FSE

Furry search engine

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Stinking mud and razor grass

Mats my pelt and cuts my bones

The fields are naught but rock

And when it rains it often hails

The sun, it seems so close

Until the gaseous giant blocks its light

It's cold down here and dreary

On this goddamn frozen moon

A word like Earth-like's kind of vague

Though it seems so clear and clean

Deceptive advertising. There's the rain again

Heavy metals in the water, I wish that I could sue

________

It all happened in the blink of an eye. Disillusioned, frozen to the bone, and grief stricken; something snapped in the rat. Because he was tired. Tired with a capital T. He'd seen so much violence, loss and callousness in the past few months. And none of it had accomplished anything.

Wasn't he better than this? There was something more tender to life and he wanted to feel that again. He'd had it before after all.

Down in the valley, Chiapas city glimmered like a sea of stars, with the gas giant Asherah seated behind it like an azure halo. In dark, sleek uniforms, the rat's comrades milled about in angular disorder. They'd been broken, surgically routed from their camps and positions with barely a shot fired.

But still they dragged a struggling mouse into the rendezvous point. Like they had authority. Like taking someone hostage was relevant. They were all nothing more than bandits wrapped in a high concept aesthetic. Cultishly quoting the mantras of a being most of them had never seen in the first place.

Mariner had seen the Monument.

Was it too late to do the right thing?

Could one act of foolishness make up for years of being complicit in this phantasmagoria of the ego? For partaking in the Monument's vanity?

Fuck it, the rat thought.

In the shadow of Chiapas city, amidst their broken retreat, it only took a momentary distraction to free the mouse and swipe back his pack. The rain came down, the flood waters rose, and together the rodents fled into the storm and the night. With familiar shouts and the snaps of gunfire close behind, there was no going back for the rat.

So stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid. It felt great.

Driving rain turned into clinging snow in the night as they fled across the mudflats and down into the sucking floodlands. Asherah loomed in the night sky, a luminous sapphire, gazing out across the hostile landscape of their blasted little moon, Veles. Her light, glittering in their dark, nocturnal eyes, was no comfort in the storm.

Frozen and pushed beyond exhaustion, the pair of rodents eventually managed to haul themselves into the most stable ruin they could find. Something concrete, slanted, and low; accented by blown out windows and encroaching swamp. It was hard to say what it used to be.

Together, they pushed a bit further into the pitch of the building; until the wailing of the wind died down and prey-like adrenaline subsided. The mouse, trying to breathe life into his pink hands, caught the rat's eyes in the dark and extended a paw, "Hartley."

The blue-gray rat, suppressing his own hesitance, briefly shook the smaller rodent's hand and squeaked back, "Mariner Nine. Like the probe."

"How original. I once knew a Mariner Seven and Five in primary school."

Mariner made a sound, a distinctly rodent chitter-chuckle and conceded the mouse's point, "The probe naming scheme is the bane of our generation, I guess."

Hartley smiled for a beat before his expression dimmed. He looked around, padding down the hall and peering into an open room, "Do you think we can get away with crashing here tonight?"

"Maybe? I doubt anybody is going to follow us in a storm like this."

"That a fact or a hope?"

"Let's hope it's a fact." The rat squeaked glibly.

"That tracks, I guess." Hartley rolled his eyes and poked his nose into another room. "These look like offices. I've seen this building before, but I've never actually peaked inside. Kind of more imposing on the outside."

Mariner stroked his whiskers, "Behold the cold steeple of bureaucracy. It's edifice as lively in death as it was in life."

"That's cute coming from a Monumenter. I hear the architecture is really inspired out west." A few sarcasm spritzed beats passed before Hartley motioned for Mariner to come closer, "This room seems dry. No windows. Minimal garbage."

"Dry? How decadent."

"Yeah, yeah, really gives the resorts in Chiapas a run for their money."

Stepping inside, the pair quickly dropped their packs and slid down down the same wall together facing towards the door. Mariner with his rifle across his lap, Hartley pulling off his wet shoes and socks.

"What a mess." Said the mouse, rubbing at the soles of his pink rodent feet.

"Yeah." Mariner opened up his canteen and took a quick drink of water, catching a wanting look from Hartley as he swallowed. He passed it to the mouse without a word.

The mouse took a few dainty sips and passedMariner the water back when he was done, "Thanks for the save."

"No problem."

"Is there a specific reason you did it?"

Mariner sighed, slumped his shoulders and stared up at the cracked ceiling, "I think I'm just stupid."

There was another dramatic eye roll from the mouse, "Well, that goes without saying."

Mariner huffed, "Thanks."

"Never actually seen a Monumenter uniform up close. Is the tactical sci-fi look supposed to be impressive?"

"Yeah. It's a branding thing."

Hartley pulled dry socks out of his bag and back over his feet, followed by his shoes, "It looks dumb; and way too obvious."

"I know."

"You're gonna need to ditch it before we get off of the frontline." With a yawn the mouse zipped up his coat and wrapped a blanket around himself, one that was more patches and stitching than it was original fabric.

"I know."

"I know a place where we can get some help. Could probably get there by tomorrow night or the next morning." One beat, two beats, then three, and Hartley spoke one more time, his voice fainter and strained, "They know me there. They're good people."

Mariner gave Hartley a thumbs up and closed his eyes. Just for a minute. He tried to convince himself he was just resting his eyes, but eventually, somewhere between the start of Hartley's soft rhythmic breathing and the sound of distant thunder, he nodded off.

For Mariner, sleep was fitful, active and full of disconnected imagery, memories, and feelings. A kiss half remembered and a hand, tightly holding his own. Glittering beams of light and tracers racing across the sky. A pillar of mercury that spoke in his mind and left him feeling chilled to his very core.

A drop of frigid water between the eyes stirred the rat from his restless dreams. Half awake, the bold imagery of his mind faded and the things that seemed important became vibrant blurs. Dreams were such strange, ephemeral things. Mariner's eyes briefly opened to the poorly lit building they'd chosen for shelter. The tiny ruined office space, blatantly slipping into the arms entropy. Hartley wrapped in his blankets, unmoving. The rat closed his eyes again.

Another drop of water landed inside Mariner's ear and then he was up on his paws in a rush, nearly tripping on his own tail in the process. His breath misted in front of him. The wind and rain outside wailed and beat itself against the decrepit structure that they'd taken cover in. The building seemed primed to topple at any given moment, like a flimsy excuse at two in the morning. It's incessant creaking pulled at the gray rat's increasingly frayed nerves, like a loose thread, begging to be tugged.

The rat rubbed a paw between his ears and felt the dirty fur there, He wished for a shower and a moment his favorite brush, wherever that was. Still standing, he closed his eyes again and they only opened again with considerable effort. He was so tired.

This sucked.

"You know that you mumble in your sleep?" A soft murmur from Hartley, who was sitting up just a few feet away. He was peeking out from his blanket, with frost on his whiskers and mud in his fur. There was a sharp look in his dark eyes. One that was wary and a little bit determined.

An exhale from Mariner, and then a soft chitter, "Yeah? Did I say anything interesting?"

The mouse, who by now had shuffled a bit out of his blanket and taken to grooming himself, scoffed. Mariner finally got a good look at him in the dim light from the hallway. Cinnamon fur, purposefully notched ears and golden earrings, with tattoos on the exposed skin of his paw pads. He made Mariner feel quite plain in comparison. Hartley finally replied between a bout of licking his paws and straightening his whiskers, "Not really."

"Dreams are an overused plot device anyway." Mariner did a few quick stretches to breathe life into his aching muscles, "Did you manage to sleep?"

Hartley rubbed his eyes between bouts of grooming and finally shook his head, "A couple hours I think. Kept waking up. Not sure why, might have something to do with sleeping on concrete in a building that feels like a stiff breeze is gonna make it blow away."

"Sorry, I-" Mariner was cut off by thunder and flashing lightning, followed by a few beats of quiet that passed in its wake. The two rodents shared a mutual whisker twitch at the disturbance. "Hopefully this storm passes soon so we can get moving."

Hartley pulled his blanket back over his head and tightly around his frame, "Getting colder. Winter is just around the bend."

"Yeah. We can't stay outdoors like this. But hey, we won't need to worry about getting shot if we can't find shelter."

"Morbid. D'you get that from a bad war movie?"

"A comic book, actually."

"Ugh, you got any food?"

"Fruit jerky, dried nuts. Didn't have much on me last night. Didn't exactly get a chance to pack. Why, what do you have?"

"Dried soup mixes. Pasta. Some peppers in a tin. A little bit of oil. Not exactly convenient travel rations."

Mariner's ears stood straight in sudden excitement at the mention of peppers, "Peppers? Are they spicy?"

"Yeah. You wanna try a couple? Toss me some of that fruit jerky and I'll consider it a trade."

"Please. The peppers out west are weak. They're all grown optimally so the plants don't actually stress enough to up the scovilles." The pair mutually scrounged through their packs and commenced the trade. Hartley daintily nibbled the dried fruit while Mariner crunched on a crispy red pepper. The rat let out a soft, elated exhale, "That was the hottest pepper I've had in years. Kind of sweet. Nice depth of flavor."

"You really are deprived. If the peppers suck where you're from then what were you even living for?" With a wry grin the mouse handed Mariner another pepper from a tin, this time golden in color, with wrinkled skin.

"Maybe," The rat paused as he bit off the next pepper and crunched away with an exaggerated, mockfully thoughtful expression, "Monument invaded for the peppers out here."

The mouse leaned back against his wall and chirped, "Good a reason as any."

The pair commiserated for a bit longer. About the battle they were leaving behind them. The weather. How hard it was to find good peppers these days. Even a little bit about crummy movies they'd watched. Until finally the wind died down and Mariner was able to check outside and confirm the worst of the weather had passed. Then the pair started to gather up their things to head out.

There was only a brief delay to their departure, where Hartley knelt down, pulled out a small figurine and lit some incense at its feet. The effigy was of a small stone mouse, damaged and wrapped in bandages, with a sneering face that seemed to dare someone looking at it to try their luck.

A tad annoyed at having to wait any long, Mariner watched from the doorway, "Who's that?"

"The Gouged Mouse. I'm just... praying."

"For what?"

"To be the tempered steel in a humble scabbard. To be the boulder hidden beneath the moss. To journey unwavering as the Gouged Mouse did in his youth."

"That's really beautiful."

"Thanks. Are you religious at all? Care anything for the small gods and their lonely places?"

"Not really. Sort of? Guess I don't really have a lot of exposure to it. The Monument isn't a god to worship. It's a guiding mind of mercury and mathematics. Most of the little bit I know about actual religion I learned from a... a friend." Mariner blinked as he said that, suddenly conscious again of a hurt he hadn't meant to bring up. At least not right here.

Mariner was an ugly crier anyway.

Hartley pressed past the bit at the end, his thoughts slipping out in a brusk snark, "Sure doesn't hurt to have a bunch of rabid idiots clinging to you though, does it? Fucking creepy if you ask me."

"It," A deep breath from the rat and an anxious sidelong glance at the mouse as he tasted hot metal on his tongue unbidden, "Kind of is."

Hartley quickly stowed the figurine back into a satchel at his hip and jumped back to his feet with a dour look on his face, one he carried especially heavily in his eyes, "Let's get going."

And they were on their way. It was only a few adjoining hallways and a rusted door before the pair found themselves back outside. Snow was falling lightly as they scurried past neighboring buildings that were in even greater disrepair than last night's shelter. Most were sinking into the wetlands. Some were totally collapsing.

Such pretty little bits of nowhere anymore.

They moved low with the overgrown vegetation, methodically plodding along in frigid water that was up to Hartley's waist in some spots, aiming for a rocky rise in the terrain that seemed deceptively close. They sloshed and splashed past the native razor grass and waving stalks of invasive rice the first generation of colonists had introduced from Earth. Engineered to be hardy and productive, it was just about the only crop that had taken well to the surface of Veles. Maybe a little too well.

Hartley, in the lead, slapped at his neck and brushed at his ropey tail. He squeaked and cussed in a language Mariner didn't recognize, some kind of chittering old rodent language. He stopped and switched back to the more modern common tongue, "Cold weather mosquitoes. Bastards are out for my blood."

Mariner swatted an unusually fat insect out of the air, "I have bug spray if you want it. Also these aren't technically mosquitoes. They're actually native wasps that-"

Hartley interrupted, waving his arms about in a brief fit, "I always hated biology!"

"It's entomology, more specifically."

"Gods above and below, Mariner. I don't wanna hear it. Gimme the spray." And so the rat did, with just the slightest grin on his muzzle.

And on and on they splashed, with blue Asherah watching oh so close. What curious critters these were, skittering about her favorite moon.

Veles, you naughty little satellite.

Soon finding themselves on dry land again, the two rodents made camp just before nightfall under a clear sky. In a cozy enough spot at the base of a short cliff, behind wind breaking defilade with the rock wall at their backs to reflect heat. Though they lacked the necessary materials to erect a proper lean-to, they were at least able to start a small cooking fire. Something basic, made of scrap wood and the husks of scraggly oily barked trees.

"Mariner. Where are you from? Also, are you good with eating bugs?" Asked the mouse, pouring a packet of dried soup mix into a small iron pot he'd produced from his pack. Crickets and cheddar with dried rice. The mouse scooped hot embers around it with a stick in an attempt to get the water to an actual cooking temperature. It didn't seem like the mouse actually knew what he was doing.

"Uh, Monument territory? Also bugs are great." Mariner responded dumbly and blank faced, having only been paying half attention as he brushed through his head fur with a borrowed comb. Hartley had suggested he just keep it when he was done.

"No. I mean, like, where were you born? What's it like? How are the people? All we get is propaganda out here."

"I don't know. It was stupidly cold there, even when the sun was shining on a summer day. Uhh, I was raised on the cliffs between an icy sea with a rocky shore and shrubby grasslands covered in volcanic glass. Kind of cool, kind of bleak. Really far off there were mountains too. Dead volcanoes, presumably."

"Keep going."

"I spent my life in the arcologies around there. Things were austere I suppose, but the lights were always on and there was always food on my plate. The architecture was boring, uh, uninspired as you suggested last night. But the people were good enough, kind of stodgy and plain. Maybe a little too tight lipped."

"Did the cult force them to be like that?"

"Not really. That kind of c-grade novel thought police schlock isn't really a thing in Monument territory. It's not like there were people seizing crappy comics and grindhouse horror movies for deviancy or something. Or disappearing people for having an independent thought."

"I guess that's better than what I grew up hearing. The things people said when Monument broke the first peace accords were wild."

Mariner continued after thinking for a moment, letting excitement gather in his tone as he went on, "The people out here dress differently. Out West everyone dresses kind of slick and, well, sci-fi like. Out here, everyone is decked out in jewelry and flowing fabrics. The Union soldiers barely have a uniform, but they all have those bright sashes on. I mean to say the people out here are really pretty. And Chiapas, I didn't know that a city could glimmer like that. I never thought buildings could be shaped like that. It was organic and... elaborate."

"Any family?" The mouse chirped curiously as he warmed his hands by the fire. The flame flickered, hungry for more fuel. Such a sad little thing.

Mariner's ears flattened, ever so briefly, "Not really."

"Tragic backstory time?"

"Oh, no, definitely not. Things just happen, you know? My mom died when I was just a pup. Water contamination I think? She got really sick and that was kind of it for that."

"Sorry."

"No it's-," Mariner stopped to think about how to proceed, "It's fine. I had my friends. I had mentors. I was never really alone and I was was too young for it to really hurt me. Cold as that may sound."

"Still though."

"It isn't something I think about a lot. I'm almost thirty; I've had a whole life since then. Anyway, it's your turn now."

"Oh, gosh. Where to start. I was actually born in Chiapas city. Upper class, snooty parents, fake friends, and nothing to do. In fact I actually lived in a penthouse that directly overlooked the city's largest temple."

"You mean that one I saw from my muddy ditch just a few days ago?"

"Yeah! Every night I'd go to bed with its gold dome shining into my bedroom. I even used to watch the starships lift off from the spaceport and wonder where they were going. Somewhere in the system? Back to Earth? I really miss that."

"Tragic backstory time for why you're roughing it out here?"

"Nah. It's just a lot to break down. Too much for one night around the campfire." A ponderous silence came over Hartley. He seemed to be searching for the right words.

"Hard to talk about?" The rat gently supplied.

A nod, "Yeah. You got it."

It wasn't long before Hartley was pouring undercooked, watery bug soup into Mariner's cup. Between careful sips and the crunching of crickets the rat pressed the mouse for more information, "So where are we going? Care to actually tell me?"

"Oh! Yeah. It's like this bunker complex down in the Redsalt Badlands, out near Widower's Drip; that's a river by the way. Lots of shrews and moles living there. They're good people." The mouse blew on his soup like it was actually hot and looked back up at Mariner, "We've traded favors a few times, and while I don't want to get our hopes up, they might be inclined to help us. They might tell us to fuck off too. They've done that before too."

"Nice. I'll just have to trust your diplomatic abilities."

"Good luck with that. I might need you to use your exceptional rat size to fight me some shrews. Even if they're in a good mood." The mouse put down his cup and rooted around in his satchel. From it he produced a wad of fabrics, which he brought over to Mariner, "You're still wearing the Monument runway dress. Ditch the chest rig and dress like you have no sense of fashion. Tone down the branding. Get ready to tell people you stole the jacket."

Mariner splayed his ears, "I've never been particularly great at dressing myself."

"Well turn yourself into a disaster for me and we'll find you a stylish mate to fix it later."

The rat did as he was told, wrapping the real estate of his tail in patterned strips of fabric and donning a red scarf about his head. It took a little bit of adjusting, but in time Mariner achieved something more akin to the local flavor. If ever so slightly.

"You look like a mess so I think it'll work. The key to fashion out here is that everyone owns it, no matter how audacious." The mouse struck a provocative pose, and danced on his toes as if he were the star of the show.

Mariner smiled, a particularly warm and genuine smile, "I'll take that under advisement."

There wasn't much more to the night after that. The runaways bundled up and huddled near the fire and did their best to get some more sleep. Mariner fell asleep looking up at the night sky, wishing he could see the stars, but Asherah was too bright and the stars were too dim to see.

Outdated bathroom fixtures. Old tiling and grimy grouting. The golden harvest mouse was sitting at the edge of the tub, luminous, humming a familiar tune. Mariner was beside him on the floor, facing out into the open hallway.

The mouse had such a lovely voice, he spoke in melody, "What's wrong, Heart of Mine? Your burdens are mine, so lay them down."

"And yours are mine. I, well I don't know. I was worried you'd be mad at me."

"I am mad. Mostly because it took you so long. You could have run sooner."

"I didn't know what to do without you. Got kind of lost there, I guess. Gods above and below I miss you. I never got a chance to look for your-." Mariner blinked and the room was different when he opened his eyes. A cold boardroom, stuffy faceless uniforms marching about. They were both still seated around a bathtub.

"Doubt there was much of me to find anyway."

"Morbid. And not very helpful."

The mouse smiled sadly as his face warped and stretched. His golden fur turned to cinnamon and his humming took on a higher pitch.

Mariner woke up almost muzzle to muzzle with Hartley. Snow was piling on top of them. The sky was cloudy and even Asherah was a washed out blue specter of herself on the horizon. The rat jumped up to a sit, shedding a blanket of snow in the process, and shook the mouse, "Hey! Get up. We gotta get moving."

Hartley chittered and tried to wave Mariner away, but after some more persistent shaking he too rose. "Ah, shit. Sky was clear last night and everything."

"Doesn't matter. Let's roll up, c'mon." It wasn't like the pair had much to pack in the first place. They were marching once again, up a narrow path nature had etched into the cliff side long ago.

At the top, standing at the edge of another cliff, Mariner grimaced at the landscape laid out before him, "Hey, I thought you called this place the Redsalt Badlands! Why are they blue?"

"Ironic naming scheme. The salt deposits out here are actually blue. Sorry." The mouse brushed past Mariner, searching the edge for something only he knew to look for.

"So is Widower's Drip just a harmless creek?"

"Nah. That's actually a really deadly river. Almost drowned in it once myself." Hartley started picking his way down an almost hidden path, delicately as any mouse Mariner had ever seen. A little nervous about the descent, Mariner took one last look over his shoulder and caught sight of a tan figure just as it ducked into a dip in the terrain.

Maybe he just imagining it.

With a sudden anxious chill running down his spine the rat followed the mouse, finding the path manageable enough, even as gusts of wind threatened to knock him off balance. It was loud enough that he barely heard Hartley shout a non sequitur question over the wind, "So who'd win in a fight? Wolf-Rayet Mouse, or Stellar Stoat?"

The rat shouted as he slid down a rather precipitous incline and came to a rest on a rocky shelf, "What? They're not even in the same comic universe!"

"Answer the question!"

"Well, WRM just has those ionic jet cone hands. Those are pretty awesome!"

"Yeah, but Stellar Stoat literally has the power of the entire cosmos!"

Mariner found himself being pushed against the rock face by an especially cutting combination of wind, snow and hail. When it was finally safe to uncover his face he shouted his retort, "Gods above and below, this conversation always goes the exact same way!"

Hartley, who didn't respond, had somehow descended even further in the time Mariner had been hunkering down. It was impressive, and maybe a little unexpected, when the rat realized that the mouse had actually reached the very bottom of the cliff. He was holding position, fiddling with his shoe or something. With the driving precipitation and wind it was hard to see what he was doing from on high.

The next few moments were a bit harder for Mariner. Upon reaching the bend Hartley must have taken, he found it narrowed rather severely. Sidling along the path sideways with his stomach to the rock and his tail out for balance, he inched along at an agonizing pace.

It was all slippery rock and crumbling hand holds. Weird stoops and movements fit for a contortionist. Thankfully Mariner had the species advantage in dexterity, flexibility, and a waterproof coat. Plus the instinct to wrap it all together. So, dodgy as it all was, the rat still made it to the bottom relatively intact.

The rat slid down a gravely mound of dirt and scurried over to Hartley. It finally occurred to him what the mouse was doing. He was cussing and massaging his leg, trying to do laps on it, but he couldn't seem to find a way to manage.

He must have fallen from a ledge when Mariner sheltering from the wind. The rat approached in a ginger manner, "Did you break it? Your leg. Did you-"

"No. I think it's just a sprain. Fuck! I'm okay. Let's just keep moving. I can limp."

Mariner took a look back at the top of the cliff where they'd been and saw the same figure from a few minutes before peaking over the edge. Tan furred, tall, and slim. They were framed by a grey sky and cast in poor lighting so it was difficult to make them out clearly. Definitely some kind of cat though.

The snow started to fall harder and the wind got a little meaner. The weather had such great dramatic timing.

The rat turned back to the mouse; who was too busy nursing his leg to notice the cat on the cliff, and shook his head. "No, you can't. You're small, I can carry you if I have to."

"No, I-"

"I wasn't asking. We've got no cover in a storm and you're going to slow us down." Spoken primly, properly, and evenly, the rat extended out his paw.

The mouse scowled and took it.

And he abruptly found himself on Mariner's shoulders and in an impromptu firefur's carry, gear and all. It wasn't hard; Hartley was small and the rat was in his physical prime.

"Just tell me if I'm on track for where we're going. Point the way."

"Turn a little to your left. The bunker is right between those two buttes ahead of us. Way out there." The mouse pointed with his tail, "The shrews living there call it the Shrew Hole by the way. The Shrole, if you will."

Mariner groaned the most drawn out groan of his life, "I absolutely will not."

Hartley cooed a bit, "You're really strong. Maybe I should travel by rat more often."

"Rats are very fuel efficient. Low maintenance. And we look great too." Mariner affirmed as he took his first few steps and found his footing in the accumulating snow.

From his shoulders, Hartley chitter-squeaked, "Yeah, but I think this one might have a lot of kilometers on it. I wonder if I can talk down the sticker price."

The rat made an odd chuffing sound at that as he made his way down in the scrub and gravel of the badlands. At least as a rat he had a built in waterproof coat for nature's next assault, gods knew the clothes he'd been issued weren't built for this kind of nonsense.

Amidst swirls of snow and dust being kicked up by the wind, visibility got very poor in the valley. Not that they were called badlands because they were particularly pleasant in the first place.

The sound of the wind had Mariner's ears ringing and it felt like the sun was starting to go down a lot sooner than expected. The things he would do for some ear muffs or actual winter gear. Such naughty things.

And between the new terrain and the weather, Mariner started to feel the weight of fresh panic. After all, they were just two prey items caught out in the open for the kill and the carrion eaters. He just couldn't shake the feeling of eyes on the back of his head, though at the same time he refused to look behind him to try and dispel it. What if he just made it worse by seeing the cat again?

Mariner just had to keep going. Maintain the course and not get turned around. From the rat's shoulders, Hartley at least seemed confident of their direction and timing, "Just keep your eye on those two buttes and we'll be there in time for dinner."

If he saw something following them the mouse didn't say.

It was almost completely when the two rodetns arrived, covered head to tail in clinging ice and snow. The bunker was surprisingly hard to miss once they were up on it; a door and surrounding steel structure, cut right into the rock like it was supposed to be there. Mariner panted, "This isn't exactly subtle is it?"

"I mean, they don't advertise. And who's gonna come down into the badlands to see it anyway? Go ahead and put me down, I know the password to the door."

Mariner did as he asked, stretching and rubbing his lower back as the mouse shuffled his way over to a keypad, "What if they changed the password?"

"Please. Nobody changes their passwords." Hartley started pressing buttons in what must have been an absolute marathon of a code, "Now, was this one lower case or a number? Listen, you're gonna like it here. These are good people. They have the good stuff here. Clean well water with no heavy metals in it. Yum. Electricity. Showers! Gods I want a shower. And what's more secure than a tunnel bored straight into solid rock?"

The door buzzed and Hartley threw it open, followed by immediately throwing himself inside. Mariner followed, right on the mouse's tail.

They were in a dim metal hallway lit by flickering red lights. Mariner made sure to pull the heavy door shut behind him, grateful just to be out of the wind. Bounding after the mouse, he quickly caught up with Hartley in a wider, equally poorly lit common room where crates were haphazardly stacked over every spare inch of floor-space. The mouse was standing stock still, ears dishing about and whiskers twitching.

He had the look of prey who just heard a twig snap nearby. Like something was going to lunge at him at any given second.

Mariner, taking in the absolute scale of construction the shrews and moles built into the rock, whispered in Hartley's ear, "Where's the hostile welcoming party?"

"Where is anybody?" The mouse questioned back. Looking worried, he limped forward and called out, "Anyone home?!"

But nobody answered, even as Hartley's squeaks echoed down the halls, there wasn't a bit of activity. The bunker was quiet and empty, from the entrance to the deepest exploratory tunnel.

Mariner loved horror movies, but he never wanted to star in one.