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She thanked him, and he smiled, though thinking of beating he's taken made the pain return.

Even though she was asleep, he answered.

"You're... welcome."

He couldn't rest, though, until she was awake. He wasn't going to chance her going into shock, again. Before leaving the room, he laid his jacket on top of her, and went out to get the blue Gatorade from the fridge. He grabbed the first aid kit and proceeded to use the gauze to wrap a makeshift eye-patch for his left eye.

After checking himself out in the bathroom and cleaning his scrapes, he returned to Liz's bedroom and checked on her. He started nursing the blue liquid, and turned back to the laptop again.

To keep himself occupied, he surfed the Internet for urban survival tips. "Be prepared," he whispered.

"So I guess I'm giving you a ride after all," Rene said, clumsily reaching into the surprisingly feminine purse swinging against her hip. As she reached into it to retrieve her car keys, a small, scrawny man, no older than 20, screeched wildly as he hopped down from a truck. Crouching directly in their path, he was breathing wildly, blood foaming from his mouth like red rabies, dripping on to his bare, scratched chest.

Slowly, Rene lowered the hand from her purse, the other gripping the pleather wrapped handle of the bat. "Back off," she said lowly, inwardly amazed at the calm in her voice, grateful her baggy jeans hid her shaking legs. "I don't want to hurt you, man."

If he registered her words at all, it didn't show in the crazed and feral eyes that stared back at them. Her looked insane, he looked angry...and hungry. A long second of silence passed and he snapped, rushing forward to tear them both limb from limb.

Much later, Rene would wonder how she was able to react the way she did and why she couldn't always be so on the ball. As the man came hurtling towards them, she shifted her stance, pulled back the bat with two hands and cracked the heavy instrument right into the side of the man's face with a wet crunch.

It had been a late night. Well, you could say that. Really, it had been morning when he went to bed, well after the sun had risen. Company of Heroes, Empires, and half a dozen other games had kept him up well past when any reasonable person would have retired for the night. But then, when you're planning on working the night shift again in a day, 'reasonable' becomes entirely subjective. And, well, who could it hurt? He didn't have to do anything but stop by work later and finish building up the server for use. Sighing, he rolled out of bed. Slipping in and out of the shower didn't take much time, nor did setting out some food for Pexy, the kitten. Vika, hyper little puppy that she was, caused a bit more trouble.

Biting back profane comments about the puppy and her 'habits', he went about cleaning her off, cleaning out the kennel from where she pissed in it, and then feeding her. Getting himself finally ready, he took her outside, and slipped into the pathetic, barely-running Grand Am that he drove, since the loss of his rather favorite vehicle.

However, the closer he got to The City, the worse things got. Cars were slammed against trees, bridges, and each other the whole way. It was rare at first, but it kept getting worse. Pretty soon, he was crawling along at maybe 10 MPH through the wrecks, avoiding the sporadic areas of mindless fighting. As he neared work, and got off the frantic highways, things smoothed out a little, and he began to calm down. Maybe not -everything- was as crazy as it seemed. The lack of a working radio in his car meant that mostly anything could be going on, but since not everyone was panicing and leaving, it seemed reasonable to assume that he was pretty safe.

Within sight of the datacenter is when Marty first noticed that something was probably very wrong. In fact, it was extremely wrong, considering the huge flames billowing up from the building. It would have surprised him, if not for the fact that a few buildings nearby also were burning, and that there was a car crashed into the big diesel generator in the back. Parking the car, he tried calling 911, but as expected, the lines were busy. Throwing the car into drive again, and having to start it, since it stalled, like it did so often, he brought the vehicle around and headed back for a fire station nearby. However, on the only section of road clear enough to reach 35, he had to find someone running across the street. And that person just HAD to be followed by three others.

The car was old. It didn't have anti-lock brakes. Not like they would have worked if it did. All three went down, and stopped moving. Inside, the airbag went off, blowing up in his face, and shooting pain across his tired, dreary head. Sitting back, he didn't see the three get up and run after their prey again, unhindered by the hulk that was sometimes considered a car. Tipping his head back, he could already feel the blood seeping down his face. Finally, with a groan, he got out to see how bad the victims were.

The fact that they weren't there at all was probably worse than the fact that he had hit them. Though, in all honesty, it was a relief. If they're gone, they don't want his head, he doesn't have to worry about going to jail, and best still, they weren't dead. So, he got back in the damaged car, and started it up.

Or tried to. It wouldn't even turn over. With the sun beating down, it was as bad as an oven in the car, but nearby there was a grove of trees, which would provide ample shade. Grabbing his jacket and draping it over his shoulder out of habit, he began walking toward the grove. As he neared it, he could see a squirrel running about above him. Taking a seat with his back to a tree, he looked for something to wipe his nose with, though in the end all he had was his shirt, it didn't matter much. The bleeding was slowing down, and the shirt was already red. Putting the jacket on properly, he grimaced at the poor balance of it, only then remembering he had left his large maglight in the inside pocket.

Leaning around the tree to look at the man as he approached, Marty brushed his hand across his face, wiping away most of the rest of the blood, quite confused.

"Um, I'm the only one here, last I looked. Were you expecting to meet someone? I saw a few people back that way, headed away from here, but I didn't see anyone in the trees."

Looking the man over, Marty stood slowly, grimacing. "Drunk? Why are you drunk in the middle of the day? I-" Glancing at the hospital, he grimaced again. "-damn. No, I'm not heading to the hospital. Are you alright? I may have something back in my car that can help, but I don't have a whole lot with me. I was just resting, after all. Do you know what's going on? This whole place is quite a bit screwed up, I've never seen anything like it."

Chuckling, Marty shook his head. "Airbag. Just a bit of a beat up nose. I'm fine. Who is Rocky? You're not making a whole lot of sense, but...how about we go get you something to drink? Something without alchohol? Maybe on the way we can figure out what's going on. Seems to me that now is a pretty bad time to be half-drunk, as you seem to be."

Starting back toward his car, Marty waved toward the man. "Come on, I think I saw a little shop out this way."

Distracted by her confrontation with the thin, rabid aggressor, John completely failed to notice there was a second man. That is, until a long hard object forcibly collided with the side of his ribcage. The crunching sound that accompanied this event was deafening, at least to him, but then, one always hears things happening in their own body magnified, and in full stereo.

Stunned he started to slump to the ground in a daze. That's when he saw the assailant--a balding man, heavy-set, with a pot-belly, and holding a crowbar--move past him to deal with Rene, who was in midst of the follow-through of her home-run swing. Something fired inside of him, and with strength returning to his legs, he regained his feet and punched the man in the back.

With a snarl, the man turned back and swung again at John. Frantically raising his left arm, John managed to absorb and deflect much of the blow, and with his right he caught hold of the other end of the crowbar. The fat man then gave out a howl of rage, and with an unbelievable burst of strength swung the crowbar, and John, straight into the cute blue sedan parked nearby.

Stars and static replaced his vision, and he heard nothing beyond his pulse, which was a dull roar in his ears. Somewhat surprisingly he felt that he still had his hand gripping the crowbar, and focused on holding on. It might not be much, but it was something to do--it was all he could do. And having something to concentrate on with all his energy kept his consciousness from slipping away.

What seemed an eternity, but was likely only a few seconds at most, passed; the pounding in his ears decreased to a steady background murmur, and he blinked his way back to some degree of vision, fuzzy and out of focus though it be. What he saw was-----

...the fat man standing still, a blank expression on his face that remained even as he crumpled to the ground. Dark blood pooled out from under his head, and judging by the spatter on Rene's shirt and face and the dripping bat at her side, she was the cause. She lifted her hand, smearing away the droplets of blood on her cheek and offered her hand to John. "Come on then," she said gruffly, eyes narrowed behind her glasses. "We're leaving before I need to give anyone else brain damage."