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always the same, it didn’t matter who, or what. Dead was dead and she just wanted to whimper and cry. Everything seemed so real to her in the darkness, she’d never felt so alone.
    All her life she’d felt different. The other pups were bigger, rougher, tougher. They had short snouts with burly teeth. Massive heads like pumpkins. She was always the small fry, the runt, the last to eat. Her nose was better, her ears crisper and being small made her useful. Sometimes.
    But she was always part of the pack—a small, if vital piece. Vital, if not to them, then to her. A pack is a pack, and now she was setting out to leave it.
    She clenched her teeth, turned her head and stalked slowly. The smells changed and she caught Samus and Samson, but not where she expected to find them. They were outside. She paused and waited for the wind to shift again. They were definitely outside and away from everyone. This, she thought, was worth investigating.
    A deep anger grew inside of her like a smoldering ember. My home! My family! She sniffed high in the air and followed the scent. Something felt wrong to her.
    It was up. Up past the crumbling concrete dwellings. Past the heaps of scrap that smelled of plastic and wire and old things. But not quite so high as the dilapidated thing that they plundered in the summers. It was there she found them, in the darkness away, where no one wanted to be.
    It was rare to see the skelebots at night. They liked the sun, but still, would come close to things unearthed. She didn’t know why. No one knew why. Certain things seemed to draw them. Live things, powered things, things that glowed, things the machine gods sought. That was her particular talent, getting into the old places where no one else could fit. There she earned her place, with the things men forgot.
    The shale hill gave way to a lichen coated plateau with warped girders driven into the stone. Beyond it a jumble of debris and sand, was the entry to the scrap place. Just past the field of worthless things stood Samus and Samson, close to the metal wall of the structure.
    Samson, even in the starlight, looked afraid. His tail was plastered tight to his leg and the smell of urine, fear urine, was in the air. His shoulders hunched tight while his muzzle was almost on his front paws. Fear, raw and thick.
    Denali crouched tight and felt the cool stone on her stomach. It was still too far to hear anything. She could just make out a clear path past the bits of plastic and glass. One paw in front of the other. Silent and smooth.
    With every creep she listened and sniffed. The winds had settled into a routine of mountain drifts, like the stone itself was exhaling. Words drifted and danced just on the edge of her hearing, she could almost make out the words, almost. She was sure Samson was talking.
    Her paws bumped a slender cylinder and it toppled with a clink onto a ceramic orb. She stopped and closed her eyes tight. So tight it almost hurt. And then her ribs ached, but she listened and heard nothing.
    The silence in her ears was overwhelming. She concentrated with every sense. Her paws started to shake. Fear. Doubt crept in and she wished she was back sleeping by Barley.
    Then the voices came again, lower this time.
    Denali crept forward with her ears tight to her head and felt thankful that the wind was pushing her scent away. If it was the other way, she was sure even Samson would smell it. The stone chill started to work its way into her. She stopped and listened again. Almost.
    Then the wind stopped. The voices came like a whisper in the distance.
    “But how?” Samson asked.
    “There are places. When she goes to the trial,” Samus replied. “You’ll go, too.”
    “Why not now? Here?”
    There was a pause. “Do as I say. Not here.”
    “Why?” Samson’s voice cracked with the strain.
    Denali turned her head and closed her eyes. She ignored the chill in her bones. Her heart beat faster.
    “You can’t get to her here, no one