whoop from the girl as she wriggled out of
his grasp. She began to pull him down the ramp by the
hand.
Lane watched all this with curious,
intelligent eyes.
“ Wait. Let me get my
things.” He was pointing over his shoulder with his thumb. She
stopped tugging, understanding his meaning. She hesitated for only
a moment, then ran ahead of him into the pod.
She whistled and Lane
trotted right in. Adams saw them both disappear into the bathroom, but only Wynn came right out. She started to put protein bars
from the kitchen in a small brown satchel she had with her now,
under her cloak.
Adams walked in to get his
gear and walked past
the bathroom to see Lane drinking
thirstily from the toilet.
Shaking his head, he got
his tactical vest and pack from a locker and put them on, then
retrieved his suppressed AR. Absently he checked his holster for
his Glock. It was there and secured. He didn’t remember recovering it.
Two minutes later they were down the
ramp and away.
He had missed her voice, even if he
could not understand her words. It reminded him of
birdsong.
***
Adams realized two hours later, as
they crossed an area that was still green, that they were on an
actual path, moving north. Not quite a road, though Wynn could
follow it, even in the most heavily burned areas.
His gear included a Fly, a small
surveillance drone that was integrated with his Heads Up Display.
It patrolled around them and could function as a secure comm relay
to the pod and Box. The Fly revealed on an elevated survey that the
strip of land they were on was about a kilometer across with lakes
on each side.
It was burned
almost entirely flat.
After the third hour, they had been climbing up toward a ridge, elevation
increasing. It was very steep and Adams looked up at it with the
expression of someone that doesn’t like to climb.
Lane ran ahead.
Everything here was burned to cinders.
Winds from behind them would have blown the fire up the hills all
the faster. The rain had since washed the ash away, and the path
was passable and easy to see.
Walking now among large
broken boulders, he became wary. This was the
perfect place for a trap. The rocks were all taller than his head,
cutting off his line of sight.
Box whispered in his
mind. Tony, something isn’t right. Lane
has disappeared. It has gotten too quiet. Even the birds have
hushed here.
Adams ordered the Fly to
be returned and follow them from above. A small window opened in
his HUD, showing the Fly’s point of view. It was rapidly descending
and coming up
on them from the rear.
It was almost too late.
Were it not for the Fly, Adams would
have mistaken the new Telis Raptor for Wynn’s pet, Lane. But Lane
could be identified from above, on the path ahead, facing off with
a larger Telis. Lane was easy to identify from the asymmetrical
scorching of his mane.
Adams activated automated
targeting and red flagged eight of the beasts crouched in the
boulders around them. He manually changed Wynn and then Lane to the
designation ‘ Friendly’ just as the first Telis attacked.
With the ease of practice, he brought his rifle to bear. He fired and was on to the next
target before the first beast’s dead body had even crashed to
the ground
mid- lunge.
“ Run!” he called to Wynn.
She didn’t question or hesitate. She ran. It only took a few
moments before they were standing behind Lane. Tony’s rifle barked
and cycled. The huge Telis facing Lane fell with a bullet through
the eye into its brain.
On his HUD, he could
see them coming from behind like the flood from a broken dam. He
turned and his gun began dropping them as he slowly walked backward . The beasts kept on coming, right over the bodies of their
pack mates. Eleven of them lay dead, nearly choking the path
between the rocks.
Then he was hit.
There had been an overhang
in the rocks that concealed a Telis directly to his left. As he was
backing up the path, the beast had struck him hard on
his left forearm with its cruel
Inc The Staff of Entrepreneur Media