Oxana was on the run. The job had gone sideways, and the rest of her crew were captured or dead.

 

She couldn’t make sense of the signs on the fence across the road, but she darted across and leapt anyway. Snow boots slipping on the thin wire diamonds of the hurricane fence, she scrambled up. The blue flashing lights of the mob-run police force sped toward her.

 

She flipped over the razor wire and landed on her hand, stifling a scream. Her right ring finger got jammed sideways. Great, now how am I gonna crack safes? A wave of nausea hit as she tugged her finger straight. She forced herself up and ran across the snowy field to the forest to hide.

 

Oxana had two rules. Never take a job in a country where you don’t speak the language and never steal from the mob. Shouts she couldn’t understand carried toward her on the wind. Whatever the signs on the fence had said, they didn’t want to chase her inside.

 

As she ran toward the trees, bobbing green lights caught her eye. The floating green dots spread and formed a corridor, guiding her through the forest.

 

Oxana’s finger throbbed. The air seemed too warm, and soon, the snow was gone. Switching her weapon to her left pocket, she elevated her throbbing right hand.

 

The forest floor crackled under her boots. Half a kilometer, two kilometers, she couldn’t judge how far she’d walked in the density of trees. Cheeks flushing, she unzipped her coat as the lights led her around the black, withered trunk of an ancient tree to a clearing. Depleted by running for her life, Oxana sunk onto a bed of pine needles and fell asleep.

 

* * *

 

Something poked under her chin, cool and wet. Oxana opened her eyes to the eager black snout of a wire-haired puppy.

 

Another pup jabbed its snout into Oxana’s back. Pushing up to sitting, she pulled a half-eaten protein bar from her pocket, uncrumpled the wrapper, and broke off a piece.

 

“Eat it yourself. Don’t give it to the children,” a deep voice commanded.

 

Shuffling to her feet, Oxana stood in a sea of sleeping dogs. “Who’s there?” she called, twirling around. Oxana clumsied the gun from her pocket. Above the sleeping pack, a shepherd sat. It was big and black, with thicker fur than the shepherds back home. Head tilted, ears up, it watched her.

 

“Sleep,” said the voice.

 

Oxana crumpled to the ground. Eyes closing, a cool, wet snout tickled her palm, pushing the gun away.

 

* * *

 

Oxana woke to a black muzzled, spotted white puppy licking her.

 

“He likes you,” said the voice.

 

Oxana sprung up. “Who’s there?”

 

The shepherd tilted its head. “You’ve brought trouble with you.”

 

Reaching under sleeping dogs, looking for her weapon, Oxana thought of her crew. They were probably all dead by now.

 

“There’s no need for that.” The shepherd’s head straightened. “We can help you, if you help us.”

 

Oxana stared at the shepherd.

 

“Can you-” tell what I’m thinking?

 

"Yes, you don’t need to talk. Silent communication comes in handy for avoiding the other humans, although few of them come this far into the Exclusion Zone."

 

“Exclusion Zone?”

 

“Don’t you read?”

 

“Yes, but not Cyrillic.”

 

“We need your thumbs.”

 

“Thumbs?” Oxana’s heart sped.

 

“You’re a safe cracker, right?”

 

* * *

 

Clouds covered the moon as the pack roved toward the abandoned power-plant. Sacha, the black shepherd whose voice was in Oxana’s head, walked by her side. Tall as her waist, they had bred him for protection.

 

Oxana coughed, spewing warm wet on her palm. She wiped the dark fluid on her coat. Her right hand pulsed from the injury. The puppy’s cold, wet snout tickled her throbbing fingers.

 

Blackened trees, grey dirt, burnt-out cars, and bleached skeletons littered the plant’s grounds. Oxana’s skin burned. Sacha and the other dogs flattened themselves on the ground. Blue lights flashed as men in hazmat suits searched for her on the other side of the power-plant. Grabbing at her pocket, Oxana remembered her weapon was gone.

 

Oxana followed the pack away from the men into the shadows of a cooling tower. A green door at the tower’s base seemed to breathe as they approached. Oxana leaned against the wall to catch her breath. The concrete vibrated the fillings in her teeth, her hand throbbed in sync with the respiring door. “Are you sure?” Her tongue felt too large for her mouth.

 

“Yes.” Sacha’s impatience was clear.

 

The puppy poked Oxana’s leg, holding a ball of phone wires in its mouth. Oxana straightened the best wires into the tools of her trade. “Did they know I was coming?”

 

“You were always coming,” Sacha answered.

 

Ticking the inside of the keyhole with the wires, Oxana freed the swollen cylinder. As she opened the door, the dogs rushed by, nuzzling and brushing against her. Inside, a green glow illuminated the network of metal catwalks and stairs.

 

A bullet ricocheted off the door frame, spraying dust, and forcing Oxana to her knees.

 

“You can come,” Sacha told her.

 

Descending the crisscrossing metal stairs was like walking into an oven. Thirty meters down, Oxana followed Sacha around a circular cooling tank, the green glow becoming more intense. Behind a sprout of pipes, pressure gages, and hydraulic machinery, the source of the glow appeared: a rectangular doorway composed of green plasma.

 

Sacha and the puppy waited with Oxana as the pack leapt through the doorway, tails disappearing through the green membrane.

 

“Thank you.” Sacha nodded as the last dog went through. “You can join us.” The shepherd jumped into the green.

 

The puppy hesitated, looking at Oxana, then scrambled through.

 

Oxana stepped toward the door, then collapsed. Her hands red, blistered, and peeling, she lost consciousness for the last time.