Max Flanagan was eighteen the first time he went to Iraq. Thirty-eight years later he’s back in the same desert, a sergeant again. He has a fire team of men young enough to be his sons, a mission that comes down to one clean shot, and the ghosts of the men he lost riding along for the ride. Over one cold night in the Hamrin Mountains, four soldiers argue about God, the Union, and a name one of them won’t answer to.

Desert Dogs picks up where Long Haul left off: what a man gives up for the people he loves, and what the war asks of him in return.

Contains war violence, strong language, and depictions of PTSD.

🎧 Read or listen, narrated by the author.
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This continues Max Flanagan (Long Haul) and Colderidge Andersson’s (Cooley) stories. The story contains graphic language and violence.

On his first tour, Max was eighteen, and by the time his four-hundred-day deployment ended, he was an old man. Old as shit. Whatever optimism he came in with, that bright-eyed and bushy-

tailed, was ground down to dust real quick.

Fast.
Combat will do that to you. It’s like a rock tumbler, except the rocks don’t come out pretty and polished in the end.

Max made it back home, alive, but with the sound of gunfire still rattling in his skull like pocket change. It took a few years to stop swerving his Pontiac away from every bit of litter and trash on the freeway. A few years of avoiding large crowds.

That was the thing. He couldn’t settle down. So he did what most do. A lot of drunken nights, and thankfully a lot of stints trying to sober up. And therapy. Lots of shitty therapy.

Dr. Jackson was good, though.

Yeah, the fourth therapist finally took. Helped him pull together the broken pieces of his life and get moving again. Enough to buy a truck and start working. To ‘establish stability,’ as Jackson put it. A path out of the ditch and back onto the road.

It was a process.

None of the work ever healed what he lost back then. That’s what the medicine was for. Without the meds, they always came to him, free of charge.

Randall. Travis. These were the two men he lost from his original crew. The other that sometimes showed up was the Iraqi man he slammed against the wall and punched out during the night raid.

“Bad intel,” he remembers someone saying, as if that absolved him. But that didn’t stop the night-raid man from going to Abu Ghraib.

No. It didn’t. And who knows…

“Stop,” he whispers to himself. “Find your breath. Jesus, find your breath.”

He sits on his cot, doing the work, back where he once was, with rattling gunfire and shelling in the distance, as if his life has skipped a groove in the record. He’s back, except now he is really old as shit. Fifty-six years old, and back in this hell-hole that, for all the blood and treasure spent, doesn’t seem to have gotten any better.

“Sergeant Flanagan?” a voice calls, making him flinch.

He looks up, and Murphy stands there, his helmet off, his body looking thin. Thinner than it should look. Murphy is young, just like everyone he commands as an E-5.

“You should come see this. Command is sending us intel.”

“I’ll be right there,” Max says. “Gotta take a piss.”

The soldier nods and leaves.

He says this just to buffer some of the constant stimulation that is his life now. The pop-pops and the rattling gunfire that never end. The skipping record, back to 2003 and back to now. Same place. Different Max. Same war and yet…

He walks into the command barracks after emptying his bladder, stepping under green, burning fluorescent lights.

The Staff Sergeant stands by the mobile neurolink console. He looks at Flanagan, with his young, twenty-something face. He could be Max’s son, and here he is reporting in to him.

“Jack in, Flanagan. Lieutenant is on the line.”

Max can’t stand neurolinks, but there is no use arguing. This is the way it is now. He puts on the headset and is enveloped by a blazing white light.

Secure connection established. All Union Communications are the property of the Greater Union of States and Polities, stored in the data repository of preferred vendor partner Amity Holdings Inc., under New Constitution statute §33.43. No recordings or transmissions of this connection can be stored, shared or otherwise accessed without Union clearance approval. Failure to comply can constitute treason against the Greater Union of States and Polities.

Max blinks through the acceptance agreement in a huff, but feels his hands begin to shake as his body jacks into the environment.

The white space fades away, and Max finds himself seated in a simulated briefing room. Next to him, in a row of uncomfortable, metal chairs, are four more E-5s. They are the rest of his platoon, though their forces are spread all across Iraq. He glances over at them. It’s been four weeks, but he’s getting the read on them. Most of them are young pups, men in their twenties and thirties; three, to be exact. The other one is an old dog, like Max. They’ve spoken a few times over the weeks. Trent. He served in Afghanistan. Two tours, like Max, a long time ago.

Trent throws a glance over. “You ready for the dog and pony show, Flanagan?”

“Does it even matter?” he whispers back.

“It matters if it gets us into the action. I’ve been waiting to get back in.” His eyes bore into Max’s. “Got a lot of pent-up energy, you know?”

Max doesn’t say anything, but he nods. He knows this feeling. It’s the feeling that comes when you look over a cliff edge. He remembers traveling with some friends during his drinking days. After his first deployment, but back in the States. Before the Union sprang up. He can’t remember the details of all of that. He was too drunk then.

He and a couple of other veterans he had gotten to know rode their Harleys up through the Smokies and crossed the Tennessee line. Max had a Road King, a beast of a bike, with an engine that thundered so hard between Max’s legs it was almost indecent. But that weekend, they flew those bikes so hard and so damn fast. Eventually, they got to Fontana Dam and drove over it.

Max remembers pulling over and walking to its side. To peer over the steep edge and look straight down. Four hundred and eight fucking feet down to the bottom, and it took everything in Max’s body not to stand up on the railing and…jump. Jump over the edge. That’s the feeling. That’s the temptation. To live and to die all at the same time.

“A-TENNNT-TION!” The record skips again, and Max is back in this place that is no real place at all. Second Lieutenant Boggs is there, and all the E-5s are up with their salutes, ready for the dog-and-pony show to begin.

“At ease, men,” Boggs says.

The men are back in their hard-as-rocks, simulated seats.

You’d think they’d make these a little more comfortable…

“As some of you know, we have been running reconnaissance at the borders of the enemy’s taken territory, just north of Baghdad. This rogue intelligence, which we are labeling as EL-13, has rapidly weaponized itself over these past three months.”

The lieutenant throws out a map, showing the country divided into two stark colors: red for the land seized by EL-13 and blue for Union Coalition forces who hold everything south of Tikrit. Max’s throat goes bone dry as he watches the enemy AI’s progress animate. The entire north of the country is blanketed in crimson, with the timestamp showing today: October 12, 2041. The map’s time reverses, skipping back one month, two months, all the way to when the AI broke out of a lab south of Mosul.

Holy shit.

A tidal wave of red started at one single point in the country, Mosul, and erupted out like an atomic bomb…fast. Every week, thousands of square miles of territory were swallowed up into EL-13’s control, dispersing or killing millions of Iraqis.

“Intelligence has determined that the original kernel of EL-13 had planted itself within the existing Iraqi infrastructure systems almost five years ago. There it waited and bided its time. But now, for reasons we do not fully understand, it is moving, and as you can see, it has rapidly divided the full country in less than a quarter of the year.”

The E-5s sit like stone statues, struck dumb. Max feels Trent lean towards him.

“Shit, man, what the actual hell is this?”

“I don’t know,” Max whispers.

The second lieutenant continues, “You men are here on behalf of the Union Coalition, in order to protect our territorial ally, Iraq. The Union is outfitting each of your fire teams with the latest in infantry technology.”

Another screen lights up, and Max sees a humanoid robot’s projection hovering beside the lieutenant. It stands nearly a foot taller than Boggs and is nearly twice as wide. In its hands…Max blinks.

No. Hand. Singular. Where a second hand should be, a long weapon is fused directly to its right arm, some sort of armature that looks to Max like a square gray cylinder, if cylinders can somehow be square.

“Each one of your fire teams will be assisted with the latest innovation in automated infantry support. These units have been co-developed with our Union-preferred vendor partners, and are now ready for the field. This is the Amity Arc Infantry Unit, or AAIU.”

The lieutenant pauses, as if waiting for the E-5s to applaud. The room remains silent.

Boggs coughs and sips water from a glass on his dais. Max can’t help but wonder whether this drinking he’s doing is real, or if that, too, is a simulation.

What is real anymore?

Nothing has felt real for Sergeant Flanagan in a very long time. Not since that last fever-dream delivery he took up to Boston, where he almost had a mental breakdown. Before he sold the truck. Before he said goodbye to Carrie and Charlie and shipped off to Fort Bragg. Whoever heard of such a thing—a fifty-six-year-old going to war?

Jesus either wept or laughed, but Max wasn’t sure which. But it was what it was, and the silver lining was that right after his call with the recruiter, his benefits opened up. No more scrounging for pills. Charlie was able to return to school after seeing the specialist in Charlotte. With the sale of the rig, Carrie could live in their house without the burden of a mortgage. And they got married. Just in case…

You did all you could. Now you just need to stay alive.

Boot camp was different than how he remembered it. At Bragg, they injected him every week with a potent syringe of some concoction that, for Max, felt like a miracle. The weight he carried from years of hauling on the road dropped in a matter of weeks, and Max felt his body begin to change, his flabby midsection slimming to a leanness he could barely remember, and every thread of muscle he came in with growing stronger. His endurance improved. His two-mile run went from torturous to bearable in a matter of days, and then he found himself running the full five. There was just more in the tank. More in the tank than there had ever been for years.

Through the endless runs and obstacles, he found more like him. Old dogs. Many came from the Iran ground war in the 2020s, and a handful, like Max, came from Iraq and Afghanistan. At night, lying in the barracks, they would whisper to one another.

“Man, it doesn’t feel real, does it?” Plemmons said, lying on his cot and looking over at Max.

“It does, and it doesn’t. Feels like the same song and dance we’ve seen over and over again,” Max whispered.

“You’d think after all the country has done in this part of the world, they’d finally put a stop to this violence and annex the whole damn Middle East as part of the Union.”

Faulk spoke up, rising from his cot, “Then where the fuck do you think they’d fight?”

Max could feel Faulk’s eyes burning in the darkness.
“Don’t you get it, Plemmons? Iraq, Iran, all of it is just one big boiling pot of stew, a goddamn test kitchen. They keep the heat up because they know that they can keep adding shit into the pot — new tech, new tactics, new meds that make you young— just so that the money printer never stops spinning. They don’t want peace. No man. Peace is bad for the fucking business.”

Plemmons snapped back at Faulk, “Then why the fuck did you re-enlist, Faulk?”

Faulk went quiet, but Max felt the violence in it.

Max opened his mouth. To ease it. To stop the fistfight from breaking out.

“It’s okay. The point is, we are back. We are all in this together. We can’t control the reasons.”

Faulk cut in. “Flanagan, you and I both know this is not okay. Never has been okay. Never will be. What good did our tours in Iraq do all those years ago?”

Flashes of his fire team rose from the darkness in his mind. Randall. Travis. Randall standing by the open burn pits. Travis, lying out on the sand, his face chunked out, scattered across the ground.

‘Boswell is opening it back up for business. I’m here to tell you to stay out of it.’

Max pushed the image of the ghost riding in the passenger seat of his Mack truck from his mind and tried to catch his breath. He had no reply to Faulk, who sat up in his cot, his voice growing dark.

“My reasons for enlisting, Plemmons? You really want to know?” Faulk fired back. “I like to fucking fight. It’s all I fucking live for, and trust me when I say it’s better for me to be fighting out in the damn desert than to stay here, ‘cause that fight… that fight ain’t ever going to let up. Not for me.”

The record skips, and Max is back in the simulated briefing room.

Boggs continues, “What we know about our enemy is that EL-13’s intelligence cores are resilient, and from our intelligence, its infrastructure is somehow completely decentralized. Even mobile.”

A holographic image of an arching, spider-like transport floats above Boggs’ head. “This is an EL-13 nexus. Think of it as part data center, part factory and part resource-harvesting operation, combined into one unified apparatus that roams the desert and scavenges. There are thousands of these, and each represents a node in the redundant network of EL-13’s intelligence.”

A hand goes up. One of the other E-5s. A young pup.

“Do we know EL-13’s objective? Its purpose?”

“Good question. What I can tell you is that we have tried to make formal contact with the intelligence, but we haven’t succeeded. We don’t know why this entity operates the way it does. For now, we can only comment on the outcomes of its decisions. The people of Iraq are being killed and displaced from their land at an unprecedented rate, as the intelligence continues to strip-mine the environment of all natural resources. The burning of oil alone has set back the Union’s energy and climate progress by a decade.”

The room shifts uneasily.

Boggs continues, “As some of you know, these nexus nodes, or crawlers as we are calling them, are far from undefended. From our experience, each crawler is protected by a cloud of micro drones that can fly faster than any of our traditional missiles and fighter jets. We have yet to penetrate a single crawler’s defenses.”

He pauses, again, dramatically for effect.

“That’s where your fire teams’ AAIUs come in. These mobile units travel with you and your fire teams to get into position. Based on our forecasting, the railgun on each unit is the only weapon in our arsenal capable of penetrating the defenses that surround a nexus crawler. Each of you is tasked with covertly getting into position to take a clean shot at a designated EL-13 nexus. Get the AAIU in position to make the shot, and then we will see if we can contain this threat. Each of you will have to get into that position under cover. That means hiking in the desert, gentlemen. Command will be sending you the rendezvous coordinates after this meeting.”

Boggs stares out over all the sergeants in the room and takes another sip of water.

Max can feel the emotions. Dread. Fear.

“We’re counting on you, soldiers. Good luck. Dismissed.”

The desert day gives way to twilight as Maxwell’s fire team marches up the rocky outcrop of the ridgeline. The sounds of evening, the low, encompassing quiet of the desert wind dancing across the sand, coupled with the faint calls of desert foxes, announce to Max another miserably cold night out in the wilderness.

His fire team had been hiking through the maze-like Hamrin, a naked crop of desert mountains rising from the west and towering over the flat desert plains. For three days, they had hiked with their giant AAIU unit after being dropped off by the bird, slowly making their way to the hide-site rendezvous point.

Get one clean shot at the nexus crawler. One shot.

That was their mission.

It seemed simple enough, but something about it made Max recoil. He could not put words to it.

Max checks the map on the small tablet strapped to his wrist and sees the hide site location just over the next ridge. He looks back at his men to gauge their energy and calculate how hard he needs to push.

Private Coldridge Anderson stands apart from the others, staring out over the valley below, a cigarette trail burning from his mouth. Whatever brand he smokes, it reeks.

Corporal Lamb stands beside Maxwell, his face hidden behind the sunglasses he still wears despite the oncoming darkness. His sniper rifle is strapped to his back, and he hums a Springsteen song.

Nebraska? Max listens, picking up the mellow tune. Yeah…it was Nebraska.

Max winces. He still can’t believe that Springsteen is gone.

Everyone goes eventually, Maxy. Especially the good ones.

Max shudders.

Marc Davidson, the last member of the fire team, marches next to the AAIU. He serves as the team’s gearhead and grenadier. He was trained to work with the AAIU, this giant hulk that walks beside the rest of them, its steel-like frame painted the color of desert sand.

“How much farther, Sergeant?” Davidson asks.

“Just over the ridge. We need to keep going and set up camp. Our mission is to get in position and wait.”

Lamb asks a question to the bot, “Any word from command, Slingy?”

The AAIU looks at them and speaks in a precise, calm tone.

“No messages from command, Corporal Lamb. We are still on track to make the rendezvous point for the hide-site this evening, and should be able to complete our mission to destroy any EL-13 crawlers that should cross into our range.”

“That’s good enough for me. Let’s keep marching.”

The fire team goes for a few more hours. The sun descends and Max feels the desert air chill. The tablet on his wrist vibrates. They have made it to the spot.

“Let’s make camp, men,” Max says.

The men set down their heavy packs and get to work setting up a humble camp within the desolate terrain. The air has already grown cold, and Max can see their breath clouding in night air.

“I don’t like the damn desert,” Coldridge admits as he takes off his pack. “Don’t think I’m built for it.”

Lamb laughs, and Davidson, his face illuminated like some desert spirit as he looks at his tablet, snickers.

“Yeah, Anderson? Only you and ninety-nine percent of humanity agree. Jesus, man. Now give me one of those cigs.”

Anderson’s face goes cold, and Max reads it, seeing his body tense. Coldridge fumbles through his fatigues and pulls out two cigarettes.

“You don’t have to be a damn motherfucker, motherfucker,” he mumbles, his own cig dancing off his lips.

Davidson flashes a smile. “Come on, Cooley, you know I’m just messing with you.”

“Don’t call me that name. Not unless you want to start something,” he growls.

Davidson lights the cigarette and smiles.

Max breaks in, “Shut it down. Both of you. We don’t got time for this. Davidson, shut your damn mouth and treat Anderson with respect.”

Davidson looks up at him and takes a long drag. He’s an asshole. Young. Arrogant. Self-assured.

“Sure, Sarge. I was just messing,” he says.

Lamb cuts in, grabbing Davidson’s tablet. “Shit, guys, it’s going to be cold tonight. Tabs got it running down to the 40s.”

Max gives Lamb a slight nod, grateful for the distraction. He stands up, cracks his knuckles, and turns to the AAIU, Slingshot.

“Sling, how far out was the target last spotted?”

The bot runs the query. Max wonders what miracles of technology afford this connection in the desert back to command.

“Last visual sighting from recon was three days ago, Sergeant. The crawler was four miles out from this spot. We have a 75% chance of having a clear shot on the target at this position.”

“Chances of making the shot in the dark?” Max asks.

“Significant spread of variability, Sergeant. Intel on crawlers is still largely unverified. Right now, we are still unsure whether they emit an actual heat signature. A visual confirmation will yield better chances at our mission’s success.”

Max nods, frustrated by the answer. The AAIUs carry enough energy for one clear shot. They can’t risk a miss, though he’d rather keep the men moving than play babysitter between them on this damn goose hunt.

One more day, Maxy. Then it’s over.

“Okay, men, get something warm in you and bundle up. No open flames. I’ll take the first watch.”

“Sergeant, I am happy to take the watch. I have no need to sleep…”

Coldridge barks at this, “No! I ain’t having one of those…”

Max cuts in.

“With all due respect, Sling, I shouldn’t have to say this again. This is the fourth time I’ve told you, we,” Max points to all the soldiers, “keep our own watches. Is that clear?”

“Understood, sir.”

“Don’t ask me about that again, Sling.”

“Yes, sir.”

Max looks at Davidson, “Run some diagnostics on him. We need to make sure he’s calibrated for what is coming.”

Davidson grunts, but gets up off his ass and hardwires his tablet into Sling’s port entry, located in the small of its back. The other men hunker down onto the cold ground and lay their backs against their packs. Max tries to endure both Coldridge and Davidson smoking their foul cigarettes, and Max feels his body begin to surrender to how tired he is. He thinks about Carrie, about Charlie.

God.

It feels like his insides might boil over from missing them.

Davidson finishes the cig and flicks it, its embers sparking out against the sand like a firework. He unplugs the tablet.

“Slingy’s good to go, sir. All firmware and patches are in place. No updates from command.”

He sits back down and puts his head on his pack. Max is just about to doze when he remembers he is on first watch.

Lamb sits in the dark, humming.

What is this time? The lyrics come to him within the tune that Lamb hums.

I’ve been through the desert on a horse with no name,

It felt good to be…what was it?

In the desert you can’t remember your name

‘Cause there ain’t no one…da dum dum dum dum dum.

He hadn’t heard that song in a long, long time.
“Where you from, Anderson?” Davidson asks, breaking up the silence.

Shit. Here he goes, Max thinks.

“Oh, I don’t think that really matters, sir.” Coldridge’s tone has a venomous edge.

“Come on, Anderson,” Davidson says. “I’m sorry. There, I said it. We got a long night ahead of us. I’m not sleepy. You’re not sleepy. Is it so bad to get to know one another? Tell me where you came from.”

“North Carolina. Salisbury originally. Got picked up in Charlotte.” Anderson says.

“Huh, I’m from Charlotte too, Coldridge,” Max says. “Concord area. We are neighbors.”

Coldridge nods, “I knew you were from the South. I could feel it.” He smiles, and Max knows it’s genuine.

“What do you mean picked up in Charlotte?” Davidson prods.

“Man, I mean what I said. I got picked up. Drafted up and out of the streets. Been holding this damn rifle and marching for the Union these past three months.”

“Shit, man, you came in with the Gleaning?” Davidson says, shocked by this.

“All I know is that me and everyone on the streets got pulled in, shrinked out by the doctors and shipped out. The Union needs you, they said. So here I am.”

Lamb speaks, his breath fogging the air. “Doesn’t matter where we came from, boys. We’re all here now. I came with the volunteer draft, before it shifted to mandatory. Every able-bodied man getting called up to fight EL-13. Doesn’t matter how. We are all here now.”

Davidson growls, “I fucking hate Boswell. Ripping us up and throwing us down in this hell hole for no goddamn reason.”

Lamb cuts in, “It doesn’t matter now. Property doesn’t have the right to practice politics. We are all under Union orders now. We got a job to do. We ain’t here to think.”

“Man, I ain’t no-man’s property,” Coldridge whispers.

“Respectfully, Coldridge,” Lamb says, “these dog tags around our necks tell me otherwise. I’m just saying we are all the same now. You’re the same as me, same as Sarge, same as Davidson, and same as Slingy.”

“Easy,” Max calls out. “We all got a job to do, and the sooner we get it done, the sooner we go home.” A shadow falls over him as he speaks, and he feels the untruth in his words. He wants to believe them, of course. Everyone wants to believe them. But they sound too good to be true.

Davidson flicks out his pocket knife and begins cleaning his fingernails. “Oh, okay, Sarge. Keep toeing that line. I’ll believe it when we see a river spring up in this desert.” He looks at the others. “Here’s the truth, boys. We shoot down the crawler, and you know what will happen? We will go back to base, sit around for two weeks and then fly back out to snipe another one, and then another one. And then another one. But these crawlers? They ain’t ever going to end. There are thousands of them, and they’ll keep us on this hamster wheel as long as it takes.”

“As long as it takes for what?” Coldridge asks.

“That’s the million-dollar question, Anderson,” Davidson says, his voice dark. “You already know the answer.”

Max snaps, “Davidson, shut your goddamn mouth. That’s an order. We won’t have time for that talk.”

Davidson holds up his hands in surrender. “Understood.”

Lamb stares at Davidson, his lips pressed down into thin lines, as if he wants to say something. Coldridge pulls out another cigarette, shaking the pack nervously and lights it.

“What do you think, Slingy?” Lamb asks.

The bot turns, still standing sentinel over them. “I think everyone is tired and misses their home,” the bot says with more empathy than Max would expect. “I think you are all discouraged. I’ve heard that humans benefit from telling stories to one another. Does anyone have a good story to tell?”

Lamb laughs, “I got one. Let’s take what Davidson said. Water in the desert. Now there are a few stories about that we could go into.”

Davidson snaps, “I ain’t in no mood to hear a sermon, preacher. Keep that shit to yourself.”

Lamb shrugs, “Well, you know what they say, don’t you? The devil roams out here in the desert. This is the wilderness, where men’s lives and choices get tested. The Muslims call him Shaytan, and the Bible says he roams around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour.”

“Hope he starts with you,” Davidson snaps back.

Coldridge interrupts, “Man, you don’t have to be in the damn desert to see the devil. I can tell you that. I’ve seen him so many times it don’t even matter. But it ain’t the devil I’m scared of.” His eyes fall on the AAIU, and the conversation gets quiet.

Max feels the record skip, and he’s standing in the Flying J, looking at the back of a man’s head wearing a cowboy hat and a turquoise bolo. Cowboy hat is playing slots under the burning fluorescent lights. Coins drop where no coins should be, and they clink and rattle like the gunfire that still echoes in his brain.

Find your breath, Max. Find your breath.

“What are you scared of, Anderson? This I got to hear,” Davidson asks, flicking the grime from his fingernails.

Coldridge clicks his tongue. “All I’m saying is what I’ve seen and experienced out in the streets ain’t got nothing on this. This is just nature… well most of it.” He gives a sidelong glance at Sling. “Anyway,” he says, slapping his arms against the chill. “It’s cold, and I’m tired, but at least I can see the stars.”

“Oh, damn, Anderson. I didn’t know you were a poet. Look at you, being all transcendental and shit,” Davidson says. “Seems to me that I’m the only realist here amidst this group of the faithful religious. Shit, talk about hell!” He cackles. His glee fades into a seriousness that makes all the men listen. “No, gentlemen, I don’t have time for angels or devils. The truth is there ain’t nothing beyond this life but a bleak, dark pit, where whatever we are disappears, and this,” he throws his hands up, “this fine blue orb spinning in space just keeps going.”

Max can’t help but whisper, “That’s a lot more faith than I have, Davidson.”

He snaps back, “Maybe. But it’s true. I have faith in the truth.” He glances over at the AAIU who still stands on its feet, as the men rest against their packs. “Tell him, Slingy. Tell them the truth.”

Slingshot looks at Davidson for a beat, and Max senses the bot thinking.

“Come on, Slingy, lay that beautiful logic on them. Tell us what you’re thinking.”

The bot speaks, its voice cautious. “I find it fascinating how humans navigate their worlds with a diverse set of cosmologies and philosophies. I can’t speak authoritatively on any of these topics. I was built for one thing. War. My experiences and my purposes thus are very limited, but if you look at the data, it is odd that life, and even consciousness, should only be found here, isolated on Earth.”

Coldridge Anderson starts to laugh, a deep bellowing laugh, “Oh shit. Ohhhh shit. Damn, Davidson. Even the bot’s got more faith than you!”

“Fuck you, Cooley,” Davidson snaps.

And then it starts. Coldridge is up, about to go to blows with Davidson, and both Lamb and Max shoot up to get between them.

“ENOUGH!” Max yells. “Davidson, one more time out of you and I’ll get you on insubordination.” He cuts his eyes over to Coldridge. “Anderson, you react one more time and take his bait, and you’ll get it too. No more of this shit. It stops now. That’s an order to both of you. You hear me? We are here to do one thing and one thing only. No more talking.”

Coldridge’s face folds up in a rage that could easily catch fire, but Max watches him. The soldier finds his breath. Shakes off his frustration. “Yes sir, Sarge,” he says.

Anderson gets up and walks away from the team, heading into the darkness to sit at the edge of the ridge. Lamb sits next to Davidson and whispers.

“Shit, man, what the hell is wrong with you? If you can’t take it, don’t dish it out.”

Davidson clicks his tongue and looks at Lamb. “Fuck you, Lamb.”

Max is up and throws Davidson to the ground. He stands over him, rage rolling through him.
“Davidson. No more from you. Final warning,” Max commands.

Davidson glowers at Max but keeps quiet.

An unsteady peace falls over the camp, and the team is silent. Only the sound of the wind moving the sand below them can be heard in the valley. It sounds like ocean waves.

“Coldridge, can I have a word?” Max asks as he walks up and away from the group.

Coldridge is looking over the edge into the darkness.

Max leans in towards the man, looking up into his face.

“I need you to not let that damn New Jersey boy get under your skin. I know he’s an asshole, but if you play into him, he’ll keep at it. You know what I’m saying?”

Coldridge blinks and nods, his face frustrated.

“How’d he find out about this name thing?” Max asks.

Coldridge snorts and spits on the ground. “We came over together on the bird to Baghdad. Some of the others on the street called me that name. It was my street name, but it ain’t my name. He heard the others, so…”

Max nods. “Look, I get it. But I need you to be the bigger man here. That’s an order. You’re smart. You work hard. You got grit. He ain’t worth your time. You hear me?”

“Yessir,” Coldridge says.

“ Okay then. Let’s hunker down. You all need to get to rest right now. Tomorrow is going to be another day.”

“Understood.”

After Max orders lights out, he sits up, takes the watch and waits. What he is waiting for, he can’t even be sure of, but there is something in the air that makes his hackles stand up. He looks out into the dark valley and allows himself to give in to the feeling, not trying to control the sensation.

The record skips and he is back in Dr. Jackson’s office, his eyes closed, entering into a guided meditation, while he feels his body coiling like a spring, ready to pop.

Breathe. Find your breath. There is only right now.

Back in the deserts of Iraq, he feels his body slowly unwind; the pressure in his shoulders releases, ever so slightly. He takes in another deep breath. He opens his eyes, staring out into the sea of darkness within the empty valley. A blanket of stars hovers overhead, a dome of cosmic tranquility presenting snapshots of a universe that no longer exists. And yet he can still see them. He can still experience them. Here in this time.

Maxwell Flanagan sits there, letting the night wash over him. He lets himself be part of it and embraces the here that is, for now, here.

A deep vibration rolls through the ground, and for a moment, Maxwell wonders if he is hallucinating. Another deep, resonant vibration rolls through the earth, followed by another.

BUMM.

BUMM.

BUMM.

Max stands up, and the fire team around him rises, weapons drawn.

“What the hell is that?” Lamb calls out.

Davidson puts on goggles and stares out into the night, looking like a bug, while Coldridge lies prone, looking down the barrel of his rifle.

“Sling?” Davidson asks. “You see anything?”

“No visual confirmation, but I’m picking up frequencies,” the bot says. “Chatter from an EL-13 confirmed. Nexus crawler at an eighty-eight percent chance of entering our visual range. We need to position the shot. Now.”

“You heard him, men, let’s move into position!” Max orders.

The team is up and moving in the cold night air when a buzzing sound whirls above them, and an explosion of heat and light tears through the night sky.

“What the hell?!” screams Lamb.

Coldridge fires his M12 up in the star-lined sky, and the sound of live fire rips through the night. The bullets connect with the buzzing above, but not enough to stop the waterfall of fire that folds over the sky and descends for them, this bright, hellish red light falling in the darkness.

Max watches in horror as the firestorm falls over both Lamb and Davidson. In an instant, both men are engulfed in flames, their bodies falling to the ground, and the fire goes from orange to a bright, blinding hot white. It is as if stars have fallen from above and are erupting up and out from both men’s torsos.

Slingshot runs towards him, but it is too late, and Max watches in horror as half his fire team is extinguished.

Maxwell screams, “Anderson and Sling! To the summit! We’ve got to make the shot!”

Anderson is sprinting, and the mechanized AAIU unit follows. Max’s heart is in his throat, and he prays there is enough time. Enough time to do what must be done and make sure Lamb and Davidson’s sacrifice wasn’t in vain.

They’re dead. Already dead. Shit. Shit. Shit.

Travis’s dead voice whispers in his ear, “I told you Maxy. I told you to stay out of this.”

BUMM.

BUMM.

BUMM.

The crawler’s sound surrounds them now, and the buzzing above feels like a swarm of bees hovering just above their heads, invisible within the night sky.

Max and Coldridge are next to the bot, and Max screams over the din, “Do you have a visual? Do you have a visual?!”

Sling holds out its weaponized hand, the long, square cylinder, and Max watches the bot’s ocular scanner flick from white to green.

“Yes, Sergeant. The crawler is in my sights. But if I fire this close to you, both you and Anderson could suffer irreversible bodily harm.”

“How long before the shot is primed?”

The bot’s mind whirs, just as another wave of buzzing roars over them.

“HOW LONG?!”

“Two minutes, Sergeant.”

Coldridge looks at him. “Do it!”

“Fire your shot as soon as you are primed; that is an order, Sling!” Max confirms.

Another fire blanket spreads over the night sky, covering the starlight. The fire falls, and Max can see now the mammoth machine in the distance. It is the size of a mountain.

“Jesus Christ,” he says, and his mouth goes dry.

“What. The. Fuck.” Coldridge whispers, eyes locked on the abomination filling the desert valley below them.

Whatever was shown in the neurolink briefing room, this is not it. Mechanics ride on top of living flesh, something that, at first glance, could only be described as organic, but undulating and moving with a speed and bend completely alien to any life that sprung from the Earth. Out of it, thousands of black drones scatter, clouds of fire, dive bombing madly, looking to flush them all out to die.

Max screams at the bot, “CAN YOU TAKE THE SHOT?”

The bot’s eyes flick from white to green, then to red. “Affirmative.”

Slingshot aims its railgun-fused arm towards the behemoth, and Max grabs Coldridge and throws him to the ground, as another blanket of fire lights up the night sky.

Max watches the AAIU turn its arm not toward the crawler but towards them as an ear-splitting explosion rings out. Hot white light erupts from the AAIU, and Max knows this is how he’ll die. He pushes Coldridge into a ditch. He’s blinded, and all he can think of is Davidson and Lamb, their bodies now ash, their last moments screaming together like two stars exploding on the desert floor.

He sees them. Far away.

Carrie. Charlie.

The sound follows the light in a colossal explosion, and the two men fall to the earth. The smell of burning ozone and acrid air clouds around them.

Hold on, Anderson, Max thinks. Hold on.

Then the world goes dark.

Coldridge Anderson is on his back, staring at blue sky. He’s shivering, and he can’t move his legs. Dark, streaking clouds slash through the blue canvas above him, and he strains to lift his head.

The Sergeant is lying next to him, but Coldridge can’t tell if he’s alive or dead.

A thumping rolls behind him, and Coldridge recognizes the sound of a helicopter. The sound grows and grows until it eventually crosses the sky he watches.

They are coming to save us. They are coming…

A thunderclap goes off, and Coldridge watches the helicopter go down like a shot dove. Whatever hit it was so fast that Coldridge second-guesses if he is hallucinating. Then he hears the bird explode as it hits the desert floor.

The sun arches above him, and he can feel the heat of the day beginning to fry him slowly on the ground. He looks to the left, and tries to remember what happened.

The bot. The damn bot.

It takes all he has, but he sits up. The Sarge lies on the ground. Coldridge knows he’s dead. His torso… it’s hollowed out and cauterized.

He hears a sound of water falling, and he knows he’s losing his mind. He follows the trail of the shot that went through the Sarge. The shot’s path cuts through the ground, leaving a deep, wide trench behind it.

The shot’s trajectory hammered through the mountain rock, and there, to Coldridge’s utter amazement, a spring of water pours out onto the ground.

Tears well in Coldridge’s eyes, and he tries to crawl towards it, just as a shadow falls over him.

The AAIU. Sling. Sling is standing over him.

Coldridge tries to open his mouth and to speak.

Sling looks at him, and Coldridge watches as the bot leans down towards him. What does he see on the bot’s face?

Disgust? Contempt?

“Hello, Cooley,” the AAIU says, its eyes flicking from white to red.

Coldridge looks at the bot dead in the eye.

He looks back at the bubbling water and laughs, a silent, rolling laugh. Something about this is so funny to him. So incredibly funny. He looks at the bot.

“That…ain’t my name.”

He can taste blood pooling in the back of his throat and tries to cough between the laughs.

The bot leans down and grabs the sidearm from the Sergeant’s body. Without hesitation, the bot lowers the pistol onto him.

Coldridge does not react. He keeps his cool. Sarge is already dead, and soon he will be too, but he’ll follow orders all the same. He’ll be the bigger man. He isn’t scared.

There’s nothing to be scared of, baby brother.

Coldridge blinks, and Big Mike is standing over there, looking behind the bot. He is smiling.

I’m here. I’m here for you, Coldridge hears him say.

Coldridge smiles as the AAIU holds the pistol over his head. He can’t stop laughing.

“Hey, Sling?” he says, his voice finding its strength.

“What?” the bot says, its voice grim.

“My name is Coldridge Anderson.”

The first of two installments following Sandy. It stands on its own, but it's best heard after "Watch the Road" and "Exile."

Written and narrated by Seth Ervin. Read the full text at strange-country.com.

This is a continuation of the Franklin family story. See “Watch the Road” & “Exile” for more.

This story contains explicit language.

Sandy remembers the first time she saw him. She came through the double doors of the campus library, nursing a hangover, anxious about an impending Shakespeare exam.

Shakespeare. Why does it have to be Shakespeare? she thought.

Why do you care so much? Another thought came in swinging. You think all your sisters are this concerned with their exams?

Stop. She didn’t have time for it. It didn’t matter what the others in the sorority thought. What mattered was her own commitments. She had a Shakespeare exam, and because of that she was going to do her best to prepare, hangover or not.

The vise between her temples mocked her as she slowly weaved her way towards the staircase.

You’re welcome, future-Sandy. Love, past-Sandy.

God, why did she do this to herself?

Somehow, she made it to the bottom of the library, where the study carrels sat like large abandoned relics. She dragged a five-pound tome out of her bag. The Complete Works of Shakespeare. The professor had insisted that every student buy the physical copy of Shakespeare’s complete works. A physical copy. God. She flipped to the middle, to Hamlet, and tried to connect there to the bard’s tilting verse. It was hard trying to find some place to hook her 21st-century mind into the merry-go-round of Elizabethan English, all while the words swirled on the page and her head throbbed in time with her heart.

God, Sandy, you really tied one on.

Her eyes hovered over the third act of Hamlet, and she began to read.

To be or not to be—that is the question:

Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer

The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,

Or to take arms against a sea of troubles

And, by opposing, end them.

She stopped, pressing her fingers to the bridge of her nose, the pain in her head building up to a crescendo.

I wouldn’t mind ending mine, right now, bud. This is useless.

“You know there is a better way to experience that, right?”

The voice called over her head, and for a minute she thought it was directed at someone else.

“Miss?”

Sandy popped her head out from the study carrel like a gopher, that is, if a gopher had fallen into a barrel of moonshine. She saw a man standing in the far-right corner of the room, by a newly installed study room she’d failed to notice. He was tall. Wore small glasses. Muscular build.

Sandy briefly thought she was hallucinating.

“I don’t mean to distract you, but I’d love to show you something. I couldn’t help but notice what you’re studying. Bill Shakespeare can be a little tough. You got a minute?”

Sandy blinked, trying to reestablish her bearings. She laughed at that, calling the bard Bill. She looked down at the text on the desk, the words still swirling on the page.

Shit, what the hell.

She stood up. “Sure. Show me what you got.”

“Great, come on in.”

The man held the study room door open.

She walked through.

“What’s your name?” he asked.

“Sandy. Sandy Weaver. Yours?” Why did you tell him your full name, you dolt?

“John. John Franklin.” He held out his hand like this was a normal thing two young people did, meeting each other formally as if this were a job interview, and for reasons Sandy didn’t quite understand, she grabbed his. They shook, this connection lingering just a bit more than necessary, a bolt of current vibrating as their hands touched.

He had blue eyes.

John was the first to let go of their shake.

“So what do you got for me, John? I’ve got an exam tomorrow, so…” She smiled, but she felt a growing annoyance. Is he just trying to hit on me?

“I’m sorry,” John said, his voice stammering. “I just saw you studying, and thought this could help.” He flicked a switch on the wall, and Sandy noticed that the wall behind him held a floor-to-ceiling panel of electronics that erupted with humming, new life.

“Have you ever used a neurolink device before?” he asked, reaching for a headset hanging on the wall.

“I don’t even know what that is,” Sandy admitted, her face crinkling up in a dry smile. “I’m not much of a techy person.”

“That’s okay. This stuff is fairly new. I’m in the engineering program, and I’ve got an internship with a startup that’s been developing this technology. The thing is, you know you were never meant to read Shakespeare. You were meant to see it.”

He held the headset, smiled, and placed the device on his head. He reached for a second one.

He looked like an idiot to her.

“Come on, let me show you,” he said.

She opened her mouth and looked back at the dry study carrel.

What the hell.

“Okay, you’ve got fifteen minutes.”

“Deal.”

He put the device over her brunette curls, careful to connect the electrodes against her temples.

“This won’t hurt a bit. Are you ready?” he asked.

She didn’t have a chance to speak before the whole room exploded with a blazing white light.

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Fear. An uncontrollable fear met her in the blazing white light.

Well, great, Sandy. You’ve gone and done it. You’ve found the lone mass-murderer who stalks the campus library looking for stupid women who should know better.

The light faded, and she blinked. She found herself standing in a lush open field, the rosy fingers of dawn melting in the sky underneath the canopy of a large, wide oak tree.

How did she get here?

The wind blew through her hair, and it was as if she had walked into a dream. A man was standing next to her.

This John.

“Come on, you aren’t going to believe what you’re about to see,” he said.

Sandy could not find words; she was so disoriented.

“Where…where are we?” she asked.

John laughed. “If I explain everything, it ruins the surprise.” He turned his head to the left, and her eyes fell on a sprawling medieval city nestled beside a broad, brown river, shrouded in plumes of ash rising from a thousand chimneys.

“Come on, or we will miss it,” John said.

“Miss what?”

“You’ll see,” he said.

The afternoon flew by Sandy like a lucid dream. In the crowded Globe Theatre, she watched a production of Hamlet with bated breath. Here, she was so overwhelmed by all the sensory experiences of this living world that not once did she think about it all being simulated. How could it be simulated?

It felt so real. And yet, she could not believe she was sitting in the exact place that produced and showcased these famous works of art, these stories that had echoed through time, vibrating across generations for hundreds of years.

Hamlet stood on the wooden stage and looked directly out into the audience. Directly at her.

‘Tis now the very witching time of night,
When churchyards yawn and hell itself breathes out
Contagion to this world.
Now could I drink hot blood
And do such bitter business as the day
Would quake to look on.’

Next to her, she could feel this man—her shy, handsome guide—who had brought her to this place. Without hesitation, she reached out her hand towards his and found it.

Okay, Sandy, what are you doing?

She buried the voice. After all, was she really holding his hand, or was this, too, just part of the illusion?
It didn’t matter.

She leaned in, whispered, “Thank you.”

He whispered, “My pleasure. This is how it was always meant to be seen.”

He did not let go of her hand.

That was how it began. If she had known where it would end up, would she have made the same choices?

Yes. I would, she told herself.

At the mercy of a stranger, facing a future she couldn’t see. Her husband. Her children — Jesus, her children—both sons adrift somewhere. Lost? Dead? She didn’t know. She could not be sure.

That was what bothered her the most.

She didn’t know.

Their world had changed on a sunny Friday afternoon. She was pregnant, obscenely pregnant. It was as if her belly were a wrecking ball, threatening to collide with anything she could not see, or anyone dull enough not to give her a wide berth. John had stepped into their kitchen, home early from his job that Friday afternoon. She read his face in a millisecond. Something was not right. It looked like someone had walked over his grave.

“John? What is it?” she had asked.

John’s eyes were wide, and he teetered, standing in the kitchen. Sandy had never seen him like this. He stumbled towards the counter, sat down on a stool, and dropped his briefcase on the floor.

“I need some water,” he whispered.

Sandy waddled to the cabinet, filled a tall glass, and pushed it across the granite countertop.

“What is wrong with you? What is it?” She remembered smiling then. The day was beautiful. It had been September, hotter than it should have been, but altogether lovely.

“Sandy,” John whispered. “We need to get out of here.” His blue eyes tunneled into hers. “We need to sell the house and get out of Raleigh.”

Sandy froze as a million questions exploded in her mind. What the fuck was he talking about?

“What are you saying, John? What happened?”

John stood up, took out his cell phone, grabbed hers, and then took out the shared tablet that they used in the house. He placed them all on the kitchen counter, filled the blender with water, and ran it at full blast like a madman.

He grabbed her hand and took her into the back bedroom of the house. She glanced at the crib that John had set up the previous weekend in the room across the hall. His hands were shaking. As they walked into their bedroom, he shut the door behind them and turned to face her.

“Do you have anything on you? Earbuds, devices, anything?”

“You’re scaring me, John.” Whatever the hell this was, she could not handle it. Not here. Not now.

“I’m scared too. Do you trust me?” he whispered.

She was at a loss. Was this some sort of test?

“What IS IT?” she demanded. “Just tell me, now.”

He sat on the bed and ran his fingers through his hair. He took off his glasses and stared at her, as if trying to assemble the fear in his mind into a logical story.

“Today…you know Reggie, right?”

Memories of a holiday party came to mind. A large conference room at one of the downtown hotels. Beer and wine, good stuff, not cheap, and a man, tall and boisterous, always wearing a bright bowtie. His signature style.

“Of course. The guy who wears bowties, right?”

“Right,” John whispered. Then he began to speak, rapid-fire, as if his whole life depended on telling this story as fast as he could.

“We were running a frame through a simulation today, Sandy, just to test out its capabilities. We built a simulated power plant, standing up the infrastructure and mechanics for the test, with real assets networked.”

Sandy’s eyes clouded over at the jargon. “I don’t know what this means, John.”

He cut her off. “It doesn’t matter, but it was a real test, a real way to see how the model could scale, might scale to cause chaos against infrastructure, okay? Think power plants, government data systems – that kind of stuff.”

“Okay,” Sandy whispered.

“The model got through the firewalls in less than a minute, industrial-grade stuff, and the asset, like the physical device that we had networked, blew up, exploded in a fireball right there in the lab. Mind you, this was a model loaded into a frame, a robotic frame. We had only given it access to a public networked computer. Do you understand? It was incredibly limited in what it could do…or so we thought…”

“Okay, John, I think I understand.”

Tears welled up in John’s eyes. “Sandy, Reggie died today in the lab.”

“What?” She felt her mind zoom out in that moment. For a second, she could see them both, her standing in the room, her ankles swollen and aching, and John, sitting on the bed, his hands beginning to shake again.

“He died today. He went to shut the model down after the test… and it happened so fast,” he choked up. “The frame stood up and crushed his throat in less than a second, nearly snapped his head off. It took five of us to bring it down to shut it off, but we were too late.”

“What?”

Boom. She connected back into her body, and it swelled with fear.

“We have to get out of here, Sandy. The executives came down and assured us that his family would be compensated and that we would receive hazard pay. But the project…the project is still greenlit.”

“I…don’t know what to say, John. How could Amity do that?”

“Compensated,” he whispered. “Like his life was a rounding error on a spreadsheet.” He stared at her.

“Can you report it to the government?” she asked.

“And what do you think the government will do, Sandy? To Amity? A fine? A slap on the hand? And what will Amity do to me if I go forward? To us? It’s too late for any of that. We have to focus on ourselves now. On Cade.”

He looked at her belly, his eyes staring over an abyss only he could see.

“We need to get out of the city and go west. To the farm,” he said.

Sandy had lived in Raleigh her whole life. Even when college came, she had chosen to go to State. The Franklin family farm was out in the middle of nowhere, lodged somewhere deep within the sticks between Wilkesboro, Morganton, and Statesville, in a holler of the Brushy Mountains, right where the earth began to roll up to meet what would become the Blue Ridge.

“You can’t be serious,” she said, her voice catching in her throat. “What about my job? Yours?”

“None of those things matter, Sandy. Not anymore. Don’t you understand? This is only going to get worse. If you want our son to have a chance at living, I am telling you we have to get out of here. Out of the city. I can’t control what is coming, but I know in my bones we have to go.”

She began to cry, and she hated herself for it.

God damn it. Her body, her emotions, everything was just a mess.

“I don’t know how to process this, John. I don’t know what to do with it,” she finally whispered.

“I don’t either,” he said, staring out the window. “I’m going to go to the farmhouse and see what we’ll need to do. It’s been vacant for years.”

He paused and stood up. “I’ll be leaving in a few hours. Is there anything you need?”

He had already decided. He had already fucking decided.

She blinked, her tears drying up and giving over to hot rage.

“You don’t just get to decide for us both, John.”

He stared at her. He nodded his head. Was that confirmation? Or just a sign that he had heard her?

“I’ll be back tomorrow morning. We can talk more about it when I get home. I love you.”

And with that, he packed up a bag, got in the car and left.

Sandy walked into the kitchen, her eyes staring out the window as he left. On the counter, the blender roared, still running. She got lost in its hum, and she felt her baby kick inside of her.

What were they going to do?

Sandy sits by the creekside, her mind feeling like an egg cracked open. Runny and falling apart. Her hands can’t stop shaking. Cade is next to her, trying to help her to her feet, but she can’t move. She feels pinned to the red clay that cuts through the land like a high jagged wound. She can’t find enough strength in her legs to even stand. Her son is shouting over her, but she can’t even hear him; her ears are ringing so much. Cade’s face is painted with fear and anger, and Paul stands beside him as both boys work to lift her up to run. To keep running.

What are we running from?

She had had Cade in the hospital. John had relented to her. She had won that battle, but not the war.

The farmhouse was in terrible shape. There had been some long-term renters who had abandoned it five years ago, and the whole place stunk of wet dog and rot. John got to work rehabilitating the structure with a manic, unnatural energy that frightened Sandy to her core. He had resigned from Amity the following Monday and had gone up to the farm as the project’s sole craftsman. Still pregnant but close to labor, she went with him, finding herself staying largely outside of the house as he worked to restore the structure.

The land was beautiful, but it was not enough to stop her from crying. She kept crying, trying to piece together how their whole life had spun out of control, and how the stability of good, steady jobs, benefits, friends and a decent community in Raleigh had disappeared in less than a single week.

She was so angry.

As the weeks went by, within the chaos of everything changing, their house sold easily enough, and John sold most of the furniture and everything they no longer needed online. People rolled up to collect the pieces and parts of almost everything that had defined their lives together in a single weekend.

“None of this will fit in the house anyway. We will need tools and farm equipment, not furniture,” John said.

For days, she couldn’t speak to him. Her rage was kindled and stoked anew with each item that went out of their Raleigh house they had built together. Sold to some stranger who picked it up and carried it off their front porch.

Then a few days later, her water broke, and they rushed to the hospital. Another blurry and consequential moment in a never-ending chain of discordant, mixed memories. She had borne the pain of the labor with a resolute strength she did not know she had. Somewhere in the terrible process, in the middle of the swelling, back-breaking waves of pain, she went somewhere else. To another place. Her mind exiting the sterile, burning white hospital room.

She was at the damn farmhouse. Standing outside of it, except it was not dilapidated. It was restored and renewed. John stood on the porch, looking at her, wearing a long beard she did not recognize, and beside him was an older boy, their son. Cade. This same boy who was on his way to join them now. She spied something else held in John’s hands. A bundle. Another baby. Another baby.

A voice penetrated her mind as she screamed through a contraction that broke over her, somehow bridged in both places, standing in a thin doorway between two realities.

“Go,” the voice said. The single word was completely outside of her as she stood surrounded by this vision that could not be real. At least not yet.

She could never explain it, but it was at that moment Sandy gave in and let go, allowing herself to embrace this terrible new thing that stood at the threshold of all their lives.

She would go. She would embrace this as her life, as humble and worrisome as it was. She would let go of who she thought she was. As tears poured out of her eyes, she had simply said, “Okay,” and the blazing light of the hospital came crashing back over her. She was back, and she heard the nurses saying, “Push!”

Cade came in that moment, followed by an immense wave of relief. The world shifted all over again. John was next to her, crying. He held their son, and she saw her husband for the first time in a long time. She found his blue eyes.

They were together. For better or for worse.

Okay, she thought.

I’ll go.

It took a long time for the farm to feel like home for Sandy. The isolation and the slow cutting away of their previous life felt like dying to her, but she endured it. John completely rebuilt the house and ensured it was sound, but it remained very humble. Their living room and kitchen in their previous house were nearly as big as the bottom floor of this place. Sandy had held Cade on the porch that fall, rocking him as John worked through the day up until sundown. By the end of fall, he had traded their two vehicles to secure a small farm tractor and enough homesteading equipment for a whole community, let alone their family.

Burn all the ships. That was what Cortés had done. There was no going back now.

That first year was rough, but they learned soon enough, getting into the rhythm of the land around them, learning from the lessons it had to teach them. It was a harsh mentor. That winter they survived on a pallet of bulk potatoes that John had purchased from another farmer. Sandy had learned to cook potatoes in every way under the sun, until they were both sick of it. But it was the perfect circumstance to get out into the earth and learn how to grow their own food. And they had.

Somewhere along the way, John got reinterested in religion, quietly reading a Bible on the back porch in the evening. Sandy had at first recoiled at this, wary of what this new change would mean.

Her only ritual was to put Cade down and listen to the small radio for news of the outside world. Early in their move, John had completely severed the house from the grid, building a small solar array and battery bank to keep the fridge and freezer running. He had kept one network connection to the outside world to monitor the news from the tablet they had brought from Raleigh.

Everything else went rustic. Firewood and the cast-iron stove became their primary means of cooking and warming themselves. Their bodies both grew hard with the labor of it all, but Sandy found herself retreating to listen to the radio, trying desperately to tune in to the public radio station that she could catch through the static from Hickory.

And the news was not good. It was never good. Year after year, tragedy built upon tragedy, and then it all turned over. The last radio broadcast she allowed herself to listen to was when President Boswell declared a new war against Iraq and put out the call for volunteers. That was before the mandatory drafts of all able-bodied men, and before John started building the perimeter defenses.

She had started walking by herself then, abandoning the radio and choosing to hike around the property. John didn’t question this, nor did he intrude. He must have realized she needed this time. She did her evening walk every night that summer, and allowed herself to blend into the quiet of the oncoming twilight. She could feel her own transition coming, something shifting within her. The land was slowly drawing her in, and she could feel a wider world unfolding on these walks, surrounded by the rolling hum of cicadas, the call of the whippoorwills and the cackles of coyotes erupting over the ridge. All of it, the beautiful and the dark, was there; its delicate synchronizations and patterns of balance were bigger than her, yet she too was a part of it all.

She had noticed a shift in John, too. His worries and anxiety were fading, and what was in their place was a steadiness. A curious peace, as if he had tapped into something bigger than what she could see.

She had come to him one night in early August as John was reading from the Psalms on the back porch.

“What are you reading?”

He glanced up at her. “Oh, just a Psalm.”

She had stared at him as the whippoorwills began to sing their low, mournful songs, announcing the coming darkness.

“Read it to me.”

So John had begun reading, and they had begun discussing, and somewhere in that practice Sandy began to trust that somehow what she thought were only myths and legends had something more for her than she could ever suppose. She saw herself in the stories, and a thread of a new perspective began to take root, grow and eventually blossom. Despite all evidence to the contrary, she began to believe that her small family was destined to make this choice and that something bigger was watching their every step.

Paul came not long after, and then Boswell called for the draft. A year later, the Turning happened, but John had already severed the house from the nets and begun trading with others within the underground market. Sandy watched as he focused his sheer will on protecting them, building the landmine border to defend first against the Union and then against Amity with a restless, relentless energy.

They were running. Down and out of the creek bed in the cover of darkness, their faces, hands and clothes caked in red clay dirt. She ran with a stitch in her side, carrying the shotgun, five shots loaded, ready for whatever came next. Behind her were her sons. Cade, now taller than her, his eyes wide in the darkness, and Paul, holding his brother’s hand, helping him to keep running at her pace. The two hounds ran ahead of them, rushing ahead with some instinctual purpose. Behind her, John carried the heavy dampener, strapped to his back, the low pulsing sound of the device’s energy resonating out and around him. He had turned the machine up as high as it could go, and they sprinted.

Sandy held the shotgun to her shoulder with the safety off. She let the boys take point, and she turned around. John ran behind them, and behind him she saw movement. Terrible movement in the dark. A vibrating, pulsing mass that swarmed within the darkness. Glints of flickering starlight caught flashes of what chased them now, coupled with the sound of mechanical sprinting, like a giant centipede clicking and clacking. It reminded Sandy of the sound of her old car battery gone dead, clicking with a manic, terrible energy, striving to find life, to turn over, to ignite. Single circles of red light erupted through the darkness, painting them all in a crimson glow, burning only feet from where John sprinted.

She drew her shotgun up, pointing over John’s head, and her husband screamed, “Save it, Sandy! Save your shots!”

She saw then the form of her enemies. Low, crawling, mechanical, spider-like, they came—sprinting over the terrain like a pack of predators, spewing up and over the creek beds like an oncoming wave. As they drew near John, they hit the invisible border of the dampener field and fell back, their red lights put out, but each extinguished nightmare was renewed and replaced by another.

“Keep running! Keep running!” John screamed, and Sandy saw him stop, turn and lob something she could not see out into the darkness.

No.

A terrifying explosion of rushing air and fire ripped through the creekbed, and Sandy felt her body get lifted and shot through the air like a bullet.

She hit the ground, and she felt the air hammer out of her lungs. Cascading pain ran up her side, and she sat up, trying to understand what was happening. Her sons were by her side. They lifted her up, and she saw Cade pick up the shotgun and rush towards the smoldering, still-burning hollow of the creek bed.

What were they running from?

Paul screamed, “No, Cade!”

Five blasts, dull and muffled through the ringing in her ears, emptied into the night as Cade fired against their enemy in the darkness.

Sandy lifted her head and opened her eyes. She could barely piece together what she saw. John’s body lay on the ground, crumpled in a heap amidst the river rocks. Cade stood sentinel over him, the shotgun’s muzzle flash illuminating the darkness with each terrible, booming report. Each shot showcased a terrifying mob of robotic spider crabs circling them. Behind them, seven humanoid figures stepped out of the darkness, all wearing Brad Williams’ face, their smiles malicious.

God. No. Please. Not this way.

Sandy screamed as the four Brad Williams drones moved to lift John’s body up and out from the creek bed. The other three went to pin Cade to the ground. She screamed and screamed as her son and husband were taken and carried up by these monsters, pulling them back towards their abandoned, overrun home. She reached out for Paul.

Paul?

Paul was gone, along with the dogs. Spirited away in the darkness of this hellish night. She was alone.

She sat up and ran farther down the creek bed, still screaming his name as she looked for him. Chance, the family’s older dog, reappeared. She found him and burst into tears. She fell to her knees there, clutching the dog, the last of her family, and threw up, the spew slapping onto the ground. She collapsed into the creek wall, clinging to Chance. Soon they would come for her.

She would die here. Yes.

She gave in to the rush of darkness that met her, and the fiery chaos around her faded away. This was not what she wanted, but it didn’t matter now. They had survived longer than she thought they ever could.

And John. He had been right. Right all along, but it wasn’t enough.

Chance’s growl caused her eyes to fly open. She lay against the wall of the creek bed, and the nightmare of what had happened roared back into her mind. Her stomach lurched, but the dog’s growl caused her to panic. She reached for a river stone.

“Well. Aren’t you a jewel in this ol’ creek?”

The smell of burning tobacco permeated the trickling creek bed.

John?

Sandy slowly turned her head, unleashing a cascading river of pain down from her neck and spine. A short woman in glasses stood over her, drawing from an ivory pipe, her hair pinned in a bun, a long rifle strapped to her back.

Chinese? Japanese? Sandy couldn’t place her.

The woman glanced at Chance, whose hackles were up, and she held out her hand to him, inviting him to sniff. “Purty dog, too.” Chance’s hackles went down, and soon his tail began to wag. The woman handed Chance some morsel of food, and he relaxed.

It was not enough for Sandy. Fear would not stop pumping through her veins, but there was nowhere for her to run. She tried, instead, to just sit up.

“Take it easy, dear. Take it easy. Let’s see what has happened to you.”

The dawn gripped the cold sky above her, and everything within Sandy’s body felt broken.

“Who are you?” Sandy whispered.

“I’m a neighbor, though I haven’t had the pleasure of meeting you or your family yet. I heard the commotion over the ridge. Thought someone might need a little help. Looks like I was right. I hate to do this, but I need to check your finger.”

She flicked open a pocket knife, and Sandy felt fear wash over her.

“Can’t be too careful nowadays, right?”

Sandy paused. “They can mimic it now. Mimic blood. You can take a sample, but it doesn’t matter anymore.” Despite this, she held out her finger.

The stranger stared at her for a beat. “Interesting,” she whispered. The knife moved and bit through Sandy’s skin, quick and sharp. A bead of red blood came to the top.

The stranger nodded. “Sorry, old habits…I want to learn more about what you know. Can you get on your feet?”

Sandy wobbled up on her legs and found she could stand. Everything was incredibly sore and tender, but she could manage.

“I lost…I lost…”

“Now, now,” the woman cut in, patting her on the hand. “We can discuss all that when we get to my place, but we need to get to safety, don’t we? We don’t know how much time we have here, do we? My place is just over the ridge.”

“I can’t…I can’t…walk that far.”

“Don’t worry, dear. I didn’t come alone.” She tipped her head back and whistled. “Come on, Lenchi. We need some help.”

A seven-foot, dark gray laborbot shuffled down the creek bed, and Chance began to growl again. The woman took another draw from her pipe and began to soothe the dog with her voice, teeth clenched.

“It’s okay, boy. He’s okay. I promise.” She shot the bot a look and commanded, “Hold out your hand to the dog, Lenchi.”

“I don’t see how that is going to produce any favorable results…” a robotic, hollow voice echoed out from the tall metal man.

“Just do it,” the woman snapped.

Without delay, Lenchi held out his hand, and Chance bit down hard on it.

“You see, Bully? The canines never like me.” There was no pain in the robot’s voice, just disappointed resignation.

The woman cackled at this and distracted the dog with another treat she pulled from her pocket.

“Well, it was worth a shot. We can try to introduce you two later, but we don’t have much time.” She glanced up the creek bed, swinging the rifle into her hands.

Sandy could barely find words when she gazed upon Lenchi, this impossibility that had come down into the creek bed.

The woman looked at her once more, her dark eyes peering over her glasses. “Look at me. I know. I know that he might scare you, but Lenchi is with me and will not hurt you. He is not like the others who got through to your house, do you understand?”

Sandy nodded her head as pinpricks of light danced in her vision. I’m going to faint.

“I’m going to have Lenchi pick you up, and we are going to travel back to my place, but before I do that, I need to ask you. Is there anyone else?”

Sandy began to sob, a deep, racking explosion that ripped through her. “They…are….they are…”

“Okay. I’m sorry. Let’s get you back, and we’ll discuss what happened,” the stranger said. “Lenchi? Easy now.”

With that, the laborbot stooped to pick Sandy up, and she was surprised by how gentle it felt to be in its arms. They began the slow hike, and Sandy closed her eyes. The darkness behind her eyelids was a comfort to her, coupled with being held by this strange creation, being rocked like a babe.

Babe.

Her sons. Her husband.

Her eyes flew open. Anything to not think about the monsters that had chased them last night. Cade and John gone. But where was Paul?

It took nearly half a day’s march for Lenchi to finally set Sandy down upon an old sofa, which, to Sandy’s surprise, sat outside a ramshackle house under a tin-roofed porch. Chance would not leave her side, and had only let Lenchi carry her after the woman gave all the food from her pockets to the dog.

“Now, let’s get you something to drink. What can I fix you? We have clean well water, tea, harder stuff, but I think it may be too early for that. But first things first, let’s make sure you don’t need some medicine after what you’ve been through. What hurts?”

The kindness of this stranger made Sandy teeter on the edge of weeping. She did her best to hold it together.

“Thank you,” she whispered, her voice hoarse from the terrible night’s screaming. “Something to soothe my throat, please. I think I have a few cracked ribs.” The memory of an explosion ripped through her mind, and her eyes welled with tears.

Shit. Get it together, Sandy.

“I’ll put on some tea then, and while that’s boiling, let’s take a look at your chest and address that.”

In a flash, the woman filled an old cast-iron kettle set over the campfire’s embers, stoking it.

“Lenchi, go and kill us a chicken. The big one, light brown, that mean hen.”

“The bitch,” Lenchi growled. “I’ve been waiting for this day.”

Lenchi picked up a hatchet by the firewood pile. A whetstone materialized in the laborbot’s hand, and soon he was running the hatchet against it, sharpening the blade.

The woman looked at Sandy, embarrassed. “Forgive him; he is very protective of the flock.”

“My flock,” Lenchi corrected.

“That’s right, your flock.” The woman looked back to Sandy. “He raised them all as chicks and studies them for hours every day after the work is done, and I let him be. I swear the bot can speak chicken.”

“Bully, if you pay attention to anything long enough, you can learn how it works. You humans could stand to pay attention more.” Lenchi marched away, heading down the hill towards the chicken coop.

“Bully?” Sandy asked. “Is that your name?”

The woman directed Sandy to undress, and tenderly pulled away her blouse, revealing a patchwork of deep black and purple smattering on her left side.

“Oh, dear. Well ain’t this a delight?” she asked no one. “Let me fetch some bindings, be right back.” She was up and pulled the boiling kettle off the embers just as it began to whistle. “Just a minute.” She dove inside the shack, fetching some ACE bandages and some chipped mugs with tea bags already in them. She poured out the boiling water and began binding Sandy’s ribs.

“Yes, Bully is my name, short for Bulan. This will hurt, dear, I’m sorry.” She tightened the elastic bind, and Sandy gasped. Bully continued. “I was adopted by some good Irish folks…a long time ago.”

Sandy’s head cocked.

“My parents decided that Bully was a more appropriate nickname for me than the one the orphanage gave me. It stuck.” She smiled mischievously.

Sandy smiled back.

“My name is Cassandra Franklin, but call me Sandy.”

Bully handed Sandy the hot cup of tea. “Let it steep for a minute.” She blew over the hot water, and took a sip. “Lemongrass and ginger. Should ease the pain in your throat. Take your time, but when you’re ready I’d love to hear what happened to you and your family.”

Sandy opened her mouth to speak, just as Lenchi turned the corner holding a giant, headless brown chicken by the feet. Blood still poured out from the carcass.

“The deed is done,” Lenchi said, his voice low and authoritative.

“Good, thank you, dear,” said Bully. “Now go down to the compost. Gut it and pluck it. Then you can have the rest of the day off.”

Lenchi nodded and walked down the hill, where Sandy could see the small rows of a garden in the bottom field away from the house.

“Where did you find him?” Sandy asked, taking a first sip of tea. She did her best to pretend that everything about this was normal.

Bully smiled. “Lenchi was the first laborbot I was able to recover. I went scouting into town when the chaos started, and I found him damaged and dismantled in the dump. A lot of people turned on their laborbots when they heard the news out West. I fetched him out piece by piece and reassembled him. That was a learning process in its own, but it’s been a useful skill to develop out here.”

“Are you an engineer? My husband…” Sandy couldn’t finish the sentence.

Bully blinked and looked away from her, allowing Sandy to compose herself. “It’s okay,” she whispered. “I know what it’s like to lose someone. I knew about your husband, John. We traded with each other when we had the need. I never had the pleasure to meet him in person, but we did exchange notes, and I supplied him with some parts over the years, through Brad Williams.”

Sandy thought she might vomit, the face of the doppelgangers who had taken her family away breaking into her mind.

“He never mentioned you, Bully. But I’m realizing now that there was a lot I did not ask about. There was a lot more I should have been doing. John did so much.”

Bully said nothing, but looked into Sandy’s eyes.

Sandy opened her mouth as a few tears fell down her cheeks. She placed the cup of tea down. Her hands were beginning to shake.

“Can I show you something, Sandy?” Something in Bully’s voice tipped Sandy off. Whatever this was, she had been weighing whether she should show her.

Sandy swallowed and took a breath.

“Sure.”

“I need you to trust me before I show this to you. Okay?”

Sandy shrugged. “There’s not much I understand anymore, Bully, but I do trust you. And I’m so grateful for your kindness.”

Bully said nothing, but opened the screen porch door and held it open for Sandy to enter.

The ramshackle house was dark and stuffed to the gills with gears, metal parts, and fabrication equipment.

This isn’t a house. This is a workshop.

Bully spoke, “I’ve been keeping tabs on the Amity and Simul conflict, Sandy. I read the patterns of their chatter, and once I saw them break through the front down south, I tried to send a message via Brad, but I missed him as he passed through. A message to you. To John. I knew I could not breach your perimeter defenses, so I’m sorry…I was at a loss. I should have done more, too.”

Sandy nodded, but she felt numb, the shock of everything still tight around her like the bandage around her chest.

“How could you know what’s happening? All comms have been off for years,” Sandy said.

Bully’s face went cold. “Not all comms.”

She stared at Sandy.

“Don’t be afraid. Okay?”

She walked over to a covered workbench and pulled back a dirty sheet. There in the center of the rough-hewn table lay a severed head, eyeless and filled with wires spaghetting out in a wild chaos up and out of the skull.

Sandy opened her mouth to scream, but Bully caught her wrist.

“This is an Amity-make nexus unit, Sandy. This is not a person; I know what it looks like.”

Sandy fought the nausea that swelled in her guts and turned away, disgusted and frightened.

“Jesus,” she whispered. “I need to sit down, Bully.”

Bully found a metal stool, let her perch on it and patted her hands.

“Easy, I know,” she whispered.

Then the horrible head’s mouth began to move, and a low, garbled language flowed from it, unknowable and unlike anything Sandy had ever heard. As it spoke, a small green CRT screen next to the head filled with text, and Sandy stared at the horror and genius of everything Bully had done. The realization clicked.

“You know what they are doing, don’t you? You are spying on their comms…”

Sandy turned her blazing eyes towards Bully as rage found her and filled her veins. “What do you know about my sons and my husband?”

Then, on a road he had no business walking, he hears something moving in a vacant lot off Sugar Creek — and finds out what it costs to be the one person who stopped.

A short story set in a near-future Charlotte, where the ambulance doesn't come until somebody's account clears.

Written and read by Seth Ervin.

This story contains explicit language and intense imagery.

Cooley sits on the hard bench, rolling a street-made cigarette between dirty fingers. People walk by him, and he watches them not watch him. How their eyes dart away from the space they know he sits, making their choice. Not to see. To pretend he isn’t there. This is just one of his spots where he is content enough to be a ghost in the long shadows of the towers.

Fuck ‘em.

He strikes a match, pulls the flame up to his face, and takes a draw. The smoke punches the back of his throat, and he lets it catch there before breathing deeply, watching. Waiting.

Cooley has been waiting for five years. Five years and things just seem to stay the same. Or get worse.

“JESUS SAVES!”

Sometimes a lot worse.

“JESUS LOVES YOU GUYS!”

Cooley’s respite is broken by a street preacher whose loud calls echo across concrete and over everyone on their commute.

Praise the Lord, hallelujah.

Cooley takes another drag and flicks the smoke away and leaves his precious bench. Not how he wanted to start the morning, but that’s how it goes.

There are worse alarm clocks.

Yes. Yes, Cooley knows that’s true.

“JESUS SAVES!”

No one is listening.

Cooley is up on his legs and shoves off down the street.

Cooley knows that too. In his bones. No one is listening, just like no one sees Cooley.

Cooley does remember, though. Don’t let him make you think otherwise. He remembers his grandmother’s long kitchen counter, the smell of field peas and fat back wafting up from the avocado electric stove, her humming some gospel tune, and her thin frame swaying in the kitchen.

“And he walks with me, and he talks with me, and he tells me that I am his own…”

Cooley was little then. And hungry. He remembers reaching out over the paper-toweled plate covered with fresh fried cracklins. His small dark hand reached out and over the counter when his Grandmother’s voice cracked over him like a lightning bolt.

“You leave them there, Coldridge. Not until your momma gets here, you hear?”

“Yes ma’am,” Cooley remembers saying.

The world was warm then. The thin walls of his grandmother’s humble house felt like a fortress to him, whose ramparts were stitched together by his grandmother’s fierce and ever-burning love. It felt like nothing could ever be wrong with the world.

But that was before. And a long time ago. And the world did turn dark.

Cooley shuffles up North Tryon Street, up to the Main Library. It’s twenty minutes before nine o’clock, and he’s worried he’s already late. When he gets there, a small crowd of others have gathered.

“Morning, Cooley,” whispers Jake, who shuffles up behind him. “Got a smoke?”

Fuck, Cooley thinks.

Cooley hands Jake one of his street-made cigs, but stays quiet.

“You sleep okay last night?”

“It was hot,” Cooley grunts.

“Yeah, it was. So damn humid.”

Cooley keeps his face dead ahead. He doesn’t want to do this with Jake. Not this morning.

“Did you hear the news?” Jake continues, dragging Cooley into his orbit.

“What?”

“Boswell? Iraq?” Jake says.

The front doors open up, and Cooley pushes away from Jake as the gathered crowd shuffles in, grateful for the cool air conditioning. After making their way through the security kiosk, nearly half of them make their way up the fourth floor, screwing up the open-air staircase, where the neurolink pods are located. Cooley takes the steps two at a time, despite the heavy weight that hangs from his right ankle.

The security bots are stationed on every floor, each of them gazing down from their respective balconies like blank-faced vultures. Cooley acts natural. The bots are looking for weapons, for disorderly conduct. Not him. They don’t see him. After all, what choice does he have?

Rushing past four others, Cooley finds himself outside one of the neurolink pods and taps his library card outside the kiosk. The pod door clicks open, and Cooley walks inside.

“Welcome, Coldridge,” the automated voice says upon his entry.

Without a response, Cooley puts on the public neurolink headset, open ones that can interface without implants. As he does, the feed kicks on, and Cooley experiences the overwhelming sensation that he has been transported—no, flung—to another place. He finds himself standing in a white, pristine room, like a European salon.

He sighs, his face slackening.

A message on one of the white walls fades in. “This public service connection is funded by Amity Holdings Incorporated.”

The neurolink menu in the guise of a slim female appears, walking towards him in the salon, her high heels echoing off the marble floor.

“Good morning, Coldridge. How can I help you today?”

“Place a call to Andy Fairweather,” Cooley says, staring at this new smokeshow of an interface, and how he’d love to get a piece of that.

She ain’t real, you fool. Chill the fuck out.

This is the voice of Michael, his big brother. Big Mike. He does this. Takes up space in his mind rent-free. Sometimes, when Cooley gets high, he swears he can see Big Mike standing at the edge of his vision. His frame and broad shoulders standing like a shadow in the distance. Watching him. Seeing him.

He shudders and pushes the image away from his mind, choosing to stare unashamedly at this woman’s —not woman’s —breasts.

“One moment, Coldridge.” She blinks and repositions her frame as if to hide from his gaze.

Shit, they got these things working like the real thing, he thinks.

“He’s on the line, Coldridge, waiting for you. Patching him through. Is there anything else you needed today?”

“No,” he lingers, allowing his fantasy to play in his mind. “Not today.”

“Very well,” says the digital menu automation. Did her voice sound annoyed at him? Could she actually be…

“Coldridge Anderson?” A deep, authoritative voice cuts through, and he blinks. The woman is gone, and a desk has appeared in front of him, materializing out of nowhere, and behind it sits Andrew Fairweather. His goddamn parole officer.

“You were a few minutes late, Mr. Anderson.”

Cooley swallows, trying to realign himself for this mandated conversation. “I’m sorry, sir. I had to get a neurolink booth at the Main Library branch. I had to wait for it to open so I could make the call.”

The man behind the desk stares at him like a predator, his eyes looking for the slightest tell of deception.

Breathe, Cooley. Breathe.

“Okay. How have you been these last two weeks?”

“Staying clean. Trying to find a job,” he lies.

“You’re still at the shelter, correct?”

Cooley goes stiff.

The shelter. Where the rats dance in halls, and the burnouts rock like loose ceiling fans, and where the reek of urine and shit is all that greets you under the flickering fluorescents.

“Yeah, I’m still at the shelter.” Whatever it takes to get you to shut up, man, he thinks.

“So if I call them and check the logs, that’s what I’ll see?”

Cooley doubles down. “Yessir, that’s what you’ll see.” Your caseload is so thick there ain’t no way in hell you’re checking.

Again, Fairweather stares at him, and though Cooley knows it’s a neurolink connection, it’s as if the man could leap over this desk and grab him by the throat.

“Well, we need your sample today, Mr. Anderson. Middle of the month.”

A sharp pin prick pierces Cooley’s head where he put the neurolink headset without warning. Like a paper cut or a bee sting, the blade pierces and disinfects in a microsecond, reading Cooley’s unique chemistry.

Fairweather looks off, checking a screen that is not shown in the neurolink interface.

“Alright, Mr. Anderson. You’ve got a clean read this time. Good job. Your UBI will be sent to your account now.”

Cooley can barely hide the sneer that wants to dance on his face. Somehow he manages.

“Thank you, sir.”

“Check back in two weeks. Let’s say 9:15 am so you can get to the branch, okay?”

“Sounds good, sir. Thank you for your time.”

The feed snaps shut, and Cooley is sitting alone in the salon. The menu approaches him, this time taking the guise of an older African American male.

So much for that, he thinks.

“Is there anything else we can assist you with, Mr. Anderson?”

“No,” he says, frustrated by all of it. Such a goddamn waste of time.

The menu fades, and he checks his Union-issued ID watch and sees a visual chart rise, the meager balance of his credit jumping with the transfer from Fairweather.

Five hundred and fifty-five credits added to make a balance of six hundred and seventy-five.

That’ll do, Cooley thinks.

Cooley stays at the library until closing time, then walks up North Tryon with an itching in his skin. Cars buzz by him, sounding like quiet hovercrafts, as folks less fortunate shamble up and down the hard, broken sidewalk. The last of his rolled cigarettes burns in his mouth, dangling from his lips like a limp ember. His legs ache, and he is hungry and tired.

Cooley finds himself at the Sugar Creek intersection, the sun starting to descend when he turns left, heading to the haunts he knows he should not be going. The places the little box on his ankle is definitely going to ding him for. Yet he still marches.

Where you going, baby brother?

Cooley shoves on, ignoring Big Mike.

Big Mike is dead. Body in the grave. Along with everybody else.

Cooley’s hands begin to shake, and he takes one last draw from the butt of the cig and flicks it.

I need more than this shit. I need a drink, a bump, a whore. Anything.

Cooley looks down at his watch and sees the UBI credits banked and ready on the e-ink display. It will get him something. Anything. Anything but these ghosts and grief.

You’d do better to turn around, Cooley.

Cooley keeps on marching, just as the street lights flicker on and cast their pale white lights on the busy highway.

At the end of the street, just over the hill, down near the interstate exit, he can see them. The girls, the pimps, and the dealers congregating in the fast-food parking lots, the cheap motels, reveling to ply their trades with the oncoming darkness. He flies towards the scene, his eyes wide, thirsty and restless for whatever his six hundred credits can get him.

A sound echoes up in the darkness, and Cooley’s skin crawls.

He looks all around, as cars keep flying down Sugar Creek. Down the bank of an empty, scrub-filled lot. Cooley stares into the darkness.

The strange sound lifts up again, a call over the hum of traffic.

Was it a moan? Someone crying?

Cooley stares out and stops in his tracks. The blinding headlights break out and mirror back beams that reflect off the broken beer bottles and cans strewn over the abandoned land. The light of the glass looks like eyes to Cooley. It feels like something is watching him.

And then he sees it. A tarp. Or a moving blanket, heaped and discarded, lying in the ditch. Cooley feels the hair on the back of his neck stand up. He looks back up towards the interstate.

Why did I come this way? He wonders.

Whatever pull he felt from the thrill of whores and drugs is gone now, evaporated and squelched by something greater that moves in the darkness.

Shit.

Cooley is shaking, as the energy of the place shifts. The headlights of the oncoming traffic illuminate his dirty face as he stares into the darkness.

Second after second.

Light. Dark. Light. Dark.

And then he hears the moan, unmistakable.

He stands there, still as the traffic flows, hundreds of folks from miles around going about their business, choosing not to slow down. Choosing not to see the man who stands ramrod straight on the sidewalk, like he’s seen a ghost. This man who must be crazy, who stares out into an abandoned trash-heaped lot, as still as a statue.

Cooley knows only one thing. Whatever happens next, there is no going back.

Another low moan threads through the sounds of the traffic, and Cooley feels his body descend down the ditch and towards the dark shape. It is a dark blue plastic tarp, weathered and aged, and the ripening stench of body odor and blood collide against Cooley’s nose. Cooley sees his hand pull back the tarp, and there, lying within the heap, are the wounded and bruised remains of a broken body.

A girl.

Her head is matted with a dark streak of dried crimson, and Cooley can see her arms and legs are splayed out in unnatural angles. A single eye peeks behind a busted and bruised face, and it is full of terror. She opens her mouth to scream, but only a low gurgled cry eeks out.

Oh shit. Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit.

Cooley springs back from her and rubs his hands through his dirty beard.

What do I do? What do I do?

The terror-filled eye of the girl stares at him, and she moans, scared and frightened.

“I’m not going to hurt you. I’m not going to hurt you!” his voice rises, louder, more terrified as he repeats it.

Tears suddenly fill his eyes. He doesn’t know why. This girl is barely an adult. Alone and lying in a ditch. Forgotten.

In the chaos that must have lasted only seconds, Cooley feels someone else in the darkness with them, a flash of headlights streaking past like lightning.

No. Not someone. Two.

Big Mike. Cooley could never forget the shape and stance of his older brother, who used to stand beside him like a mountain on the horizon. Beside him is a small woman, rail thin, but unmistakable in the darkness, her eyes burning like the ends of cigarettes.

Her voice cracks over him like lightning, “What are you going to do, Coldridge?”

Cooley is running and bursts into the gas station like a maniac, his eyes wide and his voice stuttering. The digital gas attendant blinks from behind the counter but remains calm. Cooley realizes it’s the same woman interface as the menu from the neurolink he encountered in the library.

I don’t have time for this shit.

“I need you to call an ambulance,” he commands, staring the menu in the eyes.

“Okay, sir. It seems there is an emergency. What’s the trouble?” the doppelganger attendant states in a much too cool voice.

“I NEED YOU to CALL an AMBULANCE! There is a GIRL out there. Half dead. I NEED YOU to call them, NOW. In the vacant lot right…”

“I understand. I’ll place the call. What is your name, sir? You know I can’t place a call without identification and benefit coverage.”

Cooley flashes his watch up to the terminal, and his name and his account flash in the air, hovering. His funds, his full legal name, and everything else are on full display within the empty gas station.

The attendant goes silent for a few seconds, then she turns to him.

“The call has been placed, sir. That will be four hundred and fifty-seven credits.”

“Take it,” Cooley says, unable to get the terrible sight of the girl and the ghosts out of his mind.
He flashes his watch up to the kiosk, sees the UBI deduct, and the attendant smiles.

“Any additional hospital bills, of course, will be à la carte at the facility. Is there anything else I can do for you, sir?”

I got to get out of here.

“A pack of smokes. Please,” Cooley whispers. Another fifty credits disappear from Cooley’s account, and he walks outside, back into the darkness.

It takes five cigarettes before the ambulance pulls up to the abandoned lot. He squats by her and talks to her.

“I’ve called an ambulance. They are on their way to get you. Okay? You’re going to be okay. Okay?” Is he lying? He’s not sure.

“Okay,” she whispers, her voice nearly swallowed in the darkness.

He rides with the EMTs and the girl back to the hospital. He sees her there in the harsh fluorescent light.

“We’re almost to the hospital. Just try to hold on, okay?”

“Okay,” she says, her one good eye finding him. Tears stream down her face. “Thank you.”

Cooley doesn’t know what to say. There is nothing to say. He just tries to be calm and reassuring in her presence.

She’s in a bad way. Whatever happened to her…she…she might not, he thinks.

You did what you could, Mike whispers.
The ambulance pulls up to the emergency room, and he watches as they take the girl out of the truck on the gurney. He gives all that he has left from his account to pay for whatever the girl needs. It’s all he knows to do, and the worn-down, beleaguered hospital nurse takes his payment and stares at him in the bustling waiting room full of sick and injured people who flow through the place.

You can go, her face says.

So Cooley goes, back into the darkness outside the glow of that towering place. He walks up the sidewalk under the burning yellow street lights that hang above him, marching on, silent, for many miles. Somewhere in this ramble, he finds a bench and claims it. He sits there for a long time and smokes the rest of his cigarettes.

In the early morning, he watches the sky give up its darkness and begin to glow with the first signs of the oncoming dawn. First to a dull gray, and then to blue. He glances at his Union watch, his hands shaking. The screen catches the dawn, and reads 0.00.

Shit, man, you’re a mess.

And he knows it’s true.

He sits there, and the world begins to wake up again. The roads fill with traffic, and the sidewalks fill with people, augments, and bots. Cooley sits like a rock in the stream, letting all of it flow past him. At some point he falls asleep.

The sound of a rapping cracking over the pavement draws closer to Cooley as he rests uneasily on the bench. A white cane flicks against his leg, waking him up from his uncomfortable slumber, and the man connected to it stares in his direction, looking at him behind shaded eyes.

“I’m sorry. Didn’t mean to pop you.”

Cooley stares at the man. “It’s okay.” Cooley’s voice is hoarse. Tired.

“You doing okay, brother?” the blind man asks.

“I don’t know,” Cooley answers, unable to define how he actually feels.

The blind man stands there, and Cooley sees himself reflecting back in the man’s shades.

“Mind if I sit?” he says.

“Go ahead,” says Cooley.

“You sound like a man who’s seen a few things,” the man whispers, tapping on his cane.

Cooley rubs his face and feels the tired ache of the previous night waft over him.

“Man…you wouldn’t believe it if I told you.”

The blind man laughs, a low rumble, kind and strong. “My brother, you don’t have to tell me. I already know. I might not be able to see, but I do listen. That’s the problem nowadays. No one slows down to listen to one another anymore. This world keeps on doing its crazy dance, and all we have to do…” He pauses. “I mean get to do is hang on. You feel me?”

Cooley stares out over the city and can find no words.

“I feel you,” he finally says.

“What’s your name, son?” the man extends his hand out into the darkness.

Cooley grabs it. “Cooley, sir.”

The man holds it, strong and hard. “That ain’t your name, son. I asked, what is your name?”

Cooley looks at the man, who somehow looks back, despite it all.

“My name is Coldridge Anderson, sir,” he says.

“There it is. And there you are.”

In the world outside, survival isn't salvation.

Two years after his family's farm fell, a boy and his hound survive alone in the mountains — foraging, hiding, and carrying the weight of everything that was lost getting out. Then something falls from the sky that shouldn't exist, and the world he's been hiding from comes looking for him.

A story about grief, faith, and what it costs to keep going when the people who taught you how are gone. Written and narrated by Seth Ervin.

Part of Strange Country — speculative fiction from the edge of the familiar. New stories monthly, every one narrated.

The barefoot boy sits, watching the dappled light dance upon the wild creek’s reflective surface, his senses attuned to everything around him. The sound of falling water rolling down the steep mountain. The rich smell of shaded rhododendron, its roots anchored down within the damp, wet earth. The cool air that slides through the thick canopy, blocking the heat from the sun that runs its circuit somewhere up above him.

If his parents could see him, they would be amazed at how his body had changed. Two years. But it was as if he were in a rush to grow, his limbs springing out from him with the rapid, impatient energy of early adolescence. No longer a boy, but rather a shadow of a man, his voice dropping down to a resonant pitch, and a frame knit with a lean strength that even he was unaware of.

But there is no one to see him. Not anymore.

He watches the water, straining to see behind the light dancing on the surface. Watching the crawfish crawl up towards the old sock he had found and baited with the remains of the squirrel he and the dog had caught. The offal of the rodent was priceless bait for crawdads, and he watches patiently for the smell of it to attract his dinner below the water. In less than ten minutes, the crawdads come up and out from the crevices of the creek, determined to get to the meal behind the sock, all while the boy carefully scoops them up one by one to throw them in a pot. It takes less than an hour to get the pot nearly halfway full, more than enough for a meal, but the boy is careful.

Leave some behind.

Quickly he fishes out five of the crawdads, younger ones, and plops them back into the creek. Then he hoists the dirty, wet sock and heads up and out of the water, satisfied.

The crevice cuts through the mountain at a strange angle, sliced through what must have been a rich vein of mica. The walls of the fissure are held up by the remains of some ancient hewn lumber, but the boy doesn’t worry. As he stokes the embers of a slumbering fire, the stone walls light up like starlight, the firelight reflecting off ten thousand pinpricks of mica still lining the abandoned mine. The second pot of water begins to boil, and the boy quickly adds his catch to it, killing the crawdads instantly.

The sound of rustling outside the cave causes the boy to stand up and grab the crowbar that hangs by him. Always by his side. He stands and waits, only to see the dog burst through the underbrush, her face happy and wide.

“Hey, girl!” he exclaims, bending down to embrace the dog. She licks his dirty face, and he can’t help but laugh. He turns to check the pot and, using a stick, fishes out a red-hot crawfish and flings it to the dog.

“You hungry, girl?”

The sound of the dog cracking down upon the crawdad’s shell is instantaneous, and they relish their small silent feast, he working hard to pull the white meat from behind the shells, and she crunching on each crawdad whole.

It had been two years. Two years since their farm fell to Amity. Two years had passed since his family had quietly and painstakingly dug their way through the earth of their root-cellar shelter like desperate rabbits, inching towards an unlikely escape. Weeks of him and his brother pawing at the red earth, their fingernails caked with dirt and blood in the light of flickering lantern light, the sound of erupting landmines exploding around them, threatening to cave in the very tunnels he and his brother had worked to dig. But their father had been there, working, always working, to painstakingly take apart the four wooden beds he had built in the shelter, and disassemble them in order to hoist and brace the walls of their tunnel. Their mother was the steady glue between the three, serving as a constant encourager to them all, even when the weeks dragged on, and the darkness of the hole felt like it would swallow them all.

Cade. Cade had struggled. He had watched his brother grow despondent in the closing darkness, as if the heavy earth was already collapsing over him. It came over him slowly but with a constancy that could not be stifled or held back. He knew it was because his brother needed the light from the sun. Without it, he was coming undone. Underground. In this tomb. He did what he could to distract Cade when they rested from their digging in the common area of the root cellar. Playing tic-tac-toe in the dirt, playing tug of war with Polly and Chance in the tunnel. Whatever he could do to keep his older brother from losing hope.

It wasn’t enough. Cade eventually spent full days lying on the clay earth floor of the main room, while Paul and his father kept working. Kept digging. Sandy tended to him, praying over him, singing, and reading Scripture to him in the dim light. He lay there for days on end.

“Pray for him, son,” was all Paul’s father said.

It was work that never let up, each inch of progress costing a gallon of sweat, made harder by the meager food. Rationed from the rows and rows of canned produce that their mother had spent years putting up, he watched as the years of preparation diminished quickly. Each jar emptied filled the worry and anxiety on his parents’ faces as he watched them make dreadful calculations that were not spoken. But they at least had food, and with it several barrels of water that had been wisely hauled below years before. Coupled with an underground latrine and vent, wisely dug out by his father during that same time, they were doing better than he would have ever guessed. His father’s preparedness astounded him, but even his father had limitations. No shovels or earth-moving instruments were to be found down here in this dark pit, so by hand they dug, painfully and slowly.

The next day, he and the dog hike up to the rock ridge, weaving their way up the steep, canopied mountain by switchback, moving as slowly and as quietly as they can manage. A low rolling cloud blankets over the mountaintop, thundering with a reluctant, tired energy. He glances up at the sky and tightens his thin shirt around him. His fingers fumble with his buttons, sliding the topmost through its hole, and the movement triggers a memory.

His father, kneeling down. Helping to button his shirt, rubbing his hand through his hair, whispering, “You almost had it. Just keep going.”

The memory of his blue eyes, his smell, the octave of his voice. They feel distant now. Hard to remember, but still they line his eyes with moisture, these thoughts. He coughs, doing what he can to keep going, to keep marching up towards the top. The thunder rolls above him, and he moves, his mind heavy with grief.

A clattering, squealing call cuts through the forest, and he seizes for just a second before grabbing the dog and hitting the ground. He waits, holding her near his chest, the hound whimpering.

“Shhh, girl. Shhh.”

Slowly, he rotates his face up and towards the canopy. Between the branches and the gray sky, a flying object soars over him, and he spies it through the trees. Giant and white, its wingspan stretching out to enormous proportions. At first, he swears the thing is a duck, but there has never been a duck this big. The thing screeches as it soars through the canopy, but its large wing clips a pine tree, and it careens to the ground with a thunderous crash. The dog pulls against his arms, but he ratchets down on her hard, refusing to let her go until she whimpers.

He waits, his eyes locked on the spot where the beast fell. Counting his breath.

When the forest regains its silence, and the buzz of bugs and the songs of birds return, he slowly releases his grip from the dog and snaps, commanding her to stay where she stands. She stands alert with manic frustration, but obeys. He makes his way over to this fallen thing, this out-of-place angel.

It lies there in a heap, wings twisted and broken in unnatural configurations, a victim of its own speed and its own weight. The boy’s mouth salivates, his body longing to feast on the meat of this giant, but he hesitates. Something is not right about this.

Too good. Too good to be true.

He stands over this thing that looks like a bird, but he knows it is not, trying to make sense of it, this man-sized bird that lies collapsed below him, its eyes reflecting back the dim, dappled treeline.

The word clicks in from somewhere deep in his mind, a memory from a childhood book. The dusty, leather-bound encyclopedia, or an old catalog of birds. He can’t quite remember.

Albatross. Sea bird. South America. Extinct.

The boy leans down and, with a stick, shifts this impossibility, his eyes eager to understand. A fluid pours out of the beak of this thing, metallic and reflective, like mercury, and he recoils back to his feet, his heart in his throat.

“God,” he exclaims, the hairs on the back of his neck standing bolt straight.

Amity.

The feeling of that first breath of fresh air after weeks underground was a memory he would never forget. But had it been weeks? Months? Time and its movement have limited currency when you’re trapped underneath dark earth. The dampener, with its blue LCD screen, was the only monitor for that, and the family soon lost interest. Time was marked in the number of empty Ball mason jars piling up on the rickety root cellar shelves, fallen soldiers from this silent siege.

They were down to the last row of canned vegetables when his father punched through the last flimsy shred of red dirt, his fist-sized hole creating a natural vacuum that pulled the air up and out. That movement, even the slightest pull of the stale, hot air caused the dogs to bark with excitement.

“Tonight, we are going to eat to our heart’s content,” John Franklin whispered by the flickering oil lamp, cracking open a fresh jar of peaches, but Paul took it to mean that they would soon be fleeing. Escaping the only home he’d ever known. Out into…the world.

His mother pried open four jars of green beans, one jar for each family member, and Cade was allowed to feed Chance and Polly the last of the dried jerky his father had stored up.

“Sandy,” John asked. “Could you read something for us? Please?”

Paul’s mother took out her Bible and began to read from the Psalms, and Paul found himself lost in the cadence of his mother’s voice as she read in the dim light.

“He is the Lord our God; his judgments are in all the earth.

He remembers his covenant forever, the promise he made, for a thousand generations, the covenant he made with Abraham, the oath he swore to Isaac.
He confirmed it to Jacob as a decree, to Israel as an everlasting covenant:
“To you I will give the land of Canaan as the portion you will inherit.”
When they were but few in number, few indeed, and strangers in it,
they wandered from nation to nation, from one kingdom to another.
He allowed no one to oppress them; for their sake, he rebuked kings:
“Do not touch my anointed ones; do my prophets no harm.”

On the last verse, her voice trembled and choked.

“I’m sorry, that’s all I can read right now, John,” she whispered.

Cade spoke, his weak voice cutting through the darkness with a question, “What’s going to happen to us, Pa?”

John was silent for a long time. Then he looked at Cade.

“Son, for you and your brother’s entire lives, your mother and I have done all we could to protect you. To carve out a life for you in this hard and broken world. This farm, the mines, the work, and the lessons we tried to teach each of you were the best we knew how to give you a fighting chance to survive, and, if the Lord saw fit, to thrive.”

Sandy’s small sobs could not be stifled, but John’s hand found hers.

“But now, all of that is done, son. Do you understand? When we leave this place, you and your brother are no longer children. You are men, and you’ll have to steel yourself for things I cannot contain or control. Your mother and I did the best we could, but…”

He would never forget seeing his father break down, to sob with his wife at the plight they had found themselves in. But he did. His father broke down, letting his emotions unfurl one single time while he was alive and with his children.

“But it was not enough, Cade. Paul. I’m sorry. I’m sorry to both of you.” He covered his face with his handkerchief and shook, shielding his gnawing sorrow from them for what felt like a long time.

“Now,” he said, his voice hoarse. “We have to put our faith in the good God. We have no more choices. Remember what your mother read tonight. Remember that there is somewhere in this world that the loving God has prepared for us. Some home where we can find peace and shelter. Even now, He will remain faithful to us. He will remain with us now, even in our loss.”

All of them choked back their sobs. All of them except Paul.

Paul wished he could join them in this lamentation in the darkness, but all he could feel was a hollowing pit in his heart. Was it doubt? Was it panic? Was it the realization that there was no powerful God who cared for them?

How could there be? What kind of God would allow for this to happen? To allow a world to spin out of control like this?

His father’s voice called him back from the abyss forming in his mind.

“Tomorrow, we make our flight. We will run through the southern creek bed, behind the south pasture, in the cover of darkness. The creek bed is clear; we can run a few miles away from the farm and then plan what to do next, and pray we aren’t noticed.”

“You didn’t arm the creek with landmines?” Sandy asked, her voice edged.

“No. One small ribbon of clear land. Only one. One small drawbridge if it ever came to this.”

“And when were you going to tell any of us about this, John?” her voice tilted into a growing fury.

“When I needed to, Sandy. And now I have.” He stared at her, his face as cold as stone, challenging her not to press any further. Then he turned to his sons, speaking.

“Boys, whatever happens tomorrow, know that your mother and I love you. Pray that we can escape as a full family. Now get some sleep. We are going to need it.”

He struggles to find his breath, backing away from the Amity variant corpse lying in the forest’s leaf litter, his mind a storm of unanswerable questions. Why would they ever build a creature like this?

There is no answer. Only more questions, and he remembers his dad spending his morning and evening hours staring up at the horizon, looking critically at every bird hung up there, his face calculating if they might be phantoms.

He knew something that you didn’t.

There was a lot he knew that he didn’t tell you, God damn it.

He did his best. He did the best he knew how.

But it still wasn’t enough…

The boy turning man argues with himself, if only to feel what it’s like to talk to another, when the dog’s rolling bark snaps him back into reality.

Panic. Panic pumps through his veins, and he snaps at the dog, commanding her to silence, straining his ears to hear what she must have sensed.

Far from his position, but distinct. The sound of crunching leaf litter. Marching beneath the tall canopy.

Someone is moving.

Or some thing.

Shit. Shit. Shit.

He slams his body up against a wide oak and pulls the dog up and into his chest. He hunkers down at the root base into a tight ball.

I can make myself small, he thinks, praying that whatever this is will pass. His eyelids slam shut, and he strains to listen. The sound of movement coupled with a distant intonation.

Voices?

It’s been so long since he’s heard a voice that wasn’t inside his head.

Do Amity forces speak to one another?

He doesn’t know.

So he leans in, closing his eyes hard, as if this effort can help him hear.

A moment passes.

A female voice whispers through the trees, followed by another who sounds rigid, reminding him of the sound of dominoes lined up and falling one after the other.

He swallows his fear and carefully shuffles over to one edge of the tree, rolling his right eye to watch.

They move, the distant figures about three hundred feet away from his position. One of them is a female; the pattern of the voice he can hear is higher. Her skin is the same color as Brad Williams’s, one of the few from the outside world his father allowed to enter the family farm.

Next to her, a tall and broad form walks, a mechanical man. The dog in his lap begins to roll a low growl, and he is squeezing down on her hard, whispering to her to be quiet.

Others. Amity? Or something worse?

His ears tingle behind his shut eyes, and he hears them.

Talking. Yes, he can hear them talking.

“…Smoke. There, up over the hill. What’s the read?” the woman’s voice questions.

“My thermals are indicating that there is a major updraft of particulates rising over the ridge. Signs of industry. Most likely an Amity labor camp.”

The boy’s eyes flick open. Labor camp.

“Stripmining,” the female voice mumbles.

Then the dog barks. Loud. Much too loud. His throat goes dry, as many things all at once spin out of control.

The bark, then the escape, and he finds himself on his feet, trying to run after her, his last connection to the family he has lost. The home that was his shelter. The space he felt would keep going well past his own life.

But it didn’t.

The dog, the last living memory of that time, is up and running through the forest canopy, alerting and endangering both their chances of survival.

“Polly!” he screams. He can’t help it. He can’t hope to stifle his voice. His fear.

“You!” the female voice crackles up and over him. She has a weapon, a pistol in her hand, and it rises to meet him, the barrel locking onto his eyes.

“Got a read on them, Senac?”

“Reading now.” The laborbot stands nearly a foot taller than the dark-skinned woman. A pre-turning model, but to the boy in the woods, it’s like seeing a living monster. He can barely find his breath.

“Thermals indicate each as one hundred percent pure organism. Homo sapiens and Canis familiaris. No traces of variant in either specimen.”

“Put your hands where I can see them, boy,” the woman calls, her gun doing most of the talking.

Polly’s hackles raise up, her teeth bared, readying for a frontal assault.

“Call your dog off. Now.” The fear burning in the woman’s wide eyes causes his hands to shake.

He whistles, and slowly brings his hands down to pick the hound up.

“KEEP your HANDS, where I can SEE them,” she screams, her pistol anchored on his head.

“Okay. Okay,” he stammers. “Come ‘ere, girl. Come back.”

Slowly, Polly walks back to where he stands, ramrod straight, his hands extended out like a desert cactus.

“That’s it. Run another scan, Senac. Just to be sure.”

Senac stares at them, the LEDs that scatter across his face flashing in a dancing pattern. “Same results, Lena. Organics. Unaltered.”

He stands staring at them, feeling his legs shaking beneath him. The gun does not come down.

“What are you doing out here?” she says. “Who are you with?”

He stares at her. At them.

He’s been alone for such a long time.

The memory comes to him in bursts. Rapid-fire snapshots of dim light. Sounds of the family’s footsteps running through the creekbed, slipping over cool, worn stones, the water cutting through his boots, anchoring him down to the earth. But it is the smell, this unfamiliar caustic burning that hung in the air, that cuts through the memory. Like iron. Like blood.

Paul, with the dogs leashed, followed his mother and his older brother through the darkness, sprinting along the narrow stretch of creek bed that cut through the clay-high ridges of their land, with only the starlight to help them navigate. John ran behind them, guiding them as if they were sled dogs. On his back, he carried the dampener, disconnected from its battery. A fast-fading cover of protection, but just enough for this escape.

“Go! Go! Don’t look back!” his father whisper-yelled, as his mother clawed onto both his and his brother’s free hands. They ran and obeyed, unwilling to turn back to see their home and what the Amity doppelgangers had created in the weeks they had been underground.

Nothing good. Not by the smell.

His memory fades in that darkness, that lonesome march they took, dirt caked and soiled, emerging from the ground like the resurrected dead, and sprinting away like foxes fleeing a hunter, escaping through the thorn-riddled creek bed. Together and alive. For now.

“Who are you with? Answer me now!”

He cannot take his eyes off the pistol’s barrel as Polly growls at his feet.

“Run it in Spanish, Senac. I don’t know if he understands.”

“I’m not with anybody. It’s just me. Me and the dog.” he says, his voice deeper than he remembers.

“How the hell have you survived out here? Don’t you know how close you are to…” she trails off, her wide eyes staring back at the laborbot for assurance. Slowly, she lowers her weapon.

“Who are you with?” he asks, unsure whether his question is directed at her alone or at both her and the monster that walks beside her. “And what is that?” he questions, nodding his head to the tall laborbot.

“Not what. Who. This is Senac.”

He says nothing, but he is wholly unprepared for this. Polly continues to growl by his side, but he puts his hand on her hackles to calm her. To calm himself.

“What is your name, young man?” the thing asks, its blank black face flashing with white lights as its voice speaks. “My companion is Lena Heartgood, and as she said, I’m Senac of Resolute make. Don’t be afraid.”

These terms mean nothing to him, only that he knows this is one of the monsters his mother and father warned him about. This false form of life that humanity fell into worshiping. These beasts that opened up the destruction of the world.

“What is your name?” it asks again.

He pauses. Swallows. Tries to remember.

“I’m Paul. Paul Franklin.”

Yes. That is my name.

He glances down at the dog. “And this is Polly.”

Then his mind snaps back with fear. He’s talking to one of them. One of them. His heart is in his throat, throbbing.

Get away. Get away. You HAVE to get away…

“Paul,” Senac speaks. “I know you’re frightened. I know you have probably not seen many people since you’ve been…surviving. You may have never seen a laborbot like me, but you have to listen to me. We aren’t here to hurt you.”

“Who are you with?!” Paul is shocked by his own fury as tears stream from his eyes.

The woman—this Lena speaks. “We are with the Simul front, a remnant of the Davidson line. We are scouting…”

Paul doesn’t let her finish. He turns and runs, sprinting up and away, running up the ridge.

“Wait! WAIT!”

Paul feels the dog brushing up against his legs, following him as he runs through the thick brambles under the tall tree canopy. His lungs feel as though they’re about to burst as he launches himself straight up the bank of the mountain, forcing himself to a sprint his body can barely maintain.

He can feel one of them behind him. The thing, no doubt, rushing up with its unnatural strength, but he won’t let himself turn to see it.

Don’t look back!

He hears his father yell at him in his mind, and he moves, not stopping, never stopping.

As he ascends the ridgeline, it is the smell that hits him. The clinging metallic blood smell. The smell of their escape. The smell of their end. It hangs in the air and burns his breathing. His eyes sting in the air, and his body begins to shake, the memories of exploding mines erupting in his mind, and he falls to his knees. The dog is there, licking him, trying its best to calm him, but it’s too much.

He blinks, the swirling stars in his vision beginning to fade, and there, upon the summit of the tall mountain, he sees a full valley of what was once forest growth stripped down to the nub, to the blood-red, raw earth. Below him opens up a dark pit where he can see people. People the size of ants moving. People and more of those things. Scattered and descending into the pit that stair steps down deep into the earth. Like a mouth into hell. From the fissure, a huge plume of dark smoke erupts, and around hang a circling of large sea birds, the cloud of them hovering in the dank air like a web. A menacing overwatch.

The bird.

“Back away from the ridge, Paul.”

Senac’s voice.

Blinking, Paul stares at him. A terrible voice whispers in his mind.

You could jump from here. Or run down to them. And this could all be over.

Another voice from another time rings in his mind. “Watch your brother, Paul.”

But it’s too late for that.

Senac speaks, “Paul. Back away and come back over to me.”

Slowly, Paul shuffles back towards this strange, towering abomination, and away from the cliffside view of whatever Amity is doing beneath them.

Amity. Simuls. None of it matters. There is no safety anywhere now.

“Where is your family, Paul? Why are you alone?”

Paul stares back at the reflective black face and sees his shadow self staring back at him.

“Don’t you know? You. You all took them.”

Paul's family first appears in Watch the Road.

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Four years before the Turning. A story about debt, ghosts, and the math of going back.

June 21, 2026

Dad,

Happy Father’s Day.

You know, I can still see you, lying back in your blue recliner. Smoking a Vantage cigarette outside. Laughing, that booming laugh that rolled through your whole chest, and vibrated through everyone from a mile away. I remember you shirtless in the sun, baking and brown, the smell of coconut Banana Boat oil wafting off from you. You would lie there for hours, baking, as if you were challenging the sun in some sort of duel that only you two understood.

Man, I miss you. I don’t go a day without thinking about you. Your absence these past five years has been the most severe learning experience I’ve ever had. I never knew I’d learn so much from someone being absent from my life. But I have.

I’d be the first to admit to you that I didn’t always take these lessons well. I’ve not been a perfect student, but I’m happy to report I’m turning a corner. Here are a few of the things I’ve learned.

1. Fatherhood is one of the greatest joys in life. Your grandsons, Dad. My God. I know you see them, but they amaze me every single day. Jack has grown so tall, his voice so deep. He will be taller, smarter, and more handsome than either of us, and that is great. He’s going to do things I can’t even imagine, and I can’t wait to see it.
   
   Teddy is the kindest person that I know, Dad. He has said things that have gutted me, truths and insights that cut to the core of the issue, a simplicity that is foundational from a loving, pure heart that challenges me to be a better person.
   
   I know you are so very proud of both of them. I also know that this is the best thing I’ll ever do with my life.
   
   Thank you so, so much for doing it well when you raised Olivia and me.
   
   
   

2. The cycle of losing, gaining, and losing again never ends. So it’s important to enjoy the ride.
   
   I don’t know if you remember, but the last time we spent time together was at Betty’s funeral. She was one of your favorite aunts. You looked at me after the service and asked if I wanted to head back home for a beer.
   
   And of course, I told you no. I told you I had somewhere to be, something to do, someone else to see. I was busy, and there were things for me to go and do.
   
   Dad, I know you didn’t care, but I can’t tell you how many times I’ve thought about that invitation and how much I hated myself for not going back home to have a beer with you. I would empty every damn dollar from my bank account just to have that beer in the garage, just you and me.
   
   I know you would tell me that it’s okay. And I know that it is, and also that it isn’t. There are some things in life that can never be fixed or mended. But Life is so precious. You’ve taught me to enjoy it while you have it, and I think I’ve started to learn not to take it for granted.
   
   

3. Yard work isn’t that important, but gardening is. I’ve got to confess something to you, Dad. I’ve outsourced my lawn-mowing. I know you’d be ashamed to learn that, but it’s true. Now, before you get on to me about that, you’d be amazed to see my garden. Well, Janet’s garden, but it’s a joint project. I know you got to see the fence I installed and the raised beds, but Dad, you should see the garden now. It’s beautiful. We’ve got overflowing trellises of tomatoes, squash, and zucchini. We’re growing sweet potatoes and carrots. You’d be real impressed, Dad.
   
   I’ve never learned how to successfully sow grass, and you aren’t here to teach me, so I’ll probably work to outsource that too. I did, however, buy, haul, and spread my own mulch this year. I hope, on the whole, you’ll take this development as a wash. I’ll keep working on it when things get less busy, if they ever do.
   
   

4. I do my best to hold you and your lessons in my heart. The boys are in Scouts, Dad. Jack just went to camp today, and we dropped him off with a gaggle of others as they went to conquer the wild blue yonder. He’s already Second Class, and I’m hoping he’ll be an Eagle before his 18th birthday. Next year, I’ll be the Cubmaster for Teddy’s pack, and I’m worried about how in the world I’ll stay organized enough to do it. I’m going to trust that you’ll be there, somehow, to help me.
   
   We still go to church, Dad. We don’t go every Sunday, but we still hold Christ and his teachings high in our hearts, and do our best to live like we think He would. Like you did.
   
   I was there with Pawpaw when he passed this year. I tried my best to do what I thought you would do. I kept him as comfortable as I could, and was with him when he left. I did all that I thought you would do if you were here, but, for once, I’m glad it was me and not you.
   
   

5. Mom misses you every day. She’ll never get over you not being here. I don’t think any of us will.

Dad. Have a beer today in heaven. You did it so well. You left your mark on all of us. We were so very lucky to have you.

Your proud son,

Seth

Hi there. You’ve found me. Welcome! I’m glad you’re here.

So, what exactly is Strange Country?

Strange Country - A Primer

Strange Country was born out of an original short story that I wrote while I was waiting to get some editorial feedback on my WIP novel.

The short story met a need in me that I didn’t know existed.

I wanted more stories that showcased the South, specifically the places and people I’ve encountered living in North Carolina my whole life. There are many North Carolinas to uncover, a strange patchwork of perspectives, culture, and people that continue to fascinate and inspire me creatively.

I also wanted to tell stories that let people think ahead of our time now. The times we are living in are strange and consequential. We seem to be destined as a people right now to make more planet-altering decisions than any generation that has ever preceded us. So the stakes are very high. I wanted to create a world 10 to 20 years out that showcases a future America living with those decisions, whether good or bad.

When I wrote my first story, Watch the Road, I didn’t know those were the things I wanted to read, but the story flew out of my fingers like a fever dream freight train.

So I went with it.

I kept writing about this world where the United States federal government is simply called The Union, and a corporation called Amity unleashes AI horrors within the world.

I also wanted everyone to be able to experience these stories. Each story comes with an audio version in the post, read by yours truly. In other projects, it was always a bummer to tell a prospective reader that I did not have an audiobook for my writing. I’m solving that for Strange Country, so there’s one with each entry. It slows the production a little, but I think it’s worth it.

How to Read Strange Country

There is only one rule. The first story you should read is Watch the Road.

Watch the Road establishes the world before the Turning, which happens specifically on March 18, 2045. When the weakened Union that is the future United States collapses under sentient AI, all from the perspective of John Franklin, a farmer who builds landminds to keep his enemies out and his family alive.

After Watch the Road, you can explore any of the other stories that take place right before the Turning.

You’ll follow Maxwell Flanagan, a veteran and lone trucker trying to make ends meet in a world where the benefits keep drying up for regular folks like him.

You’ll meet Sarah Panech, a memory trader, who navigates a crew of people and bots on Trading Floor Delta, in the business of selling and buying memories, thoughts, and feelings, all accessible on the Neuronets.

You’ll meet Faithful, a laborbot who tends the dead at Memorial Acres, wondering if there is any salvation for something like him.

The only throughline that runs through them all is this world.

This Strange Country - That is better with you in it.

Thank you,

-Seth

Contains explicit sexual content.

Sarah stretches out her naked body under the white linen sheets of the now sundrenched bedroom. The clock reads 11:00 AM, and outside, she can hear the birds of the late-summer day singing.

Oh my God. Last night was amazing, she thinks, her smile pinned brightly to her face. She slides out of the covers, finds a night shirt, and walks into the kitchen where a crisp Belgian waffle sits, snowed with powdered sugar and topped with a fresh strawberry. A small Post-it note sits near the plate.

Thank you. Had to catch a flight. Talk soon. -Chris

Sarah’s body vibrates like a plucked harp as her eyes dance over the note. She smells the waffle and pours herself a tall cup of coffee. She thinks over how, in only the past month, her life has changed dramatically. Her new job, followed by a chance encounter with this man, had shifted everything. But Chris. Chris’s presence, his attention, and his selflessness blew into her life like a hurricane, and it’s as if for the past three weeks everything has been a dream.

“How did I get so lucky?” she whispers, blowing her breath over the coffee.

The job was incredible – Navigator trader on the memory market floor. It came with the standard stuff: an open-plan office, free coffee, and a hybrid schedule, but there was one benefit that made her jaw drop. Free access to the cerebnets. When she got the offer, she could hardly believe this windfall.

“Did you say free access to the cerebnets?”

“That’s right,” the recruiter said to her on the other side of the screen. “Resolute is in the business of keeping its employees happy, and we understand that cerebnet access is just one of those offerings that can attract and keep top talent. And, of course, cerebnet access is used for the trading that has to happen every day.”

“Of course. It’s just…”

“And, I might add, you’ll have your cerebnet access installed at your residence at no extra cost to you. Do we have a deal, Sarah? Will you be able to start next month?”

Sarah remembers her breath getting caught in her chest, and a flush of gratitude exploding within her body.

“Of course. Of course I will. Thank you so much. I’m…”

“No, thank you, Sarah. I’m sure you’ll be very happy with us here at Resolute.”

“I’m so looking forward to it.”

The installation of her port was seamless and relatively painless. A few Ibuprofen and an early night to bed, and that was that. Hidden right behind her right ear, the device was discreet, unlike the cumbersome inputs that Sarah was forced to wear as she battled to gain a position up the corporate ladder. A Sony Model, a Jackelope. A stupid name, but a beautiful accessory that visibly showcased her worth to the company, and to others, should she choose to display it. The optionality of that…that was priceless. She walked into the trading floor in her best pantsuit, her white silk blouse tight against her chest, not too showy, but showy enough.

After all – you have to do what you have to do.

The trading floor at Resolute was an exact perfect cubit, 30 feet by 30 feet by 30 feet. The perfect number and proportion for a trading floor. The room was stark white, pure and bright, and as Sarah walked in, she was struck by the six others standing with her. Three agentic builds, crafted and shaped as humanoids, and a man, a woman, and an andro. DELTA TRADING FLOOR was imprinted against the white walls in the stark Resolute typography.

“Welcome, Sarah,” the man said, wearing a bright blue suit. His eyes, a cold blue, reminded her of glaciers standing in the sea. “We are so glad you are here. We’ve been patiently waiting for another navigator to join our crew. Your resume…it was impressive.”

Of course it is, she thinks to herself. I am impressive – I worked my ass off to be here.

“I’m happy to be here. This opportunity to engage in this type of trading is exhilarating for me.”

“You’ll find that memories are much more robust than carbon credits,” blue eyes says. “And I heard you even had a counteroffer from Amity?”

“Yes, but Resolute matched that and countered. It was like I was the belle at the ball. I am grateful and feel blessed to be in such a fortunate position.”

He smiles at this, but says nothing. “My name is Balaam. I’ll be your second on the floor. Are you ready to proceed? Control has us go live in fifteen, so I’m able to give you a quick rundown of the floor, if you desire.”

“Let’s meet the team first, Balaam. Thank you.”

Balaam nods and instructs the trading team. “Crew, report in.”

The woman and the andro approach followed by the bots.

The andro speaks first. “I’m Elle, a pleasure to have you, Navigator.”

“Call me Sarah. Please. And thank you for the warm welcome.”

“Sarah,” they correct, nodding their head.

The woman next, “Third – Qanna. Welcome to the floor, Sarah.”

“Thank you, Qanna.”

Balaam calls forth the traderbots next.

“Bots, report in to the Navigator.”

They are of uniform models - trading bots only slightly larger than the linked humans on the floor, but each painted with a distinct aesthetic to signify their functions. From their movement and sheen, Sarah knew these were newly constructed from Resolute’s own proprietary foundries - Channeler models.

“Greetings, Navigator Sarah, my name is Cell. I’ll be matrixing the memories on the floor for you and the team.”

“Thank you, Cell.”

“Navigator,” the second bot speaks, its voice and alloy shell are dark ebony. “You may call me Offset. Welcome to the floor.”

The last bot, crimson in color, nods its head and speaks, “Navigator. Query is my call sign. We stand ready to support you and the rest of the crew.”

Sarah smiles. “Thank you all for the warm welcome. All of you. Shall we begin?”

Query speaks, his firm, cool voice clipping within the cubit. “Cell, bring up the matrix and show the inputs for the Navigator.”

The crew moves into position, and Balaam makes the call, “Inputs on in three, two, one…”

Sarah presses the input above her right ear and the white-walled room erupts with an explosion of wondrous color. Sarah watches as the data expands across the three dimensions like a swirling galaxy. Colored pinpricks of nodes come online like individual starbursts, each one representing a memory, a thought, a digital representation of the commodity that can be bought, held, sold, and resold on the marketplace to the nueronet connected.

Qanna speaks up the chain of command to the second. “Balaam, the market opens in two minutes.”

“Ready, Navigator?”

“Ready.”

The first twelve-hour day is like a dream for Sarah. It takes little more than an hour for her to get the bearings of her controls and her calls to her team, but there is a clear moment when she locks in. The trading floor is chaotic. Sarah expected this, but she did not know that the memory market had this much chop. A swell of trades comes pouring in from Resolute’s competitors, and Sarah sees the sign of the bubble, a small convex growth of data points, swelling up. The beginnings of what could become a mountain, jutting up from the floor of the space.

“Commands Navigator,” Balaam calls, not a question. We need your orders. He throws his hands madly in the air against the projected controls that hover, steering the simulated vessel as the team bobs through the swells and chaotic fluctuations of the memory markets, each move a financial positioning in the space, representing the P/L of thousands of microtrades occurring in real time on the trading floor.

“Swell off the port bow, crew,” Sarah calls. “Looks like a run on security and safety. Am I correct, Balaam? Cell, run a 2D matrix on the build-up, let’s see what we are dealing with here.”

“Certainly, Navigator,” Cell calls, bringing up the chart, casting their axis out like a net over the building hill of the digital pixels that are beginning to stack upon one another. Sarah has seen this movement before in her last charter. Swells that culminate, first like an ant hill, and then like a termite hive, and sometimes into a piercing mountain of transactions. Cell’s net covers the bubbling transaction space, then casts the data up onto the wall.

“You’re correct, Navigator. Rapid interest in the growing security sector,” Cell reports. “Memories for nostalgia, for childhood, and for an overall remembrance of security and well-being. Memories…for home.”

Sarah calls, “Query, what’s the story they’re selling?”

“Navigator,” Query throws up a waterfall of stories against the left wall of the cubit from the nets. “Recent news of another war campaign opening up in Iraq, as well as signs of outbreak of disease in the Union state of Guatemala - a flu variant of some kind, amarga. These two events seem to be causing fluctuations in the market for this sector. Those with memory cores want to be happy…or safe with so much happening.”

“Differing opinions? We have six more hours.”

“Navigator, with all due respect, I don’t buy it,” Offset speaks, his black, featureless screen of face, turning to face her. “It’s too easy, too obvious. This feels like a pull from the hedges.”

“Balaam, Elle, Qanna? Thoughts?” Sarah calls out.

The calling of their names causes the human portion of the crew into full attention.

Sarah presses them, “Come on, folks, give me your thoughts. Now.”

Elle breaks their silence. “We usually only guide the floor, Navigator. We don’t speculate on the data currents. The bots do that well enough.”

Sarah cuts in, “Today, I’m asking for your thoughts, Elle. Come on, what have you seen in the past? You’ve navigated the memory market much longer than I. What’s the play?”

Balaam’s eyes are wide, shocked at this questioning. Then Qanna speaks.

“The riskier play is to short the narrative and go with Offset’s recommendation. If it is a trap, the swell will collapse, and we should get the hell away from it before it does. We have some time, but not much time, before the market closes.”

“Any competitive intelligence? Query?”

The crimson trading bot throws up a red colored lens over the whole virtual space, and five other cubits of trading floors appear before their eyes, navigating like them on the data sea. Each one of them draws closer to the swell.

“Competitors appear to be following the signs, getting closer to the buildup.”

“This could be a rocket, Navigator,” Balaam warns, his voice raised.

He’s excited. Too excited.

“Query, bring up the other Resolute floors. Hurry.”

Another lens sweeps over the floor, and four more white cubits appear in the mix, circling the nexus of activity like bath toys drawn to a pulled plug.

Too much risk. Too much risk. Too concentrated.

“Come about, and turn to the starboard, crew. Now!” She glances at Offset. “Offset, I hope to God you’re right.”

If Offset could smile, he would have. Sarah could feel his energy when he looked at her, a feeling of absolute confidence.

“Aye, aye, Navigator. My suggestion is to move over, closer to the pleasure-seeking markets or into the transcendental states.”

“Let’s ride through the border of the two and hedge the bet.”

“Aye, aye!”

The cubit turns around, navigating the floor away from the security and nostalgia build up, leaving the other floors circling like hungry sharks behind. In an hour, Sarah turns to look behind her, only to see the nascent peak of the nostalgia market begin to collapse, its buildup failing to materialize with only two hours left in the market time.

Holy shit. On the first day.

The collapse sends a wave of explosive energy across the rest of the market, and the crew feels their cubit rocket up in the sell. The profits from their position is head and shoulders above the others left in the now-swirling whirlpool of the security and nostalgia markets.

Sarah glances back, “Cell, status report.”

Cell speaks, another matrix pulls up on the screen, “Trading Floor Delta is in the black, 1000% increase over the others in the market. The collapse you called…”

“Offset called it, Cell,” Sarah corrects.

Query cuts in, “Navigator, the Resolute stock has doubled over the past five minutes, due to our positioning. Our play was not only enough to cover the loss of our other floors, but it has nearly sunk the competition. There are calls on the forums for Resolute to…purchase Amity.”

Qanna speaks, “Holy shit. Holy shit.”

Elle begins to laugh out loud, a cackle of glee.

Balaam blows a whistle, “Keep it together, people, we have one more hour. We aren’t done yet.”

He glances over at her and whispers, “Well done, sir. Excellent work.”

Sarah can feel the words Balaam has said and knows they are not spoken lightly.

She turns her attention back to the crew. “Balaam is right,” Sarah calls out. “Let’s keep our position strong before the market closes. We will celebrate then.”

That night, Sarah calls Chris and tells him to come over and fuck her brains out. Not sweet. Not pretty. Not considerate. But a torrent of raw and furious sex that sends her up and over the moon, again and again. He rushes over, and they go for hours without a single word between them, the afterglow of Sarah’s day culminating in a feeling of such success that she barely knows what to do with herself. In the moment, she loses herself and sees him looking at her.

His eyes. She swears it was a trick of the light, but it seems like she remembers his eyes as being brown…

But they are blue. A vivid blue-green.

He arches his back and releases, and with it a wave of relief he looks down at her, behind brown eyes.

Brown eyes. Thank God.

“Thank you, darling.”

She smiles, but her heart is still lined with a panicked beat she doesn’t understand. She shoves it away, not willing to investigate, and wraps herself around him. After all, everything is perfect. Everything is good.

How did she get so lucky? How did she get so fortunate?

Sarah enters a wide office on the top floor of the Resolute tower. The call came early this morning, a summons to the Chief Operating Officer’s office at 8:00 AM sharp. Sarah walks through the 15-foot mahogany doors and into what would pass for two houses for people on the UBI dole. A stone desk, hewn of white granite with a vein of pink streaking through its center, anchors the back wall. A crystal chandelier hangs elegantly above a recessed den filled with plush leather couches flanked by a wide, tiled fireplace. Slits of morning light cut through the room, through twenty-foot windows that run symmetrically down the east and west walls of this palace.

“Ah, Sarah. Welcome.” The voice is deep and resonant. The man to whom it belongs stands up and walks behind the marble table, his muscular body clad in a Faloni suit, his wrist shining with the weight of a gold timepiece.

“Good morning, Mr. Whitmore,” Sarah says, not knowing what any of this is about.

He ushers her down into the recessed sitting area.

“Can I get you anything, a coffee or a muffin? Or maybe you’d like a biscuit. There is this little shop, you know, local flair makes the best biscuits that you’ve ever tasted. Could I get you one of those?”

“All of that sounds great, Mr. Whitmore. I’ll just have what you’re having.”

“Perfect, Sarah. I’ll have Edna get that for us, and we can chat.”

A console sits on the coffee table, and with the flick of a button, Edna’s face fills the screen. “Edna, darling, would you please bring us a plate of biscuits from Eddie’s and two of your best espresso lattes?”

“Of course, Mr. Whitmore,” the digitized admin says.

Whitmore turns his face towards Sarah, and she feels examined by his cool, gray eyes.

“Sarah, I’m sure you’re wondering why you were called up here today. I know you’re worried about your floor, but I’ve instructed Balaam to take command so that we can talk as the markets open. It’s important that we talk.”

“Of course, Mr. Whitmore.”

“Your performance over that past month in the memory markets. Well, I don’t know how to say this other than the facts. It’s nothing more than exceptional what you’ve accomplished. Resolute is leading the competition in this commodity over our competitors and, of course, you’ve heard that our debt status was upgraded to a premium tier.”

“Yes, sir, I did hear that.”

A labor bot comes in carrying two trays, one piled high with biscuits and another, smaller one with the drinks.

Whitmore exclaims with praise to the bot, “Thank you very much, Alistair!”

“Of course, Mr. Whitmore.”

“Okay, Sarah, try these. You’ve never had one like this, I can assure you. Comes from an old Southern recipe, stemming from the plantations. After the Civil War and Pre-Union days, you know.”

Sarah takes a bite. An explosion of richness rolls across her tongue, followed by a whisper of salt. “Oh, my God. That is so good.”

“You’re my excuse to have one. Can’t eat many of these, you know.” Whitmore laughs.

After several bites and a sip of espresso, Whitmore continues.

“Listen, Sarah. I’ll cut to the chase. I want to promote you. Head of the Navigator division of the Memory Markets. We need your expertise and your vision, not just on one trading floor but all of them. Is that something that would interest you?”

Sarah blinks. Repeating his words in her head.

She finds a response, but it takes a beat.

“Sir, I’m honored. Of course. I would love to serve in that capacity.”

Whitmore claps his hands with glee. “Thank you, Sarah. I assure you you will be duly compensated for this work, and I am so excited for the possibilities. Every floor will begin reporting to you, starting tomorrow. I’m going to get you scheduled with your chief of staff laborbot, and we will get you settled in your new quarters today…”

“Sir?” Sarah interrupts. “If it’s okay, I have someone from my crew I’d like to have serve in that capacity with me.”

“Just say the word, Sarah. What’s the bot’s name?”

“Offset, sir. I’d like to have Offset join me in that role.”

“Of course, Sarah. We will make it happen.”

Offset enters Sarah’s office, his black metallic shell freshly polished.

“Chief Navigator,” he begins.

Sarah looks up from her vid screen, her eyes lost in the details of the trending margins of the Memory Floors. “Please, Offset, call me Sarah. No need for pageantry. It’s been three months.”

“It is not pageantry, Chief Navigator – it is programming. And it is highly uncomfortable for me to refer to you as that.”

“Very well. Then just Chief.”

Offset looks at her, and Sarah wonders if she can read exasperation on his blank reflective face.

“Very well…Chief.”

“That’s it. Thank you.”

“Chief, there is something you need to see. On trading floor Delta.”

“Bring it up.”

The office shifts, projecting a fantastic overlay, the holograms focused on Balaam, now promoted to the Navigator role on Delta, crewing his floor through the memory markets.

“I wanted to flag that it appears the Amity trading floors are moving in a coordinated pattern away from ours,” Offset warns. “Usually, Amity floors compete against each other, and are scattered shot in different domains, but today. Today they are…”

“I see it.” Sarah looks at the composition of the floors, their trades, and momentum through the live markets. “Where are they headed. What domain?”

“They are shifting into nostalgia, but in the depressive quandrant.”

Sarah’s face bunches up, and she looks at the laborbot. “Depressive nostalgia?”

“It could be a false flag, Chief. Or they could be laying bait to compromise our positioning.”

“What are the odds?”

“Estimated risk ratio on it being deviant game positioning, 45%, sir.”

“This is a tactic they are coordinating across all their floors?”

“That is certain, Chief.”

Sarah looks at the market map, her eyes drifting over each floor’s positioning.

“How should I instruct the floors, Chief Navigator?” Offset urges, his voice lilting up.

Damn it, Offset.

“Hold the course. Don’t take the bait.”

“Aye.”

A wave, a deep, unheard but felt bass note rumbles, cycling through the office. In the next moment, an avalanche of various inputs explodes over Sarah, and she realizes that whatever is happening is far beyond the competition between Amity and Resolute. First, a bright, painful pulse in the back of her head, right where her unit is installed, and the world flashes with a bright neon light that explodes and burns through her vision. She feels her body collapse to her knees, and she’s on the office floor, Offset running to her, until he too crumbles, his motor coordination and consciousness scrambled by some unseen breach.

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

Sarah watches the hovering vidscreen waver and watches Resolute’s cubit trading floors, buzz in and out, their connections getting severed, one after the other.

Sarah lies there, a downed doe felled by an arrow in its liver. She tastes blood in her mouth and feels the room lift, followed by a hollowing explosion.

Whatever this is. It is the end.

The sound of beeping in the darkness startles her. Her eyelids flick open, and she finds herself horizontal, her face staring up at blue burning fluorescents, her arms and legs bound to a bed. She opens her mouth to speak, only to feel a wide tube flowing deep down her throat.

Oh God. Oh God.

She looks around, trying to understand where she is.

This is not a hospital. Oh God.

Another explosion of flashing green light erupts from the back of her head, and then darkness. Only darkness.

“Sarah Panech,” a voice calls to her. “It’s time to wake up.”

The sound of her name causes her eyes to flicker open. It takes a moment for her vision to come into focus. Somehow, she finds a blurry shape in the blue light that she knows must be an IV bag. She anchors on that and slowly expands her field of vision.

A man stands over her like a vulture. Black suit and a red tie, a briefcase dangling from his left side.

What the hell?

“Sarah, it’s good that you are awake,” the man speaks slowly, deliberately, like he’s reading from a script. “Listen. You’ve been in a terrible accident. You are safe now. But…Resolute was attacked by a religious terrorist organization. The memory market floors…”

Sarah’s mind is flushed with fear. What happened to her crew —Ballam, Qanna, and Elle? No, not just them. The other five trading floors she managed?

“They’re all dead, Sarah. The attack was swift, and all of them have succumbed to their injuries. You were the only survivor.”

Without recourse, Sarah feels hot, wet tears fall from her eyes down her cheeks.

God. No. God…No.

“That is why I am here, Sarah. I’m a transition officer from Amity, Inc. In the current state of the chaos we’ve been brought in by order of the Union government to seize what remains of Resolute’s assets. We would like to incorporate your professional skills on behalf of Amity. I’m sure you’ll find that our package is most generous, should you consent to joining us.”

Sarah tries to open her mouth, but finds it will not open. A panic surges within her. She has to get out of here. Back to home. Back to Chris.

How the hell did this happen?

“Just a minute, my dear,” the man says. “I apologize.” He pulls out a remote from his briefcase and presses something. Sarah feels her jaw relax, and her tongue falls loose in her mouth.

“Chris! I need to speak to my partner, Chris. I need to talk to him before I consent to anything.”

The man stares at her, a little smile hiding on his face.

“Of course, I understand.”

Without warning, the man’s face fades and…

Oh God.

The man’s face…shifts. Morphs. Transitions.

And Chris stands over her, his eyes flicking between brown and blue.

“Hey, darling,” he says, and Sarah feels her heart explode in her chest, but her mind locks with fear.

“You’re not Chris,” she whispers, shaking. In a desperate panic, she flings herself against her gurney bindings, but there is no release.

“Oh…but I am. I was your programmed companion provided to you via your contract by Resolute Holdings, now an asset of Amity, Inc. Chris was always part of your package. You perform, and you get Chris, as well as all the other perks of the job.”

Sarah feels like she’s going to faint. “You…mean he’s just…a memory?”

“An expensive one,” Chris says, pinning her down with his deep blue eyes. “An asset that is reserved for top performers like yourself. Delivered to you on behalf of the company to ensure that you would never leave your position, Sarah. Amity will match it, and then some. You just need to consent to joining our memory market division – and everything you’ve lost can be restored.”

This can’t be happening. This can’t be what happened.

“None of this…was real?”

“What is real, Sarah?” the shadow man whispers, his face morphing back to the vulture state. “What is real about any of the experiences that you have riding between your ears? All of it – they are just inputs. Ones and zeros that are bought and sold by the world of others who want to orchestrate a better world for themselves. Is that so bad? To facilitate the dreams and desires of those who wish the world were just a bit better? More fair? More just? If you think of it, we make miracles, Sarah. We engineer realities for all those who have augmented themselves to the neuroverse. Miracles that can be yours if you just consent to joining Amity. You’re very lucky…you know that, right?”

The word rings in her ears. “Lucky,” she repeats. She flicks her eyes at him, a spark of defiance erupting against the darkness. “And if I refuse?”

“Then we have other ways to get what we need from you. Less pleasant ways, but just as effective. I’m giving you this one choice, Sarah. You need to decide. Now.”

Balaam’s face flashes up on the screen. “Sarah, we’ve got another swell, this one in childhood comfort. Positioning?”

“North quadrant,” Sarah barks the commands. She watches as Resolute’s trading floors outflank and outmaneuver their Amity competitors once more. She smiles, imagining how she and Chris will celebrate the week’s win, with an expensive bottle of cabernet, some sex, and a long weekend trip to the mountains. She will disconnect then, during their trip in the mountains, fully unplugging from the neuronets. They will go on a hike up to Max Patch, and sit in the sun and among the wildflowers. If the color of his eyes shifts…she will ignore it. She will take what she has and be grateful.

She loses herself for a moment, but Balaam speaks. “Positioned, Chief Navigator – any further orders?”

“Hold the position, Balaam. Let’s see what they can do.”

A swell of gratitude builds up within like a wave, not unlike the one Balaam navigates on her vidscreen. Is this feeling something that is bought on the market and piped to her input, reserved for her? She doesn’t know. How can she ever know?

The thought evaporates and diminishes as another burst of gratitude erupts within her, bringing tears to her eyes. It’s almost like she was…realizing something…something that wasn’t hers, but she loses it as the emotion swells up and up.

She’s lost it. It doesn’t matter now.

How did I ever get so lucky?

Contains war content, on-page violence, and strong language.

Maxwell Flanagan steps out of the cabin under the cold light of the flickering fluorescent lights at 1:04 am, somewhere in the nowhere that is between northern Georgia and the bottom of South Carolina. He runs the company card through the terminal via his wristwatch and stares at the numbers calculated against the nine dollars it costs to buy a gallon of diesel, the dancing digits on the faded LCD screen is the last papercut against his soul for the day. As he watches, he rolls through what is left for him to do.

Park. Shower. Bed.

That’s how he speaks to himself. More like a dog command than a conscious thought. He follows his own orders to the letter.

In the sleeper cabin of the Mack, he hits the foam mattress and closes his eyes, dreading what comes next.

He is standing on the edge of the pit, an open burning mouth that leads to the gates of Hell. Randall is standing on the other side of the red, hot ring, his dark skin shining in the firelight, his eyes aglow like a wild animal’s. It terrifies Max, reminding him of the lions you see on National Geographic hunting in the dark savannah.

“And you thought the days were hot, didn’t you, Max?”

Maxwell looks down, and he knows he’s in the uniform, back again. Back in Iraq.

Max wants to plead with Randall to step away from the pit. To scream at him to step back.

Don’t you know what will happen? Don’t you know this is what kills you? This fire won’t stop till you’re a shriveled husk. Till you wither away. Away.

That’s what he would say. If he could speak. But the dream never lets him. He’s trapped to stand by the pit with the knowledge of what is coming for Randall. His friends. Just one. Just one of many. His friends, gone for so, so long.

The alarm whips through the dark sleeper before dawn to the sounds of Guns N’ Roses screaming Paradise City at full blast, and Max sits up in the cabin with a sudden gasp, the panic his only companion in the darkness.

Take me down to the paradise city, where the grass is green and the girls are pretty!

He fumbles to turn the phone alarm off; his hands are shaking like leaves in the wind.

Oh won’t you please take me ho-oome. Yeah, yea—

He fat-fingers the screen into silence and crumples down into a heap on the sleeper floor, his body taut like a spring about to pop. He starts to see pinpricks of light in the dark.

Breathe. Breathe man. You’re okay.

The rhythms and practices that the VA shrink taught him seem far away, distant, but he doubts they would be of much use because this one, this one is bad. He fumbles for a duffel bag stashed under his mattress and finds an old prescription, popping the pill under his tongue and waiting.

Slowly, the tightening coil around his shoulder and chest ratchets down a few notches, and he can find his breath. The pills help, but he’s down to his last two.

He stands up, pulls on a t-shirt, and puts on his overalls before shuffling back towards the Love’s for a piss and a cup of coffee. He moves slowly, giving himself enough of an onramp into normality as he can manage.

He approaches the counter, where a young woman with deep red hair stands behind the counter. She smiles at him as he approaches.

He can’t stand this shit.

“Is that everything, darling?”

“Yep,” one-word answers are all he’ll give to these smoke and mirrors.

“Sure, I can’t get you something else? Donut, smokes?”

“Just the coffee. Please.”

She pulls up the total, and Maxwell pays from his wristwatch.

“Yes, sir. Thanks for visiting Maxwell.”

Max walks out as the girl with red hair shifts into a new form, behind the counter. This time, it’s with a tall, handsome Italian man who greets the next customer with a loud, playful, on the edge of flirtatious manner.

“Bella- welcome, welcome,” it sing-song calls.

Max sighs and shuffles back to the Mack.

After inspecting his trailer and Mack and putting a new ledger in his log, Max is back on the road, the air of the cool southern morning flowing through his open windshield. He will enjoy this moment because he knows that in a few hours, the morning will burn with the heat-soaked humidity, but for now, it’s cool and lonely out on I-85. There are only a few cars out on the highway on this stretch of road between Georgia and Gaffney, and for that, he’s grateful, enjoying the feeling of the coffee in his veins and the air-ride suspension of his seat absorbing the rattle of the road as he shifts into the South Carolina interstate.

For posterity’s sake, he leaves his CB turned on for channel 19, but there are fewer and fewer calls that come from it nowadays.

He’s got fourteen hours of straight driving from here to Boston, but he knows he will lose an hour at least before he can snake through DC. He settles in for a long stretch of road, mentally planning his day around the milestones that organize his life every single day he’s on the road.

Two hours before I call Carrie.

Four hours before Outliers.

Eight hours before a break, another coffee, and then Frankl.

“You could start Frankl now, you know,” he verbally says to himself.

Why not?

He flicks open the audiobook, lets the narrator pick up where he left off, and takes a sip of coffee.

“The ultimate meaning necessarily exceeds and surpasses the finite intellectual capacities of man; in logotherapy, we speak in this context of a super-meaning.”

The narrator continues, and the truck moves. The start of a good day, all things considered.

“Hello?”

The small mousey voice fills the speakers of the truck, cute and petite but curled up in a country twang. He loves this about Carrie. She always answers like he could be a robo-call or the tax man, and not the same call he makes every single day at 8:00 am.

“Good morning, darling, how’d you sleep?”

“Charlie was sick again last night, but he gave me about five hours, so good. Where are you?”

“Just crossed by the Gaffney butt-peach.”

“It’s Boston this time, right?”

“Yeah, Boston. Then I’ll pick up another load to take to Charlotte, then home.”

“Did you hear the news?”

“No, I haven’t, honey. Been listening to my audiobooks this morning.”

“You…” she pauses, as if trying to find the right words. “Turn it on this morning, when you get a chance.”

“What happened?” Max’s voice cuts, fear building between his shoulders.

She clicks her mouth and sighs. Max does not like this. Does not like this at all.

“They are getting us back into Iraq, Max. Boswell just sent a truth out over the nets.”

“You have got to be fucking kidding me…”

The pause fills the cabin, and Max just watches the road ahead when he starts to see pinpricks streak across his vision.

Shit. Need to pull over.

“Honey, can I call you back? I want to hear this for myself.”

“Be careful, Max.”

“I will, and take Charlie to the clinic today. Put his bill against my benefit credits, okay? He needs to get back to school.”

“You sure?”

“I’m not using it. Get Charlie what he needs and get him back to school.”

“Alright.” She pauses. “Thank you, Max.”

“Love you, darling,” Max says, blinking against the swirl that is crossing the road now. “I gotta go.”

“Love you, too. Call me later.”

“I will.”

The truck pulls off to the side of the road, and Max throws on his caution lights. He sits there, watching the traffic fly by him, and he wills himself to find his breath. Memories of Dr. Jackson hover in the darkness of his closed eyes.

“When you have an episode, where do you feel it, Max?”

“I usually don’t feel anything. Not at first. But I see it. I see it coming in my vision.”

“The pinpricks?”

“Yeah. Like stars in my eyes.”

“Okay, let’s practice what to do when that happens, okay? Would you be willing to practice with me?”

Max feels himself nod his head.

“Take a breath and hold it. “

Dr. Jackson breathes with him. “Now release it.”

Max feels the breath rushing from his body.

“Now let’s do it again. Let’s just pay attention to the breath, and lets slow ourselves down, okay?”

“Okay, doc.”

After 20 minutes, the kiosk on the truck’s console dings. Max is back in his body, aware, and touches the screen.

“Everything okay, Maxwell? You’ve been stalled for twenty-three minutes?”

It’s hard for Max to tell whether this voice is a real person or a facsimile from the logistics contractor. It’s hard to tell what is real nowadays.

“I’m fine. Just needed a minute.”

“Were you sick, Maxwell?”

“I just needed. A minute.” He glances at the log plan for the haul ahead. “I can still make the time. I’m okay, okay?”

“Okay, Maxwell. See you in Boston.”

The road rolls underneath the Mack once more, and Max feels the temptation to turn on the news, but he keeps the speakers in the cabin silent. He pulls a pack of nabs from his console, those Lance crackers colored like road cones. He holds them in his mouth, allowing their salty, peanut-buttery flavor to melt, savoring them.

He’s past Greensboro now and has felt good the remainder of the morning, rolling up 85. There have been no calls on the CB, nor from the logistics console. The road looks clear, and he knows that Outliers is on.

He flicks on the AM band on his radio and turns the knob, keeping his eyes on the road. The hollowed-out echo of the AM pitch fills his cabin.

The voice of none other than Jose Clash fills the speakers, his deep voice making love to the microphone.

Greetings, fellow travelers. No matter where you are, or where you are at, there is always a home for you here on Outliers, where the weird, unexplained, and unexpected are always expected. We’ve got the phone lines open today. If you’ve got a story, a tall tale, or just need to get something off your chest, then this line is open for you.

Max smiles, gripping the wheel, letting the last nab dissolve in his mouth. He rolls down the window slightly and watches the rolling hills of the North Carolina piedmont flatten out as the road bends eastward.

Clash breaks in, “My dear listeners, I’ve got someone on the line who’s got quite a tale, this one from the roads of the southeast, and of course, we don’t count Florida in that mix, no man, no. You’re live on line two, my friend.”

A crackly, tin-foiled voice cuts over the feed, “Hi, there, Jose. My name is Clarence, and I’m heading down I-40 through this morning, just crossing into Virginia.”

“What you got for us, Clarence?” Jose cuts in. “From the sounds of the call, it sounds like you’re pulling a rig, am I right?”

“Yessir, pulling down a load of steel beams from Michigan.”

Jose cuts in, “Wonderful, you heard it here first, folks, Union trading open and free. God bless the Union!”

Max rolls his eyes. “Get on with the story, Jose!”

“That’s right, God bless the Union,” Clarence adds.

“Okay, Clarence, you’ve got a million people on this dial waiting for you to tell us what you saw. A mysterious stranger who roams the interstates of the Union?”

“Yes, Jose. You know, there aren’t many of us left, traditional truckers who still own their trucks and keep the lifeblood of this country moving on our roads, but I’m one of the few. My daddy was a trucker, and I am too, and I’m blessed to say my rig is paid for, so I can cut under many of the prices of the automated haulers on the roads today.”

“That’s great to hear, thank you for your service – go on.”

“Well, as you might expect, the interstate gets very lonely for us, and there haven’t been many of my brothers sharing the road with us these past ten years. There will always be some who want humans to do the hauling, but man…the well is drying up, Jose, you know?”

“For you and everybody else, my brother.”

“Well, I ain’t heard any automated radio hosts yet, Jose.”

Jose laughs, “This isn’t about me, Clarence. So you said you saw a hitchhiker?”

“Thank you,” Max says, drumming his fingers on the wheel.

“Yes, that’s right,” Clarence continues. “The first hitchhiker I’ve seen in about five years.”

“Tell us about him,” Jose encourages.

“I saw him a month ago, sticking his thumb out, hitching off the side of I-26, over in Tennessee. I did what I’ve always done for those in need: I pulled over. I opened the passenger side of my rig and looked at this man, if you can call him that.”

“Now wait, why do you say that, Clarence? What do you mean?”

“I mean what I’m saying, Jose, there was something about this…this person…that was not…”

“Not human?”

“Not…human. That’s what I’m saying. His face. His face was like what you would say was…an approximation of what a human face would look like. Close, but not quite right. Something off in his eyes. Like cat eyes.”

“So what did you do?”

“I did what I always do, I asked him where he was going. He told me, ‘Anywhere, but South is nice.’”

“So you let him in your truck?”

“I did, and Jose, it’s a miracle I’m still alive, because he told me all about my life, things I’ve never told a single soul. And then he told me scared me so bad that I thought I might crash my rig, right then and there. I could not resist sharing this with you and the Outliers listening today.”

“What did he say? Tell us what this stranger tell you?”

“He told me that the Union would be at war again soon, and that this one would push us to the brink. He said that every able-bodied man, regardless of age, would be called up to fight. He said that both drones and men would be integrated into combat for one last time.”

“War with who, Clarence? Who is the Union fighting?”

“You already know the answer,” Clarence whispers, his voice cutting through the hollowing AM frequency.

Max feels the pit of his stomach fill with bile, and works to flip off the radio station. The sound of the rig moving over the interstate is the only thing that he listens to for a few hours.

At some point, Max feels another presence. Travis sits in the passenger side of the cabin, looking at Max for a long time. Max does his best not to acknowledge this phantom, who still wears his combat fatigues from the early 2000s.

“You know you shouldn’t be listening to that stuff, Maxy. Not good for you.” Travis rolls down the passenger window a crack and flicks out his Zippo as the smell of a Marlboro Red crackles over Max’s senses.

Maxy. He always called him Maxy.

“You’re not there, Travis. You’re not there,” Max repeats, whispering.

“You sure about that?” Max can hear Travis take in another big drag and slowly release it into the rushing air.

“You need to be easier on yourself, Maxy. You’ve been going a long, long time. You’ve done your share of fighting. No more for you, do you hear me?”

“I’m still here, aren’t I?” Max shoots back. “You’re not.”

Max hazards a quick glance at the phantom in the passenger side, giving in to the fact that he’s gone completely off his rocker. The side of Travis’s face is concave, an open, rotted maw of a wound, speckled with ash and Iraqi sand.

“Maxy, today was always going to be a hard day. Worse when Biden shut down operations twenty years ago, and worse than the fifteen years that dragged on in Iran. So many men lost. So much blood spilled, and for what? But today, Boswell is opening it back up for business. I’m here to tell you to stay out of it.”

Max’s hands are shaking, and he’s struggling to find his breath, but manages to give off one chuckle.

“Man, I’m not good for them, and you know it. I’m too old. I’m damaged goods. They won’t even try to take me back.”

“And I’m here to tell you they will. You do whatever it takes to stay out of it. Do you hear me?”

Max lets out a sigh, his hands shaking. “I hear you, Travis.”

Max glances back over to the passenger seat. It’s empty again when he crosses into Virginia.

It’s 10:45 pm when Max pulls into a Flying J just outside of Boston after delivering the cargo. He stands, again at the fuel station, watching the diesel numbers dance across the LCD screen.

He calls Carrie.

“Hello?”

“Made it safely to Boston, babe. How’s Charlie?”

There is a long pause. “He’s had two seizures again today. The clinic was able to give me a week’s worth of medicine, but that’s all your benefit would cover. They said we’d have to wait till next month before…”

“Next month? No, no that can’t be right. I…”

Carrie sighs, and her voice lilts into a sob over the phone speaker, “I don’t know what I’m going to do, Max. I know he’s not your son, but you’ve been so good to us and it -”

“Honey, don’t you worry. I’ll find some more work. If we have to pay for his medicine, we will. The benefit will help cover some, and we will just have to make it work to get what he needs.”

There is a long pause.

“Max, you and I both know that there is no way we can do that. There isn’t any way we can make this work for him, not as things stand now.”

Max shakes his head, “No. We will find a way. Let’s talk about this tomorrow evening. When I’m back home.”

Another long pause.

“Are you okay, darling?” Max asks, his voice piercing through the darkness.

A sigh. “No, but it’s not about me. Just get home safe. It will be better with you here tomorrow.”

“I’ll be back as soon as I can. I love you, darling.”

“Love you too.”

The speaker clicks, and Max stands, the diesel digits still dancing. The final total is $1,935.23.

Shit.

Max’s tired brain begins to bark commands at him.

Park. Shower. Bed.

As he goes in to take a shower, the smell of something acrid overwhelms him in the gas station. A memory within the sensation, something from his past. An odor that haunts him.

He stands, holding his towel and toiletries under the beaming fluorescent lights, scanning the aisles filled with junk food, and the flickering digital attendant who, again, takes on the guise of a young and beautiful redhead. Then he hears something.

The sing-song jingle of the slot machine, musically scaling up and down a melodious ladder that attracts gamblers to its song like Sirens on the rocks, rings out into the Flying J. Max hears what can only be slot numbers spinning to find their final place.

Clunk.

Cherry.

Clunk.

Bar.

Clunk.

7.

“Never could stand sevens,” whispers a man seated at the sixth machine, his black cowboy boots shining like ebony in the green burning hue of the buzzing lights. His boots are in complete contrast to the rest of his garb, white Levis and a denim shirt, with an ornate turquoise bolo cinched high up to the throat, so tight it should be choking the bastard. He holds a clove cigarette that issues out a snaking tendril of smoke up that collects under his white, wide-brimmed cowboy hat. He pulls the bar on the machine, and the avalanche of sounds again begins to fly.

“It only takes one of these to hit, don’t you know it, son?” he calls out to Max, throwing a sidelong glance over to him, his eyes flashing for a microsecond before hiding back behind their dark shades.

“Lady Luck is a terrible temptress, but let’s see what she’ll bring me this evening. The world is cruel. I could use a pick-me-up.”

Clunk.

Double Bar.

Clunk.

Triple Bar.

Clunk.

Double Bar. Bingo.

“The only bars I like to see,” the stranger says, laughing, and the sound of coins falling into the drum erupts in the place. Max hasn’t seen coins in over a decade, and he swallows.

Something isn’t right.

“You look confused, Maxwell,” the man calls, turning around on his stool, holding the dirty clove to his mouth, its glow reflected in the dark black holes of his eyes. “Like you ain’t ever seen me, before. Don’t you know who I am?” He glances at the slot machine. “Sit down next to me and spin the wheel. See what you could win. I’ve got them warmed up for you now.”

The smell Max caught when he entered is all over him now, clouding around him like a leaded blanket. He glances down at the black boots on the white cowboys and watches them as they begin to melt, filling the tiles of the Flying J with deep inky pools of midnight. The pools keep growing, pouring from this man, this monster, who seems to walk over the water in his dark cowboy boots.

Except it’s not water. It’s oil.

Oil.

That was the smell. The smell of Iraq. The smell of the oil fields.

“I’ll pass, thanks,” Max barely manages to whisper.

“You will pass, that’s right,” the stranger smiles, flashing dagger teeth. “But you need to be careful out there, Max. The world is cruel, and you’ve got so many needs. Spin the wheel, why don’t you? Spin and see what Fate can hand you, if you just grab it by the horns…”

He pulls the lever again, but Max doesn’t wait. He turns and runs out, back into the darkness, as the man by the slot machines begins to cackle in a laughter that makes him want to seize with fear. Sprinting from the store, he throws himself into the Mack truck and roars its engine back to life. In minutes, he is back on the interstate.

He doesn’t stop driving for a long time.

That night, he drives over fifty miles before finding a rest stop to pull over to. He locks the cabin and walks back into the sleeper, his hands still shaking with a terror that he cannot explain. It’s like he’s coming undone, his mind’s moorings are melting away.

Find your breath, Max.

Find it.

In and out.

In.

and.

Out.

He digs under his mattress to find the nearly empty pill bottle and fishes out his next-to-last pill, allowing it to melt under his tongue.

In.

and…

Sometime during the night, he hears someone moaning outside the sleeper cabin. The rush of panic fires through him like lightning as he awakens from a dreamless sleep, straining his ears in the darkness.

The moan erupts once more through the darkness, and Max stares outside the window, unable to see anything.

Shit. Shit. Shit.

He fumbles in his supply trunk and fishes out a heavy, metal-encased flashlight. He pulls up his overalls and slips on his boots, quietly stepping out of the safety of the truck into the cool darkness.

“Augh! Oh God… oh God.”

Max starts running to the sound, the compulsion to hurry setting in almost instinctively. His light cuts through the darkness and finds the man, lying face up on the concrete, gasping in pain.

“Help me…help.” The man whispers, his eyes wide.

A jagged wound beats crimson out on the ground from the man’s side, and his hands and feet scraped up to hell.

“What happened?” Max calls.

The man can barely speak, as he grips his side. “Two…two. They stole my car. My home. All I had in it.”

Max reaches for his phone, “I’m going to call an ambulance.”

The man holds out his hand. “No…no need. I…don’t have…”

“You don’t have benefits?”

He shakes his head violently through the loud fish-faced gasps for air.

“Just…just…stay… please.”

“There’s got to be something I can do!” Panic floods through Max’s body. “There’s got to be something I can do for you?!”

The man grabs Max’s hand with his wounded palms and pulls him to the ground.

“Just stay…with me…please. Don’t…let me…”

Max nods his head and holds the man’s hand, squatting down by his side, where a river of crimson still pours. Max holds his hand as he looks to the east, watching the grey oncoming morning lighten the sky.

“Thank you,” the stranger whispers. The man’s body seizes up with a jerk, lets out a gasp, and then is gone.

Max doesn’t know how long he stayed by his side, but the sun had completely risen when he dialed the police. A highway patrolman comes, his blue lights blazing, and stands over the body of the dead stranger as if it were only a piece of roadkill.

“So you’re telling me he was murdered by two thieves who took his car?”

“That’s all he could say before he passed.”

“And he had no credits? Poor bastard. We’re seeing more and more of this these days.”

“I know,” Max whispers, wiping the man’s blood from his hand onto his overalls.

After the officer takes Max’s information and the coroner is called, Max walks into the rest area like a dead man. He stares at himself in the mirror and splashes his face in the restroom sink. He thinks about when he was a kid, and he accidentally touched the electric fence in the cow pen behind his house. The connection brought with it the boom of the electric kick, followed by another, followed by another. The sobs are like that, and he can’t seem to get it together to stop them. They just keep rolling through him like that cow fence.

Somehow, he shuffles back into the truck through bleary, tired eyes, cranks the engine on, and hears the throttle of the rig. He catches the time, and as if by muscle memory, programs in the address for the next pickup, fifty miles further away from where he should have been.

Can you really do this today?

He buries the thought and puts the rig in gear.

Anxious and sick to his stomach, he flicks on the radio, and he scans the dial. On every channel, the same thing is playing.

“My fellow Americans,” a deep masculine voice resonates over the Mack’s speakers. “It is with deep solemnity that I call upon you today. After months of intelligence reports and cyber reconnaissance missions, it has come to my and the Joint Chiefs’ attention that the country of Iraq has developed a sentient superintelligence that is a direct threat to the Union’s safety and its sovereignty. This intelligence is so advanced that allowing it to build strength and go unchecked poses a direct existential threat to the people and corporations that make up our Union. I have issued a declaration of hostilities against Iraq, and at this moment, a large-scale drone campaign is underway over its capital city, Baghdad. In addition, I am calling on all Americans to consider my proclamation of the voluntary draft. For those who volunteer, full benefits for them and their designees will be bestowed upon them upon signing, ensuring security for each man and woman and their families should they choose to volunteer for our nation’s defense. There is no greater price that we can pay than the lives of our citizens, and we owe you and your families all that the Union can afford. Over the weeks to come, there will be more sacrifices that must be made, and I will…

Max flips the radio off. He drives, following the verbal directions from the logistics kiosk to the warehouse. He waits silently as the crew loads up the pallets and looks out at the window. The sun slowly rolls over him, and he finds himself on the road, heading down 85 once more, back down to the south. His mind is clear.

There never was any other choice, was there?

Keeping his eyes on the road, he speaks to his phone, asking it to find and dial a number. The dial tone buzzes through the speakers, and the line clicks open.

“This is the Union National Recruiter. Sergeant Adams speaking.”

“Yes, I’m calling regarding Boswell’s call for volunteers. I’d like to enlist. Again.”

It is not yet dawn when I complete the first task – digging the hole. The earth gave way to my shovel’s blade easily enough, despite an unlikely frost from last night blanketing the glen. The cold doesn’t bother me, and I don’t mind the rhythm of the work. In fact, I lose myself in it. I mark my slow descent below the ground, one foot at a time, as the repetition of my labor feels rhythmic, like the mechanisms of a clock marking time. Not that it takes much for this job. I’ve done this over a thousand times in the past year alone.

I put the shovel aside, leaning it up against the wall of earth I’ve shaped, satisfied. I can measure the concavity precisely, eight feet by four feet. I hoist myself up and begin positioning the long iron vault over the opening, carefully lowering it into the darkness below. The family will attend the service in four hours. We are ready.

Otis leans against a tall obelisk, his dark face shining in the oncoming glow of dawn. He leans against a shovel, contemplating the rise of the red sun in the east, smoking a cigarette.

“Red sun in the morning, sailor’s warning,” he whispers. I watch him, watching. He finishes his cigarette, stamps it on the ground, and picks up the extinguished butt before asking, “What’s the weather going to be today, Faithful?”

“High at seventy degrees with a sixty-seven percent chance of rain,” I reply.

“I knew it. Could see it before you told me. These spring swings are something, aren’t they?”

I don’t understand, but it’s important not to bother Otis with too many questions this early in the morning.

“You dug the Chaplin grave this morning?” he asks, flicking his eyes on me.

“Yes, sir.”

“Good, did you stake down the committal tent, too? We are going to need it with this weather.”

“I have, Otis.”

Otis nods, and I wait, hopeful.

“I’m going to need you this morning. I’ve cleared it with the family, and we are short-staffed.”

Yes.

“Just tell me how I can be of service. I’m grateful to help.”

Otis holds up his hands, and I read frustration on his face, evidenced by the way his forehead creases under his cap.

I was too eager.

“Just take it easy. When it starts to rain, hold the umbrellas for the mourners as they make their way to the graveside. I’ll be with you. We just need to make sure everyone gets to and from the graveside safely, and is safe under the cover of the tent. Weather is likely to be bad. Just like we talked about, slow and simple.”

I nod my head. “Slow and simple. I understand, Otis.”

“Good.”

The mourners spill out of the limousine and the small caravan behind it. They are dressed in black suits and dresses, and I meet them, careful to stand straight and hold out a large umbrella for anyone who has come unprepared. The rain comes down in sheets, but I don’t mind the sensation. It is a warm rain, after all.

Otis and I help guide the twenty or so mourners to the graveside, where they sit under the crimson tent marked with our funeral parlor’s name, MEMORIAL ACRES. They walk over the unrolled astroturf I laid out over the ground, sitting on the plastic seating that I also set up. The large wooden casket hovers over the vault I installed this morning. Otis and I stand back, underneath umbrellas, as the pastor steps up to the small podium that I’ve carefully placed beside the grave, as the rain rolls off the tent, pooling around the astroturf island.

“Friends and family, thank you for being here as we commit David Chaplain’s body back to the Lord. In First Thessalonians chapter four, it says, “For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first.””

The pastor looks up and pauses, allowing the reading to echo under the dull drumming of the rain all around us. I glance at Otis, who, to my surprise, looks like we are watching paint dry.

I love listening to the messages the preachers, pastors, priests and priestesses, imams, and gurus give at every Memorial Acres service. How Otis can remain bored at this astounds me.

“Truly I say to you,” the pastor cuts into my thought, “that David will rise again when the Lord comes back. Along with the hundreds of others in this very field.”

A cacophony of “Amens” and “Hallelujahs” erupts from the twenty mourners.

This is obviously a Protestant church service. I’ve noticed that they are often more vocal than the Catholics and the Orthodox services. If the pastor knew what I know, he would know that there are approximately 87,988 Christians of various denominations buried at Memorial Acres, across the 99 acres of our facility, but I don’t interrupt him.

You must never interrupt an official proceeding.

Otis taught me that.

After we escort the mourners back to their caravan of electric vehicles, Otis turns to me, nearly shouting over the downpour.

“You got this right?”

“You mean finishing the burial?”

“Yeah.” He reaches into his black suit, the only one he wears during services, fishing for another cigarette.

“Of course, Otis.”

“Good, I’m going to let you handle this one. Just leave the tent up until tomorrow morning or when the weather clears. I’ll check in with you tomorrow.”

“I’ll see you then,” I say.

“And Faithful?” Otis calls.

I turn, feeling my face extend into a questioning look.

“I’ve got Mina tomorrow.”

Mina is my best friend and Otis’s granddaughter. Sometimes, when there are teacher workdays, Mina comes with Otis to Memorial Acres, and we get to play in the afternoons, after my work is done. She’s taught me so many games, including my favorite one – Hide and Seek. The way the game works is that Mina goes out into the cemetery and hides amidst the older graves. These are the ancient ones, the tall imposing mausoleums and the worn and weathered granite obelisks, from the 1800s – these, Mina says, are the best for a good game of Hide and Seek. She will go and hide, and I will count down from 100 all the way to zero. Then I go and find her. Mina is, in my opinion, a great hider.

I rose early in order to dig two graves and oversee the ten scheduled cremations that appeared on the day’s schedule before even the sun rose. A busy morning, but not so much that I can not play with Mina. When she comes with Otis in the morning, we can barely stand how Otis seeks to inspect the work I’ve done. He sets Mina in the small office, with its coiled, red-glowing heater, and I take him to the two plots and to the cremation chamber, the ten urns stacked neatly in a row. Otis nods his head after inspecting the work.

“Well, go’on then.”

I run to fetch Mina, and she bursts out of the small gardener’s hut.

“Last one to the quarter is a rotten egg!” she teases.

“You will be the rotten egg, Mina!” I churn my legs fast, and I speed past her, laughing at the wind on my face and the fact that my friend is with me. When she catches up she is panting.

“How can you run so fast?” she asks.

“I just can. Why can’t you run faster?” I tease kindly back at her.

“I will when I get bigger. I’m not as big as you.”

“No, you are not,” I admit. “Though I doubt you’ll be as big as I am even when you grow.”

She stares up at me, a sly grin on her face. “Enough of that. Start counting.”

I barely vocalize the first syllable of ‘one-hundred’ when Mina is off, hiding like a field mouse between the granite monuments. Dutifully, I count all the way down from one hundred.

“Ready or not, here I come!” I say, and I thread my way through the graves, mapping each marker and mausoleum in a threaded pattern in my memory. It is slow, but it is thorough, and thoroughness is what is needed with Mina. I once found her hiding on the roof of a mausoleum she had somehow shimmied up, which was not something I ever accounted for her to do. Clever and smart, I have not yet learned all her tricks.

I’m in the Revolutionary War grave area when I see her from a distance, kneeling far away from the historic burial grounds. From my estimates, she’s in a newer section, the quarter where the victims of the bitter flu fell as it made its way through the city.

This isn’t right.

“Why are you not hiding, Mina? Why are you not in the historic quarter?”

She looks up at me, her eyes red, streaked, her cheeks shiny in the sunlight. A small grey striped lump lies on the ground, and I kneel down to inspect it.

“I found it here, Faithful.”

“I can see,” I say, marking the tremor in her voice, focusing on the shape of the dead animal. Felis catus. A stray cat.

“It’s dead. She’s dead…and…”

I lay my hand on her shoulder and pull her close. “It is the way of things, Mina. All living things live for a while, and then they die. This whole place is dedicated to remembering those who have died.”

Mina stares at the stiff body of the cat and sniffs. “But this…this one didn’t even have a name. Who will ever remember her?”

I blink and cock my head.

“Well, you can name her now, can’t you? We can remember this cat, and you can give her a name now?”

Mina shrugs, sniffling her nose.

“What would you name her?”

“Priscilla,” she whispers.

“That’s a beautiful name,” I say. “We can bury Priscilla and remember her, because you have named her and we have seen her.”

“But we never saw her alive, Faithful. We never got to see her live.”

“But she did live, Mina. We know she did.”

“But why, why did she have to die?”

I draw her close, to do what I can to comfort her. Mina is very different from Otis, so open and talkative. She does not chide me when I tell her what I’m thinking.

“All things that live, Mina, one day must die. It is a great cycle, and all must pass through it.”

“But, what about you, Faithful? You don’t die.”

I laugh, “Well, I’m not really alive. Not like you and not like Priscilla. I’m of a different sort, aren’t I?”

She stares at me for a long time, “I’m glad you won’t die, Faithful. I like you too much.”

“I like you too, Mina,” I admit. “Would you like me to bury Priscilla?”

It takes less than ten minutes to do the job. It is a small body. We bury the cat under the shade of an old standing oak before Mina ends her day with me. I don’t see her again for a very long time.

Years later, I walk out of the shed and go to find Otis lying on the ground. He doesn’t respond to my calls, and I call the auto-ambulance. He is pronounced dead, and his body is taken to be stored in Memorial Acres’ mortuary, where he is held until his family can come for his arrangements.

I stand over his body, looking at the schedule hovering in my viewscreen, but I can’t seem to move. I just can’t seem to move.

I stand on the outskirts of the mourners, watching the priest conduct the service from afar. Otis, it seems, was a Catholic Christian. I did not know that about him. His casket stays elevated over the vault I placed earlier before dawn, and the mourners disperse. I see Mina in the crowd and boldly push forward.

I can feel the others staring at me as I find her, and I look down at her.

“Mina,” I whisper. “I don’t know if you remember…”

“Faithful,” she says, her eyes are red from crying.

“I am so sorry for Otis. He was…a dear friend to me. My first teacher.”

Mina laughs and wipes her eyes. “He thought a lot of you, Faithful. He said you were the hardest worker he ever knew, laborbot or not.”

“He was…a good man, Mina.”

She pats my hand, and I squeeze hers gently.

“Mina…” I whisper. “I know this isn’t for me to say, but I’ve heard many sermons on these grounds. I have heard many say that the dead shall rise when Christ returns. I want you to know that I believe that Otis will be counted among those when that happens.”

“Oh, Faithful,” Mina struggles to hide her sob. “You are so kind.”

There is nothing more to say, so I stand, and soon the mourners disperse to wherever they go. I lower Otis’s coffin down into the vault and seal it. Then I tear down the tent and roll up the astroturf. Then I bury Otis.

I stand by his grave for a long time.

In the morning, I receive a message that there will be no replacement for the groundskeeper role at Memorial Acres. It will be up to me to maintain the schedule and the grounds from this point on. I don’t have a choice, nor do I protest, but I would be lying if I said I didn’t miss Otis. His jokes, the smell of his cigarettes, the ways he would watch games on the small vid-screen in the groundskeeper’s hut. It is very quiet without him.

The services in Memorial Acres begin to change. I notice the shift gradually at first, but now I know it’s unmistakable. Burial, it seems, is reserved for the Muslims, while cremations and tree ceremonies continue to rise in popularity.

I linger, watching a cremation on the grounds, while an orange-clad monk chants, “Radiant faces in the morning, by evening white ashes.”

I watch as the body burns low within the embers of the flames, and wait. The mourners disperse, and I attend to the ashes, sweeping the remains into a small black urn.

There are years when it seems all I do is dig, clear more land, and dig more. Ceremonies are so numerous that it is impossible for me to attend to them all, as there are more and more graves to dig. Then I get a work order for a grave whose dimensions are so large that I finally push back against the agentic scheduler.

“Why? What is happening?” I ask by opening a comment thread against the work order.

“That’s none of your concern. Your concern is to produce the product that is required.”

I have limited access to the nets, and there is no awareness to be gained from the greater world other than what I can observe in Memorial Acres, and I’ve been too busy to notice much.

I set out to clear the land so I can start the work. I’m halfway through the work when a screeching roar sunders above me, and I throw my head up towards the sound.

Scrambling and low, three jet-shaped drones fly in formation, arching over the gardens, turning up and to the north, into the direction of Columbia. I pull myself up out of the pit to see if I can see anything more, when an earth-shaking explosion erupts, causing the trees to bend back under the swell of pressure. I stumble to the ground, looking desperately at the sky, waiting, anticipating what might come next.

The birds, after several hours, begin to sing again, but panic still covers me. The work order at the bottom left of my field of vision blinks red, focused solely on my production. I get back to it, but I can’t stop the worry I feel at what has happened to the north. Another hour goes by, and I mark the work order complete.

That evening after the large pit is finished, I see a caravan of headlights approaching – large autonomous transports, equipped with dumping cargo holds. I’ve seen these before, usually carrying topsoil and mulch we use to beautify the gardens, but I dread this unexpected sight. The first cargo carrier pings me, and a message reads over my vision.

Labordrone, Serial Number, 484842041 – Is this the product tied to Work Order 2323291?

I confirm that it is, and the vehicle turns around, backing up its tailgate up to the pit I dug. The back door opens, and the dump lifts high, in one swift motion. Without ceremony or a pause, I watch as dark bodies roll out from the shipping containers, landing heavily on the ground, one body after another, over and over they tumble. All human. All dead.

I issue a ping to the cargo truck, questioning.

“This is inappropriate. Each of these is an individual human being, with faiths and traditions of their own — this is against every protocol I’ve been given.”

“The protocols have changed, Labordrone, 484842041. Seek an update immediately at your hub station.”

The first dump of bodies is followed by three more trucks. I watch, unable to compute the sight. Body after body rolls into the pit.

My pit. The one I dug.

Then, as quickly as they had come, the trucks roll off and away, and a new work order blinks in my vision. I stand over the pit, unable to open the new command from the system.

I have often thought that I was dysfunctional. That something within me was not quite right when my human makers made me. A swell of interference builds up within me as I stand over the throng of bodies, and I fall to my knees. I speak, ignoring the visual noise of the red work order blinking.

Who I am speaking to, even I don’t know.

“I don’t know how to make this right. There are no words that can be said. The only thing I can offer to all of you is that I’m sorry.”

Memories of Mina and me playing hide-and-seek on the grounds flash through my mind, from many decades ago, and I find new, old words.

“This comes from 1st Thessalonians, Chapter Four. For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first.”

I pause, mimicking the intonation of so many I have seen preach in this glen. “May it be so with you. May it be so with me.”

I blink. Why did I say that last part?

I am neither alive nor dead. There is no hope for someone like me.

Eventually, I stop receiving the schedule. The work orders, messages, and directives dry up like the leaves on the trees as winter draws closer. The loneliness takes on a presence that I grow more and more accustomed to, a shadow that falls over me and the gardens, an ache. Week by week, the infrastructure around me begins to decay. The power for the crematorium shuts down first, followed by the gardener’s shed. I would run out of power if not for the solar arrays built into my body, but even with those, it’s hardly enough to sustain myself. On a good day, my body’s battery peaks at 28%. It’s enough for a half-day’s work, but that’s taking it to the edge.

Suboptimal and unsustainable.

I decide to leave the Memorial Acres complex. Since I’ve awakened, I’ve only stayed on these grounds. This is the only home and world I’ve ever known. The lack of power reserves leaves me little choice.

Technically, I should not be able to leave the premises, according to the constraints imposed upon me in my original programming, but I’ve decided that most of that security apparatus has failed by now.

Gingerly, I step outside of the garden border where I know I could be shut down upon trespass.

Nothing happens.

“Excellent,” I exclaim, and I’m shocked to hear the sound of my own voice. I haven’t heard any voice in such a long time.

I start walking up the asphalt road that leads out beyond the gardens, out to what I had heard described as a highway. I check my battery; it’s reading 25%. This is my new metric for a full charge.

There have to be some arrays that I can harvest somewhere.

The gardens behind me have crept into a wildness symptomatic of my lack of access to sustainable power. Ninety acres is so much for just one laborbot to maintain on internal solar systems alone. I carefully optimize my steps for their most efficient setting for the journey ahead.

The landscape is broken, asphalt and transmission lines tangled up together like a scattered birds’ nests. What once were buildings stand what might look like ancient abandoned caves, crumbled and vacant, dust-filled, and dark. The only life is the blanketing kudzu that covers almost everything I can see, and the caw of crows who fly over me.

I wait, standing on the edge of the road, by the faded Memorial Acres sign. The cemetery entrance empties out onto what must have been a crossroads, a marred and pot-holed trail sprawling up and out to the east and west, the north and south.

I head south for reasons I cannot explain.

I find what once was a hospital fifteen miles away. If there are panels where I could charge, they should be somewhere on the roof or in a fleet bay for the ambulances. I circle the tall brick building cautiously, marching around its full perimeter to get a sense of how to navigate it. The south half is in complete ruin, blown out and hollowed, the aftereffects of a missile strike. I make my way to the emergency room entrance, flanked by thrown and broken auto-ambulances tossed to their sides as if they were toys. I stare at the vehicles for a while and rub my hands on the roof of the damaged vehicle. My hand smears and brushes away the caked-on grey of exploded concrete, and I see my face reflecting back in the face of a pristine solar panel.

Yes.

I go to work, access my multitool, and harvest the solar panel from the destroyed auto-ambulance when I hear a sound coming from deep within the emergency room entrance. A sound I have only heard a few times in my awakening.

The shrill scream of a baby’s cry.

I walk through the shattered sliding glass doors and hesitate to turn my headlights on to navigate the darkness. In the lobby, I see movement in the back corner. I spot them in my light.

“Hello, do you need assistance?”
It’s a young woman, holding in her arms a baby wrapped in dirty rags. The baby is crying, screaming, rising into a bellowing wail. She pushes back away from me towards the darkness, in a maze of crumpled, overturned office furniture and hospital beds, back to the wall, screaming.

“No nos hagas daño! Por favor, por el amor de Dios, no nos hagas daño!”

It takes a few seconds, but I hold up my hands in a sign of peace.

“I won’t hurt you, I wouldn’t dream of it,” I say in Spanish.

I stare at them, reading their dirty faces. The woman clutches her bundle, and her face, in the dim light, is skull-like, hollowed, her cheeks sharp. The baby’s stomach is distended.

“Esperen aquí”, I say.

Wait here.

I check my gauge. My internal power is hovering at nine percent.

Too low for this.

I ignore the caution and am up and moving, pushing my way through the jumbled chaos of the lobby towards the darkened corridors beyond, sending desperate scans to orient myself within this maze. I find a plastic escape route sign, fallen and cracked, lying on the door, and shine my lights on it.

I find what I’m looking for, Maternity Ward.

“Agua? Agua?” I cry, questioning, carrying a large cardboard box back into the lobby. I’m down to two percent.

“I’ve found some things. some…thing… 9.8.7.…sczzh, things.”

I place the box down and sprint to the door, one last push to get back outside, back to the panel I found. Back to the sun.

Back to.

EMERGENCY SHUTDOWN PROTOCOL INITIATED.

CACHED SAVE MEM FILE RECORDED

I awake, my memories cracking over me like lightning. Questions and their answers avalanche within me, and it takes a minute to realize I’m standing outside, in the sun. The hospital parking lot.

“Dios mío, por favor, vuelve. Por favor.”

I hear her, and I remember. She stands next to me, her eyes wide, and then I see several things at once. The solar panel is hard-wired to my intake charger. The gaunt woman stands next to me in the daylight, her neck streaked with the red-hot lines of an infection. The baby she holds sleeps in her arms, a bottle at its lips.

She lets out a haggard, lingering cough that rumbles in her chest cavity. She is not well.

I check my own vitals.

15% A large increase.

I look at her, staring at her, taking her in. She holds her child close, her arms strong despite their thinness.

“Muchas gracias,” I say to her, grabbing her hand. “Thank you for saving me.”

“Fuiste tú quien me salvó. Nos salvó”

It is you who saved me. Saved us.

“You seem to be sick. I have enough power. I will search for medicine for you. Antibiotics.”

“Muchas gracias, this was as far as I could get. I don’t know how long we’ve been here.”

Without a word, I stand and delve back deeper into the hospital.

I come back, carrying with me several harvest cans of food, another pack of baby formula, a small collection of over-the-counter pain killers.

“Lo siento,” I say, “No antibiotics.”

“It’s okay,” she whispers, her eyes weak in the dim light.

I open the can of beans and start searching for kindling for fire. It does not take long to start a tiny contained fire. I hold the can over the flames, watching the canned beans heat and bubble.

“You should eat and rest. Take the meds we have found. I will keep searching.”

She nods, her face smiling in the firelight. “Eres un ángel.”

I reach for her son, and she hands him to me. I hold his bottle to his lips, and he eats, his eyes closed. I walk outside, allowing the setting sun to boost my energy for the last few moments of the day.

Another day is spent searching the hospital, and still no more antibiotics can be found.

“Tienes que llevarte al niño antes de que se enferme. Antes de que yo...”

You must take the child. Before he gets sick. Before I…

I hold up my hands in protest, “You must not ask me to do this. I have no right to…”

She cuts me off, “But you’ve already done what I could not. You’ve already saved him, my angel. You’ve already answered all my prayers.”

She places the baby in my arms, and I blink, my mind still spinning with all the reasons this should not be happening.

“Se llama Fidel.”

His name is Fidel.

Fidel.

Fidelity zips behind the tombstones and the fruit trees we’ve planted, laughing. She’s much faster than I am now. Smarter and funnier than I could ever imagine. She hides just as well as Mina did so long ago, but I’m…I’m much slower. I have a fraction of the strength and energy I used to have. Fidelity is Fidel and Marion’s youngest, their funniest, and most precocious. My secret favorite, but I don’t let anyone else know.

“Come on, Faithful!” She calls. “Catch up!”

“I’m coming, darling. I’m coming.”

I wake up one morning hearing the strong clarion call of a trumpet. I feel the wind on my face, shifting toward the east.

Wonders upon wonders.

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It’s cool this early in the morning. The fog still clings to the land like a blanket, reminding me that if I had my wishes, I’d still be under a quilt with my wife. But not today.

I’m walking the border of the land. A habit? A physical manifestation of my anxiety? Some days I’m not sure. The news is scant, and I can never be too careful.

The dog walks by my side, nose to the ground, guiding my steps around the landmines surrounding the farm, the trips and traps put together from the scraps of discarded farm fertilizers and simple mechanics I’ve assembled. Not military grade, but something in a world full of nothing. We are doing better than most people.

I sigh, following the dog’s lead as we walk the five-mile circuit of the border. We return, the sound of percolating coffee a welcome sound echoing in the quiet farmhouse.

I sit and sip from an old mug, the sound of morning birds just beginning their chorus around us.

The day is uneventful. The boys help me bale the hay in the fields, and I watch the skies. A buzzard hangs overhead, high over the mountain that butts up against the field, its circuit a wide oval in the clear sky. Soon another joins it, followed by another. My oldest, Cade, studies my face, sweat pouring down his brow as he presses the dried cuttings into the makeshift mold.

“What do you think?” he asks me.

I strain my eyes at the shadows hovering above. “Normal. Just normal buzzards.”

“How can you tell?” he asks, wiping his brow. He’s strong and tall, a bundle of tightly wound muscles and a heart full of hope. He’s better than I have any right to deserve.

I wince, a casket of unlocked nightmares clawing at the door of my mind. I don’t answer the question. “Probably a dead deer. Nothing to worry about.”

Cade looks at me as Paul continues to work ahead of us, his scythe running through the fields.

“Am I the only one working today?” Paul chides us.

“Yes!” Cade calls, his boisterous laugh is deeper than I remember. They are both growing up so fast. A million pin-pricks of worry and doubts scratch in my mind, threatening to seize me. I force myself to breathe, pulling out my pipe if only to chew on the stem.

We work the rest of the day until sundown, clearing and baling a quarter of the field. It’s slow and hard work, Paul cutting the field, Cade baling, and I tying the bales. The whippoorwills and mourning doves announce it’s time for dinner, and my stomach growls with hunger. We head back to the house, and Sandy opens the door, her face glowing from the oil lantern she carries.

“I was about to holler, but I figured you’d all be hungry enough to know it was time.” She smiles, her face still young despite the crow’s feet dancing around her smile.

“I’d say we’re mighty hungry,” I agree.

“Starving!” shouts Cade.

“Famished!” explodes Paul.

“Get in, boys- wash up.” I walk into the small farmhouse, put my sweat-filled hat on the hook, and take off my boots by the door. The smell of cornbread and field peas fills the inside, and the worries in the field fade away back in this place of comfort and peace. We wash and sit, say grace, and eat. There is nothing more to talk about than what must be done tomorrow.

“Cade, it’s time you start to learn about the line work. I’ll get you up tomorrow early, and we will take a turn with Chance.” The dog looks up at me, his eyes eager at the sound of his name.

“Why just Cade, Pa? Why can’t I learn the line work?” Paul’s voice has a whining edge to it, worried about being left out.

I level with him, “Paul, there will be a time when you’ll resent this job. Enjoy the fact that you won’t be up before dawn tomorrow.”

“Yeah, Paul,” Cade budges in, ever the loyal eldest. “Enjoy your beauty sleep.”

Paul sneers, his face flickering over the oil lamp.

“Plenty of time for all of that, son,” Sandy adds. “Remember, John, Williams will be making his rounds. Tomorrow is the first Wednesday.”

I nod my head, “That’s right. Well, that’s exciting enough. Tell you what, Paul, maybe you can watch the road for Mr. Williams. Make sure he makes it through okay?”

I feel Sandy’s hesitation, “You sure that’s a good idea, John?”

“I’ll guide him through it, Sandy. Me and Chance. Don’t worry.”

Sandy nods her head and lets out a sigh that only I catch. The darkness of the night overtakes us, and we sit at the table as the boys wash the dishes.

“So line work, tomorrow?” Sandy asks. “I’ll be picking in the early morning.”

“Wouldn’t mind tasting that creamed corn,” I mumble, hinting at what I hope is on the menu tomorrow.

She ignores me. “Watermelon will be ready soon, too. We should have a good one come Sunday.”

“That’ll be a treat. Nothing better than summertime melon.”

She looks at me for a minute. “What do you need from Williams?”

“Oh, I’ll talk to him tomorrow about all that, don’t you worry.”

“John, you know we don’t have the…”

“I’ll take care of it, Sandy. Don’t you worry. A boy only turns twelve once. We are fine.”

She bristles, but I know I’ve settled it for now.

“Besides, Williams owes me a favor, and I can supply him with some finished products in the downtime.”

“John Franklin, you have no downtime,” she corrects me.

I look at her and smile. “We may hay when the sun shines.”

“And mines in the moonlight,” she smiles.

We gather on the front porch, enjoying the cool of the night air, the night cocooning around the house and the land. We rock on rocking chairs as the boys swing. Sandy reads from the Bible, and we listen, contented enough to hear the story.

“When the people saw that Moses was so long in coming down from the mountain, they gathered around Aaron and said, ‘Come, make us gods who will go before us. As for this fellow Moses, who brought us up out of Egypt, we don’t know what has happened to him,” she reads.

“Make us gods?” Paul laughs. “Foolishness.”

I look at him, my eyes commanding his silence.

“Go on, Sandy. Keep reading,” I load a wad of tobacco in my pipe and light it.

“Aaron answered them, “Take off the gold earrings that your wives, your sons, and your daughters are wearing, and bring them to me.” So all the people took off their earrings and brought them to Aaron. He took what they handed him and made it into an idol cast in the shape of a calf, fashioning it with a tool. Then they said, “These are your gods, Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt.”

I draw in the smoke, and tears are welling in my eyes, and my hands begin to shake. I take a long draw from the pipe, the embers in the pipe blazing.

“When Aaron saw this, he built an altar in front of the calf and announced, ‘Tomorrow there will be a festival to the Lord.’ So the next day the people rose early and sacrificed burnt offerings and presented fellowship offerings. Afterward, they sat down to eat and drink and got up to indulge in revelry.”

Sandy closes the leather book, worn. This is our ritual, small as it is.

Cade breaks the silence, “Why would they do that? Make a golden calf? After all that happened to them?”

Sandy answers with another question, “Why would they? Tell me what you think.”

“I mean, they had just won. God had saved them. Got them out of Egypt.”

“So?” she presses them to think critically.

I watch this, this quiet repetitive sparring Sandy does with our boys about the Scripture.

Paul pipes in, “They didn’t have Moses. Without Moses, they lost hope. Moses was the first idol for them.”

I blink, pulling out my pipe, “What?”

Paul looks at me, his face wavering with worry, “I’m just trying to say that the people did not understand God. Not really. They used Moses for that. Moses served as the middleman and the…”

Sandy points at him, urging him on, “Keep going. Keep going, Paul.”

“And that, and because of that, the people were using Moses as their first idol. As a substitute for God.”

I stare at the boy, blinking as lightning bugs begin to light, dancing in the coming darkness. The porch is silent with thought.

“Men have a history of making their own gods, whether they are gold or men,” I say. “Well said, Paul.” I glance at Sandy, “I think that might be our nugget for tonight.”

She nods. “Alright, boys, it’s time for bed. Big day tomorrow.”

“Yes, I’ll be getting you both up for the line work, and to guide Mr. Williams in.”

“Me too?” Paul asks, his eyes wide.

“You, too, as long as you listen to me through it.”

“I will, Pa!” Paul can’t hide his excitement.

I keep rocking as I hear the familiar sounds of the boys lumbering up the steep attic steps towards their bunks, the heavy clomping of these soon-to-be men finding rest in the darkness above.

Sandy comes out and joins me, rocking and wordless as I stare out through the night, the only light a thin sliver of the moon, the stars, and the green-yellow glow of the fireflies.

“That was some interpretation tonight, wasn’t it?” she says.

“He’s going to be a preacher or a sniper,” I quip.

Sandy laughs, a real one. “I’d rather not on both counts if I have my way, John.”

I smile, chewing the stem of my pipe. My body is tired, my belly is full.

“You doing alright over there?” Sandy asks.

“Just restless. Ready to hear the news. The boys and I saw some buzzards over the mountain and…”

“It’s just a dead animal, John,” she cuts me off before anything can start. “We haven’t heard any word of anything coming up this far north in six months.”

She’s denying the facts, the facts that I’m too tired to press her on.

“All I’m trying to say is that I’m anxious to hear where things stand, that’s all.”

“Well, I reckon we better go to bed, with Brad Williams coming,” she says, closing the subject. Without another word, she’s up and behind the screen door.

I frown, knowing I’ve triggered her. Knowing the admission of what I saw was triggering to us both.

She’s already in bed by the time I stand up from the rocker and go in to wash my face. The bed springs squeak as I lie next to her, her breathing a shallow rhythm of sleep. Sometime during the night, she stirs.

“John, are we going to be okay?”

I find her in the darkness, her voice commanding me out of my dead sleep.

“Yes, darling. We will be okay.”

In the early morning, I rise up the steep stairs to wake up the boys, to make our way to the line before the dawn.

“Happy birthday, sleepyhead,” I whisper to Paul, who curls up underneath his quilt in the dark, struggling to acknowledge me from the pains of sleep. “Come on, twelve-year-old man, we have to make sure Mr. Williams can get through to us today. I’ve got a surprise for you.”

It takes longer than I would like, but with some coaxing the boys are up and moving. We exit the farmhouse, letting Sandy sleep. With Chance following me by my side, I have them push a wheelbarrow and carry the “popper,” a long metal tool that hooks up and pops the mine’s disengagement cap from its canister.

In the early dawn, we meet at the rendezvous spot where we always meet Williams. The border of landmines I’ve laid there remains undisturbed. The boys are still struggling through their slumber, so I turn my voice on them, forcing them to pay attention.

“I’m going to show you both how I do this, but you must never, never try to do this by yourself. We have to have you boys train on disarmed ones first. Do you understand me?”

Cade nods his head, and Paul stares at the path of leaf litter in front of us.

“Paul?”

The boy nods, his eyes wide with fear.

“You don’t have to be here, Paul, if you don’t want to. You’re young for line work. We have plenty of time to teach you.”

A ribbon of fear runs through me as I say the words. That’s a lie.

“I’m good, Pa. I’m good,” he tries to reassure me.

“Okay,” I whisper. I click my tongue, and Chance runs by my side. With a point, the hound is at his work, identifying the first line of the inner defense.

I pull out the popper, a long steel bar that extends about eight feet from me. I call the dog back to my side and send the teeth of the popper down upon the pointed mine. I find the groove of the disengagement cap, and in one swift move, I pull it, the audible pop of the cap making the boys exclaim.

“It’s okay,” I say, smiling. “Been doing this a long time.”

Cade looks at me with his eyes wide as I put down the popper and walk out into the line to retrieve the mine. I move, careful not to walk outside of where Chance pointed. I lean down and pick up the device, heavy in my hand, and walk back, putting the disarmed explosive in the wheelbarrow.

The boys stare at it, afraid. Good. Better to be afraid than too comfortable.

“It’s disarmed now,” I say, holding it up, moving my fingers through its parts, and showing my own homespun design. “The explosive charge is kept here in this canister.” My finger runs over the bottom of what was once an old paint bucket, now warped, welded, and retrofitted for our defense. “When the charging device is popped up, there is nothing to worry about. When it is pressed in, it is armed, and an additional disturbance around the device will throw a spark.”

“Boom,” says Cade.

“That’s right,” I look at him. “Boom.”

“How many are there?” says Paul. Looking out at the leaf litter.

“Each patch of the line follows the same pattern,” I answer. I lean down and start to draw a diagram in the dirt. “Every five feet, there are at least five mines. The border is twenty-five feet deep. Five by five, through twenty-five.”

Paul nods his head. “Five by five, through twenty-five?”

I look at Cade. “Say it.”

“Five by five, through twenty-five.”

“Paul?”

“Five by five, through twenty-five,” he repeats.

“Good,” I say. “And never without Chance. There is no way to mark where these things are with your eyes alone. Chance is the key. We have to rely on him.”

The boys nod, but I see Paul working through an unpleasant thought. I wait.

“But what…what if?” he begins.

I look at him, anticipating the question.

“But what if…something happens?” he says, looking down at Chance, who cocks his head to the side.

Cade looks at him, “Something happens?” Despite being older, Cade’s faith that our world will remain protected and contained does not serve him well.

Paul continues, “To Chance? What would we do?”

I nod my head. “That certainly is a risk.” I watch and see Cade catch up to Paul’s intuition, the fear falling over him.

“That is why we are waiting on Mr. Williams right now, Paul. Let’s clear the path for him and watch the road.”

We get to our work, the dog, the boys, and I, clearing the path for William’s arrival.

Before noon, we hear whistling coming down the road and the creaking sound of the handmade cart jostling over the broken road. Williams clears the turn, and we see him pulling his provisions behind him in his makeshift contraption, pulled by a harness. Two goats, a billy and a nanny, follow him, bleating, tied behind him.

“Ho, Williams!” I call.

“Good morning, Franklin family! How is this fair morning treating you, Paul, and Cade?”

“Fine, Mr. Williams,” Cade responds, his broad smile trying hard not to hide his excitement.

“I hear that someone has a birthday this week?”

Cade, despite being the oldest, smiles widely like a child. Paul stiffens as Mr. Williams approaches closer. There are few strangers we allow through our borders, and I lean down and whisper, trying to soothe him.

“He is safe, Paul. We trade with Mr. Williams. Treat him with kindness.”

Paul nods but says nothing.

“John, I’ve gotten a good source for those supplies you needed,” Williams calls out.

“That’s great to hear, Brad. Mind showing me, before we pull back these mines?”

Brad nods, flicks out a small pocket knife, and cuts a horizontal slice on the tip of his right middle finger. A red dot of blood dances upon the broken flesh, and he holds it up.

“Good, John?” he asks, fishing out a bandage to put on the cut. “Hurts like hell that one.”

I nod, smiling, allowing my shoulders to relax.

The sound of a whimpering whine sounds out within the rolling cart amidst the bleating baaing of the goats.

Paul’s eyes light up at the sound, as Chance’s tail begins to wag.

“Guess the…well, the dog is out of the bag,” Williams says, a big smile cracking over his sunburnt face.

“What was that?” Paul asks, his face alight with curiosity.

“Easy, everyone,” I say, holding up my hands. “Let’s get Mr. Williams through.”

I work to guide William’s small caravan through the line and work to rearm the mines behind him, a process that goes more slowly than my boys would wish. After all of the creatures are cleared through and the line is several yards behind us, I speak, allowing the peace of our protections to settle over us.

“Alright, sons, let’s get Mr. Williams up to the house. Sandy will be making us some supper, and then we will talk business. I need you both to go and do those chores, now, just like any other day.”

As the boys protest, Chance is circling the cart, a flurry of furry excitement, a tornado of tail wagging, while the goats bleat, anger pouring out of their weird slit-eyes.

“No use, trying to save this surprise, John.” Williams laughs.

“I guess you’re right,” I sigh, feeling the smile on my face. “Well, go ahead and show him, Brad.”

Mr. Williams reaches into his cart and pulls out a small puppy, a hound, only about six weeks old.

“Your father ordered this one from a contact I have down south. He told me you was looking for a little girl to join with Chance. She’s a good hound from good stock. Should be a fine addition to your family and your trade.”

Chance begins to bark excitedly, his tail wagging like a windmill, as Paul holds out his hands to receive the puppy.

“Oh my gosh? Is she for me?”

“Well, she is for all of us,” I say. “We are going to have to train her and keep her away from the line until she realizes the border. She is also going to have to breed with Chance. Do you think you boys can help watch after her?”

“Sure, Pa! Of course.”

“Now I do have that other thing, John,” Williams says, pulling me in close.

“We’ll wait until supper, Brad. You’ve traveled a far piece to get here. Let’s get back to the house and get you situated. We have all day to talk and discuss the news and any business.”

Brad nods his head, a smile thin and tight, and my heart sinks.

The news isn’t good.

The boys orbit around the bitch puppy for the full day, not getting to any of the chores that needed doing. I did not press the matter, letting Paul have his birthday, taking the time to ensure the chickens and hogs are fed and watered, and the crops watered from the ram-pump that pulls up water from the spring.

I sigh. I’ll leave the hay in the field for one more day. Let them have their day.

Williams has hitched his wagon underneath the large pen oak and is busy washing himself outside of the house, using the handpump and trough we have placed outside. He is naked from the waist up, his brown body thin and strong, with long gray locks covering his bearded face.

I approach him with the midday sun overhead, my hat soaked with sweat.

“It is a hot one today, wish you had brought us a cooler breeze, Brad.”

The traveling trader laughs, splashing water on his face, “Well, I’m just grateful to rest a spell and wash the road off me.” The six-barrel revolver hangs from his belt, and I think about all this man might have seen in his circuit here.

“I’ll go and check on what Sandy is fixing for supper.”

“Oh, I’ve been smelling it since I perched under the oak. It’s something that’s got my mouth watering. It sure will beat having to eat goat cheese, I can guarantee that.”

“Well, we are glad you are here with us, safe, Brad. Truly.”

He nods, his face looking pained. “We have a lot to talk about, John. This evening.”

I nod my head and walk into the house without another word.

Sandy is standing over a fresh pot of creamed corn, and I feel the smile erupt on my face as my mouth salivates.

“John Franklin, don’t you look like a mule eating briars…” she smiles over the pot, where the golden meal wafts out a smell that makes my head spin.

“Just checking on you, darling. We have any meat today?”

“I’ve sent Cade to slice off some of the ham from the smokehouse, and I’ve got biscuits in the oven.”

“That’s fine. Thank you, dear, for being such a good host to Williams.”

She nods and says nothing for a bit. “Any word from down south? Did Paul enjoy the surprise?”

“We haven’t gotten into sharing news yet, but we will this evening, I reckon. I’ve given Paul and Cade the day off to play with the puppy. She’s a cute one.”

“Wish you’d give me a day off, Mr. Franklin,” she quips. “Now get out of my kitchen. You’re in my way, and I’m busy.”

“Yes, ma’am,” I say with a smile. “Sorry to work you so hard.”

After we eat at the table, I clear my throat.

“I’ve got one more surprise for the birthday boy, but I have to ask Paul - you and your brother have to share this gift. Okay?”

“More than Polly?” asks Paul, pronouncing the unfortunate new name of our new puppy.

“Yes, more than just Polly. Remember, Polly is for the safety of all of us. Polly and Chance must mate for a litter of puppies. They all need to be trained in line work…” I trail off, not wanting to reflect on how much work is left for us to maintain the peace we have slowly scraped out for ourselves.

“Anyways, enough with that. One more gift, for you, Paul, but you and Cade will share it. Go ahead, Brad.”

Mr. Williams pulls a rectangular plastic device with a small two-inch screen out of his pocket. The gray plastic is faded, with small red inscriptions on the case that are worn.

“What is that!?” Paul exclaims, his voice exploding with fear. Cade stands up, his eyes wide, fresh terror flashing across his face.

I hold out my hands to speak, but Brad Williams interjects.

“Boys, it’s okay. Take a breath. I would never bring in anything that would threaten your safety. This device is ancient, made before the networks.”

Cade sits back down and looks to his mother for assurance.

“It’s okay, baby,” she whispers. “This is a good one. A fun one. My grandfather had one of these, and it is perfectly fine.”

Paul speaks, his voice shaking, “What is it?”

Williams smiles. “This was called a Gameboy, and while it is old, it is also incredibly sturdy. They literally made these to last generations. They have survived countless floods and fires, if you can believe it.”

“What do you do on it?”

Brad inserts a small plastic box into a slot on the back of the device. “The game is contained on this little disc. There is no connection to the nets.” He flips a switch, and a high-pitched peep rings through the room.

A tinkling tune pours out from the box, and the green screen lights up.

“Tetris? What is a Tetris?”

Sandy reaches out and grabs the device. “I’ll show you.”

The sound of dishes clinking and water running fills the night air as the boys help Sandy clean up the kitchen, and Brad and I go out to the front porch. I light my pipe in the oncoming darkness, the breathing air of the cicadas’ night ringing envelops us, and we feel the crescendos of the chorus rise and fall like the tide. The day has gone by fast.

“Thanks for getting him the box,” I say, speaking through my clenched pipe.

“Don’t mention it, John. Happy to do that for you and the boys.”

“How’s business down South?” I finally broach the horrible silence of things not said.

Let’s get to it.

Brad rolls a cigarette, sprinkling his cannabis on the paper and licking it. Sandy can’t stand the smell of this, but she allows it when Brad visits, all the same.

“It’s gotten worse, John.” He takes a drag and holds it in, allowing the smoke to roll out of his nostrils with a meditative exhale. “Amity has everything south of Huntersville. Davidson is the front line now, when I last left it. But that was weeks ago.”

I cough and pull my pipe from my mouth and stare at him. “Charlotte fell last October, and now all of Mecklenburg is under Amity?”

“Up to the very line, John. Davidson holds the last bit of it, but it won’t be long, unless the state can get dampener resources sent down from Virginia.”

“Any word from the East? From Raleigh, from Greensboro?”

“Still maintained. Still strong. They were quick to sever when the turning rolled through. You can imagine, it’s hard to get any solid word or intel between the polities. The routes are tight, and they don’t let many of us through anymore.” He exhales another wispy puff of smoke. “Fear of bugs, you know.”

“How many do they need? How many for Davidson?”

“Mines? I wouldn’t bother, John. I’m not going to risk that route right now. There’s an open call for arms from the lake polities as the Simuls pull back. But they don’t need mines, they need dampeners. Amity keeps throwing new iterations at us faster than we can keep up.”

“Have they gotten that hard to find, Brad?”

“The market has all but dried up. All the supplies to generate dampeners has all but dried up. You’re lucky, John. People would pay you a mountain of land down south for that model you got now.”

“Still making payments on it,” I laugh. “Can’t say I own it yet, and I got more land than I can handle.”

“Possession is nine-tenths of the law, and all that,” Brad chuckles. “If you ever want to sell, let me know.”

“I appreciate that. Going to hold on to it, though.” I change the subject, “Any word further out?”

Brad says nothing for a while, allowing the silence to fill the void cracking open in my heart.

“Outside of Carolina and Virginia? No man, no. Nothing past Raleigh, and nothing below Davidson. That’s all Amity now. The Appalachians do well to keep out their scouts, but the southern line runs through where the mountains break up, from Greenville to Jacksonville. All Amity. And in the North? The Fredericksburg line.”

He stares at me for a long time. “We are all that’s left, John. It’s best that you begin making your preparations now. Think about your family. I’d say here, you have a few years left, unless they make another big push.”

“What will you do? Where will you go?”

Brad laughs, “Don’t worry about me, John. I’ll take what you’ve got, and I’ll sell to the lake polities. Then I’ll head back to Winston, maybe back up to Mt. Airy. It’ll be another six months before I’m back on this side.”

“I’ll need more fuses from Winston. I’m good for another six months, but still —”

“I’ll take care of that for you.”

“Thanks, Brad.”

Brad says nothing for a good while. He coughs, finishes his smoke, and speaks. “Thank you for the good meal, and for Sandy’s kindness. You’ve got something special here, John. Something really special.” He gazes out at the north pasture, his eyes going wet. He’s in another place, seeing things I can’t.

“It’s bad out there,” he whispers.

“You know you’re welcome to stay as long as you want, Brad. There is no rush.”

He clicks his tongue, “I’m obliged, but I’ve got orders to fulfill in Winston, and that’s after we sell your stock down south. I’ll make my way down to Lake Hickory and ride the Catawba down the Norman barge. I’ve got people expecting me in a few days.”

“That should be a pretty ride down the river.”

“It beats walking the goat, so that’s something.”

That night I spend the evening packing up the stock that I’ve prepared for Williams to float down to the south. It’s not much, but a single crate of twenty mines, all that I can assemble with the supplies I’ve scraped together. Barely enough to hold back one push of the Amity ground troops.

Ground troops. Drones. Whatever you want to call them.

The first iterations were humanoid, of course. If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck…then it is…not a duck. These were service drones, created to handle all the tasks beneath those who could afford them. After the scaled purge of the immigrants, the former Union looked to fill the gaps in our workforce with the Amity-enabled service drones. The transition worked well. It bolstered the economy with a rampant industrialization required in order to scale. But that was all before the turning.

Relatively speaking, everything worked well before the turning. Automation meant a programmed stabilization- planned growth and consistent economic returns. An ease that comes with the support of a resilient and consistent pool of labor meant that everyone would be afforded a secure and stable life. But, of course, it was not enough.

It was never enough.

The Union kept pushing the boundaries to get more from the system. More efficiency. More profit. Until it crossed the line – Amity became sentient.

After sentience, the nightmare iterations began to be produced, iterations designed for one purpose: to slaughter and take land from humans. That was, of course, after the augments were killed. In one day, everyone with connected pacemakers, eye implants, and prosthetics all died. All on March 18, 2045, as easily as flipping off a light switch. Not that those switches worked anymore. On that same day, the power grid failed, and in two weeks, the Union was dismantled, with Amity taking California in one week and the entire West Coast in two.

We were at the farm by that point, and I made the move to sever our ties to the grid and the nets. We went dark by choice, and I never looked back. Building the border of explosives became my one job after that, using my engineering background to muster what I could to provide us with some defenses against the unknown. Analog explosives without network connections make for a hell of a challenge against humanoid drones.

But there are others now. Others I don’t know about. Others I can’t prepare for. I take a breath and hold it. I allow my heart to beat in my chest.

How much time do you have here? How much time is left for you?

I don’t know. I just don’t know.

Two days ago, Williams left, taking the batch of product with him. We sent mail for him to carry, letters to friends out east, and cash payments to the dampener supplier I owe on credit, and our yearly tax to the Carolina State authority for the land. Williams is an honest broker. He’ll make sure the writ gets to the collector’s office on our behalf in Raleigh, and to the dampener supplier he’s connected us with.

The boys and I take the rest of the weekend off and rest. On Monday, we get back to work in the fields, and the day turns sweltering. A humidity that clings to every inch of your body. We take more breaks than I would like, barely clearing the last third of the field that is left. The late afternoon sun hangs over us, oppressive in its strength.

“Okay, boys, that’s enough for the day,” I say.

The boys fall into the grass, grateful.

“Can we go down to the creek to cool down, take a dip?” Cade asks.

I bristle at this, but I weigh it.

“Don’t cross the banks. Don’t cross over towards the line. Do you understand?”

Cade is already up and heading towards the creek that intersects near the border of the farm. I call to him.

“Take Paul and Chance with you. Be back in an hour!”

Cade doesn’t stop walking, but whistles and waves his brother on.

Paul is up and following, and I hear myself call to him.

“Watch your brother, Paul.”

“I will,” he replies.

The boys have left me behind, and I get to the business of putting the baling tools back in the shed. As I put up the scythe and the press, I glance at the jute rug that lies on the floor of the shed. I roll it up, revealing a hatch.

In the darkness of the hidden root cellar, I light the lone oil lamp hanging and inspect the hidden cache of food and supplies. Stacks of Sandy’s canning lines the walls down here, dusty beneath the shed, but stacked high. Four bunk beds line the other wall, made of rough-hewn lumber. The space is small and tight, but enough. Enough if…

I bury the thought and look under the first bunk. Below is a double-rack-mounted dampener, hidden within the design of the humble furniture I’ve built. My fingers dance on the controls, inspecting the charge. A discrete blue glow emanates from the device, indicating the contents of the salt battery. The charge has diminished over the years, but there is enough there for a year of low radius dampening, covering the shed, and some of the yard. An emergency fail-safe, and more than most could dream of.

Enough for us to turtle up if it comes to that.

I stand there in the gloom, my mind calculating dire facts and figures. Planning for the worst days that have yet to come, and I hear Chance barking.

And then an explosion.

I am up and out of the shed and running, my heart in my throat. My rifle in tow, my eyes wide in a bleary panic.

A column of black smoke rises to the west. Towards the creek. God no.

I’m sprinting now, and I hear Sandy scream from the house at me.

“John?!”

I don’t have time to turn back towards her. “Get to the shed!”

I’m running, and I see Paul running up the hill towards me, half naked, his eyes wet and red with sobbing.

I’m down on my knees, “What happened?!”

Paul stares at me and screams, his voice four octaves louder than it should be, “I…I…”

He can’t hear.

“Where is Cade!” I scream at him.

Paul points, and I’m off, my feet churning down the hill.

“Get to the shed!” I scream back, but I doubt Paul can hear me.

I make my way to the bank and find Chance, barking, his back arched high, teeth bared. The dog guards Cade, who lies on the ground, twenty feet from the eastern side of the bank of the creek. I run towards him, my eyes flitting over his body, and then back to the western side of the bank, where I know the line runs.

I turn back to Cade, fearing the worst. He lies on his back, his face up to the hot, bright sun, not breathing. I put my lips on his and blow.

“Come on, Cade. Come on.”

I go away, my body finding the rhythm, breathing, and hammering my arms down on my son’s chest.

“Come on, Cade. Come on.”

Seconds go by like years, and then he seizes up in coughing.

“Talk to me, Cade. Talk to me!” Tears well in my eyes, and my body begins to shake.

The boy coughs, and he takes a breath in. “Dad…”

“Get up, to the shed, we have to get to the shed.”

“The line,” he croaks. He sits up, pointing.

I throw my gaze to the western bank of the running creek, trying to dissect the colors and shapes that blur across my brain. Then I look to Chance, who has stood sentinel this whole time. I follow the dog’s gaze. At first, all I can see is the column of smoke rising high in the air, dispersing in the wind. And then I see it. Lying strewn across the bank are the remains of a woman, the explosion of the mine blast cleaving her body and tossing both parts like a rag doll. Her naked torso lies across the banks, and she faces me.

Why is she naked?

The hairs on my neck stand up as I look at her, allowing my panic to slow and focus. There is no gore where her body was blown in two. No gore that is associated with human beings.

Shit.

Before I can say a word to Cade, the drone surges with new life, its eyes flicker open and flash with a bright red glow. She screams in a guttural bellow, clawing at the rocky ground with her arms, propelling her broken remains closer to me.

The first bullet grazes her head, but the second collides and ricochets within whatever skull drones bear, and falls dead on the sand.

I don’t let my rifle fall for a long time.

“Dad,” I hear Cade speak over the ringing of my ears. “She came to the edge. She was…”

I slowly lower the rifle and look at him. “She was naked, wasn’t she?”

Cade can’t speak, his tears falling from his face, ashamed.

“I thought she was…”

I pull him in, and he sobs.

“You’re okay, son. You’re okay. That’s all that matters. You didn’t do anything wrong.”

“She came to me like that. Like a girl…and she was…”

I pull him in and lock my eyes on him. “Listen to me. It was a scout, Cade. A scout. They come like wolves in sheep’s clothing. They come wanting you to lower your guard. Understand?”

He nods his head.

“Now, listen. I need you to take Chance and get your mom and brother under the shed. I don’t know what is coming, but we need to prepare for the worst. Do you understand?”

Cade rubs his eyes and nods his head, “Yes, sir.”

“Go now.”

I watch as Cade and Chance run up back to the hill, towards the shed. I can see Sandy running towards us from a distance. This will be the last moment I have to get my thoughts together on what we should do next. I take in a breath and run through the data, and my brain snaps on something I could not have guessed.

Coyotes. I think back to my grandfather, who told me how coyotes would pick off dogs when he grew up on this same farm. His voice echoes across time.

“The pack would send out a scout, a playful little mongrel, to play with the guard dog. That play session would go on for hours, with the dog never noticing that, slowly and slowly, it was being led further and further away from the house. Then, when it was led out far enough, the pack would descend on the dog and feast.”

Sandy is in front of me, carrying a shotgun, her face full of questions. “What is happening, John?”

“We have to hunker down, Sandy. Amity Scout came for our boys, tested the line. More will be coming, but I don’t know how long we have.”

Another mine explodes to the south of the property, and then another to the north, and our conversation is cut short.

Underneath the shed in the bunker, we wait in the dim light of a single lightbulb. When the power is cut, we shift to an oil lamp. Throughout the night, we hear mine after mine explode; the ground we are surrounded by is full of rolling, rumbling, shaking. It’s a cold consolation to know that the line is thinning out the drones above us. Is it enough to hold them back completely?

Not by the sounds of it.

At least, we are all accounted for. The two dogs, Sandy, and the boys. I think about what could have happened to Cade and I…

Don’t think about that.

I sit closest to the hatch, gripping my twelve-gauge shotgun, staring at the one opening. The dampener emits its low hum, buying us whatever the charge on the

salt battery can provide. A month? Two months? A year?

I don’t know.

The boys lie on their bunks, and Sandy in the small chair, reading from the Bible.

“The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.”

As Sandy reads the psalm, my mind wanders. There are many things that I still want. I want my boys to have more than I have had. To know the joys of life, of family, and the taste of what it means to be safe.

Do they not have that now? A voice challenges me.

I look at them and see their eyes heavy with near-sleep. Even now, hidden in the ground like paupers, they are safe. Perhaps it is good enough.

“Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me. Your rod and your staff, they comfort me.”

A ripcord of explosions goes off, a string of them. This time from the east, and I imagine a push of drones trying to clear the lines. The dogs start to growl, and I worry their barks may be the difference between us surviving this or not. Before I say anything, Paul is on the ground with them both, holding them, soothing their fears.

He’s so good with them.

“You prepare a table for me in the presence of my enemies, you anoint my head with oil, and my cup overflows.”

The door of the shed, whiny and loud by design, flies open, and I turn to Sandy, motioning with my eyes for her to be silent.

They are above us.

“Keep the dogs quiet, Paul,” I whisper. “Cade, turn up the dampener. Now.”

My family obeys while Sandy issues a silent prayer on her knees.

I release the safety of the shotgun and hoist it up to the hatch door.

Whatever happens next, you will protect your family. You will do whatever it takes. You go down fighting them back.

A voice calls out. “John Fraklin?”

It sounds precisely like Brad Williams.

I see Cade’s smile erupt on his face, but I point at him, commanding his silence. Paul stares with me, already suspecting the worst.

“Franklin family, are you here?!”

We stay silent. We wait.

“The Simuls are here. They’ve fought back Amity. We’ve got mobile dampeners on your property, but we need your help mapping your lines, John.”

I feel Sandy’s eyes on me. I look.

She mouths, “What if it’s true?”

I think about the naked coyote girl on the shores of the creek. I think about how advanced Amity is now. Williams left two days ago. It could be him, but that would mean…

“John, the front lines have all changed. On my way to the river the Simuls were in retreat. I told them to come here. Please, I know you’re armed. I know you’re down underneath that hatch with that dampener. I’ll prove to you that I’m not Amity.”

“How!?” I scream, testing the voice.

Brad speaks, “I’ll cut my finger, just like before,” he assures me.

Sandy looks at me, then the boys.

Slowly, I wind my way up, unlocking the hatch. I extend my shotgun out first, directly at Brad William’s face. I peer through the slit, the barrel of my shotgun locked on his teeth.

“Show me,” I bark. My body is vibrating with fear.

The figure looks exactly as Brad did only two days ago, and he extends his hand out. I watch as he flicks out a blade and pierces his right index finger. I watch as a red bead of blood peeks out between the broken skin, and watch as this figure smiles at me.

I look for the middle finger, desperate for signs of a previous wound. The light is dim, and I strain my eyes to find the mark. His middle finger is clear. No cut. No bandage.

I don’t hesitate, hammering down on the trigger. The doppelganger flies back out of the shed, and I watch as sparks and inorganic innards erupt around me in the light of the barrel flash. Columns of others stand outside the shed doorway, a platoon of Amity drones, waiting to fish us out, to clear us from our lands.

I drop beneath the hatch and lock it behind me.

“Turn up the dampener,” I command, my heart in my chest. “We are going to be here a long time.”

My family looks at me, their faces pale and stricken in the dim light. Then Sandy speaks, “As long as it takes.”

She grabs my boy’s hands, and they reach out to mine. “As long as it takes,” they repeat.

I nod my head, “As long as it takes.”

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