The next day, Kevin woke up. His daily routine be absolutely damned, burned and sent to the deepest darkest corners of the most frustrating hell. He stood and stretched though, for a short time anyway, limbering up his body.

He walked out of his room and walked past several of the veteran 'chosen' as the second wave recruits had taken to calling themselves and the first wave. Cameron had ordered security increased, many more of the tri tower floors were occupied and safety requirements had only grown with the inclusion of many children.

Kevin went to the roof and found two more sentries. He nodded to them and left the skyscraper roof. They didn't have the authority to stop him and even if they did he wouldn't have been stopped. He wasn't two skyscrapers away before Cameron caught up to him.

"Kevin, wait." Cameron called out.

"I can't Cameron. That's one of my babies. She's alone. No one else is in that cluster. I have to try." Kevin replied not even slowing.

"At least let me help." Cameron said.

"Let us help." Lee said coming up with Tammy.

Some time later, the group exited into the ground floor of a skyscraper close to the southern perimeter of the cluster. Lee and Tammy stayed inside the building, having helped clear it and the surrounding streets of morankai.

"Thank you Lee, Thank you Tammy." Kevin said as he shook their hands. "I hope I don't see you for a while." Kevin said.

"Good luck Kevin." Lee said.

"Say hello to Katie for us." Tammy said.

The pair left leaving Cameron who hadn't used any power to clear the towers and waited fresh as a daisy next to Kevin. Almost 10,000 points later, Kevin had a functional APC with one full tank of gas. There literally wasn't anything else to pack or bring with the Shop ready to hand.

"Cameron. Before I go I have to tell you a secret." Kevin started with a look of shame on his face. " It's how I have managed to get so many points. You were right all along. I did have a trick."

Kevin paused before he continued. "You have to swear to me though, swear that you won't tell everyone. It wasn't lucrative enough for 75 people let alone 800."

"Kevin, I have a responsibility to people," Cameron said.

"I know you do. Having a few especially strong people will be better than the infighting that will result from resource fighting. Trust me Cameron, please. Promise me."

"Why?"

"Fine, a different secret first. Cameron, I killed a man on the first layer." Kevin said. Holding up a hand to forego the questions obviously on Cameron's mind. "He shot at me first and god's own luck that he missed. I could have ran or let him go but I didn’t. I killed him. I killed a man. And. We are worth Points Cameron. Humans. I killed him and earned more than 1,000 points."

“Cameron. You did an excellent job keeping us safe and peaceful and putting us on the same team. I don't know what you did before you came here but you were born to lead. The moment people figure out they can kill each other rather than hunt the morankai, your peace will blow away like so much dust, especially with the new recruits.”

“Your trick is worth killing each other over?” Cameron asked skeptically.

“No Cameron, the fact that humans are worth points, and more points than an abnormal morankai, let alone a normal, is worth killing each other over. Adding my trick will just make it so people are willing to kill their friends instead of just strangers.”

Cameron stopped and seriously considered the issue for a while. “I’ll compromise with you Kevin. You tell me your secret and I will protect it. But, if someone else discovers the secret and brings it to me, then I will do whatever I think is best with it.”

“Fair enough Cameron, but you must promise the people you tell to the same. I would only tell people you think have a lot of potential, or who you can get something significant from” Kevin said.

“Deal.” Said Cameron. “So what is it?”

“How many types of morankai are there?” Kevin asked, leadingly.

“Well, abnormal morankai come in many flavors but I assume you mean them as one type. So, with the normal morankai that would make two.” Cameron answered.

“Nope.” Kevin said. “There are three.”

Kevin spent the next little while telling Cameron about the golden morankai, how to find them, how many points they typically gave, the very typical one normal and one abnormal morankai bodyguards, and how often he could expect one to spawn.

“That is quite a secret. This could have helped a lot of people Kevin.” Cameron said perhaps annoyed even with his promise.

“I know Cameron, that's why I am telling you now. You can’t split the kill, you know that, and with so few spawning, you can only split the spoils so much. If you see me again, I’ll take you to hunt one, but honestly…”

“I know.” Cameron said. “Don’t kill yourself out there. If you can’t make it, come back and we will figure it out.”

Kevin nodded. “OK. Are you ready?”

“Let’s get started.” Cameron said.

“How far do you think you can fly?” said Kevin.

“A mile, maybe a little more.” said Cameron.

“OK. I’ll let you know.” Kevin said.

Cameron hopped on the top of the APC while Kevin got into the driver seat. He started the engine, which would have drawn a lot of attention if Lee and Tammy hadn’t cleared the area a little. Kevin pulled out onto the wide 6 lane road and slowly drove towards the cluster perimeter.

As soon as his tires touched the grass, morankai that had previously been shambling or ignoring them began running towards them aggressively. Kevin didn’t push it, starting to pick up speed. In moments the first morankai were on them. Kevin couldn’t see Cameron, but he could see the pack of morankai running towards the vehicle as he drove away from the cluster.

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As soon as they got close, they suddenly flew into the air as if they were falling up, which is literally and exactly what they were doing. They only fell for a second, maybe two, but that was enough for them to reach thirty feet or more before regular gravity took hold, slowing them down, and bringing them crashing back down to Earth. Many died instantly. Kevin imagined that Cameron was getting a lot of point notifications. But there were always more morankai.

The grass started to get long, it was like trying to push through water, the large wheels on the heavy vehicle was enough to keep them moving through the grass waves. Kevin kept one eye on the odometer and the other on the mirrors watching as morankai fell up then crashed back down, sometimes on their allies.

When an abnormal morankai showed up, Cameron shot it several times with a heavy handgun before using his gravity ability to throw the creature up and back. It returned only a few moments later to experience the exact same treatment again. And Again before it finally did not get up.

The vehicle slowed as it continued pushing through the grass. It was still going but Kevin was pretty sure it wasn’t even really touching the ground now. He was close to a mile. He checked his mirrors and saw the pack of morankai was a lot smaller than it had been, he slowed, letting Cameron deal a few more deadly falls to the creatures and thin their numbers. The less there were to attack the vehicle the better.

Kevin passed a mile. He thumped hard on the roof of the vehicle. A moment later he heard two thumps of acknowledgement from Cameron, but he didn’t leave. Kevin heard a few heavy gunshots again and watched as a few more morankai disappeared into the sky. He went almost another quarter mile before he heard *shave and a haircut* from the roof, the signal that Cameron was leaving.

Kevin couldn’t hear anything other than the roar of the engine and the sound of the grass rubbing against the APC. He couldn’t see anything in the mirrors behind him anymore. He couldn’t see anything in front. He just pinged Katie with Soul Tracker to make sure he was still on course.

Kevin heard a thump. A morankai was on the vehicle. He wasn’t overly worried about it, that was the whole point in bringing the APC. Anything that could stand up to machine gun fire would be able to handle a few morankai. The real danger was if it was an abnormal. Kevin trusted Cameron though, Cameron would have handled the abnormals first.

Kevin only had a notion of how far he had gone because of the odometer. The banging on the roof of the vehicle a constant nuisance but easily ignorable. At one point he saw the feet of the creature as it climbed around the top of the vehicle but it didn’t seem to know that there was a viewing port it could have interrupted Kevin’s vision with, and frankly even if it did, Kevin couldn’t really see anything anyway. He just pinged Katie.

Time passed, Kevin wasn’t exactly making good time anymore. He couldn’t even guess how tall the grass was as he was never able to see the top. He could hear the wheels getting caught on the grass. So far he had managed not to get stuck, but he was starting to lose hope. It was only a matter of time. The only bright side was that the morankai must have gotten tangled in the grass because he heard it scrap off the top of the APC.

Kevin had managed to go a truly ridiculous distance with the Cloud Step shoes despite the wind buffeting him. He was certain he had gone farther than the Cloud Step shoes had allowed him to go. Even making the vehicle considerably lighter to allow it to climb over the grass shoots better, he doubted he would be able to make it much farther. And with the thought, came the reality. Grass had tangled itself up around the wheels of the APC.

The grass, like everything in the first layer, was practically indestructible. Even the grass, Kevin was reasonably sure he couldn’t cut it with his best strike.

The APC had managed to get by, not by ripping out the grass but by just moving it out of the way enough. Now, there was just too much grass and nowhere for the vehicle to move it out of the way to. The APC was done. Kevin checked the odometer. He’d made it almost 5 miles. Kevin tried the door. It would not open. Hmm. That might be a problem. Kevin tried the hatch. It did open. Kevin opened the hatch and climbed up onto the APC roof looking around him. The grass was as tall as tall pines, perhaps sixty or seventy feet tall. The grass was thick like crabgrass but densely packed. Kevin couldn’t even see the wheels of the APC from where he was, so dense and densely covered was the vehicle.

Kevin tied a rope to the hatch of the APC and used his Cloud Step shoes to climb up the distance. He could see his cluster behind him, but no evidence of anything in front. He noticed the grass while he jumped from one Cloud platform to another. It was dense. Like - Professional golf course dense. He had a bit of inspiration. He used a hopping motion to get himself safely back down to the APC. He moved as much of the grass out of the way as possible. He pulled out an axe and cut the roof off the APC. He cut two seats out of the APC, then the bench seat in the back. He used his cloud step shoes to climb back up to the grass height. Using Light Heavy he made the seats, bench seat and himself, almost as light as he could. Then he put the bench down on the grass. It was so tough and he was so light that it didn’t even bend under his weight as it held him up.

He grinned. He used the rope from the shop to tie the bottom of each seat to his shoes. He had fashioned himself wide comfortable snowshoes. He would need to make himself heavy enough that the wind couldn’t pull him away, but light enough that his created grassshoes could hold him above the grass.

Hope filled Kevin. He checked the shop and took a moment to eat and drink his fill. He stood up and prepared to start walking.

Kevin walked for hours, fighting the wind, constantly balancing himself with Light Heavy on too heavy and too light. But, he made it miles. His progress was slow, he could still just see his cluster skyline, but in front he could see nothing. His hopes weren’t dashed but he was beginning to worry again.

Light Heavy was an easy ability to use, easy to hold it for long, really long periods of time. But he couldn’t sleep and hold it. He was worried about what would happen if he slept and was dragged to the ground under his real weight.

He kept moving. Farther from his cluster and hopefully closer to Katie. Kevin took a single more step. He felt a tugging on his soul, an odd sort of pinch that was immediately overshadowed by a notification window.

—The Shop is no longer available. —

Kevin stopped. He tried to pull up the shop, but couldn’t get it to open as it had for over a year now.

He took a step back.

— The Shop is now available —

Kevin opened The Shop. Then took a step forward.

— The Shop is no longer available —

The window closed.

Kevin took a step back.

— The Shop is now available —

Kevin pulled food out of the Shop. He took a step forward.

— The Shop is no longer available. —

The food Kevin was literally holding in his hands disappeared just like the extra food, plate and utensils would after 30 minutes. Kevin took a step back.

— The Shop is now available —

Kevin took food out of the shop and stored it in his storage ring. He took a step forward.

— The Shop is no longer available —

Kevin tapped his ring and checked for the food he’d just put in there. It was gone. Kevin stood, looking out over the sea of grass. Wondering how far he could push it with all the advancements he made to his health and body lately. Wondering if he could make it.

He looked behind him. Miles away, probably more than ten miles away, he could just make out the skyline of his cluster, but he couldn’t see anything ahead of him. He knew he couldn’t run back to his city with the Cloud Step shoes alone, but maybe he could get a little higher and look?

Kevin took off his cushion grass snowshoes he tied string to them so he could pull them up and he started running with the Cloud Step shoes gaining altitude as he did. He ran at a fairly steep angle for perhaps a mile, straining his soul a little but climbing hundreds of feet, maybe even 1000 feet. He still could not see any other clusters.

This time Kevin did not cry, as he turned himself back around. He had one more plan, but he’d need The Shop.

Between running with cloud step shoes and walking with his grass snowshoes, Kevin made it back to the cluster many hours after he left. Cameron was waiting for him as he entered the trio. He said nothing to Kevin, only gave him a commiserating glace and squeezed his shoulder as Kevin walked past the sentries.

Kevin cleared each of the three towers, sent out a Soul Tracker ping for golden morankai and found one.

He went to find Cameron, and brought him along on a hunt.