It doesn’t have to be that way, Little k. Her father’s voice intrudes into her thoughts, frustrating her with its always maddening logic. Nothing’s keeping you locked inside. Nothing except you.

“Shut up, Dad,” she mutters, pinching the bridge of her nose where a headache threatens to erupt. “Just…shut up. Please.”

She realizes that that little internal thought masquerading as her father’s voice might have a point, though. Perhaps some fresh air would do her good, a distraction that might help her subconscious continue to unravel the mystery of the code on its own with no further help from her.

“Worth a shot, anyway,” she comments to the bare walls surrounding her. They, as is their lot, stare back mutely, neither condemning nor condoning.

Rising to her feet, she steps from the room and into the short hallway. Quite without meaning to, she finds her glance drawn into the open portal of the master bedroom. There, draped across the comforter, lays the Colonel’s robe, and casually draped across that is the very shirt Kirsten had seen Dakota wear the day before.

The simple, careless, wholly domestic intimacy of the vision twists something deep inside, and although she’s completely unaware of the sneer that twists her features, a mirror would tell her that it is, in fact, there.

We’re not going there. Not even partway. She deliberately turns her attention away. Air. That’s what you need. Fresh air, and sunshine, and…damn! Tears sting her eyes, liquid accusations that she rubs away with a savage forearm, denying all they might stand for.

“Let’s go, Asi. Time for a walk.”

Asi streaks by her like a bullet, dancing and panting at the doorway as his favorite word is spoken. His antics draw a reluctant chuckle from Kirsten, and, with the sense almost of taking a dare, she grabs one of Dakota’s jackets from its post on the coat-rack. Lighter than heavy, military-issue parka she had been wearing, it also brings with it a sense of…comfort? The scent of the woman who had previously worn it permeates the cloth, and Kirsten wraps it around her in a moment of pure—and exceedingly rare—self indulgence.

Asimov’s impatient whine draws her from this reverie, and she quickly twists the doorknob. Asi bolts out before the door is more than partly opened, barking and kicking up huge fans of snow in a burst of wholly canine energy.

Kirsten follows behind at a more leisurely pace, accepting and returning smiles and nods from the soldiers and civilians passing by. Without thought, she allows her feet to take her where they will. Asimov, his burst of hyperactivity quelled for the moment, returns to her and follows along, glued to her heel.

As she walks, her gaze darts here and there, capturing isolated images that fit, like puzzle pieces, into a greater tableau.

A group of soldiers, armed to the teeth, drilling in precision step.

A small group of children—far too small, now—preparing for a battle of their own, with snowballs and snowforts instead of bullets and battlements.

Uniformed young men, bearing the scars of an undeclared war, limping along shoveled paths.

Civilian-clad young women, bearing the scars of the same undeclared war, shuffling along those same paths, their gazes lost and frightened and alone.

Others, seemingly unaffected, pass quickly by, laughing and joking with friends newly met. Kirsten yearns to scream at them, to tell them to stop, to have respect for the hurt and the grieving and the dead. The dead, who are now no more than mounds of slowly melting snow, watched over by an honor guard and a tattered flag.

Holding back her anger by the barest of frayed threads, she continues her walk past row upon row of military housing. The faces that stare back at her through heavy glass tell tales of their own, and for the first time, she feels a sense of kinship with these people, these strangers, these survivors of a war none had asked for and all had suffered through.

Another first—she admits, even if only in the tiniest corner of her heart, that perhaps it has been her own pride that has fueled her anger and frustration. Perhaps it is her own savage joy at being proven right all along, and her need to stand upon those unoffered laurels, and in so standing, further prove herself savior of this newly begotten world that has alienated her from the very people she is trying to save.

It’s not that her pride, her need to point her finger into the face of humanity and shout “I told you so!”, is a deliberate attempt to prolong suffering as a form of payback for the laughter that’s followed her these last years. No, nothing so vile as that.

But still….

Most of her turns its internal back on these newfound revelations in a sort of primative self-defense mechanism. Self-blame is an emotion this world can ill-afford.

But still….

Resolving to think on this later, she abruptly turns and begins the trek back to her temporary home, her agile mind already returning to the problem of the code, the code, that damnable code.

5

Grunting softly, Koda lowers her weary body onto the top support of the corral fence, hooking one leg behind the middle support and resting gloved hands against thighs tense and more than a bit sore. The warm spell has continued, making spring a promise instead of a fantasy dreamt only by poets. Stripped of her heavy jacket, she sits at ease in a down-filled vest, flannel shirt, and jeans. Well-sprung cowboy boots are clotted with mud and snow and muck and will need to come off before she gets within shouting distance to the family home. She smiles, all but hearing her mother’s warning tones.

To the west, the sun is preparing to set beyond winter-bare trees. The sky is a riot of color and the clouds are gilded with rose and purple and gold.