You have a ready-made excuse if anyone asks where you're going. The Bunker has infrastructure the Bastion can only dream of – after all, it never faced more than a single insurgent.

It turns out, though, that your excuse is useless. So is maintaining your reputation. If there was anyone left to do it for, it might have worked. You help Salithra out at the cooking pit, you scrub pots, pans, and tools clean – hell, you even take a medical supply inventory, for the first time in years.

When you get a moment you're sure is unwatched, you find your truck. Turns out that, although Chris and Naomi agreed (it feels so long ago, to have had them around, to have had them in charge of anything) to use it as an extraneous store room, the Medic still guarded her supplies jealously, and there's nothing medical except a first aid kit to be found. That's enough, though, for one person.

Maybe even for two.

You leave camp in search of surplus expedition supplies. Some of the fallen will have dropped things you can carry, rucksacks, bottles, packs of non-perishable food. You stoop to examine a little dropped parcel of meat jerky before hearing footsteps behind you and turning around. Salithra. She seems as surprised to see you, so she can't have been following you.

Still, though, she hands you a gift. “Water. It's safe.”

You look at her, and it, for a long while. The bottle glistens unsuspiciously. You finally take it, shoving it into your rucksack.

You guess, in your journey, you'll need to drink eventually.

“Looking for expedition supplies,” you decide to tell her. She nods as though this is neither strange nor unexpected.

You search a little longer before joining her on your way back to the Bastion. As you do, you take a mental tally. This must be one of your last few journeys back; the number must be dwindling by now. You can't quantify how many journeys back and forth you have left, but you guess that, by the time the number dwindles down to one, you'll know.

Salithra stops. You almost crash into her. You give her a moment to say what she's spotted, then swivel around on the spot, drawing your sabre. You see nothing of note. Salithra's expression is indescribable. Goosebumps rise on your arms.

She turns to you.

“What is–” you begin.

“It was Devin.” Her voice is strong, collected, certain, terrible, terrible. “Not Verity.”

“He collected that contaminated bottle on purpose.”