Tuesday, August 23, 2027. 8:42 AM.
Aided by Felix's time manipulation, the spindly legs on the band of cockroaches zoomed faster than his eyes could follow. He let out a strangled breath, half sigh, half snort. In short order, they'd ended up in the safety of the shadows of another pile of rubble a few feet away—he would just disturb them again in a couple more minutes anyway. He knew he should not have wasted any energy on them, but they were gross enough that he thought it was worth it to have them out of his sight a few fractions of a second earlier.
The bugs were the only thing in the city that seemed to have recovered ably from the catastrophes of the past decades. As he kicked through the debris, he wondered whether there had ever been any damage for them to have recovered from. Hell, the roach population had probably benefited. Certainly they were able competitors for the remaining humans. At least they could make use of the junk in front of him as a hideout. It offered nothing to him, all useless fragments of brittle plastic.
Aiming one final kick at the worthless crap, Felix moved on down the line, where the cockroaches had gone. He was beginning to regret the trade, his companions for roaches. Certainly they had been grating on his nerves back at camp, but the roaches were just horrible company. They weren't even really digestible, as he had learned on one dispiriting occasion a few years earlier.
He was relieved when they did not put in another appearance. Perhaps his—adjustments—had been too much from them and made their legs fall off. He could, at least, hope. It appeared to be a rewarding activity: his fingers brushed something smooth and unusually cool as he sifted through the garbage. His mood shifted quickly as he wrapped his hand around the object and yanked it out with eager expectancy.
The motion dislodged a large cloud of dust and grit, attacking his unprotected nostrils and eyes before he could do anything to stop it. He sneezed eye-wateringly and effectively, clearing his nasal passages as dirty tears streamed out of his eyes. Swiping at them just scraped the remaining particles around and made things worse. "Shit..."
It was hard to stay annoyed for long, though, as Felix had, indeed, found a prize. With the city extremely well picked-over by the scavengers living there, it was rare to come across anything of any value, but here was a decent piece of metal, a tube that looked like it had once been part of a rolling desk chair. Felix shoved it into the bag slung over his shoulder. No doubt Adrian could do something nifty with it.
His spirits higher, Felix pulled the collar of his shirt up over his nose and mouth. There was nothing he could do for his eyes. Well, he was used to living dangerously, he supposed, as he looked at the crumbly building around him. Liable to fall at any moment... And crawling with walkers, of course. He spotted one rounding a corner into the—well, it was a stretch to call it a room now, but it had been once.
Felix dodged out around the unfortunately animated corpse-thing, slowing it down to make his escape. He flitted out of the building, not even bothering to slow it down. With such a head start, he would be just fine, though he could hear the sounds of its shambling progress following after. Eventually, as he took several turns down vacant Manhattan streets, the sounds died away. Smart move, on its part, to go after more likely prey. |