Everything was dark, warm. Comfortable. Stuart could hear a voice. He didn't like it, he didn't like it at all. It was a knife, slicing through the soft warmth of the dark blanket wrapping his consciousness. He silently begged the voice to leave him be.

But it was too late. His body was ascending, upwards through the darkness, up through clouds of light, and then a bright shaft of light was piercing the dream...

"Wake up, you dick."

Stuart's eyes squinted open. He was dizzy. Everything was blurry. A sick ache pounded in his head and he felt himself moan in pain.

"Wake the fuck up!"

Stuart blinked.

The angel was above him. She had a reddish brown halo around her head, she was surrounded in blue light. He couldn't see her face, it was shadowed in silhouette.

He felt a light slapping at his cheek. "God dammit, I'm not dragging a dead body with me, wake up already!"

He opened his mouth. "Did I die?" he croaked.

"Don't be fucking stupid. I just knocked you out."

"Are you an angel?"

He could see her face now.

She looked pissed.

"Good god, did I break your brain?" she barked. "Snap out of it!"

Stuart shook his head. Where was he? He struggled to think. Surveillance... feathers... renegade.

"Fuck!" he exclaimed, sitting up suddenly. He sat up too quickly; the ache in his head screamed into a searing agony. He moaned and put his hands over his eyes, waiting for the pain to ease.

He realised his mask was gone. He looked up gingerly, looking around for the mask. He noticed it carelessly tossed by a rock with his goggles.

He looked back at his assailant.

She wasn't an angel after all, he could see that. She was a girl, probably a little younger than him. Other than her strange clothes and her scowl, she looked fairly normal. Not like the animalistic uncivilised bandits he'd been taught to kill.

She stood up and turned around. He realised that the angel wings he'd glimpsed on her back weren't real; they were a printed design on the back of her shirt. He blinked.

She picked up a canteen of water and shoved it in his direction. He grabbed it and gulped it down. The water tasted stale and metallic, and it was warm from being in the sun. But he drank it greedily nonetheless, his throat dry and gritty from the dust.

He put the bottle down and wiped his mouth. He looked up at the girl. "Who the hell are you and what is this about?" he demanded. He was confused – the girl had knocked him out. He thought she would have killed him by now, but she hadn't. She'd given him water instead. If she considered him an enemy, then why was she helping him?

"I'm not stupid enough to tell you that," she said. "All you need to know is that as soon as you're okay, you're hightailing it straight back to Battery City. I should have killed you, but I didn't."

"Why didn't you kill me?" he asked. He was starting to get really confused. Why was she helping him?

Her eyes narrowed. "I know a lot of hippies, and some of their values tend to rub off on you," she said coldly. "I don't kill people as a rule."

"You dragged me into a cave and knocked me out."

"You were unlucky. You got yourself involved. If you'd just stayed put, I'd have hidden behind the boulder and you would have moved on and it would have been fine. But you went after me instead. I couldn't risk getting captured, and you were too close, so I dragged you down with me. Simple as that."

It didn't sound simple. Stuart shook his still-groggy head. "I still don't get it, you could have just run off without dragging me along as well.."

"Does it not occur to you that I might not have been thinking?" the girl snapped. "Yes, kidnapping you wasn't exactly the most logical course of action. But it happened. Now you have no weapon and I do, so you're gonna have to do what I tell you either way."

Stuart sighed. She still didn't make much sense, but then he couldn't expect an uncivilised desert girl to be rational or logical. And if hippies were involved, then he couldn't be surprised if she was a bit nuts.

"Now, are you okay to walk back on your own?" she asked.

Stuart did a double-take. "Walk?" he spluttered. "Surely you're not serious? You expect me to walk all the way back to Battery City? Kid, Battery City is far away enough even when you have wheels, but to walk? That's suicide!"

"Well, I can't drive you because I have no car, and I can't take you home because you could report our location," she said coolly. "You Agents already know we have a community here – that's why you were snooping around, wasn't it? You just haven't found it yet. And I'll be fucked over with a rusty pole if I'm going to let you waltz right into it."

She had a point. She looked savvy enough not to trust him.

"Well, I can't go back at this hour in any form of transport," he said, checking his watch. Sure enough, the flashing lights and dots read 15:25 hours. Even if he'd had a bike, he'd still be caught out dark alone and unprotected. He was rat meat on a stick if he tried to go back now.

"I won't expect you to take me to wherever you live. You're right – I'd report it to my superiors. But you wouldn't know anywhere I can take shelter before I try to get home?" he asked.

The girl bit her lip. Stuart wondered what she would do. She didn't look dumb or friendly enough to help him too much, but she didn't look heartless either. Hopefully she was hippy enough to try and help him a little.

Her eyes narrowed again. "There's plenty of caves," she said bluntly. "Sleep in one of them for the night. You Dracs always carry enough damn gear with you to survive for a week out here."

"I can't sleep in a cave!" Stuart blurted out. "That's – that's –"

"Savage?" the girl asked. "Uncivilised? Barbaric?"

Her lip curled into a snarl. "It's more civilised than controlling people or killing people purely for making decisions that don't fit in conveniently with your goals of world domination."

"Alright, alright, you've made your point," Stuart said hastily. "Fine, I'll sleep in a cave. But that's still pretty risky, bandits and dust rats like to hide out in caves."

"Want me to babysit you?" the girl said mockingly. "To scare the big bad monsters under the bed away?"

"Don't be silly," Stuart snapped. "That's not what I'm worried about. The issue is, I don't even have a weapon. If I'm going to sleep in a cave, I'd like to do so with a way to protect myself."

The girl bit her lip again. She looked down at her lethal spear. She looked back at him, then back at the spear again. Her brown hands gripped it so tightly that the knuckles appeared white.

She looked at him. "If... if I give you my spear," she began cautiously, "and I come back here tomorrow morning... you'll give it back to me, right?"

Stuart shrugged. "Whatever, it's just a spear."

"It's not just a spear!" the girl barked. She shot a heavy glare at him. "It's a damn good weapon and it took me a long time to make. It's my only weapon. You break it or lose it or leave before I can get it back, I'll... I'll hunt you down!"

"Okay, I get it," Stuart said. He didn't quite understand the fuss over the spear. Yeah, so she made it herself, but no need to jump down his throat about it. Nonetheless, he nodded. "I'll take good care of it and I'll give it straight back," he said. "I won't leave until you've come back to pick it up."

"You promise?" the girl demanded. She looked worried. A little scared. It dawned on Stuart that finding the materials to make any kind of weapon out here would be difficult.

"I promise," he said.

The girl scowled and turned away, muttering something about being stupid to trust Dracs. But she handed over the spear nonetheless and began packing up the water canteen and other belongings into a battered leather backpack.

Swinging it over her shoulders, she turned back to Stuart. "You meet me here tomorrow morning, okay?" she demanded. Stuart nodded. "Right here," he agreed.

Still looking worried, the girl walked away. She dodged behind a couple of boulders, and then she was gone – disappeared. It was a clever trick. Stuart couldn't tell the direction she was taking by the dodging, and she'd hidden herself very quickly.

Might be worth learning, he contemplated.

First things first, though, he had to figure out where to stay, and how to get back to this boulder so that he could give back the spear the next day.

He walked over to where his mask and goggles had been left. Behind the boulder was his satchel of emergency belongings – every Drac carried one in the event of being accidentally stranded in the desert overnight.

It contained a fire-starting kit, emergency tinned food, a sleeping bag, and other items to help keep him safe and relatively comfortable during his inconvenient stay. It also had a spray can of red paint.

Stuart pulled out the can and marked the boulder, so it was easy to identify. He then sprayed the ground as he searched, so he wouldn't lose his way if he found a cave that was far from the boulder. He eventually found a suitable cave – it was large and dry, not too damp, and had a thick curtain of roots hanging over the narrow, mostly hidden entrance. He took his belongings into the cave and began to work on lighting a fire.

He didn't need to worry about occupying himself for the few hours before it got dark and he could try to sleep – lighting the fire proved to be difficult work, particularly in the dark cave where he could see little. By the time he had a proper fire going, it was nearly six in the evening and the sun had slipped almost behind the horizon.

Stuart left the cave to try and judge whether the fire was visible outside the cave or not, but found himself distracted by the view.

It was truly beautiful on the plateau – the high position was the perfect position to view the desert and the spectacular colours the sun had stained it. Stuart found himself entranced by the gleaming mauve-stained sands, the ice-cream pink and cream cirrus clouds, the ribbing pattern they made across the sky, and the wonderful orange glow of the sun.

He stumbled to the edge of the plateau, feeling no fear as he sat down with his legs over the edge – he was simply hypnotised by the view.

If only Dracs could set up dwellings out here, he mused. I mean, it must be possible to live out here if there are whole communities existing. I could build a house up here. I could have this view every day.

It was not until the sun had well and truly set that he remembered his original reason for leaving the cave. He turned around and inspected the rock wall. In the twilight, he couldn't see any light leaving the thick curtain of roots covering his cave. Satisfied that keeping a fire lit would be safe, he went back into the cave and unpacked his sleeping bag and food.

It was a quiet, melancholy evening for Stuart along by the fire. He felt terribly lonely as he shuffled into his all-weather sleeping bag (it came with an air-filled mattress that automatically pumped itself up upon unrolling and an orthopaedic pillow) and prepared his meagre meal of tinned meat and just-add-water rice. Heating the food over the fire, he pondered over the romance of his situation – lonely and fending for himself out in the middle of a desert in a cave with nothing but a fire for company. It sounded like something out of a book. If he was some 19th-century highwayman longing for his out-of-his-league lover, it might have been a romance novel.

However he was a rookie Drac longing instead for the bright lights of his city and his comfortable, sterile Drac-issue apartment in the BL/ind-owned apartment block where flats were rented out to Dracs exclusively.

He missed his microwave, his fridge full of fruit and gourmet packaged meals, his bathroom, his television. The dusty, rocky distance between him and his beloved city comforts seemed so long and distant.

He thought about the girl. No wonder she had a stick up her ass the length of the BL/ind headquarters tower – who could live out here, out in the dust and dirt and wind and heat, without basic necessities like running water, plumbing, refrigeration and temperature control, and not turn into a miserable grouch from the lack of basic needs?

Eventually, after he'd eaten and made some effort to try to clean himself up, he took off his clothes and hunkered down into the sleeping bag. The fire had died down enough so that it was just embers – not fierce enough to be a hazard or attract animals or bandits, but enough to provide some warmth and comfort in the cold desert night.

With a resigned sigh, Stuart popped a couple of sleeping tablets to knock him out for the night – he feared that without them, he'd suffer some very long and uncomfortable hours of darkness.

Eventually, the pills began to get to work and Stuart felt himself slipping into the gentle embrace of sleep, celestial fingers pressing down on his eyelids and making them heavy, a fog enveloping his mind so that his thoughts became blurry.

Before long, the rookie Drac was fast asleep.

"Hey, wake up... yo, wake up!"

Stuart groaned and rolled over. He didn't want to get up, he didn't to go out on a raid, he felt so sore and it was so cold –

Wait. Cold. His apartment's air-conditioning was set to a constant 23 degrees Celcius. It shouldn't have been cold.

His eyes snapped open.

He looked around wildly, not recognising his blurry surroundings. It took him a moment to realise he was in a cave – the cave he'd settled into for the night.

"I'm over here, Drac."

Stuart rolled over and a hazy face swung into view. He blinked furiously until it came into focus, and he recognised the angular features of the zonerunner girl.

He blinked stupidly. "Uh?"

She glared at him, arms crossed. "I'm here to pick up my spear," she snapped.

Stuart saw that she was kneeling down beside his sleeping bag. And in a flash of sudden realisation, he came to the understanding that he was still naked in his sleeping bag.

He looked down quickly. Thankfully, he hadn't wriggled out of it in his sleep – from the chest down, he was safely covered.

The girl smirked wryly. "You're a slow one in the mornings, aren't you?" she asked dryly.

Stuart blinked and shook his head. "Uh – spear. Um, over there."

The girl nodded and stood up, picking up the spear off the wall. "Good to see you didn't need it," she said. "In fact, you're damn lucky you didn't need it."

"What do you mean?"

"Do you have any idea how obvious this cave is?" she asked. Stuart frowned. "I thought it looked pretty hidden," he protested.

The girl shook her head. "If any bandits came by here, they'd have known immediately that someone was in here," she said sternly. "If the smell of smoke or the bright neon spray paint didn't tip them off, the fact that you used a pretty common cave for squatting would have. Don't they teach you how to survive out here in that fancy city?"

"We ran over the basics," Stuart growled. "Basically, the idea is to not get stuck out here."

"Well, you did a mighty fine job of screwing that one up. You're lucky you're still alive."

She hefted the spear and walked towards the entrance of the cave. "Thanks, and good luck getting back to the city," she said. "You'd better start walking if you want to get there before dark."

"Wait!" Stuart said. The girl stopped, looking puzzled.

"Um," Stuart said. "I didn't catch your name."

She snorted. "That's 'cause I didn't give it to you," she snapped. "Remember? I'm not going to hand my identity over to a Drac."

"It's not as if you showed me where you live," Stuart insisted. "And I didn't exactly get to grab a picture of you. So I can't report you or put you on the wanted list. Besides, apart from threatening a BL/ind agent, you haven't even committed any crimes we can publicly condemn you for. So you're pretty safe."

She still frowned at him, refusing to trust him.

"If it helps, my name's Stuart," he offered.

She smirked. "You're an idiot," she said. "You seriously have got to be the worst Drac I've ever heard of. Giving out your name like that, no wonder I was able to catch you so easily."

She smiled properly. "Just for that, I'm telling you my name, you're too incompetent to figure my identity out anyway even if you tried."

She parted the curtain of roots. Just as she stepped out, she called back, "Angel. My name's Angel."

"Wait!" Stuart called, but she was gone. He heard the crunch of boots on rock as she sprinted away.

"Fuck," he mumbled. He was still disoriented from sleep. He checked his watch – it was only five-thirty. Damn, she'd arrived early. He guessed that she didn't want to be caught out here by bandits or other Dracs. Maybe the daytime wasn't safe for people like her.

He sighed and dragged himself out of the sleeping bag, pulling his clothes back on. She was right – he'd better get a move on if he wanted to get back to the City before dark.

It was just after sunrise when Stuart finally got on his way back to the City. It had taken longer than he had anticipated to roll up his sleeping bag and pack up his items, as well as to hide the remains of his little fire. But he was still making pretty good time – Angel's wake up call had ensured that.

It had been difficult to get off the plateau and onto the plains – even on foot, the track was pretty unpredictable and dangerous. It was slow going, but it was necessary to prevent taking a wrong step and sending himself tumbling fatally down the cliff.

Eventually however, he found himself leaving the plateau and wandering out into the naked openness of the desert plains.

Out here, he felt strangely vulnerable. No caves to hide in, no ravine wall to back up against. But the going was much easier, and much quicker to navigate. If he jogged most of the way, he'd be home before it got too dark.

After a few hours, however, he discovered that that would not be the case.

It started when he glanced over his shoulder to see how far away he was from the plateau. It was becoming much smaller in the distance, indicating he'd covered a pleasing amount of ground despite being on foot. Then something caught his eye.

Against the backdrop of the mountains, he noticed a cloud of dust. And it seemed to be getting bigger.

In a flurry of momentary panic, Stuart thought fuck, I'm about to be caught in a dust storm. However, he realised that it wasn't growing rapidly – it was increasing slowly. Ever so slowly.

About at the same rate as a far-away car at high speed.

Soon, he could faintly see the silhouette of the car – a big black Jeep. His heart dropped. Bandits. He began to run, knowing it was futile.

As it got closer, though, he realised that it could not have been a bandit car. The Jeep was reasonably clean, with shiny, new parts and no major scratches or areas of damage. Not like a typical bandit car, which was usually practically falling apart. This Jeep was virtually new, and well-kept. Also, there was no graffiti or paint on the black bodywork. It was just a plain black Jeep.

After a while, it drew close enough for Stuart to see the driver inside – a large, gruff-looking middle-aged man who, despite several tattoos, a biker's beard and a generally rough appearance, looked reasonably normal in a grey suit.

Stuart held out his fist in a hitchhiker's gesture. To his relief, the Jeep slowed to a stop beside him. Stuart wrenched open the passenger's door.

"Uh, hey man," he said. His mouth was dry from the dust and physical exertion – his tongue kept sticking to the roof of his mouth, slurring his words, lisping his 's'es and making speech difficult. "You heading into BC?"

The man nodded. He looked wary, untrusting. "What's a Drac doing out here with no bike or car?" he asked warily.

"Got kidnapped by... some bandits," Stuart lied. He didn't know why he was protecting the girl, but it didn't seem right to incriminate her for some reason. She was just a kid trying to survive, after all. She didn't deserve to be on the run as well. He realised to his horror that he was feeling sympathetic for her, a mere zonerunner.

"They stole my bike and my radio," Stuart continued. "I managed to keep most of my gear, though. I've been walking since sunrise. Mind giving me a lift back to BC? I'm happy to pay for fuel."

The man hesitated. Fuel was expensive – it was no light offer to Stuart to pay for the fuel expenses. Only a fool would give up an offer like that.

"Hop in," the man said gruffly. "And get in quickly, you're dustin' up the whole car."

Stuart gratefully launched himself into the passenger seat, throwing his backpack into the back of the Jeep with a sigh. He closed the door and the man hit the pedal.

"What's your name?" the man asked. "And don't give me none of that 'Drac Number 54' crap."

"Stuart," Stuart said. "Yours?"

"Adam."

"So... what are you doing out in the desert?" Stuart asked. "You don't look like a BL/ind Agent to me."

"Camping," Adam said. "I... like the outdoors." He shot Stuart a glare. "There's nothing wrong with getting out of the city every now and then."

"Hey, I have no problem with that," Stuart said, holding his hands up defensively. "I get where you're coming from. I'm no drugged up drone of a Drac, don't you worry."

Adam seemed to relax a little. "You're not one of those bastards who signed up for the killin'?"

Stuart shook his head. "It's part of the training to be desensitised to the task of killing people," he admitted, "but I get no joy from it. It's certainly not something I'll do if I can help it. I didn't sign up to kill people."

He shrugged. "I guess I signed up for the same reason you go camping. Adventure, getting out of the monotony of the city."

Adam looked a little less hostile. "See some real sunsets."

"Get a little action."

"You get much action as a Drac?"

"Not really. The incident with the bandits was my first real adventure. I guess I was expecting a little more excitement – more raids, more firefights – but it sure beats your average office job."

Adam smirked. "I guess I see the appeal when you put it that way," he said. "I guess anything beats your average Battery City office job. Turns them poor bastards into little more than vegetables."

"Yeah, exactly. I didn't want to become your typical Battery City drugged-up vegetable."

"That's why I go campin'."

"So what do you do for a living?"

"I manage a shop. One of the Battery City General Store Co. outlets." Battery City General Store Co. was a retail store that dealt in general goods – everything from toilet brushes to toasters to cosmetics. Apparently they'd had a lot of problems with piracy recently.

"Ahhh yeah. How's that working out?"

"Better than most jobs, but still pretty dull. Comin' out here on weekends keeps me sane."

"Are the piracy rumours true?"

"Yeah. Mostly the stores on the outskirts get targeted. It's not as bad as the Fact News likes to make out, though. Just a few generic goods here and there, nothing major. I guess in a place where people have nothing, piracy is just gonna happen."

"True."

Adam and Stuart talked for the next few hours. Adam turned out to be a pretty friendly guy – he admitted that his earlier hostility was from previous bad experiences of dealing with Dracs and BL/ind employees. He made no secret of the fact that he disapproved of BL/ind. Stuart made it clear that he was not bothered by Adam's criticism. He was aware that not everyone loved the corporation, and it didn't worry him. He didn't feel much loyalty to BL/ind himself, he just took the job for the perks.

The ride into BC continued for another three and a half hours. In that time, Stuart found he was getting to know Adam pretty well. It turned out that Adam had no family in BC – he had a niece over in one of the East Coast settlements, but his remaining family had all died in the Fires.

Adam very briefly mentioned that he'd had three children and five young grandchildren before the Fires, but said little else. Stuart decided not to push the subject.

In turn, he chatted about his own life in BC, about graduating from high school and enrolling into Drac school. How proud his parents had been that he was signing up to be the equivalent of a police officer. His mother's frequent, frantic calls about his safety. About how her calls became less frequent and more relaxed once their family doctor had put her on a course of new medication to help her relax.

His parents' eventual transformation into a pair of passive, placid vegetable people who smiled blankly at him when he told them about a near miss he'd had in training, when before his mother would have gone ballistic. And how ever since he'd watched his parents degrade into non-people, he'd promised himself that he wouldn't let himself end up in the same predicament.

"I'd rather be killed out here as a living, surviving, scared human being, than fade away passively in there," Stuart explained. "It's like they've died. I mourn the people they were, even though they're still alive, because they're shells of what they used to be."

Adam shook his head. "That's what Battery City does to ya," he said sadly. "It's terrible. Something about that place kills people inside, kills their desire to live and feel. Those of us who haven't been killed yet, we have to get outta there as much as possible so they can't influence us for too long. Otherwise we die inside too. It's an awful situation."

Eventually the great grey wall of Battery City drew close in the distance. Adam pulled the Jeep up to a gate, where a Scarecrow asked them for ID and passports. Adam pulled out a collection of ID cards, licenses and his passport, all of which the Scarecrow looked over carefully. Stuart held up his BL/ind ID card. The Scarecrow glanced quickly at it, before nodding and waving them through into the glittering city.

They were in the West end of the city, near Stuart's apartment. As Adam drove further into the centre of the city, Stuart waited until he recognised the Five Mile train station. This station was on the Northern Line, which was direct to his apartment block. "I'll get out here," he said to Adam, who pulled over to the kerb.

"Here's my contact details," Stuart said writing his address, phone number and inner-internet email address onto one of Adam's notebooks. "Call me and let me know when you want that fuel money, I can't give it to you right now but I'll get back to you if you give me your details."

Adam shook his head. "On the house," he said. "Look, Stuart, it was my pleasure. You don't need to pay me, I'm not a taxi."

"What? But –!"

"Shuddup, boy, I don't want your money. I'm not gonna go grubbin' off a kid like you, I know rookie Dracs like you don't get paid an awful lot. Think of it as a favour, y'dig? Maybe one day I'll call you up when I need a lift."

Stuart stared at Adam, agape. "That's no small favour," he protested. "That was an awful lot of fuel. I don't want to be stealing a ride off you."

"You won't be. I'll get back to you, remember?" Adam winked. "You take care, kid. Make sure you don't turn into one of those regular drones. You're a good kid, try to stay that way."

"I - thank you."

"No problem. I'll be seeing you later."

And with that, Adam pulled the passenger door shut on the Jeep and drove off, leaving Stuart standing stunned on the sidewalk.

Stuart barely remembered the train ride back to his apartment. He kept mulling over the past day in his head, still dumbfounded by Adam's kindness. There weren't many people in Battery City who'd have given a lift to a stranger in the desert free of charge. Of course now Stuart owed Adam one, but still – that had been no insignificant favour.

As he entered his apartment, everything felt like a dream, unreal. Only 24 hours earlier, he'd been shivering in a sleeping bag by a fire out in the middle of nowhere. And now he was back into the climate-controlled comfort of his apartment. There was even an instant meal pack in the refrigerator, waiting to be heated up in the microwave – chicken carbonara, his favourite.

Even the scalding heat of the shower couldn't seem to wake him up. It didn't seem to be hot enough as he washed away the dirt and sweat and dust of the past two days. Being squeaky clean and wrapped in comfort only seemed to enhance the dreamlike state he was in.

Do I always feel like this in BC? Stuart wondered. In the past two days, he'd been forced to truly survive, to fend for himself. And now he wasn't doing anything. Going back to the quiet comfort of the city felt unreal.

I've always been like this, Stuart realised. I just never noticed. Being out there woke me up and forced me to live. But now I'm falling asleep again.

As he drifted off into sleep, his thoughts drifted to the zonerunner girl. Angel. He wondered what she was doing, what her life was like.

Before he fell asleep, the last image in his head was of the back of her shirt. Angel's wings.

"Tell me, Angel, where are you..?"