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The viscous nuclear attacks on the city of Greenvile Texas stemmed from unconfirmed rumors that high end weapons and anti radiation drugs were being developed in a secret facility. In an effort to halt this research, Brazil launched dozens of salted Nuclear weapons at the city. Despite lacking the payload of a standard nuclear warhead, these salted bombs released enough nuclear fallout to fry any living animal.

Evan was enthralled to hear that the three of us will willing to make the trip. While he was busy getting the escort established, I was busy making my preparations. Given the level of radiation that was supposedly in the city, any kind of electronics were out of the question. Once it got dark, that left me with chem lights, of which I promise you I had plenty of, and my lighter, little more than some scrap copper tubing and fittings soldered together prewar by my Dad, but made a flame that could light up a room. Not knowing what was in the city mutant wise, I was mulling over if I wanted to bring the shotgun or my M4 when I felt a tap on my shoulder.

"Not taking those to a hot zone like that are you?", Ben asked.

"I'm not sure yet", I answered, setting my Winchester down on the bed, staring at my gear. I wasn't quite sure what to bring and what to leave, "if the Biomass can really survive even in a place like Greenvile...I'm not sure anything I have will stop it."

"You want my M16?" he asked, "full auto will deal with small to medium sized examples, and you'll have the 203 for whatever else is bugging you."

I clicked my tongue, breathing through my teeth, "dude, I dunno. I've killed lots of critters with the 5.56, but if what we saw at Tucker is anything to go by? Besides, could your 203 even go off if it hit something as soft as a biomass?"

"Good point", Ben agreed, "fucking sucks that Truck is grounded."

"Yeah...wishing Skeve was here. I'd ask him for his ASH-12."

"I think you'd run into a similar problem", Ben shrugged, "Might try and get something from Evan. Besides, that much radiation is bound to screw up the paint on those beauties."

"Perhaps. One of his officer's is already providing a radiation suit. Couldn't hurt to ask if they have anything of a larger caliber in stock."

Several more minutes of preparing equipment I was comfortable losing to the dead zone had Holland at the door to deliver the suits himself. These certainly weren't something you'd find in inventory anywhere else, appearing to be completely custom made. They consisted of a multiple layers, starting with a spandex under layer that was lead lined, a metallic middle layer, an inner outer layer and then finally the outer shell, a Goretex, lead lined jumpsuit. Holland claimed that there was no fabric used in the suits construction except the base layer, and that the suits middle layer was composed of a new element he'd discovered while working for Shadow Company and perfected while allied with Dock 41. According to him, lab testing had shielded a Geiger counter placed inside the suit to 45 Terrarads a second of absorption before the Geiger had gone off.

"That's quite impressive", I said. The suit was heavy as all get out and a bit tight fitting. I wasn't going to be running a marathon in it, for sure, but I had full range of movement.

"It took me damn near 15 years to finish this project", Holland said, "started long before the war. Discovered Element X01 few months after the bombers landed, turned my entire view of the project upside down. These suits are prototypes, so pay as close attention as you can to how it's systems react to the radiation. This interface attached to the respirator will show you everything going on with the suit's systems as well as give you a true readout of background radiation. Please, bring these back in one piece, they're all that's left of the first batch. Others have been scrapped for parts."

"I'll do my best. By the way, do you happen to know if some slightly more powerful firearms are available? I get the feeling that my 12 gauge and M4 may not be enough."

"Yeah, actually. We have two big bore shotguns that we put together specifically for dealing with the large biomass examples out here. I think it'll more than suffice here. Follow me."

Holland led me from the barracks to the Dock 41 armory. There, a female Shrew was taking inventory of a few things, looking like she had been working way too long a shift.

"This had better be important Holland", she hissed without looking up from her work, "I'm busy."

"I'll just be a minute. Where you keeping those big bore industrial guns these days?"

The shrew sighed and set down her work, "whose your next victim?"

"Victim?", I asked.

"Only reason those behemoths ever get checked out is if someone's been suckered in to trying to run after that non existent cache of medicine in Greenvile. Judging by that fancy rad suit your wearing, I'd say it's you."

"So you don't think it exists huh?", I asked.

"Not personally", she said, "Really, I think the animals that get sent there are the one's Evan's trying to kill off."

"Just give us the shotguns", Holland demanded, "we don't have time for your conspiracy theories."

The shrew disappeared around the corner, I could hear keys and locks turning in the other room.

"Don't listen to a thing she says", Holland said, "she's stuck on some quacked out conspiracy theories."

"Oh really?", I asked.

"Thinks that the new world order is going to rise from the ashes with an invincible army to beat the survivors of the war into submission any day now."

"Invincible, right up until the Biomass shows up", Eirren noted.

"Don't do drugs kids", Holland shook his head.

Five minutes or so later had the Shrew coming back with a weapon that seemed like someone had started trying to convert something that existed to fire shotgun shells, trashed the original product and started fresh. The result of a from scratch endeavor did not disappoint.

It was one massive shotgun alright. The barrel was 24 inches long and damn near 30mm in diameter just at a glance. A large, stainless steel perforated jacket enshrouded the barrel, capping off right before touching a suppressor that looked like it could rein in the muzzle blast from a tank cannon. The handguard of the weapon stuck out about six or so inches from the receiver that looked something akin to the child of a MaDeuce and a PKM Pencheg. The gas system was also vaguely reminiscent of a PKM. The weapon was belt fed, and had a box sitting in a mount underneath the weapon that was stamped with some markings "Box, 26.7x100mmR Shell, Linked, 32 rounds". The stock and pistol grip looked like they'd been machined by hand out of a solid block of steel. The firearm was dressed in a very taken down tone of black paint. This thing looked like it was designed to quietly spit fire and brimstone at a thousand RPM, and do the fire and brimstone at a thousand real well, while having mixed results in the quiet part. The entirety of the shotgun was dressed in powder coat black.

"Well, you don't see a weapon like this everyday", I commented as Holland handed me the belt fed shotgun. Even without the ammo box containing any shells, it had to weigh about 30 pounds. A bit heavier than an M249 SAW, but not by much for the circles I'd bet this monster could run around a SAW.

"We've termed it the Shambler. That's what you'll be doing when you get done shooting it. It's an industrial shotgun that we rebuilt into more of a combat role", Holland said, "the original mechanism facilitated an easy change to full auto, but to reign in the recoil produced by industrial four gauge kiln shot at a thousand RPM, we were required to switch a heavier barrel, hardened springs and a buffer in the back of the receiver for the bolt carrier group to bottom out against. At full tilt, you could chew through four feet of concrete and a box of 32 shells in about two seconds."

"Biomass beware", Eirren giggled, "I want one."

"Fuck", I laughed, "this is why I love guns. How often do you see a work of art like this?"

"I'll send your regards to our resident gunsmith", Holland chuckled, "it took him two weeks to build each of these."

"How many have ya' got?", Eirren asked.

"Two. I'll get ya'll set up, other one needs a flame kit, Molotovs, flares and a flamethrower."

"Why a flame kit?", I asked.

"Evan has a tape to show you", Holland said, "that will explain everything."

"Now having said that. As far as the shotguns are concerned, why four gauge?", James inquired, "you could carry significantly more ammunition and keep the firerate the same with far more devastation in a shorter period of time if you switched to 12."

"Two reasons", Holland said, "one, we're sitting on a massive stockpile of shells. At least five hundred thousand as of last inventory, but I'd have to look at the paperwork. Second, four gauge kilnshot packs an unbelievably destructive punch against anything soft. What we have in inventory was mostly designed to be used in an industrial setting to clear debris out of massive kilns, stuff that the normal eight gauge shells couldn't do a good enough job of. Some of our guys raided the factory north of Houston where these shells and guns were being produced and secured the inventory. Yeah, I know it's a fuckin' heavy gun, but when you pull the trigger and get it's notorious three for one, you'll be thankful for it."

Holland got us set up with our new kit, of which Eirren and James received the shotguns, I would be stuck with the flamethrower.

This one in specific seemed to be a post war design. Primarily, it was assembled from stamped and welded 2mm thick sheet metal. The design was similar to a shotgun, with two barrels protruding from the sheet metal casing and the ending of each barrel ended in a different sized nozzle. The over barrel had a very fine opening with a two pole spark igniter that stuck out barely half a centimeter from the tip of the nozzle. The under barrel ended in a very flared out cone with a four pole igniter, one on each side, on the top and bottom. The poles in this igniter were much thicker and more pronounced than the poles on the top. Two quick release stainless steel fittings, perhaps turned on a lathe custom for this weapon, protruded just behind the trigger. Stainless steel braided hoses connected to the fittings that lead back to a three tank assembly. All of this was secured to a heavily modified, IOTV plate carrier that held all of the regulation and pump gear for the flame thrower, as well as having a space reserved to mount the systems and respirator controls for the hazmat suit I was wearing. According to the shrew in the armory, this flamethrower had been specially engineered by the armorer responsible for the Shambler some months post war. Like the one's James kept back at his place, this one was pneumatic and used a spin off of the African Chemical 99. This stuff could be compressed more than Chemical 99 and burned hotter, but the trade off was that it was a much thicker formula, making a gallon of this about 3 pounds heavier than C99. Of course, that wouldn't matter, when a tank of gas was supposed to last ten continuous minutes on the standard over barrel, and even on the vaporization under barrel, I should beable to get at least 4.

Once he'd gotten all of our mission critical gear set up, he then promptly sent us to the Dock infirmary, where the doctors gave us a once over. A shot of Epinenosine to clear out whatever radiation was in our systems and then another injection which they said was a primer for the hardcore shit that the suits would be feeding us through the respirators. Apparently, this drug could absorb radiation like activated carbon does contaminants from water. They said we'd have a hell of a time on the can once we got back, but if it's a case of dysentery or die, well, I'd had my share of experience with stomach issues. Once we were done there, they promptly sent us back to Evan's situation room. There, we were greeted by Evan and his officers.

"Evan".

"Arien", Evan greeted, "Eirren. James. Please, have a seat."

We sat down, someone turned the lights out and turned on a projector.

"I called you guys in here, because I've got one thing to say before you set out that I can't hide", Evan stated, "you are not the first that we've sent to Greenvile."

"How many have gone?", Eirren asked.

"Six", Evan said, "teams of three each...none have returned. However, we do have footage recorded from the first team we sent to recover the medication, which was recovered by the second. The second team we sent went dark about 20 minutes after transmitting the footage and an "All Is Well". We haven't heard from them since. I brought you here to show you the tape, it will explain why one of you got the fire kit. I only ask that you watch the entire thing...and if you decide this is not worth your life, to tell me as much. I absolutely understand."

Evan hit play. The tape started out from the point of view of one of the team members, he too, was holding a Shambler. All three animals were wearing the exact same hazard suits we were wearing now and they had Shadow Company patches on their shoulders. They were preparing to enter the Exclusion zone on foot. They shook hands with their escort and the tape played out rather slowly for the first few minutes, with the only dialogue being to note the increasing radiation levels in the city as they moved towards their destination. As the tape progressed, they came to the Greenville Medical Research Center. The team lead noted an extra large spike in the radiation.

"Fucking Radiation just took a monster jump to 412 Terrarads a second", he said, "guess intel about the bomb having gone off right behind the MRC was spot on."

"Seems like", The kid holding the camera said, couldn't have been much older than 16, "where's the way in from here."

"Evan claims that the medicine is stashed down in the deepest layer of the sub basement. If the bombs that went off behind this building are as strong as they say. Radiation down there could be in the high tens of thousands of Terrarads. If you and your boy are having second thoughts Wayne, I can do this on my own."

"All in", the second animal said, "Ren?"

"I wouldn't miss this for the world", Ren said enthusiastically.

The video was uneventful except for the appearance of a few random biomass examples as the trio moved towards the sub basement. We got treated to a rather grisly display of the Shambler's might on more than one occasion as they moved through the building. If that was all there was going to be in this hospital, radiation aside, this would be an easy mission. Step by step, the trio arrived at their destination.

"Radiation just spiked again", The team lead said as they moved towards a large airlock door, I could hear a Geiger going nuts in the back ground, "we're at a five hundred Terrarads a second of exposure. How's everyone feeling?"

"So far so good", Wayne said, "How you doing back there son?"

"Still feeling fine back here", Ren said.

"It's about to get a lot hotter in here", the commander of the team stated as they approached the door. He tapped it with his knuckle, "according to intel, there could be as much as a thousand Terrarads a second behind that door."

"Shitload of rads", Wayne said, "hopefully these fancy suits protect us."

"Holland is nothing if not reliable", The first said, "but you know, hold onto your ass and all that. Ren, you cover us while we open this door."

"Rodger that", the kid said crouching and pointing his shotgun at the door. The two other guys turned a manual ratchet to open the airlock door. The screws on the door shrugged, and it opened with an awful grinding sound. It was a scary thing to see that door crack just a little bit, and the clearly modified Geiger that Ren was showing to the camera let the smoke out of the dial. I could see little, bright green and yellow particles, almost looking like sparks, come flying out from underneath the door. The radiation on the other side of it was that strong.

"Geiger just let the smoke out", Ren said, "what the hell is behind that door?"

"Death", his Dad said, "how do you feel?"

"A bit tipsy...I guess."

"We have very limited time", the lead of the team said taking a torch from his back and lighting it, "keep it tight."

The camera had issues picking anything up the deeper they pushed into the bunker, but shortly past the airlock it became clear that the Biomass was occupying it. I could hear them slithering around, making the awful noises that they did. It made the kid behind the camera jumpy as hell.

"Something's fucking in here with us!", Ren said, pointing his Shambler at just about everything in the room.

"Yeah no shit sherlock", the commander said.

Ren panned the camera around the room, for the most part, it was empty. The team continued to head down further into the bunker, for now, all was quiet. About five or six minutes into the video, their movements started to grow sluggish, Ren clearly was having trouble keeping his weapon up.

"Dad...I'm not feeling so great."

"Neither am I", his Dad answered.

"Suits are failing", the lead male answered, "fuck...they couldn't possibly have known about the radiation inside this damn bunker. I'll keep going, you guys...ugh, you need to turn back."

"Do we even know where we are?" Ren asked, "I could have sworn we were supposed to have found the strong room by now."

"No...I don't think so", the lead said, "shit...lemme check the maps."

That was the moment that the Biomass picked to strike. In the near pitch black of the room, a thick tendril comprised entirely of blistered and rotten meat flung itself at the lead team member, seizing him by the neck and dragging him into the darkness. He dropped his torch and AK-74 when the tendril yanked him into the dark, I could hear him gurgling on his own blood and a god awful tearing and ripping sound. That echoed throughout the entire bunker and made the kid's Dad cut lose with his Shambler into the darkness. Keeping that trigger pressed lit up the entire room for split seconds at a time despite the suppressor. It was clear that they had walked right into whatever trap the mass had set for them, but with the Shambler being unable to light the room for an extended period of time, I wasn't able to determine what the aggressor looked like. Guttural, sloshing screams of agony filled the room, so loud that they made the camera record only static. Whatever was down range, the Shambler was there to advise it that it would have been smart to have stayed in bed that day. As soon as his Dad's gun went quiet, Ren stepped up.

"Molotov out!", Ren shouted, throwing a bottle of flaming gasoline into the darkness.

The Molotov cracked open in the darkness, lighting up the room enough that the camera could get a good shot.

"What...the...fuuuckkk??", James drew out the words quietly as the chaos unfolded on screen. The room itself appeared to be one giant biomass example. Bloody, mangled gashes were on the walls where the shells from the Shamblers had impacted, ripping the flesh out of the way with little difficultly and breaking jagged chips of concrete off underneath it which had sliced like razors through the melted, cancerous flesh. Ren lit another Molotov and threw it at a pulsating orb of meat. By now, the room was up in flames, damn did this shit go up quick. We couldn't hear anything that Ren or his Dad were saying over the sounds of the mass wailing. Seconds after the room went up, only Ren was left standing. Sized by the mass, his Dad had been hauled into the flames where we lost track of him. Ren, with one shell still sticking out of the side of his Shambler, lit a third Molotov and threw it at another corner of the room then promptly turned to leave. Limping as if one leg was frozen, he popped open the dust cover of the shotgun and threw the final two shells to the ground along with the box. With the new box halfway into the weapon, the Shambler suddenly fell out of frame as a bloody spike appeared on camera. Ren gagged and choked, falling to the ground on top of the camera, causing it to cut out.

I spun the chair to look at Evan.

"We've seen some pretty gnarly examples during our travels...but, nothing quite like that."

"No one here has", Evan said, "I'm almost 72 years old, I've spent my life studying the biology of just about every animal on the planet. And for the life of me, I can't fathom...how in the actual hell that we have shit like this running around. My previous experiments with radiation on biological material didn't yield anything quite like this. If you can bring me back a sample...do it. I'm very curious as to know what makes the Biomass tick."

"No promises. Was there anything else?"

"Two things", Evan said, "according to my exterior guard, There's a crew here to see you, their commander says his name is Truck?"

"Yeah", Eirren said, "friends of ours. Our gunship crew that was looking for a place to land."

"I'll let the guard know to let them through. Also, if I could ask a personal favor? Arien?"

"What's up?"

"If you can collect Ren's Tag, and find out what became of the rescue squad, you'd put more than a few here at ease. At least they'd know the truth."

"Rodger that".

"Kai should be ready to go by now", Evan said, "Her crew will escort you out there. Obviously, the tank doesn't have room for all of you, so we've prepared a minibus for you that's shielded against the radiation. Once you reach the Exclusion zone, you'll have to navigate to the Greenville MRC on your own. The Radiation just ruins electronics, so we won't have radio contact until you exit the Exclusion Zone. Good luck, and godspeed."

"With all do respect Evan", I said as I turned to leave, "tell Kai she won't be needed. You need her here at home, and once Truck get's here, I'll have two groups of possibly the hardest Animals in the state of Texas."

"Understood", Evan threw me a salute and picked up his radio as we exited his situation room. Soon as I was above ground, I hit my radio.

"Listen up guys", I stated, "I want everyone except Benjamin and Nat to gather their gear and get ready to move out."

"You think you're running off to a radioactive hotspot and not bring the two Animals who could pull your sorry asses out if something goes south huh?", Nat asked, "wrong again moose breath. Ben and I are coming, that's final, end of discussion."

"If you think I'm letting you into a hotspot with twins in your stomach, you've got another thing coming Nat", I stated.

"End of discussion Arien", she said firmly, "I may have precious cargo onboard, but I'm not letting Benjamin out of my sight, and way Alex puts it, you need him. He already missed the first two, he aint missing these."

"You're not going to make this easy are you?", I asked.

"Nope", she stated triumphantly.

"Well then get your gear and get ready, "well meet at the trucks in thirty minutes."

When Eirren, James and I got to where we parked, I didn't fail to notice the extra Tundra and FJ Cruiser already there. Truck had parked his Tundra next to mine. He and Skeve were sitting in the bed chatting and stood when they saw us coming.

"Radiation storm's coming", he stated, "and from the looks of that suit you're wearing, you ain't about to be hiding underground."

"Not really, I thought you said that part of the city you landed in was cut off?"

"Looked that way from the air", Skeve said, "while searching the parking garage for some gasoline, Alex found a tunnel that took us to an entire underground road system. With what we've traveled through already, I seriously doubt that there's any kind of cave ins, hell, most of the lights were still on. If we're gonna be stuck here for a while, it;ll be a great way to navigate around the city."

"I'll have to bring that to Evan's attention once we're done with this Dead Zone shit. You guys game for a scavenger hunt?"

"What's the prey?", Skeve asked.

"A cache of radiation drugs supposedly buried in the Greenville MRC. Two teams have already been there and not come back. We know the first team was killed by a large biomass example that had taken to making the entire basement of the MRC it's body. No one has any clue what happened to the second. Same thing, I'd guess."

"We flew around Greenvile on the way here", Truck said, "salted bombs from the looks of the cloud hanging over it, disturbing weather patterns, I'll bet it's like Novochekamensk in Russia, with that constant blizzard bullshit."

Skeve shivered, "we didn't even go into that city and it still scared the shit outta me."

"Scared the shit outta everyone", Luka said coming around the side of Truck's Tundra, "I heard a bit of that conversation, are we heading to another Dead Zone?"

"Seems like", Truck said, "can't very well turn our backs on our ground team can we?"

"Anthony, one of these day's, you'll get us all killed."

"Luka", Truck said, "this is coming from the female, who, not two months ago...."

"Argh!", Luka cut him off, "you SWORE you'd never bring that up again."

"But I'm gonna get us killed?", Truck jumped out of his Tundra, "Arien, count us in, or Skeve and I at least. You'll have what you need from us."

He offered his hand, I accepted.

"Anthony, that's your real name?", I asked.

"Yep", Truck answered.

"What did Luka do?", I asked.

"I swear to god I'll fucking shoot you", Luka hissed.

"Down Luka", Skeve said hopping out of the bed of the Tundra.

I turned back to Truck, "how's the plane?"

"We found the leak, thankfully it was nothing major, a few fittings had come lose and all the fuel collected in the catch bin in the bottom of the plane. Once we're done here, we'll just have to pump it back to the tank and we'll be good to go."

"Good news", I smiled, "always welcome around here."

"Thought you were running off to a Dead Zone without us", Zack bellowed from behind, "wouldn't be the first time you've thought of doing something dumb."

"Like you're such a rational thinker", I turned to greet him.

"I never claimed to be", Zack said.

"Get your shit in the truck", told him, "we're oscar mike in five."

"If we're gone in five", Alex said, "Arien, can I talk to you for a minute? Alone?"

"Sure", I stepped away from the group, "whats up?"

"You know, most of the Animals here are civilians...even the some of the guards had never touched a rifle until Evan recruited them. Anyone can pick up arms to defend their home, but it takes bravery to do what we're fixing to do. I couldn't be more honored to have you as an officer. A commanding officer no less...Walk with me for a minute."

I set the flamethrower in the back seat of my Tundra and followed Alex the waterside. She jumped up on an old wire spool and pulled out a canteen.

"I know Evan told you about Shadow Company", she said, "only question is, what did he tell you?"

"Enough", I shrugged, "I know they used to be focused on helping Animals until Raul happened."

"Well, something I bet he didn't tell you, he used to report to me."

"To you?", I asked.

She nodded, "all of Shadow Company did. Evan, myself, and my mate Gabe were the first Shadows. We were the ones who turned the lights out to begin with."

"News to me. I was under the impression Raul was the head honco over there, and the Company was some pre-war thing."

"Uh-uh", Alex said, "it was our doing, and ours alone."

"Yeah, he didn't say nothin' about that."

"I didn't think he would", she told me, "I asked him not to while we were enroute here. I wanted to gauge how you and yours would react to learning that Shadow Company hadn't always been the dark evil it is now. Evan wants to change that. He wouldn't have mentioned the Shadows who walked away from the fight if he didn't."

"How'd you know about that?", I asked.

"He mentions it every now and again, no one ever wants to help. They're too scared of what will happen if Raul catches them. I can't say I blame them. Should have killed that fucker on that roof. Thought I did. You coming in and saying what you did told me that he told you that story. So I need to know Arien, did you agree to help?"

"I did".

Alex grinned, "great! One step closer to getting out of this city already."

She paused for a moment, and she put away her canteen. She looked out over the water, taking a deep breath, "He tell you how Gabe and John died?"

"Your mate and boy?", I asked.

She nodded.

"I know you lost them to Raul's powertrip. I had figured something must have happened to your mate or at least Naomi's father when I met you. Pretty much assumed you'd share if you wanted."

She took a deep breath, "Gah, I hate telling this story. Remember when I said I was certifiably insane?"

"Yeah, I remember you saying it. Where I come from, it can mean a number of things."

"Mmm, I have the papers from when I was committed a few years ago around here somewhere", she felt around her vest, "hmm, no tellin' where those are buried at."

"Oh, so you really are insane?", I asked.

She nodded, "not gonna snap and kill just for the hell of it, just to put that out there. I apparently had some sort of brain hemorrhage when I was little, at least, that's how my Mom always put it. This is gonna come off as if I'm just one cold hearted mother fucker, but I promise you I'm not. I don't feel remorse, and it's exceedingly difficult, but not impossible for me to express emotions other than anger. Lot of the time, I have to put faces on. Like I know how I'm supposed to act in public, but it's all a big lie really. Like, when I was growing up, I avoided everyone all the time, mouthed off, dared everyone to try something. When they would, I would either beat them to a pulp, or get beaten myself. I had a few brushes with the cops for some of the fights I was involved in."

She paused for a moment

"It was almost two years ago now", Alex began, "Raul launched his surprise attack on Shadow HQ in the dead of night, rolled his tanks up and took us by such complete surprise we didn't have time to bring out our own armor or get Helos up. I tried to radio Mech, but one of the tanks had a jammer on it. I've always slept heavy like you wouldn't believe, and I just remember Gabe kicking me out of bed telling me that the shit was on. I spent time in the Army flying helicopters for a good while before the nukes. I've had a million bullets fired at me from the air, but nothing compared to that five minute dust up with Raul's thugs."

"What happened afterwords?", I asked.

Raul sent us to prison. Alley One. I stayed there for about six months, was hard enough keeping John and Naomi away from some of the more questionable trash that Raul dragged in for...whatever it is that Raul does. Then, one day, I wake up, find I've got a fucking needle in my neck, John and Gabe are nowhere to be found. About an hour later, Raul's thugs grab me from the general populace, beat me to a fuckin' pulp for 'bout thirty minutes, then drag me to that stage where they boiled everyone. I'm sittin' here thinkin' they're fixin' to boil me alive. Obviously that ain't what happened."

"Man, I hate telling this story."

"Then don't", I said.

She sighed and looked at me, "No...I think you need to know."

I shook my head, "not really. I can piece the rest of it together on my own."

"Yeah, but if you try you'll miss the worst part", she jumped off the spool and looked me in the eyes, "Arien, I want you to know exactly what Shadow Company does to Animals that oppose them and fail. You need to know exactly what could happen to you if you fail here."

I took a deep breath, "okay...shoot. I guess."

"Yes. John and Gabe were boiled in front of me", Alex continued, "in front of all of Alley one. I'll never get John's...", she paused again, she had a look like she was trying to find the correct words, "you know...I don't even know what to call the sounds my boy made. Fucking swamp water smells like nothing you've ever encountered when it's boiling, even worse once they add Animals. The male I spent my life waiting on and my son were killed in front of me, but wait, there's more."

She stepped away, "hold up...I'm fixin' to barf."

She took a few more minutes to collect herself, "somehow my brain can't decide if this a big deal or not."

"John died first. Once he stopped trashing, they killed the flame, pulled them both out. Gabe was still alive, but he couldn't speak. They dumped him next to me, and then our great friend Raul carved John up like a turkey, dumped all of his flesh into a bowl and force fed it to me."

The cramp in my stomach was sudden and all encompassing, to the point I actually did puke. Alex might have been insane, but how could any mother tell a story like that just so...casually?

"Sorry", Alex sighed, "it's disturbing I know."

I took a second to collect myself, "how the fuck can you recount that without having some sort of PTSD induced panic attack!?", I asked, "they made you EAT your child and....and it's like you don't even care!!!."

"Trust me Arien", Alex's voice was dark, "Raul is living proof that I care, he'll never recover fully from what I did to him on that roof. If I find him again, he will know suffering beyond his darkest nightmares. The reason I'm telling you this story is because I want you to understand what exactly is at stake here. If we pull this off, that meeting with Mech is all but guaranteed. With their armor, we can take Shadow Company's airfield and with that out of the way, Truck can fly his gunship within city limits safely. We can crush Shadow company once and for all, and you'll have your ticket out of Houston. If we fail...."

"Point taken Alex", I offered my paw, "you gave me that patch earlier, you made me one of yours, now, you're one of mine."

After some hesitation, she accepted, "Let's do it."

We returned to the trucks, where we found the others bullshiting about, whatever the hell they were on about.

"Everyone ready to go?", I asked.

"We been ready for ten minutes", Tessa said, "we was waiting on your ass."

"Let's get evil then. Next stop is Greenvile Texas."