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"What did you do that for?!" Giulia screamed, "We could have helped him!" She pointed her rifle straight at him, "You're going to pay for this!"
I stood there, shocked and upset, staring at poor Max's body. The ID chip in his wrist began to glow yellow, and we heard the sound of an engine coming our way.
"You psychopath!" Giulia yelled, her finger resting on the trigger, "I wish we never met you!"
The roars of the engines got louder. Tears filled my eyes as I watched Marek and Giulia almost commit another homocide. I could face another one of them being dead, even if one of them did kill one of ours.
"We have to go," Marek's voice was wavy and his hands were shaking, "please we have to go."

I was furious at Marek, but I agreed that we had to get moving, although Max was no longer with us. We couldn't face the consequences of being caught by the Army. They'd kill us, for sure.
"Giulia please," I cried, "he was only trying to help!"
"Help? By killing one of our own?" Giulia rose her rifle into the air and shot. She reloaded and aimed it back at Marek. "We don't even know you! You could be one of them!"
"I can assure you we aren't!" Arick yelled, stepping in front of the two, "Now please, let's go, before we all get killed."
After moments of tension, they dropped their rifles and ran. We all followed as the trucks pulled up at Max's corpse.

We walked through dry fields for almost half the day. We stopped to drink water from time to time, but we walked in silence. I daren't talk to Marek after what he did.

The sun began to set, and we found another abandoned building. Marek told us to stop, as he carefully opened the split wooden door and turned on the torch on his rifle. He put his hand out the door; a signal that we could follow. This building was in better condition than the last, but still had been attacked at least a few times.
"We'll stay here for the night," Marek said as he dropped his weapons, "tomorrow we'll continue."
"Sir, yes sir." Giulia replied sarcastically whilst rolling her eyes. She grabbed my wrist and pulled me upstairs and into, what I assumed was, a bedroom.
"We can't stay here, Ami." she sighed looking out the misted window. "Marek shouldn't have done that." Giulia had her rifle in her hand, loaded it and then walked towards the door. I knew what she was about to do.
"Giulia don't you dare."
"He deserves it. He can't just go around killing innocent people."
"He was scared, just like everybody else!"
She turned around and looked at me as if I were mad, "He killed Max. He killed a friend."
Giulia had teardrops in her eyes, and shot through a crack in the window, several times. I covered my ears as she collapsed down next to me, and silence fell.

We sat there for around 10 minutes, before Giulia broke silence.
"Have you ever noticed how these guns don't actually do anything?"
I looked up. She was right. The guns were shooting bullets that were going straight through these things. Surely, by now, the army would have noticed that they weren't operating as they should.
"Then," I finally replied, "we need as many people as possible so that we can create a new weapon."
She turned to me and sighed, "Fine, go and ask if they're any good at engineering!"

I walked down the crooked staircase and into the small room in which the others were standing in. Leysa and Reina were talking, and Marek and Arick lay the tablet on the floor, trying to figure out where we were. Zack rested against the wall, with a mouldy pillow supporting his weak neck. I coughed loudly to get their attention. They all turned and stared.
"Arick, Marek," I began, "do you know anything about mechanics or... engineering?"
They both nodded whilst glancing over at one another.
"Why?" Arick replied.
"It's the rifles," Giulia said walking down the stairs, "we need you to help make new ones. These are useless."
"But surely we need to find out what they are first." Marek replied in an argumentative tone.
"He's got a point," Leysa spoke back.
"That's why we're going to Copenhagen, right?" I asked.
"Yes but we'll die before we get there at this rate!" Giulia yelled.
Suddenly I remembered what I saw on the camera in Max's stomach at the base. There were cells being destroyed. The invaders obviously emit some sort of radiation. We needed to somehow neutralise it.
"How can gamma rays be neutralized?" I queried.
Marek stared at me, with an angry face, "You know what they are? Why didn't you say?!"
"No, but I have an idea."
I explained what I saw in the medical room at base. I explained that we could try something that neutralized high radiation.
"My dad was a scientist, before he got called to the army. He used to give me and Zack little science lessons when we were kids!" I smiled, thinking back to when we were 5 or 6 and the invasion hadn't even began yet.

"You can't neutralise radiation," came a quiet voice from the other side of the room- it was Zack.
"Okay, smart guy," Marek shouted, "what can we do then?"
"They can be blocked, by steel."
I smiled at Zack. He could have just saved our lives. Those little lessons dad taught at least one of us well.

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