White Wall was completely different from Dongle Town. Whereas in the small town I was simply another member, here I was an idol. Word about me had spread like wildfire. I couldn't go down to the shops without people flocking around me, asking me for autographs. But there was also an air of danger in the city. I had seen firsthand just how big the white wall was, and I couldn't shake off the feeling that those mighty walls wouldn't be enough. But it was ok; I was only going to stay there until Helena whelped that kid out. I think.

  It had been a week and a half since I had arrived, and I couldn't be happier. Staying with Cooper was an adventure. Even though I had to mind his wife twenty-four seven, it wasn't half bad. Mary and I had to watch over her whenever Cooper wasn't with us, but that was basically never. Cooper seemed like the best man in the world, and she was a person matching him like a puzzle piece. The morning of Thursday was quite uneventful. Helena didn't wake up in the middle of the night and slept well through the night. Mary and I shared a bed, as always, and we both woke up at basically the same time. We had memorized the location of everything in the kitchen, and we were making toast for us and some eggs for the future parents.

  "I want one," said Mary.

  "Why? You always take toast in the morning." I said while cracking an egg over the pan.

  "I want to switch things up. Got an issue?" She said defiantly.

  "No, just odd. I'll have your toast then." She had already put her toast in the toaster, but I'd eat it. So I made five fried eggs, two for Cooper, two for Helena, and one for Mary, who declined another in favor of eating her bread. We decided on bringing the food to them as a sort of thank you for everything they'd done for us. When we reached their room, Cooper was sitting on the corner of his bed, watching over her. He had a look in his eyes that told me he could only think about her. The same type of look I gave Mary, that look of absolute dread and worry. That look of pure love and wanting. It was heartwarming to see it. He felt so much for her he couldn't put it into words, but everyone around could see it. In the short weeks I had spent with Mary, I had gotten used to that feeling. That feeling of being scared out of my wits for her, the fear of losing her. I couldn't imagine how terrified he must have been then, knowing his wife could die bringing his son to life.

  Mary and I were scared of breaking the blissful silence. We both knew Cooper felt us there; it was quite obvious. But he didn't make any movement or sound.

  Helena was peacefully sleeping on her back; her black hair had fallen over her face, and she had a thin line of dribble on her lips. She really was beautiful. She looked so gracious, so pretty. But then one of the floorboards beneath me creaked, and that woke her up. She rubbed her eyes and opened them; she looked puzzled as to why we were all there staring at her.

  "Morning," she said.

  That broke us from the trance, and we snapped out of it.

  "Good morning, Helena, how's the kid?" We asked. She smiled warmly; she looked down at her bump.

  "It's doing fine; it's behaving quite well." She then noticed our trays. "Oh, you girls spoil us too much. We don't deserve it!" She was a sweetheart.

  We got closer to her, and she sat more upright; she then motioned to Cooper to sit beside her.

  Cooper hesitated a bit; I don't know why.

  "Cooper, get your ass over here! More than a month without me, and you're not going to spend your time close to me?" She said playfully. Cooper had no choice but to give in. He sat next to her, and Mary gave him his tray. We left them to have some privacy; God knows they needed it. We sat on the armchairs in the living room; we too had a lot to talk about.

  "Man, what a week, eh?" Said Mary.

  "Yeah, the nerves are eating me up. But it's rewarding, don't you think?"

  "Yeah, it is." Just then we heard knocking at our door. We knew who it was; it was my brother and Emily.

  "Good morning, Ayla!" Said Emily. She had her characteristic eagerness, even though it was early in the morning and nobody wanted to be there.

  "Morning, Emmy," we had begun calling her that because it seemed more foreign, like her. "Are y'all doing anything today?" I asked.

  "Yeah, we're going to the shops. Are you coming?" Said my brother.

  "I wish I could. But I have to watch over Helena; she's almost ready, and this is really important." I said.

  Then suddenly, a sweet voice scared the living daylights out of me. "Don't worry, Ayla! I was actually planning on going there myself today. Maybe we could all go?" Helena's voice gave me a heart attack. My brother sniggered at seeing me jump like that.

  "Are you sure you're up for that?" I asked her.

  "Of course I am! I'll have you know I'm not a weak old lady yet; I'm merely thirty! And I'm a fit woman at that." Thirty, eh? She didn't look a day over twenty-three; what an angel. But she shouldn't overdo herself; I had been told so by Plague himself. Speaking of which, I had to report to him. It was imperative, and also he had been guiding me through taking care of her. I wasn't much of a mother, and as such, I didn't know jack shit about taking care of someone, so I needed him.

  I excused myself and went to one side to talk over the walkie-talkie with him.

  "Plague, plague, come in!" I whispered.

  "Loud and clear, Ayla. What is it?" His voice was slightly grainy from being transmitted over a radio, but I could still tell he was worried.

  "Helena wants to go down to the shops, and I don't think I can stop her." I said. I was worried about her both overexerting herself and also hurting her health by locking her up inside. I didn't know what to do.

  "Let her go. She needs sunlight and fresh air. Just make sure you go somewhere with shade and benches for her to sit down on, got it? I'll bring you water if you need it. But it has to be now or never. I have the day booked with the council." Plague was a lifesaver. Three weeks ago I would have been skeptical about everything he said, but now I trusted him blindly. He really was a genius after all.

  "Don't worry, we have plenty of water here. Thanks for the tip! Over."

  "Oh, and remember, she probably won't want to rest and slow you down. It's your job to tell her to sit down, you know what I mean. Over and out." Yeah, I did know what he meant. Helena was the type to suck up any of her inconveniences for the good of the group. She would try to tank through the entire day raw without resting if it meant not inconveniencing us, I was sure of it. So I made my way back to the group to deliver the news.

  "You know what? I saw a great thrift shop that I want to look through. Are you up for that, Helena?" I smiled at her. The shop wasn't too far, just enough to be enough exercise and fresh air without being too big an effort for her; it was perfect. There was also a cafe right next to it, so we'd be able to rest there. I can't believe I was just going out to a shop. By the way, I was planning it. It was almost like I was going to do the comms complex again, but no, I was simply going shopping.

  My brother nodded, and Mary did so too; Emily seemed contemptuous, and Helena was satisfied. The only one who wasn't there to object was Cooper. Speaking of which, today he would have to go to work, so even if he had had an objection, it would basically sail right on over our heads. My work was tending to Helena, so I technically was working too, but let's be real, it wasn't too hard. Stressful, maybe, but hard? No.

  "See y'all here in ten?" Asked Emily.

  "Make it twenty." Said Mary. We couldn't rush Helena. I knew she knew why we said that, and I think she hated the fact we were going so soft on her. And she was probably right. Maybe we were being too overprotective, but I just had to be. I had a lot on the line, mainly my own skin, because if anything happened to her, Plague would most definitely skin me alive, or something worse. But more than the threat of being chewed out by Plague, I also felt morally obligated to go soft on her. I just felt like it was what had to be done.

  Once the time was arranged, we all went back inside to get dressed. I would be wearing some cargo shorts (I bloody love those things) and a shirt. The weather was beginning to break the thirty-five C mark, and boy did we know it. When we were with Cooper, it wasn't so bad, given that he could make ice at will, but now this would be comparable to hell. I also had to get water. So I readied two thermos bottles with icy cold water and also brought an additional plastic bottle for me and Mary. Only the finest care for the future mother. Helena took a bit more given that she was as flexible as a pane of glass, but she didn't need our help; she wanted to conserve a bit of dignity.

  We were now all ready, and when we opened the front door, we found the dynamic duo waiting for us. I knew for a fact that nothing was going to happen between these two because my brother had the romantic interest of a tree, and Emily was simply not interested in him.

  "Ready?" I asked.

  They both nodded, and we set off. I always kept Helena in close view, and Mary was beside her too. We took the lift, which was to our immediate left. I had deduced that Cooper and Helena had been placed in that specific building because it was the closest to the hospital, and they also had the quickest escape through the lift, not to mention that the landing didn't have any steps or stairs. Everything had been cleverly planned, down to the smallest detail. It just showed how much people were counting on them.

  Now out on the street, Helena breathed in fresh air for the first time in three days since the last time she'd gone out, which had been for a routine checkup at the hospital. The shop in question was right across the park, which was about a kilometer in width and length. It was a pleasant place to stroll through and had a lovely collection of trees that were in their last blooms, so the atmosphere was filled with the pleasant smell of flowers. There was also a light breeze blowing in today. It was perfect for a day out.

  We set off, as always bringing in many curious stares and glances from people all around. It must have been uncomfortable to draw so much attention for something as simple as expecting, but Helena simply chugged on.

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  "So what do you want to buy?" My brother pulled up beside me; our group was split into two lines, with Helena, Mary, and Emily in front and me and my brother taking up the rear.

  "Not much really, I guess I'll look at shirts and shit." I really didn't have much of a reason to go there other than impulse. I had gotten quite attached to the park. I guess I missed walking through the forest more than I thought. Whenever Cooper was home, Mary and I would go around the whole place a couple times, sometimes even having a little picnic by the pond. The trees made a thick canopy that gave us shade throughout all the width of the path, keeping us cool.

  About halfway through, I noticed Helena looking around somewhat tired, and I decided to call a break.

  She sat on a bench, with Emily to her side, while the rest of us stood around there. However much she insisted on being capable of going on, she was simply doing it to avoid inconveniencing us. She was kind like that.

  "Man, the sun's hitting hard today, huh?" Said Mary, She wanted to make Helena not feel bad for stopping; I was sure of it.

  "Yeah, bloody summer. It's great for the beach, but if you're stuck inland, then you're effed." I said. My brother looked at me weirdly, and I motioned towards the pregnant lady on the bench. It took him a while, but he finally understood. We stayed there for about ten minutes before continuing for the last leg of the park. Now outside the shade, I had to make sure Helena stayed cool. Thankfully though, the shop I wanted to go to was right in front of us.

  We crossed the street, which, like other dongle towns, didn't have any cars, and got inside the thrift store. Why had I decided to go there? I don't know; I guess I just felt like it. But it had a working AC! And a strong one at that. It was at least seven or eight degrees cooler inside than out, which was great. The place in and of itself was quite big, with hangers and rows of clothes as far as the eye could see. I wanted to find some new shirts, given that when I was scavenging for clothes, I didn't have much time to be picky about sizes, and so the only things that really fit me were the shirt I had worn the day of the outbreak and two others that were my size by sheer luck.

  My first find was a black tee shirt with some random gibberish written on the back; it fit me properly, so I bought it. Then Mary found the Holy Grail.

  "Yo Ayla, check this shit out." She was holding up two matching shirts; one of them said 'I do business,' and the other said 'I am business.' For anyone who didn't get the joke, basically it was whoever was wearing the latter was the bitch of the former. Oh, how we were going to fight over who wore which.

  "Hell yeah." I said. It was more shits and giggles than anything, but it was still a good purchase. And that was it. That was all we bought. My brother bought some pants, and neither Helena nor Emily bought anything. We had spent the better part of twenty minutes there.

  Now we would be going to the coffee shop next to this one.

  "Ah, I could do with a nice cup now." Said Helena. She was taking it like a champ. She was so brave, more than I was. Sure, I had taken over a military complex and brought down a ten-ton monster by myself, but this woman was risking her own life for the better of the world. She was basically a guinea pig, but you wouldn't have known how much danger she was in by talking to her. She was calm and collected. She spread confidence everywhere she went.

  Now, it was right about midday, and a good coffee was not going to be denied.

  We left the thrift shop and went to the small café beside it. It was a cute little thing, with three tables outside and five inside. Helena insisted on being outside, and we gave in. After all, she had been starved of sunlight for some time; a little extra today wouldn't hurt.

  We sat down at one of the tables and waited for the waiter. Meanwhile, my brother was talking to Helena.

  "So how much time do you have left?" He said.

  "I don't know. Could be anytime soon. Could be right now actually, or tonight or tomorrow." She sounded so nonchalant about it; I would be terrified.

  "And have you picked a name?" Emily asked.

  "Yes, I'm thinking Alice if it's a girl, and Cooper has gone with Mathew if it's a boy." She smiled warmly at them, with that gorgeous smile of hers. I could see my brother turn a bit red.

  Then I heard a voice coming from the walkie-talkie. So I excused myself to answer it.

  "Ayla, come in."

  "I'm here, over."

  "How's it going?"

  "It's going great! She's taking it like a champ. She seems very healthy and happy now. Why?"

  "Just a routine checkup on you. When do you think she'll go?"

  I looked over at her, laughing at a joke my brother had said. I couldn't be certain at all, not even a gut prediction.

  "I can't be sure, but she said anytime soon." I said.

  "Ok, if she's ready, I'll start prepping the delivery room. I don't think I need to remind you what to do."

  "No, sir. I'm sure."

  "Good, and Ayla, I'm sorry for getting you involved in this. I realize how stressful and hard this is on you, so thank you." I felt something in my chest. I felt a bubble of pride swell up inside me. "Over and out," and the radio went silent. It felt good being praised like that, especially from him.

  So he was going to start preparing the room; that meant they were either growing impatient or taking precautions. If they induced labor already in the room, it would definitely make everything a whole lot easier, but I don't know if Helena would want to. Actually scratch that. If she was offered the chance, with the room already prepared, she wouldn't hesitate to not waste people's time. After all, getting a room like that ready wasn't done on a whim. It was expensive and time-consuming. Another thing to consider was the increased risk she posed. The room would have to be isolated and armored to prepare for anything that happened; I had even been told that the only people in the room would be her, Plague, three specialized doctors who had even signed a will, Cooper, and me. Under no circumstance could anyone else enter that room.

  It was hard to imagine that I could die in the process, but it was true. Over the course of the week, Plague had told me the hundreds of predictions he had made, most of which were bad, some were really bad, and a significant fraction were outright horrible. The chance of a mishap was more than what I felt comfortable with, and the chance of success was bleak at best. But it was a necessary sacrifice.

  I steadied myself and thought of different things to take my mind off of my impending responsibility. I breathed a couple times and rejoined the group.

  "So yeah, those raiders were fairly reasonable; we only had to give them all our food and most of our equipment, but they left us alone after that." My brother was telling the tale of the thunderclapers, a raider gang who had developed my brother's electrokinetic strand and probably where he himself got it from.

  "What about you, Emmy? Have you ever had any nasty experiences with gangs?" He turned the group's focus onto Emily quite smoothly.

  She shook her head. "No, I can't say I have. I mostly stuck to rural villages and really small towns. Some of them still had people in them. Most of them thought that they were too isolated to get reached by the infection; some others thought that it was all fake, but in the end they all got overrun. I, of course, remained a nomad with a group of my friends; we all knew what would happen in the end." She looked down at her feet after saying that. It was a reasonable explanation.

  "You know, I find it hard to believe the people here actually reacted to the threat and fortified in advance. This is probably the only city to have done so."

  My brother jumped to add his opinion. "City, yes, but it isn't the only place that did it. My sister and I found towns that had been fortified too, granted not as well as this place. But almost none of them were infected; however, their form of government was really radical and violent, and eventually they just turned into raider gangs whenever they ran out of immediate food." His face scrunched up in intrigue. "How does this place manage food?" That was a really good question. I had also wondered the same when we were in Dongle Town, because it didn't make any sense that they had such a ready supply of eggs.

  Helena was the one to answer this time, given that she lived here and knew more than us. "Kingsveil is residence to one of the largest aviary farms in the country. The owner and most of the workforce are still alive and working hard for us. You guys were closest to them, so shipments always pass through Dongle town before coming here. And Fishtail also has a substantial farming industry; with those two, F.U.C.K. has enough to feed everyone and stockpile for emergencies. The only thing we are missing is medicine. Plague is working on trying to set up some basic equipment to manufacture basic antibiotics; thank him. We owe him so much; he's done so much." She led her gaze to the far distance, as if sending a prayer to him. So that was why I hadn't seen him much; he didn't want to tell me about it, or I didn't really ask. "Once my maternity leave ends, I'll be one of the few who will work there." Interesting. I didn't know what she worked as, but maybe it was something interesting? From her looks I would have assumed she had a fancy degree or something like that, something worthy of herself.

  "Helena, what did you work as before?" I asked.

  "Technically I have a PhD in pharmacology, but I was working at a pharmacy before the outbreak. I stopped working there right after the outbreak for obvious reasons. Why do you ask?"

  "Did you know someone called Richard Tomb? Or Lisa Corney?" I asked.

  She pondered for a moment. "I think I met Lisa when I went to an interview at Reigner Biotics. Did you also know her?" Holy shit, the world is tiny! I was going to answer, but I remembered that it was confidential info. But fuck it, maybe she could help us.

  "She was my mother!" I exclaimed.

  Her eyes went wide. I guess she thought the same as me, that the world is a small place. But didn't some study show you're tied to any person in the world by five people? I swear I heard something like that. "Really?" She looked closely at me. "Oh yeah, I can see the resemblance! I'm sorry I didn't realize before, but she had such vivid blonde hair that I completely crossed you off as being her daughter. So I suppose this Richard guy is your father then? Since you asked about him?"

  "Yes, yes indeed! So you saw my mother working at a place called Reigner? What else do you know about the place?"

  "Well, it's the biggest biomedical company in the world; they have their name on basically fifty percent of all meds. They had a big massive building in Thurmer that served as their headquarters. I almost got a job there, but they outsourced someone for cheaper." She looked down at her watch; it was one of those fancy smartwatches that measure everything. "Oh god, look at the time! Ayla, Mary, we need to go back home. I need to cook lunch!" She exclaimed. Well, I had gotten everything I needed from her. My brother and Emily didn't give a shit and shrugged. So we paid and left.

  Now back at the apartment, we helped her cook a nice oxtail stew. She had made it once before for us, and goddammit was it good! The meat would basically fall off the bone if you looked at it wrong, and it would leave your mouth sticky with grease, and the taste, oh my god! We had lunch without Cooper, and Mary and I praised her for the food.

  The evening went by pretty uneventfully. Helena sat down on the couch and watched a movie while I and Mary read a book. There was nothing to write home about, which was great. The less I had to do, the less stress. During these two months since the outbreak, I could sometimes swear some of my hair was turning white.

  At around half past six, our valiant knight came back. Cooper looked tired, but he still had a lot of attention left for his wife. He was a great husband. After that there was also little of note. After a while, we sat at the dining table to eat dinner.

  "Darling, I swear that every time I try your food, it gets better. I really struck gold with you." Said Cooper. He was eating the rest of the stew while I and Mary ate some scrambled eggs. Helena was eating a salad.

  "You flatter me; you've only ever told me this every single day!" She laughed.

  "Well, it's always true! You're too good at this. What's your secret?" He continued playing with her, but I didn't catch what they said, as I was talking to Mary about what we were going to do after all this blew away.

  "Ayla, as long as you live, Plague will probably have work for you. And I'm going to become a stay-at-home partner."

  "Really now?"

  "Yes, want to know why?"

  "Illustrate me."

  "Because with your salary I can afford to do whatever I want!"

  "Oh, you absolute gold digger! So I'm going to be busting my ass on a mission while all you have to worry about is making it to the three o'clock spa sesh?"

  "Yep! Couldn't have said it better myself." She was obviously teasing me. I loved these moments. She could poke fun at anything and get a laugh out of people, even if it was a dark subject. She had even managed to get away with a misogynist joke in front of a blue-haired lady.

  At that moment, Helena excused herself to go to the bathroom. Nothing happened for the next minute or so; nothing could have prepared me for what was going to come.

  "Cooooper," came a musical voice from the bathroom. "Cooper, my darling."

  Coop got up and went to the door. "Yes?"

  We all held our breaths that time.

  "Guess who you're going to meet tonight?" And that sentence spiked my heart rate by fifty.

  Shit! I hated how casual she seemed saying it! Fuck, I hated that.