The girl was proving much less resourceful than he'd predicted, Richard thought, watching as Natalie hurried back through the stairwell door. Which meant he'd have to try something else. Thoughtfully, he pulled out his cell phone and pressed one of the speed dial numbers. Smiling as the person on the other end identified himself. "Cholo!" he replied with such phony cheerfulness, the man on the other end was immediately suspicious.

"Richard, baby, we thought you was probably food for the stenches by now."

Forcing a laugh, he replied, "Nah, a few of those sons-of-bitches ain't enough to stop me. Just got held up a little, had a side job to do for Mr. K." Silently he patted himself on the back, throwing Kaufman's name out there was inspired, it'd show how important he was in the grand scheme of things. Maybe make Cholo a little more open to helping him.

"Is that right?" Of course, Cholo wasn't buying any of it.

"Yea, you know, supplies, women, money...more women, that sorta thing," he boasted. If he wanted to get Cholo's help, he was going to have to really make the job sound more important than it was. No one needed to know he'd actually fucked up. They'd write him off, just like Kaufman was on the verge of doing.

"So when you due back? I thoughtyou was supposed to be in a few days ago," Cholo replied, uncharacteristically showing some interest in someone else's plan. He knew the rumors floating around the city. Richard had fucked up and was now on Kaufman's shit list. That meant that even if the big man did make it back, he wouldn't be around long. Cholo's own plans were to beon very good terms with Kaufman when that happened, it would be the first step to getting himself set up in Fiddler's Green, the towering building that housed all the big money friends of Mr. K himself. Before losing his favored status with Mr. K, it had been rumored that Richard had been on his way to getting an apartment in the Green.

"Well that's the thing," Richard started to say, and it was like an alarm went off in Cholo's head. Bingo, now we're getting somewhere. "How's that armored truck thing coming along? The one that Mr. K's building for the raiding parties."

"You mean Kaufman's little pride and joy?" Cholo laughed.

"Yes, that..."

"Denbow says it'll be another week, maybe more. He's treatin' that truck like it's his goddamn baby or something. And get this, he's named the thing Dead Reckoning...now that's some funny shit ain't it."

"Denbow? What's that fucking little boy scout got to do with it?"

"Aside from designing the damn thing? Not much, just, like, you know, building the fuckin' machine," Cholo laughed again. Richard was already on his way outta the loop and he didn't even know it.

"I didn't realize he was so...involved in the project. I figured for something that important Mr. K would rely on someone like you," Richard declared. A little bit of ego stroking never hurt when you were negotiating with someone like Cholo.

"Shit, I ain't no designer."

Realizing that his ego stroke hadn't worked, Richard decided to get to the point. "Here's the deal, Mr. K needs me back to the docks in two days, and I'm gonna need a little bit of help to pull it off."

Cholo smiled again. "Where you at baby?"

"You know where Franchetti's is?"

"That little Italian place over in Old Town? Place that looks like the health department shoulda shut it down about 10 years ago?"

"Yea, that's it.."

"Wonder if that's what started this thing with the stenches, someone ate some a their food and it brought 'em back," Cholo chuckled at his own joke.

"There's some offices up on the top floor of that building, it's where we've holed up for now," Richard said, ignoring the other man's jokes.

"So what's the problem then? You're what, a couple blocks from the docks? At most. Sounds easy enough for you to handle. Besides, the sooner you haul some ass outta there the better, 'cause once they finish up rewiring the grid you ain't gonna wanna stay there anyway."

"What the fuck are you talking about Cholo?" demanded Richard, letting his anger slip. That just entertained the other man even more.

"Didn't you know about the power plant work?" he smirked into the phone, imagining the look on that pompous ass Richard's face.

"What work?"

"Like I said, they're rewiring the grid, cuttin' off the power to any non-essential areas. You're gonna be in the dark over there, if you ain't already."

"How soon?"

"If you still got your lights on, you probably'll be in the dark 'nother 12 hours or so."

"What the fuck are they doing that for?"

"Why light up all the dead parts of the city? Think the stenches need it? Fuck that. They're gonna up the voltage going through the fences across the throat, fry them fuckers even faster they try to get inside. Besides, the darkness'll help the raiding parties."

Richard's mind raced. If they were rewiring the grid, they were pretty much admitting that nobody could be left alive outside the Green. It was going to be fully sealed off from the rest of the city, accessible only by boat across the river, or else through the rail tunnels that went underneath the river. The tunnels were used by the raiders to reach their staging areas for the raiding parties, and the staging areas were gonna be heavily guarded too. If he didn't make that boat in two days, he wouldn't be making it back to the Green at all.

"Richard baby, you still there?"

"Yea, I'm here. Can you keep me posted, let me know what's going on? If the truck's gonna be done sooner than you thought?"

"Yea, sure. Whatever you need," Cholo said.

The phone disconnected before Richard could ask for anything more. He stared at it in his hand for a moment before turning for the stairwell door. There were new plans to be made, and he'd have to change Natalie's orders to accommodate them. Lost in his planning, he never noticed Sean moving out of the shadows created by one of the ventilation shafts on the roof. He'd only heard one side of the conversation, but wasn't it interesting that Richard seemed to have a working cell phone, and contact with other survivors that none of them had known about.

As Richard hurried down the steps, he started re-working his action plan. First thing on the list was locating the bus driver. He was going to prove invaluable to the success of his plan. After that, Natalie was going to have to get her new orders. Right now, it would only be himself, the driver, and the women to leave this place. Time was too short to mess with the others, the soldiers would have to go, the rest would just roll over after they were out of the picture.

He located Allen in the security office, all alone but for Tara who was stretched out as usual on the couch. Time to turn on the charm, he thought to himself. "All alone in here?" he asked, infusing his voice with as much cheer as he could muster. "Where's everyone else hiding out?"

"It's a big building, how the fuck are we supposed to keep track of them all? Especially when I'm stuck sitting here on my ass all the time," Tara replied grumpily. With all the things she'd been learning from Emily about this man, especially her suspicions that he was beating Natalie, actually being in his presence freaked her out.

"Having a bad day are we? Still pretty sore?" he asked sympathetically. He could sense some underlying tension in her voice and wondered darkly if Natalie had been telling tales about him, something that would frighten the little money maker laying before him. She'd have to be punished if that was the case, but later, much later. Unfortunately, he couldn't afford to have her at anything less than 100 if he really wanted to make it out of here with all the merchandise.

"A little bit," the girl answered, refusing to meet his eyes and making a big show out of adjusting her position on the couch.

"Tell you what, Allen, why don't we get out of here and track down the others so this young lady can get some rest," he smiled jovially as he spoke. The driver climbed wearily to his feet. He wasn't fooled, Richard obviously wanted to get him alone, he just hoped it wasn't because the other man had somehow found out about what he'd told the others. If he had, there was no telling where Richard would be taking him, or what he'd do to him for that matter. With these thoughts racing through his mind, it was no wonder he was taken by surprise at Richard's first words to him once they were alone.

"We're going to be getting out of here sooner than I'd anticipated Allen. I need to know how much time you think it'll take to reach the docks off of Butler street."

"You mean with the bus?" Allen asked stupidly, still surprised that Richard wasn't killing him for betrayal or something equally bad.

"Of course with the bus, you don't think we'd go on foot with all those things out there do you?"

Looking chagrined, the driver replied, "It's only a couple blocks away, but without knowing how bad or if the streets are blocked up, I can't really say for sure. There's also the question of how many of those things are out there now swarming around the bus. We might not even be able to move it if there's enough of them."

"What the hell kind of bullshit answer is that! I'm paying you a fucking lot of money to drive that goddamn bus where I tell you to drive it, so when I ask for a time frame, I expect to get a better answer than that!" he declared frighteningly. "If the roads are blocked you can just plow through the damn cars, same for those creatures out there, just drive over them."

"Okay. I'll give you some answers," Allen declared. Then adding, "But first, you're gonna give me some." He was happy that his voice sounded much braver than he actually felt.

About an hour later, the power went out. Aaron and Emily used it as an excuse to get away from the others, going in search of flashlights, batteries, and lanterns from the department store.

"Tara said that Richard was pretty slick about turning on the charm and hustling Allen out of the office," Emily said.

"So he's gotta be planning on making a run for it with the bus."

"And leave the rest of behind no doubt," Emily added bitterly.

"Not exactly all of you," Allen's voice spoke quietly from a nearby aisle.

"Allen?" Emily asked, looking around.

"Don't stop what you're doing, I don't want anyone to realize I'm here," the driver said softly.

"Were you followed down here?" Aaron asked, pulling more batteries down from a shelf and dropping them into a duffel bag he'd grabbed up earlier.

"No, but I don't know if you were."

"What did you mean, 'not exactly all of us' were gonna be ditched?" Emily asked.

"Richard wants me to be ready to drive us out of here. He's planning on getting rid of Sean and Aaron, and then taking Emily, Tara and Natalie with him. Everyone else will be left behind."

"Which would be what, four people, five tops?" Aaron asked, ignoring the fact that Richard wanted him dead.

"Aaron! Focus! He wants you dead!" Emily cried out, shocked.

"Wanting me dead and actually pulling it off are two totally different things," he replied causally. "And we've got the upper hand here, we outnumber him, and we know roughly what he's got in mind. We'll be fine."

"But.."

"We'll be fine Emily," he insisted. "What else do you have for us Allen? Do you know why he just wants the girls?"

"Unfortunately," Allen mumbled. Aaron's hand paused in what he was doing.

"Tell us everything you know," he said coldly.

"Apparently Richard works for some guy named Kaufman. Almost as soon as things started going to hell out there, there was a group of rich men who started using their influence and sealing off Greenlawn Heights. They've got it protected on three sides by the river, all the bridges have been blocked, well, except for the drawbridge, they left that up. The land access, well, they've got high voltage electric fences stretched across it. I guess they call that area the throat, and it's about a mile wide is all, maybe a bit more or less. Anyways, there's thousands of people holed up over there now, it's almost like a real city. They've got their own Army over there to guard the throat, and teams of raiders that go out and get supplies from small, outlying towns. It's just incredible what they've managed to do in the last couple of weeks."

"You didn't answer my question," Aaron said coldly. "What's he want with the girls?" He was pretty sure he already knew the answer though.

"This Kaufman guy has been setting up bars, casinos, everything over there. He needs women to work them...and the streets," Allen answered hesitantly.

"Wait wait wait! He expects us to be fucking prostitutes!" Emily fairly screeched.

"Shhhh!" both men said together. "It's over my dead body he gets his hands on you Em," Aaron told her.

"Your dead body? I'll be a fucking dead, rotting corpse trying to gouge his eyes out before he gets his hands on me!" she said angrily. "I'm not gonna be anyone's fucking whore!"

"Believe me, he won't ever get the chance," Aaron said, dropping the bag of batteries and pulling her into his arms.