The settlement Lucky called the Harbor consisted of several enormous warehouses, adjacent to the waterfront. All three streets leading up to the warehouses had been cordoned off with sandbags and makeshift fortifications, and the settlement was protected from the east by the sea itself; one of the warehouses was situated upon a wharf which extended at least a hundred feet over the water. There were also lookout towers and sniper nests on some of the surrounding rooftops.

  None of these security arrangements had prevented the town from being attacked, however. Stu and Lucky, passing through the Highwater Gate, were immediately subject to several grisly sights -- there were bullet-riddled bodies lying out in the open, and one of the warehouses appeared to have been damaged by an explosion. There were no signs of life anywhere.

  Lucky was frantic. He ran from building to building, yelling for his sister. "Luna!" he shouted over and over. "Luna!"

  Stu had been hoping to find some kind of relief here at Harbor -- some food and fresh water, perhaps, along with a safe place to sleep. He had also been looking forward to talking to one of these Pale Riders, and arranging transportation to Lon Halos. None of that looked likely now. The settlement was in ruins. The smell coming from the rotting corpses was very bad; these people had obviously been dead for some time. Flies buzzed around their bodies.

  Stu had a pretty strong stomach, but even he was affected by the smell. If there had been anything in his stomach, he probably would have vomited.

  What had happened here? It didn't look like the work of zombies -- most of these people had been shot. Had the Harbor been attacked by one of the gangs Lucky had described? The Bad Guys, the Wild Pack, the Banshees?

  Was there anyone alive here at all? According to Lucky, over a hundred people had lived in the Harbor, but Stu counted only about a dozen bodies. Did that mean some had managed to escape?

  He wasn't going to learn anything just standing around, so he caught up to Lucky, who was still throwing open doors and shouting for his sister. "I can't find her," he said desperately. "She wasn't in the garage or the bunks. You don't think..." He trailed off, hyperventilating.

  "I'm sure she's fine," Stu said, although he wasn't sure he believed that. "Just calm down, okay? Take a few deep breaths."

  "Calm down?" the kid shouted back at him, incredulous. "How can I be calm? The Harbor's been attacked! Ben and Lily and Duncan are dead, and my sister...I can't find my sister!"

  "She could be hiding somewhere," he suggested. "She could have escaped. Let's look around some more."

  Lucky closed his eyes and drew in a deep breath. "Okay. Okay, let's look around."

  They spent the next thirty minutes exploring the Harbor. They found a few more bodies here and there, in some of the buildings, but not enough to account for the number of missing. "Maybe some of them did manage to escape," Lucky said hopefully. "Maybe Penelope got them out. But where would they go?"

  "You mentioned slavers before," Stu said uncomfortably. "Could this have been some kind of slave raid?"

  "I don't know," he said. "The Banshees ran most of the slaver gangs out of Meku years ago, but..." He shook his head. "I don't know."

  They arrived at another fortified gate, blocking the street. Like the Highwater Gate, this one had been broken open. "This is the Red Gate," Lucky explained. "The Brute broke through here a few nights ago. Penelope and the others drove him off." He frowned at the wreckage. "Looks like they didn't have time to repair it."

  They continued searching, going from one building to the next. Entering one of the warehouses, which had been divided up into several narrow corridors and small, apartment-like rooms, they found another body.

  "Hal," Lucky said sadly. "He was one of the Harbor Guards. Looks like he's been shot, too." He stopped suddenly, looking up. "Did you hear that?"

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  "Hear what?"

  He didn't answer. Instead, eyes narrowing, he started creeping down the hallway, to the room at the end of the corridor. The door to this room was partially ajar, and Stu, now listening intently, thought he heard something coming from this room as well -- the quiet creaking of floorboards. It sounded like someone was moving around in there.

  "Careful," Stu whispered, reaching for his knife.

  Lucky slowly pushed on the door; the hinges squealed. The room beyond was completely dark. Stu considered activating his Night Vision, but he could only use it for thirty minutes a day and it seemed like a waste to turn it on in the middle of the morning. He squinted into the darkness instead, searching for any sign of movement...

  ...And that's when he heard the unmistakable sound of someone pumping a shotgun. "Stay back," a voice growled out of the dark.

  "Jessup?" Lucky called. "Is that you?"

  "Lucky?" A figure emerged from the shadows: a teenage boy, a few years older than Lucky, wearing a camouflage coat and armed with a huge black shotgun. But he lowered the gun when he saw Lucky. "It is you," he said. "Where the hell have you been?"

  "Jessup," Lucky said, similarly relieved. "What were you doing in there?"

  "Hiding." He looked up at Stu. "Who's this guy?"

  "Friend of mine. I found him wandering around down in the subway. He helped me kill the Brute."

  His eyes widened. "You killed the Brute?"

  "Yeah. Jessup, what the hell happened here? Where is everybody? Where's Luna?"

  "Luna?" He blinked. "She's not with you?"

  "Why would she be?"

  "She got in her glider and went out looking for you as soon as she heard you'd left to fight the Brute. That was just before the shit hit the fan. I figured she would have caught up to you by now."

  "I haven't seen her," Lucky said worriedly. "But you're saying she wasn't here when Harbor was attacked?"

  "No."

  Lucky let out a huge sigh. "Thank goodness."

  "Who attacked Harbor?" Stu asked.

  "It was the Wild Pack," Jessup said. "They attacked the Highwater Gate, but then one of them saw that the Red Gate was open, too, and they started pouring in through that one. The Harbor Guard held them off as long as they could, but there were too many of them, and Madhouse had a Centurion rifle." He shook his head sadly. "Hal told me to hide in here."

  "Were they any other survivors?" Lucky pressed.

  "The Oakely Stardust was in port," Jessup said. "Penelope managed to get almost everyone on board before the Wild Pack broke through. They took it out to sea, while the Harbor Guard stayed behind to cover their escape. I thought I could help, so I stayed with them, but we were outnumbered, and..." He had to stop and steady himself before he could continue. "Hal and I were probably the last ones left. He told me to hide in here. The Wild Pack came in, and...and they shot him." He gritted his teeth. "I should have left with the others."

  "I'm sorry," Stu said, "but what's the Oakley Stardust?"

  "It's this huge yacht that travels up and down the coast," Lucky explained distractedly. "They stop in Harbor sometimes, to trade with us." He nodded to himself. "But this is good news, isn't it? I mean, it's terrible that this happened, but at least most of the townspeople were able to escape. Did your family get on the boat, Jessup?"

  "Yeah," he said. "I should have gone with them. But I thought...I thought I could help. I thought I could be a hero."

  "I'm sure you did the best you could," Lucky said awkwardly. "If the Wild Pack attacked Harbor right after I left...it's been a few days, huh? Have you been hiding in here all this time?"

  "I went to the kitchens once," he said, "but the Wild Pack was still hanging around. They were ransacking everything -- they took all our food, and they raided the weapons depot. Madhouse was still there, too. I overheard him talking."

  "Who's Madhouse?" Stu asked.

  "The new leader of the Wild Pack," Lucky said. "What did he say?"

  "He said he was going to unite all the gangs together and drive the Pale Riders out of Meku City once and for all."

  "That must be why he attacked Harbor," Lucky muttered. "To make it clear to the other settlements that the Pale Riders can't protect them anymore."

  "Anyway, they were still here last night," Jessup continued. "Drinking, fighting. They must have just left this morning."

  Lucky took a moment to absorb that, then asked, "Do you have any idea where the Stardust was headed?"

  "The Big Green."

  "The Big Green?" Stu asked.

  "It's an island," Lucky said. "Makes sense that they'd go there; no one's going to come looking for them on the island. They should be safe there for a while. But what about Luna? What could have happened to her? You don't suppose she went back down into the subway to look for me, do you?"

  "It's possible," Jessup admitted.

  "Damn," Lucky said. "She could be in trouble. She could've gotten lost." He suddenly turned to Stu. "Will you help me look for her?"

  An ICON message suddenly popped into view in front of Stu's face:

  Quest Available: Looking for Luna

  Stu frowned. What was the deal with these quests? How were they triggered? And what was the point of them?

  Nevertheless, he touched the "Yes" button beneath the words, accepting the quest. He liked Lucky, and he wanted to help him out. Besides, completing these quests seemed like a good way to level up and acquire more skill points; finding Lucky's lost sister, no matter what dangers they might encounter along the way, was surely easier than going out and "grinding" by killing zombies.

  "Of course," he said. "I'll help you look for her. But where do we start?"