In which Zofia looks for the wink of a wall past a lot of green, and Kyle Crane wants to give pats.


Puppy!


"Where's the wall?"

Zofia craned her neck left and right, tried to gain a few inches on her toes while she was at it, but had no luck either way she looked. No wall. Which, come to think of it, was an absolute joy. A joy that was still shy and timid, though it'd become easier to feel it tickling at her heart.

Wasn't the only thing tickling either. With a light huff, she swept the back of her hand across her forehead, brushed some stray hair from it. It'd got longer, and soon she'd be at it with scissors and ill intent. Or maybe she'd ask Crane to. Or Meghan. Meghan probably knew how to cut it much better than him. Since she had hair. More, anyway. More than Crane.

So. Zofia rubbed some sweat from her brow.

Okay: the wall. That bloody thing— it had to be somewhere, somewhere past all those pretty hills that rolled on and on.

She sniffed. Wiped her knuckles up and down her nose, which'd started twitching a little, as if it tried to figure out whether or not it ought to break out with a case of ill timed hay-fever.

This was the entirely wrong season for it, wasn't it? Plus, she'd never had hay-fever before. Why start now?

Anyway. She liked hills. And there were lots of them.

Liked them better than the bleak clusters of concrete blocks of the slums, or the densely crowded, white spires topped in copper that made Old Town what it was. Did prefer the trees— their leaves still vivid —to light-poles with their bulbs long dead, too.

Not like civilisation wasn't trying out here, mind you. It was. Though it'd taken a real good beating, been reduced to a broken, derelict shadow of what had once been.

Like that motorway little ways behind them. Once the main thoroughfare between the harbour, slash tourist, village and Harran, it'd fallen apart when the apocalypse had decided to move in.

Or someone had decided to slow the flood of people fleeing Harran City by blowing the supports.

Either or.

They'd crossed under its ruined shadow only a few minutes ago. Climbed over rubble and fallen street signs, pointing to no-where good any more, and taken careful sniffs at cars that'd slid off.

Some'd had people in them when they'd fallen. Those people hadn't got out. Were now no more than dried up husks slumped over steering wheels or withered skeletons with clothes on them that laughed through grimey windows with their jaws hanging open. Or entirely fallen off.

Zofia shivered. What would she have done if she'd gotten stuck out there? Tried to make it back to Harran? Get held up? Turned away? Or would she have poured out with a flood of refugees? Might have even made it, if she'd been quick? Slipped right through before the curtain'd gone up.

Unlikely.

Besides— she sighed. It'd kind of—

turned out well? Are you mad?

Her wrist itched and she scratched at it. Scratched the bracelet too, the thing that sat tied on snugly so it wouldn't get caught on anything. And with the touch of her fingers on the leather came a well of uncomfortable heat collecting in her chest. So she forced her hand to return to the map, grip it proper.

It pre-dated the outbreak. The map. That was evident by how the wall was missing, since no one had bothered penciling it in. Inconsiderate.

Her thoughts caught on that. Then veered right off and said, No. No, it hasn't turned out well at all, what are you on about?

Oh bother, will you just shut up, she sniped back at herself. Twitched and fidgeted and almost considered bundling up the map, tossing it, and marching off to go take a swim in cold water. Somewhere.

"Down the highway," Meghan called, jostling Zofia's thoughts back together. A glance over her shoulder showed Meghan jabbing a hand into a somewhat north-ish direction, though even there all she saw were more hills and trees and blue skies.

How bloody far did that quarantine go ?

Spread across the green lay a patchwork of browns and yellows, broken up by splotches of colour where autumn flowers bloomed. Most prominent was the deep red of poppies hemming wheat fields that'd missed their harvest. Twice. The group had passed corn too, the growth of wasted seasons rotting away, and a few tractors abandoned mid work as farmers had been caught off guard when things had gone tits up in a hurry.

Tractor number one, a stocky green thing with tires almost as tall as her, had earned itself a longing look from Crane. "Think that still runs?", he'd asked, and she'd half expected him to bolt off and find out.

"About a day on foot."

Oh yeah, right. Wall. Meghan. Zofia huffed up a noise of general acknowledgement and returned her attention to studying the map.

Back at the Tower, when they'd all gathered on the top floor in Brecken's busy flat, Meghan's recollection of the countryside hadn't at all made it sound that… expansive. Though Zofia admitted she might not have been paying much attention, what with how she'd squeezed herself into an armchair behind Crane and had spent the majority of the first few minutes thinking his collar needed readjusting. He hadn't minded. And she'd enjoyed the warmth of his back and how it rumbled whenever he had an opinion on things.

Fortunately, Crane had a lot of those: opinions.

Unfortunately they'd all kind of been a bit batty, which'd eventually ended up with… well… this. Them here in the fresh air. A bad thing? Not really. Not entirely, anyway, despite the almost getting eaten bit. Aside of that it'll all just been a lot of retracting Meghan's footsteps, with a few adjustments made here and there where Zofia thought it'd save them time.

Meghan had marked two spots on the map, circled them with a red pen. The tunnel exit, and a farm a good two hours away. If they cut across in a straight line anyway, which you didn't do if you were being proper, since marching through someone's fields and property was rude.

Ha.

Zofia's boots met a rise in her path. Her leg muscles pulled a little. Told her she'd done enough walking for a day, and she kindly reminded them to stuff it. Up she went, eyes still on the map.

The straight line she'd drawn across— in her head, not actually on the map, that'd also be rude since it wasn't hers —led under the motorway. Over flat fields. Dotted lines for dirt roads. And a—

"Railway," she mumbled to herself.

Up ahead, always walking a little in front of her, Taylor responded with an affirming grunt. It took her another three steps before she reached the top of the ridge, the crest covered in dense, tall grass tickling at her calves. And then she could see them, too.

Two pairs of tracks lay down below them, set in a wide swath of gravel laid out at the foot of the hill. Wooden poles flanked the tracks at an even interval, thick cabling strung along as far as the eye could see. Nature, Zofia noted, had started nibbling away at it all, weeds and shrubs poking out next to dark iron and weathered, tar soaked wood.

While Taylor started a slow, methodical descent, his rifle tucked in close, she wasn't near as reserved, and shot right past him, skipping and sliding all the way down. So what if he threw her a sharp look from under his neatly polished (albeit current quite sweaty) bald head.

Bugger him.

He took himself way too bloody serious, thinking he had to keep them together like they were a batch of sheep and him the yipping sheep dog. Something about moving in a unit, hoo-aa chest-pound - salute.

Bugger all of that, too. She wasn't a good little soldier boy-girl-whatever.

Neither was Crane.

Least not right now.

He hung back a little, just now coming over the bump, Russel attached to him by the restricted reach of a pair of earbuds. They shared a stupid grin between the two of them, right along with another one of Meghan's eye-rolls as she pinched the bridge of her nose while she trudged along next to them.

Right then, the three of them looked the part of marching soldiers in a neat line, even if nothing about them was particularly neat.

And maybe she'd have liked to be back there with them. Sort of. Kind of. Could very well be— except no, thanks. Taylor would have to do for company, even if she didn't particularly like the man. She just really didn't give a toss about hockey and American egg-ball, both of which'd absorbed Crane's attention the moment he'd found out that Russel had crucial intel from beyond the mean, tall walls.

Meghan was more tolerant than her. Except there'd been a moment where she'd looked ready to knock them both silly with the butt end of her rifle. Or chop the cable sticking them together with a swing of her machete.

And why'd that been?

Zofia's lips did a little upside curl that wanted badly to stretch into a grin. 'Cause they'd been singing, all "Don't bring me down—" in broken voices, and it'd been adorable. Right up until Taylor had tossed Russel a glare and both men had fallen quiet real quick, looking sheepish and cheeky and Zofia had thought she'd die a little.

It was the air, she thought. Must be. The fresh air and all that space around them. Together, it had all added something to Crane's steps that she hadn't often seen back inside the Harran city proper. They'd grown longer, bit like a horse given free rein after it'd been kept tightly pulled back for far too long.

Plus, it helped that Biters were easily spotted without street corners or narrow alleys in the way. The group down to the right being a perfect example, their feet dragging in the gravel around the tracks. Zofia's nose crinkled.

Luckily, she'd decided they'd go left anyway— follow the tracks for a short while, staying clear of the untended fields between here and their eventual goal. Moving through the fields, that'd be trouble, since they came dotted with shoulders and heads swimming through the overgrown, stalky wheat.

A harvest they could really do without.

"Aw man," Crane whined miserably.

Russel choked up a laugh. "Outta juice?"

Zofia turned, feet picking their way blindly backwards, and caught Crane frowning at his iPod like it'd slapped him in the face.

"Yeah, out of fucking juice. Well. Shit." He snatched the earbuds back, wrapped them quickly around the iPod, and slid it all back into its dedicated pocket on his chest.

And then he looked at her. Smiled. And winked.

Zofia's feet turned momentarily blind and she almost tripped, catching herself just in time before making a right fool out of herself. Twisting back around, she poked at the warmth rising in her chest. Liked doing so, and maybe she even forgot about the wall and her quest of finding out where it stood.


They crossed atop a railway bridge. Hiked on and on and on, their boots crunching through the countryside and the hush of people growing weary with how the day kept dragging on.

Though then things got... odd...

It was subtle at first, but even subtle drew the eye, and Zofia's gut wriggled and twisted as she waited for a shoe to drop somewhere near. A stinky one.

They left the tracks behind. Crossed through a meadow of tall grass— carefully, since it was hard to tell what'd wait one step ahead —and underneath a bleached, skeletal windmill swoosh-swoosh-swooshing in the breeze, until they finally climbed a mound rising from the flat field. Where they all promptly dropped to their knees.

Taylor's quick jab at the ground might have had something to do with it, right before he pointed at Damien and Russel and indicated for them to keep their eyes turned to the gently shifting grass behind them. In case anything decided to come crawling from it.

First, Zofia looked down. There was water trickling by, a finger width worth of it running through a concrete drain ditch at the bottom of the mound. And beyond that lay a different world altogether.

Crane settled down with his elbow getting snuggly with hers, brought warmth to her left side and the scent of peat and ash. She leaned into him. Grabbed onto a brief moment of nothing, her eyes sliding shut, and only jolted back once he asked: "Does that look cut to you? Because that looks damn cut to me."

Meghan mhmmm' d in agreement. She'd drawn up to her right, and when Zofia's eyes fluttered open again and she glanced up at her, Meghan was looking right back, a tiny, soft smile on her lips.

Zofia huffed. And lowered herself onto her stomach. Kneeling was effort. Especially now that she'd tasted a moment of peace. Though there'd be a little more of it still. Walking. Not rest. Well. Maybe rest, later.

The proverbial shoe had dropped in front of them, and subtle had turned to glaringly obvious. For one, the fields here had been cropped to a golden stubble, no longer wild and tall. Ribbons of well tended green, nowhere near as bushy and overgrown as everything else they'd seen so far, separated each field, and there were even a few neatly stacked hay bales, not the weathered down piles leftover by rain and wind.

Beyond the fields, stood their goal: a promise of civilisation behind thick concrete walls. Normal sized walls. Perfectly climbable.

And there were no Biters. Zofia squinted. None that she could see anyway, unless they'd picked up farming. She pulled a scope from a side pocket of her pack, propped herself up on her elbows, and took a closer look.

Far to the right, lining a dirt road winding towards the walls, stood trees. Apple trees. She could tell, since they had red and yellow blobs on them, and there were two figures with a basket between them picking fruit. Her stomach bubbled. Her mouth watered.

She'd not had an apple for way too long.

There was a kid, too. Boy or girl, she couldn't tell, but it sat on a waist high stack of rocks forming a fence along the trees. There'd been a lot of those sorts of fences slicing through the fields. Old and weathered, with moss and grass growing from between the boulders. Pretty. Zofia's jaw clenched and she forgot about all about rocks. That kid. It was eating an apple. Sighing, she refocused with more difficulty than she liked to admit, and moved the scope along a pipeline running from the left to the right. More people, four of them, with one up on a ladder working on the pipe.

Crane gave a low whistle. "That it?" he asked.

"Yeah. That's it." Meghan made a low noise in her throat, an uncertain grunt. "Place got bigger though, they didn't have near as much space walled off last time."

Zofia twisted the scope's focus, brought the four people working on the pipeline a little closer. The three not on the ladder were armed, one with a hunting rifle and the others with machetes within easy reach. Though they were chatting, passing a smoke between them like they were stood at a street corner outside a pub, not… here.

She fiddled with the scope again. Flicked it from two men rolling a gigantic, round bale of hay uphill to the edge of one of the outermost fields, to another two hefting up a gigantic scarecrow in a patch of recently worked earth.

They had a dog with them.

A dog. A big one with a sesame coloured, short coat and a busy tail. Wag-wag-wag-wag it went, and Zofia caught herself staring. There'd been dogs in the city too, sure. More right at the start, when things had gone wrong but hadn't fallen apart entirely yet. Less as time dragged on, until even the mangiest and most feral eventually fell to gnashing Biter teeth or got caught by the nightmares sniffing them out come sundown.

"Oh man—" Crane said, right before he plucked the scope from her hand to press it to his eye.

Zofia bristled, thought: Arse, and was of half a mind to steal it back.

"Oh man," he repeated. "Puppy!"

The irritation drowned in warm goo, and Zofia looked first at him, and then to Meghan, who gave her a one shouldered shrug, along with a white toothed grin.

He's adorable, it said, and Zofia wouldn't dare argue against it, so she nodded and allowed herself a smile of her own.

Least until Taylor chimed in and ruined the moment with a gruff: "We done sightseeing?"

Crane frowned and lowered the scope. He looked to Zofia, before flicking his eyes up to Meghan.

"So, what you think," he asked. "Should we be—"

"—smart about it?" She puffed her cheeks out. Exhaled. "Sure."

So they went to be just that. Clever. After she got her scope back anyway, right along with a clumsy smack of his lips against her fingers when she snatched it from him.


They didn't try to stay out of sight. No skirting around in an attempt to keep out of sight, and definitely no slinking around fat, round hay bales.

Kyle picked a straight line and off they went, walked right across the field in a half-arsed formation, him at the front. Fi and Meghan stayed right behind him, with Camden between them, while Russel and Matt kept a little back, their rifles turned to the ground.

Damien they'd fed to a bunch of Biters.

Kyle snorted.

No. Damien had snuggled his AWM 338 and taken off to find a private spot of real estate with a decent view.

"Hey. Crane." Think of the devil.

Kyle wiggled on his earpiece. "'sup?"

"You got a bald spot."

He faltered, a boot catching on a stupid rock. Snapped his head around, eyes cutting around the hills they'd left behind. And finding absolutely nothing. They caught on a hunting stand atop one of them, and maybe the fucker was up there, but he had no way of telling.

"Don't fucking point that thing at me— Jesus Christ."

A sharp exhale— a laugh caught in the waveband — blew up in his ear.

"Asshole," Kyle muttered, rubbed at the back of his head, and promptly winced when he caught himself doing so.

Frowning, he glanced over his shoulder at the Paper Tiger. "Hey, uh, Fi— I don't like— do I?"

"What?"

Snicker-snicker, he heard from Russel, and even Matt seemed faintly amused, the flat line of his lips lifting for the fucking fraction of a hint. Though he didn't take his eyes off the pipeline they were marching for.

Assholes. Plural.

So Kyle turned to face Fi, carefully walking backwards. "I don't have a bald spot, right?"

She blinked. Her brows furrowed. And then she shrugged with one quick jerk of her shoulders.

"Oh come on— Meg?"

Another shrug.

"Guys. Seriously." He swiped at the back of his head again and might have felt a bit like crying. "Bullies. All of you, I swear."

That Camden would come to his rescue with a smile and a "No, Crane, you're good." he hadn't expected, but at least someone still had some fucking decency.

"Thanks, Doc—"

Kyle twisted back around, though not before he'd flicked a finger into Damien's general direction, hoping he'd catch the gesture in his stupid, fucking rifle scope.

But whatever. He had better things to do than get worked up over that shithead. Like getting his felter back to work. That was important. That was crucial, and so he did just that. He set it on the backs of people, most of who were abandoning their work on the fields and returning to the sanctuary of their wall. All but the pipeline group, which stayed behind as if to ward off the newcomers. Oh, and they took the dog with them, which prompted the whiny little kid in his head to throw a tantrum for not getting to pet it.

Yeah, so he missed Titus. Big fucking deal, he was allowed to.

Kyle realigned his filter, shaking dog hair from it. Looked up across the wall. He could see roofs beyond. At least one two story house. Two or three tall barns. Silos on the far right corner. A windmill on the left, same as the ones they'd walked by on their hike, though this one had thick cables running down its side. Electricity.

They had watchtowers, too. One—two—three- with only one of them, the one farthest from them, with a lookout in it.

So what did that mean? Not enough people to man them? No. His filter snagged on the backs of the retreating people. At the gate made of corrugated metal rattling open and letting them through— and spitting out four more men. Armed. Lots more armed arms.

No, not a lack of bodies to stuff into the crows nests up there. Not a lack of firepower either. Overconfidence? He scanned the fields.

Still no Biters. No Biters for the longest while now, not since they'd left behind the train tracks and the chest high wheat behind.

Damn.

Kyle stopped once he could make out details on the men approaching them. Three shotguns. One lever action rifle. Well tended gear. Distrustful, their hands gripping tight and hard eyes studying them from under dark brows. Locals.

Very well fed locals.

Their welcoming party came to a halt within range to make aiming with the shotguns entirely optional. And apparently picked up quick that they dealt with a bunch of tourists.

"Are you here to trade?" the one with the rifle asked, looking them over one by one. He had an accent thick enough to need a hacksaw to get through.

"Not exactly."

The man's eyes snapped back Kyle. His mouth twisted into a frown.

"Are you here for trouble?" The hand on the rifle tightened some more and the barrel inched up.

Kyle's hands went up, too. Both of them, and he hated how familiar he'd become with Hands up, please don't shoot me, ever since Harran.

"No— no. We're here to talk to—" he glanced over his shoulder at Meghan. "Stuart Fraser?"

She nodded.

"Stuart Fraser. We're looking for him."

Another frown. The man exchanged glances with his friends. "Who?"

Behind the row of the armed party, half of the pipeline group had slowly made their way across the fields, too.

Who? Shit. Kyle grunted and really didn't like where this was going.

"He's American," Meghan supplied, drawing the rifle man's attention. "A doctor. Arrived here about four— five months ago?"

"Doctor? We have no—" The rifle man paused. A pipeline dude, almost a kid still, had leaned forward, started whispering into his ear. Nods were exchanged. More scowls were thrown their way, though they'd lost a little of their initial sting.

"I see," rifle man finally said. "Come. Follow, you should talk to Jasir. He can tell you about Fraser. And you need food, yes? Water?"

Kyle's stomach answered with a resounding yes.

"Not from here, yes?" The rifle kept dipping lower and lower, until one hand finally came off and stuck out to greet him.

Kyle shook it, said "The city," and approved of the decently firm grip.

"Harran City?"

Nod.

Murmurs passed through the remaining men, all of which'd begun to relax their squared shoulders. Though they'd also kind of taken up a formation around them that Kyle didn't appreciate one single bit. If shit hit the fan, they'd stand right in the worst of the spray. Kyle's back itched and his feet wanted to shuffle aside. Put Fi behind him. But he couldn't, since the hand wasn't letting go.

"You'll tell us about it?" Rifle man asked. Grabbed him by the fucking elbow too, and faced him with a toothy smile. "We don't hear from Harran any more."

Kyle cleared his throat. "Uh- sure—"

"I'm Suat. This—" Suat released him, grabbed the young man that'd been whispering into his ear. "—is my son, Beser. He has girl in the city."

Kyle flinched.

"Uhm."

Beser sighed, snapped something in Turkish that he didn't quite catch, and gave Kyle an apologetic smile. Which only served to kick him a little harder again the side of his heart. Poor kid.

"Come— come—" Suat, still smiling, gestured graciously towards the gate they'd come out of. "We have fresh bread to share and fruit. You like eggs? We have eggs too."

"Holy shit, yes," Kyle blurted before his brain could engage the emergency brake on his mouth, which got him a jab at the small of his back from something vaguely Fi-finger shaped.

So he shot a look back at her, caught her smiling, and decided that first things first: Get them fed. Pet a dog. And figure out how to save the world after.