Chapter 519 (1/2)

They had basically reached Randidly’s fake home when he realized that it wasn’t a coincidence that she was following him. Feeling largely awkward that he hadn’t acknowledged her before now, Randidly turned around and regarded Tatiana. Truly, she looked extremely out of place in a steel working town like this. He supposed that it made sense for her to hang around Washington D.C., where she would need to interact with the nation’s elite, but the System had made a farce of her presence here.

She stopped as he turned around, regarding him with the same wariness that she had shown before at the party. There was a wall there, one that he didn’t fault her for. He was a strange individual, and he had certainly participated in some strange and violent situations. Even more worrisome, he suspected that she had the angle and a sharp enough gaze to catch some of his interference with that poor fool Derek.

To Randidly’s surprise, she spoke first. “Why did you save him?”

Randidly blinked, then laughed. Her expression darkened as he did so, so he stifled the laugh as best he could and kept it a chuckle. “They would have killed him if I had not. Humanity has a lot of enemies. It's easy to forget it here, but… we don’t have enough wiggle room to waste effort on internal struggles. And… I believe a human life should always have inherent value. I protected a life; need I more justification?”

Something in her face eased as he was talking, although he couldn’t determine what of what he had said had reached her. She simply nodded, breathing out a long sigh. Feeling an oncoming silence, Randidly galvanized his meager social skills and said, “So… how are you doing?”

Instantly, he winced, because it sounded just like a cheap come on. But this seemed to just make Tatiana sag further. Expelling another sigh, she looked up at him and said. “You certainly are more than I expected. It… hasn’t been good. I suppose you’ve heard that the edges of a suburb were reported to be sighted to the west? Until further notice, I am to remain here and scout new arrivals to the Zone for our...business.”

Tatiana gave Randidly a penetrating look. At that moment, he felt like she was looking with every ounce of effort she had, trying to penetrate and see what lay underneath the surface of him. What sort of character was he?

Randidly didn’t blame her in the least. He felt abruptly self-conscious that he was ostensibly a simple steelworker, but he remembered that he had gone along with the line that he was also a former front military fighter. In addition, he wore a strange combination of leather and denim that would have meant he was a biker prior to the System’s arrival, but in current Zone 1 just made him look… savage.

Obviously, his feet were dirty and bare, the skin callous and browned from long years now without shoes.

In addition, Randidly made a mental note about the expanding Zone. If what Tatiana was saying was true, there would be what might be a large population boost coming into Zone 1 in the recent future. Which meant two things: that military forces might be heading in this direction, and also that there might be population boosts in Zone 32 as well. The first was a headache, the second was oddly intriguing. Snuffing out both trains of thought, he focused on the task at hand. For now, he planned on conducting another search for the Creature tonight. Other things could wait.

To his surprise, Tatiana’s gaze turned soft as she finished her examination. “Look, thank you for interfering at the party. Just as a warning, that Tooya might be a nameless prick, but on his friend's list is someone with real clout. Even my partner is scared. If they come after me, they sure as hell would come after you.”

Randidly frowned, and Tatiana had a knowing look in her eye. But Randidly suspected that she misread the reason he was upset. Obviously, dealing with almost anything a single person could throw at him would be relatively straightforward. The problem was that this unnamed individual might use government forces to deal with him. Which might bring him to Ghost’s attention.

Inwardly, Randidly made another mental note: construct a bucket list. This bucket list wasn’t for before he died, but what to do immediately, should he ever be discovered by the Zone 1 government. Item number one was to have an interaction with Ghost, to determine his connection with the Creature.

Snapping back to the present, Randidly said, “So you will be in the area for a while?”

Tatiana gave him a wry smile. “Why, do you plan on asking me out?”

Instinctively, Randidly chuckled. When was the last time he had time for flirting? Helen, likely, and that had ended-

Abruptly, Randidly realized that Tatiana’s face had gone strange. He felt a flash of panic. “Oh, not that you aren’t someone to ask out, you’re very striking. It’s just-”