The hoard passes, but the man refuses to give up his gun. His daughter keeps crying despite his wife’s best efforts to calm her. Niko tries to make silly faces at the girl to calm her, but it does nothing but make her more irritable. I hate the sound of children crying, that’s why I never had any. Her crying makes me want to take a knife and slice off my own ears, or at least jam the blade deep enough to cause hearing loss. We thought they were stalkers, but it’s clear they’re simply confused people who managed to survive longer than they needed to. We still need to learn about them.

Unfortunately, the man hasn’t given up his gun. This leads to Marshall having a stare down with the man, both refusing to give up any ground. If the child wasn’t here, Marshall would have dealt with him already.

“What are you names,” Aaimina attempts to break the tension. “I’m Aaimina, the mean one is Marshall, Duane is the paranoid one,” excuse me? “Niko is the big kid, and Thore, he’s seven feet tall, and you can’t teach that.”

“I’m Marilyn,” the woman speaks. “This is Karl, my husband, and our daughter Kyra.”

Karl doesn’t look happy that she gave us an answer but so what. Aaimina and Marilyn chat, trying to lower the tension in the room, but Marshall and Karl keeping their guns prepared to fire, doesn’t make this easy. We need to talk to them, figure out what their deal is, but it’ll be hard without setting off their daughter again.

“Hey, Karl, how about we go in the back and talk. Figure out how we can help each other,” I place my gun on the table. “No guns, just talk.”

I expect Marshall to call me insane, but he places his gun on the table as well. Thore follows suit. Karl thinks he has the upper hand but Niko and Aaimina are armed as well. If he shoots at us, one of them will put him down, that’s my hope. The man surrenders his gun, and follows us to the back where we find a suitable place to talk. We settle on an old walk-in freezer that doesn’t seem to be operational. Thore closes the freezer behind us and we stare at each other for a moment without speaking.

“Karl, how did you and your family end up out here,” I ask.

“The same way most people did. What about you two? You seem to be sporting some fancy armor,” Karl continues to be combative.

“You don’t need to be an arse about the whole thing. We’re trying to figure out what your goal is, and if lines up with our own,” I respond.

“You think I’m daft? I’ll tell you what I’ve got and then you’ll murder me and my whole family.”

“If we wanted you dead, I wouldn’t have given you your gun back, nor would we have let you take shelter with us.”

“Part of your plan,” he replies smugly.

“There was no plan. In case you don’t remember, we didn’t know you exited until we caught you following us through the shadows. If anything, we should assume you want us dead. If that’s the case, we can’t trust you and need to set you loose,” I lay the situation out for him.

“Excuse me, I need to get back to my family,” Karl walks past me, slamming his shoulder into mine.

“I’m tired of this shit,” Marshall says before grabbing Karl’s shoulder. “Why are you out here, and don’t give me some nonsense about being out on a walk.”

Karl smacks Marshall’s hand away from his shoulder. That’s all the provocation that Marshall requires. A quick punch to Karl’s face is followed by another and yet another. I look to Thore to see if he’ll stop it. Thore has been our peacemaker, and even now he looks away from the violence. I suppose he thinks it needs to happen. Marshall begins to kick Karl in the legs, as he attempts to crawl away. I stop Marshall as Karl spits out a tooth along with a mouthful of blood. I give the man a chance to recover as Marshall paces around.

Nobody can blame Marshall for it, the man has basically been begging anyone to try him since we met. Thore doesn’t move to treat his wounds, or even comfort the man. I expected Thore to be bothered by the violence, but I forgot he bashed a man’s head in. This is probably mild to him. As Karl tries to pull himself off the ground using some shelving I realize just how much the three of us are unbothered by blood. Thore is technically a murderer, Marshall has probably shot his way through a few battles and I’m a biologist. For us, this is the cycle of life, it’s why none of bother to help Karl.

“Karl, can you hear me,” I ask.

“Yeah, I hear you, fucker,” he says from his knees, spitting more blood onto the ground as he finishes his sentence.

“Karl, it’s that same attitude that has you crawling around in your blood right now,” Marshall injects himself into the conversation.

It’s clear that Karl fears Marshall. I can use that to my advantage. I wasn’t planning to do a good cop, bad cop thing but it feels as if that’s what has happened here. Maybe that has always been our dynamic. I was meant to even him out, but wasn’t ready yet. Karl crawls towards Thore. Thore takes a massive hand and pushes him back. Karl falls onto his back and rolls over, trying to pick himself back up. Thore must be disappointed cop, he’s over the whole thing. I suppose Karl trying to pull the gun thing earlier, and then not wanting to give up the game was enough to get on Thore’s bad side which is a side I don’t want to ever be on.

“Karl, where are you and your family going,” I ask the man.

“Rover, there’s a rover. Big rover, they were using it but it broke down. I can fix it, I’m a mechanic,” Karl pleads, almost crying.

“How many seats Karl?”

“At least six,” he mubles.

“That could work for us,” Marshall says. “Would make our trip faster. We can jam eight people in there,” even now Marshall is thinking of bringing Karl and his family with us.

“I need you to point it out on this map,” I load a projection from my wrist comp.

The rover isn’t far from the beacon’s location. I guess we’re going to get a rover.