be."

  "I think we should stick together, Junco. In fact I was thinking I can help get ya back to safety. Ya know, help ya get the Goat back up on the road. Even though yer healed, yer still pretty–" He hesitates.

  "I’m pretty?" I ask.

  He laughs a little and shakes his head, which pisses me off for some reason. "No, I was going to say pretty weak, ya know. From yesterday’s crash. But then I wondered if ya would take that as an insult as well."

  I roll my eyes and try to push past him to get the winch hooked up to a tree, but he leans his hands on either side of the Goat, essentially boxing me in. I shoot him a nasty look and he drops his hands to let me through.

  "Thanks for all your help," I call back to him, "but I’m going to take it from here. And I won’t report you, so don’t worry about that. Just get hell out of the RR before anyone else sees you." I turn to see how he’s taking the news but he’s not there. When I turn back he’s in front of me again.

  He shakes his head at me.

  I shake mine back and raise my eyebrows.

  "You’ll refuse my help?"

  "Look," I huff, "you have those people tracking you and neither of us is supposed to be out here in the first place, so let’s just cut our losses and move on. Separately."

  He looks down to the tech that is still in his hand. "They can’t see anything here. Some sort of shield."

  "Right. That’s called a defense system. The deeper you go into the Stag, the thicker the shields. So why don’t you just fly over to the Mountain Republic where they probably can track you?"

  He lifts the device to illustrate his point. "In case ya haven’t figured it out yet, these people aren’t my ride home."

  "So why are they tracking you?"

  His eyes twinkle and I know what’s coming and push past him at a full run. He’s on me before I can take more than half a dozen strides and pulls on my shirt until I slip in the mud and go down hard on my back.

  "Stop!" I scream, but instead of stopping he pins my arms down and sits on top of me as I wriggle and kick. His legs twine around mine, essentially cutting off any thoughts of getting him off me that way. Then his eyes are glowing again and his lips are touching my cheek, whispering for me to settle and be calm.

  To my surprise, I do settle. I can’t help it. I realize too late that the soft words brushing past the sensitive skin on my cheek are controlling me. I can feel the sound waves trickling into my ear canal, making their way to the nerve pathways that control my muscles, and I bring my shoulders up to try and get his face away from me. His lips remain next to my ear and I am just about to fully give in when the tech device, forgotten and left on the ground during our struggle, sounds off an alarm. He loses his concentration and the words stop for half a moment, but that’s all I need.

  I take my opportunity and flip myself over so that I’m on my belly. This takes him by surprise and for a split-second he is off balance. I flip back around and use my right arm to knock him in the throat as my body turns. He goes reeling off of me and I’m up and running down into the little creek.

  A boot goes flying just past my head, but I don’t stop and wonder at this weird turn of events. I run as hard as I can, over the opposite bank, out of the small grove of cottonwoods, and into the tall flowing prairie grass. I’m short, so the leftover husks slap me in the face as I run, blurring my vision.

  The wings descend and he’s swooping down upon me. I look up to see talons where his boots were just a few minutes ago and they latch onto my shoulders, puncturing my skin and making me scream. His grip tightens and I fall. I roll in practiced regulation fashion and pop back up, booking it again without missing a beat.

  If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

  One second I’m hauling ass towards the open prairie, the next he’s on the ground in front of me and we’re on a collision path. I plan my move and let him get to within a few strides of me and then I flip into the air and land on the other side of him. He misses a step and I take advantage of it, turn and deliver a hook kick to his jaw. His head snaps to the side and he stumbles over sideways a little.

  I run hard for a few seconds and don’t look back. Off in the distance I hear the roar of a hovercopter and a few seconds later I feel the effects of the prairie grass wind tunnel it creates from the blades, but still I push my way through the now wildly swaying grass until I come upon the alien again.

  His lip is bleeding and his jaw is slightly red from my kick. I stop in my tracks, bent over and panting hard.

  He’s not even out of breath.

  "I’m not the enemy, Junco," he screams above the roar, "and if you know what’s good for ya, you’ll run like hell because if those guys from the Mountain Republic get you, you’ll end up in the same messed-up place as your father."

  He flies off, disappearing in the tallgrass before I can even string together a sentence.

  But his words stay with me. Dead like my father is not something I want to be so I follow his advice. I run until the MR soldiers blast me with a plasma bolt and I fall to the ground unconscious.

  Picture yourself standing on the edge of a dock. In front of you is a mountain lake and behind you is a small cabin, pristine white curtains flowing in the breeze passing through the windows. Down below the water you can see the scales of brightly colored fish reflecting the sunlight and up above in the sky you see the eagles as they soar, free from terrestrial boundaries. The planks on the deck are warm under your feet and you’re wearing a long thin white shirt, open in the front, that barely covers your body. The waves lap against the dock and you reach over and drag your fingers through the water. It folds against your wrist and smells like blood...

  The blood on my bound wrists has hardened, making them itchy and painful at the same time. I take a deep breath in, wince, then cough as my lungs protest in earnest at the expansion.

  "Plasma blast will do that to you." The voice originates a few paces off to my left and I open my eyes to take in the interior of a military plane. I manage to move my head just enough to log a look of concern on Aren’s face.

  ... up above in the sky you see the eagles as they soar, free from terrestrial boundaries...

  I mentally shake the image out of my mind and cough before I answer him. "I know" – the cough comes back up as I try to croak out some words, so I start again – "I know that. Asshole."

  Aren lets out a prolonged sigh. "What do you want from me, Junco? I had my team set their rifles to stun. They wanted to fucking kill you – and even after I told them how small you were, they still had their rifles dialed up for fully armored tactical. I saved your ass."

  I spit out some blood and take a moment to wonder what might be bleeding inside me to cause it, but my mind is blank. I drop it and turn in his general direction, wincing at the throb this simple change in perspective creates in my head. "What are you doing here? You cut and run from the Mountain Republic too? Or is treason something you reserve only for the Rural folks?"

  He’s bending down a few paces off, to stay eye level with me I guess, but my comment makes him stand. "You’re such a fucking bitch, you know that?"

  I nod and my coughing takes on a whole new level.

  "Will you be rational? Or do I have to keep you bound?"

  I don’t answer, I just continue to cough, my chest searing in pain with every desperate inhalation of air.

  He comes over, slits the bindings with a knife, and pulls me to my feet, then bends me over and whacks me on the back good and hard. Harder then he should, actually.

  I take a large gasp of air, wince, and then spit more blood out towards his boots. "Fuck, Aren – mind the damn plasma burn, will ya?"

  He stops and leaves me to it, then turns away as I straighten up. "We were sent to get you."

  "Bullshit," I say, wiping the spit off my lips, "since when do we let MR soldiers in the Stag?"

  "Since you went AWOL yesterday and were tracked to a certain alien who killed more than two dozen scientists out at the Camp. Not to mention a whole shitload of corporate executives from all over the United Republics for the past two years."

  I don’t react, except for a little cough that I can’t tuck down, but internally I’m privately stunned. My dream comes back to me and I roll this new fact over in my mind. "So what’s he got to do with me?" I look up at him now. He looks like shit. But I suppose he’s thinking the same thing about me.

  "You tell me and then we’ll all know."

  I shake my head, then take another second to catch my breath. "I wrecked my Goat, Aren. Hit a fucking tree and went unconscious. He was there and helped me out. That’s it."

  He walks away to the far end of the mini-drop plane so that he can stand on the edge of the ramp and look out across the tallgrass. I follow him over there, still trying to remember what it’s like to breathe without the sting of residual plasma burns. When I get to the edge he grabs me by my arm and holds me so I can’t go down the ramp.

  "Try again, Junco," he says, exhaling a deep sigh. I look at him and see my best friend for just a moment. His face is one I know so well I could recognize it in the dark with just my fingertips. His blue eyes are still the same – deep and soulful. But they harden as I study him and then the old face is gone and it’s just the asshole who left us to join the other team.

  "They want to string you up for that last stunt you pulled."

  I shake my head, not understanding, but he squeezes my arm a little tighter and I look back up in his eyes. "I gotta restrain you, Junco. We’re still searching for him, so it’ll be a while before I can take you home." He pulls me by the arm and we stomp down the ramp together, our boots clanking on the steel until we hit the grass.

  Outside there is regulated bedlam as the base camp is established and I figure I was out for several hours by the look of their progress. A wiry little soldier barely out of his teens comes up as we exit and Aren hands me off to him without saying another word. The guy introduces himself as CP and tugs on my arm. I follow him to a recently fabbed bubble about the size of a small house. It’s your typical on-the-fly covert-op motor pool. There are three prairie buggies parked inside and CP leads me over to one and then produces a first-aid kit, slaps some numbing antibacterial on my wrists, wraps them, and then thumbs the biometrics on the bracelet as he attaches it to my wrist and points to the passenger seat of the buggy.

  "This is your guardhouse?" I let out a little laugh, then regret it when the coughing comes back. If he thinks being tethered to a prairie buggy is an inappropriate substitute for a regulation holding cell, he doesn’t show it. Instead, he just points to the passenger seat again and scowls.

  I get in and he attaches my new piece of jewelry to a matching tether connected to the roll bar above my head. "You’re kidding me, right?"

  He walks off and leaves me there.

  The garage fab is not quite soundproof, but almost, and the outside world is reduced to muffled tones that are not even close to intelligible once the door slams behind him.

  The bucket seats in the buggy are quite comfortable for military grade and I spend the next several minutes looking over what they have in here. Much of it is the same as what we have in our prairie buggies, but they have different aftermarket equipment.

  I’m busy sifting through the contents of a case wedged between the driver and passenger seats when a blast of sound from outside disrupts my quiet world, making me turn.

  "Find anything useful?"

  I shrug. "I’m just passing time, Aren."

  "You ready to tell me something?"

  "Do I look like I’m fucking interested in chatting you up? Am I a prisoner of the MR, or what’s going on here?"

  He smiles. "I told you, we were sent to get you. You’re being held under the direct orders of RR Command."

  "Which is who exactly?"

  His face turns away and I regret my outburst. It took me a little longer than usual, but I’ve finally crossed a line.

  "Who are you these days?" He turns back towards me, his face a mixture of anger and disgust. "I heard you didn’t even stay for his funeral. Just lit up in that deathtrap and left right in the middle of the ceremony."

  "I stayed for most of the ceremony. Not that it has anything to do with this."

  He laughs. "No? You tell me then, what the hell are you doing, Junco? What did you think you’d accomplish out there at Stag Camp?"

  "I had a message to deliver."

  "Yeah, like the bullshit you pulled last week?"

  I shake my head. "What the hell–"

  The garage doors roll up and soldiers file in, grabbing keys and jumping in the buggies. Aren walks over to CP and they whisper so I can’t hear. Then CP comes over. "Gotta move now, Junco. They got a track on the alien’s hiding place and they need all the buggies." I watch his thumb connect with the tether mechanism and it releases from the roll bar. "Jump out and come with me."

  Aren barks orders at everyone as they fill the vehicles and he jumps into the buggy near me. "I’m gonna get your friend, Junco."

  I shrug and answer back as I dutifully follow CP into another room. "Like I care."