We ended up moving past the crossroads. Instead of continuing forward, which was west and the direction that my map had grayed out sections long explored and forgotten, we turned north.

We began slowing and stopped in a line on the road in the standard formation. This was the only time the first vehicle that was always in front moved to the middle. The clusters of yellow dots scattered, with some moving out to create a generalized ring while other clustered and separated.

There was a popular spot between two vehicles that everyone visited at some point. They visited and then moved away. The would stop for a while and then visit that spot again. At first I had assumed it was a communal waste hole but upon further study it was more likely to be a food distribution center.

Only the dots from the first vehicle did not visit it. But they were visited by many other dots so likely had their food delivered to them. As with each of the previous nightly stops a few of the pink colored dots and a few of the orange colored dots moved from their clusters to the cluster of yellow dots near the first vehicle. The colored dots were always escorted by yellows.

One of the orange dots disappeared and one of the pink dots was separated from the others as the other orange and pink dots were returned to their clusters.

A yellow dot joined the lone pink dot for a while then left twenty-two minutes later. Three yellow dots joined after that, then left forty-one minutes later.

Then two yellow dots joined the pink dot and they headed toward the pink cluster.

Except instead of joining the pink cluster the pink dot and two yellows stopped between the orange cluster and pink cluster.

The two yellow dots stayed there for four minutes as a cluster of yellow dots began to arrive, forming a loose arc around the three. The arc of yellow extended from the orange cluster to the pink cluster.

When the two yellow dots moved away from the lone pink dot one of the yellow dots from the arc moved next to the pink dot.

Six minutes later another yellow dot joined as the first was moving off.

I zoomed out a bit to watch what the dots on the outer edge were doing. They had exchanged places with other yellow dots to move to the food area, and as time passed those yellow dots were also replaced by different yellow dots.

Or maybe the same ones. I could see the ID tags if I zoomed in enough but they were all so difficult to remember.

There were clusters of yellow dots between the vehicle, but when a yellow dot moved past the vehicles they were switching with one of the yellow dots forming the outer ring of dots.

I kept zooming in between the two large clusters of orange and pink dots. Directly between the clusters there was the single pink dot. There were between one and three yellow dots in close proximity at all times, and an arc of yellow dots spread out around, but I could not guess as to the why of it.

I did not sleep, but instead studied the map and how the entities moved. It seemed most of the dots on the perimeter stayed for about an hour. Sometimes longer, sometimes shorter. They never left until someone came to replace them.

Most moved from the perimeter to the arc of dots around the pink dot between the two clusters. Then, in time, they would move near the pink dot. Most spent six to eleven minutes near the pink dot and then went elsewhere.

The food distribution cluster had been busy initially, but visitation slowed. There was always at least two yellow dots near it and sometimes more came briefly.

“Can you make the IDs of the individuals larger?” I asked.

“Yes.”

I paused as I smiled. I felt my left cheek crinkle near my eye. I blinked and felt both eyes move. I wasn’t sure when that had happened.

I stopped focusing on the map, even went so far as to clear it away so I was left in darkness.

If the healing fires had moved on I could no longer feel it, or at least isolate it. I pressed my tongue into first one hole and then the other. There was still pain, and a fresh squirt of blood from the left hole, but no indication anything was happening.

I moved back through the interface to the map, zoomed out to see the outer perimeter again and then said, “show me the IDs of the individuals.”

Each dot excepting my own had a small label of letters, numbers, symbols, and forward slashes.

“What is my ID?”

There was a pause.

“Your ID has not been set and appears to be changeable. Further your implant will not broadcast without spoofing or cloning IDs while its mode is set to Hidden.”

“What other modes are there?”

“Hidden, Passive, Normal, Active, War.”

“What do the modes change?”

“The modes change the default behaviors of the implant.”

“What behaviors do the modes change?”

“Unknown.”

“Can you hide the IDs individually?”

“Yes.”

“Can you change the IDs?”

“Ambiguous question. The IDs are set at the time of implant creation. They cannot be changed. I can create Aliases for the IDs to display whatever you wish.”

“I thought you said I could change my ID.”

There was a pause.

“Yes.”

I sighed. Was that a yes she said that, or a yes I could change my ID. I asked for clarification

“You can change your ID,” she said.

“But you also said no IDs can be changed.”

“Correct.”

“How can both of those be true?”

“They cannot.”

“What does that mean?”

“Ambiguous question. Two opposing statements cannot both be true, to do so would create a logical paradox. Likely explanations for such a paradox are databases out of date, errors in programing or data, misunderstand of data by entities, misalignment or interpretation of logic to language conversion.”

I asked a few more questions but got no better answers.

I began creating aliases for the dots, but paused.

“Can anyone else see these changes I’m making?”

“No. Alias creation is an internal offline process.”

All the dots currently ringing the entire area the other dots and vehicles were in were labeled, Outer Guard.

The two dots near the food were labeled Food 1 and Food 2.

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In the morning when the engine started I woke. I opened the map and studied it. I’d missed the transition from nighttime into day.

The pink dot that had remained between the two clusters all night had been returned to the pink cluster. It was labeled simply Night ???.

I began moving over the vehicles one at a time adding labels to each dot for which vehicle the were clustered on.

Three days later the routine changed.

The map had an icon for a ruin with the label, Deathzone Staging. The system didn’t know what that meant.

Most of the yellow dots seemed to be generic. They could ride any vehicle, stood on the perimeter at night, visited the pink or orange dots between the two clusters at night, moved to the food stations and away.

There were some dots that were different. There were only ever three dots that moved in front of the other vehicles ranging ahead. They were three of only nine dots. Which I took to mean that there were only nine that could operate those vehicles for whatever reason.

There were addition six dots that stayed with vehicle four, the vehicle I trailed behind, at all times and seemed to be busy doing something when the three dots approached it during the short breaks.

There were two dots for each vehicle that walked around each vehicle when ever it stopped and were located in the foremost positions. While they alternated which side of the vehicle they were on they were always in front.

Vehicle 1 was slightly different. There seemed to be four dots that met with other dots and then met with a single dot.

At night that dot was visited by both Food 1 and Food 2 at the same time and when the two Food dots returned to the vehicles, others began to form lines, merge, and disperse.

The four dots were labeled Vehicle 1, Dot 1-4, though I thought of them as serving the same function. Just like Food 1-2 served the food function.

I labeled the single dot the others visited as Important, unsure of what role that entity preformed.

When the three or four pink and orange dots were brought to vehicle 1 each evening, it was Important who joined the selected dot for the first time. Then the four dots 1 through 4, and then the nine dots that operated the individual vehicles.

There was very clearly a hierarchy of sorts with most of the dots being interchangeable and at the bottom.

Deathzone Staging was the first time the routine changed. The ruin was laid out with two cross streets and a half arc loop. There were ghostly indications of square buildings.

The generic low important yellow dots spread out clustering in buildings and forming small clusters in a few other points.

The three dots that were individual vehicles headed north and returned some three hours later. Unlike other times this happened the map data did not update well. There were patches of revealed grayed out data but it had the white and black checkered pattern.

When I asked why I was told the data was partially corrupted.

We did not leave Deathzone Staging the next day, but instead stayed.

I switched to my status page, took note that my health had dropped to seven percent and tried to breath slower.

I had eyes now, but they were gummy and dry and my mouth had not a drop of moisture in it. I cleared the hydration warnings whenever they changed the notification icon’s color.

It was an hour before midnight during our second night in Deathzone Staging when I began to hear voices.

Eventually there was movement and noise if only slight.

The noise came closer and closer. The words were often to low to overhear but when I did they were commands like, “shift that back,” or “careful! Break those and I’ll turn you you in myself.”

That had been the loudest comment yet.

“You wouldn’t survive that,” someone said.

“Listen here you head case. You want his other thumb, fine, I’m willing to sell that, but those are printed screens and if you break them I’m sounding the alarm. I got a wife and kids, and I ain’t letting them get strung up because you’ve got such a hard-on you can’t move slowly and carefully.”

Silence stretched.

“I never knew you were was married,” the voice said.

“Cause you’re a right head case and ain’t no one telling you shit in case you snap.”

There was a ting of laughter.

Then moments later I heard things shifting again.

“Okay, on three.”

Eventually they reached a point where the crate I was entombed in was moving in short bursts as they grunted in unison.

“Bloody- Bastard- made- of- stone!” the man with the wife said.

“Naw, it’s the slabs. Four fingers thick they are,” the other man said.

“Hell fire. This thing’s alive!” the man with the wife all but shouted.

“Lower. Your. Voice,” The other man hissed.

I switched back into map and looked at their aliases. The man with the wife was on my left, and he was one of the men that stayed with vehicle four. The other one was one of the nine that ranged ahead.

“We got lucky,” the man whispered, “Larkin happened to be inspecting this odd ass metal plating they put around the walls. Someone spotted this one and Larkin put a nail through him. No one even saw the teeth or the fangs until they checked the body. By the time I heard they already scooped the eyes out and pulled the fangs.”

“But it’s dead?”

“Hole straight through the heart. Boss put a stake through it.”

“What’s the creepy fucking grin for?” the man with the wife asked as the wood screamed.

Everything was silent for a moment, then whatever they were doing started again. A vibration moved through the crate around me.

“What’s the,” he grunted, “smile for.”

“I got the stake when I got the first thumb. Had to bail though because-”

“You took the stake!” the man with the wife hissed.

“It’ll sell well, probably to some idiot like you who thinks the old stories have any truth to them.”

“Listen the fuck- Thumbs are- one thing but-” he grunted and paused as they worked but the words ended not with a grunt of labor but something else.

The impact was soft sounding, but the gurgle that followed didn’t make sense until I smelled the blood.

“Look at me. Look- there you are. I want you to know I’m going to find out who your wife is.”

There was a low rolling chuckle and then silence.

Time stretched for a bit and I wondered if the other man had left.

Then a soft thud and the wood above my waist began to creak again.

It wasn’t much light that spilled in when the plank that ran from my left to right was peeled up on the left side.

Not much light was still more than none though and I saw a flat tool wedge up the slab of wood.

The wood pulled back and even more of the weak light flooded in.

A hand reached in and felt around. There was a small quick word I didn’t catch. I smiled, feeling my hands wedged in under my head.

My elbows were above my head but I couldn’t move them up or out to the sides enough to even get my hands above my head instead of under it.

The crate shifted again. The slab that moved was two slabs above the one lifted and loose.

He got the slab up far enough to reach and hand in and pat around.

Another snorted curse and he worked the slab at the very top.

It was either far narrower or was only partially covering the gap.

He got it up, reached in and felt my arms, and then pulled the slab up enough to rotate it out of the way.

He tried to get my hands free but all he managed to do was slam my forehead into the slab above it as he tried to maneuver my arms out from under my head as well.

“- worth it-”

I only understood part of the mumbling.

I suddenly realized I didn’t have a plan. I should have been planning on what to do other than waiting for an opportunity to grab him.

I kept my eyes closed when the slab above my face shifted. I turned my head to the right as the gap was on the left and I wanted to hide my eyes if I could.

He reached in and tried to get my arm above my head and with a bit of a gap managed to do so.

I didn’t smile as he cursed when he realized the left hand he was able to get free was the one already missing a thumb.

There was a long sigh and a grunt as he worked to get the slab free needing to do so to get my right elbow to lift up past where the slab currently was.

I watched through slitted eyes as he worked the slab up and then back and forth as the nails slowly pulled free from the side slab.

He grabbed my hair and pulled my head up and lifted my hand.

I reached out and grabbed the man’s shirt and jerked him towards me.

It was the most awkward position to be in, and in truth I got lucky.

I think he was off balance and surprised. I wasn’t able to put much force into the pull.

I was able to lunge forward and even without canines I bite into the side of his neck and tore.

I didn’t try to drink, only jerked him back down as he pulled away. The cloth I had ahold of tore but I was able to get a second mouthful.

This time he helped tear the flesh out as he jerked back as I hadn’t bitten all the way through.

I tried to move quickly but it didn’t happen. What did happen was slow progress as I shimmied and wormed my way out of the crate.

When I was fully free I tried to stand and fell over, my head felt two sizes to big as darkness encroached from the edges of my vision.

I was on the wet ground, and it was raining.

I pressed my face down into the shimmering pool that reflected light.

I drank fast at first, and then slowly until I was slurping at an empty puddle.

I made it to my hands and knees before the wooziness hit me again and I had to pause.

I managed to get to my feet with the aid of leaning on the massive bit of metal.

The wooden crate was there at the back, other items stacked high under a large ceiling of some sort.

There was a body near me, likely the man with a wife, as the other man was ten paces on, laying on the ground his hands pressed into his neck.

I checked the map, no other yellow dots were close.

I was breathing hard and having a hard time standing.

I gave up and returned to my hands and knees those crushed wet stone digging into my flesh. I stopped at the next puddle and pressed my face into it, sucking up the dirty water and swallowing it mechanically while taking breaks to breathe and rest.

It seemed silly that I could be this weak now. I hadn’t felt this weak in the crate. I felt weak but not this weak.

The man in front of me twitched and I crawled forward. He had a knife in a sheath on his belt. I took it.

He lifted on hand and tried to push me away. I ignored the arm and grabbed the clothing on his far shoulder.

I pulled and rolled him toward me. The knife went in just above the port in the back of his neck. Then again just above it.

Three more times before I split the skull apart and pulled the port out.

The strands connected to the back side of the port pulled the implant in the center of the brain out.

I bit into the mass of moving strands and chewed until I felt the crunch of the implant.

I paused, panting and resting.

It had been a gut need, something I knew I had to do but in examining it I didn’t know why. When hunger drove me towards food, food made me full and the hunger receded. When I needed power or water, the same. This hunger was just always there, never satisfied.

I moved back to the man with the wife, stopping to press my face into another puddle to drink before splitting his skull open and eating his implant.