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“No arguments, Darien,” his harried manager said from behind the array of monitors on her desk. Her name was Madison, a career administrative manager in her mid-thirties and the liaison between the Seventh Commercial Courts and the corporations who funded it. “We have forty-five evictions to process this month from Debtor’s Judgement, and after those anarchists killed Johnson, there’s no one else left to partner with you. She’s a hothead, so do what you must to keep her in line.”

The aging Somalia-American lately living just outside of Santa Fe sighed and took the thumb drive being waved at him with his next assignment. “Just what I needed,” he grumbled on his way to the ready room where the ‘hothead’, a rookie, was hopefully getting prepared. The only things he knew about her were her name, Julia Rothschild, and that she’d only been with the security contractor for a month.

“About fucking time!” the darkly tanned woman, nearly as tall as Darien but even skinnier than him, exclaimed. She had just finished tying her black hair into a short braid and tightening the carbon fiber armor on her arms and legs. “Your ass dragging is keeping those sweet, sweet credits out of my account.”

“Don’t test me, filthy mouth,” Darien said. Not bothering to spare her more than a dismissive glance as he quickly and efficiently put his own composite armor on over the dark blue jumpsuit he wore. “How many house clearings is this for you?”

“It’s my first, you God-damned fossilized piece of charcoal. Are you here to teach me anything useful, or just fill the room with your animal stench?”

Great, Darien thought, she’s one of those.

“What background do you have?” he asked. “That makes you think you’re up to this line of work?” He strapped on his armored vest and then tested his gas mask before stowing it in a pouch on his leg.

“Five years doing interdiction of fleeing American traitors at the Mexican security zone and two years at the Santa Fe Olympic distribution center before Rayos sold stock to keep his exemption active and fired seven hundred people. This is the only thing keeping me in my apartment.”

“Oh, the irony,” Darien snorted. “The only thing keeping you in your home is evicting others from theirs.”

Julia threw her helmet on her head haphazardly as they scanned their fingerprints at the armory at the end of the room. The bored man watching a video on his tablet, Lucas, behind the inches thick ballistic glass window unlocked a door and passed them each a crate with the standard load out. A light machine gun and a semi-automatic handgun. There were also two tasers, bear repellant, and a sonic agitator. Darien, as team leader, also received a riot gun capable of firing various lethal and non-lethal grenades, and a short-barreled shotgun for breeching in his wheeled crate. All military grade to give them a chance against the desperate citizens who had access to just as much stolen military weaponry.

“I followed the law, and they didn’t,” she said, carrying on their conversation, as Darien told her what to carry and what to leave in their transport. “They were left behind, like trash. Since they don’t have the sense to know what a fucking drain they are on their better’s investment portfolios and medical rates, we put them in the streets or across the border in Narco Hell where they belong. Begging. If they disagree, we solve them with smiles on our faces,” she said, putting a drum of ammunition in the slot beneath her machine gun and waving it around the room where Darien would go over the assignment details. Like she was mowing down unseen people.

Darien reacted in an instant. With one armored hand, he violently shoved the muzzle of her light machine gun aside and stepped forward as his other hand came up.

“What are you…” was all Julia got out before Darien grabbed her head and slammed it into the locker behind her, stunning her as he pinned her there.

“Rule number one, never point your weapon at me unless you plan to pull the trigger, because this is the only warning you’ll get. Rule number two is that we do our job with compassion. These weapons are for self-defense only, not to execute other beings. The individuals we must evict are struggling, and our duty is to give them dignity while we serve the will of what the law has become.”

Darien did not flinch when he felt the muzzle of Julia’s side arm slip between two armor plates under his arm. It was good that she had the clarity to think under pressure.

“I know who encrypts my pay deposits, and it ain’t you,” came her muffled voice from beneath his hand. “Now get your fucking hands off me, or I’ll empty this clip into you and tell the pack of slobbering dogs you call a family gathered to howl at your funeral that you tried to rape me.”

“You keep that same focus out there where it belongs, and maybe you’ll live long enough to pass water on my grave when I die of old age.” He let go of her face and twisted the handgun out of her hand before he backed away. Not turning from her to insert the data stick in a projector. He couldn’t look at the blood thirsty need in her eyes that made the man wonder if there was any human left in her, but neither did he trust her.

A photographic rendering of a three-story house sandwiched on both sides by others appeared. “Our target this morning is a townhome in the seven hundred block. Ten thousand a month rent is fifteen months backlogged and the lessees have stopped responding to court outreach. Be on your toes with this one. Like some homes built in the decades since Zero Day, the bottom two floors were remodeled to accommodate a being of up to eighty feet and seven thousand pounds. Average size for a mature dragoness of reproductive age. The third floor is a living space for humans.

“It says here,” Darien squinted at a series of acronyms and jargon in a pop-up box below the image. “That the international real estate investors have decided to destroy that block due to a weakening of trade balances pending the outcome of a lawsuit to preserve the housing. What a waste,” he said, looking back at the images of the domicile and then at Julia to make sure she heard his instructions. “Whatever the case may be, we knock, we announce ourselves, and if there’s no response, we go in to clear and secure it. Any questions?”

“Fuck you.”

He levelly held her glare, trying not to show any emotion, as he fished a key out of his pocket and gestured to the door. “Our vehicle is the first one on the right. Ladies first.”

****

There was silence between the two in the armored truck on the way to their assignment. Julia stared out the small bulletproof side window with a sneer at the people on the street intermittently throwing glass bottle full of liquid to shatter against the cages once meant to stop rockets. The noisy, hulking, armored vehicle was a relic of foreign wars and had been saved from the scrapper for civic duty, along with many others. Converted to run on the prohibitively expensive biofuel, it and autonomous cargo trucks were the only motorized vehicles on the road. Pedestrians, bicycles, and Children instead dominated the roadways.

Darien wasn’t up for much of a conversation either, having to split his attention between navigating the chaotic movements of fledglings walking the roads, and a familiar sensation growing in his mind. The closer they got to their destination, the stronger the feeling got, and the more his worry flared.

That anxiety peaked when he set the parking brake on their truck and turned off its clattering engine. His emotion was now strong enough to earn a response from the sleepy Child that was somewhere nearby. A vast array of others watched him with wary thoughts. From high above, an acknowledgement. He reached into the cargo pocket of his pants and keyed the toy walkie-talkie there three times, listening for an answering click. None came.

The man sighed and slumped back against his seat, glancing at Julia. She didn’t notice, busily looking at the house like a starving woman at a bowl of soup. There was a Child in there, one very close to him. How was he going to get Julia away?

“Scan for threats on your side. Do you see any?”

“No threat to me,” she said, worrisomely fingering the machine gun between her legs.

“Leave your weapons,” Darien decided. “And meet me at the front of the truck.”

He left behind everything but his sidearm. The eviction program was not a popular one, and he was not terribly surprised to meet his teammate and see that she had swapped her machine gun for the grenade launcher. She showed no signs of listening to anything he said.

“Stay here then and learn something about de-escalation, rookie.”

He walked up the steps to the third floor, where there was most likely to be an answer to his knocking. He already knew that there wouldn’t be. But went through the motions to buy the others time. Already he felt the Children moving within and without. In his pocket, the toy walkie-talkie beeped twice.

“Hey! There’s a dragon in there.” Julia called out from the bottom floor of the home. Darien peered over the railing of the stairs at her with alarm. She was looking at the corner of the wide roll-up door and holding up a black armored plate. A dragon’s scale.

“Rookie don’t…” he warned.

“Fuck you, old man,” she said, loading the grenade launcher with the golden-colored lethal rounds from a satchel slung over her shoulder. “Each of these scales is worth a thousand dollars. A dragon’s head means I’m set for life in the Longhorn Republic!”

“Rookie!” he yelled, pulling his sidearm and pointing it at her head. “Last warning!” Down the road and in the sky came the screeching rage of Children. She spared him no attention, instead firing one grenade at the wicket door in the dragon entrance from the rear of the truck. The blast blew plastic and wood shards inwards in a cloud.

“This trophy is mine. If you try to take it from me, I’ll kill you,” she shouted, before rushing through the hole blown through the door. He fired one round at her, but his attempt to shock her out of her actions drilled uselessly into the cement unheeded.

Darien yanked the walkie-talkie from his pocket and hurriedly spoke into the receiver. “Mother? You have one coming in. Show her mercy. She does not know her path.”

“She has already chosen.” A rumbling voice said with implacable finality. “Be safe, my child.”

****

The house groaned unsoundly on its foundation after the short but furious battle. Damaged by the explosive grenades and the strength of a Child’s tail. Darien was at Julia’s side, his hands clasping hers as the light left her panicked eyes. Her body had struck the safety cage surrounding their armored truck with shattering force, bending some of the steel bars. But what had killed her were the crushing injuries of the tail strike that had launched her. She coughed weakly as her misshapen chest rose unevenly. There was a telltale rattle with her labored breath.

The Children forming a constellation around him reached out for her, but her mind pushed back with revulsion. Darien felt a burning tear slip from his eye as hers became fixed. She died, alone, and afraid. Fledglings dropped from the sky, and the surrounding buildings, to look at his dead partner and then fall into chirping conversation accompanied by the sense of their unease.

Behind Darien, trying to decide on what to do next as he tapped absently at his primary radio, the damaged dragon door was wrenched off its tracks and dropped to the ground. Allowing Kayla to squeeze out of the compromised house.

“There are few places left in the city for you and our family, Mother,” feeling the hot breath of his adoptive parent against his neck and the comfort of her tongue. “The Eastern Holdings is buying up all the Child friendly homes to destroy them, and black-market raiding is getting worse.” Darien sighed and looked down at Julia’s body. A fledgling, now joined by a Digger, was fussily taking anything of use from her. They hissed in anger when they found a pouch that she had been shoving Kayla’s scales into. The grey-eyed fledgling emptied the pouch into Kayla’s mouth so that she could swallow them later. “And now… because we both made a mistake, you’re a murder that will be hunted.”

“I was guarding my family. Anyone that comes after me will have that explained to them.”

Kayla extracted the rest of her body from the building and curled herself around the armored car to keep from occupying the sidewalk. Not that there was anyone left to bother. As soon as the attack had started, Children had landed on each side of the home and used their bodies to seal the street. Offering their ideas to Darien and Kayla. A hatchling slammed into the roof of the armored car, having leapt off the building, and handed a perplexed Darien a large pair of needle-nosed pliers.

“Please, my child, there is shrapnel in my thigh and tail.” Kayla said, a low whine of pain beneath her words. Darien reached into the truck and did his best to disinfect the pliers by dunking them into a bottle of iodine. Which was all he had.

“Are my brothers and sister safe?” he asked, touching her shoulder gently. She cast a suspicious look around. An assurance of safety came from outside them both before opening her mouth wide. Nestled within her maw were her three eggs. Their curious minds poked at Darien’s. He sighed in relief as her mouth closed around them, safely hiding them once more.

“Is there a plan?” he asked, pulling the scraps of metal and wood that had found their way between scales to burrow into the hide beneath on his mother’s flank.

“Matriarch Gladys insists that I leave to be welcomed on the reservation. The buffalo migration needs wranglers and guardians are requested to keep homesteaders away. We want you to come. It is not safe for you here any longer.”

“I can’t.” Darien said, sadly. “You know I’m bonded by debt. I don’t want you staying for me any longer.”

“The law will turn on you. She was your partner.” Kayla’s tail flicked at Julia’s body. “A bonded migrant has no voice.”

“There might be a way…” Darien steeled himself. It would be painful, but it was the only way to break his bond and escape. He opened the first aid kit and pulled out packets of gauze and bandaging. His mother cried out with understanding and the horror of the dragons slammed into him.

“I would never ask anyone but you to bear the shame of having my blood on them, mother. If we are both to be free, they need to think I’m dead along with her. I don’t have a knife, but I need to leave enough blood to be convincing.”

“No! This is wrong. I am the one that killed, not you.”

“I am the one bonded by debt to the court and the corporations that they serve. Just as she chose the path to confront you, I chose the path not to aid her. Hunters will be sent for us both if we stay, but we’ll be safe on the reservation.”

Her sadness soaked through the man’s mind, but she saw the chance his idea made possible. To leave the city and its troubles for those like him. Darien grunted as his mother shattered the armor on his forearm, letting the pieces rain down on the sidewalk as part of the charade.

A human hand rested on one shoulder and a dragon’s hand on the other. Wings wrapped around him as more and more human and dragon hands braced him. His mother placed the tip of one claw against the meat of his forearm, looking at Darien. Heated tears fell from her eyes as she made a sharp twitch. In their heads and out of sight, a Matriarch screamed as blood spattered the ground.