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The sadness of the baleful calls fed into me until I was swept away by the feelings of loss at how much dimmer the world was with the disappearance of the lights gone that day. The smell of my brother fell away when I sat up and swayed in time to the haunting melody that I soon took up. My neck undulating softly as I rocked from paw to paw and joined my voices with the others to send it spiraling into the dusky sky. Ribbons of melody and memorializing thoughts twisted together as more and more joined the lead of Virginia. Pressing ourselves together, I could feel the warmth of other's bodies with the opening of their scales in the mingling of our scents. Our thoughts, singing, and scent, carrying the memories of those that had fallen into the firmament where they belonged.

I showed Alex what I felt, what we felt, and the confusion at how we were acting fell away with his gasp. His hand found my leg and slipped in between my scales to touch the heated skin beneath to share the intimacy. I could feel his tears on his cheeks. Many other small ones, those closest to us, slowed to a halt with their own eyes closed. Some held each other, others walked dreamily into the embrace of Children with soft sighs and stifled sobs. Jaded medical professionals and grieving families and friends said goodbye to their loved ones with upturned faces.

The sense of some...thing, some ephemeral event, danced on the edges of their perception. Experiencing the departure of this ghostly whisper left them unfeeling of the tears tracking down soft cheeks reddened by the cold air. In the end, the song faded until the only voice left was Virginia's. Then, it was over with her final soft croon. Leaving behind hundreds of crying small ones and dozens of Children providing the calm reassurance of their presences until they could return to treating those who remained.

"Tom..." Alex said, quietly, sadly. I closed my eyes and drew my wings against my back to hear the truth that I knew had been building up to this moment for months. What I feared would split me from my human children forever.

"Tom...that was the most moving thing that I've ever felt in my life. But, also one of the most alien things I could ever experience. None of you are who you where anymore brother. You are more than you were. You are more than human, and I'm scared that I won't, that I can't, ever fully understand what that means. That I'll never fully grasp just how you see and feel the world. There is nothing normal from a human standpoint in how you dragons relate to each other. It is so...much."

"But you know, tiny brother. You felt it. Don't you think it's better to share like this? Do you think anyone here would be willing to harm when they could feel what I can show them? What Kim could show them?"

"I don't think other people are ready for that. Have you been doing to other humans what you've been doing with me?"

It bothered me that I had to run through my life-like, perfectly captured, memories to give him that answer. That I wouldn't have given the least thought to doing it if I had and might have done it without giving a concern for its unnatural and invasive nature. To a small one anyway.

"...No." I said, unsure. As unsatisfied with that answer as he was. "I think... I think that if others have been responding to our emotions it is because of the same reason why the hospital administrator wants me, us, around. I guess it's like an energy field around us."

"I don't think it's an us. I think it's you, Tom. You are the one making this 'field'. From what I've heard Prometheus say," he pointed at the alien watching us with his inscrutable gaze, "if Kim was awake this phenomenon would be even stronger. Do the other dragons connect with you this same way as I? Is it more? Have they asked, or do you just do it unconsciously? Do they accept it unconsciously?"

"You funny, small one." Star Finder, broke in to say. "We know each other because that what we are. Like tree. Tree grow and grow reaching for far-away sun because it tree. We half of who we are with no revered one, trees with no roots to grow strong. We stars lost in darkness but with revered one we constellation. See truth?"

Alex took a moment to digest that before turning back to me and continuing. "You keep calling humans small ones, I get the sense that you're watering this 'connection' down for me."

"Alex, I don't know if I can connect to others like I do with you. I think it's only because we are family that even this is possible. Because I know you. Maybe if Kim were awake..." I trailed off and cast a forlorn look at my wife just as another twitch ran down her flank. Waves of excitement came from our children. "...but yes, I am only sending you... I guess I am only sending you something like the echo of what we're feeling. I call humans small ones now because I fear that what I could pour into you would overwhelm what you could hold. We are so much more now..."

He sighed and rubbed his head. From a tent to our right, a nurse called his name. A man in there was suffering. A quick scan made my ribs ache and my breathing catch.

"Alex, he has two broken ribs impinging his right lung."

"That's creepy, Tom. Do you need to go into his mind to do that?"

"No, it's like..." I cocked my head in thought and scratched my neck before answering, "it's like being able to listen into a very dim, very distant, radio station."

Already, he was on his way to his latest patient with a quick "see you later". But he was learning and thought to me quietly from his small mind. Tom don't tell anyone else about this. We need to know more. I sent an acknowledgement, and an all-embracing expression of my love for him. My chortled laughter chased after him when I felt him blush at my familial endearment.

Getting up, I stretched my tail out and lifted each leg to swing in a graceful dancing movement that worked out the kinks from the battle just hours earlier. I didn't really want to talk to Prometheus until after I had dealt with the little mouse that thought he was being so very circumspect. I was also still waiting for the other shoe to drop for what I had done to the deputies earlier. At this point I didn't know what the authorities could or would do. Was an accidental psychic injury even a crime? Could they continue to spare anyone to watch me? My center of balance shifted as I stretched myself upwards before refolding my limbs and sitting with some discomfort from my tail until I shifted to one hip. I had taken several hits to my ventral scales during the fighting. Leaving them cracked and sore like chipped teeth as an analogy a human would understand.

"Come out from behind Tree Knocker's tail, Jonah, and tell me what you plan to do with everything you just heard between me and my brother." I called out to the man before he was revealed when she lifted her tail up to swat him forward in a tumble with an annoyed grumble over being used as concealment.

"How'd you know I was there?"

"If you don't know that after listening, I'm not going to tell you now. I don't suppose I can appeal to your sense of morality to keep you from ruining what remains of our lives?"

"I feel like you have a fundamental misunderstanding of the type of journalism I practice Mr. Schwarzkopf. I am not one to blare what I learn all over the evening news. I embed with subjects over long periods of time to learn and report what it is like to be with them during their struggles."

"Hmph" I snorted and flicked my tail. "So, what you're saying is you'll report everything you just heard. Just not today."

"You asked me to join you without any preconditions. I presumed you knew what you were getting into. You could tell me to piss off right now. But then your story will end without an explanation for why people shouldn't fear you more than they already do."

Oh, this man was as smart as they come. No doubt about it. But he misunderstood that this story wasn't just about us. It was about two species, and that's what I told him then.

"You want me to be interviewing the humans you interact with as well?" He said, skeptically. "You mean the ones..."

"Them, yes. And also those that hate us and wish us dead. Help me understand why the small ones have gone straight from despair to violence. I don't know if I can connect progression of one to the other anymore. Is this a result of contact with aliens? The degradation of fossil energy sources and their jobs? Or are people so afraid of the change they must undergo that they'd rather kill until they feel better?"

"I feel like you're marginalizing their suffering." He told me.

"Why? How? Do they not have food, water, and shelter? Are their children not cared for?" I found it impossible to believe that I wouldn't understand the way someone felt. What I wanted Jonah to do was find out in their own words. To paint a picture for me different than what was conveyed by the emotions that I could pick up from them.

"Some may be. But they are far from safe. And you know the bare necessities of life aren't enough for happiness."

"Maybe that's why so many people are unhappy then. Even before Zero Day, would you have considered our nation a happy and content one? Did the human world seem like a happy and content place? Or one where too many people had lost their ways? Maybe people needed reminded of what really matters."

"So, you're saying..." He waved his hand at the carnage still be handled on the hospital grounds. "That humanity needed this to happen?" Then, he pointed at me. "That you deserved what happened to you? That you needed to become this?"

"Maybe. Maybe we needed to suffer before we could realize what we're truly capable of. Maybe we're being punished for poisoning ourselves and the only world we've ever known."

"Do you really believe that?"

Thinking of my own children, and how I would have killed anyone that had threatened their happiness, I wasn't sure if the punishment fit the crime. If only they had just told us the course we were on and given us a chance to fix it ourselves.

"Our data indicated that that was incredibly unlikely." Prometheus told me when Jonah was finally lured away to cover Virginia losing her composure. Dabbing at her mouth, her napkin had come away soaked in blood. The blood she had spilled from the humans attacking her family and her home. Everyone in the military remembers their first kill and how it affected them. Not everyone reacts the same way. The female who had been an elderly bed ridden woman just a year ago did not react well to the knowledge that she could, and did, kill with careless ease. Her mewling cries and psychic battering made my head split in agony, and it was all that I could do to keep from vomiting up stomach acid. Not that I let how I felt cheapen the intensity of what she was undergoing in the slightest.

"What?" I asked wearily. Rubbing my head with the thick leather of my paw soles in short jerky motions. Martin helped me by reaching out with one balled paw to massage my neck with his knuckles. That was when I learned he was a masseuse. A rumbling avalanche of noise made my throat vibrate as I closed my eyes. Sending a heartfelt signal of my appreciation to him in return along with calming thoughts to the rest of his family. Savannah sighed wearily and tightened her embrace of her unhatched children.

"What your new species and that of humankind is undergoing and will continue to undergo is catastrophic. But it is for the best. Trust in us is an impossible thing for you to accept within yourselves now, and for the remainder of your lives. In time, however, your descendants will look upon this strife that you are inflicting upon yourselves as the catalyst for ages upon ages of unfathomable prosperity. In time your two species will have become strong enough, together, to ascend."

I grumbled listlessly, not wanting to hear his bullshit when all I could smell was gunpowder and burning flesh. When all I could see were bodies exploding as bullets and explosions tore through them. When all I could sense were others grieving in the privacy of their own minds. How could this war with our selves be for the best?

"Prometheus, I do not know what sick thoughts your species of super computers and your masters had in mind when you started this 'test'. But you have really stacked the deck against us. Not only have you contacted Earth and upended humanity's fixed certainty that we were alone and masters of our destiny in the Universe. But also pulled apart the very fabric of the society we have built by corrupting the ubiquitous material that nearly all modern life is built upon. Then you transformed many of us into impossibilities that have no analog in Earth's history and expect humans to respond reasonably."

Prometheus looked me straight in the eyes when he responded. Chilling me to the core.

"I do not expect the human species to survive this crucible. I am, however, willing to accept that I may be proven wrong by the untapped potential of certain individuals of this world. Are you going to be one to prove my faction within our hierarchy mistaken in our presumptive analyses of innumerable likely outcomes, Tom Schwarzkopf? Or, like the rest, will you panic and despair and turn to self-immolation? Imperfect as you are. I find it amusing that the humans that despise you because of what you've been made into and your fictional infidelity to your birth species believe that you are the monsters. When all they need to do to find the creatures that exist outside of thought and morality on this horribly maltreated biosphere is to find a reflective surface.

"I know that you blame us for the civil unrest that wreaks your poorly assembled collection of societal ideals. But what strength is there in a house of cards? Yours is a civilization built upon finite resources and with no thought for what lay beyond the convenient. Humanity as it is now has neither the resiliency, nor the strength of will, to face a reality where it is confronted with how small and petty it is. Look at how the multitudes act even now. No concern but for themselves. No vision of a future where you grow stronger together. They believe they are fighting for what is right. What they fight for is impossible. Bringing back yesteryear and the destructive rut you occupied then is madness. A human madness. Your test is one of suffering, because that is the only stimulus humans seem to respond to.

"Only humanity" He finished with the same unbroken, emotionless tone that made my wings shift and scales clatter uneasily. It would have been better if he had been ranting and roaring instead. "Would be base enough to regard the introduction of the Children of the Egg, and the select few chosen to become one of them, as anything other than a gift meant for the betterment of all life on this world. A way to evolve that would be impossible otherwise. To provide for a future that wasn't doomed to end in misery as yours was. If we had had our way, we would have eliminated all of you. It left the fewest questions unanswered on how to deal with the failures of the human species. A species of animals too poorly evolved and socially equipped to understand the responsibility imparted by the niche you have carved for yourselves with the remains of all the life that you have trampled when it was in your way."

Prometheus looked at all the drooping wings and stifled sobs of those around him and then stiffly moved off to a corner of the hospitals exterior wall where he pointedly closed himself off with his wings. I was startled. Too startled to be angry or bitter at what he had said. I was not my wife to feel her cynical view of the world vindicated by the fallen alien's words and instead shoved back at the shroud wrapping everyone's thoughts with a brilliant eruption of denial.

This would not be a failure. I would not let violence be the defining characteristic of the human world. If I, we, needed to be this to change the world. Then we would. I would. And I would... I would choose it if I was given the choice.

Standing, I flapped my wings and slapped my tail into piles of snow until everyone's attention was on me. Growling, I moved with sinuous grace to look each of those despairing after Prometheus' words and the attack on the mall.

"We cannot let this be the impression that determines our fate. Listen to me. Listen to my heart." I loosened the choke on my emotions and let them flow into the other Children and Small Ones. I let them feel my conviction that we would win. That we had the strength to face the evils brought out by despair. By uncertainty. That it didn't matter how dark the future might seem as long as we cared for each other no matter what we looked like.

"If this test is indeed meant to make us suffer, then what use is it to turn on each other?" I stepped to the next crying face and, with a gentleness unthinkable in my frame, brought the crying nurse's face upward with the curve of a talon beneath his jaw.

"We can be strong for each other, and do you know why?" I asked the woman with her arm in a sling next to the nurse. "Because as bad as things are, I know that we can still be better than they think we are." I turned away from the woman _Beth_to sweep my gaze around the circle that had formed around me. At all the Children and Small Ones who were looking for someone to show them that we weren't the reasonless animals that we were just told we were.

"I want to show you all how I feel. How I know that we're going to be okay. Because I, and you, all know something that these aliens don't. That we can care for each other. That we can care about our future." Bobbing my head, I whistled and chirped in an inhuman voice to welcome and greet. Casting my wings out as a symbol that I would guard any who sought my comfort. Our comfort. "If any do not wish to feel these thoughts that aren't your own, I ask that you please clearly think of a stop sign in your mind and I will respect your wishes."

Delving into my past, I had the perfect memory to share with the others who stood with bowed heads and their minds open to me. Not knowing what was about to happen, they still yearned for something better than what they had had yet that day. I was only too happy that so many were willing to take me up on my offer. Prometheus' words had badly disturbed many in ways that were not easy to understand. The monotony of his earlier castigating remarks eerier and more unsettling than I could describe.

Still, as was reasonable, there was a great deal of skepticism in what I was offering from those who could not feel my intent. Or those that were just afraid. Letting out a sense of calm to back everyone down from the terror of being in their first battle and soothing all with peaceable scents, I sent out my memory to those who had been captured by my melodious vocalizations.

I had been returning from a backcountry rescue of a snowmobiler who had been swept up in an avalanche while his group had explored the Bitterroot Mountains. Eyes blinked tiredly as they felt my yawning fatigue that night and my battle to stay awake long enough to make it home. The crowd murmured in concern as they saw, just as I had, the overturned SUV with its headlights still on where it rested off the shoulder of the road.

They felt as I did when the extensive training I had undergone took over and I leapt into action. Making sure that they knew that, not for one second, did I hesitate to grab my aid bag and a headlamp to run and slide down the embankment to the SUV. Fear for the occupants of the vehicle swept through my audience as I shone my light on a man in the driver seat. Dangling from his seat belt and unconscious with blood dripping down the side of his head where it had slammed into the window next to it.

Through my own memories, they heard the 911 operator respond to my assessment as I measured his vital signs and examined him where he was. They knew my worry about possible spinal damage as I clamped a collar around his neck and eased him out onto a reflective blanket that I'd unfolded for him but also my worry in leaving him upside down and the equally grave risk of blood clots.

Shocked gasps rippled when the man groaned and asked about his son in the backseat. The toddler was alive, but very cold and not responding to my voice. Calming them with an upbeat chirping whistle and my emotions, I showed them next that after wrapping the boy with heat pack and other reflective blankets I was able to get some color back into his skin and bring his core temperature up.

When the flashing lights of the Paramedics washed over my truck and myself, the many others willing to connect to me breathed pent up sighs of relief when the man and his son were bundled into the waiting ambulance.

I withdrew from the memory while nudging and smiling reassuringly at the worst affected of those who were experiencing what I had done on that snow-covered road. The memory began again the next day with a woman, the mother and wife, squeezing the life out of me. I laughed with the others, as they felt my embarrassment while Kim looked on with pride as the woman planted a kiss on my cheek to thank me for what I had done.

They knew how I felt. They knew I would have done the same for anyone here, regardless of who they were, without hesitation. That I still would. I let them know that I thought that we were all in this together, that we could not afford any longer to assume that it was some one else's problem. That others would fix it. That we needn't concern ourselves with the suffering of others beyond our social groups. I asked them each to share a memory of each of them helping another to prove that we were worth saving to themselves. That humanity could overcome the hate that had closed so many minds and twisted so many hearts already. That we could undergo the changes to make the world better.

I begged them to share, and scores of Small Ones and Children did exactly that. Tales of helping others spun from human to Child and back with my guidance in spreading the stories of caring. I knew that Kim would laugh, I could hear cynical chuffing already in my head, but it was vital to let these individuals remember what they were and what was important.

A young girl in her mother's arms, told a story of how she and her momma had bottle fed the bunnies left behind after a youthful Child had eaten their mother. Trying, unsuccessfully, to save the infantile rabbit's lives for no other reason than it was the right thing to do to at least make the attempt. A lesson that the young girl had taken to heart in cherishing the value of life and death.

The medical intern falling asleep on the floor of an empty storage room along with two others and a young male who kept them warm by unfurling his wings. Groggily, and not fully believing what I asked of him in the strange twilight before sleep where he dwelt, the trainee shared a story of the first baby he helped deliver. How much the miracle of birth made him want to be a father himself.

Memories came from a young woman who had shown her neighbors how to grow indoors. The produce being used to feed children sadly lacking in the nutrients they needed most.

A lithe Child, who had once been an HVAC technician, devising an ingenious way to use the natural body heat of other Children to heat homes for those who had lost power. Providing comfort and companionship for those same Children who sought shelter during bitter nights full of loneliness.

There were those who wished not to engage of course. Those that wished not to have anything to do with me. Some shared graphic images of them telling me where I could stick my head. Many of those, I sensed, did not fully believe that I would be able to see the images they shouted in their minds. I wondered how many of them would still have done so if I had lowered myself to respond when they so clearly did not desire a response.

But it was okay. There were no intimidation displays, no imperatives, no manipulations. If they did not want to share, and be buoyed by the others, they could remain unattached and without the light of the other's celestial auras. I simply sent them an image of an open door leading to a green pasture, an image taken from my home, and a clear message that they would always be welcome. Two more joined on the spot, enticed by the smell of grass, the warmth of that summer day, and the sense that they could be a part of making all this suffering meaningful.

These meditative balms did seem to help to expand the sphere of my constellation with every star added to it. However, many here were still wrapped in grief and would not, or could not, accept what I was trying to convey with the help of all that shared. The grief too raw. The loss too dear. Dozens were not ready for the kind of healing that I earnestly tried to bring to them. I did not think I could truly understand anymore why they wished to languish by themselves. With none to express their inner selves to. Already I couldn't imagine such a lonely, lonely existence. Ours, and Savannah and Martin's children recoiled with startled horror at the touch of the numb void filling those poor minds.

To aid those with no connections to my expanding net, the youngest and most Child like among us Children took to the sky in a flurry of leathery wings. Landing in droves on the hospital roof where they picked up a new song, being sung just for those who mourned in the silent barren deserts of their lonely existences.

The haunting, bittersweet melody of ululating cries from the children rang out over the city. Drawing thousands upon thousands from their homes as more hidden young ones emerged from their hideaways throughout the urban center. Carrying the sad lilting cries of alien peeps and wavering trills onward until the sound of these plaintive calls echoed across the internet. Women, men, and children looked to the skies as phalanxes of Children swept overhead, black against the creeping darkness of the night, wondering at the meaning of the eerie melodies being sung earthward from the heavens. A song of remembrance in the tones of our warbling new language. When sung by the chorus in the sky it flowed with the fluid grace of water through a creek.

Stars fade and hearts still

Cry with us as we mourn and trill

Gone they are beyond sight

To leave us without guiding light

We small and many but proud and strong

To carry their memory all our lives long

Let tears run and song be heard

When new day dawns we will be stirred

To let none now forget who once was

Raise heads to stars above

And sing with us eternal love

Licking my jaw with a few swipes of my tongue, I brought my head down from watching the waves of little ones consolidate on the roof of the hospital. Encouraged there by me for safety and company after seeing from their memories just how much lonely, hungry danger they experienced in their individual hideaways. I didn't realize that I had joined in the singing of the little ones until I heard my own carrying voice in Red Stripe's memory. My eyes narrowed and a part of my lip curled when in turning I spotted one of Prometheus' eyes watching me intently beneath his raised wing. Catching my expression did nothing to change his own and I felt the perfectly clinical assessment of his ambivalent gaze boring into the fin on the back of my head as I walked away to get something to eat. Fuck him.

The curious thoughts of the children on the roof soon provided relief of their own as they flooded my network. Their raucous, careening minds bouncing off each other and anything else like a fleet of overzealous bumper cars being driven by hamsters. The amusing cacophony of their questions a perfect match for their intensely inquisitive minds. A soothing balm to distract those who couldn't let their woe go as easily as some of us already had. I tried to encourage youthful Small Ones to joy their flight capable playmates on the roof, but many parents within my awareness balked at the suggestion and clung tightly to their squirming children. I didn't like that it took me a moment to remember why the idea might not be all that favorably received.

Aluminum tubs full of oatmeal, and what tasted like fried fish fillets in an unholy union that didn't bother me near as much as it should have, lay in a neat row steaming in the twilight of the day with several others attending to them. I took one of the tubs and dumped half of it into my open mouth after asking the smaller male stirring the pots with a paddle tied to his tail how much each of us was allowed. Setting it back down for another pair of Small Ones to refill it as their larger coworker went back to stirring each water trough one after the other. It barely made a mouthful. I could have eaten the cow with one bite that should have been drinking out of the tub. Just how were we going to feed so many Children for very long? I didn't think we could. Not here anyway.

Lying next to my wife, I caressed our children as they sent primitive expressions of gleeful anticipation that were echoed by another set of children just entering my field of awareness. A contraction rocked Kim's body and the eggs held within her shifted closer to their exit. Lifting her leg, I assessed her dilation and made an entirely educated guess based on zero experience that she was probably due to give birth sometime between that exact second and one year later. I called out for Serena, and she and Brian came padding over with zealous interest in probing my wife in an unsettling manner.

The huffing source of the other unborn children I sensed came in for a heavy landing. Amanda stood panting and her eyes closed with a grimace while her scales rippled and her flanks heaved. Her claws flexed against the ground and she groaned with a crack of her tail as the contractive spasm worked its way to the far end of her spine.

"I think... I think I am about to give birth... Oh wow does this feel weird. Is this what childbirth would have felt like as a woman? I thought it would hurt a lot more."

Crouching, she shivered before leaping upwards with a shriek that left her hovering in midair after a panicked deployment of her wings. Serena, who had managed to get below her unseen, had reached up to feel her nether regions. I cherished the friendship of Brian and Serena with all my heart, but man were they both about as creepy as a clown in a sewer trying to give you a red balloon sometimes. I would never want to be between either of them and some new discovery to be made.

"What the fuck was that? Did she really just touch my...Did you really just touch my vagina?"

If the Air Force Officer was expecting repentance, or really any kind of generally accepted social nicety, from my tiny researcher friend she was sorely disappointed. Snatching the tiny woman up with a rear foot, she passed her forward until she was holding Serena on the palm of her hand before her lowered snout.

"Are you an OB/GYN? What the hell ma'am? I'm not your plaything!"

Serena already seemed to be ignoring the affronted giant holding her up like a little figurine. Scribbling in a notebook while muttering to herself instead.

"I keep forgetting how flexible their hind paws can be. Almost hand-like..."

I showed Amanda Serena's thoughts and she snorted a sigh at not getting through to her. Setting her down instead so that she could wander back to Brian who was looking obliquely at his dear friend with faint, sorrow wrapped, amusement leaking from beneath his scales.

"You are, you know..." Serena turned back to look at Amanda with her chin resting on one of her gloved hands. "About to deposit your eggs. I've seen, we've seen it plenty of times before. Brian agrees with me."

"Well... in lizards anyway. This should be quite the eye opener for us as well! Can you feel the eggs moving into position? I always wondered just what a tegu felt as it gave birth. Perhaps you can share the experience with us?" His tail tip pointed back and forth between himself and Serena.

Amanda made her outrage known painfully loud. "Are you two for real? Get away from me!"

Planting her haunches firmly on the ground, she swung her tail around herself to block any view the two degenerates might have had of her sex with the muscular appendage.

"Toooooooooooh" She tried to address me before another spasm hit that left her moaning wordlessly instead. Communicating with her mind in lieu of spoken words to give me an update on what happened at the airport that I could pass on to the others.

The damage done by the crashing planes hours earlier had been immense, and I saw the aftermath through her eyes. A hush fell over the hospital grounds as many more turned inwards to experience what happened with fear and anxiety undoing everything I had just finished accomplishing.

The memories played out from her perspective and at one point I had to disentangling myself from Amanda's memory to look and make sure that I had not, in fact, suddenly become an egg carrying female. Brian snorted in amusement, before surreptitiously checking between his hind legs as well. First Light and Night Star snarled at our affront to their gender.

Amanda halted her sharing when she felt the despair and terror coming from the minds who had already been through so much that day. I encouraged her to finish her retelling at the same time I made sure everyone else knew that they didn't have to experience these memories if they did not want to.

It had been as horrific as I'd presumed. Almost an entire hangar full of medical supplies had been lost in the second explosion and, even more grievously, the airport's fuel supplies had been the source of the titanic final explosion. No one had died other than the pilot of one kamikaze plane, thank god, but many had suffered injuries in the explosions. Amanda herself remained woozy and couldn't keep her paws for long before listing awkwardly from the imbalanced caused by a torn inner ear. Or whatever passed for it now for us anyway.

Lt Colonel Huygens was grateful for the wings and the emotions that reached out to comfort her after relating the attack. Virginia roused herself up enough to cry fresh agony after seeing in Amanda's thoughts about what had happened to her wing leader, General Boyd.

The convoy that Amanda had been ahead of came down the street before the hospital in the few minutes it had taken her to share with everyone what had happened at the airport. The General himself led the convoy on the ground, his wing bound to his side and covered in sickly burns from where he held up the collapse of the hangar to salvage the few pallets of medical equipment they were able to recover. Stoic he might have been in his suffering, I could still feel his relieved sigh along with the burning sensation of his injuries when I made his pain my own. A particularly gruesome indicator of what he'd gone through lay in the melted remains of the shelter base on his back where it had adhered to his scales.

Conrad remained orbiting above keeping a sharp lookout, and I asked for volunteers to connect with him and expand his perimeter. Virginia came, with tears pouring down her cheeks and a breathless whistle of dismay, to nuzzle Boyd delicately. Placing a forepaw against his chest and kissing him as his eyes closed while leaning into her larger frame.

"Gather everyone." He said, turning away to address his subordinates. "We're being ordered out. The acting Governor wants us out, Boise is lost to us. Tom, come join us at this meeting. I need you to do that thing you're doing to coordinate this. All injured dragons will be leaving to the Spokane-Coeur d'Alene safe zone. The convoy leaves at dawn. Lt. Jonas, Contact all regional hospital administrators and the city council. They need to hear just what was lost in the airport fires."

His tail lifted and waved behind him to indicate the towering smoke clouds backlit by the fires at their bases. The airport might be a complete loss. He certainly thought so as far as any aeronautical support logistics were concerned.

I invited everyone I thought that might have a bearing on this conversation to come forward. The rest I shooed away with non-verbal cues and a promise to show them what was happening anyway. What remained was an emergency conference ringed around a set of folding tables with a security barricade the Small Ones formed by their towering bodies lying in complimentary arcs. Now was not a time to demonstrate what I could do and distract from what Boyd was thinking to accomplish, so I kept the thought channels around me clear and the meeting commenced with normal speech.

Going down the mental checklist in his head, the General asked the others what they needed to transport the injured Children, and whoever else would like to leave the city, to my northern home.

My concern was the mental health of everyone going. Would they be taken care of? Being forced to become migrants because of violence did not lead to a happy outcome. I didn't want to think about the possible consequences of our semi self-imposed segregation. This couldn't be a long-term solution. It wasn't healthy for anyone.

What quickly became clear, even without the thoughts of the Colonels and the General, was this was a battle that no one had been prepared for. Worse yet, it was a scene that had played out not just in the United States, but around the world. Major cities around the globe had suffered attacks meant to undermine national authorities. To demoralize citizens. To destroy rapidly vanishing supplies needed for survival.

And no one had a handle on why these coordinated battles were being waged yet. A dragging sense of dismal failure settled deep in my stomach and my thoughts cast to my wife and my family. Was this it? Was this the red line the aliens had warned us not to cross? Or was this level of death and destruction still acceptable to them? Did they care at all?

I was almost completely convinced that as long as the environment was no worse off than it was when they had first intervened that the aliens wouldn't care how many died. What was I thinking? They probably already knew how many were the most likely to die.

Was there even a point in trying to buoy everyone's spirit? For the children, there would always be a point. If I could not live in peace, then they would. They would! There would be a world waiting for them better than this, this madness. This human madness. Just as Prometheus said not too long ago. I did not think it any coincidence that we used the same words. Letting none of my doubts out, I kept up the churning positive thought to keep everyone's morale as high as possible. There would always be a point to keeping people happy. Even if they had every reason to wallow in their despair, I would not let them.

The convoy would be staggering in its size. Dozens of trucks given the size of the patients. Some of the biggest, such as my wife, would be alone on the flat bed semi that would transport them. My objections to that subsided within my heart before I could even voice them. It would be far better for the tenuous state of her leg, to be transported by ground than with all the tumult of flight.

The trucks, and truckers, were being rounded up from another mall where they had parked their rigs after running out of fuel. The long-haul truckers had turned the parking lot into a pop-up gypsy camp with their sleeper cabs were in some cases their only homes. The only thing they needed was fuel a job and fuel. Which a Captain had taken a fueler and an armed escort over there to provide. All their CBs were confiscated, and they were told nothing about where they were headed or what their cargo would be.

Each truck would have a pair of soldiers with the driver, armed, and with a radio for communication. Only five gun trucks were able to spared for the mission. That, a recovery wrecker, the fuel tanker, and an FMTV outfitted as a command center, would form the military component of the road train.

"What about friends that have fallen from sky, Revered One?" Asked Lost Way from across the camp. Just one of many voices in the cacophony roaring and chirping back and forth. The only thing preventing the convoy north from being compromised, was that the open discussion of it came in a language unintelligible to human ears. No Child would ever betray another. That was a truth as deeply rooted as the mountains themselves. I knew better than anyone present.

"General, what about the fallen. We can't leave them behind... many here won't stand for it."

Boyd twisted his head to look at the rows of tarp covered bodies. Tiny lost radiances laid in rows next to the larger faded lights. His throat worked silently as he stared at the bodies with his tongue darting out to swipe at his nose to sharpen his sense of smell. Myself, I could smell his dismayed indecision and the powerful instinct to do... something.

Small Ones began whispering to each other at his lack of a reaction that they could understand. Virginia captured his twitching tail with hers and whispered his name into his ear with her great snout to bring him back to us. He started, eyes focusing on hers, before sighing and unconsciously flicking his tongue out to briefly kiss her. Virginia just about glowed with happiness at the reflexive expression of endearment. Her heady scent so thick and emotive that even the Small Ones had a vague sense of what it meant.

"Anyone who can, if possible, prove a relationship with the deceased and seeks safety in the regional zone north of us will have accommodations provided for movement. Please, make any who approach you for this aware that we do not have the space and resources to afford the dignity that these victims would normally be accorded. The deceased will be... "he paused to collect himself as he understandably choked up with emotion "...they will be stacked on top of each other until the capacity of the transport vehicle is reached. Is that understood?"

Everyone murmured an assent and the meeting continued onwards. There was no sleep for me that night, tired as I was, and the planning session drug on for grueling hours. Filled with minutia that doesn't need repeating here, the departing was meticulously planned.

The big question marks remaining had to do with the city that was essentially being left to its own defenses. On this however, Boyd adamantly put his foot down by making it clear just what his orders were.

"No, my forces cannot remain here. After the attack at the airport, and the others that have occurred in 18 other states across the country, the president himself has ordered me to leave the contested area. I was caught with my wings folded, just as unaware, as the rest of you by this strike. Something of this magnitude simply should not have been able to occur without being noticed. I'm sorry, but there it is. I can put you in contact with Colonel Straub who is our liaison to FEMA for further distribution of the emergency supplies that remain undamaged.

"Any other objections should be directed to the Governor's office who has made it clear to the White House that we are no longer welcome in the Capital of this state and must depart to a Federal facility. Once the convoy north departs, we will return to the airport to secure what material and equipment we can for transport to a more secure location."

On that disgruntling note, the others were dismissed to attend to the power vacuum that was going to be left after the departure of the active-duty troops. I always knew that the presence of the military was a double-edged sword and it seemed like the collateral damage that that weapon could inflict even when used properly had become too much of a liability for the time being. Which might lead to even more suffering if the state and local authorities didn't step up their 'A' game. Something I hadn't seen yet and wondered if even that would be enough without outside help.

Conrad landed after the command council had ended and I was startled at the number of burns he had streaking down his right wing. The thick hide riddled with blisters and charred flesh in long twisting ribbons from wing arm to trailing edge. Immediately I applied myself to his hurts and dispelled them across the many nerves of my own body. Radiating the harmful organic-electrical energy away like the waste heat by-product from a powerful computer into the midnight sky.

What right did I have to the name that some of the others had begun calling me? 'Revered One'. And this poor light had had his wings spread right above my snout for hours without a sound or a glimmer from his mind about how much pain he was in. I almost wanted to berate him for his misguided machismo but knew that ultimately, I had failed him as a leader. Scowling to myself, I couldn't help my tail rising into the air to thump down with severe self-admonishment.

I turned inwards to watch the news through any set of eyes that was willing to share with me. I could feel others making the same effort and I glided along the worn paths their attentions had already laid down to one mind who sleepily watched the news in a waiting room within the hospital. The man there Juan, caught in the detached mindset of an insomniac, thought he was imagining the dozen other looming presences he had agreed to have in his head as we watched the television along with him.

"The death toll continues to mount as reports roll. Standing now at a staggering 18,746 confirmed dead and upwards of 100,000 wounded. The subversive factions are making their presences known in this divided nation as officials scramble for answers and a solution. With no end in sight to the record setting unemployment, and with polling of government approval at all-time lows, the situation continues to show signs of deterioration.

"Already the finger pointing has begun in the halls of Congress as the deadlock on what, if anything, can be done about this crisis continues. With the two dominant political parties at odds, there is little indication that any meaningful legislation is forthcoming. Adding to the terrible uncertainty is the highly anticipated ruling from the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals widely believed to affirm the constitutionality of the state of Florida stripping the dragons of all rights and freedoms that they had once enjoyed in this country. Leaving them, at best, as animals, and at worst, as an invasive species and subject to Florida's invasive species control programs."

Despite numerous testimonies from a broad spectrum of scientific fields attesting to the intelligence and developed sense of self, many politicians are unmoved as to the need for declaring these dragons as needing any kind of legal protection. The governor of Florida's response to the question of whether any biological organism other than a human being deserves the same rights and protections is emblematic of roughly a third of our nation's states and dozens of other countries around the world. Here is an excerpt from his press conference earlier today.

"I, Ron Desantis, and likeminded state and federal representatives acting as a majority, have used are legal authority to issue emergency authority provisions to fast-track legislation forbidding the prosecution or harassment of any human being seeking to euthanize these one-time humans and any young they may have produced since Zero Day. Furthermore, any person found to be harboring or abetting these animals will be charged with a first-degree misdemeanor, punishable by up to one year in jail and a one thousand dollar fine per dragon.

The scene cut away from the clip of the press conference to return to the news studio. "It also bears mentioning, that after his press conference the Governor and an unknown number of the state's legislative representatives have gone into hiding once the Federal Government issued warrants for their arrest. The exact charges have not been revealed yet, but they likely stem from orders originating from Tallahassee to seal Florida's border and the deployment of state officials to seize military property using the National Guard at military instillations."

Emotional trumpets erupted as a video of the sealed I-95 interstate at the Florida-Georgia boundary came up showing Florida National Guard troops trading fire with other soldiers on the Georgian side. Jeremy, the generically photogenic news anchor, came on again to caution that the next video they were to play had been provided by an unknown source in Florida and was both graphic and disturbing in nature. It showed a nighttime intercept of a group of dragons fleeing the state.

I joined the moaning chorus when the scene registered. The sinking feeling in my stomach a void that I felt in danger of falling into as I wagged my head in disbelief at what I was seeing. A black and white video, infrared imaging, showed a cluster of vast shapes flapping in front of what was apparently a gun camera on an aircraft. Bursts of gunfire stitched across the screen. The black hot bullets shooting towards the wing of Children. They reacted to the sound of the gunfire by spinning into dizzying motion in each direction. Performing movements far beyond the capabilities of their pursuer. But a smaller form was not so lucky as the bullets struck their wing and sent heated blood spraying into the air in view of the imaging equipment. The younger Child did not fall far before one of her larger wing mates slid beneath her to allow her to land on his back. I didn't know what their fate was, as the camera footage ended shortly afterwards. It was probably for the best that we didn't see it.

The shrilling distress of peeping Child in the hospital roused the man we were watching the news broadcast through and the connection to his sight ended. The neural firings of his awakened mind disrupting our passive reception of what he was looking at.

I called for the children affected most by what we had saw to come to Amanda, Savannah, Virginia, Brian, and I for comfort. A cloud of the young ones descended from the roof of the hospital and snuggled up to our scales, seeking the comfort of our warmth. Many of them, I was less than thrilled to know, had carried much more fragile human playmates with them.

"Thing are growing very bad indeed." Conrad Huygens said, lying down to nuzzle at his wife. She hummed in appreciation, closing her eyes as thoughts ran through her head in an endless loop.

Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. I am not ready for this. How can I be a mother like this? How can I be a mother to dragons of all things! What would my mother think if she knew I was going to lay eggs? Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.

I gave her the same intimate bond to her husband that Kim had given them before, and a lesser one to Savannah as well this time, in the hopes of easing the fear and anxiety she had for her upcoming life event. Giving birth to eggs for a woman who was born human was not something I thought I would be suited to provide advice on. Kim's own thoughts on her pregnancy... were not normal... as near as I could tell. My wife, bless her soul, had about as much love for the ordeal of human pregnancy and delivery after she had our twins as I did for a dog shit smoothie. So, I was reluctant to use her as a role model for what Amanda might be feeling deep in her own mind.

Amanda relaxed with a sigh as she sagged against her equally sized husband. Pushing herself as closely against him as she could to absorb the heat and light of his radiance. Tolerating the presence of Serena, measuring various things around the opening in her groin, even if she held her wing unfurled to cover herself. Worried how the 'Tiny Humans', as she called her former species, would react to what amounted to a gynecological exam done without the customary level of privacy a human woman and bystanders would demand.

"How could you not have seen any of this coming? The military must have known that court decision was going to be announced today. Why didn't you do more? What is the White House and the Pentagon doing exactly?"

He bared his teeth at me in frustration, and I sent back my less than intimidated feelings to him. Then, a sense of my disappointment. Which had his lips falling like curtains to conceal his serrated fangs as his head ducked away to acknowledge my admonishment.

"We are spread thin." He said with a sigh. Staring past the end of his long nose at the ground beneath it. "There is just no way around it. On top of it not being good for the country to be policed by the military. Which I cannot stress enough, and I hardly think that you need the reminder anyway. But we," he flung his head and spread a wing to indicate who he was encompassing with the word 'we'", are tasked with keeping people fed, housed, alive. Secondarily, we are to safeguard and secure military weapons. Like the main battle tank at the mall, that I can't thank you enough for destroying. Despite the casualties it caused, it could have been far worse."

"Don't thank me." I said, grimacing distractedly as Boyd called for me to address a concern he had over the status of my wife. I put him in contact with my brother, who worried me as he sat wearing surgical scrubs with his head in his hands. Should I stay or go? What resources are at Tom's home? I listened as Boyd asked Alex if Kim could be secured for travel. Worrying about her despite all the other concerns he had because of her eggs even as he struggled unnecessarily to convince himself that a human would prioritize pregnant women just as much as he was the pregnant Child. I nudged my brother to ask the General if his services were needed more at my home than here. My peace of mind was greatly relieved to learn that yes, he was certainly of more use there than here.

"It was Thomas that rendered the tank combat ineffective."

The male in question whistled from across the campus that he just wished that he could have stopped it sooner. The lull in the conversation left us stewing on our own thoughts as I bit and chewed at my worry, my apprehension, for tomorrow. What will my children think of me now? I was not a fool. I knew that I changed more with each passing hour. Turning into something increasingly strange with each usage of this power to connect, heal, and lead that was taking me further from humanity than I thought having 4-legs would make possible.

Luke, Lucy, maybe even Irma... Even if you had rejected me. I always wanted you to know that I would never stop loving you. No matter who, or what, I became.

A wave of sadness overcame me, and I huddled close to the ground with my wings shivering on my back. The emotion was so strong that even Serena, with her deadened senses, felt it. Lifting my head and tilting it upwards, a long wavering moan of despair erupted from my open jaws. Accentuated by the scent of my desire to smell my children again. Comforting touches reached out for me, and I felt the immediate reflex to help one in duress come from those closest by. Where was Alex? Where was Kim? Where was my family?

"You will be with your family soon, friend Tom." Brian said, after coming over to nuzzle my shoulder and neck reassuringly. "Revered One, yes that feels right. At least I think it feels right. Revered Tom, mate of Kim the Matriarch. My friend. We will have you with your family soon. Then Kim will return to you and you will be whole once more. I feel it within you. As half a being it is a terrible price you are paying for your love."

"Confused and broken but still help us see our light!" Big Bang added helpfully.

"It would be a hell of a lot better if this gift had been dumped on my wings after my soul came back from where she was stolen too." I said, muttering into Brian's scales miserably. Amanda and Conrad stirred from their contemplation of their temporarily conjoined minds to comfort me. I tried to wave them off so that they could enjoy the undivided light of their own love, but they weren't having any of that and pressed their snouts against the sides of my head. Looking at the back of their necks, one eye for each of them, I could see their spikes growing through the split in their jagged spinal fins.

"It would be a hell of a lot better, if I had my family here with me even if Kim couldn't be for whatever the fuck Tomoko has done with her." I said, finishing in English with a scathing glare at Prometheus. The amoral pustule had had the temerity to fall asleep with the heat of my angry gaze going wasted as it skittered across the cloaking shield of his wings.

Not having slept for more than an hour a few times before and after the battle of the mall I took naps were I could. In between breaks, Boyd continued his use of me as the node to engage with all Children of the egg to assess their willingness and ability to travel. I sank further into my depression at the thought that I couldn't even contact the rest of my family due to communication security concerns. No one knew the capabilities of these rogue elements and where their reach might extend.

Instead, I fell into a kind of daze that never let me slip fully under. Running at half power I guess you could say. Something vague that Thumper had said once long ago about our brains being able to allow one hemisphere sleep at a time nagged at me but didn't really gain any traction in my addled condition. That was just silly, I thought. What the hell could shut down half their brain at a time?

Angelina came out to see me, reeking like of stale body odor in the crumbled clothes hidden beneath her parka. A steaming cup of coffee seeming to be the only thing keeping her blood shot eyes open.

"You smell like a filthy animal." I said to her nicely.

"Well you smell like someone smashed a damn perfume display and dumped it all over you!" She snapped back at me, taking a long swig of her coffee and burning herself.

"Ow, ow, ow!" She yelped, sticking out her tongue and waving at it with her hand.

"Serves you right. Can I get any of that?" What an odd way to describe the variations of our emotions!

She nodded, mumbling to herself as she staggered away to retrace her footprints to a side entrance of the hospital. Returning a few minutes later with a carafe of bitter hot pick-me-up. Pinching the glass between two fingers, I dumped the whole thing into my mouth with a wordless rumble of delight.

"It amazes me that that thing you call a hand can pick up and hold something as small as that coffee pot." She said, taking the pot back in one hand and idly banging it against her leg.

"You're worried about what is going to happen to the patients in your hospital when I leave." I told her, not wanting this conversation to take any longer than it needed to. Kim was one of the last to be loaded onto a trailer, and the truck driver was arguing with Brian and one of Kim's surgeons, Doctor Herath, about how to secure her to his truck's flatbed and arrange her reattached limb.

I hung on their every word, naturally.

"Stop that!"

I recoiled, hurt by the sudden and violet turn of her mind. Not prepared for the blaring of her voice, I felt the cool air whipping past my ears as they folded back in surprise.

"You agreed to this a day ago to check on your patients. I'm sorry, but it is hard for me not to pick up on your thoughts once you've joined my constellation."

"Well..." she said, rubbing her forehead with her mug. "try. And I'm sorry for snapping at you. As you already know with that giant nose of yours, I haven't had much time for myself lately. Yes, I am worried about my patients after you leave."

Setting my hands back on the ground after rubbing my ears, I rose and paced around her as she stared out into some unseen distance in thought. Settling myself on my belly before her, I curled my tail forwards to block the wind biting at her.

Her distracted eyes glanced up at mine and she thanked me as she leaned against my limb. I cracked open the scales she leaned against to let some of my body heat out to warm her up while we talked.

"There is nothing that I can say that will be reassuring. I tried to have another Child take over my constellation before, and it nearly killed her after only a few hours. I'm afraid that such a burden on a Small One would kill you instantly."

"Hmph." She grumbled. "Why do you use words like constellation and Small Ones?"

"Because that's what others appear to me as. Stars in the night sky. Patterns of connections between stars that are created at my direction. Each light adding additional energy to the links that connect. But everything will fall apart without me or someone like me to provide the framework for the woven strands of these connections to exist. As I have used this ability more and more over the past few days. Since it was awoken in me. I have grown to associate what I see with what I know. Human minds do not appear as large or as brilliant of the tiniest of the Children's minds. So, I have begun to collectively call what I once was The Small Ones."

I grinned at her with my fins splayed jovially. "I promise that it has nothing to do with the fact that you would so easily fit within my mouth."

She grimaced, and my expression wilted. Seeing the drooping fins and sensing at least some of my shift in mood, she held up her hand placatingly.

"Sorry, I get that that was a joke where I was supposed to make some frightened remark about how large your mouth is or the size of your teeth. I'm just so very tired right now. Please stay on topic and spare me from being remembered as a story character that says inane things bout thirty-foot-tall dragons."

"I will if you can promise me that you will rest after we are done. Angelica, I can feel your exhaustion and the first few days I was here I was able to help you with it. But your body is stressed beyond my ability to lift you up any longer. You must sleep."

The best I could get out of her was a noncommittal grunt. She would assent to finally changing her clothes and taking a shower at least. Small miracles for the billions of my scent receptors screaming for a quick death and telling me things about the woman, and her current state of health, that it wasn't really my business to know.

"I have speaking to my senior staff, and none of them have any idea what will happen when you withdraw whatever mystical healing energy you are offering. I have tried to explain to the idiot politicians who have decided to remove kick you out..."

"Angelica... it is time for us to go. You see how many people are being wounded and killed. How your city is coming apart. Is the good that I'm doing at this one hospital worth all that?"

"The friends and families of their loves ones being treated here certainly seem to believe so!"

"Do they? I can feel their emotions even without trespassing within them. I don't think you know how many here blame us for what has and continues to happen."

"Their feelings of bitterness are irrelevant as long as they receive the best care that I can provide. Which means you, employee of mine."

Hollow laughter worked its way up and out of my chest at that. "I signed nothing, and you have no proof of the arrangement you had thought up on the spot days ago. Right now, you're hoping that I won't realize..."

"Argh!" She screamed. "Get out of my head! Close your connection!"

"...Okay. Brace yourself."

I had learned since I'd first done it and was able to draw a curtain around her mind's light until all I could sense was her indignation. She was able to sense nothing at all anymore. Despite my warning, she stumbled and dropped the coffee pot into the dirty snow at her shoes to bring her hand to her head.

"Uhh. That's not... This is... This is terrible! Please don't leave! You can't do this to my patients!"

I didn't know what she was experiencing other than a sense of confusion, loss, and loneliness. By the very nature of what I had just done, I couldn't know what it felt like. Just what her reaction to it was.

"I'm sorry Angelica Bradford. My wife has had her leg amputated and then reattached in an experimental surgery while also in an induced coma that no one can explain. She is about to give birth and all I can do is pray that I can trick her body into holding off until she reaches our home. My other children are at that home while it is being turned into an armed refugee camp and haven't seen either of their parents in days. I've been shot, blown up, set on fire, and have been doing things with my head that I would have thought impossible before the shadow of my wings fell on Boise. I feel like half a being, I can barely keep my eyes open, I am swimming in the physical and mental trauma of others, and there seems to be so little left of who I was that I don't know if I even have the right to continue to call myself Tom Schwarzkopf."

She gaped at me as I finished, and I could see the turmoil in her eyes at the realization of just how much stress we were under. How much I was under. Struggling to say something she instead reached blindly for the sloping length of my tail and sat down hard on my fin. Burying her face in her hands, her shoulders shook with muffled sobs. When she looked up again, her bloodshot eyes were rimmed with tears and desperation had taken over as her chronic fatigued incapacitation broke down the last pieces of baling wire that held her together. I didn't know what was going to happen next for her and her hospital, but I did know that until I was more... whole... and my family was secure that my part in it was over for now.

"Well... shit."

I wanted to do so many things to make it better for her, to fix it. But we both knew that wasn't possible any longer. I was there for her as long as I could, and when I was called away, I made sure someone on her staff who was open to me was there for her to provide a strengthening presence for her as she rapidly neared the end of her stamina. I am ashamed to admit that it was a relief when she went back into her office to take a shower and try to get sleep. Every minute I spent with her was a reminder of my failure to help those despite the apprehensions I had of my mental powers growing unwieldy with constant use in my growing depression and fatigue.

As bad off as Angelica was, General Boyd looked even worse by the time I got to helping load my unconscious wife onto her transport.

Maybe it was because he looked like he just walked out of a fire. Maybe it was because he was watching the two junior officers leave him that he thought of as his own children. Maybe it was Virginia, bending her neck to rub her snout reassuringly against his spinal fin as she too prepared to leave him to head north to tend to her own adopted family. It could have been any of those things. Or so many more.

"I cannot tell you much about what will happen after you leave, Master Sergeant. But if you put your head over here, there's an intelligence update that you and my convoy leaders need to hear."

Some of the faces were new, and some I had gotten to know well. None of the civilian truck drivers were at the brief, although I did notice a few dozen junior NCOs fiddling with AN/PRC-152 radios.

"Ladies and Gentlemen, before you begin your full convoy brief, I need to share with you some intel that just came down the pipeline." General Boyd said, laying his head on the ground to minimize how far his voice travelled.

"These attacks were designed to do exactly what they have done. To flush the engagement teams outside of their designated AORs and allow divisive regional and national political concerns to separate Children of the Egg from urban environments to areas with lower visibility and possibility of observation.

"We have reason to believe that a kill team of unknown composition and strength, originating from a militia camp based outside of Missoula, Montana has been training to attack federal forces and to kill any transformed humans they encounter. This group will have TTPs similar to what we have seen during the mall attack. Details of which should have been made available to you."

Boyd looked at an officer off to the side with a tacit question and she nodded in affirmation.

"Expect the presence of military equipment up to and including heavy armor stolen from National Guard Armories. I have just finished getting briefed on the matter from the Secretary of Defense and we have been given the order to respond with crushing lethal force towards any personnel found in possession of these weapons.

"You are to treat these personnel as enemy combatants, is that clear? If any other groups or protestors are to attack you, you are to engage in defensive measures only. Is that also clear? Less than lethal weapons and tactics only! These are orders that I have never thought I'd ever have to issue on American soil, but neither did I ever think I'd fly with wings growing from my own back and yet here we are."

There were a few chuckles, but the general mood was grim and somber. As it should be.

"Before I open this to questions, I want you to know that the Convoy Commanders, Lieutenant Colonel Bridgestone and Sergeant Major Jenson." He extended a wing over the two immediately to his right. A tall, black, stern looking officer wearing a USMC patterned uniform and plate carrier and one of the men I had carried into battle earlier. Surprise, surprise. Sam was a Sergeant Major. "Have all the granular details. So please restrict yourself to concerns with your moral and legal exposure to being ordered to execute orders that a judge may declare unconstitutional after the fact or any details that I will try to answer about our intelligence."

Sam raised his hand and then hooked it back into the strap of his protective vest to rest. "Sir, worst case scenario, what are we looking at possibly turning up here that was stolen from the Nasty Girls toy room?"

Boyd frowned at the NCO's cavalier tone, not that any human could tell by his less than impressed scent, but did not comment on the disparaging remarks.

"Since the assault earlier was spearheaded by an Abrams main battle tank, assume anything up to that level of sophistication and lethality. I can tell you, however, that no aerial weapons or reconnaissance platforms are reported missing at this time, but that there are still four BFVs and an unknown number of artillery and mortar systems unaccounted for. Aerial surveillance assets from here as well as your destination will be conducting oversight of the route, so there shouldn't be any surprises.

"Does anyone have anything else for me? No? Really? No questions about how we might be fighting other Americans today? Well... then get to it, and I expect all of you to make it safely to the Spokane-Coeur d'Alene Regional Zone where additional orders will be awaiting you. Do me proud out there, and watch after each other. I, and POTUS, will have your backs if you follow the orders that I just gave you."

Sitting up, Boyd flapped his wings in dismissal. Leaving his soldiers behind, not looking quite sure what he meant by the gesture, to consult his command staff. When it was clear that he wasn't coming back, Bridgestone and Jenson resumed the convoy brief to cover the minutiae of every stage of the operation.

As they planned, I made some of my own. There was a veritable air force available to us on our flight home with eyes much keener than a human's. I didn't know if the convoy commanders had planned to use us in this way or not, but no commander I had ever met worth his pay grade would turn down more recon.

After coming up with a rotation for the search pattern to pace ahead of us, the only thing I had left to do in planning was to ask all the Children over the age of twenty-five if they would agree to help. The injured were already condensed to as few tractor-trailers as possible. Leaving many open for the flighty and terribly inquisitive young to occupy along with those who needed rest on a rotating interval. At highway speeds it was a seven-hour drive. Unless they planned on getting enough trucks for all of us, the speed would have to be much slower to accommodate us on the wing. I know myself personally could do a mere sixty kph over long distances. I suspected the older Children could go even faster with their wingspan. But the other males and I were better sprinters than distance flyers when compared to the females. No one could match the children's speed over distances up to ten kilometers, but any further and they tired rapidly.

There was a brief problem with Amanda wanting to do her part and be of use in the movement. But the explosion of indignant outrage and carousing from hundreds of serpentine throats made her rethink her position. Even if she glowered with offended pride at being coddled. The nearest we could talk her into resting for the entire journey was when Conrad managed to wheedle a promise out of her that she wouldn't stray out of line of sight of her transport. The genuine concern of the masses of scaly flyers touched her, even if she wouldn't say so out loud.

Virginia volunteered to act as chaperone. Well positioned to be one, she would remain above the convoy for the entirety of the trip with the unhatched Children carefully being loaded into the black supermarket egg cartons bolted between her wings. Savannah and Martin would not stray from her sides, and to make sure their children remained calm for the journey, I retied their connections to each other and introduced Virginia to the parental bond to monitor the babies she carried. Leaving her positively glowing with affection and time worn memories from when she held her own children in her arms. A tenuous hope glimmered to life in her mind. Wouldn't it be something if I could bring children into the world once again so many years after I dried up?

The core of the vast cloud of (relatively) uninjured dragons would consist of Amanda, myself, Virginia, Savannah, and Martin. Holding position over the approximate middle of the convoy. There would be a series of interlinks, holding at intervals radiating forward like spokes on a wheel from the hub of my location. Feeding me sight from the furthest scouts, and everyone in between, that I would relay to the humans below. Or if they choose to fly with us, on our backs. I thought it would be a good idea, but with the blustery wind and the winter chill I didn't think any would be able to stand it for long.

Hopefully, Boyd's forces could give me a replacement for the shredded remains of the travel shelter I had ditched days ago. But this late in the game, I didn't think that was forthcoming. At least I wouldn't have to worry about Jack, Jonah, or any other human passenger, as they would all be safely below the protective shield of our collective wings. Joining hundreds of human refugees in a fleet of buses that had been fueled for the first time in months just for this operation. Their immense baggage being loaded haphazardly by young Children more interested in the noises the luggage and boxes made when shook than any concern for the integrity of the contents.

Serena would be with Alex on the exposed transport with Kim. Monitoring her leg and her birthing labor on what was probably going to amount to a twelve-hour drive over a road in who knew what kind of condition. Hedging our bet, a pair of highway snow plows had been commandeered to make sure the road was clear for us.

I was wondering where Ulysses was until I caught sight of him in Amanda's memories when I asked after him. I (still with an irrational jealousy) was not so sad that he missed saying his goodbyes. Even if I'd get an earful for it later. A pleased hiss of satisfaction from Conrad had me craning my neck over to see what had him so happy. At the final moment, his and Amanda's spine mounted cabins had arrived. With practiced movements, they strapped them on to the hard points of the scale tight suits they had never taken off. Lowering their heads, one after the other, the heads-up displays were installed over their right eyes. A technician hitched a ride on the end of Conrad's tail, the skinny but strong woman clutching to his spike like a pull-up bar, to be placed at the base of Amanda's neck. Connecting the electrical cables there to a junction box that she pulled out of her backpack. Repeating the process with Conrad and then asking the two Children to go through a series of diagnostics.

I ended up getting nothing. The radio I had earlier at the mall being taken away for reasons that no one deigned to inform me of. Assholes.

"Are you sure you're warm enough?"

Brian hobbled over, carrying something... no... some one in his hand.

"Grandma, I'm warm enough! Where did you even get all these clothes?"

"Momma, you look funny. Like a big starfish." A much younger girl's voice from Brian's shoulder added seconds later.

"...Thanks honey." Serena said, disgruntled.

Serena's family was arranged on Brian's shoulders, looking down at their mother and wife bundled into his paw. Laughing at her predicament just in front of the tent where they would be spending the journey in more comfort than if they were on one of the buses.

"There will be consequences for all of you for helping him do this!" She hollered at them, feebly waving her arm once Brian had set her down leaning against the side of the trailer Kim was on. The laughter grew louder, and Serena began to shake inside her downy armor as she fought her own mirth. "Dire consequences!

"Brian my dear, I can't even walk or bend my arms. How am I going to be any help to Alex in monitoring Kim?" Serena said to Brian, seeing that her family was a lost cause at the moment.

Brian, for his part, didn't look like he was going to be deterred from keeping the suffocating layers of protectiveness he had had draped over Serena on. But then he did consent at last to allowing the outermost layer, a thickly insulated coverall, to be removed to aid in her movements. Handing the clothes to Alex so that he could stow them in the makeshift shelter that was once on my back but now stretched over an aluminum frame from to cover him, Serena, and my wife's head. The truck driver watched worriedly, and I heard him again and again ask everyone he could if he would be absolved of anything that would happen if the two humans or the dragon should fall off his truck. Like one of the other dragons eating him.

Seriously, is this some affliction endemic to Americans that I had forgotten about already? Why, in the whole wide-open sky, did everyone think that the first thing any Child would do when they were the least bit angry was eat a Human Being? That kind of nonsense is the very thing that I would have loved to dispel by showing him just how caring we really were. Truth be told, I didn't want the truck driver to get distracted by anything other than driving my wife safely to our destination. So, I refrained from asking him.

"Alex, is there anything else you need? Perhaps you would like the Carhartt that Serena just took off? Won't you be cold?" I said to my brother instead. Feeling every bit as anxious for him as Brian was for his group.

He said nothing, instead rubbing the bridge of my nose and interjecting with a sense of calm that slowed my racing thoughts. I looked away for a moment.

"Alex, Serena, and anyone else who would like to, would you please join me in a prayer?"

They all agreed, and several others bowed their heads as I lead the group in a prayer for protection and strength. I know you might think it funny that I, a human transformed into an alien by other god-like aliens, would still have faith. Kim certainly thought it was. But belief that this was all part of God's plan, even the hyper-dimensional AI part, helped me remain centered. If I was centered, then Kim was centered (or as close to it as she could ever get), and together we raised our beautiful children.

Departing was a strange affair for us. With a phalanx of gun trucks leading the way ahead of a long worming line of semis and other gun trucks we inched through the city streets. This time it wasn't violence that slowed our exit, but a nearly silent crowd that had turned out to watch. Emotionless faces, reddened by the cold of the morning, peered up at us as walked, drove, and flew overhead. Their minds felt uneasy, and I could not pinpoint a specific reason as to why. Wasn't this what they wanted? If our leaving had them spooked, why hadn't they done more to prevent the violence from happening? There was no way, no fucking way, that that tank had made it to where it was without anyone saying something. Or that no one knew a violent instigator within the city. Where they planned or where they stockpiled equipment.

The maxim that law enforcement had been trumpeting ever since 9/11, 'see something, say something', had gone completely ignored since I'd come to Boise. The hardest part of leaving for me, was to feel the lights that I had come to know so well slip beyond my sight into the darkness. I knew second hand what they went through, as those still within my mental horizon grew puzzled at the feeling of disconnect that swept forward with every thud of my paws. Fittingly for the cold numbness I left behind, it began to snow.

General Boyd, circling in the air over the hospital and whistling in pain as he did so, drew himself to a lurching hover directly over the medical facility. Bellowing his goodbyes in a stentorian trumpet that bid a farewell to Virginia, to those in his command that he had considered his children while they were with him, and to Conrad and Amanda most of all. They shook with small mewling cries as they struggled not to go back to make sure that Boyd was alright. Knowing that if they did, they would beg him to come with them and what his response would be. Boyd's great incandescent light was the last of all to fade into darkness and long after it had left the constellation that I had constructed.

Looking back, I scowled to see who was following us yet again. Like a rancid fart. The dour gloom and doom Prometheus. To remind us that success was never close at paw and failure an almost guaranteed fate. Just what we needed to keep morale up.

Heading northwest, it wasn't long before the forest began to swallow sight of the city for any but us providing eyes in the sky. Amanda and Conrad eased the pain of their separation by falling into the routine of the mission. Taking comfort in their duties and each other. A special separate connection between them, I, and my unconscious wife ran above the currents of the others speeding to and fro above the convoy. Using it to focus along those unseen channels to help sedate the natural course of delivery undergoing within the female's bodies. Asking their muscles to relax. Soothing their wills into the belief that the time was not at claw for birth. Caressing the eager yet primitive orbs of emotion that were the unborn to calm their excitement for what they sensed was near. To them, birth was the start of their learning. Something they were avidly awaiting even from within their shells.

It was the work of hours to get every Child to act in a somewhat reasonable way as scouts for the creeping convoy. The plows that had joined us just outside the city were at work already, clearing the major highway that once would have seen steady traffic but was now a shadow of its former self with usage dropping off the proverbial cliff. Many of the younger Children were just as likely to crow excitedly over spotting the glimmer of the early morning sun off automotive chrome buried in snow as they were anything suspicious. The older Children had problems of their own staying in the locations that I had assigned to them. Their patrol routes agreed upon when I graciously told the bemused convoy commanders what I had planned after they shrugged at my questioning whether they had any ideas on how to utilize us.

Whatever monotony the others may have felt did not register for myself. Frequent dives to closely inspect my wife and her attendants, now joined by Jack and the endlessly curious Arnold, slowly but steadily sapped my stamina when I beat back up a few hundred meters to the level of all the others. Jill, the muscular hulk of a Child, remained stalwartly above my wife's still body and cast fiery glares at anything nearby that moved without her prior approval. Once she had even found herself a moose after plummeting through the tree canopies in a shower of broken limbs convinced that something was up to no good. Rising back into the air with the dead cow in one hand she offered it to me. I felt the crunch of the creature's spine snapping as I split it with watchful female and the hot blood ran dripping from my jaw as I savored the smoky flavors of the red liquid.

On top of my constant fretting over my family, I had to manage the massive inflow of information that I was receiving from dozens of aerial scouts in front of and to the sides of the fleet of vehicles below. Nothing would get past us to harm those who meant the world to their protectors above. Many of the males and females I flew with had already decided, deep within their minds, that if the danger I had picture for them showed itself, that they would die for their loved ones if it came down to it. As someone who had volunteered for military service, and then dedicated myself to a career where rescuing others was the sole point, I could heartily understand their motivations.

We began stopping every two hours for everyone to take a break and to rotate out the scouts once the truck drivers started whining about petty things such as "stability", "center of gravity" and "dragons the size of houses almost putting me in the ditch landing and taking off of my moving truck". Things that I gather truck drivers normally carp about when they are within their own social circles. But it gave everyone on the buses and crammed into the sleeper cabs a chance to stretch.

It was also an excellent opportunity for those returning or going on patrol to get skin to scale time with their loved ones and reassure themselves of their safety once they left the buses for latrine breaks. Every stop was always on the verge of becoming a fiasco as all the inquisitive youth exploded to every point of the compass to poke, discover, and learn about the myriad vehicles in the convoy. Much to the consternation of everyone who might underestimate the formidable intelligence of the small Children with oversized wings trailing behind them on the ground. Although it was hard to tell just how smart they could be at times when they often lost interest in reassembling something that they had just deconstructed. Adding unfortunate time to every rest break and badly vexing many of the truck crews.

It was at the fourth stop, just as the sun began to slip below the horizon, that I drew the two convoy commanders along with Amanda and Conrad aside.

"How far away? You're sure?"

"I could show you if you would let me..."

The tall Marine Corp officer waved the offer away. "We've been briefed about your supposed abilities. If they are true, I damn sure do not want you inside my head rifling through my memories like a filing cabinet or skull fucking my free will right out of me."

"That's not how it..."

Conrad laid his tail on mine as a signal and I subsided, grumbling. I foresaw bad things happening the more people knew about Matriarchs and Patriarchs. Especially with misconceptions like that floating about in people that knew better from firsthand observation.

"Three FMTVs, two 155s, and a BFV twenty klicks from here. And you're saying your scouts followed the direction the artillery was pointed until it intersected the road? How is that? Do you have compasses in your heads to take bearings like that?" Sam asked.

"Do you really want a demonstration of our ability to find magnetic north?"

"It's an act of faith on our parts to take you at your word right now, Master Sergeant Dragon. We don't know what's a lie, and what's the truth. The only reason I'm even entertaining giving you the benefit of the doubt is because you held yourself together well at that damn mall earlier and took some real heads-up initiative."

"If you don't believe him and the intel given to him, Blackwell, Sergeant Major, please load yourselves into my COTEMPS to see with your own eyes through the video feed from my ocular display. We'll be there and back in a half hour tops. We're close enough to call ahead from my module and get those Apaches on station."

"Did they see your scouts? Did you see any forward observers at the road?" Blackwell asked, before climbing into the paw that passed for an elevator on us.

"If they were seen, no change in the behavior of those on the ground has been observed yet. I'm still watching them right now. I mean I'm watching through another's eyes, relayed from Child to Child over the intervening distance. No observers were seen. I could ask them to go lower to pick up scents, but that will likely get them spotted."

"No, keep them aloft. You're coming with us then. Live data will be invaluable."

"Well..." I contemporized, shifting from paw to paw with an anxious look back at my wife. We were so close to home. So very close. I could be wrong, but I was starting to see flashes from my wife's point of view. The last thing I wanted was to be absent when she awoke strapped to a truck bed and far away from where she last remembered. In addition, I didn't know what effect getting outside the range of Amanda and Kim would have on their anatomy. They could give birth immediately for all I knew.

"Dwayne, a word with you please?" Amanda said, glittering with malice over the possibility that the fellow officer might remove from her presence the last check on her giving birth right in the middle of the road. She had been acting odd ever since we'd left Boise. Continuously scanning for something whenever she had been able to gather her energy to rise from her unusually somnolent rest and launch aloft. She'd only grunted at her husband earlier when he tried to find out what was bothering her. But I shared with him the image firmly planted in her mind. Or more accurately, the tactile feeling of soft material against her scales. I suspected she was looking for bedding material.

Luckily for Blackwell, Conrad saved him from the suffering the consequences of interrupting the female's impending birth ritual by telling him that he could see what I did as well. With that settled, a Captain was left in charge and the command team left for the front-line scouts.

"Your blankets. Give them to me. Now." Amanda barked at Alex, Serena, and Jack. Groaning, I tried to stave off a new crisis, frostbite on the Small Ones, by exerting more calm into the irritated female and hold off her instincts. Virginia strode over to pin Amanda against her flank to have a heart to heart with her alongside Savannah who used her own experience to calm the flustered mom-to-be.

Why couldn't this just be over with? God, all I wanted was to smell my children again and feel my wife respond to my touch once more. To see her eyes open so that her brilliant emeralds could crinkle with that special smirk of hers that had always been just for me. Kim, Irma, Lucy, Luke. How I missed you all so, so, much.

"Tom." At the same time I heard my name, I felt my brother's hand on my wrist. The longing whine I had been making trailed off and I tried to compose myself. Failing miserably.

"You've held it together this long. Just a little longer buddy. Okay? You did all that you could. If you had stayed there, you would be doing it against the orders and advice of the state and the federal government. Even Mclean knew that in the end."

Yes, the mayor, who had come begging me to enable her to empathize with her citizens, her children, as I did. As I could. How she had feared the darkness that would fall when I left. I had let her sob against me when I broke her heart by telling her that I would not kill her by placing that burden upon her wings. Even if it meant more despair in her spiraling town. She had been one of only a handful of Children who had stayed behind. When we left, she had been sitting on the hospital roof crying with great heaving shudders.

"Did I really, Alex? Or am I so wrapped up that I'm missing something else that I could have done? Isn't my whining nothing more than the snivels of somebody wallowing in self-pity? What if..."

He grabbed my ear and twisted his fist to warp the tough membrane painfully. Making me yelp and cock my head to relieve some of the pressure.

"Listen to me as your brother right now Tom. Or, if you can't do that, listen to me as Doctor Schwarzkopf. Are you listening?"

I nodded carefully, whinging when my ear pulled against his grasp. He was too far back along my head for me to see him, but I wanted to look into his eyes while he had his say. I wanted to see him. Alex, if not for you I would have been lost when Kim was spirited away and my soul was torn in half. Asking him forward, he moved until I could focus both eyes on him about three meters past the end of my nose.

"What you did in that hospital was tremendous. The good you did for those people and their families could be called nothing but that. You might have been able to sense some of their emotions, but if you had been able to see those faces and hear their voices you would have known the strength and the community you had given them. No one, not one person or dragon was alone in their suffering or loss. I and my fellow practitioners may have mended their bodies, but you mended their minds. Why do you think so many people turned out to watch us leave? They knew what that violence had cost them. What their ambivalence had brought them to. They had a sense of belonging that many of them had forgotten while you were there. Some never had had in their entire lives."

"I don't see how this is helping me deal with leaving and taking all that away from them."

Rushing forward into my blind spot I felt his fist collide with the tip of my nose, rocking my head back on the length of my neck to look down on him incredulously.

"Because you idiot," He said while rubbing his scraped knuckles. "If you had stayed against the desire of the government who thinks what they are doing is in their citizens best interests it would have made you partially responsible for whatever happened after you were asked to leave. And no, before you ask, you are absolutely not being selfish for thinking of your family. Tom, I wish was big enough that I could kick your ass so hard that it would knock that thought out of your head."

Alex was probably right. But it didn't stop me from slamming my head again and again against the wall that I was stuck behind. I knew what I was suffering from was Survivor's Guilt, but that didn't make it any less bearable.

"Okay, buddy? Just think about your kids waiting for you at home, and the great big smile you should have on your face when you see them."

"...They don't even know that we're coming yet. Stout isn't going to tell them until we're an hour out. And how can I greet them with a smile when their mom is in a coma? Hey kids, I know you already know about what happened and we talked several times about it, but here is the physical reminder that I failed to keep your mother safe. Maybe if you yell really loud she'll hear you."

"Stop that little brother. They will be safe, and so will both of you. You know that Kim is going to be returned to you, it is only a matter of time. Look." He motioned me away from everyone else and I followed with plodding paw steps that whumped against the hard packed snow covering the road the convoy blocked. Raising my head, I looked around at the treetops decorated with clumps of snow bracketing the road. This far from any kind of civilized light source, the grayish night that I could see was dotted with a great splash of stars as the obscuring light of the sun waned. Breathing deeply, I relished the cold swirling my lungs before it was quenched by the fire of my internal workings.

"This is about what happened to you in the war isn't it? This is about the dog tags that hang over the mantle of your fireplace."

"It might be..." I grudgingly admitted, still looking skyward. A shadow too dark for human eyes passed overhead followed by a dozen smaller ones. Cheerful pipping came from the smaller shapes that drew Alex's attention upward as well.

"How are you feeling? Any flashbacks? Any tension?"

"I'm fine, and not this time. It's just the same guilt as I felt back then. Alex, the look on Angelica's face, the look on Mclean's. They looked so much like their families. That searching look of them wondering just what more could I have done for their loved ones."

"As big as your shoulders are Tom, they still aren't big enough to hold the world. No matter what Thumper and Prometheus might have convinced you to believe about what you are. People and dragons lived that wouldn't have otherwise. People found peace. People found acceptance. All because of you. When we get back to your house Tom. I want you to promise me that you'll talk to your counselor again, okay? Me and Kim will be there with you."

I didn't want to deal with this anymore. I wanted to feel like a scumbag for not ignoring what I was ordered to do. But that wasn't fair to my family. Kim would have hated my guts if I hadn't been there for our children when they saw her like she was.

"Hey." Alex said, putting his hand on mine one more time to get my attention. "Don't forget that I'm still inside your head too. It's not fair to you either. Nothing that was done or expected of you has been fair since Zero Day."

"Master Sergeant!" A gunner called from the top of his MATV. "You're needed at the command truck where Colonel Huygens is."

"C'mon." Alex said, after I waved my tail in the air to indicate I'd heard. "I need to check on some of the other injured anyways. From what I understand, we might be here a while this time.

I told him quickly what was happening to satisfy his not-so-subtle fishing for clues before too many could hear us within the temporary security perimeter that we had wandered outside of. I also told him of the idea that I had been batting back and forth in my mind. About stopping any killing from occurring today, despite the harm that had been meant for us by the people I thought might be convinced to surrender without bloodshed.

It didn't take much convincing for the leadership to give my idea a shot. With Conrad adding his emphatic agreement over the radio and the commanders just as reluctant to kill other Americans right off the bat everyone was onboard. A pair of Apaches that had been stationed at the Coeur d'Alene airport were being dispatched, and if I could get some Children to agree to go scare the shit out of a bunch of insurrectionists, we might make it through one day with no new blood on our hands.

An old school show of overwhelming force to induce surrender. Two assault choppers and twenty Children who were just as sick of fighting as I was.

I watched through Conrad's eyes from above as he coordinated the display on the ground. The helicopters approached within hearing and, as soon as the first head peaked out of the turret of the Bradley, twenty Children folded their wings and dropped into the clearing. Surrounding the trucks where they could smell the majority of the Small Ones and the lone Bradley. The tank's turret began to traverse to put up a fight, disregarding the shouted demands to surrender from Conrad and the other Children. Dan put one paw on top of the tank's barrel and then wrenched the whole thing sideways, shearing apart the drive mechanism with a metallic screech and a rising whir. The noise stopped just as quickly as it started and then the tank lurched into motion with Dan scrambling out of its way.

Conrad roared another ultimatum, but the tank continued to churn through the deep snow towards a forest road as the rear hatch set in the troop ramp slammed back and forth. They must have been able to hear the thunder of the Lieutenant Colonel's voice with two hatches open, yet kept on with their escape.

The Apaches let the distance between the tank and the rest of the grounded forces grow to a safe margin and then gave the Bradley a more forceful warning. Strafing the tracks on one side with their chin mounted 30mm cannons until the HEDP rounds had chewed the track and road wheels apart with small burst from the explosives in their noses. Once the tracked vehicle ground to a halt, the troop ramp lowered and weapons were thrown out before the crew and their passengers walked out with their hands raised to surrender at the direction of Conrad. The thoughts running through their minds like poisonous oil made me shiver and feel sick. Where did so much hate come from?

Another sweep of the area was made to discover any additional hazards. Although none were found other than the forward observers that Yellow Bird sniffed out hunkered down in a hunting blind the rest of the journey would be made with extra precautions. Anything was possible at this point.

Strung out in one-hundred-meter intervals, the lead gun trucks led us back onto the road as a safeguard against possible IEDs. As the minutes ticked by and the night turned grey as my eyes adjusted my anxiety to be home only grew stronger. A growing sense of needing safety. Needing security. Needing loved ones. The cycle began to feed on itself as new elements were introduced one by one. Soft things. I needed to find soft things. Somewhere covered, protected, but soft. Maybe underground. Underground felt good. Underground with soft things.

It was not until we stopped at the site of the disrupted ambush to leave behind a gun truck and four Children to watch over the violently angry men (I was not terribly surprised that there was not a single woman among them or any variation in their skin color for that matter) that I figured out what was wrong. Or what was right, I suppose I should say. And the realization had me teetering on my hind legs with tail lashing as I cried in joy.

I was feeling traces of my soul, my friend, my Kim. She was coming back to me. Kim was coming back!

For the first time in my life it was fitting to call what I did prancing. Because that's what I did round and round Kim's truck. With the completion of each lap, I felt her scales with the broad tip of my nose. Snuffling deeply with each breath I cherished the awakening of her dead scales. For brief periods at random intervals the smells of her emotions leaked from between her scales. Hazy thoughts came to me in fits and spurts. The scent of her wonder filled me as did the sporadic pictures of what she saw wherever she was.

Another wracking shiver ran from the tip of her flipping tail all the way forward along her spine. For the first time since she had said those words to me ages ago in that warehouse, sound came from her throat. It was unintelligible but it was Kim. Kim was making that noise. My friend, my soul. I was so happy I cried and pranced some more. My joy radiated from me in ribbons, in flares of incandescent feeling. Oh dearest, dearest Kim. Our children. Our eggs. Can't you feel them? They call for you!

Experiences, impossible sights and smells, crept into my awareness as single frames encompassing all the senses. A two-legged dinosaur with brilliant feathers growing from _her_its crown and spine, intelligent and watchful eyes, and six fingered human-like hands tipped with dark curving claws. A crystalline tiara with a floating gem rested upon her head and incomprehensible technology glowed with transparent projections behind her. A vision of pyramids constructed around trees towering many kilometers into the sky. Flight over a world with an unearthly tinge to its atmosphere. How being there felt like being at a home that you never knew you had. A giant wheel spinning in space above a planet covered in purple vegetation.

Tom?

Her ghostly thin voice. Even in my head, her thought had the tone and timbre of her real voice. The directed thought was so ethereal, so gossamer, that I froze. Afraid even to breathe or the power of my lungs might destroy proof that Kim had reached out to me across an unfathomable distance.

The feeling of her in my head. The void that she had left when was torn away began to feel as if it was being filled. She was getting closer. She was going to be with me again!

Serena stood from where she had been between my love's hind legs, only slowly coming to the realization what must be happening. Bounding by her with spinning and tumbling abandon, I scooped her up with a wing and flung her joyously into the air.

Oops...

Screaming my name as she flapped her arms uselessly to orient herself, she soared forty or fifty meters into the air with my casual toss of her into a towering parabolic arc. Squeaking warbles of surprise from my throat followed her into the night sky as I chased after her. A shotgun blast of terror rocked my thoughts as Brian awoke from his doze to see his dear friend cartwheeling across the moon with me right behind her like some low-budget completely nonsensical spoof of ET. The only things missing, were a kid pedaling a bicycle with a squat alien potato wrapped in a blanket stuffed into the basket on his handlebars and an Oscar worthy symphony playing in the background.

We didn't have Sir John Williams, but we did have Whitesnake's Here I go Again playing from some trucker's stereo system. Close enough, I guess.

I fully deserved Brian's roaring and bristling tirade about the safety of the dizzy woman draped over his paw. But I can't say that I was the most attentive to his justifiable concern. Rocking back and forth with my head bobbing up and down. Giddy as the world jittered side to side, up and down, with the weaving movements of my head. The loony grin never leaving my snout as I brushed against my other self to make sure she could feel that I was with her. Eventually Brian realized that nothing was getting through to me and stomped off in a huff with Serena safely on his back. Passing Alex as he came to see what all the incongruous bedlam was about. Brian would calm down. Half the reason why he was so mad was because his screw-loose research partner wasn't as terrified by the experience as he thought she should have been.

No one could move fast enough to get the convoy rolling again for my tastes. Brian watched me, still thoroughly miffed, but at least understanding the unbridled glee that I was all too eager to share with anyone and everything that cast curious glances my way as I capered across the sky. All thoughts of what I had left behind in Boise, and what awaited me at my home, pushed to the dark neglected corners of my mind as the promise of being reunited with the other half of my being consumed my consciousness.

Fifteen minutes after we left the ambush site, the forward most scouts sent back happy announcements that they were being met by waves of new Children coming from the north. Attuned minds below us began to sag with relief that their destination was near. Safe harbor, even at the cost of being uprooted from their lives, was here. The young awoke from where they lay everywhere that they deemed convenient and launched themselves upwards. Trilling loudly in excitement and welcome. Not long afterwards, the wings beating towards us came close enough for me to hear them.

"Father! Father! Where are you?"

My light burned with the force and fury of our nearest star. Outshining all the many lesser glows no matter how great their collective radiance may have been in my constellation. Irma, my little Irma. She was there, and on her back, were Luke and Lucy. Our children. Kim. Can you feel it? We are home.

....