To Be A Warrior

Chapter 49: Do You Remember?

"Okay, guys," Sam says softly, almost as if he's afraid he'll disrupt the peacefulness that surrounds us if he speaks too loudly, "you're on the edge of Ram's Gate Forest. Now be careful. This is where things went wrong before."

Janine purses her lips. "Precautions have been made, Mr. Yao. Runner Five and I are carrying extra sidearms, and I imagine Ms. Spens is poised to flee at the first sign of trouble."

"Possibly even sooner, Janine, if it seems like a good idea." Amelia says with a shrug before flipping her blonde hair off her shoulder.

She gets an eyeroll in reply. "Colonel Sage entrusted us with a delivery of vital medical supplies to his New Aberystwyth colony, and we misplaced that delivery. We must correct our mistake. After the affair the necropolis, after he saved..." She trails off, her eyes seeming to get a glazed overlook to them before she shakes it off. "After he saved Runner Five and Dr. Meyers at the sewage plant, we own the man a great debt. Mr. Yao, does Veronica have a direction for us?"

"Yeah, I've got her on Roufflenet. She's calculating the most likely position of the lost supply crate. Ah... Callista?"

"Yes, sweetheart?" I ask as I flick some snow off a low hanging branch, trying not to internally complain about spending my New Year's out in the cold after spending my New Year's Eve out failing a mission.

"Um, yeah. Veronica wanted me to say sorry... again. She might have lost all her memories of her experiments, but she remembers she has to apologize." He sighs and mumbles under his breath, "Yeah, I know how that feels."

I frown. Is he talking about last night? He can't blame himself for what happened. It was a small mistake. He made it because he was trying to get us to safety. None of us were hurt, and the reason we lost the crate was because-

My thoughts are cut off by the moaning of nearby zombies.

"Uh-oh. Sounds like we have company," Amelia says, biting her lip. "Time for me to go, I think."

Janine scowls as she eyes the rustling of snow-covered bushes about fifty feet away. "Those zombies are emerging from patches of woodland behind us, Ms. Spens. The only possible escape route is forward, with us."

"Guys, Veronica says there's a lot of confusion in our reports. She needs to know exactly what happened when we lost the supplies," Sam says, and I cock a brow. How is there confusion in our reports? I'm sure they'd all sound relatively the same, unless someone-ahem, Amelia-lied, but wouldn't Veronica know if there was an outlier that clearly was nothing like the others?

Janine's reply to Sam is a curt nod that he can't see, and I bite my tongue to hold back the question bubbling in my throat. "Give her all the information she needs, Mr. Yao. Five, Ms. Spens, we may be able to lose the zombies in the forest. Run."

I send a glance back at the zombies. It's hard to tell if they're V-Types or not, but it's best not to test our luck. After last night, I can assume it's not on our side. So we're quick to get moving, snow sloshing under our shoes. Well, it's more like slush now. It's harder to stay balanced, but it makes it harder for the zombies, as well.

We have to get rid of the zombies before we find that crate. It was very big and awkward, and unlike last night we don't have a trolley with us. Janine is right to suspect Amelia will abandon us if things go south, because she will. And the two of us will be massively slowed down if we have to carry the crate by ourselves.

A sudden shiver runs up my back, although not from the cold. I glance around, feeling a sudden pressure of dozens of eyes on me, and yet I see nothing.

"Uh, does anyone else feel weird?"

"What do you mean, Runner Five?" Janine asks, and I shrug, grabbing at my backpack strap.