Before Five could protest again, Eight flicked on the radio.

"Hey, Sam!" she said sunnily, trying to cover up another cough and forcing Five into crushed silence. "Did you miss us?"

Sam gasped into the radio. "Never, ever… ever… run array—run away—" he sputtered, almost unable to form coherent words. "Y—You know you never ever turn your radio off. Never do that!" He took a deep breath. "Okay?"

Eight chuckled. "He gets lonely without us," she whispered.

"I—I heard that!" Sam protested. "And it's not about me, okay? It's about keeping you alive! Listen, that horde of yours is getting closer. You have swarms everywhere but to the north. You've got to head that way."

"Copy that, Sam," Five said before Eight could reply. "And we'll keep our radios on."

"Thank you, Five," Sam replied pointedly. "Where will you go once you head north?"

Runner Eight spoke quickly. "New Canton. We'll head the zombs that way and let them take care of the horde. They have enough ammo to get rid of it easily. And it'll be a little payback for when they rounded the zombs toward us."

Before Sam could stop the two runners, they had reached the outskirts of New Canton, collecting supplies such as clothing, food, batteries and weapons along the way. Just as Five was picking up a pack of unused underwear, both runners heard a new transmission through the radios.

"Stop! Do not take a step further!" a serious voice called.

"We have a horde on our tail and no guns!" Five pleaded. "Please, it's not too much! You can take care of them!"

"Leave, or we shoot to kill!" The New Canton radio controller warned. "This is your last chance!"

"Get out of the way now!" Eight screeched, grabbing Five and ducking into a nearby group of rocks. The two runners breathed heavily and watched as New Canton shot all the zombies instantly. When the firing ceased, Eight laughed out loud and began jogging back to Abel. Five stumbled up and ran to catch her.

"Are you out of your minds?" Sam cried as soon as the area had gone quiet. "You could have gotten yourselves killed!"

"But we didn't, did we?" Eight said brightly as they took a shortcut back to Abel. Once the runners were in his sights, Sam became distracted with controlling the gate again, and Eight turned to her partner. Her gaze fell dark. "Today didn't turn out to be a good opportunity to chat, Runner Five," she said in a low voice. "But you should know that your sudden appearance here was too damned convenient for me to take lightly. We were low on supplies, and you just turned up like a white knight. I don't trust you, so you'd better watch your back."

"All right, we're all set!" Sam said cheerfully as Five's jaw dropped. "The gate's ready to go. Come on in!"

Without another word, the two runners entered Abel and split ways. Feeling slightly sick, Five didn't stop jogging until she reached the top of the comms tower. She knocked on the door hurriedly until Sam opened it.

"Nice run today, Five! You—are you all right?" The smile slipped from his face.

"She—she doesn't trust me—" Five faltered, her face turning red. "Eight—she thinks the rocket launcher was me—"

"Woah, calm down, calm down," Sam said, ushering her into the room and closing the door behind them. "What happened?"

Five began shaking in anxiety. "She said that it was too convenient—too good that I survived the helicopter crash and came here. She thinks that I shot it down!"

Sam sat the runner down, taking a seat in the other rolling chair.

"Listen, Five," he said gently. "She's right, in part. We didn't think we'd get another runner so soon. I mean, we knew that we were scheduled to receive supplies—and someone to help us build more shelters—but they were going to leave right away afterward. I guess you were the one who was going to do that for us, but they hadn't even given you your orders when you crashed. We still don't know what happened there, and it's making us nervous."