Almost instinctively at the sound of the crack, Gregory raised his bodyshield. It was invisible, yet it's ripples could be seen pulsating along his body if they looked close enough.

That there was only one sniper meant little. Gregory was a survivor and he would make sure he lived. I there were more, he would be ready for them. He held the shield as the other ministered to the hurt man.

Anna got to the man quickly, owing to her long strides and great urgency. He was bruised and bleeding but not seriously injured. At Anna's touch the bleeding stopped and the wounds began to fade. The man's eyes fluttered open and he immediately struck out, striking Anna's hands away and scrambling to his feet in an attempt to flee, oblivious to the others. It was a simple matter for Doug to grab him in a vise like hold and prevent him from fleeing or flailing about. "Let me go you bastards!"

Doug briefly considered crushing the man's head like a grape but on the list of bad things to happen to him today the attack seemed minor.

Doug gave the man a light shake and asked him almost mildly, "Who are you?"

Anna withdrew her hand like a hurt child. She was clearly confused by the man's hostile reaction and made an awkward step backwards as if he could hurt her even more. She looked at Ashley and Doug and sat down the sadness still dominating her overall mood. Even if she did only help people they seemed to hate her.

The man twisted in Doug's grasp but was unable to get free. As he struggled they got a good look at him, his face and arms bore the scars of long heal burns, burns that had healed with nothing more than time. He was a garish mockery of the man he had once been, skin permanently reddened and rippled in waves of scar tissue. It didn't take much to realize that this man must have somehow survived the conflagration that destroyed Goodwood. "Why should I tell you? Just kill me if that is what you are going to do! Get it over with!"

Getting a little annoyed with all the flailing, Doug pulled the man down to the ground so he was flat on his back and said, "You shot me, remember? Why all the hostility? What happened here?"

"You're one of THEM! You all are! Aberrants! That's enough reason to try and kill you!" The man continued to struggle fitfully, a vain attempt to break free. "You come back here to gloat over the ashes? To revel in the destruction caused by your kind? The bones of good people lay in these ashes! Or maybe you heard that there was a cure here? Well here's your cure, death and fire and pain!"

Doug sighed and replied, "No, we came to see if John and his crew could help us. Someone is trying to destroy the world. Their most recent try was to overload all the novas, turn them all into abbies. That's what happened to Beth here, why she went nuts with fire. Their next try will be the same as their first, they'll drop another big ass rock on us."

Doug said seriously, "Novas stopped them last time, but we're probably the only ones left on the planet. The only ones who were off planet when the taint bomb went off."

{Persuader On}

Cure? CURE?! "What?!", exclaimed Anna suddenly. The barest hint of a cure brought her out of her reverie.

"You've got a cure? Where? Who?!", she came closer to the man shadowing over Doug and the stranger through her sheer size. Her amber eyes looked frantically for any hint that hinted at the man's words.

"Tell me you've got a cure!", she half pleaded half demanded.

"He doesn't have a cure," Ash says quietly to Anna. For her, looking at the man was eerie. It hadn't been so long that it would have been her there, shaking with fear and helpless raging wrath against beings that she couldn't hurt or stop...but that she wouldn't give up on trying to.

Holding onto the power, he seemed so small now. So slow. It made her feel sick at herself for feeling that way. She wanted to push it away, but the possible threat of more snipers convinced her to keep it on for now.

"We're not going to find any answers here. Maybe we can find one of the new novas, the ones that were human beings that changed when this happened. They might have clearer memories. Someone has to know what happened."

Like it or not though, Ash found herself starting to feel like it didn't matter. What happened, happened. More and more she felt like the better idea was working out how best to survive next. If that was even still possible.