"While that might be a valid point, David, if what you're saying is true, couldn't that leave us open to more danger if we leave her to her own devices?" Rachel was careful to avoid agreeing or disagreeing with David, as she was still having doubts about the woman herself.

  Not waiting for David to answer, Marcus inserted himself into the conversation. "Just so we're clear, we're talking about leaving a person here, alone, in the bowels of a collapsed building, just because we're scared of what the nanobots have done to her."

  "Marcus," Rachel said, "I'm surprised to hear you come to her defense, given your personal encounters with the muties."

  Marcus shook his head. "No, she's not a mutie. She looks like one, but she hasn't been consumed by the nanobots. There's still a person in there, somewhere, underneath the machines. Doesn't that count for anything?"

  David looked at the computer in his pocket, shifting nervously from foot to foot. "We really don't have a lot of time to stand here and argue. Let's not forget that we have to get Bertha to the coast as quickly as possible, before the AI has an opportunity to learn that it needs to defend itself against us.

  "We'll bring it to a vote. I say we leave the thing here. She's not human anymore, despite her lack of aggression, and she'll just be a liability to us."

  David looked at Rachel, his eyes lit by the pale glow of the EL light looped around her belt. "Are you with me?"

  Rachel hesitated in answering and glanced at Marcus again, who shook his head angrily. She looked at the ground and closed her eyes, preparing to speak, when a noise behind her startled the three of them.

  "Please don't leave me."

  Rachel whirled around, instinctively bringing her rifle up, but lowering it immediately upon seeing that the voice belonged to the strange woman. She shuffled forward quietly, reaching her arms out to feel in front of her as she approached the group. Marcus felt Sam press in against his leg as the woman approached, the hairs on his neck raised, but still not growling.

  David tried to stutter a response, feeling mortified at being caught saying what he had, but before he could stammer out a complete sentence, Marcus stepped forward and took the woman's hand, watching as the blue glow of the nanobots retreated up her arm.

  "Of course we're not going to leave you. Some of us are just... frightened and unsure, but we won't leave you here. I promise."

  "I guess that settles it, then." Rachel stepped up next to Marcus and helped him guide the woman up close to the steel door, ignoring David's quiet grumbling from behind her. "Just stay over here out of the way for a bit, please; we're trying to figure out how to get through this door."

  The woman cocked her head to the side and Marcus watched, fascinated. Her empty eye sockets traced the outline of the doorway exactly, and though Marcus knew she was blind he couldn't help but wonder if she had some type of new sense gifted to her by the nanobots that had taken over her body. After a moment of "looking" over the door, the woman turned back toward Marcus and spoke.

  "There appears to be a weakness on the right-hand side of this barrier, approximately four feet up from the ground and six inches out from it. A directed energy pulse of the correct frequency would exploit this weakness, most likely resulting in the removal of the barrier."

  Marcus, Rachel, David and Sam all stepped back as the woman strode to the location that she spoke of, placing her hand on a small access panel next to the door. The panel was dark, devoid of the electricity needed to make it operate, until the woman's hand connected with it. A burst of white energy arced through the panel, quickly followed by the loud clanks of massive bolts being retracted into the door. Stepping back from the panel, the woman grasped the door and pulled on it, effortlessly swinging it open to reveal a dark tunnel beyond.

  While there was no need for words to express the astonishment on all their faces, Marcus couldn't help himself. "Holy shit! How did you do that?"

  The determined expression on the woman's face melted away upon hearing Marcus's query. "How did I do what?"

  Rachel took the woman by the arm and guided her back near the dolly holding Bertha. "Never mind, it's fine. Just rest. Everything will be all right."

  Shaking her head in awe, Rachel whispered to David, concerned again about the possible implications of bringing the woman with them. "You're still scanning for transmissions, right?"

  David nodded, patting the handheld computer in his pocket as he whispered in response. "The second this thing picks up on anything, it'll alert us. For the record, though, I still think it's a terrible idea to take her with us."

  "The instant she looks like she's a danger, we'll put her down." Rachel looked at Marcus and David, who both nodded in agreement. "For now, though, we keep her with us and take care of her. Not just because she's an asset, but because as far as I'm concerned, she's still at least part human."

  Leonard McComb | Nancy Sims

  3:00 PM, April 13, 2038

  Shivering and aching, Leonard and Nancy struggled to stay awake. They had crawled as far into a narrow cranny in the collapsed building as they felt safe doing, and were lying on their sides, huddled together to try and keep as warm as possible. It was a losing battle though, as the cold bricks and occasional crosswinds leeched away heat through their thin clothing. Every fifteen minutes, like clockwork, Leonard crawled out into the open and peeked down at the streets below them, hoping each time that he would see nothing but emptiness again. Instead, all he saw were the endless forms of the creatures, still making their way through the city.

  The behavior of the creatures was curious to Leonard. Instead of searching through buildings and rubble as he would have expected them to do, they acted like they were out for a stroll instead. They paid no attention to their surroundings except to clamber over obstacles, and they hadn't touched the APC, which Leonard could still see--just barely--thanks to the tiny bit of light filtering down through the clouds. Bright bursts of lightning provided most of the illumination, and Leonard had almost gotten used to it after enduring hours of the storm. Protected as they were, Leonard didn't expect that they would be struck by lightning or found by the creatures, but those were not Leonard and Nancy's primary enemies at the moment.

  With the winds as strong as they were and the lack of sunlight, Leonard estimated that the temperature was in the low fifties, with the wind chill taking off several degrees more. While he and Nancy had the advantage of pooling their limited warmth and were relatively well protected from the wind, if they didn't get moving soon hypothermia could set in. Without so much as a piece of cardboard to insulate them against the cold of the collapsed building, Leonard fretted over their situation, hoping that the creatures would soon be done with their seemingly endless march.

  Leonard crawled back next to Nancy and shook his head, seeing the disappointment in her eyes. She sighed and muttered under her breath, barely loud enough for Leonard to hear. "At least if Samuel is around, he's probably freezing out there, too. There's no way that asshole could get through the city with all of the muties around even if he wanted to."

  Leonard snorted, amused by Nancy's morbidly humorous outlook. On more than one occasion, he had considered making a run for the APC, thinking that if they could just get inside, they would be able to wait out the creatures in warmth and safety. Each time he had checked on the situation below, though, he was discouraged from even making an attempt on the APC by the quantity of creatures flooding the streets. Even at the village he hadn't seen this many creatures, and to see thousands of them all traveling together was enough to make him frightfully nervous.

  Clasping his hands together, Leonard started to put his head down on them to rest for a few moments when loud snarls from the street below caught his attention. The creatures hadn't made any aggressive movements or sounds so far, and he began to worry that he and Nancy had somehow been discovered. Crawling back to the edge of the alcove, Leonard peeked down the street, and watched as several creatures broke from their slow walk and started to run. Thankfully, they weren't running toward the building but away from it, focused on something in the distance.

  Leonard wasn't sure what they were chasing, and initially thought it might be another survivor, but a few moments after hearing the first snarl, he realized what they were pursuing. Through the noise of thunder and heavy footsteps from the creatures, an engine noise suddenly drew closer. In a flash of lightning, Leonard saw a strange vehicle tear past the street, weaving in and out between the creatures and rubble. The driver was rain-soaked and Leonard strained to get a look at him, but his vehicle vanished behind a building seconds after it had appeared.

  In the brief time that the vehicle was visible, Leonard saw that it was designed in a way that made it easier to drive through the crowded streets than the APC, but it still had to travel relatively slowly, especially in the dark conditions. Several creatures were pursuing the vehicle, not close enough that they were at risk of catching it, but close enough that the man had to maintain his speed or risk being overtaken. As Leonard continued to watch the creatures, he noticed that while there were many pursuing the vehicle, not enough were doing so to offer a clear path for him and Nancy to get back to the APC. Even though Leonard was certain he could take out the few that were currently blocking the path, the hundreds of other creatures within earshot would surely descend upon them faster than they could get in to the vehicle.

  Nancy slowly crawled out next to Leonard and watched the running creatures, curious about the engine noise. "What's going on?"

  Leonard pointed in the direction the vehicle had disappeared in. "Speak of the devil. Looks like our little friend managed to find his way here. He's being chased, though, so I don't think he'll give us any trouble."

  Rubbing her arms, Nancy looked around at the wave of creatures still marching along, discouraged by how long it had been since they had first appeared. "Unless he finds a place to hide, like us, and waits the creatures out."

  That possibility hadn't occurred to Leonard, but he supposed that it could happen. "Well then I guess we'll just have to get our supplies and be gone before he comes out." Pointing east, in the direction that both the creatures and the man had headed, Leonard continued. "We'll be out of the thick of these things first, though, since they're moving west to east. If we don't freeze first, I think we'll be able to get a few things and then get out of here before he comes back."

  Nancy nodded slowly and crawled back into the alcove to take shelter from a sudden gust of wind. "I'm so sick of being in these cities. Every time we go through one, it seems like we end up worse off than we would have been if we had just skipped the damned thing."

  Leonard sighed in agreement, exasperated with the constant challenges brought on by the cities they had visited. "If we can get some coats, hats and gloves and maybe a few more guns, we can just skip any future cities and head straight for Alaska, no more stops."

  "What about refueling?"

  Leonard crawled back next to Nancy, keeping his head tilted to listen for the silence he hoped would arrive soon when the last creature walked past them down below. "Well, I've been refueling in the cities just because we've been stopping there, but every semi that we pass is a potential fuel source. We've been seeing those all the time, so we should be good as long as we can keep finding them."

  Thinking ahead, Leonard didn't know what they would do once they crossed the border and started getting into the more isolated areas, where other vehicles--including tractor-trailers--would become much rarer. The APC was built for long journeys and had a large fuel capacity, but not knowing the exact distance they'd have to travel, Leonard wasn't sure what they would do about that particular problem.

  Somewhere in South Dakota

  Standing at a crossroads, the man scans the horizon for the sixth time, using a pair of binoculars to look from north to south as he tries to decide where the intruders would have gone. Traveling west as they were, he knows that they will eventually have to cross the Missouri river. The problem, though, is that there are so many crossings, he is unsure which one they would head to.

  Reaching into his pocket, he picks up a dented piece of lead, the remnant of the bullet that impacted on the APC, falling to the road in the shape of a pancake. The man sneers, wishing that he had used the armor-piercing rounds that he brought with him, but he pushes the negative thought from his mind. "The Lord works in mysterious ways," he thinks, settling on that as the reason why he has not yet stopped the intruders.

  The man walks to the south along the crossroads several hundred feet, looking at the ground as he goes. Finding nothing, he circles to the west and walks back to his vehicle, searching for any signs that a vehicle passed through the area. Finding nothing, he grows impatient and hurries to the north, quickly scanning back and forth along the ground for any signs of the intruders.

  "What's this?"

  The man bends down and looks at the road. A small patch of rubber was lying on the road, just a few dozen feet after a large pile of cars in the road. Stepping back, the man envisions what happened. In a hurry to escape his vengeance, the intruders went off-road, forced to take their military vehicle into the grass before steering it back onto the highway. In their haste, they lost traction and their tire slipped on the roadway, leaving the small patch of rubber in its wake.

  The man hurries into the grass at the side of the road and crouches down, peeling back the blades. Hidden under the taller, more springy grass lay patches of bruised and broken blades, along with patches of dirt thrown up by the armored vehicle's knobby tires. The man has seen enough and he hurries back to his vehicle, starts the engine and races to the north along the highway.

  "There's only one place they might be headed that has enough supplies to outfit them for wherever they're traveling." The man has a long drive ahead of him, but he is still in familiar country. Using a compass, he cuts through large swathes of land, leaving highways far behind and joining up with new ones as he works to shave off as much time as possible.

  The man glances to the west, seeing a black cloud rolling across the horizon. "Another test? Already? Have I not endured enough?"

  No answer comes to the man.

  Hours later, in the afternoon, the man arrives at the city where he is certain he will find the intruders. For the first time since setting off from the village though, he is not concerned solely with the intruders. Black clouds float overhead, with lightning chaining amongst them, setting off great thunderclaps that distract him from the road. Worse yet, the man sees another horde of demons, seemingly endless as they pour from the city, walking on an inexorable march to the east.

  The man feels fear grip his heart but he fights against it, forcing it down as he drives through the army of creatures, swerving around them to try to find the intruders. Several times along the way to the city he stopped, examining fresh evidence of the intruders' vehicle, confident that he was on the trail. Here in the city, though, surrounded by the demon cohorts of the intruders, the man isn't sure how he can track them down. The demons snap and claw at him as he passes by, but he resists firing upon them. His vehicle is loud enough; there is no sense in drawing more attention to himself before he has located his prey.

  Rachel Walsh | Marcus Warden | David Landry

  3:14 PM, April 13, 2038

  After opening the thick steel door that looked more like the door to a bank vault than an old transportation tunnel, Rachel, Marcus, David, Sam and the strange woman descended down the steep slope. They traveled several floors downward before the tunnel leveled off. Though it had been refitted with carpeting and recessed lighting along the ceiling, it was still obvious that it had been no more than a service tunnel, used for transporting heavy machinery, supplies and whatever the laboratory workers needed from the outside world.

  The tunnel was markedly colder than the laboratory complex had been, and the slow dripping of water indicated that some type of water reserve or piping had broken during the building collapse. The air was stale but breathable, though it was hard to see very well thanks to the low power of the light sources employed by the group. Rachel and David kept their flashlights off, using the EL lights in order to conserve the flashlights' limited battery life. The strange woman was still glowing blue, and she sat atop Bertha which was balanced on the dolly, acting as an odd sort of lighthouse and sentinel as they slowly walked down the tunnel.

  Multiple access tunnels like this one existed, scattered around at strategic points, that had made it easy for each department to get items in and out of the building as quickly as possible. Some of the service tunnels weren't on any official records, and David considered himself lucky that this one was still listed, especially after its main use had been changed. Unfortunately, the age of the tunnel combined with the fact that its latest use was for clandestine activities meant that certain aspects of it weren't as described in the building blueprints. The group learned this fact the hard way as they stood at an intersection in the tunnel, with five separate branches leading off in different directions from the way they came.

  "David..." Rachel stared at him, her tone a mix of worry and frustration. "Where are we supposed to go?"

 

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