In a meeting space far from the wall, we all met with the erstwhile Commander of the defence of the town, a peacekeeping soldier that used to march across mainland Europe and report any criminal actions as they occurred. I didn't know how he got this job, or why he didn't remain doing his previous job, and I didn't want to speculate. Elias Lawes seemed a bit out of his depth here, but he seemed to welcome our input.

Lena took immediate control of the situation, and she took Ralf with her as they looked over the defences at the western and southern approaches. I joined them to look over things, though what input I could give was anyone's guess.

"No defenders at the northern and eastern approaches?" Ralf asked Elias, who frowned at him.

"All of our defenders are busy fighting off the western and southern approaches," he replied defensively. "I'm not sure if you noticed as you approached, but both approaches are under constant seige."

"We did notice," Ralf barked, and I saw anger in his expression for the first time since we'd met. "You have your entire force divided between those approaches, and almost no-one present at the northern and eastern approaches. All of your forces are dealing with harassing actions from the west and south, and most of them are just going to sit there, bored out of their minds, while anyone can just stroll in through the east or the north."

Elias glared at Ralf. I stood by Ralf's side. "I did notice that, actually," I said, lending my obvious support to Ralf. "It's not all that efficient to have your forces concentrated so densely by the south and west approaches when you don't need them all there, is it?" Ralf shook his head, glaring hard at the Commander. I continued. "I was a systems engineer in my former life. One of the concepts I learned is to deploy the resources required for the job, plus a little in reserve in case it's needed. You don't deploy a multi-core server with tons of RAM and solid-state disk space running at gigabytes-per-second throughput if the only thing you're going to use it for, is to serve a few web pages for a modelling webshite."

Ralf raised an eyebrow, Lena looked at me sideways, Suzie giggled, and Elias looked at me with a confused expression.

"I didn't understand half of that," Ralf commented sideways.

I should have expected that there was no working knowledge of server-side computing systems in this nanocloud era of human history. "Old knowledge. No longer relevant today," I said to Ralf, before turning back to Elias. "The point is, if you have a thousand soldiers at your disposal, and it takes fifty to defend the wall, plus a hundred to repel invaders should the wall be breached, why deploy five hundred to that wall section? Their effectiveness is lost because they're not needed. And correct me if I'm wrong, but won't you be effectively constricted by natural choke points anyway?"

"Exactly," Ralf continued, turning back to Elias. "You only need a limited number of soldiers, and I suspect you even know that, so why-"

Our confrontation was interrupted by a soldier running, clearly out of breath. "Sir!"

"Report!" Elias barked.

"Forces have amassed at the northern approach," the soldier gasped out, his body clearly still needing time to catch up to his exertions. "They're already attacking."

"The wall will hold them," Elias started, and Ralf started to growl. Lena stepped in at that point.

"You can't be serious?" She asked, incredulous. "The gateway where you have a checkpoint established on the Eastern edge is a natural chokepoint, but it's a point of failure. I bet you've got one at the northern approach as well. You need soldiers there before your forces are overrun!"

"But-"

"ORDER YOUR SOLDIERS TO RE-DEPLOY! NOW!" Ralf roared, overriding the man, then turning to the exhausted soldier. "You! Get to the western approach, get two hundred soldiers from the ranks, get them moving to the northern approach!" He then turned to Elias. "Sound the alarm, damn you!"

Elias was cowed enough at this point, that he immediately complied. Ralf looked to each of us, fury all over his face.

I couldn't blame him. I never did anything in the military, but I understood that decisiveness was a key attribute in anyone serving as a commander, so Elias's indecision could be costly.

"Ralf, Rick, you two should join the approach on the north," Lena told us both. "Suzie and I will take the eastern approach and make sure there are forces defending the wall over there."

The alarm sounded throughout the city, as hundreds of soldiers started running along the upper edges of the wall, hundreds more running throughout the streets in an effort to re-deploy to the other side of the city. Ralf and I headed north to join them.

By the time we got there, the fighting had already started. A large mass of attackers were throwing themselves at the chokepoint to get in, and I wondered if this wouldn't be over before it had even started; throwing yourself at a chokepoint where a defensive force could control the numbers was a foolhardy enterprise, and even with a total lack of military experience, my gaming knowledge could have even told anyone that fact. I wanted to see if there was more to this than was obvious, so I looked at Ralf, then took off toward the stairwells leading to the upper sections of the wall, climbing as quickly as physics would allow my body to move while still being in control of my climb.

As it would soon become clear, that was actually pretty fast.

As we reached the top, I looked over the edge, and there were many hundreds of bandits throwing themselves at the choke points, with others massing near the walls to avoid fire from ranged weapons belonging to the wall defenders. They almost all seemed to be waiting for a breach somewhere, but many were just throwing themselves at the choke point, not appearing to get the fact that the choke point was under the control of the defenders.

Then I saw it.

As the body of the defenders continued to repel the continuing assault at the choke point, a smaller number of the attackers were standing near a section of the wall, amost a hundred metres away from the chokepoint.

What were they doing?

I crept closer to get a good look, and saw it.

One of the attackers had his hands planted against the wall, and it seemed to ice over. As he held his arms against the wall, ice flakes began to form over a radius of two metres from where he had his hands, and it seemed to intensify, even as the radius continues to grow slowly larger.

An ice attack? How was this possible? The nanocloud popped up an information notification at low priority, so I knew I could read it later.

Another stepped up, her hands now projecting toward the wall, and I could feel some strange sensations from her direction that I just could not identify.

My nanocloud answered me instead.

Sensations identified.

Target individual is emitting sonic frequencies below one kilohertz.

Intensity increasing.

Speculate this could be an assault on the wall.

Pre-emptive decision: Combat-mode engaged.

I didn't need to think about it for long, and even as I came to the conclusion that this sonic attack was intended to shake the wall apart where it had been frozen, a sudden blast of sonic energy blew a hole straight through, giving access to the city via a new entry that wasn't defended.

"THEY'RE BREAKING THROUGH!" one of the soldiers screamed. Ralf and I leapt off of the opposing wall, my nanocloud taking direct control of my musculature so as to control my landing, and I was thankful my nanocloud had given me strength as well as influenced my muscle-memory, because even with the capabilities I was given by nanocloud reinforcement of my skin and muscles, I could have sworn that the landing had caused some fracturing of my bones when I landed nearly twenty-five feet below.

The pain was indescribable... For all of about three seconds. Then my nanocloud dampened the effects, notifying me that it was working to reinforce the bones in my legs. Within moments, it alerted me that I was now able to use my legs again, and I took off in a slightly-jarring jog to the section of the wall which had just been blown open, as bandits began to pour their way through. I had to see if there was anything we could do. As we were joined by some city defenders, the enemy continued to pour through the hole, immediately attacking anyone they could reach. Mostly, they attacked with knives, and I think in a few cases, they used swords.

One came at me with a knife in each hand, and leapt into the air at the last minute. I used my training to drop to the floor and roll sideways, though the move was not as fluid as I liked, and I was slightly slow. A blade ripped through my shirt as it cut into my shoulder, causing me to cry out in pain.

I kept my wits about me, though, as I turned back to face my attacker. He had just landed, and swivelled to face me, as others poured through the breach.

He leapt at me again, and I followed the suggestions my nanocloud gave me, switching off my mind enough to let the AI take over my body enough to direct my movements. It helped, as I parried and countered the attacks coming towards me, the short, sharp jabs I gave my attacker giving him pause.

It was then, I was attacked at the same time by two other people, and I felt overwhelmed quickly, as I desperately tried to fight off a simultaneous series of thrusts from the two newcomers, and the original attacker tried to circle me from behind. My nanocloud carefully regulated my bodily functions, ensuring I wasn't flooded with cortisol or adrenaline, and regulating my brain chemistry to prevent me from entering a state of panic.

Just as this was happening, a sudden flash of black whipped across my field of vision, and took down first one, then the other of the two newcomers. All I saw was what looked to be a female combatant with sneak abilities who fought unarmed.

I had no idea who it was, as she was covered from head to toe in dark clothing, wearing a black ski mask with a pair of wraparound shades to cover her face, and her feet had a curious series of dark wrappings to hide their appearance or to provide padding, whichever of the two, I had no idea. Her torso was also wrapped with what appeared to be a sash that hung down to her right and trailed backward behind her hips, though curiously remained attached at the rear.

I mentally kicked myself for the distraction. We were still under attack. Besides, I watched as the newcomer plunged a knife through the shoulder of her adversary.

"Press the attack," Ralf told me, as he eviscerated his attacker with naked claws, to free himself and come to my aid. "Who was that?"

"No clue," I replied tersely. "They retreating?"

Ralf nodded as we watched the attackers suddenly turn tail and run. Unfortunately, it was not a full retreat, but a regrouping. Lena had just arrived.

"They're concentrating their assault on the eastern wall," she said, breathing heavily. "We need to get more over there."

Letting out a tired sigh, I joined her and Ralf, as we sprinted to the east wall.

The fight took well over three hours to wrap up fully, and I was exhausted.

Most of the assault was focused on the eastern and northern approaches, since those were initially left undefended, but the harrassing action still continued on the western and southern approaches. We had been kept busy for the next two hours as we literally went from one part of the city to another, defending where we could.

The dark assassin attacker who had come to my aid had been seen many times throughout the conflict, usually intervening when local defence force were overwhelmed. She never stayed long, and disappeared shortly after the tide of batte turned.

I also managed to pick up a few more cuts and bruises, and while the initial attack included a relatively severe overhead slice through one of my shoulder muscles, the other injuries were relatively minor, and I couldn't even remember where I'd gotten many of them.

My nanocloud made sure I could ration my energy reserves over the course of the battle, but my reserves had been depleted now. My alerts included one about a blood sugar deficit, and I knew I'd need to eat soon. A second alert appeared alongside the first, advising me that my nanocloud was immediately going to disable the damping setting on my emotional state. I supposed that was fair, but the downside was that I started to feel anger, sadness and frustration, all over again.

What really bothered me, right at this moment, was the pointless waste of lives that had resulted when the attacking forces had rolled right over the northern barricades as their diversionary tactic had earlier fooled the defenders on the western and southern approaches into a false sense of complacency.

We'd fucking warned Elias about this possibility, and it took a full-fledged attack for him to even pretend to accept it.

It was only because of the dark assassin I'd seen earlier, along with my own sense of danger, that had prevented the choke point from being completely overrun or the new entry hole the enemy had made from being swamped. Were it not for these factors, a lot of civilians in the city would now be dead. Just the idea that any non-combatants could have been badly injured or killed because of Elias' incompetence flooded me with a sense of righteous fury.

I was too tired to deal with that shit right now, though. I'd collapsed at the edge of the combat zone, along with several others. Ralf and Lena were present, though I was curious as to why we hadn't seen Suzie.

"That entire fight was a clusterfuck," Ralf commented, his gruff voice sounding more tired than I'd felt. "I'm beginning to wonder if the Commander of the guard didn't deliberately leave those lines unguarded so the invaders could get in."

"Really?" Lena scoffed. "You forget how idiotic some of these 'Commanders' can be about military operations."

"Not that you'd know about any of that," Ralf chuckled. "Neither of us would ever be military, not even in the world before."

"Honestly, I can't see anyone being that idiotic," I scoffed. "I'm mad as fuck right now, and I'm beginning to suspect it was deliberate. Whatever was going on, he wanted them to get in through the unprotected walls. Look at how he went off at us when the battle was over."

Elias was pissed off when we encountered him ahortly after we had finished mopping up the approaches toward the north and east. Something about discipline. We ended up reminding him we weren't his soldiers, we were independents, and we got the job done anyway. He didn't acknowledge that fact, but instead threatened not to pay us our cut for defending the walls.

Ralf soon set him straight on that matter.

"Yeah, but what would be the point in that?" Lena asked, appearing surprised that anyone would even consider the idea. "What would he have to gain from selling out his township like that?"

I kept my suspicions to myself for now. While Eveline and I had basically fallen out in a big way, her caution about divulging too much information on my quest or our situation was valid. What I did feel about this particular conflict though, was that there seemed to be a struggle occurring to shift the balance of power. It was something written in history books and repeated throughout the last several millennia. Earth's own early history of human population was tribal. Lack of technology prevented much centralisation of power because of the large distances between groups of populations and the carrying capacity of the environment. As technological development accelerated, so did the ability to populate more densely, field larger armies, and travel greater distances. In this post-outbreak world, even with a thousandth of the population left alive, many people alive today remembered the old world, and their knowledge formed a lot of the backbone of some societies. Where Britain had essentially gone tribal, many countries across Europe did not. The Netherlands and Germany were two countries where a decentralised form of government existed, where townships and cities operated independently, but adhered to a common code of conduct regarding critical issues.

Someone coming along and trying to take control of large swathes of territory by capturing towns and cities would certainly upset the balance of power in the region, and unlike the old world, there was little evidence of standing armies capable of defending an entire nation. Military activity had essentially devolved to local militias, some better trained than others, as evidenced here.

It wouldn't take much effort from a determined group to annexe these towns and cities and form a coalition or turn them into vassals to provide for a war machine. It's what Hitler did during World War two, Ghenghis Khan did with his Mongolian armies, and the Roman Empire did when they took over much of Europe over two milennia ago.

The only real question I had was who would want to do this, and what were they after?

I kept this to myself for now, remembering that Eveline had-

Eveline.

Why did my thoughts always turn to her? She had been a pain in my arse since the day we met, and yet I was thinking about her, almost non-stop.

Fuck sake.

"Well, whatever they intended, they'd failed."

"Hey," Suzie piped up. "Did anyone else notice that black-clad assassin type who stepped up and defended the walls?"

"We all did at sometime or other," Ralf said absently, rubbing his neck. "Whoever it was, they saved a lot of lives today."

"Including mine," I admitted.

"Wonder why we didn't see her on the way in?" Lena asked.

"More to the point, where is she now?" Suzie followed up.

Ralf frowned. "You're sure this was female?"

I was convinced of it. I kept my mouth shut, though.

"You don't get to carry a waist and hips like hers and be male," Lena commented.

I forebore to mention transgendered people, though the thought did enter my mind, leading me down a tangent that soon had me speculating on how a nanocloud in such a person might treat the person's gender identity. Would it try to alter the synaptic configuration in order to resolve the apparent conflict, or would it make physical changes to the person themselves so their appearance would match how they viewed themselves? And what about those who were of a non-standard chromosome configuration, such as XXY people? How would they fare with a nanocloud?

I no longer knew any such people, having lost touch with them all since being thrown into cryogenic freeze and then waking up to this changed world, but I did find myself wondering now, what became of them.

"Hello," Lena said in a loud call, startling me. "Earth to Rick?"

"Sorry, I was thinking of some things," I said, wondering why my nanocloud hadn't picked up on what was happening to alert me that my attention was needed.

No such request was made by the host.

I guess not, I thought to myself.

"I think it's a good idea we move out now, and go catch up with the caravan," Lena was saying. "As much as this might be a nice town, this Elias fella gives me a bad feeling, and I want to be away from him as quickly as possible."

I agreed with a nod. "Now?"

Lena gave her own nod, which suited me fine, since I wanted to be off and out of here as quickly as possible.

Once packed up and ready, we took a brief detour to go meet Elias and collect our pay for the job. I left it to Ralf to deal with the man, since I wasn't willing to get my hands dirty with violence in this context, and Lena and Suzie were off talking about something else. Ralf managed to get our cut without too much trouble after reminding Elias that we completed the contract, and that non-payment would be grounds to enact a sanctioned duel to collect payment in blood.

I didn't actually know if that was a real thing in today's society in Europe, but it seemed to work on Elias, who coughed up the fifty-thousand data credits per head we were all owed.

After that little scene, it seemed that none of the other mercs had trouble collecting their payment, either. Then, as one, we all left the town.

Back out on the road, we settled into the usual routine that had developed since leaving Dortmune, with Lena and I going for our usual morning knife-training, followed by a fast sprint between two points and back again, before joining Ralf, Suzie and the other mercs as they continued their march to the caravan.

Our stop for that first evening was nearly fifty kilometres east of Rheda-Wiedenbrück, where our band of mercs set up a camp, a variety of tents going up around a central campfire area. While I was busy helping the other mercs dig a fire pit, it seemed that Ralf and Suzie had taken off to go do something else I forbore to venture a guess on. Oddly, by the time I had finished, Suzie was back, and was in a low conversation with Lena, who appeared to be all smiles.

Probably talking about whatever Suzie had just gotten up to with Ralf.

Speaking of which, he had just joined me in digging the fire pit, even though we were all nearly finished with it.

"Enjoy yourselves?" I asked with a grin, which Ralf returned, nudging me with his elbow.

"A guy isnt supposed to kiss and tell," he quipped. "Though I don't know where that idea came from, especially as Suzie seems determined to spill our secrets to Lena every time we go find a quiet place to... Err..."

It amused me that Ralf was so circumspect when talking about his exploits with Suzie, when she clearly wasn't. "Every time you go find somewhere to have some fun," I offered.

The fox hybrid nodded with a canine grin, as he stood up from his digging. "I'm sure the others would prefer if we helped out with some kindling for the fire," he then said, jumping out of the pit. I followed with a leap that I would never have been able to do before obtaining my nanocloud, landing easily on the ridge.

"Plenty of trees around here that have branches that'll do the job," I remarked, seeing a line of such trees nearby.

We spent the next twenty minutes around the tree line. Ralf leapt up to the nearest branch height, clinging to the trunk of the tree, using his claws to swipe the branches down. It seemed difficult from where I stood, given his claws looked as though they were intended to puncture objects, not slice them open, so I offered him my combat knife, which he gladly took. The whole task got a lot easier, as he used the serrated edge of the knife to saw away anything that he couldn't lop off with a quick swipe of the sharpened business end of the blade.

It was as well I sharpened that to a fine edge this morning, I thought to myself. And that caused me to start thinking about my blow-up with Eveline.

Just like that, I was feeling like shit, all over again.

Ralf, as aware as ever of his environment, picked up on this almost immediately, jumping down from the latest trunk we had finished pruning, and walked over to me. "Rick, what's bothering you?"

Shit, I thought to myself. I didn't know whether I should talk about this with him or not, especially as Eveline had already warned me beforehand about trusting the wrong people, but I really needed to talk to someone, and if it wasn't Lena or Suzie, then that left Ralf.

Some instinct told me that I could trust him to a point, so I decided I would skirt around that limit and see if he could offer me any advice on how to deal with these feelings right now. No doubt there was no-one alive on this Earth who would be able to help me fix this mess I'd made for myself.

"I've made a real mess of things," I began. "I don't know."

Ralf's voice dropped to barely a whisper as he walked closer. "Eveline?" I nodded to him. "Shit," he said. "This could be complicated, with Lena around."

I frowned. "How so?"

"Lena isn't the type to indulge in conversation about other women," Ralf began. "We'll have to keep this between us."

I was confused, and frankly, the idea that Lena might have an issue with me discussing my feelings with anyone else was irritating the shit out of me. "Wait. What business is it of hers my feelings about what happened?"

"Keep it down," Ralf cautioned. "She has enhanced hearing like I do, and do you think she cares whether something is rightfully her place before she speaks on it?"

I lowered my voice as Ralf suggested. "This really gets complicated, real fast," I muttered.

"Sure does," Ralf muttered just as quietly. "Now, what's on your mind?"

I let out an exasperated sigh, this latest business with Lena supposedly not liking any discussion about my private worries regarding Eveline only serving to make me feel even worse. I'd started to think that perhaps Eveline might have had a point after all. "Like I said, I feel like I really fucked everything up," I told Ralf, who said nothing, giving me a look of understanding. "For all Eveline has proven to be difficult at times, I..." I didn't know how to complete that sentence. Not least of all because I wasn't sure how I felt about her, about our adversarial relationship, or about her as a person.

About how wrong I could be when it came to my judgment of her personality.

"Shit," I whispered, bending over, feeling slightly nauseated. My nanocloud immediately clamped down on the reaction, however. I was grateful for that. "That last look she gave me before running off was pained," I took a deep breath. "I think I really hurt her."

For a moment, nothing else was said. Concerned about the silence, I glanced up, and noticed Ralf appeared to be thinking things over. "You seem to care about her," he said quietly, as though he was expecting this.

"No idea why," I quipped in a low voice. "I've only known her a week or so."

"Does that matter?" Ralf glanced at me "Sometimes, you can get a sense of someone within a short space of time, and grow to care about their well-being. With others, it takes much longer, but if you feel this way after only a week, what does it matter?"

"I guess not," I admitted. "Either way, I said some things I'm not even sure are true for her."

Ralf shrugged. "Undoubtedly," he offered.

"Thanks," I exhaled, feeling even worse. "I don't know... When she started giving me the silent treatment, I was already on the defensive. I don't tolerate that sort of thing, you see."

"Nor should you."

"I mean, it's abusive-"

"I agree," Ralf cut me off. "Being left not knowing how to resolve a conflict because the other person seeks to punish you with a communication moratorium like that is a terrible thing. She certainly could have handled the situation better as well."

"Yeah," I sighed again. I was doing an awful lot of that today. "Still," I took a deep breath. "The problem isn't just her giving me the silent treatment. The problem is that I could have just listened to her concerns about the mission." I paused for a moment, acknowledging the issue she had. "They were valid. It's diverted me from my primary quest."

"That's not really what's bothering you," Ralf told me, clearly not asking any questions.

"No."

"No," he repeated, then turned to face me square on. "I can't know how you might resolve this issue now, but if the two of you have a common acquaintance or friend to speak with, it might help if you contact that person and try to explain the situation, maybe extend an olive branch. Breach the gulf, whatever."

I nodded after a moment's thought. I certainly could make a call to Laurent or Aline. One of them would know what to do.

"Thanks, Ralf," I said in earnest, extending my hand. He took it in his paw and shook it. "I suppose we better get these branches back before everyone sends out search parties."

The gathering around the campfire was fairly subdued that evening. Most of the mercs were keen to get back to the caravan so they could regroup with their own friends if they had any, or collect their longer-journey provisions and make their own way onward otherwise. Ralf and Suzie disappeared for the evening, leaving me alone with Lena. For some reason I couldn't identify, I felt uncomfortable around her, even though I was clearly reacting to her sexuality. It was an odd combination that was setting me a bit on edge.

Eventually, the fire died down, and it was just the two of us.

"Credit for your thoughts?" Lena asked, amusement in her tone.

I glanced up at her, then back at the fire. "I'm just tired," I told her. "Been a long day, you know?"

"Yeah, the battle was certainly tiring," she told me.

I didn't know if she had deliberately misconstrued my remarks, or if it was just a coincidence, but I suddenly had no desire to talk to her about Eveline, about the fight today, or about anything else. "Yeah," I agreed, standing. "Sorry if this isn't what you wanted, but I'm going to go sleep."

I then set off toward my tent. It took a few moments for me to get everything laid out and ready to sleep, and I moved the sleeping blanket to one side of the bed roll, and stood ready to slip into it, when my tent opened, and Lena stepped inside.

"Are you sure sleep is all you want?" She asked without preamble, stepping up to me, running her hands along my arms, looking up at me expectantly. "I can think of other ways to make you feel better."

What I really needed was to talk to Eveline and make things right between us, but Lena was making it clear where her priorities lay, and that wasn't on helping me with my moral and emotional crisis. "Lena," I began, and my tone of voice must have alerted her, because a very brief flash of irritation crossed her features, so brief that I might have imagined it. "Look, I appreciate the thought, and you're enticing," I told her, meaning it. "But what I need to make me feel better can't come from what you have in mind."

A sensual smile crept up on her face, but it didn't reach her eyes, and that alone gave me the impetus to see this decision through. "Are you sure?" She asked, reaching to grab my arse. "How do you know unless you give it a try?"

I gently gripped her wrist and lifted it back up so it was between us. The look of irritation flashed on her face again, before she smoothed it out into one that I supposed was intended to be a cute pout. I wasn't fooled. She was up to something, and it put me on edge, almost immediately.

"Because I know my own mind," I told her quietly. "And I take offence at people who try to tell me that they know how my mind works better than I do myself."

I then immediately had cause to regret those words when I recalled how I told Eveline how she had made it clear that she hated every human being alive on the planet, a claim that I knew in hindsight was completely untrue. I was a fucking hypocrite, and it made me sick to my stomach. Again, my nanocloud clamped down on the reaction, and for all intents and purposes, Lena would have no clue.

"Alright," Lena said in what might have been a pleasant and friendly tone, but it had an edge to it. "Sleep well, Rick." She stepped back, and left my tent.

I let out a breath, relieved that she had gone. That exchange was odd, and I was on edge.

Is there any way I can designate a specific individual as a potential threat? I asked my nanocloud.

Affirmative. Visual Overlay can select targets at will.

Host should signal intention next time a target is in direct line of sight.

Nanocloud will designate the target accordingly.

Understood. Increase sensitivity of proximity alert and wake me if anyone attempts to enter this tent from this group, not just unidentified threats.

Confirmed.

That was about as well as I could do to ensure I wasn't disturbed this evening, or at least to ensure I could respond to the threat that might present itself. With that taken care of, I slid into my sleeping blanket and instructed my nanocloud to put me out.