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“Please keep your pet under control,” the border official said dourly. His tone was offensive, but not as offensive as the hat which made him look both stupid and officious, with double peaks, one at the front and one at the back and a bright yellow bauble perched atop the otherwise teal hued piece of headgear.
“She's under control, just eager to hunt.” William replied. “We are burning daylight.”
William understood Sarah's frustration; the bureaucracy of the city could be tedious at the best of times. There wasn't much call for real labor of any kind, so 99% of the jobs were bureaucratic in nature. Getting a house built could take up to five years, four of them entirely taken up with paperwork. There was often paperwork for obtaining paperwork, which would then allow one to apply for further paperwork. It had taken a full three years to be certified as a hunter, and another three to be approved for pet possession.
Sarah stood impatiently by whilst William's permits were checked. The friendly clerk who usually dealt with his affairs was off duty, and a particularly officious fellow had taken his place. The hat was a particularly obnoxious touch.
It took a full hour for everything to be approved, a full hour in which Sarah grew increasingly frustrated. He had promised her the wilds and all she'd gotten was a serious dose of boredom.
“Can I at least take the armor off?”
“We will be outside soon,” William promised. “This doesn't usually take this long.”
“Contain your pet, sir,” the official said, scanning his screen line by line. “I cannot concentrate with her whining.”
“Calm down,” William said, running his hand down her back. He let his fingers trail up to the back of her neck and scratched lightly. She let out a little purring sound as he massaged her, relaxing bit by bit with every rub. Her eyes closed slightly, lidding as he worked his thumb up along the back of her neck toward her hairline.
“You have twelve hours,” the official finally said. “Proceed to the outer chamber.”
Finally, they were close to the outside. The outer chamber was technically out of the city, a vented area where people going out could acclimate to the weather outside. The city was kept at an ambient temperature of sixty-four degrees and constant mild humidity. The outer world did not conform to those ranges, it was a swirling vortex of all kinds of weather, some of it wild.
“I can smell it,” Sarah said, almost on her toes with excitement. “I can smell the wind!” She rushed to the grated windows and pressed her face to them.
“Door's over here,” William said. “It will open shortly. Looks like we have a nice day out there.”
He was right. The door opened a moment later. The walls slid away and there were the wilds. Sarah was gone in an instant. She caught sight of a flash of green and she ran. There was not a moment of warning, or so much as a shout of excitement, she just sprinted for freedom.
William snorted and hit the pulse button. A distant yelp told him that it had delivered an electronic swat to her backside. But that was not enough, the tracker on his arm told him that she was still running. She was going to run until she couldn't run anymore—and he was going to let her. There was no hurry to catch up, she was on the grid and there was no way to escape that.
For hours, Sarah ran. William stopped here and there to drink from crystal streams and to eat of hanging fruit. It was quite a pleasant day, aside from his pet's disobedience. When he was ready, he continued on again, following her tracks. He happened to find a few fowl along the way, managing to hunt both his prey and his pet at the same time.
Almost three hours later, he found her curled up in the fork of a tree. She was fast asleep beneath the golden leaves, an expression of pure calm on her pretty face. It was almost a pity to wake her up, but they had to return home. Darkness would not be far off, and though he was prepared for a night in the wilds, he preferred the idea of a hot bath and a comfortable bed.
“Sarah.”
Her eyes blinked open. She looked down at him with an expression of pure shock. “You... how...”
“I told you,” he said, looking up into the tree. “You're mine. I'll always be able to find you now. As long as you wear that collar.”
Her expression crumpled into dismay. He felt a pang of guilt, sympathy for the wildling who wanted nothing other than to be left to her streams and her sky.
“Please,” she said, wrapping her arms around the branch. “Release me. Find another pet. There are hundreds of wild people. Some probably even want to be caught.”
