The sleek, black discovery blended in surprisingly well to the dark silhouettes of the countless trees of the forest. Pulling to a stop, after an almost silent journey, I jumped out and jogged over to our camp, whilst Jess parked. There was a growling hunger in my stomach, and it's always best to have something to eat, when discussing a large problem.

And I've never known a problem as large as this crisis.

Grabbing my rifle, I headed out into the woods at a mild jog. I had noticed what looked like a rabbit warren, which I now intended to stalk. Admittedly, a rifle calibre like mine for bunnies was a few miles larger than overkill, and could probably blow the thing to pieces, I had no real alternative.

I had first been hunting with my father years ago, in a farmers woods near our house. Dad had promised me a rifle of my own for my 15th birthday, when I could hold it legally, but ever since I was 13, dad had let me keep an old air rifle of his in my room, hidden away from prying eyes. And whenever I had completed my mounting piles of homework, or whenever there was an argument in the house, I would take it, some pellets and go and shoot at some pidgeons, rabbits or other small game.

If there was a proper war brewing, as there occasionally was, I would spit-roast whatever I'd shot on a small fire, and enjoy my small meal in solitude. One pidgeon would amount to two small portions of meat; not much by supermarket standards, but I soon found that the harder you tried, the more times you'd missed, the hungrier and tireder you were, the more brambles and nettles scratched past your face in order to get your game, then the better it tasted after it came off the spit.

You really felt like it was your food, and that every bite of succulent, gorgeous meat you took, was hunted, gutted, and cooked by your own efforts. That you thoroughly deserved every bite.

Following a badger path, it didn't take me long to find the warren, rising out of the tree potted earth, like someone had pushed it out from underground. Resting my rifle on a log, I scanned the mound for rabbits. Thanks to the calibre of my gun, I didn't have to get half as close as I would normally when hunting game. Picking out a few young rabbits, I moved on, and eventually found 2 mature, well fed bunnies. Flicking the well greased bolt forward, I took aim at the head of the first rabbit. Admittedly, a rabbits head is a hard target to hit, made no easier by the relatively crude optics I was using.

After all, the effective range of a human is somewhat longer than that of a rabbit, with a head of only a few inches across. I had to get a headshot, to save the bullet pulling most of the meat out the side of the rabbit. Letting out a breath, I slowly squeezed back on the trigger.

When I returned home, I found that Jess had already lit a small, smokeless fire, so as not to attract attention. Our original plan was to steal some rations from the town, but after the result of today's mission, that hadn't exactly gone well.

"Rabbit for dinner" I announce.

Her dirty, tired, blood flecked and battered face looks up, and flashes me a completely out of place smile.

"Served with luxury out-of-date crisps, fresh from your local land rover" she replies, indicating to a packet of broken, old Doritos.

I chuckled, and begin taking the rabbit apart with my combat knife.

"What to do with the skin? You haven't left too many brains to tan it with..."

She was right. The bullet had more or less beheaded the poor creature.

"I'll scrape it down, see what happens. You're right, it'd be a shame to waste it."

Sliding the cubes of muscle onto some crude splints, I began turning the skewers I've the fire. Admittedly, spit-roasting is a very crude method of cooking, whereas frying would be far more preferable. But, no frying pan, and we were in a hurry, anyway. As the long, fat fed flames licked the surface of the meat, the question of what to do next re-arose.

"It doesn't make any sense. Horhernan would never betray everyone. He was there from the infection!"

"Well, I guess that's where we start then." I reply.

"Where would they put him, then? For treason?"

"The tower, I guess..."

"Well, London will be in uproar by now. We should find out for definite first, get ourselves back to the mainland."

"How?"

Silence rang out, only broken by the crackling of the orange flames.

"Wait, I know!"

Jess vanishes into the car, before emerging clutching some papers, to fine me chomping on a square of her rabbit. After a brief restling match, she continued her explanation.

"The defender has crude armor plating, and a more or less full tank. It's evidently been provided by the republic, which means it's come from the mainland."

"Which means that they probably want it back."

"Which leads me neatly on to these." Picking up the papers.

I took a close look at the evidence in the light of the embers. I was a map, covered in red ink, and annotations in biro. Nestled on the nearest coastline was a large red circle, with a long string of red dashes following the lanes towards a main road. Turning the page, I found a similar circle around the forest we were dropped into, and directly over the house of our contact, a large, bold X. Written in neat handwriting in the middle of the sea, were two dates:

"20-10-15 and 22-10-10."

"Tomorrow night."

I smiled.

"We'd better get going then."