The morning was not pleasant. Most of us woke up with shit in their trousers or vomit on the carpet. The canned food we ate turned out to be toxic. They tasted unusually sour, but we didn't think they were tainted.

Was this some kind of trick the Zippers had in store for us? Or was this just a case of a factory mishap putting in illegal chemicals, and the locals knew better?

For whatever reason, I wasn't affected, and neither were Claire, Puffy, or Hilda. Everyone else was shitting themselves to death, and we had to keep them hydrated. The water here wasn't going to be enough.

Claire mentioned that the diarrhea was affecting people who had relatively well-off backgrounds and proper diets. I was not one of those people, considering I used to eat actual rubbish to survive.

“Maybe it's some kind of allergy?” Claire suggested.

“No clue, Claire”, I said in return. I wasn't about to play guessing games. We had a crisis to solve, fast.

Hilda told me she saw a water tower not too far from here, about a mile or less. We had a problem, though; even if we could find water we wouldn't be able to transport much of it back here. Running back and forth was a possibility, but then I remembered the car, and thought maybe we could just fill that thing with bottles and bottles of water.

Hilda reckoned it was worth a shot. That would be our Plan A, while Plan B would be to borrow Drew's wheelbarrow to make the transport. My legs trembled at the thought of having to wheel around gallons of water back and forth.

I tried to smash through the car's driver-side window, but it wouldn't crack. Hilda told me to stand back and just opened fire on the glass, which turned out to be bullet-proof. The bullet thankfully did not ricochet into anyone, but it did get stuck in the material. Puffy and Claire were searching the garage while we did this, and they found a tiny hole obscured by a poster of Grand Premier Eastwick Gale, the leader of the Zippers.

There was a key inside the hole. The key itself was silver-plated, and attached to it was a little sphere with the letters 'ZPP' engraved on it. This car must have belonged to some big-shot in the Zipper hierarchy. Well, this car is ours, and if the owner came back we'd just slam the accelerator and hit them dead-on.

Puffy opened the doors. The interior was ridiculously fancy. The leather-covered seats also had little gold buttons with various intricate symbols on them. The dashboard was made of really shiny chrome and the steering wheel was studded with diamonds. Hilda pulled out a knife and started to try and pry a diamond off.

“What are you doing?!” shouted Claire.

“What does it look like I'm doing?” said Hilda, annoyed. “I'm trying to come home rich!”

Claire grabbed Hilda's hand and said “No, you can't do that! If the big-wigs find out you brought back diamonds they'll just confiscate them from you and then put you in jail for a month!”

“What? That's dumb!” Hilda yelled.

Puffy chimed in. “Unfortunately, it's true. When we come back the military will search everything on our person and take away anything that's been listed as luxury goods. Diamonds, cigars, gold...”

“Why would they do that?” I asked.

Puffy adjusted the cotton bud in her right ear, and she explained.

“Well, wars are expensive. The government will want to raise money as soon as possible to rebuild the country. The general idea is anything reasonably valuable we find legally belongs to Scarvino, because we're here as government servants. If you come back with luxury goods and you don't declare them, you're considered stealing from the nation's treasury.”

“Ugh,” Hilda grunted, her feline ears flicking back and forth. “Maybe I can stash this diamond somewhere, come back a year later and dig it up.”

“Sounds like a plot from a movie”, I said. “Doubt it would work though. A year is a long time, and someone's bound to find the diamonds. I used to be a thief, I know that there are a lot of folks in this world who have a good sense for finding valuables.”

Hilda's glare towards me was so off-putting that I had to say “Errr, but if you want to try it you could. Who knows, right?”

Hilda sighed, and put the diamond on one of the water containers. Without saying a word, she sat in the car's driver seat and checked the controls. The rest of us piled as many empty bottles as we could into the car's back seat, since we couldn't figure out how to open the back hood.

We decided that Puffy and Claire should stay behind to take care of our ill comrades, just in case a rebel or a Zipper showed up. Twenty-six soldiers couldn't do much if they're all victims of diarrhea. It was up to me and Hilda to bring as much water back as possible.

Hilda turned the key in the ignition and the engine came to life with a soft purr. I may not be an expert on cars but I could tell this was a high-quality engine. Hilda tested the windshield wipers and the lights, even honked the horn a couple of times. With a beaming smile, she told me this car was in good condition. Fit for a king, or at least a corrupt mayor.

Puffy and Claire waved goodbye as we reversed out of the garage. Hilda didn't seem to have much trouble driving it.

“It should only take us ten minutes to get to the water tower”, Hilda said.

“You know your way there?” I asked.

“Not exactly, but the water tower is really huge and at least we can keep looking at it if you're afraid of gettin' lost,” she pointed out.

“Good point,” I said as the car headed out onto the streets.

Hilda drove at a moderate speed, not too fast and not too slow, navigating her way around all the abandoned tricycles and potholes on the roads. We passed by some abandoned shops. One of them was some kind of toy shop that had completely empty shelves. You wouldn't think people would loot a bunch of toys in times of crisis but there you go.

Maybe it's a cultural thing, or maybe they thought they could trade the toys for supplies? It just seemed so strange to me, because toys wouldn't have been high on my priority list if I was evacuating my hometown.

When we reached the water tower, we looked in every direction in case someone was planning to ambush us. After about a minute of nervous checking, we got out of the vehicle. Hilda stayed with the car and kept the engine running while I went to the open gate to the tower.

The water tower was, without question, the tallest thing in Chatterburg. Lots of old notices were stuck to its metal pillars, along with some signs of old piss on the concrete base. I hoped it was animal pee and not people pee.

I could see a huge valve and a large faucet next to the tower. No sign of traps. I grabbed hold of the handle and tried to turn it. It seemed to be stuck, until I had the idea to turn it in the other direction. Clear, cold and clean water started pouring out.

Success!

I closed the valve and shouted at Hilda, telling her the good news. She smiled, and we started pulling out all the bottles we brought. It didn't take long to fill them up, and we drove back to the hotel.

When we got there, we felt something was off.

Then we realized: the hotel's front door was wide open.

“This isn't good,” said Hilda.

“Think I should say hello, or should we sneak in and see what's going on?” I asked.

“We better take the sneaky approach,” Hilda replied immediately. “I'm going to turn off the engine and lock the doors.”

“Good idea. Okay... here's hoping someone just forgot to close the door.”

Hilda turned off the car's engine and we exited the vehicle. She locked the doors, and we started to creep slowly towards a window. I peeked in.

There I saw a group of strangers and a few of our friends sitting down on the lobby's armchairs. Our comrades were drinking from steel cups, and one of the strangers was holding a really big flask. Sensing we were not in danger, I meekly said “Hello?” and raised my hand in a half-hearted attempt to make a wave.

One of the strangers, a human wearing a grimy, formerly-green T-shirt, looked at me and said “Hi, are you one of the two women who left for water?”

“Yeah. Are you guys the rebellion? Eric Front?” I asked.

He nodded with a smile, and explained to me that they were retaking the city after they heard the Zippers' beach defenses failed to stop us. He also told us that five hundred soldiers who were guarding this city fled from us just because thirty of us survived the landing. Guess they didn't have an accurate idea of our numbers.

I called in Hilda, who hesitated at first but quickly relaxed once she got acquainted with the Eric Front fighters. There were about ninety rebels here in the hotel, and around four hundred more in the rest of the city, checking every single building that was still standing. Hordes of civilians were hiding in their basements, waiting for good news.

None of the rebels had any actual rank, but one of them was the leader of the group, Jose Marill. He was a very short but very muscular rat-man, who carried a bag full of grenades everywhere he went. Though he had seen his fair share of horrors, he was very friendly.

He seemed to have a lot on his mind. I could see his eyes lost in thought, almost every time I saw him. Planning for the next fight? Dreaming of home?

The rebels had food, water and medicine, enough for everyone who was suffering from diarrhea. I asked a rebel what exactly happened to the canned food. She explained that the canned clams and potatoes came from the same factory and someone who worked there had really, really filthy hands.

The Eric Front was able to spin the story, making up rumors that the Zippers were deliberately trying to poison entire cities known to harbor rebels. One hundred percent untrue, but they spread the lie everywhere they could.

It actually worked, to the surprise of the rebels. People rioted in the streets, demanded compensation for all the ruined food. A Zipper police official had to make a public speech, and a rebel assassin killed him in broad daylight. The government response was overblown, and made even more people join the Eric Front. They underestimated just how pissed off the locals were.

Eric Front would do whatever it took to end the Zymos Purity Party. Unfortunately, I got the feeling that once these guys become in charge, they would do whatever it would take to stay in charge. Sure, a lot of them seem friendly, but Mark and I knew the dangers of having an army born from frustration and rage suddenly become a government. We were from Camiko, a nation born from a revolution and still burning.

I used to study history back in college, and when a bunch of angry people with guns got to play with a whole country, most of the time they'll treat it like a football rather than a place where people with needs and hopes live. Just like a football, everyone involved will fight over it and kick it around. Nobody ever asked a football if it wanted better healthcare or public transport.

Of course, not being a total moron, I didn't say any of this out loud. I didn't know these rebels enough to tell if they would either give me an honest answer or give me an honest bullet if I asked them how they were going to run the country. I figured I should leave that to the politicians.

The rest of the day passed with us sharing stories and our impressions of Zymos so far. I ended up having a chat with Jose, the leader. He gave me bits and pieces of information about how the war was going, though nothing about their overall strategy.

Jose said to me: “The Zippers are badly losing in some parts but they're very deeply entrenched in others. The enemy has underground bunkers connected via tunnels and they all had so many booby traps it would take months for us to clear 'em out.”

“So”, he continued, “we'll do it slowly and with help from their allies. Scarvino would lead the charge, dealing the most damage to the ZPP strongholds. Big bombs and big battalions, all pouring in.”

“It's a damn good thing you Scarvinos came. We was worried the rest of the world forgot about us after the Zippers started wiping out villages”, Jose said with the most thankful tone he could muster.

I nodded in acknowledgement, sensing genuine friendliness from Jose. Maybe we could trust them after all.