Heinz woke up tired.

It turned out that even with his new augment, four and a bit hours of sleep wasn’t enough. With a groan he pushed himself out of bed. His eyes adjusted to the lack of light and his cabin was laid out in shades of grey, silver and black. He threw on his slightly damp and slightly smelly wetsuit, grabbed his bag and left.

Shane and Louise were waiting at the petrol station. Heinz did a double take at the metal hatch door leaning against the wall by Shane. It was a dirty white colour with rust stains flowing down from the circular window and hinges. Heinz greeted them with a wave and a yawn before sitting down beside them.

Another group of three were waiting by a van but they seemed just as unwilling to socialise at this hour. Everyone sat with only the rumble of the generator that powered the gas station lights filling the silence.

Tara and Phil arrived together, Phil looking about as tired as Heinz felt and carrying a square piece of corrugated iron. It seemed both Shane and he had sourced replacements for their shields. After a short greeting they got into the back of the van. Two members of the other group joined them in the boot.

Heinz reached for the zone control as they left Kinmore.

Zone Control - I38-KB

Swarm Growth

15%

Local

100%

It seemed whatever they missed during the clearing missions was making its way to the town. He’d seen people patrolling around on the walk to the station but was it enough?

“So did everyone fall asleep from the augment?” Heinz quietly asked around a yawn as the van turned a corner.

“I fell asleep in the car.” Phil began but caught the yawn. “Fiona was not impressed when she found me. I was late and I couldn’t explain why I was in the car. I don’t want the kids or Fiona to know that the augments can hurt.”

Everyone shared a collective wince.

“My mom stayed with me.” Tara offered. “She couldn’t wake me up and panicked. I woke up wrapped up like a burrito in the boot of the car on the way to the doctors.”

There was another moment of quiet before they started to laugh. Tara flushed but laughed with them.

“One of my neighbours saw them loading me in and we had to explain the whole thing when we got back.” Tara groaned.

The laughing woke them up. Heinz was more alert and alive as he stood in front of the purple wall. The lights from the van disappeared as it left to drop the other group off to another zone.

Reclamation duty leave remaining: 0.32/ 12 hours

Leave Settlement control zones before leave expires.

After a final check they stepped through the wall.

They spent the next few hours shopping.

Well, raiding houses for food and equipment but after they picked up a second wheelbarrow it felt like the same thing.

Everything was stored inside that first cottage just off the main road. They went house by house until their bags, arms and later wheelbarrows were full before turning around to bring everything back. It was a pain and they would need to make multiple trips to cart everything to the wall later but it was too risky to leave anything out for the swarm to consume.

They rotated everyone between guard duty and transport but Heinz and Shane found themselves carrying the majority of the spoils for the majority of the time. They had the highest Strength and Endurance attributes after all.

There weren’t many encounters along the way and the few they had were with singular Seed types. They had cleared this section of the zone fairly well the day before and nothing had moved back in.

On the last trip they continued onto the base house from yesterday instead of turning back to the cottage. They would be using it again today for their rest breaks. Which would be a lot more nutritious today Heinz mused as he brought a spoon of cereal up to his mouth. Several cartons of soya milk had been a welcome find. It wasn’t the dairy he craved but it was close.

Fresh milk was another of those things from before that he hadn’t realised he would miss so much. He had tried many kinds of milk for camping trips. Powdered, condensed, coconut, soya, nut, oat, rice. Nothing was the same. But at times like this he wished that the extra shelf life UHT milk was as popular in Ireland as it was in the rest of Europe.

“Suns coming up.” Louise said as she walked into the kitchen. She had eaten a small amount earlier in a quick burst before leaving to replace Shane on watch.

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“Leave in five then.” Phil confirmed and stood up. “No sign of anything in the sky?”

Louise shook her head as she picked up a tool belt/harness from the counter and stepped into it. It was another prize from their shopping trip. She had added various knives and another set of shears to it as they searched.

“We stick to the plan then. Clockwise around.” Phil said and picked up his shield.

Two layers of corrugated iron sheets fixed on top of a wooden frame. It didn’t look as sturdy as the literal door that Shane carried but it was Shane that got advice on improvements from Phil. They ripped up the carpet in the house to pad the welded handles on the back of the hatch Shane now carried.

Heinz enjoyed the last of the cereal and headed for the sink.

They walked around the edges of the zone. Crossing streams, fields and sections of road while keeping the base of the wall in sight. The Swarm were few and far in between in this area. The majority they found were of the Pangolin variety. Shane took to these with a renewed vigour, often setting his shield aside before they had finished checking the area for other Swarm.

The creatures weren’t much of a risk to the team. Heinz and Shane wore them down before Tara made the final blow. But they were a time sink. Each one took more than ten minutes of hammering to loosen the scales. Ten minutes of dancing back and forth. Ten minutes of staying in one place with Louise and Phil standing back and keeping watch.

Shane was pleased with the amount he was doing and earning but conversation between the rest of the group became less common and then died completely.

Phil was mollified by the appearance of a new kind of swarm. Louise spotted the bike wheel sized ball of colour before anyone else but Phil held her back from killing it. He wanted to study the slow moving creature.

Heinz stayed away from it. It undulated as it moved, causing the mess of different shades of green and black that made up its skin to shift in a messy pixelated way. Something about the shifts unnerved him.

Eventually Phil gave Louise the go ahead and Heinz’s feelings were validated. As Louise stabbed the creature, parts of it unfurled and cords whipped out. Louise wrenched her hand back but not before suffering a slice along her fingers. Heinz and Phil finished off the creature from a safe distance and confirmed that it was a Seed from the bounty. Louise was fuming as they set off again.

Heinz was looking forward to an early lunch when they made it back to the road in the south-west of the zone, their entry point. He started up the road back to the base only to stop on Louise's order. Fear shot through him as he brought his halberd to the ready. He hadn’t seen anything. Where were-

“Not for swarm.” Louise clarified and they turned around to face her. “We’re waiting here for another group.”

“Another group?” Shane asked with a frown. He hadn’t lowered his sledgehammer yet.

“They’re another group that passed the third threshold. They’re coming to help us with the museum and caravan park.”

The group exchanged looks. Phil, Shane and Tara looked as confused as he was.

“The museum and caravan park?” Heinz prodded.

“Well, what did you think we were going to do coming back here today?”

“I don’t think we said.” Heinz spoke slowly and kept an eye on the rest of the group. “More of the same as we’ve always done.”

“We didn’t.” Louise stressed the ‘we’ but winced after speaking and relented. “I was going to tell you when we got back to the base camp but we’re behind schedule. I met some reclaimers when I was leaving the shop yesterday. I told them about yesterday and they were interested in teaming up.”

No one spoke for a second as they weighed her words.

“We need to discuss these things. Especially concerning other people after what we learned yesterday.” Phil was quiet when he spoke. “We agreed that you would lead us but we didn’t mean like this. You know that.”

A standoff formed in the silence that followed. Louise frowned but didn’t refute his words.

Shane broke it by dropping his hatch shield to the ground with a clang.

“Better get comfortable then.”

They sat in a circle by the wall and rested, taking the time to drink water and stretch. 15-20 minutes later the awaited group appeared through the wall. Three passed through first with metal sheets held out in front of them. Behind followed another two with actual spears at the ready. Another batch of three came through behind with a variety of weapons. All wore similar thick clothing and Heinz saw some chicken wire poking through the bottom of their jackets.

The metal sheets were dropped as a call of ‘Clear’ rang out. One of the two reclaimers that carried spears stepped out and over to where their group was. They took off a battered green helmet and waved.

“Hello Louise. I’m glad we made it on time.”

Tara squeaked in surprise which made the man turn to her. He squinted at her before his eyes opened with surprise.

“Tara? I didn’t expect to see you here.”

“Hello sir. I-eh-well.”

The man held up a hand. “No explanation necessary but perhaps a round of introductions is needed.” He turned and gestured the rest of his group over. “Hello all. I’m Luke O’Bryne, Tactician-E.”

“Louise, Tactician-E.”

“Adam, Guard-R.” One of the people holding metal sheets waved a hand.

“Heinz, Fighter-R.”

“Bella, Fighter-A” Another sheet holder continued.

The introductions went back and forth until Heinz’s group was done and the last three members of the other group introduced themselves.

“Right, well we can talk on the way. To your base?” Luke asked and his group picked up the metal sheets.

Shane pushed himself up and led the way.

The 12 of them were loosely clumped as they walked down the road. A few conversations had broken out as they walked and Louise and Tara were deep in a talk with Luke.

Heinz glanced back at Phil and saw his face was still scrunched up in a frown. It had been since they set off. He slowed until he fell back and in step with him.

“Everything alright Phil?”

Phil turned to look at him but the frown remained. “Yes. Just thinking about something.”

“Anything I can help with?”

“No. Not yet. I need to confirm something first.”

Heinz raised an eyebrow but Phil waved him away. Reassured that Phil was okay if bothered, he slowed down again. This time until he was back beside Kate, a member of the other group who was covering the back of their small convoy.

“Are the others from your groups joining us later?” He asked.

“No, this is us.” She replied with a shake of her helmet.

“There are seven of you?”

“One of our members joined another with the switch to the bounty system. Two from Adam’s group did the same.”

“What do you mean joined another?” Heinz asked. Kate raised her eyebrows at him.

“You didn’t notice? No more group notices or assignments after the third threshold. It’s a free market now.”