Andy "found" a bottle of gin in the hands of some sleeping drunk and made his way out of the Underbelly. It was an old trick he'd learned in secondary school—if you kept drinking through the morning, the hangover would never catch up with you. Meanwhile, Clara would be asleep in their shack, wherever that was. Andy tried to guess by the position of the sunlight, but it was useless when he didn't know their shack number.
Staggering around the streets, Andy stumbled upon the garage near Quadra's gate, found their jeep, and climbed up on the roof to kip. Some hours later, a horrible sound woke him, drilling inside his skull, welding and hammering into his eardrums. Sitting upright, Andy discovered that the metalworking was in fact real. Mechanics were working on a lorry two rows down. Andy plugged his ears and tried to sleep through it, but it was no use. Hopping down, he took his bottle over with him to the station.
"Do you mind keeping it down," he said. "I pay good money to park in an area like this, and I don't expect to be kept awake by ye'er-do-wellers."
Andy was largely ignored, save for a few glances from the mechanics. Defeated, he sat atop a lonely wheel, sipping his gin, inspecting the vehicle. A small generator hummed beside the compact lorry, onto the front of which three mechanics were finishing welding a horn-beaked dozer blade. They worked beneath the painted eyes of a furious stallion, whose muscular snarl encompassed the entire driver's compartment of the lorry. A mane of barbed wire flowed above its brow between two armored firing compartments, which jutted out of the roof like metal ears. The cargo compartment was reinforced with sheet-metal cut with firing slits so that occupants could shoot from inside. It was covered in patchwork insignia, names, and drawings of demonic eyes which bled tiny red tears where the spray paint had streaked during application. The largest of the graffiti was in the center: three white lines, like spearheads, each of a slightly different length, piercing a crescent. It was as close to a tank as Andy had seen in years. He wondered if they could commission whoever had done the lorry's paint job to snazz up their jeep.
Something bashed into Andy's side. He groaned and looked up. Clara was standing above him, four duffel bags in her hands, carrying their weapons. She slung two onto his lap. "Have a good night?"
"Exquisite."
"Good. Get up then."
Loading their jeep, Clara took the driver's side and Andy resigned himself to the passenger seat. It would be a slow journey then.
"You got something fun for us?" Andy said.
"Zombies, don't you remember?"
"Erm, yeah."
"We're heading into a city to locate a research facility and rescue personnel and technology. All the details are on my terminal if you want to look."
"Not now," he said, adjusting his seat as far back as it could go.
After a while, Clara started the engine and they set off, the same dreary album spinning in the CD player. They pulled up behind the battlewagon which Andy had seen being serviced, and two pickup trucks took up the rear. Their little convoy of four rumbled towards Quadra's gate and out onto the road beyond. Suddenly, he wasn't sleepy anymore. It felt good to be on the move again.
The landscape gradually transformed through the morning as they drove down valley roads towards the mountain range's exit. They traveled fast—the main road had been cleared for passage—derelict vehicles piled up against the sides, blockages removed to improve access in and out. Signs
directed their way, hanging below old-world signposts. Ahead, the battlewagon slowed as they trundled through a patch of road that had been hit by a landslide. By the roadside, a dozen or so men worked with buckets and shovels to clear the path. They looked skinny and tough, like dried meat. Andy thought he recognized one as an old drinking buddy he'd had in the Underbelly.
"Hey," he shouted out of the window. "Burn'o." It was an affectionate name Andy had for the old fellow, whose face and torso were malformed from terrible burns he'd suffered during the cataclysm. "Burn'o, what's up?"
Burn'o looked up from his work shoveling stones, glowering at Andy as they rolled on by. Andy shook his flask out of the window, but Burn'o eyed him wearily. He couldn't have recognized Andy, otherwise, why wouldn't he have accepted the drink?
"It's booze, Burn'o."
"Andy," his sister admonished. "Stop causing trouble."
"I was being charitable," Andy said, crossing his arms. "Never doing that again."
By afternoon, the mountainous terrain sank into hills, and valleys opened up into barren fields. The roads widened, forming dual carriageways scattered with derelict vehicles. Every so often, old villages cropped up by the roadside. Many were inhabited, but they weren't somewhere Andy would like to stop for refreshments. The land was arid, with murky streams, scarce and scrawny vegetation. A group of children had stopped to watch their convoy pass. They were beleaguered; one seemed as though they couldn't stand up straight. Andy waved. Kids liked it when you waved.
At each village's entrance, there was a pole with four flags. Andy recognized it from somewhere. He was sure Clara would know the meaning of it. The convoy rolled to a stop beside a lonely building, one of the walls of which had a large white square and blue circle graffitied on the brick. In front of them, the battlewagon coughed smoke out of its exhaust. It was then that Andy noticed the registration plate read 'KILL' in broken letters where someone had scratched the paint off to reclaim the text. If Andy squinted, he could read what it had once been: AK19 BJL. Not as catchy.