It is a terrible twist of the knife of fate that I should be in the role that I inhabit. Take a bullet just one time and suddenly you’re a liability, an insurmountable weakness, and must be protected from all harm. But I am still the one who maintains communications channels between our friends and enemies. Some of those channels are digital.

And some are people. I have the unenviable duty and privilege to keep congress with my opposites in other factions. The means by which I maintain this connection is something I must hold dear to my heart and never let the connections know how the information transmits from one to another.

Woe to me.

My bald tail slaps against the floor in consternation as I read through the separate reports from sources who cannot speak to each other or know that they exist. I file the latest bit of news from my colleague in the far northern district in its respective bin, adding data points to the map that hangs projected on the wall of my private cell. More fuel shortages have already begun and winter is not yet hit with full force. Our comrades will suffer greatly. We do not handle cold well.

A report from a more tropical climate includes details of the cleanup efforts still underway following a terrible storm that the human resistance and our own Troo locals were forced to into cooperative efforts to survive. My information from that arena comes from a lovely human religious woman who believes that she is sending letters to a hidden convert in our midst. She includes details of the heroic civilian “navy” made up wholly of small personally owned craft that immediately launched into rising floodwaters to enact daring rescues of any and every living thing they found with no regard for species or allegiance. It is very stirring.

I package the heartwarming tales for redistribution, spinning the events as being a tale of human civility and generosity. It will make a good news article for the people freezing to death in the cold north. Perhaps they will see the evidence that I place in front of them that treating the humans with dignity permits them to work with us and build healthy relationships.

Local reports come to me through the only Troo with a house in the tiny town nearest this estate. She is an often overlooked green, who has found her calling as a transportation manager. I considered briefly asking her to be my life partner, but it would have been brutally unfair to her for me to use her as a decoy for my true affections so blatantly. Her phone calls are one of the better joys in my routine.

So much of what information I pull into my spider’s web comes from communications with people who I’ve deliberately lied to and convinced that I am someone else. It is genuinely nice to have a person of my own species to whom I do not have to lie. I had thought that my oldest friend Tromeo had finally crossed that boundary, and we would have something new to bond over. But instead I’ve set him on a path to a freedom much greater than my own.

Thinking about Emilidon seems to summon the ring of the old fashioned telephone. Not many people, human or otherwise, use these things these days. It is well known that the satellites that are required for their function are monitored by our higher intelligence services. I am but a small part of that greater network, doing the labor of lies and collating data points into information.

I wait until the third ring before answering the phone. It was not designed with claws in mind, and I must use my knuckles to activate its touchscreen.

“Mercutioodon.”

That is not her voice and that is not her greeting.

“Yes?”

“Tromeo is dead. He was poisoned.”

I suck my teeth in surprise, and quickly recognize the speaker. It is my human. My Dirk.

“Dear?”

“July Chapel is also dead. She shot herself.”

I need to get him out of there. The urgency of the situation cannot be overstated.

Stolen novel; please report.

“I’m coming.”

“I love you.” I almost put the phone down too fast to hear him say it. We do not speak those words on a recorded line. While those who listen to everything that transpires are familiar and comfortable with all of my lies and alter identities, I dare not speak things that are so completely true where they can be heard by those who could and would do me personal harm. That is why I am still here instead of having also run away from this place to find a sanctuary for myself ages ago.

“I love you too,” I reply, deliberately. It is a decision.

And then I hang up the phone. I know that if I stayed on the line he would keep talking, and it would reveal too much too soon.

It is enough that I had asked him to leave everything comfort he had with his work driving for the resistance, his home, his family, his friends, and betray his very species. But now he is trapped in a situation of my creation.

July isn’t supposed to be dead. Tromeo is supposed to have recovered her unconscious body and gone to hold a very human funeral for her and never returned to my nestling’s compound. With the people of interest out of sight, Trooaris would forget them and move on to his next distraction immediately. She would be presumed dead, he would be presumed to be in deep mourning, and both could run away to a tropical isle where they can claim that they met in the flood and never separate.

I stop brooding. That isn’t helping anything at all.

I leave my perch on my stool and hop over to the cabinet where I keep my least prized possessions. Under the raincoat and behind the ugly scarf the religious sister sent as a holiday gift sits my prosthetic leg and a sleeve of false feathers for my tail.

They were expensive. But they’re very uncomfortable. And Dirk had encouraged me to be myself in the little ways that I can when I spend the rest of my time lying.

I put both on, and dress in my sharpest uniform black. It makes me look older than I am, and does not disguise the authority with which I am allowed to act in my role as a covert information analyst.

I walk on unstable feet. As long as I stay in motion I do not look so obviously lopsided. They carry me to the small fleet of aircraft on the lawn. My feathers puff in the cold air outside, but I do not try to flatten them. It’s chilly out here and the sun has begun to set at what feels like a terribly early hour to have darkness arrive already.

I grab a pilot and put them in one of the vehicles without permitting any questions. No one has tried to stop me yet.

The flight to the compound is not long, which I am extremely thankful for. There is not going to be much time to dither.

The copter buzzes into the growing darkness, its pilot keeping us safely high above the trees. This model is a two-seater, and lacks a canopy. That means that I have to rely on nothing but the safety harness to keep me in my seat. The wind slaps against my face and musses my clothing. It cannot be helped. This was the first copter available.

It does not take long for us to arrive on the grounds of the sprawling complex. Several exotic creatures flee our approach at great haste. I suspect that the master of this demesne does occasionally give chase from atop a copter not unlike this one. It was apparently a thing that the human owners of the estate would do for sport when hunting feral hogs. The Troo who have replaced them may not limit their sport to only invasive creatures, but the hogs have been thoroughly eliminated by predation at this point.

I do not wait for the blades on the copter to complete their wind-down cycle. I unbuckle the harness and step out before the pilot can even properly complain about my lack of respect for the very justified safety procedures that are in place to prevent any sort of demise via decapitation. If I keep moving then I don’t have to stop and be questioned, or dare to question myself. So off we go.

Striding across the lawn, I spy my nestling’s bright gold plumage from where he stands in a pool of light on a balcony on the second floor. He leans over the edge, creating a terrible visage of the overseer on high, his form backlit and his very much civilian clothing painted in dark shadows in the deeper twilight. I cannot make out his expression from here. It is best if I do not interact with him at all.

Hurrying downhill, I find the only person here who I care to see faster than I had even hoped. Dirk hurries up the hill toward me, with a young human collaborator trailing behind him. Her expression is haunted, and I get the distinct feeling that she has only just been upgraded from raw recruit to some sort of veteran status in last few hours.

“Come with me if you want to live,” I tell both of them, knowing that it is a quote from their own classic media. Recalling hours spent lazily enriching myself in the culture of the oppressed with my sweetheart as my guide makes this intrusion into our routine such the imposition.

Dirk’s otherwise grim expression slides sideways into almost half of a grin. I accept that limited success at calming the situation and take his hand in my claw.

His soft fingers squeeze against the hard scales of my claws. I look at him and realize that I have never seen him so afraid. If his teeth pressed together any harder they would break.