Dmitri jogged upstairs with Rex following close behind. On the way, he checked several rooms they had passed earlier and took note of which ones were already cleared.
Rex inspected almost everything as they climbed, sniffing along the walls, doorways, and corners while his ears shifted at every small sound.
They reached the ninth floor and stopped at the locked rooftop door.
"Rex, cover me."
The dog planted itself a few steps behind him, ears forward.
Dmitri pulled a slim roll-up kit from his tactical pack and crouched beside the lock. One tool went in first, then another. He listened with one ear close to the mechanism while applying pressure with his fingers.
A few seconds later, something clicked, and Dmitri gave the lock a satisfied look. "Easy enough."
He returned the tools to the kit, secured it inside his pack, and brought his MP7A1 forward before opening the door.
Sunlight and warm wind struck him at once. Dust skittered across the rooftop, gathering around the low walls and drainage edges.
Rex stepped outside with his head already lowered, sniffing the warm air before Dmitri had even cleared the doorway.
"Go on. Check it."
The dog moved across the concrete at a light trot, sniffing the air and circling the rooftop while Dmitri stayed several steps behind. Rex paused twice to stare toward the neighboring buildings, but neither reaction lasted long.
After another sweep, he returned and sat near Dmitri.
"Nothing, huh?"
Rex gave a quiet bark, and Dmitri pulled out a small piece of meat he had taken from one of the cleared cold-storage units and tossed it over.
Rex caught it easily and looked at him again. "Good boy. That's enough bribery for now."
He moved to the eastern edge of the rooftop and raised the compact binocular-rangefinder.
The front of the apartment complex came into view first. Several Conscripts were working around Building One's entrance, moving furniture and other materials into the remaining open sections. The faint smell of burnt flesh still lingered from the corpse fire earlier.
Dmitri shifted farther right, bringing the gasoline station into view.
The gasoline station sat roughly three hundred meters away. Only a few infected wandered around the pumps and road, but the small diner beside it caught his attention.
Most of its windows were blocked by chairs, tables, cushions, and whatever else the people inside had managed to stack against them.
"Someone's in there."
Two vehicles parked near the diner looked noticeably better than the others around them. Their paint was still relatively clean, and neither appeared abandoned in the same way as the wrecks scattered around the road.
Dmitri kept watching until a pillow moved behind one of the diner windows and a young woman leaned forward enough for him to see part of her face. She looked toward the apartment complex, held there for several seconds, then withdrew.
A taller man replaced her soon after and looked in the same direction.
Dmitri lowered the binoculars. "Bingo. They saw the fire."
That was enough to mark the diner as occupied. Whether the people inside were friendly was another matter.
He tapped the small wrist slate attached to his equipment and entered a short note.
Gasoline station diner. At least two visible survivors. One woman, one middle-aged man. Two apparently usable vehicles. Observe before contact.
Dmitri crossed to the opposite side of the rooftop and surveyed the parking area.
The lot was enormous, stretching behind the apartment buildings with row after row of damaged vehicles. Building One's section was the easiest to see. Most cars there had shattered windows, flat tires, or crushed panels, while Hans's sidecar motorcycle and armored SUV were hard to miss.
Dmitri spent a moment on the SUV.
Fire ports replaced most of the ordinary window openings, and a raised firing position sat along the roof. A compact ram plow covered part of the front.
"That should help with roadblocks."
It would not magically clear Grefort's packed roads, but the vehicle was obviously built to force its way through lighter obstructions.
He shifted the binoculars farther across the parking lot.
Around ten infected wandered through the first section. Another group of roughly the same size occupied the next visible area, spread between the cars rather than moving as one concentration.
A maintenance-company van sat near Building Three.
"Tools, maybe." He marked the van before shifting farther across the lot.
The curve of the road and the neighboring apartment blocked part of the remaining lot, so Dmitri could not see everything from this rooftop. He adjusted position twice, but the blind area remained.
Something else caught his attention near the edge of Building Three's parking section: a manhole cover large enough for a person.
Dmitri studied it for several seconds. "That's worth checking later."
He added the location to the slate, along with the sections of the parking lot he could not properly observe from above.
Once the broad survey was finished, Dmitri turned his binoculars toward the other three apartment buildings.
Broken windows and damaged balconies covered the other buildings, with movement showing only in a few places.
Building Two received most of his attention first. A red piece of cloth still hung near one of the upper windows, the same signal Alexei and Selene had reported earlier. Dmitri watched long enough to catch movement behind the glass, but not enough to count everyone inside.
"There you are." Dmitri marked the floor and window position on the slate: survivors confirmed, no contact yet.
Building Three looked worse than the others.
Several small meteorite fragments were embedded along part of its exterior, dark pieces lodged in concrete and broken walls where the atmospheric event had struck the complex.
Dmitri focused on one, and a cold pressure pushed against the inside of his head.
His breathing stopped for half a second.
The rooftop around him seemed farther away, and something unpleasant crawled along the edge of his thoughts. Dmitri lowered the binoculars and stepped back before the pressure could build any farther.
The sensation faded, but Rex had already turned toward him.
"I'm fine."
The dog stayed where it was but did not look away.
Dmitri waited several seconds before raising the binoculars again, this time keeping the fragments outside the center of his view.
Nothing happened, but he lowered them anyway.
"Unknown mental effect from the meteorite fragments. Prolonged observation not recommended."
That went into the slate before anything else.
Dmitri looked once more toward Building Three without magnification.
The fragments did not look impressive from this distance, and that somehow made them worse.
He stopped looking at them and continued the rest of the survey.