"Woohoo!" Nadia cheers, and I tense as wind rushes by me. She revs her motor, laughing like an excited child. "Ah, adapted bike is working like a dream, Five. Thanks for coming to test it with me. I am running rings around you!"
Nicole rolls her eyes, crossing her arms as she watches Nadia ride around in her bike. "How long do we have to stay out here again?"
"You didn't have to come, you know," I reply, and the taller girl shrugs.
"I know, but it's not like I can do much else. Sam doesn't like giving you away that often, so I couldn't run the mission, and this is a mission of lesser importance, so I can come out here and actually do something. Unlike you, my rest break from important missions is permanent."
"Oh, because of your hand..."
"Yes, because no one seems to understand I have two hands and can shoot just as well with my left as I could my right." She sneers, but then relaxes. "But at least Nadia's having a good time."
I hear Sam laugh over my headset. "I can't believe Amelia managed to get that out together for you, Nadia. Where'd she even manage to get the parts?"
The bike comes screeching to a stop, and Nadia kills the motor. She frowns, her furrowed brows hidden beneath her bright pink glasses.
"It wasn't her. It was me. I designed it. Put together a spec. I wanted something that would go at a fast running pace and would go for days without a battery recharge. Amelia just advised me on who to do swapsies with to get what I needed. These handlebars? Literally, it was a chain of about eighteen swaps. I think that piece of moon rock from the science museum was in the chain somewhere."
"Uh, okay," He says, sounding impressed. "Uh, well, you've tested it pretty convincingly on a variety of terrain there. Now you're halfway up the mountain and uh, yeah-just about edging into Cleft Ridge Settlement territory."
"I'm guessing they aren't our friends, judging by how you said their name," Nicole asks, frowning when Sam scoffs. "What? You don't expect me to keep up with all these stupid ass names, do you? I swear you guys just use a random word generator to create your township names."
"Well, every place with normal names has been destroyed or put in peril at some point. Red Settlement was invaded with zombies, Noah Base was invaded and I was captured and tortured, and Abel has been blown up, overthrown, and is facing invasion-"
Sam is cut off by the coms door opening and closing.
"Mr. Yao, a matter of urgency," Janine says in a clipped voice. "Which runners do we have in the field? Anyone near Barnabas Enclave?"
"See?" Nicole says in exasperation.
"Um, well, yeah," Sam says, ignoring her. "Runner Five and Nicole are out with Nadia near-ish there. What is it?"
"Ah, Miss Al Hanaki, I see your adapted vehicle is working well. Excellent. I have a matter of the highest importance for you. Listen very carefully."
"Because I will only say this once," Sam jokes, his voice becoming low and serious. I bite my lip to keep from laughing.
"I will repeat it as often as needed, Mr. Yao," She snaps, "but time is of the essence. The Minister is planning an invasion of Abel Township. We learned that she was sending out her invasion plans, but not precisely when or where. Dr. Kitnis told us which of Sigrid's generals and aides had the weakest security systems-"
"Yes, Janine, we heard all this three days ago," Nicole interrupts, and I stare at her, horrified. Sometime I forget how blunt Nicole can be, even to people with power.
"My Pit Viper assassins have been surveilling them since the meeting. A briefcase which I believe contains the invasions plans has been delivered to the home of General Victory in Barnabas Enclave today."
Sam snorts. "General Victory? What? That's actually his name?"
"He's a highly decorated war hero."
"Okay, so the assassins are picking it up from Victory's house?"
"They attempted to gain direct access to the village, but they fell afoul of plain clothed Ministry guards and have been detained. They will free themselves without causing casualties, but that will take some time."
"And time's what we don't have," Nadia says with a frown. "Every day makes Sigrid more friends. We'll go in over the mountains, not by the main road. And then we'll have got ourselves one step ahead of Sigrid's plans. Let's go."
Before Nicole or I can say anything, she turns her bike back on and starts speeding towards the mountain. I look at Nicole, and I'm surprised to see excitement on her face. She usually isn't one for a sudden turn of events.
But I suppose she's excited to be able to do runs that have actual meaning. Because of her hand, she's usually put on supply runs, sometimes as a runner and sometimes as an operator. She doesn't enjoy either. After running dangerous missions while at the A.M.T.B., or running them before Ian had her hand smashed, she sees this as an insult. She believes these 'easy' missions could be done by anyone. Why make her do them instead of more important missions?
I guess she sees this as a chance to actually do something. I understand it, in a way. I can't stand when I'm put on rest period.
So, we follow Nadia. She seems to enjoy looking back at us as she revs her bike. Nicole rolls her eyes, but she seems impressed at how the steady the bike is as it goes over the rocks and dirt roads. Nadia always hates it when Abel's roads get too worn and she has trouble getting her wheelchair to go through the bumps and dips in the road. It makes sense that she would put in extra effort to make sure missions wouldn't be bumpy rides.
"Uh, some of that terrain looks rough," Sam says after a few minutes of running and riding. "Nadia, are you sure your bike is up to it?"
"Only one way to find out," She replies. "We've come over the crest of this first hill. Which way now?"
"Right. Uh, right. Uh, you're heading for a little mountain village. You're going to need to cross the mountain pass by Cleft Ridge to get to it. That's the quickest way."
"Quickest and most dangerous?" Nicole guesses.
"Uh, yeah, well, isn't that always the way?"
She gives a small smile at that.
"Uh, yep. There's a few shamblers. Rambler shamblers, at that," He grimaces. "Half of them are caught up on the barbed wire. Ugh. By the look of them, they could have been there since the apocalypse."
"You say the most romantic things," I sigh, although as I look northeast, towards the barbed wire, I see them and make the same face I'm sure he wears. "Ew. Don't see zoms like that much anymore."
"Just think," Nadia says, "if we had Sigrid's miraculous medicine, we wouldn't need to run at all."
My steps falter. I always knew that was the end goal of this, stopping the apocalypse, no more running... but hearing it said like that...
Being a runner is all I've known since I was twelve. Thinking about no longer being one, no longer having to run... It sounds so foreign, like a fantasy or dream that's never going to happen.
What would become of me then? I know we've had hope of ending the apocalypse before, but things have changed since then. I've never really had that much of a plan, not really.
"Yeah, uh, well, we're working on getting some more of it," Sam says, snapping me out of my thoughts. "After she helped Dr. Kitnis on updating the standard Junin2 vaccine, Janine agreed to let Veronica have a go at replicating the cure, but she'd need quite a few vials to analyze, and she's still working on that earpiece for Five."
"So, it's running for us then," Nadia says, and she grimaces when some of the zombies start pulling themselves from the barbed wire. I guess it wouldn't be too hard with how rotten they are. They're definitely old enough to have infectious blood. "Come on, Five, Nicole. We can outpace them."
She revs her bike and surges forward, and we follow. The zombies continue pulling themselves from the wire and start shambling after us, their steps more like shuffles on the dirt ground. I resist the urge to frown. Were these things really what doomed humanity? Were these things really what killed over half the world's population?
Sometimes I forget how terrifying regular zombies were to us because we hadn't seen so much worse. There was a time I didn't know semi-sentient zombies existed, or that people could be immune, or that unkillable zombies existed, or that things like the Glass Protocol existed.
They did, of course. Those V-Type zombies have been around far longer than the ones that killed nearly everyone on the planet, but because we didn't know that, our zombies were the scariest things we knew. I mean, we've grown used to it now, but seeing the dead walk was pretty horrifying as a twelve-year-old.
The zombies behind us snarl and groan, probably upset that they can't catch up. They won't. Their muscles are shredded from the barbed wire, and they've been stagnant for so long I doubt their limbs can even remember how to move. It doesn't take long before they're out of sight completely, and we continue on through the pass.
"No sign of anyone from Cleft Ridge yet, so I guess we're lucky today," Nadia says, and I cringe. Even Nicole gives the older woman a questioning look.
"Yeah, never say that, remember?" Sam says, and she rolls her eyes.
"You know, Sam, I have given up on superstition. I used to believe it in-rabbit's foot and all that, but it didn't do me much good." She lets out a huff. "I was an air traffic controller. A plane I was directing crashed because the pilot turned zom. I fell for Lem. He died. I was falling for Owen. Ian shot him. I got shot in the spine. If anyone gets to say I'm having a lucky day, it's me, alright?"
"Fair enough."
"And any day I don't get shot and no one I love gets shot, that's a lucky day. Also, aren't you religious, believing in a higher power and all that? I doubt God will just change His mind about how our days goes just because I said so."
"Well, yeah, that's true," I pipe in with a shrug. "But there's still that weird fear that you jinxed it, ya know? I've been a Christian all my life, but I still get all weird when I walk under a ladder or break a mirror. I don't even believe in that kind of stuff!"
"It's because you've been taught that superstition gives you some sort of control in a terrifyingly meaningless universe where the government of your country is against you, and your best hope is that the various untrustworthy grifters and ex-military spooks you know will use their powers for you and not against you." She replies. "Some may say that's the same for religion, but the difference is you don't have control when you're trusting a higher power. You just trust that higher power has control and will use that control to help you when you need it the most."
I blink. "Huh. Yeah, you've hit the nail right on the head. I've already accepted the fact that my life's gone to shit and I have basically no control over anything, and the control I do have is miniscule, but I'm not dead yet, so that's a plus."
"It's a confusing world. I went to work with Amelia because I thought, 'I can trust someone who always outs her own interests first. And if I can't trust her, at least she won't let me down.'"
Sam hums. "Yeah. I hear she's uh, really popular at New Canton."
"Oh yeah! She's got it working really well. No endless meetings, no more advisory committees. They wanted to put up a statue for her, but she said, 'For God's sake, I'm not a populist dictator. If you want to do something nice for me, install a copper-lined bath in my quarters."
"And did they?"
"They did!"
"Oh, yeah, it's weird, but I sort of miss hanging out with her a bit now."
"I don't," I grumble, which earns a laugh from Sam and an amused look from Nicole.
"Zoe's got her to agree to try and get A.N.N.I.E. to replicate the immune baby version of the Junin2 vaccine, but she's still not talking to me directly. I think it was because Five launched a fork at her during her last visit."
"She had no right to-" I start, my voice cracking from anger and embarrassment.
"Yes, yes, I know. You screamed about her having no right to ask those kinds of questions for about twenty minutes, even after stating that you had no words. With how little you paused for lack of air, I'm surprised you didn't pass out."
"I must have missed that dinner," Nadia says. "Now I'm curious."
I glare at her, my face still flaming at the memory. I still wish Amelia hadn't ducked as quick as she did after I threw that fork. Still, I'm glad it scared her enough to stay away from both me and Sam. There're certain things you just don't ask about, especially in public.
And I know she was doing it just to piss me off, which it did.
"Hmm... those shamblers from before seemed to have caught back up to you," Sam says, drawing my attention back to the present. "Even though they're slow, they seem impressively agile at shambling on that loose shale. It's probably the good quality walking boots on the rotten feet."
I start to reach behind to grab my axe, but Sam is quick to speak to stop me.
"Ah-ah-ah. Don't even think about it. We don't have time for you to kill those zoms and steal their shoes."
"Why not?" I whine.
"Because we don't have time, and I doubt you could wear those shoes anyway."
"Sam."
"Pick up the pace, Five," He says softly, and I huff, resisting the urge to pout.
"Fine."
•
"Okay, you've definitely lost those zoms now," Sam says cheerily, and I raise a brow.
"You sure? They seemed rather persistent."
"Yep. One of them caught on another one's crampons and now they're tangled up with a bunch of walking line. You're good."
"Are we good though, Sam?" Nicole asks with a pinched face as she looks ahead.
"Ah, now, is this another existential question? I mean, what is good in a world governed by fascists and isolationists and zombies?"
"No," She deadpans. "There's a car up on that ridge. Don't you think it's going awfully slow?"
"Oh, what, do you think someone's following you?"
"Where are we now?" I ask. "Have we crossed into Attell Settlement?"
"Uh," I hear him ruffle through some of the papers, along with a clatter and a bitten off curse. "Uh, yeah. Yeah, you have."
"Makes sense. They're Sigrid loyalist now. They were fence-sitting, but they signed up to her last week."
"And how do you know that?" Sam sounds surprised, which makes me guess he didn't know.
"Milo told me."
He chokes. "And how the hell did he find that out?"
"I told him," Nadia replies. "A few days ago, just before I went back to Fort Canton. Amelia has me kept up to date on all of this. Slightest change in alliances means our runners make trades in completely different spots."
Nicole raises a brow in interest. "I didn't think you had time to travel to New Canton and operate runs, what with you helping Veronica with her research."
Nadia frowns. "Wait-Milo hasn't told you?"
"Told her what?" I ask, and her eyes widen.
"He hasn't told you? None of you?" She pauses. "Oh."
"What?"
"I haven't been helping Veronica in her labs. Haven't for weeks."
I stare at her in shock. "What? But then why are you-"
"I like helping you out with the wedding, and I still like to talk to Milo. He's a good kid, and since he's just a lab assistant, a very low-level lab assistant, most of the others who work with Ronnie don't talk to him, and he doesn't have many friends his own age."
"But why'd you stop working with her?"
"I..." She trails off. "We can discuss this later. We need to keep going, especially if we're being followed."
"Do you think Attell would know about the delivery of the invasion plans?" Sam asks, and Nadia seems grateful that he didn't try to bring things back to the previous topic.
"If they did, there wouldn't be just one car after us. I think they might know we've come from Abel and Fort Canton though. We'd be a good prize in trade, and if Janine's assassins have been taken at the border, they're probably spooked."
"I have an idea," Nicole says. "I can't take them out with my pistol. They're a bit too far away for that. Plus you Abel people don't like it when there are causalities."
"Why do you say that like it's a bad thing?" Sam asks accusingly. She ignores him.
"Nadia, you should keep on here, make some noise, make them think they're still on our tail. Singer and I will head down this path here." She points up ahead towards a path with a paddock gate. "We can open it and let the sheep stray on the road, and the car will have no way through."
"Wow, good plan," Sam says, still sounding slightly miffed. "You organize your runners like that?"
"At the A.M.T.B., you must be good at job if you want to get your dinner, or anything, really. Come on, Singer."
Nadia speeds off, revving her engine to keep the driver's attention while Nicole and I head down the path. It's pretty easy to make it up the path. There aren't any rocks that would trip us up nor are they any zombies milling around the gates or the sheep, despite the amount of noise they're making.
Even though I don't believe in luck, Nadia might be right when she says today is a good day for us.
I open the lock, since it's easier to do so with two hands, but Nicole's the one who opens the gate and urges out the sheep onto the road. I let her. While sheep aren't as stubborn as goats, I don't doubt they'd kick me just for the fun of it.
With the sheep flowing out onto the road, we head forward. It'd be stupid to try to go on through the sheep to catch up with Nadia. We'll have to go around, over a hillock in order to meet up with her again.
And it's a few minutes later I hear a horn honking impatiently, followed by Nadia's obnoxious laughter.
"Ha! Yeah, good luck with that, mate. Honking your car horn is well known to make sheep do exactly what you want them to. It's magic like that. The louder you honk, the more control you have over the minds of sheep. Common knowledge."
"Were you always this salty?" Sam asks with a smile in his voice.
"I'm a realist, Sam. Might as well enjoy the simple pleasures while we have them, eh? It's a good, brisk day for a ride, we've an important mission, and we managed to get a very angry person stuck in a herd of sheep."
Nicole grins wickedly. "I like you, Nadia."
"Thanks. That'd make you the third teenager I've made an emotional connection with."
"Oh," Sam says. "Oh, wow. It's-it's weird. Nicole, I know Five's talked about you before. Like, her little sister, but it's like, with all the stories and everything you've done in Abel, I sometimes forget that you're still a teenager."
She shrugs. "Well, I turn eighteen in June, but yeah. I'm still technically a child. But Singer did most of her saving the world before she was an adult, and you've known Veronica for what, three years now? I thought you'd be used to it."
"Not really used to it. We just... forget about it."
I don't say anything. It wasn't just them who forgot how young I really was, or anyone. I would forget it too. I would forget that it's a lot for a fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, even eighteen and nineteen-year-old to go through what I've gone through. I suppose seeing so many movies about teenagers being the 'Chosen One' made it easy to believe this was something I was meant to do.
I think Nicole makes a few more comments about age, going into a few things about the A.M.T.B. She's more open about them now. She doesn't seem like she is defecting, per se, but it's becoming increasingly clear her loyalties no longer lie with them. I have mixed emotions about it.
I stay quiet when we head over the hillock and meet back up with Nadia, and when we reach Barnabas Enclave. It's easy to get into the village itself, surprisingly. I know I went out without wearing my Abel uniform today, but the guard didn't even check for weapons at the gate.
I suppose that's good for us, because I can only guess the amount of knives Nicole could have hidden on her person. But maybe the guard didn't bother to check us because Nicole is still a child with a battered right hand, Nadia is in a bike because she can't walk, and he must not recognize my face.
But as we go in, I do notice how the guard's hand hovers over his pistol, as if waiting to see if we'll make any sudden moves. I make sure to keep an eye out as we move through the town.
It's a nice town. Sam comments that it looks normal, like before. I have no reference to what shops were here before, since I didn't come to England until after the apocalypse, but it looks peaceful, with a teashop and a few cafes.
"It's always so weird to see places this normal nowadays," Sam says. His voice holds a mixture of awe and discomfort. I find myself nodding in agreement. Seeing normal towns like this makes me believe I'm in some type of fever dream or hallucinating like I did when Simon gave me the cure for the mind control.
"I guess if Sigrid has her cure, her idea is that it might be like this everywhere soon," Nadia says. "Zombie bite no worse than a nasty cut."
"Yeah, except we'd all have to subscribe to her weird Wakened Land agenda." He shudders. "Alright, so General Victory's house is that little one just at the end of the road."
I almost laugh when I see it. It's cute, quaint, but so well kept. It has white trim on the windows, and shingles on the roof! Like, actual shingles that aren't falling apart or missing any.
"Five, Nic, if you could sneak in and get the case, you'll be golden."
Nicole crosses her arms. "And how do you propose we do that? We're not getting in via the front or backdoor, that's for certain."
"Why? What's wrong with the doors?"
She nudges me with her elbow, side eyeing one of the men eating strudel at the cafe, then the busker on the street corner. It only takes me a second to see what she's silently trying to tell me.
They both have guns in their back pockets, and the busker's got an earpiece in.
I guess security's not as laidback as we thought.
Sam hums when I tell him what we see. "Ah, okay. Nadia, I need you to stay here and keep an eye on them. Five, Nicole, you two will have to go in via the rood. Head down to the end of the street, climb the trellis on the first house, and then run back along the roof. Go now!"
•
"No movement down here," Nadia whispers. "The spooks on the street are all watching me. I don't think they care to see where Five or Nicole ran off to."
"Okay, Five, Nicole, you're on the right house. Five, you've got an emergency cam in your backpack. Clip it to your front. They haven't got a lot of better, but it should help me get you both in safely."
I reach behind me and unzip my backpack to pull out the small camera. I clip it to the front of my shirt. It's small, and comfortable.
I turn on the camera and carefully head towards the back of the house, Nicole following close behind. It's hard not to lose my footing as I make my way to the half-open window. The room is dark so I can only assume it's unoccupied.
I slowly push the window open and we climb inside. It's an attic, if the old boxes and thick layer of dust are any indications.
"Good, good," Sam praises. "Now head downstairs. General Victory's office is at the front of the building."
I lower down the ladder to the main floor. The ladder creaks and bends, but it doesn't break. Nicole follows and puts everything back in its place. We can't have anyone knowing we're here.
"We're sure this guy isn't going to be in his office when we open the door, right?" Nicole asks, her hands inching towards her pistol.
"No, no. He should be out enjoying the festival today."
She nods curtly. "Good."
I open the door to his office, which he surprisingly left unlocked. Even more surprisingly, he left the briefcase just lying on the desk. A laugh bubbles from my lips before I have the chance to stop it.
"God is smiling on us today," I giggle.
"Right?" Sam laughs, seeming just as awestruck as I am. "Well, if you do this right, you should be in and out of there, unseen, in under thirty seconds-"
"What the hell?" Nicole says in alarm, grabbing her pistol.
I turn and gasp, grabbing my axe as I see a laser cutting through the wall of the corridor. The laser stops, and the wall collapses, bits of glass and wood flying everywhere. Nicole readies herself to pull the trigger, but I grab her arms and jerk her away before she can.
"Wait!" I scream, and I hear a gasp in surprise and excitement.
"Legs!" Valmont exclaims, a wide grin on his face. "You do crop up in the most fascinating places. What are you doing here?" He stares at Nicole for a moment. "Did you adopt another child or something?"
"I'm her sister," She spits out, her face pinched. "Who the hell are you?"
"Oh, I guess you two haven't met yet," Sam says. "Nicole, meet Brent Valmont, the world's most enthusiastic billionaire."
"I can hear you, Sam," Valmont says, keeping his smile. "I managed to source an Abel headset and had it coded to my A.N.N.I.E. earpiece. Nice to chat, buddy. Long time, no see."
"Yeah, so you're in the office of Sigrid's top generals, having just cut your way through a wall. Does this seem like a good time for a catch-up?"
He nods. "Oh, right. Right. Yep. I was actually here for some information. A.N.N.I.E. told me there was a 98% chance that I'd be able to pick up a briefcase with some of Sigrid's plans in it without being spotted. I know I should have just sent a drone or something, but I just miss the adventure. Are you here for the briefcase too?"
"Obviously! Oh, just go and get it. We can argue over dibs later."
Valmont shrugs and heads over to the desk, and I follow. Nicole watches, looking bewildered.
"By the way," Valmont says casually, "a few Pit Viper assassins were detained at the border. A.N.N.I.E. thinks they'll get the blame for this break-in, so we're all in the clear. Let's get a look at those documents, and then we can have some lunch, Five. Your sister can come, too, if she wants. Her name was on your file. What was it? Katelyn? Yes, Katelyn. You can come to lunch too, Katelyn."
"Fine, fine," She says. "Just get the briefcase."
"Right to business, I see. Five, would you like to do the honors? Just press those two clasps at the same time."
"Easy enough." I shrug. I press the clasps, but the briefcase doesn't open. Instead it starts beeping.
"Uh, what's the sound?" Sam asks, and Valmont frowns.
"No idea. A.N.N.I.E., what's that..." He trails off. "She says to look at the front of the briefcase where it's uh-oh, yeah. There it is. There it is. Asking for a passcode."
Nicole curses.
"We don't have a passcode, do we?" He asks. "No, no, I didn't think so. Always worth checking."
"What's happening? What'd I do?" I ask, and Valmont rubs his arm a bit nervously.
"Right. Um, A.N.N.I.E. says that the briefcase had a fingerprint check, and we tripped it. If we don't get this case de-alerted at one of the Ministry facilities within the next thirty minutes, it'll self-destruct... and spit out poison gas... and broadcast our location and what happened here to the Ministry."
"What?!" Sam shrieks.
He nods, forcing a smile. "So that's uh, three ways we could be dead in the next half hour."
A/N: Here you go, guys! I hope you enjoyed this chapter! I've decided to dedicate it to jettmanas Please be sure to vote and comment! Thank you and have a blessed day!