Zubair adjusted his stance slightly, ready for anything without looking like it.
Lachlan rolled his shoulders, static crackling faintly around his hands. Alexei's eyes were already tracking possible entry points, line-of-sight routes, blind spots in the tower placement.
"Walk through or around?" Lachlan asked.
"Through," Sera replied with a shrug. "Around wastes time."
She started toward the plaza.
As they approached, more of the town came into focus.
On the fringes of the square, people were moving. Not in the open so much as in the doorways and behind the barricades.
A woman in a stained uniform jacket swept debris from the threshold of a building that doubled as both office and housing, her eyes never leaving the group. A man in a faded CDC shirt leaned against a truck, pretending to smoke while his gaze flicked from Sera to the tower to the road out of town.
They all looked like they'd been holding their breath for a long time.
