Firewall

Firewall

By Susan B. Phillips

It’s September 2069 and two teenage children have been transferred from one relocation shelter to another; however, their autonomous drone inexplicably lands in a forest and they find themselves alone.

Ivy sat at the edge of the ramp, her boots dangling above the forest floor. A soft, golden light danced gently along the blowing tree tops. The forest was breathing, and for the first time, she felt like she was too.

The thought of being rescued, of being shoved into another shelter where her hair would mark her as a genetic accident… at least the forest didn’t judge.

Behind her, the boy called Jax slept, his chest rising and falling with steady ease. Ivy jumped down from the ramp before she changed her mind. Her boots crunched against the soft floor of needles and leaves. A sharp, raw scent rose up from the ground—not like rust or smoke, not like anything she knew. It was clean, alive.

She turned slowly in place, scanning the trees. Everything looked the same. Did it even matter which way she went? No—it didn’t. She would find her way. And she didn’t care if the forest swallowed her whole. At least it would be her mistake. Her choice. The thought sent a shiver through her—not of fear, exactly, but of exhilaration.

Then something struck her on the head.

She looked down at the ground. It was a ration bar. She bent to pick it up, turning toward the ramp. Jax was there, leaning against the side of the hatch, watching her.

They stared at each other, neither speaking. His expression wasn’t exactly a question, but she understood it all the same.

Her eyes narrowed just slightly. He seemed to take that as an answer.

Without a word, Jax lowered himself onto the edge of the ramp. For a moment, he hesitated, then he jumped down beside her, catching himself with a hand against the ground.

“You just going to pick a direction and hope?” Jax stood, brushing dirt from his palms.

The forest tugged at her, vast and waiting. She wanted to disappear into it. She had strength and speed, and for once, she wasn’t worried about what other people thought of her.

Instead, she took a bite of the ration bar, chewing slowly. “Stay here, the helicopter comes back and we end up living in another shelter. I’m not doing that.”

Jax rubbed his arms against the early morning chill, eyes scanning the horizon as if trying to read the land. “We’re pretty far north. Can you smell it?” Then he took in a deep breath. “Winter’s coming. We should stay close to the drone so someone can find us.”

Ivy frowned. Winter had a smell? Her sense of smell was usually better than everyone else’s, but she didn’t know this boy. Maybe he could smell things she couldn’t.

She looked at him again, uncertain. She wasn’t sure if she could trust him. Still, for some reason, she found it difficult to pull her gaze away.

He didn’t look away either. His eyes stayed steady—not hostile, not kind. Just deliberate. Measuring.

She took another bite of the ration bar. “What if I don’t want anyone to find me?”

He shifted on his feet and nodded his head. “I see. So… your plan is to just walk out into the woods with nothing but the clothes on your back? That’s not survival—it’s suicide.”

“It beats waiting around to be delivered like cargo to another shelter.” She held his gaze with another heartbeat, then turned back to the forest. Her mind was made up.

But before she could take a step, Jax held out the box of ration bars.

“Here. Take these.”

She stared at them—something she should’ve thought of herself. She hesitated. It would be cruel to take the whole box and leave him nothing. She pulled out half the bars, then froze. She had nothing to carry them in.

Slowly, she unwound the strip of fabric from around her neck and hair. The cloth slid loose, and her silver metallic hair fell free. No more hiding. Not out here.

She waited for him to say something—to flinch, to question—but Jax only crouched down and added a few water pods to her pile.

Who was this person? She wanted to shout; don’t you see my hair? Don’t you see that I’m different? But Jax just stood back and waited.

So, she knotted the corners of her makeshift sack and lifted it over her shoulder, then stepped into the trees. She didn’t know what was out there—but she’d find out soon enough.

Very quickly, she realized Jax was following her and he wasn’t making any effort to avoid being heard.

Ivy plunged forward, pushing harder through the low-hanging branches that scratched and snagged at her clothes. If he wanted to chase her, fine. She gritted her teeth and shoved through a tangle of brambles.

Jax was still coming towards her. She stopped and waited, arms crossed until he caught up.

“Why are you following me?”

“It didn’t feel right letting you walk away alone.”

In the shelter, no one cared what anyone else did. Certainly, no one cared about what she did.

She turned. “Go away,” she said as she picked up her pace to get away from him. Only a few steps later, she ran into a spider web. Ivy brushed the cold, sticky strand from her cheek. Even the spider webs were different here. It was like the forest was reminding her she didn’t belong in it.

Her resolve tightened. “Stop following me.”

“You act like Firewall,” said Jax.

She shot him a look. “What?”

“One of my goats. I named her Firewall because she was always wandering off.” He ducked under a branch, then bent down to pick up a stick. “Climbed fences, broke gates, chewed through a power cord once—total menace.”

Ivy didn’t say anything, but her pace slowed.

“But smart,” he went on, sweeping branches aside with the stick. “Smart enough to realize that her best chance at survival was to stay with the herd.”

Ivy gave a small, dry huff through her nose, but she didn’t tell him to leave again.

Silence settled between them, broken only by their steps crunching through undergrowth. He wasn’t going to convince her to stay by the drone and wait for the helicopter with a story about a goat.

She clenched her jaw and started to walk faster.

When she couldn’t hear his footsteps anymore, Ivy glanced back, half hoping he’d given up. But Jax was crouched in a patch of brambles, tugging at something.

She walked back, suspicious even as curiosity pulled her closer.

“Wild raspberries.” Jax plucked one free and popped it into his mouth. He reached for another. He didn’t offer any to her. Just kept gathering and eating, as if she weren’t there at all.

Was it a trick? Poison? She hesitated, then reached past him and picked one for herself. She sniffed first—earthy, faintly sweet. Finally, she bit.

A jolt ran through her. Not the waxy blandness of the ration bars. This was sharp, tart, then suddenly sweet. She stared at the tiny fruit in her hand.

“How did you know?” she asked.

“My Mom,” he said simply. “She made all of us learn how to survive in the wilderness.”

Ivy’s gaze lingered on him. He ate like it was nothing, like he’d always had the world at his fingertips. She turned away, chewing slowly, refusing to let him see the shock still burning in her mouth.

She glanced over at Jax. The ration bars weren’t going to last long. “What else can you eat around here?”

“Water first,” said Jax, wiping berry juice from his fingers. “You can survive for weeks without food, but only days without water. And it’s going to get cold tonight. We’ll need to make a fire.”

He started walking another way, scanning the ground carefully. Ivy wasn’t sure what he was looking for, but decided to follow him anyway.

“See down there,” he said. “The vegetation’s thicker, greener. Usually means water.”

There was no trail, they just pushed through the underbrush. Jax moved quietly, without talking, and Ivy let her thoughts wander.

“Any idea why the drone crashed?” she asked.

“It didn’t crash. If it did, there’d be more damage on the side.”

Ivy paused, surveying the vast, unfamiliar landscape. “The smells are different here.”

“Different than what?” asked Jax.

She took a deep breath. “Different from the shelter. It’s like when a pipe bursts and you can smell that sudden damp, mineral, raw smell of water breaking free.” She looked at Jax, but he just tilted his head, curiosity plain on his face.

She shook her head in frustration. He looked like he had no idea what she was talking about.

His gaze shifted toward the trees. “Closest I can think of is rain on stone. The ground drinks it in, and the whole mountain smells wet and sharp.”

Ivy tilted her head. The words meant little to her, but the way he said them made her wonder what mountain air would smell like.

The rhythmic crunch of their boots on the sparse ground was the only sound as they pushed onward. It was slow and grueling, but at the bottom of the ravine, the land dipped and opened into a thin, shallow creek, hardly enough water to catch in your hands.

Jax knelt and dug up some of the stones, clearing a small hollow. Water seeped in, gathering into a pool. When it was full enough, he cupped his hands and drank deeply.

Cupping her hands like Jax, Ivy let the cold water slide down her throat and over her wrists. Relief swept through her, chased by a shiver from the chill. She had never tasted water so good.

Jax splashed the water on his face. Then tugged off his boots and rinsed his feet. Ivy took her boots off too, letting the cool stream soak her bare feet felt nice.

By the time they made it back to the drone, the sun was dipping behind the trees. Jax moved around with the heavy footsteps of someone who’d been walking for hours. Ivy, on the other hand, felt like she could keep going—the day’s trek had barely winded her.

Jax began collecting small twigs and dry leaves, arranging them carefully into a cone and tucking grass beneath the twigs. From his pocket, he pulled a small piece of metal—something scavenged from the drone.

“Grab some bigger branches,” he said without looking up.

Ivy nodded. In the forest, she gathered the largest branches she could find. She ran back to the fire and gently set down the branches as if they weighed nothing.

Jax didn’t seem to notice. He was focused on getting the fire started. His first attempt produced only a few weak sparks that quickly died. Now that she saw what he was doing, she thought she could probably do it, but she didn’t feel like taking over. He tried again, adjusting his angle, his movements becoming more deliberate. Sweat beaded his forehead despite the cool air.

“Come on,” he muttered under his breath. This time, a spark caught. A thin wisp of smoke curled up from the dry grass he’d nestled beneath the twigs. Within minutes they had a proper fire crackling in the clearing.

Jax sat back on his heels, satisfaction flickering across his face.

Ivy sat down next to the fire, grateful for the warmth. The smoke curled around her, smelling of earth and something faintly sweet, nothing like the acrid, choking smoke of the shelter fires that had always left her throat raw. This smoke smelled like something wild, like a secret she wasn’t supposed to know.

Ivy turned her head toward Jax, studying the line of his jaw, the small curl at the corner of his mouth, and the quiet pride of his posture.

“I’m not used to being around other people,” he said, quietly, breaking the silence with something almost apologetic.

Shelters were notoriously overcrowded. She tilted her head, curious. “Where did you come from then?”

“We live in the mountains. Just the five of us.” Jax stretched his arms forward, then upwards, rolling his shoulders. “Every now and then a trader finds us. My brother and sister always talk about how great it is being around other people, but I never really thought it mattered.”

His voice wasn’t bitter. Just flat. Like he didn’t care what anyone thought of him.

“My brother and sister said I’d understand if I ever met someone new… Maybe they were right.”

Ivy frowned. “Right about what?”

Jax smiled at her, and something shifted in the air, something she didn’t understand. Dangerous, maybe. He looked at her like he could see something worth noticing.

Her stomach tightened. Why is he looking at me like that? The thought made her pulse quicken. She wasn’t ready for this. Her first instinct to leave—her desire to run, to be alone—suddenly felt like the right one. Better to trust her instincts than risk being caught in whatever this was.

“No, I think you first inclination was correct.” Ivy looked away, uneasy.

“So many trees,” she said, trying to find something else to talk about. “It’s amazing.”

“No trees in the shelter?”

“Not really. Most died or were chopped down.”

Jax raised his eyebrows. “What’s it like?”

She took her time responding. “Loud. Hot. Everyone’s hungry, lots are sick, bored, cruel.”

She stood up and walked around the fire. It needed something more. She picked up another large branch and placed it in the fire as Jax had done. She twisted a strand of her silver hair around her finger. “What about where you live?”

Jax stared at the fire. “We live in a forgotten corner of the world, where time has stopped and the only thing that changes is the weather.”

Ivy studied him as he spoke. The way he moved, the calm in his voice, made her wonder who he really was—and why he felt so different from anyone she’d ever met. Even in the silence, she sensed there was more to him than he let on, and part of her curiosity tugged her closer.

Jax moved closer to her, his shoulder brushing against hers. The closeness made her heart race in a way she hadn’t felt before. A gentle breeze brushed over her skin, but she was warm sitting so close to Jax. Ivy kept her arms loosely crossed.

For a moment, Ivy admitted to herself that it would be… nice, having someone like him around. She was just sorting through what it meant to feel a little tethered, even if only for now. But the thought didn’t weaken her resolve. She still wanted to move on, still wanted to test the forest on her own.

Jax nudged another log onto the fire, sending a burst of sparks dancing into the dark, then sat down beside her. After a moment, he slid an arm around her shoulders and drew her closer. Ivy stiffened at first, unsure what to make of the warmth pressing against her, but she didn’t pull away. They sat like that in silence until Jax’s breathing began to change and she realized he was sleeping, leaving Ivy alone with her restless thoughts.

The way he smiled at her lingered in her mind. Part of her wanted to run from it, but part of her ached to lean into it. She shook her head, trying to force her thoughts away. Trust was a dangerous thing.

She’d leave in the morning. Staying for one night was nothing more than practicality. Yet her hands itched to reach for him, to touch the one person who didn’t recoil from her. That pull—so simple, so human—was dangerous. It wasn’t freedom.

She’d gone hungry before. She’d slept in cold corners. Starvation? Cold? These were problems for other people. She’d always endured what others couldn’t. And whatever waited in the forest couldn’t be worse than that. Out here, at least, she wouldn’t owe anyone anything.

The morning mist still clung to the forest floor when Ivy crept away from the drone, her bundle of ration bars and water pods in her hand. She moved quietly, listening for any sound of Jax. Nothing—just birdsong and the whisper of leaves.

He’d understand, she told herself. Jax knew how to find food, how to make a fire. He had a family waiting somewhere. She wasn’t abandoning him. Not really. At least, that’s what she told herself.