A woman keeps entering and trying to ask Ruby questions. She's thin and sharp, all nose and jaw and long skeletal fingers. Ruby keeps saying that she needs her team. Then she'll answer questions. The woman keeps shaking her head and tapping her fingers against her leg and telling her that she needs to answer the questions.

The man from before, the one who said he wasn't trying to hurt her, comes back occasionally. He offers Ruby food, and she snatches it out of his hands. The thick plastic cuffs around her wrists and ankles don't slow her movement down.

Ruby is, at the very least, alive for the time being. Her prison is large, with doors that slide across so she can't see out. It was built for an animal, she realized not long ago. She escapes from it easily the first time, by tinkering with the simple lock. Beyond is a white corridor, with more of the doors. She tries to open the next cell, to search for her team, but alarms flash and she is put back into her cell, with more complicated locks added.

Ruby will find a way to get out. She has to find her team. The cold blank walls of the cell provide her no comfort, but she clutches at them anyway, desperate for contact with someone other than the people in the white coats.

Ruby will not give up hope. Her people have survived far worse from the Cities.

…

As soon as Blake can speak, Yang starts asking her questions.

"Who did this to you?"

"Cinder," Blake says slowly.

"Pyrrha, is that one of the teams we know?"

Pyrrha shakes her head and returns to her maps.

"She's not part of a team that I know," Blake says. "She has two people under her command, Emerald and Mercury. Maybe more."

Pyrrha scrawls down a few notes and stands, the top of her head brushing the ceiling. She walks over to Blake and extends a hand that Blake flinches away from, then continues talking in a low voice.

"Where are they based?"

"A Ground Zero site," Blake says.

"The one we found you in?"

"I don't know. I can only remember – little things, like the red threads." Blake shudders.

"Great. It's another team, one that apparently isn't a fan of other people, and we don't even know where they are."

Pyrrha hushes Yang.

"Where did they find you?"

"Inside the Ground Zero site, near the center."

Pyrrha's eyes widen. Anyone willing to venture that far into a crater is either very confident in their survival skills and needs a place to hide, or is just completely crazy, as Nora would say.

"Why were you out there?" Yang asks immediately. Blake shrinks back further into the corner.

"Hiding from the White Fang," she says slowly.

"The White Fang and this Cinder person? Damn, you're good at making enemies," Yang comments, and Pyrrha frowns at her.

"We don't get along with the White Fang well either," she says. "You're welcome here."

"Why did you save me?" Blake asks slowly.

"We're not the kind of people who leave someone to die," Yang says. It's not common, certainly, in a world where each ounce of water may be the difference between life and death, to help someone, but it's worked for them so far.

Blake nods.

"I can fight, if that's what you need, but mostly I'm a medic," she says.

She doesn't need to prove her worth, but thank fortune she's a medic. With Jaune missing and presumably dead, their medic is gone, and one just showing up on their path is lucky enough.

…

"I know it's unorthodox, but they would be much more likely to cooperate if we let the specimens see each other."

"Or they'd be more likely to escape," Winter points out, and watches Marrow deflate slightly.

"The female keeps insisting that she won't answer questions until she has them, and one of the males is engaging in self-destructive behavior," Marrow continues. "We're going to benefit from this too. Social animals feel safer and are more content with others of their kind; that's basic zoology."

"Don't talk down to me," Winter snaps, but is interrupted by Clover.

"We'll monitor them carefully, of course, but we're not pointlessly cruel. Transfer all three to holding pen 2A, but make sure transit is heavily supervised."

"Yes, sir," Marrow says immediately, and rushes out of their meeting room.

Winter isn't happy about this. She wanted more chances to study their behavior in isolation. But it makes the crew happy, because the crew are starting to bond with the creatures and don't like to think of themselves as cruel. Soldiers are contradictions: they kill for a living and yet allow creature comforts to people – creatures, she corrects herself – that they've captured. She's under orders not to disobey the soldiers' commands, within reason, as this is a military expedition, but this sort of subversive activity is not what she typically tolerates.

It unsettles her that there are still people who somehow survived the war. The scorched-earth tactics of the Cities were specifically designed to eliminate all possibility of future resistance, and any survivors have good reason to hate the Cities. They could never reach the Cities by any means short of completely rebuilding society, or they couldn't have before the Cities conveniently provided them with a lightly guarded outpost with full flight capabilities, whose soldiers are too busy pampering scientific specimens to do any actual fighting. All of that is a bit upsetting.

Then there's the question of who to inform about the humans found. The government was informed as soon as the specimens began attempting to communicate, and for now it's a tightly guarded secret, but there are almost a hundred people on the research vessel alone, any of whom could sell the secret to the media.

Winter doesn't like to admit any of her misgivings, particularly about the human specimens themselves. If three quite young people are easy enough to find, then humanity has been reproducing after the war. All scientific concerns about the mutations they undoubtedly suffer pale in comparison to the societal implications. These aren't the last, dying remnants of humanity; they are thriving enough to raise children. The Cities may well decide that the risk is too great and launch another total war, but the people of the Cities will be less willing to support another war against people who seem entirely harmless. Winter is just a scientist, and those matters aren't her concern, but she still worries.