Earth's Revolution

~18~

-Walker's base, Norway-

Sara was bustling about in her office as usual, trying to organise food rations, when a hurried knock came at her door.
"Come in!" she called out.
A walker with a short pixie cut came in, looking worried.
"Hey Maya, what's the issue?"
"I haven't seen Mia or Aelis in a while, and when I tried looking for them I couldn't find them. No one I've spoken to has seen them either, and I must have scoured the entire place by now."
"Oh god, this is bad. If they are stuck out there in the heat god knows what will happen to them. I'm calling an emergency meeting, right now, in the lunch hall."

They both hurried to the lunch hall after announcing an impromptu meeting on the speakers. Within minutes, everyone had arrived. Everyone, that is, except Mia and Aelis.
"Sorry to gather you all on such short notice. Have any of you seen Aelis or Mia lately?"
Desperately, she looked around the room, her face falling as everyone muttered "no" or shook their head.
"Maybe they are just staying in their room, not socialising," someone suggested.
"No, they're not there. That's the first place I checked," replied Maya anxiously.
"I'll check the security footage whilst you guys keep going with your duties. Keep an eye out for them though, and report anything suspicious or out of the ordinary to me. If they've left, we need to check they haven't rigged up the place or something. Not that I think they have, but we're in the middle of an apocalypse so I don't know where or why they have gone," ordered Sara, and with that, she walked hurriedly back to her office, Maya trailing behind her worriedly.

***

-Abandoned house, South of Hamburg-

Max and I backed up, taken aback. In front of us was a frail-looking man, thin and limping, but holding a gun pointed straight at our heads.
"Give me water," he rasped, before charging at us, yelling, "GIVE ME WATER," over and over again. Alarmed, we brandished our weapons.
"Don't you dare move another inch," hissed Max menacingly.
The man stopped in his tracks and eyed our tents, "I'll bet that's where you keep it. You selfish brats," and he lunged at the nearest tent, just when, awoken by the commotion, Alan walked out.
"Hey whoa there." He waved his arms out in peace, "Who are you and what do you want from us?"
"None of your business. I just need water. GIVE ME FOOD AND WATER." He aimed his gun at Max, meaning to pull the trigger, but I lunged first and knocked it out of his hands with my sword.
"OUCH," he yelled, before collapsing onto the floor and laying still.
"Did he pass out?" Alan asked, and approached him. With a start, the man on the floor sprung up and clamped his hands around Alan's neck. The two rolled around in some sort of wrestling struggle, before Max and I were able to stop the stranger.
"Leave us. You were able to go into the government's bunker. Why choose not no?"
"The government, pah. They wouldn't let us migrants in their precious little bunkers," replied the stranger, cradling his now bloodied arms.
"They did that? How completely horrible of them!" I cried out in anger, "This is what we need to fight against."
Alan piped up, "We can give you iodine pills, but we can't spare much more than that I'm afraid. If you cross into France, I'm sure there they will let you stay safely. Till then, you'll have to rely on water."
"I have a few energy bars you can take, they are the kind they feed to malnourished children in Africa so they hold more energy than regular ones."
The man started crying out of the blue. "Thank you, thank you so much for your kindness."
"That's no problem, just don't assault people again when you can just be diplomatic and civil," grumbled Alan, rubbing his sore neck.
"I will, I'm sorry." He grabbed the supplies we gave him and ran off into the main house.
"It looks like we just had our first encounter with the rogues," I stated, under my breath, "probably not the last."
By then, everyone was awake, and Alan offered to take over the watch so we could rest. Cornelia joined him, and Maria and I went back into our tents, where I, exhausted by the long day's events, collapsed into a deep sleep straight away.

***

-Walker's base, Norway-

Maya sat in front of a computer, scrolling through the last few day's camera footage. Next to her was a pile of tapes she had already gone through. Finding nothing on the tape, she sighed loud and placed it onto the growing pile of discards. At least there were only a few tapes left. Sara had had to leave for some other duty in the base, and had left her alone to fast forward through the tapes.
Her heart startled as she saw the doors open on the tape, only to be let down again when she realised it was just Alan and the team. She sighed, it had been a long and stressful day. It had been three hours since she reported Aelis and Mia missing, and she had spent all three of them going through these tapes, one after the other, with no result. Then she saw it.
Mia, alone, was creeping out of the base with a backpack, looking around suspiciously before darting out of the doors and running off. Checking the time, she saw this wasn't long after unit one had left, and it was a time when most Walkers were either asleep or busy with nighttime duties. So Mia it seemed had snuck out of the base, for what reason she had no idea, but what about Aelis? She fast forwarded the tapes to a few minutes later and, sure enough, Aelis showed up, back pack and weapon ready, seemingly following Mia. Zooming in on her face, she saw she had a worried look on her face. So they both left intentionally. Now she just needed to know why.