Saeko's eyes opened at the sound of hearty laughter and the pain of sore muscles shooting up her body. She was sleeping in Ryuji's room, in his bed. Her body was bandaged up with poultices applied on badly bruised areas. The clock on his wall was pointing close to 9:00 a.m. "Dammit," she sighed as she ran her fingers through her hair. It was unbelievable how much a near-actual battle took out of her.

Waking up slowly, she noticed a tray on the bedside table with a meal of a small bowl of rice, miso soup, dried sardines, pickled vegetables and a tall glass of barley tea. Her stomach growled at the sight of it, considering she only ate a light breakfast yesterday at the Takagi estate and nothing else. Changing from the powder blue pajamas into a pair of shorts and a t-shirt, she began eating. Although it was tepid, it did nothing to mar the flavor. Her eating pace accelerated and she was done before she knew it.

She then stuck her head out the door to see what the laughing was all about. The voice belonged to a rather large man.

"Hector, quiet." Karena shushed him with a stern frown. "We may have soundproof glass, walls and curtains, but there is a limit to how much sound it can contain."

"But I mean, come on! Look at this shit! Who the fuck even thinks like this anymore? God, this makes southern hate-groups look like a bunch of choir boys!" He was soon silenced with a kick to his side.

"Shut. Up." Hector was massaging the point of impact but still continued to laugh albeit more quietly. She then smacked Ryuji upside the head with a rolled up magazine who was guffawing right next to him. "Turn it off. It reminds me of the demo that happened on the bridge a few days ago. They're nothing short of a cult at this point"

"I can understand that. But they aren't exactly off the mark. The virus strain that created B.O.W.s was made overseas by two Brit aristocrats and an American. What I want to know most though is where they found the time and resources to make all those signs and fliers."

Religion was not exactly something that any of the seven adhered to. Most of them were agnostic, atheist or something in between. Plus, cults were organizations that they toppled to keep their pockets full.

Salvation through prayer and entering heaven through good deeds were nothing but pipe dreams. To them, it was the coward's way out, begging for help before they even try to save themselves from an almighty being who claims to love humankind yet allows them to slaughter each other with rules. People have killed and died for gods, for prayers. There were only four things the Wolfpack believe in: their skills, experiences, intuition (especially Ryuji's), and each other. That was more than enough to survive everything life has put them through.

"True. But now things are going to get a bit boring. We've finished up with the faraday cages, we have food and water aplenty. All that's left is training and taking shifts in watching the perimeter." Ryuji stood up and arched his back, stretching like a feline and noticed Saeko poking her head through the doorway. "Hey, look who's up."

"Good morning…and I'm sorry for yesterday."

Karena waved her hand dismissively. "No worries. Vector and Ryuji set the bar high to begin with. You've turned her into a rag doll, for crying out loud!"

"Oh, give it a rest, mom. Michaela already gave me an earful about that yesterday."

"Speaking of which, where is she right now?" Vladimir asked as he finished replacing the wick and flint to his lighter. "She isn't still asleep, is she?"

"Speaking of which, I haven't seen Vector either." Ryuji downed the contents of his coffee mug and finished, "Strange."

"The man's internal clock is like an old man's and he wakes up way too early for his health. Wait, but if Michaela isn't here, then….huh. Guess they went through an emergency treatment or something." Hector said with a knowing grin as he raised his eyebrows several times.

Karena's foot jammed into his side once again. "It's too early for your innuendos. And even if that were the case, either Vector or Michaela would say so beforehand. He doesn't have a laissez-faire attitude when it comes to punctuality."

"What about Vector and me?" Michaela's voice piped up from below as she and Vector emerged from the stairs, both wearing black tank tops and sweatpants. They were both breathing harder than usual and were dripping with sweat.

"Since when were you two awake?"

"Since 0300. I woke Michaela up an hour after. We had several rounds of sparring until now. We already ate, so don't mind us."

Saeko's drowsiness was blown away by his words. While she is unaware of what consists of their training, but the amount of sweat pouring from their body was enough proof that it was several times more than what she was put through yesterday. Yet they do not seem to show signs of obvious fatigue, and they were at least twice her age.

"Now then," Karena clapped her hands together as she moved in front of the TV to gather everyone's attention. "Michaela, go wake Christine and your student up and check on our stock of medical supplies."

"Jahwol."

"Hector, check the faraday cages and everything inside it. Make sure they all work. Also make sure the weapons used on our last excursion is functional."

"Roger that."

"Vladimir, post up on the roof with me."

"Knew that was coming."

"Vector, make rounds on ground level. If any infected get too close to the gate, take them down. Quietly."

"Of course."

Giving off orders, everyone began moving as soon as Karena clapped her hands again. "We need to go this way, c'mon." Taking Saeko by the hand, Ryuji brought her upstairs to the third floor, which was one, giant room with all the walls removed. A quarter of this spacious floor was filled with every form of electronics imaginable, including game consoles. All of them were covered with faraday cages like a sanatorium for electronics.

There was also a small kitchen, a bar counter cluttered with every kind of alcohol imaginable, a wine cooler, a pool table, dart board, and foldable chairs surrounding a glass table. The table had a chess board atop it, with shells and bullet casings used in place of chess pieces differentiated by whether they were live or not.

"What is this place for?"

"You're killin' me, Smalls." Ryuji smacked himself on the forehead upon hearing Saeko's question. "If you've seen a movie that has a room full of high end electronic equipment, it's obviously our base of operations where we collect intel via hacking and keep tabs on our surroundings through cameras. Right now our chore is checking up on other countries' positions, determining authenticity, making some educated guesses about their next play, check on the infected around us for any drastic activity, and provide backup if there's an excursion going down."

Saeko could but blink. "And…..you are going to do all of that? On your own?"

"There's a limit to how much I can multitask, but yeah. Everyone else can, to varying degrees. And you need to be able to do this too."

Listening to all this was enough to make Saeko lose consciousness again. There were multiple screens, external HDDs and keyboards. Ryuji eyes and hands began to move at a pace that no man should ever be able to, with the screens changing at erratic paces. "How exactly am I supposed to learn this? I'm not exactly proficient with technology when it comes to….well, whatever this is." One of the screens was nothing but lines upon lines of computer code, which made absolutely no sense to her. In fact, there was barely anything going on that she could comprehend.

"If it means keeping my family safe, I do it. And that is what'll be expected of you." Ryuji shrugged without even glancing back at her and began flipping through a notebook, his gaze alternating between it and a screen with a news feed. "There's only seven of us so we split the work up, but we usually end up doing several chores each. Plus, killing the infected isn't the only kind of war that can be waged. Shit, most of the media's dead. America seems to be doing fine though. Live newsfeed right now is nothing short of a miracle. Either someone's smart enough to lock themselves in somewhere, or there's a crew that's been saved, equipment and all. Either way, we shouldn't have too much of a—-"

The satellite phone began to ring, cutting Ryuji off. He immediately answered. "Yeah?"

"Hello? Serzhant?" It was Rika.

"Uuuuh, he's actually camping out on the roof of my compound.

"I see….and you are?"

"You probably don't remember me since we only met…twice I think. But I'm an associate of his, that's all you need to know. So? What happened? Mass suicide of government officials?"

Rika groaned on the other side of the phone at the sarcastic comment. "No. We've been testing if the recent pandemic is the T-Virus and we finally have some results in. It first starts with itchiness, fever, and gradual lack of consciousness, right? We've separated the people that got bitten and observed, but the symptoms are different."

"Damn. Hang on, lemme get a pen." Sandwiching the phone between his head and shoulder, he took a pen clipped onto the notebook and opened to a clean page. "Continue."

"The virus spreads like meningitis and goes for the brain. According to the MRI footage, it's affecting the synapses themselves, especially near the brainstem. After some time the adrenal glands weaken due to blood loss, the brain shuts down, followed by the other internal organs. This is when you're considered clinically dead, but after a while the synapses reboot and makes them act on instinct, but how much deviates. This part is no different from T."

"Acting on instinct….So the brainstem is the only part that gets rebooted? Nothing in the frontal lobe or anywhere else?"

"After it's become necrotic? No. Well, they can still hear, so somewhat, but not really."

"How about appetite? Those infected by the T-Virus are reduced in a state of perpetual starvation, and does result in cannibalism amongst the infected. Any activity like that?"

"We've done tests like that too, but nothing of the sort happened. Not even when they bumped into each other."

"So that's a big fucking bupkis on the vaccine then?"

"Afraid so. We do have vaccines for the T-Virus and other useful recipes, so we're trying, but I don't think we'll get any closer this week."

"Alright, last question. Any possibilities of mutations? I'd hate to have to take apart another B.O.W."

"We haven't seen anything like that happen yet, but I can't give a definite answer to that. None of the BSAA branches came back with a report like that."

"Well, that's just fucking fine and dandy. So what now?"

"I guess I could meet up with Serzhant and your people."

"If the Far East Branch falls, maybe. But you and you alone. Budem zdorovy."

"Poka." With that, she hung up.

"What language was that?"

"Russian."

"How many languages can you speak again?"

"Including Japanese and English, let's see, uh, Spanish, Russian, Mandarin, German, and Italian. These are the ones I can speak fluently like a native but I can get by in another half a dozen other languages."

"How!?" Saeko cried.

"Lower your voice, Jesus!" Ryuji hissed, reeling his head back the sudden outburst from the girl. "Look, the first seven I can speak fluently because I live with people who can read, write and speak those languages fluently. We basically taught each other over the years, and for the rest I studied in my spare time. Whoa."

Saeko looked at the screen Ryuji pointed at. The camera feed showed Vector in the back of the compound standing on the two meter tall wall of concrete surrounding the safe house, shooting a crossbow. The camera on the roof showed a high kill count. There were more lying on the pavement in the front. "If splitting chores is how things are done here, I would like to be of some assistance."

Ryuji stared at her hard, scrunching his brows together in a frown. He then stood up and brought one of the foldable chairs next to his own. "Alright. These three screens show live feed of cameras set up around the perimeter of this building. If there's anything wrong, let people know, even if it's a false alarm." Tearing a piece of paper from the notebook, he began scribbling instructions on how to operate the cameras and handed it to her, all while maintaining contact with everyone on watch.

Saeko kept her eyes on the screens, actively asking questions about everything and anything she needed to know, although mostly bewildered at the complexity of everything. "May I ask you something?"

"Depends on what it's about."

"About your past." Saeko mouthed cautiously, and the hands dancing across the keyboard immediately halted.

"Remember while we were still moving around with Takagi and the others and we stopped near a convenience store for supplies? Takagi wondered why I believe you are worth trusting despite deceiving everyone for over a decade."

"Lying is a thing that people do."

"I am aware. And I consider your falsification of your records as your way of consideration more than anything else. I just thought that I would ask."

"I'll tell you once you're a better shot."

"Fair enough." Before she continued, she saw something out of the corner of her eye that passed the screen. "I think there's something coming this way."

"From where? How far? And I need you to be more specific. 'Something' is far from helpful." Lupe's voice crackled over the earpiece.

"Right…um…Left side of the building. It's a…." Without any information other than what she saw, Saeko could not give an answer.

"Gimme a minute, mom. Zooming in." Hitting several keys, the camera feed zoomed in, showing three cars driving in a line. "Three sets of wheels tailgating, and three, four, five heat signatures from the first two cars, and four from the last one. They're pretty quiet too. They're driving fucking Priuses. We gotta shoot 'em on principle now."

"Anyone else around them?"

"Oh yeah. Four hundred meters straight from the front of the compound. Two snipers. Bolt action. I can already tell one's a Remington M700. The other is….ah, got it. Accuracy International, AW model. Can't tell the caliber, but it's definitely ones that Vladimir would use."

"Copy that. Four hundred meters." Karena checked back in less than twenty seconds. "Done. Ryuji, I need you out there with Vector. Pincer and take them out as quietly as possible. Do not let them fire off a shot. And no firearms or explosives. Period. Oh, and bring the girl with you. Vladimir will take over your spot."

"Yes ma'am." Pulling his plate carrier on securely, Vladimir came down the stairs with a bag in hand.

"Your Silent Night package." He tossed the bag to Ryuji who caught it and slung it over his shoulder. "Watch yourself out there."

"Thanks." He knocked his knuckles against Vladimir's and opened the window. "Saeko, here's a preview of my past: our routine work." Jumping over the rails of the veranda, he let go and fell backwards.