We don't necessarily get to choose what we become attached to. People, objects, even places; we imprint upon them like baby birds. We're born and we start looking around, trying to figure out just exactly what the hell we are. The things around us—the company we keep—define us.

Even to ourselves.

That must be why leaving is so damned hard. Cripple Creek is the most anyplace has ever felt like 'home.' Certainly her mother's bunker didn't feel homey. The nursery full of AVAs wasn't home. But what does she know? Maybe this crappy little town-turned-crematorium feels like it's hers simply because it's the first place she's ever been able to breathe.

But there could be a home for her out there, someplace.

For the first time in a while she wonders, what was I doing before Human Resources stole me? Before I was born again in that prisoner cart?

Bach has the palomino saddled and shoed.

“You ready?” he asks.

“I've never ridden on a horse before,” she says, “at least I don't think I have.”

It takes a minute to get situated. They try it with Ava riding in back, holding Bach around his middle – but it's not going to work. He's too broad for her to hug from behind. She's going to get bounced right off. So instead she sits in the saddle in front of him and he works the reins around her.

Ostby leads them out of town by the same road they've traveled before, trotting the horses uphill along the wagon ruts. Bach and Ava follow close behind and Ellie has ridden before so she steers the horse upon which she and Uri ride.

Soon Ostby veers from the beaten path. He leads the expedition along ancient game trails. Ava hears the creatures out there in the woods but they're keeping their distance. Could be that the party is too large to consider attacking. Or it could be that they simply recognize Ostby. With all the hunting he's likely done in this forest the wolves and bears and rock boars might consider him the monster.

By mid-morning he has led them out of the woods, ascending past the timberline altogether. They stop to water the horses from their canteens. Then the party zigzags along switchbacks, the horses picking their paces precisely on the rocky path. As they climb the trail becomes less defined and the cliffs become steeper.

The summit is an illusion. It repeatedly seems they will reach it any moment but then the trail dips and doubles back in another switchback and it's clear they were never as close as it appeared moments prior.

And when finally they do climb to the top of the mountain the descent doesn't begin immediately. It's like they've simply reached the plains of another world. Rocky and barren and yet there is life here. Little fat-cheeked marmosets scamper across the path. And high overhead, soaring at absurd heights, she spots hawks and even an eagle.

Only once they cross the boulder fields does the path finally turn downhill. Suddenly they're in a different world. The rocky outcroppings are redder now, the emerging vegetation more scrub and cactus than conifer.

And Ava realizes suddenly that the golden glow which existed on the other side of the mountain—the indicator of some useful plant-life—is mostly absent here. It's an entirely new ecosystem, just on the other side of the mountain.

They descend along the steep side of a craggy valley, following the trail as it resumes twisting downhill in tight hairpin turns. And coming around one of those turns they spy a river down below, it's surface specked with rushing whitewater rapids.

“The Arkansas,” Ostby explains, “is what this river was called.”

“Look.” Ava points forward between the palomino's twitching ears. “I think there's some sort of structure down there.”

“Good eye.” Bach glasses the valley below with the binoculars he never asked to borrow. “Might be a barn or a garage.”

“We should have a look.” Ostby urges his horse to resume its downhill course and the others follow after. The party rides the last stretch down to the river's edge. Everyone is eager to dismount.

It looks to be some sort of outbuilding, a maintenance worker's shed for what was once perhaps a hotel. The larger structure burnt to its foundation some time ago.

Bach creeps inside first but Ava stays close by, providing light. The others crowd in, too, trying to get a look. There's various landscaping equipment in here: lawnmowers and edgers and mechanical tree-trimmers. Faint odor of gasoline.

And a body.

He's been dead a long time. But he's still sitting upright on a chair in the corner. He doesn't look like he worked here. He's not wearing coveralls or anything you'd expect from a landscaper. Instead he's wearing a long leather duster and brown boots with buckles and a gas-mask pushed up to rest on the top of his head.

And below the gas mask his face is just a black mess and right away it becomes apparent why: he shot himself.

“Suicide?” Ava asks.

“Nope, don't think so.” Bach gestures at a rag in the dead man's hand and set of small brushes which has spilled onto the floor. “Looks like he did himself in while cleaning his pistola.”

Bach wades in and pries the gun from the corpse's rigored fingers. One of the digits snaps clean off and Ellie gags and runs back outside.

“I'll make sure she's okay,” Uri says as he's leaving.

Bach keeps working, rifling through the dead man's pockets. Tugging and manipulating the corpse without any respect whatsoever paid to the Unfortunate Dead.

Ostby coughs. This isn't his scene. He says, “I'll go water the horses. See about finding us a campsite.”

“Good call,” says Ava. She watches Bach violating the body, looking for anything he can steal. And she wishes she could go with the others but Bach needs her hand to shine a light on his obscene search.

What did she expect? He's a monster, she's kinda always known that. But when she woke up in this world she saw him first. And now she's attached to him. She never had a choice. And for a while at least she loved him. Does she still?

Sometimes the question isn't as specific as: is this an unhealthy relationship?

It's more like: do I know any other kind?

“Jackpot.” Bach smiles. He shows her a box of bullets. He wipes old crusted brains and skull from the barrel of his new pistol. He pops the cylinder and loads it and then tosses the box to Ava. “We're in business now.”

“Great.” Ava fidgets. “Are we done? Can we get out of here? This is a crypt. It's too spooky for me.”

But he's not done. He doesn't answer her but he scavenges through the shed with renewed gusto. He finds an old can of motor oil. And one of the mowers still has gas in the tank so he turns it upside down over an oil-change pan and lets it bleed out. While it drains he continue his search. He finds screws and nails and a hammer.

“Shit yeah,” he says, suddenly producing a six-pack of unopened bottled beer.

They camp that night beside the river. Bach builds a fire which is tall and roaring. He's not so worried about hiding anymore. They're suddenly relatively well-armed. Ostby heads out to hunt the party up some supper.

“You seem like you're doing better,” Ava says to Ellie.

“Yes, it's still blurry sometimes but I can see well enough.” She stands beside the fire, massaging her own rear. “Damn though, my ass hurts.”

Ava laughs. “I hear you. And according to Ostby we still have another day's ride to go.”

“I can do nothing for our sore butts,” says Uri, “but it's time, Ellie.”

She nods and joins him beside Ava. They take each other's hands and recite their weird chanting mantra and then the [Mend Minor Injury] psionic executes and the remaining wound on Ava's bicep seals up. She's whole again.

“Thank you.” She rubs the spot that was only a moment before still so painful. “I'll never get used to that.”

Bach sits beside the fire, tinkering with his can of oil and his pan of gas. He passes the six-pack around and they each take one. Uri twists the cap and takes a gulp and immediately spits it back out into the fire.

“Nasty!”

“It's skunked,” says Ellie. “Thanks Bach, but hard pass.”

“Beggars and choosers,” Bach laughs. “More for me. Don't tell Ostby – but I bet he wouldn't want one, anyway.”

He drains each beer in no more than two gulps a piece. When the bottles are empty he fills them with oil and gas. It's a delicate operation with only one hand. He corks the bottles with pieces of rubber he's salvaged from the tires of landscaping equipment. He's stolen the dead man's shirt and he tears strips from it and fixes them securely around the bottles' mouths. Ava watches and:

“Could come in handy.” Bach smiles.

Ostby returns with a spread of bunny carcasses. He's already skinned and cleaned them in the forest and has even gone and stuck them on a wooden spit. He gets to work fashioning a rack upon which to roast them.

And while they wait and take in the aroma of the roasting rabbits, Ava gets an idea. She looks at her gun. Turns it over in her hands and finds the label and the ItemID.

And then without saying anything she holds out her hand and she summons a second, identical pistol.

“Ohhhh,” Bach gushes, teetering on the verge of ecstasy, “now that's what I call Magic.”

Ava holds a gun in each hand. She steadies them out in front of her, aiming at an invisible enemy. Sure, it feels cool to dual-wield pistols – but they're heavy! She knows she needs both hands to compensate for the kick. With a gun in each hand she might just knock herself out or break her own nose.

Bach already has a gun. Ostby has his fancy bow and Uri has grown fond of his own, cruder bow. So Ava turns to Ellie:

“Want it?” she asks, offering the conjured revolver.

Ellie considers it a moment before accepting. She says, “yeah, sure. I guess you just point and shoot, right?”

The river runs on, endless and unstoppable. When supper is done they are all eager for it to sing them to sleep.

The Sun rises like any other day. The horses' breath comes out in plumes of gray fog.

Another night spent sleeping on the dirt. Ava sits up and stretches:

Are there any bedrolls in this game? Sleeping bags?

Bach hunches beside a small cookfire. He notices her awake and smiles his bullet grin. Then his face twists up.

“Shouldna drank all those beers.” He farts and winces.

“Gonna have a long day in the saddle,” Ostby chides, “maybe next time you'll share.”

These are basically her uncles. Ellie is her favorite grumpy old aunt. Uri could be her cousin.

They ride out alongside the Arkansas, as Ostby keeps calling it. He says they need to cross over but every bridge they come to is in shambles. Finally they find one which is whole enough but best described by Ellie as, “a rickety fuckin' deathtrap.”

“You think it will it hold us?” asks Ava.

“Only one way to find out,” says Ostby.

He leads the party onto the bridge. Once upon a time it was covered, but the walls have been torn down and only some tall posts remain of the framing. And halfway across—at the point of no return—there is suddenly movement all around them.

Silver-skinned eels slither up from under the bridge – but that's not it at all. Those aren't eels – that's just what Ava's brain guesses they are because it can't comprehend any other comparison.

But these slick and glistening eels are in fact fully-evolved Scums—completely robotic—without any semblance of humanity remaining.

They almost remind Ava of the Custodians in her mother's nursery full of clones.

And now there must be close to a dozen of them, trapping Ava and the others in the center of the bridge. Closing in.

“Goddammit,” Ellie cusses, “I fuckin' told ya so.”