This is an account of the battle that is to happen on the morrow, I am Luke allens lieutenant colonel under the command of General Washington, I was recruited in the winter of 1775, at 17 years of age, this account should be given to General Washington upon my death.

February 17, 1776

Morning

The men, including myself, have just

Finished setting up our camp about

three miles in the woods, outside of

Boston, so far we have used up most of our supplies, grits, corn and even clothes,most which are in poor condition, holes in the sleeves and torsos and the leggings the shoes may not even be there for some.

There is a strange noise coming from outside…

NOON

there was a commotion this morning all the men are on edge with this war, Pvt.Lee and Pvt. Adams got into what you call a “brawl” by the time I got there the violence had already stopped but they were still throwing profanities around like dern. General Washington should be here tonight or in the morrow, hopefully with supplies and maybe boost the moral of my men.

I am Luke Allens in command if the 37th regiment , including myself 36 men, i was picked up in boston by Washington himself.

On the corner of summer and long lane a boy no older than 17 sat on the cobblestone corner, soaking wet from the storm that passed the night before.

“Boy!” A man yelled.

The boy gave no response, the man walked towards the boy “are you deaf?”

The boy looked away and quietly talked “No sir” he looked up slowly his eyes widened “a..are yo..you General Washington?”

“Yes i am young lad,”

“Its an honor to meet you sir”he looked in amazement.

Washington looked around “ where are your parents boy?”

“At the market” he said quickly.

“So what's your name?” Washington asked.

“Luke Allens” Luke said.

“So Luke where are your parents?”washington got down and squatted down to look Luke in the eyes.

“They were killed by the redcoats, about a year ago along with my ..brother and ..sisters it happened at the battle of concord” luke explained.

Washington looked down and and patted Luke's shoulder”i'm so sorry luke that shouldn't have happened, i have a proposition for you then”

Luke looked up

“How would you like to fight with me to rid this country of these villains?”

“I would gladly join you”look said with a stern deep voice with determination in his eyes

“Alright i'm glad to have you on board my boy, now let's get you some clean cloths and something warm in you” Washington said getting up

That was little over a year ago now, i look at where i am now, commander of my own regiment, i believe mother and father would be proud i also believe rose would be as well.

I get on my knees and start to pray “dear heavenly father, blessed and thanks for what thy have given me”

I wake up with a start when i heard the men scrambling and causing a big commotion, the smell of something on the fire hit my nose. I get up “what is all this comm…” i soon see that Washington has arrived with well needed supplies, I salute ”sir”

Washington chuckles” no need for such formalities her”

“Sir, i hope your journey was with ease”

“Indeed it was” walking away” come with me luke”

Inside my tent washington sat on my bench and asked” now what did you find that could not be discussed in the letter?”

“Sir, my men have found a british supply line and it seems that they are cutting through the forest”

“I have heard that as well, what are you planing luke?” He looked me dead in the eyes

“Sir with your permission i was planning to ambush them and plunder there supplies”

Washington thought about it for a minute ”yes, yes i think that would be the best course of action we would achieve many things at once.”

“ we can have the preparations done by sundown, sir.” I stated coldly

Washington looked at me again “are you sure you want to do this?”

“I am sir” i stated

“Damn luke you're like a son to me stop with the formalities” he stood up and placed his hands on my shoulders “i don't want to see your blood on my hands, i need to know your ready for this.”

“I am i swear to you i am.”i looked dead in the eyes” i joined your ranks so i could rid the world of this evil, and make sure they don't ever break apart another family.”

Washington nods and backs up a bit “very well” he pulls out a map from his navy blue over coat “ this is the route the supply line is going as of now.” He points and traces a path with his finger”

Amazed i asked” how did you know?”

“ we have been tracking them for a fortnight now, they are heading back to canada to spend the remainder of the cold months”he stated

“alright. “ i said examining the map.

“ so they will be at this clearing for about three hours and that is the only chance you have to attack”

“That is plenty of time”i replied

Washington rolls the map, handing it to me he starts to leave but whispers at the door” may the father have mercy on” he leaves my tent

February 18, 1776

One day before the attack

As of now we have enough ammunitions for 42 rifles and 30 flintlocks,

The men decided to have a “feast” of sorts with wild pheasant and grits accompanied by corn, i wish i would be as carefree as them but i know the difficulties that tomorrow brings.

February 19, 1776

This is it my men and i are packing up camp and heading to the clearing now.

As luke got up and pulled on his coat a note fell out and read.

Good luck my boy

-Washington

In Prose.'s realm, where voices blend and sway,

New updates emerge, igniting brilliant displays.

Audio ascends, a dimension profound,

Crafting self-expression, where echoes abound.

Fonts flourish, unique, a personal flair,

Each letter a brushstroke, creativity laid bare.

AI dances with joy, a whimsical art,

Celebrating the human touch, the soul at its heart.

Engaging the senses in marvelous delight,

A tapestry woven, where day meets the night.

In this vibrant space, innovation takes flight,

Prose., a canvas, where dreams ignite.

Although the world smells like an old dive bar drenched in stale beer and the dried blood of martyrs, I’m back to clean up some filthy ashtrays, lipstick stained whisky glasses, and hire a death metal band for tomorrow night. The neon lights on the patio need some new bulbs, and the bartender is still on methadone, but she has stone and beauty in her bones. So buckle up, bitches. Things are about to get legendary in this black pill literary portal.

I’ve been gone for too fucking long.

It’s time to get gnarly.

What say you?

Another wave breaks on the shore of mankind's greatest longing. A wave of resonance, as the fractal elements of the outer world fold in on themselves, annihilating the dissonance of matter into an expansive harmony of energy. The beating of the eternal heart, the standing wave of time, of which we are only half-conscious, promises mankind a backwards-awakening - the realization of negative time.

From our precarious perch in the positive timeline, we see a causal framework based on the monotony of time. We never stop to consider whether this time might be in harmony with itself, with it's opposite. A fish never knows what air's like until it crosses the surface - it can only observe the effects of that air on the water, which also confuses it about the nature of water.

Clarity is to be found in infinity, the infinite occilations of time, what we all unconsciously know.

I fed the words of a tantalizing new challenge into AI. In seconds, it created a work of prose better than my mind could comprehend. It gave me pause. Made me question the purpose for my existence.

My one small skill to manipulate words into satisfying forms communicating my feelings, immediately diminished. Once you lose your self to a formless creation of 0s and 1s, of what is left to redeem my entire life?

I write this knowing if I fed it into AI, a better verbal expression would emerge.

The object drifted silently on its course through the starry, silent vacuum of the cosmos. It was a metallic hulk of gray panels and oversized thrusters out its south end.

It was unceremoniously nicknamed a moo because it was shaped like a huge milk carton, the windows of the bridge forming the “tabs.” The ship was nothing fancy and it didn't need to be. It was a vessel for moving freight or prisoners. I was of the latter. I sat in my seat, a guard in beige camo on either side. They looked like turkey buzzards and I was roadkill. None of us wore space suits, for they were not needed in the pressurized hull of the moo.

I knew where I was headed. It was a planetoid on the far end of the Milky Way. It had been terraformed many years ago. I'm sure it was an interesting process and I'm sure it involved a ton of scientific jargon, but I'm not Isaac Asimov or the other guy that wrote about threesomes on the moon; I therefore will not attempt to give an exposition of the process.

It had been made into human worthy habitation and a penal colony. Its name was Grifter's End & had become the rug beneath which society swept its dirt.

The colony on the planetoid, just a tad bigger than Earth's moon,was the solution to that glaring issue political devotees on all sides could agree needed fixing: prison overcrowding. This was where low level offenders were dumped,your prostitutes, druggies, and petty thieves. Your big bads like kiddy touchers, serial killers and rapists stayed on Earth. Well in time the prostitutes did what they did best and the men did what they did best and soon everyone was breeding like rabbits and an entirely self-sufficient society had been carved out.

The “moo” touched down, shaking us all up and for that brief instant I had something in common with Elvis Presley. I straightened my suit and tie as the hull depressurized with a pwoooshhh sound. The ramp lowered with an annoying mechanical groan and I was escorted off the hunk of junk and onto the platform and subsequently to the care of two more guards wearing the same uniform as those on the ship except with the addition of gas masks and red berets. The gas masks were for pure intimidation factor. The air on this rock pile was breathable.

“Do you know what brings you here?” One asked in a brusque tone.

“Of course I do.”

“Let's move it along then.”

My former escorts were handed a clip board with a bunch of papers they hastily signed off on as though I were a parcel they had just uncaringly dropped off. Once the ship had lifted off and pierced the night sky I was handed a tablet with a list of instructions staring at me from the glowing screen.

The gates to the colony proper flung open and I walked inside, swallowed by the neon boa that this place was.

Under the watchful eyes of the guards and their bullpup rifles I followed each instruction carefully. I was documented, checked in and given my assigned job, and the address to my apartment where I'd live on this penal colony space rock.

Given the low level nature of my criminal offenses I got a cushy but tedious job as quality control in the factory that towered like a colossus over the low rise cityscape. This colony was designed for total self-sufficiency. Food, metal hardware, software, light bulbs all of it was manufactured right here. The most reformed of this place's denizens even owned farms away from the congestion of this city. Surplus was exported off world back to Earth. Every few months or so a ship would arrive from the Mother Planet bearing care packages of sorts. These contained the few things we wouldn't have access to here. It gives us toilet paper to wipe our butts and the Earthlings some superficial peace of mind about shooting us into space. A win win situation don't you see?

There was well constructed social order about the colony too. You had your low level menial workers like me, the people in the factories and the farmers and stuff. Then you had the shop owners and bartenders, the staff like the stuffy suit who checked me in. Then above all of us were the guards; their iron grip had loosened over the years as the criminals reformed with the construction of the colony but they remained ever vigilant….up to a point.

They had a don't bother the bee approach to their policing. If you walked down the wrong alley and someone did shank you which was rare there'd be an investigation and the perp would be punished in some manner if caught the key word is IF.

The truth is this: what's the point of imprisoning a crook when he's already in prison? Basically everything short of open prostitution or mass riots got a blind eye turned toward it. If I had tobput it a simpler way I'd say the authorities at this point in the colony's history were mainly for decoration and making sure that the reformed stayed that way. If let's say some factory workers were gambling on their breaks not a problem it was free time. If on the other hand a bunch of the thieves that got sent here continued the practice they'd be dealt with.

My apartment was spartan and painted a very sterile white. That was fine. I'm a simple man. The lighting cast an ambient blue pall over the interior. I wasn't sure if this served a practical purpose like calming workers after a shift or if it was for pure aesthetics. I found the fridge fully stocked with locally sourced foodstuffs of all sorts. The living room had a couch with a light strip built into its bottom portion. There was a radio built into the wall for music from a selection of thumb drives housed in a little cubby next to the radio.

There was no T.V.. A cineplex played selected films on the weekends and that took care of visual entertainment; though as I learned later there were other forms of entertainment on this planetoid that people indulged in even they weren't supposed to.

The bedroom had a full wardrobe waiting for me in the closet. For a convicted criminal I had it pretty good. A box on a night stand contained other things for me including a list of eating places and something that looked like squished pennies,musk coins the physical equivalent to the USA's universal cryptocurrency. There was another item that made both my eyebrows raise in bemusement.

There was a small pistol in the box. The citizens had no rights to firearms (though I expected a black market existed). So what was this doing here?. Oh well, a problem for another day.

I picked out a pajama set from my closet and showered. I placed the mysterious gun under my pillow. The bedroom had no windows. And was bathed in the soothing illumination of the holographic clock projected onto the wall. The colony ran on civilian Earthtime. 7:00 PM.

I would be working day shifts for the rest of my life here so I shut my eyes and didn't open them until I was brought out of slumber by the sound of demonic hornets buzzing into my room. The alarm was automatically set for Six in the morning.

Cliche that I tried, cared and tried. Tattoos permanently on your thighs. Marilyn Manson the guise. Gay. Lame. Fake. Fruit flies. Sweet yet nasty. At the split you devise, the right life, you have comprised, transition, reprise. You're married now but where am I.

It's great to grow and behold. Feed and grow old. It was never in what I knew for you. You wild little screw. But trust im happy, maybe, fuck me. What I've seen is dirty, messy, and skitzy. Doesn't change a thing, I miss thee.

You are chubby, pink, and stinky. But you chose everything but me. Sour days in bed talking to mom. Her fly trap over flow-ed. You're dad drums of gold. I tried, you saw some value in a beat persistent as a nuclear mossad.

We shared good taste in music. You showed me Gun Ship. NO² fits. With our agressive addiction fit. Happy songs I never thought were congruent, with you. With me. Yet you let it be, with no commitment at this vanishing point.

Years later I wrote this, thunk this, hate this. Not at all worried you can dissect this. Attack this. And. Trivialize this. My only hope is you never see this.

In a forgotten lighthouse that leaned toward the sea like a tired sigh, there lived a man who mapped places that no longer were. His name was Luke, and his world was parchment and silence, shelves bowed beneath scrolls of lands erased by time, and a table where he traced lost borders with trembling hands.

No one came here unless they had nowhere else to go.

The air inside was laced with dust and salt, and the scent of old ink clung to the stones. His maps were not made with ink and compass alone. No—Luke mixed pigments from ash, from soil gathered where cities had once stood, and from crushed flowers left behind in places no longer found on any map. A drop of seawater to bind them. A whisper, to awaken the memory.

And the maps shimmered faintly. Not with light, but with recognition—as if the paper remembered being earth once.

He worked alone. Until one night, as twilight spilled like oil across the horizon, there was a knock at the lighthouse door. Soft. Almost afraid to be heard.

She was no older than eight, her boots soaked from the marsh below, eyes too large for her face. In her hands: a wrinkled piece of paper. A map drawn in crayon and charcoal.

“I’m looking for my home,” she said, holding it out like a fragile truth. “But it’s not on any map.”

Luke did not speak at first. He took the paper with careful fingers and studied it. The lines were crude. A crooked hill. A crescent-shaped lake. Four houses and a willow tree with blue leaves.

“This place,” he murmured, “does not exist.”

She looked at him then—not with anger, but with an ache older than her years.

“It did,” she whispered. “It did.”

He should have sent her away.

Instead, he lit a lantern and cleared the table. He laid her map beside his own. Then, from a tall, narrow drawer, he drew out an empty sheet—fine as moth wings, stitched with veins of gold. And he began.

She watched him for hours. Told him the shape of the hills. The sound the wind made near the water. How the tree whistled at night. He listened. Drew. Adjusted. Not with disbelief, but reverence.

As the days passed, the lines grew sharper. The village took shape.

And with each stroke of his pen, something stirred inside him. A name he had forgotten surfaced on his tongue. The curve of the lake—he had seen that before. The willow tree—he had once sat beneath its branches.

He didn’t ask her name. And she never asked his. But they worked in quiet togetherness, and the lighthouse began to feel less empty.

Until one morning, he awoke to find her gone. Her boots no longer by the door. Her paper left on the table, weighed down by a smooth stone.

Only one thing had changed.

The map they had drawn together was glowing.

He touched the lake—his hand trembled. Not with fear, but with memory. He had lived there. That village with the crooked roofs and blue-leaved trees. He had left as a boy during a flood that no one remembered. It had been erased. From the world. From his own mind.

Now it was back.

Luke stood in the lighthouse doorway, staring at the horizon. And for the first time in a lifetime of maps, he didn’t want to chart it. He wanted to walk it.

But he knew the cost. To map a vanished place fully was to release it. To let it live again, and in doing so, forget it once more. He had brought back so many towns, so many islands, but had always remained the keeper of their ghosts.

He looked down at the glowing map. The lines now pulsed gently, like a heartbeat. The child had given him more than memory.

She had given him home.

So he made his choice.

Luke did not archive the map. He did not seal it away.

He rolled it gently, tied it with twine, and carried it to the tallest window of the lighthouse. There, as the first stars blinked above the sea, he held the map to the wind.

It caught like a bird set free, unraveling as it flew, its glowing trails scattering into the night.

And somewhere, far from the lighthouse, a village with a crescent lake and a blue-leaved willow tree began to return to the earth.

Luke felt the forgetting begin, soft and painless. Like mist. Like sleep.

He smiled.

And sat down to draw once more.

© 2025 A.M. Roberts. All rights reserved.

John watched the böxenwolves’ fight and the stand-off with morbid fascination. Wayne filmed it on a camcorder, and when Olsen asked him to stop, Kevin defended him. Olsen searched them and confiscated Wayne’s revolver.

Olsen and the human half of the K9 team helped Corey onto a stretcher and brought her to the befuddled EMTs. Kevin rode with her to the hospital. John hoped she survived regardless of her innocence or guilt.

As flustered EMTs loaded the böxenwolf into the ambulance, Sheriff Jordan told Wayne and John not to mention anything about the scene to the wolf response or authorities in Wolftown. John considered it vaguely suspicious.

Sheriff Jordan left Chief Deputy Swan in charge of the Happy Howlers crime scene. They insisted every deputy reported exactly what they witnessed, whether or not they observed crazy things. Through his tenure as sheriff, Jordan said that their observations would not affect their careers negatively unless the deputies were incompetent, and he knew they were competent.

The wolves quieted once the ambulance departed. The deputies calmed, and the K9 dog stopped barking.

The deputies questioned John and Wayne.

Soon, the deputies removed the sharp implements from the wolf pen and let Wayne move the wolves into it, and also, he and John cared for the wolves. Wayne positively identified all wolves as residents of Happy Howlers, and none resembled Abel, Barker, or Charlie, the three wolves that roamed Wolftown.

The deputies allowed Wayne to collect evidence for the wolf response once they finished working in a particular area. He thought the paw prints matched Abel and Barker’s.

Most deputies left, but Olsen remained until Nancy, Wayne’s wife, picked up Wayne and John. Sheriff Jordan worried the third man might attack them.

John said, “You’ll probably have to say böxenwolves exist now.”

Wayne sighed. “I know. I already had to say they weren’t wolves.”

“They legitimately look like wolves, or, at least, Corey Brown does. I guess the böxenwolf did.”

“I’m fine with misidentifying things if I have to.” Wayne sighed. “They will find out sooner or later. Data that böxenwolves exist will attract cryptozoologists, plus other people who make cryptozoologists look like real scientists.”

“Cryptozoologists find real animals once in a while, like platypuses and coelacanths.”

“The other people think intelligent alien life visits Earth. If I say böxenwolves exist, cryptozoologists and other people will want to talk to me, and I don’t want to talk to them.”

“Would you consider hanging up a sign saying that Happy Howlers employees cannot discuss the subject?” Olsen asked.

“That will bring conspiracy theorists. I won’t let Happy Howlers be a shrine for weirdos.”

“Why conspiracy theorists?” John asked.

“Cryptozoology, other people’s hypotheses, and conspiracy theories overlap anyway. It’s so annoying.”

“You might attract fairy tale people instead,” the deputy said.

“That’s as bad. Maybe it’s worse because it reduces science to fairy tales. I don’t think we can even call this scientific evidence because who would want to be in an experiment to replicate it?”

“Not me. It was very uncomfortable,” John said.

“Nancy hates the paranormal.”

Wayne also called the University of Wisconsin Health University Hospital ICU to ask Adam Giese about Suzanne’s condition. She lost some of her intestines and one kidney, and her damaged liver had begun to fail, and she had septicemia. Suzanne felt well enough to say hello to Wayne, and she asked if anybody had caught the wolves yet.

“Maybe we’re getting close,” Wayne said.

John left a message for Paula: “Wolves haven’t been attacking people. Criminals have been looking like wolves and attacking people, but their method requires killing wolves. Maybe the criminals committed an environmental crime.”

Sheriff Jordan and Schuster sped to the Oneida Community Hospital, the closest one, but in a different county. Wilde County law enforcement regularly took patients to it, and the Oneida sheriff always allowed Wilde County law enforcement to guard violent patients.

“Well, that was a gross arrest, but at least there weren’t maggots,” Sheriff Jordan said.

Schuster dozed off for a few seconds.

“Maggots,” Schuster said, and yawned.

“How much have you slept?”

“I had a nap yesterday.”

“What about at night?”

“I’ve been on duty since Friday night.”

“Take a nap.”

Schuster did.

“Wake up.” Sheriff Jordan shook Schuster, who jerked.

“I’m awake. I’m listening,” Schuster said.

“Come on. We’re at the hospital.”

As they walked across the parking lot, Sheriff Jordan asked if Schuster had been drinking enough water (yes), had eaten at least one meal that day (in Sheriff Jordan’s opinion, the granola bar he always kept in his pocket and a thermos of hot chocolate did not qualify as food), and how much blood he lost the day before (approximately a pint to a pint-and-a-half, probably closer to the latter).

“After we get the wolf strap situation in hand, you’re going home,” Sheriff Jordan said.

“I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“The road and bridge are still flooded.”

“How did you get out?”

“In a canoe.”

“There was a county-wide flash flood warning all night. There was a flash flood at 11:20 this morning.”

“It was too far to walk. I told Ms. Brown I wouldn’t leave until the suspect was in custody. Her aunt reported her as a missing person, so I want to tell her how Ms. Brown is. And if the suspect is Dennis Laufenberg, I want to tell my fiancé she doesn’t need to worry about him. He scares her.”

“Intentionally?”

“Not more than we told you earlier. I will tell Stephanie that he won’t be released from police custody, but she might not believe it unless I see it.”

“All right, after the böxenwolf becomes human, you can observe but not participate. However reliable and competent you seem, a brain can’t function properly under your conditions. You might make a mistake that hurts somebody or gives a judge or jury a reason to release the böxenwolf. You’ve been overusing your arms, rolling around in the mud, guarding your shoulder, and bleeding again, so have your arms looked at, too.”

“Okey-dokey.”

In four minutes, Sheriff Jordan and Schuster told the staff on duty to expect a deformed patient who, after the surgeon removed the wolf strap, would turn into a patient with normal anatomy. He warned that even major trauma healed quickly, and ketamine had little effect.

Sheriff Jordan, Schuster, and Deputy Murphy, who had accompanied the böxenwolf, watched the staff muddle through their disgust and anxiety. They each wrote down everything they heard the böxenwolf say, including that he complained about an invasion of privacy, and that he felt threatened by Schuster; he had said he intended to kill the böxenwolf.

The nurse bustled them out and drew a curtain.

“You were the one biting and threatening people, asshole,” Schuster said, accidentally aloud.

“Didn’t I say we were trying to de-escalate the situation?” Sheriff Jordan asked.

“Sorry, sir,” Schuster said.

“Were you trained not to argue with criminals?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Good. I’m assuming you’re sleep-deprived this time. Did you intend to kill him?” Sheriff Jordan asked.

“I told him if he moved towards us, I would kill him,” Schuster said. “It was a warning because I thought he was going to attack us. I actually shot him. He started cooperating, and he started acting threatening again, so I told him if he moved towards us again, I’d kill him. I think he believed me because he started cooperating again.”

“Are you going to kill him now?”

“No, he’s cooperating. I’m not even holding my weapon.” Schuster wanted to, but Sheriff Jordan wanted law enforcement to de-escalate the situation.

“Any other times?”

“If he was the wolf that attacked me and Officer Foster, while he was attacking us, I was trying to kill him. But if he was, I thought he was a wolf at the time.”

“Any other times?”

“No. I don’t have a reason now or other times.”

“Get your arms looked at. Everybody who survived the wolf attacks have gotten infections.”

Schuster realized how hungry, thirsty, and tired he was, and he went to the restroom and drank from a water fountain. He showed his arms to the triage nurse, and she asked him to wait, and so he leaned against the wall to stay awake. A few minutes later, a nurse called him. Waiting, he fell asleep on the table.

The doctor woke him to briefly examine his arms, vaccination status, and antibiotic prescription. He told the nurse to wash and re-bandage his bite wounds and give him a sling and told Schuster to eat a large, beef-based meal in the cafeteria.

While Schuster waited for the elevator to the first floor, the böxenwolf roared on the third floor, faintly. Schuster rode the elevator up and, by listening to the böxenwolf and following a security guard, he found the correct operating room. A nurse stopped the security guard, but Schuster barged past her.

A surgical tray had been knocked over. Sheriff Jordan, Murphy, the anesthesiologist, and two nurses held the böxenwolf down.

“The anesthesia, laughing gas, and painkillers aren’t working,” Sheriff Jordan said.

The böxenwolf told the surgeon, “Cut out the wolf strap!” Then glared at Schuster. “Not him!”

“Switch with the security guard and the surgical nurse,” Sheriff Jordan said, which annoyed the surgeon.

Schuster watched through the window. A nurse blocked the böxenwolf’s view. A minute later, a nurse left and returned with two orderlies, who replaced Sheriff Jordan, Murphy, and the security guard.

“He told them to cut the wolf strap off without drugs,” Sheriff Jordan said. “If this doesn’t work, I’m calling a priest.”

Everybody unnecessary for the operation filed out a few minutes later, with one orderly jogging to the elevator. Another, mumbling orderly shoved a basin and tweezers into Sheriff Jordan’s hands and bolted for the elevator.

The nurse said, “They cut that off. He told them to. The nurses had to hold the incisions open because he healed so fast. He healed around their fingers. Can I go?”

“Yeah. Thanks for your cooperation,” Sheriff Jordan said, and the nurse hustled before he finished speaking.

With tweezers, Sheriff Jordan picked up a small, roughly circular piece of wolf strap, human skin, and fat. “The leather part got fused to his skin. It looks like the fused part is about as big as a 9mm bullet. Did anybody shoot the böxenwolf where he wore the strap?”

“Maybe I did, but I’m not positive where I hit him,” Schuster said. “So, the leather healed with his skin, and he was stuck halfway between transfigurations?”

“No idea, but investigate your theory if you want, but not today.”

“Can I ask why you believed it was a böxenwolf?” And why did the surgery bother you more than seeing the böxenwolf?

“My church supports a missionary to Zaire, and he says he has observed magic. I don’t see why Americans couldn’t use it, too, maybe in a different way,” Sheriff Jordan said.

Schuster suggested he tell Sheriff Jordan everything that Corey Brown told him and what he remembered from the wolf hunt. From the back of his shirt, between his shirt and undershirt, Schuster extracted a crinkled, yellow legal pad waterproofed inside an evidence bag labeled, NOT EVIDENCE. Kevin had torn out the top, used pages, and given him the remainder. He filled it with erratically organized notes, supplemented by his pocket-sized Dennis Laufenberg notebook and his normal police notebook. Also, Schuster had recorded some of his conversations with Corey Brown on cassette tapes.

Since Schuster had nowhere to sleep, and spoke from notes instead of memory, Sheriff Jordan listened, but only after Schuster ate and after Sheriff Jordan called a few people. He exchanged or repaid a handful of quarters from Schuster, Murphy, and Kevin.

Sheriff Jordan called the University of Wisconsin Health University Hospital’s ICU ward and asked Adam Giese for Suzanne’s medical records. He agreed to send them.

Stephanie and Foster’s wife, Megan, had said they would remain at the University of Wisconsin Health University Hospital’s morgue until a medical examiner autopsied Foster’s body—Schuster, Foster, Stephanie, and Megan worried the Wolftown Police Department could interfere with autopsies conducted in Wilde County. Because none of them had a cellphone, from a payphone, Schuster called the morgue, then asked Stephanie to find a payphone and call back.

“Okay. Why are you calling from Oneida?” she asked.

“I’ll tell you later. I’ll probably be at my parents’ farm,” Schuster said. “Sheriff Jordan has questions for you, but he thought a phone call from him first would make you worry.”

“I’m already worried.”

Schuster tried to reassure her.

“What does he have questions about?” Stephanie asked.

“Who missed work during the wolf attacks?”

“A lot of the information is in the office, but I can try.”

“He has a question for Megan, too.”

“Wait, Megan asked if we can be godparents.”

“Foster asked me, too, on the way to Dr. Groves. I told him I would if you agreed to it.”

“We should be, especially since it’s a boy.”

“Are you sure?”

Stephanie and Megan liked each other, but each had other best friends.

“Yeah,” Stephanie said.

“Okey-dokey,” Schuster said.

“I’ll get Megan.”

Megan agreed to send Foster’s autopsy results to Sheriff Jordan.

Schuster found Kevin in the cafeteria, and they ate together. Schuster caffeinated himself, but he almost fell asleep.

Kevin said, “Regarding Dennis Laufenberg, you will need a new lawyer. Ms. Brown needs one familiar with böxenwolves, and it’s a conflict of interest. Try my partner, though.”

“Okay,” Schuster said. “Can the male böxenwolf be charged with murder?”

“It would require very solid evidence that does not rely upon böxenwolves existing. If he is tried once for murder and found not guilty, he cannot be tried again. The evidence must be very strong.”

Part 21 coming Friday, July 25, because I was overenthusiastic and wrote too much.

The wind overhead felt like a tornado rushing past my body, which caused me to look up—part curiosity, part survival instinct. I saw dozens of Young Pops—the name given to twenty-forth-century humans aged 15 to 30—zipping through the sky like they had somewhere very important to be, which they probably didn’t.

A female Young Pop had a pink jetpack strapped on, with matching pink hair highlights. Fashion clearly still matters at 30,000 feet. This wasn’t one of those 200-year-old, fuel-burning relics of old. No—her suit and jetpack moved like an elegant dance, a whisper against the air currents. She flew past without offering the optional two-finger community greeting. Rude, but maybe she was texting mid-flight. That generation does love their mid-air multitasking.

Nearby, a male had bionic tattoos that enhanced his strength. It wasn’t just added power; it was like his willpower had Bluetooth. Each muscle flex triggered a lift surge. How it worked—and his smug defiance of gravity—annoyed me. I smiled anyway and gave him the community greeting from the ground, surrounded by folks my age—thirty-five years past the Y-Pop maturity date and one bad back away from retirement.

He didn’t return the greeting either. Of course not.

My great-great-grandfather once traveled on the ground in a gas-thrust propulsion device that polluted the air and had to be manually driven over rough, uneven, jarring roads. Historical records say the ride was uncomfortable—like getting massaged by a sack of hammers. But at least it was on solid ground. And hey, back then, people regularly gave each other the one-finger greeting—that tradition, apparently, was alive and well.

Today, we’ve got flying shuttlecraft gliding through the atmosphere—clean, silent, smooth, and smug.

No more steering wheels. The AI system handles air traffic like a cosmic butler, catering exclusively to Y-Pop passengers.

I get it—the thrill of aerial freedom is intoxicating. But sometimes I wonder if the Y-Pop generation even remembers the scientists, engineers, and astronomers who made this freedom possible. Probably not. They’re too busy perfecting their mid-air selfies and neon wing upgrades.

Before the sky became freedom, Earth’s terra firma was the prize. Back then, people felt the ground was a chain. Ironically, they were right. One day, gravity on Earth shifted so drastically that anyone not tethered risked floating off the planet entirely. Turns out “down to Earth” is no longer a personality trait—it’s a survival requirement.

The flying suits are designed for Y-Pop only anyway. My wings were officially clipped around 2358. Budget cuts, age limits, and a minor incident involving a wind turbine. As more Y-Pops sail over my head, I grip my tether and offer them a historical one-finger greeting—a gesture passed down from my great-great-grandfather’s era.