I hurriedly ate my breakfast and headed for the door. I wanted to explore the place completely. I jogged down the street heading for the perimeter. Someone had said that the place was about two miles long with the same width.

The wall in front of me was about sixty feet high and I could see guards at the top patrolling it so I knew the wall itself was quite wide. I knocked on the wall with my fist. It was concrete and I wondred how it had been put up so quickly. I had only been gone for six days.

"Who are you?"

I felt a knife against my throat and didn't dare move.

"Lance Pendleton."

The knife was removed and I turned to see a guy my age slip the knife into a holder on his belt.

"Sorry about that but we have to be careful around here. I'm Michael by the way."

"Nice to meet you, I guess. Why do you have to be so careful?"

"In case you were an intruder."

I looked at the wall.

"I don't think anyone can get in this thing easily."

"Yeah but in case someone does..."

"Then what?"

"We'd kill them."

Wow. These guys were serious.

"Why is an intruder such a big deal? I'm still confused."

Michael looked annoyed.

"Because General Whitcom says so."

I nodded like I understood but I wondered why the general would think it such a big deal. I still hadn't met the man and I hoped that when I did I would get some answers. I walked along the perimeter leaving Michael at his post.

Several buildings had been torn down to make room for the wall and every so often I came across a ladder bolted into it. That was so the guards could get up and I started to question why we would need guards. Surely the mutes weren't that bad. I turned and spotted my mom making her way toward me.

"Hey, mom!"

"Lance, I've been looking all over for you," she said looking at me sternly.

"Sorry, I wanted to check the place out a bit."

"Yes, well, I told the general that you would be at his office at 9:00 and it's already 9:13. General Whitcom doesn't like it when someone is late."

I had been wondering who this guy was and so I eagerly asked her where to go and headed that way. As I passed the houses on the street, I noticed several kids playing outside and wondered if they came with their parents or if they were alone.

I soon arrived at the house my mom had pointed out and I was ushered into an office. Several guards were pacing about and there were surveillance cameras everywhere. General Whitcom was sitting at a desk with papers strewn everywhere.

He looked to be about in his mid-forties and definitely had the commanding officer look to him. His very presence radiated that he was in command and I knew he wasn't someone to fool around with. I timidly cleared my throat and he finally looked up at me from the paper he was scrutinizing.

"Mr. Pendleton, how kind of you to finally join me. Please, have a seat."

I sat down in the leather office chair and waited for him to address me further.

"Ana—your mother told me that you wanted to go and rescue someone."

"Yes...."

"You know, it took quite a bit of work to track you down. We thought they had taken you to a different facility but they had just taken you basically to your back yard. Finding which room you were in wasn't the easiest thing to do either. Why do you wish to rescue this girl?"

"Her screams, they sounded so... haunting. She just sounded like she was in so much pain and I know how much pain it is because I went through it too."

I couldn't tell him any more about Lea or I would have to tell him about talking to each other in our minds and something just didn't seem right about telling anyone about that. The general sat back in his seat and seemed to be contemplating something. Finally he spoke.

"You're the only who knows which room she was being held in and so you'll have to go with us."

My face lit up with excitement.

"But, you'll have to have some training first. We can't send you out there without you being able to take care of yourself. You'll report to Sergeant Walker right away and he will train you in the necessary things."

I sat there for a moment expecting him to say more.

"Well, go on now."

He motioned to the door and I stood up slowly. He had busied himself with looking over the many papers again so I could do nothing but leave. The lady at the desk who had showed me to the generals office told me where to find Sergeant Walker and I headed that way.

I had always wanted to learn how to fight but had never had the time. This seemed like it would be a great opportunity to learn all I could. There was an old baseball field that my mom had said was the training ground. The weapon's storage was close by for easy access.

In the middle of the field I could see a man watching two boys as they were vigorously swinging at each other with a knife in their hand. I was amazed that no one seemed to be hurt yet. The swinging was really fast.

As I got closer, I noticed that one of the boys was Michael, the one who had surprised me earlier in the morning. I was so intent on watching the boys fighting that I didn't see where I was going and bumped right into the sergeant's back.

I stumbled and almost fell but managed to catch my footing. The Sergeant whipped around and I could see that his muscles visibly tensed up.

"Who are you?" he asked threateningly.

I sighed at having to say who I was yet again. I guess my mom forgot to tell people what I looked like or something. I hated how everyone freaked out until they found out I was Ana Pendleton's son. Everyone seemed really jumpy here.

"Lance Pendleton."

The Sergeant visibly relaxed and let his hands fall back to his sides. Michael and the other boy had stopped their fighting but as Sergeant Walker turned back, they quickly resumed.

"Michael, Charlie, you guys can head out and make the rounds."

They disappeared and the Sergeant turned to me. He looked rather young but had a fierce no-nonsense look to him.

"My name is Sergeant Walker. When you address me you will address me with yes or no, sir. Understood?"

"Yes, sir."

The Sergeant was definitely someone you didn't want to mess with.

"Have you had any prior experience with hand-to-hand combat or shooting?"

"No, sir. I do know how to shoot though, sir."

He sighed and then said, "We'll start with learning how to defend ourselves."

"Yes—"

He looked at me sternly and opened his mouth.

"Sir..." I added quickly.

"We'll start with a mock fight just to see what I have to work with."

We faced each other and he changed into a fighting stance. I copied his stance and waited for him to move. He punched forward at my face and I could tell that he was holding back from using his full strength. As his fist moved forward, something came over me.

It was just like it had been back when I was being rescued. His fist seemed to move in slow motion and so I stepped aside. His left leg lifted slightly from his punching motion and I instinctively threw my leg out and swept his right leg out from under him.

Everything went back to normal and he fell to the ground heavily and grunted. He looked up at me stunned by what I had done. I wasn't exactly sure what had happened. He jumped back to his face and looked me square in the eye.

"Are you sure that you havn't had any prior martial art training or anything like that?"

"No..."

He either didn't notice or let it slide that I hadn't said sir.

"Hmm," he said thoughtfully, "Let's move onto shooting since you obviously seem to have the hand-to-hand stuff down."

I didn't argue with him. I didn't want to get myself in trouble or anything. As we walked to the shooting range, I replayed what had happened in my mind. Time had seemed to just slow down and what I had done when I knocked his leg out from under him had seemed so natural. Was something wrong with me?

"This is a standard 22... since you already said you can shoot why don't you go ahead and empty the clip."

The target was about 100 yards away and since I had done some shooting in the past I knew it wouldn't be too hard. I raised the gun and clicked the safety off. I took aim and emptied the clip into the paper target.

The target was on a set of rollers and the Sergeant pressed a button and it started rolling back to us. As it got closer, I could tell that something was off about it. Instead of having multiple holes in it there were only two, one in the head and one at the heart. Both had hit the bulls-eye.

"That's some really good shooting!"

"I only got two shots on target, sir."

Sergeant Walker waved me over and I saw that behind the target was a thick wooden frame that would stop the bullets after they went through the target. Behind each hole were several bullets embedded into the wood, each one was stuck into the previous one.

"Where did you learn to shoot like that?"

"Practice, sir."

I had never shot that well before but I didn't want to tell the sergeant that. He seemed quite impressed with me and I wasn't exactly sure how I had shot that well myself.

"Well, it looks like there isn't much I can teach you so... congratulations, you'll be in the forth squadron. I'll have some gear sent to your room. Now, it's about lunch time so come back this afternoon so you can meet the rest of your team."

"Yes, sir!"

I had always wanted to be on a team of some sort!

The rest of the day seemed to fly by. Both Michael and Charlie were on the team and they were the youngest ones besides me. Everyone else on the team looked to be around the same age as the sergeant and some even looked older.

Night time came all too quickly and I sat on my bed thinking about all that had happened. I recalled how I had just somehow known how to fight really well and how I had shot so well. Something was different about me. I would have to try and figure out what it was tomorrow, I was really tired. I decided to watch the news before going to bed and powered the TV on.

"Attacks from the mutated animals are getting more fierce as more and more of them seem to be coming out of nowhere."

The woman looked like she hadn't had any sleep in a long time and her face was filled with fear.

"Almost a quarter of the world's population is either dead or seriously injured and questions are arising as to what will happen—"

The screen suddenly changed and flashed emergency broadcast. I could barely make out someone's voice and then it suddenly got loud.

"This is an emergency broadcast. Stay in your homes. Stay where you are and wait. Someone will come and tell you when it is safe. This is an emergency broadcast. Stay in your homes. Stay where you are—"

The screen went blank and I sat there dumbfounded by what I had heard. I tried changing the channel but nothing seemed to be working.

Finally, I pressed the power button and the TV shut off. I was worried about what I had heard. Are we safe here?

After hours of worrying I finally decided that I couldn't do anything to change the situation and I gave up and drifted to sleep.