Ironhide Thornpaw crouched under the roots of a giant redwood and waited for the drone to lose him. It did not. The metal plates grafted to his back and shoulders still glowed faint red on the drone's scanner. He heard the tiny motor buzzing above the leaves. Somewhere south, the scientist who welded this armor onto his body was moving farther away, and the drone kept telling him exactly where the bear stood. He could not hunt his enemy while his enemy could watch every step. The grizzly reached back and pried a loose plate from his forearm. He remembered the crash site he'd passed at dawn. A wrecked patrol carrier lay in a ravine, its guts spilled across the rocks. Broken antennas. Torn wire. Ironhide had ignored it then. Now he needed it. He climbed down to the ravine and dug through the wreckage. His claws bent metal aside like paper. He found a shattered transmitter, three antennas, and a coil of copper wire. For an hour he worked in silence, twisting wire around his shoulder plate. He built a crude device, a nest of antennas sprouting from a scavenged box. He clamped it to the armor above his spine. His paws were too big for the small parts, so he bit the last wire into place. The drone found him again. It dropped low, red eye scanning. Ironhide flipped a switch on the box. The antennas hummed. The device flooded the air with noise, drowning the signal the drone used to read his armor. The drone's eye flickered. It circled, confused, searching for a bear that its sensors could no longer see. Then it drifted off over the trees and vanished. Ironhide stood still and breathed. For the first time in weeks, nothing tracked him. He could finally move unseen toward the scientist who did this to him. A sound stopped him. Not the drone. Something small scrabbling in the wreckage behind him. He turned. A squirrel climbed out of the broken carrier, but it was wrong. Half its body was rebuilt in metal. Its tail was a chain of steel links. One eye glowed cold blue, the same blue as the scanner that had hunted him. It fixed that eye on Ironhide and did not run. The bear's stomach tightened. He knew that work. The same hand that had bolted armor to his flesh had rebuilt this animal. The squirrel had been watching him from the wreck the whole time. Its metal jaw opened, and a thin signal chirped out, high and sharp, punching straight through his new jammer. The drone had been the scientist's eyes. This was something worse. The squirrel turned and darted up the redwood toward a sprawling home built in the branches, ropes and huts strung through the canopy far above. It was going to warn someone. Ironhide bared his teeth and started to climb.

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.

Ironhide stared up at the closing seam. His jammer had hidden him for weeks. Now the dead squirrel's last chirp had marked him. The thing above could watch every move he made. He felt it like a light on his back. There was no more sneaking. Only running, and choosing where to run. A hammer struck metal below the bridge. He climbed down toward the sound. In a hollow between two roots, an ape worked at a fallen panel of hull. He was tall, thick-armed, and swung a stone hammer with care. Bits of wire lay sorted around his feet. He looked up at Ironhide without fear and went back to his work. "You build things," Ironhide said. "I need a new jammer. Mine's useless now." The ape shook his head. He pointed at the sky, then drew a flat line with his hand. No signal would hide him again. They knew his shape. Ironhide's jaw tightened. Then the ape pointed at the seam, still narrowing, and mimed something fast rising up. A voice came from the shadows. "He's right. Hiding is done." A wolf stepped out. He stood upright, gray-furred, in a dented breastplate over torn cloth. His yellow eyes were sunken. He moved like each step cost him. Ironhide had heard the crash days ago, the trees breaking for miles. This was the thing that fell. "Fenris," the wolf said. "I came through a seam. Wrong one. I need the next one open." He looked at the sky. "So do you, by the smell of that machine." "You can't reach it," Ironhide said. "It's too high." "Alone, no." Fenris pointed past the roots. "There's a beast in the far ridge. Winged. Fire in its tail. It flies to the top of the trees." He paired the fact with a flat one. "It doesn't like company." Ironhide understood. The observer could see him. So he would stop hiding and move faster than watching could catch. He would ride up instead of climb. They found the dragon on a bare crag. It was orange, huge, and its tail burned like a torch. It hissed when Ironhide stepped near. Fenris circled wide. The ape banged his hammer on stone, a steady beat that pulled the dragon's eyes. Ironhide charged. The dragon lunged, jaws wide. He drove his armored shoulder into its neck and pinned it against the rock. Fire scorched his plating. He held. The beast thrashed, then went still under his weight, breathing hard, watching him now with a different look. "It won't kill you," Fenris said. "It'll carry you. That's not the same as friendly." Ironhide climbed onto the dragon's back. Fenris and the ape pulled up behind him. The wings snapped open. The crag dropped away. The seam above still shrank. But now Ironhide rose toward it, out in the open, watched and no longer caring. His hunt had a road at last, and it pointed straight up.