January 10, several hours past "Bright and Early"

Anthony felt like shit. Absolute shit. He awoke in the men's dorms and kept replaying the previous night over in his head. He was fuming at Harlan, but he was full of regret. He rubbed his cheeks, his unshaven face rubbed him back. Never go to bed angry, that's what his father would say about his third marriage's success.

But now Anthony was alone, the last one up. He looked around at the unmade bedding and clambered to his feet. Next to his pillow lay his boilersuit, folded neatly from the night before. He donned it with zero enthusiasm and walked into the mall's atrium with his trash cart. He started emptying one can, only to feel something gently hit the back of his head.

"Sorry!" Someone called as they walked off. On the floor, he saw a crumpled wrapper from Jolly Good.

Who's eating a fish sandwich for breakfast?

Anthony soon realized it wasn't that early. He checked his watch.

11:45AM.

"Jesus." He muttered.

He picked up the wrapper and chucked it into the bin. He didn't feel like running into Harold, who was usually around the food court this time of day, so he started at the southern end of the mall. No one ever went into Lola Limon after it was cleared out, but he perused the empty shelves in an attempt to eat up time.

He felt useless, might as well be useless too.

He found a door towards the back of the store and let his curiosity guide him. In the back of his head, he was aware that his curiosity guided him here to the mall, but satisfaction was right around the corner. He walked through the storeroom and through a maze of hallways, noting bathrooms, storerooms, and a security office.

Inside, he found a terminal lit up.

Call it journalistic instinct, but he couldn't resist. His fingers hadn't touched a keyboard in nearly half a year. He hit the enter key and was greeted with a prompt for a password.

He was feeling cheeky, password, no dice.

12345?

Nope.

54321?

Beep boop, hackerman was in. The UI was dense with text, command-line, but his muscle memory kicked in.

HELP

A litany of commands poured from the top of the screen. Most of them looked mundane, ALARM, CAMERA, FIRE, POLICE, but at the very bottom of the list was VIZ.

"Viz? Fucking Viz? No way." Anthony muttered. He punched it into the terminal and the screen changed to a very familiar layout. Anthony barked with laughter. He started flying through video files like he was back at NNN.

There were massive gaps in the archive, but he watched the first days of the outbreak as the mall was overrun, the police clearing it out, the Governor ascending to power. It was like watching a movie in fast forward. But he had an itch that wasn't scratched.

He tuned into one of the cameras overlooking the food court, just a few days ago. He saw Jerry working his usual shift, wearing his usual uniform, when Carlito walked over and had a brief conversation. The two walked off.

Anthony switched to the camera down the hall, and watched Carlito bring Jerry into a back room. Then he lost the two men.

He flicked around various cameras he knew were in the area, but had no luck. Just as he was nearing the end of his rope, he spotted Carlito walking out of that crafting store with that godawful name.

How did he get upstairs? And where did Jerry go?

He flicked through more feeds, vacantly aware of how much RAM this system must have to load the videos so quickly, but he was entranced. He felt like he was on to something.

Carlito bee-lined for the Governor's office after emerging from the craft store, before he was escorted by Dennis to another area. Then Dennis and him disappeared.

But what happened to Jerry?

Anthony pored over video files, inside and outside the mall, until he spotted something. One of the cameras along the mall's eastern wing captured a car speeding out of the garage in the wee hours of the night.

Who's in there, and why the rush so early?

He heard a footstep behind him. Before Anthony could turn, the butt of a rifle connected with the back of his head and he smashed face first into the console, losing consciousness.

Anthony's head was pounding when he came to. It was dark, he felt the ground rumbling underneath him.

"What the fuck, man?" He mumbled. His breath was caught in the sack over his head.

"Sleeping beauty has joined us." Whose voice is that?

"Heh." A second person?

Anthony tried to move, but his hands were bound behind him. His feet were tied together as well. He sighed.

"Resigned to your fate already? I love it when they don't fight back."

"Dennis? You motherfucker." Anthony struggled with his bindings. "I'm gonna fucking kill you when I get outta this!"

"Good luck, you're tied up like a Christmas roast."

"Meghan?!"

"The one and only." Anthony heard her take a swig of something. "The Geneva Convention don't apply to thieving shits like you."

"Thieving? What the fuck are you talking about?"

"We know you've been stealing rations, personal belongings, we found your stash." Dennis stated.

"My stash? You've been murdering people for the Governor!"

"Nonsense," Dennis began, "The Governor is a good and fair man, he'd never work in the shadows like you muckraker-types."

"Muckraker?" Meghan queried.

"I'm a journalist." Anthony spat. "My job is to tell the truth and parse it from bullshit like you're spouting. I'm no thief!"

The car stopped and a door opened.

Anthony sat there, his heart racing.

The door next to him opened and a pair of hands pulled him to the ground. He laid on his side, feeling the hard cold ground underneath him when a boot connected with his ribs.

"Get up, loser." Dennis again.

"Fuck you." He spat. Another kick, harder this time.

"Fine." Meg said as she hauled him to his feet. She wasn't very tall, and only managed to bring him to his knees.

"You'll have to carry me, I'm not walking." The butt of Dennis's gun connected with his jaw, knocking Anthony back to the ground.

"C'mon you fucking baby, face it like a man." He said as Meg looked on. "I'm not carrying your lanky ass for a single second."

Anthony writhed on the ground, aimlessly trying to rub his jaw but his hands remained tied. Meg shot Dennis a worried glance.

"Just come with us Anthony, it'll be alright."

"Is that what you told Jerry?" Anthony spat out some blood. "And Carl? Before you killed them?"

"I didn't kill anybody." Dennis replied. "I'm a pacifist. But I might change my mind on that."

"Death? For stealing?" Meg queried. "I thought we were kicking him out?"

"Nonsense." Dennis grabbed Anthony and pulled him to his knees again, ripping off the sack over his head. Anthony winced in the daylight and looked around. The trio were in a construction lot, surrounded by a high fence with the skeleton of a building above them. He looked up at Dennis, who was smiling with a desert eagle in his hand. Meg shifted her weight as she carried her rifle in her hands. "Wasteland justice."

"More like outlaw country." Anthony chuckled, ever so slightly lightening the mood at his own execution.

"Do you ever shut up?!" Dennis yelled. "You and Harlan, blah blah blah. I can hear you two giggling from across the fucking mall! I swear to god it's like you two are dating or something."

Meg laughed.

"Maybe we are! Maybe we aren't! I don't even know any more." Anthony confessed. "But if you let me go, him and I will disappear. You won't see us or Junior ever again. That's three, count 'em three fewer mouths to feed!"

Meg stopped.

"What?"

"We are… were… something… dating."

"Great, so I'm killing a criminal and a fag."

"Whoah, whoah, Dennis, calm down." Meg interrupted. "What if we let him go?"

"And have him come back?" Dennis racked his pistol and put it against Anthony's head. "That's not an option."

"NO!" Meg dove for Dennis's gun as it went off.

Anthony's vision blacked out.

He couldn't see anything, hear anything, do anything.

Slowly a scene came into focus before him. Meg was on top of Dennis, fists flying. The pistol lay on the ground, still smoking. There was a searing pain along the side of his head.

Slowly his vision sharpened, and he spotted a knife not far from him. He shimmied over as the two fought, armed with fists and swears, taking advantage of the chaos. He felt the cool plastic grip in his hands and made quick work of the ropes around his hands and feet.

He stood up.

BANG.

Meg stood over Dennis, a gun in her hand.

BANG. BANG. BANG.

"I'M NOT KILLIN' NOBODY BUT THE SONOVABITCH WHO TRIES TO KILL ME YA HEAR?!"

BANG.

She spat, literally, on Dennis' rapidly cooling body. Panting, she turned to Anthony, who dropped the knife.

"Are you my savior?"

"Shut up, stringbean." She tossed the gun his way. "You and Harley have a good life, ya hear?"