\nThe massive search helicopter started to look small, no more distinct than the boulders at the far end of the canyon where it sat.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cDon\u2019t worry about that,\u201d Burke said. \u201cYou should hope our guy tries to hijack it. If the shock traps kill him, we won\u2019t have to.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\nLudington stopped checking behind him and stared ahead while he walked. He left out the Yes sir, Deputy Warden.<\/em> Even Burke\u2019s name became redundant. On manhunt duty, no one else on the barren planet ever heard him. Their boots clacked too loudly anyway from the weight of their advanced riot armor, like thousands of yes sirs. <\/em>\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cThe scat scans from satellite show nothing,\u201d Burke said, \u201cwhich means the escapee carries his wastes in a container. It makes him harder to track. It also brings him here for disposal.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nLudington looked over the shallow river they followed. It cut through the center of the canyon floor like a rippling rug. Today, it took away an escapee\u2019s old thirst and gave him a new one, a thirst for the river\u2019s flowing freedom. It lured prisoners further down the foxhole, as though to simply see where the water went.\n<\/p>\n \nBurke stopped and nodded to the narrow passage ahead of them. \u201cWhenever they carry enough rations from the prison, like van Vulpen does, they like to head in there. They can hide their food and themselves. The heavy metal deposits in the river take a month to really hurt them–not bad when everyone dies in two weeks.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nLudington peered through the passage. The planet\u2019s solid gray overcast looked barely lighter than the granite everywhere below it. He saw the same two grays every day on his four-month work placement. Here, however, the barren world funneled men closer. The cliff faces rose 16 meters, taller and infinitely thicker than any wall of the prison a few kilometers away.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cOut of the whole planet,\u201d Burke said, \u201cthey like to run here first\u2026and last. Ready your gun at all times, soldier.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nLudington unshouldered his tranquilizer-39mm hybrid rifle. Burke had one too, but it stayed slung over his back for ease. Ludington followed him and could already feel the rugged ground throwing off his balance. He clambered over the boulders, his legs straining twice as hard now with both his hands full. His face strained even harder to stay composed, like on every other performance test. He fell behind Burke on purpose and hoped the wind would muffle some of his panting.\n<\/p>\n \nThe canyon wended ahead of them, its floor a mess of endless outcrops. Sometimes it showed long patches of bare and tempting terrain–the same trail that lured in dozens of inmates annually with whatever jailhouse jelly packets they could scrounge. The river widened but still couldn\u2019t hide its dark, wet rocks. They had a third, more miserable tier of gray. The bigger ones looked either too embedded to pry from the silt or too heavy to throw. Burke reached into his helmet and wiped the sweat off his cropped silver hair. He had the same somber expression as the inmates taking meds for seasonal affective disorder. Ludington wondered if the sky drove men to their suicidal escapes here rather than the tease of the untouched lands.\n<\/p>\n \nMostly, however, he wondered why he had his rifle out. It would only scare van Vulpen further down the foxhole.\n<\/p>\n \nAn hour into the hunt, Ludington and Burke found the first of van Vulpen\u2019s structures. The little pile of rocks tried to resemble a man. It looked like a bent and dying man, though, and the wind hadn\u2019t even disturbed it yet. The canyon spanned only four meters here, and the cairn stood in the middle by the river.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cHe wants to lower our guard,\u201d Burke said. \u201cHe\u2019ll use whatever the world swept down here to get an edge. A death fox knows he can\u2019t escape the planet. But he can still get a death match in the wild. He\u2019ll do it just to hurt the penal system, to encourage more escape attempts.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nBurke looked like he waited for a response.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cLike a martyr,\u201d Ludington said.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cYes,\u201d Burke replied.\n<\/p>\n \nLudington glared at the rocks, but they still looked like toys to him. Another pile stood near the bluff, like children\u2019s blocks stacked by a man overawed with nature.\n<\/p>\n \nHe and Burke walked on, eyeing the riverbed and the natural alcoves in the canyon slot ahead of them. When the passage narrowed to just two meters, Ludington took the lead. Burke still hadn\u2019t taken up his rifle. Ludington\u2019s boot, then, found the welcoming flat rock first. It collapsed into a foot-deep pit, pitching him into a stagger.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cGo!\u201d Burke hollered.\n<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \nLudington nearly head-butted the cliff face, but Burke grabbed him and hurled him backwards. They stumbled against the canyon walls as a cupboard-size boulder smacked the ground one foot in front of them. The crash flung more rocks into the air. One the size of a bowl hit Burke\u2019s leg and knocked him to one knee. The boulder, however, bounced down the passage ahead and rolled into the river.\n<\/p>\n \nLudington clutched his rifle closer, having nearly banged the scope twice on the crags. He hurried toward Burke who raised a palm and stood on his own. They both gazed up at the rock ledge jutting from the scarp two meters above them. The boulder left a white scrape mark where it had rolled off.\n<\/p>\n \nBurke knelt and picked up a longish stone with a black thread tied around its middle. The stone had scrapes as well from getting wedged under the precarious boulder. Burke yanked off the string and coiled up all four meters of it.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cVan Vulpen must have dragged those boulders over here,\u201d Burke said. He nodded to the dark outcrops far ahead. \u201cHe must have stacked them so he could reach up there to set the trap. Then, he rolled all those other boulders back.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nBurke put the coil of thread in a metal pouch on his belt. Ludington clenched his teeth and scanned the bottleneck in the passage. Though narrow, it had enough space for maneuvers. He could have easily lunged out of the way by himself, if he didn\u2019t have to totter around with his rifle out.\n<\/p>\n \nBurke mumbled a brief report to his headset and resumed the hunt. The new dent in his shin guard sped him up rather than slowing him. On file, he would look heroic from the incident, even though he had brought it about.\n<\/p>\n \nLudington channeled his anger into the ground with each thudding step. Over the next two hours, his trudge became a weary stagger. It embarrassed him more than his near death from the boulder. When the canyon widened to an airy eight meters, Burke veered closer to him.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cThe guards already started calling our guy the Sculptor,\u201d Burke said. He pointed a gloved index to his headset. \u201cHow would you go about tracking this particular death fox, soldier?\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nLudington pretended to think, even though he had his plan ready to announce since they first left the helicopter.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cI would make a few flights up and down the canyon,\u201d Ludington said. \u201cI\u2019d use the systems onboard to record the whole terrain along the river, and compare subsequent footage from every trip. We\u2019d land by the most recent disturbance in the rocks, which the scans can pinpoint. Then we\u2019d chase down and tranquilize van Vulpen. He already leaves some good markers for us.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nLudington gestured to a small ring of pebbles on a boulder by the river.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cYou have to favor strategy over speed,\u201d Burke said in a lowered voice. \u201cLong term, the hunt becomes all about statistics, patterns, and outcomes–not individual psychology like what you read in van Vulpen\u2019s file. You should know that two well-equipped guards working together have a near 100 percent chance of subduing a lone inmate, even the strongest or smartest of them. But a death fox believes in himself and the adventure. A death fox puts his odds at one in three, even with rocks against rifles. You\u2019ve got to exploit their hopes and delusions to lure them out.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nLudington saw Burke\u2019s game of provocation playing out in the boulders ahead. He pictured crazed and confident felons leaping in vain from every gymnastically feasible angle, throwing rocks in miraculous shapes of boomerangs.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cBut catching them sooner would give them less time to strategize,\u201d Ludington said. \u201cOver time, they get more feral and desperate, more creative with their schemes. With a whole planet of freedom, their survival instincts flourish. Their crazy reasons for fleeing suddenly have more weight out here.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cThey had years to plan and fantasize, soldier. A few more days won\u2019t make them any smarter. Don\u2019t you agree?\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nLudington realized that a yes<\/em> would look like a dumb retraction of his entire search plan. A <\/em>no would confirm his disdain for his instructor\u2019s plan. On this world, a no <\/em>would lower his performance score and his work hours ever after.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cWell, soldier?\u201d Burke asked.\n<\/p>\n \nLudington searched the canyon before him, but his eyes kept settling on the same answer. He turned from Burke and headed for a waist-high pile of rocks. It looked a little too tall to have formed in nature. He flung off the top stone, hoping to avoid Burke\u2019s question at worst or find a food stash at best.\n<\/p>\n \nInstead, he found a face grinning out at him.\n<\/p>\n \nLudington stood back and nearly raised his rifle by instinct. The man entombed in the rockpile, however, had turned his fourth shade of blue some weeks ago.\n<\/p>\n \nBurke jogged over and looked at the big grin on the death fox.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cFaulise,\u201d he said. \u201cOne of the other teams\u2019 foxes from months ago. A murderer, too. Good eye, soldier.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nBurke tossed aside enough rocks to reveal Faulise\u2019s head down to his prison uniform collar. The barren world preserved him, and his rictus held stiff like leather.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cThey can get prescription drugs from fellow inmates,\u201d Burke said as he stepped back. \u201cThey can rig up a dose so the narcotic half forces them to laugh compulsively. It works better than laughing gas. The poison half kills them, and the giggly look stays.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cWhat for?\u201d Ludington asked.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cBy law, we have to make their official death photos available to the public. A smile like this will cycle through the media and entice more inmates to flee. Like I said, they hurt the system however they can.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nBurke squinted at the canyon ahead while he reached behind his back. He removed a steel kit latched there and opened it.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cIt looks like this death fox had a real fun time, doesn\u2019t it?\u201d Burke asked. \u201cIn reality, he probably trembled while piling every rock over himself–especially the last one, after he swallowed the pills.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nLudington studied the hill-like arrangement of the tomb. It would have taken hours for Faulise to gather the right rocks and place them so well.\n<\/p>\n \nBurke took a thick, silver bowl from the kit. The device had five gripping holes in its underside, like those of a bowling ball. Burke\u2019s fingertips, though gloved, slipped their way in. He pressed the inside of the bowl over Faulise\u2019s face.\n<\/p>\n \nLudington watched as blue light flickered from the rim of the bowl. A faint crackling also emerged, like millions of electric arcs too small and timid to leave a burn. When the device fell silent, Burke pulled it away from the face. Faulise now wore a frown from his darkest possible day, a moment too horrific for him to have ever lived through. The corners of his mouth sank to his jawline and froze there, not in terror, but in pure despair.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cThe masker reshapes the muscle and connective tissue,\u201d Burke said while he put the device away. \u201cIt works through dirt, hair, decay, and rigor mortis. You\u2019ll need it often out here.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nBurke took a rugged, cylindrical camera off his belt and photographed Faulise\u2019s face. He shot at three different angles, and the pictures would reach other planets in the same number of months.\n<\/p>\n \nThe trek continued after Burke mumbled another report to his headset. Sixteen minutes later, he and Ludington could hear another team\u2019s helicopter landing near the body a way behind them. They heard the smack of rocks as the medics unburied Faulise, once a snickering imp and now a miserable claustrophobe.\n<\/p>\n \nLudington\u2019s mind boiled over with words about the defilement. He panted while keeping up with Burke, and he had to bite down to keep anything sterner from getting out. The canyon, however, called for a certain boldness like it called out to bored and lonely prisoners.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cDoesn\u2019t it seem a little shady?\u201d Ludington asked. \u201cBy changing the face, you change the whole story of what happened to him out here.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cVery shady,\u201d Burke said, \u201cthe kind of shade that reduces escape attempts by 80 percent. The masker saves more lives per year than any other deterrent, soldier. Guards\u2019 lives and foxes\u2019.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nThey walked and clambered for another hour. Burke, it seemed, had decided to punish both of them with travel since Ludington struggled more. Gripping the rifle made climbing rockpiles exhausting. Burke only stopped for camp because the river ahead widened visibly. Its noise further on would give their death fox an excuse to sneak up on them.\n<\/p>\n \nLudington sat on a high boulder for his first shift at watch. Burke sat nearby with his back to the cliff.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cI only read now with a bodyguard on duty,\u201d Burke said under the light of his little reader screen. \u201cIt makes whatever I read feel more important.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cRainbows and puppies, sir?\u201d Ludington asked.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cPenology,\u201d Burke said without looking from his screen, \u201ccrime stats, policy updates, and reports from other prisons.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nThey ate their meals in pill and water form so the compressed nutrients would digest slowly. Ludington watched the canyon in both directions while Burke slept on the stones. On Ludington\u2019s shift off, he slept by his rifle through most of the night on his own patch of stones. His armor felt like a crushing metal blanket until he forced himself not to move at all. He took in sleep in little breaths with some of them mercifully longer. When his aching body had enough of it, he checked the watch on his belt. He bolted up, having rested for nine hours total. The dismal sun moved through the day ahead of him, and likely, so did van Vulpen.\n<\/p>\n \nHe stiffly approached Burke who sat watch atop the boulder.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cShouldn\u2019t we head out?\u201d Ludington asked.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cNothing wrong with extra sleep, soldier,\u201d Burke said. \u201cThe fox likely underslept. We\u2019ll have a huge advantage.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nLudington said nothing, and he didn\u2019t grunt another question for the rest of the day. He walked alongside Burke for hours, his rifle out again. Burke only unslung his to shoot down a tower of flattish stones van Vulpen had stacked like a totem pole. The highest ones, some two meters above the ground, leaned on the cliff for support. Half the tower crashed down after the loud crack of one gunshot. Burke used the rifle\u2019s 39mm mode, and the echo roared up and down the canyon.\n<\/p>\n \nLudington gazed downstream. He pictured the Sculptor kilometers ahead, perking his ears and sprinting even further.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cIt might have fallen on someone,\u201d Burke said, as though he could read minds. He shouldered his rifle and hurried on before Ludington could shift his weight.\n<\/p>\n \nLudington\u2019s adrenaline stayed up that day, as it had when the boulder nearly hit him. He knew now that Burke, his de facto instructor, had lied about van Vulpen setting the trap. Faulise used the bigger rocks. The Sculptor wanted his hunters alive, someone to witness his artworks.\n<\/p>\n \nA little rock fort awaited Burke and Ludington on the third day of the hunt. It looked small, toylike even, and too low to hide the head of a man. Burke demanded an eight-minute approach anyway. He left the structure intact, muttering something about the importance of red flags.\n<\/p>\n \nBurke started ordering with gestures and flicks of his stubbly face. Ludington became a lumbering statue who followed him, just another unit on a planet named with a string of numbers. He suppressed his groans like a perfect yes-man. His spent legs spread out as though to look proud of it. His rifle poked around at nothing but the passage ahead, the trail of the inmates who wanted to die the hungriest for all their mad reasons. Burke mumbled in his headset for a helicopter to come by, and one did. It airdropped a bundle of full water canteens and rations into the canyon. Burke ate slowly on a break every hour afterward–for a mental advantage, he claimed. He balled up and burned the parachute like a campfire until nothing remained.\n<\/p>\n \nLudington sat when he could. He stared ahead and pictured the death fox staring back at him, more desperate, cunning, and creative with each wasted hour. His sculptures grew smaller and more childlike, just inuksuit that wobbled in the wind and pictures of donkeys made with pebbles. Some designs amounted to small circles of rock chips, any art at all that could outlast a wretched life in the barrens.\n<\/p>\n \nThe river seemed to age with the men stuck beside it. The water deepened and became choppy, just enough to add sprays of silver like Burke\u2019s week-long stubble. Ludington still obeyed his every nod. He believed their disputes from days ago may have already faded into the journey of silence. To question anything now would bring back all the animosity, crushing his evaluation score. The river, at least, did all the grumbling he wanted to do and more.\n<\/p>\n \nOn the eighth day, Ludington gazed at the rock-cluttered passage ahead. It had more rushing water than space along the riverbank.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cThey don\u2019t make it much further,\u201d Burke said.\n<\/p>\n \nHe and Ludington only had to clamber along the river for two hours when they spotted the body. The death fox, a long-dead<\/em> fox, lay facedown with his entire head in the river. His skull bobbed and splashed in the current, still laughing days after death. His body, lean but undecayed, looked almost alive in the prison uniform, as though van Vulpen merely drank forever. He lay flat and straight for all the heavens to see, or any helicopter willing to go by.\n<\/p>\n \nBurke scrambled forward. Ludington finally slung his rifle over his back and walked more upright. The new posture agonized him more than the rest of the \u201chunt.\u201d He knew Burke had marched him here instead of flying just to cause that mountain-climber pain. The trainees\u2019 suffering had to distract them from the suffering of the death fox.\n<\/p>\n \nLudington and Burke each grabbed a leg and hauled van Vulpen fully onto the riverbank. They turned the body supine. When Burke knelt to set down the leg, he stayed down beside it. He stared at the hollowed-out skull smiling up at him.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cHow?\u201d Burke asked.\n<\/p>\n \nLudington knelt by the body and picked up a plastic bag that had snagged on a rock. He pinched a sample of the gray sand remaining in one corner.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cHe collected this sediment all along the canyon,\u201d Ludington said. \u201cHe put his pile of sand in the river, like a pillow. He took his suicide pill, laid himself down, and let the current wash away the sand post mortem.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nA puddle spread under the skull like tears of eternal laughter. The river had eroded even the brain. Burke glared at the black orbits and the gleaming white enamel.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cHis smile will spread.\u201d Burke became wide-eyed yet dead-eyed at the same time. \u201cThat face of his will go more viral than a movie star\u2019s. We\u2019ll get a sharp rise in escape attempts and dozens of deaths.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nLudington walked away. His legs could hardly stand anymore, but he managed a final turn.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cDidn\u2019t you want this?\u201d he asked. \u201cFor him to starve until he can\u2019t run anymore? I\u2019d say he looks the part quite well.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cI\u2019d say nothing, soldier.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cNothing?\u201d Ludington called to sky. \u201cMost of them don\u2019t fight at all, do they? They just keep running as far as the river will feed them. You stretched out the chase to exhaust him. You could have found him here a week ago with some flesh on his face. The bloating and rot would have deterred everyone, even without the masker.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cYou almost got killed by this face, soldier.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cBy some nature boy!\u201d Ludington yelled. \u201cDid you even read his file? He came here for tax evasion. Maybe he carried his wastes here and dumped them in the river so we <\/em>wouldn\u2019t go sniffing it like animals. I thought we had all this <\/em>so we didn\u2019t have to abuse them.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nLudington slapped his ballistic vest. Burke rose and scowled at him. They stood meters apart, as though another river raged between them.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cI have to lie to the guards out here because persistence hunting works better than everything.\u201d Burke pointed at Ludington, and his voice boomed over the thrum of an approaching helicopter. \u201cDo you want death foxes running at you or away, soldier? You have to play their cat-and-mouse game. We<\/em> have to use every tactic we can, like they do, to keep our own fatalities down. You can\u2019t back away from a system this safe and refined. I\u2019ll have to use even crueler, harsher tactics now to capture all the death foxes inspired by this one smiling face. I have to find any edge possible to stop those deaths.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nBurke knelt again and took out the masker. He stared at van Vulpen, and Ludington couldn\u2019t tell who had the stiller expression.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cIt might still work, even on bone,\u201d Burke said.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cThe first frowning skull in the cosmos, sir?\u201d Ludington asked. \u201cOnly you could pull that one off.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nBurke never looked up. The helicopter engine quit somewhere downstream over a hill of rocks. Ludington tramped toward it, abandoning the body. He climbed the final hill, however, and saw the final deception: the same helicopter he and Burke had taken into the canyon. Its navigation lights blinked green instead of red now which, Ludington presumed, indicated autopilot mode. Burke could have signaled for the ride at any time to find van Vulpen.\n<\/p>\n \nLudington traipsed to the tail section and opened the body compartment. He took out a folded body bag and crawled over the rocks again like a rusted-out automaton. Burke still crouched by the corpse, his gaze more rigid than the rocks around him. Van Vulpen\u2019s skull looked almost alive, still awash and with a smile fit for the dentist shelves. The masker, if Burke had even applied it, left no effect on the bone.\n<\/p>\n \nBurke took out his camera and snapped the three pictures. He moved in stiff, robotic steps, like Ludington, as they placed van Vulpen into the body bag. They carried him over the hill and slid their death fox into the helicopter\u2019s special compartment.\n<\/p>\n \nIn the cockpit, Burke never once turned his grim and tired face to Ludington on the co-pilot side. Ludington couldn\u2019t even look at his own bearded face in the side mirror.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cYou get a perfect score,\u201d Burke said, \u201cfor finding Faulise.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nHis voice droned like the starting engine. Ludington felt his aching bones rise with the helicopter. He felt them trying to rip free from his body to keep walking. He let his mind fly away instead. He thought about earning more high scores and advancing to a rank where getting mouthy would matter. He thought about trying to reinstitute the controversial ankle bracelets and how relaxed his legs felt while sitting on foam.\n<\/p>\n \nBurke flew them over a vast prison yard which leveraged the planet\u2019s enormous terrain. Ludington looked over the plains of bedrock checkered with painted lines. Prisoners moped, played soccer, or jogged laps in their zones, content with the acres assigned to each man. Some of them, for sure, stared at the distant mountains and dreamed.\n<\/p>\n \nLudington could almost feel the reported morale boost from all the free space. He knew now, though, that it only reduced violent thoughts among felons and not guards.\n<\/p>\n \nThe yard ended with a giant wall that called everyone back before suppertime. The helicopter flew low over the turrets and guard towers of the sprawling penitentiary. Ludington felt the landing skids finally settle on the helipad, and he looked out at the guards posted around it. They all frowned back, their faces unmoved by the daily reminder of their own manhunt days. They wore the sullen faces of bulldogs, their jowls embittered and locked in for life.\n<\/p>\n \nLudington wondered how many of them, like Burke, had used the masker on themselves.\n<\/p>\n Nicholas Stillman writes science fiction with medical themes. His work has appeared in The Colored Lens, Helios Quarterly Magazine, Liquid Imagination, The Martian Wave, Bards and Sages Quarterly, and Not One of Us.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The massive search helicopter started to look small, no more distinct than the boulders at the far end of the canyon where it sat. \u201cDon\u2019t worry about that,\u201d Burke said. \u201cYou should hope our guy tries to hijack it. If the shock traps kill him, we won\u2019t have to.\u201d Ludington stopped checking behind him and …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":104094,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,20085],"tags":[20086],"class_list":["post-138248","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fiction","category-tcl-39-spring-2021","tag-the-colored-lens-39-spring-2021","entry entry-center"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138248","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/104094"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=138248"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138248\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":138249,"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138248\/revisions\/138249"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=138248"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=138248"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=138248"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}