~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
For 20 advanced chapters, visit my Patreon:
Patreon - Twilight_scribe1
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Mountain streams in summer could surge without warning after heavy rainfall higher up. Creek beds, sandbars, and similar low ground were never reliable places to camp—unless one didn't mind waking up floating downstream in the middle of the night.
Henry found a higher, forest-edge spot with no signs of past flooding and set down his gear.
Seeing this, Barbara dropped her own backpack and asked,
"We're setting up camp here?"
"Yeah. We'll stay a day."
As he answered, Henry unlatched the iron chain from Katie's collar and gave the tiger's head two pats, releasing her to run wild.
Katie didn't even look back. She leapt straight into the creek—drinking, splashing, rolling—before darting into the trees and vanishing.
"Um… is Katie not going to get lost?" Barbara asked nervously.
Henry laughed. "Relax. When it's mealtime, she'll come back on her own."
"That's not what I meant—aren't you worried she'll run into other campers and… bite someone?"
"If that happens, we just bury them deep enough. Problem solved." Henry said with a straight face.
She had traveled with him back in January and was used to his occasional psychotic one-liners, so she just forced an awkward smile and chose to ignore it.
In truth, Henry had already swept the area with his super-senses. There wasn't another living person for kilometers—reducing the chance of exposing either his abilities or the existence of a tiger companion.
The tent he'd brought was a two-person dome, fiberglass poles, easy for one person to pitch. With Barbara's help—real help, not the kind that causes trouble—they finished in no time. Henry stowed the unused items inside, then took out his bow.
"Rest here a bit. Go play in the creek if you like."
"Eh? I can't come with you?" Barbara pouted.
"Ma'am, I'm going hunting. Why would I bring an amateur along to scare away the game? Unless you want to be fed to Katie tonight, stay put and let me prepare dinner."
Barbara puffed her cheeks. "I could help, you know."
"If you want to help, go gather firewood. I'm not eating raw meat with Katie."
"…Fine. Be careful."
"I know."
Henry stepped into the creek—barefoot, as always, water only knee-deep at its deepest—then slipped into the forest from the direction Katie had disappeared.
Barbara, once he was out of sight, dug a mobile phone out of her backpack, lifted it high, turned in circles, walked around…
No signal. Not even one bar.
She sighed and muttered,
"As expected. Not a single signal. Boss Fury, it's not that I'm refusing to report…"
She stuffed the phone away and looked at the scenery around her—the green mountains, clear water, blue sky. Hands folded over her chest, she visibly shivered.
"Aaaah—just what excuse could a guy possibly have, bringing a girl like me to a place like this? There's no way he'd run away now…"
Three kilometers away, deep in the forest, Henry also shivered.
Not from danger.
But because he heard her line.
The involuntary jolt threw off his shot—the arrow that should've pierced a stag's eye socket was about to thud uselessly into a tree.
Henry blurred into super-speed, caught up to his own arrow mid-flight, corrected its trajectory, and let normal time resume.
The stag never had a chance. The arrow penetrated the eye socket and went straight into the brain. The animal dropped instantly.
Staring at the dead deer, Henry suddenly wondered:
Since I'm already using superpowers, why am I using a bow at all?
This girl was seriously messing with his state of mind.
He slung the deer over his shoulder and began walking back.
Maybe bringing Barbara along had been a mistake. He'd assumed Katie would scare her off—not turn into the reason she stuck to him even harder.
Lost in thought, Henry emerged from the woods near the creek and whistled. Katie shot out from nearby like a mountain king descending from his domain, a dead rabbit dangling from her jaws.
She dropped the rabbit at Henry's feet and pawed at it, exactly the same way she pawed BB the robot after breaking it—expecting Henry to "fix" it so it could run again.
Henry sighed.
He had assumed that raising Katie away from other tigers would suppress her predatory instincts. Instead, constantly repairing BB—making it stronger, adding mobility upgrades, teaching it evasive maneuvers—had inadvertently trained the tiger's hunting ability.
A rabbit was roughly BB-sized. The moment Katie "played" with it, the outcome was obvious: one pounce, one bite. Instant death.
This was… a problem.
He picked up the dead rabbit. Katie's hopeful expression made it clear she thought he could resurrect it.
A dangerous predator was still a dangerous predator. No amount of domestic care would turn her into a housecat.
Resigned, Henry planned to roast the rabbit along with the venison—though the rabbit wouldn't be for Katie. He refused to let her develop the habit of eating animals she personally killed.
He scratched her head and spoke in tiger-tongue:
: Follow me. Time to eat.
"Rrrow."
: Okay.
Having made actual progress with his tiger-translator, Henry had also learned some basic tiger vocal cues. Otherwise he'd be reduced to pantomime every time they were away from the machine.
Carrying a deer on his shoulder, a rabbit in hand, and a tiger at his heels, Henry stepped back out of the forest.
Across the creek, Barbara had gathered a good pile of firewood—long pieces, short ones, all of it useful. Without tools, she couldn't chop the longer branches, but those could serve as a frame to hang the deer for bleeding and later as part of a simple grill.
Seeing Henry and Katie return, Barbara grinned.
"So fast? Don't tell me all the work was Katie's—you just followed behind and picked up the spoils."
: You little brat… you have no idea. If I actually let Katie hunt freely, you'd be the one hanging on the rack right now.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
For 20 advanced chapters, visit my Patreon:
Patreon - Twilight_scribe1
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~