Orla Wren's Arc

Chapter 2 of 2

Orla climbed down from the giant tree and tracked the nine machines north. She caught them at the edge of a clear lake. The water lay flat and bright under the open sky. The harvesters moved in one tight pack along the shore, all the same shape, all the same size. Only one carried the bounty tag she was hired to claim. From here she could not tell which. She crouched behind a scorched warning post. The sign read BURN HAZARD in black letters. The base was scarred red from machine heat. She read that as a promise. If she rushed the pack, they would cook her before she found her mark. She checked her scanner. The screen showed nine dots, all glowing the same. The tag gave off no separate signal down here. She needed to split the pack and read them one at a time. A grey cat slipped out of the reeds. It padded to the shore and stared at the machines, ears forward, tail high. It showed no fear at all. Orla watched it and got an idea. The lake was flat and still. It held a clear picture of everything above it. She crept to the water's edge on her belly. She tilted her scanner low, so the screen faced the machines and caught their reflection off the lake. The still water threw their shapes back at her, doubled and sharp. One machine, third in line, carried a small square plate bolted under its arm. The bounty tag. The reflection showed what the timber and the pack had hidden. She had her mark. Now she had to cut it loose. Orla grabbed the scorched warning post and wrenched it from the mud. She swung it against a boulder. The dry wood cracked and sparked. She hurled the burning post into the reeds behind the pack. The flames caught fast. The machines were built to sense fire and clear it. Eight of them wheeled toward the smoke as one. The third machine turned last. For one breath it stood alone on the shore, tag plate flashing in the light off the water. Orla broke from cover and ran. She drew her clamp and locked it onto the tagged machine's arm before it could rejoin the pack. The bounty tag chimed under her scanner. Claimed. She had her one out of nine. But the fire she set had spread past the reeds. It ate into the dry brush along the whole shore. The other eight machines swung back from the smoke, and now they faced her. The cat bolted into the trees. Across the smoke, a fat groundhog watched from a stump, cigar glowing, unbothered. Orla held her one claimed machine and looked at the eight still standing. She had the tag. She had also lit the ground between herself and every road home.