I search the room, looking for the girl that was supposed to be in charge before Barclay showed up.

  “Shot?” I ask, and a group of people to my right step back, and a girl nods to me. “Could I talk to you please?” My voice is tight, but she nods as everyone else gets back to work.

  “What’s up?” She asks, her voice business-like. I decide that I’m going to like her, since Alyx must have had their reasons for putting her in charge. Even though her stance and vibe makes it seem like she’s trying to act superior.

  “I thought there was a third place we were supposed to be going. What was in that warehouse?”

  “Alyx,” She shifts, obviously uncomfortable. “They told me not to tell anyone.” I breathe out and try to stem the frustration that makes me want to scream that it doesn’t matter now. Instead, I try to sound gentle.

  “I know, but whatever it was, it must have been important to send out this many people, right?” I ask as if I am just thinking this now.

  “Alyx said they were just going for supplies at the warehouse, but that we were supposed to meet a group of others at a place called The Stem in another city to the West.” I wonder if Barclay has that information.

  “So that’s where we’re headed next?” She pauses, and I wonder if she knows. She excuses herself and I watch as she moves to the back room to where Barclay still is.

  I shove down the part of me that wants to follow her. I’m not sure what emotion that is, but I’m sure nothing good will come out of it, so for now, I ignore it and go sit with Vera, Amber, and Bren, all of our stuff is already packed and now we’re just waiting on orders.

  “Everyone outside!” Shot comes out of the back room and speaks loudly, but not urgently. Her voice is more commanding than I had expected.

  I shrug on my pack with everyone else and we herd our way through the door to stand in the front lawn.

  “Okay, listen up!” This time it’s not Shot, but Barclay that everyone pays attention to. He’s standing on the front steps, Shot standing off to the side, arms crossed.

  “Most of us our headed home, okay? That’s groups one and four.” He scans the crowd and stops when he finds me. Somehow I know what he’s thinking even though his expression doesn’t change from the commanding posture. You will go home. And it’s definitely directed at me.

  “Groups two and three will come with me. We’re going to be traveling another day, spending a day at our objective, then turning around for the four day journey back. I’ll answer questions on th way, everyone be ready to head out in five minutes.”

  With that, people turn back to their conversations, swapping out water, and supplies with those that are continuing on.

  I cross the yard to Barclay. His arm isn’t even back in his sling, though he cradles it against his chest. It needs to be looked at before he causes more damage to it.

  “You’re going home.” He says, going through his backpack one-handed, not even looking up at me.

  “No way, not if you’re not coming with me,” He open his mouth, but I speak quickly, cutting him off. “No, dammit Barclay, you’re injured. Look at your arm.”

  He shrugs with his good shoulder, then apparently gives up on whatever it was he was looking for in his bag. He steps closer, abruptly, and I fight the urge to step back.

  “I need you safe.” He whispers, and it’s a gentleness I wasn’t expecting from him. “I can’t finish this mission if I have to worry about you.” This time I allow myself to take a step back and cross my arms.

  I’m really only half-insulted, but I make a play of it anyway.

  “I can take care of myself, I’m not the one with a broken arm.” I stop, lowering my voice, as I notice I get stares from those closer to us.

  “Collar bone.” He corrects, then shakes his head. He sighs loudly. “Fine, you can come. But only because I know the second we’d leave, you’d follow us anyway, and I’d have to worry about that too. But —“ He glares at me, and I suddenly feel short, having to look up a bit to meet his eyes. “You will follow my every command. Which means if I tell you to get out of a situation, you do it. You do not try to save me, or wait for me. You. Get. Out. Understood?” The last words are punctuated despite his quiet voice. I nod.

  “Fine, but I’m sending a medic to reset your arm.” His jaw ticks, but he nods.

  I make my way through the crowd, finding Amber and Bren, asking them to point out one of the medics for me.

  “Hi,” I say approaching the shorter boy that Amber pointed out. He nods to me, waiting. “Would you mind taking a look at Barclay’s arm?” I ask, pointing up to the porch where Barclay and Shot are now talking. “I’m pretty sure he’s broken it again. It’ll need to be set and wrapped and put back into the sling.” To his credit, the boy doesn’t even grimace, just nods again and grabs a bag at his feet, moving towards the porch.

  With that task done, I move through the crowds again, going back to Amber and Bren.

  “I’m going with Barclay, I mean, teams two and three.” Amber raises her eyebrows, but I can tell she’s not going to say anything, then Bren speaks up.

  “Wait, are you and Bar—“ Amber shoves her elbow into his side hard enough that he makes a noise and rubs his side, glaring at her. Amber only smirks and wishes me good luck, pulling Bren away. I wave, smiling.

  I scoop my backpack up from the ground again and rifle through it, making sure I have everything I need. I find the book Barclay snuck into my bag, and make a mental note to ask him about it.

  “Okay, Shot’s in charge of teams one and four heading home. Teams two and three,” He pauses and scans the crowd again, settling on me, and nods. “You’re with me. Stay close. I’ll explain the assignment on the way.”

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  I wave to Amber and Bren as they take off with Shot leading. I cross and stand in the middle of the groups that are left. We take off at a jog.

  I don’t catch up to Barclay right away, instead opting to stay in the middle and settle into my stride.

  As we move away from the farm, we stick to running through fields instead of staying on the roads. It’s probably the smarter move — less likely to run into folks from the warehouses, or anyone from before that might be looking for revenge.

  Glancing around at our teams, I realize there’s not many people here that I know. Though a few talk amongst themselves, most are quiet. We get new members often, so it’s possible that they also don’t know many here yet.

  “Hey,” I say to a girl running next to me. “Any idea where we’re headed.” I ask, attempting to start up a conversation, though I don’t expect she’ll have any more intel than I do. But she just shakes her head and remains silent.

  I was about to move ahead and find someone else to take to, but then she speaks, and her voice is shaky from the exertion of running.

  “Not sure, name’s Katie.”

  “Cain.” If she thinks my name is odd, she doesn’t mention it. We run for a while longer, when she speaks up again.

  “How long have you been at the base?”

  “About a year.” I offer. “I was severely injured and they looked after me. So only about five months active.” I chat about it casually, but I am reminded of the aching my legs that never seems to fully go away. And it’s worse when there’s bad weather.

  “A seven month recovery? Must have been major.” It’s not quite a question, but I answer it anyway.

  “Broke both my legs, concussion, a few broken ribs, and my arm.” Her eyes widen as she looks at me. “Jumped from a building off the fourth floor. I was escaping raiders. They set the building on fire, only option.” I shrug as if it’s no big deal.

  “Wow, impressive.” She comments between breaths.

  “Not really when I hit the ground and immediately went unconscious. I’m sure it didn’t look graceful.” I laugh to show I was joking.

  She laughs as well, and we keep on running. About half an hour later, Barclay calls for a break. There’s an outcropping of trees and we head there for protection. It’s cloudy today and there’s some wind, which is a nice break from the heat of yesterday.

  We break out into a smaller group and Katie invites me to sit with her boyfriend, who introduces himself as Pie. He doesn’t explain the name, and while I offer him mine, I don’t ask him about it.

  “Okay,” Barclay says, getting everyone’s attention. “Everyone break for twenty and I’ll explain what’s going on.” I pull my bag from next to me and take out a peanut and honey sandwich, relishing in the protein and sugar and carbs. I’ll need at least two of these of out of the four I packed if we’re running for another few hours.

  I start eating along with everyone else, and Barclay takes a moment to eat a few bites of his sandwich and lets everyone settle in before returning to stand. His arm is wrapped and in the sling now, but I have to imagine all of the jostling while running probably isn’t helping to heal it at all.

  “We’re headed to a place called The Stem.” Murmurs erupts among the crowd, and from what I can make out, no one seems to have heard of it before. Barclay nods and raises his good hand, signaling for quiet. “Now, I’m assuming most of you have no idea what that is.” Quiet agreement erupts, but it’s mostly people nodding. “I haven’t been there either, but I’ve been told it’s an old research facility.” Surprisingly, this time everyone remains quiet, waiting on a further explanation.

  “It’s a research facility that is looking to get everything back online, and figure out what happened during the Change.”

  “So what does that mean?” Someone asks, at the same time someone else shouts, “What are we going there for?”

  “It means we are going to deliver some important information that Alyx,” Barclay pauses and shifts uncomfortably. “Had given me from their mission this morning.” He pauses again, and for a moment I think he will say something about Alyx, or give an explanation. But instead he clears his throat and moves on.

  “So we’re helping them reinstate electricity?” Katie’s boyfriend, Pie, shouts out this time.

  “Yes,” Barclay nods, “They believe if they can reinstate the technology we had at the time of the Change, this—“ He gestures vaguely to the fields, indicating the larger world. “Will go back to normal.”

  There are discussions then amongst the crowd. I hear positives and negatives of both sides of the argument. Barclay lets this continue for a minute before lifting his good hand and clearing his throat.

  “It’s not up for debate.” Barclay says, sounding commanding again. I could see how it would be hard to question him when he sounds so certain. “This is a missions given by the higher ups and you have been chosen to complete it. That’s all the information I can give you.”

  He steps back and this time the chatter goes up louder, knowing he’s done speaking. We pack up a few minutes later, maybe not feeling quite settled after Barclay’s words, but at least with food and water, we have the energy to keep going.

  I find pace with Katie again, and Pie moves ahead to be with some others I don’t know.

  We don’t talk as we run but I think about the Change. Lack of technology has also meant a lack of information. Something we took for granted when you could look up news in other countries from the phone in your pocket.

  We know from early radio reports that China was hit hard by a wave sometime before the communications systems were hit.

  There were at least three other communications cut offs that we know of aside from our own: China, Japan, and Russia. But we don’t know if whatever happened to our communications was a targeted attack, gloval, or even really know what caused it to begin with.

  I don’t know if returning to our old ways of communication is a good thing — but it’s also not my call. I trust Barclay, I don’t believe he would blindly follow orders if there wasn’t something to it.

  I make a motion to Katie and let her know I’m jogging up ahead. She nods and I run to the outside of the crowd, then picking up pace slightly until I am next to Barclay. There’s no one with him right now, just running on his own.

  His breath is steady but he holds his arm tight against his chest, and I notice he’s tightened the sling so that if looks as if it’s tight enough to dig into his skin.

  “How’s the arm?” I ask.

  “Good.” He grimaces and then smiles at me.

  “Yeah, that was believable.” I joke, and he rolls his eyes. “I’m fine, what’s up?” He knows I wouldn’t have run up front without a reason. I glance behind us and thankfully everyone else seems to be at least six feet away from us, and absorbed in their own conversations. I don’t think they’ll hear us.

  “Was that information true? From earlier?” He nods, but it’s too quick and I am certain there’s information he’s leaving out.

  “I can’t tell you.” He says before I can protest or say anything. “Alyx made me promise—“ He speaks louder to cut me off, as I was already oepning my mouth. “Yes, that means even you.” His voice becomes a bit more stern, but it’s only a warning that I should drop it. And I decide that for now at least, I will.

  “Where are we stopping tonight?” I ask instead, figuring it’s something he can answer.

  “A safehouse.” I roll my eyes this time, knowing he’s teasing me. “I’m kidding, well, no it is a safe house, ut it’s similar to the place we crashed that last night.” He takes a breath, adjusting his arm again, and winces. “It’s taken care of by some folks that work for the Stem, or so I was told. They’re expecting us.”

  “Okay,” I say, processing this. I have more quesetions, but I doubt he’ll answer any of them right now. I want to ask if he is okay, but he did already answer me, despite me worrying about him. I decide to leave it for now as well. “I’m going to head back.” He gives me a small smile as I duck out of the group, and slow to a light jog until Katie passes me.

  I sink back into pace with Katie, she gives me a questioning look and I mouth ‘later’ to her. I didn’t find out much, but I think everyone suspects Barclay probably has more information than he’s sharing. My mind drifts to Alyx and sadness hits me — is the information Barclay knows really worth killing over?