Page 183 of Immune

Then it vanishes just as quickly as it came.

She crouches close to the edge and studies the next roof, the drop, the alley, and the clinic. Her eyes move quickly but there’s nothing frantic about them. The way she reads ground is different from soldier training. Less textbook, and more like scar tissue and instinct. Every conclusion earned the ugly way.

I respect it, and that surprises me less than it should.

“There,” she says, pointing at the second roof to the east. “Drainpipe down the far wall. Not the fire escape.”

I follow her line. At first, I don’t see it. Then I do. The fire escape on the clinic side hangs too obvious, ladder dropped, path clear enough to invite use. The drainpipe sits half-hidden behind old ivy and a collapsed billboard frame. Harder descent and less exposed.

“Pipe may hold one at a time,” I say.

“Better than the escape they want us to use.”

I nod. “Agreed.”

Her eyes cut to mine again. Suspicious by habit, but not as sharp as it was before. I have to call that progress. Either that, or she’s just too tired to add the cutting edge to it she normally uses, and I don’t like that possibility.

“Pilot won’t be able to manage that pipe,” Xeon comments.

No judgment in it, just stating a fact.

“He doesn’t need to,” Dakota says. “There’s a maintenance hatch on the second roof. See the raised square by the vent? If it opens, it might drop us into the building. From there, we can use the interior stair to clinic level.”

I look.

Damn. She’s right. The hatch is low and coated in dirt, almost swallowed by weeds growing from the roof gravel. It’s easy to miss. Hell, I did miss it. A year ago, that would have bothered me enough to get defensive. Now, I just tell her, “Good eye.”

Dakota stills as if praise is the equivalent to stepping on a landmine, and I wish I could swallow the words back. Not because they’re untrue, but because she doesn’t know what to do with anything that she doesn’t consider a threat, order, or insult.

So I add, “Hatch gives us a better option. We check it before the pipe.”

The stiffness in her shoulders loosens then, only by half a breath, but it’s enough.

Information, not praise. All right, then. Lesson received.

We move shortly after that.

The next roof crossing is ugly but quiet. A sagging plank bridge spans the gap between buildings, probably left by scavengers before scavengers became mostly corpses or worse. Ewan crosses first, light on his feet. Then Kaito, jaw tight with every step he takes. Xeon and I manage the pilot between us, slow enough that my neck and shoulder prickle the entire time.

Dakota is the last to cross, but not because anyone tells her to. It’s because she makes sure no one comes up behind us, and I can understand that. I understand it all too well.

On the second roof, the maintenance hatch sticks hard at first. Dakota drops next to it, pulls a narrow tool from her sleeve, and starts working at the latch before I can even ask if she can open it.

I let the question die, because she can. That much is very obvious.

Kaito keeps watch toward the tower we came from, Ewan listens toward the compound, and Xeon lowers the pilot against a vent and checks the bandage at his ribs. I take the roof edge. From here, the outer perimeter fills more of the world. I can see movement along the wall now. Guards. Three on the nearest platform, one in the corner tower, and another shape standing behind the metal gate. Disciplined enough to rotate positions, hungry enough to stare out too long.

And that’s what worries me.

Hungry guards make mistakes.

Comfortable guards make worse ones.

The compound is bigger than I expected. Old hospital grounds, maybe. Or maybe one of those city buildings people used to stand in line inside and hate every second of it. Several connected buildings sit behind the barricade, surrounded by patched walls and container stacks. Solar panels cover one roof, and water barrels line another. Smoke rises from controlled burn pits, and it’s enough to show me people live there. Not just survive.

That should feel good. It doesn’t. Because organized people come with organized rot. Rules. Rotations. Factions. Men with keys. Women with secrets. Kids raised to think walls are the same as mercy. Leaders who start with hard choices and end with softer names for cages. I’ve seen enough compounds to know safety always has a price.

Sometimes it’s labor.