“Uh...” Ell hesitated, looking from one of his companions to the other uncertainly before returning his gaze to Enn. “I... don’t know?”
	“None of these guys have been very far from Eighfour,” Kay told him, smiling with pride by the fact that she had been much farther from their settlement than anyone else in the vehicle... aside from Enn, of course. “In fact very few of us ever stray very far, and those who do spend a lot of time roaming rather than be here. But even I don’t know much about the other factions around here... I’ve always turned avoided anywhere that seemed even remotely populated.”
	“Yeah,” Ell reluctantly agreed, “though if anyone knew where to go, it’d be Gramps. He used to be a [I]trader[/I]!” He spoke the word with reverence bordering on awe, and for good reason; even Kay felt her heart beat a little faster at the utterance of that word. Eighfour had survived for as long as it had mainly by virtue of remaining hidden from the surrounding factions – something that had only gotten harder as time went, with other factions growing larger and encroaching on their domain – and they were all raised with the idea that people from the [I]outside[/I] were dangerous and should be treated with caution, and avoided if at all possible. Because of this, people who went out into the world to meet outsiders [I]intentionally[/I] were at once treated as if contaminated and like heroes. Trading was not only dangerous, but also incredibly difficult, having to not only be willing to barter deals with other factions, but also maneuver in such a way that they were not tracked back to the settlement after.
	“But I have no idea. Honestly I’m not even [I]completely[/I] certain that he wants us to run. He hasn’t actually told me what the plan is, it’s just my guess from what he has us doing.” Ell shrugged.

	On the way through the settlement it became clear to Kay just how serious the situation was in Eighfour; every face they drove past was either confused, frightened or downright panicked, and a lot of Eighfourians seemed so on edge that they were barely keeping themselves together, dropping things they were moving from shaking hands or retreating to remote corners to cower. On one hand Kay was embarrassed for her faction, especially since she had brought an outsider here who was just having his first experience with them, and her fellows were making a pretty pathetic first impression... but on the other hand she could relate to how they felt. She was nervous, too, and deeply uncertain about what was going to happen to them all. Eighfour had always been peaceful, constant and seemingly eternal their entire lives, but now that their seclusion was threatened, that was all liable to change... In fact, with how they were raised, “impending invasion” was synonymous with “possible annihilation” thanks to the doctrine of using the nuke to defend themselves.
	The trip was not long; once they got past the other wall of the settlement they had a fairly straight run to the center of their domain, with more and more people crowding the sides of the street the closer they got. What was much more remarkable than the people, however, was the rapidly increasing number of vehicles parked along the street, soon crammed along the street end-to-end while people ran from one to the next, checking to see that everything was working  optimally. No two vehicles were quite alike, either; much like their weapons, Eighfourian vehicles were mostly salvage they had restored or repurposed, resulting in things that either looked like machines built from trash or amalgamations of several different entities. It made the properly restored vehicles stand out all the more, like the truck they were riding just now: vehicles that actually looked [I]right[/I] and were mostly made by parts that fit together. There were other armed vehicles like the truck, though many of those were also improvised, and even several creations that could justifiably be referred to as tanks, but most were made purely for transport of people or goods.
	It was at the core of the settlement that Gramps could be found, and the truck skidded to a halt – apparently that was the only way their driver knew how to stop – in the shade of an especially large tank that boasted two machine-guns for the crew to man beneath the unusually long and thick cylinder of the barrel of its main cannon. Though one could tell it was still mostly made from repurposed scrap it was in good condition, with the word “Parenthesis” written across either side of it.

	“That’s him,” Kay said as she disembarked, pointing to Gramps, who was already looking in their direction even as he continued handing out instructions to anyone who approached him. Unlike what one would normally associate with the nickname “gramps”, Gramps was by no means frail; old, maybe, but burdened little by his age. He seemed remarkably out of place among the other Eighfourians; while the others were mostly thin or pudgy, Gramps was [I]fit[/I], he was [I]muscular[/I], and he was [I]sturdy[/I], ten times as masculine as most other men in Eighfour. Dressed in a stained gray tank top and black cargo pants, he stood 1,95 meters tall, with thick but groomed hair and beard that time had turned gray. He shot a long, hard look at Enn – they had stopped some thirty meters from him – before waving them closer.