By the time his brother woke, Dick's leg was almost back to the condition it had been in right after the first earthquake. A single spot of blood had appeared on the outside of the bandage, at which Tim made a horrible face. There seemed to be no advantage to stripping it down here when he might very well bleed more on the trail, though, so in the end they opted to leave the wound alone until they camped again.

Things went quickly after that. Tim, who looked no better but said he felt sharper after his nap, focused on packing the tent. When that was done they moved warily towards where they had eaten the night before, both searching for signs of the bear as they went. They had a moment of fright when they discovered that the can containing their food wasn't where they'd left it, but a short search turned it up intact a few dozen yards away. Once they'd found it, Dick took up a position on his bag-bench and dipped into the lunch supplies to make something they could eat on the trail. When footsteps signaled Tim's returned from refilling their water bottles, he looked up.

"...You ready to do this, little brother?"

"As ready as I'll ever be, I guess. You?"

"Ditto. Here," he held out a hastily-crafted tuna wrap. "Lunch."

They followed the shoreline towards the mountains as they ate. The drop-off to their right slowly trickled out to nothing, leaving them to walk along the edge of the lake itself. It had risen a few inches in the night, but at that rate it would take years to be a threat to them. Dick felt some of the vague apprehension his brother had gifted him with on that subject flee, and was grateful. They had enough to worry about without drowning being on the list.

"...Is this it?" he asked as they approached a wide channel that cut straight across their path.

"It looks like it, but the water's really low." Tim pointed at the narrow ribbon of liquid running down the middle of the muddy strip. "I guess that's all that's left."

"...Kind of kills our 'stick close to water' plan."

"Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe it's a mixture of what we were talking about yesterday."

Dick wrinkled his nose. "What do you mean?"

"Well, you can tell that there's usually a lot more water flowing through here. I mean, this riverbed is probably thirty feet across, but there's only maybe four or five feet actually covered right now. Clearly a major supply line has been cut off upstream. Damian made it sound like the barrier appeared within hours of the quake, though, so the only way there could still be this much water coming through is if there are at least a few decent sources inside the dome itself, feeding it. If that's the case, we should have water for at least part of the way. Make sense?"

"Makes sense to me," he nodded, smiling proudly as he reached out to ruffle the younger man's hair. "Smarty-pants."

Tim rolled his eyes, but the action couldn't cover the faint blush that had risen into his cheeks. "...Thanks."

The foliage along the bank was thin, but there was no reason for them to think that it would stay that way as the elevation rose and the gorge narrowed. As such they opted to stick to the river's usual course, which had dried enough to be firm underfoot and proved an admirable road. There was just the right amount of give left in the soil that Dick found it to be more comfortable to traverse than the grassland had been, and as a result he was able to pick up the pace a little. Before he could really get into his rhythm, though, he stopped dead. "Uh...Tim?"

"What's the matter?" came from the region of his elbow. Transfixed by what he'd nearly stepped on, he didn't look over. "...Oh," a weak sigh sounded as Tim followed his gaze. "That's...that's really big."

"Yeeeeah..." The half-hardened paw print before them was easily seven inches in width, and the claws at the end of each toe had left their own deep, ragged depressions. It had to be from the animal they'd fought off the night before, he was certain, and he shuddered. If he had taken a swipe at either of us, would we even be standing here right now? Jesus... "Take a picture," fell out of his mouth suddenly.

"...What?"

"I said, take a picture of it. I don't know why I want one, exactly, I just...it's something I want to remember, that's all."

"Do you really think you're going to have trouble remembering being attacked by a bear in the middle of the night only to come across its massive footprint the next day?" Tim crossed his arms and stared at him. "Seriously, Dick, if that's something you're capable of forgetting then I envy you. Like, a lot."

"It's not so much that I think I'll forget as it is that I think I might have to convince myself that it wasn't a dream. I mean, this is all pretty surreal as it is, and we're not even to the baddie yet. Aren't you afraid you might question your memory once we're back in normalsville?"

"...Huh. Yeah, I...I guess I can see that. Well...okay, I'll take a picture of it," he agreed, shrugging his pack off. "Assuming that my camera wasn't broken between the earthquake, the mountain climbing, and last night's assault by the bear cavalry, that is."

It hadn't been, miraculously enough, and a minute later they were peering down at the review screen. "Think that will be enough to convince you in five or six years?" Tim asked.

Dick shivered again. Somehow the impression was even more chilling when viewed through the camera, which left him with no doubt that it hadn't all been a wild dual hallucination. "That should do it."

"Good. Then let's get out of here before the thing that made that mark decides to retrace his steps."

They carried on into the afternoon, keeping to the riverbed and watching constantly lest their toothy visitor surprise them around a bend. There was a definite upward tilt to their trail, but it was a hundred times easier to master than the steep, slippery sides of the hills they had clambered over two days before. Neither of them hesitated to draw from their water bottles now that they were near a fresh supply, and somewhere around two they had to stop for refills.

The light was beginning to fade, Dick noticed as he waited for his brother to cross the sticky ground between their trail and the stream, but it was still far too early. Tim seemed to sense that something was wrong, too, and turned his face towards the sky as he walked back. "Here," he handed a full bottle over absentmindedly. "...What do you think's going on up there?"

"I don't know," Dick shook his head. "It looked weird this morning, kind of misty, but I thought it was just the light refracting off of last night's rain. I meant to mention it to you when you got up, but..."

"There was a lot to do." He paused, peering upward. "...Dick, I have a horrible feeling I know what's going on."

"'A horrible feeling?'" He arched an eyebrow. "Why do I not like the sound of that?"

"Tell me if I'm being crazy, but...those kind of look like clouds, don't they?"

He studied the air overhead. "Well, yeah..." But it looks like they're inside with us, and that's crazy...

"It's logical," Tim breathed. "...Yeah. This...this makes sense. Think about it; there's a giant lake behind us, and a fair amount of flat plains, too, right?"

"Yeees...?" A ball of dread began to grow in the pit of his stomach as he watched his brother work things out.

"And everything ahead of us is higher elevation. Without pulling out the map I can't be certain, but I think some of the snow-capped peaks might even be inside with us. It was hot yesterday, and then that storm came through and cooled off the air at the top of the dome. The water couldn't get in, but that doesn't mean that the temperature difference between inside and out didn't have an effect. In a more-or-less closed system like this one, the convection rate..." He paled suddenly. "...The convection rate must be intense. This...this could be really bad."

"Wait, wait, wait," Dick slowed him. "Are you saying there's a rainstorm forming underneath the force field?"

"That's...that's what I'm saying, yeah. And we're going to be in the worst of it, because we're right between the lake and the higher mountains. We're stuck in the drop zone."

"...Timmy, I love you, and I generally love how brilliant you are, but in this instance I sincerely hope that you're very, very wrong."

"I hope I am, too. We don't have time for rain."

They really didn't. Besides the fact that it would make the ground underfoot soggy and would soak them through, too, a rainstorm could easily swell the river. That wouldn't mean much for their passage at this point, but the course wasn't likely to stay this wide as they got deeper into the mountains. Even in its much-reduced state, the water could block their way, and they couldn't afford to lose any more time in backtracking.

How many more quakes have been set off since ours? Dick wondered. One a day? Two? More, even? Damian hadn't mentioned any others, but there was no way of knowing if that had been because there was nothing to report or because there had been so many equally important things to tell. He wanted to believe that it had been the former, but he couldn't quite manage it. No baddie worth their salt would erect an impenetrable force field and then just sit on their hands; even the Joker wasn't that patient. Something had to have happened somewhere since the world had first shook beneath their feet, and innocent people were likely to be dead as a result. It can't rain, not now, he pleaded silently. Be wrong, Timmy. For once, be wrong. Please.

But Tim wasn't wrong. An hour later the semi-opaque fog above them had thickened and taken on an ugly gray coloration. Worse still, gusts of wind were beginning to echo down the river gorge, blowing dust into their eyes and sending a chill right through their summer-weight clothing. They stuck closer and closer together as day turned prematurely into twilight, terrified of losing one another in the rising maelstrom.

"I think we need to stop for the night!" Tim half-shouted after a particularly strong blast of air nearly knocked them over.

Dick nodded back, but he wasn't confident about their decision. He surveyed the abused landscape as best he could through the grainy air, and saw nowhere that they could set up camp. The nearer bank was polluted with the carcasses of fallen trees. Beyond the tangled greenery the land rose precipitously, plateauing off after some seventy feet at the base of a rolling hill whose crown was hidden by the low-hanging weather. Short of sleeping in the river bed, there was no place that was open enough to accept even their small tent.

Thanks to a small curve in the course of the waterway, the air calmed a bit once they'd stepped up onto the bank. It was a short-lived consolation, though, as they immediately had to begin climbing over downed trunks in order to progress inland. Tim went first, trying to find the easiest path over which to lead his brother. "I'm starting to think we should tie the cord back together," he commented eventually. "Or at least pull out the headlamps. I can't see clearly more than about ten feet in front of me."

"Same here. Turn around, I'll dig the lights out..."

"...That's better," Tim sighed a minute later. "What do you think? Carry on?"

"Hold on." Dick had scanned their surroundings anew the moment his lamp had clicked on, and now he narrowed his eyes at a dark spot near the base of the cliff they were approaching. "...Is that a cave?"

"Huh? Hey...you might be right."

"That's convenient."

"...You're not thinking of setting up camp in there?! What if there's another earthquake?"

"It's stood through how many now?" he countered. "Besides...do you see anywhere else to camp? Even if we found somewhere out here, between the wind and the rain that's probably-" a few drops hit the top of his head as if on cue "-no, definitely coming open ground is going to be a less than comfortable, never mind less than safe, place to sleep."

Tim looked like he was wavering, but he launched one last argument. "The storm is going to be bad, but I still think that the risk from another aftershock-"

A deafening crack of thunder cut him off, and there was a flash of brightness as lightning transferred between the clouds overhead a second later. "...Is less than the combined risk of being struck by lightning, washed away, or blown to kingdom come?" Dick finished for him.

"...I hate nature," Tim opined matter-of-factly, grimacing. As soon as the words were out of his mouth the rain began in earnest. In moments they were both drenched.

"I think she heard you."

"Ugh...let's go. So long as we don't find the bear in there, I'm willing to risk the cave."

"All right, a cave!" He clapped his hands, trying to inject some false cheer into their situation. "...Hey, at least it's familiar territory, right? Maybe we'll dream that we're safely at home and just fell asleep over a file."

Tim smiled wistfully. "I hope so, Dick," he said, turning away to lead him towards the mark on the side of the mountain. "I really, really hope so."