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*Previously -- * Three anthros, an elf, a human, and a feral dog (a talking, feral dog) walk into a bar . . . No, wait, that's the start of a joke. This . . . this is something different. Our heroes have gotten into a van, and they have to get from New York City to the West Coast. The trip is going to suck. America is in a state that can only be described as postapocalyptic, and things are turning shitty. The good news is, they brought alcohol.

**

{"This is Major Tom to Ground Control. I'm stepping through the door, and I'm floating in the most peculiar way - and the stars look very different today." - _David Bowie}_

**

"Okay," I said to Celeste. "Head uptown."

The elf put the van in gear, and she slipped into traffic. Soon, we were driving up the broad avenue. Looking out the window, I saw that the city looked mostly normal, as we drove through it. However, we did pass quite a few makeshift shelters - businesses turned into temporary places of refuge. Humans and anthros gathered in lines and groups around those places. We also passed by shops that had been either looted or burned down - or both. We drove by places that had been bombed, and we drove through neighborhoods that had been hit hard during the blackout.

"Okay," I said, again. "We know that the lines for the Holland tunnel and the GW bridge are insane - it would take hours, shit, maybe days, to get through. And we know that we can't go upstate, where you came from -" I glanced at Micah, "Because the border between New York and Pennsylvania is closed down, and there are roadblocks everywhere. Soldiers, too, probably. And we know that the ferries have been shut down. However, there are some private ferries out there - if you have connections. Which I do. We'll need money - which Duncan has."

"No worries there," Duncan nodded his head.

"I know someone. His ferry can fit a dozen or so cars, plus a lot of folks. The cops will inspect everyone and everything going into the ferry, but we're not criminals, or anything. We have nothing to hide."

"And if anyone asks," Duncan added, "We say that we're just trying to get away, same as everyone else."

I gave Celeste directions on where to go.

"So, Jack," Rav asked me. "You from here?"

"Yeah," I replied. "Born and raised on the Lower East Side. What about you?"

I tried to ignore how masculine the big Lion looked, as he sat next to me in the van. Masculine and handsome. I didn't want to start getting into him.

"I'm from some little fart of a village upstate," Rav said. "But I moved to the city - to Manhattan - when I was eighteen." He laughed. "I didn't even wait 'til I'd saved up money, or anything. Boom, I just went."

"Do you like it here?"

"I _love _it here!" Rav nearly roared. "I feel like . . . shit, I don't know how to describe it . . . I feel like it's perfect for me." He shrugged. "Like, I became the person I was meant to be, when I came here."

"But now the city's falling apart," I said, quietly. "Sucks, right? And it hurts, seeing it happen."

Briefly - and only briefly, 'cause I didn't want to think about it - I thought about the terrorist attack, which we all thought came from foreigners. And then we found out it was domestic terrorists that were responsible. And then the blackout happened. And then the riots. Of course, shit was going on all over America, so, we weren't the only ones - the only city - falling apart.

Meanwhile, as Rav and I looked out the windows and pondered the fall of something we thought couldn't fall, Celeste was making a left turn on to 66th street. The narrow, one-way street had nothing but tall, ornate apartment buildings looming up on both sides. We drove maybe halfway along the street, and then . . .

"What the fuck?" Celeste wondered out loud.

Four figures left the sidewalk, and went to stand in the middle of 66th. Three of them wore motorcycle helmets, and thus I couldn't tell if they were anthros or humans (or elves). The fourth was a human - a wide-bodied human in a business suit. I wondered if they were going to try and rob us -- in broad fucking daylight. The motorcycle-helmeted ones had that look of trouble about them, for some reason. But the human just looked like a business guy, some - I know, we should not make assumptions based on appearances, I know - but he looked like some self-important Wall Street business guy worth millions. He looked smug. His suit looked expensive as hell. He stared at the van with a look of steely determination.

What the fuck, indeed.

"Back up," Duncan said. "Back up, quickly."

"Hey, if these assholes want trouble, let's give it to them," Rav said.

Celeste shifted gears, but she noticed someone on a motorcycle coming up behind us.

"Just run him over!" Rav said.

"But we don't know -" Celeste started to say.

"We do know!" Rav shouted. "C'mon!"

The human was walking swiftly towards the van, with his hands raised near his shoulders.

"Just give us the boy!" He shouted. "We'll let the rest of you go."

"He means you, I guess," Rav said, turning around to face Micah.

"I'm not a boy," Micah protested, his eighteen year-old voice sounding, at that moment, very boyish.

"How the fuck does that big guy know Micah's here, in this van, on _this _street?" I asked.

"No idea," Duncan said. "We'll have to figure that out. First, we need to get rid of that cyclist behind us."

"On it," Rav said, quietly, opening his door and sliding out.

Everything happened so fast, then, and I started to feel like I was in a movie. A movie that didn't make much sense. Christ, I thought, as I rolled open the door on my side and I ducked out. Rav, I felt, was an idiot for going after whoever was behind us alone.

The feral dog - Drake - was right behind me, and Duncan was telling Micah to do something, I have no idea what.

(Looking back on that first day, writing these words down in this battered notebook . . . The first fucking day, we were barely on the road, and already someone was trying to stop us. It made no sense. How was it possible? But, that's all beside the point. The point is, everything happened so fast, and I don't know how to write about it. I'll try, of course.)

I could see that Rav was running, in a crouch, towards the motorcyclist, and I could see that the biker was heading towards Rav - and I was _pretty _sure I knew what would happen when a large motorcycle ran into - or ran over - someone on foot. I heard something hitting the van, meanwhile, and I assumed it was gunfire - because everyone in this fucking city has a gun.

The biker nearly hit Rav, but, at the last possible second Rav stepped aside - the Lion looked agile as hell, doing it, and somehow he reached out and snagged the biker's jacket. The motorcycle went flying off in one direction, and Rav pulled the biker down to the ground. And then the van went past us - nearly hitting me - as Celeste drove in reverse down the narrow street. I heard footsteps, running footsteps, and I turned my attention from Rav to the males - or females - who were hiding their faces in those large helmets. Some part of my brain thought Guns, _watch out for guns, _because they'd been shooting the van, and if they'd been shooting the van, that meant they could also shoot . . . me. Something whizzed past me - a bullet, I assumed, but it hit a parked car with a loud, terrible _whonk _noise, and I saw that it was, in fact, an arrow.

I spun towards the helmeted assholes, and saw that one of them was indeed wielding a large crossbow. In a city filled to overflowing with guns, someone - male or female, human or anthro or elf - was shooting fucking arrows at me. Shit was getting weirder and weirder.

The van backed down the street . . . two of the helmeted idiots ran towards the van . . . Rav had punched out the biker, and was running towards the two running towards the van . . . and the third helmeted idiot raised that crossbow again . . .

The feral dog, the feral _talking _dog, who looked like a Doberman (only with black and blue fur, rather than black and tan) came out of freakin' nowhere, it seemed, and he flew into the air - he jumped up, and tackled the asshole with the crossbow. The asshole fell to the pavement with a sickening thud, and the big dog stood on top of him (or her) and growled into his (or her) dazed and helmeted face.

As that was happening, the other two closed in on Rav, and I closed in on them. One of them swung a metal club of some kind at Rav, and the Lion barely ducked in time. The helmeted attacker lunged forward again, and Rav ducked, again - and it looked like he was falling, but he was actually going into a crouch, sort of - he kicked out with his feet, which solidly connected with the helmeted asshole's knees. The asshole yelled, and fell forward, and somehow kept his (or her) grip on the club. The other asshole, meanwhile, spun to his/her left and went after me, fists raised. A punch was aimed at my jaw, and it nearly connected - it grazed the skin, flew past me in a blur, and I kicked, hard as I could, aiming for a shin. I hit something, and my assailant stumbled forward, as I rushed forward, and I almost threw a punch - it was instinct - but what was I going to do, punch a helmet? I grabbed the asshole's shoulders, instead, and drove my knee into what I hoped were a pair of balls. Please don't be a female, I thought. Well, he must've been, in fact, a he, because all the air whooshed out of him and he crumpled forward in a heap.

I noticed that Drake was suddenly there, by my side. And Rav had knocked out the asshole with the club. He took off the helmet, revealing a human male with hair cut very short. He had a scar running along his cheek. And speaking of humans . . .

"Hey," I said, "What happened to that jerk in the business suit? Did he run off?"

"Guess so," Rav replied. "I wonder who the fuck these guys are?"

"And how did they know where to find us?" Drake asked.

"Guess we should wake one of them up and ask them," I said.

My body was coming down from the high of a rush of adrenaline. I had, of course, anticipated trouble on this trip, oh yes. We were supposed to go all the way out to the West Coast, and I'd assumed we'd run into would-be thieves, and probably carjackers, and who knew what all else. Terrorists, maybe, or cannibals. Who knew. There were also plenty of folks who'd formed their own militias, after the troubles had started, and we'd probably run into a few of those groups.

But I had not anticipated this - that someone would come after Micah, specifically. That someone would want to stop him from getting out west. Had that someone been following us? Was that how they knew where to find us?

What, exactly, had I gotten myself into?