Native

Chapter 2: Lonely

"You don't have to be so negative all the time," Lorena snipped at Tucker. "It gets really old." She cast him an irritated glance as she spoke, but he ignored her. 

They had only been together for three days and already Tucker got under her skin. He was pretty narcissistic for someone that was in his circumstances (being poor, homeless, and a fugitive at that). The only redeeming quality he seemed to have was the knack for fixing things. He fixed her little Jeep well enough for it to run until the gas was gone. It took them a fairly good distance, which saved them a lot of physical exertion. But that positive note was not taken by Tucker, and he had complained ever since they left the Jeep behind. First it was the sun, then it was the lack of water, then his feet bothered him, he was hungry, tired, and the list went on. All of these things Lorena experienced too, and his constantly pointing them out seemed to intensify how much the symptoms bothered her. If he would just shut up, she could handle it better. But her attempts at getting him to acquiesce failed. 

"I would have been done with my sentence by now, " Tucker groaned. 

"Well go back and let them find you! " She was on the verge of losing her temper. 

Tucker glared at her. The sun and heat was giving him an awful headache and he felt like ramming Lorena into the ground. 

She hurried her pace to get ahead of him, sensing his anger was growing. She was probably just as angry, but she wasn't the stronger sex here. Suddenly, Tucker grabbed her by the shoulder and pulled her down to the ground. Her first instinct was to fight back, because she barely knew this man and had no idea what he was going to do. She clawed and kicked and punched at him as he tried to hold her down. "Listen to me!" he hissed at her and covered her mouth. "Look over there." He pointed to the direction they had come from and she craned her neck to see some black speck flying through the air. 

He let go of her mouth but kept her pressed down to the ground. 

"What is it?" she asked. 

"A drone. Probably searching for me... we need to hide, quickly."

"Pfft, out here?" Lorena scoffed and smacked his hands away from her shoulders. Tucker remained close to the ground, hiding behind a small sand dune that they had climbed up. He scanned the distance between them and the drone, and figured it was about 800 yards. Drones flew at a speed of 5 miles per hour, which meant they had roughly two minutes to hide before the drone was close enough to spot them. 

Tucker pulled a small gadget from the bottom of his shoe and blew sand out of it. 

It looked like a pen but it extended like an antenna, up to about four feet. 

"What is that?" Lorena asked. 

"It's a cloaking barrier, but it only has a circumference of two feet, so stay still," he replied as he stuck one end into the ground between his feet. 

"We are both too tall for it, so we'll have to sit, hurry up!" he said and motioned her to move in close.  She scooted as close to him as she wanted, but he pulled her onto his lap practically and pressed a button on the cloaking gadget. Suddenly, a film extended around them in a dome shape and they became invisible to outsiders. Lorena noticed her foot hanging slightly outside the barrier and pulled it in closer. The film made everything look wrinkly to them, but as the drone flew over head without stopping, Lorena knew the disguise had worked. She was slightly amazed at the contraption and immensely relieved that it worked. They had been completely undetected by the flying machine and safe from any possible discipline. Although the fact that she helped a felon escape did bother her, and she felt like she deserved to be punished, she wasn't quite ready for it.