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a problem with me touching your arm? A few hours ago I had my hands inside your guts; it doesn’t get more personal than that.’
    The Vagrant shakes his head, places his hand over hers. She pulls free quickly, drawing her gun as she runs towards the shouting.
    ‘Look sharp, stranger, we got about three hours before the stims wear off!’
    They run towards the field’s perimeter, watched by those that have chosen to hide, the innumerable weak.
    ‘Looks like we’re not the first!’ shouts Lil, voice full of excitement and chemicals. She points to the fence where it bends low, forming half of a barbed smile. The gap is spanned by a living bridge; guards who could not stem the greed-tide are spitted together, forming a carpet. Many boot-prints mark their writhing backs.
    The Vagrant turns away.
    He cuts a new path through the fence with his sword, impassive. The wire springs apart, making loose spirals by their feet. They watch as two opposing armies form clumps of fighting in the chaos; on one side guards, on the other workers. Neither has a uniform, both are desperate. Only the dead appear united, their faction already the largest. The battle is scrappy, motivated by greed not bravery. The brave have already fallen, piles of them still protecting their more cautious peers.
    There is space between the clumps of fighters. With uncharacteristic energy, the goat finds an unspoiled patch and begins to gorge. Lil and the Vagrant fill sacks with precious fruit, loading them onto the goat. Rough movements and battle sounds wake the baby who voices its distress.
    The Vagrant works faster.
    Pendulous between the pipes that arch above the fields swings the Unborn, lulled in its slumber by the song of the dying. About its shell the air quivers but does not tear.
    Emerging from the grasses at speed three men approach the laden goat, armed with sharp metal and hate. The lead man only just stops in time. A pistol presses into the skin of his forehead.
    ‘I’ll give you people one chance to back off,’ Lil says, ‘then I start shooting.’
    Quick looks are exchanged, between themselves, at the woman, at her gun. A decision is reached and the men are gone.
    The Vagrant nods, the hint of a hint of a smile on his face.
    ‘There ain’t nothing to smile about here you idiot!’ Lil shouts. ‘We’d better be gone before they’re back in force.’
    Carefully they pick their way across the fields. Bodies lie all around, racing for death. They cry for help, for mercy, for their mothers. The baby just cries.
    Eyes locked on the horizon, the Vagrant walks onwards. The goat fights him along the way, sometimes winning a bite of the yellowing grasses, sometimes bowing to the leash. Progress is slow, the ground is boggy and full of debris but, grudgingly, the far edge of the field comes into view.
    People have gathered in front of the gate, clustered like a flock around a man who moves with the swagger of power. His muscles are drug fed and firm, his rifle steady in his hands. Blue cables run from the gun to his backpack, fizzing with potential.
    ‘Hold there!’ he shouts in a voice rough with living.
    Lil’s pistol stares back at the rifle, neither blinks. ‘Looks like you’re moving up in the world, Kell.’
    ‘Well damn, is that you, Lil? I’d heard you got blown up with your house!’
    ‘Nope, still here.’
    Kell laughs, the sound echoed eerily by his companions. ‘For now maybe. Seems you been taking what’s mine.’
    ‘Listen, this doesn’t have to turn ugly, just let us go and we’ll be no more bother to you.’
    ‘Maybe,’ replies the man, rubbing his stubble with a nailless finger. ‘Or maybe you could entertain us a little first, then we let you go.’
    ‘How about I entertain a hole through your head?’
    Tension ripples through the group and weapons twitch in hands.
    The Vagrant steps forward, he holds a sack open, displaying its contents, offering.
    ‘Well now,’ says Kell. ‘Looks like your partner here is