Tori was woken up by yelling and lay quietly with Diana curled up next to her. The man's voice echoed to the tent city but she couldn't make out what he said, so she decided to let it go and try to fall back asleep. A few minutes later the sound of the roaring engine being revved way too high piqued her curiosity and the following screams gave her enough reason to get up and check it out. The truck was already gone but she saw Jay stumbling towards the guard that Dom was friendly with and realized the noise was coming from him.

"Did you let him get away?" Jay screamed.

"I...what?" asked Manny. "Who?"

"Dom! You gave him the keys didn't you?" Tori heard Dom's name and she immediately started to cross the clearing, barefoot and in her pajamas.

"Yeah but he said it was all set." Manny looked confused and scared and Jay continued seethe.

"God damnit" said Jay, clasping his hands together on top of his head.

"What's going on?" said Manny. "Where is he going?"

"He's going back to Calloway and his goons" said Jay. Tori stopped dead in her tracks.

"You're Dom's friend, right?" asked Manny, pointing to Tori's chest.

"I guess" said Tori, not sure what they knew and what story she should use. "We just met a couple days ago but we're getting along well."

"Do you think he would do something like this? Spy on us and go back and tell Calloway everything?"

Tori's heart pumped in her chest and she grew more nervous by the second. "I mean I don't really know him that well so I guess it's possible but-"

"No buts" said Jay. "He's gone now so it doesn't matter anyway. I'll tell you what, though, if I see that prick I'll shoot him myself."

Jay stormed off leaving Tori and Manny speechless in his wake. Manny shook his head and looked really disappointed, as if Dom was an older brother figure to him or something. Tori wanted to do something to make him feel better but she wasn't sure what, since telling him wasn't really a smart thing to do and she didn't know how they interacted. He shrugged his shoulders and walked away without saying anything else, making her feel terrible enough that she figured letting him in on the secret wouldn't be the worst thing she could do.

"Manny, come back for a sec."

He turned around and walked back a few paces. "Yeah?"

"Can you keep a secret?

"Sure, is something wrong?"

"No. Well, sort of." She hesitated for a minute, looking around to make sure no one was within earshot. He looked where she was looking and in the interest of more privacy she grabbed his shoulder and led him towards the trees. "Me and the girls I came in with, we've been together for a while."

"What does that mean?" asked Manny.

"I've known Dom for a long time. He lived pretty close to me in Chicago and his brother and I worked together."

Manny's face lit up like he was confident there was a saving grace in the situation. "So he's cool, then?"

"Way cool. We got busted trying to clear out a convenience store and when we got the offer from Calloway, he told us to split and that he would stay behind to try and feed us information from their side. Trouble was, once he got in there they wanted the same thing so they sent him here to report back to them."

"Wow." Manny looked like he had seen some stunt man do an awesome move in an action movie. "That's so cool. It really sucks what happened here though, since now he'll be screwed if he's out in the city and they run into our supply runners."

"He'll be OK" said Tori. "He does well for himself and he'll have more protection with Calloway since he's got all the resources."

"True. Thanks for telling me, I was bummed and hoping it was something like that. I'm guessing he probably tried to explain it to Jay but Jay's kind of weird about some things."

"I guess so."

"Once he gets an idea in his head it sticks, and I guess he thought he couldn't trust Dom since he had said something, even though it wasn't true."

"Well keep your head on your shoulders and keep this secret to yourself, we'll see him again eventually. Bet on it."

It was still dark so Tori headed back to the tent to try and get another couple hours of sleep. She thought about Dom driving out there all by himself on his way back to the true hornet's nest. She wasn't lying when she told Manny that Dom could handle himself, but she couldn't help being protective of him, especially after Matthew's death. None of them wanted to lose each other so it was natural to worry when someone got separated from the group.

When Tori was younger she went to the fair with her family and some friends from school. She was probably twelve years old and her sister Trina was fourteen, and even at that age she had already started her queen bee training. They had started early in the day and hoped to check out all of the booths and ride all of the rides by the time the teenage crowd came in at dusk, so they wouldn't have to wait in line for something unless they really wanted to. After a while they'd checked everything out and were just walking around the fairgrounds eating junkfood when the crop of high school kids started flooding in. Trina had her eye set on a football player with a letterman jacket so she walked off to go try and flirt with him. A few minutes later her mom noticed she wasn't with them anymore and asked the rest of them where she was, but no one knew. It sparked quite a bit of discontent for her parents, running around the grounds frantically trying to find their daughter. Tori and her friends sat on the sidelines and watched, somewhat amused at the time, but now as an adult with a friend that was off doing who knew what to try to save their lives and a family that was missing, she really understood what her parents were going through.

Diana was still sleeping soundly when she reached the tent and climbed in. Her watch read one in the morning so they had about four more hours of darkness. Those four hours were precious to the people in the camp since they had to get up and do manual labor of different sorts, but with her mind running about Dom and her family she couldn't get back to sleep. She found it funny how when she was a kid she could go to sleep any time of the day or night and get good rest, mostly because she knew that when she woke up her only priority was being a kid, but as a grown up with responsibilities it was like her body was fighting against her. It was also funny, though not in an amusing way, that that lack of sleep lead to more difficulty working, which meant she was even more exhausted at the end of the next day, and even then she still couldn't sleep. It was one of those pickles she couldn't escape for whatever reason.

One hour passed by, then two. Diana rolled over a few times and would murmur short sentences every once in a while, things like 'that would be fine' or 'it was bigger than that.' Tori wondered what she was dreaming about and the fun part was trying to guess based on what she was saying. Once she had said 'I can do it' and Tori imagined her in an argument with someone that was trying to baby her. She was very headstrong and liked to take charge of situations but the situations she was best at handling were based in the old world, things like planning parties and organizing meetings. Here in the post Conflict reality her planning skills came in handy for figuring out where they needed to go and how to ration their supplies, but when it came to dealing with people like General Calloway face to face Dom excelled. She didn't mind sharing the top spot with someone but Tori could see where the spark of competition would be, and it was one of the things that she was attracted to.

They never really discussed love or relationships on the road. The rest of the group was aware that Tori and Diana had a thing and they were OK with it, but the actual topic of discussion never came up. Matthew and Marie had their thing before he passed and it wasn't brought up either. It seemed like everyone was sort of afraid to mention the good things in case the universe heard them and tried to do something to take it away. They'd already lost so much, their personal relationships with each other were really the only truly tangible things they had left. Tori knew in her heart of hearts that if she lost Diana it would probably break her down to the point that she might not have the energy to carry on, but at the same time Marie had said the same thing and she was doing better than anyone could have hoped for. It was nice that she had taken to the gardening thing with Gill so much, it helped to get her mind off things and give her a purpose, something that helped anyone in current times. During the day most people delved into their jobs as much as possible to forget that they really didn't have anything to come home to anymore.

She checked her watch again, four fifteen. The earliest risers started getting around at about five thirty, the time the purple-pink dusting from sunrise started to peak over the trees. Marla was usually the first one up, followed by Gill and Gerry. They got the camp started while the supply runners, if they were actually at camp, would get up and hit the road almost immediately. Tori and the others would get up around the time the breakfast table was being set up and by the time they finished eating everyone else was getting around as well. By the time seven o'clock hit the whole camp was up and buzzing, and that was something that actually made the place feel like home. Most of them would be getting up at that time anyway to go to work at their normal jobs, so keeping a routine was a way to stay connected to their old lives and who they were before. There was no doubt that living a completely different life in the wake of the Conflict changed a person, but it was holding on to memories of what and who they had before that either helped them transition into their new lives or broke them completely.

When five o'clock rolled around Tori leaned over and kissed Diana softly on the cheek then changed and headed outside. The air was still pretty crisp in the morning dew but she knew it to be a mask; the increasingly warm pre-summer air would be coming in just a few hours. The sun was up enough to cast light on the clearing so she started grabbing the tables by the food tent to get a jumpstart for Marla. She saw the stone oven and thought of fresh bread, and that made her think of Dom. Wherever he was, hopefully he was safe, and hopefully he would be ready for whatever was coming his way.

The headlights of the truck pinned light onto the road as trees whipped past the windows. Dom drove about eighty miles an hour away from the pipeline road towards the warehouse district, hoping that Jay or anyone else wasn't following him. It was a tough decision in the beginning, wondering which story to go with and how to play his position, but once he saw Jay head down the booze spiral he knew that no matter what he said or did he was going to be a prisoner in that camp and he had to get out. He felt terrible leaving Tori and the others behind without saying anything but he didn't have a choice; he felt just as bad using Manny's friendliness against him to get the keys to the truck. Hopefully Jay wouldn't be too hard on the kid and he wouldn't have to endure any kind of punishment.

He wasn't exactly sure where the warehouse district was from where he was on the highway so he figured he would just drive until he saw an exit or maybe even lights from off the road. The feeling of abandonment and displacement weighed heavy on him as he kept his eyes focused on the road in front of him. One thing he had always had a problem with was uncertainty, whether it was being unsure of what was to come or what he was going to wear when he woke up in the morning. Now he was faced with glaring uncertainties that made the ones from his old life seem trivial. Instead of wondering what he was going to have for breakfast he was wondering if he would be able to find anything to eat for the entire day, with the added worry of if he would get lucky and find some spare of if he would be hungry enough to steal from someone else. That part was covered, for now; Calloway did have a sweet setup and took care of his soldiers pretty well. The worries now were if the group would be OK and what the circumstances would be when he saw them again.

For some reason that was probably easily explainable by some Psychology text book whenever he was alone he couldn't stop himself from thinking back to old memories as a comfort. He would remember getting up in the morning and having breakfast with his family, his whole family. His dad would be watching SportsCenter on the small flatscreen mounted between the counter and the cupboards in the kitchen while his mom cooked whatever they wanted. It didn't even matter if they all wanted something different, she would find a way to make everyone happy since she always said starting off happy made for a good day. He could see the smile on her face just as plain as if he'd seen it the day before and it choked him up a little. He looked around the room in his memory and saw Matthew eating Cap'n Crunch while he played with matchbox cars, even though their mom didn't like him playing with them on the wooden table because they scratched it up. She would tell him all the time to roll them on the placemat but he never did because it didn't work as well that way, but when she saw the smile on his face and how happy he was she didn't have the heart to make him stop. So after everyone finished and headed to work and school she would get out the bottle of Old English and wipe down the scratches to fill them in good as new. Seeing all of their faces made his chest feel tight with the crushing weight of grief that he never got to properly assess. Now was still not the time, though, as he needed to be sharp heading into the lion's den, so he rolled down the windows to get some fresh air and took a deep breath, pushing with all his might the memories to the back of his mind.

After a twenty minute drive he saw the exit with the west bound road that looked familiar from his original trip out so he slowed down and took the exit, hoping to be able to spot more familiar landmarks to make his way back to the warehouse district. Once the exit curved onto the main road large buildings sat in far right distance through the windshield that he recognized to be next door to where he had bunked. Another five minutes and he was pulling toward the gates the district, with two armed guards in front of him. He pulled forward slowly and stopped at the gates, waiting for one of the soldiers to come up and greet him. The one on his left nodded to the other and headed for the driver's side window, weapon at the ready.

"Who goes there?"

"It's Dom, I'm here to see General Calloway."

The soldier shined a flashlight in his face and gave a nod of recognition. "Alright pull through."

The other guard opened the gates and waved him through. He pulled the truck up next to the row of others and got out with his sights on the far left building he knew to be Calloway's. It was late so there was no telling if he was actually awake or not, but the matter was urgent enough to try. Dom waved at the soldiers outside the door as he strolled in their direction and they eyed him carefully.

"I'm just coming back from Humboldt's camp, I need to see Calloway as soon as possible."

"He's sleeping" said the soldier on the right.

"I'm sure he is" said Dom, "but I guarantee he'll want to see me now."

The solider looked annoyed and huffed out a breath. "Wait here."

The night sky was a lot thicker in this area than it was in the woods. The trees in the camp obscured the sky a little but the lack of ambient light allowed the stars to shine brilliantly overhead. Here in the warehouse district where Calloway had a grip on the power supply the lights around the perimeter polluted the darkness and gave a haze such as clouds did. Dom was preoccupied looking up at the sky and he didn't even notice immediately when the soldier returned.

"The General wants to see you."

"I thought he might" said Dom.

He stepped through the door into the General's building, the only building in the district they were using that he hadn't been in before. The inside was redecorated to be homey and lived in, down to the carpet in the hallway. I guess being the boss in town had its advantages. The soldier led him down two hallways and through a large sitting room that had a TV setup, although it wasn't on, and a really nice looking bar. General Calloway was standing behind the bar pouring himself a drink and he looked up when they arrived, then pulled a second glass out and set it on the counter. He nodded his dismissal to the soldier and poured two glasses of whiskey, one he held in his right hand and the other he slid to Dom with his left.

"Here's to staying alive in the face of adversity" said Calloway. He tipped his glass back and Dom did the same, exhaling to ease the burn of the amber liquid.

"Just barely" said Dom. "My exit from the camp wasn't very, uh, elegant."

Calloway looked concerned. "What happened?"

"Well I'm sure Giana filled you in about her outing me to the camp as a spy."

"She mentioned that she had to blow your cover in a difficult situation."

"Yeah and-"

"She also told me" Calloway interrupted, "that you fed Colin false intel. Is that true?"

Dom felt his heartbeat start to rise but he tried to keep it under control. "No, I told Jay that I told them the wrong time because I didn't want anyone to get hurt, but in reality the information that I heard in the first place was wrong." He was thinking as hard as he could about timelines and keeping his lies straight, which was a lot harder to do in the heat of the moment than one would have thought.

"So you were just passing on what you heard then?" asked Calloway.

"Yes sir."

"OK, tell me what happened after that."

"I told them that I came to you guys first and that I was here for a while, and when I realized how you did things I wanted to get out but you wouldn't let me just leave" he started, "so I spun a story about how I told you guys I would be a double agent when in reality I just planned on getting out and never coming back."

"Smart" said Calloway. "So what was your reasoning for giving us intel?"

"I said that I could have just blown you guys off but I decided it would be better to act like I was actually helping you, that way if we ran into each other out in the city I would have a leg up on the situation to potentially help the camp."

"Well I'm impressed, Giana wasn't wrong about you."

Dom relaxed a little bit and slowed his breathing. "We got back to the camp and Jay asked me how he was supposed to believe me since I had given you guys information, even thought it was wrong, and I told him that the ruse was over and I just wanted to stay there, but he said he couldn't trust me and tied me to a chair in his office."

Calloway noted the increasingly purple bruise on his jaw and unscrewed the bottle in front of him for another drink. "Interrogation?"

"A little" said Dom. "I only got hit once, but he made it count." The drink slid across the table and he caught it in his right hand, raising and draining it immediately. "He's got a bit of a drinking problem and sort of flies off the handle when he gets boozing."

"Good to know" said Calloway. "So you're tied up, Jay is in an alcohol-infused rage, yet you're here."

"The whole time we were talking he was busy drinking and moving around, so I struggled against the ropes until I got myself free." He held up his arms and Calloway clearly saw the dried blood and raw skin from rope burn on his wrists. "When he came at me the second time I knocked him over his desk and took off, got the keys to one of your Humvees that I drove back here-"

"Thanks by the way" said Calloway.

"Sure, then I got in and drove like hell."

"OK then. You may be blown in that area but we can definitely still use you. I'll have you head up a crew of supply runners, doing the same thing that Colin does."

"Anything I can do to help sir."

Calloway smiled genuinely and slapped a hand on the bar top. "Well right now you can help by getting some shut-eye. Goodnight soldier."

"Night sir."

He was still reeling from the whole scenario at the camp and the discussion with Calloway when he entered the building he had before and found his old bunk. It looked like they were going to have to go with the old plan and have him try to sneak Tori some information that they could use to do something without him. He was fine with that, as long as they were all doing something to help steer everyone in the right direction. The vision they had back in Wanagi of everyone coming together again to reform the United States was one that he was now sure wouldn't happen, but they did still have a chance of making something livable that everyone could be proud of. Their biggest obstacle was people like Calloway and Jay, people that were ruthless or half-cocked being in positions of power. Not many people wanted to try taking on that responsibility, though, so finding someone to fill in and be in charge of everything was going to be a big enough task on its own. The road ahead was long and it would definitely be the hardest work any of them had ever done, but in the end it would be worth it.

The next morning came quickly with only a few hours of sleep. He hopped up at the second sounding of the alarm siren and got dressed next to the person in the bottom bunk across from him. No one was particularly chatty in the morning, focusing on putting each of their legs into their pants correctly without falling over instead of waxing intellectual about the dreams they'd had during the night. There wasn't a whole lot of people in his area since he was in the building being filled with the newest recruits but he liked it that way, less chances of bubbly morning people wanting to chat. After getting dressed he headed straight out into the communal area to try to find someone he recognized and get orders. Most people were still in the process of getting around so he grabbed an apple and stood to the side while he ate, watching the people around him scurry to wherever they needed to be. There wasn't a whole lot of security around the food table here, no one standing behind watching you grab things as if you were going to try to steal. He had an idea why that was; he knew for a fact he didn't want to find out what happened if Calloway found out you stole from him.

After about half an hour no one he recognized had come around so he decided to make his way to Calloway's building again to take the initiative. The soldiers that stood outside the door during the night weren't there anymore so he let himself in, hanging the quick corners that led to the open recreation area. Giana sat on the couch in front of the TV while Calloway stood up next to it with a whiteboard on an easel. Colin sat at the other end of the couch and another soldier Dom didn't know stood behind them. Calloway waved him in mid-sentence and Colin and Giana both smiled at him.

"Good, you're here" said Calloway.

"I was waiting outside but no one came so I thought I'd come check."

"We're working on supply routes to see where we need to send each group" said Giana. "This obviously is a map of the area on the screen and the whiteboard is the list of groups we have."

He checked out the board and noticed the groups different codenames were written on separate lines with their names written next to them. The first group, Alpha, was composed of Giana and himself. Bravo was headed by someone he didn't know and Charlie was headed by Colin, followed by Delta that was headed by Calloway. Dom had no knowledge of that last group or who was even possibly in it, he just figured that that was above his pay grade and didn't ask any questions.

Calloway studied a list on paper in his hands while Giana clicked through the laptop that was being broadcast to the screen. She went through pictures that maybe she or some other scouts had taken while out in the city, and while most of them didn't seem very interesting, he knew that no one in this group did anything without a reason, so whatever they were looking at was important. He saw some large buildings that looked like offices and even some parking garages that still had a lot of cars in them. What they could possibly want with a parking garage he had no clue, but whatever it was it probably wasn't good. She kept clicking through images until she got to the pipeline road and then docked it to the left side of the screen, clicking through once more and docking a picture of the river to the right. Dom caught a quick glance at each others in the room and then back at the screen, wondering what they had in store for Jay and his camp.

"Alright" said Calloway, "Dom, what can you tell me about their work details? How do they distribute people and what is getting done?"

"Well it's pretty dynamic" said Dom, "they switch up jobs every few days or week, depending on what it is, so people don't get bored of the same thing, although some people have permanent jobs."

"And which ones are those?"

"An older man named Gill works the garden and a woman named Marla does the food distribution."

"Good." Calloway wrote the names and information down on his paper. "The fishing crew? Any hunting crews?"

"A guy named Chet takes a few volunteers out to the river either early in the morning or late in the afternoon to avoid the heat. There's not really a hunting crew, but some of the supply runners that are decent with a bow and arrow go out to get small game sometimes."

Giana watched Dom as he spoke, her face clear and calm. She blinked slowly and her eyes seemed curious. "I hear you're quite the fisherman."

He blushed but tried to hide it. "I managed to fill my bucket, so sure, I guess."

She smiled at him and turned back to the screen. "We got a line on some of their runners the other day." The screen flickered a few times as more pictures were passed through until Faye and her friend showed up in a big truck with Cora in the passenger seat. "This is one of the groups that does runs into the city. The girl in the passenger seat isn't a regular since we've only seen her once but the other two are out almost every day."

Dom was starting to feel anxious, seeing his friends on the screen and hearing how much they actually knew about their inner workings.

"Where do they usually go?" asked Calloway.

"They've been combing the west side from 43rd to 52nd."

"Not going to find much over there."

"I think they're working in a grid pattern" said Giana. "There's two more teams," she brought up pictures of the others, "that are moving parallel to them with a few blocks in between."

"Keep watching" said Calloway, "if that's the case we'll be able to plot out an ambush point."

The word ambush set Dom on edge even more. He knew from seeing a lot of action movies that any time an ambush was set up something went wrong and a lot of people ended up dying. If Cora or Faye ended up getting killed out there, would Tori and the others blame him for not telling them what was going to happen if he couldn't get to them in time? The minute details of his position were not having a hard time keeping him up at night and it was making him a little worse for wear.

"Take Dom to rally point four." Calloway circled something in his notes and then closed the folder and dropped it on his desk. "If the runners show up keep your distance and try to work out a pattern. I want a report by dinnertime."

"Yes sir" said Giana. She looked over at Dom. "Let's go, cowboy."