He fell straight down from the sky in an egg, Willa tells us when she bursts past the screen door to the kitchen and tears into the dining room like a mad goat, dreadfully late to supper.

“Well, I suppose it’s more like a round-ish coffin, of sorts,” she adds, “only it’s for keepin’ someone alive, not holdin’ someone dead. I’m not quite sure how good it did at that… fella’s halfway dead anyway, far as I can tell.”

We all cluster around the partially shattered metal shell our farmhand Elias helped drag into the back shed from the brand new crater in the cow pasture. It’s a smooth, sleek thing, a dark mottled gray, except for where sizable chunks are missing from one end, smudged sooty black and still steaming. Wires stick out like grasping fingers from the gaps in the chassis, sparking feebly, hanging onto life. A rough atmospheric reentry, Jack murmurs on my left. Solid observation, nerd, comes Willa’s chipper reply. Shhh! I shoot towards them. 

Across the top a thick glass panel looks to be rent open with a force no human I know could muster. On the scratched glass, white, blocky, commanding letters read PERSONAL ESCAPE CAPSULE – UN NAVY, ORBITAL DIVISION, and below it, smaller, SOLDIER #A458E72. And inside is, we all figure, Mr. Soldier Number A458E72 himself. Or what’s left of him.

“You’re sure he’s still alive? Is he even a he? Don’t much look like an anything to me.”

“He’s breathin’, ain’t he? And I didn’t take a gander down his britches, so pardon me for assuming. It’s probably all nuts and bolts down there anyhow.”

“Shut up Willa, he ain’t a droid.”

“Ha! You sure? Looks nearly like it.”

I step closer and crouch to peer curiously at our guest from the skies. Pop’s voice cuts through the commentary, all low and pulled taut. “Careful now, Lou.” I glance behind me to see him still at the entrance, fading late-winter sunlight at his back, clutching the door frame with blanched knuckles. I meet his eyes, give a small nod, and turn my attention to the newcomer.

He’s sleeping soundly within his capsule, chest rising and falling the barest amount. Most of him is a messy patchwork of scarred and puckered flesh, scraped-up metal, tubes, weaponry glinting with potential. His right arm from the bicep and right leg from the knee down are intricate prosthetics that look mighty heavy to me, not just material-wise, but from all the stories they could tell. From what they have been used for. Our brave Soldier is modded to the teeth, literally: steel snakes up from his chest, along his neck, and covers—replaces?—his lower jaw. He already has a high-powered rifle in his arm, but why not also a bite that could cut straight through bone, popping tendons and veins like they were blackberries from momma’s bushes out front in the summer, lips stained dark and purple-red all the same?

He is human, but he was pulled apart and jerry-rigged, we all know, for a single purpose: war. That near constant battle full of light and fire, looming far above us like a distant thunderstorm, always looking just fixin’ to pour but never quite dipping down to sweep us up into the maelstrom. They’re doing the Lord’s work defending our planet they say, us from over here versus them from over there, you see, except most days our eyes are just pointed down at our fields. There’s real work to do.

My eyes slide up to the Soldier’s face. It’s the only part of him that is peaceful, almost… innocent, with his slack mouth and relaxed, unfurrowed brows. “What did they do to you?” I mutter, staring, wanting to reach out and touch. “…Did you want them to?”

The Soldier’s eyes shoot open. His face loses its softness all at once, screwing up tight and hard as the steel that splinters through his bodice, as if that moment of peace was a system error. He stands from his shell, picks me up by the neck, and slams me against the wall.

In an instant, the air in that shed drops ten degrees and thickens to syrup with tension. Or maybe that’s me losing consciousness. Nobody makes any sudden moves—smart of them—but I hear Pop’s shotgun go click. “Easy, son,” he rumbles from my right. “Reckon you might want to let my daughter go, if you know what’s good for y—”

“Negative. State your business.” The Soldier’s voice is gunfire enough. I work my mouth, but I can’t speak.

Willa does for me. “All due respect, sir,” she says, with precious little respect but quite a bit of trembling,  “you first.”

The Soldier opens his mouth again, but then snaps it shut. What must’ve been a practiced script is lost in the fog of his breath. “I don’t,” his brows drop, and his gaze tears from mine and darts around the shed, “know…” He begins to sway as whatever synthetic adrenaline was shot through his veins evidently starts to wear off. His hand loosens around my throat, and I take a chance, slide my own into the gap and push.

The skin contact sends one of those static pops up my arm, and it gets him staggering backward, looking at me, down at his hands, back up. I think I know that expression he’s wearing now—coyote caught in the barbed wire, losin’ blood fast. “I…I didn’t mean to…”

Then, through my tears as I continue hacking and retching, I watch six-some-odd feet of government firepower crumple to the floor in front of me. “Lord,” I croak.

+

“So you don’t know how you got busted up, why you had to take a swan dive, the name of your ship—”

“Jack,” I warn, as my little brother stabs at his grits in frustration. Across from him, our highly uncomfortable breakfast guest levels a glare at his untouched plate.

“Louise,” Jack mocks, and I make a face at him. He points at the Soldier. “You. You… don’t even know your name, neither, huh?”

“My designation is A458—”

Willa cuts in. “8, E, X Y Z 1 2 3, whatever. We get it. He meant your name.”

A blank stare. Charming. The Soldier’s jaw clenches at the expectant silence around the table, and I can feel his mechanized shoulders start to rise and tighten beside me. I clear my throat. “The point is, with this little information it’s gonna be real tough for us to get you back up where you’re supposed to be,” I explain carefully. “But we’ll do our best. In the meantime—”

“In the meantime, you’ll have to earn your keep,” Pop interjects from the head of the table, posture rigid as ironwood.

“You’ll be helping ‘round the farm, and in exchange, we’ve set you up a pallet in the barn. Pop wasn’t too keen on letting you stay in the house, you understand. Or stay period, but I twisted his arm on it, since you clearly need our help.”

I become the bearer once again of the Soldier’s blistering focus, and add baffled to my mental list of emotions he’s capable of expressing. “I don’t need your help.”

“You’re about one short-circuit away from setting your reinforced skull on fire, Tin Man,” Jack retorts. Willa snorts into her apple-buttered biscuit. That’s settled then.

+

I see him one morning as I’m weeding the yellow squash beds, my wrists sunk deep in the dawn-red clay, making room for the new life to take root in the coming months. Pop, like a real dear, has him hauling burlap bags of manure to feed to the hulking automated fertilizer combine at the edge of the soybean field. He looks mightily useful, if Pop’s begrudgingly satisfied hands-on-hips stance is anything to go on, but also mightily miserable.

I venture a “Hey you!” and he almost gives me the time of day, glancing over. I beckon him with a head jerk; maybe he could lend me a hand instead. He offers only a scowl and a haughty scoff as he passes. Well then. I rip out a stubborn clump of crabgrass from the soil.

+

He doesn’t know I’m there in the doorway to the shed as I watch Jack tinker with the inner workings of the Soldier’s arm, the prosthetic splayed out like beetle wings under a taxidermist’s pins. So much for those fancy Super-Soldier senses the suited-up recruiters from the city boast about. I smirk as I lean and listen in. I’m meant to be reminding Jack he’s got school in the morning, but it can wait.

“Used to watch Momma work on her projects in here,” my brother tells him quietly. “Would sneak in when I was s’posed to be asleep and rattle about, askin’ what everything was and how it worked. She taught me everything I know.” He tilts his head. “Well… her and books.” He sticks his flashlight in his mouth as he goes in with a soldering iron.

The Soldier winces, then raises an eyebrow. “You know how to repair military-grade cybernetic enhancements?” 

“She was real good at fixing things. Especially machines.” The Soldier opens his mouth to object, but Jack interrupts. “A machine’s a machine’s a machine, bud.”

The man’s mouth turns down a bit at the corners at that, and I notice his broad, brutalized back shift from hunched to straight. I choose that moment to speak up. “You look like a horsefly drunk on moonshine with those goggles on your face, Jack-jack.”

Jack snaps his head around, right affronted. “They are magnifyin’ spectacles—”

“Oh, magnifying spectacles,” I mock, and cackle when he chucks his greasy towel at my face. I manage to dodge the projectile and as I come back up, I catch the tiniest smile tiptoeing its way across the Soldier’s lips, before he twists them back into neutrality when he meets my eyes. Something small and bright pokes sunward behind my ribs. 

“It’s late. Bedtime,” I say.

+

His makeshift bed haunts the hayloft above my head, tight-cornered and pristine under the pockmarked rafters of the barn and the patter of raindrops on the tin roof beyond. The few sets of work pants and flannels Pop lent him sit folded in a neat little stack to the right of the mattress, and that’s the only decoration, far as I can see. I snicker, thinking of my own category five twister of a bedroom, and shake my head. Military boys.

There’s another thing I spot though, right there in the space between the tidy pillow and the railing beam. It’s tiny and metal, but I can’t quite make it out. Something from Jack, maybe?

I nearly stand up to get a closer look, but I get a tug on my sleeve from Willa. “There she is!” she whisper-yells, and crouches on the dusty floor real low, arm extended to a hole worn into the bottom of the wooden wall. I grin as a tiny scrap of black fluff inches out, then little whiskers twitch and a bright pink nose appears. 

My little sister just about fidgets out of her rain boots in excitement, but I settle her with a soft shhhh. “Remember, Bug. Patience.” She rolls her eyes and huffs, but listens. She pays extra close attention to Miss Barn Cat’s newest, tracking every tail swish and ear swivel. As she makes a trilling noise, the kitten creeps forward, and I resist my own urge to squeal. What a natural.

But then the door bangs open. The kitten startles and darts back into the hole. I sigh, but Willa whips around, furious. “Really?!” she demands at the intruder.

The Soldier looks pitiful dripping wet in the entryway, shoulders hunched up to his ears, bewildered. I shouldn’t giggle, but. “Sorry,” he ventures, and then adds as he holds out a brown paper bag, “Brought lunch. Your father sent me.”

I wave him over and motion for him to sit with us, and he hesitates, then does. Willa’s still bristling, but she mutely grabs a tupperware as he offers it to her. I try to feel upset for her, like Momma would tell me to do—be there for her, Loubell. She’ll need you. But something about watching a Super Soldier sit criss-cross applesauce on the floor and warm his hands on a bowl of Pop’s beloved beef stew, sheltering from the storm with us, makes it a bit tough for me. Can’t quite put my finger on it.

I rub circles on Willa’s back. “The cat’ll come back, sweetheart, you just have to give it some time.” The Soldier nods like he can confirm, and I tilt my head at him, curious. “Did you have a cat where you came from?”

He blinks, thoughtful. “Not up there,” he replies after a moment, pointing at the sky, “but before. I think.” When he sees me lean forward, wanting to know more, he continues. “I’m not sure what happened, but they told me I lost everything. Everyone.” He clears his throat. “That’s why they had me instead.”

I nod, chest tightening. “Fresh start. That’s… good.” He gives a halfhearted shrug. “Did you find what you needed with them?”

He stays quiet this time. Ah. I feel a little bit like I’m sinking. 

“‘Course he didn’t. They just ruined him instead.” 

“Willa!” I snap my head in her direction. 

She’s set her stew down, glowering at nothing. “You know I’m right, Lou. ‘Cause that’s what they do. Take what’s not theirs, use it, ruin it.” Her limbs lock up tense, agitation rising. She fixes a sneer at the Soldier. “Bet you’re real good at that, huh? Trained you up well.”

I meet his eyes, lost for words, fumbling. His mouth is agape. He looks torn open. Ripped apart. Finally, he rasps faintly, “What I did wasn’t up to me, Willa.”

Willa shoots to her feet. “Quit lyin’! All y’all do is lie!” Her lip wobbles, and her eyes start to shine. I reach for her, my throat burning, heart turned to lead. “She’s never coming back,” she grits out.

Now the Soldier’s brow furrows, confusion creeping in. “I can… go find the cat…”

“GET OUT!” Willa screams, and her face crumples. I stand up too, pull her close, and she buries her face in my sweater. 

As her small body shudders with sobs, I just shake my head at the man. I hope he can see the apology in my eyes, but I tell him, “I think you oughta leave, Soldier.” 

He schools his expression, nods, picks up his tupperware and exits without a sound. I rest my chin on Willa’s head. 

The door shuts a little harder than normal, and the beams shake a bit with the force, dislodging the little contraption I saw by the Soldier’s bed. I peer at it as it drops a few feet away, and I slowly recognize its shape. It’s a tiny mechanical mouse. A cat toy. 

+

I’m covered in dirt again when he finds me, trellising the heirloom tomatoes in the late afternoon. The spring heat that’s been dancing feather-soft across my shoulders is snuffed out by a massive shadow, and I suppress a shiver. I keep working for a minute, wondering if he’ll make the overture, but eventually I have to sigh and ask, “You gonna keep gawkin’ or come help?”

He settles awkwardly beside me in the clay, looking a mite lost. “What do I…” 

I chuckle, demonstrating my task and nodding as he follows. “When they’re tiny like this, they need a little coaxing,” I take a delicate green tendril between two fingers and wrap it around the body of the wooden frame, suggesting it stay put with a gentle tug of twine, “to grow tall and strong like they ought.” 

He snaps the tendril he holds, and flinches. “Sorry,” he mutters.

“It’s all right. You can try again. Careful now.” I place a steadying hand on his forearm, and brace against the cool metal I feel there. 

He does better the second time. “Why can’t they do it themselves?”

I hum. “Nothin’ wrong with needing something to lean on sometimes.” I tie the wisp of twine neatly around the next stem as he holds it still against the trellis. 

He lets out the breath he was holding in a huff. “I’m not meant for this.”

“You can be if you like,” I offer, then motion towards the pasture past the vegetable garden, where my siblings pilot rusty mechsuits around bumbling clusters of sheep, herding them to and fro to scan for injuries. “Those big things were probably more your speed, though, huh?” Willa seems to ignore us altogether, but Jack notices us, sweeps his mech arm up into an exaggerated military salute, and then maneuvers one of the thick metal fingers into a particularly friendly gesture. I snort.

He lets out the quietest half-laugh, and I jolt in surprise. “I’ve piloted a mech or two before, so,” he shrugs. “It was strange though. I thought they’d be… scared of me.”

I smile. “The sheep? They get used to it.” I find myself wanting to share more, so I do. “Pop thought the mechs were a bad idea, and our farm needed a more ‘human touch,’ but Momma brought him around. Said they still knew it was us in there.”

The Soldier hesitates, then bucks up the courage to ask, “What happened to her?”

I grimace, shuffling sideways to the next tomato seedling. Guess this had to come out sooner or later. “She was good at her job, Soldier. Real amazing, actually.” I close my eyes, picturing her blazing, crow-footed grin when she got a new contraption up and whirring. “So good that, uh, your folks,” I wave vaguely at the sky, “took notice. They asked her to come do some work for them on their ships.” I let that hang there for a moment.

The Soldier stares hard at the red earth dusting his hands. “She never came back down, did she,” he whispers. I shake my head. 

“We got a letter. Six months after she left.”

A pause. Then, “A letter? Impressive. Whenever we bite it up there, I think they send out one of those robo-texts.” He holds out his arms stiff from his sides, bent at the elbow. “We’re sorry, but your child/parent/sibling has died of: blood loss. Please follow this link for one-click cremation. Be sure to fill out our quick survey.” 

I let out a stunned bark of laughter, tension melting from my bones. I give him a shove, and he doesn’t budge an inch, and he’s laughing for real now too.

+

It’s a soft, hazy night in late spring, pollen lying in wait to paint the world golden in the morning, and we’re out on the porch swing when he reads the digital retrieval instructions he’s finally received from his naval base. I thought I might feel relief when they tracked him down at last and got in touch, like the stars that had been thrown out of line when he crashed into our lives were finally able to push back into their proper position. Instead, all I feel is an odd pit in my stomach.

“Well, some big hurry they were in,” I comment.

“Your father went through the proper channels. That takes time,” the Soldier replies, voice clipped, and I nudge him with my shoulder.

“You’re glad he did, though, right? You’re ready to get back in there?”

He grinds his jaw. “Obviously. I was never supposed to be here.”

I sit back, trying not to let my hurt bloom across my face, but I’ve never been much good at that. “I like to think you got along all right.”

He scowls, frustration mounting. “Don’t be ridiculous. I made a fool of myself.”

“You tried! That’s what counts.”

“Stop!” I suck in a breath at his shout. “Stop being so… kind. Why do you keep being kind? It’s not… I don’t deserve it.”

I stand up from the porch swing to face him, working my tongue against the inside of my cheek. “What do you think you deserve?” I demand. “Do you think we should’ve tossed you out on your defective ass on a dirt road, parted ways with a ‘good luck out there!’”

He stands too. “I don’t belong here, Lou! Look at me.” I look at him. His voice breaks. “I’m a monster—”

Before I can say anything, a shrill yell comes from the barn, and I whip around to see Willa waving frantically. “It’s one of the ewes!” The Soldier and I exchange another glance, and then we’re both running.

“She’s havin’ some trouble birthing,” my little sister squeaks as we sidle inside, and there she is: on her side in the pliant hay, surrounded by other sheep that nudge her with wet snouts and shuffle nervously to the edges of the stable. She bleats low and terrified, her flanks heaving with the effort. I drop to my knees beside the sweet, brave mother, making soothing coos and addressing what I can at the entrance.

The Soldier joins without hesitation across from me, laying a broad, comforting touch amid the fleece and watching with eyes wide as saucers as I slowly, slowly correct a breech. Then, I gesture with palms up towards him. “Your turn.”

He begins to protest, still wide eyed, stuttering. Then, something magic happens. He nods, grits his teeth, and moves into position. And then he guides a bundle of legs and fuzz out into the damp spring air with gentle hands. I hear Willa gasp. The Soldier meets my eyes after, and I see a sort of aching wonder.

But then we both peer down at the bundle, and so does mother sheep, bleating in concern. The Soldier’s slack grin drops. The lamb is breathing, but it has two faces, gracefully conjoined and blinking innocently up at us, one gaze for each.

I smile sadly, and break the news. “It won’t… make it to tomorrow like that.” He releases a shuddering breath. “But it can have tonight.” I stand up, motioning for him to follow as I gingerly pick up the ewe and turn around, exiting the barn with her. The Soldier holds the lamb tucked close to his chest, and I bet it feels real safe in such a large, sturdy cradle. Willa reaches up to pet it as he passes through the barn doors, and he bends at the knees to let her stroke the downy wool with tentative hands. She sniffles, pokes a thank you through a mouth quirked up at the edges, and runs off toward the house. Then I lead the Soldier out to the middle of the pasture, set the ewe back down, and take a seat in the grass.

He settles beside me, and I watch as he lays the lamb next to its mother, its dual head draped delicately across his lap. He tilts his own head back to stare at the night sky, and I see a tear wend its way down his rough cheek.

I rest my head on his shoulder, taking in the spilled sugar heavens with him. They lie still tonight. “You’re not a monster,” I murmur. “You’re just a man.”

The stars may be all rearranged now, but I think I like the new constellations they make.

+

The transport ship is here to take him from us. I squint against the sun, feet planted on the sharp gravel of the driveway, waiting my turn to give him my farewell and well wishes—maybe an awkward little side hug like Willa’s, or a brief pat-on-the-back number like Jack’s hug, or maybe even a respectable handshake like what Pop offers. None of those feel right, feel big enough.

When he faces me, I meet his eyes again before I hug him, and whisper, “don’t,” against his skin when he holds me tight. “Please?” I add, as he breaks the embrace, still holding me at arm’s length. 

He looks real conflicted; I hate myself for feeling so satisfied at that. 

“I can’t just defect from the UN Navy, Louise,” he mumbles.

I shrug. “Fuck ‘em,” I remark brightly. He laughs. Lord, what a sound. “All right then. Go on. Git.”

The Soldier sighs, releases me, and straightens to his full, grand height. Jack really did fix him up nice. He turns around, sets his shoulders, and strides toward the transport ship where it looms tall and dark like a reaper at the end of the path.

Then he stops. Wavers. And looks back.

+++