Book 1: Call Me Nanuq
Exile

Luke smiled to himself and began mentally preparing himself for what would happen next.

He knew them by name, by face from their dossiers.  Clarke, Jordan; McLean, Andrew, alias Kal; Meadows, Scott, alias Benji; Owens, Christian, alias Anubis…

He knew their birthdates, their birthplaces, had seen their most recent school grades, knew their forms, everything.

Now he just had to get to know them.

His link chimed in a distinctive pattern.

Luke cursed softly.  “Link: Answer.  Brewer the Younger here.”

“Are we good to go?”

Luke and his dad exchanged a look.

Mike lifted an eyebrow and Luke nodded.

Luke's higher-up contact, a man who went by Mr. Brown, called every time there was something involving the Sanctuary Pack, as Luke was one of their informants.  They actually had at least one man on the inside to tell them what went on inside Sanctuary—the Pack was Luke's responsibility.  And since Nanuq kept him posted on just about everything, life was good.

But now the Hataira would be busy—the world's most well-known group of theris would be spread out now, requiring more attention but not all in one place…

“Near as I can figure,” Luke said.  “Dad and I are closest to Sanctuary, so I'm pretty sure ours'll be the first group to get home.  One more is headed for the Hufflin residence here in Colorado Springs, another to the Hall home in Denver, and the rest are en route to Denver International before they scatter to the four winds.”

“As per the destination list we got from our man inside Sanctuary.”

“Yes sir.”

“Very good.  Keep me posted.”

“Can do, sir.  Brewer out.”

The connection went dead and Luke relaxed.

This is way too much for me sometimes…

But for now I don't have to be so careful.  For now I can keep watch on this small group, take notes, and report in every now and again.  No big deal.

Oh yeah… “Link: Note: Prepare contingency plan for sneaking one or more Pack-cells to safer ground.”

His link beeped, indicating that it got the message, and Luke leaned back in his chair.

“How the hell did you handle this for so many years?” he asked, pinching the bridge of his nose.

Mike shrugged.  “I'm still getting used to it, really.”

Luke sighed, then brightened.  “Well, it's going to be an interesting time.”

“Ancient-Chinese-curse interesting?”

“No, interesting-interesting.  Near as I can figure, we just observe, take notes, and report in every now and again.”

“And make plans in case things go pear-shaped.”

“That too.”  Luke smiled.  “Feels good, though, being able to help.”

“That it does.”  Mike sighed.  “I feel bad, though.”

“Why?”

“I wanted to get your friend TJ, but—”

“We've been over this, Dad,” Luke said simply.  “The powers-that-be want this experiment to fail.  Especially Matthews and his cronies.  And my association with TJ and the Murphy clan is well known.  They want the Pack divided and scared.  And TJ at our house would be anything but scared.”

“I still feel like crap.”

“I know.”

They pulled up to the gateway into Sanctuary.  Mike exchanged a smile with one of the guards, who waved them on in.

Luke looked around as best he could—he'd never been here before, and he'd never had a good look at any of it from the webcasts or TJ's pics.

The other families were already there, it seemed.  The Murphys were, save for Mal.

Luke gave them a questioning look, and Jennifer laid her hands out flat, placed them so they were thumb to thumb, and moved them up and down like flapping wings.

Ah.  That meant that Mal was around somewhere.  Maybe with Elektra, maybe not.

Oh yeah—he's at the Academy still.  Jennifer probably means he's flying around…

Luke shrugged the feeling off.  There were other things to worry about.

He stood with his dad as the Pack—damn, there were a lot of them—congregated outside the house they all shared.  What had TJ called it?  The Den?

What happened next was what seemed like some kind of ceremony.

Luke's fist clenched—from the looks of it, the powers-that-be were breaking up a lot of friendships, and a few relationships…

They really do want this to fail.

Luke saw his dad try to catch TJ's eye a few times as the names were read out, but TJ wasn't listening.  He was too busy watching his friends and visibly trying not to panic.

As the Brewers’ group separated from the throng, Mike finally caught TJ's eye.  Luke saw him mouth “I tried.”

TJ just nodded.

Soon the Murphys collected their own group, the girl named Helen introducing herself to the family.  Luke wasn't sure, but Jennifer and Robin looked approving, and tried to reassure the saddened girls.

And then TJ was there, whispering something into Helen's ear.

Luke just barely made it out.

“We have done the impossible and that makes us mighty.”

Helen giggled, and TJ headed off to retrieve his things from inside.

Luke smiled a little—that was TJ, trying to make the best of a bad situation.

He went back to join his dad.

They had a lot to do.

I'll be comin’ home next year…

As the music trailed off in Nanuq's head, the van passed where he knew the Air Force Academy was.

He'd told Mal well in advance the route the convoy was likely to take, and sure enough, there was a Harris's hawk circling above the highway.

Nanuq tapped his knuckle against the window, getting the attention of the other three.

Once all four were looking, they saw Mal dip a wingtip as if in salute before perching in a tree along the side of the freeway, watching them go.

Nanuq smiled to himself.  Mal at least would get to be with Elektra come the holidays.  Luke would no doubt be able to visit the group staying with his dad, and possibly even a few of the other groups…

A strange thought came to him.

We're going to be out of Sanctuary for a year—maybe more, I have to admit.

So… do we really have to keep thinking of ourselves like we're still there?

We have to learn to blend back in with the outside world again.

I was sure this was going to happen sooner or later…

He sighed.

So I'm still Thomas Jackson Murphy.  I have to get used to thinking of Perry, Beowulf, and Circuit as James—or possibly Jim, Joe, and Merrick.

Callisto—Beth—pretty much changed her name… again… back at Sanctuary, so…

He nodded decisively.

TJ.  My name is TJ.

Okay, he had it now.  It would get easier as time passed—it was easy to get used to being called Nanuq, so it couldn't be that hard to go back to using his full name—

His link beeped softly in his ear.

That was another thing they'd been allowed—new links and palmputers, which they'd programmed with each other's contact information.  The government higher-ups would likely try to block contact, but there were ways around that.

He smiled to himself.  “You can't stop the signal, Mal.  Everything goes somewhere…”

And I go everywhere.  “Link: SVR mode: On.  Password Ilisaijuq.”  The word can be interpreted as a fully inflected verb - “he studies” - but can also be interpreted as a noun: “student.”  The meaning was defined by context.

But it worked just fine as a password.

“Subvocal recognition mode active.”

Apparently recent link designers had been Card fans, because the basic idea beyond the subvocal recognition mode built into links and palmputers was based on a device called a ‘jewel,’ first mentioned in Speaker for the Dead, which allowed the wearer to subvocally communicate with computer systems.  The technology had been implemented first where audible speech was impossible—astronauts, underwater Navy Seals, fighter pilots, and emergency workers had all used variants of the technology before it became available on the civilian market when Nanuq—TJ—was ten.

“Beo—Joe, that you?”

“Yeah, it's me.”

“Anybody ever tell you you're a genius?  I forgot you could do this with a link—I haven't done it since fifth grade!”

“Not today,” the wolf-theri chuckled.  “Jim, you there?”

“I'm here.  Merrick?”

“Righto.  You hear me?”

“Five by five,” TJ said.

Merrick nodded.  “How long you reckon it'll take before we're there?”

“Few hours.  Four, tops.”

“I figured it for about three,” Jim said.

“Three, four hours, what does it matter?” Merrick said.

“Something up?” TJ said.  He wasn't sure, but there seemed to be a bit of bitterness in Merrick's tone.

“You watch how they treat us, Nanuq,” Merrick said—the emphasis on TJ's theri name did not go unnoticed.  “We're supposedly good enough that we can be trusted outside of Sanctuary.  But… it seems to me that we're still being treated like beasts.  Now, we don't have to get celebrity treatment—but an evie van?!  Makes me feel like I'm going to a damned lockup!”

The other three looked around the van as if to challenge the point, but they couldn't.

“Okay, fair point,” Jim said.  “Still, once we get there, it could be a lot better.  But we have to get there first.”

“Don't write the entire thing off, Merrick,” Joe said.  “What do you want to do there?”

Merrick shrugged.  “Don't know.  Imagine there'd be school—we all had education interrupted, right?”

“True.  I'd like to get back into college or something,” said TJ.  He chuckled.  “Wonder if I could get involved in TAPT again.”

This drew chuckles from the others—it really didn't seem possible that any of the Sanctuary would be able to have anything to do with pro or anti-theri groups.

But stranger things had happened.

Not such a bad idea—first thing I'll do is see if I can't get back into TAPT, even under an assumed name.

Have to talk to Luke about that.

“We're trying to build people's confidence, Merrick.  Most of us got to Sanctuary this way—it only makes sense we'd leave the same way.”

“All right, point.” Merrick sighed.  “Rome wasn't burnt in a day, as they don't say.”

“Exactly,” TJ replied.  “Out here, we have to be nothing less than the best we can be.  For all we know, the people where we're going know exactly who we are.”

“I don't think so,” Joe chimed in.  “I overheard something about James and Richard looking into getting us new identities.”

“Would we get credit as ourselves for what we did—like in school?” TJ asked.

“In theory,” Joe said, shrugging.  “I could be wrong about this.”

“It makes sense,” Jim added.  “You know if we were out there as ourselves, we'd be targets.”

TJ nodded.  “Maybe Cal—Cassia had the right idea.”

“So we're decided on the human-names-outside-Sanctuary thing?” Jim asked.

“Near as I can figure, it makes more sense.” TJ sighed.  “Now I'm starting to wish we hadn't done so many webcasts—there are people out there who'll know us the moment they see us.”

“Couldn't be helped,” Joe said reasonably.  “We needed to do those webcasts, and there's evidence it has changed people's perception of us.”

“True,” TJ sighed.  “I don't like it, but it's true.” He paused, thinking.  “And I'll admit it'll be good to at least feel like a full-fledged citizen again.”

“I think it'll depend on Mr. Pryor,” Joe said rationally.  “How much freedom he's willing to let us have.”

“Well, still,” TJ said.  “In theory, at least, we'll be able to go to school, go other places—hell, I won't mind being able to vote again.”

“If they let you,” Merrick said.

It took TJ a moment to remember that Merrick was still technically an Australian citizen.  “I promised the webcast viewers I'd try to get an absentee ballot for next year's election,” he said, smiling a little.  “I'd hate to be a liar.”

The others chuckled a little at that.

“So you think we'll be all right?” Merrick asked.

TJ shrugged.  “I don't know.  But someone once told me that optimism is a revolutionary act.” He sighed.  “So let's try being optimistic.”

The van drove on.

Mal waited until the van was completely out of his sight before he left the tree, gliding for a while before catching another thermal off of the warm asphalt.  The rising air lifted him higher into the sky, and he turned for home.

No one at the Academy knew his secret—and if Mal had anything to say about it, none of them ever would—so he had to come up with some rather complex excuses for why he zipped off from time to time.  Harris's hawks weren't native to Colorado—but there were colonies of hawks throughout southern England, so he figured he'd probably be okay.

He had mixed feelings.  He was excited beyond words at getting to see his girlfriend again, but as for the other stuff…

Mal sighed.

We'll figure something out.

He was an adult now, so maybe, just maybe, he could spend some time in Utah during one of his holiday breaks.

And if he couldn't… well, it wasn't the end of the world.

It'll work out.

He found his usual secluded spot just outside the compound before shifting back, gathering up the bits of loose clothing that he couldn't figure out how to make change with him, and hustled off.

He had to get back to the Academy before he was missed too much.

Maybe I should have gone with Mom and Dad to Sanctuary… but do I really want them to remember that Elektra—that Helen—is going to be staying with her boyfriend?  Would probably screw the whole thing up…

And so he reluctantly headed back to the dorms.

The conversation had died out, each of them lost in their own thoughts.  It was an abrupt return to reality when the van jerked to a stop.  Before they could reinitate the subvocal conversation, they were taken out of the van and marched onto the plane.  They ignored the change of guards and took their seats in the plane, examining the surroundings with interest.

“You'll need to put your seatbelts on,” said one of the guards.

“Beg pardon?” Jim said.

“Your seatbelts—put them on.  The pilot isn't allowed to leave until your seatbelts are on.”

Shrugging, the four of them put their seatbelts on, the motions occurring unconsciously.  The guard nodded and a few minutes later, the plane taxied off.

“Oi, TJ?” Merrick subvocalized.

“Yeah?” TJ said.

“I just got an image in my head.”

“What?”

“So, the plane's flying along, right?”

“Yes,” TJ said.  He didn't realize it, but he was about to get a dose of Merrick's really bad sense of humor.

“What do you think would happen if it suddenly got about one and a half thousand more pounds in weight?”

It took TJ a few minutes to work out what Merrick was implying and the two were soon laughing.  It wasn't that funny a joke, but they'd been under more stress than usual in the past few days, which served to make the joke funnier than it was.

Jim and Joe chuckled a little, though Jim leveled a stare at Merrick.  “Do you have any decent jokes, or am I going to go insane from your brand of humor?”

Merrick only grinned.

“Why are you laughing?  You can take off the belts now.”

It was the guard who had spoken.

“You guys thinking what I'm thinking?” Joe subvocalised.

“What?” Merrick said.

“She seems to want to talk.  So let's talk.  The worst she can do is make us shut up again.”

So saying, Joe unbuckled the seatbelt and leaned around.  “We're laughing because we have a sense of humor—TJ started laughing at something and Merrick joined in and so did we.  Isn't that what happens with you and your friends?  Don't you all start laughing when someone else is laughing?”

“Uh…” The guard was flustered.  “Um, yeah, we do that.  I don't usually know why we're laughing, we just are.  But…”

“But we can't have a sense of humor?”  TJ said, keeping his tone neutral.

“You're not supposed to!”

“And I suppose we're not supposed to hurt or love or hate or feel any human emotion?” Jim said.

The guard nodded.

“Well, we do,” Jim said.  “All of us do.  We've got a bunch of arguments, a bunch of making up, a bunch of jealousy—oh, shut up Merrick, you know it's true—and a whole lot of friendship.”

“That… sounds like my friends and I,” the guard said.  “I'm Cynthia.”

“Nice to meet you, Cynthia,” Merrick said.  He gave her a quick glance over—she was wearing the standard uniform, but she, per regulations, had a necklace and a set of earrings.  “Are those from the Jewelry District of LA?  I would say… Tiffany's?”

“Yes, they are.  How did you know?”

“I notice these things,” Merrick said.  “Besides, the earrings are a dead giveaway.  Blue sapphires in an R—well, there has been a lot of Harry Potter merchandise and I believe at least five different official jewelry sets.  Those particular ones, the shape of the R is unique to Tiffany's, produced in a limited edition set of only twenty thousand in 2019 and then only sold at Tiffany's LA Jewelry District store.  They were sold out in one day, five hours and forty-six minutes.  No pre-orders, just heavy advertising and a limit of three sets per customer.  Sold for three and a half grand in the store, three days later were selling on eBay for no less than ten grand and as much as a million dollars.”

Cynthia nodded.  “But how did you know all that?”

“Like I said, I notice these things.  I know what I like to see on a girl and I'm also pretty good at telling what looks good with a girl.”

“Yes,” Jim said, subvocal.  “And he thinks he'd look good with Heidi.”

“STFU,” Merrick said, before turning an eye back on Cynthia, studying her pale skin.  “Hmm.  Let me guess.  You have a lot of green clothing, right?”

“Yes, I do!”

By the time the plane landed in Salt Lake City, Merrick had Cynthia practically eating out of his hand.  The ride had been a lot of fun once Cynthia had loosened up and the others just shook their heads.

“Man, but I'm glad he's not interested in Anna,” Jim said.

“Same here, for Cassia,” TJ said.

“Oh, yeah… but is it going to work on a kitten of our acquaintance?” Joe said.

They exchanged glances and simultaneously shook their heads.

“Heidi's going to have him whipped,” Jim said, grinning.

TJ chuckled.  “That explains why he's been so cool toward Finch.”

Joe chuckled.  “Sometimes I wonder whether to call you Captain Obvious or Captain Oblivious.”

“Oi!”

They laughed.

They trooped up the staircase that had replaced the skyway, towing their suitcases along with them.

The terminal was new and streamlined, not unlike several airports TJ had seen in his mind.

But after a moment, his attention went to the man standing just beyond the waiting area.

TJ recognized the man at once from the webcast of Lyonesse's interview last November.  He was older, maybe middle fifties, and stern-looking.  He'd never seen the man in person, save for a few moments before the Pack's separation, but he could sense that this was not a man to cross.

Even if, according to Nuala—Megan—he was all right once you got past the gruffness.

“So,” Mr. Pryor said, “you must be Thomas.”  He smiled a little.  “Or do you prefer Tom?”

Nanuq shook his head.  “Neither.”

He sighed inwardly.  It had been hard giving up one name in favor of another so long ago.

But if he'd done it once, he could do it again.

Survival necessitated change.

And survival was something he'd always been good at.

“Call me TJ.”