Ironhide Thornpaw's Arc

Chapter 2 of 3

Ironhide caught the squirrel on a rope bridge near the top of the great redwood. He pinned its steel tail under one claw. The metal jaw kept chirping that thin signal, sending its message to the scientist. He clamped his other paw over the squirrel's mouth. The chirp stopped. But the message was already gone, launched into the air toward some place he could not read. He pried open the panel on its metal back and stared at the tangle of wire inside. Numbers scrolled across the tiny screen. None of them told him where the signal went. Without that, his trail ended here. A voice cut across the bridge. "You're crushing it. It can't answer you dead." He turned. A woman stood among the huts, human above the waist, but covered in short spotted fur. A leopard's tail flicked behind her. She wore a scavenged combat vest. Ironhide bared his teeth, ready for another of the scientist's creatures. Then he saw her eyes and knew the difference. She looked at his armor the way he had first looked at his own. "They cut me too," she said. "White room. No sound. Then this place." She stepped closer, unafraid of his size. "I'm Lyra. That thing you caught is broadcasting up, not out." "Up." He held the squirrel toward her. "I need to know where. This is my only lead." Lyra knelt and studied the open panel. Her clawed finger traced one wire. "This coil aims the signal. It's pointed straight at the sky." She looked up through a gap in the branches. "That's your answer. Not a hut. Not a lab in these trees." "That makes no sense," Ironhide said. "The scientist is out there. I've been chasing his drones for weeks." "You've been chasing a shadow." She stood. "I saw the sky bend once while I was running. A curved seam, like the edge of glass. This isn't Earth. Whoever built you is watching from above it." He wanted to call her a liar. But the squirrel's coil pointed up, and the numbers on the screen counted distance he could not walk. His whole hunt had aimed the wrong way. The scientist was never a man he could corner in the woods. The squirrel twitched in his grip. Its blue eye brightened. A last chirp punched free before Ironhide crushed the panel flat. Somewhere above, the message landed. Lyra grabbed his arm. "They know we're together now. That thing just told them." Ironhide dropped the dead machine. His lead was gone, and his goal had changed shape entirely. He could not force the scientist to free him by tracking footprints on the ground. He had to find a way up, past the seam in the sky. And now the thing above knew two of its experiments had met and would come looking. Just as he looked up he saw the freshly opened seam begin to close, they do not stay open for long Lyra stated.