"You seem rather," Melanie began after they had spent several minutes in silence, "knowledgeable about how the mind works. As an inventor's assistant, I thought you'd be more inclined to machinery than people."

"It has to do with why I became an inventor's assistant in the first place," Eddie replied. "I may have told you I specialized in interfacing, merging of living systems with mechanical ones."

"You did," she confirmed.

"I had an uncle with a degenerative brain condition that ate away at the links between his mind and his body," Eddie explained. His eyes were fixed ahead of him, and the muscles on his neck were tight as he spoke. "I wanted to find a way, through technology, to rebuild the bridge between the mind and body, restoring or even improving function. If it could help my uncle, it could help others too."

"Were you successful?" Melanie asked, but from what she'd been seeing in his behavior, she knew the answer already.

"Not in time," Eddie told her. "He died."

"I'm sorry," she offered, the words feeling alien on her lips.

"Thanks," Eddie accepted, not seeming to notice her unfamiliarity with the words. "I kept working on the project anyway."

"Why?" Melanie prompted. "It wouldn't change anything."

"Not for him," Eddie confirmed. "However, it could've helped others. Besides, he was the inspiration for the work, so helping others with it would've been a fitting tribute in his honor. After the undead started showing up, production of test models was delayed as everything shifted to fighting zombies. I still have the plans with me, so if the threat ever does end, I should be able to pick up where I left off."

"Still holding to hope," Melanie observed. When Eddie glanced at her, Melanie did something she hadn't done in so long she'd nearly forgotten how. She smiled at him. "Don't lose it."

Eddie's beard shifted as he returned the smile with greater enthusiasm. "I'll do my best."

Lighting flashed, closer and louder than before. As they progressed further into the mountain pass, the lightning amplified until what had been a distant rumbling became an artillery barrage of deafening and blinding intensity.

Eddie ducked under an outcropping of stone as bolt of lightning struck the ground, cratering the soil and kicking up clouds of dirt. Melanie wedged herself into the narrow shelter beside him after seeing the entire pass was covered in similar craters caused by lightning strikes.

"I don't think this is any kind of natural storm," Melanie told Eddie, having to shout as another bolt struck the mountain in a shower of eye-hurting sparks.

"Geargarde is supposed to be safe from the undead," Eddie answered in a similar shout. "Maybe this is how they did it, a lightning defense system."

"Good for them, but if we're trying to get in, how do we keep from getting hit?" Melanie questioned.

"Run really fast?" Eddie suggested with a shrug. "I don't really have any other ideas."

"Perhaps they would," Melanie suggested with a nod.

Eddie followed her gaze toward a group of three people standing at the far end of the pass where it curved around beyond their field of view. Masks concealed their faces, and a hose attached to the elongated snout of each mask reached behind the figures like an elephant trunk, connecting to a respiration cylinder on their backs. The strangers were draped in mail, long coats of gleaming copper rings. Segmented gauntlets covered them from the elbow to their fingertips where they firmly gripped a staff taller than the people themselves. Each staff, topped by a trident of metal spears, possessed thumb sized domes down their length like evenly spaced barnacles. Coils of tightly twisted wire linked each dome into a conductive series. Whenever a lightning bolt lanced down near the three people, the energy arced toward the staves before being channeled straight down and dispersing harmlessly into the ground at their feet.

The strangers marched to where Melanie and Eddie had taken shelter, spreading out into a triangle formation.

"Stay between us, and you will be safe," said one of the three, but with the noise of the lightning crashing all around them, and the masks hiding their faces, Melanie couldn't tell which. "Come."

The three strangers began walking; Melanie and Eddie had to move quickly or be left behind. The energy coursing through the air all around them was more intense than she'd ever experienced. The lightning burst and flashed similar to cannon fire, but what dispersed among the three guarding figures hummed loudly as it was channeled and focused through their staves and created a prickly vibration across her skin. She couldn't think too much about it as the guardians had a brisk pace, and if her focus diverted too much from navigating the uneven pathway, Melanie could easily stumble or fall behind.

An entrance loomed before them. Massive walls of stone and reinforcing bands of iron blocked the way forward. Giant towers, identical to the staves in all but size, stood atop the massive fortification, protecting it from the lightning that had become near constant. Steam vented in great plumes as the gate mechanics began to work. Pistons forcefully drove gears whose teeth hooked into the back of the gates along segmented metal strips, pulling the gates slowly open on hidden wheels.

The procession hurried inside, and the gates were set in motion once more, slamming closed with a thunder to match what roared in the skies above and echoed from the stone walls of the mountains. One of the guardians waved a hand, beckoning them to continue following.

Melanie looked to Eddie. He shrugged, but she noticed how when he casually hooked his thumb in his pocket, his palm rested on the head of his hatchet. Keeping ready to bring out her own weapons, she followed warily. It didn't matter the guardians had provided protection from the storm. Melanie had seen many survivors who'd turned to cannibalism when resources had been exhausted. Trapped in a city surrounded by an endless lightning storm didn't bode well for the locals being farmers.