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As if on cue, Bob walked in wiping his hands on a dirty rag and looking a bit disgruntled.

"Can't figure out what's going on with the power.." His eyes dragged over everyone's faces. It wasn't like any of them but Zeke had tried to help and even he'd given up.

"What?" He caught the mood of the room.

There was that slight, familiar pang at the look on Paige's face, but he offered her a reassuring smile and let the proposed division of teams stand. It might not have been ideal, but it did mean two of them could keep an eye on Beth, and one of those two wasn't the one most likely to strangle her for whatever reason. "That sounds fine."

Bob, the generator and intranet having proven unfixable at this current time, had wandered back to them looking rather annoyed. And why not? He was their tech guy, and the tech wasn't working. Paige filled him in with a rather abbreviated account of what was going on, and then all eyes, more or less, turned to Ever and Zeke.

The Mist rolled his eyes to the side, took in Beth, then landed on Ever. "We can take the upper level area we cleared today." If was the biggest area, with three of them the search would go faster.

Carl, still frowning, chose that moment to remember he was supposed to be something of a leader. Straightening up, he looked Paige and Jaime. "You two can search barracks and everything around it. Bob and I will cover the mess hall, kitchens, and all the equipment and work rooms." He nodded to Bob, half turning to head back towards the kitchens, then paused. "No one goes anywhere alone, no one goes outside," he pointed a finger at the group, tone still it's usual good-natured drawl, but there was a definite note of seriousness to it now. "Yet. If it comes to it we'll form a search party. No one be stupid."

With that he turned to leave, giving Bob's arm a pat to get him moving as well.

Zeke watched his back for a moment before crossing over to Paige and pulling her into a hug. "We'll find her." A kiss on the forehead, then he was returning to his own group.

They searched, but there was no sign of the energetic brunette anywhere within the base itself. After about an hour, and after they'd combed through every inch of every room, they were forced to accept that Cee wasn't in the base anymore. This set Carl on edge, understandably, and when he directed all of them back to their rooms to dress and gear up with was with a clipped, worried tone. Ten minutes, then they were expected back at the ladder that led up and out into the desert.

It had only taken Zeke six. Jacket on, sleeves actually rolled down for a change, he'd also wrapped his scarf up snugly around nose and mouth and added a pair of goggles to protect his eyes from the wind and sand.

Carl was already there, pacing nervously at the base of the ladder, as Zeke showed up, but he stopped, lips pressing into a tight line. "This is a really bad idea," he admitted honestly, shoulders a little hunched. But he knew better than to try keep them all inside, because he doubted Paige would listen, and where Paige went Zeke would follow, and he wasn't sure, but possibly Ever as well. And if Paige went, Beth was sure to follow. They would head out with or without permission, so going as a group was, unfortunately, the lesser for two evils.

Zeke dind't respond, so they waited out the rest of the allotted time in silence as the others joined them one by one.

Carl was the first out of the hatch, followed quickly by Zeke who let out a low and very heartfelt curse as the whipping wind sand blasted the side of his face. He'd been expecting bad, but this went beyond that. Visibility was next to nothing, and the shifting sands would have made it impossible to traverse with the aid of familiar landscapes even if they could have seen.

"This is a bad idea," Carl said again as he pulled his scarf up high and squinted through the wind and sand. Zeke agreed with him, but he didn't say anything, just stood there and waited for the rest of their party to climb up out of the safety of the base to join them.

Logic said what they were about to attempt was not only unwise, but impossible. Again Zeke kept his mouth shut, lips pressed into a grim line behind the cover of his scarf as he scanned what little of the horizon he could see. Sand sand and more sand. No foot prints, no tracks of any kind.

How were they going to find Cee in this?

Carl's 'Everyone stay together' seemed an unnecessary warning.

Cee's pretty sure this is just a ******** up dream because she can't see anything sharply and it smells like she's in her old dead grandmother's living room, with the plastic on the chairs and that bowl of unidentifiable hard candy that you never had the balls to eat out of. But you always wondered...

She wants to say 'What the ******** gran'ma?' but she can't find her voice and in this dream grandmom's a skeleton woman which means that other smaller skeleton was some representation of her a*****e shih-tzu Bella. It dug into her stomach and she suddenly cursed Deus for bringing this s**t into her life. Dream or Nightmare or whatever, she wouldn'tve had this ******** problem back home bored as hell.

Her gaze searched for anything to lock on, and she felt so ******** tired all of a sudden, and as with all dreams her thoughts wouldn't stay in one place. She thinks by the sudden weakness and the desperation in her pulse that maybe she's the grandma because is that grey hair?

The bitches on tumblr would kill for for grey ombre like this...

As they headed out into the storm Ever had moved up on Zeke's right, and Paige took a place on his left. The mist slowed his pace by a few steps, let them pull ahead enough for him to to be able to see both their backs in sight, more or less. Even with the suggestion to spread out so they covered more ground. Zeke had made a noise of assent, concentration on the terrain, as much as the voices crackling over his communicator and keeping track of the bodies to either side of him.

He wanted to find Cee, more for them than for himself, but he was not willing to sacrifice either of them for the petite brunette. No matter how much closer they'd actually gotten in the last few months. Cold, maybe, but honest.

Carl, still playing the leader, keep more or less the front and middle of the group, attempting to take the lead, even if the now wide spread of their group made that pretty much impossible. He was watching out for any danger, but visibility was so awful it wasn't likely he'd see anything until an enemy was very nearly on top of them. Still, he tried!

They continued on like that for quite some time. Long enough that Zeke began to wonder if maybe they should change direction, or if they already had without realizing it. Honestly, they could have been walking in circles around the base and none of them would have none unless they'd tripped over the hatch door. Any footprints they were leaving behind were covered in minutes. Not for the first time since they'd left the relative safety of the base, the Mist had to agree with Carl. This was a bad idea. They should have waited for the storm to pass, they should have put the safety of all over the safety of one, even if that one person was someone important to some of them.

These were the unpleasant thoughts that were circling through his head when the ground beneath his feet suddenly shuddered then gave way completely. There was an inarticulately startled yelp, the sound of his breath hissing over the coms upon impact, and a pained groan that followed in the aftermath as he stared up through the whole at the sand cascading around the sides above. "Found something," he managed to deadpan out, unnecessarily, as he sat up with a grunt and rubbed at the back of his head.

As the dust from falling debris settled and the sand falling in around him slowed a bit he was able to get a good look around himself. It was a whole, but it was more then that. The walls to either side of him were carved stone, there was what looked like a ramp leading upward into more old planking in front of him, and to his back was an opening leading into darkness. "Looks like a tunnel." He got to his feet carefully, staring down that darkened path, before looking up through the hole he'd fallen in.

Bob was with the rest of them, though he'd made an argument for someone staying back in the base, it was important (apparently) that they find Cee. He wasn;t the assertive type so simply followed behind and hoped that some of them didn't get them killed (looking at you Beth).

He pulled his scarf down as they entered the tunnel. He naturally shirked the living walls and eyed the glowing bodies suspiciously.

"So do we split up? That's generally always considered a mistake right?" Bob crossed his arms. "But there's five paths."

"Whatever Zeke decides," Paige groused, edging closer to the Mist. She was still feeling a little on edge, a little pissy about being separated from Zeke during the search below ground, and even more irritated that Cee hadn't yet been found. Beth's presence only compounded her annoyance.

She leaned in to Zeke, her voice a low whisper, "Send Beth alone."

Wishful thinking, that.