New York (New York Post) The Chairman of the newly developed President’s Committee on Robotics, Howard Mexenbaum, issued a press release today stating that Peter Westerhaus’ revolutionary invention is no more revolutionary "than a child’s Halloween costume." Mr. Mexenbaum is quoted as saying that "it’s obvious to anyone with two eyes in their head that this android business is a hoax of the highest order. George Lucas showed more ingenuity in stuffing that little man into his R2D2 costume than Westerhaus has yet shown the American people."

When asked, in a private interview, whether Mr. Mexenbaum had actually seen the android in question, he stated that he had not, but that he had heard reports and that those reports were "virtually unanimous" in their disparagement of Westerhaus’ "invention".

The press release went on to say that the Committee was drafting a letter to the President asking that the FBI and possibly the CIA open up preliminary investigations on this "modern day P.T. Barnum."

Washington DC (AP) In a Press Conference in the Rose Garden today, President Hillary Clinton stated that she is "utterly convinced" that Peter Westerhaus’ android inventions are, in fact, "the genuine article."

In a private meeting with the President earlier today, Westerhaus unveiled two prototypes of his androids, affectionately named C4PO and R2D3 in a sarcastic reply to Howard Mexenbaum’s earlier accusations of huckstering. The President reportedly stood by in awe as the androids walked up to her, shook her hand, greeted her by name, and returned to the side of their inventor. One of the androids apparently asked Ms. President if she would like him to fix the squeaky hinge in the door leading to the Oval Office. It is unknown how she replied.

When asked if she would be the first in line to purchase one of the androids when they became commercially available, the President smiled and said "no, that’s why I have Bill."

New York (AP) Westerhaus Inc. announced today the unveiling of its new home robot, the revolutionary Maid Marian. "We are pleased to offer American householders the greatest time- and labor-saving device since the introduction of the automatic washing machine," company spokesperson Melinda Deliganis said, "The Maid Marian is a highly programmable model that can take over such tedious jobs as cleaning, cooking and even a limited amount of routine errand-running, such as picking up parcels. She can walk at a maximum speed of 4 miles per hour, and her feet will never get tired!"

Deliganis characterized Microsoft’s crash program to develop a competing product as "irrelevant." "We have the patents and the proprietary technology. While it is true that the first Maid Marians will be priced in the high-ticket range, we expect demand to be high enough to support a mass-market version within eighteen months."

Washington (MSNBC) In an interview with MSNBC’s Chris Matthews yesterday, the Right Reverend William S. MacDermott, Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church in the United States stated flatly that the introduction of android robots "does not pose any theological questions. Does your car pose a theological question?" the Bishop asked rhetorically. "Does your alarm clock? A robot is a machine, property that can be bought and sold. Nuts and bolts and printed circuits. Nothing more."

Asked to respond to Televangelist Pat Robertson’s claim that the robots are "the work of the devil," the Bishop referred Matthews to his previous response. "I’ll be surprised if the Rev. Robertson doesn’t have one mowing his lawn by the Fourth of July," he quipped.

London (Reuters) A spokesperson for Queen Camilla today declined to confirm or deny that Palace maids and other maintenance personnel will be replaced with androids. "Her Majesty welcomes technological change, and as you know has sponsored several scholarships for promising computer-technical students. This has nothing to do with the current nationwide shortage of domestic employees.’

In a related story (A 14) the Palace had "no comment" to Tonight Show host Jay Leno’s remark that His Majesty King Charles is an early, unmarketable Westerhaus test model.

Minneapolis (CNN) Jedadiah Phelps, the grandson of Fred Phelps, the late Minister of the Westboro Baptist Church, gathered his faithful flock in protest of a commendation ceremony held in Minneapolis today.

Holding handmade signs and shouting "God Hates Droids!", the group of twenty managed to disrupt the proceedings at least twice before police clad in riot gear ushered them from the premises.

The ceremony, presided over by Mayor Tim "The Rule Man" Taylor, was to commemorate and commend the heroic actions of Android 77-EDY-823 (Eddie) during the recent bout of arson-related fires in the city. Firedroid Eddie, it will be remembered, managed a rescue total of twenty three humans, five dogs, seventeen cats, two birds and one chinchilla during the three day siege.

The mayor….

Washington (AP) Secretary of Defense Humberto X. Palacios today announced that initial tests of android infantry soldiers have been "a stunning success. These new models, co-developed by Westerhaus and Boeing Defense Industries, have exceeded all expectations in target recognition, accuracy, versatility in weapons usage and deployment capability. The day is coming when no young American soldier will ever again have to face enemy fire head-on." Palacios indicated that if these new models perform well in further tests which more closely match actual battlefield conditions, initial deployment could take place as soon as next year.

When asked if these new military androids could pose a danger to the American people, Palacios replied, "These androids will be deployed under very strict, very controlled military situations and will never come into contact with American civilians."

Dr. Kirsten King, the Government’s top expert in robotics and a noted skeptic of the current "android rage" was unavailable for comment.

Camp David (Reuters) The Guardian has learned today that President Clinton will order the first deployment of android infantry to the Gulf theater next week. "I inherited this war, as you know," Ms. Clinton said. "Now I mean to put a stop to it."

Copenhagen (Reuters) Ekaterina Petrovna Schevaryedna, Silver Medalist in the 2012 Winter Olympics, has filed a complaint alleging that Britney Chung, the U. S. skater who glided to a stunning upset over the top-rated Russian in the Women’s Figure Skating last night, should be disqualified. Schevaryedna alleges that her competitor is "not a human at all. She is a robot!"

Olympic officials here issued a brief statement this morning, saying only that Chung has consented to undergo X-ray examination and to submit blood samples. Off the record, one Commissioner quipped, "At least this is easier to deal with than crooked judges."

Kalamazoo (MSNBC) Today an android allegedly assaulted the driver of a vehicle which struck it as it was crossing the street in this Midwestern city. Neither the name of the driver nor the model of the android was made public. Details remain spotty.

New York (AP) A seven-year-old child was pulled from the Hudson River today by an android after falling nearly 50 feet into the icy waters below.

The boy, Jake Hamilton, was on a class trip to visit the George Washington Bridge when he climbed a bridge rail and tumbled over. Android XKJ152-67-A-245-TOM witnessed the incident and followed the boy into the river, ultimately saving his life.

"It was scary when I fell," Hamilton said from his hospital bed where he is still recuperating. "But then it got really black when I got cold in the water. I don’t remember that droid swimming out with me, but I’m really thankful to him."

According to doctors the boy suffered hypothermia almost immediately due to the freezing temperature of the river. After record-breaking winter weather has hammered the East Coast, officials estimate the water temperature of the Hudson River is between zero and 15 degrees Fahrenheit, on average.

Android TOM said he did not process his actions against his moral coding before taking the plunge. Bain, an exterior bridge worker, was harnessed to the side of the bridge below the point from which the boy fell.

"It seemed the thing to do," Bain said in a phone interview. "It is against my model’s coding to participate in the loss of human life. Perhaps I did not process the action as negative because I had seen the boy fall. Allowing him to stay in the cold waters would have ended his life cycle. Therefore, I had to act contrary to his death."

Bain is one of the newer prototype androids, a model XHJ152. He was completing a manual task assignment before his judgment coding was tested.

"Why’d you do it, Peter?" Kirsten asks, voice soft as her eyes trace a grainy, newspaper photo of the diminutive Westerhaus dwarfed by the size of the yacht he stands aboard, platinum blondes dripping off of him like voluptuous beads of sweat. "You had it all, and more. Why this? Why now?"

Sighing, she closes the scrapbook and places it atop the dozen others she managed to secret away when she began the run for her life.

She sighs again, clicking off the flashlight in her hand, and slumping back against the seat. The night sky is brilliantly clear, the stars a smattering of jewels thrown across a velvet tapestry by a careless hand. She stares through the windshield into that sky, lost in her own thoughts.

The paper is right, of course. About most things in her life, and the androids especially, Kirsten King is a skeptic of the highest order. The religious zealots and jealous corporations had praised her to the highest Heaven during her first public stands against Westerhaus’ creations. Others had looked at her as if she’d grown a second head. Her peers, mostly, laughed behind their hands and coined her with the affectionate title "Chicken Little". Not because of any perceived cowardice on her part—there was nothing cowardly about Kirsten King—but because of what they felt to be her sudden propensity toward running around shouting "The sky is falling! The sky is falling!"

"It fell alright."

Her voice is unnaturally loud in the absolute silence of the night, and her breath fogs the windshield, rendering her view hazy and indistinct.

Smothering a yawn with her cupped palm, Kirsten stretches out her cramped shoulders and back, rolling her neck from side to side and listening to it crackle with a soft grunt of satisfaction. Behind her, Asimov moans in his doggy dreams and shifts slightly into a more comfortable position.

"Okay, mutt," she says, turning to look over her shoulder at her slumbering canine companion, "time for you to give up your…."

The sound of shattering glass cuts through the rest of her sentence like a knife. Before she can react, Kirsten feels a hand slip into her hair and pull tightly, slamming her head hard against the window’s support. Her vision lights up with interior stars that swirl in a dizzying pattern before her.

A breath that sounds very much like a scream is forced from her lungs, and her survival instinct kicks in with a vengeance. Her scalp shrieks as she jerks her head away and rolls sideways across the bench seat.

She jerks back as a second arm blasts through the passengers’ side window, splattering her face and clothing with icy shards of safety glass. This time, it’s a definite scream that shoots forth, and Kirsten crab-crawls backward, hands and feet slipping and sliding along the vinyl seat-cover.

Asimov jumps over the seat, snarling, and clamps his huge, dripping teeth into the arm that pokes into the passengers’ side of the truck searching for the door handle.

Pulling her legs out from beneath her dog’s heavy weight, Kirsten reaches for the keys still in the ignition, but before she can grab the switch, her hair is again grabbed and she is hauled bodily across the rest of the seat, slamming against the door hard enough to drive the breath from her lungs and the thoughts from her mind.

The world grays out for a moment, then rushes back with startling clarity.

The thought is strangely free of accompanying emotion, and part of her wonders if she’s not dead already, simply existing as some amorphous ghost-thing doomed forever to haunt a truck.

"I don’t believe in ghosts."

Setting her jaw, she jerks forward again, only to be dragged back when a strong forearm clamps itself against her throat, cutting off her breathing in a savage motion.

Her right arm shoots out, trying desperately to reach the keys, but all she can do is flop her fingers uselessly against the steering wheel. Black roses begin to bloom in her vision, and with all of her strength she tries again.

Nothing.

Her hand rebounds off the steering wheel to land at her side. Her fingers trace along the chilled metal of some object that her oxygen starved brain refuses to identify. Working on blind instinct alone, she grabs the object, hand curling around it naturally. Hefting it, she brings her arm up and across her body and pulls the trigger of the gun in her hand, again and again and again until it only responds with empty, impotent clicks.

In deep shock, and temporarily deafened by her own gun, Kirsten doesn’t realize that the arm around her neck has loosened until her head begins pounding with the rush of life-giving oxygen returning her red blood cells to their normal function.

Her lungs respond automatically, in heaving gasps of fresh, cold air, and even before her second intake of breath, she’s straightened out, dropped the gun, and is reaching for the keys in the ignition. This time, her fingers score a direct hit, and the van starts up with a howling growl.

"Asimov, release!" she shouts as she swings her leg down and jams her foot on the accelerator. Human and canine are driven against the backs of their seats as the van goes from stop to go in what seems to be a nanosecond. The stench of burning rubber accompanies the screech of new Michelins. The van rockets away from the curb, shimmies a bit on a small patch of black ice, then straightens admirably and roars down the street as if being pursued by Lucifer himself.

Her attacker is still hanging on, though now it’s to the doorframe. Shards of safety glass cut cruelly into its unfeeling palms, but it holds on, uncaring. Kirsten knows better than to try and pry the fingers away from the frame. She lacks the strength and leverage it would require, and would further draw her attention away from the road she is blistering down at sixty and still gaining.

A grin devoid of any charm or humor curls her lips as she sees a delivery truck parked against the curb to her left. A quick twist of the wheel, and the van heads in that direction.

"Die, you fucker!!!"

Another jerk of the wheel and the side of the van crashes against the delivery truck and bounces off. It shudders, then sideswipes the truck again, paint and metal screeching their last. The screeching stops as the two vehicles finally separate. The truck remains stationary, rocking on its springs. The van continues forward, now sounding a little worse for wear.

Kirsten chances a look to her left, and crows in delight when the only sign of her inhuman attacker is the two hands it’s left behind, still gripping the window frame hard enough to dent the metal beneath the vinyl and foam padding.

At her side, Asimov yelps, and Kirsten quickly returns her attention to the road just in time to see a moving truck parked crossways along the road, blocking it completely.

"Oh shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii….."

Yanking the wheel hard, she almost overturns the truck as it attempts to turn at a nearly right angle while still doing somewhere close to fifty miles an hour.

"..iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii…."

Going up on two wheels for a terror-filled moment, it finally drops home on all four and continues on at an angle, the truck in its sights and growing larger by the second.

"…iiiiiiiiiiii…"

All four wheels leave the road this time as the van jumps the curb, missing the rear corner of the moving truck by less than the width of a hair.

"..iiiiiiiiiiiit!"

The front wheels land first. Kirsten’s head jerks forward, pounding against the steering wheel and slicing a large gash just above her hairline. Asimov yelps again as he is thrown against the glove compartment, rebounds into the seat, and collapses, panting and whining in pain.

The rear wheels hit then, and Kirsten’s head tips back. A rich fan of bright blood lays itself across the windshield and the ceiling. A second fan joins the first as the van drops down off the curb and shoots down a narrow side street, careening out of control.

The side street widens out, then curves gently, becoming a freeway onramp. Kirsten holds the curve, blinking the streaming blood from eyes big and round and white as saucers. She lets out a breath of relief as the van rockets onto the thankfully empty freeway, then sucks that breath back in as the tires hit another patch of black ice and slide across the lanes as if they’ve suddenly grown skate blades.

The sideways glide, almost balletic really, comes to an abrupt end as the van sideswipes a steel divider, further abusing the already crumpled driver’s side from fender to fender. More metal and paint are sacrificed to the gods of destruction, and the van gradually slows, half on and half off of the smoothly paved freeway.

If finally rolls to a complete stop, and Kirsten sits, staring through the window as her mind tries to wrap itself around the events just preceding. Her hand moves up to wipe her brow. It comes away bloody as she hisses at the sting. "You alright boy?" she asks Asimov. His ears perk, followed by his body as he comes to a sitting position and leans over to lick at her face. It tickles, and she giggles a little before pushing him away. The laugh sounds a little breathless, a little tremulous, and she knows that her system is just waiting out the shock she’s just given it. And if that happens….

Reaching into her pocket, she pulls out another handkerchief, dots gingerly at the blood on her brow, then ties it around her head just below the level of the cut. The mediocre first aid will have to do for now. She can’t spare time for anything else.

The battered van starts forward again, if grudgingly, and soon she’s driving west as if trying to outrun the dawn shading the eastern sky.

Setting her hat back on her head, Koda follows Allen to the back of the nearer troop trucks. She swings herself easily up onto the bumper, then ducks through the narrow door. Inside, the carrier has been transformed into a mobile field office. A table has been bolted to the floor between the two long side benches; over their heads—not more than a couple millimeters over Koda’s--a battery-powered fluorescent tube runs almost the length of the compartment.

A topo map of the area is taped by its corners to the table, which also holds a compact laptop no thicker than a weekly newsmagazine. Best of all, a camp stove backed by a wide reflector radiates heat through the entire space. The Colonel unbuttons her heavy parka and drops it onto a folding chair. Koda follows suit, adding hat and gloves to the pile.

The Colonel raises a mug with squadron logo on the side: a bobcat standing on its hind feet and twirling a six-gun in either paw, a crooked, very human grin spread across its whiskered face under a Stetson. Behind it is the shape of a steeply climbing fighter jet, with "Wildcats SR" in looping script across its tail. "Coffee?"

Koda settles on one of the benches, stretching her booted feet out to the stove. "Real?"

"Real." Allen rummages in a thermal chest under the table and comes up with another cup and a vacuum jug. "Sugar? Creamer?"

"Black, thanks."

She hands Koda the hot, fragrant drink and settles across from her. She is tall and spare, though not so tall as Koda, with elegant long hands. There is a scattering of grey in her hair, worn natural and close to her scalp. Her only ornament is a single gold ear cuff, also in the form of a bobcat. She smiles faintly, but her eyes remain sharp and more than a little wary. "So," she says. "Truth or dare time. You want me to go first?"

Koda raises her mug in salute. "Be my guest, Colonel."

"Maggie."

"Koda, then."

Maggie nods, then settles herself, leaning back against the wall of the truck. "Okay.

"We were in the air when we got word of the uprising. We’d only been up about half an hour or so—myself, half a dozen instructors with their student pilots. Flying echelon, doing some formation training on the way up to Minot. We were doing the tour, landings and takeoffs at half-a-dozen bases with mid-air refueling. Standard exercise."

So they have planes. Koda lowers her eyes as she takes a sip from the cup, not quite quickly enough.

"Right," Maggie confirms with a negligent wave of her hand. "When we heard, we turned around and put down on a long, straight stretch of farm road a couple miles from here. We found a ranch house that had already been hit. The folks there apparently kept a couple domestic droids, maybe a field hand or two. The men were all dead and the women all gone."

She pauses, and Koda recognizes that it is her turn. "That’s the pattern we’ve seen. The night it happened, we destroyed a pair of droids that had gone to raid our neighbors’ ranch. We weren’t in time to help the men, but we got the women and girls away from them. Same at another place a few miles up the road, except that the things were long gone."

"We?"

"My family and I. My dad has a large spread up near the Cheyenne. I have my own place next to it."

"Can your people hold it?"

"So far."

"Good. We need to find other resisters, too. Right now, we’re holding about fifteen square miles, closing off the roads and bridges and running a tight perimeter with relay patrols."

"How many troops?"

Maggie ticked them off. "We have the fighter crews; that’s fourteen of us. Then we have another thirty, weekend infantry we picked up when we went to raid the National Guard armory at Box Elder for vehicles and small arms. Plus survivors and refugees that managed to get away from Ellsworth itself. Sixty-five of us altogether."

"So what’s going on? It’s not just a mutiny. Hell," Koda thumped her cup down on the table, sloshing the still-scalding liquid halfway up the side of the mug." It’s a goddam third-rate science-fiction story: kill the men and carry off Earth’s Fairest Daughters. It’s worse than goddam Fay Wray with the goddam gorilla up on the goddam Empire State Building!"

"You’re right about that," Maggie says softly. "Most of the men on the base were mutilated."

Koda draws her breath in sharply, the air hissing between her teeth. "So."

"But you suspected that, didn’t you?"

"Young, prime males, sure." Koda shrugs. "Steers go to market; cows and heifers make more steers, with the bull or with the turkey baster. It does, however," she says very carefully, "seem unlikely that the droids are raising beef. Or long pig."

"Well, they haven’t eaten anybody yet. I’ve always hated the damn things. Hated the idea of them, the risk they just might not be controllable in a crisis. Hated making them humanoid." A wry grin splits Maggie’s dark face. "But I don’t think they’ve gotten human enough to turn to cannibalism. No, it’s something else. Want to help us find out what?"

"What do you have in mind?"

"Some recon tomorrow, onto the base and maybe into Rapid City."

It is what she had intended to do in any case. She had not expected to have allies. Koda nods. "Count me in."

Half an hour later, Koda is back on the road toward the ranch house that serves as the guerilla force’s headquarters, part of the small convoy that has picked up the Colonel and the bridge guards and left others in their place. The driver ahead of her, one Corporal Lizzie Montoya, is a maniac, her tires spraying snow in arcing fountains as she bumps and crunches along through the ice at reckless speed. Koda drives with one foot half on the brake in case Montoya skids off the road or into the lead vehicle. Miraculously, the Corporal does not kill herself or anyone else.

A mile and a half from the bridge, they come to clear pavement, and the sudden change jolts up through Koda’s back and shoulders. Ahead of them on the road, coming nearer, seven huge silver shapes loom against the sky like prehistoric beasts. Wings canted back, bristling with missiles that jut out from underneath their bellies like spines, they might be pterodactyls set down to roost. Movement catches her eye, and Koda glances up.

A hawk glides smoothly across the white sky. Something eases inside Koda, a tension she scarcely has known was there. It is a good sign, she thinks, lelah wakan.

When she takes the turn that leads toward a slim column of smoke to the west, the hawk follows.

An old, old song pounds through Kirsten’s head. She navigates the Interstate with the attention of a barrel-rider, avoiding wrecked trucks, spilled cargo, here and there a corpse. As the frozen asphalt stretches out between her van and the city, though, obstacles become fewer. She still passes the occasional abandoned vehicle, doors broken and hanging open like the valves of a plundered clamshell. She has no way of knowing whether the occupants have escaped or been taken. She cannot slow down to find out, cannot concern herself with the wounded or the possibly salvageable. Her own survival is paramount. She tells herself over and over again that this is not the Highway to Hell. Through Hell, maybe, but not to Hell. It is the highway to Minot, North Dakota, and it is already more than all the hell she ever thought she would see.

Keep it simple. Keep it literal.

Somewhere around noon she crosses the thin spike of West Virgina that juts up between Pennsylvania and Ohio. Her forehead and scalp, which have ached dully since her collision with the steering wheel, have begun to itch with the dried blood from her wound. Little flakes sift down every now and then into her eyes, blurring her vision momentarily. Her bladder, in fact her whole abdomen, has felt for the last half hour as though a whole firing squad of porcupines has used her for target practice. For twice that time she has been promising herself to hold on in fifteen-minute increments. Finally, Asimov settles the matter for her, whining piteously and batting at the door handle with one huge paw.

"Okay, boy. I get you. Hang on just a few minutes more." She reaches over to ruffle his ears and receives an exceptionally slobbery lick in return. "God," she mutters, "how I do love gratitude."

Just over the Ohio line, the Interstate dips to pass under a railroad bridge. Kirsten pulls over and ducks into an embrasure between the concrete struts. Asimov finds himself a satisfactory pillar near the further side of the overpass and irrigates it copiously. The puddle steams in the frigid air.

Asimov quarters the patch of highway, nose down and tail stiff, snuffling ecstatically at a sprayed stain on the cement and lifting his leg to obliterate it with one last, joyful squirt. Kirsten allows him to run off some of the stiffness of the hours in the van, stretching her own cramped legs and shoulder at the same time. When the cold begins to seep through her insulated boots, she whistles her dog back to the van. "Asimov, come! Let’s go!"

He wheels to obey, then freezes, ears straight up. He gives two sharp barks, whines and repeats the alarm. Without even thinking, Kirsten grabs the gun off the van’s seat. "What is it, boy? Where?"

Asimov barks yet again, and this time she hears it. Faint at first but coming steadily nearer, the steady whup-whup of a helicopter’s rotor sweeps toward them down the highway.

"Asimov!"

This time her voice is sharp, and he comes to her. Holding his collar with her left hand, her right gripping the automatic, Kirsten crouches down behind the bulk of the van. In her thoughts she makes herself small. Transparent. Not there.

The noise grows louder and louder until it seems to Kirsten that the chopper must be hovering directly above them. Maybe even landing on the tracks over her head. By the sound it is a large craft, a Black Hawk, maybe, or an Apache gunship. Definitely not a two-seater bubble. It is low enough that the rotor wash kicks up snow, making little funnel clouds and eddies in the drifts piled against the sides of the culvert. The racket is deafening.

There are two possibilities. The helicopter may be operated by human soldiers or law enforcement officers. If it is, they might be able to get her to Minot in half a day.

Or the crew may not be human. In that case, she will destroy as many as she can.

Finding out is not worth the risk.

The pitch of the rotor changes, intensifies unbearably for half a minute. Then the sound begins to recede, fading finally somewhere to the west and north of the overpass. Whatever has drawn the pilot’s attention, it is not one more derelict vehicle on the highway. It is only when her heart dislodges itself from her throat and begins to slow that she realizes it has been beating like a trip hammer to the rhythm of the blades. Her mouth feels cotton-dry. From somewhere deep in her mind a childhood memory rises up. Ms. Tannenbaum’s Sunday School class, little Passover lambs molded of papier maché and covered with fringed and curled white tissue paper.

Somehow the words have remained with her, overlaid by the smell of polymer glue and newsprint on a hot spring morning in Southern California, where her father had been stationed at Thirty-Nine Palms.

Shakily Kirsten gets to her feet and sets down the gun. "Stay, Asimov."

As he waits patiently, she tops off the gas tank from the jerry cans she has stashed in the back of the van. Then she wets her bandana with as little water as possible and scrubs the dried blood from her forehead. There is a faint tinge of red when she brings it away; she is still bleeding slightly. She ties a fresh strip around her forehead, eats a granola bar while she studies the map. When she is certain the helicopter will not return, she whistles Asimov onto the front seat and sets out again onto the open road.

The ranch is good sized, though smaller than her family’s by a good bit. Which isn’t all that surprising, given Clan Rivers has managed to hold on to their piece of land since Time Immemorial, or so it seems.

The main house is a long, rectangular structure with several outbuildings trailing behind like goslings to their mother.

Dakota steps out of her truck into snow that is nearly knee deep, and watches as the others likewise exit their vehicles and head for the promising warmth of the house. She follows along slightly behind, taking careful inventory of those with whom, for better or for worse, she’s thrown in her lot.

For the tough Air Force Colonel, she feels a rather immediate kinship, which gives her pause, given that outside of her family, she trusts very few. While more than intelligent enough to realize that circumstances sometimes make for strange bedfellows, she believes that in this case, perhaps, circumstances have very little to do with things.

The others—those she’s met, anyway—seem capable, and very loyal to their commanding officer.

Her internal musings are interrupted by Montoya, who, with a rakish grin and a flourishing bow, ushers her inside the house. The interior is over warm, given the bitterness of the outside air, and she pauses for a moment as the flush of warming blood hits her tanned skin, painting her in a rosy hue. Montoya notices the flush and, mistaking the reason for it, tips the striking Vet a wink, which is abruptly cut off as cool blue eyes laser into hers.

"I’ll…um…you know…just go over….there…."

The young corporal is gone with a speed that surprises even her commander. Allen tries hard to keep a smile from her lips as she rapidly deduces the reason for the young woman’s alacrity. It’s a failed effort as those same blue eyes move to meet her own, twinkling with wry amusement. Allen covers her mouth and laughs, shoulders shaking with mirth.

"Dakota?"

Koda swings around to see a handsome, well-built man standing just inside the doorway, his dark eyes wide with surprise.

"Manny?"

The young man’s face breaks into a beaming grin and he crosses the room in three long strides, arms wide. The two tightly embrace for long seconds while the others, bemused, look on. Finally, Manny pulls away and looks up. "Damn, woman, when are you gonna stop growing?"

"You’re just shrinking, sprout," Dakota replies, reaching up and scrubbing her hand over the bristles of his buzz-cut.

Ducking his head, the younger man smiles ruefully and rubs his own hand over his scalp, remembering when his hair was as long, glossy and lush as Dakota’s. Then he stiffens and the smile drops from his face. "Koda? Your family?"

"They’re fine, Manny. As are yours. Mother told me they’d been talking on the CB."

Manny lets out a breath of relief. "Thank God. I tried to contact them, but the phones are gone." He looks up at her, face wreathed in sorrow. "I’m sorry about Tali, Koda. She was a good person." He clears his throat. "I tried to make it for the funeral, but we were on maneuvers."

Dakota smiles. "It’s okay, hankashi. She knew you loved her, and that’s what counts, right?"

Sighing, Manny nods, then turns at the sound of his commander clearing her throat. A slight blush colors his skin. "Sorry Colonel. This is Dakota, my shic'eshi."

"Cousin, right?"

The younger man grins. "That’s right. See, you’re learning!"

Allen chuckles.

"We practically grew up together. I haven’t seen her or her family in, what is it now, four years?"

"About that," Dakota agrees.

"Good. I’m glad I could help get the two of you back together then." Allen waves at her junior. "Why don’t you show your cousin where she’ll be bunking for the night. We’re leaving for the base first thing in the morning."

Before Manny can respond, the front door bursts open to admit a florid faced young man wearing Lieutenant’s stripes. "Corporal, that little girl we found, I can’t stop the bleeding."

Allen nods, already throwing her coat back on. "Alright, let’s see what we can do."

Dakota steps between the two. Allen looks at her, eyebrow raised.

"Maybe I can help."

Maggie continues to stare.

"You have any medics?"

Allen shakes her head. "Just pilots. We’ve got basic first aid training, but not much more than that."

"Then I’m the best you’ve got for now." She holds up the triage kit she always carries with her. "I know my way around the human body pretty well."

Allen smiles, relieved. "I’ll take that offer. C’mon."

They walk along a shoveled and salted pathway bracketed by several heavily armed soldiers who take up positions along the walk, ever vigilant for intruders. Bypassing the first small cottage, they come to the second just to its right, and Koda follows the colonel inside.

The house is stuffed to the veritable rafters with hollow-eyed refugees, all women and girl-children. It is very warm inside and smells of despair and too many bodies packed too tightly together. The rescued women shuffle out of their way like zombies, making a path to a door along the narrow hallway. Opening the door, Allen gestures Kota to precede her.

The stench of putrescence is overpowering, but Koda, having smelled far worse in her life, keeps her face carefully neutral as she walks over to the small cot upon which a young girl, no more than four, lays.

Her dark, almond eyes are huge and glassy with a fever that paints clown spots of color high on her already ruddy cheeks. Her long, black hair is matted with sweat and dirt, and she stirs restlessly, further tangling the sheet that tries in vain to cover her tiny body.

"She was found…." Maggie starts, but quiets at Dakota’s upheld hand.

"Hi, sweetheart," Koda murmurs, looking down into eyes so large that they seem to swallow the youngster’s face whole. "Not feelin’ so good, huh?"

The girl shifts her gaze, not looking so much to Dakota as through her. Deep, dark, and almost insanely calm pools of helplessness and hopelessness sear into the vet, touching off a sparkstone of rage deep inside. She fights it down with everything she has, keeping her gaze gentle and warm as she can make it.

The girl is Cheyenne. This she can tell by the shape of her face and the color of her skin. "My name is Koda," she murmurs in the girl’s own language. "And I’m going to help make you feel better, okay?"

The girl blinks slowly, a tiny spark of surprise shining in the depths of her glassy, huge eyes.

Dakota responds with a small smile. "Can you tell me your name, little one?"

"He’kase," the girl whispers, voice cracked and dry. Allen murmurs in surprise. It’s the first time the girl has spoken since they found her two days ago. Dakota shoots the colonel a look, then gazes back down at her tiny patient.

"I’m happy to meet you, He’kase," she intones softly.

The young girl’s eyes widen as Dakota bends slightly forward, causing her medicine pouch to slip past the buttons of her shirt. A small, pudgy arm reaches up to brush trembling fingers reverently against the deerhide pouch, causing it to swing slightly.

Dakota smiles. "Can you do me a favor, He’kase?"

The little girl nods somberly.

Reaching up, Koda slips the pouch over her head and presses it into the girl’s hand. "Can you keep this safe for me? I don’t want it to get in the way when I look at your leg, okay?"

He’kase nods again, eyes shining with a light that goes beyond the fever eating at her bones. She holds the pouch tight against her chest, covering it with both hands.

"Thank you."

Stepping down to the foot of the cot, Dakota gently lifts the sheet away from He’kase’s legs. The high, powerful smell of raging infection wafts out from beneath the sheet, causing Maggie to cough softly and turn away for a long moment. She turns back to see Dakota eyeing her, and tries out a weak smile. "I’m okay."

Dakota looks at her for a moment longer before finally returning her attention to her patient.

He’kase’s left thigh is swollen, taut and shiny. Dakota tenderly unwraps the blood encrusted bandage and pulls it away, exposing the wound. The young girl moans in pain, but keeps remarkably still, her trust in Dakota plainly evident.

There is a grotesque starburst of black, purple, red and green surrounding what can only be a bullet hole, black and charred against her tender flesh. The wound seeps blood and a thick green pus that eats into the flesh beyond.

Dakota feels the rage flash through her again, a raging see of red, but she tamps it down with savage intent, her fingers gentle against He’kase’s skin. She can feel a weak, thready pulse both behind the knee and in the foot, the thinks that there’s a fair chance to save the leg if the wound can be properly drained and cleansed.

After another moment, she replaces the sheet, and smiles up at the somber child. Reaching down, she hefts her kit, unbuckles the straps, and looks inside for what she needs. A vial of clear liquid sits close by a number of syringes. She removes both vial and syringe and sets them on the table next to the cot.

"Sweetheart, I’m going to give you some medicine. It will help take the pain away, and it might make you sleepy, but that’s okay."

He’kase’s eyes move from the syringe to Dakota and back again. She swallows once, then nods her quiet acceptance. She doesn’t even flinch when the needle pierces her skin and the stinging fluid burns its way into her muscle.

Disposing of the syringe, Dakota walks again to the head of the cot and, smiling slightly, she tenderly brushes the thick, sweaty bangs from He’kase’s forehead. After a moment, the girl’s eyes close and she falls into a deep, troubled sleep, the medicine pouch cradled safely between her hands.

Maggie quietly approaches, laying a hand on Dakota’s shoulder. She can feel the anger coursing through the tall vet, an anger she knows all too well. Straightening to her full height, Dakota looks down at the Air Force Colonel, her face a stony mask.

"We found her inside a ranch house about five miles south of here," Allen begins. "Her family, what was left of it, were butchered, like cattle." She takes in a deep breath, then lets it out slowly, trying to cool her own rage. "We found her halfway underneath what we assumed to be her father. He was obviously trying to protect her, and I can only guess that those bastards thought they’d done their job. By the time we got there…." She sighs again. "She was already like this. We did the best we could, but…." Her hands lift, as if in supplication to an uncaring god.

"I’ll need some help."

"I can…."

"No, you’ve got a camp to run. If you could get Manny? He used to help me in the clinic when he was younger. I don’t think he’s forgotten what to do."

Maggie nods. "I’ll get him for you right away."

"Thanks."

"No," Allen replies. "Thank you."

The road is clear for the rest of the morning. Toward midday, the sky begin to clear, showing streaks of bright blue through the flat grey of the clouds. The glint of the sun off ice is almost a shock, and Kirsten fumbles one-handed in her pack for her dark glasses. Asimov has stretched out across the bench seat with his hind feet in her lap and is snoring and twitching by turns as he chases rabbits or Frisbees or the neighbors’ female golden retriever in his doggy dreams.

The breaking clouds mean increasing cold come nightfall. She will have to find some better shelter than the van for the night or expend precious fuel to run the heater. She does not particularly care for the idea of sipping Shamrock through a straw again if she can help it. "Damn," Kirsten mutters to the oblivious Asimov. "I never thought I’d miss Motel 6."

Or maybe she need not miss it. An empty, deserted motel just might offer possibilities. Better, yet, an abandoned house. She is passing through Ohio farm country, small towns slipping past along the Interstate like beads on a string. Many of these homes, built in the previous century, will have working fireplaces, complete with a couple cords of wood piled outside.

Many of them will be tenanted by the dead, murdered and left where they fell. Kirsten’s hands flex against the steering wheel , tighten. She can deal with death. She has dealt with it. At least here, after several days and nights of snow and ice with the utilities out, the dead will be decently frozen. Grotesque, perhaps; an offense to the eyes but not to the nose and stomach.

For the first time, she spares a thought for her future self. What will she be when the world is set to rights, assuming it can be?

But that one’s easy. Dead, probably.

Dead long before.

At Zaneville, Kirsten turns off the freeway onto state roads. They will be snowed over and more dangerous, will slow her down even more than the sheen of ice on the Interstate. But they will lead her around Columbus and its suburbs in a wide arc to the south. Even more important, they will lead her around Wright Patterson AFB, where droids are likely to be concentrated. Pulling off into the shelter of a derelict Whataburger beside the exit ramp, Kirsten maps out the route she will take, west and south. There are, she notes, a number of state parks associated with early Native American ruins scattered throughout the Hopewell valley. They might be an even better prospect for overnight than deserted farmhouses. Most had cabins, and most of those cabins would have fireplaces or wood stoves. Because they would have been sparsely populated at best at this season, they would have drawn minimal attention from raiders. Certainly there would be no reason for the droids to stake them out or occupy them. The danger, if any, would come from other refugees like herself.

Highway 22 winds through vacant farmland, the fields blanketed with knee-high drifts of snow. The trees stand bare to the winds, skeletal shapes against the western sky as the sun stands down toward evening. Here and there a dark shape perches in the branches, head hunched down into its shoulders; sometimes there are two huddled together. Owls or ravens--she cannot be sure at the distance. Except for the growl of the truck’s engine and Asimov’s occasional whine as a foraging hare makes its way laboriously through the snow, the landscape is utterly silent.

It lulls her as she should not let it, and so she is shocked and momentarily disoriented when she sees the roadblock ahead. The vehicles drawn up on the sides of the pavement are pickups and SUV’s, none of them with flashers or official markings. Among them she can make out burly shapes muffled in two or three layers each of Polartec and down. Some wear balaclavas or ski masks; others have pulled their caps down so far they almost meet the scarves and turned-up collars around their necks. As she slows, Kirsten can see the clouds of mist that rise about them with their breath. One man’s greying eyebrows and beard are stiff with crusted frost. He holds a shotgun braced with its butt against his hip.

Even the most lifelike of the droids do not breathe warm air that clouds with the cold. Humans, then.

There are only two possibilities. These are free people defending their land, or they are the scum that disaster always brings to the surface. If she stops, she may find help.

Or she may be robbed, killed, raped, handed over to the droids. The choices are the same as they were under the railroad bridge.

Without hesitation, Kirsten shoves her foot down hard on the accelerator, and the van, still gaining speed when it crashes through the sawhorse barriers at 80 miles an hour, scatters the startled guards in all directions. From behind her she hears the boom of the shotgun, and a sharp crack that can only be a rifle, but she is already beyond their range. Asimov, rudely awakened by the sudden speed, has regained his balance and is sitting backwards in the front seat, paws draped over the headrest, barking maniacally in her ear. Then the yaps give way to a deep-chested baying that sends atavistic tingles up her spine. "Wonderful, just wonderful," she mutters. "The Hound of the Baskervilles, alive and well and—what the fuck?!

A moving shape has appeared in her rear-view mirror, hurtling along behind her through the rutted snow. It is close enough that she can see a gun barrel protruding from the passenger window.

"Down, Asimov!" she snaps. "Lie down, now!"

Aggrieved but obedient, he settles once again along the bench seat, his head below the level of the windows.

"Stay!" she orders, and pushes the accelerator clear down to the floor.

The van lurches, half-skidding down the road, spraying snow from its tires in sheeting arcs as high as the roof. A bullet whangs by, hitting the edge of the mirror frame and kicking shards of metal loose to ping against the plexiglass windshield. Spiderweb cracks appear suddenly before her eyes, breaking the flat white expanse before her into a kaleidoscope pattern in monotone. The van buckets and lurches beneath her, so that all her concentration goes into wrestling the steering wheel to keep them from running off the road.

The van sits high off the road. Unless her pursuers are inexplicably stupid or too drunk to think at all, they will eventually start shooting low, for her tires. She cannot afford that. Nor can she risk a hit to the gas cans in the back, which will send her, Asimov and quite possibly the remaining human population of the United States, up in a cloud of greasy smoke.

"Asimov!" she orders. "Play dead!"

Asimov, already denied the canine pleasures of the hunt, glances over his shoulder at her, offended and disbelieving.

"Play dead, dammit!"

With a sigh of almost human frustration, Asimov sags loose-limbed onto the seat as Kirsten brakes abruptly and sends the van into a wild skid that whips it tailpipe first across the opposite lane, hauling so hard on the wheel that her shoulders ache. The truck comes to a stop facing her pursuers, whose pickup swerves wide to avoid her and ends half in and half out of a roadside ditch concealed by the mounded snow. Kirsten pulls the bandage off her head, bringing fresh blood, and slumps across the steering wheel. Her finger presses lightly on the trigger of the gun in her lap.

She hears both doors of the pickup open and close, to the accompaniment of obscenities. Then feet, scrunching through ice and crusted snow.

The latch on her own door clicks, and she can smell burnt cordite. Then a voice. "Oh, hell, Brad. It’s just a girl and her dog. She’s bleeding." There is another click as Brad opens the passenger door.

Kirsten shoots the first man, angling the barrel of her gun high, to take him in the chest. As she squeezes the trigger, she yells, "Take him, Asimov! Hold!" and feels the dog’s weight launch itself out of the van. A roar fills her ears as a shotgun discharges less than a yard away, followed by an angry, human yell. "Off! Get off me, goddam you!"

Kirsten raises her head, getting a firmer grip on her gun, and slides out of the van. The man she has shot is sprawled on his back, arms flung wide, blood pouring from his mouth into his beard and grey plaid muffler. As she watches, his eyes fix, staring somewhere past her shoulder.

"Steve! Steve? What the fuck’s going on here? Answer—" The voice is suddenly cut off, and Kirsten hears a flurry of movement, ending in a low growl from Asimov.

"Hold, boy!" she calls to him. "Hold!"

"Goddam you, you bitch, what’ve you done to my bro—"

This time Asimov’s growl is deeper as it cuts off the voice. "Good boy, Asimov! Hold!"

Steve has fallen partly onto his rifle. Wishing that she did not have to know his name, Kirsten has to shift him to extract it. A last, wheezing sigh escapes his lungs as she turns him, startling her so that she almost drops the weapon. The man on the other side of the truck, Brad, is yelling again. She wishes that she did not know his name, either.

Very deliberately, not thinking, Kirsten walks around the front of the truck. Asimov’s outsize paws are planted on Brad’s chest, his jaws clamped onto the man’s throat. He has not drawn blood, only snarls and clamps down a little tighter each time his prey cries out. The man’s eyes follow Kirsten’s movements. She sees his death in his eyes.

Slowly, very deliberately, not thinking, Kirsten shoulders the rifle and shoots Brad in the head. Blood blossoms on the snow, unfolding in crimson and scarlet like the petals of a rose. Flower of evil.

Just as deliberately, Kirsten picks up Brad’s 12-guage and lays it on the floor of the van. In the foundered pickup, she finds shells for both the shotgun and the rifle. Two sleeping bags lie rolled up on the back bench; Kirsten takes them. Finally she reaches under the dash and tears out the ignition wires, cutting them off short with a pair of snippers she finds on the console between the seats. It is quicker than shooting out the tires, and it makes less noise.

Her hands are sweating inside her gloves. On her way back to the van she begins to shake. At first it is only a fine shiver, like a chill over her skin. Then reaction takes possession of her, adrenaline rattling her bones together and buckling her knees beneath her. She makes her way around Brad’s corpse and hauls herself back up onto the seat. Asimov follows, and huddles up against her, nudging her shoulder with his nose. He whimpers softly as she gasps, half-choking, for breath.

Part of it, she knows in a rational corner of her mind, is pure physiology. That part will pass if she does not feed it

The other part, which may never pass at all, is that she has just killed two men who were almost certainly innocent of harm.

Because she could not take the chance.

She tells herself she needs to get moving again. The sound of the shots will have carried. When Brad and Steve do not return to their companions promptly, the other men at the barricade will come looking for them. And then they will come looking for her.

She needs to throw them off her trail and she needs to find shelter. And she needs to do both by nightfall. She has perhaps two hours.

When her hands are steady enough, she turns starts the van again, turns carefully so that she does not run over the two dead men, and sets out again toward the south.

Several hours later, Dakota leaves her patient’s room, wiping her hands on a towel supplied by her cousin. He’kase is resting comfortably in the care of one of the rescued women who has had some Nurse’s Aide training. Her wound is clean and dry, and antibiotics are pumping their way through her tiny system. In place of the medicine pouch, which again holds its customary place around Koda’s neck, the youngster holds an eagle feather, the sacred icon that Manny has held onto since he was shorn of his flowing locks upon first entering the Air Force.

"Damn, Koda. I forgot how good you were at this stuff."

"You’re not so bad yourself."

The cousins share a rueful laugh as they walk through the late November evening, nodding to the soldiers as they pass.

Once inside the main house, Manny takes his leave, scurrying off to the shower.

Maggie looks up from her place at the kitchen table and beckons Dakota over with a smile. A mug of steaming black coffee is already there, as if awaiting her presence. Dakota acquiesces, sitting down with a groan and stretching out her long legs as she lifts the mug to her lips, inhaling the fragrance with a sigh of approval.

"Things went okay?" Maggie guesses from the look on Koda’s face.

"As well as can be expected," Dakota replies, taking a bracing sip of coffee, letting it warm her from the inside out. "Manny hasn’t lost his touch. He’s got the makings of a damn decent medic."

"Better that than a pilot," Maggie jokes.

"Hey!!" Manny yells, filling the doorway with his towel-girded bulk. "I heard that!"

Both women laugh, knowing that the young man before them is as good as it gets when it comes to flying. Absolutely fearless, he can make a jet walk and talk and turn on a dime. He’s one of the best of the best, and everyone knows it.

"Alright, flyboy, get your ass to bed. We’re on the road at 0430."

Snapping off a crisp salute while still managing to retain the hold both on towel and dignity, Manny grins, winks, and turns back down the hall. The soft click of his door shutting puts paid to the conversation.

Silence falls among them, a soft ethereal mist. Peering at Dakota over the rim of her coffee cup, Allen takes in the sharp, clean lines of her face and the energy that seems to hum around her even now, while sitting quietly apparently lost in thought. It’s a sweet Siren’s song, one that Maggie is in no way adverse to hearing.

"See anything interesting?"

Dakota’s warm contralto rolls over her and Maggie is suddenly glad that her mocha skin hides her flush well.

Though not, perhaps, quite as well as she might have liked, given the sparkle of amusement in the crystal eyes turned her way.

"I might," she allows, responding to the tease with a small one of her own. A smile curves her lips, and her gaze is bold and direct, though not overly aggressive. To put the cliché into perspective, Maggie Allen is a woman who knows what she wants and isn’t shy about reaching for it. As career Air Force, she’s seen her share of too many wars and too many deaths and when opportunities for warmth and life present themselves on gilt-edged platters, she rarely hesitates.

The silence between them is almost palpable, filling the shadowed and cobwebby corners of the large living area with a turbulent, humming energy.

Their gazes break at the same time. Maggie looks over at a painting hanging above the mantle in the living room. Dakota looks down at her hands. The ring finger of her left hand looks strangely naked; the small band of paler flesh highlighted like an afterimage of a life long past.

Seven years, Dakota thinks, her thumb rubbing over the pale, soft skin. A time for beginnings. A time for endings. A generation. An itch. Seven virtues and seven vices. Paradise and damnation. Confusion? Maybe. Guilt? A little of that, too.

She sighs.

"I have a room to myself in the back of the house," Allen says, very softly. "One of the perks of being CO." She smiles a little. "I’d like to share it with you tonight."

Dakota looks up then, her gaze piercing and direct. The sharply etched plains of her face soften just slightly, and Allen is stunned once again by the woman’s striking beauty.

"I’d like that."

When Dakota next awakens, it’s still dark, and she knows without looking that dawn is a long way off. She stretches slightly, then settles, arms comfortably curled around the warm body in her arms. For a moment, she thinks she’s dreaming, but the hair that brushes against her chest is shorter and coarser than what she’s used to, and the body draped across her is more muscular and compact. It awakens her to the reality of her situation, but the reality is, in truth, not all that unpleasant.

Maggie hums sleepily and, lifting her head just slightly, presses a kiss to the warm, bare breast upon which she is resting her head. "Mmm. Good morning." Her voice is deep and sleep burred and the sound of it reaches into Koda’s belly and twists it pleasantly.

"It is that."

"What time is it?"

In an automatic reflex, Dakota looks over at the nightstand, but of course, the clock that stands there is blank without the electricity needed to run it.

"Damn," Maggie says, chuckling. "Forgot about that." Reaching across Koda’s body, she picks up the watch she’s left on the nightstand and peers into it through sleep blurred eyes. "0320. Good thing I don’t need much sleep, hmm?"

"You could always grab a little more."

Maggie laughs, a throaty chuckle. "With you here? Naked? Darling, sleep is the last thing I plan on grabbing."

A strong hand slides up a muscled thigh, and Maggie slides with it, reaching Dakota’s tempting lips and entangling her own in a deep, luscious kiss. "Dear god, woman," she pants when she finally pulls away. "I never thought I’d say this to another human being, but you’ve got flying beat by a long mile."

Dakota’s deep chuckle follows her down to sensual oblivion.

This concludes tonight’s episode of The Growing. We hope you enjoyed! Write to us at swordnquil@aol.com to let us know if it’s working (or not) for you. Thanks, and see you next week!

Chapter 4