Cassie and I sit reading together for hours. I’m not any closer to understanding poetry, but I did enjoy my time trying. Eventually the worst of the storm passes, and while it still rages outside, our power comes back on. As soon as it does, Cassie stands up and begins to collect her books.

“Can I borrow one or two of them?” I ask, my voice full of hope.

“Whatever.” She shrugs. I keep the book of poems I’ve been reading, and one novel from the pile at random. She scoops up the rest of the books.

“Thank you.”

“Mm hm.” She responds dismissively.

I unplug her lamp and hand the cord to her. She shakes her head in response.

“Keep it.” She says as she heads into the hallway.

My pistols have been left on the ground where she was sitting. I put them back into their holsters. Leaving loaded guns lying around is an awfully dangerous idea.

I lay down on my bed and begin reading the novel I grabbed. It is an incredibly sweet book about two girls falling in love, and I savor every word of it. Time slips away from me as I read. Before I’m even close to finishing it, I’m interrupted by a knock on the door.

“Little Blue?” Vince’s voice comes through the door.

I spend a moment to memorize the page I’m on before opening the door. Vince is standing there, looking tired, but happy. He has his rifle slung across his back.

“Yes?” I ask tentatively. If he was here to hurt me his rifle would be in his hands. Even though I know that, it’s still scary to see him armed and at my door.

He glances down at the book I’m still holding and smiles, but decides not to comment.

“Cassie gave the green light for you to come along. We’ve got the range all to ourselves to bring you up to speed on how we fight.”

“Oh! Really?” I get to live! I can’t believe it! It feels like my mind has been freed of a weight that’s been on it for too long.

“Yes really, now come on. We’ve only going to have the range until cleanup finishes.”

I follow him into the hallway and down the stairs. It takes effort to walk normally. I want to jump or skip or anything to express my happiness. Androids don’t do that though, and I manage to reel in my emotions for now.

The world outside is covered in an inch of sand. If I didn’t already know there was a road outside the compound, it would be impossible to tell. A few dozen people are working to shovel and sweep a small mountain of sand onto the street.

A few of them look at the two of us, and especially me, resentfully for not helping. Vince carries an authority as he walks, his mere presence is enough to keep them from whispering. There’s no sign that he cares at all about the stares aimed in our direction.

He opens the door to the range for me and I am met with Ivy, Lucas, and Cassie all inside what was once the shooting range. The walls of the lanes have been removed, turning the range into a single large open room. Scrap metal walls acting as cover have been set up randomly throughout the room. The group's conversation stops once I enter. Vince comes in behind me and begins to speak warmly.

“I’m glad to see everyone’s already here, we don’t have a lot of time so let’s get started. Little Blue, we’re going to start by giving you a quick rundown of what each of us do out there. Then we’ll move on to what you need to be doing, alright?”

“Ok.”

“I’ll go first,” He continues, taking his homemade looking rifle from his back. “This is a little thing I’ve been working on for longer than Cassie has been alive. Every single piece is handcrafted. It’s chambered in 5.56, however, it can be changed over to use the same 9mm bullets and mags you and Lucas use at a moments notice.”

To demonstrate he flips a latch underneath where the barrel meets the rest of the gun. The barrel and receiver flip upwards in one piece, and is then removed by Vince. He then reaches into his satchel, pulling out a shorter barrel and receiver, which he locks in place before continuing.

“If I ask you for a mag, just hand one over. I won’t ask if it’s not an emergency. I’m a midrange fighter, and I’m going to be the one yelling out what to do. Now, that doesn’t mean you have to listen to me no matter what. If I’m being stupid, feel free to ignore me. I’ve survived a long time out here, but even I’m not right all the time. That said, if you’re going to not follow my plan, I have to know. Just yell out ‘Veto’ and do your own thing, no questions asked. Make sense?”

“Yeah.”

“Good, who’s next?”

Ivy steps forward, hoisting a simple, sleek rifle into her hands. It’s not much more than a barrel and a pure black covering. Anything that could be removed, has, including the scope.

“I’m the sniper and lookout. I’m going to get somewhere with a view and keep you safe.” She says, feeling her simple explanation is more than enough.

“Wait.” I say. “Shouldn’t a sniper rifle have a scope on it?”

“Don’t need one.” She responds, brushing her hair aside, revealing her hidden eye. It’s obviously artificial, with wicked surgery scars surrounding it. As if she were operated on by someone with almost no experience. I’m sure there’s a story there, but I don’t need to know it right now.

“I’ll go next!” Lucas says excitedly, pulling out two submachine guns, one in each hand. Each one has a magazine several times longer than my own, but with an identical shape otherwise.

“I focus on suppression. Two guns means I can fire the other one while I reload. Whoever I’m pinning down literally never gets the chance to fight back!” He demonstrates his one handed reloading by letting the mag fall to the ground, and then lowering the gun onto a second mag he has slightly sticking out of a belt around his waist. “I also keep the car working most of the time.”

How does he have the bullets to waste on missing? Jade only gave me 100, and I can’t imagine new bullets are being produced anymore.

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“Isn’t gunpowder hard to come by?” I ask.

“Good observation! It is.” Vince says. “I’ll tell you how he gets enough in a minute. Cassie, do you want to fill Little Blue in, or should I?”

“Fuck it, I’ll do it. I’m the scout. I have a pistol and a knife for backup, that’s about it.”

“Don’t sell yourself short.” Ivy says seriously. “She’s just about the fastest person I’ve ever seen.”

“You had just as short of an explanation as I did!” Cassie complains.

“She also works the radio!” Lucas speaks up, ignoring Cassie’s outburst. “But you’d probably be good at that too.”

“Alright Little Blue, do you know your job?”

“Jade told me my guns are for emergencies. My main job is always going to be hacking.”

“That’s true. You’ve made it clear enough you don’t want to kill people, and I get that. So you’re gonna stick by me and watch the flanks and behind us. If you see movement, tell me and I’ll take care of it. Can you do that?”

“I won’t have to shoot anyone?” I ask hopefully.

“If everything goes well, yeah. I’m not going to lie to you and say you’re never going to have to use it though. Things get unpredictable in combat.”

I guess that makes sense. Even trying to make sure I don’t have to is better than I expected.

“Second thing,” Vince continues. “Since you’re part of the group, you get a say in making decisions. If anyone suggests anything, and you feel like it’s a bad decision, feel free to veto it. We’ll do our best to respect that, no questions asked. You don’t even have to say why. However, if someone thinks your veto is a bad idea, we can call a vote to overwrite it. If everyone else votes to overturn it, we expect you to follow the original plan. It’s all about trust, got it?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Third thing, technically, anything we bring back on missions is supposed to be donated to the compound. Instead, we’ve all got something that we keep for ourselves. Lucas gets some bullets to keep his guns churning, and games for the group. Ivy gets makeup and clothes, I get any pre-sand snacks that are still good, Cassie gets books. If you see any of that on missions, grab it for us. What do you want us to look out for?”

“I don’t know. I’ve never owned things before.” I respond. I can’t immediately think of anything that I want. Or at least anything I want that’s possible.

Ivy puts her hand over her heart, mocking pain at my words.

“We’ll find you something you like. Fourth,” He continues, pulling an electronic tablet out of his satchel and handing it to me. “There will be times when we can’t talk. In those cases we use hand signals. Memorize that.”

I take a look down at the tablet, filled with hand drawn doodles of hand positions, and their meanings. I take a moment to memorize it before flashing him an ‘All Good’ signal. I don’t need to spend the time to really learn these, just memorizing the pictures and referencing them when needed is enough.

“Good! That’s about all the boring stuff. Everyone, let’s run through some drills.”

There’s not much space in the range, but Vince makes the most of it. He runs the group through exercises designed to teach me how to fight. He focuses on where I’m supposed to be, and what to be doing during a fight in dozens of situations. He also is very thorough in explaining what everyone else is doing, and more importantly, why.

We practice communicating, plans of attack, what to do when things go wrong in hundreds of different ways. By the end of the hours of training I feel pretty prepared. Certainly not to shoot anyone, but confident in the fact I can still help everyone.

“Alright everyone, feel good about today?” Vince speaks to the group, but keeps his eyes mainly on me. A series of nods come out of all of us. Most of them are too tired from working to speak. “Good. Everyone be ready to head out when this storm passes. We’re being sent out to the junkyard if the storm uncovered it, or Denver if it isn’t, so expect to see other groups. Any questions or concerns?”

Cassie, of course, has something to say.

“We’re bringing Blue and not even going somewhere she’ll be useful?”

“Silver wants to see how she handles a typical outing before we rely on her. Anything else?”

After a second or so of silence Lucas speaks up excitedly.

“Does that mean we’re done?”

“What’s got you so excited?” Ivy gives him a look out of the corner of her eye.

“I’ve got plans for once.”

“Spill it.” Ivy’s voice holds a hint of a threat in it.

“Nope! I’ll tell you how it goes after!”

“Is it a date?” She asks, looking closely at his face for a second before her eye widens. “It is! Who’s the lucky guy?”

“You know, I’ve really gotta go get ready.” He deflects, heading for the door.

“Oh no, get back here. Just yesterday you told me nobody was into you.” She literally chases him out of the range.

“Well, Cassie, Little Blue, do the two of you have any plans?” Vince asks a few seconds after Ivy disappears.

“No, why?” I ask.

“Figured you’d be looking for something to do.” He shrugs casually. “Might be a good time to relax after today’s stress.”

“I’ve got plans.” Cassie says roughly before exiting the range.

“Well, looks like it’s just the two of us, Little Blue. What do you want to do?”

“I don’t know.” I tell him truthfully. “I’ve had really bad luck when I’ve tried to do anything the past few days.”

“Well, is there anything you’ve enjoyed?”

“Sitting on the roof is a good way to waste time.”

“Let’s go up there then, come on.” He leads me out into the compound.

The cleaning has nearly finished, with most people starting to slack off. The compound grounds only have only a dusting of sand covering it, and the street looks like it’s been recently cleaned.

Vince leads the two of us up to the roof. The shield is still crackling from the weakened storm, but no sand is making it through. The city is lit up, most surfaces are shades of brown from the sand still stuck to every surface. For the first time, large cars are heading up and down the streets. Large holes have opened at regular intervals on the sides of the streets, and the cars are pushing piles of sand into them.

“What’s the city like?” I ask Vince.

“Well that depends on who you ask.” He responds.

“I’m asking you?”

“Eh, yeah you sure are.” Vince spends a moment to collect his words before continuing. “It’s a complex situation, but I try not to talk badly about the only thing keeping people alive.”

“So it’s bad then?” I think I knew that already though.

“I think Ivy once called it ‘a decaying corpse’. I’ll leave you to make your own guesses based on that.”

That tells me nothing. Maybe I can get him to compare it to something I know? Finn did put a lot of information on society a lifetime ago.

“What’s different from how it was before the world ended?” I ask.

“A disaster is the best time for a power grab.” He shrugs. “And anyone strong enough to win rarely wants the best for everyone. I’d really rather not talk about it though. How are you feeling about being a part of the group?”

“I didn’t want to ask in front of Cassie, but you said we should expect to see other groups?”

“Yeah.” Vince stares silently at the city, already knowing the next question.

“Are we going to kill them?” I ask quietly.

He gives another small shrug in response.

“I wish I could tell you. It depends on who we run into and how they’re feeling. There are plenty of other groups surviving out there, not just scrappers. Traders, gangs, tribes, cults, all just people trying to stay alive at the heart of things. We keep on good terms with everyone we can, but when people get desperate? Everything looks edible to a starving man.”

“I don’t know if I’ll be able to handle that.” I tell him.

“I know. That’s why your job is to stick with me. If anything goes wrong I’ll be right there, alright? If things get bad just tell me you can’t keep an eye out and take care of yourself.”

“Ok. Thank you.”

“Of course.”