"Listen. Thump, thump, thump. Can you hear that? My blessed little heart is –"

The sound waves mumbled out of existence as the radio tipped backward, disturbing a heavy layer of dust that had learnt to call the bench top below it home. He drew his fist away from it, satisfied that he had come between the air waves and their audience, and slumped back in his chair.

"Really?" Danger raised an eyebrow, though with less annoyance in her voice than curiosity.

"Oh, come on, you know it's all Living Industries bullshit now, anyway."

She let her brow fall and flexed her shoulders out backward. Maybe he'd had a point – she'd been cramped up in there too long to know what was real world and what was 'Bloody Living Industries' propaganda anymore, anyway.

"Screw you, Kev," Caitlin shot, squaring her shoulders as she strode back into the bar's main room. "I was listening to that."

"You weren't even in the room – "

"Kids, we're in hiding. Mind not kill each other?" Danger sighed. "Seeing as I'd be the one who had to clean up your messy corpses, anyway."

Caitlin shrugged and sidled up to lean on the bar beside the other two. She grabbed a handful of plain, out of date chip crumbs from a brown plastic bowl on the bar top, "I see I missed lunch."

"What took so long anyway? You were only supposed to walk the east boundary – "

Caitlin shrugged again, popping a crumbling chip into her mouth. She chewed it slowly and swallowed it before answering, "Found some dracs."

"Kill them?" Danger asked, though she knew the answer.

"Easy as pie."

"Anyone follow you back here?" Kev asked boredly.

"We're practically in the middle of the desert," she dusted her greasy hands on her black jeans. "What do you think?" she waited a moment. "So what's on for the rest of the day?"

"I thought we'd play a little scrabble and finish with a nice roast dinner, courtesy of Bloody Living Industries," he told her sarcastically.

"Also known as the same as we did yesterday, and the day before." Danger answered slowly, letting the opportunity to tell everyone off slide, even though she'd have enjoyed it.

"Hiding is so much fun."

Outside, the air was hot and still. The desert had a way of making every day feel that way. Even if this wasn't really the desert – zone three was dry, but sometimes it rained, and a few native trees had managed to grow around the bar where the parking lot once might have been.

Through the computer's binocular eyes, these were large grey lumps of leaves and dust, providing a wonderful place to position oneself, but a hindrance to the eye. Zach tucked himself back down in the bush, numb as it's pines dug holes in his calves. Inside, there was little movement – a girl reach for something on a table top, and moments before that a large square object had toppled down, but that was all he'd seen.

He rubbed the skin on his forearms which was slowly peeling back to reveal the layer of flesh covering his bone, and glanced over at his accomplice in the treetop a few yards away from the building. The General had decided to send them all out in pairs after – well, that one time – which was, if you asked him (even though no one ever did) ridiculous, because he was more than capable of handling himself. One measly set of three "baddies" as it were wouldn't put him off at all. But rules were rules, even if this new partner kept dragging him into trouble.

For instance, she'd stumbled on her leg (it wasn't his fault that she'd come broken!) and almost attracted the attention of the one who had patrolled the boundaries earlier – but he caught her and, thankfully, she didn't. There it was, Zach to the rescue again, and no one ever thanked him, did they? Killed all these bad guy Killjoy types and what did he get? Not even a pat on the back (which was okay because his ribs were about three inches too close to poking straight through his esophagus anyway after the last cliff dive he'd accidentally taken).

Zach tensed automatically as he heard movement behind him. He glanced up to see whether his partner – Valory, actually – had sensed it too. She looked oblivious so, probably not. Slowly, he craned his neck (he was getting roughly 150 degree angles these days – ever since he snapped the majority of the bone out) to check out the scenario.

A small, boxy green car was sending red dirt flying into the air about a mile away, tearing toward them at speeds that never would have been allowed when he was alive (and definitely not when he was Mayor of this damn town, either, thank you very much). It was, by his count, roughly point five of a second before it swung to a messy stop, barely avoiding a collision with the building's otherwise graffiti-scarred face.

A young girl clambered out of the driver's seat – what was left of a seat – as soon as the engine cut. She put her hands on her knees for a second, unaware she was being watched, and fought to catch her breath. Her face was flushed with red and – and then she was gone. A flash of grey as Valory leapt at her, clawed at her neck. The girl yelped, more out of anger than fright, Zach thought, as her back hit solid ground.

"VALORY!" he croaked, "VALORY! STOP – WRONG KILLJOY!"

But she either couldn't, or wouldn't hear him.

The bar's door opened merely seconds later, and Valory's body suddenly started jerking and twitching on the ground.

Zach pulled his own gun – a pathetic weapon, but the only one at hand – aimed and fired . One of their own fell just Valory had, though if it were fatal he couldn't tell before he was scampering to his feet and running toward them. He supposed they'd seen him now. Oops.

The girl – dark hair, black vest, yellow shirt (he noted) kicked his partner out the way forcefully and grabbed the one Valory had taken down. Looked up at the other, taller one – a man – before half-dragging, half-walking her inside.

He got a clear view of the one he'd shot still rolling on the ground – leg hit, what a shame, he'd have to kill her after.

But for now, the only one that remained standing – the guy with, he noticed, a much more powerful looking gun than he had – was the trouble he was in.

"What's your name?" Danger flinched there was a flash of light fluorescent outside, but didn't look away from the beat up Killjoy sitting on the barstool in front of her. She looked at Danger and snapped a chip in her mouth.

"Racheal," she said nonchalantly. "Yours?"

"Danger."

"Real name?"

"Forgot it a long time ago."

Racheal nodded.

Danger paused for a second and glanced up toward the window. She stood up and slunk toward the front door. Leaning on the wall, she peered out and sighed. "Car." She closed her eyes for a second and then pressed off from the wall. Looking at Racheal, she ordered "You, stay there," and slid outside.

In the few seconds it had taken Danger to bark some orders at Racheal and negotiate the door, things had escalated. She blinked at the scene before her. Two dead Zombies. And a third – who had just stumbled out of her car. In front of the newcomer stood Kev on one side and Caitlin next to him. Kev pressed a shiny black ray gun to her head – hitting a spot on her forehead right next to where the tip of Caitlin's red ray gun dug into her skin. She held up both of her arms, a ray gun in each, and each ray gun pressed at one of the two Killjoys' head. Like one big violent, fatal embrace.

Danger blinked again. "Whassup guys?"