Twelve hours.
Twelve hours since she went off the radar. Twelve hours Dahlia’s spent fussing to me; worried out of her mind. Everyone at The Nest was fretting over the disappearance of their precious Falcon as If it was the end of the world. I didn’t see the point in panicking over one individual. People were dying every day, we could have always found another raider. Hell, I did twice the work and they wouldn’t have bat an eye if I disappeared.
In those twelve hours the Zombie’s radios were going haywire. It all started with a reported crash outside the wall and orders to patrol the Outskirts in search of criminals. Now they were buzzing with static, only the occasional check-in cutting through it.
By the time I could see the wall, there was only a few hours left before sunrise. The front gate was heavily guarded, at least three dozen Zomb’s walked around aimlessly on patrol-too many to sneak through.
I pulled off to the tree line and left Tiger hidden in the underbrush. My boots sunk into the cold sand as I passed between district six to fifteen. It was a long walk, but the suffocating shadow cast by Altro prison camouflaged me. It was common knowledge that there were no cameras on the outside of the impenetrable fortress. The Matriarch was too cocky to think anyone could ever breach the stone walls. I moved fast as lightning; blaster ready to fire.
This wasn’t the first time I had to get that close to the prison. Our man on the inside was very clear that he had to stay within ten feet outside the walls or he’d be busted. I found him lurking near a heavy iron door on the eastern side, just out of the watch towers sight. Vigilance wasn’t all that menacing-looking in the daylight with his scrawny figure and shaved head, but in the dark, he was as terrifying as a ghost. The only sign he was there at all was the glowing end of his cigarette and the smoke curling towards the sky. Ever since we were kids, he’d always been good at becoming invisible, blending with a crowd, but seeing him now brought new meaning to the word.
When he spoke his voice sent chills down my spine. “That you, Archer?”
I stepped out of the shadows so he could see me. “What’ve you got on Falcon?”
“Nice to see you too,” He grumbled, flicking his ashes to the wind. “Phoenix was found northeast of here hours ago at a two car collision, left a trail of wreckage behind it. Falcon wasn’t anywhere in sight.” He tossed me a thin, clear panel of glass, camera footage pulled onto the screen.
In the video I could see the inside of a car. It was blurry but I could make out two zombies inside. In the corner of the video-out the window was the sickening orange of Phoenix’s hood. The passenger Zombie crawled offscreen and fell through the roof holding a pink haired girl moments later. In the backseat, she wasn’t moving as chaos ensued outside of the buggy. Suddenly, the screen was cast in shadow as something landed on the hood.
The zombie driving smiled as he raised a blaster right at the camera. He fired and the screen was cut off. “Keep watching.” Vigilance sucked in another puff of toxic smoke.
When the video blared back to life, Falcon was inside the car, grappling for the wheel with the Zombie. The buggy swerved and the zombie fell out of the vehicle. I watched her slip into the driver’s seat, her shirt soaked in blood.
“You idiot, turn around.” I groaned. She didn’t even follow procedure and check the buggy for more zombies, no wonder she was caught. My stomach churned at the painful cry she made as she applied pressure to her wound. The video blurred in and out of fucus but the last thing I saw was Falcon getting a face-full of metal as she swerved into another car.
I fought to hide my satisfaction. Once again, I was right-Falcon managed to screw up a simple rescue mission. But then my blood started to boil-if she was dead then all anyone would talk about was how much of a hero she was for trying. And Dahlia, I just knew Dahlia would never let it go. No, I need to see a body before I made assumptions or reported back to base. “Is she dead?”
“No idea,” He let out his last puff of smoke and threw the cigarette into the sand, squashing it under the tip of his boot. “Don’t really care. You asked for info, I gave it.”
Scanning his ID, the door buzzed open. He spoke softly as he stepped through the doorway. “You better find her Archer; you won’t make it six months otherwise and you know it.”
I watched as the door slammed shut behind him. His words left a lingering sense of horror in their wake. It never occurred to me just why I had to find her. Why everybody was panicking over her disappearance: Falcon was an idiot.
But she was the idiot who put other lives before hers. Who ran into fire without thought. An idiot, yes, but a valuable one. Nobody else was stupid enough to do what she does. Vigilance was right, without Falcon there would be no rescues for any Outliers. Our numbers would fall drastically. We’d been so reliant on her stupidity for so long, we didn’t know how to survive without it.
I ground my teeth together and slammed the screen into the concrete wall out of spite.
ns 15.158.61.23da2
