Everyone in the bunker was assigned a room to take inventory. They wanted to figure out what they had and what they had to be especially careful of using only when necessary. They wanted everything to last as long as possible.
Shelia sat on the bed, still in chains. She looked up when Zack entered the room.
Sitting in the chair in front of her, Zack rested his hands on his knees. "Do you know anything about the zombie virus?" he asked her.
Shelia shook her head. "Not really. I've only heard about people turning like that. So say that the ones that don't die from the poison beco one of those creatures."
"That's all you know?" he asked.
She nodded, then asked, "What are you going to do with ?" Her voice was in a whisper.
Zack looked at her. "That depends on you."
Shelia lowered her head, staring at the bed. "What do you an?" she asked, her voice shaking.
"I want to release you. But I'm afraid you'll tell them where we are," he said quietly. "I don't want to hurt you. I prefer to release you. I'm not a murderer," he explained.
She nodded in understanding, playing with a loose thread on the blanket. She felt uncomfortable, unsure of what to do. "I understand," she whispered, voice sad.
"What do you want to do?" he asked her. "I noticed a change in you from the mont we brought you in. Tell what you want," he said. He was watching her closely, trying to gauge her reaction.
Thinking for a minute, she lifted her head. "I want to help you. You were right; we should have found a better way. I am deeply ashad of what my people are doing to yours. Tell nothing. If you decide to release , they will interrogate for information I know. I don't want them to find you."
Zack nodded. "We won't let you hear any important things then," he said, then, thinking a mont, he continued. "You know where we are. You already know enough that could bring them here to exterminate us."
Shelia swiped the back of her hand over her brow. A tear rolled down her cheek. "Then you should either keep here or kill . I can't stop them from injecting with truth serum. I won't be able to hold back information if they choose to inject ." Her voice was a whisper.
This surprised Zack. "They have a truth serum?" it was said in a question.
Shelia just nodded.
Joe stuck his head in the door, looking at Shelia. "Does your armor or anything that you were wearing have a tracking device in it?" he asked her.
"Only my wristband," she answered, peering up at Joe.
Joe nodded, then pulled a bundle from behind him and set it on the bed. "We voted to release you from your chains," he said, pointing to the clothes. "Your wristband, we tossed in the canal when we had to clean up the tunnel to our bunker."
She looked up at Joe in shock. "I can walk around freely?" she asked.
"We were trying to figure out what to do with you. We can't keep babysitting you. Knowing about the truth serum, I think it's best if you stay here, at least until we decide to leave for the sanctuary city if it exists," Joe explained. "When we leave, you will be free to go ho to your people if that's what you want."
She nodded at Joe, then looked back at Zack. "I don't want to know anything about this city. I don't even want to know which direction you leave for."
Zack stood up, then unlocked her chains and removed them. As he gathered them up to replace them in the storage room, he noticed Sheila was crying. "We're not going to go back on our word, Shelia. When it's ti for us to leave the sanctuary city, we will let you go ho."
She suddenly spoke up as if suddenly rembering sothing important. "Is there a mark on the map? It should look like a winged insect?"
Zack looked at her, then asked, "Why?"
"If there is a mark like that, don't go," she warned. "I just rembered tales of traps. They plant a map on soone or leave one for soone to find to bring people into one city, then, after those in the city beco complacent, they attack. So, Joe is right; it could be a trap." Then she added, "I don't want to see the map. Just look for a symbol of a winged insect. Its symbol refers to our version of your flies caught in a spider web. It ans trap."
Zack and Joe nodded at her. Zack spoke, "Thank you. We'll look for a symbol of an insect."
***
Zack pulled the map out of the desk drawer, flattened it out on the desk, and with Joe standing beside him, they examined it for the insect symbol.
The map showed the underground system, starting at a refinery three towns over. Just getting to the town where it started would be very difficult. They would have to travel on foot a lot of miles out in the open, where the Aliens could spot them.
They scanned every inch of the map, finding no symbol of a winged insect. Instead, they found unidentifiable blotches that might be identified as so alien insect, but not really. It was hard to tell.
"What do you think?" Zack asked Joe.
Zack scanned the map, sighing heavily. "I can't tell if any of these splotches are the symbol. I wouldn't be able to tell without Shelia looking at the map, and with a truth serum, I don't want them to know where we're going if it turns out to be just a splotch that sorta kinda looks like a winged insect."
Joe looked at Zack. "So, we're back where we started," he stated evenly.
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