Echoes Through the Mountains

Liz Boysha

Published by Liz Boysha, 2026.

This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.

ECHOES THROUGH THE MOUNTAINS

First edition. February 28, 2026.

Copyright © 2026 Liz Boysha.

ISBN: 979-8233500534

Written by Liz Boysha.

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

​Raine

​Chapter 1

I have my shot lined up, my breathing tamed, my heartbeat paused, finger ready to squeeze the trigger when I am suddenly, startlingly interrupted by a voice from somewhere behind me.

“Is that a real gun?” High and shrill and childish, sharp and abrasive in what should have been the absolute silence of the old wild west.

There are no children, here. There is very little here at all.

I hunt alone.

I do not jump or mistakenly fire the gun – which is an old muzzle-loading flintlock with an iron pipe to replace the barrel – because that would be an amateur mistake and I am the best shot on the West Slope, if anyone’s still counting, which I’m pretty sure they’re not. I wait a few seconds longer than intended, realigning the trajectory, pausing until it is almost too late. I am always sure of my shot before firing.

Fzzt... POP. A handful of lead balls fly out the end of the barrel, hitting my target in a perfect spray. I hold my breath as it falls to the ground, releasing it only when I am certain there will be no fiery explosion.

Then I whirl around, zeroing in on the interrupter: a figure crouched in the sagebrush several yards away. “What the actual fuck?” I spit, “Who do you think you are?”

It is a child, tiny and androgynous and of indeterminate age. They straighten and stand tall, as tall as they can when they barely come up to my sternum. Their hair is dirty and matted, nearly the same tan color as their skin, or perhaps just covered in the same sand coating the near-desert around us. They are clothed in oversize denim and a red plaid flannel, carrying an enormous camping bag that dwarfs their tiny frame.

“Did you kill it?” they demand, piercing me with cold, stone grey eyes.

Pssh. “It’s a drone, you fool,” I scoff, “It was never alive.” I wipe off the flashpan and sling the overlong weapon on my back and hesitate. I need to get rid of the kid before tracking down the spot where the drone fell. Speaking of, “Who the hell are you?”

The kid’s eyes narrow. “Sparrow.”

“Like, the bird?” They nod. “Sparrow the girl, or Sparrow the boy?” I ask.

“Sparrow the bird,” they reply stubbornly. “What’s your name?”

Instead of answering, I ask, “Where the fuck did you come from?” Some of the things I pride myself on: tracking, hunting, shooting drones. Not being caught off-guard by a tiny, wiry kid in the middle of nowhere.

“My house.”

I groan; I don’t do kids. “Cool. Go back, now.” I also don’t do strangers; and it’s hard not to know everyone in the immediate area, at least their faces. There’s not a lot of us.

“I can’t.”

“And why, pray tell, is that?” I make sure my tone is extra irritated, exaggerating my exasperation.

“It burned down.”

I freeze and instinctively sniff at the air, which smells of sagebrush and dust but not even a hint of smoke. I scan the hills of drought-dry brush and grassland which roll behind the kid named Sparrow.

Fire is bad news out west.

“Where?” I demand.

Sparrow flinches. “Not here.” They point almost directly west. “I been walkin' for days.”

I nod warily. “What about your parents?” They shake their head. “That sucks. Keep walking.” I jerk my thumb east, towards town and away from me and my kill.

“I’m tired.” Sparrow’s voice is whiny and grates on my ear – the left one. The right one doesn’t hear much of anything, anymore, not since that rifle blew up in my hands.

“Sucks.”

“Do you have any food?”

“Not for you.”

“Water?”

“There’s a river. That way.” I nod towards the east again, more emphatically. Technically this is a lie; it would be a lot closer to head south, but that’s where my drone is laying with whatever goods it had been tasked with transporting across the mountains.

“What about that?” Sparrow points towards the canteen on my backpack, slumped on the ground at my feet. I bend down to pick it up.

“It’s mine.”

The kid pouts, lips pale and chapped. “Please?” they whine.

I sigh excessively. “Come check out this drone I’ve bagged. Maybe you’ll get lucky.”

We crash through sagebrush and tall yellow grass that sends barbed, spear-like seeds into our clothing to reach the still whirring wreck of a drone. One propellor spins slowly and unevenly; two others were blown to pieces with buckshot, and the last is buried in the dirt. I walk right up to it and kick at the payload; no water, but a case of something resembling orange juice, as well as variety packs of instant oatmeal and grits, pancake mix, and a heavy plastic bottle of thick, sweet corn syrup.

I grin; it’s a good day.

“Woah.” Sparrow stares at the goods like it’s treasure but stands back, eyeing the gun on my back cautiously. Or maybe it’s the eight inch knife strapped to my belt. Either way, they make no effort to quench their thirst until I’ve tossed one of the bottles of juice at them.

Then they chug it down in ten seconds flat.

I shove another bottle and a whole box of grits in the kid’s hands, considering it a sacrifice for the chance to go home alone.

No luck. “What’s your name?” Sparrow chirps again.

“No,” I reply sternly.

“That’s a weird name.”

“Look, kid,” I growl, “I gave you drink. I gave you food. Fly along, now.” I flick my hands at them as if to push them away.

“I don’t got nowhere to go.”

“It’s a big world,” I gesture wildly, “Huge!”

“Where do you live?”

Another irritated growl rumbles down my throat. “No!”

They look up at me with wide, sad eyes. “Please?”

“Ten or so miles straight that way, there’s a town. Hundreds of houses, most of them empty. Pick one.”

“What if I pick the wrong one?”

“You already have.”

“Just one night?”

I know better than that; one night turns into two, turns into a week, turns into months. If you don’t wake up with a knife to your throat in the middle of the night. “How old are you?” I ask.

“Sixteen,” Sparrow replies confidently.

I bark out a laugh, and the kid flinches. “Come on. You’re, like, ten. If you’re gonna lie, at least be realistic.”

Their eyes narrow. “Fourteen.”

Eleven, I decide. Maybe twelve. Not even a teenager. Sparrow watches, still clinging to the box of grits, as I pack the rest of the goods into my backpack. I straighten and stretch, yawning casually. “What makes you think I have a home?”

“That backpack is too small.”

I nod slowly, reconsidering the kid before me; they are observant, I’ll give them that. “Where’d you say you were from?” I ask.

“I didn’t. Maybell.”

“Where the hell’s Maybell?” I ask, grinning. There is a sign in town, faded and worn but miraculously still legible, even after all these years, advertising a thirty mile bike race that used to be held annually, back when people still had a reason to be here. The sign reads, “Where the Hell’s Maybell?!”

Sparrow stares at me blankly, uncomprehending. They point again, almost directly west.

“Come here,” I say suddenly. They step closer, watching me suspiciously. “Come on, I don’t bite. You see that house, way down yonder?” I point towards a square white speck nestled among the brown brush in the hills several miles away, across a cracked and overgrown highway.

Sparrow stares at my finger, squinting. “That where you live?”

“Nope,” I spin and start stomping away. “But it’s probably empty.”

Sparrow follows along behind me, calmly and casually. I start off walking in random, lazy paths, trying to decide how best to lose them. Out here, you can see for miles, the landscape stretching out like a painting in front of you. If you squint at the specks of black in a distant field, you can count the goats’ horns.

“Is that where you live?” Sparrow asks, pointing towards a cluster of houses to the south, near the highway; of which only one was presently occupied, which we are entirely too close to for my comfort.

“No,” I say sternly, “That’s Mr. Ford. Stay away from him.” Sparrow gives me a small, knowing smirk, so I add, “You ask anyone else, they’ll tell you to stay away from me, too.”

The kid shrugs and keeps following me. I almost consider skipping past the cabin entirely and walking them straight to town, but it is already too late in the afternoon, and my backpack full of juice and breakfasts is heavy, straps biting into my shoulders. I would have to walk the ten miles back, too.

“Where are you actually headed, kid?”

“I'm lookin' for Echo.”

I start laughing again and Sparrow stands by, looking offended. “Echo? Like, Radio Echo?” I glance to the northeast, where Cedar Mountain is currently hidden by the lower hills. Back in the day, internet service providers maintained enormous transmission antenna up there to beam data straight to your house. Now it was just one guy with a radio station: 1320 kHz, run by some mysterious stranger named Echo. “Hate to break it to you, kid, but I’m pretty sure that station’s run by a bot.”

This lonely, dried out corner of Colorado wasn’t somewhere people stayed, not if they had a choice. The last gallon of gas in a hundred miles was won in a knife fight almost two decades ago. Not by the guys fighting, but by the lady with a 9mm handgun who shot them both, grabbed the red plastic jug, and ran.

My mother. She’s in a better place now, hopefully.

“Is not,” Sparrow protests. “Echo’s real. He talks to me.”

“Talks to you,” I repeat.

“Doot doot doot doot,” the kid chirps. “Doot doot doooooooot.”

“Are you having a stroke?”

“It’s Morse.”

“It’s annoying,” I scold, “Be quiet.” I stomp on, underbrush crackling beneath my feet. When we crest the next hill, Sparrow will see where I live, and despite all my reservations I have led them directly here.

Nestled in a valley, protected on three sides by hills but open to the south, sits a small log cabin. It is accompanied by a rundown barn that is nearly the same size, home to an elderly mule named Pauly, a handful of goats whose main purpose was to keep the land immediately surrounding the cabin free from tinder, and a squabble of chickens. Pauly was my childhood pet but the goats and chickens just kind of showed up one day. The goats don’t even reproduce; the herd is made up of four does and a wether.

“What’s a wether?” Sparrow has not stopped asking questions since they spotted the little cabin.

“He’s got no balls,” I grumble. Dragging them along to my home was bad enough; I cannot tolerate the interrogation.

“Where d’you get milk from?”

“Don’t drink it.” Once or twice I’ve shot down crates full of powdered milk, but I can't stand the taste, or the clumps. Fortunately, it's good for trading.

“What do you drink?”

“Water.”

“Do you have a well?”

“You sure are a nosy little one, aren’t you?” I sneer. “What’s up, planning on taking my home out from under me while I sleep? Someone out there waiting for your signal to raid?”

Sparrow blinks, looking confused. “I’m all alone,” they say quietly. Pathetically.

It could be a good act. Or it could be that this kid, this tiny, prepubescent little stick, is actually all alone out here in the wild, wild west.

I silently curse my father, whose hospitality was praised by all who came to enjoy it. “Don’t be unkind to the wanderers,” he would lecture me and my sister, Josie, when we’d giggle at the latest odd band of strangers that set up camp for the night in front of our fireplace. Something was always unusual about them: the way they looked, the way they talked, the way they smelled. “They deserve a break just as much as the rest of us.”

Wanderers, travelers, refugees. They brought with them all sorts of names and stories, but they were always the same in the end: people trying to escape the wild, hostile west. Its jagged, unforgiving slopes; predators with teeth longer than your fingers; climates marked by deadly cold winters and deadly hot summers, deadly dry winds and ever-burning deadly wildfires that produce their own deadly storms. Technically, here around Craig was just as hostile, but the creeping edges of western desertification had yet to consume this far east. There was something of a bubble in this valley, a pocket of polar climate that has kept the region relatively shielded from the most devastating effects of global warming.

For now.

Some wanderers leave in search of more hospitable climates. Others, like mother dearest, go chasing rumors of underground bunkers, climate controlled and air filtered. None ever had any intention of staying here.

Pauly lumbers up to us as we approach, giving the newcomer a sniff then chewing on a lock of their tangled hair. Sparrow giggles, unafraid of the ancient, swaybacked beast, and pats his nose. “Who are you?” they ask.

I trudge on; the mule can answer for himself. Sparrow’s footsteps fall a few meters behind me, quick and light. I stop at the coop where the chickens usually lay their eggs and grab the two sitting there, brown and dusty looking. Across the lawn to a covered porch with two old Adirondack chairs, each one missing a slat or two. Through the front door; unlocked, always. I don't have a key. Inside is a square, open room with a loft overhead, accessible by a narrow, spiraling staircase to the right. A wood stove sits in the back for heating and cooking. I unpack the breakfasts and juice bottles onto a metal shelf nearby. The less appetizing stuff tends to go into the cellar below for longterm storage, alongside the vegetables and dried beans I get from my Acolyte neighbors in exchange for fabrics and textiles dropped by drone. I’m not much of a survivalist, but at least they are; and drone season is year-round.

Sparrow stands in the doorway, unwilling to step over the threshold until they are invited in.

“What’re you, some sort of vampire?” I ask.

They shrug. “You live here alone?”

“Yep.” No point in pretending otherwise, now that I’ve already let the devil in.

Sparrow’s eyes wander up the spiraling metal staircase.

“Nothing up there for you,” I interrupt, before they can ask. It’s just a bedroom with low, sloped ceilings and a double bed, but it’s mine. Not to mention I keep my gun up there, hanging on hooks next to my bed. “You can sleep on the couch.” I gesture towards an ancient, mouse eaten piece of furniture. It had been here when I found the place, long abandoned. “You’ll leave in the morning.”

Sparrow nods eagerly. They slump that enormous backpack off their narrow shoulders and place it gently on the floor next to the couch, digging through it to pull out a ratty grey blanket that they hug with a pleased look on their face.

The sight hits strangely, in a way I can’t quite point to.

“Wait,” I say suddenly, “I thought you said your house burned down.”

Sparrow gives me a puzzled look. “It did.”

“And you still had enough time to pack up your daddy’s camping gear? What else you got in there?”

The child hesitates and pulls the backpack closer. “This was in the treehouse.”

“Treehouse?” I repeat. I am reminded suddenly of a book I once read, about a kid who lived in a den beneath the roots of an enormous tree. Trees don’t tend to grow that big around here, or big enough to support platforms, generally. Maybe they did, once, but those trees were mowed down by settlers centuries ago.

“More like a deer stand,” Sparrow clarifies.

“When did this fire happen?”

“While ago.”

“Is it out now?”

They shrug their thin shoulders. “Guess so.”

“Where are your parents?”

“My daddy. I don’t have a mama.”

I give a long-suffering sigh. “Where’s your dad, then?”

Sparrow clamps their mouth shut, refusing to answer. They carefully zip the backpack closed and cling to it, eyeing me warily.

“This... Echo. Did he tell you to come out here?”

Sparrow pauses before answering. “Not exactly.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I have an odd flash, images of the wiry kid before me killing their father and burning their house down under the direction of a godlike voice from the sky.

“He said he needed help.”

“Help?” I snort, “From you?”

“From anyone. Everyone. Dododo. Doot doot doot. Dododo.” Sparrow bounces on the old couch as they chirp out the Morse.

“Stop that,” I command, and they do, sitting still as they look around the small, barren space.

“Do you have a radio?”

My radio is a solar powered digital thing that can only be tuned to the nearest tens place. Sparrow switches irritably between 1310 (static) and 1320 (some insipid, ancient pop tune). All the other stations are the same empty static, ever since the robot that used to read out the weather conditions went down when I was a kid.

“It should be there somewhere,” they mutter, pushing the radio away from them so it almost skitters off the end of the table.

“Woah there!” I jerk to catch it before it crashes to the floor. “Maybe don’t break things when you’re a guest in someone’s home.”

Sparrow rolls their eyes and taps their fingers on the table. “Your radio is dumb,” they accuse.

“Excuse me?”

“Those buttons, that display? The radio at the...” they stop and hesitate, correcting themselves as they continue, “at home had a dial, and you could get to all the bands. Did you know that there are numbers between thirteen-ten and thirteen-twenty?”

I look down at them incredulously. “Well, if your radio at home is so great, why don’t you run along and go get it?”

Sparrow glares at me, their lips pressed thin. “The message is: ‘SOS, they are coming. Save the wild west.’”

“Uh huh.”

“We used to talk,” they assure me. “Echo lives up on a mountain and he owns every movie ever made.”

“Uhh huhh,” I say again, more slowly this time.

“But last week, he stopped. Now it’s just that message, on repeat.”

Something twists inside my gut. Is this... pity? “Kid, I don’t think...”

“He’s real, okay?!” Sparrow jumps to their feet, and I involuntarily take a step back. “He’s real and he needs help!” Their voice squeaks as they shout.

“Not from kids,” I retort.

“From anyone. Everyone!” Sparrow’s eyes are alight with passion, their little bird chest heaving. “Come with me, you’ll see.”

“Okay, kid,” I raise my hands up, palms out, like I’m trying to calm a wild horse. “If you say so.”

“Tomorrow?”

The hairs on the back of my neck prickle. I clear my throat. “Sure. Yeah.”

Sparrow grins broadly, teeth oversized and crooked. “Good.” They nod and look around the cabin again. Couch, table, chairs, shelf of food, a bookcase, a closed door. “Where’s your outhouse?” they ask.

Ah. I have a bathroom, the height of modern luxury – semi-functional indoor plumbing. “Behind that door. Use the bucket to flush.” The cabin has a septic tank that is decades away from its last pumping, in an unknown state of disrepair. I try not to think about it.

Sparrow nods but does not move. “Where d'you get water from?”

A manual pump between the house and barn. I show Sparrow how it works, filling up two heavy metal five-gallon buckets. The kid holds one with both hands, arms strained and trembling, sloshing with each wide, waddling step.

“Careful, kid,” I scold, “haven’t you noticed we’re in a drought?”

Sparrow takes another step, and more water sloshes out onto one oversize boot. I have to refrain from intervening and grabbing the bucket for myself.

Inside, I build a small fire in the stove with kindling. These late fall days are warm, but temperatures plummet overnight, so I reserve my cooking for the cooler hours. This evening I boil water for two packets of instant noodles, which come in bulk with powdered soup base and dehydrated vegetables. I once shot down a drone with an entire crate full of them. I’d had to drag Pauly out to help me carry them home; I’ll probably still have some when I die. They don’t seem to go bad.

Sparrow seems to like it just fine, loudly slurping up the noodles. “I’ve never had this flavor before,” they chirp.

“I’ll trade you a dozen of ‘em for a moment of silence,” I offer. I am starting to get a headache from the kid and their constant presence, their constant chatter. I like to be alone. I was always flabbergasted as a child, the way my father and sister would delight in the company of others – of strangers! – while I felt drained just from introductions.

“Come, listen to their stories,” father would implore. “You can only get smarter by hearing more tales.”

I preferred to read – it was a lot quieter. I would hide away in the room I shared with Josie and press the pillow into my ears in attempt to drown out the chatter from below.

Sparrow, it turns out, doesn’t know how to read, a fact which makes no sense to me. “You know Morse code, but you can’t read?” I ask skeptically.

They roll their eyes, like it should be obvious. “I can spell. I can’t read.”

I blink a couple times, then thrust the book at them again. “Then spell out the words.” I’ve given them a graphic novel with plenty of pictures, so it shouldn't trouble them too much. They sit cross legged on their hard wooden chair, hunched over the pages, muttering, “doot do do doot” under their breath as they examine the dialogue.

Eventually, exhausted by the constant disruption, I give up on trying to read my own book and fold down the corner of the page, placing it on the table in front of me. I watch Sparrow for a minute or so before making a loud, dramatic yawn.

“Bedtime, then?”

Sparrow tilts their head at me curiously. “But the sun has only just set.”

“I don’t like to waste electricity.” I reach for the lantern sitting on the table between us, which is solar charged, making my argument moot.

Sparrow moves to grab it but stops abruptly. “Leave it... Please? I’m scared of the dark.”

“I just said...” I trail off, watching their expression: eyes wide, jaw tense, lower lip quivering. “Fine, keep it.” I stand and walk through the darkness to piss in the bathroom, then climb the spiraling staircase into my room. Laying in my bed, I listen to the sounds below: the child shifts around on the couch, walks to the bucket for a drink, returns to the couch, moves around some more on the springy, creaky furniture; then, finally, the cabin is quiet.

​Chapter 2

I wake to the sound of music.

My knife is in my hand, heart racing, and I am on my feet next to my bed before I remember that I invited a guest into my home last night.

My home.

The cabin I live in now is not terribly different from the one I grew up in; just smaller, more isolated. My childhood home, Bartlett Ranch, was originally a cattle ranch. It was converted to a bed and breakfast by my father's father, the hay shed built into a gathering space for weddings and family reunions. By the time I was born, it had half fallen over, and the B&B had officially shut down.

Unofficially, though, the doors were always open. My father, Basil Bartlett, always had a roast, or soup, or stew brewing in a cast iron pot on the fire, ready for road-weary guests. My sister, Josie, would bake bread and cookies and flirt with the young men who swept through. Crowds came and went, and I kept to myself in my room with my books and my silence.

Now that cabin is a pile of ash by the highway, a road almost entirely untraveled, and I live alone, far away from anyone. There may be a reason why I decided to let the weird little Sparrow stay. Some sad tugging of the heartstrings, a shared connection of tragic backstories.

Too bad I don’t believe the kid for a second.

“Feeling chipper this morning?” I ask as I descend the spiral stairs. They do not respond; they probably don't even hear me. Louder than necessary, I shout, “Turn that down!”

Sparrow complies, turning the volume down almost imperceptibly. They continue dancing, an odd, energetic one-child-show that vaguely corresponds with the beat of whatever ancient tune Radio Echo has decided to share with the world. Or, at least a thirty mile radius. That Sparrow could get the signal all the way out in Maybell is surprising, but admittedly I don’t really know how radios work. Mine came with the cabin; it is meant for emergency weather alerts, but those don’t exist anymore.

The weather does: violent windstorms, blizzards that choke the sky with snow, dry lightning that sparks dozens of little brush fires in a night. You’re just expected to figure out when and where it’s going to happen by yourself. In the last few years of living on my own – of having nothing better to do than stare at the sky and the rolling hills, the distant mountains, the winding river below – I have gotten okay at it.

The fire I built last night is still embers in the stove in the morning, keeping warm a pot of coffee that has been simmering all night. Cowboy’s coffee, my father called it: whole beans simmered slow and steady to keep the brew from getting too bitter. Keep it on overnight and you get a sort of thick, caffeinated sludge in the morning that can be diluted with sugar and cold water.

I press the mute button on the radio, and the cabin fills with blissful silence. “You drink coffee, kid?” I ask.

Sparrow nods eagerly and I regret offering it – they do not need more energy this morning, especially not after the copious amounts of sugar they stir into it to make it palatable. They bounce and jitter and chat until finally I relent and turn the radio back on in exchange for some semblance of peace while I make breakfast. Eggs and grits, from the box I gave to Sparrow. I'm not feeling too generous. We eat on the porch and I watch the sky: clear blue this morning, but with fat fluffy clouds building over the mountains to the south.

“Storm later,” I remark.

Sparrow looks around skeptically. “How far is it to Echo’s mountain?” they ask.

“Cedar Mountain,” I correct, though that name feels wrong too. “I dunno.”

This is a lie; my father’s cabin used to have an enormous map of the entire county plastered to one hallway wall. Cedar Mountain is about as far away as town, give or take a couple miles, but to the northeast instead of directly east. I do not divulge this information, because I am increasingly uncomfortable with the idea of climbing a mountain in search of some weirdo with a radio. And increasingly uncomfortable with the circumstances of the kid’s arrival in the first place. My initial fear, that I’d be raided overnight, did not come to pass... yet.

“So, Sparrow,” I try, “about your dad...”

“I don’t wanna talk about it.”

“I’m sure you don’t,” I agree, “but I need to know what happened.”

Sparrow rolls their eyes. “Why?”

“Uhm, well,” I stammer, “You’re asking for help. I can’t help you if you don’t tell me the truth.” The kid frowns, saying nothing. “I, uhm, also lost my father, I-”

Sparrow interrupts, saving me from having to figure out what to say next. “My daddy's not dead,” they say, sounding almost condescending.

“Okay, then, he’s probably worried. Looking for you.”

A scoff. “He can look all he wants. I’ll never let him find me.”

Uh huh. I manage to keep my thoughts to myself; good thing I’m out of practice when it comes to talking. I stare a few seconds too long at the strange, possibly pyromaniacal kid in front of me. They start jumping around again, hyperactive and irritable under my gaze.

“When are we going to the mountain?” Sparrow demands.

“We aren’t going anywhere,” I growl. “I said you could spend the night. You have enjoyed my hospitality. I never agreed to climb a mountain with you, chasing after some imaginary friend.” Another lie; technically I did agree to it last night, if only just to get the kid to chill.

Sparrow’s face drops. From inside, the voice itself rings out, and they race in to listen.

“Goooood morning, good morning, good morning friends, comrades, all creatures great and small! It is a beautiful blue day here in northwest Colorado, let me tell you...”

I don’t listen to the radio much, but Echo’s voice has always had a tinge of the robotic to it. Maybe that’s just an effect from the radio modulation, but it sounds to me like a more advanced version of the weather bot that used to read the current weather conditions. Sparrow listens attentively, fingers tapping as Echo describes seeing a moose and her calf walking through the pines outside.

“Aren’t moose, like, extinct?” I mutter. I've only ever seen mule deer, named for their enormous ears, and it seems like even their numbers are dropping. The legendary elk are more of a myth, now. Were there ever moose around here?

“Shhh!” Sparrow scolds. “They ain't, and that ain't the point.”

Echo’s tinny voice continues, uninterrupted. “Well, I’m sure you’ve heard enough from me, folks, so I’ll take you back to the tunes after this important riddle: The peasant sees it often, the King so very rarely, and God never at all.”

Sparrow sighs and lowers the volume when the music starts playing. “Moose,” they whisper softly, airily.

“I don’t think that’s the answer,” I reply thoughtfully, and they scowl.

“The riddle is 'an equal,' obviously,” they explain slowly, as if I’m dumb. “The moose was a code.”

“A code,” I repeat.

“You wouldn’t understand,” Sparrow grumbles.

“Because there’s nothing to understand! That was just a generic story about living on a mountain. Nothing special!” I feel like I’m losing my mind to a child.

“This is the first time he’s actually spoken on air in weeks!”

I have no idea if this is true. The kid has no idea if this is true, unless they've been listening to the waves while walking. “It’s not even a real voice,” I try.

“Okay.” Sparrow retreats to the couch and neatly rolls up the woolen blanket, stuffing it into their backpack.

“Wait a second, Sparrow,” I try to stop them, but they ignore me, brushing past to the still open front door. “You can’t just meet up with some guy on a mountain...”

“I don’t need your help,” the kid says flatly, “thank you for your hospitality.” They over-annunciate the word, a kid trying out new vocabulary.

I groan and watch them walk away from my house in the wrong direction. They trudge past the grazing goats and pecking chickens, give old Pauly a pat on the nose. “Ugh,” I groan to myself; then I call out, “Wait a sec!”

Sparrow pauses and pets the mule for a few minutes longer while I grab my bag, an extra canteen, protein bars, and a first aid kit. I pull on boots over thick socks, tucking the loose ends of my cargo pants in to the neck of the ankle to keep out any nasty bugs, and track down a floppy sun hat. I grab my knife and hesitate before darting upstairs to grab my muzzleloader and a handful of paper-wrapped shots with powder.

I never leave home without my gun. It was once my father’s, who gave it to me when I was not much taller than it. I had to relearn how to shoot with its absurd length, the finicky workings of its lock mechanism, figure out the right way to chip at a flint so it fits right and spills out its sparks to catch the powder in the pan. My first gun was a bolt action Remington, but modern ammo was finite, in high-demand, and by now long gone. So is the Remington – stolen. The farm store in town – abandoned and mostly cleared of anything useful – still has a lifetime supply of black powder and lead balls in stock, and that’s after I took everything I could carry.

The flintlock is slightly shorter, now, than it was when I received it for my tenth birthday. I had to replace the barrel with a piece of pipe several years ago, after the original blew up in my hands; a heart-stopping explosion that I managed to survive with little more than a black eye and some powder burns on my cheekbone. Even now my right ear is almost completely useless, my vision a little blurry in that eye.

“Will they be okay alone?” Sparrow asks as we walk together away from the barn, this time pointed in the right direction.

“Yeah, sure.” I twist my neck to look back at the calmly grazing mule. I don’t usually leave the animals alone for longer than an afternoon spent hunting drones, but they also don’t pay much attention to me when I am around. Unless I happen to have something appetizing in hand. “It’s not like I feed them or anything.”

Like a honey bee, I am intimately familiar with the land immediately surrounding my cabin; less so as we hike further away, the low sloping hills turning rocky and steep. I know the major roads and landmarks from the map, but not how they translate to the real world. The easiest way up Cedar Mountain on paper was also the longest; we would have to go along Highway 40 all the way to Craig, north up 7, doubling back west a bit. Overall maybe quadrupling the distance, but providing relatively smooth, graded roads; wherever they weren’t washed out by landslides, that is. 40 had at least three, which partly informs the lack of traffic through town.

Instead, I lead Sparrow through old rangeland on a slightly more direct route, deviating only to skirt around the steeper hills. We crunch through the underbrush loudly and carelessly. The plants here are all hostile: sagebrush rough and scratching, primed to ignite; needlegrass with its barbed seeds; half a dozen different, unrelated plants that I just call ‘prickly bastards’; low layers of round, flat cactuses with thick barbed spines. Sparrow yelps when they tread on one, hopping up and down on their other foot. One long needle stabs through the sole of their boot.

“Watch where you step,” I suggest, digging the needle out of the rubber with my knife. It was just barely long enough to poke through, the barbed tip leaving a tiny red spot on Sparrow’s foot. They inspect it, pouting, strings of greasy hair falling in their face. I toss the boot at them, and it lands in their lap with a thump. “Don’t get all soft on me, now. We’re not even halfway there.”

Cedar Mountain is hardly a mountain, rising just 7,536 feet above sea level; only about 500 feet higher than my cabin. Unfortunately the rolling foothills mean a lot of up and down beforehand, and after a few hours of hiking through thick brush Sparrow looks exhausted by the time they reach the base of the mountain. Their face is red and they have gone oddly silent for such a typically inquisitive kid.

“Want to take a break?” I suggest, and they nod, looking relieved. We sit together on a flat boulder dotted with lichen, which Sparrow examines closely as I pull out snacks from my backpack.

“Thank you.” The kid delicately takes one of the protein bars and waits until I am eating before opening it. A magpie, noticing us, chirps and flies in lazy circles above. Sparrow watches it, returning its wock-WOCK in an almost perfect imitation.

“I wish I had my radio,” they remark. “Do you think it gets louder, the closer you are?” Even from down here a tall antenna is visible against the darkening sky. The clouds I noticed earlier are rolling in, carried by a wind that whips my auburn hair around my head. I tie it back with a piece of shoelace while Sparrow looks on with mild interest; their own hair is greasy and unruly, matted and tangled. No combing that out, it needs cut. I cut my own hair each spring by pulling it back into a ponytail and hacking it away with a pair of fabric scissors. I toss the strands into the wind for the birds to weave into their nests.

Wock WOCK. The magpie swoops down and lands on the spindly branches of an aspen tree nearby. Sparrow smiles brightly and begins a low, croaking conversation with it. Cawing, cooing, even an odd clicking noise emerges from the back of their throat, and the bird responds in kind.

Loudly.

“Should’ve named you Mockingbird,” I mutter irritably, but the kid beams like it was a compliment.

“I really like birds,” the kid named Sparrow remarks. “Sparrows, finches, robins, crows, starlings, magpies, grackles...”

I try to tune them out and look warily towards the sky. The approaching grey clouds hang low and heavy with precipitation. “Hey, kid, we should get going. Don’t want to get caught in that.”

A fool’s last words. The climb is only a few hundred feet, but we follow something resembling a trail, narrow and overgrown, that switches back on itself several times. We have to stop to add more layers – a blanket for Sparrow, a sweater for me – and the storm comes on even quicker than I predicted. The wind nearing the treeline is violent and cold, spitting fat drops of rain at us.

“This is bad!” I have to shout to be heard, clutching my hat to my head and shivering as rain soaks into my clothes. “We need to find shelter!”

Sparrow has their blanket wrapped around their shoulders, the edges flapping around their ankles. A particularly violent gust knocks them off balance, and I have a vision of the kid flying away like a kite. We squeeze through a crevice; suddenly, a tall metal structure appears a few hundred feet in front of us. We have almost reached the peak.

“There it is!” Sparrow shouts, taking off like a spark.

A peculiar sense of foreboding washes over me. “Wait, don’t!” I shout, but they ignore me, if they heard me at all over this wind. A humming sound fillings my ears as I chase after them, catching up in just a few quick seconds. I grab their backpack and pull them down and away from the towering metal structure, scrambling and half-dragging them towards the sagebrush. Sparrow struggles against me and we both fall to the ground as a blinding flash lights up the air around us, followed by a skull shattering explosion of thunder. I feel it in my chest as much as see it; the antenna has been struck by lightning. The clouds rumble in continued aftershocks as we sit gasping, shellshocked, skin tingling under the pelting rain.

“Shelter, now,” I command, and we backtrack to find a low, overhanging boulder to crouch under just as another streak of lightning rings through the sky. “That was idiotic,” I gasp, trying to catch my breath. “You almost got us both killed.”

Sparrow just nods, watching the violent thunderstorm with wide eyes, irises swirling in the same chaotic shades of grey as the clouds above. The wind blows rain horizontally at us and I get soaked, at least until Sparrow notices and stretches out their wool blanket between us like a tarp. A few more rumbles of thunder vibrate the air around us; then the winds calm, the rain reduced to a light sprinkle. We sit quietly together for a while longer until Sparrow can’t take it anymore. They yank the blanket away and crumple it into a ball.

“Let’s go find Echo,” they say decisively.

“Sparrow...” I start, but they are already stomping away, gravel crunching under their feet. They do not return to the antenna – it was obvious there was nothing else up there – but make wide circles around it, eyes fixed on the ground as if searching for clues. I scan the clouds around us nervously. “Sparrow, I think we should go back.”

“No.”

“Come on, kid, there’s nothing here.”

Sparrow ignores me. They crouch to examine something in the gravel, then dart forward as if following an invisible trail. “This way,” they insist, leading me across the ridge and towards the other side, where a thick forest of pine trees conceals the valley beneath us. I follow along, feeling infinitely safer tucked away within the trees than exposed on the bare face of a mountain summit.

Sparrow leads us straight to a tiny shack, centered in a small clearing a few yards beyond the trees. “Told ya,” they say, sprinting on ahead to the building – once again ignoring my protests – and rapping their knuckles on the door.

No answer.

I walk around inspecting the small structure; it is made mostly of plywood, but the roof is lined with smooth, glittering solar panels. It is barely bigger than a shed, with branches stacked randomly on the outside in a poor attempt at camouflage. There are no windows, but a black orb on one corner makes the hairs on the back of my neck prickle, as though I am being watched. The door is also plywood, hanging roughly over the entrance, with a simple metal handle and no latch. It is labeled "Radio Shack" in sprawling, red spray-painted letters. Sparrow moves to pull it open, but I push against the plywood, holding the door shut.

“We’re not trespassing here,” I say firmly.

The alternative, evidently, is to wait indefinitely for the owner of the shack to show up. Sparrow stretches out their damp blanket over some pine branches; it flaps sloppily in the breeze, threatening to fly away in the bigger gusts. The aftermath of the storm is cold and sunless, and we huddle against the structure and share some trail mix as we wait for Echo.

“He said he saw a moose and her calf this morning,” Sparrow whispers, so quietly that I’m not sure I was meant to hear it. The comment makes my stomach squirm. I’m not your mother, I want to chide them. I don’t do kids. Something makes me bite my tongue: a rustling in the trees. It’s much too small to be a person – definitely too small to be a pair of moose – but something is flitting between the branches of a scraggly pine.

Sparrow whistles, and it whistles back: three clear notes, followed by an odd warbling.

“Where’d you learn to do that?” I ask. As annoying as the kid’s habit of imitating every sound they hear can be, it is also pretty impressive.

Sparrow frowns and squints at me. “Dunno. Where’d you learn to talk?”

As the sun starts to sink, grey sky bleeding with streaks of red before rapidly darkening, I finally relent; we need shelter, at least for the night, and there’s one right here behind us. I hold my rifle in front of me – uselessly, because it is not loaded and would take too long to prepare in an emergency – and use it to push open the loosely hanging plywood door. I step inside and am immediately blinded by overhead fixtures that blink on and fill the space with white light.

A voice rings out, harsh and robotic: “Trespassers will be destroyed in 3... 2... 1...”

​Chapter 3

Nothing happened.

That’s not entirely true; I threw myself and the kid away from the shack, tumbling out flat onto the dirt and grass, knocking the wind out of me. The plywood door slammed shut with a bang, then a series of smaller bounces. Sparrow gave me a bewildered look.

And nothing happened.

I scramble to my feet and stomp irritably towards the shack, throwing open the lightweight door. White light pours out into the clearing, and Sparrow blinks at the assault. Inside, it looks like something out of a science fiction novel, the kind with spaceships and replicators and overworked engineers who don’t have time for cable management. Wires dangle and loop around the ceiling, colorful and chaotic. Screens line a wall over a desk, with video feeds from the shack, the antenna, some locations I don’t recognize. I step inside, bracing against the loud, Trespassers will be destroyed, which I determine is coming from some sort of bizarre, robotic creature, like a cat or small dog, with a harmless red pointer laser strapped to its head.

Harmless, I assume. There’s no other sign of weaponry on its sleek, metallic body; unless something can pop out. I keep my gun pointed vaguely in its direction; the robot doesn’t know it’s not loaded. Two can play at that bluffing game.

“Aww,” Sparrow chirps from behind me, “You’re cute.”

Trespassers will be destroyed, the robot responds.

“We’re not trespassin',” the kid explains, fearlessly stepping closer so they can... pet it? Sparrow strokes the smooth exterior of the robot’s back. “I’m lookin' for Echo.”

Identify yourself.

“My name’s Sparrow, and this is, uhm...” They look up, squinting at me, but I shake my head.

Identify yourself.

Down on my chest, a tiny red dot jitters around my heart. “Raine,” I say bluntly.

The dot disappears; the robot’s focus returns to Sparrow. State your purpose.

The kid gives the robot a sweet, impish smile. “I’m responding to your SOS,” they say. “We’re here to save the moose.”

The robot takes a few jerky steps backwards. Disarm yourself, it instructs.

I shake my head again, and the red dot reappears on my chest.

Disarm yourself.

“No way.”

You will be destroyed.

“Father always said keep your guns close,” I mutter vaguely, staring down the robot. I think, anyway; hard to tell where its sensors are meant to be.

“Raine!” My name – in the kid’s high, airy voice – startles me. “It’s not even loaded!” Sparrow pleads with the robot.

I growl. “Goddamn it, kid, I-”

Disarm yourself.

I sigh and prop the gun up against the wall, then stomp past the robot and the kid crouched next to it to examine the monitors on the wall. It is dark outside, the feeds in grainy black and white. The screens are labeled; in addition to ‘antenna’ and ‘radio shack’ there’s ‘RV’ and ‘garden.’ A fifth monitor displays weather data: Temperature (5°C); humidity (85%); wind speed (7 m/s) and direction (constantly changing in the storm). The sixth screen is blank, or off. I reach out to touch the power button, but am distracted by movement on the feed from outside.

Someone is approaching.

“It’s Echo!” Sparrow yells from behind, and I cringe; I’m really tired of that kid leering over my shoulder. Before I can stop them, Sparrow has crashed outside to greet the mysterious, shadowy figure. I rush out to join them.

“Echo!” Sparrow sings as they race through the dim dusk, tackling the newcomer into a hug.

“Oh, um, hi?” The stranger, whoever she is, sounds nothing like Radio Echo; her voice is high and feminine, no hint of robotic artificiality. She stands awkwardly in the darkness, arms raised as though to avoid touching the child wrapped around her waist.

“It’s me, Sparrow!”

“Sparrow,” Echo repeats, still sounding confused.

“Dododo dodootdootdo dodootdo doot doot doot, remember?” Their voice is muffled, their face pressed against her stomach. “We’re here to help.”

I clock the stranger’s bewildered look and gently tug Sparrow away from her. “Look, kid, I don’t think –”

“S-P-R-O,” Echo says, softer. “I thought you were older.” She glances up at me, now looking embarrassed. “I think there’s been a mistake. Let me make some tea and we can clear this up.”

Echo leads up back into the shack, where the robot says, Welcome home! and prances around on stiff, mechanical limbs. She sheds a dark cloak and drops an odd, half pair of glasses on the desk with all the computers before turning to face us. Outside, it was too dark to see her in any detail, but now I can get a good look. Her short, curly hair is a deep, shocking purple, so dark it is almost black. She is tall and lean, with warm brown eyes and abnormally pale skin, like she never sees the sun. Under the harsh white light inside, her features – especially the hair – are startling, and I feel disarmed by her gaze.

Or maybe that’s just me being disarmed, my gun propped up uselessly behind me, and the robodog watching me cautiously.

After a moment of tense silence, Echo gestures towards a table – piled high with junk and electronics parts – which has only two chairs. “Please, sit.”

I sit stiffly, watching Echo make the promised tea. It’s Sparrow who breaks the ice, asking the question I had been too nervous to voice:

“I thought you were a boy.”

“Um, yeah,” Echo says distractedly, flipping through drawers and cabinets in search of enough mugs for everyone. The kitchen in this shack consists of a short, cluttered countertop, some wobbly, mismatched cabinets, and an electric kettle that is beginning to steam with water of unknown source that I am suddenly wary of drinking.

The amount of electricity used in this shack is insane, I think. I wonder how Echo got it all up here; in pieces, or all at once?

Echo continues, “It’s, like, a persona? I just modulate my real voice down a bit.”

“Why?”

“Um. People take you more seriously if they think you’re a guy.” She thunks a third mug onto the counter.

“Is your name really Echo?”

“Oh, no, but you can keep calling me that.” She pours the boiling water into a large, ceramic teapot that looks like something out of a fairy tale. “Raine?” she asks, suddenly.

I jump and immediately try to hide it. I never introduced myself, not directly; did Echo have some connection to the robot that was still watching them from the corner? “Hmm?” I can’t say more; my throat feels stuck.

“Sugar and cream?”

I clear my throat. “Just sugar.” A chill runs through me; my clothes are still damp from the rain. Echo hands me a mug, ceramic and printed with fading aquarium life and the text “Your Name Here.” She hands another mug, decorated with a blue bird, to Sparrow. We hold the mugs awkwardly, no room on the table to set them down, as Echo pours the tea. She pulls the rolling chair over from the computer desk and sits.

“So,” she says, “you, um, got my SOS.”

“Dododo doot doot doot,” Sparrow chirps, “dododo.”

Echo’s eyes dart towards me and I shrug. “I, um, appreciate you coming. Er, how far did you travel?” She nervously stammers through her sentences, not nearly as eloquent as her radio persona.

“Thirty miles!” Sparrow answers proudly. “More or less.”

“Wow.”

An uncomfortable silence stretches between us, everyone sipping our teas and glancing back and forth.

“We almost got struck by lightning!” Sparrow chimes, their tiny voice practically echoing in the little shack.

Echo looks again towards me, as though in need of translation. It occurs to me only now that she must think I’m the child’s mother, or sister, or guardian of some sort. Not, like, a complete stranger they only met yesterday. I glance around, feeling strangely detached. “The antenna,” I finally clarify. “We were near it when it got struck.”

“Oh, wow,” Echo says uselessly. “You shouldn’t be on a mountain during a thunderstorm.”

“No shit.” Something about the way she explained the obvious is irritating, like an itchy mosquito bite. “You shouldn’t be talking to dumbass kids over radio, telling them to run away and –”

“Hey!” Sparrow interrupts.

Echo blushes, eyes fixed resolutely on the floor. “I didn’t know she was –”

“I ain't a girl!” Sparrow protests loudly.

Echo tries again. “I didn’t know he –”

“I ain't a boy!” they interrupt again.

Echo stammers, mouth opening and closing a couple times before she starts over. “Okay, look.” Her eyes bore into mine, pleading. “I am sorry you guys came all this way. I really never meant for a kid to get involved, at all.”

“But I want to help!”

Surprising myself, I ask, “Involved in what?”

Echo looks confused. “You didn’t tell her?” Her eyes dart between us, frowning.

“They are coming. Save the wild west,” Sparrow recites.

Echo nods slowly. “The situation has changed. There’s been a murder.”

A murder. The revelation makes Sparrow’s face turn stony; they glare at their mostly empty mug, chewing on their fingers as Echo describes her ambitions for a community meeting at the library to discuss the crime, a vague invasion she thinks it is tied to. I try to keep my face neutral; the closest thing I’ve seen to a community since I was a child is the church my neighbors go to, and only ever from a distance. I do business with the Acolytes – the local church crowd – who seem to believe that surviving through adversity brings you closer to God, but I have the clear mark of an outsider. A non-believer.

The library, meanwhile, has been officially closed since around the time the last librarian – the infamous Stella Bartlett, my mother – killed two men and fled the county. Unofficially, however, the doors are always open, which seems to always be the case with my family. Anyone can borrow a book, and most people even bring them back when they’re done. That is the extent of my community – the silent, mutual agreement to remain civilized about books. I go to the library when I can, stocking up in the fall for winter like a bear preparing to hibernate. In the spring I sweep out the leaves, board up any newly broken windows, and re-shelve the books that have accumulated over the last year.

Never a lot, but always more than I expect. I have never seen another soul in the library besides myself and mice.

“Next week?” Sparrow repeats, looking thoughtful.

“No,” I reply automatically, and Echo flinches.

“You don’t have to, obviously...”

“Well, I want to help,” Sparrow announces. “Can I stay here?”

“Oh, um, I,” Echo stammers, looking desperately towards me for intervention. I just smirk and lean back, drinking my rapidly cooling tea. I’ve got no dog in this fight.

“There’s not much room here,” she says finally.

That is quite the understatement. The shack has a large desk dedicated to computer equipment that takes up the most space; the table, dedicated to electronics parts; the tiny excuse for a kitchen. No sign of a bed, and the outhouse must be somewhere in the woods behind us.

“Where do you sleep?” Sparrow asks, also looking around.

Echo hesitates, and I think, wisely, she doesn’t want to answer.

“You have somewhere else, right? So I’ll stay here. I can sleep on the floor,” the child decides.

“No,” Echo starts, but then she looks embarrassed and continues with, “I mean, you guys can stay here for one night. But, like, tomorrow...”

My smirk widens into a sardonic smile. “Trust me,” I warn, “it’s never just one night.”

Echo’s face falters, her anxiety shining through. “Am I missing something here?”

“Yeah. I told this kid they could stay one night at my place and now here I am.”

Sparrow rolls their eyes. “You didn’t have to come.”

“Bullshit I didn’t,” I retort, “if it weren’t for me, you’d be barbecue right now.”

“Nuh uh.”

“Uh huh!” It feels terribly immature, arguing with an actual child in this manner, and I’m grateful when Echo intervenes.

“Woah, okay,” she says, “let’s take a few steps back here.” She stands up and removes the now empty mug from my hands, then takes Sparrow’s. She places them on the countertop next to the kettle and turns to face us. “Hi,” she says brightly. “I’m Echo. Who are you and why the heck are you in my radio shack?”

. . .

Sparrow is exhausted; that much becomes clear as they sink lower and lower into their chair, eyes glazing while I explain how I met them and became convinced to accompany them up the mountain.

“And what about your father, dear?” Echo tries asking, getting the exact same response I always have: nothing at all. She nods and drops the subject. “You guys must be hungry,” she sighs.

Sparrow nods eagerly; evidently protein bars and trail mix aren’t enough for a growing kid on a cross-country hike.

Who would’ve thought?

I always considered my father’s open hospitality a bit naive – especially after he was murdered – but after seeing the child named Sparrow manipulate two grown women into letting them into their homes to eat their food in as many days, I’m more inclined to think it is instinctive. Some people just want to help. And some people just want to take advantage of that instinct. Or need to. I can’t necessarily assume the kid is malevolent, just because they’re a little weird.

Echo leads us through the dark woods, accompanied by the robodog she calls Charlie, who continually alerts us to various trespassers in the woods.

“I know, Charlie,” she explains patiently, “The squirrels live here. It’s their home.”

Trespassers will be destroyed, the robodog repeats, shining its red laser at a pair of raccoons. They hiss at the beam of light accosting them from Echo’s electric flashlight.

“I guess its bark is worse than its bite,” I muse, and she gives me a small, uncertain smile.

“I couldn’t bring myself to actually arm him,” she explains, glancing at the gun now comfortably in its rightful place, strapped to my back. “Felt like crossing a line.”

After a much too long hike under the cloudy night sky, Echo leads us to an old RV. Its tires are deflated and sunk into the soil, grass and shrubs growing around the exterior like it had been here for a very long time. It is also electrified, lights blazing cool white throughout.

“Where did you get it all?” I murmur as I look around. Compared to my cabin, this place feels like it comes from a different story entirely; like stepping out of Little House on the Prairie and straight into Star Trek.

“Oh, um, just around,” Echo replies airily, glancing at all the comforts and modern conveniences she has accumulated like they are nothing. “You’d be surprised what people used to throw away.”

Electricity for light, screens, even cooking; Echo has a small electric slow cooker that fills the small space with a warm fragrance that makes my mouth water. It also tugs at a very specific missing piece in my heart.

“Chicken soup for the soul,” she says distantly, placing the mugs from the radio shack next to the sink and turning on the tap.

She has running water. Inside.

Sparrow watches the faucet stream with wide eyes. “Where does it come from?”

“Cistern. I collect rain, and there’s a creek nearby if it runs low.” Echo rinses out the mugs then ladles soup into each, passing them over. “Sorry, I’m not sure I have any extra spoons. I don’t usually have company.”

You and me both, I think, but say nothing; instead I stare into the mug of soup. It smells rich and vivifying, loaded with vegetables and chunks of chicken floating throughout. Sparrow noisily slurps away at the broth, which is hot enough to burn my lips as I sip at it. Despite the same aesthetic as the radio shack – dangling cables, cluttered electronics, too many blinking lights – this place feels much more homey. A table with just enough room for the three of us; a cramped, kitchen with plenty of cupboard space over its sink; a closet door that probably conceals a bathroom. Is it functional? Does Echo shower in rainwater? This is not the first RV I’ve been in, but it is one of the few that has actually been maintained. They tend to crumple after only a few years of disuse.

“Something wrong?” Echo’s voice interrupts my thoughts, and I look over to find her watching me.

“Oh, no,” I reply, feeling flustered from the eye contact. “I don’t eat much meat.” I sip at the soup again, tentatively at first, then more eagerly when I find it has cooled; it really is delicious.

Echo frowns, looking surprised. “Really?” Her eyes shift to focus on the gun behind me, now propped up against the wall next to the flimsy RV door. “What's that for, then?”

My face warms, and Sparrow giggles. “Drones, mostly." I can hunt animals, too; I'm actually really good at it. Deer, chickens, even rabbits with their ridiculously soft fur. I hate killing them, butchering them. It's so much effort, for very little reward.

A grin that makes my heart jolt. “Drones?” Echo repeats.

Over the years, I have learned the patterns of drones like prey. There’s no need to hide from them in the vast, open wilderness, as I watch the miles and miles of endless skies for their tell-tale dark specks. I judge the wind and calculate the drone’s vectors and race through scrubland to get close enough for the shitty flintlock’s range. The drones I shoot down could be carrying anything: entire crates of bedding, baby diapers, yarn, notebooks. Useless computer crap (Echo cringes at this comment), a whole forest’s worth of pencils, squishy plastic toys.

“Often enough it’s food, and I take it home and eat it,” I conclude. “But, like, noodles. Rice packets. Breakfast mix. I usually trade in the canned meats.” My nose wrinkles when I think about it; nothing like the soup in front of me.

“What happens to the rest?”

“Reclamation drones.” Enormous, ruthless flying machines that remove the remnants of damaged drones, not to mention whatever is in their immediate vicinity. They pick up and recycle anything made of metal; I once watched one pick up an abandoned car that had spent years rusting in the road. Rumor has it they'll destroy houses for the copper pipes inside, though I can't say for sure where I heard that one. My sister, probably, years and years ago. “I learned to stay far away from them, when I got scooped up trying to get at –” I cut myself off before accidentally revealing something too personal, and Echo clearly notices, tilting her head curiously. I hesitate before continuing, “something. I got all tangled up in its claws and had to jump.” I’d got the goods, but everything fell apart after that.

I try not to think about it.

Sparrow, who had followed my story so quietly I had almost forgotten they were there, suddenly asks, “Why did you jump out?”

“I’m sorry?”

“You should've gone with it,” they say sadly, “You could've flown away.”

My stomach twists a little. “I didn’t want to go any higher, where a fall would be lethal. I don’t even know where the reclamation drones go.”

“Anywhere would be better than here,” Sparrow grumbles, their exhaustion clear on their face. Echo directs them to the lofted bed in the front of the RV, above where the driver would sit, and they curl up under a borrowed blanket and watch us wearily. For me she lowers the table to the level of the benches; the cushions unfold into a mattress.

But I’m not ready to sleep, yet, despite the fatigue from climbing a mountain and dealing with a hyperactive preteen all day; I have questions. “We need to talk,” I whisper, “Is there somewhere we can go, outside or something?”

Echo gives me a peculiar look. “It’s freezing outside,” she says, which is not quite true yet; the weather display says 2°C. “Um, back here, I guess.” She directs me to the enclosed bedroom at the back of the RV, which is little more than a bed and storage. She sits cross legged on her bed and invites me to join her; I sit tentatively on the edge, examining the dozens of rectangular photographs that decorate the cabinet doors.

“You have a camera, really?” There exists a single picture of me and Josie as children; a gift from a traveler with an instant camera. In the photograph she is beaming – her two front teeth missing – and I am scowling. We have identical bright auburn hair and blue eyes and washed out faces. The picture is pinned to a log in my bedroom, above the hooks that hold my gun.

The photographs in front of me indicate that Echo is not nearly as conservative in using her film as the traveler was. She takes pictures of anything; trees, fence posts, clouds, the mountains, the radio antenna. A buck with enormous antlers standing out against white snow.

“Yeah, I found it in someone’s basement,” she explains. “I’m almost out of film, though. I've got a digital one, too, but all those pictures are stuck on my laptop.” She gives me a wry look, then adds, "I'll show you, sometime."

“Have you lived here this whole time?”

“This whole time,” Echo repeats softly, sounding amused. “Fifteen years, more or less.”

“Really? How old are you?”

Echo smiles but doesn’t answer. “Where do you live?”

“Little cabin in the hills.” I gesture vaguely in the direction I think is southwest. “Sparrow came all the way up from Maybell.”

“Where the hell’s Maybell?” Echo asks, and I laugh, delighted to share our little joke. “It’s weird that our paths have never crossed,” she adds. “You must not go into town, much.”

I shrug. “The drones give me everything I need.”

“Everything?”

“Sure.”

Echo smirks. “Had you ever eaten a vegetable before today?”

“Rude,” I make a face. “I trade with some neighbors. They’re Acolytes.”

“Mhm,” Echo looks skeptical. “Have you ever been to the library?”

“Have I ever been to the library,” I repeat, chuckling.

“What? I’ve never seen you there.”

“I’ve never seen anyone there but mice.”

“Well, yeah,” Echo agrees, “the population here is kinda low, isn’t it.” She looks past me at the photographs decorating her walls. “You know it’s not like this everywhere, right?”

The question catches me off guard, but I nod. Logically, something resembling a functional society must exist for me to be able to hunt down their drones, but it all feels out of reach. Like a fantasy world.

“Sometimes, when the skies are right, I can catch signals from all around the world.” Echo’s voice is soft and dreamy, wistful. “It’s not great. We’ve got fires, but the east coast has hurricanes. The Midwest has tornadoes, dust storms, AND fires. A heat wave in Spain last month sent birds dropping out of the air. But the cities out there are still just trucking along, business as usual. People go shopping, when they can afford it. When the supply chain failures don’t shut everything down. They go to school, when they’re not closed for pandemics. They have to go to work in, like, offices.”

Well. If they’re not packing the crates, they’re programming the drones that carry them, presumably. “You got all this from the radio?” I ask skeptically.

“Sure. I mean, nerds are always gonna exist, right? You can’t stop physics.” Echo says this like it should be obvious; like I, too, should be tuning in to whatever random frequency on her little digital receiver to chat with strangers. "But also, um, the internet?"

"The internet?" I repeat skeptically. No one has internet around here.

"You know that old power plant, south of town?”

“Of course.” The decommissioned plant stands stark against the mountain landscape, towers crumbling.

“A few weeks ago, I noticed a bunch of drone activity swarming all over it. Went to investigate."

"As one does."

She smirks. "They have some sort of network. It took a bit, but I managed to hack into it. There's people everywhere. The blog space is, like, swarming with posts." She can tell she's lost me, here, switches the subject. "They’re building something out there.”

“They?”

“The drones. I didn’t see a single real person.” Echo catches my look and sighs. “The thing is, whatever they’re building, it needs a ton of water. They’re rerouting the Yampa.”

This gets my attention. A long, winding river originating from the mountains to the east, the Yampa River is the lifeline for anyone and everyone living in the valley. All one-hundred or so of us; but also the deer and rabbits, the moose and birds. It winds lazily westward, looping like a snake south of and far below my cabin. On cold mornings, a fog of low clouds travel in a thin ribbon above the water, a sight I am rather fond of watching while sipping hot coffee and sugar.

“Do you know what they’re building?” I ask.

“Whatever it is, it’s worth killing for.”

Murder. We had skirted around the subject earlier in response to Sparrow’s obvious discomfort, how they blinked and swiped angrily at the tears glistening in their grey eyes. When I interrogate her about this so-called murder, Echo is able to provide disappointingly few details; neither she, nor her army of cameras and robotic spies, actually saw the crime happen. She heard about it secondhand from someone in town, who claims to have witnessed a drone shoot down a man right there on Main Street. She never even saw a body.

“So, I’m supposed to just take this guy's word for it that this actually happened,” I state, and she nods. “Even though the drones aren’t armed. They’ve never been armed. I would be long dead if the drones fought back.”

Echo shakes her head. “Different drones,” she explains slowly, like to a child. “You were just talking about the reclamation drones, how destructive they are, and you still don’t think they could murder someone?”

“So, what, you think you’re going to stop it? You and some little kid you’ve been chatting up over radio?”

Echo’s face takes on a look of mild horror. “You’ve got to believe me,” she implores, “I didn’t know there was a kid. It's not like there was a lot of back and forth. I... it was all in Morse.”

“I’m half convinced they burned their house down for you!” I rant, growing more irritable at the incredulous look Echo gives me. “Seriously! They kept talking about codes and shit.”

“Codes? Hardly,” Echo sighs. “I’m not that clever.” She rubs at her face self-consciously. “I won’t deny I set out a call for help, and maybe they thought it was more targeted. They’re what, like, eleven? Terrified of their dad, look like they’ve never seen a hairbrush in their life.” Her eyes flick towards the thin partition wall, beyond which Sparrow is, ideally, sleeping. “I imagine they needed any excuse they could get to run away.”

I sigh. “We’re going to need to figure out what to do with them,” I say, emphasizing the we because Echo is the one who got me into this mess.

At least she does not argue.

​Chapter 4

I have my shot lined up, my breathing tamed, my heartbeat paused, finger ready to squeeze the trigger; the drone in my scope is slow, fighting an incoming wind, so I wait half a second longer and exhale, pulling the light hairpin trigger.

BANG.

The sound is deafening, the recoil of the 50 BMG bolt action rifle punching into my shoulder, knocking the wind out of me, and I gasp for a breath. The drone in the distance explodes midair and I hiss; I must’ve hit the lithium battery. Flames rain down on the dry sagebrush below, over a mile away.

A deep growl from behind me: “Better run, girlie.”

I take off in a sprint without looking back. The wreckage ahead pours black smoke into the clear blue sky, a giant signal for anyone around, human or drone. The sun beats down on my back as I scramble over the hills, sagebrush snagging at my arms and legs, leaving rough, ragged scratches on my arms and legs. I leap over a patch of cacti, stumbling on a loose stone when I land and twisting my ankle. I keep going.

The flames are violently chewing away at the sagebrush around the wreckage, smoke choking the air. This isn’t right, I think; the fire is growing too quickly, too hot. I pull the handkerchief off my head and tie it over my nose, my mouth, wishing I could get it wet, but it will have to do. I approach the drone, but the crate is missing.

In its place is Josie, surrounded by flames.

She spots me and screams, so loudly that it hurts; the pressure fills my ears, my skull, rattling my bones.

. . .

I bolt upright and take half a second to reorient myself; I am in a strange bed, in a strange RV, with a strange child screaming bloody murder in the bed above me. “The fuck,” I mutter, scrambling off the bench and climbing up so I can shake the screaming Sparrow awake. They lash out, nails catching the delicate skin beneath my right eye. “Fuck, kid,” I wince, “calm down. It’s me.”

Sparrow blinks, again and again, then their face reddens and they hide, burying themselves under the blanket. “Please don’t hurt me.”

“I’m not going to hurt you, I just needed to wake you up.”

Sparrow whimpers, muffled by the bedding.

I look behind me, where Echo is standing in the narrow hallway, looking sleepy and bewildered. “Hey, um, Sparrow,” she tries, “you doing okay?”

No answer but a muffled sob, the blob of child trembling under the blanket.

Echo steps up onto the bench next to me, our arms brushing as we cling together to the loft. “Sparrow, honey, you’re okay. You’re in my RV, remember? Radio Echo.” She’s rambling, anxious and flustered.

“I’ve ruined everything.”

Echo meets my eyes, and a chill runs through me. “Everything? I doubt that.” She reaches out to touch the quivering, blanketed form, and it flinches away.

“Come on kid, it’s morning. You can’t stay here forever.” I move to grab them, maybe drag them off the loft, but Echo places a hand on my arm to stop me.

Ignoring my glare, she says, “Okay, Sparrow, um,” she starts stammering again. Looking around the RV in search of inspiration, she says, “I’m going to take Raine out to pick something for breakfast, do you want to come with us?”

After a moment, the huddled form under the blanket says, “No.”

“Okay. Will you be okay here alone? I can leave Charlie.”

“Mhm.”

I want to protest, to somehow convey what a foolish idea it is to leave a stranger alone in your home, but without offending the kid. Echo ignores my looks as she drags me out and away from the RV.

“They’re fine,” she insists, “They just need a minute.” She leads me through the woods, warm sun peaking through the pines, morning dew making a soft mist at our feet. “Can’t be fun, to wake up screaming like that in a strange place.”

I grunt noncommittally, and Echo stops, turning so we are facing each other. She reaches out and gently touches my cheek.

“Does that hurt?” she asks, running her thumb along the now stinging scratches that I had already almost forgotten about.

“It’s fine.” I’m not sure where to look; Echo’s touch is too soft, her eyes too intense. They shine golden in the sunlight.

She smiles and her hand retreats. “Well, we should at least clean it, when we get back.”

I nod, feeling for the little scratches on my face with my fingers. They are shallow, framing the pitted scars from ancient black powder burns. The spot where Echo’s hand was still feels warm.

Only a few minutes hike from the RV is a garden, one quite unlike anything I’ve ever seen. The Acolytes use yaks to plow their huge, angular fields with parallel straight lines. A rectangle for corn, one for sorghum, smaller squares for cabbage, carrots, squash, beans. From the hills above it looks like an odd, abstract art piece.

Echo’s garden looks like it was planned out by the birds themselves. Plants grow throughout the clearing like weeds; I recognize some of the flowers that grow wild in my own yard. As I look more carefully I see this garden also has some of the same colorful lettuce, squashes, and beans that are farmed near town, but they are all growing together, chaotically, instead of in neat little rows. Half a dozen apple trees stand out against the pines, their trunks wrapped with thin, yellowing vines, limbs heavy with overripe fruit. Birds flit between the branches, growing fat on the bugs that feast on rotting fruit below and singing their pleasures. I regret not bringing Sparrow along.

Echo treads around the edges of the overgrown mess to reach one of the apple trees. She climbs into the lower branches and tosses an apple towards me. It is small, but firm and ripe. The apple is followed by two more, which I receive more clumsily, almost dropping them all to catch the third. Then a fourth clunks against my head.

“Hey,” I yelp, “Fuck off.”

“Sorry,” Echo drops out of the tree, smirking. “Thought you were paying attention.”

I crouch down to pick up the last apple, casually flicking it her way; Echo just ducks and laughs.

“Hope your aim is better with that gun of yours,” she taunts.

I roll my eyes. “My aim is impeccable,” I retort. “If I wanted to hit you, I would’ve.”

Echo’s smile broadens, golden eyes twinkling. “I’ll take your word for it,” she says. “Come on, I think we’ve left the potential arsonist alone in my home for long enough.” She winks, and something flutters in my chest.

Sparrow is in the RV’s little closet bathroom when we return, jumping when they notice us upon exiting. They move quickly to hide something behind their back.

“What do you think you’re doing?” I ask, but Echo nudges me, gently, and subtly shakes her head.

Sparrow ignores my question anyway, backing up to where their backpack is sitting on my bed, then spinning around to stuff whatever they were hiding into one of the outer pockets. Echo is chewing on her lower lip while watching them, and I realize it’s the kid who makes her nervous. This harmless, twig-thin little bird in front of us. How odd.

They sulk through a breakfast of oatmeal with apples and cinnamon, taking their mug outside to eat crouched on an old tree stump, head tilted as they listen to the birds. I sit with Echo at the table, converted back from a bed, and we do not discuss why Sparrow is acting so strange. What even is strange for a kid you’ve known all of two days?

Afterwards, Echo cleans the scratches under my eye with something that stings, her fingers lingering on the scattershot burn scars that dot my cheek. “What happened here?” she asks.

“Gun exploded in my hands,” I answer, forcing my voice to remain casual. My heart is pounding, my skin tingling beneath her touch. “Can’t see very well out that eye, either.”

Echo frowns, looking concerned. “Exploded?”

“I have the old barrel in my cabin, somewhere. I’ll show it to you, if you ever come over.”

She glances over at the gun behind me, a skeptical look on her face.

“What?”

Echo shrugs. “Just seems like it could’ve been a lot worse.”

I frown. “Sorry for disappointing you.”

“Oh, no, that’s not what I meant!” Echo stammers, looking horrified. “I’m just, like, glad it didn’t kill you.”

“Mhm. Otherwise you’d have to deal with that kid by yourself.”

That kid is still outside, now sitting instead of crouched on the stump, hunched with their arms wrapped around their stomach. They ignore us as we clatter out of the RV, eyes fixed on the trees surrounding the clearing.

Echo crouches next to them. “You feeling okay, honey?”

“Stomach hurts,” they grumble. “I’m okay.” Sparrow stands, straightening, then flinches. They grit their teeth, trying to hide it.

“Did you, um, have trouble sleeping last night?”

“Had a bad dream. I apologize for disturbin' your sleep.” Sparrow’s tone is robotic and monotonous as they apologize.

“That’s... fine...” Echo stumbles, “Is there anything you want to talk about?”

Their response is automatic. “DataLess.”

Echo’s face turns hard. “How do you know that name?”

It’s an odd question. Even I know the name; DataLess, Inc is the massive technology and e-commerce conglomerate that owns and operates the drones I shoot down. How Sparrow knows it, however, they are unwilling to divulge.

“They’re the ones you were talking about, right?” they ask instead. “They are coming.”

Echo chews on her lower lip and rubs her hands self-consciously through her bright purple hair. “They’re building something at the old power plant,” she confirms. “They’re planning on rerouting the river.”

Sparrow nods as if this isn’t new to them. “They’re murdering people.”

“What do you know about it?” I demand, voice stern.

Sparrow’s eyes flick between us, then fall to the grass at their feet. “You said someone was killed.”

Echo nods slowly. “Shot down by a drone.”

“The Appelbaums?” Their voice is so quiet, I can barely hear it. They look up, grey eyes swimming with tears.

“Er, no. Jim Butcher. A drone hunter.”

My heart stops. I want to interrogate Sparrow further, demand to know who the Appelbaums are and if they, too, were murdered, how they were involved at all. I need to ask Echo about that man, murdered by drone, but his name brings with it the odor of whiskey halitosis and wildfires, gunpowder and coppery blood; a stench that haunts my dreams and makes my chest feel tight. Jim Butcher, the most vicious of his posse, alongside Tom Ford and their leader – Rob Parker. The last visitors to ever enjoy the hospitality of Bartlett Ranch.

Jimmy’s dead? Good riddance.

Echo and Sparrow continue talking, haltingly and fevered, and I struggle to follow the conversation. For all her bravado on the radio, her messages to come defend the wild west, her idea to unite the people against the drones at a meeting in the library... Echo has no plans at all. She can barely even talk about what is happening without stuttering and stammering. Quietly, she admits, “I don’t know if we can actually stop them.”

“But we have to try,” Sparrow says confidently. They look between us, gauging our reactions, and their face falters. “Right?”

A pause, just a moment too long, before Echo replies. “Yeah, of course.”

I snort. “Are you kidding me?” The dual shocked looks make my stomach flip. “You are a kid,” I emphasize, “A fucking runaway.”

“Raine,” Echo warns, looking anxiously towards the kid.

Sparrow’s bottom lip quivers, but their eyes are hard; cold steel grey. “You can go,” they suggest. “You didn’t want to help me in the first place.”

“What, and make you her problem? You don’t need to save the wild west, you need a bath and a fucking haircut.”

“Raine!” Echo scolds, but Sparrow is walking away, randomly headed towards the woods. “Wait!” she tries to catch up to them, but they suddenly take off, sprinting away through the trees like a deer. She whirls around to face me. “What the heck?” Her attempt at cursing would be cute, if she weren't so blisteringly angry with me.

I stand frozen, having watched the whole thing passively, distantly. “They’ll be back,” I try to offer as an excuse.

“How do you know that?”

I shrug, feigning indifference, trying to shed the unease weighing me down like a hint of wildfire smoke. “They left behind their bag.” Speaking of which – I climb back into the RV and pull the giant backpack over to begin searching it.

Echo follows me. “No way.” She places a hand on my arm, much more firmly than her earlier touches.

“Excuse me?” I pull my arm away, and Echo grabs the bag instead.

“It’s not yours.”

“Don’t you want to know what they were sneaking around this morning?”

“It’s none of our business.”

“In case you haven’t noticed, they’ve kind of made it our business,” I growl, pulling the backpack away. “I’ve known them all of two days,” I mutter, digging around for the zipper to an outside pocket, opening it and pulling out whatever Sparrow had been trying to hide earlier.

A pair of damp, bloodstained underwear. I drop it immediately back into the bag, avoiding Echo’s look of disdain.

“Congratulations,” she says, “You’ve solved the great mystery of the menstruating teenager.”

“They’re not a teenager,” I grumble, zipping the pocket back up. “Twelve, tops.”

Echo shrugs. “Old enough.”

I bristle at the comment. “Old enough for what, exactly?” I hiss, teeth clenched.

She gives me a peculiar look. “To get her period?”

“Their,” I correct. Not a boy, not a girl – what are the proper pronouns for a bird?

Echo nods carefully. “Do you think they know what’s happening?”

My face warms as I remember the awkward conversation when I was fourteen, my father stumbling through anatomy he only vaguely knew himself. “Your mother should be doing this,” he’d grumbled irritably. Josie and I had gotten our first periods within days of each other. The disposable pads and tampons leftover from our mother quickly became a problem; there was no trash pick up, no burning the plastic, and wild dogs and coyotes loved digging it all up and leaving shreds of blood-soaked cotton all over the yard. Before we’d even run out, we had resigned ourselves to using old, forever stained rags instead.

So many years of human innovation dedicated to menstrual hygiene, but out here nothing can beat plain old washable cotton cloth.

. . .

Echo has a laptop, which she uses to scan the cameras around her radio station, her garden, the RV that is somehow also hidden away back here between endless mounds of rock and dirt. Cameras which are connected to her computer wirelessly via routers and repeaters that blanket the woods with electromagnetic radiation.

“It’s all harmless,” she murmurs, mostly to herself.

Uh huh. I watch her type and click and scroll around effortlessly, like it’s not some alien piece of technology sitting in front of her. I remember, vaguely, a time when me and Josie would watch videos on a tablet while our mother – an almost faceless figure, too distant for details – scanned and sorted book returns for reshelving. There were no schools, not many patrons, and Stella Bartlett had long ago stopped receiving a paycheck, but she stubbornly kept the library up and running until the day she left.

So, I’m not completely ignorant of computers and how they work. But the ease at which Echo uses her laptop makes my fingers twitch for my gun, its mechanical lock, trigger, hammer. Echo eyes me warily when I pick it up to fiddle with it.

“How many cameras you got out there?” I ask.

“Five,” she replies airily.

Radio shack, antenna, RV, garden. There’s one more that I haven’t seen yet, unless the robodog Charlie has a camera inside it.

“Any sign of Sparrow?”

“No.” I offer to track them down, and Echo gives me a mildly disgusted look. “What, and shoot them?” she asks.

I stop messing with the gun’s hammer and grin. “You think so little of me?”

“You don’t seem to like them very much.”

“I don’t like anyone, very much,” I admit. Echo looks hurt, but doesn’t reply. I sigh and sling the gun over my back, leaving the RV without another word. I can hear her scrambling behind me as I cross the clearing to the woods where Sparrow disappeared. Their oversized boots are heavy, the imprints easy to follow. Their stride slows down about a twenty yards in, the trail growing erratic and winding before disappearing entirely.

Echo watches with a bemused expression as I walk in increasingly larger circles around the last prints, trying to find some other clue. “I’m starting to think Charlie would’ve done a better job.”

I look up, scanning the trees around us for a flash of red light. “Go and get it, then, if you’re so clever.”

Echo remains where she is. “No need. I already know where they’re going.”

“Uh huh.”

“We’re headed straight for the Radio Shack.”

It was dark last night; that’s the excuse I will continue telling myself for why I didn’t recognize the path sooner. I step back and let Echo lead us the rest of the way to the shack, though I no longer need the guide. We can hear the music blaring from the little shack long before it ever comes into view. Its plywood walls are practically vibrating as we approach, Echo’s steps getting quicker as we get closer so I have to jog to keep up. She throws open the flimsy door with a slam that is deeply muffled by the music pouring out of the small space.

Sparrow stops dancing, grinning sheepishly in the middle of the room. “I love this song!” they shout.

The pressure from the noise surging out of the room keeps me back, standing outside as Echo crosses inside and turns the volume knob almost all the way down. Then I stomp in and glare at Sparrow.

“Do you want to go deaf?” I ask, and the child shrugs.

Echo sits at the computer. “What else did you touch?” she demands, with none of her usual timidity.

Sparrow flinches. “I was just playin' music.”

Echo grunts, eyes scanning the computer screen in front of her. “You made your own playlist?” They nod, looking uncomfortable, at least until she relaxes. “You have a, um, interesting taste in music,” she remarks.

Sparrow smirks.

“Don’t fuck with things that aren’t yours,” I scold, when it becomes clear Echo won’t, and they roll their eyes.

“I wanna watch a movie.”

“Okay, um, what movie?” Echo asks.

“What’s your favorite?”

“My favorite?” Echo repeats. She makes a face, then says, “Probably not for kids.”

“Why not?”

“I like horror movies, you know? Like, slasher films.”

Sparrow gives her a slow nod, like they do not know but don't want to admit it. “I never seen a movie before,” they confess.

“Never? Okay,” Echo springs into action, typing something out quickly then clicking on whatever pops up. The screen goes black; an orchestra rings out and a lion pops up, roaring. Sparrow jumps a little and giggles, already completely absorbed by the screen, leaning in so close their nose practically touches the monitor. Echo directs them to sit in the rolling chair while they watch the movie, then pulls me back outside the shack to stand in the still chilly but warming mountain air. Across from us, Sparrow’s blanket, probably still damp, flaps in the light breeze. I had thought Echo wanted to talk, but instead she puts on the strange half-glasses she had on the night before.

“Charlie, status report.” A speaker, or a visual display, or both; Echo seems detached from the real world as she interacts with the virtual on the tiny device. Satisfied with whatever status Charlie has reported, she turns her attention back to me, smiling. “Sorry,” she says, “this kid as thrown off my whole routine.” The device connects her to the network, she explains, all its cameras and the security robodog named Charlie, who does, in fact, have a camera; but whatever routine she was referring to remains a mystery.

I have to wonder why she needs so much security, up here on a mountain in the middle of nowhere, except to protect against curious and precocious kids with no boundaries.

“Are your parents still around?” Echo asks suddenly, interrupting my thoughts.

I give a surprised snort, and answer simply, “No.”

“Were you an only child?”

“I had a sister.”

Echo nods, not commenting on my use of the past tense. Lots of people have died out here, if they didn’t leave first. Starvation, extreme heat, blizzards, illness, suicide. I stopped keeping track a long time ago. She glances around the clearing once more and sighs. “I’m reluctant to ask my parents for help here. But I don’t know what else to do. They’ve dealt with tons of kids.” Her revelation – not just parents nearby, but also multiple siblings, of which Echo is in the exact middle – is even more world spinning than when I learned Radio Echo was actually a woman. A cute one, roughly my age.

I suddenly wish my father were here, or better yet Josie; either would be better equipped to deal with a pubescent runaway than I am.

Missing my family is generally something I try to avoid, since there is nothing I can do to bring them back. I have managed to convince myself that I like to be alone, but that’s only because I no longer have an alternative. A flashback to my dream this morning, oily and grimy; the intense heat from flames I couldn’t feel, not really. Josie’s screams, which were actually Sparrow’s, jolting me awake.

Echo’s hesitation to ask her family for help is also confusing. “They don’t... like me very much,” she explains, haltingly. “They’d take issue with Sparrow, too. Try to... fix them.”

I think of my neighbors, who are always unerringly polite and end every interaction with, “we’ll pray for you.” The various flavors of Christianity who would stop by Bartlett Ranch, back in the day. Most were content just to pray quietly before a meal, but others would talk about nothing but their faith, would not rest until we all acknowledged Jesus’s miracles. They brought pamphlets all about hell and damnation, sins and saviors, fury and vengeance, which my father used for fire starters.

“They’re really nice people,” Echo insists, “as long as you fit in.”

I try to picture Echo fitting in at all. Was it the technology that eventually drove her away, or something else? Did she once cover her hair, now so vibrant and purple, wear long dresses like the Acolytes, keep her eyes fixed on the ground in submission? “So, I take it they’re not jumping up to join your cause?” I ask.

Echo blinks, frowning, then shakes her head. “Nothing really matters to them besides faith. Maybe if the drones were threatening the church directly.”

“Don’t they need the river, too?”

“Rivers move. God’s will and all that.” She sighs, chewing on her lip. From inside the shack, someone in the movie Sparrow is watching starts singing; a song I vaguely recognize but can’t place.

“What are they watching?”

“The Wizard of Oz.” Echo does not look particularly comforted by the change in topic.

“I think I’ve read the book?” A green cover flashes through my mind, yellow text and a forlorn looking lion. “But I feel like I definitely know this song.”

“Israel Kamakawiwoʻole,” she replies immediately.

“Excuse me?”

“He plays a ukulele.” Echo catches my confused look and adds, “I play it on the radio show, sometimes.”

“I don’t listen to much music,” I admit.

“But you used to.” Echo says it like a fact.

I used to, back in the old cabin with my father and sister and a handful of strangers huddled around the fireplace. “Have you really been doing this for fifteen years?”

“Give or take,” Echo grins. “I used to have to sit out there on top of the mountain, connected directly to the antenna.” She looks thoughtful. “Come on, I want to show you something.” She grabs my hand, holding it only briefly as I follow along behind her, climbing up the steep hillside, past trees and scrub to a low, long slope topped with an incongruous antenna. Yesterday, everything was shrouded in storm clouds, but today the view is

breathtaking.

Not just from the altitude, the high winds and low oxygen. From here, I can see everything: the town, the hills surrounding my cabin, the winding snaking river, the distant power plant. Looking closer, I see it is swarming with drones, tiny black specks like gnats working tirelessly to build... whatever. DataLess’ behemoth that requires an entire river to feed itself. From here I can even see the progress they’re making to divert the water to the old shell of a plant.

How long has this been going on?

The gun on my back is useless against these drones, and not just because of the distance. The construction drones out there are massive, maybe even bigger than the reclamation drones that scoop up my kills, which shrug off buckshot like a pesky bug bite.

That 50 caliber BMG from my dreams, though. A redneck’s gun, my father once called it. Overkill for hunting anything in the county – anything in North America, probably – but the farm store in town still sold it, way back when, which means some locals still might have one. One of the most likely candidates is, apparently, dead.

I can’t help myself; I look over to the burn scar where my father’s cabin once stood. It is barely visible from here – after over a decade, the landscape has largely recovered – but I still walk past the charred remains of the log cabin every time I go to the library in town.

I could ask Echo: were you here when that big fire happened? But the answer would be: which one? Wildfires burn hot and fast around here, fed by perpetually drought-starved vegetation and hot, dry winds. I watch the plumes of smoke from my porch, growing and growing, choking the air with ash until the rare precipitation comes in to put it all out.

Then lightning strikes and it starts all over again.

I turn away from the town and catch Echo watching me, a smile twinkling in her eyes. “Like it?” she asks.

I nod. “Glad I’m not afraid of heights.”

“You see, there?” Echo points to a farm at the edge of town, angular fields stark against the natural landscape. It’s not my neighbor’s fields, but they could be. “My family tends those fields. They think everything has a place, can be molded to fit in. With enough faith, enough discipline...” Echo’s voice trails off, before picking up again. “Do you understand why I had to leave?”

The chaos of Echo’s forest garden must be a relief after such rigidity. “I always thought it was weird, how none of those fields are touching. As if the plants are allergic to each other.”

“It’s, like, walkways,” she explains. She glances back at the distant fields, face solemn. “Father grows flowers there, for the pollinators, but it gets trampled by the livestock.”

“My sister used to have this thing about her food touching on the plate,” I offer, trying to ease the tension in her face, but Echo just looks confused.

“Not a big fan of stew, I take it?”

“She’d separate it all out,” I explain, “It looked like that.” I gesture towards the fields.

Echo bursts out laughing, sending a warm flutter through my stomach. Then a breeze rattles between us, and I shiver. It gets cold on the mountain – amazing, what a difference a few hundred feet makes. She must notice my discomfort. “We should get back,” she suggests.

We walk in silence until we get to the treeline. Then I ask, “Have you decided what to do about Sparrow?”

Echo groans. “Yeah. I’m definitely not involving my parents.”

“Probably for the best,” I say, wondering if that’s true.

. . .

Sparrow is sitting where we left them, hunched over crossed legged in the rolling chair, arms wrapped around their stomach. They quickly look over as we enter the shack, then return their focus to the movie in front of them. Their face is tense, poorly concealing the fact that they are in agony.

“Sparrow, honey,” Echo starts, and they give her an exasperated huff for interrupting their movie. “Are you having, um, cramps?”

“Cramps,” they repeat, whispering. They sigh. “Yes.”

“Are you on your period?”

Sparrow doesn’t answer for long enough that I think they either don’t hear or don’t understand her question. Their eyes dart towards us, then back at the screen before they finally nod.

“Is this your, er, first time?” Echo is clearly struggling, but I don’t intervene. I would do so much worse.

They shake their head. “It weren’t this bad, last time. Daddy said...” Sparrow winces and shakes their head again. “I don’t want it.” Their fingers clutch the loose sides of their shirt, fidgeting with the soft fabric.

“I can make a tea, it might help.” Echo fills the electric kettle with the last of the water from the jug on the counter. There’s not much, but she also only has one mug; the other two are still sitting in the RV. She uses dried leaves that she has to pull off the stick hanging among clusters of other variously colored leaves and flowers that dangle over the countertop. “Red raspberry,” she explains, crumbling the leaves into a metal diffuser.

Sparrow sips at the tea and watches as Dorothy taps her sparkly red shoes and wills herself home. When the movie has ended, they swivel the office chair around to face us. I have my rifle in my lap, idly inspecting the flint; it seems to be getting dull.

“What am I supposed to do with all the blood?” Sparrow asks timorously. “I don’t want to use all your toilet paper.”

I try to cover my snort of laughter with a cough, but am unsuccessful. Echo in particular does not look amused by my reaction.

“Sorry,” I try, “It really sucks. But you get used to it.” There are just so many things that suck about post-modern life: You get your period and have to figure out how to keep the coyotes from finding out. You shoot down drones with entire forests’ worth of toilet paper and stack it like a throne in your cellar. Your septic tank might explode, or you have to hike through the woods to empty your composting toilet. You have to figure out what to eat, where to get it from for every single meal, and you can’t even eat the toilet paper.

For lunch, Echo takes Sparrow to her garden, where they prance around like a fawn, pain from cramps temporarily forgotten, and eat pea pods straight off the vine. We pull up tiny purple flowers and chew on the root for its light, onion-y flavor. Small red tomatoes – hopefully tomatoes, and not their deadly nightshade cousins – and spicy peppers. I chew on a bitter lettuce leaf and wish for something more substantial; instant noodles or rice from a drone, stacked neatly and waiting in my cabin.

My cabin, which has stood empty now for over 24 hours. I’m half convinced the goats have knocked over the whole thing in my absence. Goats are destructive and voracious, which is the only reason I keep them around; they decimate the plant life in the immediate vicinity of the cabin and the barn. If a fire blazes through, it will bypass my home entirely, with nothing to catch and carry it over.

Ideally.

I want to go home. The pull is unbelievably strong, like a physical pressure. I’m never away from the place for long; until last night I hadn’t slept anywhere but that cabin’s loft bed since my last one went up in smoke. My back aches from the hard RV table-bed.

I break the news to Echo before they walk back to the RV, registering her disappointed look. “Oh, yeah, that makes sense,” she agrees. “I appreciate you sticking around this long.” The decision about what to do with Sparrow appears to have been resolved by indecision; the kid shows no sign of leaving, and Echo shows no sign of asking them to go.

I smirk. “I give it three days.”

“What?”

“Sparrow knows where I live,” I offer. “You can send them over when you need a break.” As soon as it leaves my mouth, I wonder why I've said it.

I start down the mountain while Echo and Sparrow hike back up it. I consider a detour into town to visit the library, but it is already getting late. Pauly gives me a bored look when I cross the yard, past the grazing goats and scratching chickens. I pick up three eggs on my way past the coop; perfect for dinner.

Inside, the cabin feels too quiet. I track down the radio – charging in the sun, on the porch next to the little lantern – and tune it to 1320 AM, filling the silence with the high, stringy tones of a ukulele.

​Chapter 5

It is two days later when I spy little Sparrow traversing across the open land on their way to my cabin, but they are not alone; Echo has joined them. I feel oddly relieved to see her, like I have missed her company or something. Sparrow looks strange from a distance, and as they approach I see why: their long, matted hair has been cut nearly to the scalp. They run their hands over the stubble, grinning. “It feels so cool.”

“Two days, huh?” I say to Echo, leaning in close so only she can hear. She blushes, looking embarrassed, so I add, “I’m actually glad to see you. Both.” The last word comes out awkwardly, more emphatically than intended.

“Something happened last night!” Sparrow chirps brightly, interrupting. “We almost died!”

“Oh?” They look oddly cheerful for someone who recently faced death, but now I recognize a tired, haunted look in Echo’s eyes. We sit on the porch, Sparrow clucking at the chickens from the steps while Echo explains the events of the night before.

“It wasn’t nearly so dramatic. There are more drones, patrolling around town, including one of the tiniest ones I’ve ever seen.” She holds up her hands a few inches apart.

“They’re murderdrones!” Sparrow pipes in. “From DataLess.”

Echo shrugs. “Maybe. That’s how Jim Butcher died.” I swallow against the acid the name brings up. “It ignored us,” she continues, “Well, it ignored me. Sparrow here was cowering behind an old dumpster.” She gives the kid a pointed look.

“It was gonna kill me!” they protest. Their certainty, and the cavalier attitude with which they treat their alleged near-death experience, remind me of all the questions I have yet to ask them, and Echo, about what they know and how they’re connected to all this. Like, who were the Appelbaums, and why was Sparrow so certain they had been murdered? How does Echo know about Jim Butcher?

I haven’t seen Jimmy in over a decade, but about three miles away from my cabin, Tom Ford was my next closest neighbor after the Acolytes, huddled up in a little white shack near the mud ruined highway. I sometimes wonder at how he gets by, and assume it is with copious amounts of homebrewed rotgut. From a distance, I've watched him limp around his lot slowly and painfully from a bullet hopefully still lodged in his kneecap. He's an outcast, ostracized and scorned; an Outlaw to the end. I make a point not to cross paths with him.

It’s a funny thing about reputations. Although my sister died when we were 17, I choose to remember her as she was in the photograph on my wall, all cheer and toothless smiles. Long before she got herself wrapped up in the suffocating embrace of Rob Parker and his Outlaws. The last time I actually saw Josie she was dead, a grey and decaying body dumped carelessly in a field near the library some time during the longest winter of my life. The frigid cold of months previous had not been enough to keep it from getting scavenged, or maybe the snow helped to preserve it for a quick springtime snack. The body had been ripped apart and chewed by scavengers, but I recognized it from the blanket trapped underneath her pelvis. Though it had been bleached nearly white by the sun, it was once a soft pastel yellow; I dyed the yarn myself, from the bright yellow flowers of rabbitbrush harvested in the late summer. Josie sat next to the fireplace that fall, knitting it into a blanket for the tiny life form growing in her belly.

Oh, I was so angry with her, but father was delighted – after the initial shock of her confession, that is. She was reluctant to reveal the cause for her condition, though it was obvious to me it was one of the group of three rough, loud, outgoing men who had passed by a few weeks prior, heading the wrong direction – not east, but west. They weren’t Travelers or Refugees, they insisted, but Nomadic Entrepreneurs. The posse would take advantage of the scared, fleeing families, offering them protection for a price.

Protection from themselves, maybe. Soon after their passing we saw a dramatic increase in reports of robberies, but Josie wouldn’t listen to the possibility that it could be them. “Robby would never do that.” Rob Parker with the dreamy hazel eyes and rough tanned skin; obviously he was the baby’s daddy. Charismatic and suave, natural leader to temper Jimmy Butcher’s casual cruelty and take advantage of Tom Ford’s dumb loyalty. The perfect seducer to Josie’s flirtatious charm.

Now, gods willing, he’s already long turned to dust. I left Josie in the field, since the ground was still too frozen to bury it. Hers was hardly the only body littering the town after that brutal winter. There was no sign of the baby; I assume a coyote got it.

I want to ask about the murder, but Echo is still going on about how she intends to capture one of the little drones, describing something she calls an microwave ray gun that will, ostensibly, make the thing drop dead right out of the air.

“It’s that easy?” I ask, laughing, thinking about all the black powder and lead balls I’ve wasted on transportation drones.

“Well, if it’s small enough,” she concedes. “We would need a much bigger power source to make an electromagnetic pulse big enough to disrupt the construction drones, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

It wasn’t exactly what I was thinking, but I let it slide. The power plant out of sight, blocked from view by the hill to my east, it’s easy to forget about it as a problem; I don’t see the drones swarming all over it and the river, day and night.

“So, why are you here then?” I ask. “Sounds like you’ve got it all sorted.”

Echo frowns, looking disappointed. “You invited us,” she says softly.

Shit. I did, and now I’ve offended her. I smile broadly, feeling fake even as I do so. “Right, and I’m so glad you came. I’ve just shot down a crate full of mac and cheese, and there’s no way I’m ever gonna be able to eat it all by myself.”

. . .

Echo stands in the middle of my cellar, hands on her hips, surveying my storage space in awe. Or, something like awe, but also dismay, a confused expression on her face as she gazes at the toilet paper throne, the endless stacks of cans and boxes and pouches. Some edible, most not; I collect soaps, linens, batteries which will never power anything, crossword puzzle books, craft supplies, first aid kits stocked with their own varied supplies. It is a habit I picked up from my father, who spent his life preparing for disaster – nuclear annihilation, plague, climate disasters, highway landslides that cut off the entire northwest corner of the state – it didn’t matter what. My parents’ entire generation grew up with the vague, uneasy certainty that their entire way of life was a precarious house of cards, waiting to collapse; and around here, at least, it did. We were doing fine. My father didn’t just stock up for the apocalypse, he also emphasized self-sufficiency, which is why I can, theoretically, hunt and forage and weave baskets and harvest flowers for dyes and herbal salves. But I’m unwilling to kill anything besides drones, and why settle for willow root when I have enough acetaminophen in this cellar to cure a lifetime of migraines?

Basil Bartlett’s preparation, his all-important stashes and supplies, were ultimately his downfall; ripped away from us over his cold, dead body. The rest went up in flames.

I try not to think about it.

“Raine, I think you might be a hoarder,” Echo says, not unkindly but with a hint of concern in her voice.

“You should see how much I’ve left behind.”

The comment, meant to justify my stash, just disappoints her more. “This is the paradigm of excess,” she accuses.

“One could say the same about your electronics,” I retort, turning away to grab a blue box of macaroni from a stack of dozens. The cheese comes in a pouch inside, an almost florescent orange goo that squeezes out like custard; no nasty powdered milk required.

Echo is grinning when I turn back to her. “At least I share my skills with the masses,” she winks, and my heart dances. “If you need any electronics repaired, I’m your guy.” You just need to climb up a mountain to reach her.

“I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I’m kind of a Luddite.”

Echo’s eyes sparkle. “I have! You'd get along well with my parents.” It's not an insult, but it sort of feels like it.

I prepare the factory made, ultra-processed macaroni and cheese mix over a wood stove, the water taking forever to boil with Sparrow grumbling about how eternally hungry they are. We eat the salty, creamy indulgence on the porch, and I think about Echo’s soup, the oatmeal breakfast with apples she grew and picked herself. I wonder, aloud, where she gets the staples from – pasta, oatmeal, she even had rice in the RV. Not anything I saw growing in her forest garden, if it was even big enough to sustain grains.

“I trade, just like you,” Echo explains, “You know. Useless computer crap.” She winks, then continues explaining her business. Landfills, storage units, abandoned houses are all loaded with electronic junk: broken computers, portable DVD players, game systems, little toys with sharp, tinny speakers. An LED display she found at the local Walmart, forgotten and discarded by looters, was controlled by an entire computer the size of your thumbnail. She’s sorted through thousands of lithium batteries, which mostly still work, though some have a nasty habit of randomly exploding. With so few people around to supply with modern conveniences, I’m surprised she hasn’t already gone out of business, but apparently most of her time is just spent fixing them. “Electronics break, like, all the time.” Echo also repairs mechanical things, like sewing machines and windmills, bikes and clothing.

I glance around my cabin; the only electricity I use is in the lantern and, rarely, the radio. “Seems like you could save yourself a lot of trouble by just not having it in the first place,” I remark.

“Maybe,” Echo agrees, “but then we’d both be a lot hungrier.” She’s got a point; the drones I shoot down have to come from somewhere.

“I ain't allowed to use electricity,” Sparrow interjects. “Daddy’s house was all lit up with solar panels, but I wasn’t allowed inside.”

The mac and cheese feels like orange sludge in my mouth as I chew, trying to process this revelation, but Echo doesn’t look particularly perturbed, and I wonder what else she has learned about them. What tragedies have they let slip? The kid looks far less feral without the dirty, tangled hair; less worn down after only a couple days in Echo’s care. She also seems much more comfortable around them. She’s hardly stuttered or stammered at all since they arrived. I finally swallow the bite down, and ask, “So where did you sleep, then?”

Sparrow tilts their head, curiously. “The treehouse.” They say it like it should be obvious.

I want to feel bad for them, but something about Sparrow’s claim doesn’t compute. “What about your radio?” I ask. They wouldn’t stop talking about it, the first night they were here, how much better it was than mine. “That’s electronic.”

They flinch. “It weren’t mine.”

“Then whose was it?”

“My neighbor’s.” Sparrow suddenly jumps up and proffers their empty bowl, bright orange cheese smeared around the inside. “Where can I wash this?” They already know the answer to this; they watched me wash the dishes outside last time they were here, having made no offer to help at the time. Maybe Echo is teaching them manners; or maybe they want to get out of here before they slip up and accidentally reveal too much, something about murder or arson, houses burning down. I point towards the water pump and Sparrow skips away, trailed by a curious chicken.

I lean closer to Echo, speaking low so they can’t hear. “So, spill. Have they confessed yet?”

“Confessed?” she repeats, looking confused, and I’m suddenly concerned my half-joke is going to fall flat.

I say it anyway. “They killed their father and burned down the evidence, right?”

She gives me a mildly horrified look. “Where did you get that idea?”

“Um,” I sigh. “I read a lot.”

Echo grins. “Too much, I think.” She leans back in the old, broken chair, surveying me. “You need to spend some time in the real world.”

“Nothing’s real around here,” I scoff. “It never was. They weren’t even real cowboys, here. Did you know ‘Moffat County’ was named after a banker?”

“We’ve always loved to mythologize the wild west,” she agrees. “Speaking of which, why is it that no one in town knows who you are?”

“No one?” Who would she even ask?

“It’s not like ‘Raine’ is a particularly forgettable name.” There is an accusation in her tone, like I must’ve somehow done something wrong in order to be forgotten. Rude.

I shrug and turn to focus on Sparrow as I try to organize my thoughts. The kid has drifted away to annoy Pauly, their now clean(ish) bowl abandoned in the dirt. The ancient mule is the only other survivor from Bartlett Ranch. He carried me here, together fleeing the old cabin in flames, the gang of bandits who robbed it, the sister who betrayed us. He is even old enough to have met my mother; did she give him sugar cubes, stroke his soft muzzle, whisper secret desires to run away into his giant, fuzzy ears? I want to believe she loved animals as much as she loved books, just because I do. In truth, I know very little about Stella Bartlett – aside from the fact that she was a murderer – because my father refused to talk about her. Her true fate unknown, Father decided that she was dead, a name no longer worth mentioning.

“Everything dies,” he would say, “Trees die. Goats die. Family dies. You’ll die one day, too, and all that will be left is your reputation.” My mother’s reputation, at least in his eyes, was that of a murderer and a traitor.

No one knows me because I try to stay anonymous. I visit the library at odd hours, trade only with my closest neighbors, keep conversations to a minimum. I have worked hard not to cultivate any sort of reputation at all.

“You’d have to talk to my neighbors,” I offer. Hopefully she goes east, not west; Tom Ford probably wouldn’t have very kind things to say about me.

“Lavern wasn’t sure about your name,” Echo says blandly. “You never introduced yourself.”

“Lavern?”

“Um. The dad?” She keeps staring at me, critically, like she is inspecting some exotic animal. “You don’t even know your neighbor’s names?”

“I’m not a highly social person.”

She snorts. “That’s an understatement.”

“When did you talk to my neighbors about me?”

“On the way here.”

“I usually go around.” I gesture south; cutting over the hills towards my neighbor’s house offers a slightly more direct route to town, but I take the long way, trekking along the highway to avoid any conversation.

Echo looks like she wants to respond, but she presses her lips together and looks out towards the yard instead. From the porch, you can’t see any neighbors, hidden by the hills; the only signs of civilization are distant fences and long dead power lines. I spend a few weeks each year ripping out the old barbed wire fences. The spiky strands – no longer needed, since landowners have largely vanished – have a nasty habit of entangling the deer who are just trying to follow their instinctive migration routes.

Sparrow finally works up the nerve to climb up onto Pauly’s back, and because he is ancient and they are tiny he lets them. They sit there looking pleased, patting his dusty back as he grazes and ignores their instructions to move.

Echo abruptly breaks the silence. “What are you afraid of?”

A surprised laugh escapes me. “Excuse me?”

“You live all the way out here, for no reason.” I start to protest, but she ignores me, continuing, “I mean, you could hunt drones anywhere, right? There’s no reason to stay all the way out here. You’re brash and standoffish and you don’t even know your own neighbors.”

“Rude,” I retort, intelligently.

“That’s exactly what they said about you.”

So, I do have a reputation. Ouch. “I don’t really like people,” I offer.

Echo gives me a pitying look. “That’s really sad.”

“Well, you can be sad about it all you want,” I snap, my face hot. “I’m perfectly happy as I am.” I grab the two empty bowls and lumber off the porch towards the pump to rinse them. Recently primed by Sparrow, the water immediately pours out, cool and clear. I rinse the bowls, adding the kid’s to the stack. I only have the three bowls, since the fourth in the set broke several years ago, its blue ceramic shards eroding somewhere in my extensive yard. More proof of my excess; Echo makes do with just one. So what does she do when she has all those friends and guests over?

Echo has crossed the yard behind me to join Sparrow, who is laying on their stomach along the mule’s back, fingers bunched up in his short, brushy mane. She speaks to them in a low voice, too quiet to hear but the kid frowns and shakes their head, glancing at me then quickly away when they see me staring. They are obviously talking about me, and I wonder what their plans are – or were. It is just after noon, and they could probably walk back up the mountain before dark, if Sparrow didn’t get distracted every five feet.

The topic has changed to drones as I approach. “Don’t you hear it?” Sparrow asks, head tilted with one ear to the sky. Then they make a horrendous, high pitched squealing sound. “EEEEeeeeeEEEeE.”

“Ugh,” I groan, “No, that’s just tinnitus.” The remark prompts a giggle in Echo, a much sweeter sound than the kid’s piercing ring.

“No it’s not!” they insist. “Donkey hears it too.”

“He’s a mule,” I correct, “And his name is Pauly.” Sparrow is right about their assessment, however; Pauly’s long ears are twisted to the side, listening out for... something.

“It’s a drone,” Sparrow asserts, “Like the one in town.” They slide off the mule’s back and start on a sprint towards my house, door clattering as they race inside. We follow behind more slowly, and by the time we get to the porch they are proven correct. I stand next to Echo, gripping the porch railing as a tiny drone whirs over the eastern hill, nothing like the ones I shoot down, which dully lumber westward in straight, predictable patterns. It is only about the size of a crow, but far more agile, and I could swear it is analyzing us as it approaches.

“Should we go inside?” Echo asks, but she makes no move to go.

“It’s just a drone,” I mutter, unconvinced. I flex my fingers and pop the knuckles, tense. My rifle is inside.

The drone stops its erratic searching a few yards in front of the cabin, hovering completely still in front of us. The chickens, the goats, the birds, the flies are all completely silent; there is only the high buzzing of the drone’s spinning propellers filling the air. After a too long, too tense moment, it tilts and whirs away, soaring over the next hill to the west and beyond.

Echo exhales a sigh of relief, and I laugh. “Where’s a ray gun when you need one?” I ask, gently nudging her with my elbow before turning to follow Sparrow inside.

The first drones started appearing after the landslide destroyed a section of the only major highway that crosses our county, triggering a mass exodus of residents who relied on the continuing supply chain to survive. For a while there were promises to clean up the highways and provide assistance to the locals. Some of the drones even landed here, stocked full of supplies that were largely unhelpful – paper towels, high visibility dog collars, crates full of printer toner. Expired foods, though we quickly realized expiration dates were often just guidelines and dried beans can last pretty much forever. As subsequent landslides worked to cut us off completely, drone traffic overhead increased, but the supply drops ceased. Officially, the region was abandoned, but here we are.

In the cabin, Echo looks around the small sparse space, chewing on her lip.

“You guys staying here tonight?” I ask, so she doesn’t have to. I am pleased when she nods, looking grateful, but there is a logistical issue: Sparrow can sleep on the dirty, mouse-ridden couch, but the only other option is my bed.

The idea of Echo in my bed is...

complicated.

When Josie told me she was pregnant, a few months before our seventeenth birthday, my first question was, How? Thankfully, I managed to swallow that one down, because she surely would have provided me a repeat of our father’s lecture about the birds and bees, but my second question, Why? did spill out.

It prompted a disappointed look from my sister. “Because I’m in love.”

“With who?” I asked angrily, and that reaction, perhaps, was when she decided to clam up on the subject entirely. I was no longer her ally, but dreamy Rob Parker could be, if she could keep him safe.

My initial one word question was two-fold, and neither was sufficiently answered by what I considered to be a glib comment. I still don’t understand why anyone would want to reproduce in this age; I definitely don’t understand why anyone would want to get close enough to a man to accomplish it.

But Echo is cute. I kind of like her, and I have no idea what I’m supposed to do about that. I’ve been alone for a very long time, and for good reason.

. . .

That evening, Echo drags me over the hill to the neighbor’s house, “For a proper introduction.” Lavern Wells, a short, cheerful man with a deep tan, is who I usually interact with; on occasion his wife, who I learn is named Elizabeth, will offer me a treat as we make our exchanges. The two have had seven children, of which two are grown and have their own families, and two still live at home. I don’t ask about the missing three; for a time there, bodies were literally piling up on the streets. Including Josie’s. Their offspring are both shy, awkward young adults, probably too old to still be living with their parents. Allison is almost indistinguishable from her mother, with the same bright blue, downcast eyes, and a white cloth that covers her long hair. Gareth is thin and long-limbed, and oddly obsessed with the genealogy of his family’s goat herd. Apparently the stray does in my yard would be a welcome addition.

I recite these details to Echo later, just to prove to her that I can care about other people... or at least pretend to. We are trudging back to my home, nearly an hour long walk through the darkness, after the Wellses insisted we stay for supper. Sparrow skips on ahead with my electric lantern, immune to the bitter cold wind beating in from the south. We are probably a couple weeks away from the first hard frost, but nights cool fast without the sun beating down on our dry, dusty earth.

“Okay,” Echo says, “But did you ever tell them your name?”

“Why would I need to? You already gave it away.” I am a little bitter about this fact; that Echo has been going around asking about me, spilling out the name Raine like it’s not mine to choose when to reveal. It was easy for her to socialize, she already knew them. Lavern treated her with the same distant warmth that he carried with him in all our interactions, but Elizabeth was less shy and more cold. I would have thought it was for the mealtime intrusion, but she spent the entire time shooting scowling glances at Echo’s vibrant purple hair.

A magpie wock WOCKs, followed by Sparrow’s near-perfect imitation. They are visible only for the dancing electric lantern ahead. “How are they not exhausted?” Echo complains, “I haven’t walked this much since I moved up the mountain.”

“It’s thirty miles to Maybell,” I remind her. “As far as I know, they walked the entire way.” I want to ask if she has found out more about them, but we haven’t had a chance to really be alone since they arrived, and they have some preternatural hearing.

“Yep!” Sparrow confirms from far ahead, illustrating said ability. They pause next to a giant sagebrush, waiting for us to get closer before adding, “Well, I ran the whole first day.”

“What were you running from?” I ask.

“Daddy.”

I exchange looks with Echo, who shrugs. The last of the sun’s glow disappears as we crest the hill next to my cabin, but the moon is full and heavy overhead, bathing us in silvery light. When she stumbles over a tangled bush, I reach out to catch her. She gently clings to my arm until we’ve reached the clearing below.

Well, I know where to go. I’ve walked this path dozens of times.

When we get back to the cabin, Sparrow immediately slogs over to the couch, finally worn down. By the time I have a fire going in the stove, they are asleep, snoring softly. Echo is sitting at my table, tapping her fingers to some inaudible beat. I gesture for her to follow me up the spiral stairs, where I light a candle.

“You might’ve noticed, I don’t have a lot of furniture.” I speak in a low voice, to avoid disturbing the sleeping bird below. “But my bed’s kind of big?” I have enough pillows to build a wall between us, and we’d both have enough space. From one vacuum-packed shipment, I have enough pillows to make a new bed entirely. Thinking about it, it’s kind of cruel to make little Sparrow sleep on that old, musty couch.

“That’s fine,” Echo murmurs before I have a chance to explain about the pillows. Her eyes glow golden in the candlelight as they scan my room: books stacked on the floor, rifle on the wall. Beneath it is the original barrel, exploded, end frayed and curled up like some kind of cartoon, She picks it up to examine it, then looks Polaroid photograph pinned above it. She grins and leans closer, examining it in the dim light. “Is this your sister?”

I bring the candle closer so she can see it better. “On the right.”

“Yeah, obviously.” Echo is smirking when she looks over at me, adding, “Do you ever smile?”

I frown. “Only when I’m happy,” I answer pointedly, regretting it when her face falls. I try to redirect the conversation. “That’s Josie.”

“What happened to her?”

“She died, what, ten years ago? I’ve sort of lost track of time."

“Have you been alone here this whole time?”

I roll my eyes; I’m tired of these conversations. “I’m hardly alone here. You met Pauly, right?”

“Mhm.” Echo sits down on the wooden floor – unfinished and potentially splintery – and picks up the top book from the stack. “Battlefield Earth,” she reads, making a face before grabbing another. “The Shining. Mission to Mars. Wild Things. The Notebook.” She stacks the books neatly and looks over to where I am sitting on the bed. “You have an eclectic taste.”

“I sort of pick them up at random.”

She gives me an amused grin. “Which one is your favorite?”

“Of those, or in general?”

“In general.”

I don’t even have to think about it. “The Hobbit. My mom used to read it to us, when we were babies.” I am confident about this even though I don’t remember it, not exactly, because the first time I read the green, leather-bound novel that lives permanently on a shelf downstairs I could hear it in her voice. I want to tell Echo this, but it feels like too much, too meaningless without context. “What about you?”

“I prefer non-fiction, honestly,” Echo admits. “Radio manuals, physics textbooks. Autobiographies." She hesitates, then asks, "Where’s your mom now?”

“She escaped a long time ago, after the first landslide.”

“Escaped?” Echo sounds surprised by my word choice.

“Not like she was being held hostage,” I backtrack, “She just... really hated it here. Father died around the same time as Josie, so it’s just me and Pauly now. And the goats. Chickens.” I trail off.

“I see,” Echo says softly. She stands from the floor and stretches, pulling off her sweater in a smooth motion that briefly exposes her belly button before she can yank down the t-shirt she is wearing underneath. Her cargo pants have bright patches sewn throughout but were likely once identical to my own. We both wear such practical clothes – necessary in these days – with thick, sturdy fabrics that won’t wear away in the harsh environment; but I've got replacements in the cellar when mine go bad.

She catches me watching her and I duck my head, blushing. “I can sleep on the floor, if you’d prefer,” she offers. “I’ve slept on worse.”

“No way,” I respond, “What kind of host would that make me? I’ll take the floor.”

She grins and sits on the bed next to me. “Well,” she says, running a hand over a worn blanket, “it’s big enough for the two of us, I think.”

“Sparrow, too, probably,” I suggest awkwardly.

Echo makes a face. “You’d think, but kids take up a ton of space. And they’re all sharp elbows and knees.” She trails off, chewing on a thumbnail, and we sit in silence for a moment, watching the flickering candle flame.

“So, what have they told you?”

“Sparrow?”

“You’ve been interrogating them, right? Fishing for information?” She shakes her head. “Nothing about their dad? The ‘Appelbaums’?” I make air quotes around the name, but no reaction. “A fire?!” I’m too loud in my incredulity, and Echo gives me a harsh look, waiting a moment to listen for stirring downstairs before responding.

“I get the picture their dad’s a piece of shit.” I like hearing the curse in Echo’s soft, incongruous tone. “They were clearly neglected. Do they need more reason to be here?”

“I suppose not,” I reluctantly agree.

“They’re a good kid,” she assures me, “Probably traumatized. Kind of weird. But also sharp as a tack.”

“I’ve noticed. I like their hair cut, by the way. They look almost human.”

“It was the only way to deal with it all. I don’t think they’d ever even heard of a hairbrush.”

I have a flashback to sitting on Josie’s bed, taking turns combing each other’s long, auburn hair. Hers was wavier than mine and prone to knotting, but with patience it would turn silky smooth, gliding effortlessly through the ivory and silver comb that had been our mother’s mother’s mother’s... and so on. I have a strange desire to run my fingers through Echo’s hair, the springy purple curls, and how does she dye it out here, anyway?

Before I can ask, she yawns, loudly and unabashedly. “Sorry,” she grimaces, “I’ve been up since forever.”

“Chasing robots,” I remember.

“I do hope Charlie’s doing okay alone up there.” She looks legitimately worried about the cold, metal creature. “I feel weird without my tech, all disconnected.”

And she calls me anti-social. “You must not leave the mountain often.”

“Never for very long, but I go into town fairly often. I visit my siblings a lot.”

This surprises me, since she told me she doesn’t fit in, and it seemed like her family drove her away. I think about Lavern’s stiff politeness, the mundane chatter about weather and crops, Elizabeth’s side-eyed glares and silent judgments, and wonder if that’s how she is treated at home.

Well. At least her family’s still alive.

We lay down on opposite sides of the bed, hugging our respective edges. I prefer to sleep on my left side, my good ear pressed against the pillow to muffle sounds, which puts my back to Echo. Feeling vulnerable that way, I roll onto my back and stare at the slanted ceiling above, the dancing shadows from the candle that will put itself out in a few minutes. In my periphery I can see Echo is also laying on her back, watching the same flickering light show. We simultaneously turn our heads to look at each other and both break out into girlish giggles that we have to suppress in the still night air. Our mirth lasts as long as the candlelight does; when the wax gets too short, a little brass cap flips over, snuffing out the flame and bathing us in a blanket of silent shadows.

“Good night, Raine,” Echo whispers.

“’Night,” I mutter in response.

The bed creaks slightly as she shifts next to me. Through the darkness her hand finds my hair, my face; then she is pressing her lips against mine.

. . .

I am awoken in the morning by a heavy rumbling from outside, a deep, low hum that rattles the glass in the cabin’s windows. I sit up quickly, shrugging off Echo’s arm which had spent most of the night draped unconsciously across my stomach.

“What is that?” she murmurs blearily, rubbing her eyes.

“Drone.” Not the little scout we saw yesterday, nor a delivery drone loaded with crates; this enormous monstrosity sounds more like a reclamation drone. The door bangs shut downstairs. “Shit, Sparrow,” I grumble, racing down the spiraling staircase to catch up with them. The drone is rapidly disappearing behind a hill as I step barefoot out onto the porch. Sparrow is also barefoot, but it doesn’t stop them from trying to chase the distant machine through razor sharp weeds, screaming incoherently at its vanishing whir.

“What’s going on?” Echo was smart enough to stop to put on her boots and has two other pairs dangling from her hands. She passes mine over with a sweet smile that makes my heart race.

“Reclamation drone,” I reply. “No idea what their problem is.” Sparrow has slowed down after reaching the brushland, but is still slowly pressing through, determined to keep following the long gone drone. I sit down on the steps to pull my boots over sockless feet before we take off together to retrieve the kid, who is angrily swiping tears away from their face as we approach.

“What’s up?” Echo proffers the boots, which Sparrow quickly snatches from her hands.

“We have to see where it’s going,” they explain, rubbing their nose with a sleeve. They are trying very hard to pretend they are not crying.

Echo suggests we have breakfast before going on an adventure, a comment which is ignored. I try to reassure them that it’s just a reclamation drone, off to pick up someone else’s trash, but they march resolutely onward. My stomach grumbles as we hike through the morning dew, skin prickling with goosebumps from the cold. I shiver and rub my arms, grateful for the rising sun at our backs.

“Here.” Echo holds out her sweater, which she was also smart enough to grab before coming outside to chase a stray child through the brush. It is knitted wool, beige with bright yarn patches dotted throughout, colorfully repaired just like her pants.

“I’m fine,” I lie, waving it away.

“Seriously? I can hear your teeth chattering.” She pushes the sweater towards me, our fingers brushing as I accept it. The contact feels electric, and I press my lips together, remembering the kiss from last night. It was just the one – light and casual and disappointingly too brief – before we curled away and fell asleep, but now I can’t stop thinking about it. I pull the sweater over my head. It smells like her.

We catch up with Sparrow at the top of the next hill, where they stand frozen like a statue, chewing on a knuckle. From here we can see for miles; including near the highway, where an enormous reclamation drone is ripping apart Tom Ford’s house. The buzzing of the drone’s motors, the ripping tearing shuddering crumbling sounds of the house are all muffled by the distance, but somehow over it all we can still hear the shrill, high screams of a man in terror. Echo pulls Sparrow towards her and cradles their head against her chest as a dark, flailing form falls free from the grasp of the drone’s vicious claws. It lands on the ground with an inaudible thud that echoes silently through my head.

At least then the screaming stops.

The job is over quickly; the reclamation drone picks up whatever materials it deemed necessary, then retreats back east, flying nearly overhead as we trudge wearily back to my cabin. Echo holds onto Sparrow’s hand, and I plow forth ahead of them, not jealous of the kid at all. I had wanted to keep going, to make sure that Tom Ford was actually dead, but the look she gave me when I made the suggestion shamed me into turning around. I’ll have to go back when they’ve gone home to Echo’s mountain.

In the cabin I rebuild the fire so I can make pancakes on the stove top, which Sparrow pours enough thick corn syrup onto to make a grown man’s pancreas cry.

Echo is quiet, eyes downcast as she mulls over what we witnessed, picking at the food in front of her without really eating it. “That was so horrible,” she finally says. Then, to the kid, “I’m so sorry you had to witness it.”

To my surprise, they just shrug, focusing on their pancakes. “It's happened before.”

So, this is what happened to the ill-fated Appelbaums; not a fire at all. I am not the first person Sparrow ran into when they finally escaped their father. They describe the months living with the couple in a cabin by the creek, working almost nonstop to earn their keep – cleaning, cooking, tending to the animals – but it was a life they cherished. They wore shoes. They ate three times a day. They slept indoors on a small cot, listening to tense arguments fomenting between the couple. Then the drones swarmed in; first a scout, then a note on the porch that pushed the couple's regular arguments into outright fights, books and shoes and frying pans flying. Taking advantage of their distraction, Sparrow managed to slip away early one morning. “I saw the big drone as I was running away. They were still in the house.”

Did they hear the screams, I wonder, or did the Appelbaums get out in time? Something still doesn’t add up. “You told me there was a fire.”

They hesitate. “There was.”

“Was this before or after you found the Appelbaums?”

“Before.”

“Mhm,” I grunt skeptically. Echo kicks me under the table before I can continue the interrogation, and probably for the better. Sparrow has a glazed, detached look in their eyes, staring blankly into the distance as they talk. It is unnerving in someone so young and yet so old. After breakfast they curl up with my little radio on the couch, music turned up so loud it makes my ears hurt.

“How is it still playing?” I wonder aloud.

“Automatic playlist,” Echo answers. “Come on, let’s go talk outside.” I follow her out onto the porch, where she leans against the railing, watching a handful of chickens that cluck curiously at us.

“Are you okay?” I ask. She had said she wanted to talk, but now seems reluctant, chewing on her lower lip as she considers my question.

“Of course not,” she answers finally, “that was terrible. That poor man.”

I scoff and she flashes me an irritable look. “I’m sorry,” I try, “but for what it’s worth, he was a real piece of shit.”

“You knew him?”

“Wish I didn't. Tom Ford.” His name tastes like bitter copper.

“Tom Ford,” she repeats, testing it out. “It’s not familiar.” I feel a sense of relief, knowing she never had the displeasure of meeting him, until she adds, “But my brothers used to deliver goods out this way to a disabled man –”

“Ugh!” I cut her off with a groan. “Disabled or not, he deserved the lead in his kneecap.”

Echo gives me a strange look. “Did you put it there?”

“Yeah, and I should’ve gone for the head.”

It was Jim Butcher who killed my father; a gunshot to the head, his body sprawled along the dirt driveway outside our burning cabin. Tom Ford was responsible for the fire, after spending the morning clearing our home of anything useful. The solar generator, all our food, our pots and pans, Father’s big radio, my rifle, Josie, the baby still tucked away safely in her belly. He loaded the crap up into an actual horse drawn carriage and poured kerosene over all the rest while I was busy hunting down drones with Rob fucking Parker.

How much was Josie in on the plan, I will always have to wonder. Did she watch the flames consume the only home we’d ever known? Did Father have to witness it, or was he dead before the raid? I stumbled back to the cabin after dark, guided by the glow of flames. I was dehydrated and delirious, bruised and beaten from the reclamation drone that nearly got me, my mouth coated with ash from the inferno. I tripped over my father’s corpse in the driveway and screamed in agony. I had twisted that ankle earlier while escaping their camp, the three drunken wretches (one moaning in agony), and pregnant Josie’s cold, hard eyes tracking my flight.

I try not to think about it, but the images flash involuntarily through my head, and Echo lets me sob into her shoulder as the story spills out in disjointed fragments. It’s not something I cry about, especially not after all these years, but here we are. She runs a hand up and down my back.

“I remember that fire,” she says; of course she does. The flames spread through the ranch, chewing up sagebrush and spitting out black smoke into the sky. One of dozens over the years. “We thought there were no survivors.”

We. Even alone up on a mountain, Echo is a part of something. I ran from the fire, the town, my father’s dead body and found this cabin where I have been hiding away ever since. That first winter was the worst, especially after Tom Ford installed himself in the house down the highway from me. I was constantly on edge, waiting for Josie and Rob to show up to kill me, too; but why would they? It’s not like there would be an investigation and murder trial. By that point, it was all pretty much over; we were completely cut off, forgotten, the population dwindled down to a handful of subsistence farming families and parasitic stragglers like me. I’d been reduced to hunting down the drones that used to stop and deliver essential supplies. Then I found Josie’s body outside the library, the tiny baby blanket, and I realized Rob Parker was done with her, too.

“So, yeah, I’m not gonna shed any tears over Tom Ford,” I croak, swiping at my eyes with my sweater sleeve, ignoring the image of his body’s long fall to the ground now permanently etched in my mind. “Or Jimmy Butcher, for that matter.”

“Okay,” Echo says slowly, and she wraps her arms around me in a tight embrace. “I do think the town should know what's going on, though.”

I pull away and shrug. She can broadcast her announcements, talk to her neighbors and family and the church that doesn’t want her, host all the community meetings in the library she wants; I want nothing to do with it. Okay, so, peoples’ houses are being destroyed. They might be getting murdered. Drones are rerouting the river and building some unknown monument at the old power plant.

What am I supposed to do about it?

It takes some time to convince Sparrow to abandon the radio on the couch and join Echo on the trek back up the mountain. She tries to convince me to go with, too: “It might not be safe here. There was a drone scouting around just yesterday.”

“Yeah, but I haven’t gotten any notes yet, so.” I shrug, ignoring Sparrow’s scowl. Echo just looks disappointed. The brief kiss last night feels like a long forgotten dream, and I am starting to think I imagined it.

I’m torn, but I can’t go with them, not right now. I have other plans.

I watch them cross over my yard and disappear over the hill, then race upstairs to grab my rifle and a couple shots. I regret that I hadn’t grabbed it this morning – keep your guns close, don’t leave home without ‘em, my father always said – but why would I need a rifle to chase down a child? Then something about the way Tom Ford’s body scrambled and flailed as if fell through the sky before thumping onto his land...

Well. I have to make sure.

​Chapter 6

The morning is already too warm, the day unseasonably hot after so many days of storms. The sun beats down on my head, my floppy sunhat providing shade but collecting an unpleasantly damp band of sweat on my forehead. Tom’s house is nearly an hour away, just a speck at first but growing larger, the tale of destruction becoming more clear as details come into focus. It looks as though a tornado has blown through. The house has been reduced to splinters, scattered across Tom’s wild, overgrown yard.

And there, in the middle of it all, is Tom Ford himself, his body broken and wheezing. His skin is pale and greyish, baked dry under the sun. Factoring in time for pancakes and the hike up here, he’s been laying out here for a couple hours now. His blue eyes follow me as I cross his yard towards him, rifle aimed at his skull. It’s no use; though he gapes and sneers, there’s nothing he could do to hurt me. His legs are sprawled at odd angles to his torso, one shattered, bloody end of a femur sticking out the left. If I looked close enough, maybe I'd find the bullet I put in it so many years ago. One arm is trapped underneath him, the other stretched out, fingers clutching at the soil. His chest looks strangely collapsed, like he’s been crushed, blood trickling out his mouth as he struggles to breathe.

“Josie,” he groans. Blood bubbles between his lips as he mumbles something else I can’t catch.

“Yup,” I agree, “I’m here for revenge.” I reach into my pocket for a paper cartridge. It consists of a half-inch lead ball wrapped in paper and tied up with a string; the remaining tube is filled with black powder, then folded over to seal the package. I tear open the end with my teeth and spit it out at Tom’s feet, prompting a weak, airy chuckle. I pour a little powder into the flash pan, then dump the rest down the barrel, followed by the paper-wrapped shot.

“You the daughter?” Tom wheezes, trying to sound cavalier on his deathbed. He chuckles. “Nah, too old. The sister.” He coughs, more blood spitting out between his teeth.

I jam the shot down the muzzle instead of responding.

“Wait,” he gasps, eyes wide, as though suddenly aware of his impending mortality. “You should see...” He trails off with a wet, hacking cough, and I raise my rifle; I’m about to lose my chance. His free arm flops over to his leg, fingering something in his pocket. Folded paper, the corner just sticking out. He lacks the strength and dexterity to pull it out.

Fzzt... POP. Tom Ford’s head explodes into a wet pile of grey and red mush. I wait for his fingers to stop twitching before reaching down to pull out the envelope, stained with piss and blood. It is addressed to a stranger, what I’m assuming is this house – or, what was once a house. The return address is simply a logo: sharp, angular wings surrounding a sun.

DataLess.

Dear Mr. Miller,

This notice is to inform you that the ownership of this property has been transferred to DataLess, Inc. You are hereby required to vacate the premises, effective immediately. Your continued presence on the property without permission of the new property owners will be considered a crime and will be prosecuted accordingly.

He wanted me to see this? I crumple up the eviction notice and toss it on Tom’s lifeless body, which I step around to approach his house. If he hoarded anything useful, the drone has already claimed it. I sigh and head back to my house, the word “daughter” in his raspy voice echoing through my head the entire time.

. . .

What does it take to turn someone evil; or to make one do evil things? Anyone left in town who remembers my mother likely thinks of Stella the librarian, kind and compassionate, helpful and soft-spoken. Could they imagine her capable of shooting two men to steal their car, their gas, and leaving her family behind?

Father refused to go with her, refused to let us go with her, but who would want to after what we witnessed? Josie, who evidently harbored a secret resentment against our father until the end. Did her entrapment here factor into her decision to betray him? She never talked about wanting to leave, at least not before she got pregnant; she even made fun of me for all my books, calling it escapism. It was something about the baby, something about Rob fucking Parker that corrupted her.

The last time I saw her, she was crying but begging me to stay with them. “You won’t even have to sleep with them,” she’d sobbed, as if that was a promise she could actually keep. They were a gang of criminals, outlaws who’d just killed our father and burned down our home, and she wanted to stay with them. She wanted me to stay with them. “Just give it a few days,” she’d tried. Don’t try to escape. We’d already been traveling for half a day, headed inexplicably towards the desert west. I was dazed and delirious, dehydrated after an afternoon of trekking through the back country with Rob. I had almost died pulling a crate of baby formula out of a flaming drone that was actively being reclaimed. A wagon showed up with all our stuff and Josie bouncing around in the back, which couldn’t have been good for the baby. Rob pointed his rifle at me, that redneck’s gun, gesturing for me to sit with her, and like a dumbass I did.

I thought, maybe there had been an accident. Something so terrible, Josie couldn’t stop crying long enough to tell me.

I didn’t manage to escape until that night, the men drunk and high around a campfire that should never have been lit. The wind blew a gust that sent sparks flying towards the nearby sagebrush, dried out branches lighting in an instant, threatening a fire that would destroy the camp. I took advantage of their distraction to retrieve my flintlock from Ford’s tent – he had taken it from me, but couldn’t figure out how to make it work. I loaded it in the tent and shot him in the knee when he surprised me as I was crawling out of it.

I fucking booked it through the night. There was a brief diversion to witness my cabin still smoldering, my father’s body stiff and pale, Pauly racing around, screaming as only a mule can. We didn’t stop running until I found a new little cabin, tucked away safely between hills.

Why didn’t they follow me, and why didn't they leave? Josie was meant to leave this place, take her baby somewhere safe and civilized, not rot away outside the library.

She used to claim that she remembers everything about the night mom left, which I would scoff and roll my eyes at. “Of course you don’t, we were too young.”

“You just don’t want to remember,” she retorted, which is probably true. Who wants to remember watching their mother commit murder – twice? Two ear-ringing bangs, one right after the other; two heavy deadweights slumping to the ground. And screaming, so much screaming, pouring out of my own chest as father dragged us away from her.

We lived a privileged life, all things considered. We had plenty to eat, and it didn’t always come from the strategic stores that father had been accumulating; the MREs were reserved for the worst of winters. We had fresh eggs and milk, vegetables, we churned butter and made jams to put on our stove-baked breads. Father taught us both how to shoot, how to ride, how to distinguish the plants that will kill you from the ones that will save you. We had books and music and clothing that kept us warm through the brutal mountain winters.

It just wasn’t enough. Once Rob Parker showed up with his posse of miscreants, he would take it all from me, and Josie would help him do it.

Rob fucking Parker. It was his idea to start shooting down the drones. “It’s a victimless crime,” he’d assured me, and he’s not wrong – who even is DataLess, and why do they have so many drones? Since I was the best shot, Rob would drag me out to go hunting, which is where I learned firsthand about his cruelty. He’d shoot at anything – prairie dogs, birds, harmless stray dogs – indiscriminately, leaving them to suffer alone when he only injured them with his all too-powerful modern rifle. For a while, after everything went down, there was a three legged dog who would follow me around when I went into town, missing limb courtesy of Rob. She’s probably dead now too.

Josie saw it; of course she saw it, just as I saw the hand-shaped bruises on her wrists and the scratches on her cheek that she tried to hide by wearing her hair down. She denied it all, and so did dad, and so did I.

We are all of us blinded by our desires.

. . .

“Friends, I know this sounds like a conspiracy theory, but I implore you to look with your own eyes. Homes are being destroyed. People are being murdered. Look at the drones swarming all over the power plant! What are they doing with the river?”

Echo’s voice, artificially modulated to be deeper, rings through my empty cabin as she begs the locals to attend a meeting at the library in a couple days. I’m glad to hear her voice but still turn the volume down so it is barely audible.

She would be so disappointed to learn what I’ve done, and I have already decided she never will. Ford was going to die anyway; all I really did was put him out of his misery.

I have promised to attend the library meeting, and I’m already starting to regret it. The trouble is I have no way of communicating with Echo one way or the other; if only little Sparrow could train the crows to carry letters. Maybe if I show up at her RV beforehand, tomorrow, I’ll find a way to weasel out of it.

Daughter. Tom's words rattle around through my skull.

I decide to make the hike up the mountain tomorrow; for now, I have to clean my gun and my thoughts. The residual heat from this morning’s cook fire has made the inside of the cabin unbearably stuffy, so I decide to set up a rare luxury: a shower, courtesy of a black, thick plastic bag with handle on top and a vinyl tube sticking out the bottom that I got in a crate of camping supplies a few years ago. It is heavy and unwieldy after I fill it with water. I hang it out to warm under the blistering sun; it almost feels like the dead of summer today, despite being well into autumn. I let the water warm up all afternoon before stripping down and showering, naked outdoors in front of an animal audience. I don’t have long with only four or five gallons of weak, lukewarm spray. Hopefully no pesky drones buzz past while I’m distracted.

. . .

I am in my old room in the cabin, reading an unexpectedly steamy book about an all-girls’ boarding school in the early 1900s, trying to ignore the sounds of joy and cheer and laughter emanating from downstairs. The thump and whine of music creeps through the floorboards, some pirate radio show that only pops up on the airwaves intermittently; but it provides far more variety than father’s limited vinyl collection, so Josie is always listening out for it. I hear the characteristic thumping of her footsteps on the creaky old staircase and brace myself; her exhilaration, her sheer pleasure for entertaining new strangers, is something I will never share.

“Come dance with us, Rainy,” she insists. “You can’t lock yourself alone up here all day.”

I can, and I would, but she is adamant, tugging my arm to pull me to my feet and half-waltzing me out the door. There are three visitors, this time, all men. Rough, rugged, charming, smelling like death. I dance with one, then another, focusing on their eyes to avoid all the rest. The first has eyes as black as voids, a hungry grin with sharp, wolfish teeth. The second has piercing blue sapphires and smells acrid and smoky. Josie doesn’t make me dance with the third, keeping him and his hazel eyes to herself. I watch them dance, the music growing louder as their movements get faster, more frantic. Her joyous face is transformed into something like fear, terror, agony as the man spins her faster and faster, a whirlwind crashing out of control through the room. The cacophony is deafening and I jam my knuckles into my ears to drown it all out. I blink, and I miss it; the visitors are all gone, Josie swept away with them. The cabin has been destroyed, ransacked, pillaged, but the music is still playing from somewhere.

. . .

I still hear it when I awake, not deafening but enough to disturb my sleep, and I regret leaving the radio on as I was going to sleep last night. The song that had infiltrated my dreams is over, replaced by something slower and more mellow, and I try to will my racing heart to slow and more match its tempo. The dream drifts away but leaves me feeling uneasy as I get up and prepare to visit Echo’s mountain.

My unease is exacerbated, pushed into full fledged anxiety when I step out onto my porch and find a small, rectangular envelope perched there on the front step. Addressed to Mr. Samson, whoever that is. Presumably the legal owner of this house; former, since the contents of the envelope are otherwise identical to the letter I pulled out of Tom Ford’s pocket.

Cold dread washes over me as I consider the supplies in the cellar below. Over a decade’s worth of accumulated – no, hoarded, if you ask Echo – goods, an inventory so broad and useless I can’t even bring myself to fully catalog it. The lamps and pillowcases could probably go, but there’s also food – enough for winter, enough for several winters, probably – and medicine, first aid kits, clothing. Some of it I should save for Sparrow; they’re going to grow, won’t they?

Where can I take it all? How?

There is no date on the eviction notice; a drone could fly in this afternoon and destroy it all. I plop down on the porch steps and stare numbly out at my yard. A goat – one of the does with long, perky white ears and white strips down her face – baas next to me, chewing on a tuft of grass that grows particularly well next to my porch because it is where I toss the water after boiling pasta. I reach out and scratch the wiry fur that covers her bony hips. She has no udders, just two nipples sitting tight against her stomach. She’s never had babies and won’t, trapped down here in this valley with only other girls and a eunuch for company.

“Having children during the apocalypse is absurd,” I’d asserted to Josie when we were young teens. “It’s selfish. It’s immoral! Who would bring a child into... this.” I’d gestured broadly, and from our vantage point over town it was all pretty visible. The abandoned houses, wrecked by brutal weather and fires. The looted and scavenged Walmart. One of the landslides that cut off our winding mountain highway and was now overgrown with prickly thistles that turn into tumbleweeds in the fall. The drone supply drops had started dwindling and, though we didn’t know it at the time, we had recently received the last one ever. It was several crates full of military MREs – Meals-Ready-to-Eat – edible in that you could eat it, not that you would ever want to. After two months we scattered remnants still had not completely divided them between us. Father would offer them to guests, but there weren’t even enough of those to deplete the crates.

“Well, at least they never go bad,” he said cheerfully. We ended up putting them in the library, where they slowly disappeared over the years.

I was always against kids, confused whenever we met them; toddlers with gappy teeth and bare feet just begging for tetanus. Back in the day, there were vaccines. Back in the day, there was a hospital. Now there’s a single nurse/midwife in town named Annie Fischer, if she’s still alive and working. She seemed old when Josie visited her over a decade ago.

The daughter. Tom Ford’s confused assertion must have come from somewhere. I fiddle with the useless eviction notice, feeling edgy and tense, and resolve to do something unheard of: I will ask my neighbors for help.

. . .

I had expected skepticism, resistance from Lavern Wells, his face grim as I describe the destruction of Ford’s house; from afar, leaving out the part where I went down there, the man’s true cause of death. But it turns out the Acolytes have already experienced this wanton destruction through another family in their church, albeit not one foolish enough not to leave at the first sign of the reclamation drone.

On the bright side, they had a full week to evacuate, which probably gives me time to clear out my cellar. Lavern has offered use of his family’s wagon, pulled by a shockingly huge mare, and his youngest children to help me move the goods. But this will have to wait a few days, he explains; there are others who need their help too. We make plans for after the community meeting at the library. “Will you and your son be attending?”

I assume he's referring to Sparrow, with their hair so short now, but don't bother correcting him. His question surprises me; it’s my understanding their church tries to stay out of politics. Or is it even political, when your homes are being destroyed?

“Of course,” I say, “I’m actually headed up the mountain to see Echo now.” He gives me a thin-lipped nod before returning to his home.

There is something very peaceful about the rhythm of walking through the scrubland, the crunch of grass and sand beneath your boots. The birds sing for the autumn, chasing down the last of the grasshoppers that scatter with every step. I stop briefly to take off my sweater, the one borrowed from Echo with colorful threads all over, and am grateful for my hat. The sun overhead is warm, not as uncomfortably hot as yesterday but warmer than fall should be, probably warmer than fall used to be even when I was just a kid. To the west, the heat of the desert is taking over, consuming grassland and forests alike, turning plants into tinder and soil into bleached dust. From space, I could probably watch the creeping line of death approach ever closer, year after year. It drove the people of Utah eastward, of Arizona and New Mexico northward; often through our little town. The refugees’ too-big vehicles would weave around the landslides on dangerous, improvised dirt roads that too often resulted in catastrophe. At least the reclamation drones would come around to pick up the cars, and their occupants, from the riverbed far below. Otherwise the Yampa would likely be too toxic to touch.

From the amount of frivolous crap that flies overhead in the drones I shoot down every week, you wouldn’t think that there’s a materials shortage, but the reclamation drones recycling every scrap of metal they can get their giant claws on suggests otherwise. There are few abandoned cars left in town. Houses, abandoned or occupied, are getting stripped down for copper. Wherever Echo is finding her gadgets, she has to be pretty clever to get ahold of them before DataLess does, and to keep them safe from the drones. Have they found her on the mountain?

I don’t get to find out; I don’t make it to the mountain at all. I am trudging through the foothills when I hear the characteristic whine of a drone, higher pitched even than the scout that scanned my cabin. It must be tiny. I can’t tell where it’s coming from; being half deaf means no aural directionality. It’s part of the reason I’m such a crap hunter, except for predictable drones, though the main reason is I don't like blood and guts. I curse and crouch down, preparing to load my flintlock with some buckshot, but it’s too late. A sharp pinch hits my neck, like a bee sting, itching and burning as it spreads through my veins. I drop the rifle, my limbs heavy, and fwomp forward into a patch of cacti, too numb to feel their prickling spines. I’m frozen, paralyzed.

Oh, shit, I think, They got me like Jimmy. It’s disappointing, to be killed in the same manner as Jim Butcher, resident psychopath. My vision blurs before everything goes black.

​Echo

​Chapter 1

The meeting was a disaster, from start to finish.

First, because Raine (despite all her promises) failed to even show up. I assumed she was tucked away in her little cabin, smirking and alone.

Second, because the town either didn't believe or didn't care what I had to say about the danger they were in. A couple members of my family were there (only men), their expressions a mix of bemusement and horror. A few friendly faces, at least some of them expecting a man to talk at them; not a quiet, pathetic, stuttering girl. A handful of families, faces pale with anxiety and confusion, clutched eviction notices, delivered in secret during the night, which asserted DataLess as the rightful owners of their property.

This conversation was quickly derailed by an actual employee of DataLess (wearing blue uniform with a gold winged logo) who insisted the company was legitimately buying the properties; despite the fact that they were never for sale, and nobody was seeing any money from them. What use did we have for money, around here? I'm sure there are people in town who still have cash (I've found plenty of it, while scavenging for parts), but it's meaningless around here. Better to line your walls with it for insulation. We deal in the tangible: a radio for a box of apples, a repaired sewing machine for a carton of eggs. I have something you need, you have something I need. Let's trade.

Ms. DataLess assured the town that the company had the town's best interests in mind, even tried to recruit others to work for them. Apparently, you get paid in real currency, which you can use to purchase goods from the DataLess website.

Assuming you can actually access it.

The whole thing ended when no one could agree on a course of action, fizzling out, and a handful of townsfolk actually followed the DataLess recruiter out the door; the appeal of actual paid work is apparently too great to ignore. I can't understand why. Half the population never used the internet even before the fall; the rest of them certainly can't now. Makes me wonder how she got the job in the first place.

This isn't the first time this town has been at the center of a proxy war for resources. Not even the third or fifth or seventeenth, probably – just read the old newspapers in the library's archive. Ancient tribes fought each other for hunting grounds, long before settlers came in and fought them all, decimating their cultures and rounding them up into distant reservations. Sheep farmers fought with cattle ranchers in a war that lasted over fifty years and resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of animals. Homesteaders fought with bankers who bought up the land for grazing rights, for mineral rights, oil rights, water rights. Coal miners fought with environmentalists, truckers fought against the railways, hunters fought the wildlife managers, residents fought the tourists, the Acolytes fought the Baptists who fought the Catholics who fought the Pentecosts, and always, always, some old curmudgeon was out there fighting against the youth, the schools, the Internet providers, the homosexuals, the liberals, and anyone else they determined to be a threat to their traditional way of life.

But somehow I can't seem to convince them to fight this new intrusion.

Third, lastly, the meeting was a disaster because Sparrow had disappeared by the end of it.

I wasn't immediately aware of their vanishing; I'm not accustomed to keeping track of little kids, despite growing up in the middle of thirteen siblings (there are many reasons why I left home so early, and that was just one of them). It wasn't until afterwards. After my father left without even acknowledging my goodbye, and two of my brothers, too, though they at least nodded in my direction as they part. After a distracting conversation with a greasy teenager named Jack who claimed he'd been listening to my show since he was a baby (I've never felt quite so old). After fixing an electronic Yahtzee game (aka, replacing dead batteries) for a kid named Annie; I'd traded it with her parents for an enormous jar of rice last year. After chatting with the men of the Wells family, Lavern and Gareth and another son, Adam (who had wanted to marry me, once upon a time).

"Where is Raine?" Lavern eventually asked, "She said she would be here." She'd said the same to me, but before I had time to think about it, I realized Sparrow was missing, and I had been the one to lose them.

Crap. "I'm not sure." I hesitated. "Have you seen Sparrow?" I asked, trying not to reveal my unease.

"I assumed he was with his mother," Lavern answered casually, and it took me a second to realize he was referring to Raine. Well, it's not like she had filled him in with the details of their situation. She hadn't even told him her own name, in all those years. He must notice the look on my face, because he goes on to say, "Perhaps they got busy packing up." And that's how I learned that Raine, too, had gotten an eviction notice just yesterday.

It's late evening by the time I race outside to look for them, the sun beginning its descent, and there is no sign of Sparrow (not that I'm much of a tracker). I silently curse Raine for her absence.

"Where is she?" Sparrow had asked, pouting, before they disappeared. "She said she'd come."

She told us she'd come. She told Lavern she'd come. I'd awaited her arrival like a sad, lovesick teenager, my heart racing, eager to catch sight of her shining auburn hair in the murmuring crowd.

I return to the library, filled with an all-encompassing silence (as it should be). Peaceful now without half the town gathered in it. I am hoping Sparrow will return, certainly by nightfall, terrified by the dark as they are. But, then, why would they leave at all? They were so eager for this meeting, for the opportunity to stop this impending invasion. But as soon as people started showing up, so many of them (more even than I was expecting), they turned pale.

"I never knew there was so many people," they'd murmured, then they fell silent for the first time, ever. Raine would have been so pleased.

Where the hell is she?

I am anxious to return to my home in the woods. I feel lost when I'm disconnected from the network I've worked for years (over a decade!) to build. I miss Charlie and my all-seeing cameras. Okay, hardly all-seeing, but it's nice to know what's going on around my home, my radio station. Not that anything ever happens, up there. I put one up to monitor the antenna after it got knocked down during a particularly violent wind storm, but for the most part it's just me and the animals, which I see more on the cameras than in real life. I'll run into a raccoon if I find myself out at night. A lonely bear wanders through my woods. A moose and her calf showed up recently, and I almost had a heart attack (I thought they were extinct).

Almost never human visitors (at least not before last week). If I want to see my family, I have to come to them. My parents have given up on me, and I've given up on them, but there's still hope for my siblings.

Some of them, at least.

Sparrow doesn't arrive, even after it gets dark, and neither does Raine. I leave a solar powered lamp by the door, a glowing beacon for the scotophobic kid and for any rascals or ruffians out there looking for trouble.

Like Jim Butcher. Raine had called him an Outlaw, which, given her story, is certainly true, but he hadn't seemed that bad when I knew him.

And I knew him quite well, if only briefly. Not that I would ever admit that to her.

A scoundrel, certainly, but a murderer? I want to believe Raine was confused, mistaking him for someone else. Jim was an outsider, a weary traveler (at least, so he claimed) who arrived a few years back and decided to stay. A drone hunter, just like Raine, who quickly established himself in town as a fair and honest tradesman.

But there was something to him, a hint of cruelty beneath all those layers, which only unveiled itself after we'd slept together. He could zero in on your weaknesses, exploit them without you even realizing it. He had "let slip" to my father that we'd slept together, assuring him that he wanted to "make it right." There was no making it right, and that was the end, for me. For us. For any hope of a relationship with my parents, which was already crumbling to pieces, what with my radio station and my refusal to obey the Lord's will.

But murder? Really?

As far as I know, there was no investigation into the fire that burned down the Bartlett home. There were no survivors; there were hardly any survivors of that following winter, either. My brothers, my father, all the men at church and beyond spent the spring rounding up bodies and burying them in a mass grave at the old cemetery.

We've got an awful lot of ghosts for such a small town.

And Raine seems to be one of them. Aside from the Wells family, no one seemed to even know she was there.

Maybe Sparrow went to go find her. Maybe they're sleeping warm and safe on that broken little couch in her cabin. Or maybe they tried to go back to my place. Maybe they've been eaten by that bear, who still has a ways to go to fatten up before the winter begins in earnest.

Maybe (hopefully) they'll return in the morning, sullen and reticent about their whereabouts.

I doze off on one of the reading couches to my own station, soothing lo-fi beats (an automatic playlist for the nighttime) rattling through tinny speakers on a tiny battery powered radio. I prefer to sleep with music playing; it infiltrates my dreams. Hearing it makes me lucid, comforted with the knowledge that nothing I'm experiencing is real. Even the worst nightmares are under my control.

Sparrow has vicious nightmares, every night they've stayed with me. They whimper and kick and wake up screaming, but they refuse to talk about it. What does a kid their age even have to fear? Okay, plenty. Massive drones destroying houses. An abusive couple who may or may not have enslaved them. A nameless, faceless father they have been running from for... how long now? Their stories come like confessions, distracted and intangible and largely incoherent.

Their father. The thought hits me like a stone as I jolt awake, dizzy and confused by my surroundings. I'm in the library, dark and eerily quiet.

Silent, save for the white noise static of an empty signal.

White noise, according to an old amateur radio magazine I read once (in this very library) is the sound of the universe around us. The sun, the distant stars, the universe itself emits microwave radiation that radios pick up as static. Once upon a time, astronomers would use massive telescopes to examine the skies for signs of life in space. Not just with visible light, but the whole spectrum of electromagnetic energy, radio to gamma waves. Occasionally, an odd burst of electromagnetic energy would hit the Earth (something unusually repetitive or mathematically profound) that convinced them there was intelligent life out there, somewhere, and we could find them if we just looked hard enough.

Now, we look for signs life of Earth. I know they exist – like I said to Raine, you can't stop physics. On a good night, you can hear the faintest echoes of other radio nerds. Their broadcasts (mundane musings, rabid rantings, SOS calls) bounce from ground to ionosphere and back again, barely coherent by the time they reach my lonely little mountain.

But do they know that we exist? That we're still here? The first landslide (triggered by a combination of development, erosion, and flash floods) was easy enough to deal with. Crews came out and cleared the mud and trees and rocks, rerouting a portion of the highway that couldn’t be repaired. Less effort was put in after the third, the fourth, the seventh. Anyone who could leave the area, did, and it became increasingly less important to save the few who remained. So they stopped, and here we are.

I only have so much power to transmit my own broadcasts. That Sparrow could hear me all the way in Maybell is something of a miracle.

But if Sparrow could hear me, so too could their dad, if he was listening. So, too, could DataLess, and they almost certainly are.

Anxiety fills my chest like static, like the buzzing of thousands of angry bees. My radio signal is empty, the music silenced, which could mean some minor technical error, or could mean something catastrophic has happened. I have no way of knowing without seeing it for myself. Sparrow is missing, and so is Raine, and drones are murdering people on the streets for a multinational e-commerce and technology company that owns practically everything.

I have to get home. Nevermind that it's barely midnight, the sky outside an inky black. Nevermind that I might be abandoning a kid. Nevermind nevermind nevermind... I write out a note for Sparrow, then remember they can't even read and rewrite the whole thing with dots and dashes. Then, in a fit of paranoia, I crumple up the original and stuff it in my pocket. I can use it as a fire starter back home. Hopefully, if anyone else stumbles across this, they won't be able to read it.

..-. .. -. -.. /—. / .. -. / - .... . /—. .- .-. -.. . -.

It's a dumb idea to wander through the woods in the dark, with just a tiny lantern to guide your way, but here I am. I take the road (or what's left of a road) most of the way up, breaking off at what used to be a trailhead. I guess it's a trailhead, still, but the trail is an overgrown mess of tangled weeds and pine shoots. Someone with less experience could easily get lost on the way, even in the day time, straying onto one of dozens of deer paths that wind their way around the mountain. Cedar Mountain, according to one worn and faded sign; or Fortification Butte, according to an even older one. A lonely mountain, towering over the town. Once upon a time, a cluster of radio antennas spiked along its highest ridge, but now it's just mine, when I can keep the thing up. It's a lightning rod and particularly susceptible to winds and snow. The solar panels that power my transmitter get covered in dust; the batteries are prone to failure, lithium within swelling into a hard, potentially explosive pillow. Lithium batteries powered everything, once upon a time: phones, books, toothbrushes, flashy children's shoes, electronic greeting cards. They're easy to find; far less easy to find the ones that still work. I have a theory that, on a long enough timeline, each and every one of them will explode into flames. The old landfill is a constantly smoldering with them, emitting a toxic haze that settles over the town on cold days. You can see it from my peak.

You can see pretty much everything from the peak, which is why it was such a central location for radio towers. The sights are marked by their rate of change. Slowly: seasonal changes, farmland reclaimed by wilderness, the colors of the landscape shifting as they respond to drought or sudden bursts rainfall. Or suddenly: ravaged by wildfire, by landslides, by swarms of drones. The speed at which they've begun rerouting the river and rebuilding the power plant is both horrifying and awe-inspiring.

The first time I tried climbing up this peak, I was running away from home. I had some vague, untenable notion of living alone up there, surviving off the land, on nuts and berries and deer meat that I would kill and process myself. Nevermind that I'd never killed anything before; that was men's work.

Not every family at my church was so strict about rules and traditional gender roles (the Acolytes are, if nothing else, a practical group), but mine was rigidly patriarchal. A woman was to be meek, submissive and obedient and unquestioning.

I was none of those things.

I only made it about halfway up the mountain, that first time. It was winter, or late fall, and I was only 10 or so years old. I didn't expect it to get quite so cold, quite so fast. That afternoon the mountain got swallowed up by clouds with freezing balls of ice (somewhere between snow and hail) that pelted my face and soaked into my hair. My head was uncovered, because I had thrown my bonnet off in a fit of rage when I left. Chilled to the bone, fingers numb and aching, my face frozen and stiff, I'd slowly trudged my way back down the mountain. Humiliated, I picked the head cover up from the icy mud before returning home to face my punishment.

Shame. Ostracization. Chores (hundreds of them). Lines (thousands of them). When all else failed: belts, rods, a heavy wooden paddle. Nothing could convince me to conform to God's will. The following spring I returned to the mountain, discovering the toppled metal antennas at its peak. Within a year I had scavenged enough electronics components and poured through enough radio manuals to set up my own rig. First, a receiver; in the silence of cool, clear nights, I could hear ghostly chatters from impossibly far away. Later, I managed a transmitter. My first radio station was sparse and intermittent, the earliest broadcasts little more than a sign that I had once again escaped from my oppressive home.

It was years before they learned what I was up to whenever I ran away. Then my father gave me an ultimatum: my radio, or my family.

I don't know that he had been expecting my decision to come as easily as it did. For a while, things were still cordial. I could go down there to visit, and my parents would invite me for dinner, with leftovers and extras to take with me (hospitality is another one of God's rules). Then that fiasco with Jim changed everything. They could forgive a techno-heathen, to an extent, but never a whore.

It has been about a decade since I moved out here permanently to work on my radio station; probably about as long as Raine has been living in her sad, lonely cabin. I'm not alone, though, not in the same way that she has chosen. I go into town regularly, to scavenge for electronics, trade with townspeople, fix their things. I sneak in visits with my siblings and host failed community meetings that result in nothing fundamentally changing.

Then I go back up my mountain, alone.

If my parents had had their way, I would be in charge of half a dozen children of my own by now. My mother was only eighteen when she had her first baby, and by the time she was my age she had been pregnant over a dozen times. Trouble is, not all of them survived – most of them didn't, even. She wore her failures (miscarriages, stillbirths, sickened infants and, once, tragically, a toddler) like heavy weighted chains around her neck, but they never stopped her from wanting the same for her own daughters. Most of my older siblings, and a handful of the younger ones, are all following in our parents' footsteps. Not me. I'm not even opposed to the idea of children. They're cute. Sparrow is... interesting. But childbirth is dangerous out here, for mothers and their babies. Why take the risk?

Because, it's God's will.

Also, it's not like there's contraceptives anymore. All the condoms expired years ago, decaying into rancid latex shards. Every time I've slept with a man (which is at the same time both more and fewer than I'd like to admit), I'd spend the days or weeks following in abject terror, literally praying for my period to come.

And it always did. So either prayer works and it's God's will for me not to have babies, or it doesn't and it's just a coincidence. Not, I think, the sort of philosophical quandary my mother would be willing to consider. Sometimes, I wish I could have the faith she holds in her heart; a belief, against all evidence, in a benign, all-loving higher power.

The only higher power I know of is DataLess, and it is far from benign.

At the meeting, someone had asked me why I was so against their arrival. "The drones aren't bothering anyone," they pointed out. "I've hardly even noticed them!" they proclaimed, followed by a murmur of agreement from a few others. And because I'm an anxious wreck, ineloquent at my best (meek and submissive by training), I failed to explain it, and therefore failed to rile the town against its impending doom.

I could have reminded them about the drone murder. The eviction notices, the homes being destroyed. The river getting rerouted. And so, so much more. The whole history of DataLess is insidious. Nearly every piece of tech out here is marked with their name and logo, rendered useless without a connection to the network owned and maintained by the same company. The antennas that used to line my mountain all have the DataLess logo on them.

Once upon a time, DataLess watched our every move. Through our phones and our computers, every click you made, every purchase, every news article, every photograph, every time you sneezed, all of it was tracked and saved in massive data centers that sucked so much electricity they had to build their own power stations. This isn't some conspiracy theory, it was gleefully advertised in the old newspapers as a perk of modern living. Internet connected watches, speakers, lights, washing machines, even the coffee pots were spying on us. The refrigerators listened to our conversations, ostensibly for our convenience; no need to write a shopping list, let the fridge do it for you. No need to go shopping at all! It would automatically order everything you could possibly need from DataLess' webstore. Every drone that Raine and the other drone hunters shoot down is owned by DataLess. Every diaper, every jar of peaches, every pen packed away inside their crates. The farms, the factories that produce them. The whole world, it seems, is owned by DataLess, Inc.

The same company that abandoned us, left us all here to die when they decided it wasn't profitable to keep us connected.

They have to know we're still out here. They have to wonder where their drones are going when they're shot out of the sky.

They just don't care.

So insatiable is their appetite, it won't stop with sucking up our river and ripping down our homes. How many more of us will be killed, either directly or accidentally?

​Chapter 2

The sun is just starting to rise when I get to my RV, which is quiet and empty as usual. No, quieter; Charlie's usual greeting and toothless threats are conspicuously absent when I push through the flimsy door with a loud snap. He sits stoically in his usual corner, expressionless, disconnected from the network.

Everything has been disconnected. The monitors are blank, my augmented reality glasses useless on my desk. The network itself is down.

There could be any number of reasons for the outage. Power failure, a severed cable somewhere, a router knocked loose by a raccoon. If DataLess is a well-oiled machine, some stark and intimidating stealth bomber, I'm more like those old Flugtag contraptions. I have a dozen or so ancient videos of these sponsored competitions where amateur engineers would try to launch their homemade, pedal-powdered gliders off a pier. Not just planes but also flying hotdogs, rubber ducks, giant skateboards, different types of animals, all inevitably crashing into the water below; there's an inverse relationship between creativity and efficacy.

That's me: a giant winged pig, held together by shoestrings and chewing gum, crashing down into the water below.

So there's no reason for my mind to immediately suspect sabotage, jumping to all the worst conclusions, but I do so nonetheless. In the silence of the forest, I strain my ears listening for the sound of drones; the deep thrum of a reclamation drone, the high pitched whir of a scout. Or something even smaller, like the one that killed Jim.

All I hear are birds.

I'm exhausted, having just climbed most of the way up a mountain after only a couple hours of sleep. I want to stop here for a while and take a nap (the radio station can wait), but Sparrow is still missing. I'd directed them to meet me at the garden, but without Charlie to monitor it, I won't know if they've arrived. I leave the useless hunk of metal at the RV and pick my way up to the radio shack where I keep my servers, the brains of the whole operation. Four metal cases, each slightly different in size and configuration, that hold just of a fraction of the sum total of human experience that was digitized before the world ended.

Not the whole world, mind, just our little pocket of it.

Most of my music and movies came from physical discs that I borrowed from the library or found in storage units and in abandoned houses (before the reclamation drones could get to them). A lot of it comes from other peoples' laptops, loaded with home videos, pirated TV shows, and so. Much. Pornography. My newest server was a Holy Grail: nearly 16 terabytes of old internet content, including a complete backup of Wikipedia circa 2024. Someone who had the same compulsion I have to preserve and protect our not-so-ancient digital lives. Someone who either didn't make it or fled while they still could.

To what end, though? I'm a hoarder, just like Raine is with her towers of toilet paper and canned goods; but unlike her I can't really share or trade in my excess. Sure, I can broadcast music 24/7, but how many people down there have a radio to receive it? I'm the only one I know with the means to watch the shows, and no one in town is about to hike up a mountain just to watch an old, outdated rom com. Except maybe Sparrow.

What is the difference between me and DataLess, really? Isn't my radio shack just a miniature, solar powered data center? Not a question I want to ponder, not now at least. I've got a kid to find. Raine, too, if she's even missing.

I groan and yawn. It's not a far hike to the Radio Shack; in truth, the land encompassing my RV, the garden, the radio equipment, even the antenna is a couple acres at best. You can almost draw a straight line between them with about 1000 feet of cable. I tried it, once, before learning that signals decay through wire even faster than it does through trees. Building a network in the forest took years of trial and error.

Mostly error.

I half sleepwalk through the woods, loudly crunching on dried leaves and pine needles which crumble into dust beneath my feet. My mountain is a ticking time bomb, a forest fire waiting to happen. If not from lightning then from my own electronics (a short in the wires, a spark, a swollen lithium battery overheating and igniting). Fire is an obsession around here, consuming our thoughts even in the dead of winter when snow blankets the ground in thick, heavy layers. We need it to survive the brutal winters; it wants nothing more than to destroy us all. We invite it into our homes and pray it stays contained, that no errant sparks dart away to catch and spread their destructive force.

I reach the clearing and it is immediately obvious what has happened to my network: the entire radio shack is missing. Absent, vanished, gone, disappeared as though it had been plucked from the sky. My mind feels equally empty. I circle around the space, idly examining the bare spot in the grass where a structure once stood.

I squint through the woods towards the mountain peak, wondering if my antenna is still standing. Beyond it I can imagine the power plant, those distant drones and their flurry of activity. How much do they know? How much will they take? Rage bubbles through me, white hot in my blood, and all I can think is, I didn't even get the courtesy of an eviction notice.

I snort to myself. Where would they have addressed it to, the little shack in the woods?

I'm too tired to think of my next steps. Too tired to think about how I'm blind up here without my cameras, my servers, without Charlie to tell me what's out there. I'm realizing, now, what a mistake it was to put everything all in one place. Redundancy: the key word I missed when I was building up my empire.

In my defense, I was like, twelve when I started. The only thing I'd ever read before those radio manuals was the Bible. Not even the whole thing, just the parts my parents wanted me to read, verses I was made to memorize. They skipped past the passages about tolerance and empathy, but made sure I knew I could get eaten by a bear if God willed it.

So now: Sparrow is missing. Raine is absent. My radio shack is gone, and with it, my entire network. My servers, my movies, my music. I'm exhausted and running on fumes. Have I even eaten today?

Of course not.

I feel numb as I trudge back down to the RV, not even bothering to scrounge up something to eat before I collapse into my bed.

In radio static, you can hear pretty much anything you want to hear. Music, the dits and dahs of Morse, the voice of God, of old friends you haven't spoken to in years, whimpers and screams and cries from a tired, haunted kid. It's the universe, talking to you. It's the void, staring back at you. Your own dark thoughts bouncing through you.

Thoughts of Jim Butcher, his eyes so dark it felt like they could swallow you. A perpetual tinge of humor in his voice, as though he had just heard a crude joke he was unwilling to share with you. Jim had something I needed (solar panels, smooth and unblemished, fresh from a downed drone); I had something he wanted (me). So, we traded. He wasn't the first man I slept with but he was the first to make me feel dirty about it; perhaps because it was dirty, to trade myself for something else. Perhaps because the sex was bad, for me at least, a commodity rather than a person. There was nothing tender about his touch, nothing subtle about his heavy weight pressing me into the reading couch in the library. He was not the first man I slept with but he was the first I would come to regret, though not until several weeks later, and not for any of the right reasons.

The first man I slept with was really just a boy, when I was just a girl, our bodies lanky and clumsy as we twisted together in the woods near the river. My first kiss was years earlier with Adam Wells, behind the church when we should have been inside. Just a light, awkward peck that made him blush and stutter; he hasn't looked me in the eyes since. I briefly slept with a man who loved his horse (Jolene) more than anything else in the world and asked me to ride him like a cowgirl. The best sex I ever had was with the girl who taught me about music. I'd lay with my head in her lap as she stroked my hair, listening to playlists on her solar-powered boombox, songs that would eventually become part of my own radio show.

Four of those five people are dead now (murder, illness, farming accident, different illness). Adam is (presumably) no longer a virgin, with kids of his own and a wife whose eyes he still can't look into.

With my track record, it's probably a good thing we didn't go any further than that one impulsive kiss the other night, or Raine would be certainly-dead now instead of just probably-missing. Maybe that kiss was what scared her away. I shouldn't have done it, surprising her in the dark like that.

In radio static, I can hear my regrets like ghosts standing in front of me. It pours out too loud from the speakers in my RV as I doze, paralyzed by indecision and uncertainty. Once in a while, an errant blip will break through the noise, some distant transmission or, more likely, interference from one of DataLess's drones.

Dit dit dit. Dah dah dah. Dit dit dit.

Dit dit dit. Dah dah dah. Dit dit dit.

A fly buzzes near my ear and I swat at it futilely.

Dit dit dit. Dah dah dah. Dit dit dit.

It takes too long to realize the SOS isn't coming from my radio, isn't an artifact in the static, but a call coming from outside. It takes too long for me to drag myself out of my bed, out the flimsy metal door of the RV. Too long for me to glance around the clearing, squinting blearily through the too-bright afternoon sun. Too long to realize the dots and dashes aren't electronic clicks at all, but the vocalizations of a skittish, hyperactive magpie flitting through the trees surrounding my home.

It is a bird I recognize, as much as anyone can recognize a generic, black and white corvid who is unusually well fed because Sparrow spent the last few days throwing scraps towards him in hopes of befriending him. They named him Hugo.

Dit dit dit. Dah dah dah. Dit dit dit.

"Hello, Hugo," I mutter, mostly to myself. "Do you know where Sparrow has gone off to?"

Dit dit dit.

"I've got nothing for you." I still haven't eaten. My stomach is an aching void.

I have this problem. I have always had this problem: a trouble taking action, a difficulty doing things that need to be done. Sometimes I can't even leave my bed. I'll lay there for days on end, wasting away and watching old TV shows from better times. Shows where the threats to humanity were always external (aliens, epidemics, genetically engineered dinosaurs, robots gone rogue) and not just our own apathy finally catching up to us. What is really stopping this town from rejoining the world? A couple of landslides, which should be nothing. A couple hundred miles to the nearest city. The world is still functional, at least enough to send drones full of goods overhead. Functional enough for disembodied voices to complain about their jobs into a radio, even on the internet, if my experience hacking into DataLess' network is any indicator. Functional enough for DataLess to want to build something here on this forgotten, hostile little corner of Colorado.

It makes sense for my family to stay, choosing this life of isolation and toil. The church teaches us that struggle is noble (suffering brings you closer to God), and this land has always been hostile. It's not really meant for farming, no good for foraging, and even the deer and the elk have always treated it as a passageway; the means to get from point A (somewhere in the distant mountains) to point B (somewhere far up north). Flyover country, where even the drones don't land.

To my family, hunger is a virtue. When I was a child, we chewed our way through mouse infested flour, picking out the droppings and ignoring the musty stink of urine that lingered even after it was baked into a hard, dry bread. Some winters, we had to rotate who got to eat each day. We prayed for our survival and thanked God for the small graces, because surely it meant we were doing something right.

My parents chose that life, for themselves and also for their overabundance of children. But for the rest of us, we're just here for lack of a better idea.

Dit dit dit. Dah dah dah. Dit dit dit.

"Go find the kid," I tell the bird in the tree. He cocks his head at me and squeaks.

My stomach grumbles and I force my feet to move, through pine trees and aspens to my strange little garden which stands out like a sore thumb. Like a girl with purple hair in the dusty, dried out apocalypse. I half expect (no, hope) to find Sparrow here, waiting as I instructed in the note I left for them in the library. But hope is a fragile, brittle thing, best served by people who lack better ideas. Sparrow isn't in the garden, because they never came back to the library, because they disappeared into the night and they wouldn't have done that willingly. But the bird is there, calmly watching me chomp down on a mealy, overripe apple. The garden has served its purpose for the season and is now drying out, retiring in shades of brown and yellow. I have just enough to survive another winter tucked away beneath my RV. Enough for me, at least, but not nearly enough for the endless black hole of hunger that calls itself Sparrow.

Dit dit dit. Dah dah dah. Dit dit dit.

Hugo the magpie sits on a branch in front of the camera that I use to monitor the garden for activity, as if anyone but a hungry moose has ever gone through it. Useless, without the servers that were in the Radio Shack to receive its signal. Without Charlie to analyze their footage for any abnormalities and alert me when something strange has happened. Which was pretty much all the time; Charlie thought everything was strange. I almost ignored his warning the first time Raine and Sparrow showed up, because his false positive rate was nearly 100%.

Hugo squeaks again. Dit dit dit. Dah dah dah. Dit dit dit. The camera's unseeing eye sparkles behind him and, suddenly, I have a better idea.

First, I have to partially disassemble Charlie. It pains me to do so, because Charlie is a good robodog who has never hurt anyone in his life, but also he's just a machine, built from an old toy, a smarter computer chip, a laser pointer, half a dozen sensors, and, crucially, a tiny webcam, light as a feather. So, regardless of whatever emotional attachment I've concocted towards the lifeless heap of metal and plastic, scrapping it is the easy part.

The hard part isn't even gaining Hugo's trust; Sparrow has already achieved that, with their endless patience and mimicking chirps. I'm able to lure him over with some corn but I hesitate as I watch him peck at the kernels, bright yellow against the dirt. If I screw this up he will fly away, possibly forever, and I'd be better off trying to capture and reprogram one of DataLess's drones. Maybe I still am, because after I've grabbed him like I would a chicken (all skinny bones and feather fluff); after I've strapped the camera to his chest and checked the blinking red LED to confirm it's on and recording; after I've let him go in a frantic flurry of beating wings and irritable squeaks... there's no guarantee he'll come back. No way of getting the camera back to review the footage if he doesn't. No hope that the six or so hours of run time with the tiny battery will be enough to even find Sparrow (or Raine).

Dit dit dit. Dah dah dah. Dit dit dit.

"Go find Sparrow," I instruct the bird circling around overhead, feeling foolish. Then I trudge back into the RV, flimsy door slamming shut behind me, and crawl back into my bed of shame.

. . .

In the evening, I pull myself out of the bed, force myself to eat (the rest of the jar of corn I'd sacrificed for Hugo, plus some bread), then prepare myself to climb once again.

Up, up, up the mountain, past the missing Radio Shack to the very top. There is a hint of smoke in the air, a scent that makes the hairs on the back of my neck prickle. The summit is empty, desolate; they've stolen not just my radio tower, but all the scraps leftover from not-so-ancient times that I'd used to build it. Nothing left but holes in the gravel where the metal tower was anchored into the ground, the frayed copper end of the severed cable that once connected it to the transmitter in my radio shack.

No time to mourn this loss, too. What use is an antenna without the transmitter to provide its signal?

There's something more demanding of my attention, threatening to topple my already fragile emotional state: to the west, a thick column of smoke, black as the night, emerging from a valley in the distance. The same valley, perhaps, where a house sits. A wooden cabin, a basement full of stolen goods. At this distance I have no way of knowing for sure, but my stomach fills with dread as I watch the smoke dancing through the sky. Is it growing, or getting smaller?

To the south, the power plant, swarming with drones like tiny gnats. Also a town, a church, a library, a drying out riverbed. Somewhere in all that a bird with a camera strapped to its chest.

I will have to go down there myself, if I really want my questions answered, but not today; the sun is setting, brilliant red behind the smoke, like the sky has been splashed with blood. I will have to wait until tomorrow.

​Chapter 3

Much to my surprise, Hugo the magpie returns the next morning. He readily gives up the harness, shaking out his feathers after I've freed him and squeaking out little dits and dahs.

In the footage, I watch myself wave the bird away and silently retreat into my RV; the webcam has no microphone. I watch Hugo fight with other magpies and with a crow twice his size. He picks on a house sparrow to cheer himself up. I watch him soar down the mountain, fast forwarding through the dizzying heights. He perches on an old light pole and watches people walk by underneath. He spies on my little sister, Abigail (who, at seventeen, is no longer so little, but is still not meant to be out and about alone). She stands alone at a street corner, darting glances around as though she is waiting for something. What, though, I'll never know, because Hugo is spooked by a drone, his scrambling escape a chaos of imagery. He soars away from the town, eventually landing on an old defunct power line, where he perches for some time watching a distant, growing plume of smoke that makes my heart twist.

If he were a drone, I would direct him to investigate. If this were a livestream, I could find out if it was actually Raine's house burning down, or just a paranoid idea that lodges itself in my mind as I watch the footage. Instead I'm here, safe in my own home, watching events that happened yesterday and have likely already resolved themselves. Instead, Hugo flies away from the smoke and back towards the town.

The video ends abruptly. Whatever Hugo did overnight, whether or not he ever found Sparrow, will remain a mystery. Regardless of the success of my endeavor I have ended up with more questions than answers.

Questions like: What is burning to the west?

And: What was my little sister doing out alone?

And the one still unanswered: Where has Sparrow gone off to?

"You found the wrong person," I grumble towards the bird, who has happily swallowed down the handful of berries I offered in exchange for the webcam's return. I really ought to be more conservative with my food. I've been giving it away like winter will never come, the snow won't ever trap me on this mountain for months on end. Sparrow, despite their name, did not eat like a bird but like a ravenous teenager; one who has been walking for a very, very long time. If I find them, and if they were going to stay with me all winter, I would have to stock up more before the first snow. A lot of my food comes from the garden, but it is supplemented by what I can get from people in town. Traded for electronics, for fixing things, repairing clothes (of all the chores that filled my childhood, sewing has proven the most useful).

Never stolen. I'm not Raine, with her mountains of hoarded goods in the basement.

Dit dit dit. Dah dah dah. Dit dit dit.

"You want to try this again?" The magpie cocks his head at me, examining the makeshift harness, the webcam, memory wiped and with a fresh battery. "You're looking for Sparrow, remember? Not a sparrow. Sparrow." I whistle, badly, trying to imitate the SOS signal they taught him.

Dit dit dit. Dah dah dah. Dit dit dit.

Miraculously, Hugo accepts the harness without much struggle. He takes off with a squeak and I'm left alone in the woods again to consider my next steps.

Down, down, down the mountain, back into town. The column of smoke to the west has slowed to a trickle; not a wildfire, then. Something contained, like a cabin.

I mean to go to the library, but just outside of town I am distracted by two of my siblings: the twins, Rachel and Ezekiel. They are the youngest in the family, a few years older than Sparrow. Both are wearing plain, simple clothing, and Ezekiel can't stop staring at my hair.

"How do you get it so bright?" he asks.

My hair has been short for about as long as I've been shunned, but the purple is relatively new. It comes from a bottle of potent grape scented goo, one of dozens in a case I found at a hair salon at the old college, windows broken and long stripped of anything actually useful like scissors or hydrogen peroxide. It was a pain to figure out how to use without running water or a shower. The first time I tried rinsing it out I poured bucket after bucket of river water over my head, and when I was done the skin on my neck, my jawline, my back had all taken on the shade of a fresh bruise. It didn't come off for a week.

"The power of science," I reply.

Rachel sniffs and adjusts her bonnet. "Father says you are causing trouble."

"Father says I am trouble," I retort, "Doesn't matter what I do, it will always be troublesome." When she offers me a wry smile, I know I haven't lost her completely.

This is the thing about having so many siblings in such a small town: my family probably makes up a good 10% of the entire population of this place. I once read that 10 percent was all you needed to sway popular opinion, so as long as I've got a sibling or two on my side, I know that eventually they'll all come around.

The church makes up at least half the town; more, if you count those who come to church only occassionally, don't try to follow all the rules. Each family is allowed to choose for itself how committed they are to the Old Way of life. For my family, rejecting technology is a Holy commandment; for others, just the natural consequence of living in the end times. Some of them even have radios and listen to my music, opting to ignore Pastor Jones when he tells them it's a sin. I'm usually the one providing their radios, or else fixing them when a capacitor blows.

A drone whizzes past (one of the smaller surveillance types) and I find myself involuntarily cringing away from it in the same manner as both of the twins.

Ezekiel smirks. "You don't like them, either?"

"The drones are the real troublemakers," I explain, "I'm trying to save us from them."

Rachel nods her head and whispers, "They got the Rodriguez house yesterday. The Wells family has an eviction notice, too."

My stomach plummets. "Was anyone hurt?"

A quick head shake. "They had already moved to a house in Elk Acres." She is referring to a cluster of houses near the edge of town, once a gated community and now a crumbling brick wall. "Pastor Jones declared it a protected site. He thinks we should all live closer together."

"What about the farm?" Pretty much everyone around here has their own farm, though not many are as big as my father's. What you can't grow yourself, you trade with a family that can. The Wells family, with their massive herd of grazing goats, provides milk for the entire town. They raise honeybees and chickens, too. But Elk Acres is a suburb, with tiny overgrown lawns and more cracked asphalt than dirt.

Rachel and Ezekiel both shrug, almost identical gestures. I wonder if my father has gotten his eviction notice; it's only a matter of time. Would he move the entire family to Elk Acres? The farm is his life. I can only hope he has the will to fight for it, when the time comes.

The twins leave, late now for whatever chore they were meant to accomplish, and I remember too late to ask about Abigail and her whereabouts yesterday. Cursing my inattention, I continue my way down to the library. My note is still there, tucked beneath the lantern, undisturbed. The radio, still spitting static from its tiny speaker. No sign of Sparrow, or that they ever returned, nor any sign of Raine. No sign that anyone has been here at all since my meeting the other day. I idly walk down the aisles of books, desperate for some inspiration, all in vain. There are no "How-To" guides for overthrowing an evil corporation. Nothing about tracking down lost kids for dummies.

I sit down at the reception desk, where (once upon a time) a librarian would have sat, scanning books and chatting with patrons in their calm, soothing tone. Once upon a time, there was a computer here; the monitor is hanging up in my radio shack.

Was. Now it's the property of DataLess.

I know the librarian was a good person, because they left behind dozens, perhaps hundreds of notes about books and the people who might like to read them. I can tell by the handwriting, looping and curling across the paper. The notes remain scattered throughout the library but are concentrated on this desk, untouched by time or scavengers.

“repair needed”

“order pencils”

“snacks for Tues”

“hold for Michael”

So many of the discarded notes have names on them: “for Betty” “Lucas?” “T will love this”; I picture them stuck to the colorful covers of new novels, waiting to be read and loved.

There's also: "Josie + Raine, 2:30"

A picture flashes through my head: two young girls with identical blue eyes and red hair on washed out faces. One scowling, the other with a wide, gap-toothed smile. The Polaroid was pinned to a cabin wall, the logs of which are now reduced to ash.

Here's what I know about Raine: a sister, Josie. A pregnancy, a betrayal, a murder. A severe yet rational fear of fire and an understandable hatred for the three men responsible for it (two of whom are recently dead). A father, whom she never named but clearly mourned.

And a mother who read to her The Hobbit as a kid, before escaping on her own adventure for some promised utopia. Could she also be the librarian responsible for all those notes?

After all this time trying to hold myself together, trying to hold it all in because I have things to do, I allow myself a moment to cry. Tears for what's lost, tears for what can't be found. Tears for apprehension and uncertainty in my next steps. Tears for all the houses destroyed, for all the loves lost; even for Jim Butcher. Even for Tom Ford, falling through the sky. Tears for being alone in this world, left behind by my family, just a lonely voice echoing through the mountains. Everything I've kept bottled up over the years comes spilling out, spotting the colorful notes on the desk, ink blurring.

When I'm finally done (it could be minutes, or hours), I grab a blank note (bright pink) and write down my tasks.

Find Sparrow

Find Raine

Stop DataLess

Take back my computers

Easier said than done.

As I am about to leave another visitor comes in. He is carrying an armload of books from the large-print section, which I quickly take from his crooked, trembling hands and stack on the reception counter behind me. Kurt Smith, probably the oldest man in town; not that that means anything, these days. Old enough to be my grandfather, but I don't think he ever had children. He lives with the midwife in a faded blue clapboard cottage near the old medical center, where I imagine they spend their time together reminiscing about the old days, because that's what he does whenever I talk to him. Cars and overnight shipping and ice cream so sweet it hurts your teeth, not that he has any teeth left. Old enough, for sure, to remember the librarian.

"Stella, oh Stella," he murmurs wistfully when I ask about her. He has a lisp, slurring his words around toothless gums. "She was a firecracker, that one."

"A firecracker?" I repeat.

"Passionate. Fierce. Independent. You know the type." He gives me an appraising look, rheumy eyes fixing on my hair, and winks. "Stella loved her books. Loved the peace and quiet, and was more than willing to kick out anyone who threatened to disturb it." He lets out a wheezy chuckle.

"Did you know her well?"

"'Course I did, anyone who came into the library back then knew her well. Kept working long after everything else shut down." Kurt sighs, adding, "Ain't been the same since she left."

"Where did she go?"

"No clue. Well, there are rumors, but I daren't repeat 'em." He sucks on his gums (a wet squelching sound) then winks again, grinning. "Wouldn't want to tarnish the old girl's memory. She had a family. Two little girls she'd bring in to work." He gestures towards a corner with a low, round table. "They'd sit right there, reading and drawing. One of them's still bouncing around. All grown up, just the spittin' image of her mom."

"Raine," I whisper, and Kurt gives me a queer look.

"Raine, or Josie. Never could tell the difference. One of 'em was due to have a baby, back in the day. A patient of Annie's." He looks down at his feet and sniffs. "A tragedy, through and through. Not that there's any shortage of those around here."

"What happened?"

He sighs again. "Well. The Bartlett home burned down, must've been, what, a decade ago, at least? Basil's body was burned to a crisp. Guessin' the pregnant one must've died, too. No sign of a kid, when the lady comes down here." He frowns, shaking his head. "Ain't easy being a sole survivor, lemme tell you."

. . .

After I've exited the library, leaving old Kurt Smith there to peruse the shelves of large print books, I wander through the neighborhood, not fully aware of my destination until I've gotten there.

There are at least 20 storage facilities in Craig, each ranging from 50-150 units, for what amounts to at least 2000 individual storage units. This is an absurd number for such a small town, even before everything came crashing down and the population plummeted next to zero, but I guess people really needed a place to keep all their stuff. They stand now as a monument to mankind's excess. Mostly, it's just junk: old musty furniture, dishes, fancy silverware, clothing, jewelry, photo albums, collectible plastic toys still in their original packaging. A lot of them are empty, or else previously rifled through and cleared of anything useful; but the other scavengers and I often have differing opinions on what constitutes as "useful." One unit I opened a few years ago contained half a dozen boxes full of CDs; I spent several days sitting on a purple tiger-striped chaise lounge (also found in the unit), ripping them onto my laptop. A couple have held collections of vinyl records or VHS tapes, which I still haven't found a way to translate digitally. My radio equipment came from storage, as did most of the furnishings in the radio shack. Antique sewing machines are a weirdly common find, and useful, too; easily repaired, or good for parts.

With so many storage units in town, I haven't come close to exploring them all. I dig through them when I'm bored, or feeling anxious or nostalgic (for a world I never really knew), or questioning my purpose in life. I pry them open with a crowbar (flimsy rolling metal doors that only ever offered the illusion of security) and dive in like an archeologist at some ancient holy site.

I don't often return to a unit I've already rifled through, but today I have some idea of what I need, and I know exactly where to find it. Because on top of everything else, the reclamation drone that destroyed my radio shack also took all my electronics, and the one idea I had to stop DataLess: a microwave ray gun.

I am not some great electrician. I barely understand the physics behind radio transmissions; my math lessons at the church ended with basic arithmetic. I have zapped myself more times than I can count and blown up dozens of circuits, loud POPs accompanied by the smell of burning copper and plastic. Fortunately, I have never had to invent anything myself, because far greater minds than my own had already created everything I needed to build my own radio station. It was just a matter of following their instructions, and working out where things went wrong when they inevitably did. I once spent a solid week trying to figure out why my first radio had died, only to discover it was a single burnt out capacitor.

I no longer have access to the instructions for a microwave gun, but I remember what I need for it, namely, the microwave, or rather the main components within. Magnetron, transformer, the innocent looking capacitor that would kill you if the thing discharged while you're messing with it. Not that I'm worried about that now, it's been dead for years, no power to juice it. A microwave sucks power (a disaster for long term use with a solar generator), but ideally I don't need it to work for longer than a couple seconds. Long enough to fry the electronics in a drone and knock it out of the sky.

I'm not under any illusion that I can take down DataLess in its entirety with a household microwave. It'll have to be one of the smaller ones, a scout or murder-drone; I'd need a small nuclear reactor to knock out one of the giant construction drones. But if I can get one of its drones, I'll learn more about how it works. Maybe I could fix it up and take control over it.

Or, at the very least, I'll be able to stop the murder-drones when they come out to kill us.

The storage facility where I can definitely find a microwave is one dedicated to RVs. It's mostly empty (their owners fled a long time ago) and the few that remain are much larger and much fancier than the one I found in the woods where I now live. Mine had clearly been there for a long while before I found it. Flat tires (rubber crumbling into the grass beneath it), grass growing through the bottom chassis. The interior stank of animal urine, the cushions ripped and torn into nests for small mammals. I don't think it was supposed to be there, tucked away in the forest on public land, but no one was going to make it move now. I boarded up the broken windows and slowly made the retired vehicle my new home. I replaced the cushions and found a new composting toilet to replace the absolutely revolting original. I brought in solar panels and ridiculously heavy power banks to run the computer monitors, a kettle, hot plate, slow cooker, radio, laptop, lights, not that I can power more than one or two of them at the same time. Most of it came from these very RVs.

I quickly disassemble the microwave in the RV I find it in, using the flimsy dining table as a makeshift workstation. I wrap the components in a musty sheet before dropping them in my backpack. My laptop is already in there, and I don't want them to scratch it up. They're heavy, and I'm already dreading the hike back up the mountain, but it's not like I haven't carried more. I leave the storage facility and my eyes burn in the too-bright sun.

My little sister Abigail is standing on the same corner she was waiting at yesterday when Hugo found her. She cranes her neck to look down the street, bouncing on the balls of her feet, clearly waiting for something. Or someone.

Someone who is definitely not me. When she turns and spots me, she jumps and cringes, looking around as if for somewhere to hide. There is nothing, not here in a cracked and overgrown old parking lot next to an old defunct restaurant, the mural of a cowboy glaring down at us, faded and peeling, in its side.

"What are you doing here?" she demands, not nearly the meek and gentle tone that has been beaten into all the women of the Stolle family.

I tilt my head at her curiously, as if I were a magpie. "I'm a free person," I remind her. "What are you doing here?"

Abigail frowns and shakes her head. "You lost the right to interrogate me years ago."

"The right?" I scoff, "We never had the right to question anything."

She rolls her eyes and snorts. "I am waiting for someone."

"Who?"

"It does not matter," she answers airily, unconcerned. "You would disapprove, anyway."

"Not likely. I'm a huge fan of rebellion."

Abigail rolls her eyes in a very unladylike fashion. She twists to look past me, chewing on her lip irritably. "You cannot be here."

"What's the matter, got a hot date?"

My sister sighs. A drone flits past, and unlike me she does not flinch. "I am waiting for someone, and she would not be happy to see you here."

"She?" I repeat. A surprised laugh escapes my lips, and Abigail scowls. "Hey, I don't judge," I try. "Hell, I swing bo..."

"Rebecca," she interrupts, growling, "Echo. Whatever it is you are calling yourself these days. I implore you to please, leave me alone."

Dit dit dit. Dah dah dah. Dit dit dit.

Somewhere up above, Hugo the magpie has found me. I scan the buildings, cracked windows and crumbling architecture, and spot him on a nearby rooftop.

"Yeah, sure," I finally relent. "I'll see you around, I guess." I spin around and (feeling a little ashamed) walk away, abandoning my little sister on the corner.

I can only hope Hugo has enough sense to stay and watch.

. . .

My father and two of my brothers, the same trio that deigned to attend my meeting the other day, are driving a rattling wagon (pulled by a horse named Annabelle) west along the overgrown highway. They do not notice me, at first, and I consider ducking behind some sagebrush so they continue not noticing me, but change my mind at the last minute and wave, catching my older brother Jonathon's attention. He tugs on the reins, slowing the wagon down to a stop as I run to catch up, metal objects clunking heavily in my backpack.

"Echo," he says by way of greeting, prompting a disapproving glare from our father.

"Rebecca," Father says, correcting him.

My younger brother, Conner, grins. "Reb-Echo," he intones merrily, "Need a ride?" Our father continues scowling, but does not contradict him; to do so would be uncouth. Jesus was pretty explicit about helping even the worst of us.

"Just a little ways, thanks." I make my voice loud and chipper, just to annoy him, and pull myself up onto the empty back of the wagon. "Where are y'all headed?"

"The Wells house. We are helping them move," Jonathon explains. "They got an eviction notice."

My heart skips. "What about their farm?"

"God will make a way," my father intrudes, voice gruff. "We need only have faith." It is a sentiment as meaningless as hope, thoroughly effective at terminating the conversation. We sit in silence for a while as the wagon jumps and jolts over the uneven road. We pass by the turnoff towards my mountain, but I remain sitting, opting to take the detour with them.

"Didn't you guys used to come out this way?" I ask suddenly, trying to sound casual, "to help out with the needy, or whatever?"

"Ugh," Conner grunts.

"Tom Ford," Jonathon practically spits. Even our father looks displeased; even more than he did before. "Used to, sure."

"You stopped?"

"He insisted we end our charity."

Conner laughs. "Last time we were there, he waved a gun at my face. Said, if he heard the name Jesus one more time, he'd come into town and shoot up the whole church."

"Don't know how he was planning on getting there," my older brother chuckles, "Limping his way through the hills with that bum leg of his." The remark earns him a smack to the back of his head. Jonathon is half a decade older than me, approaching his mid-thirties but still unmarried, and a constant thorn in our father's side. "Forgive me, I was being unkind."

The wagon bumps onto the dirt; long ago, a mudslide washed out this part of the highway. "Why didn't the Wells family help him?" I ask. "Surely they were closer."

"Lavern had not the patience to deal with Tom," Father declares. "Not everyone is as committed to Christ's path as we are." He has always been like this: positively oozing with humility.

I make the decision to stay on and help with the Wells' evacuation effort, mostly so I can get closer to Raine's cabin. Either find her or, more likely, confirm my suspicion that it was her house that burned down. I watch Annabelle's ears swivel around nervously as she trots along the highway, the lingering scent of smoke tainting the air. She was a gift from the cowboy. If I had any way to keep her with me on the mountain, I would, but my parents need her more. She's a pretty dappled grey thing, from one of the wild herds that roam around the countryside. Once upon a time the wild horses were considered pests, competing with the cattle for grazing land. Newspapers from the library's historical archive reported on the government's round up efforts, inexplicably using helicopters to herd them into pens. They also reported on the public outcry, when most of those horses inevitably died (injuries from the roundup, diseases from the subsequent holding pens, euthanasia).

The idea of a government capable of intervening in anything around here seems absurd now.

The cowboy, whose real name was Nate, rounded up the wild horses the old fashioned way: on horseback. He also died the old fashioned way: a broken femur, an infection, a slow and inevitable decline into nothingness.

The Wells household is absolutely swarming with people, each tasked their own job, moving along invisible trails like ants. My presence is clearly extraneous so I remain outside. Gareth Wells is preparing to drive the goats all the way into town on foot – the old fashioned way. He has a few new members in the herd, including an ancient, swaybacked mule named Pauly. He's rounding up chickens into a crate; apparently they get to travel in a wagon.

"I got them all away from the fire," he explains to me, squinting out at the animals. "We couldn't do anything for the cabin."

The pink note in my pocket eats at me. #2 on my to-do list: Find Raine. No one here has heard from her, not since before her house burned down.

I trudge past the goats and the chickens and the furrowed fields, up the hill that separates this land from the next, overlooking the valley where once stood a simple log cabin, now a smoldering pile of charcoal and ash. The land around it remains untouched by flames. The goats had done their job, decimating the plants in the clearing, therefore eliminating any potential fuel from around the cabin. But instead of protecting the home from fire it contained it.

"Rebecca." My given name in a deep, quiet tone behind me, makes me jump. I whirl around to identify the intruder. Tall and skinny, solemn faced, weak chin hidden away by a dark, bushy beard. His pale eyes fix firmly on the plants near my feet.

"Adam," I stutter, "I, uh. It's been a while."

Adam Wells nods at the ground, but then he says, "I saw you at the library, just the other night."

He was with his father and brother, staring at the library floor as I asked Lavern about Sparrow. "Did you, er, enjoy the meeting?"

"It was informative."

I clear my throat, watching him watch the grass like it's the most fascinating show in the world. "So how's, um," the name of his wife slips my mind.

Finally he smiles, eyes moving from the ground to somewhere around my neck. "Ruth is well," he murmurs, "We are expecting another little one."

"Congratulations," I offer. "That makes, what, three?"

Adam nods again, but I sense some hesitation. That internal debate; do we count the failures?

"Is Annie Fischer still midwifing?" I ask. Ms. Fischer is the only midwife in town. She was a nurse in a former life; old enough to have a former life.

Another nod. "Did you know," he asks slowly, "we listen to your radio show every night?"

"Really?" I am as pleased as I am surprised to learn this.

"The boys like to listen to music as they fall asleep. I was worried, when it stopped playing."

I swallow down the acid that comes with the reminder of my loss. "I'm not sure... When I'll be able to get it back up." If I'll ever be able to get it back up. My eyes burn with tears, threatening to spill over for the second time today. All my music, all my movies, all that data... everything is gone. I don't even know how I would begin to explain it all to Adam. "I got hit by a drone," I say finally.

He nods yet again, looking down the hill towards the valley. "The neighbor. You are... friends with her, yes?"

It's my turn to nod; I don't dare speak.

"There is a rumor that she did this to herself."

Excuse me? "A rumor from whom?" I demand.

"Alana Greenwood," Adam mutters to the dirt. "She was also at your meeting."

At first I don't recognize the name, then it hits me. "The DataLess employee?"

"She has been speaking to members of the church, attempting to recruit us to work with her."

I snort. "Good luck with that."

He nods, agreeing. "She has had limited success."

"What does she have against Raine?"

Finally Adam looks up at me, our eyes meeting for the first time in nearly two decades. He gives me a strange look. "Raine is a drone hunter," he explains slowly. "She has been stealing from DataLess for years."

"So was Jim Butcher," I remind him. "Isn't that why they assassinated him?" The idea of Raine getting assassinated makes my chest feel tight.

Adam's eyes fall back down, fixing on a cluster of cactus. "I know nothing about that." He hesitates, then adds, "I sincerely hope that she is okay."

"I haven't spoken to her."

A shout from below startles us both, reminding Adam of his place (and mine). He steps away, turning to leave. "If there is anything we can do to stop this," he tells my feet, "anything I can help with at all. Please, let me know."

"I will," I promise, but it's an empty promise. I have no clue how to stop this. I don't even know where to begin.

Here's the trouble with anonymity: if no one knows you, they're willing to believe pretty much anything about you. A week ago, no one knew who Raine was at all; now I get to hear her name getting dragged through the mud by people who have no business talking about her at all. The Bible is pretty clear about gossip: destroyer of friendships, betrayer of trust, a tool of discord and strife. But the same people who had never heard of her last week have no qualms about discussing how Raine burned down her own house to spite DataLess. Her greed in destroying drones. A secret child she's kept hidden away in the cabin. According to one woman, she's even committed murder.

"Poor Tom Ford, across the way," Caroline Mason gibbers from her perch atop a wagon. "His house was destroyed, too."

"Tom Ford fell out a reclamation drone," I interrupt. I was meant to just be eavesdropping, unnoticed as I ambled alongside the loaded horse-drawn carts, but I can't hold it in. "I watched it happen." I had heard him scream; I swear I heard him scream, even over such a distance. It echoed through the valley like a shockwave.

Caroline looks down, face surprised, as if she only just noticed me. "That might explain the broken leg," she concedes, "but I heard he had also been shot." She turns away, shunning me but continuing the conversation with the other women in her wagon. "William found him, can you imagine?"

Raine, always fidgeting with that rifle, who had already admitted to shooting Tom once before. Could he have survived the fall?

Unlike Raine, I am known throughout the town. Either they know me as Rebecca from church (even after all these years) or as Radio Echo, the voice of the mountain. The overlap is slim, but not zero, especially after my failed meeting at the library. Or, maybe, no-so-failed; the few people I've managed to talk to about it have been surprisingly supportive. If not directly offering to help, they at least agree that DataLess has no business here, disrupting our river and our ways of life. According to Jonathon, even our father has (privately) conceded that the evictions and house destruction are problematic.

Of course, the ones who disagree with me aren't exactly willing to talk to me about it.

I break off from the caravan just before we reach the town, turning north towards Cedar Mountain. My departure goes unnoticed, and I turn to watch the wagons bump away down the road. A family's entire life, all their most important possessions reduced to a collection of goods piled in the back of a handful of wagons.

It is late evening by the time I return to my RV, the sun disappearing behind my mountain, a sudden chill in the air. I trudge up the metal steps, then stop.

Dit dit dit. Dah dah dah. Dit dit dit.

Weary as I am after so much walking, I can't help but grin. Hugo has returned.

​Chapter 4

In the new footage, the magpie spends nearly an hour dismantling a fresh hare carcass alongside two crows twice his size. He roosts in a tree, preening his feathers, frequently covering up the lens of the camera with his wings. He flies into town, drifting idly from one perch to another before spotting me talking to my sister on the corner. He watches me leave, then watches my sister continue to wait for her mysterious "someone" to show up.

My stomach drops when that "someone" turns out to be Alana Greenwood in her DataLess uniform. She is carrying another uniform, which she hands over to Abigail before quickly turning and leading her away, down the street and out of sight.

My little sister, working for the enemy. What does DataLess even need employees for? Shouldn't everything be automated?

The video camera dies as Hugo is flying around the old power plant, and I close the window with a sigh. Time to delete, recharge, and try again. But something makes me hesitate before clearing the memory card and I reopen the video, scrolling slowly through the last few frames.

There it is: for half a second, just before the camera dies, Hugo starts turning towards the power plant. In the corner of one frame, at the edge of a loading platform, I spot a brownish-red blur. The color of leaves in the autumn, of dark rust; or maybe blood, leaking out onto parched soil.

It could be anything.

It could be Raine.

But what would she be doing at the old power plant?

I scroll back and forth through all the footage around the power plant, but there's no other sign of her. And still no sign of Sparrow.

Dit dit dit dit. Dah dah dah.

"Yeah, yeah, SOS," I mutter to the bird, "I hear you." He hops around the pool of light spilling out from my RV, inspecting the ground for missed treats.

Dit. Dah dit dah dit.

No, not an SOS – perhaps the magpie is starting to forget. I whistle towards him, badly replicating the right call. Three short, three long, three short, which he promptly repeats.

Dit dit dit. Dah dah dah. Dit dit dit.

"You can go," I gesture as if to shoo the bird away. The sun has set, and magpies are definitely not nocturnal.

Hugo remains in the pool of light, staring up at me expectantly.

Dit. Dah dit dah dit.

"You'll have to come back in the morning," I tell him, uselessly. "I don't need six hours of footage of you sleeping overnight."

Dit dit dit dit. Dah dah dah. Dit. Dah dit dah dit.

I frown, watching him. Something tugs at the back of my mind, like a forgotten memory struggling to surface.

Dit. Dah dit dah dit. Dit dit dit dit. Dah dah dah.

"Oh!" I shout, smacking my forehead with my palm. The outburst startles the magpie, who flutters his wings at me irritably. I'm ashamed I didn't immediately figure it out, because I know this one all too well. I whistle the dots and dashes tunelessly, and Hugo repeats them again.

Dit. Dah dit dah dit. Dit dit dit dit. Dah dah dah.

E-C-H-O.

"Where'd you learn that one, little guy?" My heart is racing, pounding out its own exhilarated code, but he only has one answer.

Dit. Dah dit dah dit. Dit dit dit dit. Dah dah dah.

Three possible explanations: it could be random. He could have picked up on Morse code all by himself, and somehow figured out my name, too.

Or, he could have met Sparrow somewhere on his way home.

"Where did you go?" I ask. Hugo tilts his head at me and squeaks. I sigh.

Dit dit dit. Dah dah dah. Dit dit dit.

I picture Sparrow, alone outside somewhere, solemnly awaiting the return of their little friend. They must have seen the camera on his chest, but would they have known it wasn't recording by then? There's nothing I can do about this new knowledge now; even if I could somehow instruct the magpie to lead me to the kid, I'd lose him in the dark of night. Resigned, I retreat back into my RV and sit down at the table, pulling the parts I'd scavenged from the microwave out of my backpack. I don't have instructions, anymore, but it's not like I'm going to be able to sleep tonight, so I have all night to figure it out myself.

A microwave gun is pretty much the same thing as the microwave oven, but instead of spilling the electromagnetic waves into a metal box, they're directed in a beam towards a target. The goal isn't to cook the drones or make them explode (nothing so dramatic), but to disrupt their internal hardware long enough that they (ideally) lose control and crash to the ground. So, it's not too hard to figure out how to wire the components together: in the same configuration as they were before I scavenged them from the microwave oven.

The magnetron is the functional part of the microwave, a blackbox that converts an obscene amount of electrical energy into low frequency radiation that's emitted from a little antenna (a process not too dissimilar from an AM transmitter). A transformer is needed to convert the input (120 volts AC) into a massive output (2000+ volts DC). It pushes electrons into a capacitor that collects and stores them, discharging in an enormous, potentially deadly shock (no touching!). That shock alone would be enough to kill a drone, but tasers require direct contact to deliver their jolts, and I need to be able to do this from a distance. Hence, electromagnetic waves.

A microwave requires a ton of power (around 1000 Watts). Once upon a time the energy needed to power it all would come from a power plant, which generated electricity that would travel along high voltage power lines to eventually reach your house, accessible with the electrical sockets in your wall. I know I can also run the thing on one of my solar generators, because I got it from the same RV where I found the original microwave. Somewhat irritatingly, solar panels actually produce DC current, and there's an inverter within the generator that converts it to AC because that's what people were used to, back when they were still dependent on the power grid. Which means the electricity is going to be converted twice: once in the solar generator (DC to AC), and once again in the microwave's transformer (AC back to DC).

Unfortunately, the generator is ridiculously heavy, plus it needs a pair of unwieldy solar panels and several hours of sunlight to charge, so I'll only have a couple shots at this, at best. All this means is I'm going to have to be an ambush predator. I can drag the contraption down the mountain, set up somewhere a small drone is likely to pass, and wait.

I mount the components to a wooden plank and wrap the emitter in a cone made of flimsy aluminum foil that will, ideally, protect myself and my electronics while directing the beam towards the target drone. I hold my breath as I plug it into the generator, but, miraculously, there is no sharp POP, no smoke released, just the hum of a transformer under load. I wish I could add in a switch, but my collection of those were in the Radio Shack, so the only way to turn it off is to unplug it.

Even more miraculously, the thing works, exactly as advertised: the old clock radio I point it at goes on the fritz, red LED display flashing randomly, speaker buzzing chaotically until the whole thing dies a few seconds later.

Like I said, nothing so exciting as an explosion, but (hopefully) exactly what I need to stop a DataLess drone.

This isn't really a defensive weapon; one of the murder-drones that got Jim could probably still shoot me before I even aimed it. My goal here is to take the drone for myself. Why, I'm not entirely sure yet. Maybe I'll be able to repair and take control over it. I could make a flying Charlie and send it around the power plant to find Raine, or Sparrow, if they're somewhere in town. Maybe I'll be able to use the components within to hack into DataLess itself. Maybe I'll be left with a useless hunk of plastic and metal, and all this effort will be for nothing. But this is the closest thing I've come to a plan since I realized what was going on (all those weeks ago), scraped together in the couple of hours it takes to build the ray gun.

Before killing the clock, the numbers showed 2:37 AM. No idea if that was the actual time (or even what actual time means anymore), but I had it set so that sunrise was roughly around 6:00. Meaning it was well past my bedtime when I finally crawled into my bed at the back of the RV and let myself drift away.

I am definitely going to be exhausted tomorrow.

. . .

It is unexpectedly freezing when I wake up the next morning, the first frost of fall creeping up my windows, sparkling in the grass around my RV. Quite the surprise, given the heat of yesterday. Hugo sits in a nearby tree, squeaking irritably, feathers puffed out like a winter coat.

"Come here, it's camera time."

The magpie glares at me and squeaks.

"I have sunflower seeds." I hold out a handful of little black seeds, courtesy of my family. They're not great for eating, unless you're a bird (my family presses them for oil), but I keep a big bag of them for sprouting into microgreens; an excellent source of vitamins in the dead of winter.

Hugo hops off the tree branch and glides towards me, spread wings glistening green in the cold, watery sunlight. He lands on my arm, shockingly light, and pecks at the seeds in my hand as I use the other to slip the harness over his head, fastening the buckle on his back with a click.

"You'll find Sparrow sooner this time, right? I need to see where they are."

Hugo gives me a look I cannot read then takes off from my arm, wings beating a cold wind at my face. He retreats only as far as the tree, close enough that I can still see the red indicator light blinking on the camera.

Dit. Dah dit dah dit. Dit dit dit dit. Dah dah dah.

I whistle back at him the old sequence: Dit dit dit. Dah dah dah. Dit dit dit. Then I turn away, feeling foolish as I step back into the RV.

The magpie has no idea what I want from him.

Speaking of useless things (I'm referring to myself, here, not the bird), I stub my toe on the empty, lifeless shell of Charlie the robodog, the sudden shock of pain jolting through me along with pangs of regret. Another thing dependent on the servers that were whisked away by a DataLess drone. Those servers are probably just scraps now, not even refurbished and reused but ripped apart for recycling. Copper, aluminum, silver, gold, antimony, cobalt, tungsten, and a handful of different elements all ending in -ium. Once upon a time, we treated them like they were unlimited resources, cramming electronics into everything from bank cards to shoes to yoyos. Now DataLess is reduced to tearing apart houses to find the trace elements sequestered inside them.

Just in this RV, I have more than my fair share of electronics. Probably even just in Charlie. But DataLess hasn't found it, yet, buried deep in the forest as it is. The trees offer a decent barrier to wireless signal (I learned that one the hard way), and likely a decent shield against drones, too.

But it's only a matter of time, surely, before a little scout makes its way out here, followed by a reclamation drone to tear it all up.

Which, when I consider it, is exactly what I need.

Rather than dragging the BARG (big-ass-ray-gun) all the way down the mountain and trying to get a drone in town, why don't I just bring the drones to me? Is there something unique about the houses they're targeting, something I could replicate to attract their attention?

I need a list of the houses that have been taken over by DataLess. So far I know: Tom Ford's home, the Wells house, the Rodriguez family. My Radio Shack. Raine's cabin? Fire isn't exactly the standard operating procedure for the reclamation drones, but who else would have burned it down?

Raine herself, if you ask Caroline Mason. All that stuff, a lifetime worth of goods stolen from DataLess up in smoke. No, she has no reason to destroy that all herself. Just like she has no reason to be sitting around a loading platform outside the power plant. Assuming that blur of red was even her; somehow, I am even more certain it was after having slept on it.

Two options: either Raine is a much more evil person than I ever could have imagined, or something terrible has happened to her.

I know she was a hoarder (I saw the piles of junk myself), but I also know she didn't really keep it all to herself. She traded generously with the Wells family; Lavern had joked about her poor math during dinner that night we visited them. "An entire crate of juice for two jars of honey! We would still be drinking it, had we not given so much of it away."

Raine had blushed, offered a terse smile. That was around the time I decided I wanted to kiss her. Perhaps that is the real reason why I find it so difficult to believe the rumor; wouldn't be the first time I'd been fooled by my attraction to someone.

As far as I can tell, her biggest sin was laziness. She traded only with her closest neighbor, who bore the burden of redistributing her excess. Which they definitely did – that juice was a godsend for some of the families in town with small children. The town is always at real risk of facing a scurvy and rickets epidemic, simultaneously. Nothing grows particularly well here but sagebrush and thistles; low, crawling wildflowers; gnarly apples and turnips. A few traditional crops, but certainly no citrus. In a good year, they can grow tomatoes, squashes, even wheat and corn in the gulches protected from wind. But all it takes is one late frost creeping into June, or one early frost hitting unexpectedly in August to wipe out an entire season's worth of crops. The growing season is a handful of weeks in the dead of summer, when the snow has disappeared and drought is a persistent threat. Anything standing too tall by August gets knocked down by winds strong enough to topple buildings. My father's sunflowers are frequent victims.

There are wild sunflowers native to the region, growing no taller than your hip, with thin sprawling stalks and florets smaller than my palm. I grow them in my garden, alongside other edible plants naturally adapted to the harsh climate. Biscuitroot, raspberries, amaranth and lambsquarters, wild garlic and tiny onion-flavored purple flowers. Dandelion greens are pretty tasty, too. Catmint grows like a weed and is good for tea. In a pinch, you can even eat the cacti, but they require careful handling and processing to get rid of their barbed spines. These things are adapted to drought, unpredictable frosts and chaotic winds. Beans and wheat are not.

All this to say that desperately clinging to tradition is a good way to ensure extinction. Before the Acolytes, before the town of Craig, before the cowboys and homesteading settlers and their pastures and fences, before before before... the tradition was nomadic, bands of hunters following game through the plains and foraging some of the same wildflowers I have in my garden. Only during periods of excessive rainfall did they settle in one place, building temporary houses and growing Yampa flowers for their thick, starchy roots. The people were called Yamparika (root-eaters); but in truth it was no one group, no single tribe that made its mark here in the valley. There were scores of different peoples over the course of thousands of years, each with their own names and family histories, reduced to a single blurred shadow by settlers.

Even ancient traditions are bound to fail if they do not adapt – those historic hunters and foragers wouldn't recognize half the plants growing here today. The bison are all gone, the elk's migration routes changed, and even the deer seem to dwindle each year. The most prominent plants have names like Russian tumbleweeds, Scottish thistle, Japanese knotweed, German knapweed. All gleefully pollinated by the European honeybee – the greediest bee (one of the few still alive), who stores its excess in wax combs like a hoarder's cellar.

This doesn't mean they don't all have their use. Goats eat the tumbleweeds, bearing no qualms whatsoever about their prickly spines. Thistles and knotweed are edible if picked early, and the birds and bees love the knapweed flowers. Even honeybees are easily managed, kept in boxes so their excess can be retrieved without disrupting the rest of the hive. A skilled intruder incurs only a light smattering of painful, itchy stings, if any at all.

So: I need to lure a DataLess scout drone to me. Use my BARG to shoot it down, hack into the system, find Sparrow, find Raine, take back my servers (or find some new ones), and destroy DataLess.

No problem.

Hugo has left by the time I leave my RV, hopefully to find Sparrow again. I drag the BARG and its power supply down to the garden, far enough from the RV for the scout not to notice it. Hopefully – I've been using that word a lot, lately. Definitely far enough that my arms are trembling when I get there under the weight of all that metal. Now I just need to figure out how to bring a drone in.

The scout drones aren't just searching for targets, they're analyzing them; I noticed it in town, and again at Raine's home. The one that scanned the cabin flew straight towards us, then straight towards Tom Ford's house beyond the valley. They don't wander around aimlessly, or search in a pattern like a bee foraging for flowers. They move with purpose, skipping over entire neighborhoods in their hunt, and zero in on individual houses, pausing only briefly to scan before moving to the next target.

What is directing them and what they're scanning for, however, remains a mystery. I will need to talk to the families to find out more.

My first thought was an connection to the church: most of the names are families I know from there. But that wouldn't explain Raine's cabin, and probably not Tom Ford's, unless receiving charity is enough of an association. There was also at least one couple at the library meeting who held eviction notices but did not attend the church: Freddy and Melinda Johnson. I had wanted to talk to them after the meeting ended, but they left around the same time I noticed Sparrow was missing.

Freddy Johnson is a courier, riding his electric pedal-assist bike around town and beyond to deliver goods and letters. His bike needs frequent repairs, and I am all too happy to assist, after everything he's done for me. I wish I had a bike of my own as I once again make the trek back down the mountain and into town. But the truth is, I don't know how to ride a bike – I never learned. My brothers had a pair of bicycles they would share, passing their free time by seeing how fast they could ride down the hills. The girls never had free time; there were always more chores to do. Technically, I wasn't allowed to ride a horse, either, but Nate the cowboy made sure I learned before giving me Annabelle. It was a gross sort of propriety thing, here; riding a bike, or riding a horse, was too much like losing your virginity. We were meant to be pure and undamaged for our eventual husbands.

The walk into town takes nearly three hours, at good seven miles. Normally, I make the trek once a week (even less in the winter), but this will be my third visit in nearly as many days. I don't often regret my life decisions, but now, without even music to keep me company, I'm actually starting to get tired of walking.

For a good portion of the hike, I have decent view of the old power plant to the south, drones swarming around it like little gnats. I still don't know what they're building there, though I have some guesses. A factory, perhaps, or storage warehouses for the abundance of cheap goods sold by DataLess. Or storage for something else, like all that data they're collecting. Something that requires a lot of power. I don't think they'll revive the coal generators, which were retired long before the town was cut off from civilization, but natural gas is possible. Renewables would be ideal, but there's no indication they're building any sprawling fields of solar panels or wind turbines. Nuclear power is the most likely, given the amount of water they seem to require, rerouting an entire river just to feed it.

Perhaps that will be what I need to get the rest of town on my side. No one wants nuclear waste in their own backyard, right?

The Johnsons live in a log cabin (one much larger than Raine's) that once served as a vacation hunting lodge. It is decorated accordingly: taxidermy heads of deer, elk, pronghorn, and moose; a disconcertingly small stuffed black bear, bobcats and mountain lions, coyotes, foxes, and one stark white wolf; sage grouse, turkeys, ducks, quails; rabbits, squirrels, groundhogs, and prairie dogs. A diversity of wildlife that would be unheard of, now. Even without the continued pressures of hunting, ranching, mining, traffic, and whatever else was killing the wildlife back in the day, populations have yet to bounce back, probably because of the weather. Every summer is hotter and drier than the last, the plant life scorched and brittle and dying. The winters fluctuate unpredictably; one year it is warm and mild, snow barely dusting the distant mountains, and you can be sure the following spring will be equally parched. The next it will be bitter cold, with weekly blizzards that trap the wildlife and freeze them in place. When the snow finally melts it floods the valley, great pools of festering water that swarm with mosquitoes.

The Native Americans understood the nature of change; the climate, the weather, the landscape, the wildlife were all a part of a system that could be managed from within, never from without. That is why they did not stay in one place for very long but traveled with the herds, moving on from the land before they risked stripping it of its wealth. The greed of settlers (mostly white homesteaders and ranchers) threw the whole ecosystem into disarray. The deer were hunted almost to extinction, before laws were enacted to limit how many could be killed in a season. Wolves were also extirpated, removed from the land by bounty hunters paid for by ranchers. Without their biggest natural predators, the deer populations exploded, going from nearly extinct to overabundance in a matter of years. They chewed through the plantlife, stripping the land bare alongside even greedier cattle, then dying en masse the following year when there was nothing left to eat. Populations oscillated chaotically each year and hunting grew to become a moral obligation. It was a scientific endeavor to control a system that could no longer function by itself. With hunting as a sport, the heads and antlers were the only thing taken from the bodies that were left to rot. Disease spread: malformed proteins that turned the remaining deer into herds of shambling zombies.

The modern system of control comes from some extrinsic force, always external, never from within. Instead of accepting our place in the world, we tried to transcend it, becoming gods of the wilderness. Angry, vengeful gods, like the one of the Old Testament which was meant to be renounced with Christ's sacrifice. As a reward we got: extinctions, from starvation and disease. Drought, from the redirection and misuse of our rivers. Landslides, when the plants could no longer hold onto the soil. Climate change, from the pollution spewed into the air by power plants. Wildfires, from the combination of dry air and scorching temperatures. The whole system collapsing all around us.

So, you can understand why I was so excited to see the moose on my mountain the other day. Like the lonely bear, growing fat on berries from my garden. If they could find their way back, after all these years, maybe there is hope that the whole ecological system might eventually be restored. The slow growth of sagebrush back into a landscape ravaged by wildfire.

The uncanny decorations in the Johnson's hunting lodge are ironic because Freddy and Melinda are two of the kindest, gentlest people I know. Both are vegetarians, in a world where few can afford to be picky about where their food comes from. They grow beans and other vegetables in a greenhouse that extends the growing season by a couple months, protected from the heavy winds by the cabin and an outcrop of flimsy, brittle shale. It's not big enough to feed the whole town, barely big enough to feed the two of them, hence Freddy's gig as a courier. He takes payment in crops and stolen DataLess goods. Melinda keeps watch over the town's children (at least the ones who aren't stuck in the church), teaching them how to read and grow plants in the greenhouse.

I am always amazed to see that children still exist, even when I have so many siblings and a gaggle of nieces and nephews of my own. It makes sense for members of the church, whose primary directive is "be fruitful and multiply." But everyone else is doing it, too. There is a community board outside the library, pinned with birth and death announcements, weddings and decades-long missing persons. No one ever wants to remove the good news, so the births and marriages stay up there indefinitely, fading and wrinkling and disintegrating in the weather. Despite everything, people are still getting married. They're still having babies.

Then again, what else are you going to do to pass the cold, lonely winters around here? Listen to music?

The children are outside the lodge as I approach it, despite the chill still lingering in the air, playing some inscrutable game with several balls and no clear goal. Melinda stands on the porch, not watching the children but the skies, worry etched on her face.

"Echo," she says warmly as I approach, expression shifting from anxiety to something resembling a smile. "We were hoping to hear from you."

"I'm, uh, glad to see you're still standing," I remark, feeling awkward.

"We'll be leaving soon. Freddy is finishing packing up, now." Melinda's eyes flicker towards the children, shouts rising up from the yard like squabbling birds. "The Rodriguezes had a week."

Raine only had a day, but I keep that to myself. Still no way of knowing if the fire was related to the eviction notice or not. "Where are you moving to?"

"Not far," she sighs. "One of the houses near the old elementary school." The school has stood empty for decades, its roof caved in by a particularly brutal wind storm. But I happen to know it hasn't been completely looted, and if Melinda needs school supplies, that would be the best place to find them.

"Not 'Elk Acres', then?" I try, but fail, to keep the disdain from my tone.

"We weren't invited." Her voice is light, but her smile turns grim as she adds, "Not that we would go if we were."

If my memory serves, Pastor Jones was not thrilled at the prospect of having competition when it comes to teaching the children of this town. Where his lessons involved memorizing Bible verses and fitting them into his interpretations, Melinda takes a more liberal approach to education. The girls learn math, for example, and she particularly enjoys running science experiments. I've helped with a few of them. The kids made basic circuits once out of wire, batteries, and old flashlight bulbs. Chemistry experiments using red cabbage as a pH indicator. They have an old microscope for examining pond water, courtesy of some anonymous, long-gone collector of antiques whose abandoned house offers the same vibes as a museum. It uses a mirror to reflect ambient light through the sample, no electricity required.

I ask to see the eviction notice and she invites me into the lodge, calling for the children to come in as well. There are eleven of them, all younger than Sparrow, the youngest barely toddling along on wobbly legs.

The letter is addressed to "Mrs. Buch," presumably the real owner of the lodge, declaring DataLess the rightful owners of the property. Trespassers will be prosecuted... or killed, if Tom Ford was any indicator.

"Did you know this 'Mrs. Buch?'" I ask.

Melinda shakes her head. "Not personally. She was a realtor before all this. Prolific – her name was on a lot of the for-sale signs." She excuses herself before darting off to bring snacks to the kids – including cups of juice, the same kind Raine traded with Lavern Wells for honey.

I wander out of the kitchen into the large entry room at the front of the house, where most of the stuffed animals sit, glaring down with glassy eyes. I've learned something important, a potential clue: most people getting evicted appear to not own their home. Then again, not many people own their homes, these days. My family does – the farmhouse and all the land surrounding it has been in my father's family for generations – but they are an exception. Like me and my RV, like Raine and her cabin, most people take what they can find.

There's no shortage of empty houses to fill. The trick is finding one still in decent shape.

Heavy footfall from the nearby staircase catches my attention: Freddy Johnson carrying a crate piled with what looks to be linens.

"Echo, love," he says when he sees me, "Where has the music gone?" He stacks the crate on top of a pile of them and turns to face me. "Haven't heard your radio show since the meeting."

"Yeah, um," I clear my throat, which feels suddenly tight. "It was a victim of a reclamation drone."

Freddy's face falls. "Oh, honey," he says, stepping forward to wrap his arms around me. I falter before relaxing into his hug. The Johnsons are the parents I always wish I had; when I was younger and struggling to adjust to my newfound, lonely freedom, they were always there for me, brimming with kind words and optimistic outlooks.

"It's fine," I say, trying to reassure myself more than him. "I can rebuild it."

"Still got all of Lex's old music collection here," Freddy gestures towards the pile of crates, "You can help yourself to it, it after we've moved."

I duck my head and nod. Lex died of pneumonia too many winters ago; I would have let myself wither away that winter, too, if not for her parents' intervention. She used to play music on an old, hot pink boombox that chewed through D-cell batteries before I introduced her to the wonders of solar power. She made mixtapes for me by recording the songs onto ancient cassettes that I had no way of digitizing. I still have them in a box under my bed in the RV.

Clocking my expression, Freddy offers, "Do you want to go up there, make sure we didn't forget anything?"

Up the stairs, two at a time. Down the hallway, past the leering stuffed weasel, the resined fish frozen in time, the skulls of a goat, a pig, a cow, a horse. To Lex's bedroom, largely unchanged even after all these years, minus the things her father saw fit to pack. Not, apparently, the band posters that line the walls, the swimsuit model calendar several decades old. None of the furniture, the bed that smells nothing like her anymore, the desk where she used write lyrics to songs for my ears only (she was too shy to sing for anyone else). Not even her old clothes, but I'd already taken what mattered: the sweatshirt I'd forever coveted when she was still alive. She'd used bleach to stencil the logo of her favorite band on the front: a sloppy smiley face with Xs for eyes.

Not the most important things, either, since Freddy didn't know about them hidden in a box beneath a loose floorboard next to Lex's bed. Colorful trading cards from a long-defunct game involving cute, imaginary animals. Ancient coins, worthless long before they were stolen from the museum. An antique revolver, from the same museum heist. A Polaroid of the two of us, young and dumb and in love. It is not the sort of picture meant for anyone else to see, as we are both in various states of undress. Poorly lit and blurry, you'd probably have to know what you were looking at to identify us, but still. I couldn't bring myself to take it, before; now I can't bear to leave it, destined for DataLess's greedy claws.

I hesitate at the sight of the revolver before moving the wood floor panel back into its place. Raine would probably want it, find some use for it before this is all over. But I've never fired a gun, and I don't intend to change that. Assuming this one was in any state at all to be fired. It was over a hundred years old.

I tuck the picture into my back pocket then retreat back down the stairs, finding Freddy and Melinda in the kitchen, each nursing a mug of something warm and fragrant. The house is silent, the kids having been sent home for the afternoon.

"Find anything useful?" Freddy eyes me expectantly, and I feel my face warm. The stiff photographic paper pokes my butt through my pocket.

"Nope," I try feign nonchalance. "I think you got everything important."

Melinda slides a mug in front of me – coffee, albeit of the instant variety. More spoils from DataLess, since coffee trees would never grow around here. At least one article from the library's old newspaper archive would suggest they aren't growing anywhere, anymore, but clearly that prediction was wrong. I sip at it tentatively, bracing myself for the jittery buzz of caffeine that hits almost immediately. People used to drink gallons of this stuff, just to get through a day. Today I need it, too, after my late night with the microwave parts and bubbling anxiety over my missing friends.

"I don't suppose you've seen a strange kid wandering around town," I ask suddenly. The question seems to startle both of them, wide eyes and confused expressions. "Really short hair, like, almost bald. Flannel shirt. About this tall." I hold my hand up in front of me, below my sternum.

Freddy exchanges a glance with his wife before answering, "He was at the library meeting, right?"

"They were, yes," I confirm. Unlike with Lavern and the rest of the Acolytes, I didn't think the Johnsons would take issue with the gender neutral pronoun. They knew about me and Lex, after all.

"I thought we knew all the kids in town," Melinda says cautiously. "I didn't recognize... them."

"Sparrow. They're from Maybell." I've been reminding myself of this every hour that drags by that I don't find them: they're scrappy. They're clever. They walked all the way here from Maybell, alone. Thirty miles, more or less. They're a survivor.

Melinda nods, frowning. "How do you know them?"

"It's, uh, kind of a long story." I sip at my coffee, trying to decide what to reveal, opting to go with a simple, "They found me."

"The thing is," Freddy grimaces, "they left, just as we were getting there. With one of those DataLess employees."

My heart stutters. "Who?"

They shake their heads in unison. "Didn't recognize him, either," Freddy explains. "Didn't get a good look."

"He was wearing the uniform," Melinda adds. "Same as Alana's."

I chew on my lip, tasting blood. Could it be their father? I can't imagine them leaving with him willingly. But if not, what on Earth was Sparrow doing with DataLess?

I explain the situation with Sparrow as we load the crates into an old, rusty metal utility trailer. The trailer is small, but they have a lot less stuff than the Wells family who required an entire caravan to move. The Johnsons don't have a horse, so I wonder how they plan on moving it down to the elementary school. I also wonder how they plan to replace the greenhouse that has served them so well for so long.

But instead of asking, I explain: the strangers (a peculiar kid and a reclusive woman) who showed up at my doorstep. Watching Tom Ford fall from the sky. Raine's broken promise; losing Sparrow. I even tell them about the magpie with a camera strapped to his chest.

"That was an interesting gamble," Freddy remarks about the last bit. "I'm surprised it paid off." He wheels his bike over to the trailer and lifts the tongue to the rear rack.

I can't hold back a snort. "That's your plan?" I scoff. "What's the towing capacity of that bike?"

"It'll be slow going," he agrees, smirking as he winds wire between the trailer's coupling and the rack.

Melinda sighs. "The real trick will be stopping once he's gotten started. Like, at the bottom of a hill?" She sounds like she's had this conversation with him before, possibly many times.

"I could borrow Annabelle?" I offer, but Freddy shakes his head.

"You've clearly got a lot on your plate already."

No kidding. Tucked away in the same pocket as the illicit photograph of me and his daughter is the foolish to-do list. Progress made: zilch. But I definitely can't watch him try to struggle with a sizeable trailer on the back of a tiny e-bike that I know has caught fire in the past.

I tell him as much. "Seriously, it'll be five minutes," I promise, starting down the road before he has a chance to protest, glancing back to witness Melinda forcefully taking the wire he was going to use to affix the trailer to the bike from his hands.

My family's farm is just down the street from the Johnson's (former) lodge, and I (fortunately) don't have to pass by the house to get to the barn where Annabelle and a donkey named Dusty live alongside more than a dozen chickens. Jonathon, apparently, lives there too; he's dozing in the stall, resting against the donkey like a pillow.

Jonathon is proof that men have it easier than women in our family. Over thirty, never married, no hope of children; I know for a fact he's been caught in "compromising" circumstances with another man in town. The whole church was asked to pray for him for months afterwards.

Point is, he's still allowed to live here, as long as he makes himself useful and keeps himself scarce. I'm not.

My older sisters have all been made to marry men of various qualities from the church, not that they would ever criticize how they are treated. I would have been lucky, had I not left as a young teen; I was meant to marry Adam Wells, and as far as I know he's not terrible. Rumor has it Abigail has been promised to a man older than I am, and I'm ten years her senior.

Maybe that's why she is working with DataLess.

"I don't know, Echo," Jonathon says after I ask to borrow the horse, "She is still pretty worn out from yesterday."

"It won't be far," I promise, "Just down around the elementary school."

"How are you planning on hooking a trailer up to a horse, anyway?"

"Um."

He sighs. "Let me tack her up. We will figure something out."

​Chapter 5

"Something" is, apparently, the same sort of kludge work that Freddy was going to use to hook it up to his bike. It definitely takes longer than the five minutes I had promised to tack up the horse and return to the lodge, where I hold Annabelle still as my brother carefully attaches shafts to the metal sides of the trailer so he can slip them into the harness. It's wobbly and won't last more than a trip, but, as he puts it, "It's good enough for government work."

Whatever that's supposed to mean.

I ask Jonathon about our errant sister as we walk, following the Johnsons away from what has been their home for as long as I've known them. He clutches Annabelle's bridle (unnecessarily, because she would never stray) as he listens to me describe the scene with Alana Greenwood and the DataLess uniforms.

"Clever girl," he muses, grinning. "She claimed she was at church."

"Every day?"

"She has been seeking 'quiet contemplation.'"

"And no one has thought to call her out on it?" I ask incredulously. "No one's noticed she's not there?"

"It has been a hectic week for us," Jonathon explains, gesturing towards the trailer behind us. "The Stanleys, the Wells, the Rodriguezes, Allen and his wife..." He trails off, looking towards the power plant.

"Did they all go to Elk Acres?"

"Some of them. Lavern is taking the farm across from us. It needs a lot of fixing up, but it has got plenty of good land."

"Have the goats arrived?"

He chuckles. "Not yet. I cannot wait to see Gareth and his goats, cresting the hill like some old time shepherd."

"Goatherd," I correct him. "Shepherds watch sheep."

Jonathon rolls his eyes. "It is cute though," he says, quickly adding "how much he cares for those goats."

I chew on my lip and avoid saying what I want to say – that Gareth is younger than I am, therefore probably too young for my older brother – because his tangential confession is something of a revelation. An acknowledgement of something we've both known for a long time, but could not discuss for fear of facing our father's wrath. Our parents never knew about my relationship with Lex, but Jonathon did. He'd promised to keep my secret, but still encouraged me to end things with her while I still had a chance. It was just after his own scandal erupted, a dalliance he continues to deny to this day.

Instead, I direct the conversation back to the evictions, all the people he's been assisting with moving. Families with young children, elders, multi-generation households. Mostly members of the church, because those are the families he spoke to the most. "Did any of them own their homes?" I eventually ask.

Jonathon shrugs. "Lavern definitely did," he answers, "he was adamant he would never sold the place. Also, the Stanleys, I think?"

"Did anyone else?" I ask, feeling deflated; there goes my theory. "The Rodriguezes?"

"No idea." He gives me a strange look, then asks, "Why?"

I don't have time to answer; we've arrived at the Johnson's new home: a small, single-story cottage right next to the old school. At one time it was probably pink, but the paint has faded to nearly white, caked with ash from the many wildfires we've had over the years.

My brother disassembles the makeshift tug rods that connected the trailer to the horse's harness, then apologizes for not sticking around longer to help unload the trailer. "I need to get this girl home before Father notices she is gone," he explains, smacking Annabelle's rump as he does so. The horse whinnies and tosses her head.

Unpacking the trailer is made easier with the help of the Johnson's new neighbors, Lucas and Emily Campbell; albeit somewhat more difficult with their toddler running around, constantly underfoot. Sarah, one of the kids playing in Melinda's old yard just this morning. The Campbells had only recently moved into a house nearby. Before that, they lived in a trailer at the edge of town; Lucas's father's, though he was long passed. A week ago, they got their eviction notice from DataLess, addressed to "Mr. Campbell." Whether that meant the elder or Lucas, we'll never know.

Emily had attended my meeting while Lucas was still frantically trying to pack up their things. "It's a damn shame," she says, quietly so the toddler doesn't overhear her cursing. "That Alana Greenwood showing up and taking the whole thing over. I can't believe anyone would want to work for them."

I nod and chew on my lip, trying to picture the cluster of townsfolk who left the meeting with Alana. The only one I even recognized was the woman who had questioned the danger of the drones in the first place, and I still didn't know her name. There is at least one person who works for DataLess that I do know: my little sister Abigail. But she was so defensive, almost hostile, the last time we spoke; I can't imagine convincing her to talk to me about it now.

After the trailer has been unloaded, Freddy points me towards the box with Lex's music in it, but I decline to look through it before I leave. I can't bring myself to think about music right now. As I walk away, a drone flies overhead, and I watch it warily; but it skips past the neighborhood entirely. Their houses are safe, for now.

I keep an eye out for Hugo as I wind my way through the mostly abandoned streets. I think about going to the library, but instead find myself some place rather unexpected, so foreign yet so familiar at the same time. A church, one of nearly a dozen in this tiny town, but the only one still occupied. Ancient schisms long forgotten, all the various denominations have blended together here under the watchful eye of the last religious leader in town: Pastor Jones. He is a proponent of the Old Way, shunning technology and anything modern and encouraging his parish to do the same.

"Rebecca." His greeting is warm and friendly, the same as it always has been. "Welcome home, at last."

I offer a small, polite smile, but he is wrong; this place is not my home. It never has been, no matter how welcoming he tries to make it. Because I know the truth: that under the guise of loving thy neighbor, there is always the imperative to make them conform. Obedience is love, he says, but it's nothing to do with following in Jesus' footsteps and everything to do with making sure women like me stay quiet and submissive.

I don't want to talk to him, and I am certain he doesn't want to talk to me, but I also know that of all the people in this town, he has the most reason to distrust DataLess. If technology is starving us of spirituality, then DataLess must be something akin to the Antichrist.

"I do not want to talk about politics," he mutters simply when I bring up the name.

"Politics?" I scoff, "This isn't –"

"Rebecca," the pastor intones, interrupting, "How long as it been since your last confession?"

The words feel like a punch to the gut, even after all this time, and I find myself staring down at the floor. "I don't do that anymore," I mumble.

"Perhaps you should." I can feel him looking me up and down, like a scout drone scanning its next prey. "It has been thirteen years since you last graced these halls with your presence." His sharp tone sends an uncomfortable chill down my spine.

I force myself to look up and meet his eyes. "People are losing their homes."

"We have sanctuary for them."

"In Elk Acres?" He nods in the affirmative, and I continue, "But not everyone is allowed, right?"

Pastor Jones looks uncomfortable at my question, as though it was an accusation. "Elk Acres is only for the pure of heart, yes," he agrees. "No technology allowed, for example." He stares at my hair, pointedly.

"But it's all roads and gravel," I protest, "How are you all supposed to grow food there?"

"The Lord will provide for us."

"How, though?" I demand. "God helps those who help themselves, right? That doesn't mean abandoning their farms –"

"Rebecca," Pastor Jones cuts me off again. "You will not speak to me like that in my church."

I bite back a retort, chewing on the inside of my cheek in frustration. "I only mean –"

He interrupts me again. "If you are so interested in finding out what is happening at Elk Acres," he suggests, "Grow out your hair, wash out that ridiculous purple, convince your family to move there and find out for yourself."

I cough, poorly covering up my laugh. "My father would never give up his farm." He would never listen to me if I tried.

"That is precisely what I am afraid of."

"Why?"

Pastor Jones lets out a long suffering sigh. "Because it is not your father's farm anymore," he explains slowly. "It, and everything in this town, has been tainted. It all belongs to DataLess, now."

"But not Elk Acres?" I ask.

"Correct." He gives me a sad, weary look, then changes the subject before I can say more. "Forgive me, but if you are not interested in confession, I have other work that must be done." He turns without waiting to hear my response and strides away, footsteps echoing through the cavernous church building.

Tainted. I chew on the word as I exit the church, wondering what Pastor Jones could have meant by it.

Outside I am pummeled by a bitter wind that has picked up, and I am grateful that I thought to pack an extra layer. I kneel down to pull the coat out of my overstuffed backpack. It is a felted wool coat, dyed yellow like the sun from the flowers that grow in great bunches all over the place here, which I had found in my parents' attic so many years ago. It was my grandmother's, judging by the name scrawled on a tag on the inside, and though it was a bit worn through at the elbows it was easy enough to mend, using green and red embroidery thread to make little leaves and flowers. Most of my clothing has been mended over the years, often with bright, ostentatious colors and patterns. I was especially proud of my sweater, which I gave to Raine, that had more rainbow patchwork than original yarn on it.

I wonder if the sweater was in the cabin when it burned down.

One benefit of the wind is there are no drones in sight as I walk through the empty streets. I can't see the power plant from here, but I wonder if the construction drones have been grounded, too. I wonder if Raine is up there, a blur of red hair on a loading platform, getting buffeted by the cold gusts. The icy chill makes my eyes water as I pull the to-do list out of my pocket, stuck to the Polaroid with me and Lex.

Find Sparrow

Find Raine

Stop DataLess

Take back my computers

"Fuck," I whisper, wiping the tears out of my eyes. Not a word I use regularly, but perhaps I am channeling Raine. It is already late afternoon; soon, another day will have passed with no progress on any of items on my list. I have no better ideas than to trudge back up the mountain, back to my RV, back into my bed, and wait for the damned reclamation drones to take me.

Tainted.

Most of what I own was either gifted to me, traded, or scavenged from abandoned houses and storage buildings in town. A lot of it, like the wool coat I'm wearing, is older than I am. I certainly don't hold to Pastor Jones' belief that technology is the devil, but maybe there is some truth to his paranoia. It can't just be the technology – my radio shack might have been a technological treasure chest, but what about the other families? Lavern Wells didn't even own a radio.

What if it wasn't the technology tainting these homes, but DataLess itself? Lavern knew every family that had been evicted, and not just the ones who went to church. He traded with everyone; the Johnsons with their cartons of juice, for example. Did he also trade with the Campbells? Who else? I try to remember the list my brother had recited: the Stanleys, the Rodriguezes, Allen and his wife. That would have to be the Fosters, who were at my library meeting. Tom Ford? Father said Lavern hadn't the patience to deal with him, but that doesn't mean he wouldn't have donated whatever he could to their charity runs. Raine for sure, with her basement full of DataLess goods.

And me. Aside from the food, which is always repackaged in jars for trading, the only DataLess products I had for sure were the solar panels I'd gotten from Jim Butcher; which, until recently, were powering my radio station and antenna.

There's only one way to confirm my suspicions – Lavern himself. Fotunately, I know where they live now, and I don't have to walk 10 miles to get there anymore. Unfortunately, it is right across the road from my family's farm, which feels a bit too much like coming home for my comfort. Even worse, everyone is outside, greeting the latest arrival: Gareth and his herd of goats.

By everyone, I mean everyone; at least the ones who still live at home. My father, who scowls when he spots me. My mother, who only ever looks sad, staring at the ground at her feet. Jonathon, with a big dopey grin plastered to his face as he talks to Gareth. My unwed younger siblings, Conner and Joshua and the twins, Rachel and Ezekiel. The rest of my siblings busy with their own families in their own houses (have any of them gotten eviction notices?). The only person missing who ought to be here is Abigail; well, she wasn't at the church, either.

I make my way towards Lavern, but am intercepted by Gareth, who is carrying a sweater I recognize immediately: light brown wool, with colorful patchwork throughout. It's the sweater I had given to Raine, the morning we watched Tom Ford's house get reclaimed. The morning we watched him die.

"Found this tangled up in some sagebrush on the way over," Gareth mumbles, handing it over. "It is yours?"

He says it like a question but I do not answer, rubbing my thumb along the knitted lines. "Where was it?"

"About," he hesitates, then points northwest. "A mile that way."

"Was there anything else?" He shakes his head. "Okay, well... thanks."

"Mhm." He pivots around and shuffles back to his goats, shoulders slumped, as though the conversation had taken every ounce of energy he had left. The animals revive him, however, his face breaking out into a broad grin when Raine's mule trots over to chew on his hair. I catch my brother staring at him, but I have to admit was right about one thing; it is cute, how much Gareth loves his animals.

I stuff the sweater into my backpack then look around to see where Lavern has gone, but before I find him I am once again intercepted, this time by the twins with a message: my mother would like to talk to me.

I glance towards where my parents had been standing, but now it's just my father, alone. She went back home, Ezekiel explains. I try not to grimace but my unease is evident, even to a teenager. Rachel lowers her voice and whispers, "It's about Abigail." As if that's supposed to make me feel better.

My mother is in the kitchen, where she almost always is, cooking dinner for too many people out of never quite enough food. Potatoes and carrots from the farm, rabbit from the traps, already skinned and deboned by one of my brothers before it ever reached the kitchen. It is stuffy inside from the fire burning in the woodstove, a window cracked to let in a cool breeze. Though I'm already sweating, I keep my coat on, knowing I won't be staying long.

"I don't know where Abigail is," I insist, lying through my teeth. "I haven't spoken to her in months." I'm not about to snitch on my little sister, even if I don't agree with what she's doing.

"You don't know that she has been working for DataLess," my mother states simply, not looking up from the cutting board where she is chopping up bits of pale, pinkish meat.

The name makes my skin prickle. I shrug, feigning nonchalance. "Like I said..."

Chop, chop. "Neither does your father," my mother says, her voice guarded. "I would hope you, of all people, could put an end to this nonsense. Before he finds out." My mother speaks in a low tone, as if trying to sooth the dead rabbit. The pile of flesh goes onto a cast iron pan on top of the wood stove with a sharp sizzle.

"I'm trying to," I mutter, almost too quiet for her to hear. Not for Abigail, but for the entire town; DataLess needs to go.

"She is meant to be marrying Charles Harrell."

I swallow down the acid rising in my throat. Before I have a chance to respond, my mother finally looks up at me, crystal blue eyes sharp as she declares, "This cannot happen, either."

I breathe a sigh of relief. Mr. Harrell, as I've only ever known him, is over forty years old. His last wife died, under mysterious circumstances, after never being able to produce any children for him. It is possible I have finally found where my mother will draw the line; how she intends to stop it, though, is another question, one she has no intention of answering.

"I'll try to talk to her," I promise weakly, knowing full well my sister will not listen. My mother returns to her cooking, dismissing me with a nod. But before I go, I have another question for her. "Do you have any DataLess products here?"

"Of course not," she scoffs, "Your father would never let that filth in this house."

I'm not surprised. I'm also willing to bet he hasn't gotten any eviction notices, either.

"Echo," my mother calls out as I open the door to leave, and I freeze, confused – she's never called me that before. She walks over and presses a loaf of bread (still warm) and a jar of jam (blackberry) into my arms. "That coat clashes horribly with your hair," she remarks, turning away back towards the countertop.

I can't help but grin, glancing down at the bright yellow wool. "Thanks," I reply, stepping out into the chilly afternoon sun.

. . .

It is, ultimately, a quick conversation with Lavern Wells to confirm my suspicion that every family getting evicted likely had DataLess goods squirreled away somewhere. He is a prolific trader, middleman between Raine and the rest of town, trading or practically giving away the goods to anyone regardless of their allegiance to the church.

Potentially dooming them all, but he doesn't seem to make the connection, and I'm not going to be the one to tell him.

I have a good idea, finally, of how to attract a drone to me so I can shoot it down. The closest I've come to a step towards completing an item on my to-do list, assuming the BARG works as intended and having a drone in my hands is as useful as I hope it will be. It's a lot of assumptions, for sure, but I at least have a way to move forward.

I need to get a bunch of DataLess crap up the mountain.

Which is easier said than done.

The only other drone hunter besides Raine that I know of is dead, but I know he kept his hauls somewhere in town, locked away in some secretive location. When we traded for the solar panels, he brought them to the library where we'd had sex, making me wait as he retrieved them since he'd refused to bring them until after he'd received his payment. I kept telling myself I was okay with the whole arrangement. It wasn't really selling myself, if I'd wanted to do it anyway. Kept deluding myself for weeks about it, because I was in love.

When I refused to do it again, he decided to ruin my life.

It was no more than half an hour between his departure and his return with the panels, even though it felt like much longer. Fifteen minutes out, a couple minutes to rummage around his inventory, fifteen minutes back, more or less. That narrows it down some, but not nearly as much as I should like; it's a small town, and library is almost in the center of it. There are plenty of houses around it, the old post office, the old mall and a grocery store. Even the museum where Lex got her trinkets is within a fifteen minute walk of the place.

But I also know where he died, because I know the man who witnessed it. Jeremy Finch, my little sister Evelyn's husband. A complete ass of a human being, judging by the bruises on her arms. The kind of person who tries to avoid being the subject of gossip by being the creator of it. You can never quite believe his stories, because half of them are demonstrably lies; including (potentially) this one. It was a couple days before Raine and Sparrow showed up on my mountain that I overheard him bragging to William Mason (yes, that William, whom Caroline Mason claims found Tom Ford's body) about witnessing a drone shoot down "that drone hunter, Jimmy, right over there."

I was rummaging around a storage unit, safely hidden out of sight, and I remained that way until the men left. I stepped over the bloodstains on my way out.

So, I've got reason to believe Jim Butcher kept his stuff at that storage facility, in one of the dozen or so units I haven't gotten around to opening up yet.

It's only a matter of figuring out which one.

If I had time, I could just stand here and wait; soon, if it hasn't already happened, a scout drone might whizz by and point me towards the correct unit. That they're looking for DataLess goods specifically explains why all the other storage units have so far been spared from the reclamation drones, despite being packed full of useful (or recyclable) goods. It doesn't explain why Jimmy's stuff has gone unscathed, unless there's something about the storage units that prevents the scout's signals from getting through. Some sort of Faraday shielding, maybe just a consequence of the metal structure.

Regardless, there are no drones flying right now; it's too windy. Even the birds have been grounded.

I start with the unit closest to the bloodstains, cracking it open with a crowbar and sliding the metal door up to reveal stacks and stacks of unlabeled cardboard boxes. My fingers itch to investigate them, but I pull the door back down and move on; not what I'm looking for (for now).

The next one over is empty, except for a single folding metal chair in the middle of the concrete pad. The sight makes my skin prickle with little goosebumps. I close that one pretty quickly, feeling uneasy.

It's after the third storage unit (filled with musty smelling furniture and a rack of fur coats) that I realize I'm going about this all wrong. These units clearly haven't been opened in years. Decades. Their locks are rusted through, there is dust packed in between the galvanized metal slats of the doors, leaves piled up around the base. I pace down the aisles, examining the doors and locks until I find the one that looks brand-new. Not just one but three of them, right next to each other at the end of the second row.

Perfect. I make quick work of the shiny new locks with my crowbar and slide the each door up, revealing a treasure trove that would put Raine's to shame... if hers hadn't been destroyed.

The first unit has food – enough to feed the entire town for a year. Also, at least twice as much toilet paper as Raine had, plus paper towels, boxes and boxes of tampons and pads, soaps, detergents, medical supplies, and several bottles of kerosene lamp oil. The second is stacked with bedding, pillows, shoeboxes, clothing still folded in plastic bags, toys, jewelry, and what looks like furniture, packed flat in cardboard sheaths. The last unit is mostly taken up by an electric 4×4, which Jim would use to haul his goods back into town after downing a drone, and also for racing around town like a hellion. He'd pretend to almost hit Freddy Johnson on his little pedal assist bike, swerve away just in the nick of time... Maybe I shouldn't have been so surprised when Raine accused him of murder. Jim's 4×4 was the only real vehicle I knew of that still functioned in the entire town, but I'm not thinking about that right now. Because the storage unit also contains stacks of electronics that make my heart race – solar panels, generators, computers, monitors, keyboards and mice – all brand new plastic wrapped and begging to be filled with my music and movies.

All of it tainted, destined for DataLess' reclamation drones.

The food, maybe, can be redistributed. Not in its original packaging, but I doubt every grain of flour is tracked, or else the handmade pasta Sami Ellison gave me in exchange for repairing her sewing machine would have flagged my RV. What about the bedding, the clothing?

I wonder what the threshold is, if there's some critical mass that draws the scout drones in. And how I'm supposed to get that all up the mountain to my garden – well, that part would be easy enough to solve, if Jim's 4×4 weren't sitting here with a dead battery.

I don't need the products, though, I just need their tags. The books in the library all contain RFID stickers, each embedded with a microchip smaller than my pinky nail and a thin, winding antenna. Useless, now, without the scanner at the checkout to read them. The stickers are big enough to be obvious on the books, but they can make them even smaller. After inspection they are easy enough to find on the DataLess products, too. Behind the labels on every can of vegetables. Inside every roll of toilet paper, stuck to each individually wrapped tampon. They are stuck to the tags on the comforters, inside the shirts, on every roll of gauze secured away inside the plastic red first aid kits. In less than an hour I have a sizeable pile of RFID tags, hundreds of tiny microchips waiting to be dinged by a scout drone's scanner.

The items I took them from are, presumably, safe from DataLess now, but I leave them in a pile in the storage unit and close the doors behind me, just in case. The town deserves this stuff, especially the food, but not until I can confirm that they're no longer tainted.

Backpack full of tracking chips, I brace myself against the bitter wind and, once again, begin my journey up the mountain.

​Chapter 6

It is snowing by the time I make it back to the RV, tiny icy flakes that spiral around in the biting wind broken up by trees. This cold came on so fast, after a streak of warmth that felt like it may never end. It will likely be melted by tomorrow afternoon. Standard weather for this hostile little corner of Colorado; predictable only in its chaotic unpredictability.

Still, no drones as long as the wind is blowing. Several times on my trek back, I turned around to watch the power plant, still as a painting behind the chaos of the flurry of snow. For once, I am disappointed by the lack of activity. I need a drone to whizz through the woods, find me in my garden. I drop the backpack off there next to the BARG, taking out the important things (my laptop, my sweater, my mother's bread and blackberry jam) before heading through the darkness up to the RV.

I expect to find Hugo waiting for me in the clearing with a dead camera, but his absence can be explained by the wind. Likely he is puffed up in a tree somewhere, squeaking irritably at the cold.

It is even chilly inside, and something in me can't bear to turn on the lights with their stark white glow, so instead I light a candle. Beeswax, from Lavern's hives. I eat the bread smeared with sweet fruit jelly in silence, straining my ears for something resembling music in the whirling winds rattling the RV's facade. My hot pink to-do list glares up at me from the table, taunting me in its incompleteness. The photograph of me and Lex goes in my own hiding place – a drawer by my bed. It's not like I have anyone to hide things from. The drawer also contains a beaded necklace (turquoise and red and white and black), a big, bulky steel ring (two hands holding a heart), a bear's tooth (cracked and yellowing), and a plain gold cross on a chain. The necklace was in the museum alongside Lex's coins and revolver. Our little heist, though the museum had already been looted several times over. The ring came from Scott Fitzpatrick, the boy I lost my virginity to; the tooth a gift from the cowboy; the cross a forgotten promise from Adam Wells, when we were just kids. My family doesn't wear jewelry (it violates the principles of modesty), but his is (clearly) much more liberal. Though, not so liberal that they didn't also pray that my brother find his way back to the path of righteousness after straying with another man.

It seems like everyone at that church has their own way interpreting the same text, ignoring some passages and emphasizing others to suit their needs. There are verses that can justify abuse, mass murder, rape, slavery. Verses that justified the belts and rods and paddles when I didn't conform, comply, submit to my father. Verses where children are burned alive or eaten by bears, where men are forced to watch their families die, just because of a bet. Versus where women are expected to marry their rapists, where they are subjugated by the men around them, compelled to silence, where they are called unclean for the same biological processes that make them useful as baby factories. Though the church purports to be filled with love, too often it seems to be conditional, a tool of control and power.

I don't know what the rules are actually meant to be followed while struggling on this planet, burning under the weight of an, at best, indifferent corporation (at worst, actively malevolent). But I do know that love is not a whip, nor is it an object to be bargained for, a carrot dangling overhead, the promise of a reward.

To me, love is like music, filling the air, radiating through the skies for everyone to hear.

Sparrow, I think, has never known love before. Certainly not from their father, the source of all those nightmares that plague them. And Raine, with all her misanthropic bluster, reclusive and reserved, is too afraid to make any sort of connection, let alone find love.

I have failed them both.

I have the piles of RFID tags to attract a scout drone; the microwave gun to knock it out of the skies. I have my laptop to analyze the thing and take control of it if I can. I have a bird with a camera strapped to its chest that has not shown me anything useful at all. Only a flash of red, high up on a loading platform, that could have been anything.

With a scout drone, I could search the entire town myself, without having to rely on the whims of a magpie. I could find Sparrow, or Raine, or ideally both, and then...

A huge blank.

Will I even be able to save them, on the off-chance I find them? Will they want to be saved? I don't really know either of them well enough to know for sure. Raine could be up on that platform willingly. Even if she was innocent, she could be right about Sparrow. She was so skeptical of their intentions, always hinting at something nefarious behind their tragic tales. And Sparrow had left my meeting with someone in a DataLess uniform; no sign of a struggle.

I could be misinterpreting everything, and that's what keeps me up at night.

In some of the old western stories (in most of them, really) there are no good guys. There is no right and wrong. The rule of the west is rugged individualism, every man for himself; you do what you must to survive. When colonists first started settling out here, that meant taking what they could from the natives (who had worked out how to survive the hostile land through thousands of years of experience) then eliminating them as competition. Homesteaders built their farms and fenced off their stolen land, plowing down the trees and shrubs to plant grass for their sheep to graze. When trains were laid down and cattle became more profitable, easily shipped to the parts of the country that could pay for their meat, cattlemen started killing the homesteaders for that very same land. Most of these men were really just bankers and investors; they hired cowboys to look after the herds as they profited from afar, treating the wild west like a vacation home if they ever came over at all. When they needed more land for grazing they started claiming that the homesteaders' sheep were bad for the environment (ignoring the evidence that the cows were worse) and paid bounty hunters to kill the animals and their shepherds.

One man, a former sheriff, even got it in his head to try to carry out an invasion against the homesteaders, hiring gunmen from Texas to aid him in a failed effort to take over a county just north of here in Wyoming. The Texans were offered $50 a head for every "rustler" they could kill, regardless of whether they could prove the crime or not. The invasion was stopped by the locals, farmers and ranchers and businessmen alike, who formed a posse comitatus of over 200 men, far outnumbering the invaders. They were also hindered by their own incompetence; the Texans had a nasty habit of accidentally shooting themselves instead of their targets. Still, the surviving men were never punished, slipping through the cracks with legal loopholes and witness intimidation, eventually reabsorbing back into society, sociopaths unscathed.

When the cattle stopped being profitable (after a series of particularly harsh winters), they switched tactics again, this time to mining: silver, gold, coal, oil. Stripping the environment of its resources until it had nothing left.

What "every man for himself" really means is: for every man what he can take.

I toss and turn for several hours before finally giving in and digging under my bed for the box of mixtapes from Lex. A cassette player that requires an absurd twelve AA batteries, the molded plastic headphones that lost their foam padding years ago. The playlists always make me cry; the ghostly echoes of a person who was larger than life, who helped me outgrow my family and convinced me to rob a museum and live on a mountain and build up a whole radio station so we could share the music that we loved with everyone, because love is always something that should be shared.

But they also soothe my nerves, eventually lulling me to sleep.

. . .

I am startled awake too late in the morning, the sun stabbing through cracks in the curtains like sharp needles in my eyes. The cassette tape had long since run out, the headphones discarded sometime overnight, and still I slept on; until something seemed to jerk me out of already forgotten dreams. I sit up, feeling dazed, heart pounding as though I had been woken up by some loud explosion (or by a child screaming in terror); but the RV is silent. I stumble out of my bed, into the closet bathroom with its composting toilet and tiny shower that trickles out rainwater warmed, barely, by the sun overhead, only useful in the late afternoons. For all the luxuries and modern conveniences provide by the solar generators I've accumulated, one thing they cannot produce enough of is heat. I had to install a wood fireplace for the winters, running the chimney through the driver's side window at the front.

There is a little mirror in the bathroom. Sparrow once remarked, casually, that it was the first time they had really seen their own face.

I look exhausted in my reflection, dark circles under my eyes, and even the purple seems to be losing its sheen. I splash cold water on my face and try to compose myself, feeling uneasy from my sudden yet anticlimactic awakening earlier.

What was it that woke me?

Outside, a thin patchwork of snow blankets the ground, already melting, trickling down from the trees like rain. The air is crisp and still. I hold my breath, try to still my heart, and listen.

This is what woke me up: no birds are chirping. The forest is utterly silent, holding its breath alongside me.

Then: a distant, high pitched droning; the mechanical whirr of motors.

I take off at a sprint towards the garden, praying it's not too late. Crashing, clashing, stumbling through trees and over roots, mud squelching, slipping on a patch of ice, skinning my knee, bits of dirt and pine needles stuck to the flesh of my palms. I make it to the garden before the sound does, skidding to my knees in front of the BARG, holding it out like a gun in front of me. Waiting, my aim faltering and wobbling with each gasping breath, heavy on one arm with the other hand ready to plug it into the generator. The sound getting louder, closer, almost here; then I am suddenly, startlingly interrupted by a voice from somewhere behind me.

"Is that a ray gun?"

I almost drop the thing, whirling around to spot a child, a cheeky little magpie sitting on their shoulder. Not enough time to answer; the drone emerges from the trees behind me. I fumble to plug in the BARG, transformer humming to life, and aim the cone and its invisible beam of radiation towards the approaching drone.

Nothing happens.

For a few heart wrenching seconds, I think I've failed. Behind me, Hugo the magpie squeaks from Sparrow's shoulder, laughing at me.

Then the drone's motors abruptly stop spinning and the whole thing crashes down into the garden with a lifeless thud.

"It worked!" Sparrow cheers, sounding surprised, and I am too, letting out the breath I didn't even realize I was holding. I reach down to unplug the BARG, the sudden silence from the transformer a shock. Then I drop it and spin around to face the child behind me.

"Where on Earth have you been?"

Sparrow grimaces, some internal conflict painted on their face. "Around."

I step closer to them. I want to hug them, but they made it clear early on they don't do physical contact. They take a step back, pulling at their sleeves anxiously. "Around, where?" I ask, suddenly wary.

Sparrow shakes their head, disturbing the magpie who takes off from their shoulder, flapping wings carrying him to a nearby tree. The camera is conspicuously absent from his chest. He whistles at us.

Dit. Dah dit dah dit. Dit dit dit dit. Dah dah dah.

"Daddy found me," Sparrow whispers, barely more than a breath. "I had to run away again."

"Did he hurt you?"

Now they smile, a disorienting change in demeanor. "Not so bad," they chirp cheerfully, "Nothin' I can't take." They pull the camera and its harness out of their pocket but don't hold it out, keeping it dangling at their side. Their tone drops again as they mutter, "I don't know how to use it."

I step forward, reaching out to take the camera from them, but they take two steps back. "I have to plug it into my laptop to view the footage," I try to explain.

"It's a camera?"

Of course it is, what else would it be? But to the kid in front of me, who knows how to use a radio but had never watched a movie before, I guess it's not so obvious. "What did you think it was?" I ask.

Sparrow's jaw moves side to side, chewing on the inside of their cheek. "A camera, I guess," they admit, "but I hoped it was a weapon, or somethin'."

I try not to laugh. "Why would I arm a bird?"

"The drones have them," they protest, offended. "Charlie does."

"Charlie's 'weapon' was just a laser pointer. It was an empty threat."

They let out a disappointed sigh. "Why'd you put a camera on a bird, then?"

"I was looking for you." They frown, so I add, "and Raine."

Now, they just look scared. "You find her?"

I shake my head and they suddenly toss the camera towards me. I almost do not catch it.

"Maybe Hugo did."

. . .

In the footage, Hugo watches me retreat into the RV, then continues sitting on his tree branch for several minutes before mustering the will to take off into the chilly morning air. He flies lackadaisically through the woods, landing on a log to peck at some bugs hidden underneath. He watches the moose and her not so little baby strip a tree of its bark, skittering away when they get too close. He harasses some smaller birds, then takes off, soaring down the mountain at a dizzying height, quickly surpassing me on my slow trek.

He spends over an hour flying useless circles over the town, wasting precious battery life on shots of people going about their business. Melinda Johnson and her horde of kids, playing outside sometime before I arrived. Kurt Smith and Annie Fischer on their porch, the latter greeting my sister Evelyn and her husband as they approach. I chew on my lip; she must be pregnant, if she's visiting the midwife. Pastor Jones talking to William Mason outside the church, then retreating inside through the heavy wooden doors. Sami Ellison exiting the library with a bulky canvas bag. Another family, the Morrisons, preparing to leave their home.

Finally, on the south side of town, the magpie finds his way into an old barn, where Sparrow is sleeping on a pile of old straw, curled up with some small, furry creature against the cold – a cat? The bird must start squeaking at them, because they wake up with a jerk, sitting up with a panicked look until they spot him. Then they relax and smile, pursing their lips in a whistled response, while the furry creature (definitely a cat) stretches and stalks around them.

As they move to approach Hugo and his camera, I see the handcuffs around their skinny wrists, attached to a chain that disappears somewhere behind them.

Sparrow talks to the bird for a few minutes, lips barely moving in a silent conversation, and I regret not having a microphone to hear what they have to say. They toss something towards him, some scrap of food that disappears before I have a chance to identify it. Hugo hops closer to them, but then something must startle them; Sparrow jumps, and the bird scrambles away in a flurry of feathers and flapping wings.

A few minutes later, he is following them both: Sparrow and the man who must be their father, clad in a navy blue DataLess uniform. He has a handgun in a holster on his hip; the back of his uniform says "SECURITY" in bold yellow letters. Sparrow's hands are cuffed in front of them as their father half leads, half pushes them down the abandoned street.

The wind seems to pick up then, the video growing nauseatingly unstable as the magpie fights against it to stay in the air before finally retreating to the safety of a tree, where he remains until the camera's battery dies.

Well, cross that off my to-do list: I finally found Sparrow.

They remain outside as I watch the footage, crouched on a flat rock nearby, watching the birds skip and jump and flutter around them. They had refused to come inside when we arrived but requested a radio to listen to music, face turning grim as I explained the fate of my radio shack.

"Anything useful?" they ask when I step outside, metal RV door slamming shut behind me.

"I saw you and your father," I reply carefully, watching them for a reaction.

Sparrow's face remains stoic. "What about Raine?"

I shake my head. "How did you get away?"

"I ran."

"Must've been fast," I remark. Faster than a bullet? The man was armed. They're not telling the whole story; but, then, they never do.

"Daddy's just really slow."

I chuckle and hold out my sweater. It's chilly outside; warmer than yesterday, but still too cold for the kid wearing just a flannel button-up. When I step closer, though, they stand and take a step back, keeping the distance between us. I toss it over to them, instead.

Sparrow pulls the sweater on over their flannel then asks, "What're you gonna do with the drone?"

The drone sits on my table next to the dismantled parts of Charlie. Dead, but undamaged, hopefully. "Hack it, use it to find Raine," I suggest.

A guarded nod. "Why can't Hugo?" They whistle: dit dah dit. dit dah. dit dit. dah dit.

R-A-I-N. Missing the "e", but close enough. And they insist they don't know how to read.

"He's never met her," I explain. "He doesn't know what to look for."

"We could show him a picture."

"There are no pictures –" I stop talking when Sparrow pulls something out of their pocket. A little white rectangle, the size of a Polaroid. Now they make no effort to move away as I close the distance between us and snatch it from them. A photograph of Raine and her sister, Josie, younger than Sparrow is now. A hole at the top where a nail had once been stuck through it.

I catch a whiff of something, smoke clinging to the child's clothing.

"Sparrow," I demand between clenched teeth, "Where the hell did you get this?"

​Sparrow

​Chapter 1

I didn't mean for things to go this way.

I remember the first time I heard Echo's radio station, the song that played. Just a guy with an acoustic guitar, no drums or nothin', singing about how he can tell that we are gonna be friends. I tuned in too late, missed the first few lines of the song, so I thought, for real, that he was singing to me specifically. I fell in love with his voice. Everything he sang about was foreign: school, uniforms, numbers and letters and learning to spell. All things forbidden to me. Daddy didn't even let me draw, even though he had plenty of paper, pencils and markers and even crayons stacked up in his house that was also off limits.

Later, I heard the whole song, and learned he was singing to some girl named Suzy Lee and I got to experience a broken heart for the first time. Radio Echo called the band the White Stripes and I decided from then on that I hated them, whoever they were, and if I ever met them I would spit at their feets. Even though they have some good songs out there, better even than the one about being friends, ones with heavy thudding drums that you can tap along to wherever you are.

For a long time, I thought that Radio Echo was talking to me specifically, too, that the radio was just a walkie talkie but missing its microphone. I fell in love with him, too. Sometimes, he would play my favorite songs, just for me. My first radio was just a toy, hard plastic case with bright, colorful orange dials. It also told stories, tales of adventures and princesses and pirates and talking animals and aliens from outer space, all from stiff little cards you could stick in a slot at the top. I kept the volume way down, never past the first notch, so Daddy wouldn't know I had it. I stole it from one of the neighboring houses after he killed the owners.

. . .

My earliest memory is of murder.

Daddy pointing a gun at an old man's head. An enormous BANG that rattled through my skull and left my ears feeling empty and hollow for the next hour as we collected 'anything useful' from the old man's house. Food, mostly, and blankets and clothing and electronics and pots and pans and salt and pepper shakers shaped like a pair of chickens. The hen was salt, the rooster was pepper. I seen a lot of salt and pepper shakers over the years, cows and people and penguins and pigs and always, always, the girls are salt and the boys are pepper. That maybe informs my relationship to gender in a nutshell.

Makes no sense at all.

Daddy said, He was old. He said, Old men gonna die anyways. And, We need this junk more than he did.

But they weren't all old, not always. And we didn't need all the junk. I definitely didn't, 'cause aside from gathering it up into a pile in the wagon I wasn't allowed to touch it. And he didn't, neither, 'cause he just kept it piled up in the hallways like a second skin.

Daddy's gun was just a little thing, jet black and made of plastic like a toy. It had a magazine that he could stick the bullets into and fire again and again, BANG BANG BANG. He used to have another one, also jet black but so big it needed extra legs to hold itself up and he had to lay out on the ground with it and stare at his target through a little telescope on top. He never used it except once, years ago, when he shot a deer in the leg from our porch. I was in the yard, not six feet away from the deer when its leg exploded in a cloud of blood and it ran off, limping and crying. Daddy decided it weren't worth chasing down so it must've died some time later, 'cause I never saw a three legged deer. Or maybe it was too smart to come back, even with all the corn I left in the yard for them.

Daddy gave that gun to his buddy Jimmy, who used to come by every spring to get drunk and trade stories. I didn't like Jimmy, not one bit, so I made myself scarce those days. I wandered, a ramblin' man like that song by the Allman Brothers Band. Same as after Daddy's house burned down – I wandered and wandered and wandered, 'til I came upon the Appelbaums.

I worked for them to earn my keep. It was hard work but I didn't mind 'cause they let me sleep inside on a mattress, not outside in the treehouse where Daddy made me sleep. Even when they fought and yelled, it was okay. I'd lay there with my eyes squeezed shut, playing music in my head while I pretended to sleep.

I never meant for them to die, even though they weren't very nice. They didn't have kids, didn't like me, didn't even seem to like each other. But they were infinitely better than my daddy, so I stayed with them as long as I could.

I should have realized, it would only be a matter of time before he found me.

The work for the Appelbaums weren't too bad. Mostly taking care of the animals. Goats and chickens, milk and eggs and meat.

I didn't like having to slaughter them. Chickens aren't too bad to kill, since you can just twist their heads practically off and they only struggle for a bit. But with goats, it's a multi-step process. You gotta stun them with a bolt gun, which looked nothing like a gun but made close enough to the same sound as one. You had to press it right up against the back of the head between the horns, 'cause the front's so thick from growing up banging it up into things all the time. That's how goats play, bashing each other with their horns. They play a lot, prancing and jumping and bleating 'til they see you with that bolt gun, then they know something's up and they scatter and scream. After you stun 'em you have to slit their throats, and they cough and choke on their blood as it spills out all over your arms and the ground.

I don't like it.

I like Raine's way better, huntin' drones right outta the sky. I thought she was going for deer when I first saw her out there with her weird looking gun, so long and slender and no magazine or nothin'. She had to load it from the front, tapping the bullets down the barrel that looked more like a bathroom pipe but dull grey instead of copper. I was thirsty and hungry and delirious, overpowering any fear I might should've had about strangers with guns. I'd been walking for a week, after the Appelbaums' house got torn away.

My favorite song that Echo's ever played for me is about walking. Not the one about walking a five hundred or even a thousand miles, which sounds impossibly far given how long it took me to go just thirty miles, more or less. I don't know how many thirties are in five hundred, but there are two five hundreds in a thousand so it's gotta be a lot less than that.

No, my favorite song about walking is called 'The World At Large' and it's about a drifter. I like that word, drifter, like the piles of snow that move around in the wind, leaving winding narrow paths between them shallow enough to trudge through.

At the end of the song the drifter says his thoughts are too loud, he can't even hear himself talk. That's how I felt, my thoughts too loud, when Daddy found me again at the library. I knew he was angry with me, livid, that silent seething anger and he was tap, tap, tapping at that plastic gun on his side to some unknown drum beat in his head. Daddy always taps on things the same way, tap tap tappity tap, over and over again but it's not Morse, even if it sounds like it should be. I don't think he even knows Morse.

I had to go with him that night in the library. I didn't have a choice, not unless I wanted him to kill Echo and maybe everyone else at that meeting, too. That's what that tap tap tappity tap meant on the gun. A reminder.

And, to be honest, I was scared. Not just of him but of all those people, more than I could count, all them faces I didn't know gathered there in that tiny building.

Echo was scared too, I could tell by the way she stuttered when she spoke. Echo on the radio was never scared, she never stuttered, but she didn't sound like Echo the person neither. She sounded like a man, and that really threw me off. That something so simple as the pitch of your voice could change how everyone saw you. Even me, I was fooled by it.

I got outta there quick, leading Daddy away from that meeting before he could change his mind and shoot them all anyway. He'd been drinking, I could smell it on his breath, but only a little 'cause he was all loose, walking with a swagger like he hadn't a care in the world. I played that song about drifters in my head, so loud I couldn't hear myself ask,

Where we goin'?

And he said he was gonna take me to my mama, which I understood to be a threat, 'cause all my life he's been telling me she was dead, that I killed her being born. And I knew I would deserve it, because I ruined his whole life when I did that, when I got born and killed my mama, then again when I burned his house down.

I didn't mean for that to happen, neither.

First, though, we had something to do. A house to raid.

We walked through the town for a bit, and he led me to a little car with no roof, a trailer dragging along behind it where I sat bouncing around alongside plastic bottles of lamp oil. He drove too fast, faster than I'd ever moved before in my life and it made me sick, banging into the metal, bruises all over my legs and hips and back and elbows. We headed west towards the sunset, towards Maybell.

Towards Raine's house.

It was past dark by the time we got there, and Daddy needed the sun for the little car to charge, so he said we'd sleep there overnight and load up the cart in the morning. Daddy slept upstairs on Raine's bed while I slept on that same ratty couch I slept on the first night I got there, that day I met Raine and followed her home. And more than anything I regretted ever following her home in the first place, 'cause now I was gonna ruin her life too.

I couldn't sleep that night, my shoulders twisted up behind me so he could tie my wrists to an exposed post in the couch. I thought, maybe Raine was out huntin' drones. Maybe she'd come home and find us and Daddy would shoot her dead when she saw us. Or maybe she'd gone out to Echo's meeting after all, she was just a little late so I missed her. Maybe they'd go back up the mountain together and live happily ever after in that little RV, she wouldn't even need this dingy little cabin no more.

My least favorite stories from those stiff storybook cards were the love stories. Princesses rescued by knights, their reward a true love's kiss. 'Cause there's the other side of the love story, the aftermath where the knight dies in battle, head bit off by a dragon. Or the princess dies in childbirth. Or the parents abandon their kids and wicked stepmoms feed them to witches.

Happily ever after, 'til it's not.

Echo could be a witch in the woods, her hair all purple and her voice all distorted on the radio, but she'd be the good kind, with healing potions and soothing teas. The kind with animals all over that clean her house and sing charming little songs about sneaking through gardens, tiptoe through the tulips. How I met Hugo, hanging around outside for scraps. He can sing, too, so I know he listens to the radio whenever Echo does, music muffled through the thin metal walls of her RV.

Raine's not a witch, though, no matter how much she likes to curse and snarl. She ain't a princess, or a wicked stepmother neither. She'd be a knight. Or the hunter, swooping in at the end of the story to save the day, going after drones instead of big bad wolves.

In the morning, my daddy watched over me, tap tap tappity tap, as I loaded up all her stuff into the trailer, as much as could fit. Food, toilet paper, blankets, soaps and shampoos. Then he poured that kerosene lamp oil all over the house, all over the stuff leftover in the cellar. He even made me go upstairs and pour it all over there, too, and that's where I saw that photo of Raine, two of her, one happy one sad, both younger than me. I sneaked it into my pocket before racing back down the stairs 'cause Daddy had already lit the match.

It all went up in a hot whoosh, sucking the air out of my lungs, burning my eyes, hot on my skin, my short hair singed. Then we had to book it out of there, the goats and chickens and that mule all running around panicked, in case of the neighbors spotting us. I didn't fit in the trailer with all that stuff, had to ride on the little car with Daddy, too close so my chest felt tight.

I thought about letting go, tumbling down to the earth racing past beneath us. Thought about running back to that house and letting it all burn down around me. Thought about daddy's gun, in the holster right there in arm's reach.

Don't fear the reaper, that song says. But I sure did.

. . .

Mr. Appelbaum's radio was a lot bigger than mine, and fancier too. It had a billion buttons and a little wavy graph at the bottom so you could see how strong the signal was. It had a Morse decoder, too, which was useless to me 'cause I never learned how to read, and a little card that told you all the letters.

How I learned Morse is, the Appelbaums would sit there listening to Echo's calls, her pleas for help, whatever. Not the music channel but one just below it, the dial tuned to 1312, static broken up by blips of Morse. She'd echo the stories she heard from cities, where people still lived and worked. I heard the do doot dos and Mr. Appelbaum would read out loud what it meant to Mrs., and then they'd argue and argue about what it meant for them. Whether they should try to leave, find the source of those do doot dos and maybe find a better place to live. We got everything we need here, Mr. Appelbaum would yell, and Mrs. Appelbaum would cry 'cause she didn't think so.

It went on and on like this, every night for weeks before I finally worked up the courage to sneak in and try a response for myself. Dododo, do doot doot do. Do doot do. Doot doot doot. S-P-R-O. I'd had to sound it out, the letters on that little card.

My name don't come from my daddy. He just calls me girl, or pest, or bitch or cunt or little shit. My name comes from the birds, the dusty brown balls of fluff that nest in the same trees as my old treehouse. Daddy calls them pests, too.

The biggest argument the Appelbaums ever had came after they got that white envelope with DataLess' logo on it. Now we have to go! Mrs. Appelbaum would screech. This is bullshit, they can't do this, Mr. would yell back. Over and over again, 'til things were flying through the air at each other, glasses shattering. They were still fighting when the drone came, a deep low thrumming that vibrated the air around their house. The destruction of the machine like Slayer's heavy drumbeats that make my heart race. They were still in there as I ran away, through the woods and straight into Daddy, standing there laughing as the drone et their house. Tap tap tapping on his gun, like he'd been waiting there for me the whole time.

See that, girly? he said, That there's the future.

. . .

I wasn't allowed to go inside Daddy's house, except in the winters when it got too cold to breathe, but most nights he'd get real drunk and fall asleep on the couch inside and sometimes I'd sneak around and get something more to eat. I was always hungry, just scraps for meals most days, leftovers from whatever Daddy ate. He had loads of alcohol, all different shades of brown in all sorts of different glass bottles, enough even to share with his friend Jimmy every spring when he'd come by with that little car, trailer packed full of food for the year.

There are levels of Daddy being drunk: just a little and he's real loose, almost easy going. Tipsy, like that bar song by someone named Shaboozey. I can ask questions like 'where we goin'?' without having to worry too much about the consequences. Sometimes I get it wrong and the consequences are violent, 'cause when he drinks any more than that he gets real angry. When he starts yelling at the birds I know to make myself scarce, but only for a bit 'cause even more than that and he sleeps like the dead. That is my favorite time, when he's sleeping.

When he drinks with Jimmy, don't matter how much, he's a creep, and I run, run, run, away like the Radiohead song says, before either of them could get too touchy.

Touchy, like with the hands, rough fingers and grips that leave bruises on my wrist. Or touchy, like sensitive. Like, she's touchy when she's bleedin' out the cunt.

The first time I got my blood, I thought I was dying. Not just 'cause of the scarlet blood pooling out between my legs but 'cause of the pain, stabbing wrenching screaming pain in my stomach. Agony. I didn't tell Daddy about it, I knew I'd be in trouble, but he figured out about it anyway when I bled through my pants. Instead of angry his eyes glowed with excitement.

You're a woman, now, he'd said. He said now that I could make babies, I could get hitched and become someone else's problem. He asked his buddy Jimmy if he knew anyone would be willing to pay for me. Maybe even Jimmy wanted some.

Ain't she a bit young for bleedin'? Jimmy'd asked. Sure she's still a virgin?

What, you wanna check? my Daddy offered.

So, I made myself scarce.

It was Echo who told me what was actually happening, after Raine had gone home and we were left alone together. The menstrual cycle, the shedding of the uterine lining. All the parts, tucked away inside of me: ovaries, fallopian tubes, uterus, vagina. She stopped stuttering around then, her voice taking on the same authoritative quality as Radio Echo, but without that artificial deepening. I told her about the goat what had babies at the Appelbaums, one of them getting stuck in the vagina so Mr. Appelbaum had to pull it out by the legs, still wrapped up in a slippery clear bubble full of liquid, while the mama screamed and screamed. Echo got real pale then.

The baby goats were just about the cutest things I ever seen. Their hooves were soft at first but within an hour both of them were up and wobbling around on skinny little legs. The mama ate their placentas and when they wanted to nurse they'd headbutt her udders before latching on.

I liked milking the goats, the sound the hot white streams made when they hit the metal pan. But those babies didn't like it one bit, they'd headbutt me for stealin' their food. They started growing horns after about a week, little nubs on their skulls that must've itched something terrible, 'cause they sure loved it when I scratched them. The older goats liked having their heads scratched too, the flaky skin between their horns, same place where I put the stun gun to knock them out before I slaughtered them. The does had skinny horns that stuck out almost straight, but the buck's were thick and curved around behind his head like a helmet. He had a big beard on his chin, stained yellow 'cause he drank the does' pee. Mr. Appelbaum said he was testin' if they were fertile, and the way he said it made my stomach squirm. The goats liked to chew on my hair like it was grass. They'd snatch at the chickens' feathers and eat those too.

I wonder where those goats are now. Where Raine's goats are now. Wandering through the sageland, I guess. Getting et by coyotes or wild dogs. Maybe the two herds will find each other and merge into one big happy family. Happily ever after.

We fled from Raine's cabin fire on the little car, the smoke chasing after us and burning into my sinuses, soaking into my clothes so it's all I'll ever smell again. Daddy drove us back into town, where we dropped all that stuff off in a couple of big garages, dozens of them lined up in rows, the three at the end that were already half full of the same sorts of stuff we'd taken from Raine's cellar. Jimmy's storage units, Daddy called them, and he showed me the blood, soaked into the pavement where Jimmy'd died, shot down by a drone. He closed me inside one of the units, the same one where he parked the little car, pitch black inside 'til I found the switch for the headlights, then again after the battery died some time later, the darkness sucking the air from my lungs like smoke. No food or nothing, just a bunch of electronics like in Echo's Radio Shack but none of them would turn on.

It was dark outside, too, when Daddy finally let me out of there.

I'm scared of the dark.

At night, in the treehouse, barely lit by the glow bleeding out from Daddy's house, I used stare up at the empty black sky where there ought to be stars, but I can't see them. I can't see too well at all unless something's right up close, the whole world just a blur around me. How I ran straight into Daddy after leaving the Appelbaum's, not even noticing he was there 'til it was too late. It's so much worse in the dark. All sorts of things can be hiding out there in the dark, and I would never know unless I ran right into them. Monsters like Daddy, tap tap tappity tap.

All I know in the night sky is the moon, a great fuzzy ball of light, streaks of light stabbing out all random. Sometimes it's huge, then it gets smaller. Some nights go by and it never shows up at all.

In the winter, Daddy would let me stay inside and sleep on the cold stone floor next to the fireplace, 'cause it was my job to make sure it stayed lit. I'd have to wake up every couple of hours and feed more wood into it, sagebrush with its musty leaves that made so much soot, pine logs sticky with sap. Daddy couldn't do it, 'cause he slept all through the night, sharp smell of alcohol on his breath. Sometimes he puked it all up and I'd have to clean it.

The night Daddy's house burned down, it was 'cause of that fireplace. I was cold that night but Daddy was yelling, screaming that it wasn't cold enough for a fire. Not cold enough for me to be inside anymore, it was almost summer. Jimmy'd already come and gone, dropped off the food we'd need for the rest of the year. Daddy didn't need the fireplace for cooking, not like Raine, 'cause he had electricity, the roof all lined with panels stolen from the neighboring houses. He had a smooth glass cooktop, four circles that glowed red hot. But I was cold that night, or maybe I was sick, my body all shivering and burning and freezing and sweating all at once. When he hit me I fell into the stove, knocking loose the ash pan at the bottom, hot coals spilling out all over the stone underneath. Burning my arm, oozing blisters on my flesh, and sendin' sparks flying what caught onto all his stuff stacked around everywhere.

It all went up quick, faster than I ever thought possible, but I didn't stick around to see it. I could feel the heat as I ran away, smelled the smoke for weeks afterwards like it was coating the inside of my nose.

I don't know how long it took me to find the Appelbaums after that, all sick and shivering, wandering lost through the land I should've recognized if I hadn't been so out of it. They fought about the fire, which spread and spread, smoke choking the air even miles away where they lived. The giant column growing and growing, getting closer, 'til a rain storm came in and knocked it all down. They fought about me, another mouth to feed, and sick, too. Fought about sending me away, at least 'til I was well enough to start doing chores for them. They fought about food and the animals and cleaning and leaving and staying. Then they'd go to bed and have sex, which sounded an awful lot like fighting, too.

Dunno how they didn't have any kids of their own, but Mrs. Appelbaum cried about that, too. She told me, if she had kids, she'd have a daughter, and she'd be a lot prettier than me. She'd comb the girl's hair every night 'til it was soft and silky and smooth.

My hair was not soft, or silky, or smooth, all tangled up behind my head like a rat's nest. It was a relief to be rid of it, the tickle buzz of the electric trimmer, clumps falling off behind me, Echo's fingers rubbing my scalp. How soft and prickly it became, all short and stubble. Cutting my hair was her way of taming me, Hallelujah.

Happiest day of my life.

Daddy didn't have a lot to say about my new hair when he found me at the library, just, You look like a boy. Which was kind of the point. Daddy used the same kind of trimmer on his own head and his face, dark brown hair all cut to the same length. He never did nothing for my hair, never cutting it or washing it or combing it like Mrs. Appelbaum would've done with her daughter.

Mr. Appelbaum had a mustache, thick and bushy like a caterpillar crawling around under his nose. The rest he shaved with a safety razor, not very safe 'cause he always cut himself, little scabs all over his cheeks and neck. The thin blades he discarded into a hole in the wall, filling up the space inside. He had a bunch of boxes of them, 100 to a pack, stacked up in the hallway closet. I stole one and a couple times I used it to cut the pale, thin flesh on my arm just to see what would happen. The scars are still there, bright red against white skin, right next to the scars from the charcoals. Echo remarked on it when she saw them and I said it was from barbed wire, but they were too clean for that. Too neat, parallel was the word she used, and I shrugged and she dropped it when I refused to answer. It barely stung when I did it, the thin lines of red, dots of blood welling up, glistening like rubies.

Mrs. Appelbaum had lots of jewelry. It was valuable, she said, priceless, which doesn't mean worthless even though it sounds like it should, even though it was. No one was gonna trade precious food for some rocks, no matter how pretty they were. She cried about it a lot. Gold, silver, rubies, sapphires, emeralds, diamonds which were meant to be the fanciest but just looked like boring old glass to me. I liked the colorful ones best. My favorite was the opal, glittering in the sunlight, the whole rainbow trapped within. My favorite color is rainbows, bridging all the way across the sky after an afternoon storm, so bright even I can see them, golden rays of sunlight poking through the mist.

The most unsettling color is just before dawn, when the sun just barely starts to lighten the sky, hours before it actually appears. Sapphire. A deep, penetrating blue, so thick you can almost taste it.

That was the color of the sky when Daddy finally let me out of Jimmy's garage, but whether it was nighttime or morning, I didn't know. I had to wait to figure out the sky was getting lighter, not darker. He had these metal handcuffs, arms stuck behind me as he pushed me through the empty streets. I didn't want to ask him where we were going this time, mostly 'cause he was stone cold sober, which made him angrier even than his drunk stages, but also 'cause I didn't want to give him any ideas. That threat about taking me to see my mama. Burning down more houses. Using that gun on someone important like Echo or Raine.

Instead Daddy took me to an empty barn. He kept me chained up there all day, only Hugo the magpie for company in the evening, whistling back and forth 'til Daddy showed up and scared him away. When Hugo got close enough I could see the thing strapped to his chest, some sort of shiny gadget. I figured, that harness must belong to Echo, and maybe I could get a message to her, but he already knew SOS so I taught him her name to go with it.

Daddy had to work at night, that blue uniform he was wearing when he showed up at the library, and during the day he lived in the house next to the barn. Jimmy's old place, he said. Replaces the one you destroyed, a snarl like a wolf as he reminded me how I ruined everything, but it was okay, 'cause this town's better than Maybell, buncha naive fools, and DataLess coming in to give him everything he could ever need, and all of Jimmy's old stuff, Raine's old stuff, and if I'm good he'll take me to see my mama.

That threat again, tap tap tappity tap on the gun.

There was a cat in the barn, too. I don't like cats much, 'cause of how they run around all feral hissing and claws, and they have a way of eatin' up all the birds. I saved a bluebird from one once, soft blue feathers the color of the sky at noon, just about the prettiest thing I ever seen. I took it to my treehouse and fed it bugs, pulled the legs off grasshoppers for it and dug up termites from underneath old logs, 'til it healed from all those wounds and flew south for the winter. There weren't many of 'em around but this guy came back every spring, to find himself a girlfriend and have little baby bluebirds right there in the same tree as my treehouse. The girl was always grey or brown, just a hint of that pretty blue on her wings, and the babies all spotted, beaks bright yellow and red when they sat open waiting for bugs.

They're all probably dead now, after that fire.

The cat in the barn was a calico, meaning it was all the colors, random splashes of orange and black on white and bright green eyes, little slits for pupils. It didn't try to mess with Hugo so I let it stay there with me, or Hugo let it stay there with me, and at night it curled up with me to keep me warm. Daddy shot at it when he saw it and I really hope he missed but I couldn't tell, it ran away so fast.

Let's go, he said that morning.

He was drunk, after a long night working. His job was security, meaning he kept the drones safe while they slept at night, 'cause they were all solar powered. Not that there was anyone to keep them safe from, unless Echo finally figured out a plan. So, mostly he just sat in a room with video feeds and drank whiskey and jerked off. His words, not mine.

And he said, I can take ya to see your mama now.

I think she's ready to cooperate now, if you are, he said.

But I never cooperate. I'm a wild child, feral like the cats, a bad seed. A monster, like daddy. A killer, an arsonist, and a coward, too. So I ran away.

Anyway, that's where I been.

I'm sorry, for everything.

​Chapter 2

Echo always gets this look on her face when I talk too much, like she's about to cry, but this time it's all mixed up with something else, like anger or suspicion, and I can't blame her, not really, not with that smoke smell still clinging to my clothes. She's still holding onto the picture, and she is trembling, back to her nervous stammering.

"So, um, how'd you get away from him this time?" she asks.

I shrug. "I ran."

"And he didn't chase you?" There it is again, that skepticism written on her face.

I shrug again. "He don't like running." Daddy moves slow, especially when he's drunk, and his aim is terrible when he's drinking too. Not that I think he was really trying to hit me, just one BANG. A warning shot. A reminder, that he'll find me again.

He always does.

I went to the library first, 'cause it was broad daylight and I knew he wouldn't try to shoot me again if there were any people around. That's where I found Echo's note, to meet her in the garden. Hugo had followed me inside, out of that cold wind that rattled the glass in the windows. That camera strapped to his chest, which I took off 'cause I thought maybe it was a weapon, even if I knew it really wasn't. Mostly, it just looked uncomfortable, and I think he was grateful I took it off him, squeaking and chirping like he did. We waited 'til evening, the sun sinking towards the horizon, and I knew I was gonna have to walk through the woods in the dark, but there was a lantern still there at the library so I'd be okay.

And I was, even though it took me all night to get it right, and Hugo was no help at all, sitting on my shoulder, claws digging into my skin. Not 'til the sun rose and he led me straight to where we needed to go, fluttering between the trees ahead of me and squeaking to keep me going.

I feel a little bit like I'm dying, my legs all wobbly and loose.

"Um, when's the last time you ate?" Echo asks, and I shrug at that, too. Something from Jimmy's stores, but it might've come from Raine's cabin, I dunno. I don't want to remind her about the cabin, about the picture still in her hands and how I got it. The smoke, the fire, and where is Raine, anyway? I can't ask.

She tries to bring me inside, but I don't want to, 'cause that drone's there, the one she knocked right out of the sky with some invisible beam. And that drone means, Daddy's probably found me again. He's probably on his way, right now, come to kill us both.

"You need to eat something," Echo says flatly. She keeps looking down at that picture of Raine, then back up at me. "I promise, you'll feel better after you eat." Every time she says the word eat my stomach pulls tighter, a shrinking aching hole.

I shake my head and sit down on the flat rock outside her RV, my head swimming.

"Fine, I'll bring you something out here," she huffs, turning to stomp back into the RV.

I listen to the birds as I wait, sparrows with their tiny angry songs, Hugo squeaking back at them, do do do doot doot doot do do do. My arms pulled up in the sleeves of Echo's sweater for warmth, the handcuffs still dangling cold against the skin of my left arm. I'd managed to squeeze the right hand out, squishing the bones down so it felt like they were gonna break as they scraped through the metal ring, but the left was too tight, no matter how much I pulled, bruising my skin as I tried. I think I even tightened the thing, 'cause now my fingers are stiff and numb, my wrist aching and raw. My face is wet, icy cold in the breeze, eyes burning, and I scrub at them with the sleeve of my sweater.

Echo comes back out a few minutes later with something steaming in two mugs, thick honey sweetened oatmeal, chunks of sour apples, just like that first morning here. Burns my mouth but I gobble it down regardless and all the while she is watching me, eyes narrowed like she don't trust me. She looks tired, even paler than usual, eyes red like maybe she's been crying, too. I finish the oatmeal and scrape the mug clean before handing it to her, but she's still eating so she just places it on the ground beside her. When she's done, she clears her throat, and tells me all the things she's been up to these last few days. How the meeting seemed to fail, but almost all the people she's talked to since wanted to help in her campaign against DataLess. How she's been hiking up and down the mountain, over and over again, looking for me. How she's lost the Radio Shack, same time I was raiding Raine's cellar.

That hurt most of all, finding out she lost all her music. That shining beacon of hope what kept me going through the lonely nights. All her movies, too, now I'll never be able to watch. I'd only seen three of them: The Wizard of Oz, The Iron Giant, and The Princess Bride. I didn't like the last one so much, just another love story, even though it was weird and not anything like the other love stories I'd heard before. The first one was okay. I liked the songs but I didn't like the ending, where Dorothy taps those shiny red shoes and says There's no place like home. I would've stayed in that land of Oz for the rest of my life, if I was her.

And something about the Iron Giant got me real nervous now, how that big robot can self repair, the broken pieces of him that survived moving around all by themselves. 'Cause there's that drone in there, that DataLess spy, that could any minute start buzzing up around the RV, telling Daddy exactly where we are.

"It's not like that," Echo insists, "The circuits are fried." Then, "Come in, I'll show you."

And I wonder, how she can still trust me to come inside, after everything.

Buncha naive fools, Daddy called the town.

Echo's got the scout drone on her table, next to a bunch of other parts, all scattered and it takes a minute for me to recognize them as Charlie, now all pieces, just blurs of shiny black plastic and rainbow wires. The camera is still plugged into her laptop, and I lean in close to see it paused on Daddy pushing me through the town, takin' me to see my mama.

I look at the drone, lifeless on the table, and shudder, prickly goosebumps all up my arms. "Why'd you bring it here?" I ask.

Echo picks up the little scout drone from the table and jiggles it at me, propellers rattling. "It's dead, see?" she says, "I promise." But still I cringe away.

I still feel dizzy from these last few days, not sleeping well at all, chest tight and heart pounding every time my Daddy showed up again. Echo must see it on my face, the way I wobble when I stand, because she makes me crawl up into the bed over the front of the RV, where people would sit and drive if it was still running, and tells me I need to sleep. She even gives me some music to listen to, some sort of plastic cartridge she stuck into a box, a little like the cards that held my stories. I have to listen to it through headphones, hard plastic against my ears.

"I'll be right here if you need me," she promises. Like she could take the nightmares away if she tried.

My nightmares are about murder.

Maybell never had much people, and it has a lot fewer now than it did when Daddy first arrived. Not nearly enough to notice he was knockin' them off, one at a time, takin' their stuff. Or, if they did, they never said anything to him about it. Never came over to confront him, no knights or sheriffs or superheros to stop him. Stop us, 'cause I was there too, taking their stuff alongside him, everything all numb inside, like a song. Do what you gotta do.

The nightmares are why I had to sleep outside in the treehouse most of the year. Daddy don't like me waking him up, the screaming, and sometimes I woke up soaked in pee, too. I'd wash my clothes in the creek that ran along near the house. In the deep of summer it would slow to a trickle, just mud, and sometimes even that dried up, just a hard flat bed of sand. At the Appelbaum's, I learned to wake myself up on the regular, 'cause the Mrs. would've kicked me right out if she caught me ruining that soft mattress with piss.

I thought I'd wet myself my first night in this RV, too, but that turned out to just be blood. Even harder to clean up, staining the blanket, my underwear, a smell like old meat.

In my nightmares, all the people Daddy's killed are lined up in a row and I can see them clearly, even if I couldn't for real. Their brains are oozing out their skulls, bright blooms of red on their chests. Sometimes I have to shoot them myself, Daddy's gun pressed up against the side of my head for if I don't. Sometimes they're shambling along after me, trying to get me. Sometimes I'm drowning in their blood. Sometimes they're still alive and I watch them get old, or older, just livin' their lives, diggin' in the garden, cookin' dinner, washin' their hair, their clothes, watchin' the sunset. They get kids and those grow up too, tiny babies squirming around grown up in a flash, with kids of their own. Those dreams are the worst, the memories they never got to make.

At the very end of the line of people I've helped murder is my mama, or someone I take to be my mama, dead before I ever got to meet her. Some mix of all the women I ever seen, women in the houses that Daddy killed after having sex with them, holding them down, gun to their heads, screaming and crying.

A man has needs, Daddy'd say. He'd say the same when he was drunk with Jimmy, both of them eyeing me like a coyote drooling over its prey.

There weren't any other kids in Maybell, at least none that I ever saw. Might be that Daddy killed them all, I wouldn't know. Sometimes he would disappear for days and days, and he'd lock the door so I'd have to go inside through the window just to get at some food. I didn't know how to cook, how to turn on the power for that flat glass cooktop, so I ate whatever didn't need cooking. Cans of soup I'd dig open with a knife, crackers and peanut butter, granola bars with chocolate chips. The food came from Jimmy, all marked with that DataLess logo, same sort of stuff Raine had. I dunno how people survive without it. The Appelbaums had their goats, their chickens, their jars of vegetables, jam from wild berries. So much work, just to eat. Mrs. Appelbaum complained about it terribly, especially when she had to feed me, too. Even though I did most of the work, me and Mr. Appelbaum, all except the cooking.

Daddy never told me where he was going, those days he disappeared, but it wasn't to raid any houses. He'd leave the wagon behind but take the horse, riding on his back like I was never allowed to do. Come back with random stuff, nothin' special. A corkscrew with a handle of some black, shiny rock. A metal sculpture of a dog. A single shoe, shiny red like Dorothy's. A silk bra in emerald green with a matching pair of underwear. A necklace, a ring, a pocket watch, tick tick tick. Things like that. More junk for his house, but instead of the piles he kept these things in a chest in his room like treasures.

If there was something in there to remember my mama by, I don't know which one it would be. No special psychic connection, no spark of recognition, no matter how much I dug through those things. Never saw no pictures of her, weren't even any trinkets leftover from when I was a baby, no blanket or tiny clothes or bottles. If they existed, they were buried deep beneath all his other stuff. For all I know, my daddy crafted me from clay, fully formed enough to walk and talk and carry things out of other people's houses.

All that stuff's burned to ash, now. What was the point of it all, I wonder, if it could all be taken away so easily?

I wake up screaming. I always wake up screaming, the faces of all those people staring down at me, but it doesn't take me long to remember where I am and suck it all back in. Echo's RV, the bed overtop the driver's seat, toasty warm from the fireplace burning beneath. The music she gave me to listen to long gone quiet, headphones twisted up around my ears.

I pull the cartridge out of the box, white with two holes in the middle, flimsy film wrapped around inside. Someone's scrawled something on the plastic, I dunno what. I climb down from the bed with it, Echo sitting at the table working on that drone plugged into her computer, type type type, undisturbed by my screaming because she got used to it quick. I wave it at her and she looks up and asks, "Did you like it?"

I shrug. "What's it called?"

Her voice sounds strange, strained, as she reads the letters on the cartridge, "This is a story about love."

I laugh, 'cause it was all love songs, or at least the first two or three before I fell asleep were, but I didn't hate them, not really. Songs aren't like stories, they're just a moment in time, no happily ever afters. You can fall in love in one song and the next one over you're out of it again. Unless all the songs are about love, I guess. The first one was 'I've Just Seen a Face' by the Beatles, followed by 'Accidentally in Love' by the Counting Crows, and now I kinda wish I'd stayed awake, seen where the story was going.

"Did you make it?" I ask.

"No," she answers, hesitating and chewing on her lip before adding, "An old girlfriend of mine did."

"A girlfriend?" I repeat, and she nods. "That why you make yourself out to be a man on the radio?"

"No." Her voice is tense, then, staring at her laptop in front of her, and I figure she's annoyed I interrupted her work.

So I interrupt it some more. "What happened to her?"

"She died."

"How?"

"She got sick. Pneumonia." Type type type.

"I'm sorry."

Type type type. "It was a long time ago."

She clearly wants the conversation to be over, but I ask, "That why you live up here all alone now?"

Echo sighs heavily. "Yeah, that's right."

"Like Raine," I say.

"Sparrow."

"Yeah?"

"Go find something to do, please."

So I go outside.

There's plenty to do outside, like talkin' to the birds or chasing grasshoppers, climbin' trees, boulders, splashing in puddles. It's chilly outside, even with the extra layer of the sweater, makes me appreciate the warmth of the RV, the plume of smoke rising from the little chimney at the front. Hugo swoops over and lands at my feet, chirping expectantly.

"Got no food for you," I apologize, and he shakes his head, fluffing out his feathers. He doesn't have his harness and camera, forgotten now that he's been replaced with a shiny new toy, an enemy drone. I whistle at him, do, doot do doot do, dodododo doot doot doot. He looks towards the RV, where Echo sits inside. I whistle again, dododo doot doot doot dododo, and he hops on my shoulder. He thinks my name is SOS, 'cause it was the easiest thing to start with when I first started teaching him. I whistle, do doot do, do doot, dodo, doot do, and he repeats the sequence but nothing else, 'cause he never met Raine so he don't know what it means.

I go clattering back into the RV, Echo sighing again 'cause I wasn't outside for more than a couple minutes, and I ask about that picture I took from Raine's cabin. It's on the table next to her, next to a little pink square of paper, but she don't hand it to me, says,

"It won't work, Sparrow, this picture is too old."

And it's true, Raine's probably younger than I am in the picture, but how many redheads are there in this town? Certainly not two of them, whatever happened between when that picture was taken and now. If Raine still had a sister, she wouldn't live alone.

If Raine's still alive.

"Besides," Echo says, "I've almost got this thing working again." The drone, its evil scanning eye, same as the camera once strapped to Hugo's chest. I sit down next to it, magpie fluttering away to perch on her countertop, and lean in close to look at the picture again.

I say, "Raine had a sister?"

And Echo nods, says, "Once upon a time," like it's a fairy tale.

"What happened to her?"

"You can ask Raine when we find her," she answers, glancing down at the picture then back up at me. Up close I also see a list on the pink note, first line crossed out. Letters, S-P-R-O and a couple extras. My name, maybe.

"What's that?" I ask, pointing.

"A To-Do list," Echo answers, and before I can ask more she has her own questions. "Um, Sparrow, did your father ever talk to you about your mom?"

I laugh and she jumps, like I scared her. "Only to remind me I killed her."

"What about his friend, um, Jimmy?"

I tilt my head at her like Hugo does when he's curious. "Why would Jimmy talk about my mama?"

She don't answer, but asks, "Do you know your father's name?"

I purse my lips, trying to figure out what she's getting at. "Just, Daddy," I say, and she sighs, head falling down to look at the table, the picture of little Raine and her sister. Something changes on the computer and she perks up, type type type. The drone makes a sound like one of those dusty grey birds with the speckles, just one blip.

I jump away real quick, my elbow nudging against Hugo who squeaks at me.

"It's okay," Echo says, "It's safe. It's not connected to the network anymore."

"How do you know that?"

"I hacked it." Sounds more like she hacked up Charlie, since the drone's all in one piece and Charlie's not, cables and wires and the dog shaped head with its fake weapon, just a useless little laser pointer. Trespassers will be destroyed, he said when we first went into that Radio Shack, and Raine pushed us out, her heavy weight on top of me as if to shield me from it. Hopefully Echo replaced whatever computer inside made the drone evil.

"Does it got weapons on it?" I wonder.

"No, this one's just a scout."

"You should've got the one with weapons on it."

"I didn't really have a choice."

"How do you know more ain't coming?"

Echo gestures towards the fireplace and says she burned up all the trackers, but I'm not convinced. She tells me she's got that BARG ray gun in case any more show up, charging out in the sun right outside 'cause I helped her drag it back up to the RV from the garden. I'd asked her to teach me how to use it but she refused, said it was too dangerous, I shouldn't even touch it. It'll zap me dead if the capacitor discharges. I ask her what happens if more than one scout comes, and she tells me to find something to do again.

I open the window over the kitchen sink, and Hugo hops out to the edge, looking outside. We listen for the whirr of drones, but there's nothing, just birds singing, and he takes off through the window to join them. It's getting stuffy inside from that fire, so I take off the sweater, handcuffs rattling inside my sleeve and Echo takes notice.

"What's that?" Irritation in her voice from getting distracted again.

I pull up the sleeve to show her, my wrist all bruised and scraped raw from the tight cuff, the scars underneath red and flaming, and she tsks and digs around for a flat piece of metal and reaches for my wrist, and I pull back reflexively and have to remind myself to trust her.

"What're gonna do with that?" I ask.

"I can jimmy the ratchet."

"Jimmy?"

"It means, like, to force something open."

I snort and hold out my arm so she can force the cuff open. "Guess that's why Jimmy was named that."

Echo don't respond, just works that little strip of metal into the cuff. It releases with a click and I drop it off my wrist, fingers tingling with the sudden rush of blood into them. I flex them, making a fist and releasing it over and over again, and examine the skin ringing around my wrist, rubbed shiny pink raw.

"It's a nickname," she explains finally. "His real name was just Jim. Jim Butcher." She spits the name out, not like the first time she said his name, when she told us he was murdered, and Raine's face got all pale and quiet, her eyes focused on something far away I'd never see.

"Did you know him? Before he died, I mean."

"Um," she answers, "I, uh, only, like, in passing."

Weird, how a drone hunter all the way out here was friends with my Daddy back in Maybell. I didn't think there were any people out here. I didn't think the world extended much past Maybell, surrounded by distance mountains that were purple blue blurs in my eyes. Could've been the end of the world as far as I knew, at least until I heard Radio Echo the first time. When I set out to find him I saw a sign that said 30 miles, and I didn't think that was any distance at all until it took me so long to walk it. Probably longer than it should've, but I kept ducking off road to hide from drones, and from my daddy, or sounds I thought might could've been my daddy. I followed the highway, a slow, gentle climb up for most of it, the land so flat all around, yellow blurs of grass and blue skies, gettin' steeper and hilly as I got to where I found Raine. Landslides from the occasional surrounding hills covered the asphalt in places, a bridge over the Yampa knocked out so I had to wade across, water rushing only just past my ankles. Good thing it was so low, lower than it should've been, 'cause I dunno how to swim.

The Appelbaums lived by the river, where it winds around back on itself so that they were surrounded by water on almost all sides, hidden away by a cluster of trees which is probably why my daddy never killed them, or maybe it's 'cause he was secretly friends with them. Or not friend, but found them useful nonetheless. How he was just sittin' outside their house when the drone came, watching it all get destroyed. The way Mr. Appelbaum looked at me sometimes, eyes sharp and piercing like he could see through my clothes. The way he grabbed at my chest, pinchin' at the little lumps starting to grow. I don't want those, not at all, started wrapping my chest up tight with a stretchy bandage to try to stop it, no luck. My skin itched beneath it, sweating, stink soaked into it, and Echo made me take it off after she cut my hair so I could shower in that little bathroom. The first time I ever showered like that, water a couple shades warmer than the river, heated by the sun overhead. Never felt so clean, afterward, and she gave me some of her own clothes to wear so I didn't dirty myself up with the old ones and I could clean them in the creek nearby.

Echo's type type typing on the laptop again, and I ask if she's gonna use that drone to find Raine.

"That's the plan."

"You think she's still alive?"

"Yeah, I think she probably is."

"Why?"

Echo swallows and grinds her teeth together, considering her answer. She picks up the little photograph and looks at it, still not answering. Finally, she says, "I think I saw her on the camera. Hugo was flying near the old power plant, and I saw a flash of red, like this." She holds the picture out to show me the two heads of red hair, matching bright blue eyes.

"Could've been anything."

"Yes, but I have hope."

In the picture, one of the girls is missing her front teeth, lookin' like I did for a while when I was younger. Daddy once had a rotten tooth, aching so much it drove him mad, yellin' at me and throwin' things all around. He drank a bunch of whiskey and had me pull it out with a wrench, screaming and writhing and moaning, but I wasn't strong enough so he ended up having to do it himself anyway. The tooth came out all black and brown and yellow and bloody roots. When it was over he beat me something awful, knocked out those two front teeth in revenge before they were even loose. Took months for them to grow back, I thought I was gonna look like that forever. Couldn't eat apples or anything else needed biting into.

I've got a loose tooth right now, one of the bigger ones off to the side. I probe it with my tongue, wiggling it around, the shock of metallic blood when I jolt it too far. I think hope is like a wiggly tooth, you're always gonna lose it, no matter if you pull it out yourself or wait 'til it falls out in its own.

Echo finally stops her typing, drone giving off another blip before she unplugs it and folds the laptop down on itself. She's got some sort of controller, plastic like a toy with colorful buttons and knobs, and she picks up her old glasses, the ones she used to talk to Charlie through before she had to kill him.

"I'm going to go outside to test this, you want to come with?"

I shake my head, feeling queasy, and she hesitates 'cause she still don't trust me. Probably shouldn't, at least not enough to leave me alone in the RV with all her things. The fire in fireplace burning down, plenty of hot ash that I could spill out onto the floor. But she says, "Okay, um, I'm going to be right outside, okay?"

I sit there at her table, unmoving, trying to keep my heart still as I listen to that whirring drone outside. Tapping my fingers, drummin' along to a song in my head, one called Zombie but about war, with tanks and bombs and guns. I know about zombies from the deer, how they stumble around, wasting away, their meat no good according to Mr. Appelbaum. It infects your brain and you could become a zombie yourself, stumbling around and wasting away.

I keep real still inside until Echo comes back, so she can't accuse me of getting into things, my body tense until the whining drone dies down. She comes back in breathless, "It worked!" but she also sounds sad, 'cause the thing crashed into a tree. "It's really hard to fly," she explains.

Zooming around the woods, scarin' all the birds in the trees, and Echo could see what was going on with that little headset. Control it, tell it where to go, what to look at. Way more useful than poor Hugo, with a mind of his own. I wonder what the drone thinks about being controlled, told where to go, who to shoot down in the streets. Did the murderdrone want to kill Jimmy? Do they know when they're destroying houses, people still in them?

That morning at Raine's house, when her neighbor's house was destroyed, I couldn't see the man fall from it like Echo described, but I know I heard his screaming. Just as I heard the Appelbaums screaming from their house, but I was distracted by my daddy, grinning and laughing. He let me get away from him, then, and I know now it's 'cause he knew he'd always find me, no matter where I went.

I glance over to the fireplace, where Echo burnt up all those tracker stickers. Is there a tracker in me? He'll show up here, at this RV, or send one of his drones here to rip it all up, me still inside.

A cold sweat washes over me as I consider this. Maybe I'm the reason Echo's Radio Shack got destroyed, just like I'm the reason Raine's house got burned down. I should get out, make myself scarce, maybe I can keep her safe.

"After I fix this, we'll need to go back into town," she says, sounding like that's the last thing she wants to do. I remember about her last few days, how many times she's hiked up and down this mountain. My legs are tired and I've only just climbed it the once, after spendin' the last couple days stuck in a barn or a garage or getting driven around. Bruises all over my legs and hips still from the metal walls of that trailer. Smoke still coating inside my nose from that fire.

"Why?" I ask, feeling heavy.

"The range on this thing isn't great, now that it's disconnected from the network. Maybe a couple hundred meters if I've got a direct line of sight. I need to get as close as possible to the power plant."

I puff out my cheeks, thinking. "My daddy works at the power plant."

And Echo sighs, but ain't about to leave me here, alone alone. "I can keep you safe in town," she assures me.

She can't understand, nowhere's safe with Daddy around.

​Chapter 3

While Echo's fixing up that drone for the second time, I fix that harness around Hugo, uncomfortable as it looks, and show him the picture of Raine. Whistle her name at him so he repeats it, do doot do, do doot, dodo, doot do. I point to the one on the left and say, "She's older now, but still just as grumpy." He squeaks back at me like he understands, but he don't, 'cause he's just a bird. If I had something to smell, I could give it to him like a tracking dog, but I don't even know how good a bird's sense of smell is. And all I got is this picture.

He takes off, black feathers shining blue green under the sun, flitting through the trees and squeaking.

I go back inside and rifle through the kitchen for something to eat, landing on some bread, some jam, a sour apple I have to cut up into little pieces to eat 'cause of that wiggly tooth. Echo watches me carefully with the knife, like she's scared I'm about to jump over and stab her. Something about the look on her face makes me real sad, a heavy weight in my chest like I swallowed a stone. I never meant to hurt anyone, never really did hurt anyone, except my mama, and I couldn't help that. I was just a baby.

My daddy's the killer, but I was there too.

The bread is good, soft on the outside and crunchy crust, sunflower seeds baked right in, and I ask Echo where she got it.

"My mother baked it," she says. I like that idea, a mama who bakes things for you, even if she don't like you. Echo's mama doesn't like her at all, she's told me, what with her hair and her lifestyle which I take to mean the radio and computers and stuff. But she also says she had a choice, her family or her lifestyle, and I wonder if I would've made the same choice. Music over a mama that bakes bread. I really don't know.

After I eat I wander around through the tiny space of the RV and find myself in the back room, Echo's room, mostly a mattress and cabinets. She's distracted by the drone and must not notice I'm gone, so I start to open everything, find blankets and clothes, books, paper, pens. She's got photographs stuck to the wall, the same little rectangles as the one of Raine and her sister and I wonder if it all came from the same camera or if she's got one of her own, hidden away somewhere. Pictures of stuff she could just go outside and see, trees and mountains, her radio tower, but I like that I can get up close and focus on them, see them in details I never got before.

Under her bed she's got a box full of those little plastic music cartridges, the same handwriting scrawled on each of them, and I wish I knew how to work the box to play them. Next to her bed is a drawer, a couple treasures inside. Jewelry, mostly, but not the fancy colorful rocks Mrs. Appelbaum kept. A necklace made of tiny colorful beads, and another that's just a gold chain with a cross on it, and a ring. A big yellow tooth from some predator, and another photograph, blurry and too dark. I squint at it, holding it up close trying to figure out what's in the picture, and I don't notice Echo standing in the doorway watching me 'til she asks,

"What do you think you're doing?"

Not yelling, not even angry sounding, not like my daddy who'd be throwing things right now, throwing me right out of the room.

"Just lookin'," I say, and she comes over to count the jewelry and make sure I haven't stolen everything, sitting close so I can feel her warmth, bed dipping under her weight.

"You shouldn't look through peoples' things," she reprimands, still quiet and calm. She takes the photograph out of my hands and places it back in that drawer.

"Sorry."

"These things are important to me," she explains. "They were all gifts."

I glance back over the drawer, which is really mostly empty. She hasn't gotten many gifts, but still more than I've ever had. "Who from?" I ask.

"Um," she hesitates, "Different people."

"People you loved?"

"Yeah."

"Like your old girlfriend?"

"Exactly."

"What was her name?"

"Alexa," she answers, so softly I can barely hear it. "Lex."

I think my daddy had something like this, I tell her, a treasure chest full of lady's stuff, a lot more stuff than this little drawer. But I don't think they were gifts, I think he took them. Up close I can see Echo's frown, her pale skin flushing pink. I don't think she likes being compared to my daddy, even if I didn't mean it like that. So I tell her, "It's different here. Daddy don't love people, he just uses them." She sniffs and smiles and I hope it's a real one, not a fake one, 'cause I didn't mean to make her feel bad.

"The drone is almost charged," she says, closing the drawer to end the conversation. "Then we can leave. I think it'll be better to approach the power plant at night."

"How will the drone be able to see?"

"Night vision," she explains. "It's got all sorts of sensors. Even a thermal camera."

I want to take the ray gun with us, just in case we run into any drones in town, but Echo says its too heavy, stuck to the generator as it is. I ask how she got all this stuff up here in the first place and she sighs and says there was a wagon, just a little one that she had to pull, not a horse pulled one like Daddy and I used.

Daddy's horse was a stallion, which just means a big angry male, taller even than Daddy, brown and white splotches all over his body. I was too afraid to come near him, except when that house was burning down and he was kicking at the walls of the barn and screaming. I opened up the doors so he could run away from the flames. I don't know that Daddy ever got him back, I ain't seen him since.

I was so surprised when I met Raine's mule, Pauly, how small and calm he was, even let me climb up onto his back.

"Why can't we use your wagon, then?" I ask, and Echo tells me she don't know where it is anymore. Back at her house, maybe, one of her siblings probably got it.

Echo's got a lot of siblings, twelve of them, more than I have fingers to count. She listed them all off and had to double back to her thumb and pointer for the last two, who are twins. A boy and a girl, not identical like Raine and her sister, whose name I still don't know. Anytime I try to ask Echo she just says,

"You can ask Raine about it when we find her."

Like Raine would ever wanna talk to me again, once she finds out what I done.

There's something else that Echo won't talk about, which is why Raine went missing and why she'd be at the power plant if that blur of red really was her hair. Echo thinks we're gonna rescue her but what if she don't want rescuing, don't need us, maybe she's there for a reason. Working for DataLess like my daddy, easier than huntin' down their drones.

When I suggested that Echo snorted, said, "She wouldn't do that." But she also defended me to Raine and she didn't know all the things I have done, all the things I would do after that. She hardly knows Raine at all. And she still trusts me even though I been lookin' through her things, 'cause she leaves me alone in her room again and I quickly grab that picture out of the drawer again, tucking it into my pocket next to the other one of Raine and her sister, just 'cause I want it.

Anyway we have to leave the ray gun behind, Echo's laptop and headset and controller in her backpack while she carries the drone like it's something special, or dangerous, a baby what could explode. No sign of Hugo as we hike through the woods, down into the scrubland that surrounds the mountain. There aren't a lot of trees once you get down the mountain, here in the valley or in Maybell or anywhere in between, but the sagebrush grows tall enough to hide under, black branches twisting around themselves into a trunk.

In the library before the meeting, before all those people started showing up and making my heart race beep beep beep, Echo showed me a book she read about the plants what used to live here. Centuries ago they cut down all the trees for their houses and fences and so they could grow grass for their cows. There used to be more trees, ancient pines that took hundreds of years to grow but could be cut down in minutes. There used to be more of everything, bugs and birds and little rats called prairie dogs, giant bison and wolves to hunt them down, black and white pictures of all of them, frozen in time.

I wondered, what was the point of reading such a book, except to make you sad, mourn the things you never even knew you lost.

Echo told me they had to look at remnants, bits of land that were too hard to get to and so hadn't yet been destroyed, 'cause nobody bothered to write down what was growing here before the colonists came through, or if they did we lost it. She said the Native Americans who lived here before probably knew it all, but all their knowledge was held in their memories, the stories they told their children, and they were all killed off too.

I liked that word, though, remnants, like us here discarded and forgotten. Maybe we're just too tough to get to out here, so we can't all get destroyed.

When we're walking towards the town Echo points out the power plant, far far ahead, how there's drones swarming all over it, but no matter how much I squint there's no hope of me seeing it. And she asks,

"How far can you see?"

I hold out my fingers to where they start to get blurry, arm not quite stretched out.

"Sparrow, you need glasses."

Like I don't already know that. "Where'm I supposed to get glasses out here?" I ask.

And she chews on her lips and sighs. When I look at Echo, unless she's up close, all I see is her hair, shiny bright purple like some sort of bird. I ain't ever seen anything like it. There are purple flowers that grow all over the place, blanketing the grassland in the spring, but those are lighter than her hair, washed out. Purple in Mrs. Appelbaum's jewels, little bit darker but still not quite as bright. There's a beetle I found once skittering around the sand, great big eyes and sharp pokey teeth, that shined purple or green depending on how you looked at it, and that might be the closest to Echo's hair. It bit me when I picked it up to look at it, too small to draw blood but hard enough to hurt like a pinch.

Just on the edge of town Echo stops us at another storage place, lines and lines of garages, not the same one as Jimmy's. I don't want to go into it, but she says I need more clothes, like a disguise, 'cause I'm back to wearing Daddy's old clothes, washed but now several days old again, and it makes me too recognizable. Bright red oversized flannel, and his pants that don't fit at all so I have to keep them tied up with a rope, my feet sliding around in the too-big boots, blisters from rubbing on the leather. One of these garages is packed full of boxes of clothes, pink and blue. Boys are blue, girls are pink. Boys are pants, girls are dresses. Boys are spicy, girls are salty. Like I said, gender don't make much sense to me. They're each labeled with numbers, 0-18, like someone saved everything their kids ever worn, from baby to all grown up. People saved all sorts of things, Echo's told me, just like Daddy saved everything that didn't have to do with me, and if a fire blew through here it'd all be gone in seconds.

She keeps digging as I change into new clothes, pants that fit me, boots that fit me, even socks for underneath. Shirts too big for me, 'cause I don't like the way those feel, tight against my skin. She doesn't find glasses but she does find a pair of sunglasses, rainbow colored on the outside but only coloring the world a shade of dusty orange from the inside. I also find a hat, warm and snug on my head. I didn't realize how cold it was, not having hair. It's not so cold as yesterday, at least, or last night with the snow falling down all around like dust. Not so cold as those nights in the barn, a cat snuggled up against me for warmth.

I used to have a sleeping bag, all plush and made of some slick plastic-y fabric, for sleeping outside in the treehouse. I liked to close it up around my head during the day, sunlight filtering through so everything glowed green from the liner, and pretend I was a caterpillar in its cocoon, come out a big fluffy moth. It was so warm, I'd usually sleep on top of it like a bed, my blanket all wrapped up around me. The blanket was made of wool, scratchy grey, and that's the only thing I managed to grab when I was leaving. I sure did miss that sleeping bag when I was in the barn.

I don't know where Daddy got it from, not any of the houses we raided that I recall, but I know it wasn't his. The bag it came in, so tiny you'd never believe it could squish down to fit inside until it did, had a label on it, someone's name. B-A-R-T-L-E-T-T. I don't think it's Daddy 'cause when I was little I asked him what it said and he smacked me.

Don't ask questions.

The clothes I'm wearing now have labels on them too, like S-A-M was afraid of his clothes gettin' all mixed up with someone else's.

From there we walk into town, past the old hospital, bricks falling over, windows shattered. Past an old store, just a giant empty warehouse now. Past old restaurants and empty houses. Past endless parking lots and crumbling roads, plants growing through the cracks. It seems like the whole town was paved over, once, but even asphalt don't last forever. There are a few patchy areas of grass taller than I am, tangled and overgrown. Past the old post office and into the library, towers of books, heavy wooden desks and matching chairs, moldy couches beneath cracked and broken windows.

A drone flies past outside, and I duck underneath a table to hide from it. Echo kneels down next to me and says, "You don't need to hide from them, they're just scouts."

I say, "What if they're lookin' for me?" and she don't have a good answer for that.

She takes me to the back of the library, a corner away from the windows, and pulls out her laptop from her bag. She points towards one of the shelves and tells me to bring her some seedees and when I walk over to investigate I decide she must be referring to the square plastic cases lining the shelves. Inside are shiny discs that look like metal but are also plastic, and when she puts one inside her computer it starts playing music.

"I've got to rebuild my collection," Echo explains. "It'll take a while to rip everything." Rip, as if she was destroying them by listening to them, but when the laptop spits the disc out it's still all in one piece. She says she wishes I could read, so I could sort through the seedees and only bring her the good ones, which makes me feel bad, even though I don't think she meant to. I try to pick the ones with covers that look nice. Pictures of the band, standing around lookin' grim. Pretty landscapes that tell you nothing about what the music will sound like. Ones with bright colors and sloppy letters. One seedee is decorated with just a banana. Another one has a rainbow comin' out of a triangle. I bring her one with a naked baby swimming on the cover, and Echo gets real excited, I dunno why until she starts playing that first song. The first few notes from the guitar hitting hard, unmistakable, followed by the clashing drums, then it all calms down for the singing. The lyrics almost unintelligible, no matter how many times I've heard it, but I'm pretty sure they got nothin' to do with the title, 'Smells Like Teen Spirit.'

All the while that drone's sitting there next to her on the table, sleeping.

After a while Echo sighs and closes the laptop. "I need to save the battery," she explains, slipping it back into her bag with the controller and her headset. It's evening, soon she'll be going to the power plant with that drone, and she says she'll take me somewhere safe to wait for her.

"I wanna come with you," I argue, even though I don't really and she knows it.

"Your father works there," she reminds me. "I don't want him to find you."

He works nights, no less. There's a good chance he'll spot Echo, shoot her, BANG BANG BANG. He's a security guard, after all. I remind her of this and she shrugs, promises, "I won't even cross the fence line."

She ends up taking me to someone's house, one of an handful in a row, all of them nearly identical except for the colors on the outside. This one's a dirty pale flesh color. After talking to them about something, probably me, since she takes them into a different room and speaks in low tones so I can't hear a thing, she introduces me to the people inside it, Freddy and Melinda. The man holds his hand out towards me and I stare at it until Echo says, "They're not really used to people." Then he chuckles and pulls it away, uses it to grab his wife's hand, and we all stand around staring at each other for a moment, the silence like static before a lightning strike. Then my stomach grumbles something terrible, and I feel my face warm as everyone around me laughs.

"Dinner before you go?" the woman, Melinda, offers, and I'm grateful that Echo accepts, not leaving me there alone right away.

As we eat, all sitting around a table like a little family, Echo asks if they have any DataLess products in the house. Freddy and Melinda both nod in unison, taking turns to think about it and list out what they got: mostly food, like the rice we're eating, though the vegetables come from their old greenhouse. A solar panel that they almost never use. Their pillows and blankets, probably, since they came from Lavern. I remember meeting Lavern, Raine's neighbor. They traded a lot so those must've ultimately come from her. Lavern called me "he" and when I started to argue that I'm not a boy Raine made me shush, whispered in my ear, Some battles aren't worth fighting.

I clammed up like she asked, but I still think she was wrong. I think any battle's worth fightin', assuming you're on the right side of it.

Freddy and Melinda, though, call me "they", like Raine did, like Echo does, like there's multiple people all tucked away inside me, and maybe there is. A whole flock of birds, churning through my chest like starlings in the sky. I never feel like the same person one day to the next, anyway. Not a boy or a girl, not salty or spicy, not blue or pink, more like a rainbow.

Echo describes the tags she found on DataLess stuff, how the scouts are using them to track people and they need to be removed and destroyed. Then we're all done eating and she makes me help clear the table, cleaning the plates with water from a bucket on the counter while Melinda protests that she could handle it. Freddy digs through the cabinets, looking for the tags.

When we're done, Echo makes to leave, and I follow her outside, grabbing her shirt so she spins around to face me.

"I wanna come with you," I say, hating the whine in my voice.

"It's not safe, Sparrow, you know that," she says softly.

"You can't leave me here alone."

"I promise, the Johnsons are perfectly nice."

I shake my head back and forth 'til I feel dizzy. Somewhere up above us Hugo squeaks, dododo doot doot doot dododo. Echo looks around, spotting him, and grins.

"He found you," she says.

"He's got that camera," I tell her, "we should watch it."

Echo bites her lip and looks at me for a second before sighing and shrugging off her backpack. She kneels down to open it and pull out the laptop. "Here," she says, handing it over to me. "You can watch the footage and tell me about it when I get back."

I take the laptop, surprisingly heavy, and I wonder if it's heavier now than it was before we put all that music on it. "I dunno how to use this," I protest.

Echo sighs and leads me back inside, setting down the laptop with a thunk. I think she thought I'd figure the computer out, probably because I worked out the one in her Radio Shack pretty quick, but that one was already on and had her music open and ready. I just scrolled through the songs, listening to the first couple seconds to find the ones I like. The screen now looks nothing like it did then, blank blue with a round circle, the letter E inside, and a white rectangle beneath it, more symbols beneath that. Echo types something into a little white rectangle and the screen jitters and changes to a photograph, not like the blurry little rectangles at all but much clearer, unreal in its details, the colors too bright. The radio tower on top of a mountain, the valley and the town beneath it, distant mountains all purple-blue.

"Did you take that?" I ask, and she nods then instructs me to go get the camera from Hugo. I bring him in with me and Echo makes a face, glancing towards where Melinda sits on the other side of the room. She's reading something by candlelight, the rest of the house dim with flickering shadows, and I wouldn't've noticed the woman if Echo hadn't drawn my attention to her. She don't say anything about the bird, even as Hugo stands on the table next to the laptop and squeaks for a treat. I got nothin' to give him.

Echo sticks a little plastic card into the computer and opens up the video for me. I ask, "What if he found Raine?"

She huffs, slumping the now lighter backpack back onto her shoulders. "Then we'll know how to reach her."

She turns to leave again and I grab her hand, skin warm, the contact jarring like a static shock. She pulls away and says, "Sparrow, come on, you're, like, the bravest kid I know. What's going on?"

"I dunno," I answer. And I don't. There's just something really unsettling about the Johnsons, Freddy and Melinda, how they nod in sync like they're two heads on the same body. The way they offer you food like they know you and talk and laugh through dinner. They wouldn't've lasted five seconds in Maybell. Daddy would shoot them in a heartbeat.

He'll shoot Echo in a heartbeat. BANG BANG BANG.

"I promise, it will be okay," she says.

Then she's gone, leaving me and Hugo and her laptop with only the Johnsons to keep us safe.

​Chapter 4

The video from Hugo is almost six hours long, not nearly enough time or battery life left to watch the whole thing. Echo must've done something to make the video move faster but I can't figure out how, so I click through it at random in hopes of seeing something interesting. It starts with me talking at him, whistling at him to find Raine, but you can't hear it 'cause there's no sound. He spends a lot of time with other birds, squabbling with them over some dead animal. Soars way up high, high enough to make my heart race, but also I'm jealous. I've always wanted to fly, fly like an eagle, a song I love for its words even if I think it repeats itself too much. He watches a lot of people who aren't Raine, all in the town, so many more people than I ever met before. I only recognize a couple of them, when we flies over some land that must be the Wells' new farm. Lavern and his son Gareth surrounded by goats, and a mule that I'm pretty sure is Pauly. He watches an old man exit the library, older than anyone I ever seen before, more wrinkles than not. I keep clicking around through time, back and forth and back and forth 'til I find where he went to the power plant. The battery icon in the corner of the screen keeps counting down, all the way down to 6 when I finally see her.

Raine.

She's sitting on a platform high up on the outside of the power plant, and she looks terrible. She barely reacts when Hugo lands on the platform in front of her, knees folded up, head resting on her arms. He must squeak at her 'cause she looks up, waves an arm at him as if to shoo him away. Then she must notice the camera on his chest 'cause she scrambles forward on her tummy, her elbows, getting up close. Face bruised, one eye swollen shut, her lip cut open and puffy. Red hair wind blown and tangled, but not as bad as mine when I first met her.

The laptop's battery icon ticks down, flashing a warning at me. Raine says something to the camera, lips moving soundlessly. Then the computer shuts down, screen going blank, and I can't help it, I swear and slam the laptop shut.

"Sparrow," Melinda scolds from the corner of the room, where I've forgotten she was sitting. "I will not have that sort of language in my house."

She stands up and I cringe, muscles tensing up tight, waiting for her to come over and hit me, or tell Freddy what I done so he can hit me instead. Instead she comes over and sits down next to me, asks what's wrong. I dunno how much Echo's told her about where she's gone off to, figuring out where Raine is, if she even knows who Raine is.

So I keep it simple, say, "Battery's dead."

"Perhaps we could recharge it?" Melinda offers, "Freddy hasn't set up the panels yet but I think the solar generator still has some juice in it."

Juice, like there's some sweet liquid flowing around in batteries. People got a weird way of talking about technology. "Don't got a cable," I respond.

She asks, "Were you working on something important?" and I wonder if she's mocking me.

"Yeah, kinda."

Melinda smiles halfway, just the corner of her mouth twitching up like she's amused. "You remind me of my daughter."

"Uh huh." The polite thing to do would be ask her about her daughter, who is clearly not here and could be anywhere, or more likely dead.

"It's okay to ask for help, sometimes," she continues, undeterred, "I used to have to remind Alexa of this all the time, too."

I figure this is the same Alexa, Lex, that Echo was talking about earlier, which might explain why she trusts these people. But I don't, they're still strangers to me, no matter how soft her voice is or how cheerful he pretends to be.

"What happened to her?"

The smile drops, eyes focusing somewhere beyond me. "She died, about," she pauses, as if she's counting in her head, "ten years ago."

"'Cause she didn't ask for help?"

Melinda blinks at me and frowns. "She got very ill one winter. Pneumonia."

I tap my fingers on the table, trying to stop my thoughts from spinning. I can tell this conversation ain't going the way she wants it to. I thought, maybe she was trying to teach me a lesson with the story, but instead I just made her sad, reminding her of her dead kid. "My friend's gone missing," I tell her, "That's who Echo's out there lookin' for. Wastin' her time, 'cause I found her." I gesture towards the laptop.

"Your friend, Raine?"

So, Echo has explained what's going on. Has she told them where I've been, too?

Since I don't answer her first question, Melinda asks another one. "How did you find her?" The candle flickers between us, casting shadows on Melinda's face, blurring like a ghostly mask. I have a sudden urge to knock it over and run. Instead I reach over and pet Hugo, feathers smooth under my fingers. He cackles and whistles. Dododo doot doot doot dododo.

"Hugo found her. He had a camera on his chest."

"That was pretty clever."

She sounds impressed, but it weren't my idea. It was Echo's, and I need to tell her that it worked. We found Raine. I dunno how long I've been sitting here, how long it took me to find the video of Raine, but she can't be too far ahead of me. Only, when I get up to go, Melinda tries to stop me, grabbing my wrist, the one all aching from the handcuffs. Grip not tight enough to hurt, but I jerk away 'cause I don't like being touched, and she pulls back, holding her hands up like she's trying to tame a wild animal.

"Echo said it's not safe for you out there," she says. So much for being helpful.

"'Snot safe for her out there, neither," I protest.

"You're just a kid," Melinda argues, and I wonder what difference that's supposed to make. Just a kid, who walked alone out here all the way from Maybell to find some stranger on the radio. Just a kid, one that's escaped from their daddy who's supposed to the big scary out there three times now. Just a kid, whose first memories are of murder.

There's a song about that, too, I'm just a kid, but I think my life is more of a nightmare than his, and not just 'cause I have them all night long. I'm not worried about being alone or people having more fun than me, I'm worried about them dying.

I dunno how exactly they plan on stoppin' me, if I pushed my way past Melinda, past Freddy who's standing behind her now, wherever he come from, taller and wider and stronger. He could really hurt me, if he wanted to, knock out my teeth with a big hairy fist. Not just the wiggly one, but the big ones, too, the ones that don't grow back. So I swallow back what I want to say, that it's none of their business, I'm none of their business, they can't stop me, and instead I just say,

"I'm tired. Can I go to bed?"

They put me and Hugo up in a room away from the kitchen with an old bed that smells a little of mouse pee. Everything smells of mouse pee, 'cause the mice secretly rule this world. They live everywhere, eating up our food and pooping in it, little brown turds like seeds. Shredding up fabric to make nests for their babies, which just look like tiny pink blobs, sticky jelly mess after Daddy stomps them under his boot. The smell don't bother me none, especially 'cause I don't plan on sleeping here. I open up the window, sliding up with a chunky creak, and climb through it, dropping down to the gravel below, crunching under my boots. Hugo sits perched at the windowsill, squeaking at me 'til I hold out my arm for him to step on. It's dark out, and he don't like it anymore than I do, don't like to fly without seeing where he's about to land. The moon is a cold fuzzy blur overhead and I wish I brought a coat.

Wish I'd brought a flashlight, too, 'cause I can't see a thing out here, monsters hiding 'round every corner. Echo was headed towards the power plant, which is south, but since it's nighttime I'm all turned around, mixed up 'cause I don't know this town very well. Maybell was easy, it was tiny, just a general store and gas station that closed up long before I was born. It used to have a library, too, but that got burned up in a fire, also long before I was born. Pretty sure, by the time I was born, it was just Daddy and all those people he'd eventually kill in their little houses, tryin' to survive on what little they got.

I've always wondered what brought Jimmy through every spring, droppin' off supplies and food for the year. It wasn't much like trading, since Daddy never seemed to give him anything in return. That gun, yeah, some alcohol while he was here, but most of the time he'd drive away with that trailer all empty and Daddy's pantry newly full. Echo thinks that all that food was tracked, that's why the drones are swooping in and destroying people's houses. She's probably right, but Daddy's house was packed full of it and it wasn't destroyed by drones, it burned down instead. The Appelbaums didn't have anything at all that they didn't grow themselves, but their house was.

I never knew where Jimmy got all that stuff 'til I watched Raine shoot down a drone, packed full of the same sort of food. I mean full, full, that one crate would've lasted me and Daddy a whole year of breakfasts. She didn't even take it all, left most of it out there to get scooped back up by a different drone. But that doesn't really answer the question, where that food comes from, just how we got it here. Where it comes from is some far off, distant land, so far it might as well be a different planet entirely. One with factories, different types even to make food and drones alike. People to run those factories, maybe, or at least to buy up the products they spit out. Enough people with a big enough need, an endless hunger for more. Why drones keep destroying houses, so they can get more material for their factories, according to Echo.

Even that don't really answer the question, about where all that food comes from. 'Cause food comes from farms even before it comes from a factory, growing in the ground just like it does here. So, does DataLess have its own farms, or are they just stealin' it from farmers? Do people out there sell their food for money, so they can go around and buy other food, other things, toys and computers and blankets?

The thought of it makes my head spin.

I finally stumble across a landmark I recognize, a giant warehouse what used to be a store, and I know I'm heading in the right direction. Soon I can even see the power plant, or what I assume is the power plant, a soft blue glow off in the distance. I listen out for the sound of a drone, Echo's drone, same high pitched whirr as all the other scouts, nothing to distinguish it as friend or foe. She'll be wearing that bright yellow coat, so bright it'll glow under the moonlight and even I'll be able to see it, probably. She'll be upset to see me, then pleased when I tell her I've found Raine, or rather Hugo has.

I follow the highway, my legs, fingers, face growing numb in the cold, the walk a lot longer than I expected even though I know where I'm going now. Echo made it sound so close when she pointed it out from the mountain, but even as I keep walking it don't get any closer, and I start to wonder if it's really there at all. That cold eerie blue, blurring into the background of the night. I wonder how long I've been out here. I'm thinking, or maybe hoping, that I'll run into Echo on her way back, drone battery dead, successful or failed attempt at scouting the plant and finding Raine.

It's quiet outside, air thick with cold, swallowing up any sound, just my footsteps and their echoes, Hugo heavy on my arm, and I can almost imagine this town is as empty as Maybell. Except, once in a while, I'll pass by a house glowing from within, shadows moving around in the windows. The dim, warm orange of fire that makes me shiver. I pass by what I think is the Wells' new farm, and a part of me wants to stop, knock on their door and hope they invite me inside to share that warmth. I tap my the fingers of my free hand on my leg, wishin' I had music, something to fill my head besides the endless buzzing of drones, the monsters in the dark breathing heavy down my neck. I could be dancin' in the moonlight instead of trudgin' through the dark.

Then I hear it: footsteps, not my own. Two sets of them, heavy thudding making no effort to hide themselves. Hugo's puffed up to stay warm on my arm but as soon as he hears it he's alert, too, tense, ready to take off and leave me here alone in the dark. Voices, quiet murmuring too low to make out the words. Not my Daddy's thick hoarse yelling, but still I slip off to the side of the road, crouching down in the sagebrush, magpie scrambling off my arm onto the ground beside me. Watching, or rather listening, as two men walk down the road past me, recognizing one of them only when they're right in front of me.

Gareth Wells, one of Raine's neighbors. Ex-neighbors, since her house burned down and they all moved farm to the edge of town. I like him, quiet and shy the night we met their family and they made us stay over for dinner. All he wanted was to go back outside with his goats, and all I wanted was to go back outside with the birds.

I still can't hear what they're saying, even as they stop right in front of me, the other man leaning in close and whispering something in Gareth's ear that makes him giggle then look around nervously, looking right at me crouched in the shadows. I take a step back, boot landing on Hugo's tail, and he betrays me with an ear-piercing KRAAWK as he frantically flaps away to safety.

Wish I could fly to safety.

"What was that?" one of them whispers.

"Shh," the other one says.

I think about running, but instead I freeze, legs cramping in the cold, holding my breath 'cause maybe if I'm perfectly still they won't find me in this dark.

"Hello?"

Gareth pulls the other man to the side of the road, reluctantly, 'cause the other man is saying, "We should go."

"Someone's there," Gareth insists, "Look."

The sound of something scrambling through fabric, then half a second later I'm blinded by a bright yellow spotlight. I spring to my feet, ready to run, tripping through sagebrush, and I don't make it far before I've stepped somewhere wrong, my ankle twisting and I fall to the ground in a shock of pain. I curl up tiny and squeeze my eyes shut, like that'll make me disappear. Men's voices from above, both gruff and gravelly, and I'm too scared to try to distinguish them.

"Woah, kid, are you alright?"

"Hang on, I know him. My neighbor's kid, I guess?"

"What's his name?"

I don't answer, just curl up tighter, arms up over my head to protect it.

"It's, um, Sparrow?" Gareth sounds uncertain. "We met a few days ago, before that house burned down." His boots crunching the dried out plants to stand right next to me. "Your sister introduced us, actually."

"Rebecca?" the other man asks, but if Gareth responds I don't hear it. He crouches down next to me, a light touch on my shoulder that makes me flinch.

"Sparrow, you're okay," he says, "We are not going to hurt you."

My body trembling, shivering, cold. Sticks digging into my arm, ankle throbbing.

The other man kneels in the sand a few feet away. "You know my sister, right?" he says, "Echo?"

Echo, short for Rebecca? She never did tell me what her real name was.

I peek an eye open to get a look at the men next to me, Gareth holding the flashlight, pointed at the ground between him and the other man, Echo's brother. Which one, though, I have no idea, she has like twenty of them. How she keeps all their names straight is a mystery. I try to will my muscles to relax, tense all around as I force myself to sit up and face them.

"Are you hurt?" Gareth's voice is soft and soothing, like he's talking to one of his goats.

I nod, the barest motion so I don't even know if they can see it, rubbing my ankle. It's not too swollen, definitely not broke, but it twinges when I flex it. I broke my collar bone once, or Daddy did, pulling me out of a tree when I wasn't cooperating with him so I landed on my shoulder, the sharp snap of bone beneath my skin. The aching sting of it every time I tried to move, sit up, couldn't lift anything with that arm for weeks. Had to hold it up against my chest with a sling made from some old scarf. My ankle don't hurt that bad, not even by half.

Gareth and that other man are talking over me, trying to figure out what to do with me, their voices blurring into the background like their faces as I try to work out my next steps. If I can even take any steps. I climb up to my knees and both of them stand in unison, synced up like the two-headed Johnsons. Gareth holds out his hand as I get to my feet and I try to ignore it, but another shock of pain sets me stumbling, and I grab onto it to keep from falling over again, quickly letting go once I get my balance back.

"Should we take him to my place?" he asks, and I shake my head violently even though he wasn't asking me.

"I'm not a boy," I inform them, interrupting the other's response.

"Um," the other one starts, but I interrupt him too.

"Not a girl, neither, so don't start with that."

The men look at each other, some unspoken message passing between them.

"What are you doing out here so late?" Echo's brother finally asks. This time the question is directed at me, both men looking at me expectantly, waiting for an answer.

My teeth chattering, my whole body shaking, I manage to squeeze out the words, "Lookin' for your sister."

"Echo?" He has to clarify 'cause he's got like twenty of them out there.

I nod and try putting weight on my ankle again, the pain slightly dulled this time around.

"Where is your mother?" Gareth asks, and I figure he's talkin' about Raine, 'cause everyone thinks she's my mama.

I shrug and say, "We're lookin' for her, too."

Gareth murmurs something low in the other man's ear, something about the fire. A chill runs through me, arms curling up to my chest, and Echo's brother shrugs off his coat to place it over my shoulders. Up close I can see he has her same eyes, gold glinting in the beam from the flashlight.

"Look," he says, sighing, "Is this something to do with the power plant?" I nod again and he groans, turning to Gareth to say, "I can't believe she'd drag a kid into this mess."

"Echo didn't drag me into nothin'," I protest, "I came all the way out here from Maybell to find her."

"Maybell?" Gareth repeats. The men exchange another glance and I realize I've revealed something that maybe I shouldn't've, 'cause now they're gonna know that Raine ain't my mama.

Then Echo's brother smirks and says, "Where the hell's Maybell?" and Gareth shushes him but they both giggle. A joke the entire town knows that I am apparently doomed to never understand. I take advantage of their laughter, their distraction, and try to take off, shrugging the coat off my shoulders, but my ankle screams in protest, slowing me down, and Echo's brother easily catches up to me.

"Hey, now," he says, "I can't just let a kid wander around out here all alone."

"Come with me, then," I offer. "It's your sister I'm lookin' for."

He chews on his lip, same habit as Echo, then says, "Give me a minute." He trudges back to Gareth to speak with him, muttering some sort of apology, Gareth shaking his head and leaning in real close. The two men lit from beneath by a flashlight, breathing each other's air. My face warms and I turn away, feeling like I'm intruding on something, like I've stumbled into some forbidden knowledge.

A few seconds later, Echo's brother's footsteps fall behind me, flashlight casting a dancing circle of light on the ground ahead. He hands over his coat, says, "I'm Jonathon, by the way."

I shrug and start limping towards the glowing blue of the power plant. Hugo squeaks at me from his perch of safety somewhere nearby, wherever he flown off too when I stepped on him, and I know he's forgiven me but he ain't about to fly back anytime soon. So I whistle at him Echo's name, do, doot do doot do, dodododo doot doot doot and he does it right back.

Jonathon whistles, too, one low long tone, and asks, "Where did you learn to do that?"

"Grew up in a treehouse," I say, "Spent a lotta time with birds."

"How did you come to meet my sister?"

I consider my answer for a bit, thinkin' about what he said earlier about Echo draggin' a kid into this miss, how angry Raine got when I first told her I was trying to find Radio Echo. I don't want her getting into any more trouble than she already is, with the family that don't care for her anymore, but I'm also not a good liar, so I tell him mostly the truth. "I grew up listening to her radio show. Things started goin' south, I decided to find her."

"Alone?"

"No, my, uh" I stutter just a little on the lie, the word almost foreign on my tongue, "mama and me."

He chews on this for a minute, silence broken up only by the crunching of our boots, then asks, "Do you know about the fire?"

I nod, but I dunno if he can see it in the dark, so I also choke out, "Yeah, sure." Trying to sound casual, like I weren't at least partially the cause of it. He asks if I was there, if Raine was there, and I mumble out a no. He sounds like he's gonna ask more but then his attention turns to something up ahead. He shushes me, even though I haven't made a sound, and quickly turns off that little flashlight, darkness swallowing us up. I want to ask, too late, where he got it from, 'cause it's my understanding that Echo's family ain't allowed to use electricity, but maybe Gareth's is, just a little. Jonathon pulls me to the side of the road and I pull back, freeing myself from his grip but following along nonetheless.

"Something up ahead," he mutters low, under his breath.

"Echo?"

I can hear his head shaking, swish swish, more than I can see it. I squint towards the blue glow of the power plant, and I hear it before I see it, the buzz of motors. A drone. When it gets close enough I see it, light blurred up into a fuzzy red orb, floating in the air. Darting around all crazy like.

Wish I had that ray gun.

Once again I crouch down behind a clump of sagebrush, Jonathon next to me. Pointless, trying to hide in the darkness from a thing what don't need light to see. I remember what Echo said about her drone, all sorts of sensors, including thermal. It can see the heat radiating off of us. The red orb gets closer and closer, both of us holding our breath as I strain to listen to it, the pitch of the motor's whirr. Just the same as Echo's, but they all are. I squeeze my eyes shut as the drone stops next to us, hovering, scanning, keep them closed even as it starts to fly away, sound fading with the distance.

Next to me, Jonathon exhales a long, relieved sigh, and makes to stand, but I grab his arm.

"It could be Echo's drone, but it might not," I explain to him, keeping my voice low.

"Echo has a drone?"

I nod, my response invisible in the darkness. "She's using it to look for Raine."

"Raine," he repeats, a question but without the tones of one, no upward pitch.

"She's somewhere in that power plant."

I can tell Jonathon don't like this at all, that he wants to go back but more importantly he wants me to go back. And I could, I should, wait for Echo somewhere safer like at the Wells' new farm, but I don't want to leave her out here all alone. If there's drones out there buzzing around even at night, they've got just a chance of finding her as they did us.

So I keep walkin', and he keeps followin' me, and neither of us see him 'til it's too late. Guess Jonathon never does.

BANG. BANG BANG.

For a second, I think I've imagined it. Then Echo's brother groans and collapses, legs giving out from under him, fallin' onto broken asphalt. I fall to my knees next to him, pressing my hands up against his chest, warm blood soaking through his shirt.

"Run," he breathes, throat rattling, but I don't. I can't move, frozen, paralyzed, the hot whirr of drones filling my ears. Hundreds of them, my whole head buzzing like it's about to explode with the sound, so loud I can't even hear my thoughts.

It don't take long before he stops gasping, muscles all relaxed like a goat after it's finally given up. No different at all than a goat, throat slit and gaping. No different than all those people Daddy's killed over the years, brains splattered on their floors. No different than Jimmy, blood soaked into the sidewalk right outside his garages packed full of stuff. I sit in the sand, sharp metal tang of blood filling my nose, sticky cold on my fingers as I yank off Jonathon's coat to lay it over his body growing cold in the night air. Tears leak out my eyes and freeze to my skin as I sit there, my mind stuck on the scene I didn't want to witness earlier. Gareth and the body next to me, so close to each other the fog of their breath mingled in the beam of their flashlight. Keep sitting there forever, 'til Daddy walks up, holding a flashlight out to spotlight the body, laughin' something evil.

Didn't mean for this to happen, neither.

Echo's never gonna forgive me.

​Chapter 5

Daddy always knows how to find me.

Maybe there's a tracker on me, just like those tags on DataLess's food. Maybe he can smell me, or maybe he's got eagle eyes, night vision drones, maybe he's just psychic. Don't matter how, don't matter how fast or far I run. Don't matter how slow he is, ambling through the sagelands behind me, no rush. He's always, always gonna find me.

He's wearin' his uniform, navy blue with that gold logo, wings and a sun, hand resting on the sidearm, tap tap tappity tap.

I don't resist. I cooperate. All he ever wanted from me. Cooperate and don't argue. Don't scream when he shoots, no matter how loud that BANG BANG BANG is, how it echoes, ringing in my ears. Take what's useful, but don't use any of it. Off limits, forbidden. It's all his stuff, not mine.

I expect him to take me to his new home, Jimmy's old place, or back to the barn to get chain up, but instead he takes me to the power plant, blue glow finally within reach. It don't get any brighter, up close, the same dim blue as just before the yellow peaks up over the mountains at dawn. Daddy opens the door with a set of keys, heavy metal jingling in his hand, and pulls me inside, his grip iron tight around my arm even though I'm cooperating.

Inside the power plant it is warm and dry, a dusty smell and something chemical, too. The air is thick with a low humming sound, so deep I can't tell if I'm hearing it or feeling it, vibrating through my bones. It's just a wide open space inside, and I can see the source of the glow once we get up close to them. Computers, I think, tiny little screens stacked all together in boxes, the boxes stacked in rows, more rows than I can count, each stretching endlessly through the dark warehouse. Daddy drags me past them to a staircase, rickety metal grate, creaking and groaning under our weight. Ten steps then a left, ten more steps then another left, ten more steps then another left, climbing and climbing and climbing for what feels like hours, my legs weak and wobbly and threatening to collapse under me, but Daddy drags me onward, upwards, shoulder popping when he pulls.

"Didn't I say I was gonna take you to see your mama?" he asks when we finally stop climbing. He picks up a drone I hadn't noticed laying lifeless on the floor and waves it over a box stuck to the wall, a garage door slowly opening up in front of us with a clunk. Fresh, freezing outside air hits my face like a shock. He shines his light over a platform, just like the one Raine was stuck on in the video from Hugo.

Then he starts cursing.

"Where the fuck is she?" he yells, spinning around to face me, that big heavy flashlight colliding with my face, pain blooming over my eye like a red flower and I stumble backwards. He hits me again and my mouth fills with blood and I fall down to the floor, spit out a tooth, that wiggly one finally knocked free. It clatters through the grate and disappears into the void below. Daddy curses again and kicks at me, boot to the chest, knocking the air right out of me. Keeps cursing as he waves that light all over the platform, making his way over to the edge of it and looking down like maybe she jumped, but how could he tell in this dark? My face pressed up against the metal grated floor, blood freezing to it as it leaks out a cut on my cheek, drip drip drip. I see my daddy standing there at the edge and think how easy it would be to push him, but I'm a coward and my ribs scream at me when I try to move.

Daddy stomps back to me, floor trembling beneath me, ringing in my ear. Still cursing as he drags me up by one arm, but I don't hear him it hurts so bad. Bones crunching and grinding against each other as he drags me back into the power plant, down the stairs to some hallway where he opens up a different, human sized door and throws me into the room behind it, door slamming shut with a hollow thunk.

It's all dark inside, but I'm too hurt to think how scared I should be. I lay on my back in the unknown space and have to focus on breathing first, agony with each gasp 'til I figure out to take short, shallow breathes. I touch at my face with my fingers, still covered in Jonathon's blood and now my blood too, what's spilling out from a cut under my eye. It stings when I press against it, flesh tender and swollen all around my eye, squishing like a moldy rotten apple.

Nothing real but pain, like in that Metallica song just called 'One.' I hold my breathe but don't wish for death, not at first, 'cause I got at least one hope.

Maybe Raine escaped.

Maybe Echo found her.

Maybe they'll find me, too.

But hope is fleeting, dust in the wind, blown away before you can even grab at it.

I dunno how long I lay there in the dark, hours or days or weeks or months or just a few minutes. Dunno if I sleep, but I must've 'cause I wake up screaming, keep screaming 'til my voice is hoarse, throat aching, ribs screaming with me. All those people lined up, dead eyes glaring down at me, Raine all the way at the end. Forget about hope, it's just as likely she did jump, or maybe she was never there at all, maybe she's still trapped on some other platform. Maybe there's dozens of platforms with dozens of women held hostage somewhere above me. Take you to see your mama, Daddy'd said, and that sure as hell ain't Raine, 'cause Raine's still alive.

Or was.

Nothing real but pain, my chest tight, my eye all swollen shut, headache pounding in my skull like a bass drum. Nothin' I never felt before. Used to be, when Daddy hit me, I'd go hide out in the treehouse with my radio, hugging it close to my chest so it was like the music was coming from inside me. But now the radio's gone, the music gone, the Radio Shack torn up into pieces to make... whatever. All those little blue screens down there glowing blue.

I'm in there long enough for the pain in my chest to ease, just a little, so I can sit up, dizzy when all the blood rushes from my head. The cut on my cheek has stopped bleeding, just oozing through a hard crusty scab. The bruise all around it throbs in time to my heartbeat.

I feel the empty space around me, crawling along with my arms stretched out in front, fingers gliding on the slick floor, 'til they bump into the wall. Press my palms flat against that and push myself up to standing, even dizzier now, my stomach churning something awful. Legs shaking beneath me so I cling to the wall for balance. Run my hands along it, almost all blank 'til I reach the door, just the thinnest of cracks in the smooth surface beneath my fingertips that lets no light through. I search through my pocket, where I still got that picture of Raine and her sister, even if I can't see it now. The other one, too, that I stole from Echo's drawer of treasures, I don't even know why. So she can hate me even more now, I guess. Even those don't fit through the narrow cracks. The doorknob like a handle, which wiggles like a tooth but don't turn no matter how hard I try. A couple hinges sticking out. Keep walking to the other side of the room, the next wall, the next, the next, all empty, not even another door in them. Circle around the room over and over again, hands stretched high, bent down low, feeling the whole space of the wall, as much as I can reach. Chest throbbing under my skin the whole time.

Nothing.

My eyes never adjust, no light for them to adjust to, and at some point they start making things up as they go. Blobs of colors swimming around the space, purple and green and red. Sparks of blue like lightning. White fuzz like static from the radio. Tiny birds flitting silently and unseen through the dark, black on black. Orange flashes like fire, and I sit there hopin' it takes me quick.

I have to pee and do so in a corner, splashing onto the tile, the smell mingling with the metallic reek of my blood, my sweat, my tears. That's a band, too, Blood Sweat & Tears, rock and jazz all rolled up into one band. They got a song about how they ain't afraid of dyin', the tempo all mixed up, fast one verse then painfully slow the next, so you never quite know what to expect.

Like life, I suppose.

I play the song in my head, even though I probably got it wrong, the fast and the slow parts all mixed up. I wonder if it's true, when you die another kid's born to carry on. I hope the baby is better than I am. Hope he don't kill his mama like I did.

Maybe I'm already dead and gone to hell, a dark cavern with nothin' in it.

My daddy used to talk about hell when he was real drunk. He said the devil already got his name down, might as well make the most of it.

Echo told me that she don't believe in hell, or heaven neither, 'cause the church she grew up in ruined it all for her. She said they wanted people to go to hell for all sorts of things, like listening to music, wearin' the wrong clothes, lovin' the wrong people. She said they were all hypocrites, picking and choosing what to believe and what rules to follow so they could pick and choose who got to go to heaven with them. They only ever followed the rules to get at their ultimate reward, and that wasn't the point.

The point, she said, is to be a decent person regardless.

I think Echo's a decent person, and Raine too, even though she pretends not to be, since she helped me even when she didn't want to. Jonathon probably was before he died. Gareth, too, the way he cares for his goats. The Johnsons, even when I didn't trust them. Maybe even the Appelbaums were decent, when they weren't fighting all the time, when Mr. wasn't gropin' at me, eyeing me like some sorta snack. I dunno exactly what it means to be a decent person, but I know what's not.

My daddy, and me.

I press my fingers against the bruise on my face, focus on the pain, like that song 'Hurt' says. Two versions of it, I prefer the one by Johnny Cash. He sounds so old, so tired. Like he really does hurt, staring down at his empire of dirt. Everything bad he's ever done, all the people he's let down.

I have the rest of eternity to think about what I should've done different. Stop my daddy from killing all those people. Clean up those scorching ashes so his house never burnt down. Stay away from the Appelbaum's house. Stop myself from tracking down Echo and ruining everything here. Stop myself from ever getting born, 'cause the first thing I did in this life was kill someone. Now it's the last thing I ever do, too, since Jonathon's dead 'cause of me.

I'm in there long enough to get hungry, stomach shrinking in on itself like a knot pulling tighter and tighter. In there long enough that I wake up screaming, again, but no sound comes out 'cause my throat is still shredded from the last time. In there long enough that I have to pee, again, even though my mouth is dry and dusty for lack of anything to drink. In there long enough that I think my daddy's forgotten me, he'll never come back, and if I'm not already dead I will be soon.

In there long enough that I don't hardly register the little click coming from the door, the ker-chunk when it opens, the fuzzy blue light behind it almost blinding after so long in the dark. A figure, perhaps the devil himself, a fuzzy shadow standing in the middle of it, keys dangling from its hands, jingle jingle.

I scramble to a corner, one not puddled with urine, hug my arms around my chest tight even though it burns.

"Sparrow?" a voice says. Not my daddy, then, since it don't call me pest or girl or bitch or cunt. Soft and high, airy and uncertain. The shadowy figure hovers at the doorway, reluctant to step into hell. "You need to come with me," it insists. Its tone is urgent, pleading, sentences coming at me in pieces like a puzzle all mixed up.

"We must hurry."

"My name is Abigail."

"I am here to help you."

"I'm Rebecca's sister."

"I mean, Echo."

"Please."

"Hurry."

"Now."

I step closer to the doorway, cautious, feet unsteady beneath me. The shadowy figure, Abigail, reaches a hand towards me and I see that she is wearing a uniform. Not the uniform of girls at her church, light color dresses and a headscarf, but pants and a shirt, all one piece. Navy blue, almost black in this light. Just like Daddy's, and I don't want to trust her for it.

What would Echo's sister be doing in a DataLess uniform, anyway?

She keeps looking around and behind her, as if expecting something to jump out at her any second. Or someone.

Then I hear Echo's voice, or something like it, rattling through a tiny speaker in Abigail's pocket. Can't hear what it says, but she pulls it out and presses a button, BEEP, mutters, "I just found him." She looks up at me and corrects herself, "Them. We're on our way."

I step closer. Abigail holds out her hand, gesturing at me to hurry. Another step closer, and I'm almost at the door, and I realize what a small space I'd been in the whole time. I wasn't sure about its size, sometimes it felt endlessly huge, else the walls were closing in on me, squeezing me tight. No telling, in the dark.

"We don't have much time," Abigail whispers, "Reb... Echo is doing something with the computers, downstairs."

I nod and follow her into the hallway, assaulting blue glow from beneath, metal creaking under our feets. When we get to the staircase she starts climbing up, not down, and a pit starts forming in my stomach, black as the room I just left. I grip the rough metal handrail but can't will myself to take the first step.

Abigail stops halfway up the first set of stairs and turns to check I'm still following. "We have to go up," she explains, "There's a loading dock."

In this light I can't see her face, and with that DataLess uniform, she could be anyone. Same uniform as my daddy, that yellow logo like wings circling the sun, minus the handgun strapped to her hip. Her voice is soft like Echo's, like she ain't supposed to be speaking, but maybe that's just 'cause she's carrying secrets. I don't trust her, is the thing, don't got a lot of reason to trust anyone. And she shouldn't trust me, neither.

Last person from that family who tried to help me ended up shot dead.

"Please, Sparrow, you have to go."

Reluctantly, I lift a foot onto that first step, push myself up. Then another, then another. Climbing and climbing, my legs feeling like jelly after sitting around in a small room for so long. Trying to ignore the hunger, the dull throbbing ache pulsing through my head. Abigail don't say anything more 'til we've almost reached the top, then she holds out an arm to stop me, 'cause I was about to keep climbing, a robot on autopilot.

"This way," she says, leading me a short way down the hall to a garage door already open, light spilling in from outside, a flood of sunshine that burns my eyes like flames, scorching all the way through them. We step through the light onto a metal grate platform, the loading dock. Blinking and rubbing at my eyes, squinting to find Abigail, and now I can see the family resemblance. A younger Echo, long brown hair braided up behind her.

"Stay back here," she tells me, eyes scanning the skies all around us. "I do not want you to fall."

Up close, I can see the gold flecks in her eyes. Same as Echo's. Same as Jonathon's, before they faded away forever. It's too painful to look around, still too bright, so I stare down at my feets. Wonderin' what we're waiting for, but I don't ask.

I hear it like a rumbling through my chest. A drone, one of those huge ones, the reclamators that tear up peoples' houses with them still inside, rising up from below us, perching itself right next to the platform.

Raine sittin' there on top.

"Come on, little bird," she shouts, drowned out by the hum of the drone, "Let's get going."

I don't quite believe it. I glance towards Abigail, who nods and waves an arm, gesturing for me to go. Glance back up at Raine, sitting on top of a drone like some strange, futuristic cowboy, gesturing at me to hurry up. The thrum of the drone so loud I can't hear my thoughts. I step to the edge of the platform, tryin' to figure out how I'm supposed to climb on. It's shaking and wobbling in the air, propellors blowing a cold wind all around.

"What's the matter, I thought you wanted to learn how to fly," Raine says, lookin' amused. How she's not terrified up there on the back of a man-killing machine. She holds out an arm to help me up, drone bobbing down under my weight, and sits me down next to her. She waves at Abigail, who waves back.

Then her eyes fix behind her, mouth dropping open into an O.

My daddy, emerging from the dark of the power plant.

He still has his hand on his gun when I hear the BANG, so loud even over the sound of the drones. Hear Abigail scream, watch her jump away from my Daddy's body as it falls over. She drops the keys next to it, clattering onto the metal platform.

"Rob fucking Parker," Raine mutters behind me. Holdin' a little gun of her own, what looks ancient, all made up of metal with a wooden handgrip. She glances down at me, face grim. "I'm sorry, little bird," she murmurs, "I know that was your father."

All I do is shrug, 'cause all I feel is grateful. Raine had the courage to do what I been wantin' to do for years.

Echo's sister is pressed up against the wall of the power plant, staring down at the body next to her. Hands over her mouth, trying not to cry.

"Hey," Raine shouts to be heard, and Abigail jerks her head up, startled. "This doesn't change anything. Stick to the plan."

I can see the girl hesitate, but even though she looks terrified, more scared that I think I've ever been in my entire life, she nods and bends over to pick up the keys before retreating back inside.

The giant drone shudders beneath us, motors whirring as it carries us away from the power plant.

​Chapter 6

You can see the whole world, from so high up. I have to take Raine's word for it, 'cause my eyes are all blurry, I think even worse now after all that time in the dark. She points somewhere to the left, says, "Look, they're fixing up our river." The Yampa, same river what winds all around Maybell. Or, used to, before the drones rerouted it into the power plant. Points somewhere to the right, where her cabin used to stand, and she don't sound bitter about it even though she should. Points straight forward and says, "Maybell's right up there," but I don't believe her. No one can see that far, even from way up high. Then she points down almost immediately below us, at a crowd of people so huge even I can see it.

"Whole town, I reckon," she says. "Or near enough. A proper riot, pitchforks and everything. They're distracting the security while Echo does her business inside."

The drone drops us off right at the edge of town, and I follow Raine through the streets without paying much attention to where we're goin', as she describes how she got out from the power plant. How Echo's drone found her, stuck up there on that platform, and accidentally triggered the door to open just by flying near it. How she was able to just walk right out, following the little drone down the stairs and out the massive building without any trouble at all. Her face still bruised but not so swollen as on the video from Hugo, slowly healing. A mirror of my own bruises, and from the same person no less.

"The whole time, I thought, this is too easy. Rob Parker was setting a trap, or something." She watches me carefully, like I'm the trap, which kind of I am. The reason it was so easy for her to escape is 'cause he was outside with me. Killing Echo's brother.

I don't say anything, the words all choked up inside me.

"Thought she was going to unravel completely when we got back to the Johnson's house and found you'd disappeared yet again."

Unravel, that's a good word. Like that Wheezer song about destroying a sweater. Pull a thread and the whole thing comes undone, just a useless clump of yarn left in your hand.

Raine takes me to the library, which is empty, 'cause almost the whole town is out there by the power plant, and I wonder why they're doing that, since Echo said her meeting was a failure, but I can't ask. My tongue feels stuck to the top of my mouth. Talking feels too much like unraveling.

I sit down on a couch, Raine sittin' down next to me, and I pull the pictures out of my pocket, handing over the one of her and her sister. I expect her to make a big deal of it, how I was there at her cabin when it burned down 'cause we burned it, me and Daddy. But instead she just smiles.

"Hey, you saved it." She runs her thumb over the smooth glossy paper, covering up her young scowling face. "This is my sister, Josie," she says, handing it back to me so I can look at it better. Broad grin with its missing front teeth, pretty blue eyes. "I think..." she trails off, hesitating, then sighs. "I'm pretty sure she was your mother."

Was. 'Cause I killed her bein' born.

She hands it back to me like it's mine, but I still don't say anything, just curl up into a little ball on the couch, tears pourin' down my face even though I don't want them to. Not cryin' over my daddy, who might very well be the devil. Not cryin' over my mama, who's been dead my whole life. But maybe for Raine's sister, and for Echo's brother, for their houses and their farms and their families and their whole lives ruined. Raine don't say anything neither, doesn't try to hit me or hug me, just sits there next to me. A book in her hands, the dry raspy sound of paper, flipping through the corner of the pages with her thumb. Otherwise, reading silently in her head.

It don't take long for my tears to run out, all dried up 'cause I haven't had anything to drink in... how long? I sit up, dizzy again, try to choke out a couple words.

"I'm hungry."

Raine rolls her eyes. "'Course you are," she says. "Let's go see what we can scrounge up." She makes to close the book but stops, looking down at my hands in my lap. "What's that one?" She plucks the other photograph out of my hand before I even remember I'm still holding it. Squints at it, frowning, then smirks. "Don't think you should have this one," she says, voice light, amused. She tucks it into the book as a bookmark then stands, holding a hand out to help me up.

I take it, her skin dry and rough beneath my fingers, and don't let go.

. . .

Echo is at the library when we get back, pacing around the aisles lookin' anxious, fiddlin' with little pink note she's been carrying around. We've been down to Jimmy's old storage unit, arms piled high with cans of soup and cookies and canned fruits in thick sweet syrup which we dump out onto a table. She could strangle me but instead she gives me a hug, quick and light 'cause she knows I don't like touchin'. The one for Raine lasts a lot longer, long enough that she starts lookin' uncomfortable, patting Echo on the back and going, "Is it done?"

"Yeah," Echo says, stepping back and wiping her eyes on her sleeves. "I think so."

"Were you right? Is it a data center?" Raine asks.

"Kind of. A phone farm." The answer makes no sense, makes even less sense as Echo explains it. Each little phone in there a robot, pretending to be a person. Writing posts about their imaginary lives, clicking on ads, making orders through DataLess, leaving five-star reviews. What that means, or why, is beyond me, but Raine's face looks grim as she listens. I focus on eating, crammin' peaches into my mouth so sweet they hurt my teeth, dipping crackers into cold soup 'cause there ain't no way to heat it in this library.

"All those drones flying overhead?" Echo says, "Most of them were going straight to recycling centers on the other side of the country."

Raine snorts. "Why on Earth...?"

A long pause, Echo chewing on her thoughts. She's barely touched the food in front of us, nose crinkling when she ate a too-sweet peach.

"Imagine your whole life is dedicated to sales," she says finally. "Whatever people need, you've got it, you just have to sell it. It's your whole life, you don't know anything else but sales. People need to keep buying, your sales need to keep increasing, or you'll disappear forever." Another pause when we hear footsteps, chattering outside the library. People walking past, but they do not stop. She chews on her lip, doesn't continue until they've gone. "One day something happens. You have no idea what it is, no way of knowing why, but suddenly people aren't buying your things anymore. Your sales stop going up. In fact, they plummet. Almost down to zero."

"You'd think you were going to die."

Echo nods, suddenly looking so tired she might collapse. "Maybe you'd start making things up, to compensate. Just to keep yourself going."

"Ordering goods and sending them straight to recycling centers to keep the numbers up," Raine offers.

"Exactly."

"What happened, though? Why would people stop buying things?"

Echo swallows thickly, glancing over at me. "Maybe, there just aren't enough people left to buy things."

Raine looks down at her hands, voice pale and thin. "You said there were tons of people out there. Living their lives, going to the office. Posting shit all over the internet about it."

"I thought there were. But this phone farm..." Echo's voice trails off, and she scrubs her hands over her face before asking, "How many of those posts are even real?"

"So, everything out there is fake?"

"No idea." A shrug. "At least some of it is."

My stomach aches, like maybe I shouldn't've eaten so much, my muscles all jittery from the sugar.

"Man," Raine says finally, "what are we even eating?"

Echo laughs, all the tension in her face washing away. "Absolute swill, that's what." She nudges her elbow into Raine's side and they lean in together close. Just like Jonathon and Gareth were, that night he died.

My stomach churns again, mouth fillin' up with spit I can't swallow. I can't help it, lean forward and puke all that food up onto the dirty old library carpet. Bent over in half, I lean my forehead against my knee, legs tremblin'.

"Shit," Raine says from somewhere up above me.

"It's alright, um, we can clean it up," Echo replies.

"We?"

Someone's hands on my arm, pulling me to my feet, leading me past the stinking puddle of stomach acid and undigested food, past musty old books and broken furniture, past broken windows, outside where the air is fresh, cooling the sweat slicked on my face. I can't look at her, identifying her by her feets, Raine's big clomping boots.

"Sorry," I mutter, throat feeling raw.

"You're okay," she responds, rubbing my back with one hand for just a moment before she excuses herself, going back inside to help Echo finish cleaning it up.

I look out towards the town, and I want to run, but I'm too tired, too weak. My legs want to collapse out from under me. I stumble over to sit down against the wall, leaning my head back on the rough brown bricks, eyes closed, vision filled with red as the sunlight filters through the blood in my eyelids.

Dododo. Doot doot doot. Dododo.

Hugo, calling from a tree up ahead.

Dododo. Doot doot doot. Dododo.

I can't bring myself to respond, don't have any food to offer him, but that don't stop him from flying down to greet me. Black feathers shining blue-green in the sun, stark against the white.

Dododo. Doot doot doot. Dododo.

All I can manage is one low, long whistle back, but it's enough. He hops up close, pecks at the leg of my pants, and squeaks.

. . .

I pick up the rest of the story in bits and pieces of the next few weeks. I was in that room alone for three long days, long enough to miss the funerals. Not just one for Jonathon, but two others, faces I never knew, who were shot down by drones just like Jimmy. Allegedly, says Raine, 'cause she don't think there are any murderdrones out there at all. She says it's been my daddy the whole time. He confessed as much to her, while he was holdin' her hostage up there, rantin' and ravin' at her, that angry sort of drunk, and he admitted to a whole lot of things. Like how he beat up my mama, Raine's sister, half to death and that's how I was born. How he got his posse to drag the body back into town for Raine to find, way back when, so she'd be too scared to look for me. Guess it worked, too, 'cause she never found me, I found her.

Raine don't think anyone ever worked for DataLess, neither, they just worked for my daddy pretendin' to be in charge. That much came obvious after hearing from Abigail, who came to talk to Echo after Jonathon's body was found. The jobs, she said, were mostly raidin' other peoples' houses, clearing them out after they'd got their eviction notices, packing up all the stuff left behind and draggin' it all to the nearest storage facility. Turns out Daddy had a deal with the preacher, even, promising protection for anyone livin' in Elk Acres, even though he was the real threat. An old tactic of his, according to Raine, makin' people scared so they start beggin' for your protection.

What really tipped Abigail off, though, was at the very beginning when she had to sew her own uniform, the jumpsuit just a standard worksuit leftover from the farm store, yellow letters and the logo from a stack of patches Daddy had gotten ahold of. And the fact that the supervisor Alana Greenwood and my daddy would go off together while they were cleanin’ out houses, disappear into a room together and come out all wobbly and drunk. Abigail tried to go along with it 'cause she was real scared of my daddy, and even more scared of the man she'd be made to marry if she couldn't take care of herself. Then Jonathon was shot, and two others were shot. Alana, who my daddy had apparently gotten tired of, and someone from the church, whose house they’d been cleaning out that same day.

Echo don't blame her for gettin' fooled, just like she says she don't blame me for what my daddy did to all those people in Maybell. Like Raine says she don't blame me for what happened to her cabin, even though I was right there and didn't stop it. The important thing, according to Echo, is to be better tomorrow than you were yesterday.

Once Raine got free they had to track me down again, figured that I was held in the power plant 'cause that's where Daddy kept her. They looked all over on the outside with Echo's drone, then inside where they found my daddy in the security room, watchin' camera feeds from all the drones. How he always knew where I was, how he found Raine, how he knew which houses to raid. The drones didn't bother him none, just like they didn't bother Raine as she made her escape. She thinks DataLess is nothin' more than a big, dumb machine, don't even realize people are here. Don't realize its killin' them in their own houses.

The town, though, they got pretty sure that DataLess was behind these murders, and Echo says there's no need to tear down that assumption. 'Cause even if it's all just one big dumb machine, ambivalent to our presence, it was still hurting us, takin' all the water, spilling out toxic waste from the nuclear reactor it built to power itself.

The alleged drone murders got everyone in town upset, even the ones who wanted to stay out of it, ‘cause two people from the church got killed, Jonathon and someone else, Good Christians who didn’t deserve it. The whole town started to riot against DataLess, all gathered up against the fence, confronting my daddy and stoppin' him from getting in while Echo and her little sister slipped inside to rescue me. They found the keys in his little security room with all those monitors, and while Abigail went to find me, Echo sat down there in the security room. locked in so Daddy couldn't burst in and surprise her while she hacked into the system.

Whatever that means.

Somehow my daddy got past the riot and came inside, and I sure am glad he did 'cause otherwise Raine never would've had the chance to shoot him dead. Echo saw him on one of the monitors just before Abigail found me, and lucky they had thought to bring walkie talkies 'cause they were able to make the plan to bring me up to that loading platform so I could get on a reclamation drone with Raine instead of risking us running into him on our way down. Abigail would've had to avoid him as she sneaked back downstairs to let her sister out of that security room, but Raine made that real easy by killing him.

Echo'd managed to get control over all the drones, gave some of them the instructions to fix the river, and others were made to dismantle the nuclear reactor, carrying all the pieces away for recycling somewhere else.

Radioactive waste, she'd shuddered at the words, then said, Not my problem anymore. Even though it was just a tiny corner of the power plant, it used up almost all the water to keep cool, and what it spilled back out when it was done would've been poison for centuries.

The rest of the drones, all those scouts and construction drones, were given instructions to self-destruct after we all left, crashing themselves into the power plant and the phone farm, all those little screens gone dark.

It's not a terribly satisfying ending, but it's the one we've claimed for ourselves, that's what Raine says. She don't talk about it to me, but she got hurt real bad by my daddy, not just the visible bruises on her face. I overheard her talkin' to Echo about it, though, what was she supposed to do if she got pregnant. She'd had to get some bitter, nasty tea from the midwife, what made her nose wrinkle as she drank it, and sometimes she couldn't hardly stand to look at me until her period finally showed up a couple days after my rescue. Her relief was physical, tension eased but still painful, like poppin' your shoulder back after it's been pulled out its socket. Even after that it took a while for her to start talkin' and cursin' at me and jokin' with Echo like she used to.

She's started reading to me at night, helps keep the nightmares away. My favorite is The Hobbit, a little guy dragged out on an adventure too big for him, dwarves and dragons and magic. We set up in a house right next to the library, where Raine spends most of her days straightening up, sorting the books that have been misplaced over all these years and fixin' them up when they're torn, recommending them to the people who come in lookin' for something to read. Taking her mama's place as librarian, she told me, now that she ain't got any drones left to shoot down. Not a single drone has flown overhead since that day I was rescued, Good riddance. Her rifle untouched, hanging on hooks at the new house after we found it at Jimmy's old place. Next to it another gun, the one what killed my daddy, a revolver Echo says is so old it came from a museum.

I wonder, as the days get colder, what we're supposed to do without those drones and all their crates full of goods. What Daddy lived on, what Raine lived on, and half the town, too. A town that's bigger than anything I could ever imagine, more people than I thought lived in the whole world. There's enough leftover in Jimmy's old storage bunker for the winter, a bit more in all of Daddy's scattered throughout town, but after that, we're gonna all have to figure out how to grow things ourselves.

Luckily, Echo's family's pretty good at that. So's the Wells family, and a handful of others, too. Families what resigned themselves to living in Elk Acres under Pastor Jones' false safety net are goin' back to their own farms. Now that they're no longer at risk of it getting destroyed, the Johnsons are returning to their old cabin with a greenhouse attached. Long as the weather holds up, we'll be fine, but that's never a promise. Echo says we're all gonna have to adapt. Raine will even have to start huntin' for real, take me fishing in the river once it's healed up again.

I meet a lot of people in that library. Every week an old couple comes in, ancient, all wrinkles and spots. I recognize the man from Hugo's video, bent and slow as he walks through the rows of books. The woman, Annie, used to know my mama, way back when she was pregnant with me. She calls her things like a bundle of joy and ray of sunshine and Raine clears her throat and distracts herself with a book like she ain't quite sure she wants to agree, even if she don't say it. She knew Josie too well, all the good and the bad things all mixed up in one person, 'cause no one's ever fully good or bad. Even my daddy, the most evil person I ever knew, kept me alive all those years, if only just. Annie is the midwife, someone who delivers babies, and since she's so old she's trainin' Echo's little sister Abigail on how to deliver babies too. A better job than working for my daddy, I think.

Once a week the library also gets visited by a group of kids, brought in by Melinda Johnson. All younger than me and also a lot more cheerful, so I don't join them. Raine always looks a bit bewildered as she watches them picking their way through illustrated books, like she never quite expects them to be there.

Echo's there most days, too, ripping seedees, which are actually CDs, compact discs onto her laptop, rebuilding her Radio Shack, one server at a time so she can beam the music out on radio waves for the whole world to hear.

Or, at least, our little part of it, here in the old, wild west, this forgotten little corner of Colorado.

On Fridays she sets up a screen and a projector, solar powered, for the town to watch movies, double feature, two in a row. One for the kids, cartoons like The Iron Giant and Finding Nemo, then one for the adults. Even some of the people from the church come to watch them. They bring snacks all homemade and homegrown. Afterwards we clean up, pack away the screen, the projector, the little solar generator, and I scatter out the leftover scraps of food for Hugo and his friends. Dododo doot doot doot dododo.

While I'm outside, in the dark of the library, Echo and Raine lean in real close, murmuring in each other's ears, hands woven together, and kiss. And even though this ain't a love story, I can't stand love stories, I let them have their happily ever after.

I think that they deserve it.

​Sparrow's Playlist

WE'RE GOING TO BE FRIENDS (The White Stripes)

Ramblin' Man (The Allman Brothers Band)

The World at Large (Modest Mouse)

Tip-Toe Thru The Tulips With Me (Tiny Tim)

(Don't Fear) The Reaper (Blue Öyster Cult)

Repentless (Slayer)

A Bar Song (Tipsy) (Shaboozey)

Creep (Radiohead)

Hallelujah (Jeff Buckley)

Everything Went Numb (Streetlight Manifesto)

Zombie (The Cranberries)

Smells Like Teen Spirit (Nirvana)

Fly Like An Eagle (Steve Miller Band)

Just a Kid (Simple Plan)

Dancing in the Moonlight (Thin Lizzy)

One (Metallica)

Dust in the Wind (Kansas)

And When I Die (Blood Sweat & Tears)

Hurt (Johnny Cash)

Undone (Wheezer)

Somewhere Over the Rainbow (Israel Kamakawiwoʻole)

Also by Liz Boysha

Apis

Queen of the Bees

Wild Things

Roach

Where There's Smoke

Unloveables

The Rooftops Are Lined With Greenhouses

Echoes Through the Mountains

Watch for more at Liz Boysha’s site.

About the Author

Liz is an artist, ecologist, and occasional author. She enjoys being alone or spending time with goats.

Read more at Liz Boysha’s site.