“Oh Christ.” Heinz groaned, stretching as they finally escaped the building.

“I thought she would never stop talking,” Tara complained, not stretching as overtly as him, but bouncing on her feet to get rid of that extra energy.

Phil’s brow furrowed. “Really? I thought she didn’t go into half as much detail as she should have.”

Heinz and Tara glared at him. Louise didn’t go that far, but the quick look she shot him was definitely unfriendly. Only Shane didn’t bother to make his opinion known, but that might be because in the last town he’d decided there was no point to the meetings and had committed to hanging at the back of the room and ’resting’ his eyes.

“You were just as bad,” Tara said with a shiver. “I thought I was back in school for a second. The entire room was waiting for both of you to finish up.”

Louise stiffened at the reminder of Tara’s age.

Heinz winced too, but he was slightly better at dealing with it. Or maybe he was more used to working with teenagers and children that he wasn’t related to. “The chairs,” he declared. “They must have brought them over from the school across the way.”

Tara now glared at Shane’s back. Shane had been the first to claim a seat, and he did so heavily, almost falling down. The seat hadn’t withstood the weight. With that breakage, he was offered one of the larger, nicer seats. Everyone else had to be careful and no longer had the excuse of not knowing their own strength.

“It might have gone on a bit, but it was all important information,” Phil admitted, chewing on his bottom lip. Phil had come out of the funk he was in when they left the city, and had taken a much larger role in the discussions with the other peripheral town zones. As soon as the conversation turned to the different kinds of Swarm, and methods of fighting them, Phil would bring out a copy of his own notes. From there the meetings usually devolved as he and the local expert compared experiences.

“The first time maybe,” Heinz said tiredly, rubbing at his hair. It was growing too long and out in the wind that became all the more obvious as it blew in his eyes. “But that was several towns ago. They all say the same thing.”

It was the same with the rest of the meeting too. People wanted to know how Kinmore, Courtmacsherry and Innishannon were doing. They wanted to know if they had food and supplies. They wanted to know if their missing neighbours were stuck there. They wanted to know what the Delegates had bought. They wanted to know if Kinmore had extra anything and wanted to share.

Louise did her best as the three towns de facto representative, but she didn’t know everything and couldn’t promise much. Heinz and Phil fielded some of the questions too, but Louise seemed reluctant to step back at all, even as they were asked the same questions over and over again.

One thing was clear from the meetings. These town zones were firmly under the control of the city and the army, and were quite happy to be so. There was no sign of a hostile takeover. Heinz got the definite impression that army trucks rolled up to the town ‘gates’ and whatever organisation was previously in place fell over themselves to pass on that authority.

Privately, he didn’t see the same happening in any of the three towns he was here to represent.

The town zones they visited today all had a sizable population, but this close to the city they seemed to lose a bit of their character and community. As the city grew they became commuter zones, feeding the city’s expansion rather than remaining distinct locations.

But maybe that was a bit of local pride talking. Or knowledge of how stubborn Rosa could be.

Phil rolled his eyes. “They’re datapoints Heinz.”

Sensing the impending speech, Tara sped up. She hurried up to where Shane was leading the charge back to the car.

“Each of these towns have seen similar Swarm, but is that because of their proximity? The local ecosystem? Or how they’ve been fighting the Swarm?”

Heinz couldn’t run away so easily. “Phil, I get it. This will be very important someday, but right now it’s giving me a headache. I don’t have an issue with any of it. I have an issue with four hours of it in a row.”

Phil looked like he wanted to continue arguing the point, but to Heinz’s relief he just shook his head. He went to work packing his notebook and copies of the local expert’s drawings in his bag.

It was a short walk back to where Archie was waiting at the jeep. The soldier had been making faces at some of the local kids who, accompanied by three harried parents, were examining the three military vehicles with awe. That stopped as Heinz’s group, and their two trucks worth of a military escort arrived back. The other soldiers filed away to the other vehicles as they arrived, trusting either Archie with them, or realising that after four hours of watching them that Heinz’s group wasn’t going to be a problem.

“All done?” Archie called out cheerfully.

Shane grunted and headed straight for the car. Tara shook her head and followed.

Heinz gave him a tired shrug. At this moment he was more than a little jealous of Archie’s nice, clear cut job description. Drive trucks. Wait by the car. Simple. No listening to speeches disguised as intros, or answering awkward questions. Archie had kept his energy high throughout the days as everyone else’s had dipped.

Archie sighed and reached for the door. “Just one last one left then. Debrief time.”

Heinz took a deep breath.

Archie left them out at the town hall steps. With a honk of the horn and a wave he was gone.

As their escort guided them up the steps and through the cold unfriendly building for the second time today, Heinz found himself missing the cheerful friendly soldier. Missing anything other than the blank faces of the other soldiers really.

The five of them weren’t brought back to the council chambers, instead they were led to another wing of the building, to the Barry meeting room.

This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

General Collin looked up from a stack of papers as they entered. With a wave of his hand, an assistant ran forward and took the stack from him. The two of them were alone in the room.

The escort filled in and stood at the walls, between Heinz’s group and the General.

General Collin interlocked his fingers and addressed them. “Councillor Teddy has arranged your meeting tomorrow. It will be on at eleven hundred in an office by the docks. You will be escorted there.”

“Excuse me,” Louise interrupted. “Could I ask where the councillor is now?”

“Busy,” The general responded, cutting that line of enquiry down completely.

Louise’s mouth twitched towards a grimace but she caught it in time.

“Now, we have prepared accommodations for you tonight, however there is another matter for us to organise before you can turn in. Unless our calculations are off, you will need to complete a system shift soon.”

Heinz felt for that sense in his head. It wasn’t that he’d ignored the ever present feeling or that he’d forgotten the clock that his life was now run by, but he hadn’t considered what it meant here in the city.

Reclamation duty leave remaining: 5.58/ 12 hours

Leave Settlement control zones before leave expires.

“I expect you do not wish to default on your duty. Arrangements have been made. I received copies of your reports on the swarm-”

Now it was Phil’s turn to twitch and he was less successful at hiding it. Returning to the city had robbed whatever comfort he’d regained outside of it.

“-and it has been made clear that you are not aware of several kinds of swarm in the neighbouring zones. We will provide you a guide.”

“That is very generous,” Louise began, clearly building up to a refusal.

General Collin sighed, interrupting her. ”Understand that if you wish to leave, the guide will not stop you. I am just as willing to provide you transport to the zone border now. The guide is to provide information and ensure your safety as much as possible.”

‘And learn about your augments and capabilities.’ Heinz finished in his mind. He shared a look with Louise, but suspicion aside it was a good offer.

“How many thresholds has the guide passed?” He asked. He didn’t want to look down on whoever the military sent, but he also didn’t want to find out that they should be protecting the guide instead at a rough moment.

“Enough to be confident about returning alone should you decide to leave.” The general may as well have been playing poker, with how little expression was on his face.

Heinz almost wanted to argue for the information, but at this point he was done. Worst case they could always leave the guide behind somewhere. “Alright. We have our duty in four and a half hours.”

An hour of free time could go a long way if something came up that forced them to remain in the city.

General Collin nodded and, looking at his assistant, gestured to the door. The assistant saluted and left, presumably to organise that.

“You will be brought to your accommodations now. Should you require anything you may ask your escort. They will bring you to the zone border tomorrow as well.” At the general’s accompanying gesture, the escort saluted and those closest to the door began to march out. The rear end of the escort stepped out towards Heinz and the others. The message was clear. Time to go. They left the general alone in the room.

Once outside it was a short walk or march down the road to an old office building. The soldiers led them inside and up a flight of stairs before stopping at the doors of a conference room in the centre of the building. The group walked inside and the soldiers closed the door behind them.

The conference room had been converted to a kind of barracks, with ten or so plain metal framed beds in the centre of the room. Thin mattresses were laid out with the sheets already on them. A small box with an electric cooker and some supplies had been left in the centre of the room.

There was one door in and out of the room and no windows, a clear violation of some sort of fire code.

Heinz shared a look with Louise and Phil. “We’re doing a night watch aren’t we?”

Louise nodded tiredly back.

Blessedly, they had a quiet night, disturbed only by a short shift change both by them inside and the soldiers outside the room. Four hours later, there was a polite knock on the door and a soldier informed them their transport was ready.

The group blearily gathered themselves up - four hours sleep was too little, even with all the augments - and readied for combat.

Outside the building they met a familiar and far too awake face.

“I was told you needed a driver?” Archie asked with a smile.

“Any chance you know our guide?”

“Huh?” Archie asked, weaving between cars abandoned on the dual carriageway with practised ease.

“The reclaimer they’re sending in with us,” Heinz clarified. “I know there’s probably a lot of soldiers in Cork, I was just wondering if you’d heard of them.”

“I have?” Archie responded, sounding a little bemused.

“And?” Heinz pressed. The rest of the car was listening in now. It was funny to think that now faced with the idea of adding a stranger to their mix that they were on edge when not all that long ago, all of them had been strangers.

“Great fella,” Archie said, grin widening if that was possible. “Seems to know his stuff.”

“Know how many thresholds he’s passed?” Phil chimed in from the back.

This pulled back Archie’s grin a little. “Oh, I don’t know if I could tell ya. That’s not something most people share, you know.”

There were a few more questions, but Archie answers were broad or he’d say the questions were personal and better to ask the guide themselves. Before they could push answers out of him, they’d arrived at the purple barrier.

The road by the barrier had been cleared of cars and without the lorry and accompanying jeep, it was a very different location from yesterday. A tent had been set up on the right hand side of the road and a large map of the area was hung up, with red lines drawn all over it.

Heinz got out of the car and made some final preparations. When the group was all ready, they waved goodbye to Archie and made their way over to the tent.

A soldier who had been studying the map turned as they approached. He eyed their escort with a raised eyebrow. “You’re the late threshold irregulars I was told to expect?”

Shane, now covered in thick metal snorted dismissively at the description. The normal gesture had a different effect when the old fisherman was ready for a fight.

“Right,” The soldier drawled, turning back to the map. He pointed at the south western section. “We have you down to start in this area and work your way north. The area between here-” The soldier pointed at the edge of the zone by them. “-and here,” He traced a circle around the southern side of the zone. “Has been cleared. Teams are on watch duty there as we prepare to push further south when the zone falls.”

The soldier turned back to them. “Any questions?”

Louise stepped forward. “We were told we were to have a guide?”

The soldier blinked, and looked at a nearby table. He strode over and shuffled through some papers. “Right, a private Archibald. I’m sure that he will be-”

It took a few seconds, but when it clicked Heinz tuned out the soldier. He turned - at the same time as the rest of his group apparently, and they stared back the way they had come.

Archie was busy being helped into some kind of thick camo, but he looked up eventually and spotted their attention.

The prick’s grin grew wider and he waved.