“Don’t come any closer!”

We immediately stopped our forward movement and took a few steps back.

“We are just passing through!” Carter yelled back, though her head turned as she did, uncertain as we were of where the voice was coming from.

“You the reason for the shot we heard?” the voice called back.

“Not exactly, no,” Carter said. Her voice was tight as she spoke, though, and I could tell she was trying to hold back tears.

“You see what happened?”

“We found the childcare facility.” It was Chavez who spoke up this time. His voice was angry but controlled as he continued. “One of our companions found a body and took his own life.”

“I think it was his son,” I added my thoughts.

“I’m sorry for your loss,” the voice answered, and it sounded like the man genuinely meant it. “We’ve all faced loss in some way or another these last two days.”

“Does that mean you’ll let us through?”

“I ain’t gonna stop you. Mind the bridge though and stay away from the water.”

“You know anywhere we can clean up?” Heidi called out. “A pool or something?”

“Oh, sure!” The speaker finally showed his face, opening a sliding glass door on a third-floor balcony overlooking the road.

He was carrying a rifle, though I couldn’t quite tell what the make was, other than it was an AR-style pistol. Thankfully, the weapon wasn’t pointed at us, though he still held it with practiced ease. The man was big in a former-pro-lineman sort of way — he carried a bunch of weight everywhere and looked like he knew how to handle it too. The weapon in his hand looked almost like a toy in his beefy hands.

“Head straight along this building. Behind that fancy apartment complex, you’ll see a large swimming pool. Wouldn’t recommend all go swimming at once, though. Gotta keep a lookout for the white-skins.”

“White-skins?” Carter asked.

“Yeah, that’s what I’m callin’ em,” he drawled. “The ones that went crazy an’ started killin’ everyone else. Anywho, good luck. Yer on yer own now.” With that, he stepped back into his apartment, the glass sliding behind him.

“He was friendly, at least,” Mason said jovially. “Wouldn’t mind sharing a beer with him.”

“Oh damn,” Chavez cursed, “I completely forgot T-Bag was carrying the Coronas.”

“You gotta be kiddin’ me,” Karl said. The middle-aged man looked almost as dejected as Chavez. “We go back?”

“Hell, naw!” Chavez exclaimed. “We push on.”

“In that spirit,” I interjected. “I want to delay the pool as well. We can find one later.”

“You’re not worried about the water from that mop that got all over you?” Carter asked. “How are you feeling, by the way?”

I had completely forgotten. In fact, I wasn’t even sweating in my full gear in the mid-70º heat. So, I shrugged and said, “Actually, I feel fine.”

“Come on, just ten minutes,” Heidi pleaded. Almost everyone looked like they wanted to agree, but I looked at Carter instead. Most of us were her team, even if Andy and I could be considered her seniors.

“Fifteen,” she said finally. “And Ward can keep watch.”

I threw a lazy salute and said, “yes, ma’am,” before falling in.

Seventeen minutes later, Heidi was still in the water, lazily floating on her back. Heidi had not hesitated to strip down to her underwear and get in the cool water, while the rest of us were much more modest about our appearances. The men only took their shirts off, and Carter, not even that.

After a brief dip, they dried off as best they could, using towels left abandoned on the side of the pool. Andy offered to take over my watch so I could get cleaned off, which I did. The water was cool and refreshing, but I couldn’t stop staring in fascination at the swirling blue patterns in the water. As I moved in the water, kicking my feet and moving my arms, I could see the water mana surge around me, dancing around pockets of white air mana. Even with my eyes closed when I went under to scrub at my face and run my hands through my close-cropped hair, I could still see the energies moving around me.

The girl, however, remained in the water for as long as possible before Carter was fuming mad and ready to go in after her. For a second, I thought she was considering shooting the teenager in the pool, but her hand stayed well away from her firearm.

I tried not to look at the girl. Her face and hair still reminded me of my daughter, and I couldn’t bear to see her flaunting her… assets for Mason, who was clearly the object of her attention. And every time I looked at her, not only was I embarrassed by her state of undress, but with my second vision, I could see that core of power pulsing in her chest. No, I kept my eyes occupied elsewhere. Anywhere else.

Finally, the girl got out of the pool, toweled off, and dressed. By the time she finished, I estimated it had taken us a total of thirty minutes. I looked up at the sky, but the sun was only a quarter of the way up. I did some rough math in my head. 9:45 or so? I already missed my watch, the dead timepiece only a useless accessory on my wrist now. As I thought about it, I pulled it from my wrist and tossed it to the ground.

We moved back to the bridge and shouted up at the apartment where the man had been. We called, but received no answer, and moved out onto the bridge. We were relaxed as we crossed. Nothing could attack from either end of the bridge without us seeing it clearly. We drifted to the side of the bridge to look out over the edge at the water below.

“Damn, but that is an ugly green,” I said when I looked.

“Yeah, I wouldn’t swim in that on a dare,” Carter said.

No sooner had the words come out of her mouth than we saw something move near the surface. My mind couldn’t handle the size of the creature in such a small water source. It looked like a bass, but its length was probably five times my height. It was like those goldfish that keep growing to best fit the size of the tank they are in, but this giant-ass thing was trying to outgrow an environment suited for fish no more than two or at most three feet in length.

Heidi shrieked in surprise and fell to the ground. Mason immediately began helping her up as the rest of us all backed away from the edge.

“I’ll agree with you there, ma’am,” Chavez said, looking like he might be sick.

My own stomach squirmed queasily as I saw the monstrosity swim away, an unsettling feeling settling into me. Exactly how many of the creatures out there now were affected by… whatever had happened? The concrete under my feet had moments before felt sturdy, but now I considered it poor protection from the thing that lurked in the water. For that matter, a leap onto or over the bridge would be easy for a monster of that size.

“Keep moving,” Carter said. “But we remain in the center of the bridge.” Oddly enough, no one contradicted her.

When we reached the other end of the bridge, I knew we’d made it to the other border patrol station. Or at least part of it. The high chain-link fences with concertina wire at the top were a dead giveaway. There was no one on guard at the fence, though it was secured with a large chain and padlock on the inside. That didn’t stop me from cutting through the steel with my sword, the shining silver aura separating the dull links in front of me. As I looked closer at the severed chain lying at my feet, I could see patterns in the metal links. Most of the metal shone with the same silver light, but there were cracks through the silver where it faded almost to a dull gray. I realized with a shock that I could now pick out flaws in the steel where the metal wasn’t as pure.

I shook the thoughts away, and we moved into the base, taking a moment to loop the chain back through the fence. It was not a great solution, since it wouldn’t hold back anything intelligent, but it was all we had at hand.

We found bodies. Some belonged to “normal” humans, but many more were the mutated white-skins, as the man at the bridge had called them. These each had bullet holes in them. What was more surprising was the core in the center of each of their chests. It was untouched, and shining like a beacon. When I saw the first one, I took an involuntary step toward it, then gritted my teeth, forcibly shoved down the desire, and looked away.

“Forrest, you okay, man?” Chavez asked next to me.

I realized I’d stopped moving, my eyes still fixed on the dead bodies.

“It’s okay, man,” Karl said behind me. “They’re dead.”

“That’s not what his problem is,” Andy said from the back. “He’s trying not to steal the energy from their bodies. Isn’t that right, Bear?”

“Shut up,” I muttered angrily. I wasn’t angry with Andy. Much. I was angry with myself. I told him yesterday that I had it under control, but I took a step forward anyways. And I felt… hungry. That was the only way I could think about it. I imagined it was the way an alcoholic felt when they looked at a bottle, and if I took one more sip, I also knew I wouldn’t be able to stop. Most of the day I had resisted this temptation for more power, and I knew that’s what it was — power. But even if the feeling was wonderful, like a junkie on a high, and even if it made me stronger and faster than I’d ever been, I also knew there was something wrong with me.

“Sorry, that’s not fair,” I said. I turned back to the group as a whole, but I couldn’t meet any of their eyes, though I could only imagine what they looked like. I’d seen men in the army who were using. The pressure got to them, and they gave in. I imagined I looked the same, and they would have the same judgment in their eyes that I’d held so long ago too. “I’m… fighting something inside me. I think it’s influencing my thoughts. I’m still in control, but it’s hard to push aside the urge.”

“Damn, man.” Chavez was the first one to speak. He walked over and put an arm on my shoulder as a sign of camaraderie. “I was starting to get jealous about all those improvements, but after seeing this…”

“We can have this discussion when we are in a more secure location,” Carter said. “I can see the Customs and Border Patrol Office from here. Let’s move in there, and we can keep talking about this.”

I nodded, and we took our positions again, Chavez in front this time. I scanned everything that was not on the ground. It seemed that after a certain distance, the glow from the cores inside the bodies disappeared like there was a limit to how far I could see. Now that I was paying closer attention, I realized I could not see any aura past six feet away from me. I focused on scanning anything that was outside that six-foot radius. The need for more power lessened as I focused on what I could and ignored what was a distraction. It was like learning to focus on what was downrange in my sights, regardless of what else might pop up in my peripherals.

We wound our way through the parking lot, which was littered with nearly fifty vehicles. When we cleared the last line of cars, a shot rang out, removing the side mirror of the sedan next to me.

“Stop moving,” an authoritative voice shouted.

“Not again,” Mason groaned.

We stopped though. Given how close the round had come to hitting me, I had no doubts that whoever fired the bullet could have hit me at this distance. We were only a hundred feet from the destination Carter had pointed out to us, and it was clear where the shooter was holed up.

“I’m GS-13 Carter,” our fearless leader yelled. “We came over from Veterans International.”

“I don’t recognize that name, GS-13 Carter.”

“We’re here to help gather more intel.”

“You want a sitrep? The whole situation is fubar.”

“Has there been any interaction with the National Guard?”

“I ain’t tellin’ you nothin’,” the voice called back. “You got ID?”

“Yes,” Carter answered.

“Put your guns on the ground and come here.”

Carter did as she was directed, putting down her weapons and approaching a darkened window. She handed her ID through to whoever was on the other side. There was muted discussion inside, which I couldn’t hear/understand at this distance.

The same hand offered the card back. There were a few more exchanged words before Carter turned and headed back toward us.

“We’re good,” she said. “He said that as far as they can tell, the station is clear of... those things.”

We followed her into the station, and a round of introductions began. Carter pointed at each of us in turn and kept it succinct with just our last names.

“I’m Watch Commander Gerrard Hogan,” a man in uniform said. He was a lean man, around fifty by my guess. The little hair left on his bald head was white and cut close to his scalp. His eyes were hard as he looked at all of us, and I suddenly had the sense that the wrinkles lining his mouth and forehead were not from smiling.

I paid little attention as Commander Hogan listed off the names of the individuals under his command. There were twelve in total, three of them women. They looked in worse shape than we were, though that was likely due to our dip in the pool. Even if our clothes were wrinkled from the water, they were at least moderately clean.

The main reason I paid no attention, however, was because it had already been caught by the glowing core of another person in the new group. It was a different color than Heidi's or my core, from what I could tell. Heidi's core was mostly blue, with white seeming to float on top of the blue, and red flecks throughout. Mine had stronger tones of silver and green. The newcomer's core was brown, like what I'd come to expect from the surrounding dirt.

I pulled my eyes up from that man and met his gaze. His eyes began to glow a pale green, and I felt a tremor in the ground where I stood. I tried to calm myself and took a deep breath in, catching a scent in the surrounding air before it immediately disappeared before I could identify it clearly.

“What are you?” the other man asked, his voice cutting through the conversation. I was surprised by how deep his voice sounded, like he spent his past time chewing on rocks.

“I could ask the same thing,” I answered.

“Excuse me?” Commander Hogan interrupted. "Do you two know each other?"

"Commander Hogan," the other man said. "This man, whoever he is, has powers like the whites.”

Immediately, the guns in the room came up and were all pointed at me.

“Woah,” I said, opening my hands so he could see them open, but not raising them completely. “I’m starting to get the sense that I’m not welcome here.” As I said it, though, I wondered why the man hadn’t said anything about Heidi.

“He doesn’t look like one of them,” one of the other border patrol agents said. “They were pale fellows, weren’t they?”

“Would you mind,” Commander Hogan asked in a measured tone, “stepping outside and back into the sunlight? Just as a precaution.”

“Commander,” Andy cut in, “I’m Lieutenant Anderson, and this is Lieutenant Ward from the U.S. Army. I can assure you that he has no ‘powers’, as your man said. He’s gotten stronger, but that is it.”

“I can smell it on him,” the other man said. “Smells like death.”

“As I said,” Hogan said. “Just a precaution. I would prefer to trust you all at your word, but I hope you can respect the gravity of the situation.”

“Of course, commander,” Carter spoke before anything else came out of Andy’s mouth, though he looked like he wanted to protest. “Have you run into any of these things that show as much intelligence as Lieutenant Ward?”

“No,” the commander replied with a sigh, “I can’t say that we have. However, Agent Pierce has never been wrong about this. He can usually tell when one of them is close.” Then the commander turned back to me. “Please, Lieutenant Ward.”

Keeping my hands raised, I stepped back out the door. With the rifles pointed in my direction, I felt like I was standing in front of a firing squad. I turned back to them in the clear sunlight.

“Good enough?” I asked as I rotated slowly.

Hogan looked over at Pierce, and the man shook his head.

“It’s not as strong when he’s outside,” he said. “It’s like he’s one of them, but the smell isn’t as strong.”

“Good enough for me,” Hogan said. “I’m sorry, Lieutenant, and I hope this doesn’t mean we have started on the wrong foot.”

“Not at all, commander,” I said and lowered my hands. “In fact, I’d like to talk to Pierce and hear more about what it is that he’s sensing. Or smelling?” I said the last as a question.

Pierce nodded, though he rubbed at his nose as if catching a whiff of a particularly foul stench.

“Excellent,” the commander said. He gestured for me to move back into the building. “We don’t have much food, I’m afraid,” he continued, “but we would, of course, be willing to share. Perhaps in exchange for the story of how a few border patrol agents, two army infantrymen, and a…” he paused to look at Heidi, as if trying to come up with the right word, “young lady all came to be in the same group.”

“With all due respect,” Andy said, “have you had any contact with the National Guard, commander?”

“National Guard,” he chuckled. “Son, we haven’t had contact with anyone except for the bodies you see lying around the parking lot. We haven’t moved from our position for a whole day.”

“No scouting groups?” Carter looked at the group of nine incredulously. “How much food could you possibly have left here?”

“We have not been simply sitting on our hands here, GS-13,” Hogan emphasized her grade as if to underscore the difference in their positions. “We have not gone so far as to collect supplies though. Frankly, if you had not arrived before lunch as you did, this location would have been empty when you arrived. We will finish packing what little supplies we need, perhaps load up a cart as you did, and we will make our way to the closest grocery store. Then we find another location to bunker down in, create a home base, and start looking for other survivors.”

We settled in for an early lunch, sharing the sparse snacks and canned food we carried with the other survivors, and they shared what they had as well. We had more than enough S. Pellegrino to share as well, which almost everyone agreed was not as good as advertised, and we shared laughs over Heidi’s scowls.