Normally, most people weren't accustomed to long walks under the hot sun or in the biting snow, carrying a heavy knapsack and conversing with people they don't care for. For Ian, this was a daily ritual, and oddly enough one he enjoyed quite a bit. As far as he knew, this was the only thing he ever did: He'd walk to the next settlement with his sister, listening to her scold him endlessly for something "foolish" again; or he'd travel with a bunch of mercenaries that would forget his name sooner than he'd forget theirs. There was never any vector, or old automobile; no horses or carriages--or if there were, someone else was riding them. Ian was always walking in poor weather with unsavory company, and he did not expect that to change anytime soon. 

Ironically enough, he used these long journeys as his "alone time". To his chagrin, Ian had always been forced to interact with other people, and such interaction had a tendency to be troublesome: He could not understand others, nor could they understand him. He was quite aware of just how detached he was and that he was not in what one would call a "normal state of mind". Sometimes, the world outside his head seemed to fade away, and the voices and faces of others would change into new, stranger-yet-familiar ones. His body would act on auto-pilot on the outside, while he listened and spoke with these figures on the inside. Ian's sister called it "spacing", and said it looked weird to the people outside. To keep her off of his back, Ian taught himself how to move normally one the outside, while remaining mostly in his own world. Before long, the trips between settlements became excellent spacing time as long as he ignored people trying to talk to him.

With this group, that wasn't much of a problem. All of them--Ryan, Woman Number Two (Cassy), Freckled Dude, Horny Hairless, Quiet Girl, and Tall One--tended to ignore Ian if they could help it. Ryan would give orders when necessary and Ian would follow them, or he'd ask a question and Ian would give an unsatisfactory answer. Every-so-often, one of the others would ask a question--about Ian, his past, his hobbies--and they, too, would be disappointed by the answer. Cassy would parrot Ryan's orders like she couldn't think for herself; the Tall One would ask who had taught Ian how to fight; Freckles would try to start some arbitrary smalltalk; and Hairless seemed really interested in whether or not Ian had "become a man" yet, whatever that was supposed to mean. Ian just shrugged or said he didn't know--which was often true. After their first trip to Asylum, all of them had given up trying to communicate with him. Ian could space freely.

"Kid!" Ryan's voice scolded from the outside.

[i]Jinxed it.[/i]

Ian quickly pulled all of his thoughts back outside, and realized that he and the team were already back at Asylum's gates. Like many towns left after the Hail, Asylum was encompassed by a large stone wall, with swinging gates on the north and south sides. From what Ian had heard, the entire thing had been stacked brick-by-brick by the town's inhabitants in only a few weeks after society collapsed, which explained the wall's chaotic and contorted appearance. The deformed bulwarks and rickety gate only added to the settlement's seedy image. When Ian saw the town's entrance, blanketed in snow, it strangely reminded him of a cemetery's gates, though he could not recall ever visiting one.

"Sorry sir," Ian apologized halfheartedly, trying to distance himself from strange memories. Snapping back into reality, he broke into a jog to catch up with the rest of the team. He was fairly sure he heard Cal- no, Cassy say something along the lines of "retard", but didn't bother to clarify.

"Okay kiddos," Ryan began, turning to the rest of the group and clasping his hands together, "Cass and I'll report back to our contact." Zipping open a pouch on his belt and pulling a bundle of blue paper from it, he continued, "Rudy, you're in charge of setting up our rooms at the tavern. It's getting late and I don't want the locals to steal up all the good beds."

So Baldie's name was Rudy? Strange; Ian could have sworn it started with an L.

"Roger, boss," Rudy confirmed, snatching the cash away in a purposefully obnoxious manner. "I'll put these blues to [i]real[/i] good use," he boasted.

The squad leader simply shot him a dirty look before turning away down a nearby alley, Cassy following closely behind.

"Alright boys--and girl," he shot a quick glance at the Quiet Girl, as if her existence was ruining the group dynamic, "Let's see what they have for pubs and poon. With this cold, a woman's warmth is just what I need." He wrapped his arms around himself as if he were in a loving embrace.

The Tall One let out an exasperated sigh. "It's getting late, and I'm freezing. You can be a perv after we find an inn." He (she?) then turned off down the main road, waving for the rest to follow. "Come on, I know a place nearby with a lot of rooms," her (his) gaze lingered on Hairless Rudy for a moment before finishing, "and a lot of girls. So come on before they run out of vacancies."

At that last part, Rudy darted ahead eagerly, while Ian and the other two trailed behind.

The streets of Asylum were [i]busy[/i] to put it lightly. Men and women bustled around haggling, bickering, flirting, and fighting, taking full advantage of the settlement's state of near-anarchy. Next to every other building and by every alley there seemed to be someone offing deals on goods and services of all kinds. Women--and sometimes men--of all shapes and sizes would not-so-subtly proposition passersby, perpetuating the town's reputation as a giant brothel. The buildings' conditions ranged from pristine to completely dilapidated, as many had been abandoned, destroyed, or refurnished depending on the inhabitants' luck after the Hail. Ian swore he heard one of his teammates from his last squad say something like, "They call it Asylum 'cause it's full of crazies, and people go there to relax and keep themselves from killin' the next person who looks at 'em funny." Seeing the place now, it made a lot of sense.

After a good half hour of wandering through the chaotic settlement, Ian heard the Tall One speak up. "Here it is," he (she?) said enthusiastically. "The Elm. Used to be a nice hotel before the stones dropped. My folks are good friends with the owner, so we might be able to get a discount."

The building before them did seem like it [i]used[/i] to be nice. The Elm had four stories with ten-or-so rooms on each floor; several of them with cracked windows, and a number of vines snaking their way inside. From the looks of it, only about twenty rooms were actually able to be occupied, assuming the upper floors weren't in disrepair. The only part of the building that seemed to be maintained at was the entrance, where the once-glass swinging doors were replaced with wood OSB panels.

"This place looks like rotted hell." Hairless Rudy stated promptly. Quiet Girl and Freckles nodded in agreement.

Tall One shot Rudy a menacing look. "This is Asylum: Everyplace looks like rotted hell." She (he?) waited for an objection, but no one said a word. "It's a lot better inside. The booze is good and the girls are pretty clean. Now come on, it's fucking cold."