It was thirty-four minutes past midnight when I left the cluster of vehicles. They were huge things ten meters wide and forty long with tires taller than I was.

The clusters of pink and orange dots were in trailers of the same size, though instead of canvas walls and ceilings they had metal bars and a sheet metal roof.

Vehicle four had a trailer as well, but it was full of crates and round drums. It’s metal roof showed the edges of solar panels and I found battery cabinets in the front under the roof.

I pulled some wires free and forced them out through a gap in the metal siding.

Once back outside I pressed the wires into the slots at my hip.

There was fire and discomfort and then burning that actually blistered the skin there. In time it began to cool and I felt the fire inside responding better, pulling together near my hip.

For twenty minutes nothing happened except the white hot fires of healing near my hip port.

Then the status page showed my Energy Reserves climb to one percent. It climbed far faster than it ever had before.

I lay there, wires plugged into my hip port, my face pressed into the hole I dug out with my hands drinking occasionally.

I breathed in slow and deep, switching between the map and the status screen.

Then I’d dip my head forward and down and drink the rain water that had collected in the hole.

I was having trouble planning what to do next.

While entombed the system had said that it was possible for the yellow dots to send messages or communicate through the feed.

I didn’t think they did that. Why else would the three solo dots return to the first vehicle if they could send their reports though the feed.

I adjusted the count, the one thing I had planned while I was in the crate.

The system titled the page Journal. It had it’s own icon that had been grayed out until I willed a message to be written upon it.

Yellow - 310

Orange - 61

Pink - 54

I had adjusted the numbers as pink and orange dots went out. I had counted them all individually at first, assigning every dot an alias that increased by one and hoping I had all of them.

Then it occurred to me that the system must know how many were on the map as it drew them there. When I asked, the voice had confirmed the numbers I spend hours counting.

“How many yellow dots?”

“Three hundred and five on the local feed.”

Plus the man with the wife, and the one with my thumb, and the three farther north on individual vehicles.

A deafening crack of lightning followed by thunder shook the sky.

That totaled the three hundred and ten.

I considered getting up with partial power several times, but to what end? I didn’t have a plan in place and while I could consider things I was having a hard time deciding on a plan.

When my Energy Reserves reached a hundred percent I got up, unplugged the wires from my hip and pushed them deeper inside to keep them out of the wet but leaving a loop sticking out so I could get at them again.

I had to go back for the knife.

I moved close enough to the cluster of pink dots that the people within noticed. They were pressed up against the door as the rain was coming down at an angle and even against the bars they were dry.

Soon enough grunts and whispers had moved the crowd away from the door.

I got close enough to try the handle. There was a keypad of some sort and a thick hinge on the other side. There were also flaps of metal that were flipped over metal loops that had two different locks.

Not something I could open.

I had planned to let these and the orange out. More targets meant less chance they were aiming at me.

There were whispers and pleas, but I left heading towards one of the single dots on the map.

Most dots were clustered up in threes and fours, with several of the buildings containing thirty or forty or more.

There was a single yellow dot just beyond the vehicles though.

When I reached it I looked around but could not find the man.

I was inside a cramped dry area. Three tall poles were leaned up against each other. The lower area was wrapped in canvas and full of crates and sacks.

I went back out in the rain, checked the map again and then went back inside.

It said he should be right here.

“Where is this dot?”

I asked.

“Six meters above you.”

I sighed.

There were thick pieces of rebar driven into one of the wooden poles that acted like ladder rungs.

I climbed up and found a man under a canvas tarp.

He blinked up at me and died with a scowl on his face as I exposed it to the rain.

Since I was here I split his skull open and crunched down on the implant.

He had a long rifle with thirty rounds split between six five-round magazines.

He also had a knife on his waist and one in his boot.

I climbed back down.

Six other yellow dots were alone on the map. Five of them were on elevated platforms. Four of those five were fully under oiled canvas tarps and died before every seeing me as I simply stabbed through the canvas into their heads and throats.

The last one was talking to me about a hot meal as I climbed up. He was kneeling and frowned at me.

I managed to catch him in the throat with a knife even as he pulled away. He almost fell off the platform in a way that almost pulled me over as well.

Instead he bleed out while he struggled and I hauled him back up and left him.

I was clicking and clanking with weapons when I returned to the cages. I passed weapons between the bars and then about half the ammo.

There were questions and pleas but I moved on keeping one of the rifles and about half of the ammo in a hip pouch one of the men had filled with useless items I had dumped out into the mud.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

I checked the clusters first. Some were in buildings and I left those. Others were outside in trenches with canvas roofs above or in elevated platforms built between trees.

Twice men screamed, but after I killed them I checked the map and there were no changes.

I didn’t split the skulls of three men in a trench just to convince myself I could make that choice if I wanted to.

I carved flesh from the long thigh muscles of some of the dead men and chewed it mechanically as I moved between clusters to help me heal. I wasn’t getting away without injury, but none of the injuries were worth resting to fully heal.

The men outside at the furthest ring were always facing out. Sometimes they had small rectangular boxes they were staring through.

These were quite interesting in that they made the dark world green and zoomed in and out with the shifting of a finger. Thankfully all the men that were using them were facing out instead of in.

I kept one, but gave the rest, as well as weapons, to the pink and orange dots in the large cages.

They no longer tried to speak to me when I approached. Instead they silently took the weapons and passed them back to waiting hands.

I kept a hat, and a large coat though I had yet to find any pants or boots.

The hat was a wide brimmed thing that kept the rain out of my eyes.

I checked the dead from time to time but everyone seemed to be much smaller than I was and the clothing and boots didn’t match.

Like the implants I sometimes had other gut feelings. I cut a man open, being careful not to cut into the organs inside.

Then I fished the slippery organs out, smelling them until I had the one I was craving.

I don’t know where the fire was inside, but I now had four health reserve nodes.

I eventually found a hatchet. It wasn’t mine as the handle was metal instead of wood and slightly longer. The head was also balanced with a thick metal spike instead of ending in a flat hammers head.

Even though the clusters in the buildings were of greater numbers they were often sleeping which sometimes made killing eight or ten men and women much easier than three awake ones in trenches.

The ones inside were often farther from loaded weapons as well.

Things did go wrong and there were fights including one I thought I might not survive as I pressed a hand into the side of my neck when my heartbeat thundered into my ears and the white hot fires of healing burned under my hand.

I went back to vehicle 4 after that one to plug in. I hauled the man’s body there and filled what cravings came as I waiting for my energy reserves to climb.

The stub of my thumb burned and the lumpy too-fat growth was a mess of scar tissue and pus.

I did have the craving for bone though which was odd enough I mutilated a body before I realized what I was looking for.

When my neck was healed up I went back at it.

Eventually it happened. One of the men got a shot off. The shot went wide but my hatchet didn’t.

I pulled the hatchet out of his head and crashed through the door into the next room where four more dots were located. I scanned the room, happy to see all four were on this level with none above us.

It wasn’t quick as the shot had woken them, and two of them got knives into me, but I killed them quickly enough.

I sat, closed my eyes, and pulled up the map. I studied it looking to see if any of the dots were leaving their clusters.

For thirty seconds the only movement I saw was the movement in the large cluster where the people from the first vehicle were.

Then I saw movement in another cluster. Two dots coming together. I tried to picture how far that was and the best route to get there.

I got up and decided to leave these implants until later.

Once outside again I took the hat off for a moment as I tipped my face up.

The sky was still dark, the only light coming from the few scattered bulbs hanging from posts rising above buildings.

The rain had all but stopped though there was a light misting.

I checked the map and froze. Then I dropped down into a crouch and fumbled though the hip pouch until I came out with the night-vision binoculars.

I raced back to the center of the camp. The four dots were far enough from the cluster they had started in that they must be outside.

I dropped into a crouch again and found first one and then a second one. The ranges displayed in the binoculars showed one hundred four and oner hundred twenty-one meters.

I took out a knife and struck one of the bars of the cage, then repeated the noise. A man inside the cage to my left was looking through one of the other sets of binoculars and whispering.

Someone took up the clanging of knife blade on bar and I shot off to the right, pausing behind a long wall of split and stacked wood.

There was more clamoring now, loud enough I worried it would wake others, but just as I turned around, the noise dropped back down a bit.

The map showed all four dots were headed toward the cages now.

I raced again to my right, then waited for the walking men to pass behind a low building before I raced away again. Then I stood and sprinted between buildings.

I ground my teeth when I realized I’d given the caged ones guns and they might shoot the approaching men drawing out the others.

“How many yellows left?”

“Ninety-seven on the local feed.”

I slipped in the mud as I rounded a corner. I got up and then moved forward again, aware from the map I was approaching the men from behind now.

I tried to put the night vision binoculars back in the hip pouch but they didn’t go. The flap was in the way.

I dropped them. I could get a set from the caged people.

The first man was easy. He was crossing behind a stack of logs.

I felt the strain in my arm as I swung and the hatchet passed through his neck almost without resistance catching and tangling in his shoulder.

I had to jerk twice to get it free. I paused there behind the cover of the logs and then raced forward to the next dot. The first two were close, perhaps too close, to the orange cluster of dots.

The next man died quickly as I sheered the top of his head off. I felt a bit of a pang when I realized I might have lost his implant.

The map showed the other two were right up next to the cages.

I raced forward, slowed as I rounded around a canvas covered pile of cargo.

The two men were pressed up against the bars.

I had to stop my swing when I realized arms from inside the cage were wrapped around and holding onto the two men.

I dropped the hatchet and slammed my knife up into the ribs of the man that was still moving.

The other body dropped when they released it. The body I had just stabbed was larger. So large in fact I pulled one of the boots off and tried it on.

Then I removed it and worked at getting his pants off. I finally slid the knife under the suspender things that were hidden under the vest he was wearing.

I sat in the mud, and pulled them on. I eventually stood up and pulled them up the rest of the way. The canvas pants were large enough around the waist but the bottoms ended mid calf. Thankfully they were wide enough I didn’t have to cut them.

The boots went on next.

Then I dropped back onto my ass and pulled a boot off to get a small rock out before putting it back on.

I rolled the men over quickly taking the knives off them and passing them through the bars.

I lifted my hands up as if I was holding a pair and said, “Binoculars.”

There was a wall of whispers and then a familiar rectangle with rounded edges was passed out.

I looked around and found the hatchet under the body.

Then I paused and checked the map. There was another dot outside its cluster.

By the time I got there it had gone back inside. Perhaps someone pissing or smoking one of the pipes though I smelled neither urine or smoke.

Thunder cracked as I peeked through shutters.

This building had twelve dots but it had three stories of windows so likely they weren’t all on the same floor.

I decided to wait.

Four men had left this cluster and a fifth had come outside before going back in.

I would leave these until later. What if someone was still awake? Or what if they thought there was a problem and they were waking other people?

This group had twelve in its cluster remaining and it was the smallest.

There was a cluster of twenty, twenty-four, and then the thirty-seven in the main cluster. Important and most of the vehicle 1 dots were in there and some were still moving around. There were three pink dots and two orange dots in that cluster as well.

Had there been only two orange? Or had some of them died?

The cluster of twenty-four was much father away from the others. If a gunshot went off I’d have more time to get away before people approached.

It was a larger building with only three or four people sleeping in each room. As cautious and worried as I was, it ended up being the easiest building to make my way through.

I don’t know if it was because I had perfected the method of clamping my hand over their mouth while cutting throats or chopping into spines, but not a single person woke as I made my way through the house.

Thunder boomed again and it felt as if the building shook. I moved back through the rooms leaving weapons but cracking skulls and crunching on implants.

The rain made the rest easy.

It dropped out of the sky in a torrent. It fell so hard that the binoculars were all but useless.

I was shot four times in the building that had twenty people, but they probably got ten shots off.

Two were gut shots and one caught me in the leg. The other went through the center of my left hand, but somehow perfectly between the bones without breaking anything.

The lump of flesh where my thumb had been removed was larger. It still felt like it was full of liquid. When I squeezed the lump the pain changed and eventually the scabbed skin split and a bloody frothy pus was forced out.

As I watched it sort of sucked itself back into the fissure. The lump was useless but the knife I used in that hand had a ring I could slip my first finger into to help me hold it.

Down to eight percent Energy Reserves I went back to vehicle four and charged up. The puddle was still there for water and the body was still there for food.

I went back to the cluster of twelve first, they got shots off, but this time I wasn’t hit. I did have to return fire dropping the hatchet for the pistol.

I eventually went outside, found a place to climb up the second story and entered through the window there.

There were four people, but none of them had a gun and I made short work of them.

As I left the building I checked the time. It was late enough the sun should have risen. Instead the sky was dark with rain and booming with thunder.

“How many yellows left?”

“Thirty-seven.”

That was how many I’d counted in the main cluster. The one that had both blue and orange dots and the ID I’d labeled as Important, as well as the others associated with the first vehicle.