Ash was like a destructive ghost for the next several weeks. He was running around everywhere trying to find any traces he could of Emma. He hardly ate and it wasn't known if he had had any proper sleep in a while. The deep dark circles under his eyes made people worry. His mood plummeted as he recalled that several people had gone missing even before they arrived at the refugee camp. Until now, even though he had been a part of the investigation, Ash hadn't really taken the issue seriously. But now that it involved someone close to him, he couldn't help but feel panicked. Now he knew how Zuri felt. He wanted to barge into the lab and search it from one corner to another not leaving one inch out. But he knew that it wasn't so easily done as he imagined. After all he never found any concrete proof that they were the culprits even when he was deep inside the beast's stomach. Not only that, he had told them that he would stop working there before he set out on that mission. They don't take kindly to people who try to have their feet in two boats. Ash knew that the scientists requested absolute loyalty from the people working there. After all there must be several experiments that could not be made public just yet. He was aware of how wary everyone was around him while he was there. They were very carefully not to divulge any important information in front of him.

Everyone could feel that Ash was not feeling right. He took it upon himself to actively avoid everyone. No one could get through to him. They had never seen the boy so angry at everything and everyone. He even ignored the highly guilt driven Mrs Nolan who came to apologise to him repeatedly. His anger was so intense that he would randomly pick fights with people over the silliest reasons. And of course he never won the fights he picked. But that didn't stop him from keeping doing it. It was like he was falling into self abuse as atonement. He could be seen every now and then, covered in cuts and bruises. It was a completely different side to him. Problem was that it didn't seem to help him at all. It was like everyone was an enemy in his eyes. Especially Rhys. If he saw him anywhere in his field of vision, his entire face would turn so black that you could feel the anger radiating out of him in waves. He wouldn't remain in that man's presence for even 5 seconds, before leaving like a storm. Deep in his heart he blamed everyone. But the person he blamed the most was himself. He couldn't get over the fact that none of this would have happened if he had stayed clear of that senseless party that day. If he hadn't gone, then whoever it was wouldn't have had the chance to snatch her from under his nose. All he could now do was pray that nothing bad had happened to her.

As more days passed on, people in the camp started realizing that Ash was being unproductive. Right now when, the numbers of humanity was dwindling, every man was precious. With the ratio of people that are dying or getting infected to the number of fewer newly rescued survivors, there was a constant need for able bodied members to man the walls, go out scavenging for items, or just go on rescue missions. No one was given the luxury to waste away their time like Ash was doing at that moment. Especially since he didn't even participate in the domestic chores.

This led to today, when Viktor stood before his tent and bellowed out his name early in the morning. The already deep voice sounded like the rumbling of a mountain when the volume was raised. Ash had been up all night again, thinking up plans to try to sneak into the lab to take a look and had only started to slightly doze off by the crack of dawn when this man's shout startled him to his feet with his hidden pocket knife drawn. When Ash realized that he wasn't in danger when seeing the familiar face, he slowly rubbed his eyes to bring himself awake while observing the man from a safe distance. They hadn't interacted with each other much since he returned from 'death'. Although he had a good impression of this ex navy Admiral, he didn't trust him to the extend of letting his guard down. After all the man was part of the team when they betrayed him.

"You have good reflexes..." the man commented as he watched the knife still being held tightly in the boy's hand. "...for your current state."

"Why are you here?" Ash frowned as he put away the knife and sat back down to tidy up the 'evidence' of what he was doing before.

"Because You have been assigned to me." Viktor stated in a monotonous voice.

"No thanks." Ash responded at once without even giving it a thought. He had no interest in being assigned anywhere. His priority right now was one thing and one thing only and that was to find Emma whether she was dead or alive. Having a psychological shadow about having torturous experiments done to him, Ash was worried sick that Emma was in deep trouble if she had been taken by the scientists.

"I feel like you don't get it. You don't really have a choice in the matter." Viktor frowned at the dismissive tone that Ash was using.

"And why is that?" Ash didn't bother to look at him as he stood back up after tidying everything away from potential spying eyes.

"Because that's just how it works here. If you are getting the free meals provided by the camp, then you are expected to work for your keep. And right now you are not doing anything productive." Viktor frowned "If you refuse then you won't be getting anymore meals, cloths or any other benefits from here not to mention that you might even be asked to leave. Or you might end up like some of those people you find around, living off leftovers and without even a roof over their heads."

"I don't care about those stuff. My priority is to find Emma." Ash retorted without giving it another thought.

"And how are you going to find Emma when you are outside those walls? And what after you find her? Are you going to let her starve to death? And put her in harms way again after provoking every person in the camp?" Viktor was getting angry at this point. "Until you find some clues on her, put some effort into your behavior."

There was a long moment of silence as both of them stared each other down stubbornly. Ash's mind was processing what Viktor just told him. He knew that the man was right. He was already starting to accumulate hate from the other survivors. Even after searching for this long he hasn't gotten any concrete leads, except for the guess that it might have been the lab. He had been alienating himself and refusing help from his friends, which made the search efficiency even lower. All the food he had stockpiled before had already run out. 'Maybe the problem was that I was too aggressive in my approach. If I blend in with the crowd, the kidnappers might lower their guard a little and reveal their whereabouts'.

"What is it that you want to do with me?" Ash asked carefully after all that contemplation.

"I was asked to take you to the sniper unit. You will try out a few rounds of test firing and if they think you are not bad, then you will be directly assigned to guard the wall. If you are terrible, they will give you training and put you up there." Viktor stated solemnly.

"So either way I have to join the unit? No other options?" Ash asked frowning in annoyance.

"They already know that you have some experience with guns. Its better than those who never touched a gun in their lives. Also, apparently they are training people on a new kind of rifle." Viktor was very serious when he said this, "It never hurts to know more nowadays. So make full use of the opportunity that you are given."

Ash wanted to roll his eyes and say something snappy but when he opened his mouth only, "When do I have to go?" came out.

"Since you have nothing better to do, let's go right away. The sooner you get in, the sooner you will have more freedom." Seeing the slightly absent minded look in Ash's eyes, Viktor sighed. "Is Emma they girl you told me about back then? The one you wanted to protect?"

Ash glanced at him deeply for a moment before nodding, "Yes." Her name brought the worry and pain back to him.

"Keep believing that she is fine and you will find her." Viktor stated before turning around to lead the way towards the snipers training grounds. "After all you made it back here to the camp just on sheer determination and a little but of help. If anyone can do it, then you should be it." After a short beat of processing the sudden string of compliments, Ash followed after him obediently. He hadn't much of a choice but to comply.

They arrived in front of a wide closed off building. The Sniper unit was located not too far from the training field that he and Rhys had used to practice combat training in. Seeing the field in the distance with the numerous people training hard, Ash couldn't help but get flashbacks of his time there. He realized that he was feeling a bit nostalgic. It was weird. Since he was absolutely sure that he had had a hard time under Rhys's intense training regiment back then.

Seeing that Ash was a bit distracted as he kept gazing into the distance, Viktor cleared his throat to bring back his attention. "You are late compared to the other new recruits so make sure that you pay proper attention and catch up quickly with the rest of them."

Ash gave him a side wards glance, "I thought you said I just have to fire a few rounds." It seemed like he had to put in much more effort than he had initially planned for.

"The officer who was talking to me just now, informed me that a new prototype of the rifle that I mentioned before was finished recently, so you will have to train with it regardless before you will be send off to fight real battles. After all we don't want inexperience to cause mass destruction." Ash recalled the apologetic face of the young officer who had rushed over as soon as he spotted Viktor to give his report on the new recruits. From the urgency of their conversation it did seem like something out of plans did show up. Seeing Ash unresponsive, Viktor looked down at his watch "I have to be somewhere now. So go on in and try to get along with the others. After all they will be people who you can trust your back to." He gave Ash a meaningful look and then walked off.

'Trust my back to?' Ash stood there for a long moment watching his figure gradually disappear and then smirked mockingly 'I don't think so'. He really didn't want to be a part of this and he wasn't planning to put any effort into making new 'friends'. When he entered the building, the first thing he saw was a group of people crowding around a woman who looked to be an instructor. She had a head full of grey hair and looked very tough and fierce. Anyone could tell at a glance that she was not someone to trifle with.

"....you pull back this valve, focus through the scope so that your target is right at the centre of your vision and then pull the trigger." She was in the middle of a very detailed explanation. Her face was strict and emotionless which made the listeners feel like they were send in front of the chopping board. "The number of bullets are few at the moment. So you will use these failed prototype bullets for practice first." She pointed to the nearby stalked boxes. "Although they are not exactly similar to the finished product, it should still give you a rough idea on how to operate the gun, and the general effects of the bullets fired." She suddenly paused and looked around at the eager faces around her and warned in a severe voice "Once you are assigned a position, the top students of your batch will be given a XGuard to keep. But due to the supposed misconduct that is possible with these guns, each bearer will be given customised bullets. If someone if found guilty of using the rifle for malicious purposes, you will be detained and punished." After ensuing that the message was received, she then proceeded to dismantle the weird looking sniper rifle at the fastest speed, leaving the trainees staring open mouthed. "You will start with reassembling and dismantling the rifle. Since you are beginners i will allow a time span of 5 mts at the start. But by tomorrow you should be able to do it in at most 2 minute!!! And the day after You will do it within a minute."

Ash who had arrived to the scene late, wasn't completely aware of what was going on. Once the woman dismissed the group to go practice, he walked up to her and calmly introduced himself. It seemed like she already heard of him before. Which wasn't a surprise. His fame was similar to the one Zuri held - troublemaker. Who would have known that his status would make a complete 360^o flip, from a nobody to one on the top of the blacklist, within just a few weeks. The instructor narrowed her fierce eyes at him to evaluate his potential in both wielding a gun and in causing her trouble and then decided to just give him a shot. After all the boy had a lot of frustrations, anger and excess energy in him. It was best vented here rather than somewhere else.

The new prototype gun was called the XGuard0112. It was a homing rifle. When looked through the scope you can mark the target and aim at unbelievable precision. Once the trigger is pulled, the bullet would chase and hit the target by even changing its path of trajectory. The cons of the rifle were that, it was not yet perfected. As such every few shots would misfire and not land on the target. There are also occasional issues with malfunctioning target recognition. Moreover the production of the gun was expensive and thus was limited in ammo. Although it sounded unreliable, the rifle just worked as a normal gun when the homing effect wasn't triggered. As such it wasn't too bad. This was actually a very optimistic result compared to the time frame of just several months of research and development.

While the instructor was explaining the different workings of the gun and re-demonstrating how to assemble and dismantle the gun, a slightly vicious pair of blue eyes were observing the boy from her stand while she fiddled with the gun in her hand.

From the spectacle that happened a few weeks before, Stephanie had figured put a few things. The lab wanted to bring down Ash with all their might. Now she knew why Dr Hansen had come over to strike up a deal with her. Back then she didn't know what relevance a little sickly girl had to those big shots. Now she could kind of guess that it was lure in her guardian. Knowing that Ash held value with the scientists, her mind immediately started to churn with plans to reap as much benefit as she could each time she fed them with information. Before she knew that Ash was the target, she had wanted to befriend the boy in order to keep him at her grasp. But with all that had transpired, that was no longer an option. It was when she was stressing over the issue of their hate-hate relationship and of not having any common ground with the boy, that he had walked himself into the sniper unit. Even if she couldn't get too close to him, Stephanie could still keep an eye on him and gather relevant info to satisfy the doctor while at the same time lining her pockets.

She was not someone who would let such a golden opportunity slip through her fingers. Although she hated the boy for holding Rhys's attention, she was professional enough to keep her resentment at bay for the time being. Her lips curved into an attractive smile as she observed his each and every movement without blinking. She hoped that whatever the scientists had planned for him, they would execute it quickly, so that she didn't have to worry about Rhys's attention wandering. Now that she thought about it, Stephanie realized that Dr. Hansen must have approached her because of her intimate relationship with Rhys otherwise there must be a lot of people willing to profiteer from the lab given the opportunity. Rhys being the one of the main members of the group that Ash belonged to, she would have free roaming access of their premises if everyone knew that she was dating Rhys. Which made kidnapping the little girl much more easier. The campfire party that night also aided in masking her movement.

That night she had left the party right after Rhys. She had already seen him stumble into the 'other' tent that she had seen him crash in frequently ever since she got together with him. Now that she thinks about it, she should have already been suspicious on how one person could have two tents, when the demand for them was high and the supply low.

Since Rhys was temporarily out of commission, she had hurried off to get her task done. After that she was still looking forward to strip the man bare for her entertainment. The little girl was always tightly guarded by that elderly woman whom, Rhys had once introduced as Mrs Nolan. More over from Stephanie's past observation, she was a very light sleeper. This had given her a headache. Sneaking the child away from under her nose was almost impossible. She had to sacrifice a lot to obtain a stash of sleeping gas to put the woman into a deep sleep, before she could even contemplate entering the premises of her tent.

After having obtained the child, she had dropped her off in the hands of a few henchmen who were waiting for her successful completion of the mission. Completing all that she had returned to find Rhys for a blissful night of sensual heaven, only to find him kissing someone else with such passion. It is no wonder that she found Ash annoying. Now knowing that he was the target made what she did before even more meaningful and delightful.

She watched with burning eyes as Ash mechanically nodded while the instructor described the different features and finally picked one of the rifles to a desk to start dismantling.

Ash was half hearted in his task as he shifted the rifle from one hand to another. His mind was drifting as he recalculated if there was any way he could sneak into the lab without being discovered. He was so distracted that he didn't notice the sudden silence that filled the hall. In the eyes of the others, Ash had already dismantled and reassembled the rifle 3 times by the time they were half way through on their first attempt. It was like the boy was already intimately familiar with the rifle as if he had wielded it his entire lifetime. The scariest part was that Ash himself was not aware of how he had rendered everyone around him speechless. It wasn't until the flabbergasted instructor walked up to him that he snapped out of his daze.

"Boy, demonstrate to me ones more how you did it." The instructor stated. Her previous stern voice had changed to one with warmth and a hint of pride.

"What?" Only then did Ash look down at his hands and realise that he had perfectly dismantled the rifle ones again. Shock filled his face as he himself wasn't aware that he had done that. Until now he hadn't even properly looked at the rifle that was placed into his hands. Now that he looked closer, he felt an unnerving sense of familiarity with the object. He felt like he had seen the gun somewhere before. The rifle even brought a sense of fear to his heart. He was scared that something was about to happen. It was instinctive. Like a prey cowering in front of a predator. Ash recognised that the feeling was similar to the times he had the flashback memories of his 'past life'. They always triggered randomly and unexpectedly. But they always foretold some impending trouble that was about to happen to him. They always brought this uneasy sticky feeling to him as if his whole body was immersed in thick, freezing goo. He wanted to stay as far away from the rifle as possible.

Under the instructors continued insistence, Ash finally reached put a trembling hand to gather together all the parts. His fingers shook so much that the pieces kept falling apart before he could even put them in place. The watching instructor was completely distressed. 'Am I that scary, that you can't even place one piece over the other when I am watching?' Even when she was thinking thus, she had no plan on going easy on Ash, Soldiers should not be so easily shaken. Or what use would they be on the battlefield. Thus she just narrowed her eyes at him and roared to concentrate. It seemed to have some sort of effect as the boy's movement got better after a few minutes and he even had the cheek to throw her an annoyed look. This made her wonder if he even help the slightest bit of respect for her. Her previous thought of him being scared of her was over ruled. 'So why was he shaking so much before?' It was a mystery that she was unlikely to get an answer to.

"Where did you learn to dismantle and assemble so quickly and efficiently?" The instructor asked with deep curiosity.

Ash didn't have an answer to that question. If he said, 'it came naturally.' They will just think that he was bragging. And he certainly could not tell it was because of his previous life's experience. Then they would just think he was crazy. So he remained silent. When stuck in a predicament where you don't know what to say, it is best to ignore the question no matter how rude it may seem. Problem was silence usually let people run their imaginations wild. Those who were listening in on the conversation thought he had a very powerful backer. Some thought he must have been in a secret special forces before the apocalypse, allowing him to be so proficient in wielding any weapon even the first time the are made available. The more reasonable people thought it must be because he came into contact with the XGuard0112 during its manufacturing process while he was working in the lab.

Seeing that they were not going to get an answer, the instructor just asked everyone to continue practicing. Ash was tasked to help out others if someone encountered trouble. After that was physical training and shooting training of both still and moving targets.

The failed bullets were not much help in using the XGuard0112 as most of them had not been properly developed for the homing function. As such they were just spare ammunition that acted like the bullets of any other gun. But between the pile there were always several bullets mixed in that did have the homing function. It was a ratio of 2 out of 10 that could be used. These were the practice materials that the students used to get familiar with the rifle. When they actually start manning the walls they would have better ammunition to use and should have a 50/50 chance of triggering the homing feature. This type of training went on for 3 days before, the trainees were allowed to move on to guard the walls.

Those days Ash wasn't idle. He rattled his brain and snuck around as much as he could but couldn't come up with a solution to infiltrate into the lab. It was practically impregnable. The only reason Kyle was able to get in before was because he had insider help and a cooperative hostage. Those were two things that Ash didn't have at his disposal. Not to mention that as the days go by his lack of sleep and food was catching up to him. Fatigue filled his body from head to toe. Not to mention the sudden pangs of piercing pain that fills his head as if it is going to split in two. Along with all this was the constant feeling of dread. Something was about to happen. He was certain of it. It was similar to that one time when he had the premonition about something bad that was to happen to him. Unlike that time in the food storage, the feeling this time was 10 times more ominous. As if this could be the turning point in his life. Like everything would change from then on.