The breach in the wall was not yet repaired, and might not be for a while yet. But it was covered, down at the base, by a great flap of burlap and wax, stitched together hastily and imperfectly and strung across the crevice like a curtain.

“Better than nothing,” Rector breathed. How much better, he couldn’t say.

By now, Zeke was prepared to trust that his strange ward wouldn’t run away or take to violence. He turned his back and climbed the lowest rocks to reach the curtain. He fumbled with the ties that held it, and the sasquatch watched with his vivid, unblinking eyes.

Those bright eyes widened when the flap came aside, revealing a hole. It was large enough for Zeke to walk through, almost, so it’d be large enough for the sasquatch to crawl through.

Light came through on the other side. Not brilliant light, but a creamy, soft glow that was far more mist than Blight.

Through the hole, Rector saw trees, and the edge of an old building, and part of a road that nobody but the tower men had used in years. He saw the rest of the world, away from the Station and the Vaults, and out of the Blight (or it would be, when they got this hole fixed); he saw a portal to someplace else a million miles away. And it was right over there, a handful of feet on the other side of those huge, rumbling rocks.

He could’ve climbed through it as easily as the sasquatch.

Chapter 30

Thirty

The next day, Rector found the old jail again without too much trouble. He had a compass and a lantern, though it was daylight and he hoped he wouldn’t need them. He also had his ax, some extra filters, a canteen of water, some dried cherries and pemmican, and a number of other just-in-case supplies in the pack he wore on his back. A pack kept his hands freer, and his balance was better in the event he needed to run or climb.

He was no great fan of running or climbing, but in the walled city he never knew when it might be called for. There were rotters, after all.

Not as many rotters as there once were, no. Still, their ranks had plumped overnight for reasons everyone knew but nobody talked about. He didn’t like them, but he knew the city needed them, after a fashion. So he learned to take precautions and tried not to complain too much.

This was his first jaunt alone through the city since the day he’d arrived.