Concealed in the Shadows

By Gabrielle Arrowsmith

Sydney Harter has long awaited September 12th, 2033—her eighteenth birthday. She can finally apply for guardianship of her sister, who is her only family and entire world. She hopes they will be lawfully reunited, but is prepared to defy authority and risk everything to escape the captivity of Miles County so that they can be together.

Escaping will be difficult and dangerous. Citizens are bound to their county by sophisticated chip implants that deliver shocks to those who dare to cross the electric barrier. Sydney is very clever, but her trickery is limited against the all-seeing eyes of technology. Even if they were to survive the escape, disappearing into the forgotten forests and towns of the past seems an impossible task.

What Sydney doesn't know is that she is the particular interest of two opposing forces. With deceit, fear, and warfare surrounding her—can she trust the party that aims to help with her fight against the other? Can she open her heart to receive and return unexpected love? When her sister’s life becomes jeopardized, Sydney will have to weigh a new love against the only enduring love she has known. The cost could be deadly...

How will she choose?

• Language: English
• Publisher: CTP Publishing
• Release date: Feb 3, 2014
• ISBN: 9781940534497

Gabrielle Arrowsmith

Gabrielle Arrowsmith was born to her loving parents on August 16th, 1988. She grew up in the small town of Ham Lake, MN enjoying soccer, school, and adventuresome play with her brother and cousins.As she grew older, her desire to write led her to fill many diaries and notebooks with her thoughts, poems, stories, and scripts. Her other childhood hobbies included reading, playing soccer, acting, and playing piano.Gabrielle recalls high school as the time when she first believed in the worth of her writing. Her AP Language and Literature course both challenged and celebrated her craft. She aimed for perfection in this course, but only so much as to allow time for her other college-level courses, soccer, track, NHS, and school plays. She graduated in 2006, earning Advanced Placement Scholar with Distinction recognition and the Triple A Award for outstanding performance in academics, athletics, and arts.In 2009, Gabrielle graduated summa cum laude from the College of St. Scholastica in Duluth, MN where she earned a degree in Elementary Education. She played collegiate soccer for the Saints, held work-study positions, acted in theater productions, and volunteered often.Gabrielle is currently teaching and pursuing her passion for storytelling through writing and acting. She enjoys reading, playing and coaching soccer, and spending time with family, friends, and her adorable pets!

Book preview

Chapter One

Iached for sleep to come last night but, as usual, my mulling mind prevented it. At least this time there is a cause for the clutter that has risen in these still hours. In too short of time, I will fight in court for any outcome but the fourth, the one that haunts my wakefulness.

Hour after restless hour, I’ve battled to allow only matters of this afternoon’s hearing to enter my mind. I’ve incessantly reviewed my plans to advocate for the best possible result. But in my vulnerable state, a sorrowful image pushes its way into my thoughts to remind me why the hearing is necessary.

It’s a few hours before sunrise and I crave sleep still, but it has betrayed me once again. At this point, even any sleep an iota is an impossible prayer. I lie hollowly under my tattered sheets, staring at the ceiling that hovers over me. I prefer lying in emptiness to the alternative that could overcome me in a moment. If I lie here any longer my past will seep through my mind and into my heart, and I can’t allow that. I have to get up. I am practiced at replacing the threat of remembering with doing.

I tussle the tangled sheets loose from my legs and sit on the edge of my bed. Already my weary body loathes my mind’s resolve to escape my thoughts in the only way I have found that works—running.

I run for two unwavering reasons. For one, I can’t spend another second bottled up in my thoughts, fretting over situations I can neither predict nor alter. More importantly, I expect a time will come when I’ll really need to escape, not as a temporary outlet, but as a permanent solution to my menacing reality. I’ll have to be ready to run fast—faster than their technology can trace and their arsenal of weapons can stop or kill.

I slip my tablet from its dust-lined case. Outdated as it is, it is still in pristine condition. While most people, and undoubtedly all other teenage girls, live with their tablets glued to their sides like an inseparable companion, mine spends its days trapped in its protective case, lying alone on the nightstand adjacent to my bed. I have some items secured in a fragile wooden box that is tucked safely into the back of a dresser drawer. They go untouched for months, or even years at times, because they are cherished. My tablet is not such a precious commodity to me. I hate it. It appears so cared for because I neglect it, contrary to the common law of society.

The seam nearly disappears as the shiny black device unfolds into one sleek touch screen. The tablet immediately perks up from its coma and demands that I identify myself. I wish I could wake up from the daze left by my insomnia that quickly. Like a vacationer returning to their pampered pet, I swear I can sense my tablet’s outward grudge and inward excitement that I’m finally back to pay it attention.

The square-inch scanner sits between the built-in camera lens and microphone on my tablet, neither of which I trust. It examines the contours of my thumbprint, and then prompts me to type my password. I clumsily touch the characters on the translucent keyboard that match the lengthy password that I’m bitter to have to recreate each month. This month, I’m using an alternation between the letters of my name, Sydney Harter, and my social security number, which is bar-coded on the chip in my right wrist.

As is more frequent for me than most, my stubborn tablet also requires voice authentication since it has remained powered-down for more than twenty-four hours, much more.

Demetri, I whisper. Resentfully, my tablet fires an Authentication Denied error at me. I clear my throat and raise the microphone closer to my lips. Lack of sleep the last few nights, and this afternoon’s stakes, have heightened my emotions. As I say his name a second time, my eyes well and an unexpected tear falls before I recoil, remind myself that he’s dead, and face the fact that he is not here to help me, and neither is anyone else.

Finally my tablet forgives me and allows me to access a world drowned by media, data, and communication. This is the world that others choose to live in—most unaware that any other one exists.

Notification bubbles erupt on the screen and their accompanying pings pain my tired, overwrought mind. I have five new messages, but I’m not alerted like my tablet desires, nor am I the least bit interested. I tap Dismiss All and get on with why I’ve come to this device’s mercy in the first place; I’m seeking a remedy that will take an edge off the twinges that my dilapidated body suffers and will perhaps even reverse its decay. Technology is good for some things.

As always, I have the predictability feature enabled, so when I direct my tablet to inspect my health, it automatically bypasses the emotional and psychological health reviews and displays my physical statistics instead. Here again, technology is tolerated, even preferred. It’s cold, emotionless, and doesn’t pry once I’ve made it known that I have no intention of having my emotions or psyche probed.

I’m not surprised to see that there are a number of yellow health alerts since I’ve been sleeping fitfully, if at all, and haven’t eaten well lately. Low iron, low vitamins D and B-12, mild dehydration, and menstruation period beginning. Great. Just when I thought the fatigue and emotional instability I’ve been experiencing couldn’t be more aggravating.

My tablet accompanies me as I trudge from my bedroom to the equally tight kitchenette. I tug on the knob that opens the little cabinet above the sink. Not yet ready to turn on the fluorescent lights, I direct my tablet’s glow on the various pill bottles. On my tiptoes, I squint to read the labels and select what I have of the medley that my tablet specified for me. If I had more funds available in the chip that resides within me, I’d indulge in more vitamins and minerals. Next would be a new pair of runners.

I gulp down the pills and half a bottle of cold water from the refrigerator. By the time this effort can begin to promote bodily repair, I’ll have begun depleting it of its already lacking strength. I refill the half-empty bottle with lukewarm tap water and place it in the freezer.

In my barren bedroom, I pull on my sleek, black running attire. To my tablet’s sorrow, my gear is a more prized possession than it. I wrap my tangled, chestnut hair into a tight ponytail, and secure my overgrown bangs away from my face with the spiraled, turquoise headband that hangs from the knob of my top dresser drawer.

For curiosity’s sake, I tug at the bottom drawer. Of course, it’s jammed and won’t budge. Why would I think otherwise? The furnishings don’t know they should be prepared to host a guest.

This drawer has been a nuisance since I first moved in. I’m irritated enough that I could work on it now, but fixing and emptying the drawer will have to wait until after the sun has risen. With any luck, the decrepit dresser will be struggling to withstand a heap of teenage glamour by this evening. But luck has never been on my side, so I don’t allow my hopes to rise too high.

Reaching under my bed, I pull out my waterproof pack, deliberately stocked with defense and survival tools. It carries a folded knife, three protein bars and dried seaweed, a matchbook, a tiny, high-powered flashlight, a plastic bag of tinder, and a tin that contains a needle, a spool of thread, three fishhooks, a few butterfly bandages, a tiny tube of ointment, and two aspirin.

Back in the kitchen, I draw the chilled water bottle from the freezer and slide it into its designated place in my pack. I tighten the straps that both secure the contents and fasten it to the buckles on the back of my shirt, intelligently engineered for performance.

By the time I lace my runners, I’m done feeling sorry for myself, and am determined to prove the thickness of my skin.

I quietly lock up behind me and head toward the miniature window at the opposite end of the hallway, can’t possibly fulfill the fire code. I am especially stealthy as I cross the central entryway of the transitions building. When I reach the space in front of the window, I pause to look and listen for movement. When I’m confident there is no one stirring in the building, I effortlessly pull myself onto the waist-high ledge, using the weak framing for my stronghold.

A quick glance over my shoulder confirms that I am the only nonconformist that prefers the peacefulness of four o’clock in the morning to the bustle of bodies that intensifies throughout the day and late into the night. I’m not sure if it’s the noise and chaos that bother me or simply their demeanor. All are constantly engaged in their media, yet cold and aloof to those who surround them—to people who could use the interaction and are starving for help.

I swiftly slip my key under the ceiling tile above the window and noiselessly dismount from the window ledge. I am a ghost as I exit out the back door of the transitions building. A mere instant after I push the door closed, my feet are in motion.

The atmosphere is calm and chilly this early, but also heavy with moisture and swathed in the stench of the city. My nostrils flare with each inhalation. This tainted air doesn’t belong to me. I run easily through the moonlit streets toward the air and scenery for which I yearn. Only there can I escape the possibilities that plague me long enough to regain the sharpness of mind needed to process them.

A few minutes into my route, the city stench and the beeps of the grounds and waste management crews readying the streets for another day become fewer and more remote. Finally, I detect the aroma of life nourished with fresh air. This is my air. It fills my soul and propels my lightened feet to their destination—the Environmental Protection Agency, or EPA, building positioned between Sector Seven and Eight.

This EPA building is one of twelve that line the circumference of Miles County. It is sometimes referred to as EPA 240 because it is 240 degrees clockwise from the northernmost EPA in Miles. Most often, however, it is called EPA 7-8, as it marks the invisible border between the two sectors.

Government officials crafted the 2015 population bill to disunite the nation’s states in an effort to appear too preoccupied to join our allies in war. However, the balance was delicate because a disarrayed nation would certainly attract the lustrous eyes of power-hungry nations. Those times, and especially the aftermath, were unstable, more so than the present.

Four historic time zones and three disproportionate latitudinal sections now divide the formerly unified nation into twelve distinctive regions. Circular borders were construed around the twelve most populated areas within each of the twelve regions. All citizens living outside of the nation’s one hundred forty-four counties were given offensive financial settlements and then forced to leave their homes and relocate inside their assigned county. To conclude the obsession, these overpopulated counties were all split into twelve sectors, marked by the equally distanced EPA buildings.

Each EPA was formed for the same outward purpose, to preserve the natural world that our ancestors were destroying at an exponential rate, soon to make the world uninhabitable if left unchallenged and unreformed, or so the old propaganda says. I suspect the government has used this rationale to veil their chief intent—to institute ever-watchful eyes guarding against attempts from citizens to flee their experimental Petri dish.

It took me at least ten attempts to scale this wall the first time I tried. Today, I execute the undertaking without thought or sweat. My movements from one hold to the next are now so ingrained that I easily accomplish the climb despite the predawn darkness.

The only detail that continually needs attention is my timing under the rotation of the camera mounted on the corner of EPA 7-8. I can’t risk that my clothing, pack, or even a wisp of hair be detected by surveillance when I propel myself atop the building. I don’t know whether it’s environmental protection agents or some government-created task force who are the observers on the other side of the camera’s lens. Whoever they are, I know that they don’t have to distinguish a face to determine whom it was that breached. They can locate an escapee’s position the very instant that they glimpse an oddity by cataloging all nearby chips. Depending on how many miles a runaway has attained, they may earn at most five minutes of freedom before they’re captured, held, and interrogated in a manner I assume to be sinister.

I safely slink on top of the roof and continue to study the camera’s position. The first time I foolishly jumped just over two years ago, I was extremely lucky. The next time, and every time thereafter, I’ve calculated. I have precisely twenty-two seconds to disappear before the camera scans the landscape, which must appear undisturbed.

I methodically count down the seconds as I jog toward the far side of the roof and double-check the vacant street. Ten seconds until optimal jump time. I focus on the dim ledge opposite me. Five. Four. I bolt from my line and instantaneously push off the ledge at one.

Paralyzing pulses radiate through my body for two excruciating seconds as I’m propelled through the fifteen-foot, high-voltage barrier that encompasses Miles. I snap myself alert and am able to gasp for air right before I splash into the holding pond whose northern bank nearly meets the fringe of the barrier. Lifelessly, I sink to the bottom, holding my breath and counting the seconds required for the ripples to subside and the camera to pass over the place where I lay waiting.

Scouring Miles’ borders over the last few years, I’ve encountered only this plausible point of exit. The building’s slight altitude allows me time, and therefore distance, to get to, through, and past the barrier—a cruel entrapment designed to shock those who tempt it and kill those who defy it. But its design is imperfect, because the higher the escapee’s chip is elevated above the underground line, the less shock they endure. I can’t recall the pain from my first careless jump, but I always soar with my right arm up, just in hope that it may make a difference. It’s imperative that I stay conscious and cognizant enough to inhale before the splash.

The pond was the only consideration I made when selecting this spot to jump from a couple of years ago. Jumping from the height that I was, I knew an absorbent landing was crucial for me to evade serious injury. I hoped it was enough to not become a mangled mess. I was desperate then. I needed out so terribly that I wasn’t concerned by the threat of death by electrocution. Since then, I have found no suitable alternative location, and so, I can never falter.

I emerge subtly and breathe in the intoxicating air. I swim above the deepening water for a pinch, until the camera moves slowly in my direction and sends me below. Poised and content, I swim underwater until I know I’m in the clear to surface for air.

I continue the timing game once more as I creep toward the steep bank and ready myself. When the time comes, I spring from the water and dart through the thick grasses to a broad larch tree. The forestry encircling Miles has been planted with various species of deciduous trees, but as my timing game progresses, it’s the towering, native, conifers that dominate.

My sense for the camera nearing has developed over the last two years to where it feels almost innate. Finally, I’m certain the density of the forest is adequate cover, and I can forfeit the timing game.

I draw off my soaking wet outer clothes and hang them across the needles extending from a low-hanging branch. After a quick stretch and an indulgent examination of two neighboring types of ferns, I accelerate into a brisk run through the old-growth forest.

There isn’t another soul in my haven, but I come out here to race—not against someone but something. My legs tire, my mouth dries, my left side aches, and my head pounds. Still I run, harder and harder with each twinge of pain. They propel me. My pain fuels me. I think of nothing but pushing through it. This is my release. This is the only time and place that I am able to let go of all that troubles my mind.

I purposely veer toward the obstacles on the forest floor—fallen branches, protruding rocks, and the intricate mounds and tunnels formed by pocket gophers. I jump swiftly at full speed and land solidly on my ever-strengthening ankles. I hardly notice twigs that scrape my exposed arms and legs as I lunge by. After some time sprinting and bounding around the rough terrain, the vitamins surrender to my will to deplete my final ounces of strength.

The forestry has been changing to include colorful aspen and Rocky Mountain maple, but overall the trees have thinned. I’m approaching my favorite destination on earth. I drive myself forward with all remnants of strength and run as hard as I can uphill—to the highest and farthest point I’ve dared to reach in my forest ventures. I’ve dared to reach in my forest ventures.

The inclined portion seems as lengthy and exhausting as the rest of this endeavor today. I’m utterly spent. within their circle has just updated their status. Through the turquoise this is as fast as I can push myself to go, having not watched my entire journey here from the stench of Miles’ Sector Seven. within their circle has just updated their status. Through the turquoise

I collapse on the summit just as the sun’s first rays begin to brighten the sullen sky. It takes a couple of minutes for me to recuperate enough to sit up and enjoy the astounding beauty of the sunrise. My breathing regulates as I take in the powerful, golden sun rising above the vast expanse of woodland hills interlaced with peaceful, clear streams.

This time of year, when the leaves are just beginning to transform into a variety of yellows and oranges, is my unsurpassable favorite. The colors are exaggerated and the overall view enriched by the backdrop of the stoic evergreens. Even the city looks attractive from this distance. I can see the tops of the tightly packed skyscrapers that stand in the center of Miles, and can gain a general sense of the breadth of the suburbs that used to be inhabited beyond the border. Forest and rocky hills surround the rest for as far as I can see into the mighty rays of the dawn.

Perhaps The United States’ leaders did preserve a precious gift when the population bill was passed, and people were made to relinquish their scattered homes and concentrate in the counties. It truly would be a dismal world if this beauty existed nowhere.

But yet, what good is our sacrifice if we’re not allowed to see its result? For our children’s children, the propagandist would say. Still, it’s so unfortunate that the people of Miles will never stand below the overarching branches of a forest or atop a hill that overlooks it all. They only see these things in pictures. Citizens experience all the natural beauty their lifetime will allow when they enjoy a controlled walk along the invisible, yet gravely known, barrier of Miles County. They look at the trees, smell the pine, listen to the birds sing, and smile.

I’m ruined for that. I’ve seen infinite beauty, the way my ancestors in this region did. I suppose more souls would be likened to mine if others could take in the magnificence that I have earned my right to see. They might begin to question their telltale lives and search for deeper meaning and truer pleasure, like I do.

There it goes. I have stolen my own peace. One dissenting thought and my mind is again bombarded with possible scenarios for this afternoon, and what each outcome might mean. I need to have my Evvie back. She is my rock of sanity and sole reason for existing. My little sister keeps my heart light and, sometimes against my will, connects me to the modern world. Without her, I become fixed in my own thoughts and solitude. I know that’s not healthy, but my tablet and I simply haven’t been able to coexist.

In reverse, I fear how our long separation may have changed Evvie. Sometimes during an overnight stay, I notice that the front she puts up breaks and a giddy, teenage girl— affected by undulating, noxious media—breaks through. Over the last two years, she has lived surrounded by an uncontested presence of people that live and breathe a sickening blend of high technology and high fashion. This can only have stunted Evvie’s impressionable mind. Reaping those poisons from her, and helping her remember which elements of the world still hold meaning, could be quite an undertaking, but one I’m prepared to take on.

None of this matters though—unless I can get her back.

Chapter Two

I’m on my feet again, leisurely descending the hill to give my outerwear time to dry and my mind the time it needs to process all that hassles it. Scenario one is least likely. I’ve never heard of it being granted, but it is within the realm of possibilities. In this odd chance, Evvie would be given a variance to live with me under Merideth’s continued guardianship. If my sister is able to live under my care, it is more plausible that this would have been granted through scenario two. I would be allowed to legally adopt Evvie, putting the next four years of her life on my parenting account, in accordance with the law.

Everyone in Miles is allowed thirty-six combined years of parenting. I presume this to be uniform throughout the disjoint nation, but I guess I’ve never looked into it. This is just one piece of the finely printed details of the 2015 bill to contain population growth. Notice the wording. They didn’t choose reduce or control, but contain. This broad and ambiguous wording was intentional. It did not prevent the government from immediately construing and enforcing a physical and numerical boundary.

Adopting my little sister in accordance with scenario two would allow me to bear only one child of my own, if I ever decide to do so. Additionally, I could adopt and raise a four-year-old who has been orphaned, and whose otherwise willing relatives all already have two children. Similarly, I could foster three or four teenage girls, depending on their ages, until they turn eighteen. Doing this would eradicate their chances of facing the prevalent abuse that comes from male fosters that adopt young girls from the orphanage. I have considered adoption of this type to be a part of my future. I know what it’s like to fear that fate.

It’s a nonsensical and unjust system, especially for the unfortunate children who mourn the recent loss of their parents, and aren’t allowed consolation and care from their loving relatives. Instead, the cold authority of the law requires these tragic children to be stuffed into the overcrowded orphanage. There, children wait to be handed over to any requesting guardian or foster, suitable or not.

My sister and I didn’t have a single living relative left when my mom died, so the orphanage was as good a place as any for us. We didn’t find the system quite as unforgiving as children who had relatives they could have lived with, if not for the law.

Scenario three is the status quo. Evvie continues to be the foster child of Merideth Layton and is not granted a variance to live with me. It’s not what I’m hoping for, but Evvie would be plenty fortunate to live out her ‘childhood’ under Merideth’s guardianship.

Merideth is safe, means well, and doesn’t live terribly far from the transitions building in Sector Seven where I live. Merideth can also give Evvie a lot of worldly things that I can’t dream of affording. Some of these things I would refuse to provide even if I could. To me, it’s critical that Evvie grows stronger and wiser than the average inhabitant, and those traits aren’t fostered by possessions from the trendy, technological, and media-infested world.

The fourth scenario is the one that I refuse to allow. This is only a possibility if for some reason Merideth forfeits her guardianship of Evvie, but the county does not transfer that guardianship to me. Such a situation would leave Evvie in the hands of Miles’ governing body as she approaches a fragile age for orphaned girls. My stomach roils as I walk through the thickening forest. The slimy leadership looks the other way as despicable men adopt and either keep the girls to themselves or enslave them in underground brothels. That’s a poison that no amount of love could erase from Evvie’s heart. She would forever be a broken woman, assuming she could even get out at eighteen.

Such an adoption would undoubtedly be a closed one, where I’m not permitted an iota of knowledge about who has custody of my sister or in which sector she’ll reside. These girls vanish underground. Their instruction monitors mark them truant, and eventually it’s assumed they’ve dropped out of school. Evvie’s TabFile rarely goes a few hours without an update, but it would sit untouched for days. Her friends would wonder, What’s up with Evvie lately? I would know.

I can’t risk losing her like that. If that verdict is delivered today, I’ll make sure she never leaves the orphanage unless it’s with me under the glow of the moonlight. I have to be ready for anything.

I drag my damp clothes from the branch overhead and pull them on, turning my tenseness into a renewed will. I suck down the last of the water from my pack with an aspirin for my knotting stomach. I tuck the bottle back inside my pack, along with not much more than the flowering part of two sunflower plants that I picked at the foot of the hill.

I head toward a lake formerly called Spotted-Eagle, which is due west of my entrance pond. The circle around the south side of the lake is relaxed. With my shoes sticking in the muddy bank, I bend down and fill my bottle with water, and place the sunflowers inside. When I reach Spotted-Eagle’s northwestern bank, I shut and reattach my pack.

The rotation of the cameras on EPA 7-8 and EPA 8-9 are shrewdly synced to maximize exposure outside the county’s limits. When I first sense that I’m within viewing distance, I duck into the cover of tall, weedy growths that sideline the lake. I slowly creep through the brush; searching with my hands for the large stones I’ve laid to mark my crawling path.

Here it is. I have transformed the former home of a pocket gopher or a large rodent to stow a pair of binoculars. The binoculars are needed to outwit the cameras and to check for early morning occupants of the street. I check for people and cars first. There are none. Next, I spy on the 7-8 camera to my right. I nod my head to count the seconds as I scan across to the 8-9 camera. After calculating, I replace the binoculars and bury them shallowly. The timing game begins again.

I dart short distances, carefully angling my body behind grasses, bushes, and scattered clusters of young larch, ash, and aspen that aim to add to the effectiveness of the electric barrier. I suppose they have thickened and grown, but they’re nothing impressive compared to the forestry surrounding my exiting point.

I’m careful to turn this way and that as to avoid the view of both cameras as I approach the only bur oak I’ve ever encountered. It stands tall and sturdy amid the two EPA buildings, with two overarching, parallel branches that reach into Miles.

By the time I arrive at my reentry oak, I’ve regained plenty of strength to climb to the lower of the twin branches. Aware of the watchful eyes that are alert even at this hour, I wrap my arms high around the tree and raise my right foot to a knot that sits at my naval. I pull myself up the tree and quickly change my hold. This is the pinnacle of the excursion. I unwrap my arms and clench grips of bark with just my shaking fingertips. Dropping my head, I push through the seconds until I can release my tortured fingers from their narrow holds at my shoulders. My arms envelop the trunk again, but there’s not a moment to recover. The next and final branch of the climb has to be done with haste, yet precision.

My final foothold to mount the lower branch faces town. I quickly power up and around to it and hoist myself up to grapple tackle the chest-level limb. Swinging atop it, I use the trunk to stand—my feet now elevated about eight feet above ground. I take hold of the higher branch at my rib cage to steady myself as I jut toward Miles County.

With each stride outward, the bottom branch sags more under my weight. Just before the inner ring of the electric barrier, I begin to endure pulsating shocks as my chip advances toward the consuming underground wire that drives the force field. There’s no time for timidity as I dart across the thinning and warping strength of the oak’s limbs.

I know I’m across the barrier once my fingertips no longer reach the top branch. My feet are the only surfaces connecting me to the oak, but I don’t fret over poor their balance for as soon as my hands are free, I confidently step backward off the branch. Both hands firmly grab the lower branch as I fall, and hang on for just an instant to slow my decent and save my heels.

After a bit of a tumble, I stand tall, check the camera and the street, brush my palms against my pant legs, and release a sigh of relief. From Sector Eight where I’ve landed, I round off today’s run with a light trot back to the transitional-living center in Sector Seven.

My building is as dormant two hours later as it was when I