Quinn got to his feet, brushed the dust off of his knees and stared at the pile of rubble in front of him. Well, part of it anyway: the only thing he was interested in was the rusty old fridge, wedged under a few slabs of broken concrete. If he could just get his hands on that damn vapour compression mechanism…<br/><br/>With a grunt, Quinn kicked the side of the fridge, hoping to dislodge it from the rubble. But the only thing that dislodged from anything was a pile of acrid dust. He waved away the dust cloud angrily, and wiped the grime from his mask.<br/><br/>“Damn…<span style="font-style: italic">thing</span>…!” he spat, kicking at the pile of rubble with each word. “Why… won’t… you… gah!”<br/><br/>Useless. It’d take some hefty construction equipment to get that out. Besides, he’d done enough scavenging for one day. This one wasn't too successful; he’d only found a couple of motors and a new battery-pack for his powered drill. Still, there was always next time.<br/><br/>He scoffed to himself as he made his way out of the ruined building. “Yeah, next time. Can’t wait,” he muttered.<br/><br/>The streets were as empty and quiet as usual. And hot. If someone were to glance down at this mess from a plane or something, they wouldn't think twice before leaving. It looked like hell on Earth. And he wouldn't blame them, it certainly wasn't an amusement park, but Quinn knew better than to think that it was that much worse than Branx’s regime. In fact, the peace and quiet almost made it better…<br/><br/>An inhuman screech rang out in the distance, making Quinn jump.<br/><br/>“I take that back,” he said to himself. “I’d take Branx over freaking<span style="font-style: italic">zombies</span>any day.”<br/><br/>It was time to get out of here.