I adjusted my hat to further shade my face from any security cameras before switching the jammer off, no sense in alerting them to my infiltration too soon. I set off at a brisk walk heading towards the first AA gun emplacement facing east. It was a ten minute walk from my point of ingress. Running would draw far too much attention to myself, attention I couldn't afford, I mused as I walked.

No, this situation demands more finesse. I need to blend in. It wouldn’t be hard; I've been blending in for most of my life. My military bearing was perfect, my accent flawless. I looked the part and could talk the part. I had been born in-country after all, though it had been decades since I'd set foot here.

By the end of these musings I came upon a guard post along the wall and just as I came even with it, a pair of sentries stepped out of the door and onto the top of the wall. Both wore startled expressions, I nodded politely and fixed my gaze straight ahead as I strode past them. I was the superior officer out for a morning walk around the compound. No need to ruffle feathers with salutes, you boys just go along on your way.

An odd, old thought made me chuckle as I continued on south and the sentries went on their way north. Man you gotta love critting on your hide in plain sight roll. I chuckled again as I thought of that brief time in my life that the thought belonged to. Must be the country, I thought, stirring up all of these old memories. At least it popped the bubble of anger that was building. After all, another old thought said, you can’t take life so seriously, you'll never get out alive.

I let my mind wander through those thoughts, picking through them, searching for their origination. Over my long life I learned not to dwell on my memories of the past. So when thoughts and memories resurfaced out of the blue like this, it has always been a benefit to understand the source.

Nearly at the first emplacement and I still haven't figured it out, an annoyed thought intruded as I passed another set of sentries as easily as the first. I replayed the events leading up to those thoughts over and over in my head, trying to find a correlation to those old memories. It was hard, as it should be. Those old memories were from a time before my abrupt and brutal change. They were vague and faded, like a man's memories of his childhood would be, everything since would be as vivid as the moment it had happened.

My mind kept skipping back to the flash of red, playing back from there. ‘Aha!’ I thought triumphantly as I neared the large AA emplacement, pulling a small metal disk the size of a watch battery from my sleeve. I finally figured out when the memories began resurfacing. Circling the guns, I set my mind to figure out why. I attached the disk to the back side of the gun’s housing and continued on my way to the next one.

The second gun was another fifteen minute walk so I set off again at a quicker pace intending to make it there in ten. The woman with the wings. That must be it. Something about her must have set off those memories, but what? I didn’t recognize her as one of my people, but that didn’t mean anything. The military has gotten their hands on others before I even knew about them; she must just be another of those. But why let her roam the compound freely? She didn't have guards trailing her, nor was she in chains. They must not consider her a flight risk.

Is she helping them willingly? Does she even know what she is or why she is here? More questions with no obvious answers. The only way to find out will have to wait until I can question her at my leisure. My mind settled now that I knew the cause, if not the reason, I set my mind back to the task at hand.

There were a total of four emplacements along the vector of approach my men will be using that need to be taken care of. Then I will need to find out where they are holding the ‘test subjects’, my anger spiking again as I thought of what may have been done to them. Busy trying to decide the best way to find their whereabouts, I was caught unprepared when she stepped from the stairwell and stopped, expression as surprised as mine must be. She recovered quickly and gave me a critical look.

“You're new here aren't you?” she said, her gaze sweeping down and back up once.

“Yeah,” I said, “I just got transferred in from Bragg. Is it really that obvious?” I asked, my mind racing for some way to find out what she knows without being too obvious about it.

Stolen story; please report.

“Well most of the new ones look at my wings for a little too long before seeing me,” she said, “But then there are other new ones who see the wings and then nothing else. You however are in the minority. You actually took a step back to take it all in at once.” I thought back quickly to see if I really had and, sure enough, I took two steps back. Now granted I had nearly run into her as she stepped out. Then she gave a half smile. “Generally means we're going to be friends.” she ended.

I gave a little laugh and let out the breath I’d held in. “Well new friend, I'm Jack. Care to join me on my walk?”

She cocked her head to the side as if listening for something. Shit, I thought, she must be telepathic too. My shields would be too tight for her to read anything and that would be suspicious. I lowered them all and was instantly inundated with voices not my own, musing in my head. A moment later they dimmed as I controlled the intensity of my own thoughts down to a single one she would hear as if pulling it from my surface thoughts. *What an amazing pair of... wings*

Immediately she made a choking noise, almost as if she were trying not to laugh. I smiled at her, confirming my suspicion. “You know,” I said aloud, replacing my mental shields, “It’s rude to pry.”

She laughed and looked at me again. “You’re good. Is that special training new?”

“Haha! No mon chéri.” I said slipping out of English for a moment. “It is actually a very old training, designed to calm your thoughts and clear your mind. It's not part of a normal soldiers' training. Which, as you can see, I am anything but. So, are you coming? I really am in a bit of a time crunch.” I said, letting a slight bit of urgency slip through my shields.

She looked at me again suspiciously for a second, and it was obvious she had felt it, but nodded and I let up my pace a bit as I set out again.

“I’m Sarah. So, Jack, what did you do to get stuck out here with us? Sleep with your boss’s wife?” she asked humorously.

“You consider a choice posting out here in the middle of nowhere with no one shooting at you a punishment?” I asked, “Sounds to me like a reward these days.”

“Nice evasion, you sure you aren’t in the wrong uniform? The shrinks usually wear lab coats here. So you got shot at a lot at your previous posting?”

“Can you keep a secret? I actually do have a PHD in psychology.” I said conspiratorially. No need to tell her it was forty years out of date. She laughed again.

“Oooh you're going to be fun to fence words with I can tell.” she said, “A witty soldier, what an odd combination.”

“To tell you the truth I’m not really a soldier any more either. So, are there a lot of doctors and shrinks here?” I asked her, trying to feel out some information. “Do you know what they do here?”

“Most of the people here are doctors or scientists, then there’s your people.” For a moment I was afraid she knew who I was, but she went on, “Mostly they just work down in the labs. Sometimes they have me listen in,” she said, tapping her head to make sure I understood, “as they ask people questions.” Her face became carefully blank as she said this. “Some of them were like you, I could barely hear anything, and what I did didn't make sense to anyone. Mostly nonsense rhymes over and over, or songs on repeat.”

We had just arrived at the second gun when she said this so I stopped and looked at her. Slipping the next disk out and flicking it on the gun with a small bit of telekinetic energy. “Have you ever seen them? Or they you?” I asked.

“I think we were behind a one way mirror so they didn't see me. Why? Did you think they couldn't think because I'm not like them?” she said defiantly.

I choked back a laugh at the irony. “What makes you think that? They’re more like you than you know. It probably would have shocked one or two into dropping their guards. What do the doctors tell you about your... condition?” I asked, waving at her wings as I continued along the wall, hoping she didn't take the question the wrong way and stalk off. She didn’t, it made her think though. So there is something still in this kid, they must not have sunk their claws too deeply in her yet.

Several long meters later, she caught up with me and I took in a breath. She glanced sideways at me so I held my tongue and let her come to her own conclusions about the question. Another twenty meters go by and she says, “They told me it was a birth defect, an abnormality in my DNA structure. I didn’t have wings for the first 22 years of my life though so I don’t believe it for a minute. It’s something else, they’re just afraid I’ll freak out if they tell me the truth.” she said finally.

“Did you hear that or are you just guessing? It sounds perfectly reasonable to me. After all,” I said, looking pointedly at her hair, “red hair is technically a birth defect, an abnormality in the DNA. What makes you think wings aren’t a birth defect, no matter how rare it may be?”

“Geneticist too eh?” she snarled at me.

“Well, I don’t like to toot my own horn but, I dabbled.” I quipped back.

She looked at me again, then started laughing, “I knew you were going to be fun. Are you always this full of shit or is it just when you meet new people?”

I laughed, “There’s only one thing I’ve told you that isn’t true, see if you can guess which.” I said and winked.