Qrygg is Blending

"Whoah!"

Sara jumps at the voice, which apparently comes out of nowhere. "Qrygg? Is that you? Where the hell are you?"

"Oh..sorry." Suddenly the air in front of her flickers and Mr.Qrygg appears from nowhere, fiddling with a black armband and bracelet. "Optical camoflage system. I pulled it off a soldier a few decades up the timestream. Must have bumped it when we arrived. Oops."

Jasper is inspecting a marker he found in the bottom of the cardboard box, now apparently inert. He experimentally draws a triangle in a tabletop, and is surprised when it abruptly gains depth. He carefully picks up the thin dun-colored wedge he apparently created out of a few random lines. "Did you get these magic markers off of him too?"

Sir Seeker takes it carefully from his hand and caps it. "Uh...no, those are from few million centuries farther up than that. If you think that's something, you should see what the color pencils and the brush do."

Ever practical Sara looks at Qrygg speculatively. "If you can turn invisible, you can get through the zombies out there and bring back help."

Qrygg stares at her. "Yeah, fuck that. Zombies hunt by scent as much as sight. They'll know someone with a pulse is close to them."

"But they won't be able to see you. They may know you're somewhere close by, but they won't know where you are unless they blunder into you." She glares at him. "If you're too chickenshit to go out there, then give the fucking thing to me and I'll do it."

"It won't work for you," he says. "The guy I got it from was dead--that's why I've got it. It's wired directly to my nervous system."

A pistol appears in her hand, as if by magic. "Then it looks you're elected. Get out there, or I'll kill you and cut it off your corpse."

Dan Danger whips out a weapon of his own, on Sara--Jasper brings his rifle up, and Sir Seeker draws on him. Suddenly all of them are standing with guns trained on each other. "Drop the gun," Danger snaps at her.

"You first," says Jasper, his voice even.

"Do you really want to die today?" Danger says, to both of them.

"Do you? I figure we can put at least two of you down. If we stay here, we die anyway," Sara says. "My way, we get a shot at getting out of here alive."

"Put the pieces down, guys," says Qrygg a few econds later. He swallows nervously. "She's right. The time machine's a mess anyway. So...I'm going out there.

They slowly put their guns down, glaring at each other. Qrygg fiddles with the armband, and the light bends around him for a moment before he vanishes from view. Sara unbars the door.

"Head east along the road. The army held a position about fifteen miles up the road."

"Close up," calls a voice from the air. "I'm out."

"Good luck," she says softly.

She closes the door and bars it again. Mr. Qrygg stands there for a second in the attenuated, grayish light the cloak allowed through nervously. The zombies nearby look up, noses twitching as they catch the scent of live meat. One of them looks at the exact spot where Qrygg is standing with a grunt. They whine in hunger and confusion, but it's obvious that they can't see him.

Qrygg starts walking east as the zombies start inspecting the place he had been standing only a few seconds before, sniffing and licking the concrete. More zombies shamble out of the buildings as he passes towards the spots where he had occupied moments before, but none of them attack.

1. He heads east. It's a hot day and a long walk, so he decides to try to find a working vehicle.
2. He finds a working iPod and a segway with an M-60 mounted on the side.
3. A few minutes later, he sees Mortis directing some of the zombies.
4. Screw finding help. He decides to go try on ties.
5. He doesn't find help, but he does find Help.

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