Carter was washing in the pond. We’d tossed a grenade in, just to be sure anything in there would be dead before she skirted the pond to wash up where we couldn’t see her. Chavez was sitting on the ground, snacking on a Slim Jim. The tiger lazed in a patch of sunlight that lit the ground between tree branches. I stood, looking off into the distance, where I knew Dominic and his town would be. Andy walked up next to me.

“What are you thinking?” he asked.

“It’s like in Kabul,” I said.

“There’s no extraction if the situation goes sideways.”

“Do you honestly think we’ll be the ones who need extraction?”

“I guess not.”

There was a long moment of silence as we both remembered and considered.

“You going to tell them?” Andy asked.

“Not if I don’t have to,” I said. “Chavez would probably come around, but I’m not sure about Carter.”

“And Chavez isn’t about to openly disagree with her.”

“Because she was his superior officer?”

“No,” Andy said. Then he looked at me. “You can’t be that dense.”

“You don’t mean that he has feelings for her?”

“It’s a good thing you’re good with things,” Andy answered, “because you’re terrible with people.”

“I’m alright with people. I just don’t care enough to read into everything as deeply as you apparently do. Are you sure you’re not just wrong?”

“He likes her, that’s as plain as day. And if a guy likes a girl, then the girl knows, you can be sure of that.”

“You know I got out of high school early to get away from shit like this,” I said. “High school was full of people overly concerned with who was dating who.”

“It’s almost like sex is a driving factor in human biology,” he chuckled. “How did you ever score a woman like your wife? She’s out of your league.”

“I’m a good liar,” I said.

“No, you’re a terrible liar. You just think you’re a good liar. That’s why I’m worried about this decision.”

“You think I shouldn’t do it?” I asked.

“I didn’t say that,” Andy said. “I just want to be sure that you have the conviction.”

“I don’t have to like it to think it’s the right thing to do,” I said.

Another moment of silence. “Forrest, don’t ever lose that.” I gave him a questioning look. “Even when you have to do something less than savory, don’t lose the perspective that just because it’s necessary, it isn’t still right.”

“You’ll cover for me?” I asked, changing the subject.

“Of course.”

“Hey boys!” Carter called behind us. “You done chatting?”

“Yeah.” I must have turned around too quickly because Carter frowned at me.

“Ready?” I asked.

“What do you think?” She gestured at herself. It wasn’t exactly an elegant outfit. Okay, she was wearing yoga pants and a t-shirt. She wore it well though, only partly ruined by the six-foot spear she held in her other hand. Next to her five-nothing height, the weapon made her look even smaller. Add to that her bald scalp, and she looked like a warrior monk, albeit an abnormally dressed one. Could women be monks? That was something I would miss about Google – the ability to look anything up online with a fast search. There was probably some obscure rule that wouldn’t let women technically be monks in the traditional countries like Thailand, but that probably wouldn’t stop more egalitarian countries from doing it.

“I think it will work,” I said. “Your hair is gone, just like mine. Not sure if that will be better or worse.”

“Probably won’t matter,” Chavez said. “She would draw eyes in a monastery of celibate monks.”

I hadn’t noticed it before, but Chavez was right. Where I’d thought Carter was small and kind of cute before, now she was beautiful. Was that the effect of the rank up to Citrine? And what did it mean that I had only grown several inches and gotten heavier? Was it something to do with self-perception? I always felt big, so I evolved to be bigger? What did that mean for Carter though? She thought she was pretty, so she was now prettier? That didn’t really make sense. I shook the thoughts free.

“We don’t really have much of a choice, do we?” I asked. “Let’s get moving.”

“Oh, this is going to work, and it is going to be fun.” There was a glint in Carter’s eyes as she said those words.

“Let’s get moving then,” I said. “It’s getting close to evening. I imagine they’ll want to throw a party.”

We moved out as a group, the tiger getting lazily to her feet and padding over to walk casually next to me. I kept my head on a swivel, but the predator’s demeanor was a pretty good indicator that nothing dangerous was nearby. I might be Citrine rank with cool mana sight, but a tiger was still a fucking tiger. Her eyesight and hearing were probably still five times better than mine. So, if she wasn’t worried, then I didn’t have an excuse either.

The pond was situated on the far side of the cemetery, near an empty building for the groundskeeper. We didn’t even bother looking through the building. It was not in good shape, and I was afraid it would fall the moment we opened the door to the building.

As we walked through the cemetery, the bodies of the undead remained, but they were now devoid of any mana, like human-shaped voids littering the ground. This wasn’t exactly a large cemetery. On one of my first visits to the capital, I’d gone to visit Arlington National Cemetery. Not quite half a million bodies buried there.

“Ward, you okay?” Andy asked.

“Arlington National Cemetery,” I said.

“Mother of God.” Andy was letting his Roman Catholic side out again.

“That is going to be bad,” Carter said.

“It’s going to be a shit show,” Andy said. “Let’s move.”

“Andy, it’s going to take a long time to get back to D.C.,” I said. “You have to pace yourself, or you’ll make a mistake.”

“It’s a hundred fifty miles from here to Corpus Christi,” Andy said. “We’re in the best shape of our lives. At only a moderate pace, all day, we could make it in a week.”

“That’s assuming we didn’t run into anything on the road and everything will go smoothly. It already hasn’t. We’ve run into survivors who need our help. How many more times do you think that’s going to happen? Every day? Every other day?”

“We won’t know until we get going,” he growled.

“We stop the night here,” I said. “We take care of these people and their situation.”

“You didn’t have a problem abandoning people to their fate when we ran into Regis.”

“We didn’t know what the tactical situation was, and you know it. There was no way for us to know the real situation on the ground.”

“Except that we could have found out,” Andy said.

“This is different, and you know it.”

“We shouldn’t be stopping to help everyone along the way,” Andy said.

“We’re not stopping to help them, Andy,” I growled at my friend. “We’re doing this because we have a group of women and girls who need a safe place to stay. If we take them with us, we would lose more time than if we make sure the place we leave them is safe.”

Andy didn’t say anything, and I hoped that meant he had run out of steam.

“If you two are done arguing,” Carter said, “we can keep going.”

“Yes, let’s keep going,” I said.

“One night,” Andy said, meeting my eye for a brief second.

The cemetery wasn’t exactly large, but it was situated around a hill, so we couldn’t see the interstate and the barricade below it until we rounded the low hill. The barricade was still in place, and several bodies could be seen standing above and behind the safety of the barricade, their spears, mostly made from rebar, held in their hands. I waved cordially, once I was confident they could see me better. No doubt whoever had the rifle up there was kitted out with a scope, so they could identify us at this range. I also hoped that whoever it was didn’t decide to test that bullet-proof theory of Andy’s.

“Hey, it’s Ward!” I yelled when I thought we were in range for them to hear me. “The one who spoke with Dominic, remember?”

“Who are your friends?” It was Dominic’s voice that came back, hidden by the barricade.

“Well, you already know the tiger,” I answered. “One of my companions is a former border patrol agent” I gestured to Chavez. “And I have a veteran with me as well.” I pointed to Andy.

“You looking to deport any illegal immigrants?” Someone else shouted from hiding.

“Borders don’t really make a whole hell of a lot of sense anymore,” Chavez answered. “Don’t bother me, and I won’t look to get rid of you.”

“That sounds fair,” Dominic said before anyone else could cut into the conversation. “What happened with the undead?”

“We took care of it,” I said.

“Just the three of you?”

“Carter pulled her weight, even if she did get hurt,” I said. “But the tiger was a huge help as well.” I was technically telling the truth, and it was a technicality I was prepared to hide behind, given the circumstances.

“Let them in,” Dominic said at last.

The barricade opened up. Well, not really opened up. One car on the bottom of the pile pulled back slowly and smoothly to reveal an opening wide enough for two people to walk through shoulder-to-shoulder. Unless you were as wide as me at the shoulders. We made it work anyway. I led the way, the tiger close at my heels. Then Andy and Chavez came through, side-by-side, and Carter brought up the rear.

No weapons were pointed at us as we entered the compound, but many of the faces around us were far from friendly. I recognized a couple from the group that had tried to make me give up my sword earlier. Luis was there as well, his eyes fastened on me. We moved out of the way, so several men could plug the hole they’d made in the defenses. The car was pushed back into place, with the front of the vehicle facing out the barricade. Due to another sedan resting on top of it, the roof of the car was mostly caved in. However, a length of rope was tied to the steering wheel inside, and a man on either side of the vehicle pulled on the rope to guide the vehicle into the gap smoothly. Once the vehicle was situated, bricks were placed under the rear wheels to hold the vehicle in place so it wouldn’t move, and several spare tires were shoved into gaps that were large enough for them. By the end of the process, I was quietly impressed with the ingenuity.

“If you don’t mind, Mr. Ward,” Dominic said, “would you debrief with me in private?”

“Heh,” Chavez chuckled. “Debrief.”

“Don’t be a child, Chavez,” Carter said.

“Uh, sorry,” the big man answered, chagrined.

“Yes, sir,” I answered the… mayor? Is that the role he was for this little town? “I’d be happy to.”

Our little group followed him over to the same house I'd been in last time. I stopped at the hole in the concrete where I’d left my sword before. This time, I did the same thing again, lifting it from my back and sliding it into the ground. Dominic’s eyes went wide when he saw me draw the weapon, and his eyes traced its path to the ground.

“Just a reminder of last time,” I said to him. “Andy, you good to stay here and watch Carter?”

“Wilco,” he said, and with a nod to the others, they settled onto the ground. I was surprised when the tiger did the same. She’d been my consistent companion the last several days, though I couldn’t blame her. She wasn’t exactly sized as an indoor house cat.

“You’re still carrying your staff,” I noted as I followed him up the stairs. “You’re not limping anymore though.”

“You note my limp, but not the more obvious change to my eye.”

“I wasn’t sure how much healing the core would provide, given the energy in it.”

“Core…” he said, as he stepped into the upper attic room. No one else was in the room, leaving the two of us alone. “I suppose that’s one way to describe it. I got the distinct sense last time that you had more information to share with me, but you weren’t sure whether or not you can trust me. What about now?”

“A wise leader once said, ‘trust, but verify,’” I said with a grin. “As of right now, I haven’t verified I can trust you, though Paul gave you a good review.”

“The one you took with you, yes?”

“He volunteered to come, yes.”

“And you simply trusted him?”

“He seemed like a decent fellow.”

“He’s not.”

“What do you mean?” A sense of foreboding pulled at my stomach. “He told us he was imprisoned for tax evasion.”

“That’s true, but only one of the charges.”

“What were the others?” I asked.

“Two others,” Dominic said. “Possession and distribution of child pornography. The tax evasion was just another way to get him off the streets.”

My gut clenched. “I have to go,” I said, making my way to the door.

“I was hoping to learn more,” Dominic protested.

“Here’s a quick rundown,” I said, pausing by the door. “I have more civilians with me, but I left another member of my team with them. And Paul is with them. There are women and children there. If what you told me is true, then I’m not willing to trust him around them. Second, the zombies pestering you were the result of a dungeon core, a danger we’ve eliminated. Your town of people will be safe here. If my team hasn’t already started spreading the word on that, then I would recommend telling them yourself. They deserve to know that particular danger is at least past, though there is still plenty out there that can still kill us all.”

“What about your team? Will you take them with you?”

“I can move faster on my own,” I said. “They will be fine here, I think. I might take the tiger with me, though. She kind of makes her own decisions.”

“Then go. I will see you when you get back.”

“Thank you for the information,” I said, turning back to the door again.

“How do you know that I’m telling you the truth?”

“I don’t,” I said. “But after what we just did to a couple-hundred zombies, I don’t think you’ll have any trouble imagining what I’ll do to you if you’re lying. And right now, I don’t have the luxury of making the wrong decision.”