Thankfully, the mansion proved to be deserted throughout its entirety. There were many rooms on the ground floor and first floor, all of which had been gutted of anything valuable. Those who had been to the mansion before us had done a very good job making sure the place was well on its way to becoming a broken ruin.

Although my heightened hearing made the effort not needed, I found myself tapping the walls occasionally with my knuckles on the off-chance doing so might reveal someone hiding within.

Doing this made me think of Sophie, and the way she had tapped the walls at the Wedder Gorge facility in the effort to find our way out.

I wondered yet again how she was doing. Had she gotten far? Were she and Walter facing the same challenges Azad, Xandra, and I had?

The thought of Sophie and Walter being pursued by the Pied Piper Task Force made me feel sick.

The last space of the interior of the mansion Azad, Xandra, and I checked out was the swimming pool. The pool had long-since been drained of its water, and was filled with lots of discarded junk left to stink and pile up as a heap of trash and various metals and broken furnishings.

On the far side of the swimming pool extension of the mansion were glass windows, which somehow had remained unbroken. More overgrown grass and foliage, long-abandoned by any gardeners, lay beyond.

Azad walked up to the edge of the pool and folded his arms.

"If we get this junk out this will be a great space to train," he said, his voice carrying in the large space.

Xandra walked to the edge of the pool and sat down. She then looked up to see an interior balcony with seats and a table above. Her large eyes made it look as if she were feeling more awe than she likely felt.

On a whim I decided to try getting up to the balcony. My sinew-suit responded to the attempt as if one step ahead of me already. I was standing a few paces away from Azad and Xandra, and leapt a good distance to the nearby tiled wall.

My foot, covered in the sinew-suit which was shaped like a shoe, touched the tiled wall. For a microsecond I felt the sinew-suit begin to slip against the tile, but after that microsecond the soles of the suit changed to be able to grip the tile like an adhesive. The unexpected, but not unwelcome stickiness of the sinew-suit made it so I was practically running up the wall for several strides before I leapt again and cleared the rest of the balcony.

There wasn't anything of interest at the top beyond a circular glass table with an ashtray spilled over with cigarette ends.

"Anything up there?" Xandra called up.

"Nah," I said.

My eyes drifted down to the legs of the three chairs set around the glass table, which was when I spotted the small black radio on the ground.

I picked it up and tried the switch on it before I could get my hopes up that it might work. Static whirring followed, and then a moment later the sound of a familiar song began to fill the pool area.

The song That's Not My Name by The Ting Tings began to play.

Hearing the song was better than breathing in fresh air. I cranked the song and approached the balcony bannister with the radio in hand.

Azad, and Xandra, who shot to her feet, looked up excitedly. Right away we all couldn't help but start dancing a little to the rhythmic beats of the music. The song involved lots of clapping and drum banging which, to our ears, that had known mostly the sounds of the outdoors which had become quite monotonous, was very welcome.

The remainder of the song became a noise which followed us back through the mansion to the kitchen. The three of us danced very goofily along the otherwise grim looking corridors. If there was one thing that Azad, Xandra and I had in common, it was that none of us had any feel for dancing. Azad seemed to think doing little squat-jumps forward and miming a row-the-boat gesture was somehow good dance technique. Xandra walked with long strides with her hands moving robotically backwards and forwards, as if she were some kind of robot trying to walk uphill. And then there was me, moving backwards, moving butt-first in little jumps between occasional bouts of doing a cowboy lasso gesture.

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Like I said. Goofy. Real goofy.

The radio kept playing plenty of fun songs as the three of us took more food from the blue basket and sat at stools at the kitchen counter. We each took a tin of beans and a tin of tuna each. We had little issue tearing open the bean cans with our bare hands. Heating the beans proved easy; all we had to do was take off the wrappers and then bulb up our hands to heat the metal cans from the outside. It was a little gross eating the food with our bare hands, but there weren't any utensils to eat with in any of the kitchen drawers.

The radio died just as we finished eating. I tried to get it working again but it seemed a simple issue of the batteries having run out. All of us were disappointed.

"I'll get some batteries whilst I'm out," said Xandra.

"When?" I said.

"When its dark," said Xandra, "We're going to need a lot of supplies."

"Want company?" I said.

I really didn't want to leave the confines of the mansion. What I wanted was lots more rest, and time to be alone with my thoughts, but I decided to ask anyway.

"It's fine, I'll be okay on my own," said Xandra.

"How did I know you were going to say that?" I said.

"I would go with you, but I need more time to heal," said Azad.

"It'll be safer if I go alone," said Xandra, "I'm less likely to be seen just-me."

Azad and I didn't try to change Xandra's mind. If I had learned anything about her it was that she liked to have a sense of freedom about whatever she was doing. I doubted Azad or I could've changed her mind about going alone if we tried.

"Ah, I need to crap," said Azad, "Might want to turn your hearing down."

Xandra and I chuckled a little.

"I'm serious though," he said.

This only made us chuckle even more. Azad hurried off to someplace else in the mansion to find a spot to crap, whether that was one of the bathrooms, which we had found to be rather grim, or somewhere else.

The sudden silence in the kitchen, with no music or Azad, left me with more room for my thoughts. People and problems, the two always going hand in hand, filled my head.

Xandra said something, but I was so lost in thought I hardly heard what she said.

"What?" I said.

"I asked if you're brooding again," said Xandra.

"Oh," I said, "Yeah, guess so."

"What's up?" she said.

She was sat with her fist against her cheek, leaning against the kitchen counter top.

"I was just thinking about the stuff with Tiffany and Dean," I said, "What are the odds Azad would cross paths with Dean?"

"Maybe Azad's a secret agent," said Xandra, "Maybe he's a spy sent by the PUNCH program."

I shot Xandra a look to see if she was serious. She was smiling.

"I'm kidding," she said, "Mostly."

"It's too soon for spies," I said, "I'm sure that'll be a problem sooner or later. But not this soon."

"Yeah," said Xandra, "The future's going to be wild. I hope we survive long enough to see it."

"We will," I said.

I let out a haggard sigh.

"Two years," I said.

"What's two years?" said Xandra.

I turned myself on the stool to better face Xandra.

"That's my prediction," I said, "Two years and then the PUNCH program is going to rear its head in a big way."

"Why not sooner?" said Xandra.

"Maybe it will," I said, "But I figure they'll want to let the evacuation, and all of the craziness happening right now play out. I think we've only seen the start of the Pied Pipers cracking down on mice fugitives. It's not even been two months and look how powerful we've become. In two years, those of us that survive won't have to fear the Pied Pipers any longer."

"That's assuming our power levels keep going up," said Xandra.

We both smirked at her use of the words 'power levels' like we were in some anime.

"I think it will," I said, "I can feel the power inside me growing stronger all the time. And it feels like just the start. Don't you feel it?"

"I feel it," she said.

She started making two of her fingers 'walk' along the counter top towards me.

"You know what this means, though, right?" she said.

"What?" I said.

Xandra made sure our eyes were locked before she spoke.

"There's no going home for you, B. We're going to have to figure out our future on our own."

"Yeah," I said, tiredly, "I know."

I let out another sigh, and then said, "I've been thinking about it a lot, actually. The future. Our future. I'm trying to think of the best way to make sure we survive to see it."

"How about we talk about it in-depth tomorrow?" said Xandra, "We'll have a big brainstorm and work it all out. But tonight, why don't you get some rest. You need it."

"Are you sure you're going to be okay going out on your own?" I said.

"Hey," said Xandra, smiling, "It's me."

"Can't argue with that logic," I said.

"No, sir," said Xandra.

Azad returned looking at ease, as if all were right in the world.

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