Emily walked through the streets in her puffy outfit, doing her best to see through her slightly foggy ski goggles. She wasn’t even sure why Sean had kept these things. It wasn’t like any of them had ever skied before. But he’d gone on a trip to the coasts of the continent with some buddies after he graduated high school and skied while he was there, so she guessed he’d kept the gear ever since then.

A man stumbled towards her, letting out hacking coughs into his elbow as he emerged from a nearby alleyway.

“Hey! Ya got any food? Please, I’ll die without it. With all those clothes surely you must have somethin’...” The man rasped as he kept approaching her.

She quickly backpedaled in alarm and raised her crowbar threateningly as she gripped it in both hands.

“Stop! Get back!” she shouted and swung the crowbar through open air threateningly, leading the man to slow to a stop as he swayed on his feet.

“C’mon, I’m not… I ain’t…”

The man let out a hacking cough and Emily saw that the corner of his elbow was splattered red. The man wiped his bloody lips.

“I’m fine,” he said, “Jus’ the radiation. Heard some of it came floatin’ our way three days ago. I ain’t sick for real. C’mon, lady. Don’t you have anything? I’ve been starvin’ fer days.”

“No,” Emily said while still keeping her crowbar raised, “I don’t. I’d get out of the streets if I were you. Another sweeps coming in a few hours. You’ll be shot and thrown in the pits if they find you out here.”

“Don’t I know it,” the man muttered and took another step towards her with his eyes darting up and down her bundled form.

“Say, what’s with the *cough* gear? What ya doin’ in such a hurry? Sure you don’t have anything?”

“I’m not getting sick,” Emily replied, “I don’t have anything. No food, water, anything. Now just leave! Don’t make me use this thing on you!”

She jabbed the tip of the metal crowbar in the man’s direction and he stopped and raised his hands in the air.

“Fine, fine,” he muttered even as he seemed to still think she was hiding valuables from him from the way he looked at her hungrily.

“I’ll be on my way then,” the man mumbled before stumbling back into the dark alley again.

Emily kept moving, keeping a careful eye on the alleyways and dark corners from then on with her crowbar clutched tightly in her nervous grip.

She kept moving, walking through the mostly empty city. She caught a few flickers of movement occasionally, but no one else approached her as she walked. Probably hiding as best as they could from the daily patrols by the military to kill everyone who had broken quarantine whether they were infected yet or not.

At least they were bringing in those pallets of food and leaving them inside the buildings marked as occupied once a week though.

So people in the buildings shouldn’t be starving yet. Even though Emily was sure the food was being hoarded as soon as the soldiers left. Sean and Emily had certainly never reached the main lobby in time to get a scrap of it. Only the empty pallet had been sitting there by the time Emily went down to check while Sean remained inside his apartment.

The hair on the back of Emily’s neck stood up and she felt a chill run down her spine. She was probably another ten or fifteen minutes walk to where the soldiers would be holding the perimeter around the city.

“Hey!” Emily turned and saw the same sick man from before walking out of a nearby alleyway, something that looked like a razor held in one of his hands.

Emily turned and stumbled into a jog, only to stop as three more men appeared at the end of the street to block her way, all armed with small blades or long chunks of wood that they were holding like clubs.

Emily turned around and saw that five more men were blocking her way back, her breathing accelerating and fogging up her ski goggles even more as her head snapped from side to side.

“We know ya got some food,” the man from before said, “Or something valuable. Hand it over before we have to hurt ya.”

“I- I don’t have anything!” Emily said as she raised her crowbar as the nine men circled her threateningly as she slowly backed away from them to the side of the empty street.

“LIAR! You got something!” the man accused, his eyes bloodshot, “You’re out here and not sick yet. No one does that unless they’re trying to get out of this dump! You got food hidden in there for your escape! Something valuable with the way you’re actin’.”

“No, I don’t, you said it was radiation,” Emily said as she turned her head side to side, trying to keep all of the men surrounding her in her vision through the tunnel vision of the goggles.

“I lied. Now hand it over before things get ugly, girl,” the man said as he raised the razor in his hand. He coughed again, holding his other fist to his mouth as his body curled inwards from as it sounded like he was coughing up his lungs.

“GIVE IT HERE!” He shouted after he recovered as he stepped forward, “YOU GOT SOMETHING, I JUST KNOW IT! HAND IT OVER NOW!”

“What… What do I do?” Emily asked herself in desperation, looking around and feeling trapped as her back touched the wall of the building behind her. There was nowhere else to retreat, she was surrounded on all sides by the men who had their weapons raised threateningly.

You have to fight, little Emily. With your gear you’re too slow to run from them. You can’t hesitate, if they slice open your gear then the sick man could infect you. They’d be killing Sean even if they don’t know it. Hit the sickest man first. We can’t have him infecting us. You can’t afford to be compassionate in situations this serious, not when Sean’s life is on the line.

“St- Stay back!” Emily tried one last time, “I have super powers! Like the movies! Back off or I’ll use them!”

“Enough!” the sick man spat out, swaying slightly on his feet and looking lightheaded, “Crazy or not, hand it over! Now!”

Emily hesitated, “Should I…?” She asked herself as she looked at the men giving her sneers from all sides, boxing her in.

It’s you or them, little Emily. You’re stronger than them, you can tear your muscles, use all your strength at once without worrying about the damage. You just have to unlock it. They… Wait, what’s this? Your emotions, panic… They’re doing something, something’s changed. You can do something, I can help. But what is it… There’s a word. What did the Shadow say? Immortal, Know, Guide. You’re Immortal. I’m Know. So what’s Guide? Guide? That’s it! Emily, say Guide me. It might let me help!

Without knowing why, Emily felt an urge rise within her. She followed her instincts as the threatening man took one final step closer and raised his razor as if to slash at her.

“Help, Guide ME. DoN’t lEt tHeM mAkE mE SicK. I cAn’t get siCk.” Emily said, her voice warbling strangely as she spoke. The sickest man hesitated for a moment and the men around her looked uncomfortable, but after nothing happened, the sick man kept drawing back his arm and lunged forward to slash at her with his razor.

Emily felt numb, like everything was distant and far away as her body sprung into action. It was her, but a strange set of instincts guided her as she flicked her crowbar to the side and slammed into the sick man’s hand as his arm slashed towards her. He shouted in pain and tried to slam his shoulder into her as he dropped the razor blade.

But her body pivoted to the side like a dancer even through all the layers of thick cloth around her and through her narrowed and blurred vision of the goggles.

The crowbar whipped out, Emily now standing to the side as the sick man stumbled past her. The metal slammed into the back of the man’s head as he passed and with a sickly crunch sent him slamming into the ground where he lay unmoving.

Emily ducked as a wooden bat swung where her head had just been. She horse kicked the man behind her in the balls and as she pivoted around and bringing the crowbar low started to swing it hard towards the man’s lower leg even as he leaned over and wheezed from the pain from her kick.

The man yelped and fell to the side as the metal crowbar slammed into his leg with a loud wet crunch of broken bone. The remaining seven men surged in to attack Emily all at once as she stood there in her strangely hazy state.

Her body twirled and fought seemingly on instinct as she utterly demolished the men attacking her with brutal efficiency. But even with that several of their blades landed on her and opened up large gaps in her winter coats and clothing bundling her up.

The last man fell onto her, her body too busy landing a full force blow across the other man’s head, causing a sickly cracking sound as his head snapped to the side before he fell to the ground limp.

But the last man tackled her from behind, and slashed at her with his knife across her chest as she turned as she heard him at the last moment. She lost her grip on the crowbar and her body tried to fight off the man as best as it could. But his last slash had opened the last gap in her clothes to expose her bare skin up at her collarbone. The man slashed again to open the gap wider, his eyes widening as his blade sank into her skin and the wound healed even before he had finished his slice across the base of her neck.

Emily bucked her hips upwards to throw him forward above her, but even as he moved his face scrunched up and he opened his mouth. Emily’s eyes widened and time seemed to slow down as the man let out a hacking cough and a spray of tiny red droplets of blood sprayed across her face and onto the exposed skin around her neck.

Her body flipped over and seemingly on its own grabbed the crowbar that had fallen to the side from the ground and brought it into an overhand devastating blow that landed directly on the last man’s chest. He coughed one last time before going still.

Emily stood up and inspected the carnage around her where the dead bodies of the men lay. She stumbled off through the street, feeling distant and numb to it all as she moved. She walked for thirty seconds before she felt the exposed wind at her stomach and neck where her makeshift hazmat suit had been slashed open. She reached up and touched her fingers to her collarbone and when she drew them away they came back red. She… one of the men had coughed on her.

She was infected. She couldn’t be infected. She could never see Sean, anyone ever again without killing them.

It seemed like the world froze around her. Emily collapsed to the ground bonelessly and started twitching and all awareness seemed to fade from her as the world narrowed to a point and her vision darkened in the corners.

“I can’t get sick, I can’t get sick, I can’t…”

Emily muttered over and over as she twitched on the ground, eyes open and seeing nothing as she lay there in her seizure.

Eventually, she went still until she spoke one last time.

“I never got sick.”

Her eyes closed, and something washed over her and she lost consciousness, lying there curled up on the cold abandoned street sidewalk with bodies behind her.

— — —

Emily opened her eyes and jolted as she realized that she was lying in the open curled up on the sidewalk on the side of the street.

What had happened? She had been walking, then some men had surrounded her. And then… and then…

Her mind was blank. She vaguely remembered fighting, but it was like a hazy dream to her. Nothing concrete. She felt her stomach and neck where her hazmat suit had been slashed open. All the blood that should have been there was gone. She twisted her head as far as she could downwards to inspect her bare skin. But it was completely spotless as if she’d just left the shower. Even her clothing itself was perfectly clean, not one bit of grime or blood on it as she looked it over.

Why did she think that it should be covered in blood? Emily stood and looked behind her and froze. There’s… dead bodies. She gasped and put a hand up to the cloth of the ski mask covering her mouth as bile rose in her throat.

Had… had she done that? She realized that the crowbar she had been carrying was missing now. She could see it lying in the middle of the carnage, stained with blood and little chunks of gore as it sat there forgotten.

If only she could remember what had happened. Had the men attacked her and she had finally snapped and gone crazy? But she hadn’t seen Sinestra or heard unearthly whispers ever since she’d gotten these powers. She felt fine now. Has it been the stress? Would it happen again? How had she even done that? Fought off nine guys at once without getting even the least bit dirty? It didn’t make any sense…

Emily turned away from the carnage and started stumbling away, not even thinking about where she was going anymore as she just moved away as far as she could from the horrible scene. Her head throbbed painfully as she tried to remember what had happened in the missing gaps in her memory. But none of it came to anything, only causing her more confusion as her soupy memories began swirling and bleeding into each other as it began to hard to think.

Suddenly a coolness washed over her as her emotions and confusion reached a peak in her mind. Suddenly everything was logical and clear. She had her tasks, to find the military and see if she could negotiate for her and Sean’s safety with her knowledge of the vaccine. Everything else could wait until later. In her emotionless state it all made sense.

Her sudden clarity caused her to look around and she realized that she was going at an angle to the military encirclement. She adjusted her path as she kept moving through the empty streets. She felt her face had changed from its pained expression from before into a smooth mask as she walked through the streets with all of the muscles in her face relaxing all at once.

She finally rounded the corner and there it was. A line of three vehicles and a makeshift wall made of what looked like concrete chunks and long sections of long metal fencing haphazardly thrown together. In the center was a gate of sorts. There were a dozen soldiers or so manning the checkpoint.

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Emily could have gone around, but they probably had the infrared sensors track down anyone who tried to sneak by them and left the city proper.

She raised her hands in the air and slowly started walking towards the soldiers.

“Stop! Return to your home, no one leaves no matter the reason,” One of the soldiers shouted as Emily stopped walking. The rest had their weapons raised and pointed at her.

“I know how to make a vaccine to the virus,” Emily shouted in a flat and emotionless voice as she remained standing in place.

“What are you wearing?” the soldier asked suspiciously, “What’s with the gear?”

“Makeshift Hazmat suit,” she continued while not feeling much at all, “So I wouldn’t get infected. I suppose it must have worked, since I got here without getting sick. I used to be a scientist at CODA. I can create more of the vaccine if I have the right equipment. In return bring me and my brother to safety away from here.”

The soldier hesitated before glancing at the others.

“Just stay there,” he shouted, “I’ll call it in to base.”

He reached to his side and pulled out a handheld radio and walked off as he started talking to it.

As Emily stood there, a sense of anxiety and stress slowly bled back into her passive mind. She slowly returned to herself as she stood there and the strange state of mind she’d been in faded away.

She kept her arms raised, not feeling tired in the least bit even as her arms wrapped in the layers remained upright for over an hour. The soldiers gave her strange looks as time passed, so she put her arms back at her sides after slowly lowering them to make sure she wouldn’t get in trouble.

Finally after what felt like forever she heard the rumble of a vehicle from the other side of the barrier.

It stopped out of sight and Emily tensed as she saw the man who walked into sight with two more men flanking him on either side. Shit, it was the guy who had shot her earlier. That officer, Major Smith, hated everything CODA with a passion.

“They say you know how to make the vaccine. Some fancy CODA scientist, huh?” Major Smith said as he stood there and eyed her bundled up form suspiciously. Emily’s heart pounded, suddenly being glad that her face was completely covered in the ski mask and goggles as she stood there with her arms at her sides.

“So?” The man said after she didn’t reply, “Is it true?”

Emily opened her mouth and closed it for a few seconds, trying to think about what to say. What if he recognized her voice?

Her eyes widened as the officer dropped his hand to his side and gripped his pistol.

“Yes,” she quickly said. His hand lifted off his weapon and he looked at her.

“How do we know that it isn’t some trick?” the officer asked, “Lots of people try all sorts of things to leave. All sorts of stories and lies about what they can do. Want to spread their disease to the rest of us here. Or whoever may be alive beyond…”

“Whoever?” Emily said in shock, “You don’t have contact with anyone else?”

“You think CODA’s the only one that got bombed?!” Major Smith said, “We only survived getting hit because we’re so close to CODA. Cities all around us are radioactive dust. Wall of radiation on all sides our radios can’t get through. For all we know, we’re the last group of healthy people in the world.”

“But… but then what about the quarantine? The disease?” Emily asked.

“Still need it,” the man grumbled, “Only thing keeping that virus from wiping us all out is our work keeping the spreaders out of the streets. Should only be a week or two more before the last one of them is dead if we do it right. Then we can work on surviving again without it threatening to wipe us all out… So, evidence. Can’t let you go to start a panic now that I’ve blabbed to you. So, can you make a vaccine? How much can you make? What are the materials?”

“You… Can you get me somewhere safe?” Emily asked weakly, “A larger group? For me and my brother? The vaccine needs special machines, reagents. I can’t just whip it up from stuff you get at the store. And I need modeling software on special computers to make a digital file for the vaccine protein before I can do any of that.”

“Well, we ain’t got any of that,” the officer said, “You can’t make just one dose? You’re not getting a plane without evidence. We only got three of those, and less fuel than we’d want.”

“No, I can’t just make one dose,” Emily said a little frustrated now, “I need… I need all of those things! I can vaccinate everyone if you can get me everything. Look, I know you hate CODA, but I swear that…”

“Wait, who told you that?” Major Smith asked sharply and drew his pistol, “Who are you working for? How do you know about me?”

“What? I just… Guessed, you know…”

“No, no it’s more than that. I can hear it in your voice. Take off your mask. Let us see your face,” he pointed his pistol at her and she flinched. Fuck.

Emily paused after reaching a hand up to her head. Well, here goes nothing…

She took off her mask and stared the officer straight in the eyes as they widened in shock.

“Y-You!” he sputtered, “K-Kill her! Shoot her now!”

“But sir,” one of the men protested.

“Shut the fuck up!” Major Smith screamed as his pistol pivoted to the protesting soldier, “Unless you want to go next! I’m in charge of this place! Until martial law is over and we contact base I’m fucking king as far as any of you are concerned! Shoot her now, or you’re a traitor in my book!”

“Please, don-” Emily managed to get out before one of the soldiers that the officer wasn’t actively threatening fired his rifle at her and sent a bullet slamming into her chest.

She groaned in pain and clutched the wound and fell to the ground. How had things gone so wrong so quickly? She had thought she was making some progress until Major Smith went crazy.

She was shot again as she stood up after the wound healed, causing her to groan and feel at her gut where the bullet had entered. But the pain from the shot to her chest was already fading so she kept standing despite the pain of the new wound.

She was shot again and made an effort to keep in her groans this time as she stood there. She took off her jackets and slipped out of the extra layers of pants and jacket as quickly as she could until she was only wearing a single breathable layer.

She was shot again just as she took the last jacket off. She tried to ignore it, even if she let out an involuntary whine from the pain despite her best efforts.

There was shouting and arguing from in front of her, but Emily was too busy gritting her teeth and trying to look strong and unphased as her wounds rapidly healed. The corners of her eyes welled up slightly from the pain, but she tensed her face so the drops of liquid just remained pooling there at the corners of her eyes.

“Oh, and I also got superpowers,” she shouted, “Can you stop that? I don’t like getting shot even if I can survive it.”

The officer looked indecisive for a moment as he stared at her with bullet holes in her shirt with healed skin beneath them.

“She’s some CODA assassin! Kill her! Wear her down before she kills us all!” the man shouted hysterically before pointing his pistol at her and pulling the trigger. Emily threw herself forward to the ground and just barely dodged the man’s shot.

The other soldiers hesitated for a moment before firing at her as she rolled to the side and started running at Major Smith.

Emily was shot three times before she reached the officer and tackled him full force to the ground. He reached down and they wrestled over his pistol for a moment as they both rolled on the ground. The gunfire stopped as none of the soldiers around had a clear shot on her. But the soldiers shouted and argued in a circle around them as the two fought.

Major Smith finally got a solid grip on the weapon and before Emily was able to react, angled his weapon up at her. One shot to the center of her chest. Her grip on him loosened and he pivoted again to put the weapon under her chin. He pulled the trigger and the bullet entered her skull and everything went black again.

Everything was cold and logical when she woke up.

His eyes widened as his gaze met hers before pistol whipping her hard in the ribs with his weapon. She hissed and punched him hard in the nose, causing it to snap to the side. He let go, and the pain went away after a moment as she wrestled the pistol away from him in surprise and put it to his temple. He froze even as he had one hand held to his bleeding nose.

Emily grabbed him and kept the pistol on him while dragging him up with her.

“Don’t,” she growled as the man tried to break free and she pressed the pistol to his head again. He had killed not her just once, but twice. She had no sympathy for him. Even if her emotionless state made her not caring about threatening him rather than her actually feeling angry.

“Tell them to back off,” she shouted to the surrounding soldiers even as she started dragging him backwards towards the still running humvee on the other side of the barricade.

“Back off!” Emily said again to the surrounding soldiers as she shook the officer with her free hand that was gripping the back of his neck as the other held the pistol to his head, “Or he gets it!”

“Sir…”

“Jus’ do it,” the officer burbled through the blood running down from his broken nose, “Not like our guns did shit to her.”

“What do you want?” the soldier asked as Emily kept dragging Major Smith back with her towards the humvee as the other soldiers circled around her.

“I’m trying to help make the vaccine,” Emily said calmly with her flat expression, “But clearly I’m just going to get shot again for my troubles. I’ll just have to go out and find some people that can really help me. Or let me help them.”

She kept the pistol on the officer’s head even as she released him with her other hand. She fumbled with the humvee car door for a second before opening it. She crawled backwards into the passenger’s side door, the officer awkwardly following as she half dragged him inside the car. She was now on the driver’s side while the officer was sitting on the passenger’s side.

“Shut the door,” she ordered him and he did so. She let Major Smith go and put her pistol in the pocket in the driver's side door and put both hands on the wheel.

She put the car in reverse and pressed the pedal full force. She stopped and turned once she was a dozen feet away and then shifted back into drive and pressed the pedal again. The humvee bucked and skid on the pavement for a moment before tearing off into the distance.

She saw the officer make an aborted movement, but she stared at him and he stopped with his hand half reaching towards her.

He slowly lowered his hand as his eyes flickered to the pistol still close enough for her to grab quickly in the car door if he tried anything.

“What are you doing?” he demanded, “You won’t get away with this. We’ll have you surrounded and even with your healing we’ll be able to take you down eventually.”

Emily didn’t answer him and kept driving. There was a main base somewhere, she was sure. There was a route of cleared streets. The others were filled with debris and the occasional crashed or disabled car. But not this route. The cars had been pushed to the side and the way cleared as Emily kept driving.

“What are you after?” the man demanded again after she didn’t reply, “What do you want?”

“I wasn’t lying,” Emily said calmly, “I’m going to people who can let me help. And you told me the way to do that.”

“What? What do you- No! They’re worth millions of dollars! We need all the fuel we can get! You can’t take them!”

“We’ll see about that.”

— — —

They reached the makeshift base after ten more minutes of not speaking. By now Emily’s emotions had returned and she had done her best to contain her hyperventilating as she started processing what had just happened. Major Smith looked at her suspiciously, but didn’t make any move to attack her as they drove luckily.

The base also had concrete chunks and actual barbed wire as its top except for a single point that had a large gate that clearly been composed of a larger chunk of metal that had been welded into the current form of double doors.

Emily kept the humvee there idling, not doing anything but waiting as the guards stared at them. She tapped her fingers on the wheel, but after a few seconds the gates started swinging open.

The officer started swearing as it became apparent that they were letting the car by because he was inside and weren’t bothering to doing a thorough check. The guards on the wall looked mostly bored if anything.

Emily drove inside and saw hundreds of soldiers idling around the open space with a few large tents set up.

She spotted the right place and started driving there, most of the soldiers staring at them in confusion as Emily drove as fast as she could without crashing as she moved through the base.

She reached the large hangar and drove inside. There it was. Not exactly the fighter planes she had been expecting. One was clearly a military cargo plane. But the other two were civilian aircraft. One looked like a private jet while the other was a propeller plane of all things with large water pontoons on the bottom.

“These are your planes?” Emily asked as she picked up the pistol as the humvee rolled to a stop inside, “What’s with the other two?”

“Biplane’s simple enough to repair with some electrical parts we have apparently,” Major Smith grumbled as she nudged him with the pistol and the both of them stepped out of the passenger’s side door, “Private jet had hardened electronics. Belonged to some paranoid business man. All the other planes that weren’t military dropped out of the sky when the bombs hit. Electronics fried mid flight. These ones were nearby and landed here after the blasts.”

“W-What happened to the people flying them?”

“They’re under quarantine with everyone else,” Major Smith said, “Or infected. Or in the burn pits already. I don’t know. We sent them on their way.”

There was a group of a dozen or so people clustered around the planes, especially the biplane and discussing something in depth. They all looked up and looked shocked as they saw the officer’s broken nose and Emily with a pistol pressed into the square of the man’s back.

“Anyone a pilot?” Emily asked with only a small tremor in her voice.

“None of them are pilots!” Major Smith said quickly, “Just engineers for the planes.”

The group of men hesitated before all nodding at once. Emily hesitated. She was sure that they were lying. But how could she tell which one was telling the truth?

“How do I know…?”

Whoa! That was so strange. It was like I wasn’t there, but over your shoulder telling you the right moves to make in that fight against those thugs. Then that thing happened afterward. Your body just cleaned itself all at once somehow… Now, the pilots. Let’s see… How to determine… Ah! The private jet! It probably has an advanced autopilot, especially if the owner was paranoid enough to harden all of its electronics. You should be able to just set the course and it’ll fly on its own. Ask them.

“Does the jet have its own autopilot?” Emily asked one of the engineers that looked particularly nervous.

“Yes!” he said, “It do-” he cut himself off as the officer glared at the man from where Emily still held him.

“Okay, great,” she said, noticing from the corner of her eye that several military vehicles were driving their way. Even if it wasn’t at an urgent speed yet. Probably just wondering why Emily had just blown past them in the car rather than them raising the alarm just yet.

Hopefully.

She quickly dragged Major Smith over to the private jet and up the stairs with some difficulty. They went inside to the main cabin and Emily stared at the massive panels of buttons and switches in abject confusion.

“Ha!” Major Smith barked out, “Do you even know how to turn on the autopilot? I sure don’t. You’ll never get out of here.”

Emily tried to ignore him as her eyes desperately went over the massive console as tried to figure out what to do. She started sweating and her mind raced.

“What do I do…” she whispered, “What do I have to Know?”

Great! Okay, so this one looks pretty simple compared to what I’m used to. Found the manual on the workbench of one of those engineers nearby. Only saw a random page, but there was a diagram where most of everything on this panel was labeled. I’m sure we can figure it out together. Flip that switch then you press those buttons. That’ll start warming up the engines. While that’s happening, start driving out to that runway outside while we learn how to take off. I think I have an idea, but we’ll have to test it out before we go…

Without completely understanding what she was doing, Emily started flicking switches and pushing buttons. While she wasn’t completely successful, after a few seconds she finally heard the rumble of the engines turning on.

“Yes!” Emily said and pumped her fist. A fist hit her skull full force and she was dazed for a moment and stumbled into the wall before her healing kicked in. She turned to the side and saw Major Smith running down the hallway of the jet. Emily chased after him while waving her pistol after him and shouting incoherently.

He turned and ran out of the open door of the stairs leading down to the ground. Emily stopped as she saw him tumbling outside down the stairs before he collapsed onto the ground of the asphalt outside. She could just hear his pained groans over the sound of the jet’s engines as the plane slowly jerked into motion and started rolling forward.

Emily quickly pulled a lever to the side of the open doorway and the stairs started retracting upwards as the exterior door started closing.

She rushed back to the front, and started figuring out how to operate the plane seemingly by instinct as she taxied onto the runway and started speeding up. Behind her, she could see a circle of vehicles around where Major Smith had rolled out of the plane. It was good he’d escaped, she didn’t want him to come with her anyways.

The pitch of the engines changed as they rumbled into full force and the plane started rolling down the runway faster and faster.

The circle of military vehicles broke formation and started driving after her. She could see the bruised and battered form of the military officer leaning out the side of his car and pointing at her stolen plane and shouting angrily.

Several pings of weapons fire hit her plane, but with a loud whine the wheels of the plane left the ground. On instinct again, Emily pushed a few more buttons and felt a rumble beneath the plane as the landing gear retracted.

Behind her she could see Major Smith raging and shouting at one of the other soldiers as the nose of the plane rose upward and she went up into the sky and fully took off.

After a few more seconds the little pings on crackles of gunfire hitting the plane faded away as Emily’s stolen plane ascended higher and higher into the sky. She kept going until she felt that she was at the right height.

She pressed more buttons and somehow figured out the autopilot and plotted a course in a straight line through the clouds of radiation.

The plane was hardened, so its electronics should be fine. Any normal people inside would probably be fried by the radiation levels left only a few weeks after the massive nuclear bombs had been dropped. But Emily would probably be fine. She’d lived in CODA city for over a week in the center of the radiation cloud and still not felt any symptoms from it.

With a relieved sigh, Emily sat back and collapsed into the pilot’s chair as the plane started flying itself. She had absolutely no clue how she had managed to get this thing working. But she had done it. Somehow she had done it. And after she found someone more reasonable, she’d make the vaccine and then go back for Sean.

He had plenty of food, she had a few weeks to get back to him before things became desperate.