The Yellow Marker

I couldn't stay cooped up inside another second—I slipped right past the porch screen, but then I froze dead in the damp grass! A razor-thin silver needle was thrust straight into the lawn, fluttering a glaring neon-yellow plastic flag! A perimeter beacon?! A tracking antenna screaming my coordinates to whatever runs this place?! My throat tightened so hard I almost choked, but—you can't just leave an active transmitter behind you! Trembling violently, I lunged forward and grabbed the cold wire with both gloves. *Twang.* It just flexed and sprang right back, smelling faintly of rusty iron and wet dirt. No sirens blared. No static pulse fired. It's just a harmless marker flag stuck in the mud.