"Damn," Teresa hovered above the ground as Axel cut the plastic cuffs off of Connor with the soldier's knife. "You guys took control."

The siblings ignored her and continued westward. She floated behind them next to Joules as they found an easy path to the north end of one of the foothills. Connor led the way, and Axel slung the rifle behind his back. The sounds of the Optimal airships grew, and the haze from the fires became thicker. They made the turn as they got to the base of the foothill.

The fire peaked through the trees several hundred yards away, and the tower of red smoke flowed high above them.

After some distance and silence, Teresa said, "Who designed these hills anyway?"

The boys both sneered at her in an eerily similar way.

"The one who's flying is complaining?" Connor said.

"Well, I can see the both of you having a tough time. I'm just sayin'."

"It's been a long day," Connor said. "I have a feeling I won't ever forget it."

"I'm the one carrying the load," Axel said.

"Of course, you're not used to having a load."

"Goddamn it, Connor."

"Guys, guys," Teresa stopped them. "Remember, some dangerous people are after us."

Connor sighed deeply, nodded, and continued leading the way. Teresa's boredom grew, as she could have zipped by and gone straight to school in no time as long as she had tree cover. She leaned her head on her hand, sitting Indian style—which she preferred—while floating a foot above the ground, accompanying Joules.

All four looked in the same direction—an Optimal airship floated by, barely visible through the trees and smoke. The two engines changed angles, the left slightly forward, the right slightly back, and it rotated. The central cockpit looked straight at them.

"Great," Axel said as he readied the rifle. "I guess they knew we didn't go east."

"It might not be seeing us," Teresa said as she straightened from her sitting position.

"Not risking it," and Axel started shooting. Through the noise of the airship, it was hard to tell if he was hitting his mark. And as soon as the bullets started flying, the clip was empty.

"Smooth," Connor saw the airship still in position.

Axel tossed the gun to the ground. "Not the result I was hoping for."

Teresa got ahead of them and pumped her thumbs in the other direction. "Time to run. Now."

Branches and logs didn't slow them as they made haste up the gentler part of the foothill. Regardless, the boys quickly got winded, and the airship gradually followed behind them. Even through the smoke, it had no problems keeping track.

Bang!

Debris flew off a tree in front of them.

"Shit," Teresa said. "Stop, stop."

"What?" Connor said as he grabbed onto Joules's harness.

Axel looked at the partially destroyed tree. "That was a warning shot."

The airship moved to a nearby clearing, and three troops floated down. Like before, there was purple on their boots and backs and a purple glow from the opening.

"Old tech of mine," Teresa said, "but you need two locations, unlike my awesome suit."

"What?" Axel said.

"Nothing, just talking."

The three Optimal officers raised weapons and made their way to them. One walked ahead and approached Connor, stopping ten feet from him.

"There are no more warnings," the officer said. "Turn around, the two of you, and Teresa, you are to go straight into the airship."

She floated a few feet toward the officer before turning to face Connor. "You'll be fine," Teresa assured him, "I know many of them personally. Just do as they say." But she didn't know if Connor would ever have freedom again.

Connor nodded and turned around, as did Axel. But suddenly, Teresa gasped, and a deep scream and a few bullets went off, followed by a startling crack. A large figure had an officer in a headlock, and one officer was on the ground in a position where his body bent over his head backward.

"Drop the gun," Thomas said with his grip tight around the officer's neck, "and fight me like a man."

The other officer who spoke to Connor missed his shots while the principal took control. All eyes were on the officer and his raised gun. BANG. The bullet hit a nearby tree as Teresa flew into him, and they struggled over his gun. Connor and Axel quickly joined in.

Thomas cried out as the officer to whom he had confined got a hold of his knife. Like the previous, he suplexed him into the ground. Lights out, forever. The principal grabbed the dead soldier's gun and fired it.

The blob of humans plus Joules trying to find an opening all ceased motion. Connor was at the bottom, and the barrel was next to his head, dug into the ground.

"Hands off the gun, soldier," Thomas said.

The officer hissed and sighed. Teresa got off of his back, then Axel, then Connor, who managed to keep the gun.

"Toss the gun, Connor," the principal said.

He did so instantly.

"There's no honor in pointing a gun at people," Thomas said as he ditched his gun. "I have a handicap, to make it fair," referring to his stab wound.

The soldier went right for him with a swing. Instantly the principal went under it, and instead of rising back up, he stayed low, wrapped his massive arms around the soldier's waist, and lifted back.

Crack. The three stood in awe at the officer's head bent against the ground. Three suplexes, three kills.

"Principal," Connor said.

"Go," Thomas corrected his principal's suit and tie and grabbed the gun. He began firing at the airship. As he watched a small turret underneath take aim, he repeated his order. "Now!" Thomas did not like repeating himself.

Teresa felt invigorated while feeling under pressure. She had fought and helped her principal. Perhaps it was watching Thomas or Connor and Axel react so quickly. The opposite of watching Connor fall into the pool of water. A fight response was learned, and instead of freezing, she flew low to the other gun, grabbed it, and turned vertically above the tree line straight for the gunship's cockpit. The principal wasn't in awe of Teresa's flying ability and stopped shooting as she approached the ship. The turret beneath that fired the warning shot aimed at Teresa. She went higher above the airship, looped around the top, back to the bottom, and into the hatch. Her old tech was strapped to the ceiling, and companion boots—strapped with her tech—were lined against the wall. It reminded her of who she works for.

Teresa pointed the gun at the pilot. "Cease fire."

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The pilot turned and looked Teresa straight on.

"Johnathan?" Teresa recognized him. One of the hundred individuals cleared to use top-secret tech at Optimal. "What the Hell! I thought we were friends."

"Sorry, Teresa," Jonathan said. "Orders are orders."

"You pointed your gun at me."

He nodded.

She readied the rifle. It felt awkward as she had never held a gun before, much less fired one. She aimed for the control panel by the officer. Instead, she got tossed to the side. No, the ship moved, and the wall crashed into her. She misfired her shots, and bullets hit the top of the fuselage as the ship spun. As she floated to safety, the ship jerked, crashing her into another wall, the floor, and the ceiling.

One of the boots hit her across the head. Out of desperation, she grabbed it in the mayhem, stuck the rifle inside the boot, and fired. The boot shot out a purple spark through the fuselage and out through the engine on the side. The airship went out of control. At least this time, it was consistent, and she grabbed hold of the back exit, righted herself, and flew out. The ship spun out and hurled itself in a corkscrew motion across the foothill. She spotted other airships coming in, and quickly she went low. Her flying slowed. She tried to accelerate but couldn't. She checked her body and spotted where her suit had taken damage—her lower back.

Damn.

Connor and Axel were already a few hundred yards away. The explosion startled both of them, and they—even Joules—turned to see what had happened. A massive metal fireball hurtled through the smoke and over the trees, heading straight for them.

"Joules, with me," Connor ran to one side with Joules, and Axel ran to another.

It crashed between them, and it may have been the resulting fall, a branch, or some debris flying off the airship, but whatever hit him sent him to the ground. Dizzy, confused, he fell.

***

Teresa went by them but couldn't spot them through the haze or hear them through the exhaust and fire from the crashed airship. She kept going, and with each passing moment, the suit slowed. Holding her just a few feet above the ground as she continued to look for Connor and Axel—mostly Connor—she figured Thomas would be okay.

Caught by her ankle, she crashed into the ground. The Optimal officer from before, who had cuffed Connor, stood over her.

Joules howled through the smoke and fire. A cry for help. She had flown over them.

***

Everything felt soft.

A body wearing all black lay on the ground, and blood pooled beneath the head. Shit, he felt worse than shit.

"Hey there, sleepy."

Connor turned his head to see Stephanie sitting on her knees next to Joules. And behind her stood Axel. Connor felt relieved to see Stephanie and, for the first time in a long time, Axel as well.

"I was sleeping?" Connor groaned.

She just smiled, and Joules wagged her tail. "You're exhausted, is all."

"How'd you find us?"

"This is the one crashed airship I didn't cause. Plus, Joules was calling for help."

The pleasant feeling he had before waking up was her hand. He wished he hadn't gotten up so quickly or tried to fake sleeping to get more of that affection. "Why is this happening?"

"They want to understand the Aeon Switch," Stephanie said.

Unlike Connor, Axel, and Teresa, Stephanie looked like she had just gotten ready for work. Her hair looked fine, and there wasn't much dirt on her.

"They're going to kill me if you don't," Connor said.

"There's no way they'll succeed," Stephanie said. A chunk of the downed airship behind them crashed down.

"What?"

"Try as they may," Stephanie said. "They won't succeed. If you believed in yourself as I do, you wouldn't give up either."

"They got close."

"Close doesn't cut it."

Connor leaned up and stretched his neck by twisting his head back and forth as it felt like he slept on it funny. He rubbed his neck, and her necklace caught his eye as it shone. The one thing she has never parted with. Giving him the epiphany Optimal was searching for. "It's your necklace."

Stephanie smiled and nodded. "It's out of energy," she removed it by turning a complicated hook on the back and handed him the Aeon Switch.

The inside of the thick gold band was intriguing. It was incredible to see how the light reflected off the intricate details. Even through the haze, it exuded a brilliant luminance, as if they were stars rotating inside the ring, and he watched from another planet. A rainbow of electronics is made not of wiring but of so many kinds of alloys that the naked eye could only distinguish a hundredth of the details. And the blue jewel hung off the back with something similar behind it, but the details were more centralized. As he held it closer, an interface appeared in his sight, identical to what happened in the hospital.

"If you wear it, the brain imaging you're glimpsing will become functional. You see something, send it to another place in your vision or a coordinate stored in a menu in the top left of your vision."

"I'll have to admit. It's kinda cool."

"What you're looking at is nanotech arranged into a particle accelerator. You've seen plenty of nanotech before on Teresa's suit."

He turned to face the Optimal officer who lay dead nearby. "You killed him?"

She agreed with a nod of her head.

"You've done this before?"

"Yes."

He didn't overthink it, as his head was still whirling. "And Axel? Are you okay?"

"Hell yeah," Axel nodded.

"And Teresa?"

"We'll have to find her."

He took the Aeon Switch, put it around Joules's neck, and hooked it. It was goofy to him, but the wolf looked good in it.

"I'll make a matching one for a collar," she turned, staring through the smoke. "Yup."

"What?"

"They found us," Axel blurted.

The ground between them erupted as intense thuds scattered up and across the airship. Instincts kicked in, forcing them to run. Branches and debris flew as sparks exploded. It was a guessing game for the attacking airship with all the smoke and haze. They took cover behind the crashed airship, and the noise stopped.

"I don't think they were aiming for the three of us," she said.

"What?"

"Joules, they were aiming for Joules," Axel said.

Connor put his hand on his dog. "So they know."

"No. Of course not." Then it occurred to her. As Connor is leverage for her, Joules is leverage for him. "If they kill me they'll never make another Aeon Switch. If they kill you, I don't know how I'll respond. Joules might be in danger."

The engines fired on, and the doppler effect made it obvious it was going around to try again.

"Shit, we have to get this off her." Stephanie struggled to unlatch the Aeon Switch as the wolf kept alert and paced with the approaching airship.

"I have an idea. Joules, look at me," Connor said, and the hybrid did so. Wolves see and hear everything from miles away, an omniscient understanding of their surroundings. Nothing got by Joules.

It took a lot of resolve, but he had no choice as the airship came into view. "Where's Teresa?"

Joules tilted her head and readied her legs as the airship revved its gun.

"Go!"

And Joules bolted. Over logs, under branches, and weaving around trees, she made no wasted movements through the haze as bullets blasted after her. The smoke rippled with each shot, trees broke apart, and dirt burst all around her, yet she still made no mistake, following the quickest path as she kept weaving through each obstacle. Every object and every sound still registered, and she did not deter. The bullets continued as she gained distance, dipped downward and over a ravine, and leaped off a ledge. An explosion, a singed tail, all four paws off the ground—Joules landed and bolted out of sight and straight to her commanded target, struggling with someone. But not much longer.

Teresa tried to elbow his sides as he wrapped his arms around her neck. He kicked the back of her knees, and she fell to the ground, and as the rifle dropped, he dove on top of it.

He pointed the rifle. "Don't move," and he got up with caution.

Teresa feared the worst—it was hard not to while looking into a barrel and hearing the ensuing sounds of destruction not far from where her friends were.

She reversed her suit with the tap of a heel, launching him in the air, and the trees and grass blew away from a new epicenter of force. That didn't stop him, as the gun blew away too. She reversed her suit again, giving her lift, and they fought for the gun. Bang! A bullet hit the dirt by her head. Another into the air. The tip of the barrel pressed against her head.

And then his screams of pain echoed off the foothills. Joules was on top of him, and he wailed in terror as her fangs dug into his shoulder. Even with the equipment he was wearing. It wasn't covering everything. With twice the force of the strongest dog breeds, his shoulder would be crushed and ripped to shreds in moments. His last bit of power readied the rifle, targeting her head, but instead, he collapsed straight to the ground in agony. Faint screams of pain slowly faded, and blood drenched the ground.

Holy shit, Teresa watched nature at its finest.

She carefully grabbed the gun, approached Joules, and began petting her to calm her down. Eventually, she let up, and the man's cries of pain simmered.

"Feels bad, doesn't it? When it happens to you." Teresa said.

"You'll never live up to Stephanie," he mumbled face first from the dirt.

That irked her. When she arrived at Optimal, she was told she would be the best, not just the youngest. "If I were Stephanie, you'd be dead."

She approached Joules and said, "With me." Joules trotted next to her, and the necklace caught Teresa's eye.

Well, son of a bitch, she thought. There it is.

She heard an airship approach.

She grabbed onto Joule's harness, floated off the ground several inches with what power her suit had left, and commanded, "Where's Connor?"