Taffer Notes: This is where we diverge from canon sufficiently enough for me to drop the canon quest titles :3

In which Zofia finds herself surrounded by clowns and Aiden looks for a familiar face in dusty old windows.

Chapter 12

Going Nowhere Fast

2017

Zofia missed a great deal of things, with the passage of time being one of them. She'd grown near-mad in its absence; in how there were no mornings, no middays, no evenings. How the sun and moon had become strangers and how light meant very little.

She had plenty of it right now. Light. But all of it was a sham. A lie. Air, but not for breathing. Water, but not for drinking.

Light, but not light, because it came from bright, white fluorescent bars.

The light that mattered, the one from the UV strips running along the walls of her prison, was off. Had been for a long while now, she presumed. Which meant it was Let's-see-how-long-you-last time.

Her least favourite time of the day/week/month/aeon, when they chipped away at her humanity like a sculptor striking at a slab of rock so he could bare the rotten thing underneath.

Lyrical, she thought grimly, her heart all aflutter in the worst of ways over what they'd find once they'd knocked all the Zofia from her bones. But lyrical she'd become— sort of, kind of, a little —what with how the only things she had for company these days were the books they so graciously gave her, and her thoughts climbing the walls inside her own head. And Zofia liked her thoughts. She liked thinking. Thinking meant she hadn't lost it all yet; that she still held on to that last shred of sanity Harran had allowed her to keep.

That they'd not won yet.

That they'd not found out how long she could possibly last.

And so Zofia clung on. Despite the darkness that was not darkness but couldn't have been darker, despite the box, her prison, and despite not knowing what day it was, what month, or even if the sun was up or down, Zofia clung on.

But Crane?

Crane, he'd shed it long ago. His sanity, mind you. Not the bit that made him him. A person. Human.

Hrm.

A lie.

But we do not think of that, we only think about how he wrestled it back and how he's still here, she told herself, sternly.

Here. Near. And talking.

Talking to a monster, no less, which wasn't nearly as surprising as it should have been. Kyle Crane was, after all, Kyle Crane, and the man conversed with anything. Dogs. Pigeons. Stubborn iron gates that did not wish to shut and needed to be lied to about lube before they budged. Even doorstoppers. Especially the ones that viciously attacked his toes.

Today, Crane had decided to talk to a monster; a literal one, too. Not the sort that came to prod at them in the name of Science and the Greater Good, the ones with lab coats and clipboards.

No. Crane chatted away with a Volatile.

And the Volatile talked back. On occasion.

Zofia thumped her forehead against the glass wall of her box, with her shoulders pulled together and her hands in the deep pockets of a bland pair of sweatpants. Her eyes were shut tight. It didn't keep the bright, fake light out, but it helped. A little. She was also well aware that she leaned there like a forgotten plank of wood and that maybe she should be in her cot. Pull the blankets over her ears. Have a little cry.

. . .

Her stomach knotted painfully.

Do you know what else stands around with its nose smushed to a wall?

She exhaled slowly, unhappy with her thoughts.

Fresh Virals.

She'd lost count of how many of those she'd seen in the Harran streets, their heads pressed to a wall, their shoulders heaving, their fingers twitching, and their memories bubbling from them in snatches of nonsensical words.

She'd never known why they did it.

Was it a compulsion? Was that why she chose to stand here like this, too? No. No, no, no. I chose to stand here. Zofia clenched her hands into fists. I chose it. It was my idea. I'm me. I'm me. I'm not turning.

"—yeah, I guess you need to have been there for it to really sink in," Crane said off to the left, his words all scratched up by a dangerous rasp. They'd turned off his UV lights too.

She couldn't see him of course, since he was over in his own box. But she could hear him.

Vividly.

Clearly.

Zofia chewed on the inside of her cheek. She pressed her toes into the floor, hitching up a fraction of an inch. Her neck strained. Her jaw clenched.

Crane's voice ought to have been kept at a polite distance. It had to travel through an always-on-so-everyone-can-hear-us intercom, after all. Instead, it sounded near-overbearing as it vibrated off the wall by her side, where it then sunk right into her ear.

Much like everything else. The soft clicks and beeps of equipment past the glass pane. The constant mumble of air in the vents. Even her own heart.

"They were backed up two street corners away," Crane continued. "In a big, fat queue taking up all of the sidewalk."

Zofia sighed. Her eyes fluttered open.

She pulled her left hand from its pocket and raised her arm to set her palm against the glass. She still had her tan lines. The angry ones she'd picked up in Harran. But now the one on her left arm was hidden under a thick, black band wrapped around her biceps. The band's pressure was constant. And painful. Three nodes of light blinked on it. One green. Two red.

You're in bad shape, the two red lights translated to, and Zofia huffed at them, frustrated.

She could tell, thank you very much. Between how the veins running along her wrist and up her arm had begun to darken and how she heard things she wasn't supposed to hear (at least not as clear as she did).

She knew.

"You had a shit ton of people with these homemade rebel pilot helmets everywhere," said Crane. "You know, from, like, A New Hope when they attacked the death star. Lotsa stormtroopers too and a few top-notch Darth Vaders."

A curious cooing noise followed. It didn't originate in Crane's box, but from the one across. There, a skeletal thing wedged solidly between a Volatile and a malnourished boy had both its— his —long-fingered hands pressed to the glass. Spikes protruded from his thin shoulders, spearing through a simple black shirt. His bald head was tilted sideways.

A shock collar sat around his spindly neck.

"Aeyoo?" the boything asked, the words curving up at the end to tack on a question mark. Zofia figured he had meant to say And you?, but hadn't quite managed to get his tongue into place in time.

"Oh, yeah," Crane said. Zofia's heart chittered. She'd practically heard the smile in those two simple words. Could picture his lips quirking and his eyes lighting up. "I had one of those DIY Luke Skywalker costumes with an off-white robe and a brown belt and some weird-ass boots."

The boything rattled up a shy laugh.

The boything's name was Theo, she'd learned, and Zofia watched Theo quietly from the confines of her box. Not that it'd been particularly hard to pick up on his name. He'd been chanting it like a prayer when he'd first gotten in.

And sometime between then and now, Zofia had maybe finally come to understand.

If you remembered your name, then it stood to reason that you were still human. No?

Zofia turned that thought over in her head.

Then she discarded it.

It didn't matter that Theo remembered his name. It didn't matter that he'd regained his conscience, as Fraser liked to remind Crane and her of so often. It didn't matter that Theo had stopped being a monster on the inside.

Zofia flipped around, set her back against the glass, and slid down until she hit the cold ground.

None of it mattered.

All that mattered were the walls around her.

They didn't care for any of Theo's progress. They didn't care for her holding on, either. For her struggle to cling to her sanity and for that ache in her chest whenever she heard Crane's voice; the ache that told her she'd never see him again.

All the walls cared for was to rob her. They'd already taken her freedom. Her sense of time.

Zofia dreaded what they'd take next.

2036

It hadn't taken long until Hakon's home began to feel a little too much like a box.

Its walls and windows creaked warnings at her. Warnings about how they'd trap her here forever, while the door at the far end puffed itself up to make itself look all sturdy and locked and Yeah, you're staying.

Zofia knew all of that to be bollocks, of course. Nonsense.

The walls were wood, not concrete. The windows were, well, windows. And the door wasn't solid metal that would only negotiate with the right keycards.

Her nerves cared little for reason though; they were stretched taut enough that one more tweak would snap them and then there'd be blood. Who'd blame her though? It had been an eventful day.

And the hope?

That ever-treacherous thing?

It wasn't helping. Not one bit. It distracted her, got her thoughts to run off willy-nilly into a direction they had no business running off to. Namely forward, to a tomorrow's tomorrow.

Zofia scowled. She had no use for hope. It ought to go play with someone else. Like Crane, for instance, who'd not once stopped badgering Hakon about those inhibitors and those biomarkers and when and how and what and what if he was right and you can finally unclench your jaw and give up your tension headache?

"Thanks," Aiden said all of a sudden, stopping her short from drowning hope in a bucket filled with all her lost dreams.

Zofia ignored him. Not for long though, mind you. Only until she'd finished repacking their medical supplies and herded all her thoughts together. Then she looked up.

He regarded her with a steady, near-icy blue stare, though his head was slightly bowed. His entire posture hunched like he'd fallen in on himself or tried to make himself appear smaller; to tell the world he was not a threat.

Aiden had been like that the entire time she'd bandaged his bite, and while the young Pilgrim hadn't exactly carried himself full of brash confidence prior, he also hadn't been timid.

This? This was timid-adjacent.

Zofia decided it was the scars' fault.

He folded his arms when she looked at them and bunched them right up to his chest. Yes. Must have been the scars. The bruises. All of what he currently couldn't cover up because his shirt was in ribbons. They weighed on him.

Anyway. Manners. She had them.

"Don't mention it," Zofia finally said and indicated to him with a vague wave. "You should put on a shirt."

Aiden's mouth twitched into a frown. "Yeah. I should." He shifted his weight where he sat and his eyes drifted to Crane, then Hakon, only to eventually return to her. Then— absent-minded, she assumed —his hand went up to scratch at his neck.

"Ah," Zofia chided. "Don't touch. The rope burn was shallow so it'll heal quick, but you don't want to scratch at it. That'll make it worse."

Aiden showed restraint. And he shored up a bit of defiance, clearly unhappy with being told (yet again) what he was and wasn't supposed to do.

"Do you got a spare?" Zofia lifted his grimy, bloody, and very punctured shirt. It drooped sadly when she gave it a quick wag.

The defiance on Aiden's features fled. He shook his head.

Zofia huffed quietly, chucked the dirty shirt aside, and rose to her feet so she could walk her still very soggy shoes over to Crane. Crane's chin stopped wagging the instant he noticed she'd sloshed her way up to him. His light brown eyes (already glinting with friendly mischief) hopped to her.

He'd been listening. Whenever didn't he?

"Oh? You gonna give him one of mine 'cause your skinny ass has to shop in the kid's section?"

"Mhm." Zofia reached for the pack.

Crane pulled it towards him at the last second. He stuck his good arm in while his eyes were turned to the ceiling, all scrunched up in a mock I'm concentrating real hard here kind of way, and then he pulled out a neatly rolled-up shirt. The black one with the synthwave logo on the front saying Stay Rad. He'd found that one (perfectly sealed in plastic) in a flooded vintage records store a few weeks ago.

Zofia held out her hand and Crane dropped the rolled-up shirt into it. Though she didn't immediately take it, which got Crane to look at her with one brow lightly cocked. Zofia annoyed her bottom lip with her teeth. Her thoughts trotted about in her head; stirred by that stupid hope and the nonsensical fear of the shack growing a glass wall. And, yes, stirred by Crane's arm in the makeshift sling.

He'd been hurt.

Really hurt.

Not stubbed his toe hurt. Not a new shallow scar for later hurt. And if she didn't get ahead of this, then Zofia knew damn well that either he'd try and ignore it and get himself hurt worse, or he'd try and fix it. The latter had a lot more potential to go horribly wrong than the former, but they were both equally shit.

"You're not going to be in any shape to go spelunking soon, Crane," she said.

The mirth in Crane's eyes spluttered out. He frowned. His mouth opened a beat after, but she didn't let him get any farther than the "I—"

Zofia grabbed the rolled-up shirt tight and, gently, thumped it against his nose.

"No, I'll be fine," she said.

"Fi," Crane whinged, though his tone had gotten light again. "You're embarrassing me in front of our new friend here." He nodded towards Hakon — who quickly crossed his arms, flashed them both a smile and shook his head.

"No, no," was their new friend's opinion on the matter. "Don't stop on my behalf, I'm enjoying the show." Then, as Hakon leaned forward, his very bushy brows tilting up, he asked: "How long have you two been married?"

Back at the cot, Aiden choked on air.

And Crane lit up like a bloody dawn, all dimples and a flash of teeth. She hated it. (No, she loved it.)

Zofia rolled her eyes. I'm surrounded by clowns, she thought. "Don't get cute, husband," she warned Crane, who cleared his throat and failed terribly at getting his lips to stop twitching with a barely contained smile. "What I'm trying to say is that you need to give that arm a rest, but that doesn't mean we got to all sit around with you."

And because your half of the hourglass is a trickle away from empty, so please sunbathe for a little while and don't think about crawling into a dark hole or I'll beat you silly with a UV lamp. She left all that unsaid, though not un-indicated, what with how she levelled her best stern stare at Crane.

"You want to go." Crane's brows folded down in a worried scowl.

Zofia nodded. "Might as well."

Hakon shifted in his chair, getting the wood to creak subtly. "We're talking about walking into a GRE lab here," he said. "They're pitch black on the inside. And crowded. Day and night."

Judging by the look Hakon gave her, Zofia assumed herself measured; and promptly misjudged. She shrugged it off with a quick upwards bounce of her shoulders.

"I don't love it," Crane grumbled. "Give me a week..."

"A week?" Hakon snorted and pointed in the general direction of Crane's sling. "Friend, your arm is fucked. You'll need more than a week. And much as you may not love it, she's right. If you want to have any chance at all to make it to the centre any time soon, you'll have a better chance of getting started with a few biomarkers to swing people's hearts your way. Who knows, you may be able to bribe your way straight past the PK's blockade."

"The whose?" she asked.

"Peacekeepers," Hakon clarified. "Militaristic bunch with a collective saviour complex, but with an even bigger hardon for good hangings than the Bazaar. They're also the ones who banned guns in Villedor." At that, Hakon's eyes fixed on Crane's jacket. Namely, on the spot that hid his sidearm tucked under his shoulder. "A ban you violated, by the way."

"Look," Crane said, a finger held up high. "If there was ever an Ask for forgiveness, not permission kinda moment, that was it, alright? Plus, I'm new here. Couldn't have known."

Zofia fought the urge to tell him his pants were on fire.

"All valid, I'm sure," Hakon continued. "But they'll be more inclined to listen if you bring them markers, so I'd say get them sooner, rather than later. And, hey, I have an idea. I'll help." His eyes shifted back to her. "I'll come with you."

"Nah," Crane said near-instantaneously. "I'm still full of questions, Hakon, and, ya know, I could do with a bit of sightseeing."

Hakon's friendly expression made way for mock offence. "Don't trust me with your woman, hm?"

"Not one bit," Crane replied, his tone somehow managing to be both cheerful and threatening at the same time.

Hakon took it well. "That's clever. I'm irresistible."

Don't roll your eyes, don't roll your eyes, Zofia rambled at herself while she weighed the rolled-up shirt she'd intended to give to Aiden. And, no, it didn't escape her notice that he'd offered to help her. To go with her. Even as she wore a human bite mark right there on her chin. Come to think of it, he'd not looked at it with fear once and, for a brief moment, Zofia found herself curious. A curiosity she'd have to shelf for later.

"But I really wouldn't advise going alone."

"She won't be," Crane decided as he leaned harder against the table, his torso tilting backwards so he could peer around Zofia and at Aiden back on the makeshift cot. "Right, kid?"

. . .

Zofia's jaw popped a screw loose somewhere since it wanted to fall off its hinge.

"Crane, he's hurt, too," she said. "And he's only just gotten bit. Give him time to make peace with that."

"You don't make peace with getting bitten." Crane kept staring at the kid. "Besides, Hakon dosed him with an inhibitor, which makes him night-proof for a while."

Over on his chair, Hakon went "That's how it works," in agreement.

Bollocks. That hadn't been how she'd wanted this to go.

As Zofia gathered up a novel's worth of protests (I don't know him, we don't know him, what if he won't listen to me, what if— but— and so on and so forth—), Aiden hoisted himself to his feet.

He looked unsteady for a second, like the floor spun under him, but then he wiped his hands on his knees and gave the lot of them a nod so resolute, the last time she'd seen one of those it'd fallen off Crane. "Yeah. Sure. I'll go with her."

Zofia ground her teeth down on her bottom lip and traded Crane a long, long look.

Crane did not back down.

"Fine," she huffed up and tossed the rolled-up shirt at Aiden. He grabbed it and caught it against his chest. "Suppose you can play lookout."

Aiden had put on enough scars over the years to know his way around pain. Since, well, before you got to grow said scars, you had to get hurt. Blades. Barbed wire. Jagged rocks. Glass. If it was sharp, chances were Aiden had been cut by it.

But a Volatile bite was… different.

Especially since it was — yeah — a bite. A bite bite.

Thankfully, Aiden managed to keep himself distracted. First, by being irritated by the pain. Then by focusing on volunteering his life away and, now, by having himself blindsided as he stepped outside the shack.

Hakon propped the front door open for them and let his guests— or, his friends as he'd begun to call them —file out. Crane first. Zofia next. Then Aiden, guided forward by their eager host.

Yes. Aiden had put on enough scars to get used to pain. But he hadn't been to near enough cities to know what to expect. And so Villedor surprised him. He stopped in his tracks and stared.

"Welcome to paradise," Hakon said wryly and swept an arm out to indicate the cityscape sprawled out under a near-perfectly blue sky.

"Charming," Crane commented; though while Aiden's eyes wanted to bug out of their sockets, Crane was busy picking idly at his sling. A frown pulled the man's lips down and he looked— bored?

Aiden went back to staring.

Hardly any building near Hakon's shack looked the same. Some were brick, either with small red stones or larger, weathered white ones). Others plaster. And others yet (farther out) were wood, their facades painted red or blue. He even saw two houses bearing slowly turning windmills on their backs, with sails made from sunbleached yellow. Aiden didn't know if that was what a city was meant to look like; it certainly wasn't what he'd seen in pictures, or what he'd seen from the outside, whenever he'd lurked near one, knowing damn well if he stepped foot in there he'd never leave again. The only houses that looked anything like what he'd associated with citieswere the ones off on the right. They were blocky, with uniform balconies spread between them, and nearly identical windows and shutters.

But even those shared that one thing that brought the entire vista together: Green.

Vines— ivy, Aiden assumed —stuck to everything above ground level. They climbed walls. Hung off roofs. They even reached inside where windows had cracked. Grass was everywhere, too (again, above ground level). It grew in places where, presumably, grass had no business growing at all, along with moss and... entire bushes? And… trees? Aiden spotted a balcony which had its floor cracked open after a tree sapling had burrowed its roots through the concrete. Now, the sapling rested toppled against the railing and its eager roots dangled where the concrete had given way. It hadn't died yet.

Trees were stubborn like that.

Aiden mimicked the young tree by leaning against the makeshift wooden railing that circled Hakon's shed. A pathway— equally makeshift as the railing —wrapped around the small house's walls. All of it had been cobbled together from different types of wood.

"See that spire over there?" Hakon asked.

Aiden's eyes went up at the question and he did, indeed, see the spire. It ended in a sharp, triangular tip and had colourful kites strapped to it. They rode a steady breeze, one which Aiden felt tug on his hair and slip into the sleeves of his new (borrowed, given, whichever) shirt.

"That's the Bazaar. Where you came in."

His throat immediately ached, but Aiden remembered not to touch before he got around to rubbing at his neck.

"Until you three have biomarkers I wouldn't recommend going near it. Or any of the Bazaar's holds."

"You said that already. Where's the nearest GRE site?" Zofia asked. Aiden watched as her head swivelled left and right, scanning the horizon like she expected one of them to pop out between the buildings. Crane remained focused on his sling.

Hakon's brows kicked up. "Straight to business?"

Zofia's eyes snapped to Hakon at the question — and judging by the look she traded him, Aiden figured she was not, indeed, charmed as he'd suggested she'd be if left alone with him.

"Follow me." Their host began walking.

Aiden pushed himself off the railing and followed everyone around the next corner. As he walked and more of Villedor came into view, a thought struck him.

Not a new one. A very, very old one.

Where was he going to find Mia?

More important, where, in this unending maze of streets and buildings, was she right now? Dylan had said she was alive. And if Aiden dared to accept that as truth, then that meant she was out there. Somewhere. Closer than she'd ever been, behind one of the countless windows glinting in the midday sun, maybe. Or up on one of the many flat roofs baking under that very same sun. If he squinted— and he was, presently, squinting —he could see shapes moving across some of those flat roofs. People.

There was also a constant noise all around them which Aiden hadn't paid attention to until now; noise that went far beyond what he was used to wandering the territories. It wasn't unlike the din in a settlement, except it'd been stretched out far.

He heard wood being struck by hammers. He heard voices rise and fall in the distance. He even caught a dog barking and now there was something he hadn't heard in years.

What he didn't hear were Infected, but that didn't mean there weren't any. In fact, as Aiden leaned over the railing again and peered down, he spotted a group of them shuffling quietly in the shade cast by the building flanking the street.

Derelict cars lined the walkway running past ground floor doors, surrounded by debris, dirt, and, yeah. Lots of Infected.

"There," Hakon said.

Aiden's eyes came up again and tracked Hakon gesturing to where much taller buildings began to rise above the shorter architecture. Though even as they towered over the rest, they didn't compare to what he'd spotted further in; buildings so tall, he'd seen them from miles outside the city, lording even over Villedor's walls.

One, in particular, stood out. Literally. It had a sign way up at the top. A red V. The sign must have been monstrously big, considering he'd been able to read it from outside the city already. Which made the tower impossibly tall.

Aiden wondered, briefly, what it'd feel like standing at its base.

Or up top.

His fingers suddenly grew clammy and the bottom of his stomach dropped out from under him. Aiden, startled, gripped the railing tight.

Wow. Since when do you get vertigo?

Around him, the conversation buzzed on.

"I can lead you there—" Hakon offered, clearly still chasing that whole I'll help angle. Zofia to cut in quick.

"No. No need. You got a map though?"

"Yes."

"One you're willing to part with?"

"Readily."

"Mh," she intoned at that.

"Still not loving it," Crane muttered, still picking at his sling.

Zofia scoffed. "I'll be fine." Her eyes snapped up to Aiden. "We'll be fine," she corrected herself. "You sure you're up to this?"

Aiden nodded. After a moment's hesitation, anyway. "I think so. Look. The last thing I want to do is sit on my ass and do nothing. Least it'll get my mind off, you know." He lifted an arm and gestured vaguely over his shoulder, where the bite stung and throbbed and generally made itself known.

"That's the spirit," Crane said — and then promptly winced when he made to slap Aiden on the shoulder. With his injured arm, no less, or so Aiden assumed, between the wincing and the string of Ifuckinghatethisthanks that followed.

While Crane gave his arm a colourful lecture, Zofia regarded Aiden with an unreadable look. He held it. Briefly. Then they both returned to studying Villedor's rising and falling skyline.

"Try and get some rest," she said. "It'll be a long night."

Aiden nodded, but his mind was elsewhere already and his eyes were busy scanning from window to window. A childish yearning sat deep in his gut; a yearing that there'd be a familiar face in one of them.

But it didn't matter how long he stood here. How long he looked. How long he searched.

All he saw was dust and ruin under a veneer of vibrant green.