We drove in silence for a few minutes before Blue called out for the driver to stop the truck. It was good he'd done so, because I was starting to get flashes of imagery across my vision which reminded me of the 'short film' I was shown in the cinema. I was so tired. I needed sleep.

I also really wanted to avoid it.

The truck stopped and Blue hopped out, thunking on the side door twice until Green slid it open. Blue pointed at me and gestured for me to get out, moments before adjusting the rifle slung over his shoulder. My heart skipped a beat, the static hum screaming, but then he tipped his helmet back and gave me a wink, which made me feel kind of stupid and paranoid.

"Why're we stopping?" asked Red.

"Found any other journos?" asked the driver.

"Found one of our own, dead," said Blue. "Not to worry. It's Dickerson, the dick! Looks like someone snapped his neck, or he snapped his neck running. Important thing is that we can get out easier if our journo's uniformed up."

I shuddered again. I'd been fantasizing about a change of clothes since I first slipped up in the muck but a dead man's uniform hadn't been what I'd had in mind. "Why would that help?"

Red smiled, seeming to suddenly get it. "We can lie our way past our apparent desertion but not if we've picked up the people we were supposed to kill." She got up and unslung her rifle, or whatever it was (I'd never known much about guns). Hopping out of the truck, she popped down her helmet and took a look around, the gun pointing where she faced.

Blue dragged the corpse into sight and gestured emphatically for me to get out. I did so, with a heavy heart. I really didn't want to peer the gore-slick clothing off my body until I could get into a shower, let alone step into someone else's gear. At least he looked about my size. That was something, at least. His helmet was horribly dented. Maybe the Walrider found him before he'd found me? Best not to think about that.

"Underwear and all," said Blue. "We have regulation standard. Best go all the way."

It took longer to strip the corpse, due to rigor mortis setting in, than for me to take my kit off. Red didn't bother looking away to give me any modesty nor did she check me out. I don't know why but that bugged me a little. It was good to just suddenly be a part of the group, which was probably what her idly ignoring me meant, but it also made me feel a little less … human? As though I were just wallpaper.

Maybe because in my world it would just be damn impolite and I was desperately eager to return to my world.

It was only when Blue was slipping my shirt on the corpse that my mistake became apparent.

"Eh?" said Blue. "You already swapped garb?" He pointed to the bullet holes that riddled the shirt that had been mostly invisible under all the clotted blood that had covered my chest.

"Yeah, something like that," was all I could mutter.

Blue gave me a funny look, but Red just picked up the dead guy's rifle and gave it to me. "No, like this," she said when I held it wrong, correcting the way I wore and held it. I gave her a grateful look. Maybe I'd get out of here anyway.

We got back on the truck and kept driving until the dirt became asphalt. I wasn't surprised to see the cordon, though I was amazed to see the plastic sheeting draped off the ten foot high poles and the searchlights. Bit hard to keep this quiet, surely. Also made me wonder if they had cordoned off the whole mountain. The idea of just how much the whole thing would cost to glad wrap the mountain made me snort with laughter, drawing me worried looks from the others.

I took the memory disk from my camera and threw the device out the window as we rounded some shrubbery. It pained me to lose my camera, broken as it was, but I needed to keep the memory card on me. If there was one thing left to keep me moving in this world, other than a Walrider intent on keeping me alive, it was the card.

A man in uniform hailed the car down while others pointed their guns at us. I couldn't help but cower a little on the bench, wondering if the Walrider could keep me alive through a hailfire of bullets or if the Walrider were even here anymore. Sadly enough its absence made me afraid rather than relieved which showed what kind of a life I'd been living so far.

"You're not meant to be here, soldier," said the man via a microphone. "You're meant to be securing Mount Massive and retrieving the doctor. Why are all your headsets off in turn?"

Red left the truck through the sliding door and came around the front, which let me still see her. If she were to betray me at any point, it would be now. "I ordered our retreat, sir."

"You have no authority to do that," said the man.

"I've retrieved vital information on the situation," said Red. "The patients are most certainly in charge of the place and they seem to be getting back up from some … entity."

The man sneered at her. "Entity?"

"Yes, sir." She paused to look back at the truck but her eyes didn't seek mine out, which was good, they looked at the driver instead. "The entity seemed to be tracking our signals to determine where we were, or so I surmised. I turned off our signals and we were no longer hunted by the entity. Since we couldn't risk sending a message over the air lest it be intercepted or draw the entity to us I thought it necessary to return with the survivors of my team and one survivor from Gold Team to ensure that you were suitably advised of this precaution."

I breathed a sigh of relief. She was maintaining my cover.

The man's sneer dropped away and he looked at Red with a brief flash of respect before his expression grew triumphant and more than a little greedy. Maybe he saw his bonus when he looked at her. "Good choice. I underestimated you." Then he paused. "Or perhaps I didn't. We were advised not to send a mixed gender team into Mount Massive but I took the risk."

"Risk, sir?" asked Red.

He nodded. "Nothing, serious, but you will need to have a full medical in seven days time."

"The fuck," muttered Blue.

"For now, though, you need to all step out of the truck and head on to the debriefing center," said the man in charge. "We have a bus waiting just outside the perimeter."

Red nodded, then turned and gestured to her men.

Fuck…

I felt the fear coil within me and I was pretty sure I wouldn't be able to stand but Green grabbed me by the arm and yanked me to my feet, manhandling me through the door and then I was down in the light, surrounded by guns, feeling more exposed than ever before. I self-consciously adjusted my rifle, straightened my back, and followed my new found 'friends' through a door in the plastic to the armour plated bus that waited just beyond the cordon.

So much for going home.