"Mother of God!" Wilhelm exclaimed as he picked up a large gun hidden in an abandoned stash located in a former grocery.
As he cradled it, Paul asks him what it is, and he turns his head to say, "It's a gun that makes a man out of you… or pink clouds."
Showing Paul, Wilhelm explains more about it.
Many who live in the Zone call it different things, but for Wilhelm, he calls it the Lifesaver.
In reality, it's a Gauss rifle, very rare for it being in his hands, more when he checked it over, like it hadn't been used.
While there's a chance there's better weaponry outside the Zone, unfortunately their options are limited, and the Gauss rifle can get things done.
It surprised him so much; he admitted that Edgar's unusual circumstances permitted him the chance of holding an extraordinary weapon.
Paul discovered a shotgun among the rubble, it was jammed, but he was able to fix that, using the knowledge he procured during his youth, and now he has a reliable weapon for himself.
Since ammo is limited for both weapons, they're forced to ration them, but Wilhelm says that if there's stashes all over the Zone, they can find that might have what they need.
With the makeshift rifle, Wilhelm's unsure what to do with it, as not only guns a commodity, but space as well.
Taylor offered to take it, but there's reluctance in Wilhelm's eyes, until Edgar prodded him into giving it to her.
"Here, since it doesn't use the same ammo, but you better watch yourself, girl, in the Zone, what doesn't kill you, will when you least expect it," Wilhelm eyed her as he handed her the makeshift rifle.
Holding it, Taylor sees how Wilhelm scavenged different parts from other rifles to make it, since there were plenty of discarded weaponry latent within the Zone, all he had to do was find enough rifles of the same kind to craft his own.
Finding a working gun in its original state was almost nil, that he pinched himself to make sure he wasn't dreaming.
Going through the abandoned crates scattered around the grocery store, Taylor and Anya found packets of food, Anya finding an empty backpack for them to put the food in.
"Can I ask? Why are you two here?" Anya broaches a question while she and Taylor continued scavenging for food while Paul and Wilhelm kept watch for the mutant.
While going through picked clean shelves, Taylor explains, "We were only trying to pass through."
She watched as Anya grew silent, her eyes blinking, before finally saying with confusion in her tone, "I… are you lying?"
Reaching out, Tanya asks if she's fine, and Anya mustered that it felt like an invasive thought just popped up in her head, saying that Taylor wasn't telling her the whole truth.
As quickly as it appeared, it disappeared, now she wasn't sure what to believe.
"Well, we're… travelers. We adventure almost everywhere and anywhere, somehow we came here. When we came here, we were stranded, so, here we are," Taylor tried to explain.
Saying it out loud, did make it sound strange, unusual, but Taylor wasn't sure how much more she could say to prove her point without revealing too much.
She didn't need to say anything else, Anya believed her, mustering that it must be interesting exploring.
"When you… what'd you see?" Anya then asked Taylor what the mutant did to her and she grew quiet, morose, as she admitted that the mutant showed a projection of her late mother.
Anya grew sympathetic as she went with Taylor to put what little they found together in the centre of the grocery store as Edgar says there's a storm coming and they needed to stay put.
"I'm sorry… how long ago?" Anya grew curious as Taylor sat down in her spot near a fire that Wilhelm made for them since the rain will drop the temperature considerably.
As she sat, Taylor answers with sadness in her emerald eyes, "A few years, now."
Guess the mutant saw the memories of her mother still prevalent in her mind and used them to try and lure her into a trap.
Sitting across from her, Anya revealed that she knows how Taylor felt, she herself lost her mother.
"One day she left and she never came back. Papa looked for her, but he never found her," Anya frowns as she told Taylor.
It started like a normal day, everyone in the household got up, readying for the day, and Anya remembered how her mother hugged her and Papa before leaving.
"They never found her?" Taylor inquired about the police efforts and Anya shook her head.
Police, neighbours, everyone tried finding her mother, but no one found so much a trace.
Like she disappeared into thin air.
"My Papa prayed every night she'd come back until he passed away," Anya stifled her emotions slowly rising inside her as she talked about it.
Digging into her pocket, Taylor brought out tissues, handing them to her.
Thanking her, Anya dabbed them against her eyes.
"All right, everything's locked up tightly, old man says that nobody should bother us," Wilhelm sighed as he sat down adjacent to the women, his precious Vera on his back.
Edgar came around as he sat across from Wilhelm, fire lit up his glassy eyes, and Paul took his spot next to Taylor.
Outside, they heard the looming storm in the distance.
"Where are we going, anyway?" Wilhelm questioned Edgar.
Seemed like they're not going anywhere in particular, just wandering the landscape, stopping at places, doesn't seem like there's much of a plan other than gathering resources and surviving the Zone.
As the fire crackled, Edgar tells him, "She's whispering, again. She thinks they heard her talking to me."
The soldiers and the scientists became aware that the Zone's communicating with someone, they don't know who, only that they're now aware that the Zone has been talking.
"What are they gonna do?" Paul questioned what they can do to the Zone.
Frowning, his fine lines contorting, Edgar warns that it'll be a power struggle with the scientists trying to control the Zone and their soldiers trying to find answers as to who the Zone's been talking with.
"They cannot control her, Doctor," Edgar warns him. "You know what power does to people. If they kill her, there will be nothing to stop her powers from obliterating the world."
The Zone's aware of her origins, that no one knows how it happened, and they would want to study her, but she knows what horrors awaited if someone tried controlling her or worse, killing her to steal away her powers for their own purposes.
"What are we supposed to do, old man, we're not soldiers!" Wilhelm reminded Edgar how limited they are in firepower.
Sitting quietly in spot, Edgar went without saying a word for minutes at a time until he finally uttered, "Darkness."
For them to succeed against the trespass, they must use the darkness the Zone provides to stop the scientists and their soldiers.
This would leave them vulnerable to the man-made mutants, but it's all the Zone can do to give them a chance.
