One of Regis’ henchmen was exactly where I expected him to be, hunkered down in a building across the street. He was five stories up, which was why I didn’t see him until I was in the middle of the street. He was in the building northwest of our apartment, so I chose the building next to him to search. I did a cursory search of the premises, looking for anything that might be useful, but especially a new pair of clothes for myself. Unfortunately, the building seemed to be mostly normal residents, and there was no clothing in “extra damn large”.

I relied on my mana sight to pick out what I was hoping to find. Bottles of water shone blue to my new sight, and with a little concentration, I could pick out the flows of mana floors away. It was different for something that wasn’t living. Living creatures were like beacons if they had a core of power. The man on the fifth floor, as an example. I could pick out a living creature at a hundred feet, regardless of whether I could see them or not. The mana was there, and it was a beacon. However, I couldn’t see inanimate objects as well. Everything seemed to be made of mana, but something like a bottle of water was blue mana, with some swirls of white in it. I had to focus, past the gray mana that made up walls, the green, or silver mana for beams, whether they were wood or steel. Then I could finally pick out the patterns in any given room at a glance.

Of course, this meant that anyone could see me too. But what if I could hide the mana in my core? Was it even possible? Someone like Regis, who was Citrine rank, might be able to pick me out at a hundred feet as easily as I could do him, but was there a way to disguise my strength, or hide my core in some way?

I thought about it as I looked for more supplies. I’d snagged an empty bag on my way over, and it was already half-full with water, freeze-dried snacks, and canned food. I was particularly looking forward to eating the beef and beans.

What if I made my core look like something else? What if I could just make it look like a bottle of water from a distance? I thought about my core and the mana in it. Looking down at my chest, I imagined the white mana all coming to the “surface” of my core and surrounding the other mana so densely that it would be difficult to see through. The mana responded slowly, ponderously. I Willed it to cover the surface of my core. The layer was thin, though, unable to cover everything completely.

So, I tried something else. The silver mana, I pressed together in the very heart of my core. I tempered its usually rigid nature with the red mana of heat, pressing them together in a liquid state.

Around the burning center, I shaped the gray mana, the only thing that could withstand the heat. I could feel it pulled in toward the molten center, even as the red and silver center pushed back on the gray pressure.

Next, I formed the green mana. The more solid nature seemed to fit next into this construction. It settled over the gray mana, seeming to wriggle into the gray mana, burrowing deeply, but not in any way diminishing the firm foundation. In some places, the green mana was left empty, while other places teemed with it.

When the mana had settled down in its own time, I added the blue mana, which swirled around the core. It filled in every crevice until the core was almost uniformly blue, though some places were topped with green, and fewer still were barren gray.

Finally, I layered on the white mana, creating a perfect sphere for my core. The white mana settled over the sphere, laying thickly over the core like a fog. I grinned in satisfaction. If anyone looked at my core now, they would have to be much closer to peer beneath the outer layer of the core. In fact, without practice, I doubted anyone would be able to manage it.

When I withdrew my attention from my core, I realized I was standing in the middle of a hallway on the second floor of another apartment building, and I hadn’t moved for several minutes. Possibly, an hour. And with that realization, that relaxation of concentration, my core dissipated back to its swirling mass of mana. With the release, I felt the tension leave my chest as well. It felt like the time I’d been in training for The Unit, and they made us swim the length of a swimming pool underwater in full gear with a forty-pound ruck. The push off the bottom of the pool while you push back the darkness crowding in. Then you get to take that breath of fresh air, and it’s so sweet and fresh, but burns your lungs at the same time.

That’s what it felt like when my concentration relaxed, and my core flew apart. And I knew when I felt it, that I had to do it again, but longer next time.

I looked out the nearest window to check the sun, but it was almost down. I frowned in disappointment. I wouldn’t have time to try molding my core again, but I knew I was onto something with what I was doing. I would have to talk it over with Corey the next time I had the chance to talk to him. Of course, he might not know anything about it. He was a core, after all. What could a core know about forming a core? He already was one.

I made my way back to the apartment building, all four of my teammates standing guard at the front entrance. My keen ears picked up the low buzz of conversation in the back of the room, where about twenty people gathered. The group consisted entirely of women and children. Brandon looked to be the oldest of the kids, but the range in the ages of the women was wide. The youngest was no more than twenty-five. I looked with dismay at the three oldest women, who stood in the group, holding themselves up with shaking hands on their walkers.

Shit.

I’d done a dozen rescue ops, from covert recoveries to smash-and-grabs, like the disaster in Mexico. This was going to be worse. Multiple targets to protect, three of whom would slow down the entire group. The youngest kids would slow us as well, but the little ones could be carried. For a brief moment, I considered tying one of the old ladies to my back and just carrying her that way. I was probably the only one big enough to get away with that, though. If my team was all at Citrine rank, we could probably make it work, but it wasn’t an option now.

To give me more time to think on the issue, I skirted the group and moved back upstairs to grab the rest of my gear, which was just my single backpack. By the time I made it back downstairs, I knew what I had to say.

The way I saw it, the old ladies were dead weight. Brutal, but that was the situation we were in. We wouldn’t make it far with them in tow. The problem was that we couldn’t leave them behind either. I’d met Regis’ eyes, and I knew he wouldn’t hesitate to abandon these women. As old as they were, they likely wouldn’t be many benefits in his bunker, compound, castle, or whatever secure location he had. And I did not doubt that Regis wouldn’t hesitate to cut anyone he considered “dead weight”.

The room went silent when I stepped out of the dark stairwell and into the darkening lobby. The patch of sky I could see outside was the golden time before fading to twilight. This meant we would move out in thirty minutes, so I had probably twenty to convince everyone to either come with us or stay here.

“We’ve been talking,” Brandon’s mom said.

She still hadn’t introduced herself, so I figured I’d call her Karen in my head. That was probably unfair, but I couldn’t help it. It just seemed to fit so well. I realized that I would be extremely disappointed if she ever did tell me her real name, and it wasn’t Karen. I mentally crossed my fingers and wished for the impossible.

“Brandon and I will be coming with you,” she continued. “And the mothers and children.”

“Everyone else?”

“We’re staying,” the youngest woman said, the same I’d noted earlier as being on the young side.

“There’s no easy way to say this,” I said. “The three with walkers need to come too.”

Fuck me. I hate being the good guy sometimes.

“We would only slow you down, boy.” The one that spoke stood the straightest of the three. Her white hair was tied back in a tight bun. She spoke in a thick, Slavic accent.

I smiled at the old lady’s comment. Another one gave a nod of approval, while the third stared into the distance with a vacant expression.

“Yes, you will,” I agreed. “But if you don’t come with us, you won’t last another day.”

“Explain.”

Damn, I loved this crone. A no-nonsense attitude and an expectation of respect from the younger generation.

“Because the man coming here to ‘save’” – I put air quotes around the word “save” when I said it – “you will probably leave you to die. He is not a kind man, and if he thinks you are dead weight to him, then you may as well be dead. I don’t know this for certain, but that’s my assessment of him as a person and as a leader.”

The old lady was quiet for a long time as everyone stared at her. I could see the bright light of intelligence behind those eyes, not at all diminished by her age. Just as clearly, I could see the decision she made. Before she even spoke, my respect for her grew.

“I will stay. All three of us will.”

“No, Nanna,” the young woman said. She gripped her grandmother’s arm as if simply holding on to her would mean she wouldn’t lose her. “Maybe it’s better if you go with them – if we both go with them.”

“I agree that you should go with them, sweetheart. But I will stay here.”

“I won’t leave you behind.”

“Susatchka,” she said, “you must not stay here if this is the kind of man who is coming.”

“I won’t leave you,” she insisted, tears coming to her eyes.

“You could never leave me, solnyshko,” she said with a smile.

I turned away from the group. I’d stated my case, and their decisions on how they wanted to lead their lives were up to them. I couldn’t force them to do anything.

I caught Andy’s eye, and he came over to me, speaking in a low voice. “She’s right, you know. They’re more likely to get us killed if they come along.”

“And they’re definitely going to die if they stay here,” I growled. “It was a hard choice, but I had to give them the option.”

“You’re a good man.”

“Then why do I feel like shit?”

Andy smiled at me. “You wouldn’t be a good man if you didn’t.”

“Let’s do some remodeling.” I pointed at the dark stairwell. “This leads to a back alley where the scout won’t see us.”

“As good a spot as any.” Andy shrugged.

“Sometimes I do want you to disagree with me, you know?”

Andy gave a short laugh. “You know I have no reservations about calling you on any dumbass mistakes.” We held a long silence in the darkness of the stairwell.

“Mexico feels like years ago now,” I said.

“Yeah.”

“What happened man?”

“The world went to hell in a hand-basket.”

“How are we gonna fix it?”

“Honestly?” Andy looked at me in the darkness. I wasn’t sure how much of my face he could see, but his expression was clear to me. “We do the same as we would have before all this went down. We save the world, one person at a time.”

“Does that include the old ladies?” I grunted.

“You can’t save everyone. You’re not a god.”

“Good talk,” I said with a short laugh. “Real encouraging.”

“I’m here to tell it to you straight, not give you sunshine and rainbows.”

“Yeah, cuz no-one wants that.”

“Hell, no, they don’t. This is real. This is happening.”

“Hooah,” I muttered.

“Hooah.”

Creating our own exit was more difficult than I anticipated. Cutting through the wall was easy. Pulling the wall apart, so there was a decent gap, was the tricky part. We had to do it in the dark, at the back of the building, and quietly enough to not alert the lookout across the street. We were ten minutes behind my schedule before we had the refugees lined up.

Everyone decided to come. Aside from the three older women. The children were tired and fussing in the way that children complain when they think it’s all about them. They did it quietly, though, a testament to the fact that loud children likely didn’t live long in the apocalypse.

Before we left, I stopped to say goodbye to the old Russian. She sat on an armchair in the middle of the lobby, the chair facing the lobby entrance, like a queen awaiting her courtiers. Her back was straight, and she somehow managed to look down her nose at me, even though she was sitting, and I was… well, me.

“You take good care of my granddaughter now,” she said.

“I will,” I promised. “But how did you convince them all to come?”

“I told them the truth. That a man who would kill old women is not to be trusted over the one who offers to save them.”

“Thank you. You may have saved her life.”

“No, no. Thank you.”

“What is your name, that I may remember you?”

“I am just an old woman.”

“I will just find out from your daughter.”

“Perhaps.”

I let the conversation end there. I stood and made my way to the back exit. My team had organized everyone into a group, and they surrounded the civilians.

I took my place at the front, drew my sword, and stepped into the back alley.