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be sitting at this wall, but as for what he’s doing-- I have no idea. It seems important, but beyond that, I have no idea.
I turn back to Victor. Then, I gently let myself down onto his feathers and he suddenly opens his eyes. He quacks quietly to me, then goes back to sleep. I make a small laugh to myself. Silly duck. All of a sudden, I feel drowsy again. The last thing I see before I doze off is a disk with a

picture of stairs on it.
I wake up as light filters through the large windows, and the light reaches my eyes. I wonder what time it is. Looking at my watch, I realize that it’s already 10 in the morning. Almost everybody else is up, and they all seem to be working on one thing or another. That’s when I remember what I came here for: Where are #0 and #22?

I verbalize the question to #83, who then proceeds to explain to me that #0 left to help assist someone who was trying to escape Red Nexus, and I shudder when he says the notorious name. “#22, however, is just over there,” he explains to me. Then a pause. “Are you a Walker?”
“Yes.”
“What’s your number?” By this, of course, he’s referring to my ID, not my phone number.
“83398.”
“That’s interesting. I think I may have

heard that number before…” Then his expression shows that something has evidently clicked in his mind. “Did you help #0 and #22 escape one of the camps?”
“I had something to do with it.”
“That was something that took a lot of courage. Not many people escape the camps alive,” he says gravely. I shiver again. The fact that someone could die in the camps, although obvious, is something that I don’t like to consider.

This time, the man notices. “It’s alright,” he reassures me. “Red Nexus isn’t likely to come here anytime soon.” I listen for his voice to falter, but he seems sure about what he’s saying.
#83 continues. “Also, I heard about what you did for the people in the camps. Bringing them medical supplies must have been a difficult task.”
“Well, I only took it to #83888.”
“That may be true,” he replies, “but you still did a

Ohhhhhhh, yeah babyyyyyyy

lot of work. Getting from where you were to #83888’s home must have been pretty difficult. She’s something of a hermit, you know.”
“Really?”
“Yes. We’d had a hard time getting her down here, but when you took those supplies to her, she…”
“Started to come out of her shell?”
“Something like that, yes. She managed to start her AVI-8 pilot training, and I was pleased to aid her in the process. Unfortunately,” he

continues, sighing, “she hasn’t managed to get the supplies to the prisoners yet.”
“Why?”
“She’s still working out ways to get in,” he explains, “And #0 and others are still helping her figure out the details.”
“That makes sense.”
“In any case,” he continues, “I’ve kept you for too long. Go talk to #22.”
“OK,” I reply. I maneuver around the crates, some of which have cloth and tarp surrounding them, and a lantern, on

my way to #22. He appears to be studying a small, faded photograph of a house against another one of the lanterns.
“Hey,” I start.
He glances back at me, then his eyes light up.
“#83398! I knew you’d be here at some point.”
“Thanks.”
“I had no idea your duck was capable of doing that. It was a shame that we left #28300 behind.”
“Yeah. From talking to her, it seems she’s very smart and knows a lot about the Walker

society. It seems that she’s the one who started this, in some small way, even though it’s not her fault.”
“Well, we can’t blame her. She fought against Red Nexus from the moment she knew they were trying to weaponize the AVI-8 drones. Once she found out what they were up to, she broke off from them and tried to stop them as hard as she could. Anyway, how have you been? I see that you bonked your head pretty hard.”

“I’m OK. I decided to stay at the ruins.”
“Makes sense, given that is what you were looking for. Even if it wasn’t a safe place, it was shelter. And in these times, any type of establishment that’s still standing is good.”
Changing the subject, I point at the photograph. “What’s that?”
“It’s an old photograph,” he says. “From before…”
We both know he means Red Nexus.
“I got it from #28300. She said there was

something she had to give me before I left, and when I escaped, I realized I had forgotten it. So, I returned to the camp. It was dangerous, and RX-8s tried to pursue me on the way here, but I got it. Now, I’m trying to decode what it says on the back.”
I look at the picture, but can’t see it very well. After a few seconds, I offer, “May I see it?”
He seems a little hesitant but then offers it to me.

“Be careful. It’s an old photograph, and it means a lot to me.”

I consent, and examine the picture. On the front is a picture of a house with blue paint, surrounded by green grass. The photograph is faded enough that the grass looks brown and the paint looks almost white, but the features of the scene are still recognizable. The day in the picture appears cloudy, although I realize it must have looked different when the photo was taken.
“I don’t get it,” I say.

“Flip it over,” says #22.
I proceed to do so and am greeted with a surprise. On the back, I had expected to see a blank white space, but I instead see the message on how to escape to paradise again, and the ever-familiar formula: SrB4O7:Eu. #28300 had told me it was luminescent, and I remembered that she had painted that house with things contained in the prophecy disks. In the middle of her endeavour, however, she

had been arrested by the red troops and taken to the camp.
“Why are you examining it?” I ask, handing the folded photograph to #22.
“I think she -- #28300, I mean -- may have written a secret message on here, one that the guards couldn’t see if it fell into the wrong hands.”
“Where is she now?” I ask.
“She’s still at the camp, but I’m sure with her intellect, she’ll find a way to escape. She always does.”

“Where’s #0? Is he here?”

“Unfortunately, no, he’s gone to the desert. There’s a high-ranking official of Red Nexus who decided to force some people into slavery, doing dangerous driving -- for sport.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
“His goal there is to sneak in quietly, and aid in one such Walker’s escape.”
“How so?”
“It all depends on how our AVI-8 drones work.” A pause. “Do you have one?”
“Yes. It was after we parted that I first used it,

however, and only once.”
“You might want to learn how to use one. AVI-8 drones can be incredibly useful… but only if you know how to use one.”
“I’ll think about it.”
“There are actually a few new Walkers here who want to learn as well. We’re having instructional time after dark.”
“OK. I guess I won’t leave just yet.”
And so I stayed at the warehouse and waited for evening to come.
END OF CHAPTER ONE.

LOL you can delete my post in the middle of the story. It kinda ruined the flow SMH. I love this though!!