"Harvey!"

The aging man glanced up from the small device he was tinkering with. He sighed, exasperated, as a teenage boy burst through the doors of his workspace.

"What is it now, Cameron? And make it quick; I'm almost finished with this."

Cameron stopped in front of the wooden table Harvey was sitting at and scratched his neck nervously. He really didn't want to tell Harvey what had happened, even though he had to.

So, he procrastinated. Craning his neck to see what Harvey was working on, he asked innocently, "What's that?"

Harvey stood up and folded his arms. "Ha, ha, ha," he said dryly. "You never take interest in my work. What are you really here for?"

"Well, you see, I may have..." He mumbled the rest, so fast that it was impossible to make out his words.

Harvey knew that whatever Cameron had said wouldn't be good news. With him, it never was. But, against his better judgement, he asked anyway.

He arched an eyebrow. "You may have..." Harvey persuaded, giving him a meaningful glance.

"I ... er ... might've ... accidentally ... drove the hovercraft into that old apartment building down the road..." Cameron finished with a sheepish grin, but replaced it with a Please-Don't-Kill-Me face once he saw Harvey's expression. The bearded man's visible skin was beet red, and before Cameron could blink, his furious yells began.

Cameron didn't pay any attention to what Harvey was saying. He had heard this lecture often enough. Don't do this! Be more careful with that! It wasn't like he tried to wreck stuff every time Harvey fixed it. It just ... happened.

Okay, maybe he did get a bit careless sometimes, but he just wanted to have a little fun. Was that really such a crime?

Apparently, yes, he thought, snapping out of his daze once he noticed Harvey's yelling had ceased, if only for a moment.

"Can't you leave one of the things I have fixed in one piece," he muttered wearily. Harvey had been a mechanic before the sun flares, so everyone in their group looked to him when it came to technological problems. "Just one?" He ran his hand over his face and through his thinning hair.

Before Harvey could start ranting more about how irresponsible he was, Cameron glanced at his imaginary watch.

"Oh, look at the time, I've gotta ... um ... meet Tony for a ... er ... food-searching-thingy. Yeah, a food-searching-thingy! You know how those guys are. Can't be late, seeya!" He darted out of the office, hoping Harvey would forget that a group had just come with more supplies the night before.

-------------------------------------------------------------

Shielding his head from the scorching sun with his hands, Cameron re-surveyed the damage to the hovercraft. Or, what was left of the hovercraft. Two smoking thrusters hung off the right side, and the one-person cockpit was long gone. It was just a small craft, around ten feet long and seven feet tall, but it was better than having to walk everywhere. Was. Before it had been crashed into a building.

He was lucky that he had made it back to their base.

Pulling his cloak over his head to protect himself from the burning rays, Cameron scanned the area for Tony.

To his left was the old office building they lived in. It was covered in dust and mud, and many of the windows were broken, but at least it was shelter. Their group had moved around quite a bit, to wherever they could find a good stock of food and water.

And where there was the least likelihood of being found by Cranks.

To the right, an old storage warehouse in which they kept their methods of transportation, (hovercrafts, old cars, etcetera) and the bulk of their supplies, such as food, water, and weapons.

Behind him was a tall, rusted chain link fence, which separated the small area of dust he was now standing on from a ravaged part of what used to be a busy city, full of life.

Not anymore.

In front of Cameron, a few metres behind the broken craft, was a treacherous river. Ever since he was a kid, he had hated the water. It had taken the two most important people to him.

He pushed away the memory. Sadness was a weakness. It kept him from focusing on his work. So did grief. Dwelling on the past wouldn't do him any good. He had to focus on the present, stay alive.

For you, Mom.

Cameron stepped around the craft and spotted Tony. He was on the other side of the deep, fast-flowing channel of water that once was a road. Cameron waved his hand to catch the man's eye, but the dark-skinned man was too caught up in his conversation with Karl, the one who handled weapons. Not the kind of guy you'd want to interrupt when he was speaking.

Cameron abandoned his mission of catching Tony's attention and tried to think of something to keep himself busy. After a few minutes, he decided on fixing up the building their group sheltered in.

Like that was possible.

As he began to walk back to the building, Cameron heard a deep chuckle from behind him and stopped in his tracks. It wasn't a normal laugh, but a slow, rolling one, oozing with insanity. It could only be one thing.

A Crank.