Tam had been captured when he and the other raiders broke into an underground bunker a year before. Tam was the only member of her family, and one of the only inhabitants of the bunker to survive the attack. After many months of resistance, she'd agreed to become one of them, instead of remaining their servant and prisoner.

Now she was out ahead of the raiding party, scouting out this new group. If the things they'd heard were even partially correct, this could be a fantastic opportunity. Some of the other raiders claimed to have seen some of these mountain people enter a deserted town, and their weapons were in excellent condition. They'd even reported that these newcomers were using radio communications. They had followed them back to this mountain and alerted the rest of the raiders.

Rumors were circulating throughout the raiders though, rumors which suggested someone had seen a helo flying overhead.

Personally, Bud found this impossible to believe. As far as he knew, there hadn't been any helos flying for years. Bud had seen a few at airports and military bases, but they were usually in really bad shape.

A few years ago, a raiding party had found one in good condition, and the raiders had worked for over a month to get it working. Eventually, they did get it running, and the engine had sounded quite smooth. Unfortunately, as soon as they got it into the air, the flying machine had gotten out of control, and the body started spinning almost as fast as the rotors. It had only climbed about thirty feet into the air when it suddenly dropped.

Bud had once seen a combat scene on an old video disk where a helo had hit the ground and immediately exploded. When their helo dropped that day, everyone on the ground had run for their lives. After several minutes without an explosion, they carefully approached the helo to discover the two people aboard had died in the crash. It was the closest Bud had gotten to seeing a real helo flying.

The raiders had a base camp in the mountains, and there were about fifty in their group. They'd come from all over the area and joined together because there was strength in numbers.

Bud joined the raiders years before, after his parents had been killed. His mother was suspected to have died from cancer, and Bud and his father had gone on with living the best they could. They foraged for food and stayed in sheltered areas as much as possible.

One cold evening, Bud's father was trying to get an old kerosene heater working when the heater fell off a rickety table and covered him with burning fuel. Bud had tried desperately to help his father, but the fire quickly spread through the small house they'd been staying in and Bud had to flee, leaving his dying father thrashing around on the floor.