The next morning, Ellen and I meet up in the cafeteria for breakfast. We must have gotten a late start because the place is almost empty and unlike the night before, we get a table all to ourselves.

I don't think I've ever seen my sister so disheveled. Her usually perfectly styled hair is escaping from her haphazard pony tail, dark circles line her eyes, and she's wearing clothing that looks to be two sizes too big.

"Don't say a damn word, Will," she warns, seeing the grin on my face as I sit across from her.

But I can't help myself. "Sleep well?"

"I honestly don't know how these people can stand this place," she says, poking at the gray paste-like substance in her bowl. "Between the snoring, coughing, shuffling, and other noises that continued all through the night, I don't think I got two hours of rest. And then these were the only civilian clothes they were able to find me," she tugs at her checker patterned button down shirt. "I look like a lumberjack from one of those nature movies you used to watch when you were little."

I laugh and clap my hands together. "I thought you looked familiar."

"You don't look too hot yourself," she grimaces.

I turn my attention to my own plate and begin slathering a thick, red spread onto my toasted bread. "I've been up since midnight. I'm still on our schedule from back home, so my body thinks I should be getting ready for bed right about now."

"Yeah, that sucks. It'll take a couple of days to adjust. By the way, do you know a Nelly?" she asks.

I snap my head up. "Why do you ask?"

"She's in my dorm and she asked about you," Ellen says, dropping her spoon and giving up on her gray paste.

I bite into my toast and answer with a muffled mumble. "Really? What did you think of her?"

"I don't know." She shrugs, reaching for her glass. "She seemed nice."

Nice. That's what I thought too. I finish chewing and swallow. "Right. Remember that story I told you last night about those outsiders getting shot?"

She nods.

"Well, your new friend is the one who pulled the trigger," I say.

"Oh." Ellen exhales the syllable before covering her true reaction behind the glass of juice.

We spend the rest of breakfast in silence. After eating, Juanita finds us and we start our quest to find the perfect jobs. We're initially assigned to laundry duty. When I'm specifically instructed not run dark colors in hot water, I know exactly what I'll be doing. After shrinking about a dozen sweaters to kid size, our supervisor promptly kicks us out of the facility.

One menial task down, who knows how many to go. But we need to persevere – by which I mean fail miserably – until we get something that can be useful for us.

The following day, we visit a classroom during school hours to see if we can share some of our marine science knowledge with the children. We have a great time illustrating some of the lesser-known aquatic species to the eager nine year olds and we get invited back the next day. Teaching them is kind of fun and I'd actually like to try to see how long we can legitimately last in this job; however, Ellen insists we stick to our plan. She then tells a very vivid story about the horrors of decompression sickness that obviously isn't what the teachers had in mind. We leave this job – and a room full of gagging or crying kids – behind, as well.

We experience similar failures with cooking, plumbing, and even custodial work. In the ultimate show of irony, Ellen gets genuinely upset when she accidentally makes the industrial dishwasher jam, leading to our biggest screw-up of the week. It also wins us another audience with Governor Bradford.

"I've gotten word that you're not having much success integrating into our little community here," he observes from behind his desk, lacing his fingers together. "Why do you think that is?"

"I'm sorry to say, sir, that our skills seem to be rather limited," Ellen explains from the chair next to me.

"I see," he says with conviction signaling that the only thing he sees is two good-for-nothings who are about to put a drain on his resources. "And what kind of skills do you think you could contribute?"

This is exactly the question we've been waiting for. "We've been trained as soldiers, sir. We can fight," I say with a bit too much enthusiasm.

"Is that so? Well, this isn't a war, son. We don't have much need for fighters," he states flatly and my spirits sink.

Great. We'll be stuck inside without a chance to ever escape.

To my surprise, Bradford isn't done. "However, we could use someone with your . . . let's call it gumption to join a crew that's heading into the city tonight," he says looking at me and then Ellen. "Do you think that'd be more up your alley than washing dirty clothes?" 

My enthusiasm doesn't wane even when Bradford tells us that Jed will be leading the group. When we meet up with him a few hours later, Jed informs us that we first have to pass a test in order to go.

"I'm not going to babysit anyone, so if you can't take care of yourselves, then you're staying behind," he announces to the small group assembled in the lobby.

Freddy's flanking Jed, and besides me and Ellen, three others are listening intently. There are two men in head to toe camouflage, as well as a woman who even fully dressed looks to be more muscular than me. We haven't been told about the specifics, and the slight apprehension on their faces makes it look like it may also be their first time on such a mission.

It's nighttime, so it's safe to go outside. We circle the building until we're standing in front of an adjacent structure that's at least four times as tall as the previous one. Unbelievably, its entire surface is basically one huge, metal door, which now stands shut.

"Is this—?" I begin, staring at the wall in awe while Freddy unlocks a regular sized door hidden away in the corner.

"Yup. This was where they partially assembled Vanguard," the woman on my left finishes my thought as we begin to head inside the building.

Although it's dark, there's a soft glow coming from above that almost makes it feel like we're still outdoors. When I look up, I see that the whole ceiling – located four or five hundred feet above us – is made of glass, allowing the full moon to shine through. Directly under this skylight, metal beams criss-cross overhead to support hooks that dangle from chains below. These must have been used to hoist the individual components of the station before they were all positioned into place. As I begin to wonder why we were brought here, someone flips a switch to turn on a series of floodlights and envelop the whole interior in light.

I can now clearly see that with the exception of the side with the doors, the other three walls are lined from floor to ceiling with massive, metal racks. Several levels of this industrial scaffolding is piled up with all sorts of boxes, as well as all types of various machines. On the ground, there is a small fleet of trucks parked on the far side, while about fifteen yards away the empty floor space contains several crates topped with various bottles and cans. Much closer still, a small table holds five weapons.

"These aren't all the same model, but they all work basically the same way," Jed explains, stepping to the table and picking up one of the guns. "They're all semi-automatic, meaning that each shot automatically reloads the next round into the chamber. The rounds are in these cartridges, which are called magazines," he pops out the case from the bottom of the handle and holds it up for everyone to see.

"They hold between six and ten rounds each, depending on which one you pick. You'll have to remember that the first round does have to be manually loaded into the chamber, thusly." He puts in the magazine and pulls back the top of the weapon until it clicks. "Some - like this one - must be manually cocked after each shot, while these," he points to others on the table, "are activated by just pulling the trigger. All of them, however, have an external safety that you should always engage when the weapon is not in use."

Jed sets the latch and tries to fire off a round into the air, but the gun remains silent.

"You'll each get five chances to hit one of those objects." He points to the stuff on top of the crates. "Unless you manage to successfully make contact with two, you're staying behind. Got it?"

We nod with various degrees of enthusiasm. I see that the two men who I'm not familiar with are grinning to each other, and I'm curious to see how they'll fare.

Jed puts the gun back on the table among the other four. "Good. Now pick your weapon and line up along here."