Mira's lost her marbles

Impulse just snickers. Gottim.

Skizz beats on his shoulder with tiny punches, chuckling, "Stupid jerk."

Impulse laughs quietly and pushes him off. He sits up and takes in what there is to see. The sun has not made its appearance in the sky yet, but the camp is already quietly astir, full of people getting ready for the day.

Some of them are boiling rainwater. Some are sorting through their belongings. Some are chatting quietly with each other while they clean clothes and utensils.

He would have expected to see children running around, playing hide and seek and tag in the lanes between the tents. He can see children, but they're not playing with each other. The older ones help their parents with the chores, running errands and caryying small burdens; and the the ones who are too young to work just sit nearby, quietly sucking on their fists, staring at the newcomers with big eyes.

His heart twists oddly, looking at that, and he has to turn away.

Thankfully, he soon has a distraction.

“Yoo-hoo! ‘Scuse me! Night crew, comin’ through!”

Impulse’s eyes widen, and he sits up straighter. He recognizes that singsongy voice; it’s the archer that they met last night.

Scar rolls up the parking garage ramp, leading a small procession of battle-weary people on foot. The respirator mask hangs around his neck, leaving the lower half of his face exposed; and for the first time, Impulse can see his broad smile, and the huge impact scar that blooms on his cheek and slices across the bridge of his nose.

Well. Makes sense how he got his name.

“Welcome back, Scar,” says X, stepping out of his “office” near the elevators. “All well out there?”

Scar snaps a salute. “All present and accounted for, chief. Same number of arms and legs we left with!”

X chuckles softly. “Well, that’s always a relief.”

The night crew passes by, making their way towards the camp and talking quietly amongst each other, but one of them stops and meets Impulse’s eye.

It’s the girl. The one that X called Gem. Her hood is thrown back, curly red hair spilling over her shoulders, and in the pale light of dawn Impulse can see that her eyes are a vibrant green, almost as bright as the dragon tattoo curling on one of her now-bare arms.

He stands up to say hello, half-nervous, but also happy to see her. “Hi.”

She steps closer, slowly, as if she can’t believe what she’s seeing. “You did make it.”

Skizz snorts. He’s still sitting down, and he's pulled off one of his boots to fix the laces on it. “Of course we did. ‘Cuz we’re awesome. What’s up.”

There’s a long, damning silence. She looks very unamused. “Sure.”

Impulse can’t help but laugh a little. Okay, she’s sassy. He's starting to think they're gonna be great friends.

That’s when Scar butts in. “Hey Skizzy!” he says cheerfully.

Skizz laughs and reaches up to give him a fist-bump. “Hey, Scar!”

Scar turns to Gem. “He’s the one who called me Hot Guy,” he says, with a jolly chuckle.

Gem wheels on Skizz, hands on her hips. “Oh it’s your fault!” 

Skizz throws his hands up in the surrender position, flailing like a child, and the boot drops into his lap. “What?!” he cries. “What did I do?”

“He has not.” She takes a step closer. “Shut up about that.” She takes another step. “All. Night.”

By this point, she’s looming over Skizz, glaring down at him like he’s a child caught by a disappointed teacher, but he just seems to think this is funny instead of scary and breaks down into hooting laughter.

“I’m gonna change my callsign,” Scar says with a smirk at Gem.

“Don’t you dare,” she snaps back.

Suddenly, both of them are shoved aside, and a set of night vision goggles gets right up in Impulse’s face, making him jump. “Greetings, noble travelers!” booms the brown-haired man behind the goggles.

“Oh no,” sighs Gem.

The interrupter is undeterred. “My good knight, Gemini, tells us that you have journeyed far as emissaries from distant lands!”

Impulse is a little startled, but he manages to reply, “I, uh…I guess you could say that.” He can almost smell this guy’s breath. His voice sounds familiar; was this the guy yelling about kingdoms and horses and chariots last night?

“In that case, allow me to introduce myself!” he crows. “A lesser man might take offense that you did not recognise the dignitary with whom you have come to make treaty—”

Gem looks Very Done. “Ren.”

“—but I forgive your social faux pas, for I am a gracious ruler and I am not in the mood for beheadings today!”

She rolls her eyes.

“I am called Ren, his most illustrious majesty, King of the City!”

Impulse shoots an alarmed look at Gem. What the heck is this guy talking about? King? There’s no king here. And what was that about beheadings? 

Gem just gives him a look that is longsuffering and very very Done. She does not seem to be concerned about the implied threat of decapitation, though, so that's a relief.

After a long pause, Ren speaks again. “Are you not impressed?”

“Give ‘em a minute, King,” Gem says with a sigh. “It’s…a lot to take in.” The way she says it, it doesn’t sound like a compliment.

“Ah, I understand,” Ren says sagely. “It is overwhelming to be in the presence of such an awe-inspiring monarch.”

Impulse looks at Gem for help. Gem rolls her eyes where Ren can’t see it and mouths just go with it.

“It—um—it’s nice to meet you, your majesty?” stammers Impulse. This feels awkward and silly.

“Ah, thank you!” says Ren. “The pleasure is all yours, I’m sure!”

Skizz sits up straighter. “So…so you’re a king?” He sounds almost too invested.

“Indeed!” declares Ren. “Or I would be, if not for this accursed war that ravages our lands. I am the rightful heir to the throne, but I was ousted by our rival kingdom! Condemned to live as a peasant in the dirt and the filth.” He turns and puts a hand on Gem’s shoulder, softening his voice. “Not that I dislike the peasants, of course. I love my subjects, and I am content to live among them.”

She shrugs his hand off with a scowl.

“But the throne that should be mine is barred from me! And now these interlopers seize our land and salt our fields!” He throws the back of his hand to his forehead. “Oh, the horror! The disgrace!”

Skizz waves one hand in front of him. “Wait, wait, wait, hang on. I thought X was in charge here.”

Ren recovers quickly. “Ah, you have met Sir X! One of the most esteemed men in my court. He commands my soldiers, but he does not command me. A king does not wage his own wars, you see. He entrusts that to a general!”

“A general,” Impulse says slowly. “Right.” He’s starting to understand how this strange code language works.

“Oh, where are my manners?” cries Ren. “I have not yet introduced to you my noble Sister Queen!” 

With that, he pulls the blonde lady into view. She’s thin as a nail, her gaze is like daggers, and now that he’s gotten a look at her in the light, Impulse can see that she has a large red heart tattooed over one eye.

Suddenly, the loquacious man with a medieval delusion seems friendly by comparison.

“This is False!” declares Ren. “Next in line for the throne, illustrious warrior, queen of hearts, heads, and body parts! She brings me the skulls of my enemies on a pike!” He pauses. “Sister,” he says quietly and with great seriousness, “you forgot the skulls of my enemies today.”

“Can’t do it today, Ren,” she says simply. “Ran out of pikes. Next time.”

He nods. “Ah, yes, of course.”

Impulse looks at Gem. Gem shrugs.

Impulse is honestly starting to wonder if he’s the one who’s crazy.

“Wait, so…” Skizz says slowly, “what’s the truth?”

Gem turns and stares at him in horror.

Ren pauses. He looks like he might be blinking down at him behind the googles. “I beg your pardon?”

“You said that’s false,” says Skizz. “So what’s the truth?”

“That is the truth.”

“But you said it’s false!”

“Not it’s false, she’s False!”

“Then why do you hang out with her?!”

“Her name,” says Gem, butting in. “Her name is False.”

Skizz frowns, processing this. “Well does she got a real one?”

“That is the real one—!” Gem throws her hands in the air, giving up. “Oh my god.”

“‘False’ is my callsign,” the blonde woman explains. “It’s what I answer to.”

With that, the lightbulb finally comes on. “Ohhh!” says Skizz, and then he exclaims, “Well why didn’t you guys just say that?!”

Gem facepalms. Scar snickers. Impulse says nothing. He’s more confused than he was when this conversation started.

After a long pause, Ren speaks again. “In any case! We the Royal Family are pleased to bestow upon you the honored title of Friends of the City, in such illustrious company as the Irradiated Ones and the Great and Powerful Goat. Bear it well!”

“Thanks!” Impulse says, admittedly relieved. At least he’s not planning to kill them…right now. “It’s…it’s an honor.”

Skizz’s eyes are wide. “Did you say you know the Goat?”

Gem hisses at him and makes a slashing motion across her throat, but he doesn’t seem to notice.

“Yes indeed!” says Ren. “You have made his acquaintance as well?”

“Heck yeah, dude!” Skizz clasps his hands together. “We’re like, tight!”

“Incredible!” crows Ren. “This is wonderful news! A friend of the Goat’s is a friend of mine.”

Gem facepalms and drags her hand down to her chin.

With that, Skizz pulls his boot back on and stands up, and he and Ren go off to one side, chattering about their mutual acquaintance. False fixes Impulse with a long, silent look—he feels like he’s being sized up like a bug—and then she turns, shoulders first, and walks away.

Impulse just stands there, feeling small and a little bit rattled. Finally, he squeaks out, “Gem?”

She seems nonplussed. “Yeah?”

“Is he…?” Impulse winces. “There’s no nice way to say this.”

“Crazy?” she guesses, and then shrugs. “I mean…yeah.”

“Crazy?” echoes Scar. “I was crazy once. They put me in a room. A rubber room with rats.”

Impulse looks at him with horror. Oh no not him too…!

“Scar,” Gem scolds him. 

Scar snickers, waving a hand in front of him. “Okay, I’m kidding, I’m kidding! But seriously, everyone around here’s at least a little bit crazy, right? So it’s fine! He’s not hurting anybody.”

“I…I guess not,” Impulse says slowly. Skizz certainly seems to be enjoying the conversation, by the looks of it.

Gem sighs. “Look,” she says soberly. “I…don’t like it. It drives me nuts. I wish it would stop. But the last time he broke and remembered what reality really is…it…” There’s a haunted look in her green eyes. “It was bad. Really bad. So we just…let him have it.”

Impulse isn’t sure if what he’s feeling is terror or heartbreak. “That’s…that’s terrible.”

Scar shrug. “Eh, could be worse. You should see the Mercenaries. I don’t think Joe’s thought a normal thought in his life. And Cleo is literally green!”

Impulse looks around nervously. “Are they…here?”

“No,” says Gem. “They live in the Reactor. We can’t go near them. They’re literally radioactive.”

Impulse blinks. He hates to admit it, but he feels almost relieved. “Oh.”

“Yeah, we just work with ‘em sometimes,” Scar says, stretching his hands behind his head. “When X can pay enough.”

Impulse isn’t really paying attention. He’s watching Ren and Skizz eagerly talking to each other off to one side. 

Life’s been rough in the Silo. There’s no doubt about that. The first few years there were touch and go, tense and contentious, scrambling and scraping together just enough to survive and trying to keep neighbors from killing each other in the process. But to his knowledge, no one back home had it so bad that it broke their mind; no one had to escape to a fantasy just to survive.

He’s curious about Ren. Curious and frightened. What happened to him? What has he seen? What kind of pain did it take to break him? He seems so harmless, with a wide smile and friendly demeanor, and yet…there’s something absolutely gut-wrenching behind it.

He wants to know. He wants to understand. But at the same time…it’s probably better that he doesn’t.

He wonders if it would break him too.

Scar is still talking. “Would be nice if he really knew the Goat though. I could finally have a gun. A real gun! A nice one that shoots straight and doesn’t jam all the time and blow up in your hands when you use it. Ohh, and while we’re talking pie in the sky: an airplane. I always wanted to fly an airplane.”

Gem’s arms are crossed. “It—do you want him to die? Because he would die.”

“What?” Scar scoffs. “Nooo.”

“Ren’s an idiot!” she cries. “He would not survive!”

“He’s not that bad!”

“The Goat would eat him!”

“He’s got a good personality! I think he could win him over.”

She’s nearly shrieking. “For breakfast!”

“Speakin’ a’ breakfast,” Skizz says loudly, “I’m starvin’!” He tromps over, sits down on the cardboard pallet, and pops open his food tin.

Gem slams it back shut. “Don’t.”

Skizz recoils, surprised and a little offended. “What?” he says with a frown. “Why not?”

“If you bring that out now, you’re gonna get swarmed,” she says in a harsh whisper. “Just wait until everyone else gets food.”

He sticks his lower lip out like a petulant child. “But I hungey.”

Gem rolls her eyes. “If you wanna keep the good stuff to yourself, you’ll wait until our scavenger gets back.” 

She leans back against the concrete wall, takes out a knife, and begins to sharpen it. Scar gets distracted and wanders off. Skizz sighs and pulls his shoe off to keep working on it.

Slowly, still feeling a bit off balance, Impulse sits down. He’s not sure what to make of this entire conversation. He feels rather in over his head.

Skizz grumps, “I’m gonna eat this boot.”

------

It's not long after that that Skizz excuses himself and steps out into the alleyway near the parking garage. He's snuck three things in his pocket: a cigarette, a lighter, and a stick of beef jerky that he's not keen on sharing.

He takes a drag and exhales, watching the smoke drift into the sky and melt away into the morning haze. The air is still cool and quiet, with the lingering smell of freshly fallen rain. It's kind of nice, actually. Skizz had forgotten what fresh air smelled like.

There's a walking bridge over his head, spanning the distance between the third floor of the garage and what's left of the Spire. It's seen better days. The glass is broken, the joints are rusted, and birds have made nests in the diagonal struts at the top of the supporting pillars. It honestly looks like it could come down at any second.

Skizz steps just to one side of it, just in case his luck decides to fail him today.

He tears off a bite of the beef jerky and starts gnawing on it, trying to reduce it from the consistency of shoe leather back into an edible form. The noise in his jaw is so loud that he almost doesn't hear the singing.

He turns his head. Someone—or something—is coming up the alleyway.

It looks like a bush. A houseplant seems to be shambling up the street, walking right on the dotted white lines, and for a split second Skizz wonders if the light is playing tricks on his eyes or if he's going crazy. But as gets closer, he realizes that the leaves and moss dripping off this shambling shape are artificial, and there’s a human form underneath.

It’s a short man in a ghillie suit. His already small form is stooped even lower under a backpack that’s almost as big as he is, singing to himself as he drags along a rusty old cart loaded up with spare parts and junk.

"Why hello, Oscar!" The handle of the cart clanks on the pavement when he drops it, and he bends down to talk to the dandelion that's growing out of the crack in the sidewalk. His voice is boisterous and loud, with a significant lisp. "Did’ja like the rain last night? Yeah, I betcha did."

He strokes the yellow head of the flower with a finger that's gentle but has dirt under its nail. "Your petals look just gorgeous today," he says reverently. "What a lovely, vibrant yellow. Mhm. Nobody stepped on ya, did they? Any bugs eat your leaves? They better not. I’ll kill ‘em," he declares, with surprising sincerity, like he’s offering something out of the goodness of his heart. "I’ll kill ‘em, Oscar, I’ll kill all the bugs for you."

Ooookay, Skizz thinks as he gnaws on the jerky. He is starting to see why Scar gave them that warning.

But now he’s figuring he should probably introduce himself, before he scares this guy, so he steps out of the shadow of the bridge and into view.

"WHA-HO-WAH-HEY!" Bush-Guy flails inelegantly under his backpack, crashing into the cart, and then clutches his chest and bends over. "Ohhh. Oh, ya gave me a heart attack."

Skizz can't help but chuckle, raising his hands apologetically. "Sorry, sorry. I was trying to not do that."

"Ohhh geez." He pauses, peering a little closer at Skizz. "Hey, wait a second. Do I know you from somewhere?"

Skizz takes a small step back. He can feel sweat on his neck. "Uh…don’t think so? I’m the new guy. X let us in last night."

"Oh, he did, did he? What’s the password?"

He leans in, one eyebrow raised in suspicion, and despite this strange man in the ghillie suit being far shorter than him, Skizz can’t help but feel a bit intimidated.

"Uh…"

He’s racking his brain, trying to remember. X must have told them last night, right? What did he say it was? Oh no. Why can’t he recall it?

The little man waits long enough to let him squirm, and then straightens up and barks laughing at him. "I’m just messin’ with ya! If you were bad news, the lookout would’a put a hole in your head by now!"

He says it with such a cheerful, toothy grin that Skizz is laughing before the words register, and then suddenly he’s scared.

His laughter peters off lamely. "Oh, yeah, that’s…that’s right."

He looks diagonally across the street to the Convex building and sees that broken window on the seventh floor. It didn’t even occur to him that he’d been in shooting range this entire time.

"Hey!" Bush-Guy swats him, making Skizz jump, and then shakes a dirty finger in his face. "Never. Look at. The Nest. We don’t wanna give away where it is."

Skizz's eyes widen. "Ohhh, yeah, right, right, got it." Of course you wouldn't want to reveal the sniper's position.

"Well, bye, Oscar!" the strange bush man says loudly to the dandelion, and leans down to pet it. "You grow up big and strong now. That’s a good little flower. I’ll see you later!"

With that, he gathers his things and starts to weave his way through the car maze. Skizz grinds his cigarette out on the wall and follows him; mostly out of curiosity, but also out of concern. The little guy seems to be struggling under that backpack and cart.

"Can I give you a hand with that?" he asks.

"Oh, please and thank you," is the immediate answer.

Skizz takes the backpack on his shoulder and can't help but be surprised by the weight. Dang, that's heavy. Now unburdened, Bush-Guy starts to pull the cart up the ramp, navigating through the car maze with practiced ease.

The silence stretches for just a bit too long, and Skizz starts to get uncomfortable. "Sooo…you like…plants?" he asks, trying to break the ice.

Bush-Guy lights up. "Oh boy do I! Have you seen ‘em? They’re fantastic! You don’t even gotta do nothin’ for ‘em, you just need dirt and sunlight and BAM there they are! And you can eat ‘em! It’s like food, for free! We don’t got a lot of ‘em in the city ‘cuz everything is paved and horrible but they’re coming back."

His voice drops to a low growl, and his round brown eyes widen in a maniacal grin. "Oh, they’re growin’ back. They’re comin’. The plants, the…the flowers, the trees, the green things, they’re gonna take this whole place over. It’s startin’. They’ll break the concrete if you give ‘em long enough. Yes sir. This was their land once, and they’re takin’ it back, and the City’ll be better for it."

Skizz, in a rare moment of wisdom, holds his tongue. This guy is terrifying.

They pass through the empty first level of the parking garage and go up the ramp to the second one. The moment they turn the corner, Ren steps forward, arms spread wide.

"Hark!" he cries. "My noble advisor has returned!"

Bush-Guy waves broadly. "Greetings, your majesty!"

"You have come with provisions for the common folk!"

"Forsooth, I have!" He pulls a packet out from under his ghillie suit and hands it to Ren. "And one for you, o gracious king!"

"Excellent!" Ren waves him on. "Sally forth!"

The little guy is almost immediately swarmed by hungry people and grasping hands. Skizz very quickly finds out what was in the heavy pack he was carrying: it’s food. Or, well, sealed baggies of ConCorp branded Food Product. Which—by his recollection of the few times he was unfortunate enough to eat it—was basically flavorless nutrient sludge mysteriously engineered in factories on the outskirts of the City. It was cheap and plentiful but frankly disgusting, and back during his time in the underground, he would usually rather go hungry for the day than choke down one mouthful of the awful stuff.

But here, it seems to be a hot commodity. This tiny, smelly little man in a ghillie suit passing out sealed plastic bags of Tasteless Nutrient Goop might as well be an angel from in high for all the awe and reverence being showered upon him.

The civilians aren’t the only ones getting their rations here; the fighters are as well.

"Oh hi, Gem!" Bush-Guy greets her. "Got a good haul today. There ya go!"

Gem catches the packet that he tossed her and stares down at it. "What the—where did you get this?!"

"Oh it’s safe, trust me!" he says. "I ate some of it. It’s not poisoned or nothin’."

She pauses, then leans in. "No I know it’s not poisoned but where did you get it."

He looks at her and smiles. "You don’t wanna know."

"Bdubs." She sounds utterly serious. "Did you kill someone for this."

He's still grinning widely, but there’s something dark in his wide, intense brown eyes. "I said. You don’t wanna know."

Skizz swallows very hard. The innocent little yellow flower growing out of the pavement outside suddenly starts to resemble an atomic bomb.

"Anyway, where's Scar?" asks the strange little man called Bdubs. "I got some spare parts for his thingamajigs—" That's when he notices Impulse. "Oh, hey, another new friend! Who’s this?"

He gets up and offers his hand to shake. "I’m Impulse. I guess you already met Skizz."

"Wow, so many new faces today!" says Bdubs. "And here I thought I knew everyone in this garbage dump! What kinda hole did you guys pop out of?"

Impulse chuckles. "A literal hole, actually. We’re from the Silo."

Bdubs doesn’t answer this immediately, but the other Hermits, overhearing this conversation, start to gather around.

Gem's mouth is full when she speaks. "A silo?"

"What’s a silence—er, a cycle—geez, a silo?" asks Scar.

Impulse seems surprised. "Oh—yeah, I guess X didn’t get the chance to tell you guys yet. It’s an underground shelter in the desert. We’ve got a colony out there. We came back to see if anyone here wanted to join us."

"Wonderful!" cries Ren. "Our allied kingdom has a hidden fortress!"

"What kinda hole are we talking?" asks Scar. "Is it like a dirty hole? I don’t really like being in a dirty hole."

Skizz lurches with a snort. He just about bites his tongue in half.

Gem glares at him. "Scar."

"What?" he asks.

She rolls her eyes. "Oh my god."

Skizz has to cover his face. "Too many jokes…" he groans.

The other Hermits crowd around, asking more questions, and Impulse eagerly answers. It's all stuff that Skizz has heard before, so he's not really paying attention, just trying to recover from that thing that Scar said and all the jokes that are piling up behind his teeth.

But when he does pull his hands down from his face, the first thing he sees are Bdubs' fists, clenched and shaking at his sides.

Oh. Oh no. He's angry. Skizz opens his mouth to warn Impulse—

"You left us."

His voice is quiet, and yet it sucks all the air out of the garage. Suddenly, everyone is looking at Bdubs.

Impulse falters. "I—I’m sorry?"

"You left us," the little man says through his teeth. "You ran. And you left us behind."

Impulse stumbles over his words. He's suddenly on the back foot. "I…I didn’t want to…"

"Oh, you didn’t wanna, but you did," Bdubs spits. "You think you can just waltz in here like heroes? Like you’re saving us? 'Oh don’t worry guys," he says mockingly, "we got a paradise out in the desert’, yeah where were you ten years ago, huh? Where were you before it got this bad? Where were you when we needed you?"

Impulse looks like he'd rather be anywhere but here. "We came as soon as we could…"

Bdubs steps closer, growling, "Not soon enough."

"Hey." Skizz steps between the two of them. He's heard enough. He knows that Impulse still blames himself for the years he spent in the Silo while his family was still in the City; almost three years he missed from the lives of his children. He can see that miserable guilt in his eyes. This is not the time to be bringing up that old pain again.

His voice is not harsh, but not unclear, when he tells Bdubs, "Knock it off, man."

Bdubs breaks into a toothy grin that looks more like a chimp baring its teeth. "Knock it off?! You—!" He's shaking with rage, and then shouts at the top of his lungs. "D’you have any idea what it’s like in this shithole?! How would’ja like to eat rats, huh?! Rats and flies and maggots! You wanna dig through the trash for clothes? You wanna sleep on the concrete? You wanna be sick all the time? You wanna run for your life all day every day and just hope the gangs don’t spot’cha and put a bullet ‘tween your eyes?"

"Listen man—!" Skizz starts to say.

"Shut up!" snaps Bdubs, and it actually knocks Skizz back up a step. "You don’t know nothing! You don’t got a clue what you’re talking about! You’ve been out there living it up in your stupid little secret paradise while the rest of us are clawing for scraps and you’re trying’a tell me to knock it off?!"

"Bdubs…" Scar says lamely.

"It’s not…" Gem hesitates. "I mean…"

The other Hermits aren’t speaking up either. They look afraid—or maybe ashamed.

Bdubs ignores them all. "I don’t wanna hear nothin’ out of you!" He gets up in Skizz's grill, teeth gritted, and there’s anger and pain in his eyes and his voice comes out like a punch. "I don’t wanna hear nothin’. If you had any idea—" He's shaking, voice trembling. "—any idea, of what we’ve been through, and who we’ve lost—"

“Bdubs.”

It’s a quiet voice, but it makes him stop immediately. The fire goes out of his eyes, and his gaze falls to the concrete.

A tall, willowy man steps out of the stairwell door. He looks both old and young; his hair is white, and a long scar slices across his eye and trails down into the mask on the lower half of his face.

Despite wearing a tactical vest, he doesn’t seem threatening. He walks slowly, with a bit of a limp, over to Bdubs, and lays a spidery hand on his shoulder. The smaller man deflates, as if exhausted.

"Come on," says his masked friend.

"Etho…"

"I know."

He gently steers Bdubs away and around a corner until they disappear from view. There's a long, tense beat of silence.

"Okay." Skizz can feel his heart rate slowly coming down. "Okay, let’s just…let’s just be cool, man."

Impulse makes a horrible, strangled noise and runs for the stairwell.

"Impulse—!" yells Skizz. Aw, shit.

"What…?" says Gem. "What just…?"

Skizz’s sense of damage control is going haywire—he’s gotta explain, he's gotta cover for Impulse, but he's also go find him—and the internal tug of war pulls him one way and then the other until he finally makes up his mind.

The words tumble out all in a rush. "Okay I’m gonna explain later but I gotta go get him, I’ll be right back!"

------

Impulse runs up the stairwell. His footsteps thud on every second step—bang, bang, bang—and echo up the concrete tube, in time with his heartbeat in his ears. He can’t go fast enough. His heart is trying to break out of his chest.

The steps end. There's a door. He bursts through. Cool morning air smacks him in the face. He careens forward blindly until he slams up against something hard and stops with a jolt.

He's looking over the concrete barrier to the street far below. The distance makes him dizzy.

He's swallowing down air, but it feels like he can't breathe. It's open air up here, but he's trapped. The City stretches in every direction, empty grey buildings like the corpses of giants, windows peering at him like judgemental eyes.

He clutches the concrete, clawing grime and gravel up under his fingertips, trying to find balance as the world tilts. There’s nowhere to run. Nowhere to hide. Nowhere to go. He wants to go home, but he can’t, he can’t, he can’t even see it from here, it’s so far away…

He collapses onto the floor and huddles into himself. His entire mission is collapsing around him. Hopes and failed promises and contingency plans and what-ifs all whirl through his mind at once, crashing down with the helplessness of realizing that even if he figures out how to fix it he can’t go back and do it now. 

How many people died violently while he was sleeping soundly at night? How long was he living in comfort while others were suffering to get by? How many people starved to death while he was counting food stores with a full belly and wondering if they had enough extra? 

"If there’s even the slightest chance that anyone is still alive out there, that is my responsibility.”

“It’s every man for himself out there. The ones that are seen as burdens can get left behind.”

“If you had any idea of what we’ve been through or who we’ve lost—”

“That’s horrible.” “It is. But it’s survival.”

“YOU LEFT US.”

He puts his arms over his head like it’ll block out the noise in his skull. The good eye is starting to burn. His breath chokes in his throat.

“Impulse!”

There are two hands on his shoulders, and something warm blocks the wind. 

His breath stutters. He feels small and ridiculous and pathetic, but he dares to open one eye and look out. 

His vision is blurry and swimming, but he can see Skizz’s worried face just inches from his own.

"Hey, buddy." Skizz sinks down until he’s sitting on his heels. "Talk to me, goose," he says compassionately. "What happened?"

Impulse hides his face again, and when he speaks his voice is thick with tears. "I’m so stupid, Skizz."

"You’re a lot of things, dude. Stupid isn’t one of ‘em."

"But he’s right." He bites back a sob. "What was I thinking?"

"That you could help people."

"But we didn’t!" he cries, wild and almost desperate. The faces of his children, aged three years in an instant so that he hardly recognized them, flicker through his mind. "We didn’t, Skizz, we left them to die—"

"We were running for our lives, dude."

"They’ve been hurting, Skizz. Starving. Dying."

"That’s not your fault."

"Yes it is!"

"Impulse. Buddy. Look at me. Breathe."

He can’t quite do the first thing right away. But he can breathe. He can do that. He drags in a shuddering inhale—it burns in his lungs—and then, slowly, reluctantly, like he’s afraid it’ll hurt him, he lifts his head.

The steel-grey eyes that look back at him are as kind as ever. He doesn't feel like he deserves it, the compassion in that expression.

And then there are two hands on either side of his face, and a forehead pressed up against his own.

It’s grounding, somehow. It pulls him out of wherever he was flailing around like an out-of-control hover jet and presses him firmly into the solid earth. 

He feels very silly. He doesn't want anyone to catch them like this. He doesn't want to imagine what they would think. But it feels like the only solid and steady thing in this world that's spinning around faster than he can keep up and he shuts his eyes, trying to absorb the touch, as his heartbeat slowly settles down.

"Are you omniscient?" asks Skizz.

Impulse draws in a shaky breath and says in a small voice, "No."

"Do you know everything?"

"No."

"No. Sometimes I think you do, but you don’t."

A tiny laugh comes up from his chest. It sounds clogged and wrong.

"Did you know it would be like this here?" asks Skizz.

He whispers, "No."

"Could you have known?"

He tries to look away, even though Skizz is right in his face. "I should have."

"I didn’t say ‘should have’. Could you have known?"

Miserably, he admits, "No."

"No," he says emphatically. "You need to forgive yourself for that, dude."

"But—"

"No buts. You’re not magic. You made the best decision you could at the time with the information you had. That’s all anybody could do."

His voice is barely above a whisper. "It could have been different."

"Maybe. But we can’t change that now."

Impulse heaves a trembling sigh from the pit of his chest. He knows Skizz is right, but it's not the comfort that he probably means it to be.

Skizz sits back on his heels, still holding Impulse’s face and forcing him to look at him. "We can’t go back, dude. We can only go forward. And that’s still worth doing."

Impulse looks away. His voice is tiny. "What if they all hate us?"

Skizz shrugs. "Then fine. They can hate us. We’re still gonna get them out of here."

He said it so simply, like it’s obvious, but somehow it's like the death spiral in Impulse's brain suddenly hit the brakes. He looks up at Skizz, eyes wide.

Skizz hesitates, as if suddenly unsure himself. "You do still wanna get them out of here, right?"

"Yes," he says, in a tiny wisp of a voice.

"Okay. Then we’re gonna do that."

It’s so simple. It’s so simple, and it makes him feel both relieved and ashamed. He draws in a wet sniff, and something escapes off his lower eyelid and rolls down his face, pushed away by a calloused thumb.

Skizz smiles at him sadly and leans back, squeezing his shoulders. "I’m glad you care, dude," he says. "Really, I am. It’d be kinda messed up if you didn’t."

All that Impulse can give him for that is a tiny starved laugh.

"Just don’t let that stop ya from doing the right thing," Skizz says emphatically. "Okay?"

Impulse draws in a bolstering breath. His voice is small and shaky, but it's determined. "Okay."

Skizz smiles, and there’s something so genuinely proud in it that it warms Impulse right to his toes. "There’s my Dipple Dop," he says, with a gentle shake of his shoulder.

Impulse doesn't know what to do with that, so he just bashfully looks away.

Skizz gets his hands underneath himself, as if he's about to push off the floor and stand up. "Ready to go back down?"

A brief bolt of panic surges through Impulse. "I…not yet." He feels pathetic asking for this, but it’s better than making a fool of himself again. "I just…I need a minute."

Skizz straightens up. "Oh. Okay, that’s fine. Do you—do you wanna be alone, or—"

"Stay."

He says it so quietly that he’s not even sure Skizz could hear it, but evidently he does, because some emotion flashes across his face before he scoots over and sits with his back against the wall, right there at Impulse’s side.

Impulse leans against him, head on his shoulder, and lets the warmth seep into his body as his breathing and heart rate slow back down.

His brain is still chattering. He still feels like he’s in over his head. But at least he’s starting to swim.

"We really didn’t know what we were getting into, did we?" he asks in a low, hoarse voice.

Skizz smacks his lips and inhales. "Nope," he says, with a pop on the end.

Impulse just gives a small chuckle.

"But hey. We’ll figure it out." He nudges against Impulse with his shoulder. "We always do."

Impulse smiles into the distance. "Yeah."

------

If Impulse was hoping that they could return to the second level of the garage unnoticed, he is sorely disappointed. Every one of the Hermits—and some of the civilians—turn to stare at them when they reappear, and it makes Impulse want to fall slap through the floor and die.

Rather than doing that, he just hides behind Skizz.

The tall white-haired man—the one that Bdubs called Etho—is there waiting for them. Behind him is Bdubs himself, looking red-eyed and puffy-nosed and sullen.

Impulse wonders if he looks similar.

Etho looks down at Bdubs. "Go on."

Bdubs scowls and reluctantly holds out a packet of ConCorp Food Product.

Both Imp and Skizz freeze. Impulse has no idea what to do with this, and it seems that Skizz doesn't either.

"What?" snaps Bdubs. He sounds bitter, but there doesn’t seem to be a lot of energy in it left. "Not good enough for you?"

Oh no. Oh no we offended him. Impulse opens his mouth to stammer out an apology, but Skizz beats him to the punch by taking the packet.

"No, no, it’s fine," he says. "Thank you. We really appreciate it."

"You’re welcome," says Bdubs. There's an edge to his voice that suggests he’s saying it for more than just the food.

But he doesn’t act on the implicit threat at all. He just turns and stiffly walks away, and Etho follows him.

Impulse lets out a shaky sigh. Okay. Okay. That could have been worse.

After a long moment, everyone else in the camp goes back to what they were doing, pretending to ignore the drama that just unfolded. Imp and Skizz sit down on their cardboard pallet. Gem is sitting nearby, sharpening her knife.

Skizz tears open the corner of the food packet and carefully tastes a little bit. By the look on his face, it isn’t great. 

That’s fine by Impulse. He doesn't have an appetite anyway.

"Gem?" he asks timidly.

"Yeah?" she replies.

"Were you…all thinking the same thing he was?"

Skizz looks at him like it’s a bad idea to ask that question, but it’s too late to take it back.

"I mean," she says slowly, "I wouldn’t have said it like that."

She didn't say she disagreed though. He slumps with a defeated sigh. "Okay."

Skizz reseals the packet and tries to hide it away, whistling innocently. 

The stairwell door bangs open. Impulse jumps. 

“Grian!” cry two voices: Gem and Scar.

There’s a young man standing unsteadily in the doorway. His dark purple hood is pulled back, revealing a mop of dirty-blonde hair, and he’s clutching a broken arm and a bloody side.

He sways on his feet. Gem jumps up, and Scar wheels over as fast as he can, just in time for Grian to collapse into his lap.

There's a tattoo on the back of his neck: A rectangle, etched in purple, with two opposite corners floating and detached.

“Oh gosh,” gasps Scar, “oh my gosh—!”

The whole camp is astir. It's cacophony. People are shrieking and rushing over to see.

“What is it?” demands X, bursting out of his office and pressing to the front of the crowd. “What’s happened?”

Grian laboriously lifts his head. “I got found out,” he rasps, gripping Scar’s arm. “The Watchers…”

Impulse stands up. He can feel ice pricks on the back of his neck.

“They’re coming.”