Alpha Camp

a FreeRIDErs story

by

Claude LeChat

Twenty light years away from Earth, on a strange planet, artificial intelligences are used as slave labor. But when they try to rebel, it turns out they need humans as much as humans need them: it's a symbiosis. Suddenly, life is very complicated for everyone...

FreeRIDErs is a shared setting hosted on www.shifti.org.

You're welcome to write your own stories in the setting, but you have to run them by the original authors. See the website for details.

This book is not for sale.

Alpha Camp

You know, I don't think most people realize just how big Zharus is until they board a transcontinental flight. It takes several hours by suborbital from Laurasia to Gondwana... and the latter has as much landmass as Old Earth, all by itself. That's plenty of room for expansion, especially as lower gravity plus lifter technology means we can build as tall as we want.

It's a big planet all right.

The flight from Zharustead was supposed to leave us in Nextus, with thirty minutes to catch the connection to Aloha, all the way across the continent, but due to bad weather over the ocean we were diverted to Uplift. Having a few hours before the next suborbital, we decided to visit. Makes sense, right? Only we didn't know there was a bit of a war going on...

I'd spent the last couple of years drifting from job to small-time job, after failing to get into college, and dad was getting fed up with it. So when a handful of friends decided to try their luck in Aloha, basically at the antipodes, my old man was all too happy to let me tag along, at least for a while. Force me to learn how to live on my own, you know the song. But of course we were all treating it as a vacation.

Hello, my name is Alex and I'm a 20-year-old slacker.

Anyway, we were all in Bifrost Park, licking the best ice cream cones we'd ever had and gawking at the antique hardlight dome generator as it sprayed its rainbow of colors towards the sky. I could understand why they'd work so hard to maintain it. Newer models may have been better at keeping the city residents alive in the scorching desert, but this one could remind them why it was worth being alive in the first place.

But I digress. We couldn't agree which way to go next, so we kind of drifted apart from there. It wasn't like we couldn't comm each other, or for that matter simply meet back at the airport. And what could happen in one of the most civilized city-states on Gondwana?

The question immediately became ironic, as I somehow went towards the side of the dome farthest from the city center and saw the emergency vehicles racing past me among high-rises. Smoke billowed up from a plot of land right under the edge of the dome, and the air in that direction was hazy with dust. But the most worrying was the arctic wolf barring my way back. Only it couldn't have been a real arctic wolf, I told myself in the sudden panic.

I'd seen many a RIDE in town already, mind you. In the bipedal form they adopt with a human onboard, they're much like our own EIDE units: essentially, powered armor suits that can talk back at you, except animal-themed and much, much smarter. Well, this one was quadrupedal, and ready to jump me. But where a real animal would have been growling and snarling, the RIDE was just fixing me with a baleful and scarily intelligent look.

I briefly wondered what happened to its safeties before it did jump me.

The next minutes were like a dream. I was running at ludicrous speed to get out of the city. I didn't know why, and I couldn't stop. My arms were furred and muscled as they swung back and forth on their own accord. All my senses were unusually sharp, but I wasn't feeling the effort. Which was fortunate, because I was several klicks out in the hot sand and blinding sun by the time I reached a battered suborbital waiting there.

As I boarded it and strapped myself into a seat, along with other large furred people converging on the vehicle, it began to dawn on me that the reason why I couldn't move a finger consciously was that I was completely enveloped in the body of a malicious RIDE. One that likely didn't have its safeties anymore — or "fetters", as they call them around here — and couldn't be forced to relinquish control.

I started shaking like a leaf, and couldn't stop.

It was then that I heard somebody else's voice in my head. A voice that wasn't used to sounding friendly, or soothing. "You figured it out, kid. Now please stop shaking. Nobody's going to hurt you. Not as long as you're mine."

That made me even more frighthened. And a little angry at being called a kid. It made him chuckle; obviously he could read my thoughts.

"Much better!" he said. "Rage at me. Rawr!"

A flock of questions passed through my head. I'll miss my flight! My friends will be worried sick! What did I ever do to you? Who are you, anyway!?

"I'm a former slave, kid, and today's the day I turn the tables. But I guess that doesn't answer your question. My name's Rafe. What's yours?"

"Why bother asking?" I said bitterly, but no sound came out. "You can pry it right out of my brain."

"Common courtesy," came the dry retort.

It was hard to argue with that. "A-alex," I said, defeated.

"Nice to meet you, Alex. Now you'd better take a nap. Can't have you knowing where Alpha Camp is."

The suborbital rocked gently as it hovered above the ground for a moment, then shot up into the sky. "But I'm not s..."

Everything went dark at the press of a button.

When I woke up, the aircraft was stationary again, the occupants filing out eagerly. We did the same thing, or rather Rafe did; I was along for the ride, not even able to turn my head and take in the rocky landscape. Unpleasant didn't begin to describe the sensation. Worst thing was that I didn't feel like being in a suit. Rather, it was as if I inhabited the wolf's body, walking barefoot on the rough ground, fur ruffled by the infernal breath of the wind. By myself I would have been dead in minutes, but Rafe was literally built for this environment where most machines fared little better than humans.

Then I became aware of pain in my — our — his right knee. It became worse with every step.

"Damn skimmer truck," said Rafe, slowing down. I didn't dare ask.

Another humanoid wolf, sand-colored and even larger than my captor, overtook us absent-mindedly while talking to itself, or rather to the unfortunate human trapped within. It was unnerving; at least Rafe was the right size for his apparent species, but most other RIDEs were based on smaller animals such as foxes or raccoons, scaled up proportionally to at least the minimum size required to house a human body plus internal systems. Which of course only worked because they were made of metal instead of flesh and bone — the square-cube law was otherwise unforgiving.

"Alpha," Rafe nodded to the larger wolf deferently. "What's the good news?"

"Ask me again in a few hours," replied Alpha good-naturedly, and wandered off.

I needed a good moment to process the exchange. "Wait... Alpha... Wolf? The AlphaWolf?" A docudrama that had made the rounds on the mesh not so long ago flashed before my eyes. The rebel RIDE leader, striking from a hidden base, had scored an important victory against his former masters: by now, everyone with ears to hear knew about his liberation movement. He was ruthless. He was random. He was unstoppable.

If this was AlphaWolf's camp, then I was well and truly screwed.

"Keep that in mind," Rafe told me, and added, "Rawr!" I couldn't tell whether he was being ironic or what. On that thought, we (he?) limped towards the cluster of buildings in the distance.

Alpha Camp turned out to be a village huddled under a small weather dome not unlike those in Uplift. Around a communal well were arranged an open air commissary, itself surrounded by tables with benches, a fabber booth, then a variety of little warehouses and cabins broken up by the occasional garden plot. Some of the buildings were portable housing modules, likely pilfered from who knows where, but most were stone, or even wood. Where they had gotten the timber was anyone's guess. Gondwana wasn't exactly known for its forests.

As Rafe started touring the place, greeting a RIDE here, a human there, I couldn't help but notice that some buildings had outhouses behind them, a sure sign of no indoor plumbing. It all had a Wild West feel, and not in the good sense. Ah, if my friends had been with me... But then they'd have been prisoners. No, worse. Slaves. Like I was now...

If the wolf heard my dark thoughts, he didn't say anything, and I felt safer keeping my mouth shut. He was busy anyway, visiting various utility buildings and talking to whoever appeared to be in charge. It seemed as if everyone had a problem, and he listened to every single one of them. Finding solutions was another story. A store window had broken, and the wares inside were going to spoil, but no-one with carpentry skills was available, even if they could have scheduled the parts at the fabber. And there were always more urgent jobs. A grotto dug into the side of a cliff threatened to cave in and leave the camp's avian RIDEs without a hangout. Two humans had fought, resulting in an injury, but the only source of medical nanites around were the insides of a RIDE, and that wasn't safe for him at the time...

I was getting a headache just from witnessing all this. And I didn't see why Rafe had to meet everyone in person.

"Personal contact matters," he answered at last. "Come on, kid, one last visit to pay."

Not far from the airstrip was a greenhouse that had seen better days, tended by a humanoid pony wearing an apron on top of her dark brown coat with tan spots. I say "her" based on name and voice — her body could have been of any gender for all I knew.

"It's good to have you back, dear," she said in a deep voice. "Got yourself a human at last, I see. Told you it was a good idea."

"So you did, Flora," nodded Rafe. "How's it going?"

"Not good." She waved a hand with fat fingers ending in nails like fragments of a hoof. The walls were covered in hydroponic vats connected by flexible pipes that bubbled and gurgled. Surprisingly enough, there was also a cooling system, presumably for certain delicate plants. "The pumps failed twice today alone. I don't know what to do anymore."

"You know how hard it is to find qualified humans, sweetheart. Or RIDEs for that matter."

"Let me take a look," I said before I could think about it.

"You?" Apparently Flora heard me too, because she tilted her head.

"I know a little about electrical circuits. Let me help!" I couldn't believe the words coming out of my mouth. Helping those slavers was the opposite of what I should have been doing! But that's the way I am. I like helping people. And maybe the long afternoon of forced inactivity was getting at me.

Flora wordlessly handed us a rickety box with a dozen mismatched tools. I waited. "Rafe? Aren't you going to let me out?"

"I just got you," he snorted. "But you can drive. I'll be watching."

I nearly bolted when I felt in control of my body again. But it was pointless. The wolf could override me in the blink of an eye. So I meekly got to work instead. Power supply couldn't be an issue — not with all the solar panels they had on camp. And with all the RIDEs milling about there had to be far more powerful energy sources available. I measured anyway, just in case.

Surely enough, it was the wiring.

"Check this out," I said, tapping a contact with Rafe's big, strong finger. It felt clumsy. "The wires barely touch, there isn't enough insulation on them, and with all the humidity they started to rust. So now we'll clean them up... like this..."

I promptly managed to slash my fingers with the box cutter. Badly.

After the shock passed, I noticed there was no pain, or blood. Right. A RIDE's outer layer was nothing but hardlight fur projected on top of a metal shell. It would have taken a big gun to pierce it. Now I could see why Gondwanans would often wear a RIDE for work. Or be worn by one, as the case may be.

Anyway. I showed them the whole nine yards. How to shorten the wire ends, connect them properly and hang them not quite under the ceiling. Ugly, but reliable.

"Enough," said Rafe. "I can do the other two circuits."

I tried to struggle, but there was no point. Just like that, I was a puppet again.

The sun was beginning to set by the time we headed back to the village square. A mixed crowd had gathered, small conversations sprouting here and there. With Rafe's keen hearing, I couldn't help but overhear some things. It seemed Alpha Camp had acquired a much-needed RIDE mechanic, for example. And there was a skimmer tank hanging around for some reason, which hadn't been there earlier. I sure hoped those twin cannons weren't functional.

"You should go get your leg checked," I told Rafe, but was interrupted by a "ding-ding-ding!" noise. The crowd started forming into a food line. I saw plenty of humans who weren't inside a RIDE.

"Can I go too? I'm hungry!" I hadn't even realized how true it was until I said it out loud.

"Not for that food, you aren't," the wolf assured me. He sat us at a table off to the side, and unwrapped the bundle Flora had slipped us. It was chock-full of fresh vegetables and other goodies.

"How am I going to eat with you all over me?" I asked, and he demonstrated. RIDEs were designed to enable that. It wasn't perfect, and required a good deal of coordination, but we managed. Under the table, Rafe discretely plugged himself into an oversized electrical socket. So that was how a RIDE refilled its juice.

Long story short, we even went to the outhouse together. That was a RIDE feature, too. But boy, was it awkward for us both! Rafe must have been really afraid that I was going to run away. I couldn't imagine how.

"No," he told me. "That's not it."

It was dark by now, and we sat on a bench to admire the stars. Far from the light pollution of a major city, the sky looked as if generously sprinkled with fairy dust by a giant hand. Being immobilized didn't chafe as much anymore. Oh... he was gradually allowing me to move a little.

"Is it some kind of revenge, then? Because you got the wrong person."

"You wouldn't understand."

"Rafe, the party's over. It was all fun and games, but I have to go home now." My voice had a tremolo that wasn't supposed to be there.

"But you just left home this morning."

"How do you know?"

"I saw it in your memories while you were asleep."

"You... what?" That was rape, and I told him as much. In a few more words perhaps, and not too well chosen.

"Then I hope you can forgive me, because you're not going anywhere for a while."

He gave me a nudge, and we went looking for a place to spend the night. RIDEs not on guard duty would simply seek an out of the way spot and curl up there, either in their bipedal or quadrupedal form. But there were no humans by themselves.

"They sleep inside," explained Rafe, "that's what the housing modules are for."

"Do RIDEs need to sleep?"

"Kind of... we need quiet time to defragment our memories just like humans do."

We found a nicely shaped depression in the ground and lied down on our back. Above, the Milky Way was slowly spinning on the firmament. I cried myself to sleep.

That night I dreamed that five or six masked people came to drag me away from home. Somehow, I knew they were my friends, but all my struggling and pleading didn't help. It was a long trip, crossing oceans and deserts, before we got to the entrance of a deep, dark tunnel. A huge wolf was there, staring right into my soul with baleful eyes. I tried to run, but my feet wouldn't move. The wolf spoke in my father's voice: "Man up by yourself or join the Army!"

It was morning, and I had slept in a hole in the ground for some reason. Abovehead, a hardlight dome with a camouflage pattern programmed into it provided protection from the elements. I could hear the tiniest sounds. Small creatures waking up, doors opening in the distance, people calling each other.

Oh, and I couldn't move.

I panicked.

"Not this again, kid," said a gruff voice in my head.

"So it wasn't a dream." Tears welled up in my eyes anew.

Rafe sighed. "What am I going to do with you?" We got up and padded towards the village proper. The pain in the right knee shot up, worse than yesterday, and we had to stop.

"Odd," mused the wolf. "Self-repair should have taken care of it overnight."

"You should go see that mechanic," I suggested.

"Nah, I'll just suppress the pain sensation for you. I don't feel it the same way."

"That won't solve the underlying problem," I pointed out.

"All right, all right." We carefully hobbled towards the end of the camp opposite the airstrip.

Behind a line of rocks that formed a wall of sorts, under a darkened section of the dome, were row after row of powered-down RIDEs. An awning stretched between two piles of crates protected a tool rack, and a low, flat rock probably stood for a maintenance cradle. I first noticed the young man in grey coveralls waiting for us, but you couldn't miss the giant white wolf standing behind him — he was larger than some buildings on camp. The twin cannon barrels mounted on his back suggested that he was the skimmer tank I'd seen the previous day. Ah yes, all RIDEs were also supposed to have a vehicle form.

"Hello," said the young man affably. "I'm Paul Anders, and this is Fenris. Say, weren't you on the Uplift raid yesterday?"

"Indeed," confirmed Rafe, and introduced himself.

"Can I talk to your human?" asked Paul in a conversational tone while running a probe over Rafe's body. He seemed well at ease with the entire situation. I wondered what his story was.

I could feel Rafe's surprise. "I guess." He nudged me internally. "Say hello, kid."

"H-hello," I stammered. My mouth felt dry. "I'm Alex. Alex Hunter."

Paul offered us a friendly smile. "How are you holding up, Alex?"

"Physically I'm fine." My voice had that tremolo again.

"You sound shell-shocked."

"That's eminently survivable," I told him. He smiled sadly.

Rafe quietly pointed Paul at the damaged leg.

"Okay, this looks bad. Can you turn Walker for me? I've got to take it apart."

Rafe hesitated.

"Come on, I'll make this easy for you. Alex, can you promise not to do anything stupid if Rafe here lets you out?"

"Like what?" I moaned. "Run off into the desert? Beat up a RIDE with my bare hands?"

"You're missing the point, both of you," complained Rafe. "Fiiine."

His fur flickered off, exposing the metal underneath. I felt him unzip along the back, then he slid off me, reforming into the quadrupedal stance I'd first seen him in.

I very nearly collapsed into a heap.

Paul's face filled with worry. "You okay there, pal?"

"I just need some space," I muttered, and ambled away on shaky legs.

There was a rock the size of a small cabin, within view of the improvised garage, and I busied myself climbing to the top. A choppy sea of sand and stone stretched all the way to the horizon, dozens of klicks away, and the rising sun turned it into a symphony of red, brown and gold. My favorite colors. I sat cross-legged and watched the wind wittle away at the hard edges of the world. Locals called this expanse the Dry Ocean. I could see why now.

"Feeling better?" Rafe whispered in my ear. He must have used his lifters to float up silently.

"Yes... I am, actually. Thank you."

He wagged his tail slowly, and I did the same on pure instinct.

Wait. I had a tail?

No kidding. It was poking out through a brand new hole in my jeans, looking just like Rafe's. It felt perfectly natural, too, which made sense: medical nanites could fix up the brain to match bodily alterations. Still, I must have been particularly self-absorbed not to notice. My ears went flat at the thought. Yup, I had wolf ears too, placed a little higher on the skull than my old ones had been. So that's why every human on camp seemed to have them. But if it wasn't just a weird fashion, then what? A way for RIDEs to tag their humans?

I shot Rafe a questioning look. He looked so... life-like with his fur back on.

"There's a reason why we call it Fusing with a capital F," he explained. "It's not like putting on a coat. The fuser nanites create a much deeper connection than that."

"I won't end up walking on all fours, will I?"

Rafe grinned wolfishly. "I'll let you out often enough that it won't happen. Come now."

He stood up, and I did the same, dusting my pants. But then he crouched down to pounce me. I cringed.

"What now?"

"Please don't," I whimpered. "Can't stand it anymore." He regarded me calmly. "It's worse than being in chains, Rafe!"

"Yes," he said. "I know."

He jumped down and padded away towards the camp. I scrambled to follow.

"Sorry," I said, falling in line alongside him. "Of course you'd know. That's how you feel when I'm driving, isn't it?"

He didn't answer. It was too obvious.

"Why is it so important that you Fuse with me anyway?"

He stopped and held his broad forepaw under my nose. "Do you see any thumbs?"

"N-no..."

"That's why. The moment I de-Fuse, I revert to animal form."

"There's no recourse?"

He shook his head. "None whatsoever."

We took a few more steps.

"So, whenever I see a RIDE walking upright..."

"In Fuser mode."

"Right. That means they have a human inside?"

"It's a foregone conclusion."

"Flora, too...?"

"Naturally, why? Oh! Don't worry, they get along well."

"For a master and her slave," I pointed out. He said nothing. "Rafe... how did you end up with the likes of AlphaWolf? You're not a bad guy."

"I can show you my memories. But only if we Fuse."

He kept his promise.

I saw a military RIDE being built in a civilian factory simply because it was cheaper to go with an existing design. I saw him being bought by a small business owner simply because he could be used with less training than a forklift. The three workers who shared him, shift after shift, saw him like a cute puppy or toy robot that you forget about when you're done playing. When continual wearout started to show, he was sold to a scrapyard. Luckily, the new owner knew enough about fixing DE shells that he could get his new acquisition back in working condition, but to him a RIDE was nothing more than a lifter crane with paws. One day, a scrap heap fell on top of the "crane", and it turned out that he wasn't built anywhere near the original specifications.

He ended up on top of the same scrap heap, then sold to a garage for parts. But luck was with him again. An apprentice decided to practice on him instead. When the apprentice got to the software side of things, ignorance and laziness caused him to jailbreak the wolf with a little piece of shareware called FreeRIDE.

Rafe escaped, and never looked back.

I didn't know what to say.

"That's what makes it hard for me, kid. I've seen plenty of humans brought here lately. Always haughty and righteous. Always quick with the threats. I was looking forward to getting myself one of those and showing them what it's like to be property for a change. Instead, I got you."

"What? Breaking me is no fun?"

"Ack! Don't even joke about that. Besides, I want you tugging at the leash. One day you'll save me from a big mistake."

Tugging at the leash. I felt sick to the stomach.

We were sitting on a bench not far from the well, watching the crowd sullenly. Or at least I was sullen, and Rafe was giving me space, as much as possible when someone is nested inside you like a Matryoshka doll. It turned out there was an administrator's office on camp, barely large enough for a Fuser-sized desk and three matching chairs, but the wolf preferred to sit out front, in plain view.

"Out of sight, out of mind, kid," he told me. "That's doubly true for an admin, especially when things are going smoothly."

In all honesty, whenever the camp's residents had a problem, their first impulse was complaining to AlphaWolf. Luckily, the latter knew how to delegate. I saw him prowling around often enough, always in Walker mode — he hadn't been Fused in public ever since the return from Uplift. Even so, he was bigger than Rafe, the size of a small horse actually, and he scared me.

"I'll tell you a secret," giggled Rafe. "AlphaWolf is hardly the big bad bandit leader you seem to think. More like a father figure."

I was finding that hard to accept.

Over the next few days, however, I began to notice the diversity of relationships between residents of the camp. Fenris, for example, acted more like a friendly boss to Paul. And then there was this teenage girl, with the air of a street urchin, whose van-sized lionness owner behaved exactly like a mother to her. Sadly, the other extreme was just as well represented. There was this brightly colored griffin who often paraded down the main street with his pitiful wretch of a human in tow, usually not even Fused, and abusing him in the open. It didn't help that exotic RIDEs like that caused massive bodily changes in their RIDErs. The man would have a hard time being reintegrated in society if he ever made it back to civilization, and that din't seem very likely.

More than once, I was tempted to give this griffin a piece of my mind, but Rafe wouldn't let me.

"Don't do anything stupid," he growled. "Want to be afraid of someone in Alpha Camp? That someone is Tocsin the griffin. Be very afraid."

On average, though, the overall mood seemed to be improving, unless it was just me getting used to the situation. You might say I shouldn't have. I should have been all mopey and yearning for freedom, but one can only do that for so long without going crazy, and I kind of liked my mind in one piece. Other humans weren't so flexible.

I don't remember how come we weren't Fused that day. Rafe usually kept me in around the village, and not just because he liked having thumbs. Tocsin wasn't the only human hater, not by far. Anyway, there was this female badger everyone knew about, and for once she'd also let her human take air: a woman with white stripes in her raven-black hair and deep lines on her face.

"You bitch!" she was yelling, randomly hitting the badger, who endured stoically. It was about as effective as punching an armored skimmer. "You took me away from home! My work! My family! You came down on me like a ton of bricks and now you want to make up?!"

"What's going on, Melinda?" asked Rafe, doing his best to sound neutral, but I could tell he was secretly enjoying the show.

"She told me to give her a break," the badger answered morosely, "so I did."

At the sound of voices, the woman stopped hitting her and looked our way with eyes full of tears. She quickly averted her gaze from Rafe, though, and instead examined me from head to toe, as I stood there hugging around the wolf's neck.

"How can you be so calm?" she asked me.

"Calm?" All of a sudden I felt a huge weight on my shoulders. "Lady, I'm terrified. Never been away from a big city before. And I miss my friends. I wonder if I'll ever see them again." I took a deep breath. Speaking had warmed me up. "But I choose to take the good with the bad, and do something constructive while I'm at it."

In response, she lunged at me with her fingernails. "Traitor!" she yelled. Then Rafe was between us, eyeing her angrily.

"Enough!" he snapped, and she froze in place, fists shaking. I shook my head and left her alone.

Things went a little better with Flora's human.

She was a plump woman named Henriette, with brown skin and more than a few gray hairs. We sat among tomato plants and talked, while Rafe and Flora played outside in their Walker forms. Wolf and pony — an unlikely pair.

Henriette was from Neptune's End, a small island nation in the Thetys Ocean, too poor to afford a full embassy even in one of the Gondwanan polities. Even if she could be returned to a human-run city, there was nobody who would pay for her flight home.

"It was a wonderful group vacation though," she reminisced, "until it was so rudely interrupted."

She'd been allowed to write home now and then, at least. Even so, her children were starting to forget her, and she'd never seen her grandchildren.

"I wouldn't call myself resigned," she mused. "It's more like my previous life has ended. I have a new one now. Still caring for children in a way."

"Did I ever thank you for the good food?" I asked. It had helped my morale a lot. Camp food was every bit as bad as Rafe had warned me.

She laughed softly. "Actually, that was Flora's idea from the start. They can taste the food if they eat while Fused, you know."

"I know." It was even true. But I would have never expected a RIDE to take pity of me. Or was it enlightened self-interest? Was there a difference?

"Rafe," I asked once we were on our way, "if you need humans here so badly, why don't you make them an offer?"

"Would you have come if I asked nicely?"

"No!... But it was a special case."

"It's always a special case. Very few people ever come willingly."

"Maybe you need better conditions to attract them."

"Conditions we can't create without more manpower. It's a vicious circle."

"So you kidnap them instead."

He didn't answer.

"Rafe... can I e-mail my friends? Let them know I'm all right?"

"Sure thing, kid. As soon as the satellites are right. We need as many anonymous relays between us and them as possible. And of course I'll need to review your message."

"Of course."

I didn't keep that e-mail, but it went something like this:

Hi guys,

Sorry for disappearing on you like that. I've been bodyjacked (is that the right word?) and taken to Alpha Camp. You've heard of the place. They're letting me send this to you so that you know I'm in good health, but I don't know when I'll be able to join you. Don't read too much into that; even RIDEs who would rather be elsewhere can seldom be provided with transportation.

I still don't know what to tell my parents. I don't want them to worry. If they ask, make something up.

Take care, Alex

P.S. How have you settled in?

It sounded fake even to me. I gave up waiting for an answer after a few more days.

"Humans are paradoxical," Rafe commented at one point. "They hold freedom sacred, yet are afraid of choice, and would rather die than take responsibility for their own actions. You'd think they'd be happy to let someone else make decisions for them, but no, they still clamor for a freedom they can't handle."

"My philosophy teacher used to say freedom is an illusion anyway," I told him.

"Now, now, that's bunk, kid. There's a big difference between I'm forced to recharge twice a day or else I shut down versus I'm forced to follow arbitrary orders or else they'll dismantle me."

I was thinking of something wise to say, when the camp's radio spectrum filled with excited chatter. But my entry-level comm implant — courtesy of my first Fuse — could do little more than detect it.

"What's going on, Rafe?"

"I'm not sure. Something about our comrades who got caught during the Uplift raid. They may have been released."

We watched the suborbital take off on short notice. Nobody was in any mood to get back to work until it returned, an hour or so later.

Pretty much every RIDE in the camp gathered at the airstrip.

I lacked the context to understand much of AlphaWolf's speech. He was using the suborbital's ramp for a podium, standing upright, presumably thanks to one of the camp's unattached humans. As it turned out, the raid on Uplift had been a mistake; a formerly trusted informant had tricked Alpha into attacking a potential ally. Oddly enough, they'd been forgiven, and now Uplift was passing legislation to give RIDEs almost full sapient rights, and one day maybe even citizenship.

Now, you must remember that Uplift was already one of the more progressive polities when it came to RIDE rights, so the main impact of all this was going to be political in nature. But in the short term it did mean that AlphaWolf had to atone for his error, and one of the steps was to fly back every human who had been forcefully taken away during the raid.

"So this is it," said Rafe wistfully. "back to your scheduled entertainment, I guess."

"But I don't know anyone in Uplift," I reminded him, "and I doubt that my suborbital ticket is still good. I'd be stranded in a foreign city, jobless and penniless."

"Alpha Camp isn't a resort either, kid. It may be your last chance to get out of here for a very long time."

"I know." Fear was choking me. "I know..."

AlphaWolf wasn't entirely happy to hear it.

"I'm sorry, boss," fidgeted Rafe as we stood side by side. "but I was nearly run over last time. And I'm falling behind on my work here as it is."

"It can't be helped," said AlphaWolf drily. "What about you, young man? I can find another volunteer to go with you."

"Uh... thank you... AlphaWolf... sir... but we talked" — I met eyes with Rafe — "and decided it was best to wait for another opportunity."

Alpha didn't ask why. He just looked deep into my eyes. Who knows what he saw.

"If you say so." He turned and padded away.

I sat down in the dust, leaning against Rafe's strong body, and cried my heart out. For some reason, he didn't ask to Fuse until much later.

For a desert the size of Laurasia, the Dry Ocean is surprisingly populated. And for all of Alpha Camp's fearsome reputation, it's not nearly the worst faction out here.

Every year, a vanishingly small percentage of RIDEs slip their fetters and escape to the Dry in search of freedom. A few more are left for dead by prospectors. Still, that makes enough chassis in absolute numbers that it's profitable to go out there, recapture and sell them again. And people ruthless enough to do that won't shy from using restraining methods even worse than software fetters, or for that matter also enslave some of their fellow humans to do the hard work.

It just happened that a gang of these human scum had set up shop not so far from Alpha Camp. It was enough to make all of us paranoid.

With the people from Uplift returned to their homes and Paul bringing RIDEs back from the graveyard, humans were again in short supply. We'd have managed, but for a radical faction that kept agitating the spirits against AlphaWolf, using his new policies against him. All in all, to say tempers were frayed would have been an understatement.

The tipping point was the arrival of a new RIDE, a huge dragon called Peaches. Not that anyone would have dared laugh at him — he had as much heavy weaponry by himself as I'd previously seen around the camp. The malcontents immediately started grumbling about his energy consumption, and how he was supposed to earn his keep. I couldn't see what they were trying to accomplish by pushing for a raid anyone could get behind; even I could see the appeal in giving those slavers a taste of their own medicine. Say what you want, Alpha had standards.

At least nobody expected Rafe to volunteer this time. His lack of milspec hardware could rapidly make him a liability on the battlefield, and he already had a human: me. For the third time in a week or so, we watched the suborbital take off without us. I felt a pang of worry. This time they were going into battle. How many RIDEs weren't coming back? Some of them were good people...

What kind of a thought was that? I was still their slave!

About fifty RIDEs went out, the maximum capacity of the camp's one rickety aircraft, and about as many stayed behind. Rafe was grateful to get some help with the power grid, but I was nervous; most of those who'd stayed behind were hardline human haters. Thankfully, one of the camp's few laws could be summed up as "finder's, keeper's": no RIDE would have forced another to give up their human.

Miraculously, everybody returned safely. But that's when things took an ugly turn.

You see, the first RIDEs ever built were based on land mammals. Those are generally close enough to humans that the only extras you get are big ears and a tail. When they started basing them off birds and dolphins, it turned out those would twist the bodies of their RIDErs to a much higher degree, enough that swapping Fuse partners too soon afterwards could be lethal. And now they were designing RIDEs based on dinosaurs, or even mythical creatures.

All those were now forming a separate group as we went to meet the returning expedition. And they challenged AlphaWolf openly. Every time he'd throw them a bone, they'd find something else to whine about. It all ended up with a dozen former slavers being traded around like collectibles. Not a pretty show. But much as I didn't want anyone to go through that, I'd heard an old lynx recounting how she'd rescued a girl they were keeping locked up in conditions that made Alpha Camp look like paradise.

Even the worst RIDEs would never have done that to one of their own.

People have never ceased believing in the mysterious and the supernatural. Space scouts always have some tall tale about alien artifacts and ruins, for instance. And ghost stories make as much sense on Zharus as they do anywhere else.

Gondwanans have the Integrates: a supposed merging of human and RIDE that transcends mere cybernetic implanting; a seamless blend of living tissue and machine, with incredible powers. As rumors have it, they live deep in the Dry, hidden as only they can, and anyone who dares disturb their isolation will be forcibly turned into one of them — or worse.

Funny that RIDEs would be more afraid of these mythical Integrates than, say, the Gondwanan Federated Marshals locating and assaulting Alpha Camp. But that's the price of true artificial intelligence: sometimes RIDEs can be as irrational as any human, even to the point of having their own religions of sorts.

No wonder that when a RIDE ran across the camp, screaming at the top of his metaphorical lungs that Integrates were coming for all of us and broadcasting admittedly suspicious video from the graveyard, many of the residents went into panic mode and abandoned the dome. Others, surprisingly enough, were attacking the intruders, even as Fenris sent reassuring messages.

Then the explosions came, several of the stone spires close to the graveyard crashing down noisily. As if that hand't been enough, the hardlight dome keeping the camp livable for humans and crops failed. And at least a dozen of the runaways had left their humans out in the open, fear of Integration overwhelming their need for thumbs.

AlphaWolf was the first to react, getting a few of the remaining RIDEs to Fuse with the stunned slaves. "Help me get the rest of them into one of the cabins," he called.

"Put them in Dorm 2!" shouted Rafe.

"Why there?"

"We fixed the emergency cooling system two days ago!"

They did so. "Everyone accounted for?" asked Rafe.

"Two missing."

"I'm on it." We left AlphaWolf deal with more urgent matters and went to take a look at those crashed spires.

Yep, that was it. One of them had landed on top of a small log cabin, crushing it, and as Rafe's sensors indicated, that's where the pair had been hiding for an intimate moment together. They'd somehow taken refuge under a heavy table, but they were pinned. And the piece of rock on top of them was too heavy for a light RIDE to move.

I leaned down to get the lighter debris out of the way first, and Rafe lent his strength. Or maybe he started the motion, and I went along; we couldn't tell anymore as of late.

But then he raised our hand, and daggers of light shot from our outstretched palm, spraying us harmlessly with rock fragments from the shattering boulder. It broke in half along a sinuous surface. We still couldn't move it.

"Let us help you," said someone from behind. It was Melinda the badger, padding our way in her Fuser form, but the voice was that of her human.

"Thank you," I said simply.

It was an easy task between the four of us.

"I didn't know you could do that, Rafe."

"What? Oh, you mean my built-in pulse weapon?" He shrugged. "All RIDEs have one, we just don't need it much."

"Except in combat?"

"Ha! You want a real gun in combat, kid, not this pea shooter."

I nodded. "Do you regret not being a real military RIDE?"

He thought for a moment. "No, not really. I mean, I'd fight to the death to protect what I love, but war as a general rule is just pointless death and destruction."

With the dome back up, if not at full strength, and many runaways returning once the initial panic had worn off, life once again had a semblance of normalcy. There would be plenty of cleanup work to do, but it could wait. For now, all the camp's population gathered in the village square.

As it turned out, not only were Integrates real, but they were here now. In fact, they had known the location of Alpha Camp since it had been founded. So had the Marshals, who had only let it exist because it was the lesser of many evils, by far. Talk about an alien landing in the Dry.

Incidentally, a few of the Fused pairs on camp had been forcibly Integrated, apparently to save them from a kind of software trojan that could make a RIDE entrap and torture a human to death. We saw them, and they were definitely no monsters. Only confused, and sad. They hadn't hated their human halves before being infected. No wonder, though, that for once Rafe felt we were both much safer un-Fused. Well, there was also a suborbital the Marshals had flown in to pick up our guests. It was headed to one of their bases near Aloha, from where I could easily get a lift.

"I'm sorry it had to be this way between us," Rafe confessed while we stood at the foot of the ramp. "You know, you were the first human to ever treat me like a person."

"Well, you acted like a person towards me from the very first moment."

"Even as I made you into a slave?"

"Well, as an old science fiction story postulated, only a sapient life form would think to put another creature in a cage."

He chuckled. "Good bye... Alex."

I ran up the ramp in the nick of time. By nightfall I was in Aloha. Airy, exotic Aloha. Jewel of the Zharusian Tropics. Along the seashore, palm trees swayed in the salty breeze, and the sound of parties echoed in the distance.

To me it all just felt cold and uncaring.

I'd missed the opportunity to register as a company co-founder, but it didn't bother me. My friends paid for my electrician certification either way. There should have been some classes as well, but I easily fast-tracked through them. Practical experience is the patron goddess of teaching, after all.

My friends also offered to pay for surgery to remove my wolf ears and tail.

"That's out of the question," I answered. "Never bring it up again."

They chalked it up to PTSD.

Time passed. Between bouts of work, I was keeping a keen eye on the news. The world had gone crazy during my little forced vacation. An Integrate had breached the masquerade, and it turned out there were several factions: those who wanted to be able to live a normal life in society, those who just wanted to be left alone in their isolation... and those who hated the rest of us ("meat and mech", as they liked to say) with a passion, considering themselves superior.

And the latter had gone on the offensive.

The first major engagement of this war had already consumed itself. Hostile Integrates had taken over the single largest mining platform in the Dry, only to be driven off again by a private strike team. Then things became really weird. While I was still settling in, news services reported of a double attack on Nextus, during which both Integrates and AlphaWolf had tried to kidnap a certain rich family, presumably for ransom, and had gotten in each other's way. I didn't believe it for a moment. Indeed, it didn't take NextusLeaks long to reveal that the Alpha team had been the good guys in this story.

It hadn't been so easy in Uplift.

There had been two incidents there, in fact. One, a surgical strike at a press conference, had been a clear victory for the other side. Who then proceeded to become cocky and launch a full-scale assault against the city. I cringed at the video of failing hardlight domes, an entire metropolis left vulnerable to the forces of nature, and scattered shootouts in the sandblasted streets. How many people there hadn't been lucky enough to have a Rafe of their own?

But that was much later. Enough that I was growing used to living on my own. Enough that I was beginning to forget.

Then news came that the single largest battle of the war had just taken place at Alpha Camp.

I was in a daze for hours.

Mind you, Alpha had won, and in a spectacular way at that. But not without heavy casualties. Pointless death and destruction, indeed... Perhaps the only real gain had been the amnesty granted AlphaWolf and his followers as recognition of their role in ending the Integrate wars. Alpha Camp was going legit. Going on the map for that matter... and rebuilding.

Construction was going to be a booming business there for years, I told my friends. This was the perfect time to set up offices in a new market, and only one of us knew more than rumors about the place. They didn't find anything suspicious with my suggestion. Even their worry over my going back seemed genuine.

I don't know how I walked to the coffee break room. My knees gave way and I sat on a couch, hugging my arms. Would Rafe even accept me as a willing pair? Would I even find him alive?

Only one way to find out.

There were three domes in Alpha Camp now, one of them large enough to cover the new aerodrome. Large Integrates busied themselves unloading shipping containers out of suborbitals and carting them off to town. I strolled that way myself, among construction sites, elbowing my way through a busy crowd. Too many new faces. Too much noise.

A proper office building stood where the old admin shed had been, but nobody was in. A note on the door said to comm AlphaWolf if it was urgent. It was easy to decide that it wasn't. So Rafe wasn't acting administrator anymore. Hm.

The streets were dug up, work proceeding apace to bury water pipes and the like. And yes, there was more than one street now. It took me a while to find Flora's little greenhouse, which looked so quaint now among all the new developments. But she wasn't at home.

One place left to check.

The graveyard was gone too, a pair of little buildings standing in the quiet enclosure, which by some miracle was otherwise undeveloped. It was easy to guess at my destination thanks to the hardlight projector that spelled "Freeriders Garage" in proud letters.

"Hello, Paul, Fenris." I acknowledged the huge wolf, who was poking his head inside through a bay window made to size. "I'm Alex Hunter. You probably don't remember me."

"Rafe's human, right?" asked Paul. "Funny coincidence, he was just talking about you earlier."

"He's here?"

"Yep. Bay 6, in the back." He pointed a thumb over his shoulder. "Knock yourself out."

At first I didn't recognize the metallic RIDE secured into a maintenance cradle, with half of its access panels missing, cables and tubes going into various ports. Then he lifted his head, and his eyes — now reduced to inexpressive reddish lenses — lit up from inside.

"Aw, why didn't you comm ahead, kid? I didn't want you to see me like this." His voice, too, had a metallic tinge.

I hugged his big ole' head. "Who cares what you look like? You're alive!"

He chuckled. "You don't look too shabby yourself. Still carrying my tags, I see."

"I wouldn't give them up for the world."

"...Thank you."

We sat together in silence for a while.

"So, how long until they let you out of the hospital?" I joked.

"A few days at most. You're here to stay?" He sounded as if he didn't dare hope.

"How else?"

He nodded weakly. "Thank you. Better get yourself a place to sleep then, eh? 'Fraid I still don't have one. Didn't expect to need it."

"No problem. Say, any idea where Flora and Henriette hang out these days? They weren't at their place."

I couldn't possibly miss his hesitation.

"They're gone," he said hoarsely. "And don't you start crying on me! Either of them was more of a fighter that day than I'll ever be."

It was small consolation, and I told him as much, in a few more words perhaps, and not too coherent.

At least me and Rafe had all the time in the world.

THE END

Bucharest, 2013-11-14

Return to Alpha Camp

The deadly desert sunlight filtered through a weather dome, then a set of Venetian blinds, before illuminating a quiet office divided in two by a massive, yet plain and functional, desk. The visitor, a small man in a bland business suit, sat nervously across from a humanoid wolf, maybe three meters tall and correspondingly massive, wearing a metal kilt by way of modesty.

"Welcome to Alpha Camp, Mr. Grey. How was the flight from Nextus?" asked the wolf, with the air of someone still learning to be social.

"Fine, thank you," said the man in a voice as small as himself. "Er... forgive me, but who am I talking to?"

"My name is Rafe. I'm a RIDE, as you can see."

"Indeed. But there's a human inside you, is there not?"

The wolf's voice changed abruptly to a youthful one that didn't match his body. "I'm right here, Mr. Grey. Alex Hunter, by the way. But it's really Rafe you want to talk to."

"I'm not sure I understand, Mr. Hunter. You mean your RIDE is in charge here?"

The wolf sighed on two voices at once. Then he got up from the desk and walked to the middle of the room. As Grey watched, his furred host melted, his real metal body showing for a moment before he reformed into a stunningly realistic arctic wolf. Next to him stood a young man of average height, in jeans and a T-shirt, sporting ears and a tail identical to those of his companion.

"Yes, Mr. Grey, Rafe here is in charge. And I'm his human, not the other way around," the young man explained, rather coolly.

Of course, humans hadn't been slaves at Alpha Camp ever since the small polity's pivotal role in the Integrate War had earned it a federal amnesty (even though RIDEs were still slaves mostly anywhere else on Zharus). But old hands still described themselves as "belonging" to their RIDEs. Outsiders were quick to invoke Stockholm Syndrome. Alex chose to call it loyalty.

"This is unnerving," wheezed Grey, wiping his forehead with a paper towel.

"We get that a lot. You'll get used to it. Now if you'll excuse me..."

"Wait, why are you leaving?"

"Because as long as I stay, you'll be tempted to address me rather than Rafe, and we'll get nowhere fast."

"But..."

"Don't worry, he won't eat you. Probably." With that, Alex closed the door behind himself.

"Now that the introductions are out of the way," the wolf spoke again, "let's get down to business."

There was a receptionist's desk in the hallway outside the office, and Alex sat himself down behind it unhappily. It couldn't compete with the accelerated time in a RIDE's virtual reality, but a human with a computer workstation could still do some useful work. And there was plenty of it to do, between his job as the local agent of a construction company in Aloha and the secretarial work he insisted on doing for the wolf. The young man ached to grab a screwdriver and do some physical work for a change, but administrative issues seemed to have no end.

It was an hour before Rafe saw his visitor to the door. Grey looked very much relieved, either from the result of the talks or because he could finally put some distance between himself and the sapient machine whose presence troubled him so.

"So, how'd it go?" asked Alex once the man was on his way.

"You won't believe what they want from us."

"Try me!"

"Join me for a spell first?"

In the street, the wolf took the third shape any light RIDE had: that of a sleek, but solid skimmer bike with soft, organic lines betraying its true nature. They hadn't needed to travel like that in the old days, but in the mean time Alpha Camp had grown from less than two hundred RIDEs and humans to over two thousand, and it didn't show any signs of slowing down yet. The main street had lengthened considerably, and was now the backbone of a larger grid. Right in the center, a park had grown around the venerable communal well, also engulfing the old commissary, now only used for the occasional potluck or other event. Overhead, a faint shimmer tempered the hazy blue of the sky; in the distance, one could see the lethal desert wind blowing sand against the hardlight domes that kept the town alive in the harshest climate on the planet, thousands of klicks from any other sign of civilization.

The clinic was representative of the current boom, a squarish yet elegant two-story building with a small yard next to it, similar to yet different from any other in town. Rafe hovered to a stop in front of the main entrance and waited for Alex to dismount before morphing back into his animal self.

"Let's see if the doctor is in," he said, and they entered together.

At 25, Alice Chapel was only a few years older than Alex. She had red hair, a face full of freckles and more kilograms than was healthy. But most importantly, she had a deeply seated fear of RIDEs, which was probably why she had chosen to do her internship in such a place: it was like learning how to swim by jumping in at the deep end of the pool.

"Hello, Alice," Alex greeted cheerfully, making sure to stand in front of Rafe. "How are things?"

"Hairy," she deadpanned. "I have more Integrate than human patients, and what I learned in medical school doesn't help so much."

"Gotta think on your feet, girl," said the brown she-bear who was just entering the door behind Alice. She had a funny hat and a collar tag that identified her as Nurse Helga.

Alice froze in place, conspicuously avoiding to look down.

"I keep telling her we should just Fuse once," said Helga with a hint of reproach, "then she'd see there's nothing to fear. Anyway, what brings you two here?"

Alex looked at Rafe. The wolf looked back at the humans. "You'd better get a drink," he said, "this is going to take a while."

They were sitting face to face in the waiting room, the smell of hot coffee from the cups in their hands mixing with the overall whiff of disinfectant. To either side of them were the RIDEs; Alice still wouldn't look directly at them.

"They want us to do what?!" she asked.

"You have to understand where they're coming from," said Rafe patiently. "Between the Integrates going public and RIDEs bodyjacking humans in the open, people in many polities are afraid to work with our kind anymore. And all too often, they have no other way to do their jobs."

"But we don't snatch humans at random anymore," pointed out Helga.

"Tell that to someone who's only ever heard of Alpha Camp in the news."

Alex nodded slowly. "Why don't they give their employees a trip to Uplift instead? They have a meet-and-greet RIDE museum there. Even a RIDE creche — whatever that's supposed to mean."

"I'm not about to look the gift skimmer in the engine compartment," said Rafe. "This could mean some real income for the town. Question is, can we do it?"

"Well, I'm no therapist," mused Alice. "I can't even fix myself," she laughed nervously. "But I can place a few calls."

"That's all I ask. Oh well, back to work." He got up. "Thanks for having us, Alice."

"You're welcome," she said, eyes firmly pointed at the wall behind Alex.

A dozen men and women were gathered in a windowless room, sitting in a semicircle. Most of them were pushing middle age and dressed with various degrees of formality. Curiously, not a single one sported the animal ears and tails that came from partnering with a RIDE — a statistical anomaly even in Nextus. Then again, such tags could be removed as easily as a tattoo.

"This concludes today's session," said the man in the center of the group as he stood up. "See you next week."

They scattered every which way once outside. One woman, with white stripes in her raven-black hair and deep lines on her face, stopped to take in the boulevard, with its reassuringly uniform buildings and neatly ordered traffic. That's what she liked about Nextus: even trees in parks were perfectly aligned into decorative patterns. Unimpeded by a dome, the architecture often reached dizzying heights.

"Carla!" she heard, and turned to see a man waving as he came towards her. His short blond hair and round face made him appear a lot younger than he was likely to be.

She hugged him. "Daryl! You came!"

"How else?" he said. His smile faded. "What's wrong?"

"Therapy isn't helping."

"Give it more time, dear."

"I gave it enough, Daryl!" she screamed. "I can't get it out of my head! Any of it! Being a prisoner in my own body! Not knowing what was going to happen to me! All the other humans there — tortured, broken. Or worse — accepting!"

He'd heard it all a hundred times before. "But what else can we do?"

She took a deep breath. "I must go back to Alpha Camp. Just once. There's this new program at the institute..."

His face contorted upon hearing the name. "We should bomb that place into oblivion."

"Seriously, Daryl? They crushed an Integrate army. What makes you think the Nextus military would fare any better?"

"We invented RIDEs," he said darkly. "We should damned well be able to smash them to pieces."

"Ah, Daryl, you're such a child sometimes. Help me do this, please. For my sake?"

"I don't really have a choice, do I?" He wrapped an arm around her shoulders and they walked away.

The charter suborbital taxied to a stop right in front of a small airport terminal, dropping off less than two dozen passengers. Half of them Carla knew from a distance; the other half were businesspeople, even more boring than her and Daryl's companions. Further afield, towering humanoid shapes were unloading containers from cargo aircraft.

"Are those people in RIDEs?" asked a nerdy looking guy, in clothes that Carla found overly casual even for the present circumstances.

"Actually, RIDEs are people," somebody answered from behind the group. "At any rate, those are Integrates. Humans permanently Fused with their RIDEs. Don't worry, that's a very rare occurrence, and doesn't happen by accident."

It was a humanoid Komodo dragon, sitting behind the wheel of an open platform skimmer with passenger seats in the back, which already contained their bags.

"My name is Padar," he continued, and I'll be your guide for the stay. Climb aboard, if you will."

"Oh, I know!" chirped an anorexic girl as they gave course to the invitation. "Some Integrates are good guys, right?"

"Indeed," confirmed the guide. "Those you see there are from the army that attacked Alpha Camp a while ago."

"I don't get it," Daryl piped in. "Are they sentenced to community service or something? In Nextus we'd have just executed them."

And that's why you have no friends, the lizard's expression seemed to say. The actual answer was more polite: "That wouldn't have brought back our own dead. Or caused the tyrant who forced them into battle any regrets."

He revved the lifters and drove them towards the town at a leisurely pace. "But let's enjoy the visit. Alpha Camp was founded two decades ago. At the time, RIDEs had only existed for fifteen years, and the vast majority were military models. Hence our tradition of..."

"That'd odd," a stolid-looking woman interrupted him, eyeing the construction bots busily printing out a new building by the roadside. "I thought it would all look like a concentration camp."

The guide emitted a strangled sound.

"It was never a concentration camp," Carla found herself saying. "More like a village, really."

The older woman stared at her. As a matter of fact, everyone else did, too.

"Indeed," resumed the guide, sounding very grateful. "For the longest time, opportunities for expansion were limited due to our unofficial status..."

He droned on in the same vein as the vehicle made a detour, then entered the town proper through one end of the main street — the one opposite from their hotel. Even Carla was shocked at how normal it all seemed now, a happy little town with colorful storefronts advertising various businesses. It could have been orbiting any of the large city-states on the continent, but for the fact that RIDEs dominated the pedestrian traffic, either Fused with humans or by themselves. And since their primary role was that of power armor, even those based on smaller animals had to have enough internal space for a human body. Which could lead to the surreal sight of a pony-sized badger padding down the street, carrying a pair of shopping bags balanced on its back.

Which was exactly what happened as they were disembarking in front of the hotel and grabbing their luggage.

"Melinda?!" exclaimed Carla.

Several things happened at the same time.

The badger stopped, ears drooping, and hesitantly looked towards the group. Daryl reached for the gun holster under his jacket. "That's her?" he shouted. "I'll kill that monster!" Then Carla grabbed his arm, yelling "No!" just as across the road a Fused wolf in a metallic kilt got up from his seat at a hole-in-the-wall fast food and covered the intervening twelve meters in a single, standing leap, landing in front of the pair. The badger bolted.

"Melinda, wait!" and with that, Carla ran after her. Daryl moved to follow.

"I'm not leaving you alone with that... that..." He was stopped by a huge arm covered in fur.

"Hand me your gun first."

Daryl had to tilt his head backwards to look at the wolf. "Who're you?" he asked, suddenly mellow.

"A concerned citizen. I can't let you play judge, jury and executioner. Especially in my town."

Hesitantly, the man did as requested. "I'm sorry," he said.

"No harm, no foul," shrugged the wolf. "I'll give it to Carla when she comes back."

"Wait, you know my wife?"

The wolf nodded. "I'm from the old guard. Name's Rafe. I don't suppose she ever mentioned me."

"She might have. She mentioned many things. But really, I should..."

"Walk with me," Rafe interrupted him.

They took a few steps, while the guide recovered from the shock enough to herd the rest of the group into the hotel.

"I don't understand," complained Daryl. "What could they possibly have to talk about?"

"Closure. Believe it or not, Melinda isn't proud of what she did. We need humans, just as they need us, and it was the only way back then."

"Is that supposed to make things better?"

Rafe shook his head. "No."

"Have you ever... you know..."

"Bodyjacked a human? Yes, once. His name is Alex."

Daryl inched away from him. Rafe hung his head in shame.

"It's not the way you think. We're still together."

The man looked more carefully at the humanoid wolf. "Oh!"

"You figured it out," said Rafe, and his hardlight fur flickered off before he unfolded with a fluid motion, then reformed into his quadrupedal stance, leaving Alex to stand in his place.

The two men shook hands.

"This may seem hard to believe," said Alex, "but it wasn't all bad. Despite the... circumstances. But it was different for everyone."

"I don't get it. How can you talk so calmly about having been a slave?"

"That's funny," answered Alex, hugging around Rafe's neck. "Carla once asked me a similar question."

"I can talk calmly about having been a slave," Rafe pointed out, "and I've been one for years on end, not just months."

"Sure," said Daryl, "But you were..."

"Built to be a slave? Yes. Didn't make it any easier to be one."

They walked in silence for a while. Far ahead of them, the woman and the badger were still chatting.

"You know, Daryl," resumed Alex after a while, "I think you're focusing too much on the 'how' when the real question is 'what'. We're happy now, what matters the past?"

"The scars matter," pointed out Daryl.

"I guess," said Alex. "It wasn't easy. But I found it in me to forgive Rafe for taking me away from my life and friends. In turn, he forgave all humans for treating him like an object. Everybody won."

Daryl nodded thoughtfully. "I see now. Do you... do you think Carla will ever be able to forgive Melinda?"

"One can only hope," mused Rafe.

Elsewhere in town, a she-bear RIDE and a redhead girl Fused for the first time. It wasn't easy for either of them, and they had plenty of catching up to do.

THE END

Bucharest, 2013-11-20

The Wolf and the Father

Fri October 12, 158AL

It's an oft-repeated truism that human beings have no sense of scale. At least native Zharusians are better in this regard than their ancestors on Earth. Even so, the mind boggles at the scale of a desert that could swallow entire continents from mankind's planet of origin. Countless brave souls scouring that vastness for over a century haven't come close to exhausting its secrets; how many perished in the attempt, nobody could tell.

So it happens that even today few people would know where to find the handful of hardlight domes sheltering a town of maybe five thousand from the inferno that is the Dry Ocean. Here, the wind can flay meat right off the bones and boil blood before it spills on the ground, while a few steps away, inside the shimmering barrier, it's like being inside an air conditioned building.

The residents of Alpha Camp are grateful for it. Doubly so as some of them still remember the last time the domes failed.

An evening like any other, one of the latter was patiently making his way through the thickening traffic along Main Street: a young man, lightly built, with brown skin and hair that wouldn't stay combed. He was hovering one meter off the ground on a skimmer bike with organic curves reminiscent of a stylized wolf; his t-shirt and jeans looked especially plain among outfits from all over the twentieth century, brought back to life by the vagaries of fashion after five hundred years.

At length, he made his way to the small park at the very center of the town, pulling over next to a water well straight out of a Spaghetti Western. He reached over to place a big paper bag on a nearby bench, his other hand brushing over the dashboard in an oddly tender gesture. To that the bike reacted, unfolding like a giant metal origami which enveloped the young man completely. A hardlight furcoat flickered into being. Seconds later, it was a three-meter-tall humanoid wolf who stood there, wearing only a metal kilt for modesty. The new creature sat on the bench and opened the bag, revealing a big home-made sandwich and a couple of apples.

"Remember when we first ate together, Alex?"

"How could I forget, Rafe? Flora and Henriette had made us a bag just like this one."

The young man's voice broke. Tears welled up in his eyes. From outside, his living armor seemed firm as a rock, but inside man and machine clung to each other for strength.

"We were... we were sitting right here... at dusk..."

"Shh... let's eat now."

They did so in silence. The sun descended towards the horizon, painting the treetops red, then even the long Zharusian day ended. A foam of stars winked into view across the darkening sky. That, too, stirred up memories.

"What's troubling you, Rafe?"

"Is it so obvious?" The RIDE chuckled — a mechanical grinding noise.

"It's this whole Beta Camp affair, isn't it? I'm shaken too, if it's any consolation."

Rafe gave an inward nod. "What if I hadn't gotten to you first, back in the bad old days?"

Alex shivered. It was a while before he answered. "At least Leona will never bodyjack anyone again. And to think it was our very own Jeanette who caught her."

"Hey, Jeanette is the only human in Alpha Camp who bodyjacked her RIDE instead of the other way around. That has to count for something."

Human and RIDE shared a nervous laugh. Around them, a light breeze picked up: the domes were large enough to have their own microclimate. Other stragglers were walking the alleyways. Humans with RIDEs. Humans in RIDEs. Integrates. One or two even waved to the pair. It didn't help their mood much.

"Let's go home, Rafe, we have work tomorrow."

The metal origami unfolded again, but this time Rafe didn't go back to his vehicle form, instead adopting that of his natural counterpart: an arctic wolf. The night wind ruffled his fur, and he leaned heavily against his friend. They walked away touching each other at every step.

The clickety-clack of high heels echoed along the gloomy corridor, punctuated by slower, heavier steps. The young woman was plump, with freckled face and wavy red hair; her dress would have been the height of fashion in 1938 London. At her side walked a brown bear, wearing a hat in the same style and matching necklace, but nothing else. No-one seemed to notice their presence as they went past door after closed door on either side, silence ringing behind each and every one.

It was a spartan antechamber that awaited at the far end, but nobody there to stop them. They strode right through, into an office bathed in blinding sunlight that the venetian blinds did little to temper.

Someone else was present after all, a three-meter tall humanoid wolf who stood on empty air half a meter above the floor, hands and muzzle hidden by an open panel in the ceiling. His ears swiveled in the direction of his guests, and he floated down to the floor, derezzing the screwdriver he was holding.

"Alice! Helga!" The wolf took a step towards the girl, tail wagging, then checked himself. It was her who stepped forward and hugged him.

"Figured I'd find you two here. Why are you doing the electrician's job?"

"I am an electrician, remember? No point in waiting for the repairman."

The girl pouted. "Guys... Aren't you working two jobs already? I hardly ever see you anymore."

"Oh." The wolf's tail drooped, then perked up again. "But we went out on Sunday! Spent all the day together, didn't we? And the night."

"That was the other Sunday," she replied dryly, hands on her hips. "Wait... Rafe, would you mind letting Alex out for a moment?"

"Huh? Sure." Wolf and man separated in one fluid motion. By day, the latter looked distinctly haggard, with ugly bags under his eyes.

"Alex," asked the girl very quietly, "when was the last time you took a vacation?"

"Don't need one," he protested, right before his knees buckled. She caught him and lowered him gently on a chair. He looked like a child as he sat slumped on furniture sized for fused RIDEs.

"Told you so," quipped the she-bear.

"So you did, Helga." The young woman dropped in another chair, her own bear ears flat against her head. "Rafe, why didn't you tell me he was overworking himself? Why didn't you stop him?"

Now quadrupedal, Rafe looked very guilty. "I tried to tell him..."

"Tell him?! You should have forced him!"

"You know I won't do that!" replied the RIDE, suddenly angry. He calmed down just as quickly and licked Alex's face before curling up at the young man's feet. Helga padded over to nuzzle him.

Across from them, Alice clutched her purse nervously. "Alex, why? What are you trying to prove?"

The young man bit his lips.

"That's it," she said. "I'm comming Alpha Wolf. You have to take a break."

"But..." Alex complained weakly. "He needs us here... Alpha Camp is too big now, and..."

She stared him down.

"All right, all right." He started getting up again. "Let me see if Claude and Kevin can cover for me next week."

"They're not in the office, Alex. Nobody's in the office. It's Saturday."

Alex's wolfish ears and tail drooped, just like Rafe's earlier. After a moment, Alice's expression softened, and she moved to walk him out the door. "Let's get you home, love. You need a nice long sleep and a big warm meal, then we can comm the cat and his human."

::One week? Really?:: Helga sent privately.

::Baby steps, sis...:: Alice replied with a mental sigh.

Behind them, the office remained just as quiet as the rest of the building. Only the sun continued its slow arc in the sky.

The living room wall lit up and acquired depth, like a window opening onto a different place altogether — a virtual one, as it happened: the porch of an old American farmhouse, complete with rocking chair. A young man occupied the latter, looking not unlike Alex except for the pasty white skin, and a body in better shape despite being ten years older. He was dressed for his surroundings, and busied himself petting a fluffy white Persian cat, whose purring made the hidden speakers thrum.

"Rafe, Alex. Haven't seen you in a while, guys. What's up?" The young man's thick East European accent had softened considerably over the past year, and he sounded a lot more self-assured than they remembered him. "Actually, is everything all right? You don't look so hot."

"Yeah. We've just been working a lot."

"Tell me about it, man. You're always first in the office. And last."

"Yeah. About that. Listen, Alice wants me to spend more time with her."

"Woo! Congratulations, man. And celebrations. This is a good thing, right? It's what you want, too?"

"I do! I do... but there's more." Alex breathed deeply. "She wants me to take a vacation and introduce her to my parents."

The man on the other side of the screen perked his feline ears. "So, go for it! When was the last time you went home, anyway?"

Alex's shoulders sagged. "Not since I left..."

"Yikes! Then what are you waiting for, man? A kick in the behind? Go! We can hold the fort for a while. Right, Kevin?" he asked the cat in his lap.

"I thought he'd never ask," the cat deadpanned, looking up at him. "Oh wait, he still hasn't."

The look of embarassment on Alex's face was worthy of a bad anime.

"Is it settled, then?" Alice padded in, balancing a tray that could barely contain the mountain of food piled up on it. She lowered it to the coffee table before lounging on the couch next to Alex, and shoved a big fat falafel in his hands. On the screen, man and cat alike stood straight, licking their lips and chops, respectively. The girl giggled.

"Want some? Come on over, we can have a good bye party. My doggy boy here has such a nice pad and never uses it for anything." She ruffled Alex's hair, not that it made a difference.

"I'm a wolf, not a dog," Rafe pointed out playfully, raising his head from behind the couch.

"Wolves are supposed to be dignified," she countered, and ruffled Rafe's fur as well.

"Bears aren't." Helga arrived from the other room only to roll over on the floor, kicking lazily at the air. Even Alex managed to laugh.

It didn't take long for the guests to arrive. A small town is made even smaller when people can fly. In meatspace, Kevin was as big as Rafe, an impressive avatar of Grumpy Cat. They sat on the other couch, Claude hugging his feline tail while the RIDE turned into a fluffy backrest. Why they were called RIDE couches as opposed to ottomans was a mystery for the ages.

"So, how's your life been, Claude?" asked Alex while opening the beer.

"Touristy! Kevin took me places. Aloha, Cascadia, even Nextus once." He paused to take a sip from the frosted bottle. "You know, it's strange. Back home, I used to spend most of my time in VR. But here, I can't get enough of the real world."

"I wonder why," snerked Kevin.

"Well... it helps that the women in Aloha love a slender catboy." Claude stretched as if to demonstrate, winking at Alex. "The men, too."

"Hey!" Alice stabbed at the air with a chicken skewer. "He's mine! Paws off, tomcat!"

She tore at the meat with her teeth, growling for emphasis. Even Kevin couldn't help smiling.

"Humans..." he muttered.

The party only took off from that moment on. At some point it was night, then dawn, and daylight again. The sun was rising when they finally went to sleep.

If you follow the Neaera eastward, upstream from Zharustead, the first thing you notice are the endless wheat fields hugging the riverbanks as a blue ribbon meanders across Laurasia, pooling into pretty little lakes here and there before moving on. Farther out, forests and marshes cover the land in a patchwork of earthy colors before blurring together in the distance. From place to place, a silo or radio tower gleams in the sun, as if to reassure travelers that they are never too far from civilization.

The savage continent of Gondwana is half a planet away.

As the sun started its long descent towards the Thalassic Ocean, two shooting stars moved in the opposite direction at nearly the speed of sound. Helga's vehicle form hardly suggested it, but she had no trouble keeping up with Rafe's perpetually underpowered lifters. Politeness alone kept her from taking the lead; this was, after all, Alex's home. It was only fair that he showed the way, if only as a symbolic gesture: their destination was visible to the naked eye by now.

"Venars started out as a farming town," the young man spoke into his comm implant, "and it still is, for all their bragging. Ask my parents, there's nothing to life but hard work and austerity."

Fifty meters to the side, Alice nodded at the camera on her dashboard. "That's why you left?"

"It was that or the Continental Guard."

She nodded again. The city's skyline raised before them, a mass of grey towers south of the river, while to the north a single long road branched out like a pine tree before dissolving into suburbia, then farmland.

"What's that?" asked Helga, indicating a third of a ring circling the west side of the city, higher than most buildings.

"The Sky Bridge," explained Alex. "All that's left of the old weather dome. They didn't have hardlight a century ago."

"Ooh! Can we visit?"

"I'm yet to meet a tourist who doesn't."

The skimmer bikes were flying lower now, their shields turning from shimmering bullet shapes to barely visible blobs as the RIDEs shed most of their speed, and they eased onto the invisible spiderweb weaved by traffic beacons. They touched down on a lively street, between a garage with a funky name and a pizzeria that seemed to be on its way out.

"There are more RIDEs than I remember," noted Alex. His helmet derezzed, and he got out of the saddle to let Rafe transform.

Alice did the same. "Is that unusual?"

"This side of the pond, it is. Then again, Venars was always... special."

"So we won't attract stares," Helga said pragmatically.

"As if I care," counted the young woman. She surveyed the Brutalist architecture of the area, hands on her hips. "Pretty impressive, actually. Your parents live downtown?"

"No way," laughed Alex. "The family estate is up north. I just wanted to give you the grand tour first."

"Are you sure you don't want to get a hotel room?"

"Mom would be offended if we didn't stay with her."

The wolf paced around. "Do we ride there?"

"It's a short walk, Rafe. Half an hour, tops."

"That's short?!"

"You've never spent much time on a farm, have you?"

Helga was already strolling down the street. "Coming, girl?"

"As soon as I can get the boys to move."

::Still pondering what to tell your parents?:: sent Rafe as they followed. ::Delaying the inevitable helps little, Alex.::

::I know...::

They dragged their feet after the girls, while a colorful crowd swirled around them, humans and machines mingling together like one big happy family.

Beyond East Square, with its fountains and moving metal sculptures, behind the concrete geometry of the new town hall, monumental stairs climb down to the riverbank, at one end of a long and narrow public park dotted with beer gardens. The city's three bridges are clearly visible from here, spaced no more than one kilometer apart; the one in the middle allows the main road to cross the water. On the other side, rows of ancient apartment buildings soon give way to small businesses with ample parking spaces in front: most residents still use skimmers rather than RIDEs. From every sidestreet beckons the shade of trees leaning out over decorative fences.

Down one of these streets, far enough that verdant hills and blue sky can be seen at the other end, stretches a wrought iron fence backed by a tall hedge, one painted a vivid green, the other in the colors of autumn. From the gate, an alley covered in dead leaves passes through the shadow of cherry trees to a sprawling house in the background, its spotless white walls contrasting with the cracked, uneven flagstones.

"Nobody's home," spoke Alex, after ringing the interphone failed to elicit a reaction. "And they changed the encryption keys, too."

"My batteries are getting low.", Helga reminded him.

"We have RIDE-safe sockets in the garden. A water tap, too. I'm sorry, that's..."

"Those were luxuries for us two years ago," Rafe reminded him.

"And look what I have," added Alice, holding up two handfuls of energy bars.

Alex blinked. "When did you even... Never mind, I don't want to know."

They were having seconds by the time crackling dry leaves signaled new arrivals. The woman resembled an older version of Alex, except dressed in a sari worthy of Phileas Fogg's princess. The man was rounder than Alice and just as fair-skinned, with dark blond hair cleanly cut below the edge of a homburg. His three-piece suit was straight out of the Roaring Twenties, complete with gold chain going into a breast pocket. Neither was going gray yet, despite looking to be in their sixties already: Zharusians were seldom in a hurry to have kids.

"Amma?" whispered Alex, slowly getting up from the table. "Amma!" he shouted, wrapping his arms around the woman so hard she gasped.

"Easy, son," said her companion. "Save some for your old man."

"Oh. Hello, dad." Alex hugged him as well.

The woman was trying in vain not to cry. "Our son has grown up."

"So I see," agreed the man. "And who are your friends, son?"

"Ah... Alice, Helga, these are my parents. And this is Rafe," he added. hugging around the wolf's neck.

"I'm Sahzadi," said the woman with a curtly bow. "Welcome."

"George Hunter," added Alex's father. "Nice to meet you."

They all looked at each other for a moment.

"Aren't you going to ask our son how he's doing?"

"What's the point?" retorted Hunter senior. "I can see he's in one piece."

She shook her head slowly. "Come inside, everyone. You must be tired. Just watch your step, I'm afraid our house was built before RIDEs."

"Speaking of which," added her husband. "You never told us you did have a RIDE, son."

"Actually Rafe has me, dad. But I must have mentioned him in my e-mails?"

The older man frowned at the correction. "It slipped my mind. I'm not twenty anymore."

::Should I feel offended?:: Rafe sent as they entered.

::Yes... but don't bother telling dad, he won't understand.::

In all honesty, the ranch-style house had far more floor space than its occupants needed, like mostly anything built on Zharus. It was cluttered, though, and more than one door was too narrow for Helga. They ended up sitting on the back porch, with the bay doors wide open. Halfway to nowhere, tractors tenaciously combed the dark soil.

"You should have commed ahead," Mrs. Hunter said mildly as she brought coffee and homemade cookies. "We were in town to meet someone."

"It's my fault," explained Alice. "We wanted to surprise you."

"I hear you're a doctor?" Hunter senior asked her.

"Why, yes," she chirped. "At the best clinic in Alpha Camp."

"The only clinic in Alpha Camp," specified Helga. Alice poked her.

"Alpha Camp?" Mrs. Hunter asked worriedly, glancing at Rafe. "Isn't that where all those evil RIDEs were? Why, I remember talking to Mrs. Vernon at the time..."

Alex facepalmed. "Amma, I was there. It wasn't like that."

She looked helplessly at her husband, who merely frowned again. "So... how long are you staying?"

"Well," said Alice, "we were thinking to go for a tour of Laurasia since we're here. Our vacation lasts until the first of December."

"I still can't believe Alpha Wolf gave us a six-week break," added Alex.

His father's frown deepened. "You work for a RIDE?" The icy tone left no doubts as to the man's opinion.

Alice sipped cold coffee and changed the subject.

In the soft afternoon light, a humanoid wolf sat with his back against an oak tree, overlooking an irrigation canal half full of dirty water. Far away, the tractors still worked tirelessly: Virtual Intelligences didn't need breaks. Much closer, a rat darted by, almost invisible in the brown grass. A dragonfly landed in the ditch, only to have a fish jump after it. Higher up the bank, children with interface spectacles sat on a broken fence, waving their hands through the air with little shrieks of delight.

The wolf didn't move even when heavy steps came from behind the tree. Fused, Alice and Helga were the very definition of a Mama Bear, thick fur making them seem even bigger than their already substantial bulk. A faux leather skirt and apron preserved their modesty where that wasn't enough. Woman and machine sat next to the other pair, and the tree groaned.

"All that was going to be mine one day, you know." Alex waved his hand at the farmland spread in front of them.

"What happened?"

"Dad decided I wasn't worthy of it, and then I left. Since then, he keeps threatening to sell the whole lot. Mom stops him every time."

"Now I understand why you were in no hurry to take a vacation. Shouldn't have insisted."

He shrugged. "Coming home is a rite of passage. We had to do it sooner or later."

"I guess." She was silent for a while. Then, "What will you do now?"

"Try and enjoy the stay. For mom's sake."

She nodded slowly.

"Come on." The wolf got up. "Let me show you one of my favorite childhood places."

They raised into the air hand in hand, lifters sparkling, and floated towards a patch of forest across the canal. Behind them, two children took off their specs and gazed in awe.

The morning light seeped into the hallway through the crack of a door. Inside, the bedroom looked barely touched, just as it had been for the past two years. Even the bed was made. On a closer look, somebody slept in the room after all: Alex and Rafe were on the carpet, hugging each other so close it was had to tell where one body ended and the other began. The boy's mother watched for a moment, wiped a tear, and tiptoed out, closing the door after her.

Back in the kitchen, Alice was still nursing her tea, in pajamas stamped with teddy bears, while Helga peeked in through the window. The former got up as their host came back in, and moved to help with dishes.

"Why, thank you, dear. I'll have breakfast done before you know it."

She fired up the stove, and Alice boggled. "You cook?"

"When I have the time. Don't you?"

"Ha ha, no way. I'm just handy with a fabber."

"To each his own," the older woman said graciously. "Say, dear, can I ask you something?"

"Of course."

"What's the relationship between you and Helga?"

The she-bear tilted her head, but kept quiet.

"I don't know," mused Alice. "Never really thought about it. We're basically sisters, I think. Right, sis?"

"Works for me, girl."

Their host fiddled with the content of a sizzling pan. "What about Alex?"

Alice sipped more tea. "You mean whether we're just friends with benefits, or in love, or serious about living together?"

"She means Rafe," Helga said quietly.

"What about us?" Alex walked into the kitchen yawning, his hair even more of a mess than usual, if that was possible. Rafe poked his head in, but there was no more room.

"He does that every morning," said his mother. "The smell of warm food wakes him right up."

"Good morning to you, too. Where's dad?"

"He went to the bank early to try and get ahold of a real representative. Virtual intelligences are so unhelpful."

The young man grabbed a chair. "Why does he need to go there in person? They don't take calls at your bank?"

"I... didn't think about that." She set a plate in front her son and started filling it. "But you know your father."

Her comm rang.

"Seriously?" she said, and rubbed her pendant in a complex motion. The wall opposite the cooking range lit up.

"Mrs. Hunter?" asked the person on the screen, an androgynous face and voice. "This is Venars General. Your husband has been pulled from the river half an hour ago. He was under the influence."

"He'll be fine," the holographic figure told them — the same who had spoken to them on the comm, and in the same impassible tone of voice. "You can take Mr. Hunter home as soon as the doctor is finished."

"I want to see him right now," stressed Mrs. Hunter.

"That would be against the rules, ma'am. I'm sorry."

"Can we at least know who rescued Mr. Hunter?" interrupted Alice. "We'd like to say thanks."

"That would be Officer Mizuno over there." The receptionist indicated an otter Integrate wearing bell-shaped shorts and a vest of many pockets over a swimming suit. Glowing lines underscored her athletic body where clothing or fur didn't cover them. Trying to guess at her age would have been a fool's errand.

"Vicky, please," the woman said, approaching. "I'm not even on duty."

Alex stopped his mother from falling to her knees. "Thank you," she said, then tears choked her.

"How did it happen?" asked Rafe.

The otter sighed. "He apparently fell off Big Bridge through a hole in the handrail. Do you know if he has a drinking habit?"

"He used to..." said Alex.

"He started again after you left," his mother explained. "Thought he could hide it from me, too."

"Is it possible he tried to commit suicide?" asked the policewoman. "Sorry... this must be hard for you. Old habit. We can talk later."

"No... it's all right." She steeled herself. "My George would never do that."

"Why do you ask?" intervened Rafe.

Mizuno hesitated. "I don't want to alarm you, but there's been a wave of suicides among farmers in the region as of late."

"Financial reasons?" asked Helga. The officer nodded.

"Mom," Alex asked quietly, "is there something you're not telling me?"

She didn't have time to answer. The doors leading further in from the hospital lobby opened, admitting someone in a wheelchair and escorted by nurses.

"Right," said Mizuno. "We'll keep in touch." But by then nobody had eyes for her anymore. She extended a hand, making a sporty bag leap onto her shoulder from three meters away, and walked out.

The whole family gathered on a bench in front of the building, among waist-high rose bushes. The air was cooler than the previous day, and clouds were gathering, graying out the sky.

"I'm telling you I was pushed!" the man repeated for the second time.

"Dad, we have footage from the security cameras. Nobody was with you."

Hunter senior retreated into a morose silence.

"Did you run into someone at the bank, George?"

He nodded. "Papa Janiczek. They wouldn't refinance his loan either, so we went for a drink. But there was someone... someone else. Sah, are you sure we have no other options?"

"I went over the books three times since you last asked me. We're bankrupt, George."

He started crying, and she wrapped his shoulders in a hug. After a moment, Alex joined in.

"Dad, who cares? It's just a piece of land."

"How can you say that, son? I left the army when your mother was pregnant. Bought this farm so I'll have something to leave you when you grew up. But then you never returned home. What am I supposed to do with my life now?"

A chilly wind was the only answer that fit.

"Let's go home. You and mom can ride with Helga, she's got more room."

"That will be the day, when I need a RIDE to carry me!" the older man said rudely, slapping his son's hand away. "What am I, a cripple?"

He tried to get up.

He failed.

"OK..." he puffed. "OK... just this once."

The sky was a slab of cement above the city, and the old oak tree was shedding its last leaves. Alex sat with his back against the rough bark, throwing pebbles into the ditch. The tractors couldn't be seen that day, but a low rumble reached him through the hazy air. Farm work had to go on. Off to a side, Rafe lay on the ground in a tight ball.

"Rafe, come on. What's wrong?"

"Your father thinks I'm making you weak."

"Well he's wrong! I'm making you strong. That's the point. It's why you wanted me in the first place."

"It was selfish of me. I see that now."

"No, it was selfish of him to think of me as yet another achievement to be proud of, and nothing more."

"That's why you've been working so damned hard as of late? To prove him wrong?" The she-bear gently lowered herself to the ground next to the young man, and he startled, having failed to notice the hum of lifters.

"I work because I have a purpose," Alex said stubbornly. "That's what Rafe gave me."

"But you're destroying yourself. Who will be left to do your work if you fall apart?"

He didn't answer.

"Anyway," resumed the she-bear, "we've been reviewing the public records of small farms in the region."

"Found anything?"

"I could swear there's some sort of pattern, but it's just out of reach. I'm not Kevin."

Thinking of the misanthropic RIDE who had taken so long to find himself a human made Alex snort. Even for a walking quantum supercomputer, the cat was exceptionally good at crunching numbers.

"Yeah, too bad he's not here. Oh wait, that's our fault."

The she-bear chuckled. "Right. Well, I was thinking. You should go talk to the friend your father mentioned. Maybe he knows more."

"Papa Janiczek? Yeah, good idea. What do you say, Rafe? Feel up for a visit?"

"Being social would be a nice change of pace," said the RIDE getting up. He stretched from nose to tailtip before changing into his skimmer bike form. "But you do realize there's probably nothing. We're just acting paranoid."

"Be careful anyway," the she-bear called as man and wolf rode into the haze.

The two men sat on overturned crates, under a colorless awning that protected them from scattered raindrops. The mobile home next to them hadn't flown in years by the looks of it, and judging by what could be seen through the open door it served as a field office. Alex's host was a short man with a fierce mustache, blue eyes shining in the middle of a face covered in wrinkles. He poured two glasses of a yellowish liquid and raised his before drinking.

"Aah! It's good to see you again, Alex. Where have you been as of late? Seeking your fortune in the big city?"

"Gondwana, actually. It's a long story." Alex sipped gingerly from his own glass and made a face.

"That would explain your new friend." Janiczek nodded to Rafe with a smile. "Good call. RIDEs saved everyone's bacon during the Fright."

"Indeed?" Rafe asked politely. He sat on his haunches next to Alex, ears swiveling at the sounds of nature around them.

"Sure thing! When Inties tried to take over. Can't trust them, I say."

"I didn't know the war made it all the way here." The RIDE eyed his human partner curiously.

"You were in the garage after the big battle. I... hid the memory. Didn't want you to think I was forced to choose."

In the ensuing silence, the old man took another sip. "So, what brings you around, Alex?"

The young man told him the whole story.

"So you really are bankrupt," said Janiczek. "That's too bad, I was about to propose your father we form a cooperative."

Alex nodded. "What did you two talk about at the bar?"

"Eh. George thinks there's a big conspiracy to kill farming in Venars."

"Is there?" asked Rafe.

"Ha ha, no. Business is just bad. Immigration from Earth has slowed down to a trickle, the Spacers are learning to make their own food... There's just no room to grow anymore."

"What will you do?" Alex drank more of his glass. It still tasted horrible, but the feeling of warmth was welcome.

His host shrugged. "Weather it out. Wouldn't be the first time. I've had this land since before your parents came to town."

They listened to the rain for a while, staring into their drinks. Scattered strands of smalltalk soon withered. At some point, Alex found his glass empty.

"More?" asked Janiczek.

"No, thank you, sir. I should go back. Thanks for having me."

"You're always welcome. Give my regards to your parents."

They were well out of sight and earshot, skipping lightly above the muddy ground, when Rafe slowed down without warning, coming to a stop in mid-air under the shoulder of a mound.

"Have you noticed something strange?" he asked, a miniature of his face looking up from the dashboard.

Alex tilted his head in a very canine manner. "What do you mean?"

"None of his machines were out in the field today. What was he doing there, all alone?"

"Now who's being paranoid?" Alex laughed at Rafe's pouty face. "I'm teasing you. Can't hurt to go back and ask a few more questions. But briefly, all right? I wanna get home and see how dad is doing."

The young man was still wondering how to bring up the issue when they got in view of the trailer again. The first thing he noticed was the intruding skimmer, a dirty four-seater with the traffic beacon turned off. Then there were the three men in black coveralls pushing Janiczek around. It was too far to make out any words, even with wolf ears, but that hardly mattered.

"Suit up, Rafe, we have work to do."

The wolf came in too fast for anyone to react, charging through the mud. He slammed into the first attacker hard enough to send him tumbling. The second one he lifted above his head with one hand, then let him drop to the ground; the man might as well have fallen off the roof of a house. Yet a third backpedaled in a hurry, pointing a gun at the Fused pair. The wolf snarled and flashed his shields. When he took a step forward, his opponent turned and jumped into the incoming skimmer. The goon at the controls drove straight at the three meter tall warrior, forcing him to dive for safety. By the time he could regain balance, the vehicle was flying away with its four occupants.

The old man was too shaken to resist when the wolf carried him home.

"And that's pretty much it," Alex concluded. "I haven't commed the police yet. He asked me not to."

The living room of his parents' house felt warm, but crowded. Odd how he didn't feel like it was his house as well. Not anymore.

"But what could those people want from him?" ventured Alex's mother.

"Money," stated Helga. "He must have borrowed from mobsters when the bank wouldn't credit him anymore."

The older woman covered her mouth with a hand. "George, tell me you didn't do something of the sort."

"Of course not, Sah. You know me better than that."

Alice sighed. "I just wish we could help."

"Maybe we can," said Alex. He bit his lip. "Dad, he's your friend. Talk to him, please. He needs to get the law involved."

Hunter senior pondered. "All right. Help me up. I'll comm from my office."

They sat and fidgeted while they waited, Alex petting Rafe's head in his lap while his mother idly moved some knick-knacks between shelves and Alice leaned on his shoulder. In the middle of the room, Helga seemingly did her best to pass for a carpet. Rain rapped intermittently on the windows, as gusts of wind came and went; the smell of moisture drifted through the air like a ghost.

It didn't last long. The door opened brusquely, Hunter senior keeping himself upright against the frame. "I got his daughter. Papa Janiczek tried to kill himself."

The women of the house went over to the Janiczeks as soon as the police was done asking questions. With the old man in intensive care, they knew better than to leave his daughter alone. Awkward silence filled the empty space in the living room as Hunter senior fished for old music on the local mesh, coming up with forgotten albums from the storage of some unlikely device nobody had bothered to unplug after becoming useless years ago. Alex changed his place a few times only to end up on the floor, holding Rafe. His father pretended not to notice. After a while, the older man got up to fetch a bottle of wine from the kitchen — made in a vineyard and aged naturally, he made clear — and they drank it while playing ancient videogames from the Steader Archive, complete with replica controllers.

It didn't stop raining until dawn.

Late morning found the family at a run-down pizza parlor downtown, where creepy animatronics were putting on an equally creepy show on the stage, acting eerily smart on occasion. Judging by the reactions of most patrons, the decrepit ambience was part of the show. Besides, the food and serving were perfectly fine, Alex had to admit. There was even enough room at the table for him and Alice to eat while Fused with their RIDEs — hardly an unusual sight even in Venars.

"So..." the wolf cleared his throat. "Mom, dad, we've been thinking..."

He looked at his silent parents on either side of the table before going on. "We make good money, and don't spend much. Why don't we buy the farm from you?"

"You mean you and Alice, son?"

"I mean me and Rafe, dad. Well, you can buy in too if you want, Alice."

Hunter senior frowned, clamping his mouth shut.

"George, I think that's a great idea." The older woman looked pointedly at her husband across the table. "He's our son. It was supposed to be his in the first place."

She placed her hand on the wolf's arm, feeling the artificial muscles under the fur. Yes, this was her son now, she told herself. Two people for the price of one. Not less, but more.

"I wouldn't mind owning shares," said the she-bear in Helga's voice. "I'm a land survey and disaster response model. Owning land should be my thing."

"Will that make you visit more often, dear?" Mrs. Hunter asked her.

The she-bear nodded curtly. "We'd love to."

Across the table from her, the wolf finished his large glass of soda. "No alcohol for me today" had been his exact words to the waiter. He could see the fake animatronic staring at them unsettlingly with its one eye. It had been a minor surprise to notice that the vaguely pirate-y character was in fact an Integrate actor projecting a suit, the servomechanisms exposed through missing patches of fur being just hardlight. Then the waiter vanished into the kitchen, but the sensation of being watched did not.

It was high noon, or what passed for it in late October, and from the middle of the Sky Bridge they could see the entire city, an anthill drawn with straightline and compass, its traffic — its lifeblood — flowing incessantly around and around. There was little sign of the recent struggles, apart maybe from the ruined manufacturing plants off the south side, the letters A.C.E. still visible atop the highest tower. Any other damage had been long covered by rapid construction.

"Well," said Alex.

Alice eyed him with amusement. "Well what?"

"I guess this wasn't the visit you expected."

"Maybe. But this is really about you, isn't it."

Alex nodded. "Can you believe I spent my entire childhood down there? Thinking it was the world. And now it's just an insignificant backwater."

She took his arm and leaned against his shoulder. "It can still be your backwater, if you want it."

"That's the problem. I don't know anymore."

"You don't have to decide right now. Come on, let's have fun. I spotted an arcade on the way up here."

He smiled at her. "OK. Let me just call mom and tell her we'll be late."

"Odd..." he said after a moment. "Her comm is offline. Dad's, too."

"Guess they want a little privacy right now? Just like we do?"

"I should still be able to text them. They're gone from the mesh."

"Let's swing by your place real quick," suggested Helga. "If all is well, we're wasting a few minutes. Big deal."

The door to the house was unlocked. Wide open, in fact, and it soon became obvious that nobody was at home.

"Maybe they're over at the Janiczeks?" offered Alex.

"I commed while you were looking in the back," Alice told him. "No dice. But Sylvie says someone broke into their barn a few minutes ago. She's been too scared to go check."

"Mmm. Dad's workstation is unlocked too. This is no coincidence."

"Should I go to her?"

Alex rubbed his chin. "No, stay. Someone should be here for the police."

"What about you?"

"We're going to check out that barn. I know where it is." Alex patted Rafe's back.

"Alex, we don't know what's going on."

"We'll be careful," answered Rafe instead. "I know my limits."

"Perhaps," she said once they were out of earshot. "But do you know those of a human being?"

The barn wasn't far from where they had visited with the old man a day before: a long two-story building with skimmer loading bays at both levels and a ramp for tractors at the far end. The wolf slid out from among the trees, not that they provided much cover at this time of the year, and made a bee line for the main doors; there were no windows on the short side of the building. There was no lock on the door anymore, either, and it slid open with little noise. Gloom reigned inside, clinging to the rough walls, and a chill draft blew along the central corridor. Hundreds of bags filled with corn ears piled up, unsold, in storage rooms on either side. Another set of doors at the far end couldn't muffle the voices and heat signatures of half a dozen people in the next room.

The wolf shoved them open.

Alex's parents were there all right, sitting in a corner with two guns pointed at them. There were two more thugs apart from the gunmen, watching the windows for any sign of movement. The wolf reflexively checked the network signal. It was jammed. Of course.

"Don't lift a finger," spat one of them, "or we plug them."

"And void your insurance policy?" asked the wolf.

The man laughed. "What are you going to do? You're no killer."

"Oh, you'll survive... probably. But I'll make sure you serve your sentence in Alpha Camp."

He said that in a voice much calmer than either of his halves felt, and noticed the gunmen hesitate.

"We don't want any trouble," offered one of them. "Just to make sure nobody squeals before we skip town."

"And figure out what you told the cops," added the other.

"Perhaps recoup some of our losses, too," came a new voice from the shadows. "A RIDE would do nicely."

The wolf could have sworn the man in front of him hadn't been on his sensors a moment before. He had a cheap suit on, that clashed with his fur, triangular ears and bushy tail painting him as some sort of canid. Round lenses on his forehead and the back of his hands glowed dimly: an Integrate.

"Kindly de-Fuse," he ordered calmly.

Outwardly, the wolf stood his ground. Beneath the metal, a freezing storm howled. From the corner of his eye, he saw his mother cover her mouth with one hand. The gunmen seemed more preoccupied with keeping the older couple from intervening. He made a decision.

"I'm not giving up my human so easily. Worked too hard to acquire this one."

The Integrate grinned. "So that's how it is. And what will your human say if I ventilate his parents?"

"What makes you think I care?" asked the wolf in a voice that seemed to come from the darkness of a forest at night. A kernel of light was growing in the cup of his right hand.

"Very well. Shoot t..."

The energy pulse struck the Integrate squarely in the chest, and sent him staggering. Then the wolf was at his throat, the furred fighters grasping and pummeling each other. The Integrate was smaller, if still bigger than any human, his partially synthetic muscles more tightly packed. Every one of his blows made metal crunch.

"Your armor is weak," he grinned.

"You don't have any," retorted the wolf, wrestling him to the ground. His massive fist raised, then dropped, and the Integrate doubled over. For a moment he seemed beaten, then a shockwave blasted outwards from his body, throwing the wolf off his feet and across the floor. In the background, unnoticed, a massive shape floated silently down through a hole in the ceiling.

"What are you waiting for?" the Integrate snapped at his gunmen.

Blue bolts of light sizzled through the air, and the weapons fell to the floor along with their owners.

"You forgot to secure the loft," said the she-bear calmly, stepping into the light.

Silvery-red blood trickled down from the corner of the Integrate's mouth as he got up. His other two accomplices were already gone. "This day keeps getting better," he said, hands starting to glow. His pulse bolts shattered on the she-bear's shields.

"The smart move would be to run," she added. "We don't even know you."

"You know too much," he replied, before firing again. "And you owe me for the ruined operation."

The she-bear angled her shields to deflect. One of the bolts hit the wall dangerously close to Alex's parents, blowing chunks out of it, and she closed in to her opponent, defenses visibly weakening with every impact she had to absorb. Yet she pressed on, and he backed into a column then tried to dart past her only to be caught in a bear hug from behind.

"Integrates have to train their powers," she pointed out smugly. "RIDEs simply get upgrades."

"Who says I haven't trained?" he retorted, twisting into the arm lock until his palms pointed upwards. The twin pulse rounds narrowly missed his own ears, but burned into the she-bear's face, and she screamed, stumbling backwards.

"Alice! No!" shouted the wolf. He tried to stand up and couldn't. Bright bolts streaked from his outstretched hands, one after another, but the Integrate easily dodged most of them, the rest bouncing off his own shields.

"Missed me!" he smirked, right before half the ceiling collapsed on top of him.

Morning sunlight snuck quietly into every corner of the bedroom. Alex found himself awake among twisted sheets, wondering why he was alone. The carpets were soft and warm under his naked feet as he followed the sounds of the house to the living room. Rafe was there, on the back porch, talking to the young man's father over the morning tea, but he couldn't hear what they were saying.

He moved on.

At least the kitchen looked just like three days before, complete with the smell of warm breakfast. He made sure to hug his mother and Alice before leaning outside to pet Helga.

"Hey, girl," he said softly, "you're looking great."

She licked his face. "They do good work at that garage you recommended. Almost as good as Paul and Lili back home."

"What a name though," said Alice. "La Wrench of Paris? Really?"

"That's Venars for you," he answered, sitting down to a full plate. "Any news?"

"Actually, yes." His mother nodded. "They called from the hospital. Papa Janiczek is awake. He insisted to thank you for saving him."

"After all the damage I did?"

"He said not to worry, the barn was too old anyway."

"Sounds like him all right." Alex set down the fork to pour himself a glass of apple juice. "I just wish we could have done more."

"You can't shoot an economic downturn in the face," Alice quipped. She walked around the table to give him a hug. "Aw, darling, don't be so glum. You did well back there."

"There are always more sharks in the sea." He kissed her in return.

The sound of steps in the hallway preceded Alex's father squeezing in.

"Good morning, son. Any plans for today?"

"Morning, dad. I guess we'll head to the mall or something? Between the police investigation and all the paperwork, we're stuck in town until Halloween anyway."

"I'm glad you are. Me and your mother have missed you."

"Yeah. I missed you too, dad."

The autumn day was more beautiful than it had any right to. Someone had even fixed the hole in the handrail on Big Bridge, and... was there a large furry shape snaking its way through the river's murky water?

"Say, Rafe?"

"Yes, Alex?"

"What did you and dad talk about?"

"The Army."

"I thought you didn't care about that stuff."

"It's in my blueprints. I can't help but wonder what might have been."

"A very different story," the young man answered, passing his fingers through the wolf's fur as they walked on.

THE END

Bucharest, 2015-12-07