Harlot leaned against the steel balcony outside the building. Children below played in the rubble, kicking a ball around. Explosions boomed at a low tune beyond the black mountains in the distance. Each boom was followed by a flash of light that shimmered a bit before dimming black. She looked down at her left hand that constantly twitched. She noticed AJ also had that problem with his. Maybe the twitching signified that something was wrong, she didn’t know. To her it felt like a side effect from being wounded.

AJ appeared beside her followed by the whoosh of wind traveling behind him. He turned around and leaned back against the balcony. With a cool posture he smiled at her. She glanced down at his fingers and like she suspected, they were twitching.

“So is everything alright?” she asked him.

“Yeah, I’ve found nothing out of the ordinary,” he told her.

“M’ask ya something, why does your hand constantly twitch?”

He looked down at his hand. “I subconsciously think I’m in constant danger. My hand it trying to grab my sword.”

“My hand also does that.”

“Your hand it trying to grab your gun. It feels you’re in danger and trying to protect you.”

Days ago when Harlot was transporting the vaccine, her convoy was attacked by russian soldiers and a russian spectre. It was the first time she’d been under shot at in a long time. She remembered the bullets piercing through the metal frame of the truck. The bullets splattering the brains of her comrades against the sides.

When she looked down at her hand it was completed splintered. Flesh was torn and ripped from it. She hadn’t been shot, but it was injured. She stared down and saw at the base of her feet, the half breathing body of the a Atom. Atom had been the spectre sent to protect them from russian forces. He lied in the puddle of his own blood that spilled from his torso and mouth.

Ever since that moment, her hand had been twitching. Her trigger finger flinching, trying to shoot a gun she didn’t hold.

“AJ how old are ya really?” she asked.

He hesitated to answer, caught off guard by a strange question. Anyone who looked at him could easily have said his age.

“Why do you ask?”

“You look eighteen but...you don’t act or seem eighteen.”

He smiled. “Physically I’m eighteen but mentally I’m much older. It’s one of the curses of being a spectre. You live longer than anyone else but...at the same time you die younger.”

She smiled because she didn’t understand what he meant. She guessed it was an inside spectre joke or saying.

“So how is Sev doing?”

He shrugged his shoulders. “The last time I saw him, he was riding his bike out with his girlfriend. I kept my distance from him for the past three days.”

“Are you two close?”

“I don’t think so. Him and I, we’re just soldiers who work together so much we learned to bear each other's presence. I guess you can call that friendship.” He looked down over his shoulder at the children playing below.

“I noticed Carter and that one soldier talking earlier,” she said.

“You mean Mike?”

“Yeah, It was when Mike first rolled up in the truck. They were whispering something to one another and glancing back at us.”

“I noticed that too,” he said.

“Is that why you went out scouting?”

He shook his head. “No, I felt something and wanted to check it out.”

Like other spectres, AJ can also sense the presence of another one of his kind. This was a skill, a third eye that allowed spectres to detect one another. Even if one is in flash step and the other one isn’t. Earlier today when him and Harlot entered the town, he left to go scout.

Under the brilliant sun’s blazing heat, he scouted the nearby area for what he knew was a spectre. The signal felt weak, wasn’t killing intent, so it was hard to pinpoint where it came from. He skulked through the inner streets, the cramped pathways and open road that past through the town. The farther he got away from the center of town the stronger the signal became.

There was a small shoddy shack like house on the outskirt of the town. It sit lopsided on a hill with shutters made of thin rusted sheets of metal. Walking across the desert, AJ noticed a small boy lying on top the the hood a pale crimson pickup truck. It sat beside the outside with a broken windshield and two wheels missing.

The boy gazed up at the blue sky above, the white puffy clouds sat frozen in the air. He noticed AJ’s black figure closing in on him and lifted up. He stared at him with wide eyes and an open mouth.

“Hey you!” he shouted, his words sounded slurred and lagged behind his mouth movement. “How are you moving normally?” He realized his words sounded weird and covered his mouth.

AJ’s hand started to twitch and he halted just feet from the boy. The signal was faint but it was no doubt coming from the boy himself. He started to project his thoughts into the boy’s mind. An ability that allowed spectre’s to easily talk to one another.

“I know this seems weird, but think about what you want to say from now on.”

The boy smiled. “Wow I can hear you in my mind.”

“Lucky for you, projecting ones thoughts comes naturally to spectres,” AJ said. “Now let me ask you something, what a spectre like yourself is doing here?”

“Spectre?” The boy didn’t know what that was.

“Uh, nevermind what I said. Are you ok?”

The boy shook his head. “No. everyone except for me and you is frozen.” To his ignorance the boy didn’t know he was in flash step, he didn’t even know what it was. This worried AJ because this meant the boy could have aged mentally days, months or even years. But, the way the boy acted told him he’s only been in flash step for about an hour in real time, maybe less.

“Do you know what’s going on?” AJ asked.

The boy shook his head again. “No, I just know that everyone moves slowly. When I pick something up and let go, it doesn’t fall as they should.”

AJ stepped closer to the truck and leaned back against it. “You’re in flash step right now,” he said, looking up at the sky. “It’s what spectre’s like me call it. Everything moves slowly because you’re moving at a quicker rate and experiencing things at a quicker rate.”

The boy nodded his head but didn’t understand what bit of what AJ was saying. “Then how are you moving at the same speed as me?”

“We’re just moving at the same speed...that’s all.”

For someone so young to have entered flash step something must have happened. Children like this boy must have been under extreme conditions to have done so. A natural instinct for survival? AJ wasn’t sure but that was the only guess he thought of.

“Hey kid, what’s your name?” he asked.

“My name’s Matt.”

“Alright Matt, what happened right before everything slowed down?”

Matt averted his eyes and was hesitant to tell AJ. “Um...my dad started to hit...my mom again. After he finished with her he looked at me. I wanted him to stop and that’s what he did. That’s what everyone did.”

“That sounds pretty rough kid,” AJ said. “Where are you parents right now?”

Matt looked at the shoddy out next to them.

“Alright, let me just it out.”

The dry wooden floorboards creaked as he went into the house. The bleak light entered through the window and dust particles glimmered in its light. The living room’s couch was tossed on it’s back and books were thrown from the shelves and scattered on the floor. He took careful steps, walking around the books and made his way to the kitchen.

Through the open door, he glanced at the scene before him. For him it was too hard to stare at such a scene. His finger’s started to twitch faster as he stared longer. The man, scruffed beard and white shirt covered in dirt, gripped his wife by the collar of her pink shirt. Her eyes were wide as she her hands above her face. The man was in mid swing, his fist already had a bit of blood stained on the knuckles. A frozen ominous scene that didn’t go anywhere.

AJ reached for his sword but didn’t pull it out. What was he going to do? Kill the man? At that moment he remembered what he wanted to do. He wanted to save people. But what’s the point if he had to kill other people to do so. It was backwards like this backwards world he lived in. But the boy’s father, he thought, was...a horrible man. He didn’t deserve a wife and child but he also didn’t deserve to die. That’s what AJ thought.

He came back outside back into the warm heat. Dusting off his cloths, he glanced at the boy having done nothing to change anything. There was no point in helping Matt at this point His body would grow tired and flash step would then wear off, but that could take hours in real time; days he’d experience. There wasn’t much of a choice. AJ could have taught him but chose not to. It was better and the boy what eventually learn to control flash step on his own.

Matt saw AJ walking away and hopped off the hood of the car. He went up behind AJ only to see him turn around. A single glance from his glimmering red eyes and...and he slowed to a halt.

“Hey mister, where are you going?” Matt asked.

…

“Mister?”

AJ had flashed stepped out and was now moving at regular speed. For him, Matt was too fast to see, boy might as well been invisible. A cool breeze rolled through and brushed across his face. He heard screams, feminine screams coming from inside the house. These screams were muted out by the low booms echoing from beyond the black mountains in the distance.

The same booms Harlot and him heard right now. He shook his head and stepped back away from the balcony.

“What’s the matter?” Harlot asked. “Remembered somethin wrong?”

He held his head down and looked at his hand. “Just how powerless I am,” he said, slowly closing his hand into a fist.

Harlot didn’t understand what he meant by the that. But she guessed it was just the way is was.

***

A muddy light gleamed on Sev’s forehead as he sat in the chair beside Shilah’s bed. A thin white sheet, frail like her, covered her body and face. A doctor, minutes before, had came it to place it over her and wrote the time on his notepad for later use. The time was, 9:00 PM. For everyone it had been a minute, for Sev...it had been hours. Hours which he used to say everything he wanted to say in the little time he had. In this dimly lit room, he stared at her body and tried to cry. But he eyes remained dry.

The door creaked open and East stepped into the room. She placed her warm hand on his shoulder and looked down with sorrow filled eyes. The kind of eyes he’d only seen once before. It meant she cared this time.

“I came as soon as I heard,” she said in a calm voice. “Want me to give you a moment?”

Sev wiped the dried tears from his eyes. “No, I already said everything I wanted to say.” He stood up, scooting the chair back, and took a deep breath.

“Is there anything you’d need?”

“Tell me something, did you cry when commander Adams died?” he asked. “Or were your tears as dried up as mines are.”

A spectre and commander, Adams was former head of this military base and also mentor to both Sev and East. He taught Sev how to fight while he taught East how to lead. The only base that withstood attacks from all directions while under Adams’ command, he ran it at peak performance though resources were low. Soldiers died but never died in droves and he never accepted any civilians inside the walls. Something him and East were always at odds about.

“No, I wasn’t able to,” East said. “The world’s so dried up it took my tears away.”

“That’s how I feel right about now,” Sev said. He stared down at Shilah’s body. “I’m sorry for treating you the way I did when Adam died. You did care.”

East reached into her pocket and pulled out a pack of cigarettes. There was no smoking allowed in the medical facility but she didn’t care at that point. There was too much going on anyways to follow rules. She pulled out too cigarettes and handed one to Sev and then held the other one in her mouth. She flicked her lighter a bit and then lit both her’s and Sev’s.

Sev inhaled the smoke deep into his lungs as he gazed out the window at the grey sea the span the distance. Smoke billowed from his mouth and out his nose.

“So where is AJ at?” he asked.

She tucked her hands in her pocket and talked with the cigarette in her mouth. “I sent him on a mission with Harlot.”

He took another hit from his cigarette and held the smoke in his lungs for a good second before blowing it out. “You mean the girl that had her hand messed up?”

She nodded. “Yeah, that’s the one.”

“I’m gonna go out and save him,” Sev said. “I’m sure he’s already in trouble.”

“You can find the missions spec on my desk,”she said as Sev stepped out of the room.